Chapter LXVIII
You're not Kakashi…
For Naruto, an eternity had passed. Once the stomachs were satisfied excluding his own, he followed Shikamaru outside the building, from which attractive smells, but dangerous for his overly present appetite, were emanating. Fortunately, Naruto had managed to silence the urge for chakra once under the black sky, which was polluted with artificial lights. This imposed outing with humans dragged on a bit too long. He feared that it would be dawn before he could finally join Kakashi, whom he could not wait to see again.
As Kakashi had promised him, Kakashi was not far away.
And this wait was painful.
Naruto only yearned to be freed from it now.
"Apart from a few incidents, everything went well," Shikamaru breathed in relief.
"This evening was almost normal," Sakura said, smiling.
They nodded.
"What are you gonna do with him?" Kiba asked, referring to Naruto.
"Him? I'll give him back to Kakashi-Sensei," replied Shikamaru, scratching the back of his head. "I'm sure he's only thinking about that…"
His words were immediate. At the mere mention of Kakashi, Naruto became agitated. His black tail wagged enthusiastically, a goofy smile appeared on his face and his body trembled with excitement. The desire to see the Copy Ninja again was obvious. They guessed it without the slightest effort. The blond seemed to be jumping up and down like a child unable to sit still.
Seeing him so excited and filled with indescribable joy, they let out a few laughs.
"Naruto," Sakura called out, shaking her fist at him to offer him a fist bump, with a hope that he would finally give it back.
Naruto looked at her. That gesture… He understood that it was time to say goodbye. Paired with Shikamaru's words, his reunion with the precious human in the apple of his eyes was close… So close that he could touch it with his fingertips now. It was the last obstacle that separated him from his dearest wish.
As a result, without an ounce of hesitation he gave a fist bump to Sakura, who suppressed a start in response to the shock of static electricity. The kunoichi could only smile. Her comrade had given one to her, without the slightest reluctance.
To make Kakashi proud of him, Naruto held out his fist to the next one, to the one named Chōji.
"Don't freak out," Shikamaru warned. "You'll suffer inevitable static electricity shocks upon contact. Only when he's wet does he no longer give off electricity."
One after the other, they gave a fist bump to Naruto, although they were apprehensive. The mild and unpleasant shocks took them by surprise. They held back from reacting too much, so as not to frustrate or upset Naruto in any way, since that was out of his control.
However, when Naruto locked his eyes on Kiba, he hesitated. Then, with a mischievous smile and a frown, he held out his fist to him. Kiba noticed his face, which did not inspire trust at all. The blond had a very specific idea in mind, and it didn't bode well…
"Eh-oh! I don't touch that. Even with a stick," he said while pointing at Naruto, who was impatiently waiting for Kiba to give him a fist bump.
"Stop complaining and give it back," Shikamaru sighed. "You're gonna upset him again…"
"He can be upset for all I care! He wants to harm me with his psychopathic face!"
Naruto let out a long loud grunt while pouting.
"I see you coming, Naruto," Kiba said dryly, crossing his arms. "I won't let you electrocute me."
Caught red-handed, the sapphire-eyed boy stopped insisting. Disappointed, he sighed heavily, stuffing his hands in his pockets. The human that he wanted to annoy one last time had seen through him; he could not understand how he had guessed it so easily…
Except for Shikamaru and Sakura, the group separated. They went in relatively different directions. Since Sakura was staying, Shikamaru assumed she wanted to accompany them. He had to return Naruto to Kakashi, and he had no idea where he could be. But with the blond's sharp nostrils, not forgetting that the Copy Ninja was in the neighbourhood, he only had to ask Naruto to find his trail by tracking his scent.
"Well, it's time to give you back to Kakashi…"
When he wanted to put a hand on Naruto's shoulder to invite him to walk, Naruto gently pushed him away. Naruto placed his hands on Shikamaru's shoulders to force him to take two steps back. That raised eyebrows between the two ninjas who exchanged a look. Obviously, Naruto wanted to join Kakashi alone. This request put Shikamaru somewhat on edge. Due to his unstable psyche, the blond was unpredictable and dangerous without supervision; it was the same as releasing a wolf into a pasture of sheep before going away, while hoping that the herd would still be complete when he returned…
"I know you can easily find him with his scent, but I don't plan on leaving you all alone, Naruto."
Naruto frowned. Once again, he forced Shikamaru back with a more abrupt, but nonviolent movement. Naruto was determined to show Kakashi that he could be on his own, show Kakashi that he could find Kakashi, show Kakashi that Kakashi could be proud of him. A frustration took hold of him. He was trying to make Shikamaru understand his irrevocable request to leave alone. Kakashi would not be proud of him if he ran away from Shikamaru. The other boy had to keep an eye on him and he had to agree to let him go alone.
