Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Path of No Regrets: Renewal ❯ Chapter 6

Disclaimer: I'm seriously starting to regret this idea to come up with a new disclaimer every damn week. There are only so many creative ways to say, `I don't own Naruto,' and if I'm already starting to reach, I can only imagine how bad it's gonna get later on. Forget just reaching, I'll be standing on my tiptoes and jumping up and down here. XD

By the way, I don't own Naruto.

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Everything falls apart
Even the people who never frown
Eventually break down

--Linkin Park, “Pushing Me Away”

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Path of No Regrets

-Chapter 6-

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Of all things, it was the fact that Kakashi said morning and then actually showed up in the AM hours that first convinced Sasuke that the jounin was as serious as he was. And that was good, because with the exception of a select few things, one of them being the fact that he was going to kill his brother, Sasuke had never been so serious about anything in his entire life.

He needed to be, because this was it—this was all he had left. If he failed at this, there was nothing to fall back on. No plan B, no escape route, nothing… unless he decided to go to Orochimaru after all. And with every day that passed, that seemed like less and less of a real option. He'd burned that bridge, whether he liked it or not.

So that left only this, this route that depended so much on luck. Trust. Something he had long since lost his taste for.

He just hoped Kakashi was right.

---

The first day of their new training regimen, Kakashi took him to one of the forest training zones, told him they were going to fight, and ordered him to give it all he had.

“Everything?” Sasuke asked pointedly, and Kakashi looked at him in a way that made it clear he knew perfectly well that Sasuke was trying to irritate him.

“Everything except the curse seal.”

“Right,” said Sasuke dully, but Kakashi didn't let the subject drop this time.

“The curse seal won't make you stronger, Sasuke. Relying on it will only make it a crutch, a handicap. You don't need it.”

“Because I've done just great without it so far,” Sasuke muttered in spite of himself.

Kakashi paused, eyed Sasuke critically, and sighed with what sounded like disappointment. Sasuke glared at him, not liking the feeling of being dismissed. At last, Kakashi asked, “Why do you think Orochimaru gave you that seal in the first place?”

A half dozen answers floated through Sasuke's mind, none of which he particularly liked. So finally he just mumbled, “I never asked.”

“I know you didn't,” Kakashi said almost chidingly.

Again, Sasuke felt a flash of anger. “I didn't need to know his motives to be able to see the results.”

“A shinobi must always understand his enemy's motives, Sasuke,” Kakashi said, his tone suddenly sharp. “To ignore them is just asking to walk into a trap, or worse. You accepted the curse seal without ever even questioning Orochimaru's reasons for choosing you, even knowing what the seal did and how dangerous it could be.” He looked Sasuke in the eye. “You've been taught better than that.”

Sasuke looked right back at him for a long moment, then sighed and broke his gaze away toward a nearby tree instead.

“…He wanted to control me.”

Kakashi nodded. “Yes.”

“…Was that the only reason?” Sasuke asked finally, not sure if he would like the answer, but all the same needing to hear it once and for all.

“No,” said Kakashi, and Sasuke looked back uncertainly.

“Orochimaru wanted you because of your talent, and your bloodline. He wanted you, specifically. He's invented a jutsu that allows him to transfer his soul into another person's body, and take it over.” Kakashi tapped his hitai-ate thoughtfully, indicating the eye hidden beneath it. “…I suppose the last survivor of the Uchiha clan, along with the Sharingan, was just too tempting an offer to pass up.”

Sasuke slowly let out a very long breath.

(He just wants your body to use as a container!)

…Literally. He'd meant it literally. …Of course he'd meant it literally—it was Naruto; Naruto had probably never uttered a riddle or metaphor in his life—but still. Sasuke hadn't… he'd never…

He'd just dismissed it. If Naruto hadn't stopped him…

“Well, fortunately, we don't have to worry about that anymore,” Kakashi said, breaking into Sasuke's thoughts. “But enough. Let's get started.” The jounin straightened, moving his neck to the side as if working out the kinks. “…Ready?”

