Half an hour later, and one wuji scroll heavier, they were back on track towards the center of the training ground. The rest of the Rain team hadn't put up much of a fight, and so far, everything was looking good.
As they landed on the next branch Naruto suddenly froze, attention abruptly focused in a direction off to the side of their path. Sasuke landed next to him on the branch and Sakura perched a few meters higher up on the tree.
"What is it?"
The Uzumaki was twitching slightly as if watching things they couldn't see, taking deep sniffs of the still air.
"Something big. Clones- Closer. Closer! DOWN!"
Team 7 dropped flat to the wood of the tree, and Sasuke clung to the surface using his whole body's chakra. A second later a huge rush of air surged through the trees, tugging at their clothes and almost tearing him loose from the rough bark. A few of the smaller branches snapped off entirely, despite being themselves more than a meter thick.
As quickly as it had come the wind died down. Jutsu. Powerful. Far too powerful for Genin, save maybe for the other Jinchuriki.
As soon as the gale abated he leapt to a different tree, putting his team squarely inside his field of view as he activated his Sharingan again. The drain of constantly using his eyes was starting to become noticeable, but so long as they could get away or end the fight quickly there shouldn't be any problems.
There!
A figure blurred out of the darkness to stand on the branch across from Sasuke and his team. Fast. Jounin fast. Grass headband- a ringer? Why from Grass? Androgynous appearance; not someone he recognized from the Bingo Book. This was starting to look very very bad.
"Ah, the Sharingan I see! Such a fascinating technique that, isn't it Sasuke-kun? But how good are you with it I wonder?"
Naruto growled, a terrifying sound redolent with deep bass notes as he released a surge of clones, and the battle was on.
If it wasn't for the Sharingan, they would never have been able to fight this well. It wasn't a criticism at this point either, merely a fact which they took advantage of to maximum effect. Naruto was a brawler, pure and simple. The blond was a tank, and a jutsu powerhouse. His taijutsu style was wild and heavy, and didn't lend itself well to cooperative effort. On top of that, the orange ninja simply wasn't very good at keeping track of lots of things. Sasuke wouldn't call Naruto stupid, but more cerebral fighting styles were simply not part of the Uzumaki's repertoire.
This suited the Uchiha just fine. As a swarm of Narutos restricted the enemy's movement, Sasuke rapidly positioned himself before launching a Grand Fireball. In the wake of the plume of flame Sakura dropped down like a hammer, fist pulled back and practically bursting with contained chakra. With the Grass-nin confused and injured she should have a clear shot for the slower attack, which would probably end the fight conclusively, if the fire hadn't done the trick.
The smoke cleared with all the speed of a glacier as his Sharingan recorded everything happening in slow motion. Naruto was preparing another lot of clones, fingers already settling into the weird seal he used. Sakura looked like an avenging angel, hair streaming behind her in the wind of her fall, and fist beginning to swing towards the Grass-nin's head while Sasuke ducked under the enemy's field of view, sword sliding from its sheathe as he did to bisect in tandem with the kunoichi's decapitating strike.
It happened so fast that his eyes didn't even have time to warn him. The Grass-nin looked charred, and slightly melted from the heat of the Grand Fireball, but underneath the drooping skin was another layer, fresh and white as a slug's underbelly. A hand shot from the peeling flesh, grabbing Sakura around the throat and slamming her against the tree trunk as a foot buried itself in Sasuke's gut and sent him flying away.
"Disappointing. Nothing without your team. Don't you know they'll just stunt your growth?"
Naruto bellowed in anger and leaped forward hard enough to shatter the wood behind him as he hurled himself towards their captured teammate, a mist of angry red chakra streaming in his wake.
Sasuke could see it coming as he fell to his knees, gasping for air; see the gleam of steel emerging from the enemy's mouth-
He tried to scream, to warn-
He couldn't breathe-
The sword flickered out, fast as a striking serpent, neatly removing the blond head from the attendant shoulders.
