Thank you to everyone who reviewed last time! No OCs will play a prominent part in this story, so for those who might start worrying while reading this chapter, I assure you that you have absolutely nothing to fear :)
Beyond War
By Om0cha
Chapter One: The last safe haven in the world
***7 years after the war***
Gnarled, lesion scattered hands gripped the handles of the wooden cart. The elderly woman pushing it paid no heed to the splinters in her palms –for the cart was of poor workmanship— but continued a constant pattern of slowly shuffling forward down the street, peering into a smoky alley from beneath her shawl, then shuffling forward again and repeating this all the way down to the next corner. It was an achingly slow process because her shrivelled feet, enclosed only in tattered ribbons of cloth, were disagreeing with her and sometimes dragging loudly across the dirt and pebbles. She kept a tight grip on her precious cart though, for resources nowadays were scarce and the only other firewood would take a day's trip to reach. It had been that way since the Great Naruto Bridge was destroyed and she didn't want to tempt anyone.
It was around 5 in the afternoon and in this port town on the edge of the water country, it was the scavenging hour. Over the years it had become the time when shinobi would head together to the outskirts of the village and reinforce the ninjutsu barrier around them. Despite these daily efforts however, some of the stronger white Zetsu would still make it into the village. Having been allowed to roam the world like a plague since the end of the war, some of the creatures had mutated and grown immune to many jutsu. It wasn't uncommon to run into one during a daily stroll down the street, but it was only certain shinobi that possessed the ability to identify and kill them.
It was these dead Zetsu that the old woman was currently seeking out. Her son and daughter-in-law had been killed in the Fourth War and she had been left to take care of her now 8 year old grandson by herself. Akio would sometimes try to help out but she scolded him whenever he came home with stolen food, even though she knew that he meant well. Just because the world had gone to the dogs didn't mean that she would allow Akio to become one too. And so where other able bodied men and women hunted wild animals in the forest and seas, she hunted for white Zetsu. The dead bodies of slaughtered Zetsu turned into a soft, organic, white substance that was oddly sustaining. It wasn't the best taste in the world but she had little choice. She was proud of Akio for not complaining.
She paused at the alley between a shuttered up BBQ restaurant and a dilapidated flower store when something at the very back of the dark alleyway caught her sights. With much effort she turned her cart and pushed it into the narrow area to investigate, her vision not good enough to let her confirm what the something was from faraway. As she got closer to it she identified that it was humanoid in form, meaning that it was very possibly a Zetsu. Normally, the shinobi would not throw them this far back into the alley. More distance for a poor old woman to walk.
She stopped her cart next to it, the back wheels splashing some muddy water over her feet and the limp form when she set it down. She was just reaching her hand out to turn the figure over when it shifted. Her hand froze above a shoulder clad in dark cloth, and then the body was rolling over towards her. With a shriek she jumped back and fell painfully to the ground. She tried to backpedal away from it. At the worst, the shinobi had not checked whether a Zetsu was dead before disposing of it, in which case it would easily be able to kill her. At the best, maybe it was just a man that had been punished for stealing. In that case she could bade her cart goodbye with hopefully only a few minor injuries.
Panting in terror, she watched a pale face turn to the sky. Not pale enough to be a Zetsu however, and because a weakened Zetesu could not hold a stolen form, that meant that this was most definitely a man. Her fear eased slightly but she continued eyeing the person with caution. She took in features that were covered with some mud but still handsome, such a rarity to see in a battle scarred world. Ebony hair, flawless skin, a straight nose and long, dark eyelashes. He didn't appear to be a gruff thief and she wondered what such a person was doing in a dark alley. Then he turned his head and upper body on the ground to face her, and red eyes containing swirling, black pinwheels fixed her where she sat.
Her hand flew to her mouth to smother another, louder shriek.
"U—Uchiha!" she stuttered through her fingers. The red eyes narrowed and the old woman quickly twisted around to look at the bright entrance to the alley. No one was there and she turned back to the man, who was easing himself up onto his elbows on the ground. It was while he was trying to get into a sitting position that the split in his cloak shifted and she saw a horrendous wound upon his torso. She recoiled. It was like someone had plastered an exploding note right across his chest and then cauterized the gaping hole afterwards.
"Whi –which one are you?"
She trembled. Those terrible eyes fixed upon her again, calculating. In the silence the old woman felt like there was nothing else, only her body spinning within those depths.
"I am not Madara."
Her eyes became impossibly wide. Then he was Sasuke Uchiha!
"Oh Lord…" she whispered into her hand. To her alarm, Sasuke at that moment collapsed back into a boneless heap upon the ground. She now pulled both hands to her face and chewed nervously on her nails, looking up and down the limp body frantically.
