(A/N): Hope y'all are enjoying everything so far. I'm still trying to work on finding a pace and a voice, but I don't know how that's reflecting across to you guys so far. School's been incredibly busy, and as the semester picks up, the pace is as well. Thank you for reading, and to those who leave reviews, I am eternally grateful. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: The characters belong to Masashi Kishimoto.
Chapter 3: Hues of Twilight
"You—it's you," Naruto stutters, forgetting his nakedness.
Sasuke shifts his weight to his right leg, the white robe draped over his body sliding with his movement to reveal a toned chest. There is no recognition in his eyes as he replies. "Yes?"
"Did they take you too?"
The raven-haired man arches an eyebrow, "I'm sorry?"
"The last time I saw you, you were covered in ashes," the blonde waves his arm over his body. "And your eyes were so red, and fire was falling from the sky."
"I don't know what you're talking about," snaps Sasuke, who turns abruptly and starts walking toward the exit. Flustered, Naruto leaps for the man. I need answers.
He barely touches Sasuke before he is flipped over and slammed into the cold tiles. He grunts in pain, squinted eyes watering as his head painfully bounces off the ground. For a brief moment, black splotches paint his sight. "Ow, that fucking hurt, you bastard!"
Naruto swings a fist aimed for the raven's head, but the other boy is faster—he grabs his arm and slams it above the blonde's head. Sasuke smirks, "Moron."
The raven is faster than the blonde, but he is also much leaner. Naruto, with years of swimming and surfing under his belt, had built up strength over his time on the sandy beaches of Southern California. He bucks up into Sasuke, catching the other boy off-guard, and flips them over. He laughs heartily, tucking his chin into his heaving chest, golden locks poking into the raven's eyes, "At least my hair doesn't look like a duck's ass."
The raven opens his mouth, flustered, "My hair does not look like—"
"Why does everyone here ignore my questions? Look," Naruto interrupts, face growing serious. His voice is steady, calm when he speaks again, "I really just need some answers. I've done everything everyone asked me to. I just need to know what happened to my home."
For a second, the blonde thinks he sees a twinge of sadness in those ebony eyes, a brief upward curve of those delicate eyebrows. There is a flash of recognition, of understanding. For a second, the raven isn't looking into those blues eyes, but beyond them, seeing something Naruto cannot. The shine in his eyes reminds him of stars against a night sky. In the back of his mind, Naruto briefly remembers how he loved to watch the stars at night as a boy. He never saw many from within the city, but the one or two that reached his pupils always fascinated him. Then the moment goes by, and the armor returns. The stars disappear. Sasuke fixes a steel glare at the boy, "Get the hell off me."
The blonde relents, raising himself off the other boy and turns to grab a clean robe off the table. He slips it on, hearing the soft pats of Sasuke exiting the room. Before he leaves, however, Naruto calls out to him, "Sasuke, we've met before."
He is once again greeted by the four escorts when he exits the shower room a few minutes after the raven had left. On his way back to his room, he eyes the trail of water droplets in front of him, remembering the other boy's dripping dark hair, and notes that it leads to the door with a fan on it. Sasuke's room. It's only two doors down from his own room. He doesn't see any other escorts nearby—perhaps the other boy doesn't have any. He briefly wonders why.
One of his escorts opens the door to his room, and as the blonde walks in, says, "There's a new set of clothing on your bed. Please change and meet us promptly for group training."
He wants to ask about the training, but knows he will not be given any answers until he arrives. Quickly, he shrugs off his robe and throws on the new clothes. White shirt, white pants, white boxers. He misses his embarrassing past of blacks and oranges.
He is escorted down the hall and into an elevator. His escort presses 4, and he feels the familiar lightness when the elevator begins to move. They're heading down.
The door slides open into a large room. The blonde gasps, taking in the sparring mats, punching bags, katanas, throwing knives, bows and arrows. It is beautiful—until he sees the two tall men in the corner, both clad in deep green leotards. Or jumpsuits? He decides that they're a bit tighter than he would like.
"Shit, I don't have to wear that, do I?" His voice cuts through the silence and the two men turn around, looking a bit too similar for comfort.
"Hello there!" The taller man jumps forward, his thick eyebrows wiggling in excitement at the new recruitment. "Welcome to the taijutsu station! The name's Guy."
Naruto looks at the extended hand, and laughs, clasping it in a firm handshake, "I'm Naruto."
The younger version of Guy bounces forward, eyebrows equally as thick. His smile nearly blinds the blonde. He throws out a hand, "My name is Lee. I'm your sparring partner. It's very nice to meet you!"
The blonde takes his hand, and finds his arm being shaken up and down much faster than he expected. Lee's straight-cut hair bobs slightly with the movement. Aside from the body-hugging jumpsuits and the wiggling eyebrows, Naruto decides they're pretty much harmless.
He decided a little too early. Four seconds into his first match, Lee has the blonde curled into himself, wincing from a quick kick to the gut.
"Oh, come on, blondie. Embrace your youth, and fight!" Guy yells from the corner of the sparring mat.
The blonde straightens up and charges towards his opponent—only to find himself falling back from a hit to the jaw. He barely recovers before a strike at the neck has him slamming his shoulder into the mat. He doesn't enjoy being beaten twice in one day.
"Alright, that's enough," Guy explains, clapping to himself. "Seems like you don't have much sparring experience. But don't give up just yet! You take a quick water break as I set up for the next round."
