Chapter 1: Falling
He heard the hum of the machines at his bedside first and the steady beep of a heart rate monitor. His eyelids fluttered open reluctantly and his vision blurred with tears as the bright light bested him. Fingers twitched as feeling returned to them very gradually and a chair screeched beside him as it dragged across the scratched linoleum tiles.
"I…" he tried to speak but his voice rasped with the lack of use.
"Naruto," a familiar voice cursed him partly in relief and partly in annoyance.
His body was sore and he turned his head slowly to his side so as to get a better look at the person whom had spoken. He smiled but his muscles strained with the effort to hold it in place and could only manage a small, soft smile. Thoughts swam around in his mind like koi in a pond; evasive when he wanted them and present when there was no need for them.
Realization dawned on him. He shot up and began in a rush, "Sakura-the mission-what happened-are the others-"
He burst into a fit of coughs at the strain he had put on his voice and his chest heaved with pain. A pair of firm, petite hands forced him back down onto the iron cast, sterile hospital bed. The expression in the medic's sea foam eyes silenced him immediately and he let his body fall against the mattress; though his mind felt as though it had been hurled into an abyss and was still falling.
"The mission was a success," she managed in a quiet whisper and a bemused expression flitted across his boyish features.
Something had gone wrong, he was certain of it. Why else would he be lying in a hospital bed, incapacitated with a red eyed medic by his side? The mission was something they had both worked towards for little less than half of their lives and if it was a success, why did she look like somebody had died?
He tried to sit up again but the slight pressure Sakura added to his chest made him back down. She looked as though she was on the verge of tears and all he wanted to do was comfort her as nothing could make her cry now. Something really awful must have happened but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.
"Sakura-chan…" he trailed off uncertainly. Maybe he would be pushing it if he asked and maybe he didn't want to know what had happened.
Suddenly, he remembered something. He demanded, "Sasuke-bastard, Sakura, where's Sasuke?"
A painful silence reigned over the room. Naruto tried to capture Sakura's jade eyes but she avoided his demanding gaze. He saw her shoulders shake as she tried to restrain her tears and waited for her to answer.
"Sasuke-kun didn't come back, Naruto," she told him, her heart breaking all over again with every single word.
Naruto's brow furrowed for a few moments. Then, a relieved smile flitted across his face and he nudged her slightly, "Haha, very funny, Sakura-chan. Seriously, where's teme?"
"No, Naruto, Sasuke didn't come back," She repeated again more firmly this time. It was harder to say it the second time around and even she hadn't fully accepted the truth. Naruto straightened up and this time, Sakura didn't push him down.
The world stopped.
Naruto's voice took on a pleading tone as he begged Sakura, "But you said the mission was a success and how could that be if…"
"Retrieving Sasuke wasn't the mission objective, Naruto. It was to kill Orochimaru," she reminded him bitterly and suddenly, all the pieces clicked into place.
"No…" Naruto began, his cerulean eyes widening.
He couldn't think clearly, his mind was an endless string of denial that refused to let the truth in. He could have sworn he had seen Sasuke on the mission and the name caused long lost memories to surface in an abyssal pool of doubt.
Sasuke, sitting on a pier, Sasuke, leaning against the bridge, Sasuke, smirking at Ichiraku's, Sasuke, glaring back at him with blood red Sharingan, Sasuke, Sasuke, Sasuke-
"Teme," he called the nickname.
Where was the bastard's answer? Where was the annoying 'dobe' he would have given his heart to hear? Naruto waited and waited for an answer, repeating the name over and over again in case Sasuke hadn't heard. The answer he so desperately longed for never came.
"Sasuke!" he screamed until his voice broke.
His voice made Sakura's resolve shatter and the windows shake with emotion. His screams were loud enough for the entire hospital to hear but no one came running into his room to check what was wrong. The dream Team 7 had been lost in an endless ocean of revenge and ambition till it hit the ocean floor and was washed away by waves of regret.