What should she do? Oh, good lord, what was she to do?
With a quick breath she made up her mind and hastily got to her feet. She leaned over the Uchiha and grabbed his arm with both trembling hands. After ten minutes, many wheezing breaths, almost falling over several times and more strain than she had put herself through for years, she managed to pull him onto the cart. She constantly glanced to the entrance of the alley to make sure that no one came by. They were fortunate that it was the scavenging hour but she would have to get him out of here quickly.
With a few more panting shoves she managed to roll Sasuke onto his front so that his face was hidden. She then tugged the long, black cloak that he had been wearing away from him, spreading it out and throwing it over his entire form. It crossed her mind that someone might try to steal a cloak of such good quality but she would just have to risk it, and she settled for tucking the edges beneath Sasuke's body to make it more difficult. Disbelieving at her own nerve, she placed a palm over her rapidly beating heart in an attempt to calm it.
After looking upwards to the sun though and realising that the scavenging hour was almost over, she hurriedly picked up the cart and pushed it out the alley again. It was significantly heavier than before, but she had never gotten home faster.
His eyes opened to darkness.
Sasuke turned his head from the shadowed rafters above him to the left, where the barest slivers of orange light stretched weakly through the cracks in the closed blinds. It was sunset but the people who lived here had not turned on any lights. He could sense two of them in the next room. One was familiar, the old woman from before. The other had a respectable amount of undeveloped chakra. After looking up again he deduced that this old woman and what was most probably her grandchild had been on the bad end of the war. The light bulb above him was shattered. The house itself appeared to be in the final stages of decomposition and was barely holding together.
Ignoring the sharp pains in his chest, he pulled himself to sit on the edge of the cart he was on. His boots crunched on broken ceramic and when he looked down he saw that his torso had been clumsily bandaged. Without a sound he pulled all of the blood stained bandages off, dropping them to the table top where his cloak and bloodstained shirt had been left. He stood up and walked to the sink to wash the residue ointment away. The sound of the running water must have alerted the two occupants because they appeared in the kitchen just as he was turning the faucet off.
"Uchiha-san…"
"Sasuke." He looked at her and the boy sharply. "Sasuke only."
The boy chirped happily in response, "My name is Akio!" Sasuke raised an eyebrow and the old woman hastily stepped in front of the boy.
"Forgive him," she said. "He was never taught properly."
Sasuke stared at her again, this time with black eyes for which she was thankful.
"What is your name?"
"I forgot it during the war," she said, rubbing gingerly at a spot towards the back of her head, "but the people here call me Charon."
"I call her granny," Akio spoke up again, peeking from around her waist. His large green eyes regarded Sasuke curiously, then widened in downright awe when the other's hand began glowing bright blue. His grandmother suddenly shoved him hard behind her with a hitched breath.
"I won't hurt you," Sasuke stated. Instead of attacking them he ran his hand over his own chest, feeling his chakra slowly knit his muscle and skin back together. When he was done his torso was unmarked, the broad chest toned and powerful like nothing had ever been able to penetrate it in the first place.
"Woooooow!" Akio ducked beneath Charon's reaching hands and ran up to Sasuke as the man pulled his garments back on. "How did you do that!" he asked, blatant admiration painting his young features.
To Charon's shock, Sasuke chuckled slightly. Raising his forefinger, he poked the brown haired boy on the forehead. "Would you like to learn?" he asked simply.
Akio was too excited to be annoyed and replied enthusiastically, "Yes please!"
Sasuke looked up at Charon, who was standing there wringing her hands rather helplessly.
"Would you like him to become a shinobi?"
Charon was very taken aback at the question. This was so surreal. The Sasuke Uchiha was in her house, having a pleasant discussion with her about Akio's future prospects.
"Well…he – his parents were, so I suppose –"
"Then you have nothing to worry about."
Before Charon could ask Sasuke what he meant by that, the Uchiha had bent down next to Akio and whispered something in his ear. Charon worriedly watched Akio nod excitedly then run out of the kitchen. The sounds of rummaging began coming from his room.
"Charon," Sasuke said, and she looked up startled into his eyes, "you have nothing to worry about."
She thought about it for a moment. Sasuke blinked.
"Yes. Yes, I suppose I don't."
She hesitated.
"Can I ask…where is Naruto Uzumaki?"
"Gone," was the simple reply. It cleared up nothing. Dead? Alive? Here? Elsewhere? "You don't need to concern yourself about him," Sasuke clarified.
