Chapter Three

This was not how Kisame imagined his afternoon.

Currently, he was standing by a vendor's stall situated off to one side of the busy main street of the town, his sword over one shoulder.

Naruto was perched squarely on the other.

They hadn't even gone more than ten steps from the room before the blonde's legs had failed. To be fair, the Kyuubi vessel had been having trouble keeping up with Kisame's long strides the last few paces and it was entirely possible that what little energy he had managed to hoard after his nap had been used up in his haste to stay with the blue skinned male. Another possible reason for the limb failure was that whatever sickness was affecting Naruto had also weakened his bone structure- something that didn't surprise the ex-Mist ninja nearly as much as he thought it would since the blonde had been in very bad physical shape to begin with and it was obvious that whatever torture or abuse he had suffered had been prolonged. Whatever the reason, while hurrying to keep up with Kisame, Naruto had tripped and afterward had been unable to walk. He had made no noise, no sound of any kind to notify Kisame that something had happened- he had merely pushed himself up into a sitting position and sat, staring at the frayed hall carpet with a strangely empty expression. He had flinched visibly when Kisame drew near, jerking back slightly and huddling into himself as if expecting a blow.

When Kisame only picked the teenager up silently and set him on one bare blue shoulder, it was hard to tell who was more surprised.

And now they were shopping- Kisame loathed shopping and did everything he could usually to get out of it. Worse yet, he was here voluntarily!

"Were you looking for studs or clip-ons, my lady?" The vendor inquired, straining his neck as he looked up at Naruto for an answer.

"Clip-ons." Kisame answered gruffly, immediately getting the man's attention and gesturing with his chin at the appropriate display. "Those ones." The ninja said, pointing to a random pair. He wanted this over and done with because he was starving, damn it, and he could hear the blonde's stomach growling, too. He wanted to be pissed at the teenager, wanted to blame the kid, but this had been Kisame's idea, after all, not the blonde's.

"I really don't think those will go with her outfit." The man said doubtfully, again looking Naruto over critically. "These ones will, however, as will these ones. Did I mention our sale today? If you buy two, then you also get a free-"

"Sure. Whatever." Kisame cut in tersely, shifting his balance to better accommodate the blonde's added weight as he fished for his wallet. "Wrap them both up so we can go."

"And which of the-" The man cut off abruptly as Kisame glared at him menacingly. The vendor also froze up which was not helpful and the ex-Mist ninja turned to look for possible threats in the crowd of people around them. Suitably shaken, the man floundered on. "Um, then I'll just-"

"That one." Both men glanced up to find the blonde pointing at one of the vendor's items. "Pl-please..?"

Kisame frowned but the vendor practically pounced on the necklace in question, adding it to the shopping bag in a flash.

"Will there be…" The man quickly changed tactics as he caught sight of Kisame's expression and squeaked out the total instead. "Ten dollars, please."

Kisame paid the vendor, snatched the bag from the man's hands, then handed it up to Naruto for safe keeping with a stern warning not to loose it because he was not doing this again.

"Please come again…" The vendor said weakly as they turned to go, expression saying that he would not be sorry if he never saw Kisame again.

"Thank you." Naruto said to the vendor as Kisame began walking in the direction of the restaurant they were going to. The blonde's voice was soft and wavered but the obvious gratitude in it was so genuine that even Kisame could tell.

Typical; he had been reduced to a fucking taxi service but it was the rodent of a vendor trying to take advantage of them that got a word of appreciation.

"Thank you." The blonde said again in the same tone, making Kisame glance up and realize that Naruto was talking to him.

Feeling slightly mollified, the sword wielding shinobi shrugged, the action making Naruto bob briefly as they continued onward.

The gods were laughing at him. They had to be.

Kisame and Naruto stood in the doorway of the only restaurant they could find, the overhanging sign flap hanging from the former Mist ninja's upraised arm where he'd paused in the middle of the motion of pushing it out of the way. He blinked, frowning as all activity within the establishment ceased.

So much for keeping a low profile- Kisame felt as if a very large spotlight had suddenly been shined on them both, particularly on the blonde perched on his shoulder and leaning so low over the ex-Mist ninja's head that his chest touched Kisame's spiky hair as he tried to make himself as small as possible in order to see inside.