When Naruto finally came to terms with Sakura's painful words a half hour later, he let his blonde head drop dejectedly into his hands. The pink haired medic beside him felt the despair that was almost as bad as her own, felt the pain that flowed through both of their veins and felt the crack in her heart where one more person should have been.
She sat down on the edge of his hospital bed and he felt the taut springs sink with the added weight. Although Naruto's screams had been almost too difficult to bear, his stony silence was twice as heart wrenching. Sakura's shoulders began to tremble very slowly as she tried to control her breathing. She became self conscious of the pastel curtain that covered her face and hid behind it so that Naruto wouldn't see the soft pearls trickle down her face like rivulets of blood.
"I-I'm so sorry Naruto," she whispered shakily. She didn't trust herself to speak any louder because if she did, she knew he would hear her tears.
"It wasn't your fault," he told her in an empty voice.
"No, I'm sorry I wasn't with you…on the mission," she was finding it harder and harder to keep on talking. Naruto's head lifted from his calloused hands and his cerulean eyes bore through the curtain of pink to meet her avoiding gaze.
"If I had gone maybe I could have helped-" her voice broke at the end of her sentence and she gasped loudly for air in the choking and incriminating silence.
A large hand tentatively touched her shoulder and she met a pair of watery cyan eyes.
As she threw herself into Naruto's waiting embrace, a flood of pain and acceptance broke through her crumbling walls. Sasuke was gone, gone, and for now they were all that was left of the original Team 7. Her fingers gripped the front of his hospital gown until her knuckles turned white and his arms crushed her to his muscular frame, the both of them holding onto each other as if they were drowning and were each other's only hope to survive.
And all heroes fell.
Sometimes they fell in a blaze of long sought after glory and sometimes they fell like dominoes but sometimes, they slipped through the cracks unnoticed and unbidden until it was too late to bring them back.
"Shouldn't you be at the graveyard and not at the memorial stone?" an uncharacteristically quiet voice asked the silver haired figure.
His mismatched eyes never left the surface of the jet black tablet. Even in the afternoon rain, the memorial stone was still shiny and onyx - onyx like his eyes - and he kept on staring at a name that should have been there. Even though his silver hair was plastered to his pale face and he could feel the cold seep into his bones, he couldn't bring himself to move away.
"No," Kakashi's voice sounded hollow to even his own ears but he couldn't care anymore.
Scuffed black shoes squelched in the rainwater as they made their painfully slow progress towards the copy-nin. Sai came to a halt beside him and he too began to stare at the heroes' legacy. Kakashi had half a mind to tell him to go away but he only had half a mind and let it go.
"Sasuke-san's name isn't on here though. Shouldn't you be mourning at his grave instead? That's what people do when their friends die, isn't it?" Sai inquired curiously.
Kakashi shrugged. His work worn hands were tucked deep inside his smoky grey pants that had been stained black in the afternoon rain - black like his hair - and let the shattering rain drops fill his tired ears with the sound of temporary innocence.
Temporary innocence, he mused. Could innocence purify a tainted heart before corruption won out in the end and stained it black with dishonour? Or was innocence really only temporary and fleeting, like a glimpse of hope or despair?
"There's no need to go to his grave," Kakashi answered with the fatigue of a world weary man.
"His body isn't here though, and neither is his name," the artist interrupted his train of thought, confusion laced skilfully into the lulling tones of his beautiful voice.
The head of silver hair lowered ever so slightly as a humourless smile formed and his navy blue - navy clothes, navy like a shirt emblazoned with a once proud emblem - mask pulled taut. Sai's eyes flicked to the subtle movement underneath the mask, underneath the man.
"Sai, do you honestly believe those things really matter?" his words lingered on the silver streaked air but his enigmatic eyes never changed.
Sai's dark eyebrows knitted together as his puzzled brown eyes tried to make sense of things. He confessed uncertainly, "I don't understand."
"I don't understand," a boy who always will be just a boy confesses, his Sharingan eyes furrowing in confusion-
"A name or a body doesn't make a person. It's the impression they've left on the rest of the world and how they're remembered that does," the tired jounin explained with the wisdom of a sage.