"But everyone is looking for him," Charon began anxiously. "The Hokage of Konoha and the Kazekage of Suna have –"
"You, need not concern yourself," Sasuke repeated.
She thought about it.
"Yes. I suppose."
She didn't make any action to stop Sasuke from leaving the kitchen but followed silently behind. Oddly, there was no surprise when they found Akio in the dusty hallway, travelling jacket on and putting on a pair of worn sandals, two light rucksacks slung upon his shoulder. When he had tied the broken clasps together as well as he could, Akio jumped to his feet and ran the short few metres up to them. Sasuke scanned this hyperactivity with an unreadable eye. The boy tugged on Charon's shawl.
"Granny, Sasuke said he's going to take me to become a shinobi!"
Charon smiled and ruffled his hair, making him screw up his face and pout. "That is very kind of him. Be careful and behave!" Akio nodded furiously and pushed his entire weight forwards to hug her tightly around her middle.
"Bye bye granny!"
She hugged him back before releasing him. She watched Sasuke take Akio's hand in his own and the two stepped down into the entrance. Turning around, Sasuke's eyes flickered to her, red in the darkness. He gave a curt nod.
Charon blinked.
It was so dark that she could barely see the door in front of her.
My, my, night had already fallen, and she had yet to prepare a candle. Tutting to herself, she turned around and dragged her feet down the wooden boards of the empty hallway to the living room. She fetched a single, white candle from a small cabinet and an old, cracked glass cup from the table. After lighting the candle, she dripped a few drops of wax onto the bottom of the glass before holding the base of the candle in it and letting it harden. With candle in hand, she made her way back to the kitchen to prepare her dinner.
She placed the glass onto the empty kitchen table and hobbled over to the corner of the kitchen to squint for a certain ceramic jar among the many on the counter. When she found the black one she was after she spent a good several minutes just trying to pry the lid off, which had been made a bit too big for the hole and so had to grate harshly before being released. She would have to put the Zetsu into another, better jar. This was far too tiresome a routine to go through every night. How she had managed to put up with it for this long, she would never know.
Just as she had lit the stove with a match and was about to toast the white Zetsu, the stove went off. Charon paused with her hand holding the slab of Zetsu over it, blinking at the flameless bench with some annoyance. Then the orange light on the walls flickered and the candle behind her went out altogether as well. Frowning uneasily she looked over her shoulder, putting the Zetsu down onto the counter. The impulse to run from the house suddenly gripped her.
Something was wrong.
The night was silent, more silent than usual.
Almost no light was to be seen from the gaps in the blinds.
Where were the shinobi that lit the street lamps?
Charon jumped and her heart almost leapt right out of her chest when a chorus of terrible, bloodcurdling screams abruptly started coming from outside. Then they increased, growing louder and louder until it seemed that the entire village was screaming out in tortured pain and terror around her. Light, an odd orange-red flecked with yellow, began glowing behind the blinds. Eyes wide, she backed away from the window, her trembling hands reaching out behind her for a support.
She let out her own short scream to join the others when she touched fabric and a body that shouldn't be there.
She turned around and had only time to register a strange, concentric mask in the orange glow before her throat was grabbed. Her hands came up desperately and she choked deeply, drool and tongue lolling out helplessly and cloth bound feet kicking out when she was lifted from the floor by the tall man. From the edge of her spotting vision she could see what appeared to be a black Zetsu leaning over and sniffing at her kitchen table. It was moving its deformed, shapeless head back and forth, inhaling deeply and stopping at a patch of wood which was darker than the rest. It leaned even closer to it.
"It's Sasuke's blood," it said as it drew back, voice deep and gurgling.
Her eyes darted back to the mask that lowered to meet face-to-face with her and she was caught by blood red eyes gleaming through the slits. She felt dizzy and the world span.
"Where are they?"
Unknown to Charon, her own eyes started glowing red with the question and three black tomoes span into existence within them. Her mouth opened and although she didn't know where the words had come from originally, they felt right dropping from her lips. She stopped struggling, body lax.
"Gone," she croaked, her throat clenching and unclenching beneath Madara's gloved hand. "Nothing to do with you. Gone."
Madara snarled at the sharingan within the old woman's eyes. He tightened his grip and beneath a blast of chakra the house, the entire village around him, went up in flames.
From the other side of the port, the horizon of the Water Country turned red.
It was Spring, the forest fragrant with the nectar of blooming flowers and the musk of animals emerging from hibernation.