People stared at them, gawking openly, as the pair stood there in the building's low doorway, clearly unable to fit through- after all, even with Naruto situated as he was, Kisame himself was already on the tall side and would have to practically limbo through the door way to get in.

The situation probably was something worth gaping at provided that you were the one doing the gaping. On the other end of things, it was harder to see the humor and Kisame wasn't known for his ability to see hilarity readily.

Not interested in being stared, Kisame began to turn around and leave but, before the former Mist ninja could stop him, Naruto took that moment to get down. The blond slid down the front of Kisame's body with obvious care and the moment his slippered feet touched the ground he hissed softly in obvious pain, making the Akatsuki member frown as he tried to help balance the teenager. Hands hidden in his long kimono sleeves, the Kyuubi vessel clutched the other's arm for balance and ducked his head down to try and hide the tears Kisame saw gathering at the corners of his eyes.

In all his travels and battles, the blue skinned man had never seen a crowd of people move faster. In the blink of an eye, those staring at them were suddenly falling over themselves as they rushed to offer comfort to the distressed blonde. As Naruto was being guided to a padded chair with Kisame at his side like an over large shadow, the ex-Mist ninja became aware that the establishment's patrons were predominantly male. The same was true with the staff that began fawning over the blonde, offering Naruto a menu and bringing him a drink. Seemingly overwhelmed by all the sudden attention, Naruto had flushed bright red and stuttered about none of this being necessary, insisting that everything was fine, his voice higher with distress and anxiety, expression clearly pinched with pain even as the teenager tried to scrape together a smile.

Kisame suspected heavily that the last was a reflexive action and not consciously attempted. He poked the blonde's straining rounded cheek, gently, and immediately the Kyuubi vessel stopped trying to force the expression.

When one waiter actually came out with two cold towels on a tray and a stack of rolled clean bandages, Kisame actually had to put a hand on Naruto's head to keep him from panicking. If these people wanted to help- i.e. spare the former Mist ninja the hassle of tending to Naruto's wounds later- then by all means, let them do it. Dressed as he was, made up as he was, everyone had fallen for the image the teenager presented and taken Naruto for a girl and, so long as no one got too friendly or nosey, there would be no problem in letting the masquerade go on. Kisame patted the blonde hair firmly, mindful not to disturb the carefully placed barrettes, and the action caused the teenager to duck his head and blush as he closed his eyes and worried his bottom lip.

Strangely enough, the reaction was both surprising and not; it was completely out of character if one were to base their opinion on previous examples of Naruto's usual brash personality but, considering that Kisame had only seen the blonde hiding in a blanket and screaming in terror when awake the last few days, the response to all the sudden attention was not altogether unexpected.

Kisame patted Naruto's head again, softer this time, and moved his hand to squeeze the boy's shoulder reassuringly before folding his arms over his broad fishnet clad chest. He took a step closer to the blonde, one hand moving to hover over Samheda's handle pointedly.

If everyone was assuming that Naruto was some noble lady- because why else would this many people be paying so much attention to him if they weren't trying to curry favor for one reason or another?- then Kisame's presence could easily be explained away as 'her' body guard.

He smiled, showing all his pointed teeth, and directed it fully on the waiter with the bandaging supplies who was getting a little too close to Naruto for comfort. With some further… persuasion from Kisame, the young male stopped trying to take the blonde's ankles and hurriedly left to prepare them a table.

Stifling the urge to growl after him, the Akatsuki member contented himself by glaring at the waiter's back, openly smirking when the other finally scuttled into the kitchen for refuge.

Kisame had an investment to protect after all.

Eating, even if it was semi-solid food, seemed to take a lot out of the blonde and Kisame was a tad baffled as Naruto, sitting beside him, continued to slump forward as if exhausted. They had been seated shortly after their arrival and Naruto's feet and ankles had been wrapped by the missing Mist ninja while they had been waiting for their food to arrive. The blonde had been completely ladylike since then, sitting quietly with his eyes shut and a blush still staining his cheeks as other patrons continued to throw glances at the strange pair. When their food had arrived, Kisame had dived in with gusto, enjoying the good food and happy to finally have his breakfast. Naruto on the other hand had begun eating with notably less zeal and within minutes of being served, the blonde had put his spoon down and pushed his soup away as he began to resemble a startled sleepwalker, expression becoming vaguely confused as he struggled to keep his eyes open. The teenager didn't complain, didn't say anything really, just seemed to wilt like some overgrown sun flower that had been unable to absorb enough sunlight.

