A/N: Finally, we're moving on. Shoutout to Badcook and Operagirl76 for guessing what the room was for, and shoutout to Magunda for realizing a few key things about the plot. The rest of this fic should be much easier to write than the chapters to date. Angst coming up in the next chapters, probably till the end. Just a warning. I'm still estimating this fic will be done at 20 chaps, so keep your fingers crossed.
Regarding how things are changing between Sasuke and Naruto, I repeat: The deeper you go, the more you know.
14. Training
Almost as soon as Sasuke entered the shaft, he felt cold. The rungs on the metal ladder were freezing; his breath was visible in a vaporous cloud that rose above his head. He made his descent as quickly as possible, dropping down the last ten feet to stand beside Naruto.
His mouth fell open.
They were in a room that was larger than a football field. Steel, windowless, and just as freezing as the shaft leading down to it had been. The walls were lined with every weapon Sasuke had ever seen or heard of. They glinted here and there, obviously well-maintained. The wooden handles and sharpened blades were menacing. They all appeared ready for immediate and violent business.
Sasuke took a few steps forward, turned in a complete circle, then said, "Oh my fucking God." He looked at Naruto, lifted his hands outward, and shook his head. "Oh. My. God. What is this place? Are you prepping for a war or something?"
Naruto was serious. "Hardly. This is where I train. Or where I used to. I haven't in some time."
Sasuke abruptly shuddered hard, still staring around. "It's like an ice box in here."
"This is specially crafted steel, imported. It masks your chakra, as well as blocking outside stimuli in the form of external chakra sources. The result is that the steel chills the surrounding air a bit."
Sasuke was listening, but taking in the weaponry and equipment. He spotted what looked like a pole with arms, and walked to it. "So what you're saying is that no one can find you down here. It's like entering a black hole." He touched one of the arms and found it to be crafted of some material that was a cross between metal and mesh; it was pose-able.
"If no one knew of the room, yes. You'd be undetectable down here."
"Sweet. All I have to do is move myself and my brother here and we'd be safe forever. You could stop worrying."
Naruto clasped his hands behind his back and walked over to Sasuke. "I'll assume you're joking. However, you will be spending time here."
Sasuke looked over at him. "Why?"
"To train," Naruto frowned. "Why else?"
Sasuke tipped his head to the side, turning to look at the weapons across the room. "I figured that's what you meant, but I mean why do you think I need to train? You've never even seen me fight."
"I don't have to see to know you're not ready to take on Madara."
"Yeah well, by all accounts, not many people are."
"Sasuke."
Sasuke looked at him.
"You need to train, to protect yourself-"
"Are you going to let something happen to me?" Sasuke asked point blank. He expected a horrified denial, an immediate declaration of undying protection.
Naruto stared at him with an expression Sasuke had never seen before. It was…not blank, but…something. After a moment of studying the look, it came to him. Calculating. Analytical. Naruto had never looked at him like that before.
He let Sasuke stew a moment more. "Before I knew of your situation completely, I tried to understand your life. Why you had Moegi's search of you monitored, why you seemed in possession of certain skills. I'd come to the conclusion that you were in hiding long before Tsunade told me. I was of a mind to enjoy your company while it lasted, but turn you loose to the wolves should that day arrive. I would have let you face whatever was coming for you, so long as I didn't have to be a part of it.
"That's changed. The moment I claimed you, and let you into my life completely, I also claimed your worries, your fears, your safety. Do you trust me?"
Sasuke, hugging himself for warmth, had caught on to Naruto's utter lack of humor at the first sentence of this speech. Naruto's focus, the determination to drive home how serious he found Sasuke's situation, was almost palpable. Sasuke may have lived so long on the run that he no longer consciously thought about it, but for Naruto it was new and of the utmost importance. Sasuke quickly nodded, never taking his eyes off Naruto's. He was afraid to look away. It might give Naruto the idea that he didn't care.
"Good. Then you must trust me to keep you safe, while you are with me. Part of trusting me means trusting that I know what I'm saying when I tell you that you're not ready to defend yourself against Madara."
"But…" he hesitated.
"Yes?" Seeing the way Sasuke dropped his eyes, Naruto softened his tone. "There's nothing you can't tell me, Sasuke."