In the villages and towns, what season it was didn't make much of a difference anymore. It was only noticed when those especially freezing days in Winter made the state of the great nations seem more glum than usual. It was a completely different story in the wilderness however, and as Sasuke ran through this particular forest for the first time in over a month, he could see how the bare branches had become clothed in green and gold, how tucked away in this small corner of the world, one cycle hadn't changed. The crying of cicadas and birds cloaked the sounds of his own movements and it was easy to remember the days of unimportant, D-rank missions in the safe, peaceful woods surrounding Konoha.
The trees began reaching higher as the ground beneath started sloping upwards and Sasuke leapt up them agilely, cutting over a stream that was racing rapidly down the mountainside. He was a grown man now. Those days of simple, time-wasting missions were over, and it was thanks to more than mere misfortune that the new generation may not have the chance to experience them.
In the back of a cave twenty miles from the centre of Lightning Country's Tokoyo village, he passed his hand over some of the large, mossy stones that piled up to support the cave. No other chakra signatures could be sensed for miles and he comfortably forced his own chakra into the air beneath his palm. The rocks at first didn't change at all. Then the edges started looking a little less sharp, and the entire sheet of wall shimmered before disappearing to reveal a gaping, black hole.
The rock wall reappeared immediately after he walked through, as solid as it had been before. Plunged into darkness, the second cave was completely and utterly black. A few steps into it, he leapt up to crouch upside down upon the ceiling, falling short of activating the traps that he had set up when he had first discovered the cave and the hollowed out mountain that it protruded from. He let his eyes bleed red and his vision instantly returned to him. Cloak hanging around him like a bat, he carefully searched the rock surface until he found a single point, which he again forced some of his chakra into. A glowing, blue seal materialised into being a few inches above the rock. He bit his right thumb to draw blood and reached behind himself with his other hand to retrieve a scroll clasped upon his belt. Bringing it to his mouth, he used his teeth to tug loose the red tie around it and unfurled it with a swish. The opened scroll was held flat against the rock with his left hand on one side and his right knee on the other to reveal the circular seal painted on it. The centre was blank, and he lined this up with the seal glowing beneath it on the rock.
After pressing his bleeding thumb against each of his other fingers so that blood inked all of them, he placed his digits firmly against the blank space of the scroll. Muttering words under his breath, he began slowly drawing his hand away from the parchment. The seal beneath was gradually pulled up through the previously blank area of the scroll, and he kept on pulling his hand back and the seal kept on rising until it had become a solid, uneven handhold. He took this and twisted it clockwise.
The sound of something unlocking echoed through the cave. He calmly put away the scroll, watching the rock above him spiral slowly in on itself like a vortex. When the space that was created was wide enough he pulled himself up through it, landing crouched over on the ground in front of the hole. Like in the previous cave, it closed itself back up the moment he was through.
He stood up and immediately, he felt a potent combination of warmth and tiredness wash over his entire body. He inhaled and closed his eyes momentarily to bask in the sensation, like a man easing his sore body into the healing waters of a waiting spring. Carelessly, he pulled off the new cloak that he had bought at the market in a nearby village and tossed it to the side. A sleeveless, black tank replaced the white top that he had originally set out in, now destroyed by a fireball to eradicate any evidence of his blood and chakra signature on it.
The torches lining the walls of the antechamber flickered invitingly to him and he strode up the three steps that lead to the main chamber, a little impatient. This chamber was the only place that he could allow himself to succumb to fatigue but even then, he was only willing to show it for a little while. After all, his rivalry with Naruto still burnt strong despite everything.
The main chamber was large but near empty, with only the liquidly smooth light from the candles and torches to drive away the shadows at the edges. Sasuke never extinguished these lights, even when he wasn't there and even though he could see just fine without them. Something about the thought of plunging Naruto alone and into darkness had never sat right. Not back then, not now. He deactivated his sharingan as he stepped into the chamber.
Automatically, his eyes travelled to the back of the rounded out room, to where Naruto's unmoving form lay at the top of a set of stone steps. Although the cave had been given the best protection that he could think of, he still felt a wave of relief wash over him at seeing him there. Without hesitation, he was at Naruto's side and taking in the other's appearance.
Naruto was wearing a loose, white top with buttons at the top, done up to below his collarbone so that the edge of the seal over his heart and the seal around his neck were clearly visible. His feet were bare, legs covered with black capri pants that similarly left the seals around his ankles exposed. Only the seals on his wrists were covered by the long, wide sleeves of his top, and Sasuke leant over him to briefly check each wrist. He had disposed of Naruto's orange jumpsuit long ago when he had seen to its use as a diversion near the beginning of their self-imposed exile. The sightings of a transformed clone wearing Naruto's trademark orange jumpsuit and chakra signature near Konoha had allowed them to travel relatively uninhibited to the West and to Lightning. Afterwards, Sasuke had not been able to bring himself to replace the orange.
