Adult-FanFiction.org : Naruto

Sector Five	By : FlairForTheVeil Category: Naruto AU/AR > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 2292 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto nor its characters. Rightful ownership belongs to Masashi Kishimoto. I make no profit of this fanfiction.

Chapter List
- 14
- 15
- 16
Chapter 14: Bear Cubs
“Sure,” Sasuke replied and leant off of the tree. He watched the others branch off into the camp and argue amongst themselves, eat by the fire and settle into their tents.
Naruto offered him a small grin, looking in the same direction as him. “So, like… we can’t go into the city anymore?”
Sasuke pursed his lips and sent the blond a dirty look. “Do you want to be fucking killed?”
“Kami, I’m just asking,” Naruto held his hands up in front of his chest. “It’s not like we couldn’t sneak around ‘em.”
“The thing is, we can’t,” Sasuke explained. “They have the technology that makes us unable to. They have more than Katons do.”
The blond huffed and glanced to the center of the camp, where Chouji could be heard struggling with the fire. Next to him stood Karin, who motioned to Sasuke and then to herself.
“I think Karin’s calling you,” Naruto said. “I’ll catch up with you. Later.”
Sasuke grunted a response and trudged over a few bumps and dips in the terrain. The raven ran over what Ino had just ordered in his head. Now that he had obligations digging their claws into his back, he felt sluggish and irritable.
“Hurry up,” Karin called. “It’s time for that sling to come off.”
Sasuke raised his eyebrows. Really? She whisked him into a flimsy plastic chair and pulled the zipper of his sweater down.
“Let’s see how your collarbone’s doing,” she mumbled and pushed her glasses higher upon her nose. Karin unfastened his cast away from his neck and lifted it off of his head. She pushed the neck of his sweater to his shoulder and gently prodded along his collarbone, feeling the healed bone in place of what had been delicate fractures.
Sasuke let his eyes laze away from her and stared at the ground. He heard Neji and Ino discussing guard shifts a few feet away from him, assigning a camp’s set of partners for two hours at a time. They all had a weight on their shoulders, the impending dread of invasion sagging along with Sasuke’s numb arm. Karin rubbed some sort of ointment into his shoulder.
He couldn’t, for the life of his own, understand why things had to be like this. If this camp became overpopulated like a Sector? They would expand. They would be stronger. They would be smarter. They wouldn’t expel and kill each other at any given time for the sake of food and water – everyone could put their skills in and work together. Something about the eviction of citizens still wasn’t right to him. Morally, it wasn’t; however, tactically, it was even worse. He knew for a fact that the Sector officials believed in strength of numbers and still did. Why they would want that was a completely different theory to Sasuke – something he couldn’t even fathom about.
Sasuke wanted a lot of things. He wanted revenge upon One, those who had ever attacked his group and himself, those who had threatened his friends in the past. Of course, he wanted freedom – but there was a morbid reality. They were living in miles and miles of open space, a whole new world, living on their own, doing as they want. But it could never be considered freedom, not to him. They were living on leashes. A leash thrown on each and every one of them, tugged to and fro the surrounding sectors – tracking and torturing them this way and that. It would always be like that, unless there was something to be done.
Lately, though, the color of his old wants had faded on the spectrum of his own reality. Something miniscule that could make a massive change. He had only looked into that side of the color wheel, one that could benefit himself – his thoughts were currently shallow and selfish. He had such basic needs but his wants were out of their small world.
Sasuke’s eyes slowly followed a beetle crawling through the dry grass under his boots. If he were to be selfish… would be punished? Could he look into something he wanted without being overridden by guilt and pity? Would Itachi beat him to an inch of his life if he found out?
Karin gently slid the nylon bracelet from his wrist and threw his sling to the ground.
“Get outta here and use it,” she said and squeezed his bicep. “I don’t want you shooting with it, though.”
Sasuke grumbled his thanks and stood up. His arm was definitely asleep – pins and needles were running up and down the appendage. He gingerly lifted his arm to look at the palm of his hand, something he hadn’t seen for so long. It was pale, as usual, the creases in his palms defined and pink. Sasuke winced and rubbed his shoulder as he walked back to the tents. His scar tissue was thick and sensitive.
The gentle sun was almost finished setting. It left unsightly gray and brown chunks of snow in its wake, disgusting slosh being spread by their camp member’s shoes.