"It's just…you said you'd keep me safe, so I don't understand why I have to train even more. Won't you protect me?" It embarrassed him to come right out and ask, but he felt close enough to Naruto to do so.
The bald outpouring of the boy's heart was enough to tighten Naruto's chest. He stepped to him quickly, and brought his shivering body into a tight hug. "Yes. Of course I will, you must know that. But one must always be prepared. I might not be with you. You have to be able to rely on yourself, and not wait for someone to save you. Understand?"
Sasuke nodded against the warm chest, its heat making him nice and drowsy. "Yes."
"Then you will train part of each day, practice part of each day, and rest part of each day."
"For how long?"
"For how ever long it takes for you to improve to a state I'm comfortable with."
"Like…days?"
"Probably months. Years."
Sasuke jerked out of the hug to stare up at Naruto in shock. "What?"
"True strength does not come-"
"What about us?"
"What do you mean?"
"When are you and I supposed to be together?"
Naruto frowned, tilting his head slightly. "Did you think you'd be alone down here? No! I'm sorry if I wasn't clear. Of course I'll be with you. I'll be training you, and monitoring your practice." Naruto smiled now reassuringly.
"That's not what I mean. I mean sex. Us. Just being together like we were."
"Sex?"
"Yes, sex. You know, I like when we're in bed, all over each other. I feel like there's nothing in the world for you except me, and you live or die on my smiles, my touch, me. I…I like that," he finished in a mumble. He looked aside.
Naruto blinked in bewilderment. "So do I. More than I can say. But…if I am to protect you properly, I need you to be at a certain level of self-defense yourself. For my peace of mind. I…don't understand how you can be happy with your current level."
Sasuke picked up on a number of things just then. One, Naruto did not like being disagreed with. Two, that though his lifestyle wasn't something Sasuke dwelled on, it was nevertheless new information to Naruto, and thus of paramount importance him. Three, and most important, Naruto did not see self-defense the way he or Itachi did, because Naruto was military. High-ranking military, to be exact, and Itachi had always said that military people were crazy when it came to skills.
With all this in mind, Sasuke dialed it back a notch. The last thing he wanted to do was disagree with Naruto and end up angering him. "I'm not happy with it, I just don't think about it much. Unless Itachi and I are having a training session, I don't need to. But if you feel like it's necessary, okay. I trust you to know," he added.
Naruto's expression cleared at once. "Excellent. Believe me, Sasuke. Once I've trained you, you won't need to live in fear of being caught. The ones who want you will fear you. We'll begin in the morning."
As there were only a few short hours till morning, they didn't sleep much. Hardly at all. Sasuke was grateful for the way Naruto held him so closely, and there was a nice twenty-minute wake-up call in the form of some aggressive lovemaking, but he couldn't help noticing that the sun was barely peeking over the horizon when Naruto rolled away from him.
"We're getting a late start today," Naruto said as he headed for the bathroom afterwards. "Tomorrow we'll be up at the more appropriate hour of four a.m. I'll be five minutes in the shower, and will have something waiting for you to eat after your shower. Be ready to train in thirty minutes. I have some clothes I think will fit you."
Sasuke sat in the bed and listened to the shower running. When Naruto exited the bathroom and went directly to the kitchen, he held in his sigh of disappointment and went in to take his own shower. When he was done, he found the clothes Naruto mentioned laid out on the bed.
They were orange. Smaller, obviously his size, but orange. Turning to look at the photos on the dresser, Sasuke immediately recognized the tracksuit Naruto had worn in his youth. That the thing had survived all this time was…so not the point. The thing was orange. That was the point. Sasuke lived in black, gray, white, or, if he was feeling a little adventurous, some dark blue. Never orange. And laid out next to the tracksuit was a black T-shirt with a big retarded swirl pattern on the front. And there was a pair of run down military ninja sandals on the floor next to the bed. His size. Black. The sturdy material zipped up the back of his calf once he'd swallowed his disgust and put them on. He looked longingly to where his boots sat in a corner. Naruto would probably have something to say if he tried to train in them.
He wore everything, even the jacket, and made his way down the hall to the kitchen. He did not like the way his toes were exposed in the sandals. At all. Nor did he care for the smell of mothballs that hung around the tracksuit. He stopped just inside the kitchen.
