"Sasuke," said Naruto gently, crouching beside him, "get up."
Sasuke lay sprawled on the rough ground, his mouth slightly agape, dark hair matted with sweat and dust. His clothes—once crisp travel-wear—were crumpled into a patchwork of grime, clinging to him like a second skin. Naruto bit back a laugh as Sasuke's brow furrowed in his sleep, a faint groan escaping him.
He'd never seen the Uchiha like this: limbs tangled inelegantly, posture slackened into something almost , Naruto corrected himself. Not merely tired. Four days of navigating backroads and dodging patrols under the Land of Waterfall's searing sun would drain anyone—even a man as relentlessly composed as Sasuke.
The memory of their stop in the border village flickered to mind. Four days earlier, they'd arrived seeking supplies and discreet intel. Sasuke had spent hours subtly probing the village elder—a sharp-eyed woman with a serpent's patience—while Naruto, draped in his Ikamuzu-san disguise, fidgeted nearby.
Subtlety, of course, hadneverbeen Naruto's strength.
"—and so, honoured elder," Naruto had blurted suddenly, voice quivering with theatrical despair, "we're on a secret mission to rescue my sister from our wicked uncle's clutches!" He'd flung himself to the floor, loose curls spilling dramatically over the woman's feet. "Please—if you've any knowledge of the mountain passes—"
Sasuke's expression, Naruto recalled fondly, had been a masterpiece: lips parted, eyes wide, the faintest twitch in his jaw as if physically restraining himself from throttling his 'wife'. The elder, to her credit, had merely blinked before stroking Naruto's hair with grandmotherly sympathy.
"Child, rise," she'd said, summoning a servant. "We've maps that may aid your… noble quest."
Later, as they'd left the village, Sasuke's composure had finally snapped. "Must you debase yourself like a tavern mummer?" he'd hissed, avoiding Naruto's gaze. "Throwing yourself at strangers is beneath even your dignity."
Naruto had grinned, twirling a strand of his curly brown hair. "Jealous, husband? Worried I'll steal your spotlight?"
"Don't flatter yourself."
"Oh, but you were flustered!"
"More like appalled."
They both knew the truth: Sasuke's irritation had burned brightest not at the theatrics, but at the way the elder's servant had lingered, offering Naruto a sympathetic touch.
Now, Naruto poked Sasuke's shoulder. "Up, lazybones. Sunrise won't wait."
Sasuke's eyes slit open, glare sharpening. "Oh,youagain."
"You're welcome, and you're drooling."
A hand flew to his mouth—then stilled as Sasuke registered the smirk on Naruto's face. "...Idiot."
Naruto tossed him a canteen. "Says the man who let his 'wife' do all the negotiating."
"Your 'negotiating' involved snot and a lot of it."
"But also a map." Naruto flapped the parchment triumphantly. "Don't hate the player Uchiha—my genius saved usthreedays' detour."
Sasuke took the canteen, drinking deeply. "Your 'genius' nearly got us thrown into a mental asylum."
"Pfft. Potato—Potato—Toma–."
"—you are ridiculous," Sasuke cut in, rising smoothly. "One day, that mouth will get you sectioned."
Naruto's grin widened. "But what a way to go."
Sasuke rolled his eyes, but Naruto didn't miss the faint curve of his lips as he turned away.
They had ascended from the lowlands into jagged limestone outcrops, avoiding all marked trails to evade patrols or worse—ninja scouts. The so-called "paths" they followed were little more than nature's grudging concessions: narrow clefts between boulders, moss-slick ledges skirting sheer drops, and serpentine animal tracks that coiled endlessly upwards through skeletal pines. The forest here was no sanctuary. Roots snarled like knucklebones underfoot; granite cliffs leaned inward like the lid of a coffin.
Progress was glacial. Where main roads carved efficient routes through the mountains, these wilderness trails seemed determined to thwart them. They doubled back on themselves like serpents devouring their own tails, vanished into scree slopes, or dead-ended at cliffs that left Naruto swearing at the sky.
Three days in, Naruto finally snapped.
"Sod this!" He kicked a loose stone into the abyss below, watching it vanish into the mist. "We're slower than a one-legged tortoise. Let's take the main road!"
Sasuke didn't turn, his voice clipped. "And if we're recognised? Your transformation jutsu won't fool a genin with half a brain."
