Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Faerie Tale ❯ Chapter 5

Title: Fairy Tale Part 5

Author: Theablackthorn

Rating: NC-17

Pairing: Sasuke/Naruto

Warnings: BL

Note: Part of my 100 themes Challenge no:61.

Sasuke knew in that moment that he wouldn't be fast enough. Orochimaru had been doing nothing but toying with him from the start. He eyed that scaled head, fang's dripping poison as it speared towards him and felt his life freeze in that moment. His arm lifted and his blade blocked the front of his body but the hit alone, the weight behind the strike would likely break something if those fangs didn't pierce him first.

He heard a sharp cry from behind the great snake and knew Naruto's voice amongst all the other's that clamoured around him. He could feel the other fae trying to escape, could feel Juugo and Suigetsu over by Kabuto, Karin hidden to his senses as she always did in a battle. She was far too good at obfuscating magic's.

He looked into the great maw coming at him and he felt that same fear he had as a child, cowering at his brother's feet, their parent's dead beside him. He may be a century old but he wasn't powerful enough to face this yet and through fear he felt anger burn brightly. He wanted to take revenge for Naruto, who had been tortured, for his parent's who had been slain in the night by a poison of the snake's concocting and for Itachi who had been banished with his loyal friends, having to leave Sasuke behind.

Sasuke roared his anger as time seemed to move in slow motion.

Then there was pale face beside his own, and arm reaching forward, pale hand reaching out nail's tipped in black and he heard a voice he had not heard in over half his lifetime, “Look's like I'm saving you again, little brother.”

Sasuke blinked owlishly, head turning just enough to see familiar dark eyes, pale skin and inky black hair, “Itachi?”

Itachi didn't respond to Sasuke calling his name, but Sasuke watched with wide eyes as his brother opened his hand and said a single word, “Amaterasu.” Black fire poured from the air before his fingertips and Sasuke watched as it exploded in Orochimaru's face pushing the beast back.

The snake roared its displeasure, words of hate and anger spilling forth like bile before Orochimaru pulled back, regrouping and the fire vanished. If a reptile could smile Orochimaru's lips would be curled like a Cheshire cat's, “So good to see you Itachi-kun. But your magic tricks will not kill me, and now that you are both here I may finish what I started eighty years ago.” A sinister hissing laugh filled the room; the snakes coil's rippling in its apparent good humour.

Sasuke turned to Itachi eyes focused as he raised his hand to him, “Brother...”

Itachi clasped his open palm, eyes connecting briefly before speaking softly, almost whispering, “You know what you must do Sasuke. There was a reason that Orochimaru needed an excuse to capture Naruto. “

Sasuke thought quickly, mind turning over what Itachi was saying and for the first time since entering the hollow hill he could feel something, a sound a thought - something - niggling at the back of his mind. He frowned as he strained to hear it, but Itachi spoke over the quiet voice. “He was only able to take Naruto because he was hiding you Sasuke. But he wanted Naruto because of the very thing that may be able to kill him - and deserves to kill him.”

Sasuke's anger flared up and that voice drifted further from his reach as he growled at his brother, “We deserve to kill him. He murdered our family!”

Sasuke saw the faintest flicker of emotion cross his brother's face before it was gone. He couldn't really put a finger to what it was but it made his heart squeeze in his chest.

“You still haven't learnt Sasuke. I had hoped...,” Itachi frowned but continued on, “...listen now. Our family was murdered and yes Orochimaru should be punished but there is a claim far older than ours.”

Sasuke eyed his brother at his cryptic word's, “I don't understand - why should we care about that. He's here now and he deserves to pay for what he has done to us.”

Itachi shook his head and Sasuke felt confusion and irritation ignite inside him. But then that voice, the one that had been trying to reach him pierced whatever wall that had been keeping it from his hearing, “I told you little Uchiha... he's mine!”

Sasuke cursed softly and spoke openly, feeling Itachi's gaze on him as he turned to glare at the still gloating snake, “And I told you I would kill him!”

“You think to deprive me of this!”

