Title: At The Precipice of Faith
Disclaimer: I still don't own Naruto. If I did, I wouldn't be writing fanfiction.
T: For language and minor themes (for now).
A/N: Er… I-I'm sorry! I swear, I completely meant to update this much earlier than um-now- but, I couldn't find a time to do it. I mean do I right. If I had tried to plow my way through the story, it would have ended like this: Sasuke was pissed. Sasuke was tired. Sasuke killed everyone.
Oh… the horror.
So, yeah, Me in a tired mood (no thanks to school) = crappy writing – and no adherence to grammar. And there was no way I was going to post that. So I do really apologize for the utterly horrible lateness of this chapter, but I did try.
Anyway, enough of my ranting, here's chapter two:
Chapter 2: Odd
Tentatively nibbling at the bottom of her lip, swollen no doubt by now, Hinata let her face fall downwards as a fringe of navy hair hid her eyes away from prying onlookers, not that she thought anyone cared enough to notice her. But If by some luck (or curse) of chance they did, she would be safely protected in her white cocoon of cotton and fur.
Looking through her darkened eyelashes, she took a cautious peek upwards, her eyes glazing over the sight of a loud, brightly clad blond. The strikingly luminescent orange was just a bit too bright this early in the morning, but she found a way to find it charming. It was a promising skill after all. Before she could help it, she felt a small smile tug at the corner of her lips and she huddled closer to her desk to hide her over enthusiastic form -and reddening complexion. It wouldn't do to faint now.
I don't need to explain to father why I fainted in class. She mused wryly. And added another thought – again.
With a soft huff, she fluttered her pearl-tinted eyes sideways, and fixed a small concentrated pout to her lips before settling down in her seat. She could at least attempt to pay attention. Iruka sensei deserved that. But as she half listened to his lecture over chakra points and their uses, there was nothing he said that her father hadn't already made sure she knew, she could feel her eyes wandering in search of the bright orange jumpsuit she so adored. Somewhere, in the corner of her mind, she wondered perhaps this was why she was falling behind in class as she absentmindedly-tapped her pencil on her still blank notebook. But, before her other half could refute, a loud thump echoed through the back of the class room.
Pinpointing her senses to the loud groan that followed, sure enough she found Naruto with his face seemingly attached to wooden desk. It was a wonder how his forehead was so strong. Or the desk for that matter.
Naruto sure is excited. She giggled softly to herself as she made sure to hide her twitching lips behind the sleeves of her jacket when a well-aimed paper ball, courtesy of one Inuzaka Kiba, landed in the messy strands of blond hair.
"One Pork Ramen!" Naruto jumped and shouted loudly as the papers around him fluttered like butterflies. With a hand still raised straight in the air, and those jagged bits of shredded paper that clung to his hair, Naruto sheepishly rubbed the back of his head, a small apologetic pout forming on his face.
Unconsciously, he rubbed his stomach when Iruka sensei raised one scarred eyebrow.
The class broke out in a melee of giggles as Sakura sent the blond a well aim punched to the head.
"Naruto, shut up!"
Poor Naruto. Hinata couldn't help but wince as concern clouded her eyes.
"But… Sakura! I had the best dream ever! Dattebayo! I was Hokage and you were there. And Iruka sensei was there. And oh! Did I mention I was Hokage 'cause I was-"
The blond's overenthusiastic voice was cut off when a piece of chalk lodged itself in his mouth.
"Naruto." Iruka-sensei warned.
"Iruka-sensei!" Naruto sputtered as he flailed his arms around his throat, trying to dislodge the piece of chalk. "You could've killed me!"
"I doubt anything could choke you Naruto. Not when you have such a big mouth". Iruka-sensei drawled out slowly, flinging another piece of chalk towards Naruto when the blond pulled his face in mock hurt.
"Alright. I'll take roll now. Settle down" Iruka-sensei clapped his hands together loudly and shot Naruto another look when the boy wagged his tongue at him. "That means you too Naruto".
