Insanity's Slip
Chapter Ten
By Boejangles
He could feel someone shaking his shoulder, which caused him to groan. Then as soon as it started the shaking was gone. Puzzled he opened his eyes to see who had moved him. Blue eyes opened to see long dark strands of hair moving away.
His eyes went wide as he rushed to his feet, somewhere in the back of his mind he registered that his ankle seemed to be fine now.
"W…wait, come back!" He called stretching his arm out trying to stop the moving figure. But the person just moved faster.
"Aniki! Don't leave me again!" He started running after the man, "Itachi stop!"
The man seemed to pause for a second before shaking his head and going faster.
"Wait! At least talk to me! Please!" Naruto was getting angry with his brother not stopping. With a burst of speed he caught the dark haired figures arm and yanked on it. This caused the man to turn to the side and fall slightly trying to catch his balance.
Blue eyes widened when he saw the man's face and realized he had made a mistake. He quickly helped the man balance. "I'm so sorry I thought you were someone else." He silently bereted himself, 'I'm so stupid, Aniki is taller then that. It's been so long…I must be forgetting him. No! Never, I'd never forget him!'
The other man's eyes softened and were a warm brown, "That's alright, and I probably shouldn't have run." In truth he had recognized the boy and while wanting to help didn't want to get close knowing they would most likely fight.
Naruto rubbed the back of his head embarrassed, "Well my name's Uchiha Naruto, what's yours?"
He took a moment to think about it and decided he came this far and it wouldn't matter anyway, "Haku. It's nice to meet you Naruto."
"So Haku, what are you doing out here?" The blonde asked looking around.
"I was picking some herbs for medicine." He said with a warm smile, "Why were you sleeping in the woods?"
Naruto looked to the ground, "Well…um…I was…. and um…It was…a…um…"
Haku laughed slightly at the boy's speech. "Do you not have anywhere to go?"
"Oh no, its not that. It's just," He sighed before looking back to the ground, "Me and my brother got into a fight."
"And you decided to sleep in the woods?" Haku raised an eyebrow.
"Well…uh…um…" He started stumbling over his words again.
"Ah, I see." Haku had a gentle smile again. "It wasn't your choice?"
"Well not really," The blonde admitted.
The brunette gave a nod, "Is he precious to you?"
Naruto raised an eyebrow at the question, "Yes, why?"
"Well that would be one of the reasons you would lie for him."
The blue eyes widened in what seemed to be fear, "What! What do you mean?"
"I mean when you were trying to find a different reason for you being out here then your brother." Haku noticed that the blonde almost immediately relaxed after he said that. He couldn't stop him self as he said what he was thinking, "What else are you hiding?"
Naruto look up at him with a mix of emotions on his face. He looked back at the ground with a frown on his face, "I'm not hiding anything."
Haku decided to drop it, "Well it's good to have a precious person; it gives you something to live for, to die for." He gave another soft smile as he stood up. "It was nice meeting you Uchiha Naruto, I will see you again sometime."
Naruto stood up, "Thanks for talking and all. It was nice to meet you too Haku. Goodbye." He gave a small wave. It wasn't until Haku was out of sight that he realized he had no idea where he was.
He had been running out of fear he didn't realize where he had gone or how to get back. Getting slightly scared he did the only thing he knew to do; he sat down and leaned against the tree pulling his knees to his chest.
That's how Kakashi found him; leaning against a tree with his head resting against his knees. "Naruto, are you okay?" He asked leaning down to the boy's level.
The blonde's head shot up at the familiar voice, "Kakashi-sensei!" He hugged the gray haired man as relief filled him.
He hugged his student back glad that he was okay, "Are you hurt or anything?"
"No, not at all." Naruto answered.
"What are you doing out here?" Kakashi asked half dreading the answer half hoping what he thought wasn't true.
"Well, I was training with the tree walking and I decided that I wanted to go on a walk to clear my head and then try some more before heading back, but then I didn't recognize anything anymore and when I tried to go back I just got more lost and I just sort of got stuck out here." The blonde had decided he better think something up after his encounter with Haku.
The gray haired nin sighed with relief, "Why didn't you just come back when Sasuke did?"
"Because he could already reach the top when he headed back and I couldn't yet and I didn't want to fall behind." Naruto pouted slightly hoping his whole story was being bought.