"We'll say we're newlyweds!" Naruto gestured wildly, the motion sending his pack straps sliding off his shoulders. "Touring the ravines for our honeymoon! You've already got the brooding-groom act down—"
"Stop." Sasuke pivoted, his Sharingan flickering crimson in the half-light. "Even if your farce worked, I can't disguise this." He flexed his bandaged arm, the limb still trembling from chakra depletion. "One glimpse of these eyes, and every bounty hunter from here to Suna will be on us."
Naruto scowled. "So we fight!"
"With what? Your charm and my left hand?"
The blond flushed, fists clenching. "Well, we're here now!"
"Yes because you made me!" Sasuke's composure frayed, his voice sharp as flint. "You dragged me into your idiocy—your sentimental crusade—and now you'd risk everything for stupid half thought out shortcut?"
Naruto stepped closer, the scent of pine resin and sweat clinging to him. "You asked me to come with you,first."
Silence pooled between them, thick as the mountain fog. Somewhere far below, a falcon screamed.
Sasuke's jaw tightened. "That was a stupid thing for me to have said, I shouldn't have put you in that position. You don't know what you're getting into Naruto."
"Don't I?" Naruto's voice softened, his anger dissolving into something raw. "I want you here. Not because I need your Sharingan or your bloody strategies. Just… you."
The admission hung, a string of words that floated on the air like the fragile wings of a butterfly.
Sasuke moved first—a half-step forward, then another, until Naruto's breath warmed his throat. When he kissed him, it wasn't gentle. It was a claim: teeth and palms and the heat of three days' pent-up frustration. For every lingering glance Naruto had drawn in the village. For every foolish, selfless choice that made Sasuke's chest ache.
Naruto laughed against his mouth, startled. "That's… a hell of an argument."
"Shut up," Sasuke muttered, dragging him closer.
Naruto had to admit Sasuke had been less prickly of late. Fewer arguments, fewer barbed insults—just quiet stubbornness tempered by a newfound restraint. He still dug his heels in, of course, but now with firm logic rather than venom. And he walked closer. So close their hands brushed when navigating narrow ledges, shoulders bumped during rest breaks, warmth bleeding through layers of travel-worn fabric.
Naruto didn't complain. There was comfort in Sasuke's nearness—a steadying presence at his side, tangible proof that they were moving together, not just in parallel.
Their conversations, too, had softened. Fewer accusations, more silences that felt less like battle lines and more like breath held between confessions. Occasionally, though, Naruto would pause mid-climb, gesturing to some stubborn bloom clinging to the cliffs.
"Look at that! Pink, like Sakura's hair!"
Sasuke would glance over, lips twitching. "Didn't take you for a botanist."
"Oi! I can appreciate pretty things, can't I?"
"Hn. Suppose even brutes have aesthetics."
"Asshole—"
But the insult lacked conviction, dissolving into laughter that echoed off the rocks.
Sasuke still hadn't unspooled his secrets. The past remained entombed, the lies intact. Yet when Naruto caught his gaze now, Sasuke didn't flinch or glare. He'd turn away slowly, sunlight catching the curve of a half-smile—small, tentative, but there.
The first time it happened, Naruto nearly lost his footing.
"Careful, idiot," Sasuke snapped, hauling him back from the edge by his scarf.
"You—you smiled!"
"I didnot."
"You did! Like a—a person! Are you feeling alright?"
Sasuke released him with a shove. "Keep hallucinating, and I'll let the rocks finish the job."
But the tips of his ears burned pink.
Naruto was learning, slowly, to read the nuances of Sasuke's silence. How he stiffened his spine when irritated, like a cat arching its back. How he tilted his head during pauses—a fractional dip to the left when wrestling with unspoken words.
And how, sometimes, when the path widened and the sun dipped low, that same tilt became an invitation. A question.
Like now.
They'd halted at a rare plateau, the valley sprawling below in a tapestry of pine and mist. Sasuke leaned against an outcrop, hair ruffled by the wind, gaze fixed on the horizon.
Naruto sidled closer. "Admiring the view?"
"Hn."
"It's pretty, yeah?"
A slow pause. Sasuke turned, just enough to meet his eyes. The head tilt—subtle, deliberate.
Naruto grinned. "You're such a cliché, Uchiha."
But he closed the distance anyway, their laughter muffled by the mountains.
Sex with Sasuke Uchiha was a paradox—a collision of friction and tenderness that left Naruto's nerves singing. Pain laced through pleasure like lightning through storm clouds; every graze of teeth, every bruising grip, a reminder that they were both still learning how to hold without breaking. Sasuke's intensity had always been a wildfire, but now, amidst the raw physicality, Naruto sensed something softer—a surrender to the uncharted space between them.