The way Naruto was resting upon the stone–and Sasuke had done this purposely – made him seem like he was only sleeping, free to wake up and wreak his typical noise and havoc whenever he wished. His left arm was flat by his side and the right was folded with his hand across his stomach. His face was tilted very slightly to the left to face Sasuke and his lips were parted just the barest of millimetres, his face captured in the expression of a person mid-breath in their slumber.
"I'm back," Sasuke said quietly to him, sitting on the step one below Naruto's resting place. Naruto stayed motionless and Sasuke's eyes lingered on the faint whisker marks. Of course there was no reply, no welcome back which an awake Naruto had been waiting three years to say.
Sasuke leant forward and with a few fingers he pushed a long, blonde lock of hair from Naruto's face. It had been tickling the tip of the blonde's nose and Sasuke realised that he was long overdue for a trim again. He hadn't seen Naruto in over a month. He had been busy in the Water Country.
Pulling a kunai with a shing from the holster tied around his upper thigh, he turned back to the blonde and made quick but deft work of the hair around his face, removing centimetres of soft gold until it was only a bit longer than it had been when he was seventeen. His eyes made a habit of sliding back to Naruto's face every now and again, instinctively waiting for a scowl of indignation to cross the naturally tan features, a slightly paler hue than it had once been. When he was done with the locks around Naruto's face, he carefully lifted the blonde's upper body and let him lean against his own chest, chin resting upon Sasuke's shoulder. Naruto's body was real and warm through his clothes and he wrapped his arms around him, carefully cutting the hair at the back to a slightly longer length than at the front. He avoided the long hair at the base of Naruto's neck though, which he had avoided cutting since the beginning.
Naruto had aged slower in these seven years. He looked no older than nineteen at the latest, while Sasuke's own appearance was of the 24 years that they both should have been. The Uchiha's pointed chin had become wider and stronger than Naruto's, his face slightly longer than before and with less pronounced cheek bones. He didn't even need to get started on height, which would definitely become a sore spot when Naruto realised that he had fallen behind on what progress he'd made in their teen years and was, yet again, a head shorter than the Uchiha. Some kind of deranged pride of Sasuke's had made a rivalry even out of their growth, but had balked uncomfortably at the thought that his younger teammate was being robbed of years of his life and yet had nothing to show for it.
He had been tempted to unseal Naruto, many times. Only Naruto's complete trust in him had stopped him and he had forced himself to stay his hand, reluctantly letting Naruto live on in his slowed down existence.
But in retaliation, he had refused to cut some of Naruto's hair. Instead, he let it grow until it was now at his lower back just above his waist, evidence at least that time had in fact passed for Naruto. At the same time, he had not allowed his own hair to grow out. Far aside from the fact that he had nothing against looking any more similar to his deceased brother than he already did, he told himself that he wanted his idiot teammate to be able to recognise him when he woke up, and not to think that he had been handed over by Sasuke to an edo-tensei revived Itachi Uchiha.
Meticulously, he cleaned up all the hairs that glowed on the dark ground and wrapped them in a white cloth, sealing everything into a scroll. It might come in useful later. When he was done he settled back into his position beside Naruto and started talking to him. It was a far cry from the past when Naruto would be the one babbling everything about his day, down to the last unimportant detail about how many bowls of ramen Iruka had treated him to. Now, Sasuke told him about what he had been doing, where he had been, who he had met. He hesitated, and couldn't bring an apology to his lips for being away for so long, or for what he had done.
"Why would you do that?"
He sighed.
He glanced sideways to where a 12 year old Naruto stood frowning next to a torch bracket.
The blonde took a step forward, clad in that horrifically bright orange and blue jumpsuit. Sasuke's sharingan span and changed from three tomoes into its pinwheel form.
"Don't Sasuke," the young Naruto said sadly, voice reverberating in the chamber. "Don't kill people for my sake."
"I don't know if you're real," Sasuke murmured but his eyes nonetheless fell upon the other, taking in the apparition with a hungry yearning.
His sharingan had once allowed him to see inside Naruto's mind. He had tried again after Naruto was sealed but failed to see anything but darkness. He gave up in frustration, cursing his bleeding eyes that wouldn't show him what he wanted most. However, when he came back to the real world, he would sometimes see …
"He's still a selfish jerk!" an 8 year old Naruto exclaimed from right behind him, hands upon his hips in annoyance. He lifted one and jabbed at Sasuke's chest, the motion unfelt by the Uchiha. "Think about other people once in awhile!"
