Legends of the Fox-wife
Tale 21: Getting (Lost) On The Road (To Life)
.o0o.
AN: Something that I had percolating in my head for awhile...
Disclaimer: Don't own Naruto, not making money off this.
Warnings: none for this part...
There was an explosion, if an explosion was turned inside out and felt like the smell of ozone, dead air, and peppermint.
They, Sai and Sakura and Kakashi, dropped their individual training and raced to the point where Naruto had last been working on deciphering his father's signature jutsu. The seal paper was smoking, the ink on them fizzing and growing and eating itself up.
"Naruto!" Sakura yelled, and in it was *you idiot*, and *where are you*, and *don't be dead*.
"We need to inform the Hokage," Sai stated, having done a quick scan of the area and determined that Naruto was, in fact, nowhere around. It was a small comfort that there were no body parts strewn around, but given the nature of what he'd been studying that wouldn't mean anything, conclusively.
"Mmm," Kakashi hummed, shoulders slumping into a tired slouch, eye focused on the last of the ink. He disappeared when it did.
"I can't believe he's late for this," Sakura hissed, almost stomping as they raced along the roofs. They'd debriefed Tsunade who'd immediately put out several retrieval teams to locate the blond. Kakashi had sent Pakkun to the meeting who'd passed on the message that the seals used wouldn't have the power to relocate Naruto beyond Fire Country. But that fact still left a great deal of ground to cover.
"Perhaps he's approaching the main gate as we speak?" Sai suggested.
Sakura shook her head, "When Kakashi-sensei gets this late there's only one place he'd be." They're so late. All of them, they should have been out there searching already. Naruto should've been monitored more closely, the stupid *idiot*. They're so.
Late.
They arrived at the memorial stone where a tall form lingered nearby.
"Kakashi-sensei, you're late." She ground out, "For the search party." She felt like she was holding on to her temper by a fingernail, and the nail was cracked.
"Mmm, I suppose that's one way of looking at it." He briefly glanced at her, then at Sai, and then flickered a look around the clearing. He breathed in as if to sigh, but no sound came out, and resumed staring at the stone.
Sai looked at his posture and stance, asked, "You're not coming?"
"Aa." A shrug. "I'm not needed."
Of course they needed him, he had summons and jutsu dedicated to tracking, why would he think—
"He's not dead," Sakura sputtered, insisted, fist clenched at her side and shaking, *furious*, watching Sharingan no Kakashi at the stone of fallen heroes and, "He's not."
"Of course he isn't." And then Kakashi turned to her and smiled that same fucking smile that he gave her after Naruto and Sasuke turned on each other on top of a hospital and.
And look how that turned out.
Sai was looking at the jounin who standing tall and relaxed and Sakura was just so pissed off at that right now (relaxed! *how*?), and started to say, "Sakura maybe—"
"Not right now Sai," she barked, "We should just request someone else. We should get going," she breathed once, twice, "We need to go."
Naruto didn't, couldn't, understand how much they needed him because it was only with him gone that Konoha, their class, their team, vibrate with his echoes. (He was too loud when he was there, in person, to see the echoes) In the three years that he'd left with Jiraiya, Naruto's ghost lingered, everywhere, in the way that there were silences in certain conversations, in the way that everyone seemed to hear and repeat the story of the Chuunin exam and of the failed retrieval, and attempted to train harder to match Naruto's example. To try and catch up to this immature, hopeless, hopeful blond airhead who showed them all up.
What would Konoha look like without that? Without a loud, idiotic, stupidly powerful, ridiculously orange goal to reach towards? What would their village look like without someone crazily strong and breathtakingly determined to be their Hokage, who still refused to let go of his kindness and smiles and hope?
Sakura has been Tsunade's apprentice for too long to not have seen how power worked. And though in her mind's eye Naruto smiled and said, "Don't worry Sakura-chan! It'll work out!", she has to reply to that image, "Not without you."
She thought of the elders and the councils and of people who shared Danzo's beliefs and thought, "Not without you."
She ran faster.
Kurenai passed Kakashi on the way to drop off flowers at Asuma's grave. She glanced at him, briefly.
He glanced back.
"You shouldn't spend so much time here, Kakashi-san," she said, not looking at him as she carefully set down her offering. "There are places you're needed."
"And where is your daughter, Kurenai?" the Copy Nin retaliated.
"She can spare me for twenty minutes while I pay my respects," she replied. "Should you have spared the time you've already taken, lingering here?"
"I'm where I'm supposed to be," Kakashi murmured, staring at the tone.
Kurenai raised her voice, "Kakashi—"
"I don't recall Asuma liking flowers," he interrupted.