The roar in Sasuke's head echoed and made his temples ache but he stood his ground, “Yes.”

“Sasuke.” Sasuke turned to eye his brother, waiting to hear what he had to say as he could hear the fox growling in his mind.

“He has taken everyone from Naruto, has killed all of the fox changeling's he could find in search of the beast's host and he will not stop until he captures it. The beast Naruto's Mother trusted to keep him safe. The one that apparently trust's you to give him the chance to avenge not only Naruto's family but the lineage that is dying because of Orochimaru.”

Sasuke felt anger still boiling in his gut, but it was not just for him or Itachi any longer. He turned, eyes honing in on Naruto, still hunched over, arm pressed over his abdomen, other arm propping him up against the throne. He stared at Sasuke pleadingly through one eye, the other bruised and blackened shut. And Sasuke felt his heart squeeze and his gut's twist.

“You know what must be done.”

Sasuke reached inside himself the well pool of his power a burnished copper as he pulled insistently, catching and guiding a thread of magic between imaginary finger's as he spoke slowly, cutting across his fingertip's with the sharp edge of his blade.

His hands shifted through a series of gesture's, blood dripping to the floor from the stinging cut's and magic weaving around his fingers like a cat's cradle of thread's. When he spoke, his eyes never left Naruto's lone open one, his voice once calm and quiet, boomed across the room in the ancient elvish tongue as word's were whispered inside his mind,

“I do summon thee from your slumber, rise and take heed.

I do summon thee from within thy vessel great spirit of old, rise and take heed.

I do summon thee Kyuubi no Kitsune by your true name. So I will so mote it be.”

Sasuke felt the power literally yanked from his body as he cast his hands out, blood fanning over the floor and he felt his body go light as his back bowed and he lost sight of Naruto's piercing blue gaze as he screamed. His chest felt like it was being pushed open from the inside, his heart beat so fast he feared it might burst as his pulse thundered in his ears. And just as quickly as it begun it ended, and he collapsed to his knees, hearing muffled as he tried not to fall further.

Hot sticky moisture fell from his eyes and dripped to the ground as he held himself upright on trembling arm's, he barely recognised the pool of blood forming as each droplet fell to the cold marble floor. Sasuke felt scraped empty - every last drop of his power was spent and he didn't even know if it had worked.

Then a shadow, a towering darkness fell across his body and though he wished it, he didn't have the strength to lift his head. His eyes cracked open again and he saw the heels of heavy black leather boots in front of him, he hadn't heard anyone move to stand before him. But now as he strained his hearing to catch some sound he heard muffled hearing word's that he could only just make out. It was Itachi's voice the cadence of familiar even after so many years, “You will not hurt him!”

It was a surprise that Itachi would raise his voice so, but Sasuke couldn't process it. He didn't know if it was Orochimaru his brother spoke to or if the summoning had worked and it was the Kyuubi he was knelt before. And then he felt something rumbling in the ground and heard the deep rough growl of laughter that was oddly familiar.

Kyuubi then - that was good.

And then he fell, eyes sliding shut and awareness vanishing on swift heels. He didn't hear his brother's concerned shout or feel the soft brush of deep russet fur as a large tail curled around him buffering him before he fully hit the ground.

Sasuke missed all that happened next. The expulsion of power to summon the great beast, mixed with previous injuries left him unconscious. But he was not alone, for the Kyuubi lifted the dead weight of Sasuke's form carefully under the watchful red gaze of his brother and was carefully placed with the beast's unconscious host.

The blond had been tortured and his own magic was spent to add to Sasuke's or the summoning would have killed the youngest Uchiha and that is not what the great beast had wanted. The young male was too important to his host to die - there was still too much for him to learn after all.

The Kyuubi turned to the elder Uchiha briefly, growling low and harsh, “Take them from here. If you harm what is mine I shall not hesitate to harm what you care for so dearly.”

Itachi arched a brow at the beast; though the creature stood taller than three houses high he would not be intimidated, for he had nothing to fear from it. He spoke softly, the anger he'd felt at the beast subsiding at the care he had shown, “I would not harm him. He is my little brother's after all.”