What was-
No, this could not-
This had to be a genjutsu, it had to be, this was a test from Sensei, this could not be real, there was no way Naruto could-
The orange clad body thumped limply against the trunk of the tree before falling towards the ground, bright yellow ball clunking along after it, and his Sharingan recorded every single moment.
ITHURTITHURTITHURTITHURTITHURTITHURTITHURTITHURTITHURTITHURTITHURTITHURTITHURTITHURTITHURTITHURTITHURTITHURTITHURTITHURTITHURTITHURTITHURTITHURTITHURTITHURTITHURTITHURTITHURTITHURT
He couldn't hear anything over the high-pitched noise in his ears, couldn't taste anything over the acid on his tongue, couldn't feel anything over the burning in his eyes and chest, couldn't-couldn't-couldn't-couldn't-couldn't-
There was a sizzling smell of ozone and the seal tag stuck just below his collarbone burst into purple flame from which Hiroki emerged. His Sensei's eyes were already on, jittering from point to point, the blood on the sword, the fingers holding Sakura, the sick still dripping from Sasuke's mouth, and he could see the exact moment the Jounin saw the-
The older Uchiha stopped entirely, gaze fixed on the pile of orange, before homing unerringly on the enemy.
"Orochimaru. You… WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?"
There was an abrupt shift in the air and Sasuke could feel his ears popping, sudden pressure disappearing before he had even registered it properly. There was a hole, as clean as if it was drawn with a stencil and at least a foot across, straight through Orochimaru's torso. The hand holding a silently sobbing Sakura went limp, allowing her to scramble free as the mouth of the disfigured enemy distended unnaturally to allow a dripping copy to pry its way out.
The inhumanly pale man stared at Sensei for a only second before disappearing in a blur.
As for Sensei, the older Uchiha was staring down at his own arm, which had been partially consumed by metal. Sasuke finally got his breath back but he couldn't make himself produce any noise beyond a thin whine of pain.
Hiroki looked at him, and his breath petered out.
It was like he was seeing double for a second, that odd moment of disorientation, like looking at a mirrored version of reality, something otherworldly and subtly off. One of his cousin's eyes was the red of the Sharingan, though swirled with a design Sasuke had never seen before, but the other was a rippled purple. He could see himself reflected there, his own doujutsu mutated oddly as well, but more, there was an odd expression of pondering interest on the older Uchiha's face as the single tomoe in the mutant eye slowly spun.
"Fret not, Sasuke."
The hand which had transformed into some arcane weapon shifted back to normal flesh in a fluid ripple before extending towards the crumpled heap at the foot of the tree.
Naruto's body floated off the ground and reassembled itself, neck stitching back together and flesh mending as if the injury had never occurred. Something rose from the trunk of the tree, a rippling form of chakra that even his Sharingan couldn't perceive, surrounding the blond for a second before spitting Naruto back out. His teammate was settled onto the branch next to him, and Sasuke almost felt like he couldn't breathe again because the orange covered chest was rising and falling normally.
With a jolt, Naruto sat up, arms flailing wildly in his baggy jacket.
"SAKU...ra? Sasuke?"
He didn't understand what was happening, the feeling welling inside him, as he tried to make himself believe that his teammate was alive again.
Sasuke didn't even realize he was sobbing until after he was clutching onto Naruto like a life preserver, the blond coughing slightly awkwardly and patting him on the back as Sakura simply kept repeating the name 'Naruto' over and over again, while she encircled them both with her arms.
It was at least a full minute before he felt comfortable relaxing his death grip on his recently un-deceased friend, and noticed that Sensei was simply standing and staring at all of them with the eerie purple eye and talking quietly to himself.
