It's not about sincerity

SECOND CHANCES 27

2008-11-01T04:01:18Z

OOOO

Sasuke fumed as he prodded a handful of sticks into place, vainly attempting to get a fire started as Naruto and Sakura pulled fish from the stream nearby. The charred stick he was holding flickered and went out, and Sasuke grunted in frustration and hurled it into the bushes, the image of Orochimaru laughing at him while wiping Sasuke’s blood off his fangs flashing through his mind. Angrily he tried to catch another stick on fire but it, too, went out.

Loosing his temper, he unconsciously flashed through the familiar seals and blew a katon of white-hot fury over the sticks, which crumbled to ash instantly under the onslaught. For one second- one moment- he had woken up complete. Woken up with the sort of power he’d only ever dreamed of in him, woken up knowing –knowing- that here was something that he could use, something that was his –given to him- his own. Woken up perfect. And then he’d opened his eyes and seen Naruto barely holding back Sakura from ripping the throat out of a terrified sound-nin, seen her eyes as red as his and her arms bloody from her shoulders down to her newly-grown claws from a splinter –a fucking little smudge- of Naruto’s power.

He broke off, panting on his hands and knees and staring unseeing at the wisp of white ash in front of him.

“Are you- are you okay, Sasuke?” Naruto called, stepping in front of Sakura and spreading arms hands protectively in front of her, a live fish thrashing forgotten in his hands. Sasuke clenched his own hands into fists.

“’M fucking peachy.” He snarled from between gritted teeth. “I’ll go get more wood.”

He stood up slowly, brushing ash off his knees and staring into Naruto’s eyes challengingly. Naruto, his friend, his teacher, his comrade, his –almost, almost- brother…Naruto was afraid. Of him.

Something important had changed. Naruto the great, Naruto the infallible, Naruto the perfect had screwed up somewhere important and knew it. Sasuke liked the fear he saw in Naruto’s eyes. Liked it a lot.

OO O

They reached the tower without further incident –apparently word had gotten around about the psycho with the pink hair- Naruto berating himself every step of the way. He’d had to try to bargain with the rouge Sannin, hadn’t he? He’d had to try to take the easy way out, the ‘safer’ way out: hope the devil keeps his promise like a good little boy, instead of risking a kamikaze explosion. He had enough power in him to make it work- They’d take out half the forest and most of the Gennins but he could have killed him once and for all, been a hero.

He hadn’t been scared of death when he was trying to poison himself in all those shit-hole taverns, hadn’t he? When he’d traded the rest of his life –had been glad to, been thrilled that death was an option again- for enough power to take on Sasuke one last time, hadn’t been scared to die when he lay in the bloody wreckage of the ramen-stand beside the corpse of his wife and tried one more time –one more time- to stand on shattered legs and kill one or the other of them-

-…Naruto struggled to breathe through the blood welling up in his lungs, but why bother? Kiba was dead. Akamaru was dead. Breathing was too hard anyway, and it was so easy just to lie here and feel himself slipping away… he felt himself roughly jerked upright by his shoulders, and he opened an eye to see Sakura holding him. “If you die, Naruto,” She hissed, her breathing harsh and uneven, “I’m going to follow you, and then I’m going to kill you all over again with a lot more PAIN, do you hear me!?” He smiled, through the blood, and felt his heart start up again…-

But it was different now, Naruto thought as he watched Sasuke and Sakura unroll the scrolls. He had something to live for now. He had, if not the real Sakura, then some semblance of her.

Damn it all.

A figure stepped out of the smoke, a commander, silent and imposing in an ANBU uniform and a dog’s mask.

No one was supposed to know who was the leader of another squad in the ranks of the ANBU, only their own commander. It helped slow things down in the case of betrayal and thus there were no embellishments or special differences that would distinguish this man’s uniform from any others. But you always knew anyway: an ANBU commander had gotten men killed, and it did things to people, something in the walk, something in the shoulders and the way you could feel them watching you, ready to protect you.

Or kill you.

“Hiya.” The man said, waving the remaining wisps of smoke away and pushing back his mask.

“Kakashi-sensei?” Sakura shouted, staring. “But you-”

“I quit.”

“Huh?”

Kakashi held up a hand for silence, the quick thumb-over-middle-finger silent snap and Naruto sprang to instant attention, years of training kicking in. This wasn’t the pidgin he’d taught Sakura, that lily-masked new ops got taught their first year- this was pure nuanced veteran. Not just “shut up”, but “no speaking: movement permissible” commander-to-low-op tense. Kakashi was back in action, and hopefully he’d be a better commander than a sensei.

Sakura didn’t see the layers in it, but got the basic message and looked guilty.

-Report,- Kakashi directed towards Naruto, and he almost smiled. Once ANBU, always ANBU, they’d told him and Kiba as they carved the tattoo on his arm because the mark won’t wash off with an ocean of blood, but it was good to pretend that for a moment he and Kiba were standing in front of Oh-Shit Shinhai-san again, that he wasn’t scared and twelve years old again, that had managed to royally screw everything up and that Sasuke wasn’t staring at their hands, resentment simmering just under the surface of his blank face.

-the opponent found me, my partner, the target. I have been compromised. The target has been compromised. I report complete mission failure, no casualties-

He could see Sakura following along, her lips moving faintly as she followed his exaggerated signs. He was using pidgin, yes, a mangled equivalent of babytalk- but she’d picked up in five months what took most recruits at least a year.

-you will kill him if necessary?- Kakashi asked, and Naruto could see what it cost him to say that. The last Uchiha, the last link to Obito, would be severed if Sasuke died. Naruto had always wondered why Kakashi had been so broken up over Sasuke’s betrayal until the day he cleaned his dead sensei’s apartment out and found the photo of a boy that might have been Sasuke’s brother, if not for the grin and the arm draped affectionately over a younger Kakashi’s shoulder.

“No!” Sakura snarled, reaching to grab Naruto’s wrist. He glared at her, hating how hard she was making this.

“Yes,” he said, gritting his teeth –his entire life was wrapped around that damned Sharingan- “Yes. If I have to.”

Kakashi nodded reluctantly. “If you have to. Now, you’re three days early, so we’ll have plenty of time. Sakura, go through the door and take the first turn on the right. You two, come with me.”

OOO

Naruto lay, gasping, in the center of the painted circle and listened to Sasuke’s screams as dozens of medical ninjas fussed around them. One prodded in the back and he staggered upright as she took hold of one of his arms and showed it to the gaggle of wide-eyed younger medics, who were staring at the aching boy as if he were a particularly interesting frog.

Kakashi could be seen with some of the more senior medics, fussing over a spasming Sasuke with vials of something that glowed a sickly maroon. Then Naruto’s medics were pulling on his limbs, turning him around and debating excitedly. One kid- couldn’t have been much older than Sakura- even went so far as to pull Naruto’s lips back to examine his teeth. Naruto bore it patiently, knowing that pissing off people who could congeal your blood in a second probably wasn’t a good idea, and that it would just take longer with a good deal more pain thrown in. He watched Sasuke roar in outrage at some medic’s inquiring prod and attempt to lurch to his feet. Kakashi promptly put him in a headlock and the white-robed medicals closed in again.

“-demon’s influence clearly necessitated four tiger s-”

“-n top of the lio-”

“-s crazy to-”

“-ut what about the effects of long-term osmosi-”

“-aroko, put that back and pay atten-”

“Trilateral Blue-Star Ginseng Seal, people, time’s wasting here!”

They all shut up abruptly, whipped out assorted sizes of brushes and mediums of ink, and began furiously scrawling symbols –most of which he didn’t know, the rest of which he wished he didn’t know- across his back.

Naruto gritted his teeth as the ink began to sink into his skin like acid, tilted his neck sideways as a young woman scribbled something on his chin, and watched Sasuke struggle weakly against the swarming medicals.

It was going to be a long couple of days.

OOOOO

Second Chances 26

2008-11-01T03:59:59Z

OOO

Naruto was dancing with someone on an ocean of ice that stretched to the white horizon, thick flakes of snow wisping around them. Sakura…he smiled and squeezed her hands, squinting through the flurries to see her face again. He was old, he realized, scarred and aching in the deadly cold, limping through the steps on a mangled knee. He could only feel one of her hands, glowing warmth against his callused palm; his own right hand was missing and he gripped her right hand in his demon’s claw, a ghostly orange prosthetic of twisted chakra.

“He really did us over, didn’t her?” Sakura asked, her voice calm, mature. A howling wind whipped around them and Naruto pulled Sakura –his Sakura- close to his chest. Blood from the gash in her throat dripped down his vest but he didn’t care.

“Yeah. I promise, though…”

“I know you did. You were always such a dreamer, Naruto-kun.” Sakura pulled Naruto’s demon hand closer and studied it sadly. “I could have healed this.”

The snow was heavily on their shoulders by now. Naruto shook it out of his eyes and tried to tug his hand back, ashamed of it in the strange logic of dreams.

“I failed you.” He whispered into her long hair, tangling his real fingers in their strands.

“Never.”

“I’m dreaming now, aren’t I?”

“Just because it isn’t real doesn’t mean it isn’t true.” She said, pulling away from him and setting off through the ice, steadily, determinedly, the glistening surface splintering under her feet.

“Sa-”

“Wake up, Naruto.”

Naruto bolted awake to find himself in a room full of children, a lanky boy with unkempt red hair poking him on the forehead.

“Nnn?”

“Naruto. The test’s over.”

“Sa- Tomaru?”

“Yeah. We passed and the crazy instructor said to meet us in Area 44 in five minutes or we’re disqualified and it’s been two minutes just to get you up and I don’t know where it is!” She –he?- blurted out, shifting nervously from foot to foot.

Naruto yawned. So tired… “It’s another test. We’ll need a transport jutsu-” another yawn and Naruto heaved himself to his feet. “-okay, Sasuke, copy this. Sa- Tomaru, the main seal is Ram; use it like a door in your chakra and pour yourself through it. Tie yourself to me first, though, if you don’t know exactly where you’re going to come out.”

Sakura sighed. She’d gotten used to Naruto’s strange metaphors but it didn’t mean it made it any easier to figure out what he was talking about. He was strange like that- he truly didn’t seem to understand that the point of seals was to manipulate chakra in more complex patterns than could be done manually, and seemed to view them as a password that needed to be said before he could get down to business. The demon’s influence, perhaps? It was as if he could feel chakra as a solid force, even before it was manipulated.

“Naruto, I can’t use chakra like that.”

“Oops.” Naruto smacked his forehead and grinned apologetically. “It’s Rat, Monkey, Snake. It’ll link your signature to mine temporarily. Cutting it is just Ox, and you’ll only need to okay the transport- I’ll be doing the work. Howzat?”

She smiled and raised her hands. “Let’s go.”

OOO

Kabuto smiled as he saw Naruto and his team pop into existence outside the forest, the disguised girl hiccupping from the effects of air-displacement, and went over to talk to them. So they knew he was a traitor…this should be interesting.

Naruto spotted him first and nudged the ‘boy’ with an elbow. -He’s coming- he signaled. She twitched and glanced at him, before not-so-casually placing herself between the spy and Sasuke. Naruto stepped forward.

Kabuto smiled. “Hello! I’m Kabuto. Who are you?”

Naruto hesitated, torn between hostility and playing along. “Naruto.” He finally said, shifting into friendly mode so convincingly Kabuto was amazed. “Uzumaki Naruto. Glad to meet you, Kabuto-san.”

Kabuto smiled back, walking past the boy towards Sasuke and forcing Naruto to tag after him. “Likewise. I hope that we can help each other in the test.”

Naruto nodded. “Maybe we should stick together, Kabuto-san. The forest looks big and it would be easier to get scrolls if your team and mine stuck together.”

Kabuto paused. “What scrolls?”

Naruto stopped dead, an expression of horror flickering over his face before it was replaced with a look of mock-smugness. “I heard Anko-san talking about it to one of the instructors. We have to get two scrolls and we’re only given one for the next test. There’s other stuff, too, but she’ll tell you guys better than I can.”

Interesting…Kabuto hadn’t heard the woman say that, and Naruto and his team hadn’t been out of his sight since they’d entered the room for the first exam. So how did Naruto know?

“Time’s up, people!” Anko shouted, clapping her hands. As the details of the next test were laid out Kabuto couldn’t help but watch Naruto. Naruto knew he’d been caught, and knew that Kabuto knew he knew…this was going to get interesting. Sasuke was the main prize, of course- but it wouldn’t hurt to have a back-up, would it?

OOO

Sasuke was quietly fuming as he filled out the paperwork Anko had given them and watched Kabuto watching him, and Naruto and Sakura carefully watching both of them. Since when did they protect him –him!- from people? He’d seen them do that finger-talking thing between them, sharing secrets, leaving him out of the loop. He hated not knowing what was going on, hated being the ignorant one. He glanced up from the paper to study the innocent –looking older boy, and the way Naruto was watching him. Didn’t they think he could handle whatever he- hold on. Naruto was… Naruto was scared!

Sasuke didn’t let his face show anything, but his fingers tightened on his pen. Why was Naruto scared of Kabuto? What did he know? More importantly, what did Kabuto know that he could use? Sasuke closed his eyes momentarily, felt the sweet ache as they shifted into red and relaxed to black. He didn’t know why everyone was watching him…but he knew he had some watching of his own to do.

OOO

“Your friends are very protective of you, aren’t they?” Kabuto murmured, and Sasuke twisted around in midair. His team had decided to stick with Kabuto’s to double their power –both had gotten a scroll of earth- but Naruto and Sakura had been flanking him the entire time, keeping the other team’s gennin out of speaking range of their Uchiha companion. Now, looking around as he jumped from branch to branch he found that Naruto and one of Kabuto’s team-mates were missing, and Sakura was lagging a few dozen meters behind, splitting her attention between the remaining team-mate and Kabuto and looking worried.

“They’re afraid.” Sasuke said, watching the older Gennin for a reaction. Kabuto raised an eyebrow.

“I wonder why?”

“Don’t play games with me! How the hell am I supposed to know?” Sasuke snapped, stopping abruptly. Kabuto flipped in mid-jump and landed beside him, neither of them noticing that Sakura and the other teammate had disappeared as well.

“You already do, Sasuke-kun.” He said. “They’re afraid of what I could tell you. They’re afraid of your potential.”

Sasuke grabbed the front of Kabuto’s shirt. “I told you not to play games with me, damnit!” he hissed, glaring red-eyed into the other boy’s face.

“When was the last time they let you speak with your jounin instructor, Sasuke-kun?”

“W-what?”

“Months, right? Don’t you think it’s suspicious that your team’s the only one to be commanded by a gennin? By your own team-mate? Who’s been teaching you, Sasuke-kun? A jounin with a Sharingan and twenty years of experience? Or a classmate who gives you the scraps of jutsus left over from the girl?”

“Naruto’s not like- he wouldn’t-”

“How can you be so sure?”

Sasuke hesitated, taking a step backwards and Kabuto gloated secretly. Sasuke was intelligent, of course, dangerously so, but he was being driven more than a little crazy from going from the Rookie of the Year to weaker than the dead-last and dumber than the kunoichi. He could use that frustration, that wounded ego, that thirst for power. And if he was guessing right, Sasuke too would have seen that Naruto knew more than he was telling.

Naruto- A whirling vortex of razor-sharp chakra abruptly drilled its way into Kabuto’s back, giving him barely enough time to compress his adrenalin into a kwarimi jutsu. Sasuke would get showered with splinters but it really was the least of his problems.

Kabuto flattened himself on the tree branch he’d landed on, watching Naruto, his hands bloodstained –Mitsumi, he must have killed him- and steaming orange, cast around for sight of his prey. Catching sight –or smell?- of the spy he launched himself towards him, a melon-sized Raisengan already spinning in his hands.

Kabuto dodged, barely in time, and felt the wind from the jutsu slice open his side. Rebounding off a tree he managed to get a shot at Naruto’s heart, and was rewarded with a moment to get his bearings as Naruto dropped to his knees, gasping, then sprang for Kabuto’s throat with clawed fingers.

Sasuke looked bewildered and stared from one to another of the fighters.

“Get away, you fool! He’s working for Oroch-” Naruto managed to shout before Kabuto attacked again and they were off, splintering trees and carving huge furrows in the ground as orange and green chakra clashed. Sasuke barely had time to take a step forward, intending to help, when Sakura stumbled out of the bushes, her face pale and her hands trembling as she re-wraped the bandages on her arms.

“Sakura!” She glanced up at him, back to the fight, then charged unsteadily into the midst of the two. Sasuke dashed after her, trying to catch her –it was suicide to get in front of Naruto when he was berserk- but she dodged him and plowed into Kabuto, smashing a kick into his jaw and blocking his counter-punch. Before Kabuto could turn Naruto was at his back, clawing furrows in his skin.

Under the double onslaught Kabuto retreated- before hooking a fist under Sakura’s guard and into Naruto’s heart again, this time with an explosion of green light. Naruto stumbled back, gagging on blood, and Sakura turned, distracted. Kabuto shifted his weight to attack again and then bolted, throwing a wink over his shoulder at Sasuke.

Sasuke was about to demand an explanation when something made him stop and turn, slowly, to look behind him.

An older-looking Grass gennin was standing in the shadows of one of the huge tree trunks, lazily watching them. He didn’t look particularly menacing. Creepy, yes, but not very scary, almost like Haku in a strange, twisted sort of way. Naruto went dead white and stumbled towards the man, clutching his chest.

“Y-you guys,” He rasped, “Run. Now. S-Sakura, ge-get hi-im awa-” He doubled over, coughing. “I-I’ll st-stall hi-im”

“But we just met, didn’t we?” The Grass-nin asked pleasantly. “A demon, an Uchiha, and…a kunoichi. You three certainly do look…interesting.”

Naruto made a weak gesture for the two to run and staggered forwards. Sasuke took a step forwards, half-drawing a kunai. The man –Orochimaru?- regarded the two with amusement.

“Run!” Naruto shouted, shoving Sasuke away. “Don’t –don’t think, run, try to get to the, the, tower, get someone, anyone-” He began reeling off an unfamiliar string of hand-seals as the man began to walk towards them, a horrible aura starting to rise of him like steam.

“But-” Sakura grabbed his wrist and yanked, and they were running before he could catch his breath, the killing intent of the grass-nin panicking him and blanking his mind. Behind them a demonic chakra exploded like a bomb, slamming into their backs with almost physical force. They ran faster. The aura sank, flared up again- and blew out like a candle. Sasuke dug his heels in abruptly, accidentally throwing Sakura against a tree-trunk. Her disguise flickered and disappeared in surprise, leaving a much shorter girl scrambling to her feet.

“Wha-”

“I’m going back!”

“No!” She shouted, trying to grab his arm again. Sasuke wrenched it away from her.

“I’m tired of everyone jerking me around like I’m a fucking pull-toy! That’s Naruto back there, damnit, and I’m going!”

He backed away, breathing hard, and backed into something that wasn’t a tree trunk.

“Bravo, Uchiha.” He heard the grass-nin murmur, and found that he couldn’t move. Cold fingers curled around his throat and cheek, tracing serpentine patterns on his skin. “So you have a bit of spine after all, hmm? Let’s see how long it lasts…”

Run, the part of his brain that was still small and scared of the dark screamed at him, run while you still can, chew your own leg off if you have to but he found that he was swaying groggily, the cold fingers on his face hypnotizing him into a lethargic daze, the sight of Sakura in front of him going fuzzy and dimming as his vision glazed. His knees gave way under the weight of the hands on his skin and he found himself slumping against the man’s chest, vainly trying to stay awake-

Sakura screamed an angry, feral shout and rushed at Orochimaru, six shining claws leveled at his head. He snorted in disapproval and let Sasuke drop to the ground in a limp heap before casually grabbing her arm as she struck.

“Don’t interfere with your betters, girl.” He said, as if reproving a noisy student, and yanked her arm out of its socket before throwing her headfirst into the trunk of a tree.

Sasuke jerked back to consciousness abruptly at the sound of a dull pop and a sharp crunch pierced the layers of fog muffling his mind. He weighed approximately a billion pounds and still felt so sleepy he wanted to just give up and die but he had to do something –anything- to this bastard that had just done that to his Sakura.

Orochimaru strolled back to Sasuke and leaned over, his words hazy and distorted as Sasuke desperately tried to regain control of his unresponsive body. “That demon boy made me a deal, Sasuke-kun. He told me that a body with a captive demon was better than the Sharingan, and made me promise that if he gave me his body for free, I’d leave you two alone.” The man crouched down on his heels, obviously taking a sadistic amusement from Sasuke’s feeble twitching. “Hardly seems worth it, though, doesn’t it? I expected the brother of the Uchiha weasel to put up a bit more-”

Now! Sasuke put every microgram of strength into dragging his arms to his face and managed to blow a puff of smoke into his opponent’s face.

Orochimaru fell back, coughing and scrubbing his eyes and all of Sasuke’s stolen energy came flooding back. In an instant he’d scooped up Sakura- her arm dangling and her fractured scull pouring blood- and leaped to the top of the trees, all senses kicking into overdrive. Gods, it was still noon! How long had they even been in there? Three hours? Not even?

“Good little mouse!” He heard Orochimaru call mockingly after him, “Flee! Flee!”

Something in Sasuke snapped and he was suddenly seeing red. Draping Sakura’s body- please don’t let it be her corpse- over a thick branch he turned back, preparing a katon as he shot from branch to branch.

He feinted left as Orochimaru wheeled to face him, then blasted him from the right with a burst of fire, rebounded off a tree and send three kunai and a knife-star past his head.

“Missed, little mousy.” Orochimaru gloated, stepping unburned from the katon.

“Don’t underestimate me,” Sasuke hissed, as the kunai wheeled on their chakra tethers and buried themselves in the back of his opponent’s head.

“Hn-”

Sasuke breathed an inferno of flame along their strings, reducing the man’s skin to dry ashes in a moment. He stepped back, gloating, as the man fell to his knees- and then peeled his flaking skin away.

“The little mousie’s shown some guts, hmm? I think I might take you after all…I could always use a spare, and neither of you will live, probably.” Orochimaru mused, beginning to advance on Sasuke. He tried to take a step back and found himself frozen again, and shuddered as Orochimaru’s fangs brushed his neck, unable to move or even scream until too late-

OOO

Sakura woke to a throbbing agony between her ears where her brain should have been, attempted to stand, and promptly heaved the remains of her last meal over the edge of the branch...

…Trying a second time she made it to her hands and knees and managed to slide in fits and starts to the ground, clinging to the trunk of the tree with shaky chakra and three limbs. Her arm was dislo- dis- something. It probably hurt…Once on the ground she gagged, leaning against the roots as the world pitched around her like snowflakes in a blizzard…

…Her thoughts refused to go in order but she was pretty sure she had a con- concussion. Conkushin? Conky-shin… She giggled weakly and sagged to the ground again. Under her probing fingers she could feel the crack in her skull, the gash caked with half-dried blood…

…she struggled awake again and it was almost dark, the light a nasty orange slanting through the trees. Orange… someone important was orange… Sasuke? Sasuke. Maybe. She dragged herself out of the tangle of roots and saw Sasuke lying not too far away, screaming…

…it was dark but Sasuke was still there, although he was gasping now. Sakura wobbled over and pulled Sasuke on to her back before starting back up the tree. Blood would attract too many animals to pass out again. She was hungry now, and horribly thirsty but the feeling came from to far away to care…

…She dozed, her working arm –Haku was gonna kill her if she lived- draped across Sasuke’s back. His breathing was hoarse and ragged and he clutched at his shoulder but she couldn’t think of anything to do, her thoughts shying away from her grasp in erratic flurries. She managed to hack a damp chuck of wood out of the branch and chew it for the little moisture it contained before the blackness between her ears overwhelmed her.

OOO

Sasuke hung in space, alone…no, not completely. A smaller figure was with him, crying. It was…himself?

“My clan,” he/him/they said, “they didn’t have to die.” He/him/they glared into his face, pain still fresh, still raw and tender. This boy, this version of himself hadn’t learned to numb the pain, hadn’t learned to avoid nightmares by working himself into exhaustion every night, hadn’t learned how much less it hurt when you didn’t let anyone close enough-

“I wasn’t strong enough,” The boy shouted accusingly, “I wasn’t smart enough and I trusted brother too much! How dare you let me be so weak, get so close? How dare you!”

Sasuke stumbled backwards, shielding his face from the contempt radiating off the smaller version of himself.

“Power is the only thing that matters, senpai,” The child mocked, holding out his hand. “Love is for those who fool themselves, afection is for the weak. There’s power in hate, senpai Sasuke-sama, the only power you have left.”

Sasuke hesitated, feeling like he was back in his kitchen and watching Sakura, fierce as a wolf, back him up against a cliff with a damp ladle and an oversized shirt-

“No need to jump, Sasuke-kun,” the boy said, his eyes shining with reptilian intensity, “there’s always a way out.”

Sasuke clenched his teeth and grabbed for his/their hand, locking fingers with himself-

OOO

Naruto hung in space, alone…no, not completely. A taller figure was with him, crying. It was…himself?

“Sakura!” his other self screamed, clutching the bloody corpse to his/their chest and glaring at Naruto accusingly, struggling to support her lolling head with a hand that wasn’t there anymore. “You let Sakura die, you fucking idiot! Why couldn’t you have killed that snake-bastard when you had the chance, you fool, you –you-” He/they broke off to bury his/their face in Sakura’s hair. “My only family- your only chance- and you blew it, dobe. You should have been stronger, you should have killed him when- when-”

Naruto backed off, raising his hands defensively. “Get away from me!” He shouted, “I’m not you anymore! Sakura’s still alive and Sasuke- I have another chance, you’ll see-”

The two ragged, bloody figures in front of him changed, suddenly: they were whole and unscarred and so happy it hurt to look at them.

“Power, Naruto-kun” Sakura whispered, pulling away from his/their arms. “You have time to kill him.” She stretched out a hand to him. “You could have me back in a month, Naruto. The power’s yours-”

Naruto hesitated, then turned and bolted, not trusting himself to speak.

Behind him he heard Orochimaru’s laughter. “Too bad, Naruto-kun. You only get one chance-”

He heard the dry, horrible rasping whisper of a huge serpent slithering after him and panicked, running until he thought his lungs would burst but nothing in the blank white space around him changed. Hours later, it felt, he dropped to the nonexistent ground, unable to take another step, and the huge snake slid its coils around him

The huge snake above him shook its head regretfully. “Such an interesting specimen, Naruto-kun. It would have been interesting.”

“Never.” Naruto gasped as the slitted eyes examined him. “Kill me!”

There was a millisecond of blinding orange light and then a huge fox stood over Naruto’s body, fangs buried deep in the snake’s scaly neck. It screamed and lashed the fox’s ribs frantically, trying force a chokehold around its shoulders. As the two huge monsters rolled and slashed at each other Naruto was flung to the ground and nearly trampled.

“It’s all in your head, kit!” The demon roared, freeing his jaws from the snake’s flesh and spattering icy blood over Naruto, “I can only buy you a little time!” The snake managed to sink a fang into the Kyuubi’s eye and the fox screamed and clawed open its stomach.

All in- Naruto scrambled to his feet. No way was he going to let that creepy shit control him in his own mind.

His hands flying through patterns and seals –some that he didn’t even know- he dragged a shining blue cage out of the featureless whiteness around the two struggling beasts, ripped a sheet of paper out of the air, and jammed it on one of the wrist-thick bars. Biting his thumb he scrawled the last symbols in blood and clapped, once-

The snake abruptly released the fox and battered the bars of the cage with its blunt snout, screaming, but it was too thick to slide between the gaps.

“You little brat,” it hissed at him, finally, tail twitching as the Kyuubi flopped down on the floor and laughed at it. “I’ll be back, Naruto-kun.” It hissed once more, then the light went out of its eyes and the body dropped lifeless to the floor.

“Don’t open the cage, kit.” The Kyuubi warned, eying the limp corpse. “He’ll kill us first chance he gets.”

Naruto examined the seal he’d written curiously. “What the hell just happened there?”

The Kyuubi laughed again, his tongue lolling in amusement. “This entire universe we’re in now is the curse seal Orochimaru put on you. The cage you just put up around me and scaly-ass here is the old seal that used to be in your stomach. It’s gonna take a considerable amount of my chakra to keep him in here, though, so be careful when you go throwing your weight around. If you don’t exhaust your own chakra we’ll be fine. Soon as he feels you getting week he’s gonna pop right back in and start up again, so watch it.”

Naruto leaned against the bars. “Why the hell is this cage smaller than the rest of this space, then?”

The demon shrugged. “Life’s like that.”

“Wonderful fucking time for you to get philosophical on me, you bastard!”

The demon laughed again. “Life’s like that, too.”

OOO

Sakura woke to someone’s foot on her injured arm, grinding it into the wood.

“Nnn?”

“She’s awake.” A male voice, strangely distorted. The pressure eased a little.

“I told you, Zaku! Just kill the boss’s latest toy and get out, is that so hard to get through your scull?” Female, angry…

“Shut up, Kin. I just wanna have a little fun, is that so much to ask?”

“Like killing a girl with a shattered skull and an unconscious little brat’s going to be any kind of a challenge.” a deeper, more resonant voice murmured. “Let’s just kill them now and get to the tower.”

There was the sound of rustling cloth over metal an angry grunt from Zaku as he backed off.

“Fine, fine. But I get to torture the next group we come across, okay?”

Sakura opened her eyes to see the blurry image of double bandaged freaks leveling cannon-like metal instruments at her.

“I’ll only hurt for a moment, little girl.” They said in an eerie chorus.

There was a spatter of blood as twin orange somethings dropped on to their shoulders and gashed open their faces. They screamed and swung around, blasting the two girls full in their faces. Sakura hazily realized that she was seeing double and squeezed her eyes shut, rolling into a tight ball and clutching her damaged head. There was screaming and crashing and some weird, windy sounds, then a clawed hand on her shoulder. She managed a squeek and curled tighter.

“Sakura! I managed to hold ‘em off for a minute but they’re coming back and the bastards screwed up my head. I can’t see strait and I don’t know when Sasuke’ll wake up. You’re going to have to fight them with me.”

