Being and Belonging
Rising Pressure
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto
A/N: This is my first Naruto story and I'd appreciate any feedback that I can get. Thanks for all the comments and feedback; I appreciate every one. And on another note, a lot of people have asked about the pairings. I originally planned for this to be a gen fic, but I realized that if I was going to be telling the story of Naruto's life, it'd be a little odd if he and the rest of the characters had no love interests whatsoever. So right now I'm just going to go with the flow. I have time before I need to decide anything concrete and I'll probably write whatever feels right- slash (because seriously have you read the manga?) or het (because that's probably going to be what's canon). Anyway, I'm open to all suggestions that you all may have in regards to pairings. However, I probably won't take cross-generation pairings like ItaNaru or KisNaru. I have nothing against it. In fact I think that ItaNaru is a fun pairing, but it won't suit the purposes of this particular fic. Anyway, enjoy the chapter and send in pairing choices. Maybe you'll spark some ideas.
Summary: When Itachi leaves town on the eve of his parents' murder, he doesn't go alone. Can Naruto handle what comes next? "Ano sa…Ano sa, where are we going?"
Naruto followed Gaara past his building towards an old park. It was deserted now, the moonlight hitting a stray cat as it padded along on top of a sand rusted swing set until Naruto and Gaara's approaching footsteps scared it away.
"Is this where you play?" Naruto asked Gaara softly, shivering at the ghost-like atmosphere and impulsively reaching out to grab Gaara's hand.
Gaara stared bemusedly at the small tanned hand in his grasp and answered, "This is where I watch the other children play."
"Ohhh…" Naruto let the sound roll off his tongue as he looked at the strange boy next to him. He was so- "So, um, do you want to play with me?" Naruto asked timidly.
Gaara shrugged, his green eyes boring intensely into Naruto's until he drifted over to the swing set, resting a hand reverently on it. Touching the worn metal with fascination, he turned back to Naruto, only to say, "The cat's behind you."
Naruto jumped as he felt soft fur brush the backs of his unclothed legs. Then laughing, he turned and picked up the gray and black spotted cat and rubbed its fur against his face. The cat purred lowly, its heavy body relaxing in Naruto's grip.
"Do you want to touch it?" Naruto asked Gaara, holding the cat out towards him.
Gaara shook his head and darted behind one of the poles of the swing set. "No. It's-"
"What?" asked Naruto, "What's wrong with him?"
"It's not real." Gaara replied. "Nothing's real. Nothing except me."
Naruto laughed again. "That's silly. I'm real. I know I'm real."
"How do you know that?"
Naruto hesitated. "The same way you know you're real. I feel real, I guess."
Gaara frowned but reached forward and slowly placed a hand on the cat, sand wavering unsteadily behind him as if unsure of whether to strike or not. Then suddenly the cat's back bristled and he hissed, spine arching. Before Naruto could jerk him away, the cat swiped his paw at Gaara and red flew through the air, its arrival almost simultaneous with the sudden influx of sand that wrapped itself around both Naruto and the cat.
The sand squeezed Naruto's thin body, snaking around him before discerning that his futile struggles were of no threat and tossing him to the dirt-packed ground with a whipping motion. Instead it focused its deadly tendrils on the frightened and writhing cat it had in its grasp.
"No!" Naruto shouted, leaping up from where the sand had thrown him when he saw that his cat – because it was already considered to be Naruto's cat; he was keeping it no matter what Itachi ni-chan said – was in trouble. "Please stop. You're hurting it." Naruto jumped forward and thrust his hand through the thread of sand that was crushing his cat.
It dissipated on contact.
"I thought-" Gaara started, frowning at Naruto but willing the sand back in its gourd – it was almost hissing angrily; it didn't want to go – it wanted to kill. "He did something to me." The auburn-haired boy complained, holding out his hand, small tendrils of sand looping around his ankles as if trying to comfort him. "It feels…odd. Why didn't you let me kill him?" he asked, his tone almost a whine.