Sasuke blinked once, then forced himself to snap out of it. Kakashi was right; there was no point in thinking about that now. He activated the Sharingan, and the world suddenly sprang into deep, vivid clarity.

Kakashi smiled.

“All right… begin.”

And before Sasuke could even move, before he could even think about moving, Kakashi was on him and Sasuke found himself struggling furiously just to keep up with the attacks. Even with his Sharingan, it was all he could do just to block and dodge in time. This was a Kakashi he had never seen before; he was far more aggressive than he'd ever been in previous training exercises. He was pushing him, Sasuke quickly realized; trying to gauge his limits.

Give it your all, Kakashi had said. He hadn't been kidding.

He picked up his pace, trying to find an opening to attack, and when none presented itself, he looked instead for a way to back off and get his bearings. But Kakashi didn't give him the chance. He kept attacking, pressing harder, almost like he was casually turning up the notch bit by bit, waiting until he reached a level Sasuke couldn't match. And Sasuke was already straining. His arm was starting to hurt again now—he'd only just healed enough to start training once more—this was ridiculous—

Kakashi landed a hit at last; Sasuke saw it coming but his body wasn't fast enough to prevent it. It struck him hard in the jaw, and he went flying back, only just managing to land the fall. He wiped away the blood on his chin angrily as Kakashi landed in front of him, again looking displeased.

“You're not trying.”

“The hell I'm not!” Sasuke spat back.

“I've seen you do much better than this,” Kakashi said, dismissive. “Anything I can teach you will be a waste if you don't even use the training you've already got.”

“I am using it,” Sasuke said, fighting the urge to rush at Kakashi head on. This was deliberate; Kakashi was baiting him. “But I only just got out of the hospital.”

“That's an excuse,” Kakashi replied. “Not a reason. You wouldn't let that stop you if you were fighting someone else.” He looked at Sasuke pointedly, and Sasuke narrowed his eyes.

Then Kakashi was attacking again, and once more Sasuke was only barely blocking or sidestepping the assaults. His sensei wasn't letting up at all; if anything, he was going harder. Sasuke gritted his teeth.

Wouldn't let it stop him if it was someone else, huh? Like Naruto, in other words… as if Sasuke needed any reminder of that.

Fine, then. If Kakashi wanted him to give it his all, then he sure as hell wasn't going to disappoint.

He risked a split-second glance at their surroundings; he couldn't risk taking his eyes off Kakashi any longer than that, but that second was all he needed. He drew two shuriken and launched them at Kakashi's head, then followed with two more as Kakashi easily dodged. Sasuke let Kakashi continue to attack this time, drawing further back. He sidestepped another blow and threw one last pair of weapons, then pulled his hand to the side.

And all six shuriken came arcing around, as the invisible wire attached to each one boomeranged them back toward him, right in Kakashi's blind spot. For an instant he wondered if the jounin would actually fall for it, but they flew right on by, Kakashi dodging them as effortlessly as he'd avoided them the first time. “You'll have to be more creative than that,” he commented, unperturbed.

Sasuke just smirked. He ducked Kakashi's next blow, coming under as he would if he were heading into Shishi Rendan, and then tugged at the shuriken wire one last time.

And an instant later, he was flying through the air in the exact opposite direction that his motion would have carried him, as the wire that he'd secretly looped around himself pulled him up and away toward the trees that the shuriken had wrapped around, just like he'd intended from the start. And just like he'd hoped, the movement was sudden and unexpected enough that for just a second, it caught Kakashi off guard, giving Sasuke the chance to land and immediately go for cover before the jounin could spot him once again.

Having done so, he started thinking quickly. The only way he could possibly hope to beat Kakashi was to take him by surprise; that much was clear. The problem was that none of the jutsu he knew fit the task. Kakashi was his instructor, he knew everything in Sasuke's arsenal by heart… hell, he'd even taught Sasuke most of it. Chidori was out, Katon jutsu were out, his taijutsu combos wouldn't even stand a chance, and he'd just proven that a wire combo like the Sharingan windmill wouldn't do the trick either. He was running out of options.