Something in the copy-nin's voice alerted Sai that he had no intention of furthering the conversation, as confusing as it may have been. However, Sai was content to stand in silence beside his team leader and Kakashi let him stay because this time he didn't want to suffer alone.
"Does Naruto remember anything?" a question erupted from Jiraiya's pale, chapped lips.
It seemed as though he had had as much sleep as the blonde woman sitting across from him. The dark circles underneath his solemn brown eyes told a story of sleepless nights beside an almost grandchild's bedside.
"Jiraiya, he hasn't woken up in days and I wouldn't have asked him anything even if he had. There are other things he needs to think about right now," she told him in a voice soaked with sympathy and annoyance.
"I know but if Naruto remembers it'll kill him. Sasuke meant so much to him and especially after that fight with-" Jiraiya protested hurriedly but Tsunade's intense amber gaze silenced him immediately.
She began quietly, "You can't protect Naruto all the time, Jiraiya. You can't make up for Minato by insisting you hold Naruto's hand every waking second. Naruto is not Minato and you have to realize-"
"I know they're two different people, damn it," Jiraiya snapped, his already crumbling self control shattering with the reality of her words.
Tsunade retorted heatedly, "I don't think you do, Jiraiya. You've replaced Minato with Naruto and he deserves so much better than that-"
"I haven't replaced anyone, Tsunade! Why do you always presume you know everything when you don't?" he argued and her eyes flashed.
Her voice steadily began to rise, "Why do you always ignore everyone? If somebody says something you don't want to hear even if they're right, you'll block them out and if things become too hard to bear you'll run away from them."
He scoffed at her and said sarcastically, "This is coming from the woman who ran away from Konoha because she couldn't save her fiancé."
"Dan has nothing to do with this," She hissed at him, her chair shrieking as she stood up abruptly.
"Neither does Minato," he retorted, brown eyes flashing angrily.
She snapped at him, "Minato has everything to do with this, Jiraiya. You should know that better than everyone else, after the fight between Orochimaru and Naruto. Naruto isn't so stupid he won't figure out what really happened and what if he still remembers anyways? He'll have to know sometime."
Something in Jiraiya's eyes changed. "I don't want Naruto to know about Minato because-"
"Because what? Because you're scared he'll realize that he did have a family at some point? Because he's not old enough? Well, wake up all fucking ready, you aren't Naruto's dad and he's old enough to face the facts!" Tsunade shouted.
"I don't want him to know because I'm scared he'll follow in Minato's footsteps!" Jiraiya yelled at her.
Silence.
It filled the room with unvoiced regrets and surfacing fears. It made Jiraiya collapse into a chair and drop his head of white hair into his rough hands and Tsunade's hazel eyes widen with the knowledge that she had pushed him too far.
Then she realized Jiraiya was right. She didn't know everything.
When his cerulean eyes opened again, his surroundings had morphed completely. The sound of painfully slow dripping water reached his sensitive ears, echoing off of the damp circular walls and causing ripples to spread across the murky green water. There was no light source and yet, there was light dim as it was.
Drip…drip…drip…
He had been here before, he realized. This was the inside of the wretched seal, where Kyuubi was currently housed against his own free will. Something small and white floated past him on the sewer channel and his sharp eyes instantly darted to it. It was a paper seal. A chill ran throughout his entire body.
Drip…drip…drip…
His feet began to move subconsciously in the direction that the broken seal had come from. The narrow path looked blacker than midnight the further down he looked but as he took a step into it, failing light lit his path. He wondered if maybe the light was coming from him but instantly shook off that ridiculous theory.
Drip…drip…
Was that metal rattling he could hear? The humid air smelled of thick smoke and tantalizing power and his footsteps quickened, leather slapping against the wet surface of the floor. A sound akin to that of someone dragging their nail across the bars of a prison cell began, growing more and more agitated with each pause and repeat.
He hadn't noticed that the spine tingling drip had come to a halt; his shoes were the loudest thing in the sewers now. The faint metal sound continued and he was drawn towards it as if in a trance. The beginnings of a low rumble sounded throughout the tunnels, rebounding off the walls and echoing back and forth until it was no more but a whisper in the nonexistent wind.