Oddly, it reminded the ex-Mist ninja of babies that died from malnutrition even though they were being fed on a regular basis. In such cases it was as if, even though there was food present, the infant wasn't able to make up for the caloric deficit between the energy expended to suckle and the energy contained in the mother's milk. Despite all the efforts to feed them, they just couldn't put on the weight needed to grow and thus died anyway.

Kisame was not about to let the kid die, not after all the hard work that had been put into keeping him alive. With a defeated sigh directed both at his unfinished dinner and at his dinning companion, the Akatsuki member waved the waiter over and ordered that the partially eaten food in front of them be wrapped up in a take away bag. He placed an order for some sashimi and onigiri as dinner for Itachi and paid the check.

He was never going to hear the end of this; no good deed goes unpunished and all that.

Naruto, barely managing to keep his head off the table, slid into Kisame's blue skinned side, prompting the former Mist ninja to wrap an arm around the teenager to secure him against falling backward onto the floor.

Nope, never ever.

"Not one word." Kisame said the moment Itachi opened the door to their room. Held awkwardly in his arms was Naruto, asleep, with a bag full of take out containers resting on the blonde's stomach. Behind the shark-like man's shoulder Samheda's hilt jutted upward at an angle and in the dark of the hallway created the momentary illusion that Kisame was about to embrace the brunette in a massive hug. The blue skinned male maneuvered through the doorway, sidling by the Uchiha carefully in the narrow spans of the short hall preceding the entrance into the bedroom proper, and paused near the room's small side table. He waited until Itachi silently took the newly bought food off of Naruto before carefully leaning Samheda against the wall and walking over to Naruto's bed.

With more care than he felt like showing at that moment, he deposited the teenager on the bed and began disrobing him. When the blonde was in his boxers once again, Kisame stomped into the bathroom, wet a washrag and returned, cleaning Naruto's scarred cheeks until they were free of make up. The missing ninja sighed as he patted his charge's skin dry with a corner of the bed sheet, clearly feeling the fever spiking through the teen.

Going out had been such a bad idea…

A shudder passed through the teenager's frame and around Naruto's navel the seal keeping the Kyuubi imprisoned flared into stark relief against skin that was now only a hint of bronze in color. Itachi immediately joined Kisame at the boy's bedside, perching on the bed beside the blonde, pale hands already inspecting the seal and making the muscles beneath the blonde's skin jump at the gentle contact. Making small pained sounds, Naruto tried to turn onto his side and curl up into a ball, tried to get away from them, but Kisame pinned the teen's shoulders to the mattress to keep him prone until Itachi finished his examination. Abruptly, the Uchiha pressed his palms flat to the blonde's stomach, covering the seal as his hands began to glow green with healing chakra.

Beads of sweat popped out on Naruto's skin and his movements to get away became more agitated. He grabbed the blue skinned wrists holding him down and tugged weakly. Hazy blue eyes opened and blinked up at Kisame as the blonde began to ramble incoherently. "Don't… hurts… No more… monster… Nothing… time…"

"He's delirious." Kisame commented, surprised at the sudden onset.

"He's dying." Itachi said, sweat trailing down his temples as his eyebrows knitted together. The green glow flared as Itachi began having to force his chakra into the seal, the design crackling in response and causing Naruto's disjointed babbling to increase in volume and frequency, his attempts to push the Akatsuki members away more forceful.

"The Kyuubi is dying." The Uchiha raised his voice to address the teen. "Naruto, stop rejecting my chakra! Let me heal you!"

"No, no more…" The blonde pleaded, eyes rolling back into his head as he lapsed into unconsciousness. "Doesn't hurt… let go…"

When his struggles finally ceased, Kisame began funneling healing chakra into his own hands to help Itachi with the surprisingly monumental task of trying to keep the dying boy alive.

"I knew it would be you, Sasuke." Naruto murmured, the small content smile he wore looking odd as blood ran from the corners of his mouth. Tears leaked from his unfocused blue eyes. "I knew it would be you who set me free."

Free? What the hell was the idiot talking about? Sasuke Uchiha stared down at his friend bewildered with the events unfolding around him. He knelt on the ground beside the blonde's shoulder while Naruto lay on his back in the grass. His friend was clad in white robes, an outfit Sasuke had never seen him wear, face pinched with pain as he looked up at the brunette.