His only shot was to try something Kakashi wouldn't expect, something he'd only recently picked up that the jounin wouldn't know about. …Kage Bunshin…? No, forget it; it took up too much chakra, and that was Naruto's specialty anyway—Kakashi would be used to countering it, even if he might not expect it coming from another one of his students. Besides, Sasuke wasn't exactly keen on using a technique that Naruto was known for; he wanted to do this on his own terms.

A better trick would be to try something from Kakashi's own arsenal—copy something right from the Copy Ninja himself. The only problem was that Sasuke hadn't gotten the chance to copy any of Kakashi's techniques with his Sharingan. …Still, he'd seen a few of them up close, and his memory was pretty good. Too good, at times; that was both a big advantage and drawback of his genetic inheritance.

He replayed what he recalled of the jutsu in his head, analyzing it now that he did have the Sharingan to aid him. He had no idea if this would work—he hadn't even seen the seals when Kakashi had originally done this technique, which couldn't help matters any—but he thought he could make some sense of what he did remember. He'd experienced the technique firsthand, so he had an idea of how it worked as well as the chakra use involved, and he thought he might be able to manage. It wouldn't be perfect, but it didn't need to be perfect… it just needed to be enough.

Kakashi would find him again before long… it was now or never. Taking a deep breath, he jumped down from the tree, landed lightly, and formed a makeshift seal pattern, mentally crossing his fingers that it would be good enough. He focused his chakra as he finished the seals… and slid underground.

Fighting back his sudden elation—he'd done it, but he needed to keep his focus or he'd drop the shaky hold he had on the jutsu—he looked up and waited. Sure enough, Kakashi landed a moment later, having likely been attracted by the noise Sasuke had made. Sasuke waited… more… just a little bit more…

Kakashi stepped into range, and Sasuke sprang, grabbing his ankle.

“Doton: Shinju Zanshu no Jutsu!”

And Kakashi plunged down, driven into the earth as Sasuke emerged from the ground victorious, just like Kakashi had done during the bell test all those months ago. The jutsu faltered partway through, but Sasuke locked Kakashi from the waist up with his legs and pushed him back into a headlock, pressing a kunai to his neck. He smirked.

“Is that creative enough?”

“Very good, Sasuke,” said Kakashi calmly.

Then, without any warning at all, he vanished… just as Sasuke felt the tip of a kunai brush his own neck. “Very good,” Kakashi echoed from behind him, and Sasuke bit back a curse.

Apparently, Kakashi had no qualms at all about using Kage Bunshin himself.

A moment later, he released Sasuke, spinning the kunai around on his finger before replacing it back in its holster. Sasuke slowly climbed to his feet, feeling stung and trying to catch his breath, but Kakashi looked satisfied. “You made good use of the Sharingan, and you copied a technique you've only seen once, before you had those eyes. That's more than I even expected.”

“You still beat me,” Sasuke said bitterly, re-holstering his own kunai and trying to quell the frustration that was quickly rising inside him once again.

“Of course,” said Kakashi matter-of-factly. “If I couldn't, there wouldn't be any point in us doing this at all. I've got years of experience you don't, and you can't make up for that in a single day. But you did well; just give it time”

Sasuke glared at a defenseless tree, still breathing hard, thinking of the gap that still existed between him and Itachi, and just how often he'd told himself the exact same thing in the past. Give it time… His glare darkened. “Just another five years or so, you mean?”

“You're too impatient, Sasuke,” Kakashi chided, and Sasuke turned his glare on him, suddenly fed up with all of this.

“I don't have time to be patient! He's still out there, and every day that I waste running around sparring here, he's getting stronger! I'm not even close to the same level he is, and I'm not getting any closer and this is all just a waste of time.” In utter frustration, he aimed his fist at the nearest object—the tree—but Kakashi caught the punch in his own palm.

