Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Owari Nai Yume ni Tamesarate mo ❯ One Step CLoser ( Chapter 6 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Chapter 6: One Step Closer

Sasuke had never remembered living under a sturdy roof, let alone a rather large apartment. His eyes widened as he tried to take in all of the luxuries that his new father's apartment held: a kitchen that, although it was slightly dirty, was well equiped, a medium sized wooden table that was in very good condition, several pieces of well upholstered furniture, and that was without looking in the several doors planted at sporadic intervals in the apartment.

But what amazed him the most was the color scheme of the home; a white-washed ceiling, powder blue painted walls, and a cerulean blue carpeting on the floor except for in the kitchen, where there was wooden flooring. Sasuke was always good at judging a person's character by the way they dressed and which colors they dressed in, and Naruto baffled him completely.

Originally he guessed that Naruto was an energetic and creative person who craved attention but transitioning into a state of mourning due to the loss of a loved one. However, during this period he tended to feel much anger or aggravation, but shrouded it within a cloak of deception. And all of this he predicted just by the clothing that Naruto wore: a tight black shirt that covered the nape of his neck down to his waist with dark red stripes running down the sleeves and outlined with a deep purple stitching, dark orange pants that had a black spiral running up the left leg that started where his shirt ended and ended right below his ankles, and he also wore standard brown shinobi sandals.

However, his house signified that he enjoyed tranquility and the purity of truth and signified authority, loyalty, and perseverance as his strengths of character.

`What the hell am I missing? I knew he was complex immediately after I saw him, but this is just ridiculous,' mentally asked Sasuke. He had always prided himself on his ability to decipher a person's personality correctly a majority of the time, and was disappointed that the one person he couldn't decipher was the person who had took him into his house. Yet, he always lusted after challenges, whether it was challenging older and stronger children to fights or stealing food from a vendor, and felt that this would be the biggest challenge he had to face yet. He was soon brought out of his reverie by the falling footfalls of Naruto returning with a well-used towel and a set of clothing, which he handed to the young boy.

“Go into the room at the end of the hall, dry yourself off, and change your clothes; you'll get sick if you stay in those,” commanded Naruto as he walked over to the kitchen and started to cook something. Sasuke complied with the orders wordlessly as he dragged himself to the room that Naruto indicated.

As he entered the dark room, he tried to feel around on the wall for a light switch. He eventually found one, and when he switched it on, he inhaled out of shock. The entire room was vandalized; the bed was ripped to shreds, graffiti completely covered the whitewashed walls and ceiling, clothes were strewn about the floor, a dresser was overturned, the wooden flooring was destroyed in some places, and there was something on the floor.

As he picked it up, he found himself looking at a photograph of four ninja: a tall man with grey hair wearing his hitai-ate so that it covered his left eye was standing behind three children and was smiling and had his hands placed on the heads of the two of them. The one on the right looked like a much younger version of Naruto, with much shorter hair and was wearing a hideous orange jumpsuit, glaring at the person on the left. In the middle was a girl with long pink hair wearing a red dress smiling and bringing her arms close to her body. Sasuke thought that she looked remarkably looked like the woman who helped her out several days ago after he challenged several of the senior academy students, who had gotten out of hand and had almost beat him to death. Then there was the person on the left; the boy with the spiky black hair wearing a blue shirt and beige colored pants brooding.

`He…looks like me,' thought Sasuke in awe at how similar they were in appearance.

A strange, ferocious wind then picked up from seemingly nowhere, causing Sasuke to close his eyes and grasp the overturned drawer to anchor himself down. When the wind finally died down and Sasuke hesitantly opened his eyes to see what havoc the wind caused. But instead of seeing a horribly wrecked room, he found himself standing in a room that was immaculate with every piece of furniture placed perfectly against the walls. And on the bed that was placed against the far wall and was positioned perpendicular to the sidewalls sat a man with crimson eyes and short spiked red hair wearing an ensemble entirely composed of red silk. And coming out from behind the pants were nine tails that shared the same color as his eyes.

“So you've finally decided to return,” bluntly stated the man, boring his crimson eyes into Sasuke's.

“Who…who are you? And what do you mean I've returned? I've always been here,” retorted Sasuke defensively. `Right?'

