Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Duality ❯ Raging Waves ( Chapter 13 )

Chapter Thirteen: Raging Waves

It was a few days after his last trip to Konoha that Saburo found himself walking back. At the gate, he hesitated, remembering what had brought him here.

-

Kain threw the crutches onto the ground angrily. “I’m not using these things! It’s embarrassing.”

Saburo was thoroughly frustrated with his teacher at this point. “I told you, your leg still has a lot of healing to do. If you insist on attacking, you need to use those. It’s not like they’ll hinder you or anything.”

The older man gazed at Saburo’s own uninjured form distastefully. Saburo’s aloof and cold attitude toward him was angering him more and more with each passing day. He consoled himself with the fact that he could bring his student down on his knees with a single flick of his wrist, if he so chose. Kain just didn’t want to break Saburo’s spirit. His disobedience gave him character, made him interesting. He was a valuable asset. Reminding himself of these things helped calm him.

Kain smirked. “Well, why don’t you make yourself useful instead of drinking yourself into liver failure?”

-

Saburo closed his eyes and inhaled the sharp morning air. He did not want to do this. He did not want to disturb Sekai and Yume’s happiness.

But he had no choice. This was all he had. He wasn’t like Sekai; if he threw this life away, there was nothing else for him. He hated Kain, but he still loved him too. That was all he had in the world.

I’m sorry, Sekai.

-

The sound of cereal pouring into bowls was interrupted by a sharp tapping against the window. Sasuke glanced up and saw there was a hawk perched outside the kitchen window, poking the glass with its beak.

Curious, Sasuke walked over to the window and slid it open. The bird handed him a scroll and abruptly flew away. He watched it go before looking down at the scroll in his hands.

It was covered in sand and blood.

Unrolling it revealed the message inside. It was very short and written in red, angry ink.

Uchiha Sasuke,

Hurt him and this is what will happen to you.

- Kazekage

Sasuke understood the meaning right away and walked into his bedroom with the message. “Naruto,” he called out dryly. “Gaara of the Sand wants to kill me again.” He had started getting threats from people he didn’t even know now, like the Third Hokage’s grandson. The threats had long since ceased to surprise him.

Naruto stuck his head out the shower curtain, wet hair plastered to his face. “Huh?” His nose wrinkled cutely in confusion. “Did you get stronger again without telling me? Geez, Sasuke, you’re worse than a shoujo anime!”

Sasuke held up the note for him to see. Naruto squinted at it, then shut off the shower and stepped out of the bathroom, not even bothering to grab a towel. Not that Sasuke was at all averse to this.

Naruto frowned at the note. “Wait… Gaara knows about us too?”

Sasuke didn’t take his eyes off the wet blond’s muscular frame. “I guess so,” he said unenthusiastically.

“But, how?”

“Maybe Shikimaru told Temari.”

“Oh… Sasuke, you do know my eyes are up here, right?”

Sasuke finally looked up. “You walk out naked and wet, then expect me not to look?” he asked wryly.

Naruto smirked, tossed the letter from Gaara onto the floor, and dragged the Uchiha into the bathroom without further ado.

-

Across the village, three girls and one boy crowded inside of a small dressing room.

“It’s about time we got you some other clothes,” Sakura said as she tightened the obi around Sekai’s waist. “Especially underwear. You can’t keep sharing Naruto’s forever.”

“Yeah,” Ino added playfully. “Naruto’s hips are bigger than yours.” She was there only because she’d had nothing better to do today, and Sakura had invited her along.

Sekai flushed. “I can’t help being stunted.”

“Well, not a lot of guys could pull your wardrobe off,” Ino offered. “So really, you’re lucky.” She didn’t know why, but helping Sekai dress hadn’t been that embarrassing. Sekai was like one of the girls.

This was Sekai’s first time wearing a kimono. He was grateful for the help, even when they teased him. “I guess… This thing has so many layers. It looked cuter on the rack. I feel like an onion.”

Sakura ran an admiring hand over the cloth. It was dark blue, with a lighter blue flower pattern toward the bottom. “You look good in it though.”