“Stop comparing yourself to Itachi.”

Sasuke pulled his fist back angrily. “I need to kill him; I can't beat him if I'm not as strong as him!”

“Not being stronger now doesn't mean you'll never be,” Kakashi said firmly. “You're thirteen, Sasuke—you have time to grow.”

“I don't—”

“You do have time, whether you believe it or not,” Kakashi cut him off, more forceful this time. “And whether you believe it or not, you have the potential. Stop comparing yourself to him, stop trying to get strong all at once, and accept that it won't happen overnight.”

Sasuke stared at him, part of him wanting to hear him out, but the other part so jaded that he thought he never could. It was too good to be true; it was naïve; it went against everything he'd ever had proven to him time and time again. He closed his eyes. “…And what if it never happens at all?”

“It will,” Kakashi replied simply. “From here on out, you'll only get stronger every day, Sasuke.”

Sasuke took a deep breath as Kakashi continued. “From this point on, you're only going to grow. There'll be a day when you'll look back on this and you won't even recognize your old self. And it's going to be sooner than you think.”

Sasuke opened his eyes again and met Kakashi's intently, searching for any trace of doubt or deceit. He found none.

“…You really believe that,” he said finally.

“The question is whether or not you do,” was all Kakashi replied.

Sasuke clenched his fist, then breathed out softly.

…The funny thing was, conviction had never been something he'd lacked. And the same went for confidence. It was, he thought, hope that he had the real problem with. Hope, like trust, was something he'd long since stopped believing in. Hope was something that could be stolen from you all too easily, and left a crushing emptiness in its wake. Hope was something you couldn't count on, that let you down all too often, and the more you allowed yourself to have, the more painful it was when it taken away.

And he'd had it taken away one too many times to be able to just pick it right back up again, even if he wanted to; even if he ached to. That was the trap; that was what fate wanted him to do. Step willingly right back in, so it could take it all yet again.

He couldn't. Hope was something he'd lost.

He clenched his fist tighter.

But determination… that, he had never let go of.

It was the last thing, perhaps, that he still truly held onto. Because that, that couldn't be driven down completely, no matter what. It couldn't be taken away.

So even if he still had doubts—even if those doubts turned out to be real—he could still see this through. Even if Kakashi was wrong, he could prove him right. Because he wanted this, more than anything, and even if he couldn't hope for it, ever, he could still go after it and chase it down.

So finally, he nodded, and Kakashi resumed training as if the conversation had never happened. But from that point on, Sasuke went at it more seriously, and from then on he truly did give his all.

Because he was determined. And because this was it… this was all he had left.

---

Training took up most of Sasuke's time, and he made a point of filling up the remainder with either eating or sleeping, so all things considered, he didn't see much of Naruto over the next few days even though they were now sharing an apartment. And in what could only be described as a miraculous change of character, Naruto didn't talk out of hand even when they were together. Sasuke wasn't sure whether this was because Naruto was tired from his own training sessions, or because he still felt uncomfortable talking to Sasuke, though he suspected the latter. But either way, he found himself welcoming the quiet, since he still wasn't quite sure how to behave around Naruto these days.

The tension that had existed between them ever since the Valley of the End still hadn't abated, and Sasuke seemed to feel it more and more each day. It hung over them like a cloud, perpetually dark and heavy but refusing to rain, and even though a part of Sasuke knew that it couldn't hang forever, neither of them, it seemed, was willing to face it.

It was one week after Sasuke had moved in when the storm finally came.