“Not yet. But soon…”

Itachi gave a soft, “Hn,” but said nothing else, moving around the great beast to the dais that held the throne and his two charges. The beast stood and moved around, but Itachi paid it little heed, calling out to his companion's, “Kisame, Deidara, Sasori.” At Itachi's direction Kisame gently lifted the blond into his arms with little strain, the big blue skinned half giant, half Merrow made it look effortless.

Itachi gently braced Sasuke between Sasori and Deidara, red eye's turning to glance across the room at the bloody visage of Sasuke's lieutenant's and the beaten and bloody corpse on the floor between them. He could see only a few tufts of silver hair remaining on Kabuto's head, the blood matting the rest and turning it a deep crimson.

He called to them quietly, “Time to leave.” His voice carried across the room and the two men glanced at eachother, nodding in unison as they made their way across the room. Itachi was curious to see that when they reached him a young woman with pale cranberry coloured hair had joined them. He turned away dismissing it as the pair seemed familiar with her, he knew that they had little time left before the fight truly began and though he could hear the two beasts's growling and hissing at each other he was focused on getting his precious cargo out from Underhill.

“You have murdered all my kin half breed, cowardly snake!”

Itachi slipped behind the great throne and pressed his finger's to the wall in a specific series of movement s and what once was a solid slab of granite appeared to manifest a square seam 3feet wired and 6 feet high, it shifted inwards silently and slid sideways opening onto darkness that seemed to shift and curl like liquid shadow.

“You call me half breed - but you, one of the great beasts, have been cowering inside a child since I killed that Namikaze brat!”

Itachi gestured their company through and kept an eye out as each member of their party disappeared between. This was the only passage he knew of in the Fae court's he'd attended which would transport them directly from fae and back to the Cemetery outside. It had taken strong magic to place and hold this door, magic his Father had decided was worth the effort. It had drained the King almost to the point of empty but he had been grimly pleased with the effort. And Itachi was grateful for it now as the throne hid them from view as each fae vanished into cloying darkness to relative safety.

“You die today!”

“Sss… foolish fox - you think I would die so easily?”

When the redheaded giant ducked down and disappeared within Itachi spared a single glance across the hall at the battling giants and then he followed through the door and let it seal behind him to the growling vibration of the angry fox spirit.

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Sasuke stirred slowly, mind waking from a thick fog of languid sleep. With eyelid's still firmly shut the edges of wakefulness still being kept at bay he could feel and hear things through a distorted blur. There was something soft and warm tickling at his skin, the sensation against bared neck, tops of shoulders and lower back. There was something tight looped about his chest that restrained breath just enough that he noticed even in semi wakefulness.

Sasuke could hear soft whisper's and the light shift of fabric but the sounds' didn't resolve into coherent word's or translate in to movement's as his hazy mind knew they should. Normally he would know just were the person or thing was that had spoken, or shifted close by but he couldn't get his mind to rouse from its sluggish stupor. He breathed slowly for a few minutes, relishing the warmth and softness of whatever he laid on that was familiar yet beyond his grasp.

He opened his eyes a tiny slit, peering through a thick veil of dark lashes before the sounds seemed to draw closer. His eyes opened slightly wider, pupil's dilating to catch the little light that lit wherever he was. Flashes of thought came to him, a fox; golden sun-kissed skin lashed red, dark eyes exactly like his own. Sasuke gasped softly, eyes going wide as he tried to sit up, “Naruto!”

“Shhhh…” A warm hand was quickly pressed to his sternum another at his brow holding him in place and though he was tempted to push he could feel as his mind slowly dragged itself further into the light of day that his body was leeched empty of magic and the day before - was it still the day before? How long had he slept? Where was Naruto?

His wide eyes landed on a pale face hovering over him mouth in a thin lipped line as dark eyes that were so familiar it was like staring in a mirror looked at him in silence. “Aniki?”

Sasuke caught the barely quirked corner of those unsmiling lips and felt his heart thud and a smile quirk the corner of his own, “Brother.”