“We should do something with his hair too,” Ino added excitedly.

Sekai flushed. “Did you play dress up with dolls when you were younger?”

Yume giggled from her place on the ground. Though she couldn’t see it, she could tell her friend was uncomfortable with the attention. “Don’t complain. You wanted it, so suffer.”

Sekai pouted. “Yume-chan…”

“It’s a shame you can’t wear anything but blue,” Ino noted. “Red clashes with your hair, pink looks too feminine, and black makes you look like a vampire.” Sekai lacked his younger brother’s tanned skin. Naruto could pull off brighter or darker colors. Though perhaps orange wasn’t entirely safe for a ninja to wear…

“And white doesn’t bring out his eyes,” Sakura added.

Ino nodded. “Right.”

Sekai sighed. “It’s really not my fault,” he complained.

“Hold still or I’ll mess this up,” Sakura said as she began pinning up Sekai’s golden locks.

“Yes, yes.” Sekai assented to the treatment, having no choice in the matter.

-

Hinata was on her way out of the clothing store when she noticed a familiar face sitting outside of the girls’ dressing rooms. “Sai-san? What are you doing here?” She had heard that no one in Naruto’s group was supposed to be on their own, so it concerned her to see Sai sitting there by himself.

Sai smiled at the girl politely. “Waiting. Everyone’s in there.” He pointed to the dressing rooms. “We’re getting Sekai some new clothes. My job is to offer a second opinion after Sekai tries something on.”

Hinata smiled back. “Oh, I see! But… Shouldn’t Sekai be in the men’s dressing room?”

“This one was closer,” Sai admitted. The men’s section was on the other side of the store.

Hinata knew very well the outfits Sekai wore. It was kind of hard to miss. “But shouldn’t he get some masculine clothes as well?”

“He says he wouldn’t wear them,” Sai explained cheerfully. The most masculine thing he had ever seen Sekai wearing were boxers. “Sekai likes girl clothes. He says they’re cuter than the stuff for boy’s.”

“I… see…” Hinata collected herself. “Well, I’ll be going now. Tell Sekai-kun and everyone I said hello.”

Sai nodded. “Have a nice day, Hinata-san.”

“You as well, Sai-san.”

It wasn’t long afterwards when Sekai at last reemerged from the dressing room. Sai could only stare—Sekai had always seemed beautiful to him, but now the effect was amplified by the finely tailored dress and pinned up hair.

“Well? What do you think?” Ino urged Sai.

“We think he looks great,” Sakura said.

Sai finally remembered how to form words and sentences. “Yes...” he said to Sekai. “You look great.”

Sekai flushed deeply in pleasure, his eyes downcast in shyness. “I feel like an onion. It took forever to get me into this thing.”

A previously unnoticed impulse materialized from the depths of Sai’s mind, coming into the forefront of his thoughts with startling intensity. He wanted to take the kimono off. He wanted to unwrap Sekai like a Christmas present. Carefully, slowly revealing every inch of skin underneath the blue cloth, because Sekai looked very fragile right then.

Ino smirked at the bowled over expression on Sai’s face. “I think this one’s a winner,” she told Sakura.

Sakura nodded in full agreement.

-

Shikimaru gazed at the blonde girl from across the shogi board, surprised with her last admission. “You told your brother?”

Temari grinned. “It was too much of a temptation. I had to.”

“What did he do?”

“He sent Uchiha a threatening letter. I think, anyway. He wouldn’t show it to anyone.”

Shikimaru snorted. “At this rate, Naruto’s parents are going to come back from the dead just to threaten Sasuke. It’s almost a sport.”

Temari laughed. “Well, it’s a good thing Gaara got over his crush on Naruto recently and started dating that Rock Lee kid, or it would have been more than a letter.”

In his shock, Shikimaru dropped the game piece in his hand. “Wait… Lee and Gaara are together?”

Temari blinked mock-innocently. “I didn’t mention that?”

“No!”

“Oh. Well, I meant to.”