Part of the reason was that for the first time all week, Kakashi had let Sasuke off early, claiming that he had business he needed to take care of, and leaving Sasuke very suddenly with half a day of space to fill. He ended up sitting in Naruto's kitchen, the only place in the apartment with actual chairs and a table, and poring over some of the scrolls he'd brought with him, looking for anything that he might be able to use against Kakashi in their next training bout. So far he hadn't been able to find much that could give him the upper hand, but some of the genjutsu scrolls looked somewhat promising. The problem was that he wasn't much of a genjutsu type, even with the Sharingan. It was something he'd need to work on…

He had just started to read through one particularly enticing scroll when Naruto walked in… or perhaps bounded was the more appropriate word, since Naruto rarely actually walked anywhere. He immediately bounded toward the kitchen—that was definitely a bound, no doubt about it—but came to an abrupt halt when he saw Sasuke sitting at the table. He was quiet, and for a moment Sasuke thought he might just grab a snack or something and then continue about his business without saying anything at all, but then Naruto did open his mouth.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” replied Sasuke in a monotone, not looking up from what he was reading.

“Listen…” Naruto began, edging over slowly, then pausing as he looked at all of the scrolls. “…What are you doing?”

“I'm reading, Naruto,” Sasuke answered, trying to quell his annoyance. “It's a popular pastime; you might want to learn how one of these days.”

“Ha ha,” Naruto replied dryly, rolling his eyes. “Look, I was gonna ask if you wanted to go get some ramen with me.” He paused with a sudden frown, then said rather sourly, “But I guess you probably think that pastime is nothing but a waste.”

“And you'd be right,” Sasuke said tersely, still not looking up from his scroll.

Naruto sighed. “…Look, Sakura-chan's gonna be there.”

Sasuke furrowed his brow, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. “So?”

“So, she hasn't seen you since everything happened, bastard!” Naruto said loudly, looking as if he were starting to get fed up. “She misses you—don't you even care a little bit?”

“I have more important things to worry about than whether or not Sakura's still in love with me,” Sasuke replied curtly, now purposely trying to get Naruto to leave him alone.

He seemed to succeed in pissing him off, at least; Naruto's eyes narrowed. “Yeah, that's right… I forgot, you don't give a shit about your friends, do you? The only thing you care about is getting stronger.”

“Congratulations, it only took you a year to figure that out,” said Sasuke sarcastically.

He caught the sudden shift in Naruto's expression, but deliberately ignored it. Which was probably why a second later, he was caught completely off guard by the roundhouse punch that decked him right in the face.

Half thrown back and half stumbling back out of his chair, Sasuke wiped his bloody nose and glared murderously at the other boy in total shock and rage. “What the hell, Naruto!”

“I've owed you that ever since you got back, asshole,” Naruto answered, looking furious but satisfied.

Feeling increasingly enraged himself, Sasuke shoved away the now-upturned chair that lay in front of him. “You want to fight, right now?”

“I never wanted to fight!” Naruto shouted back as something suddenly seemed to snap. “Not at the Valley of the End, not back at the hospital—that was you! You're the one who started this! You're the one who keeps starting this!”

“You seem to have started it this time,” Sasuke replied scathingly.

“No, you started it,” said Naruto, his voice darkening in a way Sasuke had rarely heard before. “You started this when you fucking left. When you just walked off to go join Orochimaru. When you tried—” He cut off abruptly, as if just barely curtailing himself, but Sasuke knew exactly what he had been going to say, and suddenly he just wanted it out in the open at long last.

“When I tried to kill you,” he finished.

Naruto seethed at him, breathing heavily, his fists clenched. “…Yes. When you tried to kill me.” His voice turned suddenly heavy with bitter irony. “Your fucking best friend.”

Sasuke stared back at him, a leaden feeling suddenly weighing down his gut, but said nothing. …He couldn't. A part of him wanted to explain—badly, even—but another part of him couldn't stand the thought, because it would mean admitting just how wrong he'd really been, and that was something he just couldn't do. To admit it, that he was wrong and Naruto had been right after all, would be too much like admitting that everything he'd been trying to do for the past five years had been wrong and screwed-up, and that was just… he couldn't. So instead he just stood there, stony-faced, and didn't reply. After a minute, Naruto finally shook his head in disgust.

