Colors of Life and Death series
Truth in Dreams
by Songbird21

Chapter 23

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Naruto looked in the mirror with a satisfied smile. He had put his formal kimono on without any help and was feeling rather proud of himself. He was trying to decide where to put his weapons holster when there was a knock on his door. "Yeah?"

"It's me, brat. Can I come in?"

"Sure, baa-chan," Naruto replied as the door opened.

"I see you managed to get everything on the right way this time," Tsunade said with a jovial smile.

"Yup!" Naruto turned around and noticed his mother's outfit. She was in a flowing, purple silk kimono that nearly touched the ground. It had an orange koi on each side of the chest and was trimmed in a soft yellow. "I like your kimono."

Tsunade smiled. "Thank you, Naruto."

Naruto's smile became impish. "Yeah, you pull it off pretty well—for an old lady!"

"Why you little!!" Tsunade raged. But before she could catch him he vanished in a puff of smoke.

Hinata smiled at her reflection. She was wearing a long, medium blue kimono with pale yellow petals dotting the entire garment and her obi was a solid medium blue. It had no sleeves connected to the shoulders, but instead had detached sleeves that ran from just after her elbow to her wrist. These 'sleeves' also had long, trailing rectangles of fabric which were airbrushed with tall, white cranes. Her hair was pulled back into a bun, with white sticks and had a long herringbone braid trailing from it. She was also wearing a light coral colored lipstick—at Sakura's insistence.

She walked into the sitting room and waited patiently for her escort. She blushed lightly as she remembered the conversation she and Naruto had had the day before.

"Neh, Hina-chan? You wanna go with me to the wedding tomorrow?" Naruto asked hopefully.

"I would l-love to, Naruto-kun!" Hinata replied with a blush.

"I bet you'd look really pretty in a kimono," Naruto added shyly.

Hinata's face turned crimson. "Th-thank you."

Hinata sighed and resigned herself to waiting as patiently as she could. Three o' clock just couldn't come fast enough.

The guard at the gate to the Hyuuga complex smiled when she opened up and saw Naruto standing there. "Hinata-sama is waiting for you in the sitting room. Follow me please," she said.

Naruto followed her inside and they walked at a steady pace. The guard looked behind her with a sly smile. "So...anymore like you at home?" she asked with a with a short jump of her eyebrows.

Naruto blushed and looked off to the side a bit. "No. Sorry."

The guard giggled and they soon found themselves at the sitting room door. She turned to Naruto. "Wait here. I'll announce you."

Still feeling uncomfortable about the question that had been asked a moment ago, Naruto only managed to nod.

Hinata smiled when Naruto entered the room and stood to greet him. "Hello, Naruto-kun."

Naruto was too stunned by Hinata's appearance to answer. His mouth hung open, his eyes were wide and his breathing had slowed to a crawl. Never, in all the years he had been alive, had he thought he could catch the eye of any girl, never mind one so stunning. It was now that he noticed his girlfriend was starting to grow up. The baby fat was leaving her face, giving it a much more womanly shape and she was now only four inches shorter than he was. After a moment of Hinata blushing at his continued gaze he managed to find his voice. "You...you look...beautiful..." he breathed.

Hinata smiled and turned a bright shade of crimson. "Th-th-thank you."

Naruto swallowed. Forcing his body to do as he commanded he managed to hold out his hand. "We should go," he said with a smile, his eyes still holding a look of awe.

Hinata nodded and took his hand. As they walked towards the gate to the complex they noticed Hiashi coming from the opposite direction.

Hiashi stopped suddenly and both his eyebrows rose in utter shock. "So...you can look like a refined young gentleman after all," he said with an approving smile.

Naruto gave a bemused smile. "Yeah well. Don't get used to it." He shifted his clothes a bit, looking as though he was trying to make them more comfortable. "I can't wait to get out of this thing."

Hiashi sighed and was about to give one of his famous mini-lectures when Hinata spoke up.

"I think you look handsome," she said shyly with a blush on her cheeks.

Naruto blushed in return. Maybe I can wear it once in a while.