Shikimaru glared at her lightly before moving to pick up the piece he’d dropped.

Temari grabbed his wrist. “Nuh huh. No take-backs.”

“That was an accident!”

“Too bad. It still counts.”

Shikimaru pulled his hand from the girl’s grasp. “Why do I always get the bossy girls?”

Temari grinned. “It’s that winning personality of yours.”

“Humph. It’s your turn.”

-

This looks like a good spot, Saburo decided and sat down in the middle of the well-tended garden. It belonged to one of the upper-class citizens of the village and it was very large. He sat in the shade of a willow tree and activated his talismans.

No later was a large portion of Konoha covered in a maze of hedges and stone walls. By the time anyone noticed it was too late.

-

Sakura opened her eyes when she heard a girl’s scream. Only a moment before she had been standing in the clothing store with her friends. Now she was in a grassy meadow surrounded by some sort of stone fence. Trees were scattered around, trees like she’d never seen before. The trunks were huge, like the size of a house, and the leaves were purple. Thunder clouds were building in the sky.

There was another scream and Sakura ran toward the sound. Behind one of those humongous trees she saw Yume being held at the ankle by some creature. Its figure was vaguely human, but it had no distinguishing features, and its skin looked vaguely rock. The moment Sakura emerged on the scene, it turned toward her.

“Yume-chan, hold on!” Sakura shouted.

“Sakura-chan!” Yume sobbed, relieved. “It’s a golem! It’s made of rock! Punch it with all your strength!”

Sakura nodded and ran toward the golem, not questioning how Yume could possibly know what it was that had her. With the strength she’d learned from Tsunade, she swung at the thing’s belly.

There was an uneasy moment when nothing happened and Sakura was sure she’d made a terrible mistake getting so close to the golem, when it abruptly crumbled, rocks and sand falling to the grass. Sakura caught Yume before she could hit the ground as well.

Yume wrapped her arms around Sakura’s neck. “Quickly! It regenerates!”

“Huh!?” Sakura looked back on the ground, and sure enough, the rock creature was slowly reforming itself from the feet up, like invisible hands molding clay. She took Yume’s advice and ran, heading toward the meadow’s exit.

More golems appeared, emerging from the walls. They did not run, but their long strides seemed to be able to keep up unerringly with Sakura as she ran.

“What is this place?” Sakura gasped. “How do you know what they are?”

Yume bit her bottom lip. “Sakura-chan, tell me. The trees. Are they gray?”

Sakura frowned. “No. Purple.”

The blind girl let out a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness. This is sort of an illusionary technique created long ago by the Talisman Users. It’s very powerful and can encircle miles of territory if the user is strong enough, but it takes an incredible amount of concentration to keep up. The golems are one of two traps you’ll find inside.”

“Why did you want to know if they were gray?” Sakura asked, almost dreading the answer.

“The trees take on the user’s favorite color. It’s like a signature. Sekai’s is blue, Saburo-kun is purple, and Kain-sama is gray.”

If it had been gray, we would have been in bigger trouble, Sakura realized.

Yume continued. “When Kain taught this to Sekai, I was caught inside. I recognize the smell!”

Then the pink-haired girl gasped as she realized the exit was slowly becoming smaller—not because they were moving away from it, but because it was closing. The golems were also closing in on them.

Sakura jumped the last few feet and barely made it through before the walls slammed shut.

Outside, the kunoichi got to her feet and looked around, only to be surprised again. They were standing atop a flight of stairs that led down to what appeared to be a very, very large maze.

“I think you need to explain this technique to me in more detail,” Sakura managed to say as she began walking, carrying Yume on her back.

-

In a different section of the labyrinth, Sekai and Sai stood back to back as they faced off against a rather large group of golems.

“So this is a maze?” Sai asked conversationally.

“Of sorts,” Sekai answered. “It’s a bit of a mind fuck really. Not too unlike the Mangekyo Sharingan, from what I hear. It’s more of a tactical move; I prefer more straightforward attacks.”

Sai smiled. “Like your brother.”