"...is the best village, the only true village, the kindest village, the only people who are people are the people of Konoha, we are not mere hope but an ideal, we exist to create peace and ensure the safety of the children, you must see it, all that which threatens these ideals must be eliminated, death to traitors, purge the xeno, burn the heretic, all heretics deny the truth, self-evident and unalienable purpose, they dared, can't you see it, my birthright completed in me, we will be complete, there is no other way, they will all burn."
Sakura was the one who spoke up, hiccupping slightly as tears still dripped off her face and onto the confused looking Naruto.
"Sensei, Naruto was… He's okay now?"
It seemed to jolt the Jounin out of whatever trance he had fallen into, for he now looked at them as if he could actually see them rather than some figment of memory.
"Of course Sakura. You are all mine. I would never allow someone take you from me. I won't let anyone take you from me. I'll keep you safe. I'll keep everyone safe. No one else will ever dare, no one else will ever try, no one else will ever think of it. They aren't even part of Konoha; nothing will be lost when they burn."
Naruto struggled to his feet, pushing his team aside to face Hiroki.
"That isn't right! You can't do that!"
The eerie purple and red eyes simply blinked back impassively.
"But I can, Naruto. I can do anything now."
Hiroki held up a hand, and thin tendrils of fire, water, earth, lightning, and wind sprung up around the spread digits, dissolving after a moment to be replaced by lines of ink, flowing like vines across the bandages below a growing sphere so black it looked like a hole in the world which rolled around the Jounin's fingers like a toy before winking out with a faint pop.
"Everything is so easy. I just need to think it, and my will becomes reality. No one will gainsay me your protection."
"Sensei, you shouldn't do that! You can't just hurt people because of something they might do! I'm fine, and so are Sasuke and Sakura."
The older ninja simply stared back impassively at the passionate boy, voice flat while the sun cast long shadows over his back the mismatched eyes glowing faintly in the gloom of his hood.
"But you weren't. You were dead. You were gone, taken from me, forever. If a world can exist without those I love in it, then that world doesn't deserve to exist."
"NO!"
Naruto yelled the word loudly enough that it echoed through the trees.
"Everyone has people they love, people they'll miss, people they don't want to lose! If you take their precious people away then you're no better than they are!"
Sasuke was shocked to see tears trailing down Hiroki's face as the teen crumpled in on himself a hair, emotionless facade cracking as his cousin's breath became unsteady. The Jounin gripped the sides of his head with clawed fingers, expression bordering on panic.
"I can't, I can't, I won't lose you, I can't do it again, and they want to take you from me and I can't let them, I won't, I won't, I'll burn it all before-"
Team 7 almost fell off the branch in surprise as Naruto's fist met Sensei's face. The Jounin stumbled back a step, looking confused, before Naruto hit him again, a hard punch driving the air out of the teen's lungs.
Hiroki sat down with a thump, staring up at the irate blond boy with a dumbfounded expression as he slowly rubbed his bruised cheek. Sasuke took a deep breath and got up, joining Naruto so they both stood in front of their Sensei. His voice was unsteady, and still a little thick with tears, but his words were clear.
"You haven't lost us Sensei. We're still here. But you can't hate them just because you love us."
Sakura knelt down to offer the older Uchiha a hand up, smiling wetly.
"They're right Sensei. You have to have faith in us. We got knocked down, but we'll get up again."
A very odd expression bent the Jounin's mask, a sort of pained and incredulous smile, heavily tinted by something which might have been desperate hope. Naruto pulled on Hiroki's and Sakura's joined hands, hauling them both to their feet and nodding resolutely.
"We're Team 7, and we can change the world. We can make your dream of peace a reality Sensei, but we can't do it by killing everyone else."
Sensei stared at them for a long moment; strange emotions chasing each other across his face before he eventually spoke in a quiet, tentative voice.
"What if… what if I could make it so… so nobody had to die, unless they wanted to? What if I could- could change the rules of life, so it didn't have to end in death?"
Naruto seemed flummoxed, and Sasuke wasn't feeling much better. Could someone really do that?