The afternoon sun dappled the mossy bank where they sprawled, the lake's surface shimmering like hammered silver. Naruto's back pressed into the earth, damp grass cool beneath his shoulders. Sasuke loomed above him, raven hair clinging to his neck, water droplets catching sunlight as they slid down his collarbone. His Sharingan was dormant, eyes black as a starless sky, yet somehow brighter than Naruto had ever seen them.
"You're such a bastard," Naruto gasped, fingernails digging into Sasuke's hips.
"Says the idiot who started this." Sasuke's retort lacked bite, his breath hitching as Naruto arched beneath him.
They'd tumbled into this moment as they did everything else—recklessly, all fists and laughter, the line between combat and craving blurring until neither could parse it. Sasuke's lips found Naruto's throat, biting just shy of drawing blood, and Naruto groaned, fingers tangling in wet fabric.
"Off," he demanded, tugging at Sasuke's sodden trousers. "You're dripping on me."
Sasuke snorted but complied, peeling away layers with uncharacteristic clumsiness. Naruto took the opportunity to map the planes of his chest—pale skin marred by old scars, muscles tensing under his touch. When Sasuke stilled his hand, Naruto braced for a rebuff. Instead, Sasuke pressed his palm flat over his heartbeat.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Naruto's breath caught. He'd never seen Sasuke's face like this—unshielded, vulnerable as the trembling ferns around them. Without thinking, he surged upward, capturing Sasuke's lips in a kiss that was all heat and hunger. Sasuke yielded for a heartbeat, then reclaimed control, pinning Naruto's wrists above his head.
"Stay," he murmured, the command gentler than his grip.
Naruto laughed, the sound fraying into a gasp as Sasuke's free hand roamed lower. "Since when d'you ask?"
"Since now."
The shift was subtle—a tremble in Sasuke's voice, a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes. Naruto stilled, recognising the offering for what it was: a bridge between their old dance of dominance and something new. Deliberately, he relaxed beneath him, legs parting in silent consent.
Sasuke's exhale ghosted over his skin. "Idiot."
"Your idiot," Naruto countered, grinning despite the ache building in his ribs.
The next moments blurred—a symphony of gasped curses and shared breath. Sasuke's touch was relentless, every thrust a claim and a plea, but his mouth lingered in unexpected places: the hollow of Naruto's elbow, the scarred curve of his shoulder, the frantic pulse at his throat. Naruto reciprocated in kind, teeth and tongue and whispered profanities, until the world narrowed to the slide of sweat-slick skin and the crescendo coiling in his gut.
When release came, it was mutual—a ragged shout swallowed by the forest, fingers interlaced so tightly Naruto felt the echo of Sasuke's heartbeat in his own veins.
Afterward, they lay tangled in the grass, the lake's breeze cooling their fevered skin. Sasuke's head rested on Naruto's chest, his breathing slow and even. Naruto traced idle patterns on his back, marvelling at the contrast of ink-dark hair against sunlit skin.
"We're a mess," Sasuke muttered, though he made no move to rise.
"Speak for yourself." Naruto flicked a clump of moss from Sasuke's shoulder. "I'm a delight."
A huff of laughter—rare and bright. Sasuke propped himself up, gaze sweeping Naruto's face. "You've grass in your hair."
"Yeah? Well, you've got…" Naruto trailed off, heart stuttering as Sasuke brushed a thumb over his cheekbone.
The kiss, when it came, was nothing like before—soft, almost chaste, a question rather than a demand. Naruto answered without hesitation, fingers carding through damp hair.
When they broke apart, Sasuke's expression was unreadable. "We should wash."
"Yeah." Naruto didn't let go. "In a minute."
For once, Sasuke didn't argue.
At night, they stopped at whatever shelter they could scavenge before darkness swallowed the land whole. Sasuke possessed an uncanny talent for this—spotting fissures in cliff faces invisible to the untrained eye, or alcoves tucked behind cascading ivy that even foxes might overlook. Naruto, meanwhile, relied on blunt persistence, his strengths lying in stamina and stubbornness rather than subtlety.
This morning was no different.
Naruto watched Sasuke sleep, chest rising in steady rhythm beneath his travel-stained shirt. Dawn's pallid light seeped into their hideout, gilding the angles of Sasuke's face: the sharp jut of his jaw, the fan of lashes against pale skin. A dangerous urge simmered in Naruto's gut—to shake him awake and scream every contradiction clawing at his ribs.I hate how you make me feel. I hate that I don't hate you at all.