Since shinobi wedding ceremonies were designed to be short—just in case an enemy were to attack—the decorations were also less grandiose than that of a civilian wedding. They were pretty much the same as they'd been for the rehearsal, with the exceptions being the addition of a priest, large white pillows having been laid out for the guests to sit on and photos of the most recently deceased ancestors of the bride and groom. The photos were to honor the sacrifices the ancestors had made for the village and to bless the marriage with their wisdom.

Guests had slowly begun to trickle in. Sadly, there wasn't much in the way of family on either side. For Tomoyo, there was only Naruto and for Kakashi, his grandmother. They had invited everyone who had been on the mission to Ganshou plus Tsunade, Kurenai, Gai, and Asuma. There were also few other shinobi from Kakashi's anbu days.

Naruto and Hinata had walked in, hand in hand. Naruto gave Hinata a quick kiss on the cheek before taking his position near Kakashi and Hinata sat in the front row.

Anko, with quite the annoyed look on her face, walked up in her purple dress kimono and stood at her position near Tomoyo. As Tomoyo looked at her she mouthed "You owe me."

Tenten entered the room right behind Lee and Sakura. She was in a white kimono with red sleeves and a red obi. On the sides of her head were the usual buns but they were much smaller than normal and were made of coiled braids with small red bead hanging down from them on golden cord. She had left the back of her hair down and wore a peach lipstick.

Sasuke, who was wearing a dark blue hakama with the Uchiha symbol on each side of the chest, tried desperately not to stare as Tenten seated herself across the isle from him. The way his heart fluttered in his chest at that moment frightened him. There was no way he could deny it to himself any longer. He was attracted to her—and his heart sank at this realization because he knew what he had to do. His expression became one of pained regret. I'm sorry.

Tenten noticed Sasuke and, blushing a bit at how handsome he looked in his outfit, waved cheerfully. She frowned when his expression turned cold and he looked away. Did I do something wrong?

Music consisting of a soft Japanese flute and a zither began playing. Tomoyo, walked in wearing a white wedding kimono with shimmering silver cranes all over. Her hair was done in the traditional shinto wedding style with red hair sticks that had many long strings of sparkling gems hanging from them. She had decided against wearing the hood and in its place was a beautiful hair pin in the shape of a golden fan.

As she walked down the aisle Kakashi simply smiled. Oh, on the inside he was nervous as hell, but he made sure to put his best face forward. He was wearing the traditional black and grey wedding hakama and looked rather handsome in it even if he didn't bother to tame his hair for the day.

Tomoyo walked up to Kakashi. They joined hands and stood in front of the ceremony table. The priest then spoke. "We are gathered her today to witness the marriage of Hatake Kakashi to Namikaze Tomoyo. I would now like everyone to bow their heads. There was a moment of silence before he continued. "We ask Kami-sama on this fine day to smile upon Kakashi and Tomoyo. May your light and love reach them in their most troubled times." He turned his head to one side of the room to look at the photos placed there. "Ancestors of the Namikaze clan." He turned to the other side. "Ancestors of the Hatake clan. We ask you bless this couple with your wisdom and guidance as they enter into the journey of marriage." Another short pause and then, "Please sit at the table," he instructed to Kakashi and Tomoyo.

As the couple drank sake to cleanse their spirits for marriage Tenten kept making sideways glances at Sasuke. The longer she sat there, the more her stomach tightened at the thought that he suddenly had decided to hate her for some unknown reason.

Naruto's feet were falling asleep and he was desperately trying to keep himself from fidgeting, but the pain in his toes was becoming difficult to ignore. As he watched the ceremony something inside his heart began to stir. The swiftness at which the idea came to him startled him to say the least—and to have this idea at only a few weeks shy of fifteen years old was not common among young men—but one look at Hinata and his mind was made up. Someday, Hina-chan. Someday I'm gonna ask you to marry me.

Tenten waited outside the temple doors patiently, the lump in her throat growing larger with each person passing her who was not Sasuke. She watched as Kakashi, Tomoyo, Naruto, Tsunade, Anko, and several other well-wishers gathered around the happy couple as they climbed into a carriage. She glared at the doors. No one was coming out and she still hadn't seen Sasuke. Finally she walked into the temple to find it empty. Her eyes flattened into a glare. He must've snuck out with a henge.

