A/N: THIS IS SO LATE, AND I AM SO SORRY! Seriously, I suck. Many apologies for my absence; life has been a crazy thing. But thank you for your patience, and your continued love. The response to this story has been more than I could ever have hoped for, and you guys continue to rock my socks right off my feet (my toes are cold).
Also, I feel bad that you guys send so many awesome reviews/ask so many great questions and that I never have the time to sit and go through all of them. So I set up a Tumblr account with an open ask box, which I think means we can talk to each other if you're so inclined? I'll be on there as much as I can, and knowing me, it will end up as a glory-shrine for the nerd-powers, so if that's your thing, feel free to wander over. I go by Strix4 there as well; the link is in my profile because FFNet ate it when I tried to put it here.
I do not own Naruto, and am making no money from this story.
Chapter Six
Rebound
Sasuke
He knew better than to think that running would make the voice inside his skull disappear. He wasn't an idiot, he wasn't Naruto. Genjutsu had been his family's talent, and he recognized an echo when he heard it.
But, Naruto had also once scrunched his eyes at him when they were twelve and said with great wonder, "Wow Sasuke, emotions make you crazy-baskets, huh?" and Sasuke would never, ever, ever admit it out loud, but he hadn't been wrong.
Brother? Why are you running?
Sasuke gritted his teeth, tried to push the voice away. But a sound still leaked from between his clenched jaw, something high-pitched and broken and unacceptable.
You're hurt. You're bleeding. You're scaring me, Brother, please stop.
He was hurt. Everything ached and screamed at him to stop running, to sit and rest. His bones felt broken, his skull felt thick and crowded, and his fingers and feet were clumsy. Sasuke was never clumsy, always in control. But he still tripped, got tangled, and it made the snarl of anger and confusion and pain even blacker inside his head.
"Not real," he panted, and hated that he had to remind himself. "Not real, not real."
That's mean. Mommy says I was real in both worlds. You just didn't know it there.
Sasuke stumbled, came to a stop. He rested his forehead against damp tree bark and forced himself to breathe, because it was a distraction, it had to be. He would have known if his mother had been pregnant before the massacre.
But then, would anyone have told him? If the pregnancy was new, and Sasuke had been eight and terrified and so terribly breakable after. And his mother, she'd used to cup his face in her hands and laugh and say that she loved her boys but she liked pretty dresses too.
Itachi would have known, Sasuke thought, and fought down the bile at the back of his throat through sheer force of will. He couldn't ask Itachi, would never know the answer now. Itachi was dead, Sasuke had killed him, and he had to keep going now because he was one-hundred percent sure that there was a blonde idiot chasing him through the trees.
Sasuke rubbed his face against the tree trunk, and it felt like fingers against his forehead. And for a second, just a second, he couldn't tell if the imaginary fingers were Itachi's, or something smaller and so much more fragile.
I wish I could meet him. Bigger Brother. He would have loved me too.
Sasuke gagged, and emptied his stomach over the side of the tree. He'd been fighting it since the cave, since he woke up with new memories; memories that made his actual life seem like a nightmare world, and Misami's voice inside his head.
He retched and retched and slumped against the tree, the bark biting into his skin. It hadn't been smart, maybe, to leave before Sakura healed him. He was pretty sure he could have talked her into it, preyed on recently rekindled affection. Sakura had always buckled under his attention.
But, then. Her eyes inside the genjutsu had been flat and green and calm. Her voice, as she'd refused to apologize, had been firm. A fresh wave of discomfort and confusion rolled his stomach as Sasuke admitted that he'd recognized very little of the Sakura he'd known in the Sakura he'd seen inside the genjutsu.
To his left, still a good distance into the trees, Sasuke heard a loud crash, and Naruto's voice bellowing through the leaves.
"I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR YOUR SHIT, SASUKE!"
"How are you a fucking ninja?" Sasuke rasped to his tree branch, because the question really needed to be asked.
He rocked himself back to his feet. It took time, far too much time. He made it a mile, maybe two, further into the trees before his body failed him once again. His knees and elbows cracked against the trunk, and the taste of blood filled his mouth.
