Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ There's a Magic Spell in Smiles ❯ We'll Always Search For the Light ( Chapter 6 )

The Magic Spell in Smiles

Chapter 06: We'll Always Search for the Light

By Kyuubi-kun

 

Kakashi was bored. There was no other way to describe the current mental state of the silver-haired jounin. He was bored and there was nothing interesting in Naruto's apartment. Sighing to himself, he pulled out the newest volume of his perverted books and began to read.

Not five minutes after he had done so, the front door slammed open. Naruto walked in, ripping his mask from his face. He smirked when he saw Kakashi.

Kakashi immediately put away the book, staring at the blonde with his only eye.

“Tch, Kakashi, I'm going to take a shower,” Naruto murmured. “Help yourself to whatever's in the fridge until I get out.”

Kakashi pouted. Ever since he had seen Naruto break down only a few hours before, he felt as though everything was as it once was. “You mean I can't peek on you in the shower?” he asked with a pouty look in his eye.

Naruto whirled, his face beet red. “PERVERT!!” he screamed before running into the bathroom and slamming the door shut behind him.

Kakashi grinned. “I hope he realized I was only joking.”

Fifteen minutes later, Naruto reappeared. He was dressed in a t-shirt and shorts, with a towel around his neck. Occasionally, he rubbed his hair, trying to dry the long spikes with the already wet towel. His plan wasn't working well, but it wasn't from lack of trying.

“All right, Kakashi, have you raided my food storage?” Naruto asked with a smile.

Everything was okay now. He didn't know why he felt that way. Things that were going to happen he could only meet if they came. It wasn't him running off and wasting his life chasing after a dream anymore.

He would be able to see Sasuke again. Finally, after all these years, he was able to see the person he cared about the most.

“No… wasn't hungry,” Kakashi told the boy. Naruto shook his head as he went to get a drink for the both of them. Kakashi only had manners when he felt that the situation called for it. Although the jounin had never seen the situation call for it in the Uzumaki's apartment, he was still making it so today.

“Here, drink,” Naruto said, handing a glass full of juice to Kakashi. Kakashi grinned when he recognized his favorite drink.

Naruto sat on the couch that was next to the chair that Kakashi had been lounging on. Naruto sipped his glass, his blue eyes never moving from his sensei. He knew that Kakashi must be brimming with curiosity about what the blonde had called him out here for.

Naruto wondered if it was okay to tell someone his secret - the thing that he had kept from people for nearly fifteen months. Well, everything comes back to bite him in the ass, or so it seemed. Might as well live his ninja way - run down a straight path where he wasn't going to forget anything.

Maybe after the fight with Sasuke that was coming up, Naruto would be able to remember what the magic spell in smiles was. Maybe he would be able to cast such a spell like he used to.

Everything depended on the future.

However, Naruto knew that even if he won, there was a large chance of him dying anyway. Therefore he had to die with no regrets - if he didn't… well, that would be a story that would never be told because Naruto meant for it never to happen.

He already knew that he was going to do.

“So, uh, what did you mean earlier?” Kakashi finally asked, breaking into the tense silence that had descended on the room and snapping Naruto out of his reverie.

Naruto stared at him, as though trying to piece together reality again, having been lost in his imagination.

“Huh?” was the first thing out of the lips of the blonde shinobi.

Kakashi chuckled. “You said that you were not going to live for very much longer, yet it wouldn't be suicide.”

Naruto let a small smile grace his lips. “Oh, that,” he responded before sighing and taking a sip of his drink. “It's a long story, but I'll give you the general gist of what happened.”

Kakashi nodded, sipping his drink (through his mask or something of that nature. Naruto never bothered to care much any more). The jounin stayed silent, waiting patiently for Naruto to continue.

“I guess it all started fifteen months ago,” Naruto began, his mind drifting off. “I was off looking for Sasuke, like normal. I think it was about my fifth or sixth time leaving Konoha to find the asshole, but I realized that I didn't have as much control over my chakra or the Kyuubi's. It's steadily gotten worse.”

Kakashi's eyebrow rose. “Why haven't you told anyone about this, then?” he asked.

Naruto shrugged, gulping down the rest of his drink. “What's the point?” Naruto asked. “There's nothing that anyone can do about it. It's not that Kyuubi's going to break free or go on a rampage or anything like that. He's in my head - more than ever. I don't know if I can keep being me anymore. Two souls can't coexist in one body. Therefore one of us will ultimately disappear. But since Kyuubi cannot actually break free of Yondaime's seal, that leaves us stuck in a stalemate. Eventually, everyone dies though, so I don't worry about it.”

“You could have had Tsunade or someone check up on it during these months,” Kakashi told his former student sternly. He didn't like the idea of Naruto dying all that much. Of course he wouldn't, though, for he was a surrogate father of the blonde.

“And have her freak over my health - no thank you!” Naruto exclaimed, sending Kakashi a look that plainly stated `are-you-insane?' “I just want to be able to live the best I can in the time I'm given. They say a tiger is fiercest when he knows the end is near. Well, I know the end is near too. I may not be a tiger, but there's just some feelings that you cannot ignore. I'm going to die soon - how has yet to be seen.”

“Aren't you afraid of not fulfilling your dream before dying?” Kakashi asked. “Didn't you want to be Hokage and have the entire village recognize you?”

Naruto shrugged. “That really doesn't appeal to me anymore. I'd rather just see Sasuke one more time rather than have an entire village try and pretend that the past didn't happen. At least by chasing Sasuke, I'm acknowledging that the past did happen. I'm not going to ignore what happened just because we've changed in rank. We're friends - at least to me, we are.”

Kakashi looked at the boy, the same smile that always infuriated Sasuke on his lips. How could he not smile like this when Naruto said something like that?

 

Preview for Chapter Seven: And Maybe You'll See the Might

 

Kakashi nodded slowly, feeling as though lying to the woman would be futile, as well as stupid.

“Why?” the Hokage persisted. “Isn't it a good thing that Naruto is acting like his old self? The villagers seem to think so.”

Kakashi snorted. “The villagers usually think about unimportant matters.”

“Do you?”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether one thinks the past is unimportant.”

 

s