Lee takes a somewhat sullen Naruto to the water fountain on the other side of the room. For a room so large, it's quite empty. The blonde begins to wonder. "Where are you from?"
The other boy turns his head around to look at Naruto, his jet black hair glistening under the harsh lights. The blonde briefly wonders what shampoo he uses. Lee smiles, "I'm from Guy."
At Naruto's obvious gawk, he chuckles and adds, "I don't think I've ever had parents—can't remember them at all. My earliest memory was of running into Guy as he was training at a studio. He just had so much energy and the art looked so beautiful. I had to learn, so I asked him and he said yes. I think I was five, but for some reason, I can't remember anything before that. There wasn't much to my life. But Guy accepted me, and we trained together. He taught courses at the studio, and he kind of took me in. Later, he got the job here, to train people like you, and I came along."
"People like me?" He frowns.
"You guys are important. You'll see," Lee smiles reassuringly.
He nods slowly, unsure. If Guy trains everyone here, then that means— "Hey, do you know a Sasuke, by any chance?"
Naruto watches as the other boy sits up. He nods, "I do, actually. He's incredibly talented. A prodigy, I've heard. He's better at sparring than I am, and that's not easy to come by."
The blonde hums, taking in this information. Then something dawns on him. "Do you know anyone named Kiba, here?"
The other boy turns to walk back to the sparring mats, but shakes his head. "But we don't meet the newest recruits until they're ready." Naruto's pulse races. Kiba would have been taken in at the same time as he was, so if he was already sparring, Lee would have known. He's relieved, but also slightly disappointed. It would have been nice to have someone from home here. He shakes his head, clearing the thought. No. There was so much pain. Too many secrets. He's doing what he's told to do, but he doesn't have a choice.
Guy and Lee spend the next two hours teaching Naruto the basics of what they call taijutsu. The blonde cannot remember the names of any of the moves they teach him, and he completely zones out when they try to explain the logistics of any one strike or block. But his body does him well, and he quickly learns the physical movements. Muscle memory was always his strength.
"Undercut!" Guy yells from the edge of the mat as Lee charges towards the blond. "Block the move and frontal kick to the abdomen!"
But Naruto has no idea what his instructor is saying. The words swirl around in his head and fall out his ear when the edge of Lee's hand meets the side of a blonde head. He quickly recovers, and throws the base of his palm into his opponent's elbow. Lee takes a breath at the hit, and the blonde takes this second to spin back to deliver a roundhouse kick to his side. The other man flips and counters it with his other arm, "Wasn't what Guy wanted, but nice moves."
The blonde pants, chest heaving, and laughs, "I didn't understand a word he said."
For the next two weeks, daily taijutsu sessions followed by hot showers are implemented into his schedule of ninjutsu practice and fitness exams. He learns that sparring comes to him naturally, and the quick reflexes he's had from spending a lifetime navigating waves at a beach have returned to help him. Sometimes, he finds himself loitering outside the door with the fan symbol, hoping to run into a particular man with particular answers to his particular questions. He has no such luck. The masked man visits every so often to check up on his progress, and leaves delighted that he is passing with flying colors. There is no shortage of needles or blood-drawing, but the blonde finds comfort in the company of Guy and Lee. Their energy helps him ignore the screams of his overworked muscles.
He is drinking water at the fountain in the taijutsu room when he hears a quick whistle in his left ear as a sharp dagger soars through the air to bury itself in the wall by his head. He yells, startled, and chokes halfway through his swallow. Tears blur his vision as he hacks the excess liquid from his lungs, but he makes out a slim figure from across the room. Not Lee this time. More feminine. A girl.
He stops choking after a good minute, and raises his head angrily, "What the hell?"
Laughter fills the air like morning bells. The blonde's vision clears enough to make out a girl who keeps her dark hair in two buns on each side of her head. She raises a hand, tilting her head to the side apologetically, "Lee told me to introduce myself. I'm Tenten."
"Lee told you not to kill him," a lower voice says from the other side of the room. Naruto looks over to see another unfamiliar figure, with hair spilling over shoulders in a dark waterfall, standing next to his eyebrow-blessed friend. At first he thinks it's another girl, but the broad shoulders and strong jaw tell him otherwise.
Tenten laughs again, her voice bright enough to paint a spring flower, and shakes her head, "Wasn't planning on it."
The long-haired man nods his head at the blonde, "I'm Neji. It's nice to meet you."
Lee scratches the back of his head, looking slightly embarrassed for the commotion, "They're going to be your new taijutsu partners."
Naruto finds it exciting to spar with new partners. He had gotten used to Lee's antics, and it was refreshing to learn the unique habits of others. Tenten isn't the best with one-on-one combat, but her skill with weaponry is impeccable. She never misses a target, be it with throwing knives or archery. Guy leads the blonde through a new exercise of dodging the weapons that Tenten whips at him. He isn't the best at it, and escapes with bleeding cuts sketched into his skin. If he hadn't deflected a few knives with his chakra, he is sure there would be a dagger through his eye. Neji, on the other hand, spars in a beautiful dance, delivering the faintest touches but leaving the nastiest bruises. The blonde cannot fathom how the lightest caress of two fingers against his skin can break so many blood vessels.
He sleeps well that night, exhausted from the excursion but content with his new friends. His bruises paint a twilight across the canvas of his skin.