"Raise your hand when I call out your names, please. Aburame Shino. Yes, thank you, Shino-san".
"Okay next, Akimichi Choji?"
Iruka-sensei continued as he ran off the names from the list in his hand, stopping every now and then to cross off a name that was absent.
"Hyuuga Hinata".
Hearing her name, Hinata hesitantly lifted her hand as slowly as she could and kept her eyes trained to the wooden desk beneath her nose.
Glancing past her subtly raised hand, Iruka-sensei persisted, "Hinata? Raise your hand please."
"I-I'm h-here". Hinata blushed and looked down in embarrassment as the class giggled.
"Ah, yes thank you. Next, uh, Uchiha Sasuke?"
"Uchiha Sasuke?"
Hinata lifted her head as she registered the name. Uchiha-san was rarely absent and certainly never late. He was normally here even before her and this morning as she noticed his empty seat, she was certain that he would come sooner or later on, though she was sure it was most definitely sooner. Yet, an hour later, and several names called the Uchiha had yet to make his presence at the academy.
Curious, Hinata turned her head at his empty seat, a row behind hers and uncomfortably silent. Though Hinata wasn't interested in him as she was sure most other girls were, she wasn't blind to their looks which were obvious in any sense, but his absence was a state of curious affair that piqued her attention.
"Sasuke?" Iruka-sensei arched an eyebrow as he scanned the familiar faces of his students for a shock of black hair and distant coal-like eyes.
"I guess he's abse-"
A gust of wind, a clamoring noise, and a terse voice followed, "Don't bother. I'm here."
The class turned to look at the new figure who made his way towards the back of the classroom, casual and indifferent to the stares that were sent his way. His hands were shoved deeply into the bottom of his pockets and he had his lowered face tilted so that the collar of his shirt concealed everything but his eyes.
"Nice to see you finally join us, Sasuke".
"hn". Without bothering to reply or acknowledge the rest of the class, Sasuke flopped, if an Uchiha could have flopped, into his seat. Roughly throwing his books onto the table, he kicked his bag beneath his seat, and closed his eyes, letting a few strands of black hair fall unkemptly downward. With his arms across his chest, and flagrantly cool attitude, Hinata hunched forward, anticipating the loud swarm of sighs that would soon escalate. Ears covered, she could see Sakura and Ino attempt, as casually as they could, which wasn't by any means subtle, to send him a wave. Pink hair fluttered and glittery blue eyes glimmered his way, but as far as Hinata could discern, the Uchiha was either too good at ignoring the ill-conceived attention or too bothered to care.
An intake of breath, and clenched fist later, he briefly opened his eyes, and Hinata could faintly see the red specks that marked his proud lineage. By the ways his eyes darkened, she quickly scratched off the first idea. He wasn't bothered, not as violently as she would've have expected by the ways his arms were tensed, but there was something strange in the way his glare marked down the faces of the room.
It was as if he was pinpointing a target.
Like an assassin before he took the first strike.
It was cold.
Deadly.
Calculated. Too familiar…yet
Strange.
Hinata fought down a shiver and turned forward to face the teacher, working to eagerly scribble down fragments of information. Her hands moved of their own accord as she focused her eyes to the white, still blank, paper.
Chakra is the basic energy force for all jutsu.
There are 361 chakra points.
There are eight gates that limit the flow of chakra.
There are three types of jutsu.
There was something odd about Sasuke.
She paused.
Scribbled out the name.
And erased.
A bell like ring, and she whispers "He's there".
"I know". No pause was necessary and he answers her strike with a quick lunge and three shurikens.
She continues with a few senbons, "She's there".
He dodges, "I know".
"He knows".
A pause.
"…And so shall she".
He catches her in midstrike and they fall.
Lazily, almost delicately, in ripples of gold and grey, a breeze whistled through the colored sky of Konoha. The air was warm, soft, comfortable. A sign that spring had eased itself into the atmosphere even if the forest was still hell bent on staying a naked cover. But the growing green of the branches proved otherwise. The soft blossoms peeked through the cover of leaves and bony wisps of ashen bark, protruding at different random angles, creating a broken puzzle of emerald and pink. Like a firework that bloomed in the trees.
