Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Tag, You're Dead ❯ 05-I ( Chapter 5 )

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

 

Summary: The Sound is coming. Get ready to play. A series of 6 - Ino, Naruto, Hinata, Sakura, Sasuke, Tenten.

 

Tag, You're Dead

Chapter Five: I

 

He watches her that night, watches as she falls into a deep sleep, and he is both annoyed and touched. Touched that she trusts him enough to sleep so deeply in his presence even in wartime, and annoyed for the same reason. So he watches her and she finally settles, and only then does he fall asleep himself. He dreams of pink hair stained red and mocking Sharingan eyes and glinting glasses and the swipe of a snake's tongue. He dreams of fire and of pain and of death and of war, and wakes up to find that maybe, it was not a dream.

 

Sakura is awake before he is, which is a bit shameful, because he had always prided himself as being more alert than she. Nevertheless, she is awake and rigid on her side of the bed, her eyes flickering back and forth, back and forth. He activates the Sharingan in a burst of chakra and follows her movement, pushing himself up and over her, covering her with his body. A moment later she relaxes again, before the bells begin to toll. He curses and so does she, and he notices, half amused as they dress, that she can do it for longer than he can without repeating herself, long strings of obscenity-laced insults, creative, sadistic, and anatomically impossible.

 

He gives her one last look, one last glance, and a butterfly kiss on her forehead before dropping out the window, never turning back. This is Sasuke - moving forward, one foot after another, not looking back, not turning back. There is no time for doubt in his world, no space for remorse. So he just turns around and keeps moving, keeps breathing, keeps running.

 

He's headed for the walls, and it's another day of fighting, for him.

 

For those who do not fight, death is a blur. They think it is automatic: that shinobi kill so much and so often and so well that it is just reflex anymore, that they don't even think of death, or the people they kill, or the blood flowing from severed arteries and spraying, hot and burning, on skin. They think that shinobi no longer feel pain, fear, horror, or doubt.

 

And maybe some don't. (Maybe Itachi didn't, when he killed his family) But Sasuke does. Sasuke feels it and Sasuke knows how it is to kill and kill and kill and wonder when and if it stops. Of course, he is rational enough - emotionless enough - to know it doesn't. Because he is shinobi, and this is the life he has chosen, and this is the world that has become his. No. This is the world he was born to.

 

And then he's at the wall, and he stops beside Naruto, because despite his best efforts, Naruto is his best friend, and now he realizes that he wouldn't want it any other way, because this is the way it has been and will be and this is how it is, and he likes it when things stay the same (another memory of Itachi, because Itachi changed everything, and now he can't help but despise change, because change is bad.)

 

And Naruto smirks at him. It's behind his mask, but Sasuke knows he's smirking anyways, because this is what the new Naruto does. The new Naruto, who is stronger and calmer, but still bright and happy, and sometimes Sasuke is just a little bit jealous of Naruto, who is able to be happy and strong at the same time. Maybe, he thinks, Naruto is strong because he is happy. But Sasuke can't be that way - Sasuke is strong because he is cold, and detached, and emotionless.

 

But Hinata isn't here either, today, and Sasuke is able to discern just the tiniest bit of relief in Naruto's features (under bloodlust and hatred and a strange calm). He asks, in as detached a voice as he can manage under the relief he himself is feeling, where Hinata is - and when Naruto tells him that she's at the Hospital, he smirks, and Naruto knows him well enough to take it as a grin, and says he would ask where Sakura was if it weren't so obvious.

 

But that's all the banter they have time for, and they turn to face the road. Sasuke supposes that it isn't very brilliant to be watching the road, since that is probably the one place they know the enemy won't be coming, but that's how it is. They watch the road because they are cautious, and cautious people watch everywhere and everything. Quietly, he switches on the Sharingan, and then he blinks - once, twice. And then he reaches for his communicator, but Hyuuga Neji beats him to it, “The Sound ninja appear to be using sound waves to interfere with light. Approaching one hundred meters. Seventy-five meters. Fifty meters.”

 

Sasuke breaks into the report, “Twenty-five meters. Fight blind.”

 

And then the Sound are there. They have the advantage, just a bit, because sometimes the Konoha shinobi can't see them, but Konoha has Hyuugas and Inuzukas and an Uchiha and a Hatake with a Sharingan eye, so maybe they'll be okay.

 

At least, that's what Sasuke is telling himself, because they're winning, he thinks, and then he blinks and what the hell?

 

And he almost runs away, but they see him. Karin looks almost sorry she has to fight him, and like she's going to beg him to go back with her (Not possible). Suigetsu looks murderous. Juugo looks unsurprised. So what else is new? He smirks. Almost a joke there, even if it was sarcasm. Sakura would be proud.

 

Naruto turns around, and he looks just a tad surprised. They've dropped the jutsu that makes them invisible to the naked human eye, and he sees them, clear as day, and he's mad. Furious, really. But mad.

 

Sasuke half-turns to look at him even as a clumsy chuunin - didn't we take care of these yesterday? - attacks him, and he sees memories rushing through his eyes as he stands in the midst of his Kage Bunshin. And this is bad. Naruto furious is very, very bad.

 

But what is he to do?

 

And then, all at once, the Narutos leap from their opponents and converge on the members of Sasuke's former Team Hebi. And Sasuke joins them, because that is what Sasuke does. And if he could attack Naruto and nearly kill him, and attack Sakura and nearly kill her, then he can and does attack Team Hebi, who were never more to him than people and tools to be used.

 

He remembers every moment of that battle later, every catch of the eyes, every plea tumbling from Karin's lips, every flick of the kunai, every drop of blood. He remembers this, and he wants to, because this is a lesson for him - a lesson in betrayal and hatred and blood, and he needs this lesson, because he hasn't killed Itachi yet, isn't good enough to kill Itachi yet, so he needs every single lesson he can get - and this is a lesson, a good one, and he'll milk it for all its worth.

 

And they land a few blows on him, yes, but he was always the stronger of them. He was the team leader, and he was Orochimaru's protégé, and he was the one that was destined to lead Otogakure, so he wins. He wins - with Naruto's help, though he doesn't like to admit it - and that's that.

 

Except it's not just that, because the day isn't over, the battle isn't over, and this war isn't over. Far from it, in fact.

 

So he keeps fighting, because that is what he does. That's what he does, and that's what Naruto does, and that's what shinobi do. Except for Sakura. That's not what Sakura does, because Sakura can heal, and she doesn't just break, she fixes, and he's just a bit (a lot) jealous right now, jealous of her, which is a bit funny, but that's how it feels.

 

He wishes that he knew how to do anything but break, and kill, and cause pain.

 

And he wishes that she would never know what it was like.