A/N: Hey, guys, because of a lot of people getting confused, I'm going to try and make Sasuke a bit more reserved in the next few chapters so people don't keep saying he's OOC. So, please help me out if you can and also let me know if I should change some of his stuff in previous chapters. Let's continue...
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A swift kick landed across the jaw of him and it sent the orange-wearing ninja flying across the ground. Bouncing a bit, Naruto skidded against the ground and struggled to get to his feet. He grunted as Sasuke came at him from his right. He swiftly got to his feet, and ready to intercept his opponent from coming close, threw a punch at him. But the Uchiha readied himself and grabbed his wrist, pulling Naruto forward. A bit of a fearful yelp was heard as Sasuke landed two strong kicks to his shoulders. Taking the opportunity, he jumped off and flipped behind Naruto, grabbing the collar of his jacket. He pulled him backwards, and delivered a big kick to the middle of his back. Using his leg, he flung him over towards the water.
Naruto was sent into the air, and once gained a bit of his senses, began to try and form a hand sign. But before his hands could come together, he realized that Sasuke had followed him and was right in his face. He threw several strikes at Naruto, either missing or being blocked, but was able to get his arms apart on the last strike. Soon, he widened his eyes, seeing the chance to land another strike. He grabbed a hold of Naruto's jacket, causing the boy to gasp in shock, and then proceeded to throw him towards the water. He then opened his shuriken holster and took two kunai and some shuriken, throwing it after him. Naruto's eyes widened as he quickly used his chakra into his hands and back-flipped off and away from the sharp incoming weapons. But as he landed on his feet, Sasuke appeared right in front of him and delivered a punch to his chest, causing Naruto to go skidding back in the water. The Uchiha stood up and watched Naruto grunt painfully, standing up from the attack.
"Sasuke... you...!" he growled.
"Come on, loser; what was that?" Sasuke said, continuing to call him that as a part of his plan to make Naruto stay and fight, "Just a minute ago you're talking tough about how you're going to beat me, and now you're losing."
"Shut up, Sasuke!" Naruto roared at him, "I'm gonna shut your mouth one way or another!"
The Uzumaki then pointed his finger at Sasuke with gritted teeth and continued, "Why the hell are you after me anyway? Don't give me that crap about 'how I'm down the wrong path'! You're just like Sakura; you're only doing this because you were told to or to get approval of someone else, aren't you?!"
"What is with you? Why is it that whenever I try to show you that there's people who care for you, you just shut them out and say it doesn't exist? Why can't you see that?" Sasuke asked.
Suddenly, Naruto's eyes narrowed with pure anger as his fists shook with anger. His seething rage boiled over into his breath as he screamed.
"People who care for me? CARE FOR ME!? Sasuke, don't you have any freaking clue who I am? I'm the Nine-Tailed Fox! Everyone in the village hates me! No one cares about me! NO ONE UNDERSTANDS ME!"
Sasuke's eyes widened for a second, then closed as a bit, as he then remembered a flashback from long ago...
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It was a long, long time ago. Back when the group had just finished the A-rank mission of escorting Tazuna to his home and protecting the progress of the bridge from Zabuza and Gato's power. The squad had joined back up with Iruka at the academy entrance to relax with the teacher who was on lunch break. It was better than picking up garbage or pulling weeds out of gardens for people.
But it was so boring to the genin team, nothing to do. Well, Sakura had something to do a bit; stare in admiration of Sasuke and have little hearts over her head. But Naruto and Sasuke; completely bored out of their skulls. And the irritation was showing, even in the Uchiha who at the time was really emotionless and much more collected. But Naruto kept groaning with closed eyes and a slight frown, while Sasuke kept his hands in his pockets and closed his eyes.
Iruka was sitting next to them on a bench, eating lunch with Sakura, while Kakashi was out in the schoolyard, reading his Make-out Paradise book. Naruto was sitting on the ground near the bench, while Sasuke stood on the opposite side. But apparently, the boys's groaning sparked a nerve.
"Urgh! Naruto, pipe down and stopping groaning like that! It's annoying!" Sakura snapped at him.
"Augh, it's so boring here!" Naruto whined, "There's nothing to do, now that I've eaten all my noodles!"
"Well, it's either sit here and relax or go back to picking up garbage around the village," Iruka chuckled, causing the boy to shiver in his limited choices.
"No no no! There's gotta be something we can do! I've gotten way, way stronger ever since that mission we just completed, and I don't wanna waste my time picking up some lazy person's trash!" Naruto protested, jumping up to his feet as a smile came across his face, "Oh, I know! Sasuke, how about you and me go at it right now?"
"Naruto! I swear if you even hurt Sasuke, I swear I'll-!" Sakura began to threaten with an angry face.