Naruto! She grabbed him and buried her face in his neck, sobbing with relief. He patted her awkwardly, then pulled away, taking hold of her hands and gently moving her fingers in the right seals.

It felt like she swallowed a keg of gunpowder. Raw demonic power shot into her arms, coursing along her veins and exploding inside her brain. She could feel the bone knit together, the sharp twinge as her arm snapped into place, the dull ache as her canine teeth and nails grew points. She’d never felt better in her entire life, never felt so alive. Never felt so thirst for, for-

Blood. She could smell it everywhere. When she opened her eyes again the world was muddy brown and grey, but smears of glowing crimson leaped out at her, demanding her attention. As she stared around her, a ninja with wild brown hair scrambled on to the branch with them, yelling in outrage.

“No more playing, gi-”

She pounced on him, sinking her new claws into his shoulders. As he battered her back with his metal arm she savored the sound of his screaming, watching with interest at the patterns his blood made on the branch. Behind her she heard the sounds of the other two sound-nins running.

Then something grabbed her jacket and she rounded on Naruto, snarling.

“Let it go, Sakura!” She growled and tried to pull away –he was letting him get away!- only to have Naruto put her in a headlock. Behind her she heard the sound-nin scramble to his feet.

“Give us your scroll or I’ll let her loose,” Naruto threatened, loosening his grip on her. She trashed and roared curses over her shoulder at the boy, desperate to get back to him and kill-

Zaku threw the scroll at Naruto and bolted.

Sakura screamed, wrenching furiously against Naruto’s grasp. It was getting away, she needed to kill him, needed to see his blood spill onto the ground, needed to see him gutted like a rabbit. Naruto slapped her.

She was kneeling on a tree branch, covered with blood. Most of it wasn’t her own. She stank, and hadn’t eaten anything in more than twenty-four hours. Sasuke was lying behind Naruto, staring at her in horror.

“What the hell just happened?” She whispered, weakly.

“You don’t want to know.” Naruto said, looking away and rubbing his shoulder.

OOOOO

Second Chances ch 24-25

2008-11-01T03:48:51Z

Naruto woke slowly.

He was in….A hospital bed? That hadn’t happened for a while. Make that forty years or so….

“You’re awake.” The Hokage commented. He was sitting forward in his chair, elbows on knees, thoughtfully smoking his pipe despite the nervously disapproving glances the hospital staff were shooting at him.

“What the hell is going on?” Naruto groaned, sitting upright.

“Instructor Ibiki is having serious difficulties, so we decided that it would be wise not to take chances regarding your mental state.”

Naruto laughed bitterly. “Thanks a bunch. You didn’t let that damn fox near me, did you?”

“We…convinced it to stay outside.”

“And people are taking a demon in the waiting room…how?”

“It’s pretending to be a dog. A shi-tzu, I believe. It bit Kakashi on the ankle.”

Naruto groaned. “Oh gods, he’s sulking. I’m going to have to deal with a demon in a sulk and it’s all your fault.”

“It was necessary.”

“Try explaining that to a demon that’s just had the possibility of it’s power being removed permanently. A pissy shi-tzu is NOTHING. Any way, you’d better send him in; I don’t know how to use his chakra to heal myself. How’s Ibiki doing, anyway?”

“They went out drinking,-”

-…Kiba said with an expressive shudder. “I think she likes him.” Naruto laughed and scratched Akamaru behind the ears. “Can you imagine if they had KIDS?” * A match made in hell, if you ask me. I doubt the pups of such a lineage would content themselves with merely tying cans to our tails. Scratch lower.* Akamaru yawned, lazily shoving his head harder against Naruto’s fingers. He and Kiba snickered, Naruto proud that he had understood the comment. “Makes ya almost feel sorry fo’ the Sounds, don’t it?” Kiba laughed, grinning evilly…-

It was lucky, Naruto reflected that only one person had to actually live the memories to transcribe it on the scroll so that an indefinite number of people could merely read it; a depressed Anko could make for serious consequences. And damages…

“Fine. Now that you know about it, what are you guys going to do about it?”

The Hokage leaned back. “This isn’t the sort of thing any of us feel would do the Council any good to know.”

“Damn right! The old geezers would have us flat on our faces and groveling to every potential alley before you could get the last word out. We can’t show any signs of weakness with the exams so close.”

A smile twitched the edge of the old man’s mouth. “Which is exactly why I command you and your team to enter it."

Naruto cursed. “Didn’t any of that sink in, you senile old coot!? Chuunin exams plus Sasuke equals really, really friggin’ BAD!”

“I have faith in you, Naruto. You have shown yourself to be remarkably resourceful.”

“He was your student, you know how strong Orochimaru is! You can’t just throw away Saku- Sasuke’s life to make a point!”

The old man raised an eyebrow. “It will be up to you to see whether his –and her- lives are ‘thrown away’, Naruto. You’ve been doing a fine job. Better than most of us could have done with them. Better than their official instructor did, apparently.”

“If I’m going to be forced into this, I want payback, bastard.”

The Hokage didn’t seem fazed by this. “You’re being promoted to Chuunin and given complete control of your team the moment the exams are over, if you can get the three of you through it alive and well. Before you argue further, may I point out just how impressive it will seem to other countries, when our two lowest-graduating Gennin become Chuunin on their first try?”

Naruto nodded reluctantly. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been spending the past six months making absolutely sure that Sasuke knew that Naruto was the only one that could give him the power that he so desperately wanted, that Sakura knew all the weak points of Sasuke’s moves and he knew none of hers.

But still… play with fire and you’re going to get burned; hadn’t Iruka-sensei yelled that at him dozens of times when Naruto was seven and had discovered the joys of a book of matches and a handful of dead leaves? It took three days for his hand to heal and the skin to grow back, after a stray gust of wind had blown the smoldering pile into his lap.

“I’ll do it.” Naruto groaned. “Lemme see Kyuubi now.”

The Hokage smiled and rose, slipping through the door as a small, fluffy, and incredibly cute blue-eyed shi-tzu with blood on its fluffy muzzle trotted in.

It even had an oversized orange bow around its neck.

“Don’t you think you overdid it?” Naruto asked, leaning over the side of the bed to stare at the dog. It sneezed and puffed into its preferred shape, shaking the wisps of smoke out of its tails.

“That bastard tried to kick me! A cutsie-poo little pedigree! Did you see those big blue eyes? Did you!? I was really trying hard there!”

“Calm down, furball.”

“He tasted awful.”

“Yeah, I’ll be sure to tell him you said that. Now hurry up and fix me up, I got a gods-awful headache.”

“You owe me for this.”

“I’ll buy you a steak, okay? Quit whining.”

The fox huffed and thumped his muzzle between Naruto’s eyes, his nose cold and solid against Naruto’s skin before it lost its cohesion. Naruto coughed –the Kyuubi seemed to take a savage pleasure in leaving as acrid smoke as possible behind- and heaved himself over the edge of the bed before heading outside.

OOO

“Naruto!” He’d barely made it outside the building when Sasuke and a strange Gennin dashed up to him, looking extremely worried.

“What the hell happened to you!?” The Gennin demanded, grabbing his shoulders. “Kiba said that you got taken to the Hokage’s in chains- and you did something wrong- and when we got there Kakashi said you were at the hospital- and-”

‘Sakura?”

The Gennin paused. “Oh. Sorry.” He said, in Sakura’s voice. “I forgot to change my vocal chords back.” He slouched into a more female shape –the former body appearing, in hindsight, Sakura’s male double- and put her hands on her hips.

“Answer time, Naruto.”

Naruto thought fast. “Someone saw me with the Kyuubi. They freaked and demanded I be ‘put down’… I got it straitened out.”

“And the hospital?”

“Ummm…. They thought they’d killed me. When they took the Kyuubi out.”

“Uh-huhhh….”

“I’m going to be doing the chuunin exams, okay? So you could be a little nicer.”

She grinned at him; a feral smile full of triumph and violence and Naruto took an involuntary step backwards. This girl wasn’t the Sakura that he’d held while she cried, that he’d bandaged while she gasped in pain from an arrow that she hadn’t been fast enough to dodge, that he’d asked to marry. Somehow this girl had cast that other Sakura off like an old chrysalis: delicate, beautiful, useless.

Naruto smiled, more gently, and traced her latest scars with his finger: hair-line to cheek over her eyes, white as snow. She’d gotten them from a ronnin Samurai who used two swords at once, and had attacked the caravan they were guarding on their last mission. Before Naruto or Sasuke could react to her yelp she’d slipped underneath the man’s guard, blood spattering her face, rewarded his cuts with a slice of her own from chest to abdomen, and kneed the man in the crotch as he went down with entrails tangling his feet. Sasuke and Naruto had stared, speechless, as she wiped the blood off her face and smiled at them triumphantly, before the rest of the group had charged at them and there wasn’t any room for thought.

“We still haven’t found Akabara no Shi yet. You coming?” She said, ducking away and grabbing his hand.

“Sure, nee-chan.” Naruto said, curling his fingers around hers, scar against scar against calloused bruises. The hands of a ninja. He felt another wraith melt out of his mind and lie fading in the road as his team strolled off together, Sakura holding his hand and Sasuke’s wrist.

-…”Do you ever –regret-” Naruto groped for the word, his fingers tangled in Sakura’s long hair as her head lay in his lap. “Not getting past chuunin?” She finished his sentence, looking up at him. “Every time you come home hurt, yeah. I should be out there with you, but the kids need me, you know that. Not since the academy-” “-Not since he bombed it. I know.” He whispered, bending until his nose was buried in the sweet flower smell of her hair. She smiled sadly. “We both know I’m not strong enough to do what you and Kiba are. Even Hinata’s a better fighter.” She put a finger over his lips before he could protest, and he kissed it. “You keep me sane, Sakura. I’m glad you’re safe, here.”…-

For you, Sakura, he told her ghost. For you I’ll raise this girl who is you and isn’t you into something you’d be proud of. Into what you never were. Into what we both knew you could have been.

For you.

OOO

“What’s the situation?” Naruto asked, tapping a gennin on the shoulder. There was a definite bottleneck in the hall, and everyone was too tall to see around. He and Sasuke had decided to go in their own shapes –no point in impressing people if they didn’t know who they were being impressed by- but Sakura had preferred her ‘Tomaru’ disguise. At the raised eyebrow Naruto had presented her she’d said, simply, “Ino,” and Naruto had grinned, patting her on the back.

“Two bastards up there are blocking the doorway, shrimp.” A tough sixteen-year-old told him, looking down his nose at the shorter ninja. “If I were you, I wouldn’t want to get hurt.”

Naruto shrugged. “’S why we joined up. Sasuke! Tomaru! Arrowhead Kai!” They nodded and followed him, Sasuke at his side, Sakura behind them, preparing for a disspelment jutsu.

There were two vaguely familiar Gennins at the door of room 201, its real number visible under the crude illusion as Naruto examined it with a quick Golden Lotus. As they watched, taking stock of the situation, one of the Gennins slapped a girl with buns – Ten-Ten? And… oh gods, Lee! What the hell was he going to do about Lee!? - in the face.

“You should be grateful.” One of the pair drawled. “This is the Chuunin exams. We’ve already failed a few times-”

“All the more reason to let us through, losers!” Naruto called out, loading his voice with scorn. It would be too hard to attack them while they were flat against a wall; if they kicked it would be easier to peel them away and command the wall themselves. “You’re clogging the door for your betters to get through.”

There were nervous giggles, and murmurs of “…who…?” “… brats from Kakashi’s team…” “…didn’t know they were suicidal…” “…heard that the shrimp was tough…”

The one with the white patches on his cheeks flushed in anger. “You think you, a little snot-nosed academy squirt, are better than us?”

“Move it, Bandage-face” Naruto said, walking forward with Sasuke mirroring his step. The Instructor inside the illusion grinned at his audacity, then he and his partner kicked straight at their faces.

Naruto rolled his eyes. The Instructors were just playing with them: there was a gap a mile wide in their kick; even the most worthless Chuunin should be able to do –this-

Naruto and Sasuke’s hands flashed out in unison, grabbed the leg of their attacker, and twisted. When the Instructors sprang back to their feet, they go a fist to the face before they could quite catch their balance and went flying into the wall. Behind them, Sakura clapped once, popping the floor sign’s illusion like a soap-bubble.

The room went dead silent as team seven continued down the hall, as calm as if nothing had happened, the two ‘Gennins’ that had been beaten sprawled unconscious against the door-frame.

Until they rounded the corner, when Sakura grinned from ear to ear and pumped her fist in the air and Sasuke let out a long breath.

“Awesome! We just K.O’d two Instructors!”

“They were just testing us, Sakura. Don’t get too cocky.”

She waggled her hips exaggeratedly as she swaggered down a flight of stairs into an arena-like room, all elbows and puffed-out chest. “Do I LOOK like I’m being too cocky?”

Naruto was about to reply when a voice called out from the balcony, clipped and abrupt.

“You! Will you fight me?”

-…the weird kid with the humongous eyebrows challenged that bastard of a team-mate, completely ignoring Naruto; everything was Sasuke, Sasuke, Sasuke! Naruto raged…-

He never would lose that accent, or find out why he had it: Rock Lee, long-lost prince of the Country of Stone, dying as a chuunin in a ninja village… or dying as a gennin at the hands of a Sasuke who didn’t know that the moves Naruto could shrug off would cave the other ninja’s ribs in. Naruto thought desperately for something to prevent-

“Uzumaki Naruto.”

Oh.

Shit!

“You graduated last in your class.” Lee continued, jumping down to stand in front of them. “However, your team has had eighteen missions- almost twice as many as normal first-year teams. Three D-rank. Twelve C rank. Two B rank. One A. Most teams don’t get their first C-rank for several months. You got yours the first day. And in them all-” Lee pointed a finger directly at Naruto’s chest. “-the Uchiha on your team was wounded six times, the Haruno wounded eleven. You were damaged exactly once. And when you took on those Gennins, you weren’t copying the genius Uchiha. He was copying you.

“Fight me, please.”

Lee drew himself into his favorite stance, Dragon Waiting, heels together and hand raised in front of him. Sasuke twitched in ill-concealed surprise.

“That’s my…”

“Dragon Style, I told you that another kid knew it.” Naruto muttered, eyeing the eagerly waiting Lee.

“How well?”

“Better than me. He’s faster than all three of us put together.”

Sasuke stared at the strange boy, with his weird green jumpsuit and his intense stare.

“So fight him.” He told Naruto, nearly trembling with the anticipation of watching –and recording- the moves of a better fighter than Naruto.

Naruto gave him a look that said he knew exactly what he was thinking, and Sasuke looked away, embarrassed. Naruto turned away, addressed Lee.

“Let’s make this quick, alright? I don’t have all day.”

OOOOOO

Sasuke watched the fight between Naruto and Lee with his mouth open, stunned, only vaguely aware of the strangely speculative expression on Sakura’s face. This boy in the ridiculous green jumpsuit was faster than he’d ever dreamed anyone could be, faster than he’d ever seen Naruto be, when he was teaching Sasuke the moves; the two were a blur of orange and green, ricocheting around the arena in a gradually tightening spiral as Naruto only barely dodged each blow, often not even being fast enough and getting a glancing hit across his shoulder or leg. Every punch, kick, and feint that this Lee person aimed at Naruto Sasuke recognized –hadn’t he practiced them until he’d dropped?- but so much faster, stronger, polished. Even now –had it been thirty seconds, even, since the first punch? Twenty? Five?- as Naruto reeled away from one of Lee’s kicks, the backlash shredded an arc of the floor boards. Naruto bounced off the wall and feinted left, and they were back to a silent green/orange/green blur. Naruto’s moves were familiar...he’d seen the fighting style, but they were going too damned fast for him to completely see them.

Sasuke’s unease shifted into full-blown horror when Lee dove at Naruto with Sasuke’s favorite finishing move –a complicated block-kick-punch called Dragon’s Flight, it was a guaranteed knock-out to whoever it hit, and it ALWAYS hit- and Naruto dodged and kicked Lee flat against the wall with a spider-web of cracks inching away from the boy’s head.

Something clicked inside Sasuke’s head, and he turned to stare at Sakura, who was focused completely on Naruto with a look in her eyes that made something incredibly heavy sink in the pit of Sasuke’s stomach:

Naruto had been using Golden Crane. Exclusively. The form that he’d been teaching to Sakura for six months now, two-thirds as long as he’d been training Sasuke.

And he’d just given them the first demonstration on how totally one could beat what was supposedly the King-Form of all the tai-jutsus.

Sasuke didn’t like the feeling that was beginning to percolate through his brain as he watched Naruto and Lee bow to each other and exchange words that didn’t register on his ears, as he tried desperately to not watch Sakura watching Naruto.

Fear.

He was Uchiha Sasuke, the last good Uchiha, the Avenger. Naruto was, well, Naruto. What could Sakura be, if given the chance?

Sasuke repressed a shudder as the image of Naruto shrugging off the ultimate finishing-move and kicking Lee against a wall replayed behind his eyes, repressed an image of Sakura doing the same to him.

Fear...he didn’t like this at all.

OOO

Shikamaru was leaning against a wall, an expression of apathetic disdain plastered over his face. Choji was onto his second bag of chips in as many seconds; both were scared shitless and would rather die than admit it to Ino, who was watching the doorway avidly for signs of the Uchiha wonder-boy. The bastard that was going to grow up and kill them all, apparently, if Naruto screwed up.

Shikamaru shifted his stare from the back of a particularly mean looking kid from the new Sound Village –he’d have to watch out for them, that was for damn sure- back to Choji, and found his friend nervously watching him. It had been yesterday when Naruto, the blond idiot that they’d both served detention with too many times to count and had started to turn seriously weird in the last few months, had sat down between them on their favorite cloud-watching hill and quietly, emotionlessly, and horribly told them things that Shikamaru would happily spend a year of back-breaking labor to not know them anymore.

“So what the hell am I supposed to do?” Shikamaru had asked after Naruto had finished, sliding his eyes sideways to study the tired-looking boy. Man. Whatever.

“Stay alive.”

OOO

Sakura entered the room before the three boys –the other three, she reminded herself, tightening her illusion- did, Naruto and this Lee kid avidly comparing training schedules and what vegetables were best for a healthy diet, and Sasuke hanging behind them all and looking angry, when she spotted Ino out of the corner of her eye.

Relax...relax...she mentally braced herself, and shot Naruto a pleading look. He gestured, Get it over with, without interrupting his heated debate over the merits of cabbage instead of bean sprouts. She sighed and turned back to where Ino was probably hanging all over Sasuke-

“Hi there, stranger.” She heard Ino coo from behind her shoulder, and barely kept from putting the other girl –the girl, damnit!- in a choke hold.

“Hi.” She grunted, deepening her sound waves to slightly below Sasuke’s, a death-grip on her illusion. Gods, all hell was going to break loose if she dropped it.

Ino tossed her hair over her shoulder and stuck out a hip. “Haven’t seen you around before. My name’s Yamanaka Ino.”

“Mm.” Sakura folded her arms. “So?”

To her horror, Ino actually blushed. Was she FLIRTING?

“Soooo, what’s yours? I’d like to...get to know you better.”

Holy. Crap. Sakura’s brain kicked into overdrive, then came up with possibly the evilest idea she’d ever had: play along. You’re a kunoichi, damnit! The idea told her. If you can’t fool another gennin, you shouldn’t even be a trying to pass as a chuunin. And maybe if Ino forgets about Sasuke...

Sakura smiled wickedly. Bishonen-no-jutsu? She thought. Who’d have guessed? “I’m Tomaru. Haruno Tomaru” She saw Naruto grinning at her out of the corner of her eye, and on a whim took Ino’s soft, unscarred hand and kissed the back of it, like in romance films. “I’m glad to make your acquaintance, Ino-san.”

Ino beamed. “So am I, Tomaru-kun! Are you related to that Forehead-Girl, by any chance?”

Sakura grimaced before she could catch herself, and hastily covered it with a look of resignation. “My, ah, younger cousin. I’ve been out of town the past year, so I haven’t seen her for awhile...How is she?”

Ino snorted. “I haven’t seen her since we were put in teams, you know. She’s a very strange girl. But-” she tried to smile coyly at the ‘boy’, “-who cares about her right now? I’m much more interesting.”

Sakura smiled. “I-” she broke off abruptly as Naruto yanked her sleeve. Pay attention NOW, he motioned, the tight, clipped gestures hidden from the other gennins by their bodies. Traitor at my eight, your six.

She frowned, trying to mentally triangulate the person. ANBU, Naruto had explained, used a mapping system for telling each other where enemy locations were by placing themselves at the center of a circle, with twelve numbers around them like a clock. An enemy directly in front of the speaker was “my twelve”, behind them was “six”, left and right were “nine” and “three”. That would make it...The tall, innocent looking leaf-nin with the glasses. She frowned at Naruto, noticing the dark circles underneath his eyes.

You sure? She asked.

Yes! Naruto snapped, irritation plainly showing in his fingers and tired eyes.

She glanced around, shooting Ino an apologetic smile and a wink –she blushed and Sakura grinned- and found the boy in question: about the same age as ‘Tomaru’ appeared, and if he was using an illusion she couldn’t see through it. He looked completely harmless, except for the speculative expression he wore as he watched them, sharp as a scalpel, cold as ice.

He’s watching us.

Naruto nodded. We will kill him first chance later.

She stared at Naruto incredulously: she was no stranger to killing, but murdering someone in cold blood-

But-

He’s traitor: we kill him as soon as no one can see us. No arguing!

She swallowed hard. Naruto glared at the taller ‘boy’, radiating authority -

-“Damn it, Naruto! Moegi’s in there!” Konohamaru screamed. Naruto barely kept his grip on his subordinate’s grip. “If you go back, you’ll die too, you idiot, and I’m not going to lose another of my squad!” Naruto roared at the younger man, dragging the rat-masked ANBU away from the burning building, his eyes burning behind his own mask from more than the smoke-

-Alright. She sighed and turned away. Sasuke was watching them, an indecipherable expression on his face. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he was...worried?

OOO

Naruto watched her go, then went to find Shikamaru –

“Awright, all of you!” Anko shouted from the front of the room, appearing in a burst of smoke with a few dozen instructors and clutching her head. “I have the hangover from hell, so shut up, sit down, and I won’t have to kill anyone!”

The gennins were directed to their seats, and Anko continued.

“I’ll be standing in for Instructor Ibiki today who’s busy staying drunk for...medical reasons...which is bad news for you poor bastards!”

“What for?” Someone yelled from the back row. Anko groaned theatrically and threw a kunai directly at the gennin’s forehead. He yelped and dropped flat to the desk, the kunai scratching his waterfall hitai-ite as it hissed past.

“No questions, no arguments.” She growled. “You, you and the short guy over there are disqualified. Scram.”

“But-” The other boy in the first gennin’s team protested. Another kunai appeared in Anko’s hand.

“Next time I throw, I’m not going to be aiming for your head protector, idiot. A subordinate that argues with his commander is a danger to everyone. Try again next year.”

The three left, pale and trembling.

“Attention back on me, people.” Anko shouted after they had passed through the door. “Ibiki says to give you this dumb paper test. Instructions are-” she snapped her fingers and sentences appeared on the chalk board behind her in a puff of dust “-up here. If I catch you monkeys cheating... it won’t be pleasant.”

There was a stunned silence. Anko glared at the crowd, flopped into a chair, produced a flask of something toxic, and gulped it. “Begin.”

OOO

second chances 23

2008-04-29T07:39:00Z

OOOOO

“Naruto! Guess what?” Naruto heard Sakura call out from behind him. He turned, juggling the three bags of groceries, and raised an eyebrow at her and Haku.

“You grew another arm.”

“No!”

“You’re devoting your life to the fine art of balancing noodles on your nose.”

“No!”

“You’re suddenly rich and are going to buy me a mansion and some more white paint.”

“Nope!”

“But you used all my white, and you owe me!”

“Oh come on, Haku made a damn cute geisha.” Sakura wheedled, and Haku blushed.

“That isn’t the point. The point is that I don’t have anymore white paint!”

“To hell with your white paint! The point is for you to guess what!”

“Guess what what?”

“Narutooooo!”

Naruto fixed an expression of fawning acquiescence to his face and shifted an uncomfortable carton of eggs to his other hip. “Gosh, Sakura, I am completely and utterly mystified by your riddle. Pray enlighten us poor mortals with your divine and heavenly wisdom.”

She giggled, and even Sasuke, who had accompanied Naruto on his weekly shopping trip, looked amused.

“The Hokage himself invited us to the Chuunin exams!” She yelled, pumping a fist in the air. Sasuke grinned in delight.

“Sakura, that’s amazing!” He said, taking a few steps towards her. “When did-”

There was a crunch from behind them and they turned, stunned, to look at Naruto.

-… “You hurt,” Naruto panted, grinning at Sasuke as he held the snake back through sheer force of will, “Scaredy-cat?” And he almost laughed at the look of mindless gratitude that flickered on Sasuke’s face before the wounded pride and anger and the burning, gnawing desire to better seeped over it like blood out of a lethal stab. It was a sentence Naruto would regret for the rest of his life…-

He’d dropped the groceries, and didn’t seem to notice there was egg yolk all over his feet. Worse, he looked scared. Not just scared, terrified, actually white in the face and trembling.

“You…what?” Naruto said, his voice hoarse.

“The chuunin exams.” Sakura repeated, her good mood rapidly draining away. “We’re entering them. We could be chuunins.”

“No!” Naruto shouted, balling his hands into fists, apparently unaware that he was making a scene. “No! It’s too dangerous! I won’t let you!”

“YOU won’t let US?” Sakura yelled back, getting angry. “Since when are you our parent! We can go if we want to go, and I do!”

“No you can’t! I’m won’t have you and Sasuke get-” Naruto broke off.

“Get what, Naruto?” She asked.

Naruto opened his mouth, closed it, realized that people were staring at him, glared. “Come with me.”

They followed.

OOO

After they reached Naruto’s apartment, Naruto seemed at a loss for words. He paced back and forth, stopped, looked at them, paced some more, and ran his fingers through his hair in frustration.

“Look-” He started. “If I-” He broke off again and paced some more, then sat down heavily on a chair. “If- If I tell you stuff- do you promise not to ask how I know?”

They nodded.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

“Orochimaru wants a new body. He wants a body with a Sharingan, preferably one that’s easily corruptible and relatively untouched. He also wants the destruction of the village of Konoha. He’s going to be in the chuunin exams, posing as one of the participants. He’s going to attempt to kill the Hokage. He’s going to start a war between us and the Sand village. Is that good enough for you?”

Naruto looked up. Neither of them looked very worried.

“Hello? Orochimaru? One of the three Sannin? Probably the most evil man on the continent? And he’s coming after Sasuke?”

“But…you can beat him, right?” Sakura asked, hesitantly. This wasn’t what she’d expected. She’d expected him to laugh, to jump around, to probably sweep her up in his enthusiasm and take them all out to the Green Fish or at least strut around for awhile. Instead he was acting like she’d just announced the world was ending tomorrow.

“Beat him? Beat OROCHIMARU?” Naruto yelled. “No way in hell could I beat him now!”

“But you have a demon on your side!”

Naruto visibly tried to calm himself down. It didn’t work very well. “Okay.” He said finally. “It’s like this. I’ve managed to be able to strike a deal with my locus, the Kyuubi. He’s the talking fox; he’s not so bad to deal with once I get him away from that damn demonic chakra. It’s the chakra that makes us go nuts- it’s evil, I think. It’s like…anger, only solid. Way stronger than normal chakra. But channeling too much of it… it isn’t healthy; I’m pretty sure it eats up my lifespan, and it’s hard to…get…thinking right again. After a really massive dose. To remember not to kill people. To remember that they aren’t prey. To forget how…good…blood tastes. ” Naruto looked down, embarrassed. “Orochimaru isn’t just incredibly strong, he also doesn’t have to turn his brain off to get that way. If I channel enough to defeat him, I might never come back. I’d spend the rest of life eating raw meat and slaughtering everyone in a ten-mile radius.”

Sasuke stared at Naruto. An opponent stronger than Naruto… now that would be beautiful to see. He smiled inwardly. Maybe he could watch this Orochimaru person from hiding, maybe see some of the moves that made Naruto so obviously terrified. Briefly, he savored the thought of standing above Naruto, victorious. To be stronger than a demon… He pushed the image away in an instant, ashamed, but the fire of the vision still smoldered, dormant, in the back of his mind. To be stronger than a demon.

Sakura closed her eyes, briefly, letting her own dreams of the chuunin’s vest stiff canvas across her shoulders fill her mind, of being the youngest kunoichi in history to command a squad, and the look in Sasuke’s eyes as he watched her put it on. She picked up one of Naruto’s balled fists and squeezed it. “Naruto…”

“Yeah?”

“Too bad. If you don’t sign the paper I’m making a doppelganger of you, and Sasuke and I’ll go in anyway, with or without you, and then Orochimaru will come after us and you won’t be there. And-” She clamped a hand over his mouth to ward off an argument, “if you knock us both out I’m never, ever, ever speaking to you again.”

“Mmf!”

“Ever.”

Sasuke nodded in agreement, shooting Sakura a surprised look. She’d come up with a solution to a problem he hadn’t even thought of.

Naruto’s eyes flashed red for an instant, then slid into a vacant blue as he slumped.

“You win.” He said bleakly. “I’ll go. Now get out.”

“But-”

“Out!”

They fled, a strange, queasy mix of shame and triumph curdling in their stomachs.

OOO

Sasuke approached training area 32 with caution, listening to the murmur of Sakura and Haku as they traded ideas and tips on their techniques. He rounded the last bend in the path only to have to throw himself flat behind a log as two icy shuriken hissed into where his head should have been. They followed him as he rolled, fetching up against a tree trunk and barely catching the two projectiles before they bit into his neck. The cold that the two weapons generated was intense, and Sasuke dropped them hurriedly to blow on his freezing digits while swearing.

