A Bad Mission
Chapter XV- 'This One's for the Home Front!'

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and you're stupid if you thought if one second I did. : )
Warning: This fic has both shounen-ai and cross-dressing.
Kakashi walked to his house slowly, exhausted from all the work he had to do for Itachi and Sasuke. The raid on the Uchiha estate was a little more than a week ago and he was still piled up with all the work from it. He was having one hell of a time convincing the Hokage of Sasuke's innocence and Itachi had refused to say even one word on the matter.

He was feeling overwhelmed, to put it in the simplest form. He was anxious about what was going to happen to Sasuke more than anything else. What had happened to him when he was with Itachi? He felt sure something mentally damaging had been done to the young ninja (especially since it seemed as if his student hadn't even recognized him), and the ideas in his head weren't pleasing ones. Would Sasuke ever remember his past? Or would he be devoid of all his past memories? Things were at a fragile point, and he didn't know what to do to ease the worries.

What was even worse was the fact that no one had been able to pick up his trail. Sasuke was still out there and who knew what he was doing. At this point he could be doing anything, from killing people to being adopted by some old couple because he was 'such a nice and helpful boy'.

Sasuke lied motionless beside a village he had come across while walking. It didn't look familiar and he wasn't sure if it was supposed to, but he hadn't made his way into it in case he would run into someone who knew him. Naruto…Sakura…Kakashi…

Their names kept going through his head.

Naruto was his…enemy? Except at the same time as thinking that he felt something akin to affection for whoever this Naruto might be.

Sakura was his…girlfriend? No, that didn't feel right at all. Was she just one of his friends then? Or maybe a sister? He did feel something similar to brotherly love for her, so perhaps that was it.

Kakashi was…another friend, maybe? Something about that didn't seem right. Was he his father? No, definitely not.

Sasuke sighed, irritated that he was left with names and distant feelings for faceless people.

"Naruto?" Sakura asked as soon as she noticed that Naruto was being quieter than usual.

"Have you heard about Sasuke?" Naruto replied with a question of his own. His hands were deep inside his pockets and his shoulders were hunched as he walked along the path towards his empty house.

"You're worried about what's going to happen to him, huh?" Sakura asked even though she was already certain of the answer. "Don't worry, Kakashi wouldn't let anything bad happen to Sasuke."

"What control does he have over it?" Naruto shouted, suddenly getting angry. "The Hokage can do anything she pleases and Kakashi can't do anything to change that."

"Naruto..." Sakura started to say; a little taken aback at the shouting. "I'm just trying to look on the positive side of things. Everything will be all right; I know it. Please trust me."

"That's just it!" Naruto exclaimed. "What if the best thing for Sasuke is to forget about everything? What if it'd be for the best if he forgot all about me?"

"Then you can just make new memories with him," Sakura logically explained.

"You don't understand!" Naruto burst out. "After spending so much time with his brother he's probably completely different! I don't want to make new memories with a new Sasuke! I want my Sasuke back!"

"Your Sasuke?" Sakura asked quietly; quite taken aback at the new situation that seemed to be arising. "What do you mean by 'your' Sasuke?"

Sasuke lay in the grass, gazing up at the clouds and the sky. He still hadn't gone into the village; he hadn't decided if he wanted to meet his past or not. At the same time, this village might not even be his, so he might have been sitting outside its walls for no reason. Before Sasuke could even think about facing his past however he needed to straighten some things out.

He decided to start by listing the things he was still trying to piece together.

Naruto, Sakura, and Kakashi.

He still wasn't certain who those three people were and if they had anything to do with each other.

He had left Itachi behind.

His brother could track him easily, so why hadn't he come? And more importantly why did Sasuke seem so happy about his brother not coming? Itachi was his boyfriend-lover-partner…whatever you were supposed to call it, but for some reason it didn't feel right. Somehow spending time with Itachi had always felt wrong; he had just never questioned it until now.

Suddenly it hit Sasuke like a ton of bricks. The word 'incest' came to mind along with all the thoughts about how wrong it was.