Itachi removed the restraining hand from his chest and Sasuke took another breath as his brother assessed him quickly. “I am home, Sasuke.”

Sasuke couldn't describe how happy he felt in that moment or how panicked he became in the next, “Naruto? Where is he Itachi?” He went to rise again but the soft tut from Itachi restrained him as effectively as his hand had. It was a sound wholly unfamiliar coming from his brother; it was more something he'd heard from Kisame when the pair had been inseparable when they had trained together in Sasuke's youth.

Sasuke watched as a pale hand crossed his vision, black tipped nail's reflecting like mirrors in the meagre light and Sasuke's head turned to follow his brother's hand as it pointed to the space beside him.

Sasuke stared for a few moments, his heart still doing a rapid staccato in his chest that made his recently sealed chest wound ache. He absorbed the sight of tangled, damp blond spikes, the curve of a lightly freckled nose, the chapped lips and the familiar dark whisker's traversing paler than normal skin.

His voice was a soft rasp as his hand rose to stroke the back of his fingers across the lightly indented flesh of Naruto's cheek, the muscles and skin of his chest pulling and protesting under the simple movement. Sasuke's heartbeat eased at the warmth of the skin under his touch, soothing even though Naruto didn't stir.

He heard softly restrained laughter behind him and turned quickly to glare at the blue skinned man that was now hovering over Itachi's right shoulder. “Who'd a thought ya Uchiha could show such open affection, ne?”

“Kisame.”

Itachi's tone was still as familiar as if he'd seen his long absent brother only yesterday. It had little inflection but the meaning was apparent, behave.

“Awww…'Tachi-san don't be mean.” Sharp teeth where bared in a fierce grin but Sasuke could see his brother's relaxed posture even as he felt warmth in his cheek's at Kisame's open comment on his affection for Naruto.

“The soup, Kisame.” That tone brooked no argument from the half giant who appeared to almost pout for a moment, before that shit eating grin returned.

“Such a spoil sport `Tachi-san.”

“Hn.”

The steaming bowl Sasuke hadn't seen was placed in his brother's outstretched hand and he stared at it with a ravenous hunger he hadn't felt since childhood, stomach calling out to be filled as his cheek's darkened at the gurgling sound. The severe aftereffect of using up to much magic and the body not being able to restore it as quickly as it liked was a raw need for food and drink to replenish flagging reserves.

Itachi said nothing, just nodded at Kisame and the big man, that Sasuke could see was stooped in the low ceilinged room, moved around his brother and carefully shifted pillows so they settled underneath his upper back and neck. Before retreating with a soft chuckle, “Eat up brat.”

Itachi proffered the bowl to him and he took it with trembling fingers. His chest muscles strained at their usage after his abuse of them in raising his sword so soon after iron tipped poison had damaged him. But he refused to release the small wooden bowl that was smooth under his finger's as he lifted it to his lips and took a long inhale before sipping the steaming broth that tasted like chicken, vegetable's and home.

It was his Mother's recipe and though he couldn't picture his brother cooking it, he knew the man had watched his Mother with avid interest when she's cooked it and that brought tightness to Sasuke's chest that had nothing to do with physical pain.

Sasuke gently parcelled away the raw edged emotion's that were stirred by his brother's proximity and the food he'd offered up, concentrating instead on filling his aching stomach. He ate with an eagerness he rarely showed, gaze flitting from bowl to Itachi and across to Naruto's still form. He could see the blond haired fox was breathing, his chest rising and falling slowly but he couldn't help the concern that furrowed his brow at the stillness that seemed to permeate his form.

When he went to ask Itachi what had happened he caught his brother's red gaze, the normal black tomoe fused in an intricate pattern he could not recognise and he had a momentary lapse of fear before two calloused fingertip's pressed gently to his forehead and a softly spoken words filled his ear's as darkness took him, “Sleep, Otouto. The answers will come.”

He never even caught Itachi taking the empty bowl from his lax fingers as he slipped into unconsciousness and dreams.