“Sasuke? Oh, sorry.” Sakura said, leaning around the post and hastily rewrapping the bandages on her arms. Sasuke caught a flash of iridescence before the white cloth covered it before she scooped the two shruiken up and tossed one casually to Haku, apparently impervious to the blistering cold of the blades. “You really shouldn’t be touching these. We put a lot of kick in them.”

“Yeah,” Sasuke snapped, “Thanks for the warning.”

She giggled mischievously, then trotted over to rummage in one of the pouches she had leaned against one of the tree trunks. Withdrawing a pair of spiked knuckles, she grinned at him and settled them comfortably on to her hands. “I’ve been practicing. Check this out!” With a grunt, she hoisted her weighted hands parallel to the ground. For a second noting happened, the small steel spikes shimmering slightly with frost, and in the next second six wickedly sharp blades of ice coalesced on to their sides. She shot him a grin and launched her self at one of the posts, chopping sideways with her arms and flipping clear of the ensuing puff of wood chips. She landed lightly, using her momentum to spin her around and into three bird stance, one hand on the ground, the other guarding her face.

Sasuke clamped his mouth shut. “Where…did you learn that?” He asked, amazed. It had been beautiful; he would hate to have to go against a move like that.

“Haku and I invented it this morning.” She said, rising gingerly, the ice blades melting off their steel bases. “It takes a hell of a lot of chakra to keep the blades going, though, especially when I go fast.” She removed the knuckles and tossed them absently from hand to hand, studying the soggy mess she had turned the six-foot-tall post into, and smiled. It wasn’t a very nice smile. “Akabara no Shi’s the best, though.”

“Akabara no Shi?”

“Oh. A weapons shop. These-” She flipped one of the pieces into the air, “cost me three month’s allowance, plus the money we got from the bridge-mission. Guaranteed to withstand temperatures from one hundred above to two hundred below with no cracking or melting, warranty included, the whole nine yards.” She buffed the two knuckles on the hem of her coat and slipped them on again. “Plus they’re heavy, so they’ll strengthen my arms.”

Sasuke reached out and took one of the knuckles, tugging Sakura’s hand closer to inspect it. They were truly beautiful work; anyone could see that, but it was the details of the joining of the spikes and the molding that made them practically a work of art. It even had spiraled grooves in the spikes, to further anchor an ice blade. Sakura hadn’t been kidding about the price, definitely; if anything the smith had to have under-charged her.

“Where is it? The shop?”

She pulled her hand back reluctantly; Sasuke flinched in embarrassment and dropped it. “It’s a stall in the market district. The location changes every time; Takaro-san says that if you can’t find a simple booth in a market place, you obviously shouldn’t be given sharp objects.”

Sasuke smiled wryly. “He sounds like a real nice-guy sort of person.”

She laughed. “Yeah. He was my dad’s team-mate when they were gennin. They still get together sometimes and argue over obscure techniques. I think his daughter’s going to be in the Chuunin exams, too.”

Sasuke shifted his weight from foot to foot uncomfortably. “About the exams…”

“Yes?”

“Well, isn’t it a little strange that the Hokage invited us specifically? Normally the jounin commanders have to recommend their teams. And Naruto seems pretty scared.”

She frowned. “Sasuke, do you know how many chuunins there are?”

”What? A few hundred, I think, but what does-”

“And how many of them are female?”

“I don’t-”

“ Exactly seventy. Now, how many female jounin are there?”

“Well-”

“Twenty one. And only seven female ANBU.”

“But what the hell does that have to do with anything!”

She blushed suddenly, loosing steam, and Sasuke was forcibly reminded of the way she used to be. Unconsciously, he took a step backwards, preparing for tears or at least puppy-dog eyes. Instead, she fidgeted absently with the spikes, then formed six new blades.

“I’m going to up the numbers.” She told him, and then turned away and reduced another post to sodden dust. Sasuke tried desperately to think of a way to ease the tension.

“About that weapons guy…”

“Yeah?”

“I’d like to meet him. I need some new kunai, anyway. Maybe we could go tomorrow?”

Sakura shot him a sharp glance. “If I didn’t know better I’d think you were asking me out.”

“No! No. I mean, I just want some weapons.” Sasuke found himself flushing and cursed inwardly. But she smiled and waved it off, before turning and walking away into the forest. Sasuke watched her and Haku go, then slumped against a post and wondered what the hell was wrong with him.

OOO

Sasuke was woken up the next morning by a pounding on his door.

“Rise and shine, Sasuke-kun!” An unfamiliar voice shouted. He staggered blearily upright, groggily examining the clock. 5:29, half an hour before he usually got up to train. Dragging a shirt on –the pounding hadn’t stopped- he opened the door expecting the worse. Or at least another Sexy-no-jitsu.

Thankfully, all that was on his doorstep was a gennin dressed in black that he hadn’t seen before.

“Who the hell are you?” Sasuke asked bluntly, tensing for a fight. The gennin winked one of his green eyes and executed a girlish twirl, ending in a pose that had one hand on a hip, the other flirtatiously raked through his red hair.

“Guess!”

Sasuke blinked sleep out of his eyes and focused his Sharingan on her. “Sakura?” It was indeed Sakura, jaw lengthened, hair and eyes darker, but still Sakura under the masterful henge.

“No shit, genius. Call me Tomaru; I’m not about to be skinned alive by vengeful fan-girls for getting your first date. Now come onnnnnn, we gotta go soon if we ever want a chance of finding Takaro-san’s stall before the noon sun sets it. And you DON’T want to be in the market at the hot part of the day.”

“Wait, why does it take six hours to find this weapons shop?”

“You did hear me say the Takaro-san hides his stall?”

“Yeah, but-”

“Takaro-san doesn’t believe in doing anything half-assed. Now hurry up, we’ll get breakfast along the way.”

Sasuke hid a smile as he headed inside to get his pack. Sakura was sounding more like Naruto every day, and he couldn’t quite convince himself that he didn’t like it. It wasn’t until he stepped outside again that his thought process caught up.

“Hold on, date!”

“Formal outing, then. Come on, already.”

OOO

They were eating a late-morning snack at a dango-stall when Team Nine strolled up, Kiba in the lead.

“Chow time! Hey, Uchiha!”

Sasuke and Sakura turned to see their fellow Gennin bearing down on them, trailed enthusiastically by his dog and not-so-enthusiastically by his two team-mates.

“What the hell’s your idiot team-mate been up to, Sasuke? They dragged him off to the Hokage’s building in chains this morning.” Kiba grinned in savage amusement. “Maaan, that bastard must have been thinking up something good, ‘cuz he’s sure kept quiet the last half year.” Sasuke received a slap on the back as Kiba passed them and leaned against the counter, gesturing to the waitress. “Hope he ain’t slowing you down, Genius. Damn, but I woulda liked to know what he did. Had to have been awesome.”

Sakura and Sasuke stared at each other in horror, then turned and ran like hell for the Hokage’s building.

OOO

“Naruto.”

“Hokage-Sama.”

There was a pause. As the two watched each other, and the other people in the room watched them with varying degrees of interest and apprehension.

“Are the chains strictly necessary, sir?”

“Apparently so.” The Hokage shot a glance at Ibiki, who nodded firmly.

“You have loosened your seals, according to your Jounin superior.” The scarred man told Naruto. “The chains are necessary.”

“Fine. Then what’s the point of this? Either you’re going to torture me for information or you’re going to ask me nicely, but I’m pretty sure you want me to tell you why I’m not dumb anymore.”

The Hokage leaned back, glancing at the select few assembled. Iruka flushed and looked even more miserable. That man knew, definitely. “That is a most… succinct way of putting it, yes.” The Hokage said, quietly.

“You won’t believe me if I tell you, and you aren’t going to like what’s going to happen if you search my mind.”

“What do you suggest, then?”

“Forget this ever happened, and forbid my team-mates from entering the Chuunin exams.”

“Is there a specific reason?”

“You’ll find out soon enough, I guess,” Naruto growled.

Ebisu snorted and stepped forward. “Shall we begin, Hokage?”

“Begin wh-” Naruto managed before Ebisu pulled a blindfold over his eyes and he felt himself slung over someone’s shoulder –Ibiki’s, probably- and being carried. He let himself hang limp, no point in struggling, and tried not to panic. He knew where they were going-

-…Naruto completed the last line of inky characters himself and scrambled into the nest of marks on the ground, nearly smudging the ink in his haste and he knew Kiba was going just as fast, Akamaru whining in panic as he and his master dipped their hands and paws in ink and placed them on the blank paper… Afterwards he collapsed, his skull pounding as Kiba retched a few times into the bowl provided, wiped his mouth, and Akamaru pelted unsteadily upstairs to show the scroll to the Hokage because there was no time for words, no time for anything and Naruto was struggling into his vest and pelting out the door, reeling blindly and crashing into the pillars and his partner but they couldn’t spare anyone and there wasn’t any time…-

When they set him down again and pulled the blindfold off Naruto stared at the huge dark hall, the pillars and the circle of marks. So new, so familiar. So alien. Underneath the clean, white plaster on the pillars that would eventually turn a dirty grey were chakra-wells, and underneath the floor and inside every tile on the ceiling as well, designed to prevent the most catastrophic chakra malfunctions ever dreamed of. You could Chidori a wall in here and it would bounce, an ANBU could –and did- go mad in here, his mind crushing like an eggshell and his chakra uncoiling like an over-wound watch to spatter the pillars with burning waves of blue without even charring the concrete.

And in the middle of it all the still-singular hell-hole, as it and its duplicates would be called in the future, pre-made mental dissection tables for near-instantaneous briefing. Check in with your partner, apply the ink, one of you sits down and the other whips out a scroll. One hellish moment later you’re outta there with a killer hangover and the Hokage’s got a new update as soon as he touches a fore-finger to the center of the scroll or, if there’s actually time, reads it. Perfect for when there wasn’t any time and there were twenty hell-holes all going at once and there was never enough time...

It would never happen, if things went right.

Naruto sighed.

“Seriously, you aren’t going to like this.” He told the group: the Hokage, Ibiki, Kakashi, Iruka, Ebisu and Anko. Ibiki gave the Hokage a desperate, pleading look and was ignored.

No response. Naruto sighed and held his hands up for the chains to be removed.

No one took them off.

“Do you seriously want to be in my mind at the same time as the Kyuubi? Let me get him an extra body.”

That got a reaction. Kakashi and Ibiki flinched with surprise and more than a little fear, Ebisu literally jumped backwards, Anko grinned and the Hokage looked startled.

“You-you-” Ebisu cried, pointing a shaking finger. “You want to let it LOSE?”

“Yes. Now take these off or he’s going to kill anyone that enters my mind without his permission.” Naruto looked sideways at Kakashi, who was watching him with an unreadable expression on what was visible of his face. “Kyuubi’s pretty miffed at Kakashi. Demons don’t fail often.”

Ebisu lapsed into incoherent fury, but Anko brushed him off. “The little shit’s got guts, then, you spineless wuss. If a twelve-year-old can have a demon in his mind, we can deal with a demon –with restrictions, of course-” -She glared at Naruto sternly- “in the room.”

Naruto nodded, and she unlocked his handcuffs.

“All I’m going to do is funnel the locus –the consciousness- into one of my clones. All the demonic chakra’s still in the cage in my stomach, so Kyuubi’s not gonna have any power.”

“Can’t we just kill him, when he’s defenseless?” Kakashi asked.

“No!”

“No?”

“Just- no. Don’t.”

“Tell us why.”

“Because- because. Just because.”

The six adults traded glances. Then more or less shrugged, except Ebisu, who spluttered for awhile and then was cowed into silence by a well-placed elbow to the ribs by Anko.

Naruto took a deep breath. “ Ho seishin kage no bunshin,” he muttered, reeling off the symbols.

There was a definite reaction when the Kyuubi stepped out of the cloud of smoke, waist high and tails lashing.

“Calm down!” Naruto shouted, latching one arm around the Kyuubi’s neck and one arm on Kakashi’s wrist. “SIT, you mangy excuse for a chew-toy, and if you don’t let loose that Chidori, Kakashi, I’m going to snap your wrist.”

Slowly the two eased away from each other. Naruto glared at the Kyuubi until it snarled at him and sat down, still bristling, his tails sweeping in sinuous orange coils along the floor. Kakashi’s cheeping ball of energy wound down until it popped out of existence with a final whistle, and the man slid his hitai-ite back over his eye.

“Why the hell am I here, brat?” The demon growled at Naruto.

“Interrogation. Don’t attack anyone while I’m gone. You’re mortal now.”

“Fine,” He snapped, curling up and eying Kakashi suspiciously, “But they’d better not start anything. I remember how you mud-rats taste, remember.”

Naruto rolled his eyes and stepped into the ink matrix.

“Let’s get this show on the road already.”

Ibiki nodded and pulled out the ink and scroll. The six of them proceeded to watch in fascination as Naruto applied symbols he couldn’t possibly have known to his arm, a human shaped shadow-clone helping to paint the ink in hard-to-reach places.

Ibiki dipped his hands in the bowl and formed the single, familiar activation seal; monkey, and Naruto collapsed, screaming with the familiar agony of his entire life happening at once and it was too much gods it was to much he was gonna die it was too much too fast and it was too soon too much-

The Kyuubi was standing over him and menacing the people in the room that were attempting to reach him. Naruto groggily dragged himself upright and knelt, clinging to the demon’s back and trying to focus his eyes.

Ibiki was having a seizure and being violently sick at the same time and it took both Anko and Kakashi to keep him down. His gagging screams were horrible to Naruto’s now-tender ears and he winced as he crawled over and grabbed Ibiki’s head.

“Look at me, damn it! You’re Ibiki! Mo- re- no Ibiki! You are not me!” Slowly the big man stopped thrashing and hung limp in the other jounin’s arms, staring at Naruto with crazed eyes and twitching occasionally.

“You got it all, didn’t you? Why didn’t you put limits?”

“I’m- you’re- supposed to be- twelve.” Ibiki panted. “I can –handle- twelve years.”

There was silence in the room for several minutes except for the Kyuubi’s snarls and Ibiki’s ragged breathing.

“Wait, why is Ibiki more affected?” Iruka asked nervously, glancing back and forth between the two.

“I’ve- he’s -done it -before.” Ibiki grunted, clumsily picking the scroll and offering it to the Hokage.

“Don’t try to do anything important for awhile, Ibiki.” Naruto said, allowing himself to sink to the cool floor and close his eyes. “It’s hard adjusting to a new body. The memories’ll fade awhile before your coordination comes back.”

“How- how long will that- take?”

“Depends on how drunk you stay during the time. If you stay really plastered it could be as soon as a week.”

To everyone’s shock but Naruto’s Ibiki began to weep, tears running down his scarred face and dripping into his soiled clothes.

“I can’t -deal with -this.”

“I know.” Naruto let himself drop off to sleep. It was someone else’s problem now…

OOOO

second chances 21-22

2008-04-29T07:34:39Z

OOO

Naruto cast one, last, tired glance at Sakura, at the way Sasuke was looking at her, at the way Sasuke was carefully helping her upright, at the way Sasuke was letting her lean on his shoulder instead of handing her off to Naruto to support like always, before he and Zabuza climbed down the supports for the bridge and landed on the surface of the water.

Haku was lying in a floating casket of ice, snow swirling gently around him in a strangely silent blizzard. Half his face was crushed beyond recognizing by Naruto’s attack.

“You did this?” Zabuza asked, half disbelieving, half angry.

“You had any doubt, after you saw me fight?” Naruto snorted, gesturing at Zabuza’s mangled arms and their bloody clothes. “You’re going to need bandaging soon, you know, or you’re going to bleed to death.”

Zabuza gave an indifferent shrug, then watched his blood spatter into the water with the sort of morbid detachment on the far side of shock.

“Will I be able to use my arms again?”

“Yeah. Konoha’s got some amazing medics. Will have, anyway. Anyway, I didn’t break ‘em that bad. We can patch you up.”

“If I come with you, right?” He growled bitterly.

Naruto stepped carefully on to the ice around Haku, and began to dig the boy out of his personal snowdrift.

“How long will a missing-nin with no arms last?”

Zabuza nodded and sat down on the edge of the ice, staring almost hungrily at Haku’s buried face. Naruto paused to pack a few handfuls of ice around the worst of his gashes.

“You’re going to go through some serious pain when the shock wears off, you know.”

“Mm-hmm.”

Naruto sighed, and went back to ripping the ice apart.

OOO

Naruto had just climbed back onto the bridge carrying Haku, a gruffly worried Zabuza following, when there was a scream, a yelp, and the sound of running feet. Naruto jumped between Zabuza and the charging Inari and snagged the boy out of the air by his shirt.

“What the hell is going on?”

Inari looked at him in bafflement and waved one of the foot-long nails he was holding like a dagger.

“He isn’t attacking you?”

Naruto glanced back at Zabuza, who was watching the scene with detached amusement, and one of the men he’d been working with earlier who was rubbing the bite-marks on his wrist reproachfully.

“No. He’s on our side now.”

Inari stammered a little, and Naruto set him down.

“That was really brave, though. He could have gutted you like a fish.”

Inari blushed and fidgeted with the nail. “ ‘Sokay… what about Gato?”

Naruto looked at the bridge, past where Sasuke was carefully bringing Sakura back. Thankfully, mist still covered the worst of the mess. He rubbed his head nervously.

“Um, you might want a few grownups to clean it up.”

Inari grinned, a bloodthirsty look rising in his eyes.

“Did you get ‘em?”

Naruto grinned back. “I think ‘get’ is an understatement, Inari. Let’s go back to your home, now, your mom’s probably worried sick.”

OOO

“What are we going to name the bridge, boy?” Tazuna asked gruffly, as he shook Naruto’s hand goodbye.

Naruto closed his eyes-

-… as he read the note pinned with a kunai to what was left of Inari’s chest, the hissing wind and smell of scorched cement making his eyes water. “I’ll be waiting for you, hero. Come find me.” The man beside Naruto shifted uneasily, fidgeting with his rat-mask. “What does it say, Naruto-san?” He asked worriedly. Naruto crumpled the bloody note with shaking fingers. “Nothing important, Konohamaru.”…-

-and opened them again, blinking back tears and smiling. “Call it Hero’s Bridge, Tazuna-san. That way it’ll belong to whoever’s brave enough to deserve it.”

Tazuna nodded. “You have a brain in that head of yours, don’t you?”

Naruto grinned slyly and turned to go. “Don’t tell anyone. It’ll ruin my image.”

OOO

“This is Konoha?” He heard Haku ask Sakura, shrinking a little closer to the girl’s side and rubbing the still-healing bridge of his nose nervously. “It’s so… beautiful.”

Sakura smiled and gave Haku a quick hug around the shoulders, the incident on the bridge forgiven and forgotten. It was only duty, after all. Both were fighting for their important people, both were grateful for the second chance at friendship. The two had been going off into the woods alone together with suspicious frequency during their recuperations, causing Naruto huge amounts of amusement at the identical expressions of resentful confusion on both Zabuza’s and Sasuke’s faces when the two would stumble back to the house, leaning on each other’s shoulders and grinning smugly. Naruto wouldn’t put it past either of them to know exactly how it affected their ‘important people’, and judging by the way Kakashi was watching Sasuke trying not to watch Sakura chat with Haku, her arm affectionately linked around his, his sensei knew it too.

Before they’d gone ten meters inside the gate, however, an ANBU with a tiger’s mask had appeared in front of them and held out a hand.

“Passports?”

“None will be needed.” Kakashi said calmly. “These two request immigration.”

The ANBU shook his head, more in disbelief than negation. “You are aware of their current status as S-class missing-nin?”

“Yes.”

“Come with me.”

OOO

The Hokage sighed, slowly walked to the podium, and looked out across the assembly. Team seven and their two ‘guests’ stood at the bottom of a circular arena, with curved rows of seats angled above them, stretching to the shadowed edges of the room.

“On what grounds,” The Hokage announced, “is this meeting called?”

“These two request immigration. I speak for them.” Naruto said, stepping in front of Kakashi. Kakashi studied Naruto’s back for a moment and shrugged.

“Impossible!” One jounin in the seats called out, rising impatiently. “They are missing-nins. They have no such privilege!”

“Like we need any more demons,” Came a mutter from the right, accompanied by snickering.

“What if it’s a trap? I wouldn’t trust that little bastard farther than I could spit.” Another voice called out from behind him, and like the bursting of a dam voices of protest rose up from all around them, echoing off the walls and growing steadily in intensity and volume.

“Silence!” The Hokage roared, thumping his fist on the podium. A hush fell gradually until everyone was staring at the last mutterer. Discovering that he was alone in his ranting he shut up abruptly and stalked from the room, his face red. Sakura squeezed Haku’s hand reassuringly and studied Naruto, her ears burning from the blistering insults heaped upon their group and upon the calm, indifferent Naruto.

“Th-”

Naruto held up a hand for attention, and took a step toward the podium. Now was not the time to lose, he told himself, but the hero –and villain- of his childhood stood before him, alive again, and, if not exactly young, looking a hell of a lot better than Naruto himself had at twenty years younger.

“There are precedents, Hokage-Sama.”

Sarutobi raised his eyebrows. What had happened to Naruto in six months? He showed no trace of his trademark short fuse or brash attempts for attention. He stood, and spoke, like an ANBU giving a report, too. He made a mental note to see what Naruto had been up to; six months was a suspiciously long time for Naruto to stay out of trouble.

“Continue.”

Naruto nodded. “In accordance to article fifty-two, section three, of the laws of Konohagakure, these two are not legally recognized as missing-nins until they have caused physical or mental damage to property, residents or goods of said village.”

The kid was right. Something was definitely wrong with Naruto, the Hokage decided. Or right with him… He’d stopped being a child somehow, and started being his father. Or whatever the right term was. Better to interview the team-mates, first, if this new version was anywhere near as competent as he seemed he could probably have those two ready to follow him to the gates of hell by now, or at least provide them with a cover-story to feed to the Hokage.

Sarutobi drummed his fingers in speculation. “It seems in order, yes. Have any of you been ‘damaged’ by these two?”

The three shared a glance. “It was an accident.” Naruto said. “I refuse to press charges.” The other two of his team nodded in agreement and Kakashi shrugged. The Hokage raised his gaze to the ranks of ninjas around them.

“As this is a standard military assimilation, the two in question, Momochi Zabuza and Muzumeikyuu Haku, will need to have at least three sponsors to be accepted on probation.”

“Is that bad?” Haku whispered to Sakura. She frowned. “It isn’t likely to be good.”

But someone was already shooting to his feet, his fist clenched in front of his chest.

“My eternal rival Kakashi!” Maito Gai shouted, pointing indignantly at Kakashi with his other arm. “I cannot in good conscience allow you to best me in this! I vouch for both of them in the spirit of manly compassion!”

Naruto shook his head in disbelief, thankful for whatever convoluted logic had led Gai to this conclusion.

“No speeches will be necessary, Gai.” The Hokage said dryly, and Gai sank back down to his seat muttering about the unseemly indifference in people these days.

But others were raising their hands, now, most people that Naruto recognized following Gai’s example and Kakashi’s reputation, and Iruka shooting Naruto a wink as he raised his own hand. Naruto grinned back.

“Zabuza and Haku, you are officially probationary ninjas for one year. You may not be promoted during said period, you must report to me a minimum of once a week, you must not be out after dark unaccompanied, and twenty percent of your pay will be docked as taxes until the end of your term. Do you accept?”

Zabuza shrugged. Naruto shot him a glance and he sighed grumpily and ran his hands through his hair.

“Why the hell not?”

OOO

Sasuke flopped onto his bed, stewing about the way Sakura and Haku had been so… friendly… the trip back. After the thing at the bridge, after she had almost died, he’d been ready to open up to her, ready to accept her… affection… ready to be ready to be the one that she turned to for comfort, ready to maybe start learning how to be that sort of person. Not just ready, really, he had wanted to. And for the part of an hour as they limped home and she’d leaned against him like she always had done with Naruto, and he’d carefully held her around her shoulders like Naruto had always done, … he’d felt, in a small, strange, fuzzy way, stronger than he’d ever felt before.

And it had been comfortable; when he’d sat by her bedside with Naruto, just reading a book on poisons, and she’d quietly sharpened her knives… it had been nice. It had been good. There’d been something between them that wasn’t at all like any of the soppy movies had told him it would be like, no fireworks or cute little birds or music. Just a simple satisfaction that the things he was doing needed to be done, and he was doing them.

And then after Haku had woken up she began acting like he didn’t exist. And while he was working up the nerve to maybe possibly sorta reach out and hold her hand, really nonchalantly, not making any sort of fuss about it, just kind of see what the big deal was all about, after they came out of the assembly she and Naruto had started whooping and pounding each other on the back and she’d given Haku a huge, noisily wet kiss on the forehead and hugged him.

And he’d hugged her back.

And she and Haku had left with Naruto, their fingers entwined, and she’d never even looked back.

That wasn’t good at all.

Sasuke rolled over and dragged the pillow over his head, then threw it violently against the wall and stomped into the kitchen. He was hungry. They’d been holding hands. He would make rice. Yeah. But why was she ignoring him? What was he doing wrong? No, think about the rice. It was just that she- No. Rice.

He burned his hands twice and the rice once before coming up with a lumpy, quasi-edible ball. Then there was a knock on the door and he dropped the lump and cursed.

“Is he coming?” He heard a muffled whisper, and he snuck carefully over to the door.

“With the way you’ve been snogging Haku? No shit he’ll come.”

There were giggles.

“We wouldn’t call it ‘snogging’, really.”

“Yeah, yeah. Get a room already, you two.”

“You sure it’s working?”

“I’m sure.”

Another knock. Sasuke gritted his teeth and put a hand on the door-knob, intending to charge out there and give them a piece of his mind. A very large, very loud, and very, very angry piece of his mind. He took a deep breath, flung the door open, and stomped outside.

Attempted to stomp outside.

“Mff!” He yelled, frantically trying to escape the grasp of a tall, Amazonian blond with absolutely enormous breasts. And no clothes.

“Sasuke-kuuun!” The blond squealed, hoisting Sasuke off his feet and squeezing his face more firmly into her ludicrously-sized boobs. From behind her came the sounds of Sakura and Haku chocking back laughter. “Oh DEAREST Sasuke-kun, I would be EVER so charmed if you could find it in your most NOBLE and GORGEOUS heart to accompany us three RAVISHINGLY beautiful young ladies?” She dropped Sasuke and batted her eyelashes at him. Sasuke was mortified to find that he was blushing, and that Sakura and Haku were laughing so hard they had to lean on each other to keep from falling over.

“Na- Na- Naruto?”

“Naru-KO!” The naked blond squealed, twirling around and striking a pose.

Sasuke closed his eyes and said, with as much dignity as he could muster considering that his face was redder than a tomato, “What- the- hell is -going -on?”

“Aww, he cares!” Naruto paused jiggled his –her? - chest consideringly. “You think these are big enough, nee-chan?”

“D- deh-” She gasped, and fell over, leaning against Haku’s legs as she howled.

“No appreciation for art, any of you.” Naruto snorted, and puffed back into his normal form, then dusted his hands. “So, you comin’, Sasuke?”

“Wh- whutha- what the HELL?” Sasuke screamed.

“To the Green Fish. We’re celebrating Haku’s initiation to the time-honored ranks of sexy Konoha ninjas. Founded by me, of course.”

Sasuke sighed and attempted to even his breathing out. Naruto in a bad mood was terrifying, but Naruto in a good mood was absolutely impossible.

“Na-”

“Well?”

“I’m-”

Haku dragged Sakura to her feet and slung a possessive arm around her waist, and they turned to go.

“You’re paying.” He sighed.

Naruto grinned and grabbed Sasuke’s wrist. “I’m broke.” He grinned, and dragged Sasuke off before the other boy could protest.

OOO

Fixed Haku’s name. It is not Mizuwakamusha (water warrior). That was a mistake with the copying-and-pasting. I was going to name the ANBU Wakamusha, but decided not to because he didn’t need a name. Then I forgot that Wakamusha did not mean what I wanted it to mean. Haku’s name is now, permanently, Mizumeikyuu. It means “Water Labyrinth) for reasons I will not specify now but will say that they will be…interesting.

And the grand total of AP classes I’m in sneaks up to three. I’m gonna die! Whaaaaa! But apparently colleges like it, so I’ll play along.

They had better be worth it…

OOO

“Na- um, Kizukan?” Sakura asked, plunking down on the stool next to him and raking her hands through her shoulder-length blue hair, her face flushed from dancing through her illusionary tan and her eyes gold with curiosity.

“Mmp?” Naruto swallowed the mouthful of fried shrimp and attempted to disengage his brain from the music going on around them. The Green Fish always had the best bands, although gods knew how they managed to get a different one every night.

“What’s with your ghost? It’s a lot younger.”

“I’m haunted?” Naruto asked, raising an eyebrow. “When did this happen?”

“No, it’s… when I look at you in ‘Goldsight you have this other…you…inside of you. It looks…um…” Really, really, hot. Usually it looked like road-kill, but it had been slowly getting younger since the day in the water-country when Naruto had woken up from his poison-induced coma. Tonight however, it had jumped decades in minutes and now seemed in its early twenties and it was making her extremely uncomfortable.

“Oh, that!” Naruto said in the same tone one would comment on a new couch or toaster. “You have one too, you know.”

“I do?” Sakura asked in surprise.

“You didn’t know? It’s one of the Haruno clan’s specialties.”

“What are?”

“Cojoined personalities. It’s like a person and a half being born into one body. It was interfering with your training so I kinda…um…” Naruto actually looked embarrassed. “Integrated it.”

“Wh- how?” She stammered, completely forgetting the question of Naruto’s ‘ghost’. She’d thought everyone had an inner self, the proverbial devil on their shoulder, and that it was only a figment of their imagination. Apparently, hers had been real.

“Um. I syncopated your mental rhythms.”

“Meaning?” She asked, loading as much menace as possible onto the syllables. Naruto fidgeted like a kid that’s been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

“I kinda meshed you two together. Like, um, your ‘ghost’ had half an aura, and you had an incomplete aura, so I just jammed the ‘ghost’ in the gaps.”

