Gundam Wing Fan Fiction / Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Red and Blue Makes Purple ❯ Monument Chatter ( Chapter 13 )

A/N: Hey, shiny new chapter. Yay. Matches my shiny new glasses. My old pair decided to break yesterday morning, snapped cleanly in half. I’m absolutely blind without them, where I’m likely to run into or start conversations with support beams. Fun. So, thank the kami for one hour glasses companies. Cheers. So, I hope you enjoy the new chapter. Read and review!

“Red and Blue Makes Purple”

Chapter Thirteen

Monument Chatter

It was after only a couple of hours of uneasy sleep that Duo woke up again,

knowing pretty much immediately that he wasn’t going to be able to drift of again any time soon. Silently, he ghosted across the room, easing the door open without a sound. Pressing an ear to Sasuke’s door, he heard the steady breathing of sleep.

Growing up on the streets followed by countless missions had taught him to move swiftly and unnoticed, as proven by the way he passed from the house and through the gates of the clan district. It was by following a half-formed memory that he traveled directly to the trail leading up the Hokage monument, leaving him standing atop the head that looked like him.

The view was spectacular, with the village’s night time lamps lip and sparkling from the shadows. From the lit windows of the Hokage tower, he figured the old lady was still up and working. Maybe he should introduce her to Une.

Duo shivered, wishing that it was just the wind. Looking about the place, he was as comfortable as on any of the Sweepers’ ships, where he trusted himself to walk around with his nose in some new toy’s manual without getting hurt or lost. It was a level of comfort that he should not feel in a strange place!

Wrapped up in his thoughts, he didn’t notice another presence as it watched him pace upon the stone head, muttering to himself in several different languages.

“Can’t sleep?”

With a yelp, he spun around and dropped into a defensive position, groping fro knives that weren’t there. Hands up and empty, Iruka stepped from the shadows. Duo relaxed, standing. “Yeah. How’d you sneak up on me?”

Iruka smiled, moving forward to sit closer to the edge. “I may be a teacher and out of most of the action, but I am a shinobi.”

“Point,” Duo said. He flopped down next to the man with the ponytail. “Still, I’m supposed to be the sneaky one. During the war, I was the stealth specialist. People are not supposed to be able to sneak up on me. Heero can’t sneak up on me!”

“I take it that this Heero is a generally sneaky man,” Iruka said. Duo nodded. “He’s your friend?”

“Right, you weren’t there when we said earlier, the braided boy said, remembering. “Heero’s my best friend. Always has my back, you know? We moved in together a bit over a year ago. I’d show you what he looked like, but Quatre took his picture with him. But knowing his over-protective nature of late, you’ll meet him tomorrow.”

Smiling, Iruka turned away from Duo to stare out across the village. “Is he only a friend?”

The shove was predictable. “You’re as bad as Quatre or Howard. And yes, at the moment, he’s just a friend.”

“I heard that conditional.”

Duo hugged his knees to his chest, wishing he’d brought a blanket with him. He stared thoughtfully at a scar he’d gotten across the backs of is fingers learning how to knife fight with Solo. “He’s been courting me, I guess you could say. I like him well enough, but there’s… something in me that calls for something else. Unfortunately, I have no clue what that is.”

“Could it be someone you grew up with?” Iruka asked. “Supposing that it is a person.”

“Hope not,” Duo said quietly. “Everyone I knew growing up is dead.”

When Iruka turned to comfort the other man, he gasped. A stranger was sitting where his conversation partner had been, wearing his clothes and hairstyle. Wiry muscle replaced Naruto’s bulkier form, and the visible skin was Uchiha pale instead of tan. The braid had darkened from blond to deep chestnut, messy bangs showcasing tired eyes that were still the same unique violet. Oddly enough, his cheeks were also still marked by Naruto’s whisker scars.

“What is it?” Duo asked, blinking at him.

Wordless, Iruka pulled out a kunai, angling it so that the other could see his own reflection. Violet eyes widened and Duo jumped up, letting out a cheer. “Yaha! Shinigami is back!”

“Shinigami?” Iruka asked, wide-eyed.

Duo dipped into an odd sort of sweeping bow. “That’s me, mad killer of the colonies, when everyone who saw me died under my scythe. Got promoted from being Maxwell’s demon. Don’t worry, I’m retired from that job. Need to talk to G about my pension though.”

Understanding, Iruka laughed and accepted the silent offer for help up. “Interesting moniker to live under, and very bold for a shinobi.”

“G used it once and I guess it stuck,” Duo said with a careless shrug. “So, mind helping me get back to the teme’s place? I kinda wasn’t paying attention when I came out this way.”

“Snuck out?” the teacher asked with a raised eye-brow. “You’re not a shinobi back home, are you?”

“Na, just your run of the mill Gundam pilot,” Duo said cheerfully, peering over the carved cliff. “Sheesh, that’s a long way down. Hey, what do you think you’re doing?”

Smiling innocently, Iruka was walking backwards toward the cliff. Duo dashed forward to grab him, but was too late and watched in horror as the man disappeared over the edge. He shook off his shock and crawled forward to peer down, expecting to see a mangled body down on the ground. Instead, he came face to face with the grinning Iruka.

He blinked, rubbing his eyes. But nothing had changed. Iruka was crouching on the cliff face, body perpendicular with the stone, as if he was on a normal floor.

“Something wrong?” he asked.

Duo worked his jaw soundlessly. “I don’t know whether to kill you for scaring me or make you teach me that trick.”

Laughing, Iruka turned his back to Duo. “Here, get on and I’ll carry you down. It’s a lot shorter trip than the trail.”

“Yeah, especially if we fall,” Duo said, only half joking. Deciding that his instincts to trust people usually weren’t wrong (but there was a first time for everything), he slid forward to ease down onto the other’s back, wrapping his legs tightly around his waist and clinging to his neck as much as he could without strangling the man. “Alright. Drop me and I’m so haunting your ass for the rest of your life.”

“I drop you and once Sasuke and your friend Heero hear, that rest of my life won’t be very long.”