The twelve year old Naruto was more understanding and gently pulled his younger self away.
"It's our fault he did it."
"No," Sasuke said dismissively. "He's right. I am selfish." He looked hard at the 12 year old, at the Naruto that he had known the best. Naruto winced and looked away. He was also the Naruto that Sasuke had hurt the most.
"I won't lose you," he said, his voice echoing in the cave. "If it means that I have to sacrifice a village to keep it that way, I'll do it. No matter how many other children there are in it."
"But you saved Akio!" Naruto said, the skin around his blue eyes creasing as he frowned. The eight year old Naruto had disappeared. It often ended up this way, and Sasuke supposed that it was because he and Naruto had only been around each other occasionally during that time of their lives.
Of course, it may have just been that Sasuke's mind had not yet deteriorated to that point.
"Idiot. His grandmother did me a favour. I was returning it."
Naruto's expression was pained as he stared at him. Sasuke worried that this Naruto would disappear as well and refuse to come back. His fear was realised when Naruto began to fade, blue eyes never leaving him as Sasuke reached out.
"Wait, Naruto! I'm sorry!"
He was gone.
Sasuke slumped on the steps and looked back down at the motionless Naruto on the platform. He had apologised too late. Seven years of this tortured existence. Was it not enough to make up for the same agony that he had put Naruto through?
Perhaps not.
After all, he still had Naruto here with him, and he reassured himself of this by running the back of his fingers floatingly across a soft, whiskered cheek. Breathing, occasionally there but barely perceptible, tickled his fingertips. He lifted his hand away but stayed where he was sitting, resting his body close to Naruto's and allowing himself to slowly recover from his long journey to the Water Country. Never again. He refused to be away from Naruto again for so long, away from the person that was all that sustained his slowly dying appetite for humanity. His imagination had run wild during that time as he questioned the strength of the measures that he had left behind to keep Naruto hidden.
Finally back with the only person to remain in his life and that actually mattered, he allowed himself to sink into a content sleep, preliminary dreams of a free world like the days of his childhood nudging him further. He wondered if it was possible for Naruto to wake up to that, such a world as he had never known. Then again, the blonde would probably never forgive him for taking care of everything himself.
Just how much longer would they have to wait?
The next day, Sasuke planned to go to the dojo. Before doing that though, he stopped first to satiate the hunger that he had finally noticed upon leaving the cave. Due to Naruto's lack of necessity for food, he tended to disregard his own needs when he was with him. It couldn't be good for him but he had been unable to regulate his eating patterns. After a generous meal at a familiar dango restaurant in downtown Tokoyo, he made his way over to the dojo, a small, traditional building located close to the centre of the village.
On his way there he plucked an apple from one of the vendor carts lining the street. The owner made no complaint at the lack of payment, instead completely ignoring him and continuing to happily organise her other produce. None of them ever had anything to say and Sasuke felt that he deserved at least such for keeping the Zetsu away from this area. As it was still early in the morning the marketplace was relatively uncrowded. The few people that were there set about their rituals without paying any attention to the last Uchiha, which pleased him. He had come to appreciate the advantages of a low profile, a stark contrast to his earlier years.
The dojo he was visiting was the only one in Tokoyo. It could not compare to the Academy at Konoha but it was nonetheless respectable at teaching basic ninjutsu and taijutsu. Considering how other villages were faring in these dark times, it was actually one of the better ones that Sasuke had come across. Many others had been purposely destroyed under Madara's orders and Sasuke thought that he had a pretty accurate idea as to why those orders had been given.
To eradicate the institutes that bred shinobi was to, in some instances, destroy the livelihood of that village. Shinobi were necessary for many small tasks around villages and towns, as well as for the vital role of reinforcing the shields against Madara's creations. The infestation of the main roads to the five great nations meant that the smaller nations and their villages had been forced to become self-serving. It had just become far too dangerous to travel to one of the great nations for anything less than an emergency. Although Madara's inception of the moon-eye plan had been foiled, this strain that he placed on small towns and villages was just as effective in making many of them yield to his demands.
Sasuke stood leaning at the entrance of the small training hall of this particular dojo, uneaten apple held loosely by his side. Two dozen young students were crammed into the room, practising simple kick and twist manoeuvres on the wooden floorboards. Sasuke was looking at one boy in particular. Feeling the gaze upon him, the brown haired child with green eyes stopped his movements and turned towards the entrance. Sasuke crouched down to eye level and curious, the boy broke ranks to run over to him.
"What are you doing, mister?" he asked loudly, despite coming to a screeching stop right in front of the Uchiha.
Akio didn't recognise him and Sasuke's lips twitched slightly.