The Uchiha felt out of place, part of the scene but not. He felt like something important had transpired, that he had played a pivotal role in it all, but he had no memory of it. He existed in the here and now but did not know the how or why, making him feel horribly displaced and uninformed. He looked around, lost, until his eyes fell on the kunai sticking out of his teammate's stomach.

"Naruto!" And the rush of emotion contained in that one word, the surprise and fear, the sickening feeling of foreboding and slow dawning horror was enough to make his normally stoic heart swell painfully in his chest. Tears leapt to his eyes and threatened to run down Sasuke's cheeks though he didn't fully understand why he was reacting so passionately.

Naruto was dying.

Someone had hurt him, condemned him to a slow tortuous death.

And that person had been…

"Sasuke," Naruto sighed, blue eyes fluttering shut briefly as the blonde swallowed. A cold, sweaty hand gripped the brunette's, dragging his attention back to Naruto and away from the handle sticking out from his body. "Don't be sad."

"Why?" He didn't understand what he was requesting an explanation to, didn't understand the tears that spilled down from his eyes, didn't understand why his best friend was dying or why he was somehow to blame.

A pathetically small pressure against his fingers told him that Naruto was trying to give him a reassuring squeeze. He gripped the blonde's hand fiercely, as if the strength of his touch alone could keep the blonde alive.

Naruto smiled up at him again, showing all his teeth in a pale imitation of what Sasuke had quietly dubbed his regular 'shit eating grin,' a smile that always meant mischief for some poor soul, a smile that could mean everything and nothing, a smile that could answer a hundred questions and at the same time pose a hundred more right back.

A smile the blonde used when he wanted to hide what he was feeling from everyone, even from himself.

The perfect lie.

Sasuke felt like his insides were being torn out as he looked at it now.

"It's okay now, Sas'ke." Naruto said, his voice slurring. His smile wilted around the edges, softening as he continued. "You killed it, you killed me. Now everyone can be happy."

"No!" It came out as a long drawn out moan of pain and, in a fit of emotion, Sasuke yanked his hand from Naruto's and dragged the blonde against his chest, burying his face in the blonde's shoulder. "Why? WHY!?"

"Don't cry." His teammate whispered in his ear. Sasuke felt light touches on his back as Naruto's hand attempted to rub circles of comfort. "Uchihas don't cry for dobes. You did what was best and now everyone can be happy. I won't be around to annoy anyone or drag you down any more. You can… you can…" His already slow and increasingly lethargic voice petered out to silence and he simply lay against the brunette quietly, his breathing becoming irregular as his body began to give out.

"Naruto?" Sasuke pulled back enough to look his friend in the face, ice cold fear gripping his heart as the blonde's eyes began to close, his head lolling to one side lifelessly. "Naruto! NO! Naruto wake up! Naruto!"

Sasuke shook the unresponsive blonde, calling then screaming his name when he felt Naruto's heart cease. He laid the other back down and pounded the blonde's chest, forced breath into the other's lungs but no amount of CPR made his teammate stir. He clutched the body to him, moaned to it and rocked it, wept his pain all over it and screamed his rage at the unfairness of it all as he hugged it.

In an instant the usually vibrant Naruto was gone.

And it was somehow all Sasuke's fault.

With a ragged gasp, Sasuke Uchiha sat up in bed. His chest heaved as he tried to breathe around his pulse which was at least twice its normal rate as it thudded loudly in his ears, in his throat. He trembled, hands fisted in the sheets as he struggled to chase off the effects of the deeply disturbing dream while fighting not to give into the urge to cry. When he felt a bit calmer, the brunette swung his legs over the side of the bed and took a few shaky steps around his bedroom before opting to leave it completely.

Several minutes later saw him seated at the kitchen table with a freshly brewed cup of green tea. He was also now in an extremely foul mood as he pondered the latest addition to his growing gallery of nightmares. He'd been having them for over a month, all similar in theme to tonight's episode and all equally upsetting. One would think that he would have become immune to the effects of such nightmares but no; each one brought a fresh rush of painful emotions that left him gasping and whimpering in their wake.