He toyed with his water flask, imagining the satisfying splash of icy liquid over that infuriatingly placid expression. But practicality won out—wasting resources was foolish, and facing a sodden, seething Uchiha at sunrise held little appeal.
Instead, Naruto edged through the narrow rock tunnel shielding their camp. The entrance was a masterstroke of Sasuke's cunning: two lichen-crusted boulders leaning together like old conspirators, veiled by a curtain of juniper bushes. Outside, the world exhaled in pearlescent mist. Sunlight strained through quilted clouds, brushing the forest with tentative gold.
Naruto stretched, toes digging into dew-slick earth as he arched his spine. His joints popped like kindling, the ache of yesterday's climb still coiled in his calves. A breeze carried the mineral tang of distant snowmelt, cut through with the musk of pine. His stomach growled, a raucous demand that shattered the morning's hush.
"Yeah, yeah," he muttered, patting his abdomen. "Workin' on it."
The prospect of breakfast—leathery jerky and stale rice balls—made his jaw clench. He scanned the undergrowth, hunting for autumn's lingering generosity: late blackberries, perhaps, or rosehips clinging to thorny stems. A shrub three metres east caught his eye, its branches studded with dusky purple clusters.
He glanced back at the cave. No movement. Sasuke's silhouette remained still, a shadow pooled in deeper shadow.
Naruto hummed tunelessly as he picked his way toward the bush, moss muffling his steps. Up close, the berries glistened with promise, their skins taut as overfilled bladders. He reached—
—and froze.
The forest's breath stilled. No birdsong, no rustle of prey. Only the prickle of unseen eyes drilling into his nape.
Sasuke's dream curdled into nightmare.
He stood waist-deep in a festering bog, the air thick with the reek of decay. The world here was a bruise—indigo shadows pooling under a starless sky, water oily and stagnant, clinging to his skin like congealed blood. Across the mire, Itachi waited.
His brother stood framed by skeletal reeds, their whispers sharp as blades. Moonlight carved his features into a cruel parody of memory: the same raven hair, the same composed tilt of his head. But his eyes glinted crimson, the Sharingan spinning lazily, endlessly.
"You're stuck, little brother."
Itachi's voice slithered through the dark, soft as a feather but as cruel as steel. Sasuke recoiled, sludge seeping into his clothes, cold and viscous.
"Shut up," Sasuke snarled. The bog quivered, water sloshing against banks of black sand. "You're dead. Rotting. I made sure of it."
Itachi smiled—a slow, skeletal stretch of lips. "Did you?"
The thing around Sasuke's leg tightened, sinewy and alive. He glanced down, breath hitching. Tendrils of shadow coiled up his calves, barbed hooks biting into flesh.
"You're a ghost," Sasuke hissed, clawing at the binds. "A lie."
"Am I?" Itachi stepped closer, boots silent on the water's surface. Ripples spread, each one fracturing his reflection into a dozen hollow-eyed masks. "Or are you simply… lost?"
Sasuke lunged, but the mire sucked him deeper. Putrid water lapped at his ribs, alive with the squelch of unseen things. "I killed you! I watched your corpse burn—I dug your shallow grave!"
"No." Itachi crouched, tilting his head. A maggot wriggled from his ear, plopping into the bog. "You killed a shadow. The real rot…" His hand pressed over Sasuke's chest, icy through soaked fabric. "…is here."
The world shifted.
The bog became a graveyard. Ribcages breached the surface, femurs jutting like splintered teeth.
"Look."
Sasuke screamed.
The water churned, dragging him under. Corpses bobbed around him—faces he knew, faces he'd carved. Their hands clawed at his limbs, their voices a chorus.
Murderer. Liar. Coward.
He thrashed, lungs burning, as Itachi's body loomed above. Those eyes—those damned eyes—stared into him. .
Sasuke wished Itachi looked like the monster he'd believed him to be for so long—a snarling, bloodied spectre, unhinged and venomous. Instead, his brother stood with the poise of a scholar, his obsidian hair swept back, features carved into that infuriatingly placid mask their father had worn. His eyes, dark and fathomless, pinned Sasuke like a specimen under glass. He knows, Sasuke thought, bile rising. He's always known.
"You might think you controlled it, Sasuke," Itachi said, voice smooth as oiled steel. "You might think you held the upper hand—"
"Shut up!" Sasuke roared, hands clawing at his ears as if he could physically rip the words out. His own pulse thundered in his skull, a war drum drowning reason. "How could youunderstand? How could youknow?"