"Sakura!"
She could hear his voice now, sharply, acutely like a lone blade of grass amongst the hum the wind that materialized in her ear.
"Sakura!"
The wind had jostled the leaves, creating small rivets in the green foliage to her right. She shivered but relished in the warmth of the sun. The pink petals blinked prettily in midst of the breeze. Shifting her weight awkwardly from one leg to another, she stood uncertainly, a pool of golden light enveloping her presence, and she clenched the neatly made bento to her chest. The blue fabric, a color she painstakingly sought and endeared, rippled like ocean current as her long, tense, ashen fingers buried themselves into it.
"What Naruto!"
She bit the inside of her lips and stepped forward, a shaky breath hung at the edge of her tongue. Tilting her head up, she let the breeze catch her hair, playing and curling with the midnight blue locks before settling them down in a chaotic fan across her face.
"Would you, heh, like to have lunch with me?"
She saw him. His hair, his clothes, his being was coated in liquid gold. The warmth of the sun reflected off his skin and she smiled and mused, like a golden sun, like the golden light that she unknowingly craves to be bathed in.
He smiled hopefully. She tilted her head and noted, his cheeks are tinged with the lightest shade of pink.
Then she saw her.
"Sakura."
And she stepped back. Breathing a sigh, she mentally counted down from five. The moment she hit three, however, she threw herself from her position at the edge of the roots, where the shadows formed jagged mountains into the light, and molded herself into the flaky brown trunk of the tree.
A breeze snaked by and she shivered; the golden warmth of the sun slipped through her memories.
A pink petal drooped and fluttered onto her blue ocean-wrapped gift.
It's a sakura blossom.
How odd.
"She can't know".
"She will know".
"What if she doesn't?"
He smiles, his canines protruding through his lips. "Then everything will be fine".
Turning the frayed edges of the petals delicately with her fingers, Hinata let it slipped through the cracks in her hand. The petal reeled and twirled, like a dancer in her last salute to the world. With a despondent determination, she carefully pried the blue cloth away from the wooden boxes, freeing the aromas of the meal she crafted in the confines of the branch house kitchen. The neatly wrapped rice balls glared as she plucked one from the line.
Ramen flavored.
She bit absent-mindedly.
Her appetite was long lost.
"Sasuke!"
"Sasuke!"
"Damn it, forehead! See what you made me do?" Ino casted her pink haired companion a long glare as she cradled her lunch to her side.
"Shut it pig! You're not the one who's giving anything to Sasuke!" Sakura clutched the bento closer to her abdomen. The pink wrapping groaned and stretched against her arm.
"Like hell". Ino crossed her arms and smirked, "your cooking skills are like your fore head. Flat, empty, boring, and useless".
"What the heck did you just say", Sakura fist shook and she closed her eyes as a nerve pulsed. "My forehead is perfect, unlike-"
Ino's grin grew wider and with a gleam of excitement, she remarked, "Well I could have compared your cooking skills to something else". Her eyes drifted downward.
"Pig!"
"Billboard brow!"
"Pi- Sasuke!" not even bothering to finish her retort she turned and ran.
Ino gasped and hurried after. "Wait for me!"
Clenching his jaw tightly as his teeth settled in a terse grind, Sasuke curled his fingers into the palm of his hand, his nails drawing ribbons of blood. He ignored the fresh stings his flesh sends him. Pain was inconsequential.
Damn it.
Damn it.
Damn it.
He wanted to scream. He fought back another groan. And clenched his jaw tighter, his lips begin to draw into grim, taut lines.
Their faces.
Faces flashed into his memory, and a surge of fiery anger prickled through his veins. He could feel the drumming sensation in his head, like a heartbeat pulsing liquid anger. His blood burned beneath his skin.
Damn it. Naruto.
Damn it. Sakura.
Damn it. Kakashi.