"…Konoha…" a deep, bass voice growled. After hearing his village's name, Naruto came to a halt listening intently for more.
He could hear nothing anymore and began to sprint towards the sound, something was wrong. He knew it was the Kyuubi and, after seeing the broken seal, cold dread had lodged itself deep inside his heart. As water lapped over the edges of his navy sandals and drenched his large feet, he knew he was getting closer. The restless swish of a gigantic tail and a loud growl caused the ground to tremble and the water to ripple.
"I'm going to destroy Konoha!" A devastating roar travelled throughout the sewers, rebounding and reverberating. It seemed to grow louder with every repeat until it felt like Naruto's head was going to split in half.
His feet came to a halt. His cerulean gaze slowly travelled up the length of the thick bars, covered with multitudes of complex seals. His eyes met the bloody crimson ones of the Kyuubi's and almost instantaneously, Naruto was thrown to the floor twenty feet away. Waves of corrupted red chakra had forced him back and he was struggling to catch his breath in the intensity of it all.
"Minato, I'll kill you! You and that stupid village!" the anguished screams of the Kyuubi continued, his ivory fangs snapping at the door that caged him.
Three metre long claws were forced through the spaces in between the rusting bars. They came close to stabbing Naruto but he managed to roll away just in time. The Kyuubi let out a roar of frustration and slammed itself against its prison in an unreasonable frenzy.
"I'm not Minato!" Naruto yelled at the Kyuubi in an attempt to make him understand that he meant no harm.
"Are lies the only things that come out of your mouth?" the Kyuubi demanded, his accusing evil eyes glared at Naruto.
"I'm Naruto, Uzumaki Naruto!" he tried to make the Kyuubi see but it let out another thunderous roar, trying to spear Naruto onto one of its razor sharp claws.
"Shut up! I'll kill you!" It screamed, slamming itself against the bars repeatedly.
The metal shuddered and Naruto could only watch in horror as more of the seals began to fall away. He could hear the prison straining to hold back the tainted chakra and blinding fear raced throughout his entire body.
He saw the claws race towards him but was powerless to move. His mind was screaming at him to get out of the way but his body refused to obey and he shut his eyes, waiting for his impending death.
A pair of strong arms hauled him out of the way. He was suddenly forced to his feet and it felt as though his wrist was going to be yanked from its socket. He stumbled along behind a saviour he could only dimly see and if possible, the Kyuubi's screams escalated in pitch and volume until his ears were ringing painfully.
"I haven't got much time so listen carefully. You're going to wake up in a few minutes in the hospital again with Sakura," a warm, enrapturing voice told him and Naruto nodded dumbly, even though the person wasn't looking back at him.
As they turned a corner, the man's clothes cracked impressively with the force of their momentum. He continued urgently, "Your seal is breaking. If it breaks, you will die and the Kyuubi will destroy Konoha and everyone in it."
Almost as if in on cue, the Kyuubi let out another frustrated roar. The walls trembled and the water rippled as the powerful elemental threw himself against the bars again.
"You have to hold back the Kyuubi at all costs. It will take a lot of mental strength to keep him sealed but I know you can do it. I'll always be here to help you out along the way," he finished.
Blinding white light took over the entire tunnel and before it could completely obscure Naruto's vision, he glimpsed a flash of white teeth and a heartbreaking smile.
Next Chapter Preview: Silk
"I...I feel like I'm-I'm burning."
"I need to go back to Naruto."
"No. You can't do anything for him in your condition. You'll only hurt yourself and Naruto if you try to."
"I'm not Minato!"
"You're not. I should know."
A/N:
Hooeey, first chapter down, God only knows how many more to go. I hope this story doesn't move too slowly but it'll probably be quite short. I'd just like to thank everyone who reviewed on the prologue and hopefully you guys liked this chapter. :)
Selandora (the sickeningly emotional undeniably sexy one you all must fear. sort of.)