That… it wouldn't end hatred but… what if no one had to lose anyone, ever again?
"And they wouldn't get sick, or grow old, or…?"
Sakura was the only one of the three Genin who appeared to be coherent enough to speak, and her question earned a slow nod from their teacher, face still glistening with tears.
"No one would be bound by fate. No one would be forced to do anything simply because of the way things are."
Naruto spoke in a low and quiet voice, with a tone of longing that resonated deep in Sasuke's heart.
"That would be beautiful."
Sensei took a deep breath, and another, wiping his cheeks off with the back of his hands and nodding slowly.
"Okay. Okay. I'm… I'm proud of you. All of you. I don't think I could ask for better students."
Sasuke's cousin took another long breath and nodded once more, visibly centering himself before looking back at them, setting sun giving his face a golden glow.
"Thank you. Now, I have some things I still need to do before we can achieve that dream, so for now sleep."
. . .
Sasuke blinked awake with a panicked scream bubbling in his chest. The noise was cut off abruptly as he glanced around the little clearing and he realized it had just been a nightmare. Naruto was sitting nearby, poking the embers of the fire with a stick while Sakura snoozed next to him, a few of her long magenta locks trailing over her face.
After a moment to slow his rapid breathing, the raven-haired boy stood up and brushed the errant strands of hair behind the kunoichi's ear before sitting down on the log next to his blond teammate. Naruto glanced up, face solemn, and gave him a short nod before turning back to the fire, expression distant.
Sasuke simply sat next to the other boy in companionable silence for a long moment, letting his mind wander amid the twitching flames of the little campfire, ruminating on the emotions still lingering from the awful dream.
"Naruto, do you ever think about what you'd want to do before you die?"
His orange teammate blinked up at him in surprise, head cocked curiously. Naruto didn't answer for a long moment, simply looking into the fire alongside him.
"Not really." -the Uzumaki gave a little half shrug- "I guess I don't think about dying very much. I want to be Hokage. And, taste a bunch of different awesome ramen… and I think, it would be nice to have a family someday, you know?"
Sasuke didn't answer, still searching for shapes in the shifting orange tendrils of the fire.
He had thought a lot about his own death. It had always seemed like the most likely outcome if he ever had to fight Itachi. Oh, he might have made it mutual, but he had never held any delusions about being naturally more skilled in the ninja arts than his older brother.
He sighed and hunched inwards a little, wrapping his arms around his chest and hugging them tight for warmth. Maybe it was just the dream, details already blurring in his head, but he felt…
There were always reasons to put things off, to avoid the uncomfortable choice, always reasons to say, 'maybe tomorrow', until all your tomorrows were used up. And once the chance was lost, you could never get it back.
"Naruto, would you… like to get some ramen some time? With me?"
His teammate gave him a cheerful smile, sunny enough to warm Sasuke's bones even in the chill night air, far more effective than the little fire could ever hope to be.
"Of course! Once we're done with this part of the exams we should all go out together!"
The Uchiha sighed, running a hand through his hair and mustering up the strength to overcome the awkwardness he could already see looming on the horizon.
"No, Naruto, not- not as a team. I meant… just, with me."
The Uzumaki's mouth fell open as he stared at Sasuke, who huddled slightly into the folds of his shemagh to hide the tiny spots of color forming on his cheeks. Naruto eventually recovered, and chewed gently on his bottom lip, glancing away for a second before turning back, hands fiddling slightly with the ends of his hoodie's sleeves.
"You mean, like, a… a date?"
Sasuke's head twitched down in the barest suggestion of a nod.
His teammates face burst into a massive flush as they avoided each other's eyes. Naruto's fiddling got even more energetic, as he tried to stammer out a reply, clearly nearly at a loss for words.
"I- that is, I mean, it's not that I don't like you! But- well, we just-"
Sasuke nodded smoothly, taking a deep breath and ignoring the slight pinching in his chest. It was better to know than to be forever wondering, forever pining for what might have been. He had asked, and been rejected, and that was okay. It might sting a little, but at least he knew for sure.