"He didn't."
"Are you leaving them for yourself, then?"
She looked at him for a bit.
Then let him be.
Gai stifled a groan, stuck a finger in Kakashi's general direction, and proclaimed, "A tie isn't very youthful at all!"
It was, however, very awkward to point in a prone position so he let the hand fall. They'd been having a taijutsu challenge for the past couple hours because his Eternal Rival's behavior had become distinctly Alarming. Konoha had raised a collective eyebrow at the increased presence of talking dogs ordering take-out, and when Gai had first arrived he'd noticed the sort of complete lack of smell that indicated Kakashi was probably using several sanitary and scent suppression jutsu meant for long-term combat missions. Which meant the man had not, in fact, moved from general location of the memorial stone for several weeks now.
Gai had thought that it would be a simple matter to prod Kakashi's youthfulness into blossoming again, but the man proved strangely resistant. Usually, depending on the Challenge, the silver-haired man would cave into a competition within 30 minutes to an hour, less if Gai resorted to Special Good Guy Pose #26 and more if Gai felt like experimenting with the effectiveness of newer poses of similar Encouragement and Passion.
Hm! Come to think of it, his Eternal Rival had been most resistant to suggestions of races or water walking, but fairly quickly acceded to a taijutsu match. To which the other jounin had hummed and had asked, "Keep it in this training ground?"
And Gai had agreed.
What followed, in Gai's humble opinion, had been a Very Good Workout that left them both prone and immobile on the grass.
From the corner of his eye he watched as Kakashi watched the field, the stone, the empty waving grass of their surroundings.
"A tie just won't do!" Gai boomed, as much as he was able.
"Another challenge, Gai?" the silver-haired man asked, disbelief and fatigue in his voice.
"A most noble challenge of reaction time and reading your opponent," he insisted, and crawled his way over, face serious.
"Oh?"
Gai held out his hand, in a loose thumbs up. "Thumb war," he said and waited for Kakashi to clasp his hand; like how he would wait for a rabbit to come near, or a twitchy Hyuuga. He bopped his thumb, twice, poing poing!, in welcome.
"Mou, best out of three."
Kakashi's hand met his, and deep in the muscles there was a shakiness that surprised Gai. It made him keep his grip firm even as their thumbs steathily sparred. "Best out of ten," he insisted.
Kakashi's shrug travelled down the length of his arm, "If you think you need it."
"It's not I that need it, Eternal Rival," Gai replied with as much light and arrogance in his voice as possible, a sinking feeling in his stomach.
"Kakashi-san, Hokage-sama told me to tell you that you're to report to the Tower. And that's an order."
"ANBU-san, please tell Tsunade-sama that should she force the order, then I'll happily slash my hitai-ate."
"..."
"Have a nice day!~."
Hinata approached slowly.
"Kakashi-sensei?"
The man turned to her with a smile in his eye, remaing seated, slouched, "Hinata no kimi?"
"Um," she blushed at being referred to of such status, "You don't. Need to say such words. I don't..."
"Kakashi-san, then, Hinata-kun."
She just nodded. Breathed out slowly and pulled herself straighter. "Kakashi-san," she tried, "You shouldn't spend so much time here." She glanced at the bentos sitting at attention beside the man, some empty and neatly in a pile, a few that looked still full. Gai was passed out a few body-lengths away, hand on his stomach.
"Many people have said that, yes," the jounin replied, face a dark slice of silhouette. And they have, indeed, been trying to say that to him, Tsunade having ordering one nin or another to attempt to break through to the man.
"There are search parties out looking for Naruto," she said. "You should help," she said. Looked down, and firmed her jaw, "Don't you believe in Naruto?"
The light laughter startled her, and she glanced up, and Kakashi-san was looking at her with what appeared to be a smile, from what she could see of his face.
"I completely believe in Naruto," Kakashi said, and there was the faintest bit of wildness in the back of his tone, but most of it steady.
"But, but you," Hinata tried finding words for how much Kakashi was alarming everyone who knew of him with how he refused to leave the memorial stone and his mourning.
"Hinata-kun," Kakashi broke in gently, "You, of all those in your year, believed in Naruto first."
"Yes?" she agreed, not understanding where the jounin was going with this.
"Did you find it hard believing in him when every one else didn't?" the silver-haired man asked. "Did," he said, with a stress, "you find it hard?"
She was about to move the conversation back on topic when she looked at his posture. It was relaxed, with a stifled thrum. Hinata thought about what would cause such a reaction, then suddenly knew what that felt like, and stopped what she was going to say.
