Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any characters.
Heh… Sorry it took so long to update… I think Shika's laziness is rubbing off me… *laughes*
Chapter 7
As dusk approached during the evening of the Harvesting Festival in Konoha, disappearance of the last rays of the sun finally signals the official opening of the festival. Pack members of all kind crowed all around the den, causing people to speak at the top of their voices out of excitement, creating a very noisy atmosphere. Young cubs ran around with excitement while cheering and squealing to one another. Some pack members of the allied pack, Sand, even attend to the festival.
Sasuke walked around the excitement-filled den while trying to avoid any physical contact with anyone and scowling at anyone who bumped into him. He was alone tonight mainly because everyone he knew was a couple or had mates of their own. He occasionally glared at random couples out of frustration and scaring the shit out of them with his trademark Uchiha death glare. However, his priority tonight is to avoid Naruto and his mate, it will be far too awkward.
Initially he didn't even want to attend this ceremony, instead opting to stay in his apartment and sleep, but no, Naruto just had to show up and dragged him out of his slumber and threaten him with a month's worth of guard duty with Kakashi if he sat out of the festival. 'Freaking dumbass…' Even so, Naruto properly had his best interest at heart and did not want him to be left out from the others.
This led him back to here, stalking around the streets while desperately avoiding the fangirls (and some boys) and munching on his onigiri. 'Pitiful. If only Itachi could see me now… he'll never let me live it down…' He gave an amused chuckle while thinking so. Suddenly, he heard someone calling for him and he turned his head while glancing at the crowd as his raven cat ears pickled.
"Sasuke-kun!"
It was Sakura, Sasuke may have disliked her in the past, but now she is much more tolerable and sensible. However, he must look out for the temper, and her punches are really painful…ouch…
Seeing that he had no choice, he walked towards Sakura group. Besides the pink cat demon, standing beside her was Rock Lee, the leopard demon with his usual shiny smile on him, courtesy of his mentor Gai-sensei. Shikamaru, the brown deer demon was staring blankly into space, obviously bored along with the blonde bird demon Yamanaka Ino, who was waving at him with enthusiasm. Standing next to Shikamaru was the chubby bear demon, Akimichi Chouji who was munching on his potato chips non-stop and Tenten the brown squirrel demon was staring at Chouji distastefully. Besides, he was graced with a seemingly familiar grin by Inuzuka Kiba and his mate, the rather timid grey rabbit demon, Hyuuga Hinata. Aburame Shino, the black cat demon was standing quite a distance from the noisy group being his usual self.
The group greeted him with their own different manner and dragged him to numerous brightly coloured stalls. Sakura and Lee was by his side most of the time, obviously not wanting to let him felt out of place due to the constant chatting of the group about their experience during the period of his absence. Sakura was constantly giving him fleeting worried glances which were beginning to annoy him. However, besides the discomfort, he learned many things, like how Kakashi managed to court Iruka-sensei to be his mate (everybody laughed when remembering that, except Shino), or how Neji had became the soon-to-be mate of Sabaku no Gaara, the alpha male of the Sand pack told by a seemingly cheerful Hinata (which seemingly explained his absence for the night), and Asuma-sensei and Kurenai-sensei finally became a couple told by a bored Shikamaru along with the youthful tales of Maito Gai by Lee with tears flowing down his large eyes until Tenten got fed up and whacked him on the head whereares Sakura giggled.
Throughout the night, Sasuke felt some of his tension had dissolved and starting to fell more relax then the past few weeks. He noticed that nobody mention Naruto's name for the entire night, obviously they had heard of their predicament and now attempting to keep the topic out for the night, until…
Naruto and Haku shown up when they were searching for the best spot to view the fireworks.
There was a very awkward silence as a staring contest was conducted between Naruto and Sasuke, the atmosphere suddenly became highly strain with tension, until Kiba broke the silence,
"Hey! Why are we still standing here? Let's find a spot before all the good spots are taken!" he exclaimed with that huge grin on his tanned face.