Itachi tilted his head, the ghost of a smile playing on lips untouched by decay. "You might think you made a deal. You might even think you both honoured it." He stepped closer, the bog's surface unrippling beneath him. "But we know the truth, don't we? It was never a pact. Just… desperation."
"The dead don't talk," Sasuke hissed, thrashing against the sinewy grip around his ankles. The sludge thickened, warm and pulsing like living viscera. "The dead don't talk, the dead don't—"
"Look," Itachi murmured, "at what you've done."
Sasuke shouldn't have looked. He knew. Knew as the metallic tang of blood flooded his mouth, as his heartbeat crescendoed into a scream. But he raised his head—
—and choked.
Itachi's skin sloughed away in greasy ribbons, revealing muscle riddled with larvae. His jaw hung slack, tendons snapping like frayed ropes as his mouth worked soundlessly. The stench hit Sasuke like a fist: putrid flesh, rancid fat, the sweet-sour reek of organs left to stew in summer heat. Bile scorched Sasuke's throat as the corpse lurched forward, bony fingers grazing his cheek.
"Y̷͕͝ö̸̖́u̶̼͛ ̵̧͋a̸̙͛l̷̩͑l̶͕̊o̷̘͝ẅ̸̞́ȩ̶̌ď̶̘ ̴̩̽ť̸̤ḧ̷̦́i̸͇̋š̷̻," the thing gurgled, maggots spilling from its trachea. Its remaining eye, milky and bloated, fixed on him. "Ň̸͜ò̵̫t̶̙̚ ̴̧̋å̴̤ ̴̫͌m̷̭̓u̶̻͝r̴̘̈́ḏ̴̛e̸̱̋r̸̘̉e̴͈̎r̸͈͋.̶̦̑ ̸̳̓A̶̡͐ ̵̳͗c̶̙̋o̷̮̕w̶̞̕å̵̮r̵̙͝d̴̮̕."
The tendrils around Sasuke's legs yanked hard. Icy water flooded his nostrils, his mouth, his lungs. Corpses bobbed around him—their faces his face, their hollowed eyes accusing. He clawed at the surface, but the weight of the dead dragged him deeper, their whispers seeping into his veins.
You let us burn.
You wanted this.
Darkness swallowed him, Itachi's laughter echoing even as the water stole his breath.
Sasuke awoke screaming.
"Naruto!"
His voice shredded the dawn, raw and unrecognisable. Cold sweat glued his shirt to his spine as he clawed free of the rocky shelter, retching violently the moment damp air hit his lungs. The nightmare clung like tar—Itachi's corpse, the bog's suffocating grip, the weight of dead hands dragging him under. He spat bile into the moss, hands trembling as if the earth itself might liquefy beneath him.
Breathe. Breathe, you fool.
But the morning mist coiled around his throat like a noose. Sunlight filtered through the trees in gauzy threads, casting the clearing in a sickly pallor. Sasuke pressed his forehead to the ground, inhaling leaf mould and damp soil until the world stopped spinning.
"Naruto," he croaked again, louder now, forcing levity into his tone. "Your fucking cooking's backing up on me. I'm never letting you—"
The words died.
The clearing was empty.
Naruto's bedroll lay abandoned, imprint still warm. Boot tracks—familiar, clumsy, his—led into the treeline. Sasuke's gaze traced their path, heart stuttering. The forest beyond was a maw of shadow, undergrowth so dense it swallowed the light whole. Exactly like the darkness from his dream.
Stupid, reckless, suicidal—
"Dobe," Sasuke hissed, rising unsteadily. "Why the hell would you…?"
No birdsong answered. No rustle of life. Just the drip of condensation and the creak of ancient pines.
He stepped forward.
The earth shifted underfoot.
Not soil—something slick. Sasuke glanced down. A trail of droplets glistened on fern leaves, crimson and fresh. His breath . Dew. It'sjustdew.
But the coppery tang lingered as he pushed deeper, branches snagging his clothes like skeletal fingers. The air thickened, cold seeping into his marrow.
"Naruto?!"
Silence.
Then—
A twig snapped to his left. Sasuke spun, Sharingan flaring. Nothing but shifting fog.
"This isn't funny, usuratonkachi! Answer me!"
A laugh trickled through the trees—high, fractured, wrong.
Sasuke froze.
He knew that laugh.
It couldn't be.
"Itachi…?"
The undergrowth rustled. A figure flickered between the pines—pale, half-rotted, black hair trailing like smoke.