Sekai grinned back. “Hey, can you cover me for a second?”

“Of course.” Sai didn’t know what he had in mind, but when Sekai took off in the direction of a nearby fountain, he immediately stepped around and activated his Choju Giga technique. Tigers leapt from his scroll and began mauling the golems.

“Try to keep them from regenerating!” Sekai called. He jumped into the fountain and stepped onto the water, easily floating above it with chakra.

“Do you have an idea?” Sai asked. There was a keen look in Sekai’s blue eyes. Naruto often got that look when he was plotting something he thought was clever.

“Sort of. I’ve been thinking about it for a while since Kakashi-sama started teaching me elemental jutsu.” Sekai brought his hands together to form seals, murmuring lowly under his breath.

Sai watched as talismans appeared around Sekai’s body and the water rose out of the fountain to surround the blond’s body until there wasn’t a drop left. Then Sekai thrust his hands outward as if he were throwing something bodily away from himself. The water jutted forward and splashed the crumbled golems—and Sai.

Sekai, whose kimono was completely dry, flushed. “Er, sorry. I need to work on my direction…”

The golems, which had been in the midst of reforming themselves even with the ink tigers attacking them, slumped to the ground in muddy lumps.

Sai smiled and smoothed back his wet hair. “You merged a water jutsu with water talismans,” he noted approvingly.

Sekai beamed warmly at the tone. “Normally the talismans don’t carry a lot of water. I’ll need to power them up more in the future. But, that’s why I used the water in the fountain. That, and it looked cooler, don’t you think?” he asked cheekily.

Looking at that cheeky smile, as if they weren’t in an incredibly dangerous situation, Sai thought that he’d still like to take the kimono off the blond. How odd.

“Anyway,” Sekai went on, “we need to get to the center. The only way to stop this is to find Saburo and he’ll be in the center of the maze.”

Sai looked around at all the different directions they could take. “Which way do we go?”

“Er, that’s the problem.”

“Problem?”

“Yeah.” Sekai shuffled his feet sheepishly. “Every maze is different and it changes all the time.”

“Oh dear,” Sai murmured as he saw the ‘problem.’

Sekai nodded. “Yeah.” He brightened. “Well, let’s get started!”

-

Sasuke approached a familiar set of doors. He stopped before them, staring at them for a long moment before finally pushing them open. Inside was a sight he knew would be there.

His brother Itachi stood over the bodies of his recently murdered parents.

“Why are you so weak?” Itachi’s voice echoed in his mind.

Sasuke snorted and gazed at the scene distastefully with glowing red eyes, his Sharingan long-since activated. “Please. If you’re going to torture me mentally, pick something more original, would you?” he asked whoever was doing this and easily dispelled the illusion.

The rock creatures were easy enough to avoid. He was quick on his feet and any that stood in his path he just cut down with Kusanagi.

With the Sharingan activated, he could find his way easily through the genjutsu maze. The chakra currents running through it were coming from some place in the center of the disturbance so he was headed in that direction, thinking to find the source.

All in all it was rather obvious and boring, though more clever than any genjutsu Sekai had used up to that point.

Sasuke made a mental note to tease the blond about that later.

-

Having long gotten tired of trying to navigate the maze, Sakura had begun punching holes through the stone walls and obliterating the hedges to get to the center. She had already used up all her explosives on the golems—it hadn’t taken long to run out of her supply.

Yume giggled. “This is much faster.”

Sakura smiled. “I hope everyone else is okay.”

“Don’t worry. I’m sure the traps are nothing they can’t handle.”

-

Sasuke paused as he came upon a field of battle.

There was Naruto, using as many of his clones as he possibly could, and fending off a group of golems, many of whom had kunai sticking out of them. Three Narutos stood in the middle, currently activating the improved Rasengan—the Futon: RasenShuriken—and it obviously wasn’t the first time Naruto had used it, if the craters were anything to go by. (1)

Sasuke sighed. There he goes, using his muscles before his brain again; at this rate he'll break himself in half doing that jutsu… Still, Naruto seemed to have the matter in hand at the moment, so Sasuke leaned back against a wall and watched.