“…You don't even care, do you?”

“You wouldn't understand,” was all Sasuke could quietly say.

Naruto snorted bitterly. “No… I think I do understand, now.” He gave another short, ironic laugh. “You know… all week, everyone who asked… I defended you. Ero-sennin… he didn't trust you. I told him he didn't know you… but I'm the one who really doesn't know you, huh?” He smiled humorlessly, but even that faded a moment later. “Maybe he was right. Maybe you are the same type as Orochimaru.” He shook his head again, then met Sasuke's eyes darkly. “Maybe I should have just let you go.”

“I never asked you to come chase me down, Naruto,” said Sasuke icily, his guilt once more giving way to anger as Naruto's words hit home more than he would ever admit. “So just how does that work, huh? You follow me out of Konoha, get in my way and force me to fight you, and then have the gall to get mad when I'm not happy that you did it? How the hell does your mind work, usuratonkachi?” He glared. “If you're so sure you shouldn't have bothered, then why did you chase me down?”

“Because I cared!” said Naruto, slamming his fist down on the table so hard that the floor shook. His voice echoed around the room. “Because you were my teammate, because I thought you were my friend!” And now his voice was shaking, but no less furious. “I cared about what happened to you, you bastard! And even if you don't care jack shit about me, I never thought that you could ever…”

He trailed off, and Sasuke swallowed away the feeling in the pit of his stomach, hating it, and feeling all the angrier because it was there. “You—”

“You tried to kill me! You called me your best friend and then you tried to kill me!”

He squeezed his eyes shut then, breathing in deep as if trying to calm himself at last, and there was a unbearably long moment of silence during which Sasuke just stood there, hating everything in the room and wishing for all the life of him that he could go back and change something that could never be changed.

Finally, Naruto opened his eyes once more, and there was pain there that Sasuke had never seen before, but that he knew himself all too well.

“…And you really don't care, do you,” Naruto said quietly.

He glanced down at the haphazard mess of scrolls, and then added suddenly, viciously: “I guess you're really no different from him, then, huh?”

Sasuke shot him a sharp look, and Naruto stared right back, cool and unapologetic. Very slowly, Sasuke clenched his fist and drew a heavy breath.

“Get out,” he growled, his voice low.

“It's my apartment,” Naruto shot back.

Sasuke took a step forward, using his slight advantage in height to its fullest, and fixed Naruto with the most dangerous gaze he could muster without actually losing control. He spoke each word slowly and clearly. “And I'm not allowed to leave it without an escort. So get the hell out.”

Naruto stared him down right back. “…Fine. Sakura-chan's waiting, anyway.”

He moved to the door, hesitated just the slightest as he opened it, and looked back, opening his mouth as if to say one last thing. Then he seemed to change his mind, narrowed his eyes, and turned away fiercely, slamming the door shut.

The sound echoed off the walls as if the room were hollow, and then Sasuke was alone in the kitchen. He stood there for a moment, then sagged back against the wall, suddenly feeling exhausted.

The storm had passed… but he wasn't sure if anything had survived in its wake.

---

-to be continued-

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Doton: Shinju Zanshu no Jutsu - Earth Style: Inner Decapitation Technique

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Author's Notes:

Eboni (from ff.net) asked just how long Sasuke was going to remain all quiet and subdued… I guess this sorta answers that question. XD I figured Naruto and Sasuke really wouldn't last very long once they were put in the same tiny space together. It's like putting a kettle to boil; once it's hot enough and you've got all this water boiling in one tiny little space, eventually all that bubbling air has to go somewhere, and the thing starts to whistle. Only in this case, the kettle more kind of exploded. :P

Um… I guess not much else to say, really, except that the story is nearing the end of act one now (yes, act one… I did say this was a long fic, right? Well, this whole story so far is really just the set-up for the main plot, so, uh… yeah). I guess this would be a climax of sorts for this first part, then, with the next chapter being the resolution. I'm surprised I even made it this far. XD