Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Realization ❯ Chapter 2: Getting outta the funk ( Chapter 2 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Chapter 1 Summary: Naruto, wanting to be the best Ninja he can be, talks Sakura into using her newest Genjutsu techniques on him to help train his mental defenses. This backfires as Sakura makes him see an illusion where he murders her and Sasuke in a brutal and horrid way. Naruto finds himself completely lost in the illusion and is effected by it for days after the event. The wheels are starting to turn in his brain and his heart is finally realizing why seeing his worst nightmare in an illusion has disturbed him so much.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Naruto or profit from this fic. Naruto is property of Masashi Kishimoto, give him love...buy his works.


Chapter Begin
+++++++++++

Sakura paced around the entrance to Naruto’s apartment complex. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen her. In fact, every now and then she would see him lean lazily out of the frame, glance at her and then return inside. He didn’t say a word, but that was fine since she didn’t know how to approach him yet. She felt like they were teenagers again and they had another of their stupid fights. Sakura balled her fists in frustration as she tried to relieve some of the angry stress in her body. One fist twitched as she banged it painfully into a nearby tree. The pink-haired ninja even left a small dent in its trunk, proving that she had let the situation go completely out of control. Naruto didn’t know that the new genjutsu allowed her to probe his mind to find his worst fear and then bring it to life. It was easy to create an illusion that frightened a person, but it was a very high level and very secret genjutsu that allowed her to find the thing that frightened a person most. She knew the instant that she created the illusion that it was going to be trouble, but she never imagined hurting her teammate so much.

Over the years the relationship between her team had grown, and the four shared a bond that was unrivaled by any other team (though an outsider would never know it). It wasn’t obvious because Sasuke and Naruto were always battling each other, she was always lecturing the entire team, and Kakashi always whined when she made him train with them seriously. Kakashi…he also became undeniably familiar and close with everyone. He was no longer their sensei…he was their team leader (though as much as she had to bark orders at everyone you wouldn’t know it). She didn’t understand exactly how Kakashi could be so strong and capable with so little practice. She assumed that every time Kakashi was late or unaccounted for were the true moments he practiced and worked on his skills. There really was no other explanation. As the teens had grown into adulthood they began to match their former sensei’s skills. Each member of the team had surpassed him in at least one way, sometimes more. Though there were still days when Kakashi just handed them their asses, chuckling the entire time with an amused glint in his eye. When she had used the genjutsu on Naruto the other day, she saw respect and something else she had never seen before. When Naruto didn’t seem like he would snap out of the spell, even after she let the illusion slip away, Kakashi seemed worried and a very small bit of fear entered his eye when he looked at her. She had never seen him look at her that way. That look worried and made her feel powerful all at the same time.

Her new talent wasn’t anything difficult; it was more top secret than anything else. The hand movements required for the particular genjutsu were quick and simple, but had one secret trick. Tsunade made her swear that she would take its secret to the grave with her unless Sakura became Hokage someday (which even with her skills and training directly beneath Tsunade was highly unlikely). It wasn’t that she wasn’t capable, it was that she wasn’t political and her family wasn’t bred quite right for the position (she often cursed this fact and wished that she was important like Sasuke or Hinata). The only person that was ever allowed to teach the particular genjutsu that took Naruto down was a Hokage.

++++++++++

Sakura was still downstairs, Naruto sighed to himself as he glanced down at her once more. He knew that she came to apologize again, but didn’t want to call down to her and invite her in, not yet anyway. She had been there for over two hours, why didn’t she just go home already? He sighed, and knew he was definitely acting like a spoiled child. It was only slightly ironic that he was never spoiled, only ostracized for many years. It took him until the time that he brought Sasuke home and his secret about the nine-tailed fox was revealed for the town to finally start coming around and to actually warm up toward him.

Naruto realized that he now had a very obvious weakness, one that could hurt his team more in battle than any other. He sighed again and stood up to go the bathroom (there were only so many hours you could look at the stars before you had to take a leak). In Naruto’s depressed state he almost didn’t notice his teammate sitting on the end of his bed, and when he did realize he let out a little yelp of surprise. “Sasuke!”