She said, instead, "I *don't* find it hard, Kakashi-san." And sat down.
Because he looked like how she felt: when she was waiting.
He handed her a bento, and she thanked him. (It wasn't for the bento.)
Two hours later, Shikamaru dropped by.
Took one look at them.
"Troublesome," he muttered, and sat down. At least the clouds were nice today.
Chouji ambled over to the sound of alot of yelling. Most of it was from Kiba who, with a final last shout and huffing noise, sat down.
He set down the barbecue, and hauled out the good glaze.
"You know what makes good barbecue sauce better?" Anko suddenly popped over his shoulder.
"Eeeh?" the Akimichi raised an eyebrow.
"Alcohol."
It wasn't quite a wake. A wake was more noisy and hung-over. It wasn't quite a funeral, because funerals didn't have that much take-out. Or tents. Or campfires.
And while it was plenty noisy and hung-over, and while many people wore black, it wasn't exactly funeral wear because they were shinobi and Iruka refused to think that Naruto was dead.
And he was right, because if a flash of light was turned inside out, then that was what the thing looked like that suddenly dropped the blond neatly right beside the memorial stone. Naruto looked around and seemed staggered when they all looked at him, shadows stark around his eyes. Iruka felt alarmed at the changes, this was worse than how the blond appeared after Jiraiya's deah.
"Hello?" the blond said, and his eyes grew a bit wide as:
"Naruto!", "Where have you been!", "I was so worried!", "Fuck, man, don't do that!", "You idiot! You scared us!", "Boss! Where *were* you?"
...but his smile grew too. "Miss me?" he asked, and his voice croaked at the end.
A couple nin nearly went flying as a blond powerhouse shoved her way through them and hugged what had been missing from them without word, for nearly two months. "Naruto, I'm ordering you to not do whatever it is you did that made you disappear, and don't you *dare* argue." Tsunade-sama pushed him away a bit, "Hospital, and then debriefing."
That made Iruka frown a bit, but he knew he'd get his turn once official business got settled. And perhaps Tsunade-sama would get to the bottom of whatever was bothering the young man.
"Obaa-chan, I'm fine!" Naruto protested, laughing, haunted eyes roving the crowd, "And, ah, I don't think I should debrief in the hospital."
"Oh?" She narrowed her eyes at him.
"It's...it's well it's been really *wierd* and," and Naruto laughed a little, weakly, "You're gonna think I'm crazy." The blond glanced through the crowd again, searching, stopped when it landed on the Copy Nin, who'd just stuck his hands in his pockets and curved up a smile at the teen.
"I'd think you're 'crazy'?" Tsunade asked warily.
"*I* would think I was crazy," Naruto smiled then, like it hurt. "I'm not even sure," and the young man who looked too haggard took in a shaky breath, "I'm not even sure it actually happened."
It gave everyone pause, the stillness palpable, Naruto's mood frightening. This. This wasn't like the cheerful shinobi who'd left them, two months ago.
"You're not crazy."
The voice broke in, smoothly, steadily, like the way Kakashi-san was working his way through the crowd. "It actually happened," the silver-haired nin said, a smile in his voice.
Naruto looked at the jounin with something Iruka didn't recognize in his face, like something that had both faith and distrust in it, and something that. That Iruka had never seen on Naruto's face before.
Kakashi-san stopped before Naruto and said, almost like he was talking to himself, "It happened. And you're real."
And the blond *lunged* forward, to wrap his arms around the man, making him stagger. Kakashi raised his arms up, helplessly.
"Naruto," Kakashi-san muttered, "I told you; now that you're back, there are others. You don't have to be this—"
"Shut up," the short blond teen Iruka thought of as a little brother interrupted, "Just shut up. It was you for a reason." And to Iruka's complete disbelief, kissed the jounin through his mask.
The older shinobi's arms slowly fell down to wrap around the smaller blond. "If you're sure," came the soft murmur when they separated a hair.
"What the HELL is going ON?" Iruka roared, among other voices.
"Aa," Kakashi hummed, not looking up from where he was clutching Naruto to him. "Am I not allowed to hug my childhood sweetheart?"
"WHAT? Kakashi, explain." Tsunade broke in above the sudden babbling
"Hokage-sama," Kakashi raised his voice a little, but otherwise unmoving, "It wasn't a matter of 'where' Naruto was."
"What the—"
"The better question is: *When*?"
"...!"
...(not) the end
AN: ::Is Evil, Clearly:: I really don't feel up to starting another epic, but, y'know these scenes really wanted to be written. SO HERE YOU GO. One day when there's enough stories in this 'verse I might split it off into it's own fic, but this is not that day.