But I like him, Sasuke. The loud one. He has hair like sunshine. Let him help you?
"Stop."
Once upon a time, shoving the echo away would have been easy. Twelve year old Sasuke wouldn't have had time for it, would have severed it clean and simple and merciless. But sixteen year old Sasuke was alone and without his brother. And the echo was filling his head with soft voices and the smell of his mother's perfume and it was so hard to fight against that much want.
Pain lanced through his head like his katana, and Sasuke felt himself fall, losing his grip on the tree. The impact with the ground beneath him jarred his already aching bones, forced a small sound from between his teeth. His arm snapped underneath the weight of his body, went limp and useless.
His vision went fuzzy and out of focus. He was pretty sure he'd be throwing up again if his stomach wasn't empty. But he gritted his teeth and tried to drag himself out of the clearing he'd landed in with his one good arm. And it was hard, it was so hard, because there was still a part of his head (a part that sounded like Misami) that recognized the approaching noise as friend and didn't understand why he had to get away.
"Yeah, okay, this is where I have an actual problem," Naruto announced, crashing next to him on the forest floor. "Literal crawling to get away from us, what the fuck Sasuke, we were never that bad."
"Go away," Sasuke hissed, and then winced and snapped, "Shut up," because Misami was crying, she was crying so soft and sad. "Stop, I'm sorry, please stop."
"Wow," Naruto said, and knelt down by Sasuke's side. "Just what we expected, then. SAKURA! KAKASHI-SENSEI! HURRY UP, SASUKE'S GETTING HIS CRAZY EVERYWHERE!"
"I hate you."
"Nope!" Naruto said cheerfully. "I totally reject that sentence. Witness me, rejecting it."
"Stop," Sasuke's bones were on fire, his head was one loud scream. He felt weak and wrecked and he hated it, wanted to scream until his throat was raw. "Stop following me, we're not friends."
"I reject that, too!" Naruto sang out, and Sasuke's good hand clenched into a useless fist.
Inside his head, Misami continued to sob. Helpless, frightened tears, like her world was ending with Sasuke's pain. Sasuke felt answering tears burn his throat, felt his breathing get short and fast.
"Hey." Naruto's hand was suddenly there, dragging Sasuke's head up. He crouched even lower, until he and Sasuke were eye to eye. "Come on, Bastard. It's not real."
"I know that," Sasuke said through gritted teeth. "Fucking idiot, I know that, let me go."
"I get that you know," Naruto said, unbothered by the venom in Sasuke's voice. "Trust me, Bastard, you spent all of our Team 7 years smug and superior and sparkling on the inside because you rocked Genjutsu and I didn't. Stop glaring at me like that, Sasuke, you totally sparkled, don't lie to yourself, we all saw it." Naruto's eyes were so blue and so sorry and Sasuke really was going to scream. "But you're so good at it, Bastard, nobody's been able to Genjutsu you since…" Sasuke watched him choke on the name, stumble. "So, I think you forgot, maybe. How hard it is to sparkle."
"I don't sparkle."
"Emo sparkles," Naruto assured him. "Manly, I promise."
"Oh my God, Naruto," Sakura said, landing lightly beside him. "He's going to bite you. Really hard, and I'm not going to blame him."
"Sakura," Naruto said. "You've got to fix him. So that I can kick his ass all over again once we get back to the Village."
"Can't fix him here," Kakashi said from Sakura's other side. Sasuke had seen him land, but not heard it. Which meant he'd improved from childhood, but obviously not enough. "Sorry Sasuke, but you'll run the second your legs are back in working order."
"Hurts," Sasuke said, and looked to Sakura. But she just leveled him with an unimpressed eyebrow cock.
"Ha!" Naruto said. "Nope." He scratched his fingers through Sasuke's hair, weirdly comforting, and then tucked his hands under Sasuke's arms. "Come on, Bastard. Let's get you secure so Sakura can heal your shit."
Sasuke didn't want any of it. Didn't want Naruto's careful hands and wide smiles.
"Get off," he snapped, and shoved Naruto with his good arm.