No.No, no, no—
Sasuke lunged, kunai drawn, teeth pulled back in a snarl. "Show yourself!"
But the forest swallowed his blade, his rage, his fear. Only the laugh remained, echoing as the mist closed in.
Somewhere ahead, Naruto's footprints vanished into the dark.
Naruto hadn't ventured far into the undergrowth, but the air thickened with each step. His fingers hovered over the kunai pouch, every sense razor-sharp. The forest's usual symphony of rustling leaves and distant birdsong had ceased, replaced by a silence so absolute it throbbed in his ears. Even his breath seemed too loud, ragged and alien in the void.
"Who's there?"
His voice dissolved into the gloom, unanswered. The trees loomed like sentinels, their gnarled branches clawing at the ashen sky. A bead of sweat traced his spine.
Then—laughter.
Soft at first, a wet, gurgling chuckle that skittered across his nerves. Followed by a word, hissed as though savoured: "Fool."
Naruto spun, kunai drawn. Shadows pooled between the ferns, shifting sinuously. His mind conjured images—a creature hunched and slavering, jaws unhinged, eyes glinting with malice.
To his left, the undergrowth twitched.
He pivoted, blade raised.
A face emerged—small, dirt-streaked, framed by rotted leaves. Its eyes were milky orbs, sunken into a skull stretched taut as parchment. The thing grinned, revealing needle-like teeth stained black.
Naruto's yell tore through the silence. The creature recoiled, its laughter rising—a dissonant chorus of choking and clattering bones. No bigger than a toddler, it scuttled backwards on limbs bent at impossible angles, joints popping like wet kindling.
"What thehell…?"
The thing vanished, but the laughter lingered, echoing from all directions. Naruto's pulse hammered in his throat. The air reeked now—sour, fungal, like meat left to bloat in the sun.
Watch your back…
The whisper crawled into his ear, colder than the mist coiling around his ankles. Naruto froze.
"Sasuke?" he breathed, knuckles whitening around the kunai. "Is that you?"
No reply.
He edged forward, soles crunching on brittle twigs. The bush ahead shuddered. A clawed hand—grey, webbed, tipped with yellowed talons—parted the foliage. Another face leered, then another, their features melting and reforming like wax.
"Hungry", one crooned. "So hungry."
Naruto's gut clenched. "Back off!"
They lunged.
Not at him—past him. He whirled, but too late.
A weight slammed into his back, talons shredding fabric and skin. Naruto screamed, lashing out blindly. The kunai bit into something rubbery and cold. Ichor sprayed, stinging his eyes.
"Get—off—!"
He stumbled, foot catching on a root. The slope gave way beneath him.
Mud.
Thorns.
Darkness.
Naruto tumbled, the world a kaleidoscope of pain. Branches lashed his face; rocks battered his ribs. His skull struck stone, stars exploding behind his lids.
Move.
Get up.
He clawed at the earth, vision swimming. The creatures swarmed down the slope, their forms blurring—now skeletal, now corpulent, now insectile.
"Pretty meat," one hissed, its tongue a bloated leech. "Sweet, sweet meat."
Naruto kicked out, connecting with a brittle jaw. It shattered, but two more took its place. Talons pierced his calf, anchoring him.
"Sasuke!"
The name ripped from him, raw and desperate.
Fingers—too many fingers—closed around his wrists. Something writhed against his neck, burrowing into his flesh. Fire lanced through his veins as though his blood had turned to acid.
"Hush, hush," the chorus crooned. "We'll make you ours."
Naruto thrashed, but the creatures piled onto him, their weight smothering. A talon hooked his lower lip, wrenching his jaw wide.
Naruto's body rebelled—a marionette with severed strings. His right leg jerked violently, yanked by some unseen force, but he felt nothing. No pain, no pressure, just the grotesque sight of his own limb thrashing against the mud as though possessed.
"Sasuke…!" His voice cracked, the name dissolving into a wet gasp.
The creatures swarmed, their talons digging deeper. One latched onto his forearm, its maw unhinging to reveal a spiralling throat lined with hooked barbs. Naruto gagged as the stench of rot flooded his mouth.
Get up.
Fight.
Move!
But his limbs were leaden. Cold seeped into his veins, a numbness spreading from the wounds where things writhed beneath his skin—slimy, probing, alive. His chest heaved, lungs burning as the creatures' laughter crescendoed into a deafening screech.
"Sasuke!" he rasped again, the plea raw and ragged.