Naruto was eating a light breakfast. He had on clothing Sasuke associated with the military: non-descript pants of a dark and durable quality, and some kind of skintight, sleeveless top that was black. He turned from the counter and smiled at seeing him. "The suit fits! I thought it would. Eat quickly, you have ten minutes."
Sasuke ate.
He was glad of the jacket once down in that room. Watching Naruto stride energetically to a marked target, he gave himself a mental shake and a pep talk.
Naruto had a point. Strictly speaking, if it really came down to it, he'd be looking for Itachi to handle things if they were ever caught. However, this was what he'd been brought up to do. Itachi had never been about training him to take on Madara. He'd been more about enabling him to defend himself while Itachi worked, and being able to hold his own until Itachi could come to his aid. Itachi was his brother, his protector, his caretaker. This was what Itachi had drilled into him, that his safety was Itachi's responsibility. And Sasuke had accepted that. Itachi always knew best, was always right.
But he was seventeen now, and maybe it was time he started taking responsibility for his own safety. He'd give Naruto a day or two. He'd try and get with this new regime he saw taking shape around their relationship. And if he felt like he couldn't hack it, he'd politely tell Naruto that he didn't want to do this anymore. Naruto loved him and would understand, hopefully. But he'd at least give it a shot, Sasuke told himself. The man was worried about him. That meant a lot.
"I'll be putting you through your paces for the first few days, discovering what you can and can't do to a precise degree," Naruto said when Sasuke came over to him. "We'll begin with basic weaponry. I've laid them out here. Take these kunai and try to hit this target."
Sasuke felt it best not to comment. Naruto struck him as the kind of teacher that valued silent obedience when it came to training, and he was right. His wordless handling of the kunai earned a smile of approval.
He walked off five paces, as instructed, and hit the target dead center, with all five kunai. Naruto merely nodded at his accuracy. Same with the shuriken. Naruto then had him aim at angled targets, and here his accuracy suffered a bit, but he still hit 8 out of 10 marks.
-oOo-
Weaponry was done with by midmorning. He did not ask when lunch would be, but stood and waited while Naruto actually produced a clipboard and jotted something down. "I'll be testing your Taijutsu next," he said once he'd set this aside. "Ready?"
Sasuke nodded.
"Jacket off. Step here onto this mat."
Sasuke shrugged the jacket off, now warm from his mild exertions, and went to the large mat that covered the last quarter of the floor on the far side of the room.
"Your goal is to incapacitate me, or have me overpowered to such a degree that I'm either on my back or on my knees. Begin."
Sasuke looked Naruto up and down. "What…come at you?"
"Yes."
"I can't do that," Sasuke smiled. "I can't just attack you."
"Why not? We're training."
"Because…I just can't. Not seriously."
Naruto didn't share his amusement. "Sasuke, most people are attacked by people they know. Not all foes are strangers or people you consider evil. There may come a time when you need to fight someone you love, and unless you harden yourself to be capable of that, you will never be able to defend yourself. Now, your reticence is touching, but I said to come at me."
Sasuke had never attacked anyone but Itachi, and right away, he was able to see the difference. He'd never considered his brother to be soft. Just the opposite. He lived in fear of Itachi's blows. He personally didn't know anyone stronger than his brother.
Attacking Naruto felt like deliberately running headlong into a speeding, oncoming 18-wheeler truck. Not pleasant. Worse, Naruto barely moved. He blocked or evaded as if Sasuke was standing still himself, and had that calculating, analytical expression on his face the whole time. Sasuke did his best.
"This isn't your best," Naruto frowned when Sasuke crawled away for the fifth time. "Tell me this isn't your best?"
Sasuke again felt it wise not to comment. He stood up slowly, hurting in every part of him, and rotated his aching wrists. He'd be bruised, he was sure of it.
"Training's done for today." Naruto turned away and retrieved his clipboard. "Thirty minute break for lunch, then practice begins."
Sasuke's relieved smile died away.
All during the heinous ordeal that followed, Sasuke kept reminding himself of one thing. He loved Naruto. Naruto loved him. Naruto wanted him to be safe. He kept repeating this to himself, while Naruto went over the notations on the clipboard and what he expected Sasuke to practice until dinner. Naruto stood off to one side, arms folded, and watched critically while he did.