“You should be honored to meet me Sasuke-kun; I am the Kyuubi no Kitsune, overlord of the nine layers of Makai,” coldly introduced the Kyuubi as he elegantly stood up and walked over to Sasuke, who was shivering in fear. He had heard stories of the Kyuubi, the demon fox that, seventeen years ago, almost completely obliterated Konohagakure single handedly. “So I take it you remember me?” Sasuke hurriedly backed away from the approaching youkai until he was almost out of the door and back into Naruto's hallway. He tried to then run away from the kitsune, but found that his legs refused to carry him as he collapsed onto the ground.

“Stay away from me. Stay away!” screamed Sasuke as he tried to crawl away from his pursuer, but was soon captured in an iron hold by his pursuer, whose eyes seemed to gleam with psychotic glee.

“Don't believe everything you hear Sasuke-kun, if you do it'll come back to kill you in the future. And remember what I've shown you tonight, it will be useful to you in the future,” advised the Kyuubi. And with that, another ferocious wind started up, and Sasuke once again closed his eyes. When he opened them, the youkai was gone, leaving Sasuke alone on the floor of the room, exhaustion overwhelming his senses and spiraling him into a deep slumber.

`I know that it's a bit too late for ramen, but he looks like he hasn't eaten in days, maybe even a week or so,' thought Naruto as he started to boil water for several cups of instant ramen. `And anyway, as hard as it may be to believe it, I don't think he's ever had ramen before.'

He then heard Sasuke scream at someone to get away. He immediately left the boiling water on the stove and ran into the room only to be thrown back into the front door to his apartment by an immense gale emanating from the room. He used the door, which now had a large indent in it where his body collided with it, as support as he got to his feet and once again tried to enter his room, this time finding that he could enter.

When he entered, everything looked perfectly fine, everything except for Sasuke. He was curled up into a ball on the floor sleeping, clutching something in his hands. When Naruto bent down to see what it was, he was upset at the sight of his very first picture of Team Seven ripped and wrinkled in the child's hands. That sight hurt him more than any intentional destruction of his property; that picture symbolized when he still held onto some shred of innocence and naivety and reveled in the spirit of youth.

Naruto then lifted up the boy and placed him on the bed gently, as not to wake him. He then peeled off Sasuke's wet clothes, leaving his undergarments on, and replaced them with the old pair of pajamas that Naruto had given him earlier. Finally, he pulled the down blanket over Sasuke's body before leaving the room.

`It's such a shame that all of that ramen should go to waste,' ruefully thought Naruto as he went into the kitchen to dispose of the ramen which he had just cooked. However, as he was about to dispose of the food, he began to rethink his actions. `I mean, a little midnight snack wouldn't hurt,' he thought. So Naruto then emptied a portion of ramen into a bowl and quickly devoured it. He then unconsciously poured a second helping for himself and almost inhaled it. And the cycle repeated until all ten servings that he had prepared for Sasuke and him were all devoured, leaving Naruto with a slightly upset stomach.

“Shit, I should have known that I would've gone overboard like that,” groaned Naruto as he sat himself down onto a futon. Almost immediately, however, Naruto saw a slight distortion in the shadows caused by the tree outside of his apartment. “Alright, what do you want? You can't hide for shit, did you know that?” asked Naruto as he prepared a kunai to throw at the intruder, only to be forced to hold it only an inch away from his own throat.

“So you think I'm horrible at hiding Naruto-san?” whispered a voice from the shadows of his apartment. “At least I'm smart enough not to allow an intruder into my apartment. It seems that you're still as much of a baka as you were when we were still genin.”

“What do you want? I was just trying to sleep off a sore stomach,” asked Naruto.

“Hokage-sama requests your presence immediately,” replied his attacker, still in the shadows. Naruto then felt the compulsion to hold a kunai to his throat disappear, and then, to the attacker's chagrin, disappeared himself. The attacker then scanned the apartment, looking for Naruto really was, only to find a kunai set itself comfortabely against his neck.

“Yes, you really are horrible at hiding Shikamaru-san. And you shouldn't even have thought for a second that I would not detect an intruder in my own home. After all, I'm not a jÅnin for nothing!” cheerfully stated Naruto as he stared down from the ceiling at Shikamaru's pineapple styled hair. Shikamaru just sighed in embarrassment at being outsmarted by Naruto, who was still considered thick headed and dense. Naruto then brought his kunai away from Shikamaru's neck and jumped onto the floor in front of him, grinning widely, just how he used to when they were younger.