Naruto looked at Gaara's outstretched hand and frowned. There were three diagonal cuts laced across the back of his hand, but they weren't very deep. Naruto took a step forward, ignoring his cat's warning hiss. He had taken refuge between Naruto's legs and seemed reluctant to move any time soon. Reaching forward, Naruto took Gaara's hurt hand in his own and gently lowering the boy to the ground until both were sitting cross-legged on the ground, he said:
"Don't worry. I can fix this." Then he added, almost scoldingly, "You didn't have to hurt my cat. He's smaller than you. You're supposed to take of people smaller than you. That's what Iruka-sensei says…and that's what Itachi ni-chan thinks too, I think, 'cause he's always taking care of me even when I'm a lot of trouble."
As he talked, Naruto took a spare scrap of cloth from his belt and pressed it to Gaara's wound, ignoring the ball of fear that tightened in his stomach when Gaara winced in pain and his sand rose up behind him threateningly. He wouldn't be scared of this boy. He wasn't any older than him and he was nice. He had offered to play with Naruto and who had ever done that?
As he worked – carefully and thoroughly because even if Gaara scary he was still his friend and even at Naruto's young age, he understood how important that was – the sand bleeding through Gaara's gourd settled around him, sifting through his hair curiously; patting down his threadbare clothes; and poking through pockets to find his one special kunai. Examining it for a moment the sand put the kunai back in Naruto's pocket and continued its search, ignoring Naruto's startled yelp when it sniffed up his nose. Pursing his lips, Naruto tried to ignore it; it was like Iruka said, don't pay attention to bullies and they'll leave you alone. Finally, the sand decided to settle between Naruto's legs, burying his ankles in the soft fluff.
"Look," Naruto said, lifting up the cloth and unintentionally making the sand start up in a striking position before it calmed. "It's stopped bleeding."
Gaara looked at his hand and carefully poked at the flakes of dried blood. "What is this?" he asked, holding a tiny piece of the dried blood on the tip of his finger.
Naruto wrinkled his nose in confusion. "It's your blood, silly. It's what comes out of you when someone hurts you."
"Hurt…" Gaara said the word slowly as if tasting it. Then: "Do people do this hurt often?"
"Well," Naruto thought over his answer, "I guess. Some people get hurts a lot while others like my ni-chan are really, really strong. He never gets hurts." Naruto said the last bit proudly, puffing up his chest a bit. The sand hissed angrily beneath him. Then he tied the cloth over Gaara's hand neatly. "There, all better. I learned to do that at the academy. Is it okay?"
Gaara flexed his hand slowly. The odd feeling centering in his hand was almost gone. "Yes, it's fine."
Naruto smiled at him and then added, "I almost forgot. There's one more thing that you have to do. You have to take your hurt back to your mommy. She's got to kiss it better. That's the special ingredient, otherwise it won't heal fast."
Gaara frowned. "I don't have one. She's…dead." he said dully, looking at his hand, the ache suddenly coming back.
"Oh," Naruto thought it over for a bit and then reached forward, grabbed Gaara's hand and kissed it lightly himself. "I don't have a mommy either." Naruto confessed. "But maybe my kiss will help anyway."
Gaara stared at him for a long while, until Naruto started to shift and fidget uncomfortably when suddenly Gaara smiled, the expression awkward and little used on his young face. But this time when he reached forward to pet the cat, who was peeking at Gaara from behind Naruto's back and warily keeping an eye on the sand, he wasn't hurt.
Kabuto calmly assessed the situation. They were behind schedule. Way behind. He, Kisame, Itachi and Naruto were already supposed to be on their way home by now. But neither Itachi nor Naruto had turned up and it was getting harder to keep their enemies at bay. Already Kabuto had several injuries, only one severe enough to hinder him, but with all the enemies that they were fighting, it was enough to put him in a difficult spot or two.
Kisame was faring a little better. With his huge sword, he could slice through two or three opponents in one sudden move. Kabuto actually admired the beauty, no the artistry of it. It was almost like dancing, only the end came in a spray of blood and gore.