A talon grazed his temple. Blood trickled into his eye, the world tinted crimson. Shadows pooled at the edges of his vision, the creatures' forms blurring into a single undulating mass of teeth and claws.
His leg twitched again, foot slamming into a rock with a sickening crunch. He didn't feel it. Didn't feel anything now except the icy void creeping up his spine.
No. Not like this.
The largest creature crouched over him, its face a shifting nightmare—human one moment, insectoid the next. It pressed a claw to his sternum, pinning him as its brethren crowded closer.
"Mine," it hissed, tongue lolling.
Naruto's mouth moved, shaping Sasuke's name one final time, but no sound emerged.
Darkness surged—swift, suffocating, final.
The last thing he heard was his own heartbeat stuttering into silence.
Sasuke traced the gouges in the sodden earth, the earlier drizzle having preserved Naruto's skid marks like gruesome breadcrumbs. He cursed under his breath—Idiot couldn't even fall discreetly. The bastard's colossal footprints might as well have been road signs.
Ten agonising minutes later, he found him.
Naruto lay sprawled at the base of the slope, limbs splayed like a broken marionette. The image hit Sasuke like a kunai to the ribs: Naruto beneath him at the Valley of the End, breath ragged but alive. Then, mercilessly, another memory superimposed itself—his parents' bodies glistening crimson, Itachi's shadow drinking the light from the room.
"Don't be dead. Don't be dead, you idiot—"
Sasuke half-slid, half-fell down the incline, mud splattering his clothes. Naruto's face was corpse-pale beneath the filth, a sluggish trickle of blood painting his temple crimson. Sasuke's fingers flew to the blond's throat, numb with more than cold.
Nothing.
He groped for a wrist pulse, hands shaking so violently he might as well have been handling smoke. "If you're dead," he snarled, ear pressed to Naruto's chest, "I'll drag you back just to kill you myself. Hear me?"
Silence.
Then—
Lub-dub. Lub-dub.
The sob tore from Sasuke's throat before he could choke it back. He clenched his fists, nails biting palms, resisting the mad urge to shake Naruto awake or—worse—crush him in a embrace that might mend fractures deeper than bone.
The relief curdled when he saw the tracks.
Not animal. Not human.
Clawed imprints encircled Naruto's body, deep and precise, before vanishing into the tree line. Fresh. Recent.
Sasuke stilled.
Wiping blood and grime from his eyes, he drew a kunai. The forest seemed to lean closer, branches knitting into a cage. Somewhere in the murk, something clicked—a sound like bone snapping.
"Stay down," he ordered Naruto's unconscious form, voice steel wrapped in silk. "This won't take long."
The shadows swallowed him whole.
Fifteen minutes later, Naruto woke up.
He immediately wished he hadn't.
Consciousness roared in like a wildfire—a white-hot poker scraping his skull, shards of glass shredding his throat. His lungs burned, each breath clattering like marbles in a tin. Against every instinct, he tried to sit up. Agony lanced through his left arm, and he collapsed back with a guttural snarl.
"Shit.Fuck. What now?"
Memories flickered: clawed shadows, a fall, teeth gnashing in the dark. He craned his neck, but his arm lay swollen and alien beneath him, throbbing with splintered heat. A twitch sent fresh pain rippling through his ribs.
"God," he slurred, sweat mingling with dirt on his lips. "Is this… childbirth?"
A rustle behind him—leaves whispering, something slithering. His heart jackhammered. Defenceless. Exposed. Those things could be circling—
"What've you got in your arm?"
Naruto's breath . Relief flooded him, sweet and dizzying.
"Fuck you," he croaked, glaring at the shadow looming above. "D'you think I've got a sodding inventory? Feels like a tortoise flipped on its shell."
Sasuke knelt, kunai glinting. Moonlight carved his face into something feral—lips cracked, hair dripping forest damp. The metallic stench of old blood clung to him.
"There's something in it," he said flatly.
Naruto's gut twisted. "Worms? Teeth? Spiky… things?"
"Worse."
Sasuke's blade hovered over the swollen flesh. Naruto glimpsed his own reflection in the steel: pallid, wild-eyed.
"This'll hurt."
"Get it out!"
The kunai plunged.
Naruto's scream tore through the woods. The thing resisted—jagged edges snagging tendons, pumping thick poison into his veins. Sasuke worked in grim silence, blood spattering his jaw as he carved deeper.
On the third attempt, it came free: a barbed shard, glinting like obsidian, oozing black sludge.
"Fuck," Sasuke hissed.