“You should really tell her to come up, she has been moping around more than you the last few days. She’s really mean when she’s upset too.” Sasuke flicked a finger over a fairly deep gash in his arm. It must have happened when he was training with Kakashi and Sakura and Sasuke had been paired together. “She was so grumpy that she wouldn’t even heal it for me.”

“Hmm, why didn’t you get it healed by someone else then? That’s kinda deep, if it gets infected I’m not dragging your sick ass to a hospital,” Naruto replied, with none of his normal joking inflections dancing in his voice.

“I’ve been too busy keeping an eye on the two of you,” Sasuke replied as Naruto sauntered into his bathroom that was connected to the right corner of the bedroom. He heard Naruto unzip his pants and start to pee. Sasuke wasn’t even sure that the idiot was listening to him, but raised his voice a bit to make sure that it carried into the bathroom. “I’m afraid you will either kill each other or kill yourselves.” Sasuke said this half-jokingly, but only half. He was actually very worried about his teammates. So was Kakashi, who was very well hidden in the tree that Sakura punched earlier, reading one of his favorite novels and keeping up a constant invisibility ninjutsu at the same time. It wasn’t hard to see through it for their team, but only one of the other three members (Sasuke) had a clear enough mind to break into it. Kakashi had nearly fallen out of the tree when Sakura pounded it earlier. Sasuke had seen the entire thing and let out of chuckle as he saw surprise on Kakashi’s face, Sakura had been making him form that face a lot lately. She had definitely grown into a very strong and capable young woman.

“Don’t worry yourself over me,” Naruto mumbled to his sink as he washed his hands. The blonde also took the time to splash some water over his face, it felt nice. Naruto realized that it had been a few days since he had bathed. He couldn’t believe he had been so depressed that he didn’t even take a bath. He popped his head out of the bathroom for a moment and looked squarely at Sasuke. His teammate glanced up from the bed quietly, but said nothing. “Hey Sasuke, do I smell today?”

“You have smelled horribly for the last few days. I’m almost glad that you’ve been training with Kakashi. I think that wretched scent alone would do me in. I was going to either tell you to bathe or throw you in there myself.” Sasuke was joking a bit, and he was very glad that he heard a little bit of his old teammate in that question. Especially since it was so stupid and obvious…maybe Naruto was coming around.

“Hmph,” was Naruto’s only reply. He walked over to his closet and started undressing, dropping the dirty clothes (which also hadn’t been changed in three days) into a small pile with the rest of his dirty garments.

Sasuke couldn’t help but to watch his teammate. He didn’t mean to keep his eyes on Naruto, he really didn’t, but they wouldn’t move away. Naruto liked to get naked a lot. He was always stripping or fighting half naked. One of the blonde’s favorite activities was to get the entire group naked and go swimming late at night under moonlight. Sasuke thought Naruto’s well toned body definitely looked best in moonlight, it made the hard muscles shine in such an odd, soft way. He never thought such a powerful man such as Naruto could look that soft cast in reflections from the water and moon. Sasuke shook his head, stupid thoughts. He hated getting them about Naruto or Kakashi, but he did. They often came to him during training with them or the moments when they were sitting under the stars. He especially hated when a drunken Kakashi would start stroking his hair or back and he’d feel the small yearnings growing and spreading throughout his body. ”I’m going to bring Sakura up, “ he growled as he suddenly leaped off the bed.

“Yeah, yeah, do what you want. Make her heal that thing,” Naruto said turning around and pointing at his teammate’s arm. At the same time he was giving Sasuke a full view of his totally naked front. That was enough to send Sasuke nearly sprinting out of the room to Sakura, maybe he’d even tell pervy Kakashi to get his lazy ass out of the tree and come in as well.

+++++++++++

Sakura was pacing even more frantically when she heard Naruto talking to someone in his room. She really hoped that he wasn’t talking to himself, but then she recognized another voice. How had Sasuke snuck in there without her noticing? Man, she was really off the last few days. Training with Sasuke had been difficult to say the least. He often caught her distracted by her thoughts and left her physical reminders of her disruption in thought. She ran her fingers on a light scar along her jawbone. She had healed it, but hated letting people mar up her face. Sakura had given him a deep gash to his right arm to thank him for her blemish, and even stomped away unwilling to heal it later. Sakura was a little worried the next day when she noticed that Sasuke hadn’t gone to have it healed yet, but she was too angry still to ask if he wanted her to help him. She just fought him and trained with him like usual, but very consciously avoided strikes that would further the injury.