She turned on her heel and left for home. He couldn't run from her forever—and when she found him nothing would stop her from getting the truth.

"So you just want us to do some reconnaissance?" Naruto asked in a disappointed tone.

"Well, there is a chance of running into Akatsuki there so I'm sending Jiraiya with you," Tsunade replied. "Meet him at the gates tomorrow at noon."

All three teenagers nodded and rose to leave. Just as Sasuke was about to go out the door he felt the Godaime's hand on his shoulder.

"If you run into Itachi you'd better remember that your friends are more important," she warned.

Sasuke simply looked away and left the room. Tsunade sighed and shut the door behind him.

When they got to the main door for the Hokage tower Sasuke held the other two back. "Hang on a second," he said, putting his finger to his lips to silence them. He ignored the confused look on their faces and peeked out the door. Through the crack he saw Tenten wandering around not far away and winced. "Naruto, can you switch places with me?"

Naruto blinked. "Huh?"

"You turn yourself into me and vice versa. I have someone I need to avoid," Sasuke explained with an almost guilty look on his face.

Sakura gave him a look. "You mean Tenten, right?" she said as she folded her arms.

Sasuke's eyes widened but quickly settled into a look of discomfort. "Yeah."

"What the heck is going on? She came to me after the wedding yesterday and asked me if I knew why you were ignoring her," Sakura said with a serious look.

"It's private," Sasuke replied stiffly.

Sakura frowned. She wanted desperately to pressure him into talking but it rarely worked and she knew it. "Well you should at least tell her. You owe her that if you ever considered her a friend," she said sternly.

"I can't! If I talk to her I'll..." Sasuke stopped short, realizing he had been about to let slip the nature of his troubles. "Can you just tell her that it's nothing she did. I just...it's something I need to work out, then I can be around her again. Please, Sakura."

Sakura wanted so very badly to tell him he had to talk to Tenten himself but something about the look in his eyes was desperate and so she reluctantly relented. "Alright. But I want you to know that I think what you're doing is mean." And with that, she walked out of the building.

After a moment Sasuke took a peek outside to see that both girls were gone and breathed a sigh of relief. Naruto gave him a look.

"You're a chicken shit. You know that, right?"

Sasuke glared at Naruto. "Piss off."

Naruto smiled when he saw that he was only about three feet from his target. He was almost to a point where he was confident enough that the hiraishin would be useful in battle. He stepped back to a line he'd drawn in the dirt and made the rabbit seal again...and made a full body splat on the log his shiki was stuck to. He fell onto the dirt and moaned pitifully. "Damn, that hurt."

"Oi, dobe."

Naruto looked up to see his brother standing over him with a smirk. "What?" he asked grumpily.

"Tsunade-sama's looking for you. Said something about you promising to clean your room before you left for the mission."

"OH CRAP!" Naruto shouted in realization. He sat up instantly and paid for it with a throbbing headache and a slight case of dizziness. He put his hand to his head. "Aw hell, that hurts," he grumbled.

"Feh. Don't slam into logs then," Sasuke said before walking away.

Naruto shakily got to his feet. "Come back here, you bastard!"

Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura stood at the gates waiting for Jiraiya, who was now twenty minutes late.

"What the hell?! He's getting as bad as Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto complained.

"Now that's just plain insulting," Jiraiya commented as he walked up. "I apologize for being late. I had to pick up our other team," he said, gesturing to the three people beside him.

As Sasuke stared at one person in particular from the other team he decided he must be fate's favorite whipping boy. Staring right back at him...was Tenten.

...TO BE CONTINUED

Sorry this is so late guys. I have a HUGE amount of stuff to do before Anime Boston. I'm entering the AMV competition, I'm on the AMV 101 panel (Stop by if you'd like to chat), need to make my daughter's costume and I need to make my costume (If I lose enough weight that is).

((Ducks inside RPR)) Sorry bout the cliffy, but leaving it there was just too perfect. ((Arms security system))

Radioplay news: The first part of chapter 3 is out! WOOT! You can find it on the COLAD homepage (Link in profile). Enjoy! And don't forget to review. Gotta keep our voice actors happy. :)

Later all,
Song