Hinata quickly intervene, "Yes… the closing ceremony is going to start soon!"
The group suddenly broken a chaos of noises, trying to cover the strain atmosphere and Naruto gave Sasuke one of his bright grins and said,
"Teme!"
Sasuke heart fluttered and he could felt his face heating up as Naruto smile at him, but he quickly gathered his compose and replied coolly,
"Tch, dobe… I haven't seen you for the entire festival; I thought that you ended up dead in a gutter or something."
"TEME!!!"
Before their bickering could escalate any further, Sakura punched both of them on the head, hard. Naruto looked ready to yell at Sakura for that until Haku placed his hand on Naruto's shoulder gently and said with a smile,
"Why don't we find the spot for the fireworks together now?"
Everybody agreed with the brown rabbit demon and quickly headed of to a small grassy hill near the festival site and waited.
KA-BAM!
The fireworks were shot up to the twilight sky as midnight settled in. Brilliant sparkling lights were mapped onto the dark sky, like flowers of different colours exploded onto the night skies. Everybody was cheering and the atmosphere below the hill was thick with excitement. Kiba and Hinata were making out passionately and no one bothered to stop them because of the distraction provided by the fireworks, good thing Neji ain't here, otherwise he would rip Kiba to pieces, literally. Sasuke tore his eyes from the sky and noticed that Sakura and Lee were holding their hands together and looking at each other in an endearing manner. He gave a small smile and turned his head and saw Neji was hugging a red raccoon demon tightly at the foot of the hill, he assumed him to be Gaara.
However, his heart gave a painful throb when he saw Naruto and Haku kissing passionately a few feet away from him. Their lips were interlocked and a trail of saliva was dripping down Haku's pale cheek. He heard Naruto gave a husky moan of pleasure and wrapped his fox tail around Haku waist possessively. Their faces were flushed and pants could be heard as their lips parted to regain their breaths to kiss yet again.
Unable to take it, Sasuke silently fled the scene and ran up the windy hill without pausing. Angrily, he rubbed the warm tears that were threatening to flow down his cheeks, his chest hurt and his heart clutched.
'Why? Haven't I gotten over the fact that Naruto is in love with Haku?'
'Why can't I feel glad that he is happy?'
'Why the hell am I crying over that dobe?'
Sasuke finally came to a stop at the top of the small hill; the echoing sounds of the festival's fireworks fell deaf to his ears. He couldn't take it anymore, his other friends may have moved on without him, but the one thing he couldn't ever accept is that, Naruto did too. Even after these years of suffering, Sasuke's love for the blonde fox hadn't lessen, even one bit. He knew he was being selfish, that Naruto deserved to be happy, but he couldn't help to feel betrayed. And the most heart-breaking part is that,
Naruto doesn't need him anymore…
Naruto and Sasuke had gone through everything together, they shared their happiness and sorrow together, and they laughed and cried together, they comforted each other during difficult times. But now, Naruto had left that behind and shared that with someone else…Haku.
In short, Sasuke is kinda envious of him. He got to enjoy the things he could never had… Sasuke will give anything to be in his place. Damn, he's acting like a love-sick idiot.
Sasuke shivered and wrapped his arms around himself as a night chilling wind blew pass him. The finale of the fireworks ended when he was deep in thought and the total silence around him was unbearable. As much as he enjoyed the silence from time to time, this silence just made him felt…
Alone.
He gave a dry sob at that depressing thought, yes, he was alone… everything felt different now… everything changed… everyone grown… even him…however… he grown differently than the others. He felt tense and fear all the time, fear of his past from Sound will eventually catch up to him. He knew that they will come soon; it's just the matter of when. He glanced downward of the hill and saw the cheerful and happy faces of his friends, and his sight lingered on Naruto's smiling face longer than the others.
He suppressed his oncoming tears and turned his back from the cheery atmosphere below and looked forward to the dark path in front. He made his decision, he had to leave, he cannot stay here to cost more trouble to the others, it's already bad enough they worried about him; he didn't want them to get hurt too. They won't miss him, they'll move on eventually. Sasuke gave a sigh and walked towards the darkness of the forest and took a step forwards.