Sasuke was thankful that he was a quick study. He did not make the same mistake twice, and rarely needed more than three tries to master something basic like a throwing method, or aiming for something. The worst part of the practice came with the sparring. Naruto participated in this, and it was just awful. Awful the way he was made to perfect his kicks and punches against the man he loved so much, awful to be told to do it again, then again when he failed to get it right, and awful that he didn't think he was going to be able to last the rest of this day, much less the two he'd allotted himself for this new regime. Again, he did his best.
And again, he fell short.
His body was quivering with pain by the time Naruto declared practice to be over. Sasuke looked up hopefully from where he was huddled on the mat.
"I haven't tested your speed, endurance, or agility yet, and we haven't touched Ninjutsu, but I have to conclude that you are at best Genin level. We will do speed and endurance tomorrow, and Ninjutsu last. Come. Time for bed. You need your rest if you're to be up at four." He turned away and began walking toward the shaft in the ceiling, at the other end of the room.
Sasuke remained where he was. He was too tired to move. Itachi had never been such a taskmaster, and he hadn't thought there was anyone stricter than his brother. He drew his knees up and rested his chin on them.
He heard Naruto stop when the man realized he wasn't following. Heard his name called. Heard Naruto coming back to stand in front of him, and saw the man's legs when Naruto stopped and peered down at him. He didn't look up.
"Sasuke?"
And he didn't answer. If called upon to do so, his argument would be that he was too traumatized to speak. Naruto honestly thought he could survive months and years of this? Itachi was right. Military people were crazy. He really missed his brother right then. Training with his brother was fun compared to what he'd lived through today.
-oOo-
Naruto looked Sasuke over, but found no injury. It wasn't like Sasuke to display this moodiness, or fail to answer him when addressed. He tried calling the boy's name again, was ignored, and became alarmed. He squatted down and placed a hand on Sasuke's shin. He called his name more sharply.
Nothing.
Naruto combed the heavy black hair aside to see if the boy was crying. He wasn't. Sasuke's eyes were lowered; he was sulking. Naruto felt relief sweep through him and stifled his inappropriate laugh. Of course. He was dealing with a child, after all. Sulks and pouts did happen. He hadn't expected the behavior of someone as mature as Sasuke, but it was nothing he couldn't handle.
He was reminded of when he'd had his team. He'd often had to soften the harshness of training by taking them out for ice cream at the end of a long day, or a swim at the waterfalls. The same strategy could be applied here. He didn't have any sweets on him, but he could still give Sasuke what he liked.
He duck-walked closer to him, and used the hand on the boy's shin to pull the leg straight. Sasuke didn't resist, but he didn't look up at him either. He sat there while his other leg was pulled out, and his body gently pushed backward into a spread-eagled position on the mat. Naruto proceeded to knead and massage the muscles he knew were sore.
Sasuke softened almost at once, but kept his eyes averted to the ceiling. Naruto removed his sandals, the jacket, and loosened the drawstring on the pants. Sasuke didn't wait after this, but turned into him and was hanging off his neck, kissing him, before Naruto could have the boy's shirt off.
The hunger in Sasuke wasn't tempered by fatigue from training. If anything, it was sharpened by it. Naruto indulged him generously. It wasn't long before his own hunger for the boy found its way past his sense of responsibility and worry, and he soon tossed Sasuke to the mat for purposes other than instruction.
Silent throughout the training and practice, Sasuke voiced his passion loudly over the next couple of hours, making the cavernous room ring with the sounds. He was greedy, wordlessly demanding more and more from Naruto, until he thought the boy would never be satisfied. And when Sasuke flopped limply to the mat after what had to be the fourth time, Naruto sighed in relief…only to see the need still plain as day on Sasuke's face, and see the boy's penis rising again.
Very little sleep was had that night.
In the morning, Naruto said as casually as he could manage, "I don't think we'll go over endurance today. Or Stamina. Or agility. We'll just focus on speed. It's possible that we can tackle Ninjutsu after lunch."
Sasuke allowed himself a small smirk as Naruto went down the shaft first. All I need to do is last a couple of days.