Before Naruto could protest, Sasuke's mouth sealed over the wound. Copper flooded his tongue as he spat contaminated . 's vision swam.
"S'deadly?" he slurred, watching Sasuke wipe bile from his lips.
The Uchiha didn't meet his gaze. "Wouldn't let you die that easily, dobe."
But his hands trembled—just once—as he bound the wound.
The metallic tang lingered on Sasuke's tongue long after he'd spat the last of the tainted blood. Naruto lay half-conscious against a rotting log, arm bound with shredded fabric, his breathing still worryingly shallow. Sasuke stared at the barbed shard he'd extracted—now wrapped in a leaf—its hollow core crusted with residue that smoked faintly in the moonlight.
Nightshade root. Ground widow fangs. Something else.
"Oi." Naruto's voice slurred into the silence. "You're makin' that face."
"What face?"
"The 'I've-seen-a-ghost' one." A weak grin. "C'mon. How bad's the damage?"
Sasuke pocketed the shard. "You'll live."
"Liar." Naruto tried to sit up, grimaced, and thought better of it. "You sucked out move. What was it? Scorpion venom? Viper eggs?"
"Nothing you'd recognise."
Because I made sure of that.
The unspoken truth curdled between them. Sasuke's hands betrayed him again—a faint tremor as he repacked their medical kit.
Naruto studied him through half-lidded eyes. "You're worse at this than Sakura."
"At what?"
"Lying."
Sasuke froze. Moonlight caught the fresh scar on Naruto's forearm—the one shaped like his own teeth.
"The thing you pulled out," Naruto pressed, "it's…connected to them, isn't it? Those forest freaks."
A twig snapped in the distance. Both tensed.
Naruto lay motionless for a further half an hour, Sasuke's fingers absently combing through his hair as the blond's head rested against his knees. The spiny object—now cleaned of gore—glinted in Sasuke's palm, held aloft for Naruto to scrutinise.
"Looks like a hedgehog's nightmare," Naruto croaked, finally propping himself up on trembling elbows. His cornflower-blue eyes locked onto Sasuke's. "You killed them, didn't you?"
Sasuke's gaze flicked to the undergrowth. "Killed who?"
"Don't play dumb!" Naruto seized Sasuke's wrist, nails biting flesh. "Those pygmies—you hunted them down after you found me."
"'Pygmies'?" Sasuke's lips twitched, a cold amusement in his tone.
"Whatever they were." Naruto's voice sharpened. "You killed them."
A storm passed behind Sasuke's eyes—anger, guilt, a secret lodged like a shard. "One. The other escaped."
"Where?"
"Does it matter?" Sasuke shrugged, feigning nonchalance, but his posture betrayed him: shoulders rigid, spine rod-straight.
"You're lying,again." Naruto staggered upright, pain lancing his bandaged arm. "What aren't you saying?"
Sasuke rose swiftly, a shadow uncoiling. "It won't return. That's all you need to know."
"Did you bargain with it?" Naruto pressed, stumbling forward.
"Don't be absurd."
"Then where did it go? What were they dragging me toward?!"
Sasuke's jaw tightened. "A tunnel."
"Whattunnel?"
"Enough, Naruto."
Ignoring him, Naruto shoved past, following the stench of decay—foul blood crusting leaves, claw marks gouged into bark. Sasuke grabbed his shoulder, but Naruto wrenched free.
Don't make me show you.
The clearing unfolded like a wound: a gaping hole in the earth, the creature's corpse sprawled beside it. Blood, clotted and blackened, pooled around mangled limbs. Naruto recoiled at the words carved into the soil—F̷͉͊O̶̤͒O̴̻͌Ľ̶̫ F̷͉͊O̶̤͒O̴̻͌Ľ̶̫ F̷͉͊O̶̤͒O̴̻͌Ľ̶̫ —each letter jagged, frenzied.
Sasuke watched a centipede scuttle over the corpse's eye socket.
"What is this?" Naruto whispered.
Sasuke stepped closer, voice hollow. "A warning."
Naruto stared at the tunnel, its depths swallowing the light. "And that thing in my arm…?"
"I don't know."
"Liar."
Sasuke seized his hand, pulling him toward the ancient tree. Its gnarled trunk loomed, a bulwark against the horror. Naruto's palm met rough bark, the canopy above sealing them in green twilight.
"Stay here," Sasuke ordered, but his grip lingered—a heartbeat too long.
Naruto yanked free. "Tell me what's down there!"
Sasuke's silence was answer enough.