“I'll say it again, go to Hokage-sama's office now. She usually doesn't work this late at night, and she's irritable. If you don't show up as soon as you can, it'll mean a living hell for all of us tomorrow,” reiterated Shikamaru as he preformed the teleportation jutsu, causing him to almost sink into the shadows themselves.

“I wonder what Obaa-chan wants this late at night. I'm surprised she isn't sleeping off a hangover,” muttered Naruto as he quietly walked into his room to retrieve his spare ninja uniform.

`I still can't believe how unoriginal some ninja are. I mean, blue and green everywhere is so boring, it's nice to have some originality and brightness,' thought Naruto as he brought his clothing into the dimly lighted kitchen, the candles set around the room vicariously devouring their wicks. `I myself prefer lighter shades like orange and red, but, at least it's only strongly recommended that we wear standard ninja uniforms, or I'd be screwed.' He then began to unpeel his drenched clothing and folded them into small squares. He then placed them into a laundry basket he kept near the front door, which was slowly filling up with used clothes. After, he slipped on his spare outfit and bolted out of the apartment complex and towards the Hokage Tower, where undoubtedly an irritable Tsunade would be awaiting his arrival.

After being let in to the Hokage's office by her sleepy secretary, Naruto was faced with an enigma; Tsunade was doing paperwork, and she was smiling. He had never in the three years that the Godaime had protected Konoha seen her smiling while she was doing paperwork.

“Are…you okay Obaa-chan?” asked Naruto as he quietly closed the door behind him and stalked towards Tsunade's desk, bracing himself for her to explode at any second.

“Oh, Naruto, good, you're here,” greeted Tsunade as she glanced up at Naruto and smiled at him, which was almost concealed by the thin veil of darkness that enveloped the room.

`Oh shit I'm not gonna like this at all,' thought Naruto fearfully as he waited anxiously for Tsunade to answer.

“I'll get straight down to the point; I'm assigning you an A-class mission that you are not allowed to refuse,” announced Tsunade rather grimly. At this Naruto slightly frowned; on any other day he would have been ecstatic, but he did not forget his plans with Tenten or the fact that he now lent his house to an orphan, one that was sleeping in his bed at this very moment.

“Obaa-chan…what are the mission specifications?” asked Naruto resignedly after several seconds. Tsunade did not neglect to notice his downcast facial expression and couldn't help but to wonder why he was so uncharacteristically silent.

“The mission will begin at exactly nine o' clock this morning. You are to meet your client at Training Ground 14 and her escort will explain in depth your mission goal at that time. I have no idea how long it'll last, so you'll just have to deal with that. You will be executing this on your own for the next two weeks, and then HyÅ«ga Hinata will assist you for the remainder of the mission. That is all that I can disclose to you at this time,” informed Tsunade as she drowned herself in a cup of sake and proceeded to pour herself another glass.

“If that's all that you wanted to say, can I go back to bed now?” asked Naruto apathetically.

“Listen to me brat!” yelled Tsunade as she grabbed Naruto by his collar and brought him over her desk. “Do you know how much trouble I had to go through just so that you could get this mission? Now you better be damn appreciative about it!” Tsunade then shoved Naruto back into the wall, causing him to fall down. “Now leave so I can have some quiet,” grumbled Tsunade as she returned to her paperwork. Naruto then left her office quickly as to not anger her even further and feel the full extent of her wrath.

“Stupid brat; you have no idea how much this will impact your future,” mumbled Tsunade. She then finished working on a small packet of papers and put them into one of the many drawers in her desk, the only one that had four separate locks on it. She then gulped down one last sip of sake before dismissing Shizune, locking up the Tower, and heading back to her house.

`You're one step closer Naruto; one step closer,' thought Tsunade as she walked through the dark, damp streets of Konoha and felt the cold wind caress her body, as if to ensure her that she did the right thing. But for some strange reason, she couldn't shake the feeling that she had done her adoptive brother wrong.

And as she passed one of the few bars that were open, she could have sworn she could've seen HyÅ«ga Neji exit it and disappear, but she dismissed it to the slight hangover that was brewing in her head.