“You. Messed. With. My. BRAIN?!” She hissed, leaning forward, fully aware how nervous she was making Naruto, and relishing it with a gleeful malice. It wasn’t often she got him this discomposed, and she intended to make him suffer.

“No! No, no, no!” Naruto scooted backwards. “I just got rid of the second interface!”

She paused. Actually, since she had started training with Naruto, she’d liked what she’d become, how she’d felt. Tougher. Fiercer. Angrier, yes, much angrier. It was like so many of her old fears had simply dried up with her dark thoughts, leaving her ready to kick some ass and not particularly caring who’s.

“So you’re saying…” She said thoughtfully, “that the part of me that’s been making most of my decisions was the part of me I’ve been ignoring for twelve years.”

“Um, no. It was pretty stupid. But the part of you that’s been, um, ‘feeling’, yeah. That’s it.”

She absent-mindedly stole Naruto’s green tea, took a long slurp, made a face at the amount of sugar he’d dumped in it, -as opposed to Sasuke who avoided candy like the plague, Naruto had to buy a new kilo of sugar pretty much once a month- and thumped it back down on the table. She had him wrapped around her finger tonight for some reason; although Naruto was the best actor she’d ever seen, the amount of sugar he put on to anything was directly proportional to how worried he was about something.

“I don’t think I’ll kill you.” She announced, “Yet.”

Naruto grinned in relief and reached for his tea. She grabbed his wrist, the liquid sugar she’d just drunk already spiking up her heartbeat. “Your damned sweet-tooth’s gotten me all hyper. You owe me a dance, my meddlesome brother.” She informed him, and laughed as he flushed, completely forgetting about her original question about his ‘ghost’.

His henge really was adorable.

OOO

Sasuke woke up slowly. His head hurt. A lot. He blinked a couple times, trying to clear his fuzzy vision. What was he looking at? A wall. Who’s wall? Okay, good. It was his wall. It was the right color, and had the right chip in the right place, so, it was his wall. And, assumedly, it was his bed. He felt slightly proud of himself for coming to such a stunningly brilliant conclusion. He rolled over, scrunched his eyes shut again, nudged Sakura’s back with an elbow until she rolled over in her sleep, and had almost dozed off with his head on her stomach when a few brain cells clicked into place.

Bed. His. Sakura. Bed. Head-ache. Bed.

He was flat against the opposite wall and hyperventilating before he even finished the thought process, and frantically sneaking out of the room when he heard the unmistakable sound of Sakura wake up. He froze, and stared over his shoulder, painful, horribly aware that all he was wearing was a pair of old boxers.

She stared at him. More specifically, his bare shoulders. He stared at her face, dreading what ever emotion she was going to show. Both of them, slowly, turned red.

And then she let loose with a howl of laughter and collapsed back on the bed. Sasuke blinked, then rubbed his forehead. His brain was not, currently, up to the job of figuring out whatever the hell had happened, and he still couldn’t remember what had happened after he’d gone out to the Green Fish with them.

“Sakura…” He growled, still kneading his forehead. “What the hell happened?”

She attempted to speak through the giggles, broke up again, and finally staggered upright. Sasuke stopped rubbing his head and fixed his eyes firmly on the ceiling. Sakura let out an inarticulate squeak of embarrassment and further amusement, dove under the covers, and began laughing again as she wrapped the sheet around herself, her hands shaking with amusement.

“Na- Na- Naruto- oh…” She forced out, then leaned against the wall. “He- an-nd Ha, Haku-u had to have- have…” She sank slowly to the floor again, laughing, but even with the fuzz around his brain Sasuke fill in the rest. He didn’t find it very amusing.

“You three…” He rumbled ominously. “Got me drunk, didn’t you?”

She finally got herself under control and rubbed the back of her head. “It wasn’t my idea, Sasuke, and judging by the amount my head hurts they drugged me, too.”

“Nothing…happened?”

“I’d feel it if it had, I’m told. Don’t worry, they probably just whapped us on the back of the head and dumped us here as a joke.”

The memories were beginning to sneak back into his brain like kicked puppies, rubbing guiltily against his attention. Naruto buying him ‘juice’. Sakura tugging him on to the dance floor, and Naruto sprawling lazily all over the booth that he attempted to sit down it. Sasuke giving in, and self consciously hopping up and down tentatively. Naruto yelling at him to ‘put some shake in it, wonder-boy!’ and Sakura, flushed and grinning, grabbing Sasuke’s wrists and spinning him in a circle, until, dizzy and smiling, he staggered into some semblance of rhythm. It had been like a pattern-fight, almost, moves and steps and sound. But better. Then…more drinks, more dancing… he’d been laughing. He, Uchiha Sasuke the Avenger, had been laughing with one arm slung around Sakura’s neck, and singing. With Naruto. Badly. Oh gods, the singing. Please, please, please don’t let Sakura remember the singing.

She was, apparently, remembering the singing. “You-”

“I don’t want to hear it.”

“You have a nice voice.”

“I said I didn’t want to hear it.”

“Fine…” She grinned again, her lips twitching. “You should go wash the paint off.”

“Paint?”

“Go.” She pointed into Sasuke’s bathroom. Puzzled, he walked to the mirror and studied his expression. His hair was sticking up more than usual, but…

“Your- back-” She choked out, then broke up again as Sasuke turned and stared at the backwards letters in permanent marker on his back.

“A…midnight…snack…from…Naruto…and…Haku…” Sasuke trailed off, his ears steaming. “I’m going to kill them both.”

“No, you aren’t.” Sakura said, standing up again and vainly trying to find her overcoat. “I want food.” She gave up on finding her clothes and began rummaging through Sasuke’s drawers before dragging out his largest shirt, donning it, and heading off to his kitchen. Sasuke watched her, feeling affronted at such casual use of his private properties. He’d never look at the shirt the same way again, that was for sure, and it seemed so… unsettling to see the outline of a bra strap through the white of the Uchiha fan, so he firmly stomped on the resulting ideas. Shaking his head, he dragged on a shirt of his own and followed her.

“You got dumplings?” She asked, randomly opening cupboards.

“In the freezer. How can you even think of eating this early?”

“How can’t you?” She retorted, then shoved a pot into his chest. “Hot water. Now. Stove. Good.” Sasuke obeyed, because he couldn’t think of anything to say. She dropped half a dozen of the frozen lumps into the steaming water and plopped down at his kitchen table. Sasuke contented himself with leaning against the fridge and trying to piece together what little composure he still had.

“Sakura…?”

“Mmm?”

“Um, why are you, um-”

“Not attempting to kiss you or stammering excuses or spouting romantic crap?”

“Um. Yeah. That.”

She laughed, and prodded a bobbing dumpling with a ladle.

“Well… I would like you to smile and say you’re happy and hug me and then we’ll be boyfriend and girlfriend and it’ll turn out that you’re incredibly sophisticated and sweet and romantic and we’ll get married and have a bajillion kids and live happily ever after.”

“Oh.” Sasuke winced.

She laughed again and twirled the ladle like a baton, caught it, and jabbed at another dumpling.

“Why do you have to laugh at everything?” Sasuke snapped, relieved to have an outlet to vent on.

She prodded the dumpling again, more viciously, and gave him a smile that was the same as the shield of ice he wore around his heart. “‘If you don’t laugh at yourself first, someone else will beat you to it’, Sasuke.”

He sighed. “Naruto?”

“Naruto.”

They stood in silence for awhile. Then, as she was straining the dumplings, she spoke again, her tone deadly serious.

“Look, Sasuke, I love you. It isn’t logical. It isn’t rational. Hell, Haku would make a better boyfriend than you and he’s gay. But I started off loving you because every one else did, and I’m going to continue to love you because you need either a really, really good pounding or a hell of a lot of affection, and I’m not strong enough to kick your ass yet.”

Sasuke blinked a few times. It wasn’t the first declaration of undying devotion he’d been subject to, but it was by far the most original.

“Haku’s gay?”

“Yes. Anyway, I’m sick and tired as being just another annoyance. You heard me when we introduced ourselves. I’m not that same girl anymore, and I mean literally. I’ve given up on having you as my boyfriend. I’ve given up on the idea of hugging and romantic walks in the park and flowers and stuff. You aren’t that sort of person. But I am NOT going to let you treat me like shit anymore. You can either accept me as your team-mate and stop flinching every gods-damn time I touch you, or you can have me as your enemy and by the gods I’ll train until I can give you the thrashing from hell.”

Sasuke stared at her in amazement, his jaw hanging slightly open. She looked…magnificent, with her hair even more disheveled than Naruto on a bad day and the too-large shirt hanging down over one shoulder and her face flushed and her hands still damp and gummy from the dumpling run-off.

“Was- was that a threat?” He asked, trying to force some anger into his tone, some menace, any thing but the pathetically weak awe that came out instead.

“Yes, genius, that was a threat.”

He swallowed hard, knowing he was on the edge of a verbal cliff with the wolves snapping at his heels. With one, last, shaky breath, he jumped.

“Okay.”

She smiled for real, this time.

“Good. The dumplings are done.”

The wacky world of Mpreg

2008-03-09T08:00:15Z

Todd Casil, known to the few people that liked him as Squee, was throwing up. It wasn’t like he meant to, it just kind of happened. Well, it happened a lot. Everything just tasted wrong.

“Mmm, hey, there you are.” Pepito leaned into the bathroom. “You okay?”

“Just –hrrgk- just peachy!”

Pepito watched him for awhile. “You know, amigo, I don’t think people normally throw up that much.”

“Really.”

“Well, the bulimic ones do. Are you bulimic? Because that’s a mental disorder based on warped self-image, induced by the skewed values of a delusional culture out of touch with reality. I mean, I didn’t even think you watched the news.”

“The news is pretty scary,” Todd murmured. He wiped at his mouth with toilet paper. “I think it’s just radiation poisoning again.”

“Well, you have been looking pretty fragile lately, but it’s not like you’re loosing weight. And your hair is just… fine…. I know!” Pepito smacked a fist into his palm. “You’re pregnant!”

Todd squeaked and vomited at the same time. The result was extremely unpleasant, and he spent the next ten minutes coughing. When he finally came up for air, Pepito was still watching him. He looked pleased. Pepito looking anything but serious was a very bad thing.

“I’m the father, right?”

“I’m not pregnant,” Todd said, “Men can’t get pregnant.”

“What are you talking about, they do all the time. I saw it on TV.”

“I think you’re thinking about tumors.” Todd said. He thought for a moment. “Tumors are pretty scary. I had one once.”

“Well, do you still have it?”

“Not any more. I sold it to Rex the Closet Monster. It’s that one scar. You know. On my butt.”

“Oh yeah, that one.” Pepito smiled vaguely at his butt for awhile, then refocused. “So that settles it, right? You’re pregnant.”

“I am not pregnant!”

“I should tell mom, she’s always bugging me about grandkids. This is great.”

“I don’t want to be pregnant! How does that even make sense!”

“Pfff, you and your sense.” Pepito waved his hand. “I’m going to go make a cake. That’s what you do, right? When you people get pregnant?”

Todd closed his eyes in defeat, and vomited.

OOO

“Hey, this is Elise. She’s a succubus, so she knows all about sex.”

“…Hi.” Squee raised his arm to shake her hand, saw her nails, and settled for waiving lamely. “Pepito, I don’t want any more sex. I’m tired.”

“No, she’s here about the baby. You know?”

“I’m not pregnant.”

“No, no.” Elise rubbed her chin, a thoughtful expression on her face. “You’re definitely pregnant.”

“Men can’t get pregnant!” Squee shouted. “I’m a guy! I don’t have the right parts!”

“It happens all the time. Especially when us people are involved. I mean, I gotta watch my figure, I can’t be going around having my own babies.” Elise looked a little put-out. “Don’t you watch TV?”

“I watch TV,” Pepito said. “Squee does too. I thought he did, anyway. Is TV too scary, Squee?”

“TV is scary! Having- having a baby is fucking terrifying! I don’t want to be pregnant! I can’t even take care of myself!”

“I can take care of both of us,” Pepito said. “All three of us. Wait, does he have just one in there or is he going to have a litter?”

“Can I have an abortion?” Squee asked.

“Not unless you like being exorcized up the butt with a coathanger.” Elise said. “And I mean, not many people do. Not that I judge.”

“I like his butt.” Pepito said.

“How am I even going to give birth? I don’t have girl parts!”

“Oh, that’s no problem,” Elise said, “it’ll just chew its way out when the time is right. You don’t even have to do anything but lie there. Well, and scream a bit. The screaming’s more for effect, though.”

Squee put his hand over his face. “I don’t feel so good.”

Pepito and Elise watched him throw up for awhile.

“Congratulations,” She said doubtfully.

Pepito beamed.

OOO

The yearly Easter dinner with the Diablos was only marginally more surreal than usual. Pepito’s mother asked if they had thought of any names, and his father had given Squee a particularly knowing wink. Of course, he had been doing this for years, and Squee was almost convinced Mr. Diablo knew exactly how much it creeped him out. Afterwards they all looked at Pepito’s baby album (his first arson was particularly adorable) and roasted marshmallows over the souls of the forsaken. Squee cried a lot afterwards, but felt strangely okay with the whole thing. They thought maybe they would name the kid Abbadon, or maybe Rosa if it was a girl.

OOO

Squee waved goodbye to Pepito’s father, then fixed his companion with an unusually sharp gaze. “What were you two talking about?”

Pepito smiled unconvincingly. “Nothing you need to be concerned about.”

“It’s about the kid, isn’t it?”

“Uh. No.” Pepito waved his hand in front of his face. “Everything’s fine.”

Squee’s eyes glazed over, and he wandered off to the kitchen and sat down in the middle of the floor, his thin arms wrapped around his distended middle.

Pepito watched him for awhile, chewing on one sharp fingernail.

“Everything’s not fine,” He said softly. “Dad told me some things I didn’t want to hear.”

Squee made a soft noise. His face was still unnaturally blank and calm: placid, and trusting, and full of a quiet sort of love. Pepito hated it when Squee looked like this, like he trusted Pepito. He hated it because he knew that Squee never looked like this because he never did trust Pepito because Pepito pulled shit like this all the time. Pepito kind of hated himself sometimes.

“It’s because of who we are. What we do.”

“I don’t do anything,” Squee said. “Stuff just happens to me.”

“Yeah…”

“So, you’re the anti-christ,” Squee said slowly, “and I’m… just me. Did your dad say what that makes the baby?”

“It’s complicated,” Pepito evaded.

Squee frowned. “No, really.”

“It…technically, Dad said, he’s got a fifty-fifty chance of being the anti-antichrist, or just human. Because I’m half human, so he’ll be like, three fourths human, and that would mostly water it out, usually. Only it’s not that simple, because you’re not really just human. ”

“Oh.” Squee absorbed this for awhile. “Is it the thing that the aliens put in my head?”

“Not really.”

“Because they put a lot of stuff in my head.”

“No, amigo. It’s not the aliens. Let me see…” He was very absorbed in his fingers. He had set his thumbnail on fire and was passing the flame from finger to finger. He only did this when he was embarrassed, which was almost never. “How much do you know? I mean, about religion, and my family.”

“Umm…” Squee thought for a moment. “God made the earth. Satan didn’t like it and he said, ‘hey God, you’re a big stupid-head,’ and God was all like ‘nuh-uh’ and there was a big fight. That’s your dad and his friends, or something. And then there were people and they ate too much fruit so Jesus told them to cut it out, and then there was a flood. The flood was bad, but people invented rainbows and it was okay. Only I think that made gay people, I don’t know.” He looked at Pepito. “Am I on the right track, here? I don’t remember making any rainbows, but, you know, I’m not really very gay.”

“Broadly speaking, you’re on the right track.” Pepito ran his hands through his hair, which sizzled. “Broadly. But I was thinking more like, you know, Cain. The Wandering Jew. Sin-bearers. Scapegoats.”

“I know what Scapegoat means. It’s who you blame for bad things.”

“Good. Good.” Pepito cleared his throat. “ ‘And the Goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a Land not inhabited.’ It’s in the bible. People used to do it to goats –actual goats- on their own, but we managed to streamline the system because Dad really likes animals, you see. It’s all automated now, and it works on a larger scale, with people being the collateral for, ah, other people. The smarter the scapegoat, you see, the more they can handle. If you balance things right, one or two people can handle practically the whole west coast. Ah-- Dad said you’re one of the scapegoats. I guess that’s why he didn’t congratulate me. ”

“So I’m a goat?”

“No, you’re a scapegoat. I mean, you’re like… hey, you know insinkerators? You put big things down the sink and it goes whrrrrrr and then you don’t have any more problems? That’s you!”

“I’m a garbage disposal goat.”

“Yes. Exactly.” He caught Squee’s expression. He was coming back from la-la land a lot faster than usual. “Oh, you’re not happy. I suppose you wouldn’t be.”

“Well… it does explain a lot. Is the baby going to be a goat? I don’t want to give birth to a goat.”

“That would be a bit of a problem, yes. The thing is, I don’t know. Dad doesn’t either. I guess men really aren’t supposed to be giving birth, which is why he didn’t tell me this before. But it means that the kid could be born with all our faults. Or none of them.”

“Will it still chew its way out? If it’s not a goat?”

“I’ll tell you what, amigo, we’ll get you a c-section.”

“Hospitals are scary.”

OOO

“Pepito?”

“Yes, my love?”

“Why is the fridge full of pickles and ice cream.”

“Well, I was watching T-”

“You can’t believe everything you watch!”

Pepito said, with a kind of level, grim sincerity: “TV would not lie to me, Squee. We have a special relationship.” Squee was never sure whether he was joking or not when he used that tone, and worse, was never sure who’s organs he would be cleaning off the carpet later when this sort of thing happened.

Squee counted to ten. “I am going to go throw up,” he said, “and it would be really nice if there was actual food in there when I am done.”

“But pickles are food,” He heard Pepito tell the refrigerator, as he trudged off to the bathroom. “You can eat them and everything.”

OOO

“You’re WHAT.”

“Oh thank god, Devi.” Squee said, going limp with relief. “I was starting to think I crazy one.”

“Neither of us is winning the sanity award,” the older woman said, “but this really takes the cake. It takes the cake and sets it on fire. I just thought you had cancer or something.”

“No, I mean, yeah, I had cancer, but the aliens-”

“Todd.” Devi had always called him Todd, even when the rest of the world had forgotten that he used to have a name that wasn’t a sound effect, “You’re really pregnant? With a baby?”

“Yeah. We’re going to name it Maria, I think. Or Azazael, maybe.”

“I thought you were a guy. With guy parts.”

“I don’t even know, Devi. I think it’s growing in my colon. One of Pepito’s friends told me it was going to chew its way out when it was done.”

His illustrator looked nauseated and intrigued. “Wow. Just…wow. Is it going to hurt?”

“God, I hope not. I might be getting a C-section on month nine, if it isn’t out yet.”

“Something to look forward to.”

There was a long, contemplative silence.

“I told you not to encourage him, you know. I mean, he’s the antichrist. Assbabies are probably getting off lightly.”

“Yeah, I know, but… he’s hard to say no to. And, you know, when the world ends I guess it’ll be nice to know someone in charge.”

“I guess I can’t really point fingers, I work for his boyfriend. Mind you, I still don’t understand how you get past that one crazy eye thing.”

Squee shrugged. “It’s not so bad. The worst is when he eats toast in bed.”

“I… fuck, you’re, pregnant. I knew today was going to be weird. You want me to get some coffee?” Devi winced. “You can still drink coffee, right? It’s not bad for the assbaby?”

Squee laughed. It sounded rusty. “I don’t even care—I’m pretty sure I could be snorting dish detergent cut with plutonium by this point and it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.”

“Sounds yummy.” She came back with two mugs. Squee got the ‘world’s best secretary’ one. “It’s instant, I’m afraid. Is the kid thing going to push back your publishing date?”

“No, I think everything’s going to be on schedule. Why, do you need more time for the cover art?”

“Mmm, I don’t think so. You want to see what I’ve got?”

“Of course.” Squee made as if to stand up, then doubled over. “Hold on.”

Devi definitely looked queasy.

“I’ll just bring the paintings over to you, how about.”

After they had talked over everything they had to about Todd’s book –creepy but entertaining- and Devi’s accompanying work –frightening but brilliant- they found reason to linger, drifting slowly towards the doorway. It was nice to be with another person who really understood. If circumstances had worked out differently…Squee took a final pause in the hallway outside the apartment.

“How’s the incubus, anyway? Do you want us to pay you in money yet?”

“No, no.” She gave him a brief, sharp smile. “He keeps me warm.”

He laughed weakly, and left.

OOO

“Hey, Squee.”

“Hey, Xtlch.”

“There’s another earthling with you, I see.”

“Yeah, that’s Pepito. Um, Pepito, meet Xtlch. He’s an alien. I think he’s from Alpha Centauri, but he’s never really said. Xtlch, meet Pepito. He’s the antichrist. And my boyfriend.”

“Charmed.” Pepito said blandly, and held out his hand.

“I hope we can all get along.” Xtlch said, grasping Pepito’s hand in several tentacles, “This is so exiting! I don’t really meet new earthlings that often, usually it’s just routine probing. If you wouldn’t mind, Squee?”

“Well, we wanted to ask, can Pepito come along? He heard you had a visualizer and we thought it would be nice to check out the baby. We tried ultrasound but the machines just, um, exploded. And killed the doctor. Only I’ve been getting really sick, and we think there might be a problem.”

The alien rearranged his face into an expression that might have been dismay. “I don’t know, I don’t think I have the authority for that. I just probe people, you see.”

“It really wouldn’t be any trouble, we could do it fast.”

“Well, if you’re sure…”

“I’d make sure to put in a good word with your superiors,” Pepito added. “I mean, I’m not the antichrist for nothing.”

“Oh really? That would be so nice of you! I’m sure I don’t know what I would do, that would be just so nice-”

Pepito gave the alien his best diplomat’s smile, the one with lots of pointy teeth.

“I certainly appreciate what good care you’ve taken of my Todd over the years.”

“Ah, yes, of course-”

“And I’m certain we can look forward to many happy and mutually beneficial years of …whatever it is that you two get up to.”

“Probing.”

“Yes. Probing.”

“Well, then, right this way! We’ll get you all hooked up to the visualizer right after the probing, it’s in the lounge. No point in getting the sofa sticky. Aheh.”

Pepito shot Squee a look as they followed the bustling alien. If it were anyone else, Squee would have sworn the antichrist was alarmed.

OOO

“You didn’t tell me that most of the probing was up the butt.” Pepito said a while after the aliens, when they were back in the house and settled in front of a movie with tea and cookies.

Squee gingerly leaned back into the pillows on the couch. “It’s not, usually. I think he was just trying to impress you.”

“Ah.” Pepito brooded into his mug of tea, which was starting to boil. “Is that what it was.”

“Are you upset? I think you were upset. Xtlch noticed too. He was pretty worried by the end. You were giving him the deathglare, that always makes people very worried. I didn’t think it worked on aliens, but-”

“No.” Pepito fixed him with said deathglare. Squee being Squee, was pretty used to it.

“I’ve told you about that look, Pepito. It’s just not nice. Do we play the movie or not?”

“Fine.” Pepito glared at his mug, which had gone dry. He heaved himself off the couch and stomped off to the kitchen. Squee shrugged and started the movie.

When Pepito came back with the tea kettle in one smoking hand and the mug in the other, he only leaned in the doorway. Squee looked at him questioningly and he scowled.

“You called me your… boyfriend. You told him I was your boyfriend and the father of your child and you still let him do those things to you. ”

“Oh, for- Pepito, are you jealous? It was probing. I’ve been working with Xtlch since I was nine. Before I even met you.”

The mug cracked. Before the pieces had hit the carpet Squee found his shoulders pressing into the back of the couch, Pepito’s face above him and the antichrist’s hands around his wrists. “I don’t want you seeing him anymore.”

“He’ll get in trouble- ahnn-”

Pepito bit into his throat, almost hard enough to pierce through the skin.

“I don’t care.” He hissed, “I don’t- I don’t like it- you’re mine, I’m not sharing you with anything that comes by and asks you to bend over.”

“This is my life, Pepito,” Squee gasped, his throat hot and tight and painfull, “this is what happens. You bend or you break. You can’t have everything you want!”

“You can’t have everything you want, love, but I’m the antichrist. I can move mountains. I can stop the sun. I can have anything.”

“Even me.” Squee said quietly, closing his eyes.

“I—no, no.” Pepito recoiled. Squee lay quietly underneath him, face turned into the pillow. He looked so tired. Pepito’s hands –they really could stop the sun- fluttered uselessly. “Todd, amigo, it’s not like that.”

Squee placed one hand on his stomach –distended, unnatural- and looked up at him for a long moment. “Of course, Pepito.” he finally said. “Of course.”

OOO

Things took a turn for the worse around the third trimester—and after the nightmare that was the second trimester, a turn for the worst was positively horrific. Squee’s stomach grew, and grew, and grew, while the rest of Squee turned gaunt and sallow. He developed a feverish, exhausted sort of look to his eyes, and rarely spoke. He had stopped writing a month before, then even carrying around his notebook; it was when he stopped being afraid of things that Pepito really started to be alarmed.

The monsters in the closet were far more quiet than normal, and ventured out into the house in nervous, furtive raiding parties. Squee didn’t leave bed for hours at a stretch, then days. Everything in Squee’s bedroom seemed to decay with him, and all the houseplants died. Pepito worried and fussed and made him every recipe in his mother’s battered Joy of Cooking book, but nothing helped. Sometimes it rained fire. Sometimes it rained fire outside, too. It became more and more apparent every day that the child was coming into its own, and killing it’s (mother wasn’t the right word, nor host) parent in the process. The only upside to the whole long disaster was that Pepito wasn’t being woken up by Squee screaming in the night. Of course, that was because Pepito had stopped sleeping at all.

“I’m going to die, Pepito.” Squee croaked, somewhere in the seventh month.

“No you’re not.” The antichrist tried to sound firm and reasonable. “Have some soup.”

“I don’t want soup. Let me die.”

“Not until you have some soup. Look, I put bits of lemon in it. The lemons are happy. They want you to eat them.”

Squee made a small nauseous sound and burrowed farther into his blankets. “I fucking mean it.” Habitual vomiting had leached away all the higher registers of his voice, leaving only a dry, smoky sounding rasp. It might have been sexy, in another context.

“Aside from how I feel about your suicidal tendencies, amigo,” Pepito said as he put aside the soup bowl, “Why do you even think I have the deciding say in your death?”

Squee stuck his head just far enough out of the blankets to roll his eyes. “Because… you’re the antichrist?”

Pepito sighed, and began to stroke Squee’s lank, greasy hair. It had gotten long in the last few months. In another context…well.

“It doesn’t work like that. I damn people, I blow things up, I turn rivers to blood and cities to ash. I’m the final judgment. That sort of thing doesn’t really extend to keeping you people nice and safe. Or even alive…I. Wait.”

“Mngh?”

“I can keep you alive. I can do anything. It’s so simple. Amigo. Squ—Todd. Todd, look at me.”

“What.”

“I need your soul.”

“WHAT.”

“Your soul, love.” Pepito laughed delightedly, and dragged the man into a hug. “You never gave it to my da- to us. To me. It’s so simple! All I need is your soul, and we can fix everything in a snap! You would be mine, really mine, and I could reincarnate you as a familiar, or a revenant. Or an incubus like Devi’s. The baby wouldn’t even be hurt. You wouldn’t be sick any more! We could have a lot more sex, too.”

“I wouldn’t be human anymore.” Squee said tightly. “Pepito, you’re talking about my soul. The part of me that’s me. That soul. You want me to give you my soul.”

“Well, yes.” Pepito laughed again, and tried to pet Squee like a cat. “Yes, of course! It’s not like the ‘part of you that’s you’ is even working, right? I could tune it up in a sec-”

“My immortal soul.”

“Yes, love.”

“MY soul. My SOUL.” Squee was shaking.

Pepito’s delighted grin faltered a little. “Todd, wha--”

“ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?” Squee roared. He shoved Pepito away with all the strength left in his stick-like frame and floundered off the bed. “You take over my life, you take over my body, and now you want my SOUL? I thought we had LIMITS, that there was a LINE THAT YOU DID. NOT. CROSS, that I would live with you as long as you kept your fucking business separate from your fucking relationship and now it comes out that you’ve just been biding your precious TIME—IT’S MY GODDAMN SOUL. MY ETERNAL, IMMORTAL SOUL. Do you really think that I’m just- that I’m just some THING, just your little THING, that you have to buy in FUCKING INSTALLMENTS-”

Pepito slapped him. Squee’s teeth clicked together and drew himself into a tall, furious mass.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I thought you were hysterical--”
“All you’ve ever done” Squee continued in a tight, icy voice, “is to fuck me over in progressive increments, Pepito. You take things without thinking that maybe they didn’t want to be owned. My time. My life. My choices. And now you’re asking for my eternal consent.”

“I’m not like that. I just—“ Pepito looked completely lost. “I just one morning woke up and I knew that I loved you and that I had to have you. I could make things better…”

“If that’s love, I’ll take Xtchl. Or the monsters. Or the goddamn psychiatrists.” Squee spat, and staggered away, down the stairs. “They left me alone after they played their little games.”

“Squee, wait.”

Squee stopped at the doors.

“I can fix this, amigo. I’m the antichrist.”

“And did you ever think that maybe you were the problem?”

“But I’m…”

Squee shook his head, and left without another word, step by sick, shaking step.

The house burst into flames behind him.

OOO

“I think I know you,” The man in white said.

“Oh?” Squee asked. The world spun around him as he was hauled off the pavement.

“You were in the newspapers for something, I rekon.”

“He’s famous, he is.” The man in white’s partner said. He was also in white, which made both men very hard to tell apart. “He invented super toast.”

“I didn’t, actually.” Squee said.

“Then what are you famous for?”

“I am pregnant with the antichrist’s child. In about three weeks it will chew its way out of my colon.” Squee tried to gauge their reactions, but it was hard to tell because he was so hot and thirsty and his head hurt. They were taking him towards a long white thing.