Sasuke took a sip from his mug and raked a hand through his hair, resting his forehead on his propped up arm. His dreams had a definite theme though that didn't make understanding them any easier- it was always Naruto suffering, never anyone else, and always, always, the Uchiha was the cause of the blonde's pain- and, in every single dream, his friend died by Sasuke's own hand. It was taking a toll on the newly returned teenager's performance, on his mental health. He felt anxious all the time, but tired in a way that went beyond normal fatigue- as if his very soul had lost its source of vitality. Sasuke's temper had not improved under theses conditions and as such, he was easily angered since his patience was nearly non-existent. Sakura, a frequent source of irritation in the Uchiha's life, had found this out the hard way.

Not for the first time, Sasuke found himself thinking about his absent blonde teammate. Tsunade had sent Naruto on a covert mission almost a week ago and the Hokage did not know how long it would last. She would share no details with anyone and so the blonde's whereabouts remained unknown to the Uchiha and everyone else in the Village, a fact that the council found teeth grindingly infuriating since they abhorred being out of the loop in any way.

But, for Sasuke, it felt as if Naruto had been gone for so much longer. After a very strange conversation over a month ago, the blonde had begun to withdraw from Sasuke, from everyone, eventually beginning to avoid the other completely. On the rare moments that the Uchiha had caught sight of the blonde, he had been unable to talk to him because, just then, Sakura would pop out of no where and latch onto Sasuke's arm. Every. Single. Time. In the time it took to dislodge the squealing female, Naruto would simply vanish and the Uchiha would be right back at square one.

Sighing, he finished his tea and looked outside to the brightening sky. A new day was beginning and he had things to deal with that were more troubling than his sudden plague of night terrors. With the Godaime suddenly giving them the cold shoulder, the village's council had turned its attention to playing matchmaker for the last Uchiha. They were pressuring him to marry and had taken to lining up available females for him to meet and choose from, potential wives for him to breed with and revive his nearly dead clan.

The entire thing was driving Sasuke crazy and he longed for his blonde teammate's company. Naruto was his outlet, his best friend, and the only one willing to give him an unbiased opinion on everything and anything. He'd been gone only four days but Sasuke felt the absence acutely, like an old wound that ached in the cold, the pain not only effecting the healed area but his whole body.

Naruto would probably be able to keep the nightmares away.

Shaking his head, hard, at the thought, Sasuke rinsed his mug out and set it to dry next to the sink. He had more tangible things to worry about than some stupid dreams or the scarcity of his teammate. Naruto was fine, just like always. The brunette nodded to himself, satisfied. 'The dobe is fine.'

"Don't call me that. You can't call me that anymore, Uchiha-san."

Sasuke froze, his breath hitching as the flat and emotionless voice drifted through his mind, as the image of the blonde's expression as he spoke those words surfaced in the Uchiha's memory. Naruto had looked so…hurt, crushed, as if his whole world had been shattered. He had walked away afterwards without a backward glance, ignoring Sasuke as he had tried to call the blonde back. If Sakura hadn't been holding his arm hostage, the brunette would have chased the other male down to demand an explanation.

If Sasuke had known then that a month later Naruto would be watching a sunset alone, convinced that his life held no meaning and slowly bleeding to death as his body ripped itself apart, the brunette would have killed the kunoichi in a heartbeat to follow after the blonde. Unaware of the machinations of his manipulative female teammate, Sasuke had walked right into a trap set not for him but for Naruto and the Uchiha had played an unwitting part in throwing the blonde off the proverbial cliff. His nightmares had started that night, an unconscious warning that something bad was going to happen if he didn't act, if he didn't intervene. Dreams, though, are fragile things, a reality that takes hold only when the mind is at its least guarded state. Night is their domain but, under the harsh light of day, they loose their power and are easily shredded by the scrutiny of logic and rationalization. The warnings went unheeded, ignored for an entire month, condemned as foolishness due to the medium in which they were delivered. Only fools paid attention to dreams and Uchihas were not fools.

So Sasuke, Uchiha to the core, scoffed at his foolishness and set about getting ready for the day. He had been ordered to meet the potential wife candidates the council had gathered and he had no time to waste pondering Naruto's absence or the subconsciously generated images involving the blonde's death.

Naruto Uzumaki was just fine, damn it!

But the hollow, anxious, feeling plaguing Sasuke wouldn't leave him.