How elegant.
However, the Samehada was not only lethal, it was heavy and though Kabuto could see no physical signs, he was trained as a doctor to be able to notice when a man grew tired; when his arms wavered just the slightest bit; when his eyes closed for a millisecond too long. Those were the things that killed a man. And Kisame was starting to tire.
The time they had allotted themselves before charging in to at the very least, pick up Naruto had run out minutes ago, but both were waiting for the other to signal their charge forward. Dodging a particularly nasty swipe with a kunai from an enemy, Kabuto snarled under his breath and ran forward, jumping high over the heads of his opponents and into the village itself. Behind him, Kisame engaged the enemies in a genjutsu, a specialized one that must have originated from Mist because Kabuto had never heard of it. Soon Kisame joined him inside the village, near the entrance. A little ways behind them, they could hear the men fighting each other, turned against their brethren by Kisame's genjutsu.
"It won't last long." Kisame said, answering Kabuto's unspoken question. Hefting the sword over his shoulder, he began to walk deeper into the village. "We better hurry."
Kabuto followed him closely, making sure both stuck to the shadows and were not caught by other patrolling sand nin. Orochimaru-sama, Kabuto thought, rolling his eyes to the sky, you better damned well appreciate this.
Itachi looked around the hallway. He hadn't killed the two children. They were the Kazekage's after all and even if he did want his youngest dead, he probably wouldn't take kindly to having all three heirs killed in one night.
Stepping over their prone bodies, Itachi opened the door leading to his target's room, kunai in hand. The kid had already killed a number of assassins and Itachi didn't plan on leaving anything to chance. A quick kill and then back to Naruto, Itachi thought grimly. He'd have to take the kid back to the Akatsuki headquarters. He was still too weak to be traveling and the threat posed by Orochimaru hadn't yet been taken care of. There were dangers ahead if Itachi wasn't careful; if he got attached; if-
Itachi swore softly when he saw that the room was empty. The dark place was sparse; a simple bed and dresser were all that adorned the room. No toys or games anywhere to be found. As Itachi methodically searched the room to make sure that Gaara wasn't hidden anywhere, he noted that Naruto would have hated the room. With nothing to capture his attention, he would have ran away the second he could.
Striding over to the open window, Itachi peered outside, making sure that he kept to the shadows. Directly beneath him he could see an imprint in the sand as if someone had jumped down. Itachi smirked lowly; it was going to be a chase.
Leaping out the window, Itachi landed near the soft imprint and started following the footprints it left behind. Frowning, Itachi picked up his pace. The footprints were heading towards Naruto. They were not supposed to meet. Flat out running, Itachi halted at the spot where he had left Naruto only to find it empty. Not bothering to call out the boy's name, Itachi crouched down and studied the ground below him.
"Two boys, most likely the target and Naruto. Heading west. No sign of struggled at all. Dammit Naruto, did you just prance off with him?" Itachi kicked at the marks, scrubbing them out completely so that no one could follow him and started west, following Naruto's footprints.
Running forward, Itachi caught sight of the rusted playground, sand-swept and decrepit, before he saw the two boys. They were sitting cross-legged, facing each other near the swings. Naruto was holding a large cat in his arms and talking animatedly while the target had a rather stoic look on his face as if he was just barely putting up with Naruto's chattering.
Itachi knew the feeling.
Taking out kunai, Itachi threw two at the target and raced forward to defuse the situation – namely, to get Naruto out of the potential battleground. Unfortunately, Gaara's sand was quicker than he expected, both shielding Gaara and sweeping Naruto off the ground and into the air by his ankle in one deft move.
Gaara turned towards Itachi form, looking murderous. Itachi had stopped a couple feet away, noticing that the closer he got to Naruto, the tighter the ring of sand around his thin ankle got. Right now the sand was slithering down his upside down body, encasing legs, torso, arms, and even mouth and nose until he was wrapped so tight Itachi could see tears in his eyes from the pain.
"Let him go." Itachi said calmly.
To Be Continued…