"H-Hey, Sakura! Come on, there's no need for that!" Naruto jumped back and got a bit scared, covering his face, "I was just gonna offer a spar, like practicing our techniques and stuff! I wasn't wanting to fight him!"
"Hmph, no thanks," Sasuke said, moving his closed eyed face away from Naruto, "This 'sparring' idea would only be a warm-up if it was against you, loser."
Naruto flinched at that, and gritted his teeth with white-anime-style eyes and yelled, "What'd you say, Sasuke?!"
Before Sakura could issue another serious death threat, Iruka calmed the three, "Okay, you guys; let's take it down a notch. You're a team, so you need to act like one."
Naruto grumbled, but soon his overactive hyper head turned into the direction of Kakashi, who was silently reading his book. The boy soon had a devilish grin come across his face, as he started to giggle. He then slowly tiptoed at the Jonin.
"Fine, then. If I can't spar against Sasuke, I'll just take on Kakashi-sensei and beat him before he knows it," he said giggling as he continued to go after him.
"Naruto! You shouldn't do that! You're gonna get in trouble!" Sakura scolded.
"Besides, you got totally humiliated the last time you tried to take Kakashi one-on-one. What makes you think you're going to do better this time around?" Sasuke replied without even looking at him.
"Yeah, Sasuke's totally right. You're so clueless, Naruto!" Sakura agreed automatically and placed her hands on her hips as she stood up next to the Uchiha.
Naruto's head whirled around and gave them a glare of disappointment and hilarious sneering, "Well, who asked for your opinions anyway? Now, be quiet; you're gonna tip him off of me coming at him!"
A bit of a frustrated growl came from Sakura as the veins in her forehead showed she was very agitated with the knucklehead. Sasuke could've care less about it; he just shrugged it off and ignored him. But then realizing he was there, both looked at Iruka, as he was smiling at the boy's silly and clumsy attempt to go after him.
"Iruka-sensei... aren't you going to stop Naruto?" Sakura asked in confusion.
"Well, in all honesty, Sakura, I know Naruto's not going to win here," the man answered gently, "But frankly, I'd like to see how strong he's grown from the mission you were all on."
With that, both of Naruto's teammates decided to watch the boy get closer and closer to his target. Soon, once he got within a good range, the genin started to rush at him, readying a punch. With a battle cry, Naruto threw the punch at Kakashi, only to find he wasn't there at all. The boy became bewildered as he looked around until...
"Ahh, Naruto, what ever are you doing?" he heard his sensei's voice from behind him.
With a gulp, the genin shook in fear as he realized that he was crouching behind him in a certain position and holding his pointer and middle fingers close together. Oh, no, not that again...
"A thousand years of death!"
With a horribly fast and painful jab, Naruto went soaring into the air, shrieking in pain with tears coming out of his eyes as he held his rear end. Sakura and Sasuke looked unimpressed and incredulous at their teammate, who came down hard on the ground and laid twitching. Iruka sighed as he buried his face into his hands. With that, Kakashi walked right over to the fallen genin and continued to read his book.
"Naruto, you have to understand to come at me without making so much noise," he lectured.
"As usual, Naruto is completely useless," Sakura groaned.
A simple 'hmph' came out of Sasuke... only to then widen his eyes to Naruto poofing into smoke! He and Sakura gasped as they realized it was a clone! Iruka looked to see that too, and somewhat smiled at it. Kakashi blinked in surprise as he then heard a noise of an weapon being thrown. Out of the bushes came a single kunai right towards him. The Jonin relaxed as he readied to catch it.
"Well, well, it seems you've gotten a bit wiser on attacking me," he said, "but you can't just get me with a simple trick like that."
With that being said, he easily caught the incoming kunai. But once he touched it, he flinched in shock.
"No way... it can't be...!" he thought.
Suddenly, the kunai bursted into smoke, revealing Naruto and that Kakashi had grabbed his ankle. The rest of the group became drawn into the match as they watched in amazement at the boy's sudden cleverness. As Naruto revealed himself, he threw a punch at Kakashi, forcing his sensei to block the incoming attack. But then, he felt the book in his hand get knocked out of his grip. He watched as another Naruto rushed out of the bushes and grabbed it before it hit the ground. With that, Naruto pushed off of Kakashi, forcing him to let go, and jumped back with his clone, before bursting out in laughter.
"Hahaha! I got you, sensei! Last time we fought, you said a ninja has got to see through deception, right? Well, I totally made you drop your guard there! And the best part of all, I made you lose your book, something I couldn't do the first time you and I fought! That's gotta prove I've gotten a heck of a lot stronger, right!?" he grinned and yelled, cheering like he just won a war.
"You've only proven how clueless you are! You're celebrating about how you stole his book? How stupid are you, Naruto!?" Sakura scolded him with an angry anime face.