Naruto dropped him with a surprised yelp. Sasuke hit the ground on his crooked arm, and everything burst red and yellow behind his eyes. His vision whited out, and the last thing he heard before it faded to black was Misami, sobbing and sobbing in his ear.
….
He woke up weak. Sick and sore and like someone had just stuck an ice cream scoop in his stomach and pulled out the most important part of him. Like they'd left a hole behind, gaping and ragged and raw.
He was still bound, thick ropes wrapping around his wrists and ankles. That was a compliment, probably. But even he could feel how unnecessary it was now.
"We bound your chakra," Sakura said quietly. They were in another clearing, a different one. She was kneeling by his side. A little ways away, Kakashi was reclining against a tree. "We used pressure points. It's temporary."
"But effective," Kakashi added from his tree.
Sasuke curled his fists and tried his hardest to pretend that missing his chakra didn't make him shake. Didn't make him feel like a hollowed out shell of nothing.
"Where's Naruto?" he asked quietly.
"Getting firewood." Kakashi cocked his head, like he was listening and Sasuke couldn't hear it, wanted to scream to fill the sudden silence of his chakra. "Or possibly fighting a bear. It's hard to tell, he makes so much noise."
"Worst ninja," Sakura agreed, but it was fond instead of frustrated.
"Is this…is there a point to this?"
"This is your shovel talk," Kakashi said cheerfully.
Sakura rolled her eyes. Sasuke felt his brow furrow.
"Sensei, he doesn't know what that is," Sakura said, long-suffering.
"Of course he doesn't," Kakashi agreed, just as cheerful. "That would require Sasuke to care about sticky things like dating and touching and other actual members of the human species."
Sasuke eased himself upward. He didn't get very far; his muscles bent and wobbled like weak blades of grass. One arm moved stiff and uncomfortable and he realized that it was trapped within a splint.
Sakura caught him with soft hands and helped him struggle into a sitting position. Sasuke felt his cheeks burn with shame and refused to meet her eyes.
"Naruto is our most special snowflake," Kakashi continued. "You knew that before you left the village. There are a lot of rainbows in his world, and sparkly bits of glitter, and what I suspect are deep and abiding fantasies of the four of us crying our pain into each other's shoulders and then going to get ramen."
Sakura snorted.
"And because Naruto is a snowflake, Sakura and I have let him have his little snowflake daydreams. But we're not snowflakes. And neither are you, Sasuke. So I think we need to reach an understanding about what is going to happen once Naruto drags you back through the village gates."
Sasuke turned his face away. Refused to answer.
"Let me be very clear," Kakashi said, and Sasuke gritted his teeth and felt like he was twelve and hated it. "You are a criminal. You betrayed the Leaf Village and defected to join with the man who killed the Third Hokage. For years you worked in opposition to Leaf Village interests. And that won't change just because Naruto manages to get you back inside the walls."
"Naruto doesn't understand the ramifications," Sakura said, very softly. "To him, it's very simple. Because he's already forgiven you. But there are others who haven't forgotten," Sakura's eyes are cold, so cold, that they deliver a quick one-two punch of surprise to Sasuke's gut, "that you punched a hand through his heart and left him for dead."
"You're not going to get the chance to hurt him again," Kakashi finished. "Is the general idea. Hope you picked up on that."
It was crystal clear. At some point during his absence, Sakura and Kakashi had closed ranks around the idiot because his naiveté was painfully obvious. It was understandable. But Sasuke still wasn't going to answer.
"I may have started a forest fire," Naruto announced, stamping his way back into the clearing with feet so loud even Sasuke's deadened senses could hear him. "I mean, I totally didn't. But hypothetically that's a thing you should be aware of."
"How," Sakura said, and it really wasn't a question.
"Well, there was this squirrel," Naruto said, and then ducked when Sakura threw a kunai at his head. "Judgment, so much judgment, see if I tell you the rest of that story. Hey, Sasuke!"
Naruto dropped the firewood in a loud clattering pile in the middle of the clearing (birds were startled out of trees overhead and Kakashi closed his eyes like maybe he couldn't believe his life) and bounded in Sasuke's direction.