“In addition, um, Xtchl from alpha centauri will be extremely displeased with me having missed our yearly rendezvous, and hunt me down with his galactic space cruiser. If his superiors are angry, his space cruiser’s lasers will not have the safety on. I, yeah, I also write a very lucrative series of horror novels, and I pay my illustrator with incubi, which are like demonic male strippers. Only they have sex with you and you don’t have to, you know, pay them. I’m also considered something of a neutral party for disputes between the tribes of closet monsters, of which there are one hundred and nineteen. My blood is considered a divine ambrosia among both vampires and werewolves, and I have convinced most of the active cults of the northern hemisphere that I am either a high priest of their religion or the manifest avatar of their god. This doesn’t prevent them from trying to kill me on holy days, though. ” Squee considered all this for a moment. They were taking him somewhere, definitely. “Voices tell me to kill,” he added in the spirit of full disclosure. “But I don’t. I mean, I don’t think I do.”

“You do sound pretty famous,” One of the men agreed.

“I’m sure we heard of you somewhere,” the other said.

There was a creak of metal, and Squee was helped into a long, padded trailer.

“Here,” Said one of the men, “You said horror stories, right?”

“Yeah. I think like thirty of them.”

“You’re Todd Casil, aren’t you? My boy loves your books—hey, would you mind signing something? He’d get a kick outta that.”

“Always nice to meet a fan.” Squee murmured. “You want this in blood? Only I think I only have ink…”

“Ink’s fine.”

Squee absently signed the paper that was put in front of him, then curled around his stomach and closed his eyes.

The stained, padded floor of the trailer smelled like mold and elderly cat, and the close tight walls put him in mind of a coffin, of being buried alive. It was blissfully cool and damp after the desiccated heat of pavement on a hot October day. “Funny,” Squee said. “I feel better already.”

He laughed for a very long time.

OOO

“But what about our- your- the baby?” Pepito argued. He had found Squee, eventually, at the Crazy House.

“’Think of the children’.” Squee mocked. He was drawing with his feet, a pink crayon between his toes. He was drawing a daisy, or maybe a pentagram.

“You can’t do this,” Pepito shouted, rattling the bars on the door. He felt, absurdly, that he was the one being locked away.

Squee quirked an eyebrow. “Can’t do what, say no to you?”

“Is this some kind of delayed teenage rebellion? It’s not healthy for you! You’re turning into your parents! You hated your parents! You’re going to have the baby and hate it and it’ll turn out just like you!”

Squee looked at him for awhile. “You really don’t know anything, do you? I never hated my parents. And the baby is going to have itself, and I am going to die. Or maybe just stay here. You could come by on weekends, and tell it to wave to mommy. Or visit the graveyard, maybe. You can pretend that I was who you thought I was. You can tell the baby stories about me, how I was so brave and kind and agreeable and yours, and the baby will turn out just like you.”

“Suicides go to hell.” Pepito said. He barely recognized his own voice, it was so ugly.

“It’s your child killing me.” Squee shrugged. “Maybe we should let your father sort it out.”

“Squee--”

“Oh look.” He said blandly. “It’s the nurse.”

The nurse glared at them both, and brandished a horse-sized hypodermic. “Eez tighm for zleep.”

Squee bared his neck, but kept his gaze fixed steadily on Pepito until the drug took hold of his features, glazing over his eyes and smoothing his features out into something calm and alien.

“He’s not crazy,” Pepito lied desperately to the nurse.

“Everone eez crazy.” She grunted. “Some of uz not behighn barrz.”

He didn’t even have the heart to incinerate her.

OOO

Edgar to the rescue!

“Oh, hey.” The angel said. He was tall, with perfectly parted hair and very stylish glasses and wings made out of divine light. He was holding a clipboard. “I’m the angel of Hopeless Causes. We got a call.”

“Pepito sent you, didn’t he?”

The angel looked startled, and peered down nervously over his glasses. “Who?”

“The antichrist.” Squee tried to shrug through his straightjacket. “My ex.”

“I… don’t think we take orders from downstairs, but the paperwork did seem a little fishy.” The angel held out a clipboard. “They’re usually spelled a lot better.”

Squee examined the papers. The writing was an elegant, antique sort of script; the ink was rust brown. He had seen the exact same sort of writing on torn off bits of paper that said things like ‘eggs, milk, oreos’ or ‘dntst appt tomorrow’.

“Yeah, that’s him. God damn it.”

The angel seemed unfazed. “Well, I didn’t come all the way down here just to turn right around. Even if he is your ex he must still really care about you, to be messing around with the upstairs departments. Interdepartmental affairs really aren’t to be taken lightly.”

“He loves me.” Squee said bitterly. “He fucking loves me, you know.”

“And this is a problem?”

“He’s the antichrist! He is the spawn of Satan, the great leveler, the father of my baby, and he wants to take me home and play House for the rest of eternity.”

“Oh.” The angel’s gaze traveled down to Squee’s huge, bloated stomach, and stuck there. “I just thought you were morbidly obese.”

“I’m flattered.”

“Yes, well, I was murdered.” Edgar looked a little pleased. “Beat that.”

“I lived next door to a serial killer until I was ten. Well, I guess until I was twelve, sometimes he’d visit me at the psycho ward.” Squee mulled this over. “It was pretty weird.”

“Wow.” Edgar shuffled his wings. “I’m not really sure which is more traumatic.”

“Yeah, well, at least you got to move on.”

“ For a given value of ‘move on’, ha ha. You know, they tried to assign me as my murderer’s guardian angel, when I first got my wings. I let this one girl beat the shit out of him when he tried to knife her and that’s when they got me reassigned to Hopeless Causes. I like it a lot better, really, sometimes it feels like you’re really making a difference--”

Something had gone click in Squee’s mind. He had heard this before.

“Wait, do you mean Devi?”

“No, his name was Nny. Johnny. I forget the girl’s-”

Squee laughed, delighted. “No, I mean yes, that was it. That was who I lived next to. Johnny C. How is the bastard?”

“Shit, I have no idea. Shit. Really? You lived next to him?”

“Fuck yes, and that girl illustrated my books! He gave her brain herpes, you know—headmonsters! I got Pepito to give her an exorcism instead of money, the first book.”

“I’ll be damned.” Edgar said, faintly. His halo flickered every time he swore, Squee noted. “That is fucking nuts.”

Squee leaned back against the wall, feeling impossibly satisfied. “There needs to be some kind of club.”

“Ha.”

“Look,” Edgar said impatiently. “Get over yourself, okay? You can’t get people to love you the way you want them to love you. It’s generally considered an achievement to get people to love you at all. ”

“You are a pretty lousy angel.” Squee said. “I thought you guys had some kind of divine sympathy thing.”

“We save it for people who don’t get knocked up by the antichrist.” Edgar said. “By the way, do I even want to know how that works?”

“You don’t watch tv?”

“Too scary.” Edgar rolled his eyes. “And coming from me, that’s saying something.”

“I’ve never really thought it was scary, you know. Tv, I mean.”

“Oh?”

“It was the world that was scary. And TV was just, you know, reminding you. So you could never forget.”

“You’re using past tense. Do you think you’re over it?”

Squee shrugged. “I don’t think I’ll ever stop being scared—I mean, terrible things are never going to stop happening. But I guess it’s better than nothing.”

“The wonders of positive thinking,” Edgar said dryly. He placed his palm on Squee’s forehead. “Be at peace with yourself, Todd Casil. Go home. Put your heart back together. Raise your child. Love each other as best as you know how. As best you can.”

“Is this the part where you forgive me?”

“No, this is the part where you get over yourself.”

Squee felt, absurdly, at peace.

“I think I can manage that.”

Edgar reluctantly rose to his feet, brushing dust off his neat, stylish slacks. “I suppose I’ll …be off then. Time flies, right?”

“Edgar.”

“Yes?”

“You should come by sometime. Meet Devi. We could—we could have tea.”

Edgar smiled at him, flustered and genuinely pleased. “I would—I would like that.”

OOO

“I’m done,” Squee said.

“You’re done?” Pepito asked. He did not allow himself to hope.

“Yeah. I think so. Are those flowers?”

Pepito shoved them behind his back. “No.” He considered. “Do you want flowers?”

“I think I want to go home.”

He couldn’t help but break into a wide grin. “You mean--”

“Yes.” Squee smiled, just a little. “Get me out of here.”

Pepito laughed, delightedly, and brought the cell walls down around Squee’s ears with one violent move.

The flowers were pink roses with all the thorns peeled off, and Squee thought maybe they were perfect: the connection between word and thought and symbol summed up in one shy bundle. Perhaps the flowers were Pepito exactly, perhaps this is what him and his love were. Something harsh and wild and adaptable with the sharp edges peeled off and the small blossoms flung wide, like curtains. Perhaps being loved by someone who could stop the sun but would cut the thorns off of roses – who would get him pregnant and then fill the fridge with pickle-ice-cream-- was not such a bad thing. The petals were very soft under his fingers as Pepito carried him away from the smoking wreckage of what had been his padded cell, and Pepito’s hands were very hot. The wind was warm and bitter and smelled like ashes, like moving on.

Like letting go.

“I think I love you, maybe.” Squee whispered into the roses. “You’re so scary and you always think you’re right and that people are things to be fixed but…maybe. You know. The flowers are nice.” He felt Pepito’s heart under his chin, pressed his face up against it.

“Don’t hurt yourself, amigo.” The prince of Hell said, very calmly.

“I won’t.” Squee said. The arms around him tightened, briefly, and then they were home.

OOO

It was Halloween afternoon. Children rioted in the streets. The air was full of smoke, and blood, and sugar.

“Honey, I’m home!” Pepito called. There was no answer. “I’m home!”

There was no answer. He frowned, and stalked farther into the house.

He found Squee lying in the hallway to the bathroom, vomiting, which was pretty normal, but also bleeding from his ears and eyes and palms, which was not.

“Oh shit, Squee! Um, um, breath, okay? I’ll go and, and, go get someone. BREATH.”

Squee managed to roll his eyes, then fainted.

OOO

The baby opened his eyes as the doctor handed him to his fathers. They weren’t gray, like Todd’s, and they weren’t red, like Pepito’s. They were a clear, piercing gold, despite being focused on some vague spot an inch from the end of the baby’s nose. The screaming from outside rose to a howl, wild and frightening. Halloween. Midnight.

“Hey there,” Squee said, holding the baby up to the window beside his bed. A hundred faces –masked, made-up, thrilled, savage- peered up from the yard to stare back.

Pepito joined them at the window and cleared his throat. “Someday, son, all this will be yours.”

The baby stared at the sky full of stars, at the yard full of fire and children, and began to laugh.

OOO

They attend a book-shop party for the release of Squee’s newest book, “It Came From Below: living with the antichrist”. Squee gives a small lecture to the gathered crowd and there is applause, afterwards he takes the baby back from Pepito, and signs books with him on his lap. They haven’t named it yet—maybe they never will. Squee thinks that given their own names, maybe it would be best if the child chose it’s own.

Devi shows up with Edgar in tow. She spends the rest of the evening alternating between hiding behind her sketchbook and talking quietly with Edgar in the back of the shop, but she emerges to sign the occasional novel or draw a space monkey. Every line of her body is taut with suspicion— waiting for disaster-- but she forgets herself and smiles more often once the wine is broken out. Edgar demonstrates how he can’t draw anything at all, but is surprisingly good at origami. Pepito restrains himself from blowing anyone up, and makes polite conversation.

A new book is suggested: Assbabies From Beyond The Grave.

“I like it,” Devi said. She is a little flushed, and uses Edgar as a recliner. “It’s got potential. Do I have to paint babies coming out of asses, or just asses and babies?”

“I think maybe a lot of both,” Squee says, “with a lot of, you know, splatter effect.”

“OH. The babies could look like giant maggots.”

Edgar looked uncomfortable. “Couldn’t you just have two people that looked like they were in love? Perhaps holding a baby?”

Devi and Squee gave him identical pained expressions.

“Forgive him,” Devi said, touching Squee lightly on the arm. “He is young in the ways of mass marketing.”

Squee shrugged sadly. “He’ll learn.”

“Ass,” said the baby, and vomited.

SECOND CHANCES 19-20

2008-01-02T18:19:42Z

There was music coming through his open window, clear and sad and a little angry. Inari gave up on sleep and leaned out the frame, craning his head upwards. The music continued.

Grumbling, Inari climbed on to the roof and plopped down next to Naruto. Who ignored him, and continued playing his battered old flute.

“It’s two in the morning.” Inari said.

“I know, kid.” Naruto told him.

“You can’t sleep?”

“Can’t you?”

“Not with the noise you’re making.”

Naruto stopped and looked sheepish.

“Sorry.”

They sat in silence for awhile.

“Thanks for saving my life.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Another pause.

“It was really brave.”

Naruto snorted.

“That wasn’t being brave, that was being fearless and stupid.” He growled, then saw the blank expression on Inari’s face.

“Being brave and being fearless aren’t the same thing. Real bravery is being scared of something, and doing it anyway. Heroes do that sort of thing.”

Inari bristled. “My dad wasn’t scared of anything! And he was hero!”

“You think that he wasn’t scared of losing you?” Naruto said quietly. “You think he wasn’t scared of you wasting the life that he had tried to create for you?”

The quiet words hit into Inari like a sack of wet concrete.

He was spared from answering, however, by the appearance of a lithe, orange shape gliding over the roof-top.

“Hey!” It said, startling him, “You got me a snack! I didn’t know you cared.”

“You can’t eat him.” Naruto said calmly.

“I hate you.” It spat.

“Feeling’s mutual, demon.”

Inari looked back and forth between the two orange clad, blue-eyed figures. Naruto saw him looking.

“Kid, demon. Demon, kid.”

“My name is Inari.” Inari snapped, at the same time the fox growled, “My name is Kyuubi.”

Naruto grinned. “Neither of you deserve names, the way you’ve been acting.”

They seethed.

“That mud-rat,” The demon pronounced, “is absolutely insufferable.”

Inari giggled, causing the fox to flick its tales in annoyance.

“You like that, then? You think I’m funny? You think you can just go laughing at the strongest of the Nine Lords? Eh? I hate you all.”

Inari giggled harder. There was just something humorous about the demon’s air of wounded dignity; plus, even talking to a fox was pretty funny. Naruto grinned wider.

“See what I have to deal with?”

Inari nodded, watching the demon preen its whiskers and pretend to ignore them, then dissolved in giggles again.

OOO

Sakura handed the mason another tile to place on the bridge, and glanced over at where Sasuke was standing on the railing a ways off, staring into the ocean. He hadn’t even bothered with an illusion to hide that one of Tazuna’s four ‘legendary’ ninjas was a child. He hadn’t spoken a coherent word in days, and it was beginning to scare her. Something had happened, after she’d passed out; she’d woken up to an incredibly pissed-off Naruto, who had proceeded to yell at her for ten minutes at astonishing volume without, apparently, taking a breath. And a Sasuke who had overnight reverted back into the perpetually sullen, speechless boy she hadn’t known he wasn’t anymore. And a Naruto who simply got up and quietly left whenever Sasuke came near him, which obviously wasn’t helping things. She’d asked Naruto what was wrong and he had laughed bitterly and told her that it was nothing either of them should bother to fix.

She blinked back tears of frustration and gave the mason the last tile in the box before heading over to the mouth of the bridge to get another crate, where a very convincingly adult Naruto was juggling handfuls of foot-long nails and balancing Inari on his shoulders amid a crowd of other men and hoots of admiring laughter. She had to smile despite her worry; no one could do a henge like Naruto could and he was in his element now, telling jokes, clowning around, teasing, helping, being in the spotlight. It was a side of him she hadn’t seen before, and it made her a little jealous. Sure, he laughed and joked with everyone in the village, whether they liked it or not, but seeing him change a group of tense, worried drones into a gang of laughing, rowdy men by sheer force of personality was awe-inspiring.

“Hey, gramps, I need another crate!” She told him, shoving her way through the crowd.

“Kids these days! I don’t get any respect.” Naruto grumped, and tossed her a box of paving-tiles that had taken two burly, sweating workers to wrestle forward. Her knees sagged momentarily and then she balanced, secretly glad that Naruto had forbidden her to wear her weights for another five days, and earning herself a round of applause.

“Hey babe! If your boyfriend’s giving you the shoulder, wanna have a drink with me tonight? I like my women strong!” One of the younger men leered. Sakura paused, nearly loosing control of her own illusion. But there was no point in showing that another of Tazuna’s bodyguards was only twelve. She shouldered the crate, and walked coyly up to the man who had spoken, amid catcalls.

She dropped the crate a fraction of an inch from his left foot, and the whistles chopped off abruptly.

“No.” She said, then picked the crate up again and went back to the unfinished edge of the bridge, listening smugly to Naruto’s whoop of laughter and the other men’s stunned murmurs.

Sasuke had been watching. She saw him looking at her and he turned away quickly, as if he’d done something embarrassing. She sighed, her temporary good mood evaporating as she wrestled back her impulse to run over to where he was standing and hug him as hard as she could, and resumed the long, boring work of paving.

OOOO

It was late afternoon when Naruto felt the air… change, subtly.

“Hoy, Tazuna!” He called, turning to where the man was sitting on a crate, eating a late lunch.

“What is it now, brat? Got a splinter?”

“This is serious. Something’s coming. Start rounding the men up and get them back to the village. If you hear anything whatsoever, run. Gato’s not going to mess around, after what I did to his thugs.”

Tazuna swallowed hard, then hurried off to get his workers.

Sakura trotted up, worry in every line of her body.

“Naruto, what the hell’s going on?”

“Zabusa’s going to attack.”

She blanched, glancing worriedly around them.

“Is he here yet?”

“No. Go get Sasuke.”

She nodded and strode off, absently rubbing her broken arm.

OOO

Zabusa. She was going to fight him again. A man as powerful as Naruto, perhaps, and twice as ruthless. Who wanted to kill them. It had been luck, only, that had brought all three of them to a stale-mate, only her reflexes at seeing two of him at once that flattened Tazuna to the ground and flung her into the nearest tree before she new she had even moved, and she’d watched a dozen kunai hiss into the space where her head should have been… He’d snapped her arm like a twig and thrown her against another tree while another clone pinned Sasuke to the ground with one foot, grinning as he carved grooves into Sasuke’s back as Sasuke bought time for her to escape with Tazuna…Only to meet the real one, face to face, and dodge as his kunai ripped open her pouch with the electrical tags in it.

But they had Naruto this time. That was a hell of a lot better than luck…

“Sasuke.”

He didn’t turn around. She sighed, and released her illusion. She’d need all the chakra she could spare for a battle like the one that would be coming up, and maybe he’d feel better if she looked the same age.

“Sasuke, Zabusa’s coming.”

No reaction.

“Wake up, already! I’m going to need your help for this!” Damn it! Why couldn’t she be wearing her coat? She felt so… vulnerable without the reassuring armor of canvas. “I need to borrow some chakra. I won’t have enough.”

“Fight your own battles.” He growled, his voice hoarse from disuse. “Or get Naruto. He’s perfect.”

She paused, taken aback by the sheer venom loaded into each word. “I’ve never used his before in a battle, and I don’t want to start experimenting now.”

He sneered. “Too bad.”

Her palm caught him on the side of the face, flipping him literally head over heels. Coat or not, she sure wasn’t going to take any crap from this version of Sasuke. Before he could respond she had turned her back on him and was stalking back over to Naruto.

“There was probably a less violent way of doing that.” He said, amusement plain in his eyes.

“Shut up before I disembowel both of you.”

“Bravo, kunoichi.” A new voice cut in, and they instantly went back to back, Sakura in her usual defense, Naruto filling in for Sasuke, who was still standing by the edge of the bridge, looking angry. Sakura gulped nervously as a thick mist came boiling out of nowhere, with two dark shapes inside.

“Zabuza.” Naruto called, his voice steady. “This is your last warning: do not fight us.”

“Ohhh? And what if I…do?” At the end of the last word a shadow clone of Zabuza’s had lunged out of the mist, his gigantic knife swinging upwards to rip Naruto’s heart out by way of his stomach. Naruto deliberately grabbed the tip of the blade while shoving Sakura out of the line of fire, and after three seconds of blurred motion was crouching on top of the now very startled clone, the enormous blade delicately poised to sever its head off.

“If you persist in attacking,” Naruto resumed, “There will be consequences.” He hopped off the clone and calmly reduced it and the knife to a splatter of water.

“I suppose you’ll kill me?” Zabusa asked.

“No.”

“No?”

“If you destroy this bridge I’ll kill your accomplice and make you watch as I peel him open like a grape.”

Sakura turned a distinct shade of green. “Naruto-”

Laughter came bubbling out of the mist around them.

“He is only a tool, Shinobi. He is…expendable.”

Naruto sighed, staring glumly into the mist. “Bring it on.”

Instantly there were ten shapes around them, diving forward with their blades at the ready and there was no more time for thought. Naruto kicked and blocked and punched and cut until he found himself a long way off from Sakura and getting farther by the second as two more clones herded him away.

Breaking free he had one last glimpse of Sakura desperately trading blows with a small, masked figure in the center of a ring of water before a huge, glittering black wall obstructed his vision.

He looked up. And up. It wasn’t a wall, it was a tail… of a snake. A huge, colossal black snake that had looped its coils around and around the bridge. A snake that was glaring at him with malevolent yellow eyes, the man on top of its head barely a fraction of the size of one of its scales.

Nasako. Queen of serpents.

Naruto’s mind went blank as he froze in terror.

OOOOO

Sakura finally managed to lock knives with her masked opponent, and gasped for breath, each puff a cloud of silver in the plummeting temperature. Whoever he was, he could fight as well- or better- than Sasuke. Sasuke… what was Sasuke doing? Her opponent took the opportunity to dodge back and she chased him, slashing wildly. They locked blades again, panting, and she glared into the emotionless slits of his mask.

His free hand was moving. One handed seals? Naruto had never mentioned them. Were they possible? She attempted a kick to the stomach and missed as he jumped backwards, and she staggered on the ice that was rapidly forming from the puddles of water. Panels of it were rising around her, locking together like a house of cards.

Mirrored cards. As she scrambled upright she watched in horror as the figure turned his back on her and walked through the mirror. No, not through, into. The hand-seals he had been doing. But how was it possible to do a one handed seal? You wouldn’t be able to mix the chakra right! Her thought process was halted abruptly as multiple images popped into every sheet of ice, and she hurriedly activated her alternate sight, her hands flying through the familiar sequence.

She was surrounded by blue. Solid sheets of chakra, floating motes of chakra, harsh, crystalline webs of strands bridging the gaps. She couldn’t see which image was the real one, which copy was the original: it was all one razor-sharp tangle of sapphire, so strong it left after-images snaggling through her vision and made her head swim. She released the jitsu and spun wildly around, searching for a gap, a crack, a ripple. Nothing. The illusion was flawless.

All of the images of the figure drew a long, steel needle from their robe. All of them threw it a once. She gritted her teeth and dropped flat on the ground as the needles skimmed past her, some missing, more than a few carving open gashes on her skin. Briefly she remembered Sasuke being held down with a foot while Zabusa raked open his back; how his face had twisted in pain and he had screamed.

She was damned if she would scream. She scrambled to her feet, huffed, and dove for the nearest mirror.

It wouldn’t break, and the image inside it flickered out like a candle as she attempted to carve a gash in it. She saw movement out of the corner of her eye and whirled again, slashed again; the needle fell in two pieces. She had one moment to feel a surge of triumph before a dozen more needles lanced past her shoulders, leaving trails of red.

Another mirror, another volley of needles. Whoever was throwing them was toying with her, killing her slowly. It wouldn’t take more than two or three in the neck, or one in the heart, to kill her.

Naruto, obviously, had to deal with Zabusa. But where was Sasuke? Why wasn’t he here? Why wasn’t he saving her? He’d sneered at her. He didn’t care if she died.

She’d save herself, then.

Dredging up another burst of chakra she stumbled through a still-unfamiliar sequence of seals then launched a silver blade of ice at the opposite mirror. The resulting shower of needles drove her to her knees and she hissed through her teeth with the effort of not screaming. But the mirror cracked.

Exulting, she dragged herself upright and threw everything she had into one, last, gigantic shruiken, half as tall as she was and sparkling like a diamond. She hefted it once or twice to get the balance, and threw it at the cracked panel-

The world exploded into darkness.

OOO

Sasuke hammered on a sheet of ice with his kunai, bending the tip of the knife nearly perpendicular to the handle and barely scratching the glassy surface of the trap. At this rate, he figured, he’d be inside by the new year. He’d had to be tough, Sasuke berated himself, he’d had to manly, he’d had to wait for Sakura to screw up so he could have stepped in and save the day like some damn hero, and she hadn’t screwed up and she had fought better than he could have and now it was too late and it was all his fault. Cursing, he threw the knife to the ground and dashed over to Naruto, who was still standing motionless, staring into the empty sky.

Shaking the shorter boy had no effect. Neither did yelling. Naruto just kept standing there, white as a sheet, trembling like a leaf in a gale. It was freaking him out. Finally Sasuke grabbed Naruto by the shoulders and swiveled his body around until they were more or less eye to eye.

“Sakura’s-”

Naruto’s eyes snapped into focus with a nearly audible click and the next thing Sasuke knew he was sprawled on the ground, curled around his throbbing gut and spitting out blood.

“You- he- wha-?” Naruto stammered, rubbing his knuckles. “Sasuke?”

“Naruto- Sakura- in- in- ice-” Sasuke gasped out, struggling upright. “Dammmmmn…”

“She’s…” Naruto pointed wildly over his shoulder at the patch of empty air he’d been staring into. “You didn’t summon her?”

“Who?”

Naruto turned around and looked up and down the bridge. Then he began to steam, a reddish orange aura rolling off him like smoke as his temper ignited. Sasuke began to edge away hurriedly, remembering the last time Naruto began glowing.

There was a crash behind them, and the razor edged tinkle of a thousand shards of ice pattering to the cement. The gathering storm around Naruto chopped off abruptly as he and Sasuke stared at the ring of ice, Sakura’s body sprawled lifelessly among the fragments, and a thin, pale figure crouched above her, dark hair falling around its face like a curtain as blood streamed down its chin to the shattered white mask between its hands.

The lull, however, was the deceiving calm between a harmless flash of incandescence and the earth-shaking, ear-crushing roar of thunder that rattles the windows and leaves the air sizzling and Sasuke found himself on the ground again, his hands over his ears as his eyes watered from the sheer intensity of power as Naruto exploded in a red-hot coil of fury.

He crossed the space between himself and Haku in a split second and sent the boy flying with a blow to the face to land with a bone-shattering crunch against the railing, and slide softly over into the banister into the ocean below. Before there was even a splash Naruto had turned, roared in agony and rage and loss and hurtled into the fog, trailing huge coils of chakra after him, parting the mist into writhing shreds like a blow-torch through a marshmallow.

But all Sasuke could look at was the small, battered form of Sakura’s corpse.

OOO

Zabuza’s eyes widened when a feet hit into his back and clawed hands grabbed both arm. Spinning around, the weight stayed firmly attached to his back, and a head thrust into view above him.

“I sssaid I’d peel y'r kid,” It snarled, its eyes an inhuman red, “S too late f'rrr tha'. I’mma mak'u PAY!”

Zabuza roared as the…presence…on his back jerked savagely upwards, snapping the bones and carving long grooves into the skin, then flipped over his head and landed a rib-crushing kick into Zabuza’s chest.

“Tell me why I shoul'n’t kill you!” He roared, baring his fangs and stamping hard on one of Zabuza’s mangled arms as Zabusa tried to rise from the floor. “Tell me!”

Zabusa stared into the boy’s bloody eyes.

“I-”

Laughter interrupted him. Both the boy and the man stared at the shapes looming out of the fog.

A short man in an expensive suit appeared, coming closer, but not within range of a lunge or a knife.

"That little bugger's got you whipped, doesn't he?" Gato enquired, obviously enjoying the sight of the mangled Zabusa. "He got that pretty boy-toy of yours too. Good for you, Fido! Saves money."

"Wh-" Zabusa began, but broke off as Naruto stomped on his chest.

"I kill'd y'rrrr thugs, 'ast'rrd." Naruto choked out, struggling with fangs that could put an Inuzuka to shame and a brain that only wanted murder.

"So you did, my feral little friend. These are new ones. I buy 'em by the dozen."

"Y'ink y'kin kill ME?"

Gato shook his head sadly. "Tsk, tsk. No, I think I can give you a good deal of money, finish the job you started on your buddy there, and escort you out of the country with the gratitude of the Gato."

Naruto took a deep breath. Sakura... a voice in his mind wailed. Sakura's dead. You lost her again, you failed twice....

No. She wasn't dead, anymore than Sasuke had died the first time. But it was all he could do to hold off the killing spree for another second, another second...

There was a plan. It had been a good plan. One that didn't involve killing Haku.

Too late for that, now.

Wait.

There had never been a splash.

Naruto stepped back and grinned at Zabuza with nearly-normal teeth. "I have a deal for you."

Zabuza grunted and rose to his feet. "You killed Haku. You're going to help that scum out there kill me. Why should I deal with you?"

"There wasn't a splash."

Zabuza stared, and then slowly smiled. "What's the deal, then, demon?"

"I help you here. You come with me."

"Where to?"

"Konoha."

"So you can have the tidy little bounty on my head?"

"I know a loop hole. How would you like to be a leaf-nin?"

"Not very much."

"Beats the alternatives."

"Which are?"

Gato attempted to interrupt, only to have the two 'demons' turn and glare at him. He shut up and backed off hurredly.

"I kill you, I kill Gato, then I hunt down Haku and kill him. Again."

Gato turned and ran. Zabuza grinned wider. "I like your style."

"Deal?"

"Deal. Gimme a kunai."

OOO

Had she always looked like that? Sasuke wondered. Had she always been so gaunt, so exhausted looking? Had she always had such dark circles under her eyes? Always had her hands bandaged from wearing the skin off with training? Always had hair like that, rough and uneven and unkempt?

Kunoichi's weren't as physically strong as shinobi, he remembered Iruka telling them. They weren't built for it, didn't have the reserves of chakra for it. It was just the way things were. Shinobi didn't have as fine a grasp of manipulation as kunoichi, couldn’t be as silent and patient as a kunoichi and that was the way things were too.