"I guess I am mistaken, Naruto; you have gotten a lot stronger," Kakashi smiled, as Naruto's clone threw the book back to him, and he put it in his bag, "I suppose I can't read the book and fight you at the same time anymore."
"THAT'S RIGHT! YOU AND ME; RIGHT NOW, NO DISTRACTIONS! LET'S GO!" Naruto roared as he raised his fist to Kakashi with a grin.
"All right, then, Naruto; Let's just see how much stronger you've gotten," Kakashi nodded as his opponent and his clone rushed at him.
As the fight continued, Sakura sighed and folded her arms, "I don't get it; Naruto didn't win any fight against Kakashi-sensei. So why is he so happy and excited?"
"You honestly don't see?" Iruka said, catching her attention, "According to Kakashi when you guys did the bell drill with him, Naruto was reckless and didn't use proper tactics as a ninja. He fought like any person on the street could, and used his clones foolishly. Just now, he showed more wisdom in using them as a diversion instead of him usually screaming like a wild man and attacking head-on. He's gotten stronger in the sense that he now knows not to always charge in without caution."
As they turned to watch the battle, Kakashi had knocked Naruto hard to the ground, causing the boy to bounce against the hard ground. Twitching in pain a bit, the boy got on his hands and knees, looked up at Kakashi, and smirked.
"I'm not giving up!" he yelled, as he made a few clones, and fell back, letting the clones fight Kakashi.
Sasuke watched with interest; was this really the same Naruto from the academy? What happened... when did he suddenly get a bit more mature? It was amazing to him as this loser... this goofy worthless wacko had gotten a bit stronger in a short amount of time. Of course, it wasn't anything major; the doofus finally got some wisdom in that empty skull...
But he was more interested in why he fought. I mean, Naruto always bragged; He's gonna become Hokage, he's gonna have people respect him, he's gonna be Sasuke, Kakashi, and anyone who gets in his way to prove his strength. But... really now, was that his reason?
"...Hey, Iruka?" he said, not looking at his sensei, but getting his and Sakura's attention, "Why does Naruto fight so hard to achieve this dream of his that's so far away?"
"S-Sasuke?" Sakura said his name, pretty much asking him to clarify.
"I mean, at his level, the loser's no where near the right to boast about how he's going to become Hokage. What's his motivation? Why does he fight in order to have his dream?" Sasuke asked.
Iruka slowly smiled, and closed his eyes, "Well, Sasuke, Naruto's always been an odd one; he's very eager to jump into something if he feels he can do it, and refuses to stop until he's done it. You two know how Naruto's been shunned by a lot of people, right?" he explained, sort of making the truth seem smaller to the two, then continued as they nodded, "Well, he wants to be respected, so that people can count on him to protect them and so that people can acknowledge his worth. But a part of me thinks he also wants something more."
"Something more?" Sakura asked, as the two looked over blinking.
"Yes... I think more than anything, Naruto... wants to be understood..."
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Sasuke opened his eyes and looked at Naruto, who was still seething in anger. He took a gentle breath, and opened his mouth.
"So, is that what you want?" he asked, causing Naruto to lose his anger in an instant and look with pure dumbfounded silence, "Look, Naruto, I don't need you to remind me of your dream to become Hokage. You've said it so many times, I couldn't forget it even if I wanted to. But is that something you also want; to be understood?"
The pure silence from Naruto's lips shook him to the core; how could he reply to that? He always wanted that, but why was it so hard to say yes to it now, and especially to Sasuke of all people?
"Also, you claim that nobody care about you; then what of Iruka? Those Ichiraku Ramen people you go to almost on a daily basis? What of people like them? Don't they care about you, or do you think they're not enough?" Sasuke asked, locking his dark eyes onto him.
The confusion started to rise up in Naruto as he looked down, and shook a bit. This was making him feel completely uncomfortable. It wasn't like Sasuke to ask him all this stuff. Why did he care? I mean, sure at one point, maybe he thought the two were friends, but then again, Sasuke never cared... right?
"And also, you keep jumping back from why you're leaving the village. You said originally if you get rid of the nine-tailed fox, you'll come back to the village; but now, you keep shouting how nobody likes you and you hate the village. So, which is it? Do you want to come back to the village or not?" his opponent pressed.
Naruto grunted as he looked up at Sasuke, "Rrgh, shut up! Why should I tell you anything, Sasuke?!"
"Because you're not making sense, you loser," Sasuke said, seeing that Naruto was becoming more hostile again and could attack at any moment, "I'm trying to understand why you're really leaving here, so maybe I can help you. But you're being over-dramatic and complicating things."
"I said I don't need your help! Now just stay out of my life and go away!" Naruto said, summoning two clones by his side as all three charged at the readied Uchiha.
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I had an awesome Christmas break! How about you guys? What'd you guys get for Christmas? Here's my late present to you! A new chapter; hope it's good! Keep on reading!