It occurred to Sasuke that he had never just watched Naruto fight before. It was more impressive than he’d expected. Battling Naruto was exhilarating—more so than any other opponent Sasuke had yet to fight. He enjoyed it. Maybe Sekai was right and that was sexual tension.

Twitching, Sasuke decided no, the deviant definitely wasn’t right. If he was, it wasn’t like Sasuke would ever admit it anyway.

There was the business about him and Naruto belonging together too. Sasuke didn’t know about that so much. He wanted to be with Naruto, yes, but he didn’t think it was fated or anything that mushy.

When it was done, the rock creatures were destroyed and Naruto lay on the ground, panting heavily. Using the new Rasengan once was enough to tire him, but multiple times? Naruto could barely stand and he was obviously struggling to get back on his feet.

The golems were regenerating already.

Naruto slipped and landed hard on his knees with a groan. Distantly, he became aware that there was a shrill chirping sound. It was a second before he realized why it sounded familiar.

Quickly slamming his Chidori into all of the reforming golems, Sasuke lifted Naruto up and helped him away from his craters.

“You okay?” Sasuke asked, keeping Naruto’s arm around his shoulders as they ran. The blond wasn’t leaning too heavily against him, which alleviated his worry somewhat.

Naruto pouted into those glowing red orbs. “Hey, it was my turn to save you, you know.”

Sasuke stared at him. “… We’re taking turns?”

“Sure. Why not?” The saving thing did not bother him as much as it once had, but twice in a row left him a little sore all the same.

Sasuke rolled his eyes. “Fine. I’ll let you save me next time.”

“Damn right you will.”

Sasuke decided Naruto was feeling well enough to run on his own so he let him go. His lover had always had amazing recuperative abilities. “Hurry up. We’re almost to the center.”

Naruto frowned, confused. “What’s in the center?”

“Hopefully Kain, because I’m going to kick his ass!” Sasuke seethed.

Naruto grinned. “Yeah, count me in!”

-

Saburo felt someone approaching and looked up. A small smile stretched over his lips. “Well, well. I expected you here sooner, little ninja.”

The person stepped into the garden and Saburo gasped in surprise.

He had expected Uchiha Sasuke. He had not expected to see the masked man he’d met in the bar a few days earlier.

Saburo’s heart fell just a notch further. “… You’re Hatake Kakashi, aren’t you?” he asked, at last putting the clues together. He remembered Yume’s description from her stories—why hadn’t he noticed before? Had he been that drunk?

Kakashi gazed dully back, though inwardly he was just as surprised. The long-haired man was sweating from concentration and surrounded by many glowing talisman papers, but it was definitely the guy he had met before. Kakashi realized that he should have suspected, but he hadn’t. “And you’re Saburo.”

The other man sighed loudly. “Unfortunately.”

“And Kain was the master you spoke of.”

Saburo winced, remembering all he had said that night. “Also unfortunate.”

“Then why are you doing this?” Kakashi had to ask. “You admitted yourself that Kain doesn’t care about you. So why continue to serve him?”

Saburo smiled sadly. “It’s sad, but it’s all I have left, the connection that I have with him.” He stood in deliberate, fluid movements and faced the gray-haired man. “I haven’t forgotten our meeting before,” he admitted in a softer tone. “It’s been in my thoughts often. I’m sorry that things have to come to this.” Kakashi’s words had comforted him, though he knew he would never be able to give into his advice. Saburo believed without a doubt that he was used goods.

“Yeah,” Kakashi answered soberly. “Me too.” Though sad, Saburo was clearly determined to go through with this, and so the Jounin prepared himself for a long fight.

It began just as Sasuke and Naruto reached the garden.

TBC.

1. This was written before chapter 346 came out, but I actually gave some thought to changing this before I posted it. However, I’m going to stick with my previous assumption that Naruto will eventually perfect this jutsu and contain it so it doesn’t, you know, end up killing him.