But now Sasuke felt memories seep up from his brain like acid of how Sakura worked as hard as he did on missions, fought as hard and rested less, and then at the end of every day would disappear with Naruto. And they were always at the meeting spot before him, fighting and training and sometimes just dancing together to the music of Naruto’s battered flute on the surface of the stream. He'd seen them once, seen Naruto half-carrying her back to her house because half her body hung limp and bloody and felt a surge of jealousy that she wasn’t leaning on him, and buried it under a mountain of smugness that he didn’t have to lean on anybody.

This girl lying here wasn’t the soft-skinned, dewy-eyed, petal-haired girl that had chased after him with the rest of the group in the academy like a pack of starving dogs.

This girl was a wolf, battle hardened and bloody, strong and fierce, a warrior that had fought by his side until he’d turned away, angry and jealous and frustrated with wanting something that had been under his nose the whole time.

A kunoichi.

A girl he had always tried to blot from his attention like a persistent stain.

And now she was dead.

Naruto had been right.

OOO

Agony.

Darkness.

Sakura struggled towards consciousness slowly and painfully. Another explosion of agony, in her shoulder. Again, in her arm. Again, her wrist. It felt like lifting a mountain, but she pried one of her eyes open.

Sasuke.

Crying.

Another explosion, and she saw him set a bloody needle down by his knee. The world was angled wrong; she couldn't see his other side.

He was... holding her?

And crying.

For her.

She could die happy.

But she was already dead.

She closed her eye again.

Maybe this was heaven?

Sasuke pulled another needle out of her arm and the resulting pain quickly disproved the theory.

Sasuke must have felt her wince, because his head turned so quickly he splattered her face with droplets of water.

"Sa- Sakura?"

She dragged both eyes open to see his expression.

“Sakura! Naruto, she’s alive! Naruto!”

It was streaked with tears but a joy was blooming through the grief, rapidly spreading in a flush of relief beyond words. She managed a smile of her own. It hurt.

Naruto’s face craned into view at a crazy angle, standing behind Sasuke. It was covered with blood and tears of his own and grinning ecstatically, but it was cut off abruptly as Sasuke hugged her, burying his face in her hair, his tears itching down her neck.

She changed her mind. This really was heaven.

SECOND CHANCES 17-18

2008-01-02T18:17:45Z

Sakura wiped her forehead, panting, then lurched over to the nearby stream and drank as much as she could hold, eyeing the water speculatively. A submerged ledge beckoned to her and she gave in to the temptation. Edging shakily out on to it, she flopped on to her stomach with a sigh of pleasure, propping her broken arm out of the water and closing her eyes as she let the cool water run through her hair.

“Would you mind moving your feet a little? You’re scaring the fish.” A familiar voice told her, and she craned her head up to see Haku stretched full-length on the bank downstream, one arm deep in the water. As she shuffled her feet on to the ledge she saw Haku withdraw his arm, holding firmly on to a thrashing fish.

“Sorry.”

“It’s all right, Sakura.”

Sakura? She must have told him the other day. It didn’t matter much, anyway, Haku was a good person. It didn’t matter. “What are you doing?”

“Catching fish.”

Sakura pulled herself upright gingerly. Naruto had told her that if she came back like she had the other day he’d personally chain her to her bed for a week, and she was dangerously close to being tapped out already. And she still couldn’t get the cut any deeper than half an inch…

Haku plunged his hand back in the water and withdrew another fish, then tossed it into a basket. Sakura watched with interest.

“That looks like one of those things that are way harder than they look.”

Haku laughed. “And I suppose you’ve seen a lot of those, have you?”

Sakura grinned. “You should see my team-mate. You know how hard it is to make a solid doppelganger?”

Haku raised an eyebrow. “Very?”

“You have no idea.” Sakura flopped back in the water. “Oww…”

“What part of you hurts?”

“Start with everything, and take it from there.” She snapped, than paused. “Sorry. I’m a little frazzled right now. Eight hours of experimenting and I still can’t get this one move right!”

Haku nodded sympathetically. “I know how that feels.”

“You do jutsus?”

Haku frowned, obviously thinking carefully. “Some… Mostly projectile attacks, stuff like that. You never know when you will need to protect your… the people that are…important. To you.” He smiled. “I suppose that sounds silly.”

“Sounds romantic.” Sakura grunted, not really thinking. Kunoichis had slightly different ideas of romanticism than the norm; to a girl who’d been raised in an air of violence all her life there was nothing better to set one’s heart pounding than a man who was willing to rip someone to pieces for his lover’s sake. Haku blushed, looking down, and pulled another fish out of the water.

“It isn’t really like, like that!”

Sakura grinned wider as the boy fidgeted, looking embarrassed. “Suuuure.”

“Uh, so what’s this move you’re trying to do?” Haku asked, attempting to change the subject. Sakura decided to humor him.

“Well, I’m trying to make a slicing sort of attack, using wind, you know. In case I’m ever disarmed. But I can’t get it right! It’s too shallow. If I put too much energy into the blade, it doesn’t go fast enough. If I put too much energy into the throw it goes ‘poof,’ and doesn’t cut. If I put too much energy into both I fall over.” She pounded the water with her good hand, splashing herself. Haku gave her a mildly reproachful glance, then settled back to wait for the fish to come back.

“How do you make the air solid enough to cut?”

“I found this one combination of signs, you know, that holds the air particles still. But all it does is add more variables! Thickness, width, whether I should spin them…”

“Why air?”

Sakura considered this. “There’s a lot of it, I guess. If I could get this to work I’d never be unarmed. Any better suggestions?”

“Water. The air’s full of water vapor, so you could maybe pull it out? Or freeze it into-”

“Ice! You’re a genius!” Sakura yelled, sitting up abruptly. “Ice! If I can freeze the air, I can make ice! And ice wouldn’t need as much chakra ramification to hold an edge!” She whooped, bounding to her feet, then dashed over the surface of the water and hugged Haku, temporarily forgetting he wasn’t Naruto. Then she backed off, bubbling with new energy, and began whipping off hand-seals.

“I was thinking maybe bird, a few tiger and horse-”

“Maybe dog on the third one?” Haku suggested, getting swept up in her enthusiasm.

“Yeah, dog, third, eight, and tenth- crap, it needs rabbit in there somewhere-”

“Fourth.”

“Perfect, arrrg…need a scroll or something to write this down-”

“Here.”

“Thanks.” Sakura began scribbling wildly on the paper with fingerfulls of mud, the outside world vanishing around her as she went into the manic concentration of the truly exited.

“Okay, bird, horse, dog, rabbit, tiger, tiger, horse, dog, ram-”

“Monkey?”

“Yeah, monkey, another bird, and… damn, it’s going to need some blood the first time. I hate this part.” Sakura made a face and bit into her index finger, tracing over the key seals with her own blood. Shuddering, she swished the cut around in the water and then tied the scroll closed with a long stem of grass.

“This has got to be the crappiest scroll I’ve ever done.”

“It doesn’t matter, as long as it works, right?” Haku pointed out, smiling. Damn, that girl’s moods were more infectious than the plague!

Sakura grinned again and nodded, then concentrated fiercely on getting every hand-seal exactly perfect, then flung the resulting icy blade, shuriken-like, at the nearest tree.

It sliced through the trunk of a gigantic tree like a razor through a toadstool.

“It worked! It worked!” Sakura jumped up and down with glee, dodging the falling trunk, then grabbed Haku and danced a crazy little jig of delight on top of it, yanking him around by the wrist.

“You’re going to mess your arm up if you keep going like that.” Haku managed, then tugged his wrist out of her grasp and began gutting the fish he’d caught. With that much disturbance it could be hours before the fish came back, but he found he didn’t really care. He was grinning too, and felt nearly as proud as she did.

“I don’t give a damn! It worked!” But she plopped down beside him, glowing with triumph and panting, her face red. “I owe you.”

“It was-” Haku blushed again. “It was nothing.”

“Like hell it was. Hmmm. What kind of stuff do you like, anyway?”

Haku shrugged, deftly trimming the fish into tidy portions. “It’s alright, really. My… master …doesn’t really believe in material possessions much. You know, because we’re always moving. We almost never visit the same place twice.” Haku bit his lip. He hadn’t meant to say that much…

Sakura nodded reluctantly. “It must be hard, to just wander around healing people and then leave.”

Haku smiled wryly. He remembered a lot of hasty departures, and not too much healing. “Alright, then. If you owe me, tell me what it’s like to be a ninja. With a village, and a home, stuff like that.”

Sakura perked up. Haku seemed genuinely interested. She told him about her mom, who wove patterned cloth for a hobby, and of when she was a little girl and would hide in the folds of rainbow fabric and feel like the whole world was wrapped around her, and play tug of war with her mom over the threads and how her dad called her his little wildcat when he’d come home and found both of them thoroughly tangled up and giggling like crazy, how he’d cut them loose, but not before he gave both of them a noisy kiss on the forehead. She told of how they fought when her parents found out Naruto was on her team, and how they weren’t really talking to each other anymore, and how sometimes at night they’d stand outside her door and watch her pretend to sleep. How worried her dad was when he found the double-handful of ten-pound weights she’d sewn into her coat, and how much he tried not to let it show. How she made friends with Ino, but that they weren’t speaking to each other either.

“Why not?” Haku asked, breaking her concentration. She chewed her lip and flopped backwards, thinking.

“There’s… a person…but it’s not just that. I don’t…want to be ‘Ino’s friend.’ Not that way, I mean, I don’t want it to be ‘Ino and the other girl,’ I don’t want to be Ino’s little project anymore. I want it to be me, and Ino, but mostly me. If Ino asked me, if she’d stoop to saying, ‘let’s be friends again,’ I would. In an instant. But…”

“You’re too big now, right? You don’t want to be the first to fold or you’ll always be second, to her.”

Sakura propped herself on an elbow and looked at Haku. “Yeah.” She swallowed, her eyes tearing up. “Yeah.”

Haku patted her on the arm. “It’ll happen.”

Sakura nodded, then shot to her feet. “Oh gods, it’s almost noon. Naruto’s gonna kill me-”

“This Naruto sounds like quite a guy.”

She flushed. “It isn’t, uh, like that.”

“Suuuure.”

Sakura laughed, despite herself. “You got me there. See you later, Haku.”

“If I can, Sakura.”

Sakura waved and dashed off, bouncing from branch to branch with excitement. Naruto was going to flip when he saw her new move. And Sasuke…

Haku watched her go, smiling gently. His expression didn’t change as a shadow detached itself from the forest and placed a hand on his shoulder.

“You’re going to have to kill her sometime, boy.”

“I know, lord Zabusa. But…”

“But nothing, Haku. You’re a good kid, and this sure as hell isn’t the right sort of life for you. But I can’t have you going soft on me.”

Haku gazed at his master with calm eyes of one who knows with absolute certainty that there was no better path than the one he’d taken, then gathered the fish he’d prepared. “Who said anything about going soft, my lord?”

Zabusa smiled. “You’re a good kid.” He repeated, rubbing Haku’s head. Haku smiled back, drinking in the sight of the most important person in the world, and followed his master back into the shadows of the stately trees.

OOO

Inari paused at the doorway and looked beseechingly at his mother. She shooed him forward with an impatient flap of her hands, then turned back to the dishes. Inari gulped, then walked with hesitant steps to where Naruto and Sasuke were locked in mortal combat by way of his grandfather’s battered Shogi set.

“Um…” He muttered, fidgeting.

“Hold on.” Naruto said, not looking up, then scooted a lance-piece forward and smiling when Sasuke captured it.

“Um-”

“Naruto, that’s the ninth piece I’ve captured! Wake up already!” Sasuke interrupted as he flipped around one of Naruto’s generals. “If you aren’t going to play seriously, why are you even playing?”

“I am playing seriously.” Naruto said, sending a horse deep into enemy territory.

Sasuke glared at it. “I’m not touching that.” He snapped, scooting a soldier around it.

Naruto shrugged. “Your loss.” He then proceeded to checkmate Sasuke’s king in two moves. Sasuke stared at Naruto in shock.

“What the- but- how- shit!”

Naruto smiled. “I suck at Go, because it’s too pointless. Every piece is the same, and it just isn’t realistic. How can you set up an ambush with identical soldiers? But Shogi…” Naruto waved a hand at the board and Inari sat down hard. Standing on every piece was an illusion of a person, some in masks, some in armor, some scarred and muscled and some all angles and scrawny limbs. “Shogi’s different. They’re all people. You can really get some good strategy going.” Naruto grinned wider as he nudged his horse -a lanky man with spiraled tattoos on his pale cheeks- in for the kill. Inari and Sasuke watched in fascination as the man scuffled briefly with a black-cloaked man in a snake’s mask, who then disappeared with a puff of smoke, Naruto’s fingers controlling the action with spider-web thin strands of chakra.

Sasuke laughed. “Every time I think I have you figured out, you bastard, you change the rules!” Naruto scratched the back of his head in embarrassment, and Sasuke took the opportunity to send one of his eagle-masked generals vaulting off its piece and begin pummeling Naruto’s tattooed horse. Naruto squawked in outrage and his own dog-masked general ran to join the fray, a white wolf dashing between its legs and clamping its teeth into its enemy’s dark cloak. Soon both boys were holding the threads to half a dozen game-pieces as the board seethed in multi-colored battle. Inari watched in awe, his intended apology forgotten.

Finally Naruto’s last piece, a short blond ANBU, kicked Sasuke’s last piece, a tall shark-like monster approximately where its stomach would be if it weren’t seven feet tall. Sasuke sighed and let his piece double up, gasping silently, then fade away as Naruto’s piece hopped up and down, then mooned his opponent. Inari giggled.

“What was it you had to say, kid?”

Inari sobered instantly, and looked away. “I’m…”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry. Okay?” Inari glared. “I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

Naruto laughed. “No you aren’t.”

“But-”

“You’re sorry you were wrong, aren’t you? You’re sorry I’m human, and you’re sorry I had a more screwed-up childhood than you. You’re sorry that you don’t have any more excuses for being a helpless brat.”

Inari took a sharp breath and stepped back, shocked. No one had ever spoken like this to him. But it was true. Somehow this maddening, frustrating ninja knew what was going on inside his head.

“Yeah.” He admitted. “But you’re just…”

“Just?”

“Just everything.” Inari groped for words. “You know stuff, and you do stuff, and you’re so happy all the time. Everything goes right for you.”

Sasuke rolled his eyes. “You should try being his team-mate.”

“No.” Naruto said.

“No?” Inari asked, puzzled.

“No, I’m not happy all the time. I’m not happy most of the time.”

“Then-”

Naruto waved it off. “Why drag everyone down with you? Crying just makes you wet and makes everyone around you uncomfortable.”

Inari looked down again, ashamed. “I can’t help it.” He muttered.

“You’d better learn how, then, if you don’t want to spend the rest of your life all soggy.”

Before Inari could answer a voice floated in through the window.

“Sasuke!”

Naruto swung around and trotted to the window, followed by Sasuke. “Sakura! You’re late!” He called, pointing an accusing finger.

She ignored this. “Come down here and check this out!”

Naruto raised an eyebrow at Sasuke, then jumped out. Sasuke followed. Inari stared after them, then took the stairs.

“What’s going on, Sakura?” Naruto asked, walking up to her. What he saw worried him: her face was flushed more than it should have been, and she didn’t seem to be aware that her body was trembling from exhaustion.-

-…Sakura grinned at him, then turned and kicked a boulder into gravel. “That’s great, Sakura-chan!” He cheered. “I know! Sasuke’s going to be so impressed! ” She laughed, kicking another boulder. Naruto closed his eyes in pain, then smiled weakly. “Yeah.” He said, trying to sound cheerful. “He will be.”…-

-Sustained depletion, keeping the body at near-critical levels of chakra for extended duration, was even worse than simply using all one’s chakra in one go, thus forcing the body to recuperate by means of unconsciousness. Teetering on the knife’s edge, so to speak, kept the body moving long after it should have stopped.

I shouldn’t have let her go, Naruto berated himself, I knew she wasn’t going to take it easy.

“Watch this!” She told them, grinning, then picked up a sizeable stick off the ground, dropping it a few times with numb fingers. She frowned, puzzled, then managed to hoist it upright and throw it in the air.

“Sakura, no!” Naruto yelled, but it was too late and she’d already launched three shining blue-silver blades into the air. She gave him and Sasuke a confused smile, and then simply keeled over backwards, hitting the ground at the same time the four neatly-sliced chunks of wood did.

Sasuke blanched. “What the hell just happened?” He yelled, trying desperately to find something to be angry at.

“Chakra depletion. As usual.”

“Is- is she- Why?”

“She doesn’t have as much chakra as us, idiot. Kunoichis almost never do.”

Sasuke glared sullenly, unable to come up with anything else to say. Naruto dragged her into a sitting position against a tree and began to feel her pulse. He muttered a curse, then unzipped Sakura’s overcoat before Sasuke could stop him.

Sasuke’s protest died in his throat as he and Naruto stared, speechless, at the inside.

“I,” Naruto said with the kind of icy, blisteringly cold fury that Sasuke had come to dread, “am going to have to have WORDS with her.”

Stitched over at least a dozen of Sakura’s major pressure-points were weights. Naruto ripped one out roughly, hefting it. “Ten pounds. Shit!” He pulled her coat off and tossed it to Sasuke, who nearly dropped it in shock.

“This has got to weigh more than a hundred pounds!”

“Yes.” He said, still in that calmly furious tone of voice, then began rummaging in her medical canteen.

Sasuke stared at the coat, hefting it, and then at her slumped-over body. He hadn’t seen her out of it since he’d left her on her doorstep and gone to the Green Fish with Naruto for the first time, not even on the hottest days of summer when he’d been sweltering in a thin shirt. She seemed strangely vulnerable without the protection of the customary gray canvas, but still as drab. Black shirt, black trousers, bandages from chin to elbow to ankle. Sasuke took a hesitant step forward, then caught himself and glared at his feet. Refocusing on the coat in his arms he glanced around self-consciously and tugged it on. What was so bad about a hundred-ish pounds?

For a few seconds he couldn’t fell any difference, except that it felt like Sakura was right behind him: the coat smelled like some sort of flowery-soap, and he kind of liked it. He shook his head to clear it, then glared at Naruto.

“Try jumping.” Naruto told him, not looking up.

Sasuke hopped a few feet, feeling silly, then overbalanced and ended flat on his back. The problem with a hundred-ish pounds was that he wasn’t exactly wearing the hundred-ish pounds, they were dangling from him, pulling back when he moved forward and pulling forward when he stopped. Clambering upright he clenched his teeth as half a dozen little impacts thudded into various tender spots: heart, lungs, gut, the hollows on the insides of his elbows. It didn’t hurt, exactly, more like a too-hefty pat on the back, but it was distracting, made him want to turn around to see who was touching him, keeping him off balance. He finally balanced upright twisting his shoulders to get the coat to adjust and jerking in surprise as corners dug into his muscles, and the motion made him stagger a little as various folds of cloth tugged him forward. He grimaced and tugged the coat off, dropping it on the ground and kicking it.

“This is impossible! How are you supposed to fight wearing something like that?”

“You aren’t.” Naruto snarled, beginning to peel the bandages off. “You aren’t, and ESPECIALY not if you’re only twelve, and ESPECIALY not if you’re female! Look at this!”

There were bruises under the bandages, dark rectangular blotches like mud-stains where each weight must have swing into again and again and again. Sasuke found something to be angry at.

“Why is she even doing something so dumb?”

“For you, you bastard!”

Sasuke opened his mouth, shut it, and stared.

“Why? I don’t want her to do anything for me! I just want her to leave me alone…”

Naruto picked Sakura up and began to carry her towards the house. “Because you’re an absolute waste of a person. Girls really go for that sort of thing.” He snapped bitterly. Sasuke stared after them both, then climbed to the top branch of the tree and buried his head in his arms.

SECOND CHANCES 16

2008-01-02T18:15:54Z

OOO

Sakura woke up slowly. She hurt all over. Her arms hurt, her legs hurt, her chest hurt. Her head hurt worst of all. Groaning, she dragged herself off the cot and glared muzzily around. Whoever talked to her first was really going to get it-

“Gooood morning, ‘Nee-chan!” Naruto yelled, waving from across the room, then plunked another Go piece on the board and turned back to his game with Sasuke.

“What’s so good about it?” She snarled, and then clutched her head. “Nyrrrr.”

“You aren’t dead?” Naruto suggested, then swore as Sasuke grinned and started to scoop handfuls of his pieces off the board.

“I wish I was,” She wailed, staggering over and plopping down beside him. Naruto wasn’t doing well: to her surprise Sasuke’s black pieces covered the board in overwhelming profusion, while Naruto’s whites remained huddled here and there, scarce and getting scarcer. As she watched, Sasuke carefully placed another black piece down, then removed another small group.

“Chakra depletion that bed, eh?”

“I fell like a limp noodle. A really, really, achy limp noodle. What’s the score?”

“Seven to nothing,” Sasuke said, confusion plain in his eyes despite the triumphant smile on his face.

Sakura frowned. Naruto loosing? And loosing seven times in a row? Naruto saw them looking speculatively at him and raised his hands defensively.

“Hey, I suck at stuff like this, okay?” He self-consciously put another piece down and stuck his tongue out at Sasuke as he replaced four of Sasuke’s pieces with his own. Sasuke, looking even more puzzled, placed another black piece down and recaptured the group, plus seven of Naruto’s.

“Dobe, you’ve fallen into every trap I set out for you.”

“Maybe I just woke up stupid, then.” Naruto retorted.

“Like every morning?”

“Hey, hey! You wanna take it outside?”

Sasuke shrugged, then captured another group. Naruto swore again.

“I win.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Dobe, I totally just won.”

“Jerk.”

“Again?”

“Naw, try a game with Sakura. I’m going to get some breakfast.”

“Where’s Kakashi?” Sakura asked, settling in across from Sasuke.

“Went out with Tazuna to the village. Should be back by the afternoon. Why?”

“Still hasn’t gotten around to interrogating you?”

“I snuck in after he left.”

“What’s this all about, anyway?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Naruto left, and Sakura traded glances with Sasuke.

“That dobe keeps on getting weirder.”

“I know. What set him off this time?”

“The blood-line question.”

“Isn’t he an orphan or something? Maybe he misses his parents.”

Sasuke nodded sadly, his hand hesitating above the board, and Sakura remembered what he’d told her only two days ago.

“I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s …it’s not your fault.” Sasuke slapped the piece down savagely, making the others jump.

“I’m still sorry.”

“Yeah.”

“But isn’t it kind of weird that a clan with a blood-line like Naruto’s all died? A kid’s only given the name ‘Uzumaki’ if no-one knows who the parents are. I mean, you’re still an Uchiha, even though…”

“Every one’s dead.” Sasuke said harshly.

Sakura flushed, then continued, “But Naruto…” She broke off as it hit her. “Naruto’s a nobody.”

“No wonder he got angry.” Sasuke murmured. “To not even have a name, on top of not having anyone else.”

“Can you imagine a whole clan of people as strong as Naruto?” She asked, thoughtfully, then paused again. An entire clan, of super-naturally strong ninjas. Dozens of people as strong as Naruto, and stronger. A whole clan with a bloodline so powerful that one of their twelve-year-olds could defeat the number-one-rookie, an Uchiha, without breaking a sweat. And she’d never heard of them.

Sasuke was obviously coming to the same conclusion. “If that clan existed….”

“Why haven’t we heard of them? Ever?” Sakura finished. She sighed, rubbing her throbbing head.

“And the fox he was talking to. That fox was talking back. When did he learn to summon nin-animals?” Sasuke reminded her.

“That wasn’t a summons. The chakra patterns were too intense, and it wasn’t wearing a hiate. All summons wear a hiate like their summoner. It’s part of the jitsu.”

“And it was eating that fish. I thought summons don’t need to eat?”

“They don’t. I’m not even sure if they can eat at all. Theoretically, they shouldn’t be able to.”

Sasuke nodded, placed another piece down. Sakura stopped thinking about Naruto and grinned: He’d fallen perfectly into her trap. Placing her own piece on the board with a flourish, she plucked every one of his off the board and shook the handful triumphantly. Sasuke leaned back, impressed.

“How’d you do that?”

“A kunoichi never reveals her secrets.” She replied, smugly. “So there.”

Sasuke actually smiled, turning the inside of her head into warm mush. He was so cute when he smiled! “Again?”

“S-sure.”

OOO

The score was three to two, Sakura’s favor, when Naruto came back in and handed her a bowl of rice.

“Just rice?”

“You’re digestive system’s weak too, Sakura, not just your muscles. Plain food for a day, then some fancier stuff later on.”

She glared at him, then began eating as fast as she could as her hunger slammed into her attention like a falling tree.

“Slow down, you’ll choke. Hey, when did you rebandage your arm? This is a really well-done splint.”

“Mffle mmmf,” She grunted through a mouthful of rice, then swallowed and paused long enough to say, “Met some apprentice healer-guy. Fixed it for me.” Then resumed cramming.

“Figures. This is really professional.” Naruto carefully lifted the arm to look at it from another angle. “What’d he look like?”

“Black hair, pale. Looked like a girl.” She frowned, remembering…how did she know that Haku was male? She couldn’t remember much after he fixed her arm. She must have fallen asleep…

Naruto raised an eyebrow. “Did he have a name?”

“Haku.”

Naruto’s eyes opened wide, then went distant. She was about to ask him what was wrong when a clump of rice got stuck in her throat and she began coughing.

“I told you you’d choke.” He pounded her on the back until she was done, then flopped over backwards.

“I’m the one who should be tired.” She told him, filling her mouth again.

“Yeah, yeah. Must be one hell of a technique you’re working on.”

She looked down at the empty bowl, feeling guilty. She’d worked so hard, and all she ended up with was a little piddly scratch attack, and she couldn’t even aim it.

All of a sudden Naruto bolted upright and dashed to the window, leaning out so far she thought he’d fall out.

“What?”

“Someone’s coming!” Naruto dashed downstairs, Sasuke and Sakura right behind him.

OOOO

Zabusa was striding towards the house, tall and menacing. Sasuke and Sakura stopped dead in their tracks, then dropped into the attack/defense stances Naruto had taught them, Red Dragon on one side and Seventh Crane on the other. Naruto swallowed a proud grin and motioned them to hold still, then went to meet the man.

Both of them halted a few meters apart from each other, out of range of most taijitsu. Neither spoke, until Zabusa held up a hat.

Inari’s hat.

“You’re the famous Naruto, runt?” Zabusa asked, his voice harsh and incredulous. “You’re a child.”

“The one and only, at your service.” Naruto replied, with a mocking bow. “Tell me why you have Inari’s hat.”

“Inari? That’s the little sniveler’s name?”

“Yes. Get to the point.”

“Does the term, ‘Hostage Situation’ mean anything to you?”

Naruto glared. Hostage situation. If he had a dollar for every time he’d had to deal with a hostage situation he’d be able to buy his retirement thirty years early.

“What do you expect us to trade for Inari?”

“The bridge. Tell the old fart to destroy his bridge, or we’ll destroy his precious bratling.”

Naruto nodded. “I’ll tell him.” He turned his back, and began to walk back to the house.

“Boy?”

“What?” Naruto stopped walking, but didn’t turn around.

“Your buddies believe that you’re capable of killing me. Do you?”

“Do I think that I can kill you?”

“Yes.”

Naruto considered this.

“Yeah. If I had to.”

Zabusa grinned through the bandages. “You’re a tough little bastard, runt. I like you.”

Naruto walked through the door of the house without reply, his thoughts churning frantically.

OOOO

“What are we going to DO?!” Sakura screamed at him, as soon as Naruto had told her.

“ ‘We’ are not going to do anything. I, on my own, am going to go get Inari back.”

“Like hell you are, dobe.” Sasuke interjected. “I’m going with you.”

“No!”

“Yes! I’m going with you unless you nail me here, and if you do that, I’m going to pry them out and come after you anyway, and then I’m going to dump poison oak in your bed!” Sasuke yelled.

Naruto sighed, impressed at this unusual display of emotion.

“Fine, if it means that much to you. It’s not going to be pretty, though.”

“I’m going, too, Naruto.” Sakura said.

“What the-? No! No you aren’t!”

“Yes I am!”

“No, you aren’t! It’s too dangerous for-”

“For what? For what! For fragile little Sakura, let’s all protect her while she pretends to be a ninja? For a girl? For the weakest member of the team? Finish the sentence, I dare you!” She screamed at him, turning red.

Naruto looked like she’d punched him in the gut.

She glared at him, breathing hard.

“Please, Sakura. I don’t want you to do this.” He finally said, softly, in a voice that she’d never heard him use before. If Sasuke had used that voice she’d have melted like butter in a flame-thrower. But he wasn’t Sasuke. He was Naruto, a person she respected, a person she liked, even maybe loved, but not like that. He was her brother, and he was telling her she wasn’t good enough.

“I’m going.” She said, and Naruto nodded.

OOOO

They waited until Kakashi walked in the door with Tazuna, in the afternoon, then dashed out the door, leaving a note on the table explaining. After all, Naruto had told them, someone had to watch Tsunami, and neither Sasuke nor Sakura were volunteering.

Kakashi snagged Sasuke by the shirt at the last moment, only to find himself holding a handful of smoke.

“Aren’t you supposed to be those kids’ boss or something?” Tazuna asked.

Kakashi gave a wry shrug, watching as they disappeared into the forest. “Sometimes I think I’m just the guy that does the paperwork.” He told the other man ruefully, then turned to read the note.

The three were just into the woods when the air took on the tinge of electricity, the kind you get right before a storm. At first it wasn’t noticeable but by the time they’d gone half a mile it was overpowering, enormous, almost sickening. And it was coming from Naruto.