"I see. Well, I'm sure you and Hinata will be very happy together. She's a beautiful kunoichi, and her clan is very respectable-"
Naruto waved his hands frantically back and forth to interrupt Sasuke's acceptance speech, shooting a glance at their sleeping teammate before shuffling a little closer on the log, voice a furious whisper and face an even brighter red.
"No, no, no, bastard! I didn't say no, it's just- well, I sort of promised Hiroki-nii that I wouldn't date until I made Chunin, and… well, it might be a little awkward while we were on the same team, you know?"
Sasuke's heart stopped in his chest as the blond's words percolated through his head. Naruto still looked vaguely concussed as he leaned in a touch closer to the Uchiha.
"I mean… you, like me? Like me like me?"
The raven's flush spread higher up his cheeks and he shrugged his shoulders uncomfortably.
"I… I don't know. I think so… I suppose; that's why I wanted to… find out, you know? Isn't that sort of the point of dating?"
Naruto smiled a bit shyly and glanced away before looking back at him, grin bubbling up again to light up the whiskered face even though he seemed a little embarrassed and guilty.
"It's just- I guess, if we both made it to Chunin anyway, we wouldn't always be taking missions together, and we could choose which missions we took so it didn't interfere, and- well, I mean we're both still kind of young you know?, and I kind of like Hinata-chan too… but, you think she's a good kunoichi? You like her?"
Sasuke blinked slowly, mulling it over.
...Yes, he did rather like Hinata. She wasn't one of his fangirls, and that was a major mark in her favor right off the bat. She was demure, and soft spoken, talented from what he remembered of the academy, she came from a good family… Yes. He might not like her in that way, not right now, but he could see that possibility existing in the future.
He nodded slowly, and Naruto's smile stretched even wider, bigger and brighter than ever.
"Oh! Well, good. Maybe we could just have a little party after we're done here then, get to know our classmates a little bit? And, you know, just, see how it goes."
Sasuke let out a long slow breath, feeling… clean, all the way down to his soul. He let his hand rest on the surface of the log next to Naruto's, and if the very edges of their fingers touched a little bit, then, well, that was pretty okay.
"You have to tell Sakura."
. . .
END DEFINITION
. . .
A/N: Okay, now for the longer Author's note.
PLEASE DO NOT COMMENT ON HOW MUCH YOU LOATHE NARUSASU UNTIL AFTER TOMORROW WHEN THE EPILOGUE SPELLS OUT WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENS. PLEASE?
Okay, so. Please note that Naruto and Sasuke are not actually in a ship! In fact, they have clearly stated that they can't be in a ship for at least a little while longer, and that really any kind of ship AT ALL would be kind of fucking weird since they are like, 12? What we have here is Sasuke informing Naruto of his potential interest and Naruto saying 'I am not entirely opposed to the idea'. They are not going to buck like funnies while waiting for the prelims in the central tower. Naruto IS NOT GAY and Sauske isn't really gay either; except for Naruto.
Most of the Complaints people have against NaruSasu, I totally agree with. Just wait one more day to see what happens, m'kay?
Anyway.
Tomorrow you'll get a good bit of stuff because it doesn't make sense to break it up. Three chapters of Hue, and then the epilogue.
Hiroki awakening the Rinnegan is a result of three things: First, he finnaly got an EMS. He essentially re-triggered his mother's eye in the wake of Naruto's death, meaning he now had a close relative's MS in his socket. Second, He has saturated his body with Hashirama cells, as well as tissue and chakra samples from Naruto and Sasuke (remember those 'games' of biopsy?). Third, he actually has a fragment of the Jubi's chakra thanks to Kokuo. It wouldn't have been enough on it's own, but combined with everything else the conditions were met well enough for shit to happen.