"Hey, you're awake! How are you feeling? Not murderous?"
"Don't," Sasuke snapped, and hated that his jerk away felt sloppy, slow.
"Moderately murderous," Naruto amended. "Murderous with a side of emotional baggage. C'mon Sasuke. At least your head is clear!"
Sasuke blinked wide, realized that in the ringing silence of his chakra stores Misami's voice was missing too.
"Disabling your chakra disrupted the genjutsu echo," Sakura said quietly. He hadn't asked, wouldn't ask, but she'd answered anyway. And Sasuke didn't know how to mourn that, didn't even know if he should.
"Sorry about your chakra," Naruto said, eyes wide and earnest. "I mean, no not really because you're kind of a raging dickbag with it. But sorry because now I have to wait for those dickbag powers to come back before I can beat your face in."
Sasuke gritted his teeth.
"A bro beating," Naruto assured him. "Totally different than a normal beating."
"I'm going to build a fire," Kakashi announced. "And then stick my face in it, maybe."
"Sensei, that's a horrible idea," Naruto said with a frown. "I mean, where are you going to find a mask that covers your whole face?"
This time, Sakura launched half of her weapons pouch at Naruto's head.
Sasuke sat very still and very quiet and tried not to feel to the warmth and the laughter next to him.
….
"I'm not stupid, you know," Naruto said, much later and in much softer a voice.
The fire was banked, barely glowing embers. Kakashi and Sakura were sprawled out on the edge of the clearing, because Naruto had first watch (although Sasuke suspected that Kakashi had actually tucked his book up underneath his mask and was reading with his eyes covered). Naruto was spread out at Sasuke's side, taking up an obnoxious amount of space, arms folded behind his head.
Sasuke silently considered his statement.
"Put your eyebrows back down," Naruto said. "I can't see them, but I can feel them mocking me, I swear."
Sasuke smoothed his forehead back out. He shouldn't be responding, should be cold and blank and stone-faced like he was before Itachi, but the situation felt so familiar and his reactions almost instinctive. Especially without his chakra to whisper power and possibility beneath his skin.
"I'm not stupid," Naruto repeated. "I know what you and Sakura and Sensei were talking about when you sent me off into the woods. They think that I don't get it. That there's going to be bad stuff when we get you back. I know it's going to be bad; you were way more of a dumbass than usual and Granny Tsunade's maybe going to throw her pig at your head."
"I don't care."
"Yeah, you do," Naruto countered easily. "Granny Tsunade's bitching crazy. And it's going to be bad, probably for a while. But it won't be forever, either."
Sasuke made a noise. Soft and disgusted.
"It won't," Naruto said. "Everyone will be really pissed and they'll ignore you and Lee might try to duel you for Sakura's honor or something, but that'll fade. Once you stay, Sasuke, it'll stop. And then one day I'll be sitting at the Hokage's desk, and you'll be standing behind it. My best guard. And no one will even be worried because they'll know you have my back."
"You are stupid if you think that anyone wants that but you."
"Oh, why?" Naruto scratched lazily at his upper arm. "Because Sakura and Kakashi-Sensei said mean and scary things while I was off totally not teaching squirrels how to use fire jutsu?"
Across the clearing, Sakura made a noise like a dying gazelle into her sleeping bag.
"You know that Sakura kicked Neji's ass for saying that you weren't coming back?" Naruto said. "And not, like, years ago, this was two weeks, tops. And not in the way that everyone kinda wants to kick Neji's ass, this was a special ass kicking. And she still has our team picture; it's up on the wall in her bedroom."
Sasuke closed his eyes.
"And Kakashi-Sensei, he stops by the Uchiha compound like once a week. I guess the Council-Bastards wanted to rip it down? To clear out the compound and fill it with something else. But Granny Tsunade said that Kakashi-Sensei showed up while they were voting and smiled them into submission, or some shit. And now Sensei visits once a week, to keep candles burning for your family. And he lit one for Itachi, too, after we heard."
"Kakashi hated Itachi," Sasuke said, because he couldn't help it, because it was either that or scream.
Naruto snorted and kicked his ankle.