Sasuke's body seized all at once, unable to comprehend what he had done. He had committed a sin against nature itself. It was more than that though. Everyone at his village must know what he had done now that they had captured Itachi.

Almost as suddenly as that revelation occurred his very reason for existing came back to him.

I must kill Itachi.

He wasn't sure of all the reasons why, but the tremendous hate flooding his body was enough to convince him. It was more than what was happening now; whatever made him hate Itachi dated farther back than just the few months he had been with him. Revenge had been in his blood since he was little; he could feel it and it brought about a weird comforting feeling.

He quickly made the choice to find whatever village the ninjas that had destroyed the Uchiha estate had come from, if only because they might know where his brother was.

"Naruto! You can't just run away from me!" Sakura screamed so loud the whole village heard. She ran after Naruto as fast as her legs could manage but he kept jumping just out of her grasp.

"It's nothing Sakura! I promise!" Naruto called behind his back as he kept running.

"It's definitely something or else you wouldn't be running!" Sakura pointed out the obvious. "What is it? Do you have a crush on Sasuke or something?"

At the surprise of his girlfriend finding out so quickly Naruto landed on his foot wrong and tumbled onto the dirt, bringing up a dust cloud.

"That's it, isn't it?" Sakura asked with some disbelief as she slowed her pace and knelt down by her boyfriend. "Naruto, why didn't you ever say anything?"

"It didn't mean anything, that's why," Naruto explained hotly as he winced from the pain in his ankle. "Nothing ever happened and he doesn't feel the same way about me."

"So where do I fit in all of this?" Sakura asked, successfully keeping the hurt from her voice, "Did you just settle for me because you couldn't get Sasuke?"

"No!" Naruto burst out immediately. "It's not like that at all! I mean…"

"It is," Sakura insisted, "We both couldn't get Sasuke so we just settled for each other."

"Maybe...yeah," Naruto admitted reluctantly.

Sasuke was in his third village. Nothing looked familiar in the first two and no one seemed to recognize him. Sasuke sighed; nothing looked familiar in this village either.

The only way to recover his memory was to find his village and he didn't know where it was at all. Among all the thousands of villages that existed how could he find a specific one when he didn't even know its name?

It was already getting late and not many people were out of their houses at this time of night. It looked as if he would have to find a place to sleep until people started to wake up.

Sasuke passed a ramen shop with one occupant but decided to keep walking. The customer was stuffing his face and he looked like a complete moron. Needless to say Sasuke immediately disliked him.

Naruto was busy drowning his sorrows in ramen. His head was filled with angry Sasukes and sad Sakuras. He wasn't sure what to do or how he could fix things so he just kept on eating.

Suddenly out of the corner of his eye Naruto saw Sasuke. He turned in his chair to make sure and caught him turning a corner. Immediately the ninja dumped all his change onto the counter and ran after his crush.

"Sasuke!" Naruto called as he ran around the corner. "Wait!" Sasuke was actually in the village! After all this time the ninjas had spent searching for him he had come back to them.

The next thing the orange clad ninja knew he was on the ground and on top of a very-pissed-off Sasuke

"Who the hell are you?" Sasuke asked between clenched teeth.

"Naruto," the other ninja answered, ignoring the slightly odd question and not making any move to get off Sasuke.

"You're Naruto?" Sasuke asked with disbelief. "You're a klutz."

"I am not!" Naruto shouted right in Sasuke's ear.

"Shut up you moron," Sasuke demanded as he inwardly winced at his now ringing eardrum. "You're going to wake up the whole village if you keep screaming."

"Take it back!" Naruto shouted just as loud. "I am not a klutz!"

"Shut up," Sasuke demanded quietly, still in disbelief that the moron sitting on top of him could be Naruto. When he had pictured Naruto he always seemed to be a person equal of his strength. He could easily take on the idiot that was on top of him.

"I can't believe you just came back and are already insulting me!" Naruto complained, "I can't believe this! I actually wanted you to come back, you know. Well not any more. You could fall off the face of the earth and I couldn't care less."

"Whatever," Sasuke brushed off as if he didn't care what Naruto thought...and really, he didn't. "You were the one that ran into me, not the other way around."