The door opened to the complex, she moved aside and waited for the person to pass. There had been many people coming and going from inside the building in the last three hours, she wasn’t expecting Sasuke to be standing there. “Come on, you need to make up with him now. If we get a mission while we are like this we are going to get killed. I think he’s ready to talk, he’s already said more in the last five minutes that he has in the last three days.” Sakura was upset that it was Sasuke and not Naruto that was telling her to come up, but she couldn’t argue. The way the team dynamics were at the moment was very dangerous to say the least.

“Don’t worry, I requested that we not take any mission over D-rank for the next few weeks,” Kakashi said as he hopped down from his perch in the tree, lazily sauntering inside the building before the other two. “Naruto isn’t ready for much more than that.”

“Where…where in the hell did you come from?” Sakura shouted with a little shock and a lot of anger.

Kakashi only pointed at the old tree and muttered, “Nice right hook, but you really are distracted.” The older jonin was of course referring to her stress relieving punch that nearly knocked him flat on his ass. Sakura stomped in behind her teammates, letting her temper get the better of her. She really hated how cocky the three men could be sometimes, in fact it infuriated her.

++++++++

Naruto finally finished his bath and came out to find his three teammates lined up in an odd row on the edge of his bed. Naruto didn’t have a lot of furniture in his apartment, in fact he didn’t have a couch at all. All three were bickering as Kakashi was poking fun at Sasuke and Sakura was finally healing that cut on Sasuke’s arm. There was a quiet, yet soft chatter coming from the group as they argued and talked. Naruto wasn’t even really paying attention to them until he walked over to his closet and dropped the towel from his waist so he could dress. The chattering in the background came to an immediate stop as silence suddenly invaded the room, silence that had started at the precise moment that his towel hit the floor. Naruto could feel the stares from three pairs (well, more like two and a half because of Kakashi’s covered eye) bearing down on him. “Will you guys get your pervy eyes off of me?” Naruto grumbled. He usually liked this reaction to his nakedness, he always liked showing off just how much he'd changed over the years, but today it was just a little unnerving.

Slowly the three behind him started talking again and Naruto hurried to throw on boxers and a t-shirt. He didn't feel like putting on anything else, so he just walked over the group and sat on the floor in front of them. It felt, and even looked, like a panel of interrogators as the three hovered above Naruto who had sat down about five feet away from them. Naruto just sighed again and rested his elbow on his knee and then used his arm to lazily prop up his face. "Let's get this over with," he grumbled.

Sakura hadn't told Kakashi or Sasuke what she had allowed Naruto to witness in the illusion. She told them that it was very important that she never share it with them because it was Naruto's worst fear. Even friends can misuse information like that, she knew that for the rest of her life she would have to very carefully hold that knowledge inside her and never share it. She felt another wave of guilt wash over her as she kept her eyes steadily on Naruto waiting for him to continue.

"Where should we start?" asked Sasuke. Naruto shrugged, it wasn't much of an answer and it was met with awkward silence from the rest of them.

"We aren't interrogating you Naruto," Kakashi mumbled. "And I don't want to know what you saw either. Sakura said that it was your worst fear...no one should know that but you." Kakashi actually threw Sakura a piercing look that told her that she shouldn't know either. "We want you to tell us what we can do to help you, we can't work with you like this and honestly I have to make some more money because the next volumes of Makeout Paradise and some of my other favorite novels are coming out soon. If I can't buy them because I can only take pittance missions I'm not going to be happy. So let's work this out."

"Kakashi..." Naruto started while his eyes were fixated on his knees. Sasuke couldn't help to think of how vulnerable the young man looked sitting there on the floor in front of them, and was also sure that he was about to share something very important. Naruto lifted his gaze just a bit and continued, "Kakashi, I just want you to know that first, you are really long winded tonight. Second, I don't care if you buy those stupid novels or not, all they do is distract you anyway." Naruto ended the lighthearted statement with a tiny flash of his usual mischievous grin. Naruto soon regretted that statement as Kakashi sent the copy of a book zinging straight at Naruto's head. Naruto was able to easily pick it out of the air before it hit him. This made Kakashi smile under his mask, a couple of days ago it would have hit Naruto square between the eyes, but Naruto definitely was lifting out of the little depressive funk that he had gotten himself into.