Suddenly, a burst of strong wind was heading towards him, and out of instinct, he avoided it effortlessly, resulting the attack to destroy some of the trees behind him. He kneeled on the grass to gain a better footing as he saw his opponents.
Dosu, Zaku and Kin…
The Sound trio and Sasuke faced of; neither was willing to move in case of an attack. The trio was about the same age as Sasuke, however, their difference in power was evident. Apparently, Dosu, the sensible one of the group realized that, broke the strain silence and spoke,
"Long time no see Sasuke-kun, I see that you're still fine as ever."
Sasuke angrily cut off Dosu's speech and hissed, "What do you want? Let me say this first, I will not return to Sound."
Kin stood forward and said, "Unfortunately Uchiha, neither of us will be able to return to the pack unless you come with us, its best you come quietly, and we won't want the Konoha pack to know of our presence now would we?"
Sasuke glared at her, he never did like her voice, it's sort of high-pitched and it pissed him off. Glaring, he replied, "Then, you'll just have to deal with it yourself then, I ain't going back to Orochimaru even if hell freezes over!"
Zaku, the implusive one then snarled, "Well, let's get this over then, Uchiha!" Saying so, the dog demon lunched towards Sasuke while preparing his 'Air Slicer' attack.
Sasuke narrowed his now crimson eyes, with his family bloodline, the Sharingan on, he easily detected Zaku's movement and counter-strike him by quickly grabbing his left arm and twisted it behind his back. Not wasting time, he slammed Zaku's brown head to the ground, hard. Zaku fell with an 'Oof!' and was temporary overwhelmed by dizziness.
"He's fast!" Kin exclaimed as she hurried to cast a genjutsu, forgetting the fact that Sasuke was immune to it due to his Sharingan, however, Sasuke appeared out of thin air beside her and hit the pressure point on her neck, causing her to be out cold before she had a chance to complete her jutsu. She fell fast down onto the grassy earth, with Sasuke standing beside her.
Dosu observed the fight with keen eyes, as expected, the raven cat was highly skilled, he had seen the Uchiha took out an entire pack by himself and he knew not to underestimate Sasuke. He gave a shaky sigh as he felt Sasuke's killer aura and crimson eyes focused on him. Sasuke evaluated Dosu carefully and he knew that he was different than the others, and definitely smarter. He learned not to attack Dosu by close distance because of his unique sound techniques that acted directly on the victim's body. He placed his body into a fighting stance, preparing to unleash his ninjutsu attack.
"SASUKE!!!"
The voice carried across the field clearly, and that voice was unmistakable.
"Naruto?" Sasuke whispered in surprise as he took a backward glance and saw the familiar form of the blonde fox. However, that one distraction was enough for Dosu to take his action. He quickly ran towards Sasuke and took out a vial of lilac liquid from his long sleeves and cast it towards the distracted raven.
Sasuke realized that, but it was too late, the vial smashed at Sasuke's feet and clouds of purple mist began to emerge from it, enveloping Sasuke's form immediately. Sasuke chocked and gasped as he found himself unable to breathe properly, and the echoing voices of his concerned companions slowly vanished into the surroundings.
Naruto and the gang heard an explosion uphill along with the crashing sound of several trees shortly after the fireworks finale. In addition of Sasuke's sudden disappearance, even an idiot could put two to two together. When they rushed to the explosion scene, they saw Sasuke facing off with three Sound pack members, although 2 of them were now of cold.
In his worrying state, he shouted out Sasuke's name without giving it a thought. However, that very action had led to Sasuke's defeat. The grey badger demon sprinted towards Sasuke and threw something at him while he was distracted, and enveloping him in a dark purple mist. The badger demon quickly grabbed both of his companions and ran off, with Ino, Chouji and Shikamaru on his tail.
Naruto hurriedly ran to Sasuke's side as he purple cloud began to dissipate. Sasuke was coughing and gasping, in concern he shook Sasuke's suddenly stilled form.