"That's just because…because Sakura's really worried about you," Naruto lied. "I wanted to make sure you were okay for Sakura's sake…since we're going out now," he added.

"Fine, whatever; just get off me," Sasuke replied as he tried to shove Naruto away from him.

"Sakura finally gave up on you," Naruto pointed out, happy that he had won against Sasuke.

"Sakura had a crush on me?" Sasuke asked. Now he was pretty certain Sakura wasn't his sister.

"Yes," Naruto answered, not catching sight of the confusion in his ex-teammates face and still not registering that the questions Sasuke was asking should have already been obvious to him. "But then you told us you had a fiancé and totally blew us both off."

"Fiancé?" Sasuke asked himself out loud. Yes, he remembered something about that. His parents had arranged it years before he was born and Itachi had hated it because…because his brother had a crush on the girl he was supposed to marry. Well that certainly explained where Itachi's hatred of traditions came in. Everything was started to make more sense now.

"Yeah, fiancé. Sakura was so hurt by it, luckily I was there to comfort her. We've been going out ever since," Naruto explained smugly.

"I suppose you really like her then, right?" Sasuke asked. Everything was coming back to him in a rush. He was a ninja, Naruto and Sakura were his teammates, Kakashi was his teacher, Itachi had murdered his parents, Sakura had a crush on him that he didn't return, and Naruto had confessed to liking him before he ran off to be with his brother (oh god, that sounded so wrong).

"Of course I really like her," Naruto answered without noticing he had landed in a trap.

"So I guess that means that you're completely over me now, right?" Sasuke asked with a smirk on his face.

"You-you weren't supposed to remember that!" Naruto accused as he jumped off of Sasuke and began cursing under his breath.

"Well…surprise," Sasuke replied in an uncaring and slightly bored voice as he began to get off the ground and brush the loose dirt off of his clothing.

"You can't tell Sakura!" Naruto demanded. "I swear if you do I'll-I'll-I'll mess up that pretty face of yours."

"Relax, moron," Sasuke scoffed, "I'd rather people not know that a complete weakling like you has a crush on me."

"Hey!" Naruto burst out, now ticked off at being called a weakling, "I am not weak! I can kick your ass any day of the week."

"What's wrong with you?" Sasuke sighed, "I'm not telling Sakura that you had a crush on me, isn't that what you wanted?"

"Yeah," Naruto admitted, slightly losing his edge.

"You're so wrapped up in what people think," Sasuke complained, "It's annoying."

"That's not true!" Naruto denied, "I'll show you!"

"That's exactly what i'm talking about," Sasuke pointed out with irritation in his voice, "What's with you and having to prove people wrong all the time?"

"I don't care what people think," Naruto argued, "I never have."

"Yeah, right," Sasuke mock accepted. "The only reason you want to be the Hokage is to prove to the people of the village that they were wrong about you."

"No, I want to be the Hokage to prove to myself that people are wrong about me," Naruto shouted as his anger returned full blast, "I do everything for myself; because I want to do it. I want to be the Hokage so I know that I'm not a nobody. I do what I do for me, not anybody else."

"Good," Sasuke said as he started to walk away, "because I'm not going to worry about anyone else but myself either."

As Sasuke walked away until he was enveloped in shadows Naruto stood motionless, mentally cursing about how Sasuke always had to make an exit.

So, leaving off the proof-reading I'm on the last chapter of this story (have I mentioned it was going to be seventeen chapters? Because it is). Unfortunately I'm having a bit of trouble continuing past the very beginning of the chapter I'm working on. Point being that while chapter sixteen will probably get up relatively fast (because again, all I basically have to do is proof-read it a couple of times), chapter seventeen might take a little longer...just a warning. But don't worry too much, chapter seventeen will eventually go up, no doubt about it. I refuse to let a story go (especially since I'm only a chapter away from being completely finished), it just might take awhile getting out.

However, when I do finally finish it prepare to be bragged to, because not only is this my longest story so far (though I doubt its status will be able to be proclaimed for long), it's also the story that's taken the longest to write (and I hope that little fact will remain for quite awhile longer, though no promises).