Naruto examined the book that Kakashi had thrown at him. It wasn't from the Makeout Paradise series, it was from one that he hadn't seen Kakashi reading before. "New series, old man?" Naruto asked flipping through the pages. Kakashi nodded and leaned back on the bed a bit, propping himself at a forty-five degree angle with his arms behind him. Naruto's eyes got big as he stopped on one of the illustrated pages. "Kakashi, why did you circle this passage and picture and put my name next to it?" As Naruto read the passage he turned very red and whipped the book back at his former sensei. "Fat chance Kakashi, try again."

"Sakura nearly leaped at the book that had been thrown back at the silver haired ninja. She wanted to know exactly what had gotten Naruto all riled up. Kakashi beat her to it though, and was quickly returning it to the inside of his vest. Sakura jumped on him, trying to wrestle it out of his clothes. Unfortunately, just like so many years of training with that damn bell Kakashi was able to easily keep it from Sakura's reach. Sakura was actually straddling him and Sasuke was coming to her aid. Hoping to keep the very graphic fantasy that Kakashi had attached to him a secret, Naruto came to the aid of Kakashi. This was now a battle of two on two. Naruto leapt over to Sakura and wrapped his arms around her waist to remove her from Kakashi when there was a sudden crack. None of them had realized that they were all on Naruto's bed until it broke beneath them.

"Aw, dammit!" Naruto cursed as he stepped back to inspect his very oddly angled bed. "Now where am I going to sleep?"

"Well..." Kakashi started, but Naruto quickly cut him off with a warning glare.

"I know," said Sakura. "Let's sleep by the river tonight, under the stars. Tomorrow we'll all pitch in and get you a new bed Naruto, and maybe a couch."

Kakashi grumbled loudly at the last part of that suggestion. "I can't afford that and my books. And why would we want to sleep outside when we have to do it all the time on missions. I happen to like my bed here."

"Then don't come old man, I wouldn't want your back to go out from sleeping on the hard ground or anything," Sakura snapped back at him. "It’s different when you choose to, when you don't have to worry about being in enemy or unfamiliar territory. Its not like we've never done it before, we just haven't in a long time."

"Quit calling me 'old man' Sakura," Kakashi warned her. She was coming close to crossing the line that she always liked to test. Naruto and Sasuke fought with each other, Sakura fought for dominance of the group. She was a natural born leader and was always throwing barbs at Kakashi to test him. Even when they weren't on a mission they sometimes stung him the wrong way. He knew and could feel her want to be the team leader. One of these days he might step down and let her have the position, but not when she wanted it so badly, not before she was ready. Kakashi got up off of the slumping and lumpy bed and grabbed her wrist and pulling her up with him, leaving poor Sasuke stuck in the crack's crevice on the bed all by himself. "Let's go."

"Huh?" asked Naruto. "Are you guys serious?"

"Yes," answered Kakashi. "But I need my bedroll and a big bottle of sake from my place first."

"Not sake," Sasuke protested as he finally lifted himself off of the broken heap of Naruto's bed. "You don't need sake."

"We all need sake," Kakashi added. "It’s been one of those weeks. I want to have some fun tonight if I'm going to sleep outside."

"I'm going to get molested tonight, aren't I?" Sasuke grumbled.

"Yep," Naruto answered for Kakashi. "And I saw a page and picture with your name too, its gonna be a good show." Naruto finally let loose one of his idiotic grins that he was so famous for. That made everyone smile back at him, even Sasuke who now wanted to get his hands on Kakashi's book more than Sakura did.


+++++++++

End A/N's: I want to mention a few things. I’m sorry if I write Kakashi badly, he’s one of my favorite characters, but I’m not sure he’s coming out right in this story (he’s a little out of character in my opinion). I do like the way that I’m writing the dynamics between him and Sakura. I like the fact that I made Sakura a very capable person in the story. Too many fics have her trailing behind the boys in too many ways. I always saw her as the leader of the group while the guys had a lot of the power, so that’s how I’m writing her. I really like the fact that Kakashi realizes that she’s challenging him. Tell me what you think about this. I’d really appreciate it.