Damn it. Itachi.
Itachi.
Silence. That's all she ever hears. She walks, and paces, and counts to ten. Tens of times. Hundreds. Too many.
Frowning at the lack noise, she sighs and impatiently breaks through the silence of room "What about him?" Her voice is strained and terse, as if there were years of unused. She turns to glare at her two companions.
To her right, the male shoots her a mocking look, "What about him?" his lips are smiling in condescension but the mirth doesn't reach his eyes.
"He knows!" She huffs angrily, her hands are at her hair, ready to pull them out at roots.
The man concedes, and whispers, almost in defeat, "He deserves to know". His eyes are earnest and she agrees but she refuses to let him know.
Determined to prove something at least wrong, she settles for, "But she doesn't". She looks at them with hope filled eyes. Her hands are notched into fists at the edge of her shirt. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she notes that the edges are fraying.
Closing his eyes, he tilts his face upwards and gravely nods. "It'll kill her". The look she gives him makes him wish that he was lying.
"It'll kill her" she echoes.
"If he doesn't". The third voice ended all conversation.
Sasuke could feel the tension in the back of his neck rise. He was annoyed.
No…
Annoyed wasn't the right word. Sasuke was livid, granted there was rarely a time when he wasn't, but the past years had made him proficient at masking his irritation -if not, many shinobi would have had their asses handed over to them, brought back to life (and he would find a way to do it, just so he could send them back again), and tortured, and killed -again.
Clucking his tongue, he pursed his lips as his brows furrowed unnaturally, as if unused to the act. He straightened his face and continued. This was more natural. He had always normally fought everything with a cold exterior. His face would only show as much emotion as he allowed.
Those who could be easily read were those that die first. He had seen it firsthand. He had killed them himself.
Emotions are useless.
So he refuses to allow his face to betray himself. But that was when everything wasn't so fucked up. And with that he laughed, a short bitter, hollowed sound.
Twisting his lips in a scowl, he held a hand up, flexing the fingers, the blood that still pooled in the crevices of his palms. A genjutsu perhaps.
But with growl, he shook his head. There was no damn way he could be stuck in a genjutsu. He had made sure of that when he woke up in that damn godforsaken house.
And no genjutsu could be so real.
He paused at the thought again, that was a fucking lie. And the Mangekyou Sharigan was a testament of that. And as a wielder, he knew better than anyone, except the victims perhaps, how real the tortures of the illusion can be.
Yes. That's it. He decided, it's a genjutsu.
He's stuck in a fucking genjutsu.
If that's how it is, then I'll play.
He was going to die anyways, hell he was supposed to be dead, but he wasn't. He isn't. I'll take what I'll get. If he couldn't kill Konoha then, he will just destroy it in his mind. Genjutsu or fate be damned.
A voice in his head sneered, like a second chance.
If he had control of anything, it was his mind. Like hell he would let some sick bastard toy with it.
But as usual, fate was a pain in the ass and he couldn't. Returning to Konoha had given him much more disadvantages than he would've liked. First and foremost, was his fucking body. He had never remembered his twelve year old self to be so weak. Sure, logically (or perhaps illogically) he knew it was still his body, the marks, the scars, minus a few of the more recent ones, were all there. The thumping heart was his, the blood it pumped was his, and more importantly his eyes were his. He would never mistake his sharigan.
But in a way, like how death had felt, it didn't seem right. Something, anything, was wrong. And he growled at the little voice in the back of his mind that wondered if this was real. Of course it fucking wasn't. Didn't he already decide that it was all a fucking illusion?
It wasn't real.
It wasn't. It wasn't his. The body wasn't his body. It didn't move like his real body. It didn't behave like his real body. And it sure as hell didn't look like his real body. He had barely been able to dodge the incessant chirping of the things that wanted to cling onto him. He doubted that he would barely be able to hold off Kakashi, let alone all the other jonins in such a pathetic version of himself.
Pathetic. Yes, that was what it was. Pathetic. He was weak.
Weak.