All in all, his request was clear.
"Do you think he can go alone?" Sakura questioned anxiously. "After all, Kakashi-Sensei is not far away…"
"I don't know… I don't feel at all comfortable letting him wander around on his own. With everything that's happening… I have a bad feeling…"
Naruto's shoulders and head were low. His tail was agonizingly motionless, and a veil of sadness gradually covered his face. Shikamaru hesitated and hesitated… He was torn between two choices. Still, he wanted to give him a chance. After all, the evening had gone well despite a few minor incidents.
"Are you really sure of yourself?" he asked, crossing his arms.
Naruto's beaming smile was an answer to his question. After many, many thoughts, he decided to give in to his whim and therefore allow him to prove himself.
"Okay, but don't hurt anyone, Naruto. Otherwise, you'll cause big problems for Kakashi…"
Permission finally granted, Naruto let out a few silent laughs and focused on Kakashi's unique scent by sniffing the air. Since Kakashi had moved around a lot … a bit too much for his liking, his scent was going in all directions. In some places, it was more pronounced while elsewhere, it was greatly attenuated, or even ephemeral. He had difficulty finding his trace. Kakashi had returned to the same place several times; it intertwined the olfactory trails. Nonetheless, Naruto quickly found Kakashi's trail.
It was where his scent was the strongest.
No possible doubt. It was definitely him.
It was Kakashi and none other than him.
Naruto took one last look at Shikamaru and Sakura, then he cautiously walked towards Kakashi. His heart was unleashed; the tremors reached his hands. It was the first time he found himself alone, alone in this torrent of humans who sought to harm him. The wicked eyes pierced him with their violence. The whispers bled his overstimulated ears. Goosebumps made his hair stand on end.
Cleverly, he ignored them and focused on Kakashi. He wanted to let himself be lulled into his gentle embrace as soon as possible and snuggle into Kakashi's arms, in which there was neither pain nor fear. Finding his world again, the only world he wanted to belong to. He was lost in the middle of the remains of a dark and hostile forest. He did not see much; evil lurked in the light that blinded his eyes. He felt tiny; he feared being eaten alive if he did not hide in the non-existent thickets of the unwelcoming urban streets.
He took his courage in both hands and got deeper into this dead forest, in which nestled an anthill of humans who terrorized him with their violence. In the darkness, Kakashi was his light and without his light, Naruto had difficulty keeping his composure so as not to fall into panic, awakening predation in others…
Naruto ventured into streets that were increasingly dark and empty of human presence. Luckily, Kakashi was not among a crowd—on the contrary, Kakashi was alone. Kakashi must have slipped away from the hustle and bustle of the crowded places. The darkness allowed him to see better as he approached Kakashi; the distant voices were silent echoes now.
Excitement was building within him like a canine about to see its owner coming home. It was such that his dark fur ruffled in response to this overload of joy, to which he surrendered with open arms. His heart was racing; strange things were swarming in his stomach.
Unable to wait any longer, he trotted towards the corridor, in which Kakashi was.
Naruto took a few steps inside…
Then he froze in place.
Not far from him was Kakashi … but something was wrong. Kakashi was calmly sitting on a pile of junk. Kakashi had almost covered himself whole with the greenish blanket with abstract patterns that was supposed to be in the nest…
However, when Kakashi turned his head, Naruto's heart stopped abruptly.
"Hello, cutie~," said the stranger in a voice straight from hell, sketching a haunted smile.
Frozen with terror and incomprehension, Naruto did not know that human who bore Kakashi's scent. In front of him, it was not Kakashi. In front of him was a macabre being with nightmarish intentions that made his blood run cold in his veins. His whole body could not move; he could no longer blink his eyes.
Naruto was paralyzed by fear and the greatest confusion. His nose did not recognize this infamous chakra, which was not Kakashi's sweet, delicious and divine chakra. The precious nest had been desecrated. Kakashi was not where Kakashi supposed to be. Yet that was where his scent was the strongest. It was inconceivable, even impossible, that the teenager could have made a mistake; if the whole world collapsed, the scent of Kakashi would linger. But above all…
If it was not Kakashi… Where was Kakashi?
Naruto jumped as two humans jumped behind him, where he had come from and therefore, his only escape. A familiar metallic sound reached his ears. He had barely turned his head when two metal rings were thrown at him. Petrified with fear and unable to realize what was happening, Naruto could not react or move. The largest of the rings tightened around his waist and also imprisoned his arms. The second attacked his ankles, which ended up tightly tied up. At the same time, Naruto was thrown backwards and fell heavily to the ground after rolling a few times.