"Okay, just don't do that again. Stick with at least one teammate."
"Yes Sensei." He nodded his head.
Kakashi sighed again and helped the blond up before sending a mental link to one of his dogs he sent with Sasuke and Sakura when Naruto wasn't where they had been training. He turned with the blonde at his side and headed back to the house.
"Naruto, you can stay here, eat and clean up. We are going to go to the bridge. It should be finished soon, so we are all going to guard Tazuna. When you are ready you can head down." Kakashi said to the blonde that was sitting at the kitchen table.
Naruto gave a nod and smiled at Sakura, "You guys be careful." He tossed a look towards Sasuke, who wasn't really paying attention to any of this. "I'll hurry."
The blonde turned back to his food after the four left. He ate quickly before rushing upstairs to change. Pulling on his black pants and short-sleeved black shirt he headed back down stairs. He stopped when he heard a noise from down stairs that sounded a lot like wood breaking. He continued down quieter.
He watched as Inari was kicked into a wall after trying to rescue his mom. Naruto thought fast and took a little purple ball down into the kitchen. As soon as the ball hit the ground it exploded in smoke.
Naruto covered Inari's mouth with his hand as he carried the boy and his mother upstairs. He removed his hand and made a quiet sign over his mouth.
"Where the fuck did she goes!" Was screamed from down stairs.
Naruto using what he learned from the tree walking exercise crawled along the ceiling till he was directly above the two sword-wielding gangsters and dropped down. He created a clone as he hit the ground.
The two thugs turned around and sliced both of the boy's in half only to have a small explosion occur. The force sent the two flying back.
Naruto seeing that his fire clones worked walked up and punched the guy that started to get up successfully knocking him out.
"Hey Inari, come help me." The blonde shouted getting some rope. Naruto smiled gently up at the brown haired woman, "I'm sorry about your kitchen and all; I tried to make the least amount of damage."
"Oh, that's alright, thank you for helping us."
"Yeah that was so cool!" Inari said as he helped tie up the two thugs.
"You were pretty cool too, helping your mom and all." He let out a breath seeing that everything was fine now. "Well I better head to the bridge. Are you two alright here?"
"I got everything covered!" Inari announced with a huge grin.
"Alright I'm counting on you." Naruto smiled as he ruffled the kid's hair. "Bye." With that he ran towards the bridge.
Sasuke was facing off against the fake hunter Nin. Kakashi was up against Zabuza. Sakura and Tazuna were moving the bodies of the injured workers out of the battlefield. Sakura was then using bandaging she had to wrap any cut wounds she found to the best of her ability. When she was done looking the men over she stood up in front of Tazuna and the fallen men.
"You are pretty fast." The hunter Nin admitted as he whirled around ready to deliver another strike with a senbon needle.
"You're not half bad either." Sasuke grunted as he brought up a kunai to block the needle.
"Thank you, however this is no where near as fast as I can go." The boy with long brown hair said before landing a kick to Sasuke's stomach causing him to fall back.
Sasuke slid across the ground before quickly getting up. He was about ready to run back towards the hunter nin when it got really cold.
"Demonic Ice Mirrors!" Haku called out causing multiple blocks off ice to form around Sasuke.
"What…what is this?" the dark haired boy asked.
"This is my ultimate technique, you cannot escape." With that Haku stepped into one of the mirrors.
Kakashi cursed as he started towards the ice dome.
"Ah ah ah, you do that and I kill the bridge builder. Just calm down and watch the show." Zabuza said with a confident smirk even though his wrappings hid it.
The gray haired Nin cursed but stilled in his actions and watched what happened.
"Damnit." Naruto muttered from where he was hidden on the side of the bridge. "Aniki, why did you get trapped." He closed his eyes trying to think of what to do. 'Think, think, something, anything.'
A/N: Sorry it took so long. Anyways I have a poll for you. But you dont know exactly what you are voting for. Dont worry the voting will go on for the next few chapters. You can vote once per chapter that the poll is up.
Here's the thing, I have two ways that this story can go. I dont know which one to choose so I will let you choose without actually telling you what you choose, that way its still a suprise when it happens.
Vote:
A: Small amounts of tears all through out the story
B: Relatively calm, but major tear jerker at the end
Okay, vote and review. Thanks!