Sasuke Uchiha moved through the forest like a ghost unraveling at the seams.

Rivulets of blood striped his torso, each step sending tremors up his spine that reverberated in his skull—a discordant church bell tolling his decay. Cold air sawed through his lungs, his heart a wild thing battering his ribs. Dried blood crusted his skin in rust-brown constellations, flaking as he staggered onward.

Followed.

The certainty prickled his neck. He glanced over his shoulder, obsidian eyes scanning the gloom. Nothing but skeletal trees and the mockery of moonlight.

A laugh tore from him—brittle, mangled—cut short as black sludge surged into his mouth. He spat, the substance clinging to his lips like tar.

Shit. It'saccelerating.

His hands rose, trembling, to form a seal. Fingers pale as grave wax. No chakra answered. Only the cold bite of the implant lodged in his wrist, its edges glinting like a serpent's grin.

Again. Nothing.

He collapsed against a birch, bark scraping his cheek. Copper flooded his tongue; he gagged, swallowing bile. Close your eyes. Let it end.

But then—

Orange. Blinding, garish orange. A laugh like shattered glass. Gold hair haloed by sun.

Naruto.

Sasuke's mouth twitched. A smile, or a rictus. His pulse stuttered—lub-dub—then steadied.

Pride, that festering old companion, hissed:Get up.

He pressed his wrist to his mouth, tongue swiping over the wound. Blood, rancid and metallic. His teeth closed on the implant's protruding edge.

Ammonia. Acid. Agony detonated behind his eyes.

White heat.

Blackness.

He woke choking, viscous tar flooding his throat. Retching, he crawled forward, vision swimming. The forest tilted.

Not like this. Not before—

"—tell him," he rasped, though the words died in the air.

He tried to stand. The implant shrieked through his nerves, grinding bone to powder. He fell, spine arching against frozen earth. Above him, the canopy spun—a carousel of shadows.

Cold seeped into marrow. Frost feathered his breath.

"Naruto…"

His head lolled back, throat bared to indifferent stars. The name became a prayer, a curse, a plea etched into the dark.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

Naruto Uzumaki perched in the crook of a gnarled branch, his sunlit hair tousled and a faint layer of dirt coating his skin. He licked his cracked lips, brushing strands from his wide, inquisitive eyes as he scanned the forest floor below. Blood thrummed in his ears, his senses primed for the slightest tremor of movement—a shiver in the undergrowth, a dislodged stone. Not that he expected danger, but vigilance had become second nature.

Shifting uncomfortably, he resigned himself to hours of stillness. His mind wandered: Keep a lookout. Watch for followers. But monotony soon set in. At twenty-one, life felt both fleeting and eternal—double digits achieved, yet the numbers still too small. Sakura often chided him to "act his age," but little had changed. His hair still defied gravity in its chaotic swirl, framing cornflower-blue eyes. He blew a stray strand from his face, jaw aching from inertia, toes prickling with an insistent itch.

"Oh, please don't…" he muttered, imagining Kakashi's laughter at his predicament. Sensei would've suggested amputating the offending limb.

Thirty agonising minutes later, the itch spread like wildfire. Naruto glanced around—forest still, air thick with silence—then leaned precariously toward his foot. His legs, numb from hours perched, betrayed him. A wobble, a slip, a yelp of unrepeatable curses, and he plummeted headfirst, crashing into the dirt with all the grace of his twelve-year-old self.

Blinking back tears, he found Shikamaru and Kiba looming above, the latter wearing a rueful grin.

"Couldn't stay up ten more minutes?" Kiba groaned, hauling Naruto upright. "I'd have won the bet!"

"A bet?!" Naruto spluttered, nose stinging. "What happened to 'duck and cover'?!"

Shikamaru yawned, hands tucked in pockets. "False alarm. Mission wrapped early. Figured we'd… relax."

"Relax? Younappedwhile I—"

"Revenge," Kiba cut in, wolfish grin sharpening. "For snitching to Lee last month."

Naruto snorted. "Your idea! I took the heat while you fled!"

Shikamaru pinched the bridge of his nose. "Please tell me Lee wasn't naked."

"Clothed," Kiba said, though Naruto added, "But drunk Lee's a menace. Half-shaved his eyebrows before he woke up."

Shikamaru shuddered. "Spare me the visuals."

The trio dissolved into laughter—until Kiba's grin turned sly. "So… Sakura still your girl?"

Naruto stiffened. Shikamaru rolled his eyes. "Subtle, Kiba. Why not wave a banner asking, 'Naruto, proposed yet?'"

Kiba shrugged. "You'd make it too subtle. He'd miss it."

Naruto edged toward the trees, but Kiba dragged him back into a headlock. "Oh no, you don't. Spill."

Under dual scrutiny, Naruto scuffed the pine-needle-strewn path. Memories surfaced: Sakura's apartment, rain pattering the sill, a ring hidden in a plant pot. His throat tightened.

