Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Blood Stained Hands ❯ Broken Shadow ( Chapter 5 )

Chapter Five: Broken Shadow

 

“You have to eat something, Naruto.”

 

“I'm not hungry,” came an empty reply.

 

Sasuke had to resist the urge to heave a frustrated sigh. Naruto sat half-reclined in bed, listlessly poking at a tray of food a nurse had brought him a few minutes before. Despite his emaciated state and obvious need for nourishment, the boy stared at the food with such bland disinterest one would have wondered if he even knew what it was. Everyone knew hospitals were not know for their cuisine, but for a boy who'd been known to put several servings of food away in less time than it took another person to get through one, his lack of enthusiasm was somehow a disturbing sight.

 

“Naruto, you have to eat. You're too thin,” Sasuke persisted, only barely able to keep the underlying sea of worry from leaking into his voice. “Tsunade said you might not feel like eating, but that's only because you haven't eaten in so long your stomach doesn't know its hungry anymore. If you eat a little you'll get your appetite back.”

 

Naruto just shook his head and weakly pushed the tray table away from him, as if repulsed by what sat on top of it. “No. I can't…” he murmured and settled back against the bed. Closing his eyes, he pulled the layers of blankets closer around him, cocooning himself in their warmth.

 

Bundled the way he was, Sasuke couldn't help but think how small his friend looked - like he was nothing but a tiny mound in a sea of sterile white bedding.

 

Sighing under his breath Sasuke moved to the far side of the room and leaned against one of the windows, his arms crossed in front of his chest. Outside, early morning sunlight bathed the rooftops of Konoha in a wash of gold and yellow. But despite the warm light streaming into the room, Sasuke felt cold inside.

 

Naruto had been like this all morning - distant and disturbingly quiet. He'd barely been able to get several words out of the boy. Since finding him the day before, Naruto had spent most of the time sleeping, as if too weak to do anything else. Iruka had barely been able to get him into the bathroom and wash all the months of dirt and grim from him before he'd fallen into an exhausted, coma-like sleep. Tsunade said such a thing was to be expected considering how weak and malnourished Naruto was, but still Sasuke was unsettled by his friend's unfamiliar state of weakness.

 

Although showered and dressed in clean hospital-issue pajama pants and T-shirt, Naruto somehow looked worse now than he did when Sasuke first burst into the room and found him huddled in the corner. No longer masked by layers of dirt, the bruises covering Naruto's arms and body were now painfully visible. They stood out against his sickly pale skin in violent patches of purple and faded green. Dark shadows ringed empty blue eyes, while an oppressive air of hopelessness seemed to surround the faded remains of the once happy, energetic boy.

 

Tsunade and Gaara had left not long after Sasuke arrived the day before - both being called away to deal with the aftermath of the Akatsuki raid. Jiraiya and Kakashi had stayed a little longer, but they too eventually drifted off. Iruka had stayed the longest - hovering by Naruto's bedside and comforting his spiritually wounded student as best he could. It was only after some tactful convincing on Sasuke's part that the chuunin finally agreed to leave for the night and return the next morning.

 

And so, as the sun sank below the horizon and night stole over the land, Sasuke finally found himself blissfully alone with his resurrected teammate and able to contemplate the reality of his friend's return. In some distant corner of his mind he still couldn't believe Naruto was alive. It just seemed like too incredible a thing to be real. After finding his friend's mangled body and spending so many nights of lonely torment and guilt replaying that one image over and over in his head, the possibility he might yet have another chance to protect his friend was like some kind of fantastic dream.

 

As if afraid he might suddenly wake up from that dream, Sasuke didn't sleep at all that night, and instead sat up near the window watching the gentle rise and fall of his teammate`s chest - reassuring himself with every breath Naruto took that what he saw was really real. It was only when the first traces of the sun's orange glow began to warm the eastern corner of the sky that Sasuke finally allowed himself to believe the truth of the matter: his friend was still alive, and this time nothing short of death itself was going to stop him from protecting Naruto from Akatsuki and anyone else that tried to hurt him…

 

A tentative knock at the door suddenly startled Sasuke back to the present. Naruto also heard it and groggily pushed himself up to sit.

 

Sasuke was at Naruto's bedside in half a heartbeat, his hand unconsciously straying to the kunai in his leg holster. Whoever was at the door was not Tsunade, Jiraiya, or even one of the hospital's doctors that had the Hokage`s permission to enter; they would have all just walked in. No, whoever was at the door was someone else, and Sasuke wasn't about to take any chances…

 

“Who is it?” he demanded.