"Ooi! Sasuke! Are you alright! Answer me teme!"
Sakura whacked him on the head, scolding something about not shaking an injured person in that matter, however, her words fell under deaf ears, for his sole concern was Sasuke's being. Sasuke seemed to be in a trance, his usually fiery onyx eyes were blank and his lips were parted slightly, like he was seeing something.
Suddenly, Sasuke's black eyes shifted to crimson red and he launched his sharp claws towards Naruto. Naruto, sensing the sudden killer aura managed to avoid the attack with nothing less than a cut on his red yukata. The others were stunned at the sudden change of events as Sasuke continued to attack Naruto with his claws. Naruto quickly dodged most of the attacks while still in shock. Naruto was fast, but Sasuke was faster and had managed to land several deep cuts on Naruto's tanned form. Narrowing his eyes, Naruto quickly evaded Sasuke's oncoming attack and grabbed him by his shoulder and his wrist and pushed him onto the grassy ground. He quickly saddled him and held Sasuke's wrists in an iron-grip to prevent him from moving.
"Sasuke! What's wrong with you snapped out of it!" he yelled in the raven's face while attempting to cope with his struggling. "Damn it! Someone! Help me restrain him!" he yelled to the stunned group in desperation.
Sakura and Lee seemed to have snapped out of their shock and quickly pinned Sasuke's waving arms down. Sasuke, now sensing that he's movement was completely restricted, stopped struggling and stared blankly up to Naruto's worried slightly red-tingled cerulean eyes, and smirked.
Suddenly, Lee, Sakura and Naruto were thrown back as an electrical current raced through their bodies and they were temporary paralyzed. But before Kiba, Hinata, Tenten, Shino and Haku could intervene, Sasuke had gathered his balance and stomped on Naruto's chest, a sickening crack rang through the air. Naruto felt an excruciating wave of pain flowed through his entire form; he coughed and spluttered some crimson blood out of his mouth. 'Damn…my ribs…' With a huge effort, he glanced up to Sasuke, and saw Sasuke raising his claw to give the final blow with an evil smirk on his face.
'Sasuke…'
"NO! SASUKE-KUN! PLEASE STOP!!!"
Sakura pulled her numbing body and wrapped her arms around Sasuke's body. She was sobbing and hot tears were pouring uncontrollable from her green eyes. Haku had placed himself beside Naruto and trying to ease the worsening of his injuries. Lee managed to stand on his feet and now staring at the scene unfolded. 'Sakura-san…'
Something seemed to have snapped within Sasuke as he arms fell limp in Sakura's grip and his eyes reverted back to his black colour. Sakura, sensing this gave a sigh of relief and fell into Lee's arms in exhaustion. The others gave a sigh of relief as well.
Sasuke stared at his bloodied hands in horror and he took in the scene before him in shock. He was filled with horror when he was the cuts and scratches on him, as well as the blood that was trailing from his lips.
'No…no…not again…'
Naruto saw Sasuke's horror expression and attempted to comfort him, he tried to speak but the only word he could spoken is
"Sa…s…su…ke…" before he gave another round of violent coughing. Haku quickly patted him gently on his back, telling him not to stain himself.
"No…" Naruto tilted his head and saw Sasuke looking at him with an almost scared expression, alarm bells rung in his mind as he saw Sasuke took a step backwards. He tried to stand up but another shot of pain ran through his body.
Sasuke saw Naruto's effort and whispered, "Stay away from me…" Naruto looked at him with alarm on his face. 'No…Sasuke… don't… don't leave me again…'
Sasuke took a few more steps backwards and whispered, each words growing in volume, "Stay away from me…I shouldn't have came back…I… Leave me Alone!!"
Saying so, he fled without a backwards glance into the forest's darkness, while ignoring Naruto's calls for him.
A/N: Yo peeps! I know that Sasuke's is kinda OOC in this fic, but it's quite hard to keep him in character here, either way I'll try to maintain his personality as much as possible. Please review!