Pat. A noise.
Shit. His eyes were clenched tightly closed, but he could still hear the soft padded sounds of footsteps. A growl erupts from his throat as he realized his mistake. He didn't hear the noise until it was this close.
Pat.
Pat
Pat.
How the hell did someone manage to get so damn close? Instead of leaving, he decided to wait a second longer. For some strange reason the noise was…
Comforting.
Odd.
He stopped the thought before it could process any longer and made a movement to move. The last thing that he needed was for his "classmates" to intrude. He bit back a bitter smile; he wouldn't be able to guarantee his temper.
Pat.
"Uchiha-san!"
She saw him. His eyes narrowed. Hyuuga.
Dammit. It's a soft word and he spoke beneath his breadth, but she heard anyways, and her eyes widen. He realizes again that he isn't as subtle as he was, or will be, he amended. A smirk plays on his lips as he begins to note how incredibly derange he is becoming. Stupid fucking genjutsu.
Unconsciously, she began to nibble on her lower lip, her eyes darting away from his.
"A-ah, sorry", she whispers, barely an octave above his. If he wasn't concentrated, he would not have heard it, and for some reason, that thought miffs him. With a passing glance he walked past her: quiet, shy, and he sees her eyes, emotional.
She is weak he decided. And so he left.
This wasn't a second chance.
It was hell.
Swiftly dodging off to the left as a senbon whistled inches away from her face, she crouched low and leaned back against the trunk of the tree. Ignoring her three attackers she turned to the man on her right who was disinterestedly staring at the passing clouds above. The masked woman danced off the edges of the branches as she gracefully landed to his side. With a small, tempered pout, she whispered throatily into his ear, "Tempering with fate is dangerous, you know".
Twirling his kunai on the edge of his index finger, the man tilted his head and gave his a partner a small smirk. "Fate is only as dangerous as man allows"
"Isn't It the other way around?" she smiled.
"hn".
She paused as he gave her a silent answer -and made a note that one of these days, she would have to get him a dictionary. Turning forward, and leaning low enough that her face was only a breadth away from his own, she lock her eyes into his colder, darker ones and softly whispered, "Why?"
Smiling he pressed his lips onto hers, the breath of his voice so low that she could barely discern it.
"He deserves another chance".
A/N:
So that's it for this chapter. I'm sorry if it was a little short, but I just wanted to put something up just to prove that I haven't died yet.
And yes….author's note is long:
And thank you to everyone that has reviewed/alerted/favorited. It means all the Sasukes in the world to me to know that readers are enjoying this story as much as I enjoying writing it. For a moment I was seriously tempted on giving up on this story because after planning for ten chapters, I ran into the horrid doom that every writer abhors, the dreaded "block". But after I was gone for a few weeks, I read some of the reviews, and even though I'm still mostly muse-less, I've at least the determination to keep on going. I hope I didn't disappoint.
For some reason, I feel as though this chapter doesn't flow to well with the previous one. I wrote half of it right after the first chapter and the other half now. So there's two different styles going on. Maybe not writing for over two months made me rusty. (And I think I have a new addiction…fragments).
But I'm trying to balance out the Naruto characters with who they are now to who they were in the beginning of the series. They all matured so much, didn't they? It's funny trying to write and describe pre-shippuden times. For one, the original Sasuke was cold, and aloof, yes, but he seemed to open up around Naruto and Sakura towards the latter part of the beginning. He was still a 12 year old kid at heart, though one who was forced into some tough times. But the new Sasuke is all angst and vengeful, certainly a contrast to the old one who even cracked a joke now and then.
So you might have to put up with me for a bit as I try to balance out Sasuke's personality without going too far from canon, or the other characters for that matter. For a while, they'll still act like children, because despite being a ninja, I think that at heart they still are (they haven't gone through all the trials that made them who they are now). I'm interpreting the characters as best as I can but do excuse me if I take some creative liberties.
***And yes Iruka sensei completely skipped everyone from 'H' to 'U' during roll call. XD