"He didn't light it for himself, dumbass." Naruto yawned, wide and loud. "And he cleans, too. Makes sure that the house you were staying in is dust-free and shit." Naruto paused, hummed a bit at the stars. "I'm not actually supposed to know that, I think."
It was Kakashi's turn to make dying animal noises across the clearing.
"So, they say mean things," Naruto continued. "They're allowed. I mean, you've been a total dick. But Sasuke? They're still here, trying to bring you home."
"You're pathetic," Sasuke said, quiet and controlled, because his control was all he had left. "We're not twelve years old anymore. This isn't some ridiculous competition about who can climb a tree faster. That boy is dead, and you don't know who I am now."
Naruto kicked his toes at the sky for a bit.
"I don't want twelve year old Sasuke," he finally said. "Twelve year old Sasuke was still a dick, and actually kind of way crazier than you are now. I want the you-shaped Sasuke. The Sasuke who laughed inside the genjutsu and wrestled with me because he was shit at board games and always an asshole about losing."
"That Sasuke never even existed," Sasuke said and breathed deep to banish soft voices and warm smells and feeling so light, like his worries hadn't been that important.
"Sure he does," Naruto said. "That Sasuke is sitting right next to me. I mean, he's buried under way too many layers of angst-bitchery and family issues that I'm not even going to try and magic out of you. But he's there. And he's still a dick about losing at board games, by the way."
Sasuke rolled onto his side, carefully avoiding his cast. Naruto nattered on, because audience participation was never actually a thing he considered important to a conversation.
"You could laugh there because you weren't sad anymore. And you wanted to stay, Sasuke, I know you did. You wanted to stay with us, and you didn't want to forget when we had to leave." Naruto's hands were spinning as he spoke, because he was incapable of being still. "And I know you're just really, really pissed about everything. Everything, Sasuke, your hate-fire is kind of terrifying. But you're…you're different. After Itachi. You're not as dead behind the eyes as you were when we saw you with Orochimaru."
Sasuke was not going to relive that. Itachi's voice and his fingers on his forehead and the warmth in his eyes as he smiled and apologized for finally buckling. He was too weak, too wrecked right now and he was not going to relive it.
"I did what I had to do. That's all."
Naruto's snort was incredulous.
"Yeah, by joining you dead brother's evil ninja boy band? Exactly what you had to do, sure. And Sakura, I know you're awake and I know what a boy band is and I blame you."
Sasuke stayed very still. Because Naruto's words, the words 'dead brother' reverberated through his bones like a thunderclap.
"Shit," Naruto shuffled closer, ignored how Sasuke's stiff shoulders radiated GO AWAY AND ALSO GO FUCK YOURSELF pretty clearly. "Shit, I didn't mean that. Just. You make really bad decisions, you know that right? Like, your crown in bad decision making is unchallenged and will reign victorious forever and ever."
"Then why do you want me back so badly," Sasuke said and he hated it but the question was there.
"Because of the big, bastard-sized hole in my life," Naruto said. "I mean, it's cool. You can make bad decisions and I'll just egg you on or make shit worse or something and then Kakashi can show up and make his happy murder eyebrows at us and then Sakura can come and save the day. And it will be fine. And I'm never going to stop believing that."
"I didn't want to stay."
"Sure you did," Naruto said. "Your family was there. Of course you wanted to stay, Sasuke, that's all right."
"I'm not coming back. Not to the village."
"You are," Naruto said softly. "You always were going to, eventually. Because I was never going to stop chasing your idiot-ass. Across the entire Ninja nation if I have to, Sasuke, we'll be one of the fairy tales? The two ninja who ran forever; one forward and one away. Children will read about us in school and cry ugly tears."
"Stop talking," Sasuke said, and for once, Naruto listened.
He stayed quiet, but he stayed there, as Sasuke closed his eyes and shook and shook against the grass.
...
A/N: The genjutsu fallout is speeding down the tracks, because Team 7 can't actually stay in one place for longer than fifteen minutes without getting feels all over the place. Next Chapter, Kakashi's POV: Fuck You, Teenage Hormones, I don't have time for your shit. Stay tuned and Happy Reading!