Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Milestones ❯ Prologue ( Chapter 1 )

Disclaimer: Naruto isn't mine…

Author's Notes: Review?

Milestones

By: E. Vanity

His life was an amalgam between reality and fantasy, a poorly composed structure built from long planks of incomprehensible facts and truths. Fact: his hands were covered with blood. Truth: he knew exactly how they got there.

If his life allowed lies and deceit, the truth would be slightly different: he wouldn't know how the blood got on his hand. But unfortunately for him, there were no real lies in his life. Everything was brutally honest, never modified for his comfort.

Unmanageable strands of his sun-touched hair spilt over his shoulders, falling over the side of his face with some sort of brazen charm, Uzumaki Naruto forced his red hands into the river, recalling some years ago when he was at this exact same spot, washing away the blood that wasn't his. But there were some differences, his hands weren't shaking now.

He didn't know the relation between the one he had wounded today and the one he had killed seven years ago, but there was definitely a kind of twisted similarity between the two. They were, the both of them, milestones of his life, one marking his departure while the other marked his return, both of them were the proofs of a single fact, the single truth, that the seal is weakening, or the dead one would not be dead and live one would not be wounded.

“Who did you fight with?” The tentative question made him glance behind him toward the camp he had made, toward the blinded woman sitting next to the fire. Haruno Sakura, Naruto sighed, he liked being surprising, it gave him a certain satisfaction to see the shocked expression on others' face, but he hated surprises. And even he had to admit, finding a captured Haruno Sakura during his travels was one that kicked you in the ass.

“No one,” he replied stoically, checking the gag on the glaring hunter-nin before sitting down next to Sakura, who scooted away from him. Naruto fought a tired chuckle, it was understandable, Sakura didn't know who he was, and he intended to keep it that way. “Tomorrow I'm going to leave you once we are inside the village, you'll have to find someone who can take you to the hospital yourself.”

Sakura nodded, touching the gauze covering her eyes experimentally and winced, whatever that lowlife who kidnapped her had put into her eyes, it was doing its job spectacularly, she couldn't see a thing. But strangely her eyes were not the most important thing on her mind right now. The man had said that her blindness was only temporary to subdue her. She was wondering about her companion, the one who had saved her.

His voice, it was so familiar, but she just couldn't for the life of her remember who it reminded her of. In that stinking hellhole where she was held captured, she shivered when she recalled the way his smooth baritone had changed, still amiable, still friendly, but somehow it had gained a predatory edge to it, smooth and cold, a honeyed blade, but a blade nonetheless. “I think you should let her go.”

He had saved her, but she didn't dare to trust him. On the entire trip back to Konoha he was tediously slow, stopping every 30 minutes, claiming that he needed rest while she was pulling out her long pink hair by the strands in frustration. When he leave her to gather firewood or to wash up in a stream nearby he would leave almost no chakra trail, and then she noticed that he masked his chakra, always, no matter what, as if he was hiding from some invisible enemy.

“What did you do to him?” Sakura asked tentatively, rubbing her arms for warmth. It was an unnecessary question, she could still sense the other man's chakra, no matter how weak it was.

“Hmm, you said something?” His voice was lazy, the words rolling out slower than a half-dead turtle going uphill.

Sakura licked her lips before replying, afraid of the answer, the man who had stopped them just a few minutes before was a shinobi, she could sense it in the chakra, so near to Konoha she feared that he was a jounin out looking for her. “The man, the one you fought with.” And more tentatively now, “You didn't do… anything to him?”

There was a mirthless chuckle, “No, I didn't maim him or anything if that's what you are asking. We'll need him later on, in one piece.”

Sakura shivered, she did not like how that sounded at all, and there was another chuckle, but warm with amusement this time. “Oh lighten up, and get some rest. Tomorrow you'll be rid of me forever.” Sakura wondered at his last words, somehow she didn't want to be rid of him forever. She wanted to get to know her new companion. He sounded like someone she could be a good friend with, someone who she could count on, someone like Naruto. Sighing at the last thought, Sakura decided to take his advice and laid down for the night's rest.

He waited for night's lethargy to carry him away under the cloudy twilight sky, lying on his back on the dew-sprinkled grass, with both of his hands laced below his head, listening to Sakura's even breathing. And as he waited for the sleep to take him, he remembered the old village.

Underneath the starless sky, he realized just how tightly the vines of Hidden Leaf had wrapped around him. In the careless silence, he soared above the usual haze of uncertainty and self-doubts, and recognized one fact, he belonged to the village, and the village belonged to him. In the end, when everything's gone, when nothing mattered anymore, he will still be with the village, and he will still be with the people of the village. It was almost cruel, bonded to a place and to people who caused him so much pain.

A low chuckle emanated from the motionless form lying on the hill, these thoughts would be gone by morning, and after he get Sakura to safety, he'll get back to the life he had built again.

He was so sure of himself before, but as he stood on the treetop overlooking the formidable gate of Konoha village, he found himself more uncertain than ever. Uzumaki Naruto, he repeated his name inside his head, turning it over and over in his mind, it had been a long time, would the villagers still remember him?

He flexed his shoulders, feeling the muscles rippling beneath his shirt, when he was younger, when he lived within the safety of the village. It seems like only yesterday when he stood at this exact same spot, staring at the gate of Konoha, the seven years he spent outside of it seemed to have melted away and evaporated into the thin air, he still felt like a kid, Konoha had that effect on him.

Smile, Naruto, and welcome back to hell.