"I am visiting," he informed him. "I used to be a student once." Not exactly a lie.
Akio's eyes widened incredulously. "Mister, you're a shinobi?" he asked, and the reverence that Sasuke had heard before was still in his voice. He nodded and Akio looked impressed. This time Sasuke's lips did quirk deprecatingly. It was so much easier for a shinobi to gain respect nowadays. They were a dying species after all.
"Your sensei told me that you're new here," he lied, inclining his head towards the burly man assisting students with their stances. "How are you finding the classes?"
Akio smiled brightly, a truly happy smile. "I like them very much!" he replied enthusiastically. "Sometimes they're hard, but I'll become a great ninja!"
Sasuke nodded, satisfied. He ruffled Akio's brown hair and gave him the apple in his other hand.
"Good luck."
Akio reminded Sasuke enough of another boisterous, hopeful child that he could easily believe that Akio would make a good shinobi. With a bit of luck, he could get far.
Akio had hurried back to the other pupils after thanking Sasuke profusely for the apple. Sasuke knew that Akio probably hadn't eaten one in many years and the way the boy savoured the fruit after thanking Sasuke bequeathed the Uchiha with a similar sense of fulfilment. He shook his head.
It must have been Naruto's influence.
The sounds of bare feet skidding on wood followed him as he walked back down the pebbled path that lead through a garden in front of the dojo. Sliding the gate closed, he let his feet take him down any road. It wasn't even noon yet and his particular agenda for the day was over. The options of a rogue ninja in hiding were seriously limited.
In the beginning, he had spent his time planning for the future. The part with Naruto being in it needed no confirmation in his mind and so was quickly glossed over. The other part, involving the plotting of Madara's destruction, had gotten unbecoming. Every plan had unquestioningly included Naruto in it and since his eccentric teammate had never stuck to plans, Sasuke's thinking was all for nil.
He could train in the woods but training no longer held the appeal that it once had. For one thing, he had to be extremely careful about practising the vast majority of his ninjutsu. A missing acre of trees was not subtle in the least. For another, training by himself only made him yearn for a person to challenge him, arousing feelings better left unstirred. Whether it be a great bitterness for the lost days of friendly spars, or a dangerous recklessness that urged him to leave Tokoyo and find someone worthy to incite, neither was a sensible thought to be having.
He sighed as he exited the marketplace again, activating his sharingan. Zetsu hunting it was, and his hand came up to land restlessly on the handle of his katana, the weapon hanging loosely from the waist of his hakama pants. His Kusanagi was the only relic that remained from his training with Orochimaru, but it continued to serve him well.
He was unpleasantly surprised to locate and kill four of the creatures within a kilometre radius of the marketplace. It seemed that they had taken advantage of his absence to sneak in and take root all over the village. Disgusting parasites. He hadn't ghosted over Tokoyo for seven years just to let them feast upon it now. Watching them burn to smouldering ashes mollified his disgruntlement slightly but they had offered very little by ways of a fight. Zetsu may be powerful against civilians but they were an incomplete experiment, weak against shinobi when alone.
He had just disposed of one in an alley and was searching for more of the small chakra signatures when he found another, stronger signature instead. He paused in the middle of the street and turned to face the East, the direction that it was coming from. Inquisitively, he scanned the air and his sharingan caught traces of red chakra on the horizon. The chakra itself held a familiarity from another time that he had almost forgotten, brushing over him in a way that wasn't threatening, but suggested that that could easily change that at any moment. It wasn't Madara's however, and since the other Uchiha was the only serious cause for concern, Sasuke remained calm. Whoever it was, they had just entered Tokoyo and appeared to be in no particular rush. Their movements were unhurried and they were travelling at a leisurely pace, sometimes stopping to possibly inspect merchandise lining the streets.
He went towards that chakra instead, weaving through the small crowds of people that had increased in the hours leading up to noon. He regulated his own chakra until it was no more than that of a normal person. Whoever it was, he –because Sasuke was sure that he had never met a female with so much chakra – had reserves almost as large as Naruto's had been. He was extremely curious as to who this mysterious person could be and what they were doing all the way in the far West. Casually, he kept a steady, purposeful pace, making turns where the man did so that they would eventually meet.
Who could it be?
Some minutes later, the mysterious shinobi was entering the same street as him and he mirrored the others footsteps, calm and steady against the dirt ground. He wasn't tensed at all but with his speed, there was no need to be. One sign of a threat, and this man's head would be rolling from his shoulders before the metal of a kunai could be seen. They came closer.