“Naruto, what-” Sakura began, placing a hand on his shoulder. He stopped and whirled around, snapping at her hand like a wild animal-

-Kill them all, the voice in his mind screamed, and Naruto roared his agreement as he launched himself off the ledge, glorying as the rage sang through his veins-

-then backed off, shuddering. His eyes were a deep, feral red, and his hands were growing claws. “Don’t- don’t come- don’t come any – any closer.” He snarled, still backing off. “You’ll- you’ll…” He was having trouble forming words, and it wasn’t just because of the fangs. Everything was black and white and beautiful red, and everything was so simple. So very simple. Kill them all, his anger whispered, and it took all he had to turn around and keep running, along the glittering trail of his prey’s chakra.

Sasuke and Sakura followed at a much greater distance than before.

They reached Gato’s hide-out, a strange, screw-like thing nested among huge trees.

“I’ll be- be a- diversion,” Naruto panted, “get- get Inari-”

“But-” Sakura protested.

“DO IT!” Naruto screamed at her, baring inch-long fangs, then turned and slapped a tree thicker than he was tall into damp sawdust. “DO IT OR I’LL KILL YOU!”

They went, slipping unobtrusively through the panicking thugs as they poured out of the doors like ants, eager to attack this strange boy as he demolished a fifth tree and began ripping at the support cables. No one noticed the two gennins as they flitted inside.

“Where’s Inari?” Sasuke demanded as soon as they found an unoccupied room to hide in.

“I don’t know! She snapped. Shut up and let me think!”

Sasuke shut up, mostly from surprise. There was a thundering explosion outside, and the walls shook. Sakura, panicking, turned this way and that, frantically trying to see a chakra signature that would fit a child’s description, not seeing it, not seeing it, a thousand blazes of blue, so big, too big, and none the right one and the were all coming to get them and she was screwing it all up-

“Sakura! Calm down!” Sasuke yelled, worried. She continued panicking until finally he grabbed her shoulders and shook her until her teeth rattled and her eyes faded into aqua again.

“Sakura! You can do this! You can do this. Just calm down.” She did, slowly, her startlingly beautiful eyes locked onto his face, and when her breathing evened out Sasuke released her, slowly, watching carefully as she once again slipped into the Golden Lotus jitsu, once again began scanning through the walls, this time more slowly and deliberately.

“There.” She said, her voice steady, then inched up the wall and slipped out the door, running silently along the ceiling on all fours, graceful as a shadow. Sasuke followed more clumsily, scrabbling occasionally as a foot or hand came loose.

They found Inari in a dark room, chained to the wall and sobbing. Sasuke quietly ripped the chain apart, and Sakura scooped the miserable child into her arms.

“It’ll be all right, Inari. We’re here.” The boy’s whimpers faded and he clung to her jacket, hiccupping.

“Why’d you come?” He whispered. “Naruto said I wasn’t worth it.”

“Naruto must have changed his mind.” Sasuke told him, then turned to lead the way out of the room and stopped, crouching into a defensive stance.

“Sakura!”

“What?”

“They’re here!”

Sakura dashed over to the door, peeked out, and swore. At least ten thugs were coming down the hallway, eyes trained on the two gennins. Inari began to cry again.

“We’re going to die!” He sniffled.

“Shut up already!” She hissed, searching the room for hiding places. There weren’t any. They were trapped. Bracing herself, she faced the thugs squarely.

“If we’re going to die,” She told Sasuke, “Let’s take them down with us.”

Sasuke nodded, gritting his teeth.

The wall behind them blew in with a screech of tortured metal. Naruto stood in the wreckage, covered in dust, blood, and a rippling orange aura.

“MORE!” He roared gleefully, and flung himself at the oncoming mercenaries.

It wasn’t a fight; it was a slaughter.

Sakura swallowed hard a few times, then stood up as Naruto dropped the last thug and began looking for more.

“Naruto!”

Naruto ignored her.

Sakura dumped Inari on to Sasuke and ran over, grabbing Naruto’s wrists. He bucked and twisted, trying to wrench free, then buried his fangs in her wrist-

-…and the blood was so good, so good, and he ripped the man open with a flick of his head but there were more, they were coming, he had to protect Sakura…-

-She screamed in pain-

-…protect Sakura from the bad men and kill for her and another knife buried itself in his back and die for her and rip and burn and…-

-but didn’t let go, didn’t let go,-

-…never let them near her help was coming it was coming and she was watching and she was the most important thing in the world, more important than the blood or the killing…-

-until it was over and Naruto backed up against a wall, wiping the blood from his mouth in horror and staring around him with wide blue eyes.-

-… Sakura. Haruno Sakura. Uzumaki Sakura. “I’ll always love you.” He said again, voice hoarse. She smiled. “I know.”…-

“Oh, gods, Sakura, I-”

“It’s nothing.” She told him, and he nodded shakily.

“But-”

“Come, Naruto.”

He followed.

OOOO

“You’re WHAT?” Sakura said, slumping back in her chair. They were all eating dinner, and everyone was staring at Naruto in surprise.

“The living cage of the Nine-Tails.” Naruto repeated tiredly, burying his face in his hands. Sasuke looked stunned

“The Nine-Tales?” Tazuna asked, taking a drink of sake. “Who?”

“A demon.” Naruto said, voice muffled. “Fi- Twelve years ago a demon came out of the mountains. It wiped out several villages and was starting on ours. It killed…I think about a hundred ninjas. Maybe more. At least a thousand other villagers. I don’t have a bloodline. I don’t have a family. I don’t have a clan. Just a psychopath fox in my brain.”

“But the Fourth killed it! Iruka-sensei told us that in class!” Sakura protested.

“He lied. There’s no way to kill a demon. The fourth traded his life for the demon’s imprisonment.” Naruto laughed harshly. “He traded my life, too, but I guess no one wanted to ask a baby’s opinion.”

“You’ve had this…thing …in you your entire life?”

“Yeah.”

“But why didn’t we hear about it?”

“There’s a law. Adults can’t tell their kids why they hate me.”

Sakura was stunned. That was why her parents had reacted like that when she mentioned the third member of her team, that was why they had that expression on their faces, that was why they’d tried to argue her into agreeing to switch teams.

“How did you- Who- what was it like?” Stuttered Sasuke, his face pale as the enormity of Naruto’s ‘bloodline’ hit him. Sasuke had been alone now for a little more than five years, and every morning it hurt to wake up and know that there was no one there, every day it hurt to have to drive everyone away. To wake up every morning of your entire life and not even have a face to put on to the loss, to know that no one was even trying to get close…

“It was bad.” Naruto said quietly. “It was really bad. Iruka-sensei tried hard, but it wasn’t really enough. When I was a kid, you know, a little one, I guess I got enough to eat and a place to sleep in the orphanage. I don’t remember ever being hungry. But no one liked me. Myamako-san, the…boss…her brother died fighting the demon. She…encouraged the other kids to hate me. One day when I was nine I just didn’t go back. I slept in a tree for a few days, then Iruka-sensei told me I had an apartment to go to. He showed me where it was. I think that he rented it for me with his own money, but I didn’t know that at the time.”

“Another question, Naruto, as long as we’re clearing the air.” Kakashi said. “Why did you try to hide the attacks of those two ninjas a few days ago? And-” Kakashi turned his gaze on Tazuna, who looked uneasy, “why didn’t you tell us there had been an attempt on you life? This was applied as, and paid for as, a C-Rank mission. The apearence of Zabusa boosts this up to A-Rank, maybe S-Rank.”

“I can answer both of those.” Naruto told him. “They don’t have enough money for an A-Rank. Probably the entire village doesn’t have enough money for an A-Rank. You guys gambled every cent you have,” He told Tazuna, “for this bridge.”

“Yeah.” Tazuna said, taking another sip of his drink, “we had to.”

“The question of the fee remains-” Kakashi began, but Naruto cut him off.

“They’ll pay it.”

“But!-” Tazuna protested.

“They’ll pay it later.”

Tazuna lowered the bottle and stared at Naruto, a slow smile forming on his face. “Yeah, kid, we will. Every cent of this A-Rank thing, we’ll pay you when the bridge gets done.”

“I know.” Naruto said, looking sideways at Tazuna with eyes that flashed red for a moment, then began eating again. Tazuna gulped.

OOOO

Naruto was lying on the roof again, spread-eagled, watching the moon rise slowly.

“Kakashi.” He murmured, feeling the man settle down behind him.

“Naruto.” The Jounin replied.

They were silent awhile.

“I hated it the first time.” Naruto said quietly. “It wasn’t much better the second.”

“I know.”

Another silence.

“Kakashi?”

“Yeah?”

“Have you ever had a dream so real that when you wake up…you’re …homesick… for the one in your dream?”

“And you feel like some one you loved died, even though they weren’t real anyway. Yeah, Naruto, I have.”

“It hurts.” Naruto whispered softly. “It’s all I can do not to grab her and hold her forever.”

“I know.”

Another, longer silence, and Naruto drifted off to sleep. Kakashi remained sitting, watching the forest.

SECOND CHANCES 15

2008-01-02T18:14:20Z

By the way, this is FANfiction.

OOO

“Naruto…” Sasuke asked, sounding almost nervous.

“Mf?” Naruto bit back a snarl. He’d let his temper get the best of him, again.

“Your cut.”

“What about it?”

“It’s…glowing.”

Naruto reached up and gingerly felt the gash, then sealed the skin together with the unconscious ease of years, in a small flash of reddish-orange light. Then he caught sight of his team-mates expressions and cursed inwardly.

This was not turning out to be a good day.

Naruto cursed again as he saw Sakura’s face shift from shock to fascination, and continued to list every single explitive he’d ever learned –an impressive collection- as she reached a hand out and began to probe the now-smooth skin, examining it critically. He wasn’t very clear on why he was keeping the Kyuubi a secret, other than finding out that one’s team-mate is demonically possessed is generally off-putting. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, and the idea of having to explain everything, again, made him shudder.

“Interesting,” She murmered, and he froze-

-… “Do you turn up like this for fun? Or is it more of a hobby thing?” Naruto shrank, desperately trying to cover the worst of his wounds, acutely aware that he was dripping blood on her front stoop. “’S not as bad as it-” He managed before Sakura exploded. “Four days, Naruto! Four! Without knowing where the hell you were! You could have died!” Naruto squirmed. “I left a note…” he mumbled, feeling ashamed. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. She drew her self up, eyes flashing. “I was worried sick,” She snapped. “Now come in and clean up, you’re making a mess.” …

-“Is it a bloodline limit?”

“Huh?” Naruto blinked a few times, thrown by the non-sequiter.

“Like Sasuke’s Sharingan. Doujitsu. That’s the fir- second time we’ve seen you hurt, though, so I’m not sure the extent of how you heal yourself, but I’ve seen you grow claws.”

Naruto laughed bitterly. This was perfect. Just perfect. Uzumaki Naruto, bastard child of Konoha, with a fancy-shmancy bloodline courtesy of Kyuubi. A clan of one. Why not? He had the changing eyes, and the freaky powers. Why the hell not…

“Yeah,” he spat. “You could say that.” You could say anything you wanted, he thought savagely, and suddenly it became too much. He shook his head angrily, trying to clear it, then dissolved the poles in his hands with a flash of blue.

“I want to be alone for awhile,” He told them, and disappeared in a puff of smoke.

OOO

Sasuke and Sakura traded glances; Naruto rarely got angry but when he did there was no stopping him. He’d be back when he calmed down. The longest he’d ever left for was only two days, after Sasuke had used the illusion of a giant snake to try and herd Naruto into a trap. Naruto had screamed in what sounded equal parts fear and anger and had kicked Sasuke into a tree so hard it had snapped like a twig. Sasuke came to within an hour, but never used an illusion involving reptiles again.

Looking at his expression, Sakura could tell he was clearly remembering the times he had been on the receiving end of Naruto’s temper. He always took it badly, and would be moody for days after Naruto had apparently forgotten all about it.

Sasuke spun around when he felt a tug on his hair, and caught Sakura’s wrist as she reached to pull another twig out.

“You have twigs in your hair.” She informed him, without making a move to free her arm. Sasuke dropped it immediately and combed through his bangs clumsily, gritting his teeth when the stictches on his back pulled painfully. She watched him, smiling slightly. He glared at her and she grinned.

“They’re all at the back. Hold still.” Sasuke froze as still as a very tense statue, straining to hear every crunch and feel every tug she was making as she combed through his hair, hating it how he sorta kinda maybe liked it. He heard a small giggle, and his heart dropped. What had he gotten himself into?

She finished and sauntered past him, still grinning. “Pigtails look good on you, Sasuke-chan.”

Sasuke’s hands leapt to the back of his head, -how had she tied his hair up with only one hand?- only to feel nothing but the usual tangle, now slightly less tangled than usual, and the tails of his hiate. He swore, and followed her back to the house.

OOO

Kakashi was dozing slightly, his book propped over his face and his chair leaned against the wall when he saw Sakura walk past him, framed in the triangle of the pages.

“Where are you going?” He asked, lifting the edge slightly. He saw he jump a little; apparently she hadn’t known he’d seen her.

“Out.” She said, he voice determined.

“Out?”

“Yes.”

“Just…out?”

“Yes.”

Kakashi shrugged. She was one of the most perceptive gennins he’d ever met, so it wasn’t like she’d fall into a trap. In any case, she was probably sneaking off to practice some secret jitsu, so she’d stay close enough that she’d be able to find her way back when exausted.

“Watch out for Zabusa, and be careful of that arm.” She nodded, rubbing the bandage, and strode off. Kakashi sighed. He did want to have a talk with all of them, but it could wait. He knew from long experience that discussion was useless when one had a new jitsu to try out.

OOO

“Diamond air!” Sakura yelled again, her voice hoarse, and launched another blade of wind into a tree, then staggered over and examined the gash. Almost a foot long, but only half an inch deep. Half an inch wouldn’t do much to stop a determined attacker, unless she hit the neck, and she still hadn’t worked out how to aim with any precision.

She sat down, soaked with sweat and gasping, when she saw the girl walk out of the woods. She sprang to her feet in an instant and was halfway up a tree before she stopped herself. The girl wasn’t Naruto. The girl wasn’t even a ninja. But for a moment… Sakura studied the girl, sneaking around the trunk like a squirrel. Yes, the girl moved like a ninja, someone trained to expect an attack at any moment, someone who was confident that they could deal with said attack. But the violent intent that Naruto and Sasuke and even, to an extent, Ino, habitually carried, that was missing.

Sakura followed as quietly as she knew how, curious, and was somehow not surprised when the girl turned around and calmly met her stare.

“I know you’re there,” The girl said, “I can feel you.”

Sakura considered this. She was at a definite disadvantage, clinging to the trunk of a tree with only three limbs, and would be better off fighting on the ground, despite her broken arm. On the other hand, perhaps this girl was only bluffing, and it’d be safer in the trees, unseen. On the other other hand, the girl wasn’t wearing a ninja’s headband.

“I can kill you right now,” She told the girl, hoping her voice sounded tougher than she thought it did, “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t.”

The girl smiled, hooking her long, dark hair back over an ear. “We haven’t been introduced. It would be terribly rude to kill someone without an introduction, wouldn’t it?”

Sakura grinned. “Guess so.” The girl, despite her ditzy exterior, was either incredibly brave or incredibly foolhardy. She jumped off the trunk, landing carefully in a picture-perfect defense. Naruto would have been proud, if he had seen it. “I’m …I mean, I’m Tomaru. Haru…me Tomaru.” It wouldn’t do to go around giving her real name, especially on a mission like this, but she wasn’t quite sure why she gave a boy’s name. Oh well… it was the work of a moment to change her voice and the more obvious curves of her body in illusion, and the overcoat did the rest. Too late to change her hair, but at least it was short.

The girl bowed slightly. “Haku.” Rising from the bow, her dark eyes widened. “A ninja!” she breathed, admiration plain in her voice. “It must be wonderful to be a ninja.”

Sakura grimaced, rubbing her broken arm. “It has its ups and downs.”

Haku laughed. “So does everything, Tomaru.” She took a few steps closer and looked critically at the crude sling Sakura had rigged up. “Would you like me to reset that? It’s likely to heal crooked if you leave it much longer.”

Sakura raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure you can? I mean-” She flushed, “are you a healer or something?”

Haku didn’t appear to take offence. “A healer of sorts, yes. I’m learning acupuncture, and I’m good with plants, my master tells me.”

“Oh. Um, okay, if you’re sure. I mean, sure if-” She was babbling. Sakura shut up, and held the limb in question out. “Go ahead.”

Haku smiled gently, then began to gently untie the bandage. Sakura winced when it was finally unwrapped, and not just from the pain. The entire arm was one giant bruise, and massively swollen around the break. Haku hissed softly.

“This is bad. How long ago did you get it?”

“A few days ago, I think.”

“Hmmmm. The skin’s already closed up.”

“There are salves and stuff for that, that I have. I didn’t want to bleed everywhere.” Sakura said, desperately looking anywhere that wasn’t her arm.

“Hmf. Closing the skin up right away isn’t always the best thing, though. Sometimes no having an opening just lets all the blood and such bottle up and…I suppose the closest term would be ‘ferment’. There’s too much…uh…” Haku noticed Sakura turning green and trailed off. “I guess you don’t want the specifics. Bluntly, it’s rotting underneath the skin. You’ll get gangrene and have to amputate it, if this goes on too long. I can clean it out, but it will take a few hours.”

Sakura nodded. “A few hours now is worth a lot less than a missing arm,” She told Haku, with an attempt at a smile. There was something familiar in the girl’s dark hair and eyes, even in the way she held herself, that reminded Sakura of Sasuke. But Sasuke never looked so kind, or even half as happy.

The girl produced a few chunks of what looked like a pink carrot. “Chew on these.”

Sakura glared suspiciously. “What are they?”

“Painkiller. It’s very strong, so you won’t be in much discomfort, and danaski has the least side effects and strongest medicinal effect of everything I have.”

“I am a kunoi- a shinobi. We’re trained not to notice pain. I don’t need it.” She was damned if she would drug herself just to avoid a little discomfort. And, of course, side effects. She really didn’t want to be wandering around the forest thinking she was a talking butterfly, or whatever.

“Do you really want to be completely aware of when I have to carve gashes in your arm to drain the infection out? Or when I have to push the bone splinters back into place? Or-”

Sakura backed up a step. “Ma- Maybe not.” She said weakly, fighting nausea. “Are you sure there aren’t any side effects?”

Haku smiled reassuringly. “Very few.”

“Fine, fine,” she groaned, “but if I’m not back by nightfall Naruto’s gonna-” No, wait, Naruto was out... doing whatever it was he did when he disappeared. Sasuke? Probably not. Better bluff. “-going to rip the woods apart looking for me.”

Haku nodded. “Always nice to know someone cares, isn’t it? And you’ll be back by sunset, I promise.”

Sakura sighed, and nibbled tentatively on one of the pieces. It wasn’t bad… Finishing it off, she lurched slightly as the forest blurred.

“Sit, sit!” Haku, ordered, then fussed around her as she sank down dizzily, pulling out an impressive amount of small packets, vials, and strangely-shaped needles from hidden pockets.

It seemed to take only a few minutes, as Sakura groggily watched Haku do …things…to her arm, and in no time at all her arm was neatly wrapped and splinted again, a third the size it had been swollen to before, and she was leaning against Haku’s shoulder, dreamily winding her dark hair around her fingers and giggling. She wasn’t wearing the illusion anymore, she noticed, but it didn’t matter so much. Nothing really mattered very much.

“What’s your real name?” Haku asked, tugging her hair away from Sakura’s hand.

“Sakura…”

“Sakura what?”

“Haruno Sakura.”

“It’s a very nice name.”

“Yeh.” Sakura yawned, feeling pleased.

“And this Naruto?”

“Yeh?”

“What about him?”

Sakura giggled again. “Uzumaki, I think. ‘S funny, ‘cuz ‘s ‘Swirl Spiral’. He’s silly like tha’.”

“Very funny.”

“Mmm-hm”

“He seems very strong, isn’t he?”

“He is. Naruto knows-” another yawn, “ever’thin.”

“I’m sure he does. He doesn’t seem like he’d be scared of anything, does he?

“Nooooo….” Sakura considered this, “But he is.”

“Oh?”

Sakura glanced around furtively. “Promiss notta tell any’n?”

“I promise.” Haku told her, and Sakura leaned in close to Haku’s ear.

“Snakes,” She whispered. “Sas’ke used an, a ‘lusion of un.” She grinned. “He freaked.”

Haku smiled “Snakes are very scary.”

“Mm-hm.”

“It’s almost sunset... I should get you back.”

Sakura let herself be pulled upright, but had to lean heavily against Haku to keep from tipping over. “You’re nice, f’ra girl.”

“What’s wrong with girls?”

“They’re mean. Ino-pig calls me ‘forehead girl’. Naruto’s always nice, n’ Sasuke…” She broke off, blushing.

“You have a very nice forehead.”

“T’nks.”

“Which way is your house?”

“’S not mine. ‘S Tazuna’s.”

“Ah.”

“We’re guardin’ him. Verr’ importan’.”

“I see. Which way is it?”

“Tha’ way.” Sakura pointed, and Haku set off, one arm around Sakura’s waist as she wrapped her arm around Haku’s neck.

They made it back to the edge of the woods as the sun began to sink into the ocean.

“See? I got you back before night-time.”

“Mmm.”

Haku gently disentangled Sakura and steadied her. “You should be able to make it from here. And another thing…”

“Mm?”

“I’m a boy.”

Sakura stared at her- no, him. A boy? Like Sasuke... “Then’oo won’t min’” She purred, “ ‘F I do ‘is?” She kissed Haku on the cheek, giggled, and staggered off towards the house, waving back at him as he stared at her.

OOO

“You have their location?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good work, boy.”

“Thank you, master Zabusa.”

SECOND CHANCES 14

2008-01-02T18:12:26Z

SECOND CHANCES 13

2008-01-02T18:11:20Z

SECOND CHANCES 11-12

2008-01-02T18:10:04Z

SECOND CHANCES 6-10

2008-01-02T18:06:15Z

The continuing adventures of an obsolete fiction.

SECOND CHANCES 1-5

2008-01-02T17:55:54Z

One day, my LJ cut will work.

Naruto is not mine. Sniffle
OOO
There he was. Right there. Nothing left to do but do it...

Naruto strode up to the lone figure on the ledge, in the ruins. It must have been a nice place, once, he noted, but now there were only crows and snakes and him and the other. The man in the rubble didn't turn around.

"Took you long enou gh, Naruto-kun."

"Yeah."

There didn't seem to be much to say to that. Naruto shifted from foot to foot, dreading the violence that was sure to come. Where had all his fury gone? It had seemed like a sensible idea at the time, but when it came down to just him and the other, his fury just broke apart, like the old buildings. "We can't forgive you, you know."

"I know. I am sorry, though."

"You never acknowledged me, you know, all that time, and now after every thing you've done to me you're calling me your friend? Why?"

"Things change, Naruto-kun. And perhaps we were friends, once. I just couldn't tell until to late."

"Yeah."

The figure stood up, shredded black cloak billowing around him. The moon glinted off of the leaf-insignia on the head-protector he was toying with. His pale, white fingers absently smoothed out the creases in the tattered fabric, the crumpled it up and dropped it.

"Do you believe in second chances, Naruto-kun?" The figure faced him fully, the thin sliver of moonlight illuminating the paper-white skin, the deep circles under the blood-red eyes.

"Do you believe in a happy-land with fairies and rainbows and junk? Pigs could fly before anyone gave me a second chance for anything," Naruto spat out bitterly. His enemy took another step towards him and he braced himself, drawing his kunai with his good hand. He wished he was anywhere but here, fighting anyone but him. Maybe if he could only-

"You'd be surprised, Naruto-kun," The pale man said, and suddenly he was right there, right in front of Naruto's face, touching a burning finger in between Naruto's eyes and then it was painfully, horribly, bright-
OOO
"Damn you, Sasuke!" Naruto jerked awake in his bed. In someone's bed anyway, it had been years since he'd had one of his own. He squinted into the torrent of light flooding through the window, then glanced around in bewilderment.

The apartment he was in was small and filthy. There was a pervasive smell of noodles and sweat, and trash littered the floor. He rubbed his eyes with his hands, hoping to see something different when he opened them again, then froze. Hands, plural? He jerked his right hand away from his face and stared at it, trembling. Hands. He had two of them. He turned them over, examined each of them, then his arms and chest. Where were the scars? The bruises? That place on his arm that had broken and healed twisted because it had been trapped under rubble?

He staggered out of the bed, checking himself all over. His hair was short and clean, probably washed a few days ago. He'd been well-fed too, he couldn't see his ribs like usual. He was clean – aside from some ground-in gray on his knees, there were barely any dirt stains on him anywhere. He had depth perception for the first time in ages: a hasty –and painful- prodding had assured him that he did, in fact, have two eyes. What the hell had happened? Had Sasuke healed him instead of killing him? Lurching into the bathroom, he froze once more.

A face stared out of the mirror at him. Young, maybe only twelve. No scars. No stubble. No empty socket, sunken cheeks, livid net of scar tissue. Short hair, oh god it was still yellow, and the eyes of his childhood. Blue eyes. Not crimson. Blue.

Naruto folded up on the floor, shaking with hysterical laughter. Somehow, Sasuke had sent him back.

The bastard had given him a second chance.

OOO
Naruto dressed in a daze, lingering over the feel of clean cloth against his skin. How long had it been since he’d been clean? Years, maybe. He searched the cabinets, looking for food. Only ramen. He couldn’t eat it. He held the cup in his hand, fighting back tears. He hadn’t eaten ramen since-
-A small food stand, smashed to splinters, reeking of burnt flesh and pain... Two figures crumpled across the bar, silver and pink hair glued to the wood with tacky blood... Green eyes meet yours in a broken, shattered face before they film over with death, death... Everything goes red, and you remember nothing for months-
-then. He wiped away the tears and systematically piled every ramen cup in the farthest cabinet, ignoring the growling of his stomach. He was used to being hungry anyway; he’d find something later, there was always that good trash can at the- wait. He was young again. He had money. He could ...‘buy’...food, good food, and not have to steal or scavenge or beg. Swallowing the lump in his throat, he scooped up his old- new- money bag, and went outside.
He had to sit down at a park bench half way, from the shock. Even that there was a park bench to sit down on almost drove him to tears. He absently stroked the smooth concrete as he tried to pull himself together. It was too much. The streets clean, the air fresh, the buildings whole and unbroken. He’d forgotten, at some point, that Konoha had been a place to be proud of, not just defended.
He realized, as he saw a kid with a white puppy on his head go past, that he ought to be at the academy. The kid with the dog turned around, calling something. Was that Kiba? And Akmaru? They had died so long ago...
“You’re late, idiot! The teams are being chosen today!”
He flinched, suddenly afraid, and then realized a reply was expected.
“So are you!” he called back, hoping his voice wasn’t as scared as it sounded.
“Farther ahead than you, anyway!” Kiba turned away, trotted off. Naruto relaxed. Good, Kiba didn’t want to hurt him, he was safe again. Then he remembered to follow the boy, keeping at a distance by habit, in case Kiba decided to attack.
Entering the familiar classroom he glanced around. All those faces; barely past childhood. All those hands and arms, unscarred, unbroken, the clothes bright and clean and whole. Clean smells, of wood and chalk, not ashes and filth. Iruka-sensei, so full of energy, so hard to look at. Sakura-san, no, still a ‘chan –
-... reeking of blood... Two figures crumpled on the bar, silver and pink hair floating gently...--
He chose a seat in the back. Staring at her. At the other- no, he wasn’t ‘the other’ yet, he was Sasuke, poor, screwed-up Sasuke. Well, that would change. It would. He had a second chance.
“All right class, today you’re assigned your teams!” Iruka-sensei proceeded to rattle off the list of names, accompanied by groans and cheers from the students. He watched the children- no, teenagers, but they were so young!- bicker and glare and smile shyly, as they began to form their groups. Well, best to start things off on the right foot.
He stood up and walked over to Sakura carefully, trying to avoid touching anyone-
-Staggering along in haze of cheap sake, he blundered into someone. They’d flipped him into the air and snapped half of his ribs. ‘Insolent trash...’ whoever it was had sneered. It was hard to find food for months, after that. He’d learned to be careful, no matter how drunk he was, which he was as often as possible-
-and stood in front of her. She glared. Oh gods, the way she smelled, the way she looked. It was barely a hint of what she’d be when she was sixteen and eighteen and twenty, but it was enough. He swallowed, hard.
“Sakura sa- uh, chan, I, uh, apologize for all the times I offended you in the past, and, uh, I’m glad we’re on the same team. I hope, uh, that I can help you, uh, I mean, we can help each other, uh, be good ninjas?” Lame. But what was he supposed to say? Only-
-‘I’ll always love you,’ as they lay together under the blossom-heavy trees in spring and the future was endless and glorious and so very, very sweet-
“What ever,” she replied indifferently, shifting her gaze to the brooding Sasuke. No point in talking to Sasuke now, there’d be time for that later.
OOO
He was just leaving when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He flinched, dropping instinctively into the fighting crouch that usual deterred the common thieves who liked to take a swing at him sometimes. It was Iruka-sensei, looking surprised and a little guilty.
“Sorry Naruto, I didn’t mean to startle you. Want to come to the Ichiraku with me? Myyy tree-eaaat!” He smiled-
-above him in the gutter, face a mass of wrinkles and scars, ‘There you are, Naruto,’ placing another wad of bills into Naruto’s slack hand. ‘Try to remember to buy some food, this time,’ and hobbling off on his crutches -
-Naruto nodded mutely, fighting back tears. But it was too much, and he stepped back a pace, then another pace, then ran as fast as he could, away from the demons of his past and their future.
Iruka found him again on his usual swing, gently fingering the shining chains. Naruto didn’t look up.
“Sorry, Iruka-sensei.”
“Naruto, what is going on? First you use that fighter’s stance that I know you couldn’t have learned in your grade level, and then you run away! I thought you liked ramen, didn’t you?” Iruka’s face was full of concern,
“Yeah. I liked ramen.” Slowly the story came out, blood and pain and alcohol. It was too hard to keep it in anymore. At the end, Iruka sat down beside him, looked at the sky. It seemed unbelievable, but Naruto rarely lied, and certainly didn’t have enough imagination for this sort of thing...
“What should I do, Sensei?” Naruto was sadder than Iruka had ever seen him.
“I don’t know. What ever you think is best. I really should tell the others about this, though.”
“No! Don’t-they might kill Sasuke-they-” He stopped, composed himself. When he spoke again his voice was flat, full of badly buried pain. “In my last life, Sasuke was nothing but an enemy to me. I’d like to change that. If he’s taken away from me again, I’ll only have the pain left. I want...to...kind of fill the holes up, you know? But if I don’t have this chance, I’ll have nothing to fill my holes...with...It’s complicated.”
“Maybe.” Said Iruka, “Maybe not.” He stood up, ruffled Naruto’s hair. “You always were the brother I never had, Naruto. In both lives of yours, I hope. I’ll do everything I can to help you have you second chance.”
“Thank you...Sensei.” Naruto remained on the swing, looking at the ground, as Iruka walked away, heart heavier than it had been for years.
THREE