 

The door slowly swung open to reveal a wall of faces crowded together in the doorway. Sasuke immediately recognized their unexpected visitors.

 

It was the Rookie Nine. And if he was not mistaken he also saw Gai-sensei's team - Tenten, Neji, and Rock Lee - standing just behind the others in the hallway.

 

All of them stared into the room with hesitant, dubious expressions, as if unsure of what they were going to find inside. But as their eyes slowly came to rest on the frail blond figure in bed, their expressions - like a wave passing through the group - all morphed into ones of stunned disbelief. Sasuke saw Chouji's jaw actually drop, a half-eaten potato chip hanging from the corner of his mouth.

 

Sakura - standing at the front of the group - took several hesitant steps into the room, her bright green eyes locked on Naruto. The others followed her inside and stood in a small semi-circle near the door, staring at the resurrected shinobi as if unable to believe what they saw. For a moment, total silence reigned. But then, as if coming out of some kind of trace, Sakura took another step towards the bed, tears glistening wetly in her eyes.

 

“Naruto…” she whispered, her voice shaking with emotions. “It's really you… You're still alive…” A single tear flashed down her cheek. Then, with no more warning, the pink-haired koinoichi launched herself at her former teammate, wrapping him in a crushing embrace. She buried her face in his neck, hugging him tightly as ragged sobs shook her frame.

 

“Sakura,” Naruto choked, but did nothing to free himself from the koinoichi's embrace.

 

“You're still alive,” she cried, tears now streaming down her face. “We all thought you were dead. I didn't know what to think when Tsunade said you were still alive. At first I thought it was just some kind of cruel joke, but now-” She broke off with a hiccupped sob, clutching Naruto as if afraid he might suddenly disappear. “You're still alive…” she whispered, almost as if trying to convince herself what she said was true. “H-how is this possible?”

 

Naruto however said nothing in way of explanation, and silently returned Sakura's embrace - slowly wrapping his wire-thin arms around her as he greedily accepted her offered comfort and warmth.

 

By now the others had begun to huddle around the bed, all of them jockeying for position to see the blond. Sakura slowly released Naruto and sat back on the edge of the mattress, her eyes still glued on her resurrected teammate. Her eyes were red and cheeks wet with tears.

 

“I still can't believe you're alive…” she whispered, holding Naruto's hand tightly in her own as if unwilling to let him go.

 

“This is impossible,” Kiba said from the foot of the bed. His eyes were wide as he stared at Naruto, as if he were really seeing a ghost. “I was there when we found your body. How are you still alive?”

 

“Shadow clone,” Naruto rasped. His already shadowed eyes suddenly became distant, haunted by unwanted memories. His whole demeanor became guarded, as if withdrawing into himself for protection. “Akatsuki made some kind of new jutsu that kept it from disappearing. They didn`t want anyone coming after me…”

 

A heavy silence descended upon the room, Naruto's words ringing loudly in everyone's ears.

 

“Gods, you're so troublesome,” Shikamaru finally murmured -breaking the tense silence - but it lacked any actual feeling. His eyes were sorrowful as he stared at Naruto, as if he somehow already knew what the other shinobi had suffered at his captors' hands.

 

“How did you all get in here?” Sasuke took the opportunity to demand, suspiciously eyeing the group of intruders. “Tsunade had guards posted at each end of the hallway. No one except authorized people are allowed in here to see Naruto.”

 

“We were given special permission to visit him,” Neji replied, his eyes narrowing darkly at the other boy. “Would you like to see the note the Hokage gave us?”

 

Sasuke didn't deem such a question worthy of an answer and silently glared at the Hyuuga prodigy, seething inwardly the entire time.

 

“How are you here by the way?” Neji continued. “I would have thought only close friends of Naruto would be allowed in here to see him…”

 

“I've been ordered to watch over him and act as his personal bodyguard,” Sasuke hissed, feeling the hackles rise on the back of his neck.

 

Neji wasn't the only one to look at him in skeptical surprise. Sasuke had to fight back the urge to throw all of them out of the room right then and there. Apparently even after all this time, none of them had forgotten his past transgressions against Naruto when he'd tried to leave the village.