His survival instincts awoke, came to the surface to give him the energy to fight and flee… Sadly, his combativeness was miserable. Naruto squirmed uselessly while groaning. He moulded his chakra in all his chakra veins in vain; his black markings reacted to his chakra, which glowed a hypnotic blue… However, the restraints burned his skin, devouring his chakra with pain. The pain made him cry out, muffled by his own absent breath.
Gradually drained of his strength, Naruto was at their mercy.
Seeing the beast moving miserably and whimpering, the one wearing the blanket got rid of it to come and meet the creature. Another human jumped from the roof and stayed back while the other three approached their prey, exchanging mocking sneers.
"What a dumb animal!" exclaimed the leader, the one who wore the clothes of the Copy Ninja in order to be imbued with his olfactory imprint. "Do you like his smell so much that you don't realize that my chakra is far from being his? You're even dumber than what people have said about you!"
The man grabbed the blond tuft at the roots and forced Naruto to his knees. The feral boy whined and hissed moans of pain; his blue eyes, now clouded with darkness, were wet with tears.
"We had to wait a long time before we got our hands on you again," added the other man. "She can't wait to see you again."
"Let's not push our luck," the leader said, squeezing even more roughly the fragile hair, which tore shriller laments from its owner. "Hurry and get us out of here! In case there are any curious people in the area!"
The one in the back, who was much more puny than the other three, agreed out loud. He knelt down at a specific spot in the centre of the alley. He performed several hand seals and placed both palms on the ground. A black glyph appeared. Quickly, the latter lit up, becoming coloured with blue, green and orange; at that, the seal gradually widens.
"How long?!" grumbled the one in charge.
"So far away, a few minutes," he breathed, focusing on his jutsu.
"Hurry up! We have to bring the stupid beast back to its mistress!"
"I don't have Kian's level…"
The leader nodded to the other two; he gave them a non-verbal order that both understood. While one of them rummaged in his back bag, the man roughly removed the beast's shinobi headband and threw it into the darkness. One of the men took out an accessory that the ocean blue irises recognized with horror.
Naruto's eyes widened in terror when he saw this thing. This thing released a memory that slipped out of his Pandora's box; nightmarish events resurrected in his panicked mind. This muzzle equipped with a thick leather blindfold plunged his entire being into panic.
Despite the abuse to his scalp caused by his hair being painfully pulled, the blond struggled and moved fiercely and frantically. He shook his head, moving in all directions, uttering loud whimpers when the human brought him closer to his face. His breathing raced, he hyperventilated and asphyxiated under his own breath; his pitiful whines, nourished by despair, emptied his lungs.
The men fumed. Two of them worked together to restrain the beast's head, preventing it from moving while the third placed the muzzle. The mesh slipped under the chin and covered the facial area up to the bridge of the nose and near the ears. He made sure that the blindfold blocked the eyes of the creature, thus deprived of its vision. He secured the three leather straps, so tightly that the pressure exerted only allowed the lips and teeth to be barely part.
Gripped by the roots of his golden hair a second time, Naruto was deprived of his eyes condemned to darkness, his limbs hampered and his hypnotic powers neutralized like his fangs, his claws, his chakra… Naruto stopped fidgeting and froze. He lost all combativeness, although his markings still shined. His whole body was once again plunged into suffering and fear, as was his mind, which hoped to fly away from the reality… Alas, Naruto was imprisoned in this biological carcass, which was sadly his; there was no escape, no hope…
"Hurry up and lock its collar on it before it starts howling its cry of woe! So we give him a hand to get out of Konohagakure as quickly as possible!" cried one of the men.
A large, metallic ring was revealed and dangerously approached Naruto's neck, and Naruto…
Naruto gave up.
His heart screamed in agony, cried out in the silence of death. His broken soul clung to the only thought, to the only hope of being rescued by the most important being, the most precious being in his blind eyes. Again and again, his heart begged this being to hear him, to come and help him, to take him in his arms, in which there was neither suffering nor fear…
On this dark tapestry were outlined the silver hair of unequalled softness, the benevolence of a face hidden with mystery, the dark eye, but luminous and full of kindness, the whiteness of a wintry skin capable of resisting the most terrible heatwave… His nose smelled the lying odour nearby that had led him into the death trap of hell. The hell that demanded his presence in this empty prison on which his name was engraved…
Tears born of his despair slid down his cheeks as Naruto clung to Kakashi's image, to Kakashi's voice, to Kakashi's scent, to Kakashi's skin… To everything that made Kakashi Kakashi, this irreplaceable and unique human in the world who had taken him out of his devastating demons and who protected him from these humans who were on the verge of making him disappear with abuse impossible to imagine.
The pain caused by the possibility of never seeing Kakashi again could not be put into words…
No comparison was possible.
None…
Without Kakashi, without his world…
Naruto was giving up on living…