"You didn't ask her, did you?" Shikamaru deduced, voice softer.

"Nope."

Kiba gaped. "But you've been planning it for weeks! She's gone six months!"

Six months. The number should've chilled him—4,032 hours of an empty bed, of silence thicker than the fog that once shrouded his childhood. Loneliness had been his oldest enemy, a spectre he'd fought harder than any Akatsuki. Yet now, faced with its return, Naruto felt… nothing. No coiled misery, no dread. Just a hollowache, as if his soul had been scooped out long ago and never refilled.

He loved Sakura.Gods, he did. Twelve years old and tripping over his tongue to make her laugh. Twenty-one and learning to braise fish without burning the kitchen down, just to see her smile. She was his partner, hisconstant—the one he'd carve out his ribs for if she asked.

But love wasn't the problem.

The ring burned in his memory—a blood-red stone set in gold, not the cherry-blossom pink he'd saved for. He'd arrived at the jeweller's drenched and sniffling, only to find his dream ring sold. The replacement had seemed fitting at first: crimson like his eyes, that sharp, impossible shade that haunted Naruto's dreams.

"Will you marry me?" He'd practised in the dark, tracing the band's edges until his fingers went numb. But the words always curdled. Instead of Sakura's freckled cheeks, he'd see him—pale limbs bracketing his hips, calloused hands dragging down his spine. The scent of lightning and burnt flesh. Sasuke's voice, low and ruined: "Pathetic."

Naruto shuddered. Dreams, just dreams. But they left him gasping, sheets tangled, guilt sour on his tongue.

The night of the proposal, Sakura had glowed in candlelight, humming as rain tapped the window. He'd gripped the ring box, throat tight—

"Will you—"

—and suddenly he was back in that dream, Sasuke's mouth hot on his neck, teeth biting promises Naruto couldn't forget.

He'd fled to the kitchen, shoved the ring into a fern pot outside, and slammed the window. Sakura never noticed.

Now, under Kiba and Shikamaru's scrutiny, Naruto forced a grin. "We're still together."

"Ah."

"Don't start."

Shikamaru studied him. "She'd say yes. Could do much worse."

"Like bushy brows?" Kiba quipped, lightening the mood.

Naruto's grin returned, frost melting. They walked in companionable silence until Kiba froze, nostrils flaring.

"Blood. East. Alive—barely."

Shikamaru grimaced. "We're not medics. Risky to engage."

Naruto bounced on his toes, adrenaline surging. "We can't leave them!"

Kiba paled. "Feels… off."

"Chicken?" Naruto teased, dodging Kiba's swipe.

Shikamaru sighed. "Naruto, scout only. No heroics."

With a mock salute, Naruto vanished into the trees, shadows swallowing his laughter.

Naruto wove through the trees, mentally tallying metres. Below, the forest floor blurred into an emerald river, undisturbed save for the occasional tremor of leaves. No blood. No bodies. Nothing.

Yet Kiba's nose never lied.

Eastward.

A prickle crept up his nape—ice spiders dancing along his spine. He halted mid-branch, breath fogging the air. The Kyuubi's instincts flared, older than the roots beneath him.

Something's here.

He dropped soundlessly to the ground, palms flattening against soil. To his left: grass blades crushed in a staggered drag. To his right: moss indented by a splayed hand, thumbprint sharp in the loam.

Blood glistened on an evergreen leaf ahead—dried to cracked amber. Naruto swiped it, tongue testing the grit.

Metallic. Twelve hours old, maybe less.

He followed the trail, the forest's silence now oppressive, shadows clotting between the pines. The stench hit him first—rot and copper, thick enough to coat his teeth. He gagged, wrist pressed to his nose, and crept forward.

The figure lay spread-eagle beneath an ancient oak, roots coiled like serpents around its torso. Pale as moon-bleached bone. Black hair fanned in a mockery of elegance, neck bent at a cruel angle.

Naruto's knees buckled.

.No.

Sasuke's chest lay still, skin waxen under the canopy's bruise-dark light. Naruto stumbled closer, bile rising as he registered the unnatural twist of the Uchiha's left arm, the dark rivulets crusting his lips.

"Sasuke—"

He collapsed beside him, ear pressed to his sternum. Silence.

Then—

A whisper. A hitch.

Lub-dub.

Naruto's sob tore through the woods as he fumbled for a pulse, fingers smearing ash-grey skin. "Don't you dare—"

Sasuke's eyelid flickered. A slit of slate gray gleamed beneath, unseeing.

Alive.

Barely.

Kiba shot Shikamaru a sidelong glance, scuffing his boots against the dirt. When the Nara continued to ignore him, he cracked first.

"You know what this'll be, right?"

"Troublesome?" Shikamaru drawled, not looking up from the scroll in his hands. "Obviously. I've already signed up with you two, haven't I?"

Kiba visibly deflated. The git had stolen his chance to crow I told you so later.