Three steps. Two. One. They were passing each other…
Like the meeting of eyes between two travellers on the same lonely road, their gazes slid simultaneously sideways. Sasuke saw an emerald green, less bright than the vivid hue of his other ex-teammate. Without so much as a flicker of recognition he broke the contact and continued walking, taking the next left that he reached. A heavy frown was allowed to surface on his face as the shadow of a building fell over him.
Behind him, Gaara of the Desert turned into another street.
What is he doing here?
Gaara's chakra had changed slightly and that was probably what had prevented Sasuke from identifying him initially. Now that he was focusing on it, he could recognise the underlying power and trace demonic chakra as distinctly belonging to the sand shinobi that he had met many years ago. The loss of his bijuu had probably caused the difference. As far as Sasuke knew, Gaara was still the Kazekage. It was nothing less than troubling that a person of such importance was travelling the infested countryside alone. The worry was not for Gaara, because aside from that temporary, childish fixation during the Chuunin exams, Sasuke had never particularly cared for the man.
No. That wasn't it.
He could guess at two explanations for Gaara's solidarity. The first was the less alarming of the two and if the rumours concerning the once powerful Suna military were true, then this might be such a consequence. Word had spread over the past year that there were no longer enough shinobi in Suna to spare. It was common knowledge that all of the great nations had suffered huge casualties during the war and combined with Madara's efforts to destroy the shinobi heritage, it meant that a large impact on military strength was not all too hard to comprehend.
It was the second possible explanation that pushed Sasuke to change directions and promptly enter the forest by jumping over the wooden posts that surrounded the village, intending to get back to Naruto quickly. He landed gracefully on the ground before pushing himself forwards into a quick run, leaves and branches whipping past him without ever touching.
No matter the village, every Kage always had advisors that hung over them like vultures. When the advisors couldn't fulfil this role by themselves they would still almost always send someone else, whether their lord approved of it or not. Danzou and his creation, Root, had been a prime example. Sasuke had checked thoroughly and no other foreign chakra had entered Tokoyo. Gaara was most definitely alone and the ever present wary voice in Sasuke's mind just knew that the redhead had shaken off his guards.
For Gaara to demand such secrecy could only mean that whatever he was dealing with was delicate and of vital importance. Sasuke was suspicious by nature. Whatever it was, it was something that Gaara would trust only himself to investigate.
Something like the last Jinchuuriki, Naruto.
Meaning that someone, somewhere, had breathed a whisper of their whereabouts and eventually, that whisper had reached the Kazekage's ears.
Sasuke clenched his back teeth and the next tree he landed on split down the trunk beneath his stirring annoyance. Gaara was no ally of his. Even if he had come all this way, Sasuke refused to trust anyone else where Naruto was concerned. The only good thing he could say about Gaara at present was that by coming alone and presumably in secrecy, Sasuke wouldn't have to worry about the rumour mill going into overdrive. Loyal to their lords as they were, shinobi could still spread news at a notoriously fast pace. He would have been hard pressed to find a reason to let any of Gaara's companions live.
Not that Gaara was necessarily going to leave Tokoyo alive, either.
Sasuke could almost feel Tokoyo's protection unravelling at the edges and he berated himself. He should have been more careful. Itachi's edo-tensei had been destroyed mere miles away from here. It had been unbeatable, one of the only ones to last so long without being sealed away.
Of course everyone would suspect the person who had killed him in the first place.
He came to a perfect stop on the next branch that he landed on, his chakra control so perfect that momentum didn't propel him forward a single inch. His mind raced as it considered and discarded several thoughts in quick succession, jumping from option to option in an attempt settle on a good path of action.
If the diversion in the Water Country had indeed failed, then he and Naruto would just have to leave Tokoyo. They were done for if Madara himself came to investigate. But leaving was easier said than done. Sasuke had many potential places in mind that they could go to but there were so many risks involved with moving Naruto. Travelling left them completely exposed. Setting up barriers in the new location would take time, and none of said locations that came to mind were as suited as Tokoyo for casting his genjutsu over. He cursed. His carelessness may have undone seven years of careful treading.
He eyes widened slightly and he cursed himself more when Gaara's chakra suddenly disappeared from the other end of Tokoyo, reappearing right behind him. Instantly, his chakra flared, his body naturally shifting from stealth to the offensive as he whipped around to face the other. Gaara's deep voice filled the clearing that they were in, aqua eyes on Sasuke's now exposed form.
"I was right. Only an Uchiha could cast such a perfect genjutsu."
Sasuke was worried. One thing that he hadn't been able to change no matter how much time passed was his impulsiveness.
And right now, he desperately wanted to kill someone.
End of Chapter 1.