The next day, Naruto showed up in the classroom on time. He’d forgotten, all those years ago, how late Kakashi usually was. After waiting for what felt like for ever in the corner- he still wasn’t used to chairs, preferring to sit on the floor- Kakashi arrived, looking around slowly. Naruto frowned. This lazy idiot certainly didn’t match up with his memories.
“Hey, Kakashi-sensei, why are you late?” Naruto called, a little irritated. It had been three hours of torment, trapped in the same room as...her. Did Kakashi usually arrive so late? He did remember a lot of standing around.
Kakashi slowly looked around to Naruto and the others.
“Ahhh...” He drawled. “This is the crap I have to deal with. A shrimp, a sulker, and a sissy. This will change. Soon. Meet me on the roof.” He turned around and plodded off, closing the door quietly behind him.
“That was it?” Sakura screamed, indignation radiating off of her like steam, “That moron is our teacher?!” Sasuke snorted in derision, and Naruto picked himself up and began to walk to the roof. He felt Sasuke shove his way past him, saw him stomp off in front of him with a contemptuous sneer. Naruto sighed, and made way for Sakura, who trailed the other boy like a puppy.
When they reached the roof of the academy, Kakashi was waiting for them. Naruto ignored his teacher and walked to the railing, taking in the view-
-...a blackened city, the stink of soot and carrion making his eyes water, buildings patched with whatever materials available if at all, paint peeling, widows shattered, people fighting in the streets, and he was useless, useless...-
-of a beautiful shining village, every roof a different color, every sidewalk clean and swept. The light breeze brought in the smells of pine and earth and a thousand bustling people with hopes and dreams...
“Sasuke!” He called.
Sasuke glanced over, irritation showing plainly in his eyes. “What is it now, idiot? I’m busy.”
“Doing what? Brooding? Look at this.” Naruto heard Sasuke get up, slowly, and look out at the sweep of Konoha. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it, Sasuke.” He said quietly, looking over at the boy.
“Whatever, weirdo.” But Naruto did see Sasuke’s dark eyes soften, for a moment, before they hardened and he turned away. Naruto sighed again and remained leaning on the railing, staring at the city.
Behind him he heard Kakashi introduce himself, and the other’s reply. He didn’t pay much attention; he already knew them all better than they did themselves, at this point.
“What about you, Naruto?” Kakashi’s slow drawl interrupted his thoughts.
“What?”
“Likes, dislikes, hobbies?”
“Oh. I don’t like pain, um, and mean people, and being hungry or cold,” -or sober- “And I don’t have any hobbies.”
“And your likes?”
-...A certain corner in an ally that was out of the wind... A trash can filled with good scraps every Tuesday... A woman with indigo hair and lavender eyes, bending above him, setting his broken bones and slipping enough money into his pocket to be roaring drunk for a week, which he was...-
“I used to like ramen.” He said grimly, then resumed staring at the beautiful view of his city. Kakashi raised an eyebrow but simply told them to meet in training field number four tomorrow, and not to eat anything. Naruto smiled to himself. He could go for three or four hours without food. He could go for three or four days without it, if it came to that.
OOO
He showed up early in the training field, then went through simple warm-up exercises -jumping, feints, blocks, tree climbing- for the next two hours for the sheer joy of being in his new, unbroken body. It was amazing; did every teen-ager feel like this, so alive? He remembered days when it was a fight to just haul himself upright, some mornings. At some point in his work-out he’d noticed Sasuke watching him, and began doing some of the subtler moves he knew that no Gennin could have learned. Time to bait the trap. After awhile, in the middle of a very tricky series of flips and punches, he plopped down and pretended to yawn.
He felt Sasuke sit down beside him, about five feet away. He turned his head to look at him and saw Sasuke’s eyes jerk away, a faint red glow across the pale boy’s face. Well, well, well. He smiled to himself, then stood up again.
“Hey, Sasuke, Kakashi won’t be here for another hour. Wanna do some more exercises with me? I’m bored.” He knew this offer was tempting- he’d deliberately used the sort of moves he knew Sasuke would be itching to learn. He nodded at a rather subdued Sakura. “You want to do some to? We could have a real good match.” She looked startled, then apprehensive. He knew that she wouldn’t want to fight Sasuke.
Sasuke got up verrrrry slowly and said, with a very poor imitation of casualness, “Sure.”
He started the boy off slowly, with easily blockable jabs and kicks, getting into his stride, then gradually inched up the complexity. Naruto kept on, easily, joyfully, flinging his whole body into the fight. Just when he knew Sasuke was getting tired he blocked, flopped down on the ground, and grinned up at Sasuke, disarming him momentarily.
“I’m tired! Let’s rest for awhile.” It wouldn’t do to humiliate Sasuke, he was prouder than a cat. He wasn’t tired, actually, his body was barely winded. If he was this strong last time around, he’d forgotten. His opponent hesitated, smiled briefly and sat down too, a whole three inches closer than before.
Progress, Naruto noted, and smiled to himself again.
OOO
“The training is simple,” Kakashi told them, starting a little kitchen timer. “I have two bells. Your task is to take them from me before noon. If you don’t, you don’t get lunch, and you get tied to a log while I eat in front of you. Plus, you fail and get sent back to the ninja academy. You’ll only get one if you’re intent is to kill. You may start.”
Naruto frowned. So that’s what had happened. Only two bells, though. Why was Kakashi trying to break the team apart like that, so soon? It would be pathetically easy. Probably it was a test. And if it was a test...then the point was to do the opposite of what was said. So...Teamwork. Well, that’d be like herding cats, with those two.
He jumped into a tree to watch the developments. It was still an hour until noon, anyway, and if you’re herding cats, best to let them blunt their claws first.
He waited until he heard Sakura scream, then jumped down to check it out. On his way there he saw a little bell, conspicuously glinting in the sun, and a badly disguised snare-trap around it. Like he was stupid enough to fall for that? Oh, wait, he had been, the first time around. Snorting in derision he picked up the nearest stick and flipped the bell into the air, almost touching it with his finger-tips before a black-glove had snagged it. Naruto sighed and smiled ruefully at Kakashi, who was tossing it up and down.
“Hmmm. Improvisation, Naruto-kun? Very good. How about your fighting skills?”
Naruto laughed. “Take on a Jounin by myself, Kakashi-sensei? I’m not that dumb. Wait awhile.” He casually coiled the rope off of the un-sprung trap up, slung it over his shoulder and sauntered off, trying to look nonchalant. If there was one thing he’d learned, it was that a good length of rope could be better than a dozen kunai. Behind him he heard Kakashi take out that book of his and resume reading.
OOO
He found Sasuke buried up to his neck, with Sakura passed out in front of him. What had happened? Oh well, didn’t matter. He walked into Sasuke’s field of vision and sat down, with as straight a face as possible.
“Fine. Go ahead and laugh.” Sasuke snarled, looking away.
“Why would I do that? Kakashi’s tough, you’re lucky to get away with that much.” Naruto said casually. He’d have to play this carefully. One wrong step now would set Sasuke off like a bomb.
“Do you want any help?” He said, trying to sound concerned. From the look on the pale boy’s face, he probably didn’t. Make that definitely. Naruto swallowed a grin at the snarl that came from Sasuke’s lips, and turned to Sakura. Should he wake her up? No, she’d just complicate things. And being tied to a log in front of Sasuke might jolt her out of her little day-dreams for once. Let her sweat a little –
-...her fingers damp on his as they twirled on the dance floor, expressing their glee with the pulses of the beat, shaking and jumping, new flap-jackets stiff on their shoulders, as he held her close and their hearts beat a crazy rhythm of their own together, and he saw Sasuke, alone, glaring as he stood by the bar...-
-Behind him he heard a grunt, and turned to see Sasuke struggling out of the hole.
“That was fast,” He observed, letting a little admiration show in his eyes. Damn, that kid was tough!
“Shut up.” Sasuke grunted, brushing himself off. “I don’t want any of your help.”
“Like it or not, you’re gonna get it.” Naruto decided to toughen up a little. “Listen, Sasuke. I’m assuming you’re smart, ‘kay? Think about our situation. Why were we put in teams of three? Especially teams that balance strengths and weaknesses? Because we have to work together. And why would Kakashi not want us to work together?”
“Because...It’s a test.” Sasuke said slowly, then looked at Naruto with something close to respect. “For being dead-last, you’re not half bad, Naruto.”
Naruto grinned. “And for being a self-centered jerk, you aren’t either.”
“I’m not...oh.” Sasuke shrugged. “Uh.”
“Exactly. Now, let’s go get those bells.” Naruto cuffed Sasuke lightly on the shoulder, and led the way back to where Kakashi was standing.
OOO
Once they were hidden behind where Kakashi was, Naruto paused. “So,” he whispered, “Now what?”
“I thought you had a plan!” Sasuke hissed.
“Getting you to agree to work with me WAS my plan!” Naruto hissed back. He paused for a moment, then began to laugh. Sasuke looked pissed. “It’s not funny!”
“Yes it is! Both of us, sitting in the bushes, totally clueless. Who’d have thought?” He giggled again, then stopped, grinning broadly. “Okay, Mr. Uchiha, you’re the best fighter. You distract him, I send two kage bunshin from behind, snag the bells, tie him up, we run like hell. Sound okay?”
Sasuke considered this. “Why don’t you fight him?”
“Because one, you’re faster,” He wasn’t. “And two, I can’t fight as well,” He could. “And three, I’m the one with kage bunshins.” This one was true. Sasuke considered this too. “Alright, dobe, but you’d better keep up.” And he launched himself out of the bushes into Kakashi.
It worked perfectly. Sasuke attacked as ferociously as he could, while Naruto and his clones snuck around the back. Then, just as Kakashi swung his foot up in a kick, Naruto looped his rope over his leg and yanked, sending Kakashi sprawling, as Sasuke and another clone grabbed a bell each and ran. Two more clones sat down on Kakashi’s back, kunais pointed at his neck and skull. The figure of Kakashi poofed into a log just as the knives bit home, and the real Kakashi stepped out from behind a bush, clapping slowly.
“Well done, you two. Training adjourned.”
FOUR

Naruto picked at his lunch moodily, keeping an eye on the still-unconscious Sakura, who had been tied to the log. Sasuke, to all appearances, didn’t even seem to notice, but the very fact that he never even looked at the comatose girl betrayed his anxiety. Kakashi sat on the ground before them, waiting for Sakura to wake up.
She jerked awake with a jolt. “Sasuke-kun!” she screamed, staring around wildly. She took stock of the situation in an instant and sagged against the ropes, shame hanging like a cloud over her face. “I’m sorry...”
“Well, now that you’re all present and accounted for,” Kakashi drawled, “I have some good news and some bad news.”
Naruto glanced up sharply. This was different then last time. Well, none of this was going according to script. He’d have to play it by ear.
Sasuke spoke up. “So what’s the bad news?”
“Good news first: you all have done better than expected...But.”
“But?”
“Not as good as you should. Not nearly. Team work isn’t just picking your favorite friend or the best guy around and having a good time, it’s about using everyone and anyone, no matter how weak they seem, whether you like them or not, no matter if someone ‘better’ pops up. Sometimes it’s just one seemingly unimportant person that can change the course of battle.”
He stood up and walked over to the small, tan rectangle, looking down at it sadly. “Some of those people are on this stone. We call them heroes. But being a hero is different, too. They aren’t the fastest or strongest or smartest- they’re the ones who knew what had to be done, and did it, even though it cost them their lives-
-...Naruto stood, fists clenched, watching the fifth...sixth...seventh Hokage engrave the names: Ten-ten. Choji. Neji. Shino and Kiba. Konohamaru. Too many to name, untill it seemed that infants were being carved there. But always it had been bearable, because Sakura was there, arm around his waist, until she wasn’t there anymore and there was only the slick feel of the bottle in his hand and the fire in his throat, but it wasn’t enough...-
-My best friend is on here.” Kakashi finished, looking back at them, eyes sharpening from their usual casual gaze. Naruto saw the look he’d seen too many times in himself, in the mirror, a layer of tissue-paper casualness masking the diamond-hard anger, like a knife sharpened a little too much by a few too many strokes, and then dropped, falling free. How had he ever missed this the first time? He repressed a shudder and looked away.
“Further news, make of it what you want: more tests after lunch. You all have...potential, so I won’t fail you guys right now. But if you give Sakura anything, I fail you all. That’s what happens to people who sleep on duty.” Kakashi disappeared with a poof.
OOO
They stared at each other for a while after that. Actually, Sakura stared at Sasuke, Sasuke stared at Naruto, and Naruto pretended to look at the sky.
“So.” He said, still addressing the sky. “Now what?”
“We take the tests, dobe, and try damn hard to pass them.”
“Good.” Naruto sat up, took a hold of his kunai, and began sawing at the knots that bound Sakura. She squealed and tried to turn around to see what was happening. “What the hell are you doing, Naruto? You’ll get Sasuke into trouble!” He sighed and glared up at her. “Kakashi never said anything about not untying you, and we can’t have you cramping up.” He turned back to the ropes, trying to ignore the measuring looks both of them gave him.
When the last rope parted, she tottered, momentarily off balance, and he poked the heel of her foot hard enough that she came crashing down...right into Sasuke’s arms, faces inches apart. Naruto smirked at the two cherry-red Gennins and turned his back, munching his rice and trying to ignore the sick, jealous feeling in his stomach. It was what he’d wanted...right?
After a suitable amount of time had passed he turned back, leaned over to Sasuke. “Hey,” he hissed, pocking him in his shoulder.
“What?”
“Well, Sakura’s hungry.”
“And?”
“And feed her, jerk! She’s no good to anyone if she goes woozy, is she?”
“Feed her yourself!”
“Pffff, like she’ll accept any food from me. It’s you feeding her, or bye-bye shiny head-band.”
Sasuke snarled, obviously torn. Naruto could guess his turmoil: Either keep his reputation intact and have to deal with another fainting spell, or feed her and have her cling like a limpet.
“I’ll talk to her, if you want,” Naruto offered. Hope welled in the other boy’s eyes. “You keep her off my back, I’ll feed her.” Sasuke growled, trying to look tough. But as Sasuke explained and began to dish out food for her, trying to look bored, he not-so-absently plopped most of the meat squares into her section, and the chop-sticks shook a little as he did.
Any moment now, Naruto reflected, leaning against the post and watching the two of them try to eat from the same box without touching...Ah, there he was, all of a sudden two inches away from Sakura’s face, glaring even more ferociously than Sasuke could manage. “You all...”
Then the furious expression slid off his face, fast as a summer storm. “Pass!”
OOO
FIVE

OOO
“Wh-what?” Stammered Sakura, franticly trying to hide the lunch.
“You,” Kakashi said, enunciating exaggeratedly, “Pass.”
“But I...broke the rules.”
“As you should have. Ninjas that don’t follow rules are trash, but ninjas that obey them at the expense of their comrades are worse than trash.”
Naruto nodded to himself. He remembered-
-...Choji heaved an unconscious Ino and Shikamaru inside the gates and collapsed, back bristling with arrows and poisoned kunai. All the Jounins came running, frantically checking the three over. ‘What HAPPENED?’ Asuma-Sensei had screamed, kneeling beside Choji. ‘You were under DIRECT orders not to engage the enemy!’ Choji smiled weakly at his two prostrate team-mates and then up at his instructor. ‘I couldn’t...let them...be taken...’ He whispered, and was dead by the next morning...-
-Sasuke spoke up, interrupting Naruto’s thoughts. “Another test, right?”
“Yup.”
“Any more of them?”
“You’ll find out.”
But the few remaining were simple and easy, simply sparring and accuracy tests so that Kakashi could see how far along they were. From the look on his face, they weren’t very. Sasuke and Sakura tried their hardest, but Naruto had to be careful to show only that he was in the middle of their skill- level, and it was over quickly.
He was just leaving, following Sasuke, when he heard Kakashi come up behind him. He’d half-turned around when he saw a black-gloved hand lashing towards him, in a rare sleeping-tiger fist, trailing chakra, that he’d only seen a few times before. He dodged, unconsciously swinging down and into the counter attack, trading four blocks and strikes with Kakashi before he caught himself and jumped into a nearby tree.
“Stop that! You said testing was over!” He yelled, uncomfortably aware that Sasuke was staring at him with a mix of awe and horror.
“I said nothing of the sort, Naruto, merely that you guys were free to go. The testing won’t be over until I know exactly who my new subordinates are.”
“Fat chance!” Naruto called back, and launched himself away, racing back towards the village. Dammnit all, why did it have to be that for all those helpless years his training had deserted him, but now, when it was least wanted, it was all coming back? Fooled by his younger body, his brain was re-teaching itself-
-...He stood on the shattered landscape of rocks over his prone opponent, flap-jacket in rags around him, gasping for breath. A new man stepped onto the field, his face bone-white with a green square around one eye. He sank wearily into yet another stance. But the man began to clap, and the applause was taken up by the dozens of masked figures around the arena. ‘Congratulations, Naruto,’ the man told him, holding out the white mask of a fox in his hands...-
-everything he’d known all over again. Damn, damn, DAMN, how much had Sasuke seen? The boy had always been dangerously power hungry. How could he have endangered his future so easily?
Mind filled with self-recrimination, he didn’t notice where he was until to late, and the Ichiraku’s familiar smells enveloped him in a familiar cloud-
-of red that boiled up behind his eyes as he saw the other casually drop Sakura onto the bar, absently licking his kunai clean, the horizontal slash across his head-band glinting in the dappled light. Naruto’s scream of rage did little to perturb the other’s ghostly calm, and his enemy easily blocked the first, frenzied swings, rewarding each blow with a casual snap of a bone. Naruto eventually crumpled with grief and pain, struggling to attack one more time, but his twisted legs wouldn’t hold him up and he could do nothing but sob out his anger, staring at the dead body of his wife. ‘Why Sakura? Why her?’ The other smirked. ‘Because I always wanted her, but she chose you. Because she wasn’t mine, and should have been. If you hadn’t interfered, she’d be mine, and alive. Think on that, and this.’ He reached down, and sliced Naruto’s right hand off. ‘Try getting me now, Uzumaki.’ He said calmly, sauntering off as Naruto fell down into the blackness of the pain...-
-Sasuke found Naruto standing, stiff as a board, in front of an old noodle place. He wanted to ask Naruto about those impossible moves Naruto had somehow learned but as he reached out to tap him on the shoulder he suddenly found himself rammed against the nearest wall, gasping for air, as Naruto held a kunai to his stomach with his fingers crushing the boy’s windpipe. Sasuke had just enough time to register fear as he saw the other boy’s berserk, crimson-eyed expression, before the blond ninja’s face relaxed, swallowing the rage that had been there behind sapphire eyes brimming with tears. Naruto let Sasuke slide to the ground and turned away, his voice flat and dead.
“Go away, Uchiha Sasuke. I can’t deal with you now.”
“Naruto? Wha-” Naruto whirled around, pointed the kunai between Sasuke’s eyes.
“I said, GO AWAY. Any other time, I’d fine, but this does not happen to BE one of those times and if you don’t leave RIGHT NOW, by god you’ll wish you’d never been born!” Naruto was trembling with suppressed violence. Sasuke was shocked. He’d never even suspected, much less seen, that Naruto could be so powerful. Or angry.
“But-”
“NOW.” Sasuke fled, hating every step. He’d never run before from anything, but something inside of him was screaming that it was not a good idea to attack one’s team-mates, much less one that looked so...angry.
Naruto growled and wandered off, still shaking. He knew he shouldn’t have done that, but he couldn’t help himself. He kept trying to tell himself that the two Sasukes weren’t the same, but for one horrible minute back there he hadn’t cared and just wanted to gut the bastard once and for all.
OOO
Iruka found him that night on the railing of the academy roof, staring at the starry sea of lights.
“Hello, Naruto.”
-...Iruka said, but this time instead of just bringing food or money, he started hoisting Naruto out of the spot behind the trashcans he’d passed out among. “Whaaa?” Naruto mumbled, trying to focus. Iruka had tried this sort of thing before, taking him home and trying to sober him up, but always the pain would outweigh the guilt and Naruto would envemtual escape after ransacking the house. But this time his old teacher seemed more determined. “Leggoame!” Iruka had him balanced on his feet now and was tugging him off to somewhere, seeming more focused than he had in years. “Shtoppit, damnoo, lemmego!” Iruka did, standing over him as he fell. “Naruto. We need you now. You have to do this one last thing for Konoha.” Naruto scowled up from the pavement, trying to concentrate through the haze of cheap sake and self-pity. “Don’havva do nuffin f’r K’noha. Snevvr dunnuffin f’r me.” Iruka sighed, rubbed his forehead. “It’s Sasuke. He’s back.”...-
The boy – if he even was a boy anymore- grunted. Iruka paused, unsure. Would things be different now?
“D’you want to go out for some food?” Naruto flinched, and Iruka felt horrible. “Not ra- I mean, for sashimi or something. I found a good place. The fish is fresh, and they do tricks with it. I was hoping-”
Naruto looked back at him, expression softening. “Sure.”
As they placed their orders and sat down, Iruka studied Naruto closely. On the surface, the boy seemed the same. Same hair, same flamboyant jumpsuit, same height, even. But this new Naruto was different, older and sadder than before. Iruka laid a comforting hand on his shoulder and the boy whipped around, a haunted expression on his face. Seeing Iruka, the expression disappeared, but not gone. Just hidden.
“Are you alright, Naruto?” He asked, feeling like he’d been punched in the gut.
“Never better!” The boy replied, offering up a grin, but the grin was like so many smiles Iruka had seen in the mirror: just a mask, with a boundless pain inside. Iruka halfheartedly gave the same smile back, and they looked away, unconsciously sliding a little closer together. It was enough, Iruka reflected, just to sit there together, even wearing masks.
OOO
OOO
Two days later, the three Gennins met for their fist mission. Sakura showed up a little late, to see Naruto and Sasuke sitting in two different trees, Naruto staring at the sky, Sasuke staring at Naruto. It was...unsettling. It must be Naruto’s fault; how dare he make her Sasuke-kun angry! She jumped into Naruto’s tree, and was drawing in breath to start yelling, when he glanced over at her-
And scooted a little farther away, looking back at the sky again. She deflated, and took a curious step closer. The Naruto she knew would blush and preen to see her pay attention to him. But this time he scooted even further, fetching up against the trunk of the tree with a thump. She glanced at Sasuke-kun: he looked about as surprised as he could show. Naruto’s crush on her was well-known, it had been going on for two years and seven months, not that she was counting. But now...he was acting different.
With a malicious grin, she took another step over to him and sat down, swaying exaggeratedly. He turned, looked at her, and the breath caught in her throat. This...this wasn’t Naruto. Naruto never looked so sad. She froze, captivated by the infinite look of sorrow in his blue, blue eyes. He jumped down, breaking the gaze, and slowly walked off into the forest.
She shuddered, remembering to breathe, and saw Sasuke-kun looking at her. Right at her. Was he...jealous?
Kakashi appeared between them, just before she could say something to Sasuke-kun. Damn! Well, maybe she could do something and impress him on this mission. Or maybe it would be dangerous, and Sasuke would save her and they’d have a Romantic Moment. She smiled, picturing it, and then realized Kakashi was talking.
“...A C-rank mission to start you out with, so I can see how you’re doing. If you fail, it’s D-rank for a month. There is a hidden cache of weapons somewhere in the woods. A Chuunin hid them for future use, but he got drunk and can’t remember where he hid them. I thought that it would be good practice for you. You can start...now. You have until noon, when the second year teams get to start looking.”
She snorted. Simple search and find, who did he think they were? Babies? Well, she’d just find them quickly, and then have more time to spend with Sasuke-kun.
OOO
Two hours later, she was hot, thirsty, and extremely irritated. Where the hell were they? She must have crossed and re-crossed this area a dozen times. Snarling, she leaned against a tree. A nut bounced off her head, and she glared upwards. It was Naruto.
“Naruto, you moron! What the hell was that for?!” Naruto grinned and jumped down beside her.
“Close your eyes for a minute.” He looked intent now, serious. She glared.
“Why, so you could brain me with another nut?” She hissed, and Naruto sighed.
“No real ninja should be able to be hit with a nut, even with their eyes closed.” Damn. He was right. Flushing, she closed her eyes, and felt a cool finger tip between her eyes.
“Follow what I’m doing, Sakura. This is important.” She felt a strange tendril of chakra worm its way in from the point of contact, dipping down, down, into her own pool of it, drawing a loop of her chakra up into her brain, hooking it around a certain point, and withdrawing.
“Don’t open your eyes yet, but do the following hand signs. Concentrate on the loop taking hold, sinking in, twisting the section of your mind to the left. It’s very important that you twist to the left. Now: Bird, horse, bird, ram, dog, bird, tiger...” His voice was calm, almost hypnotic. Frowning, she complied, and felt a lurch of dizziness behind her eyes.
“You can open your eyes now.”
She did, and gasped. The colors of the world were different now, more yellow, more brown, almost like an old photograph. But, turning to look at the tree she was leaning on, she gasped again. It wasn’t there. It was only a thin, blue shell, with a cache of blue-sheathed weapons snared in a glinting sapphire mesh. Whirling around, she saw Naruto smiling gently, a tangle of blue webbing around his own eyes. But...inside of the yellow-tinted young boy was a strange smoky ghost of an older man, hunched, scarred, sorrowful...The yellow-brown boy Naruto tapped her forehead again, and the ghost disappeared as the world popped back into dazzling color.
“It’s called the Golden Lotus Root no jitsu. Lets you see through illusion. Pretty advanced Chuunin level genjitsu, can you do it again?” He asked, still smiling, and she wanted to hit him. Could SHE do it again? Second-highest in the graduating class? Top of the class in chakra manipulation? Of course she could. Frowning, she attempted to recreate the tendril, draw it into her mind, twist- she lost hold of it. She tried again, and again, and then again, but it was like trying to squeeze greased soap. The little loop of chakra she needed to grasp kept slipping out of her mental hold. She glared down at him.
“Well, don’t just stand there being stupid, help me!” She snapped. Naruto looked surprised.
“You almost had it, Sakura. You just squeezed too hard. It’s not like pulling a string, it’s like moving an arm.”
She considered this, and tried again. Like moving an arm...It worked this time, grabbing hold of her mind, twisting left, left ... hand-signs...Bird-horse-bird-ram-dog-boar-tiger-
Triumphant, she opened her eyes to a sepia-toned world. “Hah!” Naruto laughed, and she smiled too, giddy with success. Wouldn’t Sasuke-kun be impressed! Turning back to the ‘tree’, she paused, inspected it. It wasn’t a shell at all, but a mesh...Before she could talk herself out of it, she stuck a finger through, tugging the mesh apart into a much larger hole, then reaching her arm in and tugging the bundle of explosion-tags out. Releasing the jitsu, she saw a gaping, transparent hole in the tree before Naruto completed his last hand-sign and the illusion vanished.
“Where’d you learn that, Naruto? All the Lotus jitsus are classified to non-Chuunins!” She asked, a new respect in her voice. Naruto turned to her and she saw something of the prankster she knew dancing in his eyes.
“Here and there,” He grinned evasively, and began walking back to the meeting spot. “C’mon, we gotta get back soon. I’m sure Sasuke’s gonna be impressed.”
Sasuke-kun! She remembered, and all questions of the Lotus jitsu were swept away in very pleasant day-dreaming.
OOO
She arrived with Naruto walking behind her, and waited, lost in thought -and fantasy- until noon, when a very irritated Sasuke showed up. She perked up, and moved the bundle to a little more prominent spot on her lap. Sasuke glanced over, a faint surprise registering on his face. This was it, he’d come over and tell her how impressed he was, and she’d show him her new jitsu and he’d ask to learn it and they’d train together at night under the stars and maybe he’d-
Sasuke turned away, walked over to Naruto. She growled, leaning back against the tree. Maybe he just didn’t see her, she tried to tell herself. She watched Sasuke talk, a strange, intent look on his face. Naruto seemed casual, brushing Sasuke’s questions aside. Finally he grinned and punched Sasuke’s shoulder lightly and- did Sasuke actually shyly smile back? She saw his lips frame the word ‘dobe,’ and Naruto’s the word ‘jerk,’ but he walked off a little way with Naruto and began practicing some tai-jitsu thing, looking
She’d never seen him, she realized, when he wasn’t on edge, when he wasn’t guarded. She heaved a deep sigh, watching Naruto’s hands on Sasuke’s, correcting, demonstrating, and wished that he looked like that when she came near, like she hade something amazing to tell him. But she didn’t, and he didn’t.
She had nothing to give that he wanted.

WTF 27: Spies and Agents

2007-09-26T23:52:30Z

JTHM Fandom.

<lj-cut>

Disney Dorkery: part twoooo

2007-08-02T07:52:32Z

So I wanted to do something with Ursula. I took a 100-word prompt table and randomly paired the words up. This is what has come out of it:

Disney Dorkery

2007-07-25T07:17:12Z

Disney, or something like it.

WTF27: Trading Places

2007-07-24T18:04:06Z

Prompt 17: Trading Places
Fandoms: JTHM
Rating : R, for swearing. And, you know, death.
Author's Note: Can't think of anything.