 

Ignoring Sasuke and her cousin, Hinata tentatively stepped closer to Naruto's bed. “How are you feeling?” she asked, her timid voice trembling with half a dozen different emotions. Her pupil-less eyes were watery, her features twisted with despair as she stared at her childhood crush. “You look so thin…”

 

Naruto tried to give a reassuring smile but it came out more like a pained grimace. “I'm fine,” he said. But everyone knew it was a lie. It would have been impossible for them not to see the haunted look shadowing Naruto's face, his emaciated body, or the lusterless blue voids that had become his eyes. No longer was there any hint of happiness or mirth in the young shinobi's voice. Compared to the Naruto they once knew, this boy was nothing but a withered shadow of the hyperactive whirlwind. It was almost like the Naruto they once knew had died and all that remained was this pitiful, broken shell.

 

“We brought you something to welcome you back with,” Lee took the opportunity to announce. He carefully edged his way to Naruto's bedside and placed a large covered bowl on the tray stand beside Naruto`s uneaten breakfast. He rolled the table in front of Naruto and took the cover off. A cloud of stream billowed up off its contents. “We stopped by Ichiraku before we came and got you a bowl of ramen,” he excitedly explained. “When the owner heard it was for you, he was very nice and packed it so we could bring it to you. It's miso. I hope that is alright. We did not know if you really had a preference. Here,” he said, pulling a pair of wooden chopsticks out of his pocket and snapping them apart, “you'll need these.” Fitting the chopsticks into Naruto's hand, he then leaned back, a satisfied smile on his face.

 

Everyone expectantly stared at Naruto, waiting for him to dig in.

 

For a long moment of silence Naruto just sat there, emptily staring into the bowl of noodles. His eyes were distant, as if actually looking at something a million miles away. There was no spark of excitement, no sign he even recognized what his friends had brought him. It was like he couldn't even bring himself to care.

 

“Thanks, guys,” he weakly murmured, setting the chopsticks down beside the bowl and pushing the tray away, “but I'm really not hungry. Maybe later…”

 

It was in that instant that everyone knew something was wrong - something horribly, unspeakably wrong. Never before had Naruto ever refused ramen. It was like the sun suddenly deciding to rise in the west. It just wasn`t right!

 

Leaning back against the pillows, Naruto pulled the blankets closer, huddling in them for warmth while his friends all looked on in confused, frightened worry. This wasn't right. What could Akatsuki have done to their friend that he no longer cared for ramen? What'd happened that he'd been turned into this defeated shadow of his former self? But probably the biggest question on everyone's mind: was there anything they could do to bring the boy they once knew back?

 

oooooo

 

Shadows seemed to seep from the very walls of the cave. A single torch burned in the middle of the chamber, creating a small pool of flickering light. Beyond that patch of light stood an impenetrable wall of darkness. The air was cold. Somewhere in the distance, the echo of dripping water could be heard. Slowly, out of the oppressive gloom, a group of dark figures appeared and came to stand in a small circle around the torch. Their cloud-embossed cloaks whisked harshly over the rocky ground.

 

“We estimate more than one hundred of our ninjas were either captured or killed in the attack,” one figure with thick crisscrosses of stitches lining his face said, his voice muffled by the high collar of his cloak. “Leaf and Sand caught us off guard. We did not think Konoha would be strong enough to try and mount an attack, or that they would enlist Sand's help in doing so.”

 

“I don't care about those kind of losses,” hissed another figure, this one wreathed in dark shadows despite the torchlight so that none of his features were visible. “Akatsuki has never had trouble recruiting new agents. What I want to know is how we managed to lose the Kyuubi vessel. We were almost successful in breaking the Fourth's seal in our last ceremony. The boy's hold on the seal is beginning to weaken. He may have resisted all our attempts to release Kyuubi so far, but he is close to breaking. I want him back before he regains his strength and is able to fight the Seal Breaking again.”

 

“The brat will be more heavily guarded now than he was the last time we tried to kidnap him,” Deidara said. “The Hokage will no doubt have put an entire squad of ANBU on him.”

 

“I don't care,” their leader hissed through the dark mantel of shadows shrouding him. “I want that demon vessel back.” He slowly turned to the one standing beside him. “Uchiha, I want you and Kisame to recapture the boy. He shouldn't prove too much of a problem himself; he only barely survived the last ceremony. He will be in no shape to fight back.”

 

“And if we come across any guards?” Itachi asked.

 

Their leader's eyes narrowed, his voice ringing ominously through the inky darkness of the cave. “Kill them…”

 

To Be Continued…

 

 

Short chapter, I know, but I felt it was necessary to have a little transition chapter before all hell breaks out. Any thoughts on this latest chapter?

 

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