His thoughts returned to the briefing led by Ino. He wasn’t sure who set her as the temporary leader, but her assertiveness probably wouldn’t let anyone else be. Sasuke truly thought that the military officials weren’t going to come tonight – it was the art of deception. If they were to come in any form, they’d send Katons. He nodded to himself. Officials wouldn’t risk their own lives for evicts. They’d send the pieces of metal that they could control from acres away, lead them in a circle or where they wanted the group to be and slaughter them.
Sasuke reached the barrel of guns and turned left to the blue tent he and Naruto shared. Naruto’s boots were messily thrown on either side of the entrance, prone to letting bugs crawl inside them. He lifted the plastic flap and peeked in, the entire tent warm with its source wrapped in a mound of blankets in the center of the tent.
Sasuke nearly groaned. Naruto was always fucking napping even though he didn’t do shit besides talk.
“Naruto,” he called.
The blond groaned and rolled away from him, tugging the blankets along with him and yawning. “Don’t wake me up,” Naruto grumbled.
“Why not?”
Naruto rolled over and over again until he propped himself up on his elbows and grinned at Sasuke. “’Cuz I’ll wanna go out.”
Sasuke hummed and tilted his head slightly, offering a friendly smirk. “Pick a gun or I’ll pick it for you. I know there’s a water gun around here somewhere.”
Naruto snorted and glared at Sasuke. He finally rose from his spot, stumbling out of the tent and rubbing his eyes. His blond hair was ruffled and his shoulders were still relaxed with sleep. Sasuke let the flap of the tent close, the twenty seconds their interaction took being the longest he had used his left arm. He popped his knuckles for the first time in a long time and sighed.
Naruto practically snapped his neck turning around to look at Sasuke’s hands. “Woah, you have another arm!”
Sasuke felt his eyebrow twitch. He needed to learn to accept that the way Naruto worded his sentences were a bit odd sometimes. “I’ve always had two.”
The blond scoffed. “That didn’t come out right,” he rubbed the back of his neck and offered Sasuke a goofy smile. “I mean you got your slingy off.”
Sasuke felt his eye twitch. “Yeah, Karin took it off.”
“How’s it feel?” Naruto asked, leading them over to the gun barrel. He hunched over to sort through the weapons and ammunition, creating an unnecessary ruckus that could attract a fleet of Katons.
“Feels fine,” Sasuke deadpanned and stared into the woods. The sun had set now, only the last couple rays of sunlight beaming across the purple sky. “Other than being asleep and weak, fine.”
Naruto hummed and delved farther into the barrel, nearly slicing his hand on a fancy looking hunting knife. “Hey, this looks really familiar…” The blond hoisted a gun from the metal container, glossy and gently used. Its last ten years looked nearly invisible.
“That’s mine,” Sasuke snapped and placed a hand on the nose of the gun, right above Naruto’s.
“Oh yeah!” Naruto hoisted the rest of the rifle out of the barrel, almost scared to handle such an expensive looking thing. Black wood smothered in a layer of tough gloss and a nearly unscathed barrel. He hadn’t seen this one in a while. “Didn’t you say it was Itachi’s?”
“Yeah,” Sasuke murmured, taking the gun in his arms. “But he gave it to me a while back. I wonder why it just showed up here,” he gently turned the gun around and inspected the intricate mahogany details on the trigger, right up to the Uchiha crest on the butt.
“It wasn’t there before,” Naruto said and picked out his beloved Jericho from the barrel.
“That’s… odd,” Sasuke said, rolling his words on his tongue and glancing at the other tents. Maybe the others had managed to dance the gun around shifts while Sasuke wasn’t around or paying attention to them. “Maybe Itachi just put it here last night…”
“Speakin’ of things that are yours…” Naruto began and cleared his throat. “Or ours. I think we better check in with Ino so we don’t get stuck with shitty ass guard times.”
Sasuke looked up from inspecting his gun and nodded, slinging the familiar leather strap over his shoulder and walking alongside Naruto to the front of the camp.
-----------------------
Ino’s voice was barely echoing into the open space, arguing with Gaara about something or another. They both stood in an empty area where only one compact car remained. Kakashi’s SUV hadn’t even left scuff marks, the other cars without a trace. Gaara went silent immediately after catching a glimpse of Naruto and excused himself once the pair approached Ino. Weird, Naruto thought to himself. Ino lifted her hand in a wave and leant against the single car.
“You think they went on vacation?” Naruto asked.
“May be,” Ino grumbled. “May be not. This sure as hell is the first time they haven’t left a damn note.”
“Eh?” Naruto scrunched his brows. “They’ve done this before?”
Ino pushed herself off the car and set her hands on her hips. “Yeah, they’ve done it before. They just told us the night before or somethin’,” she mumbled and drew a semicircle in the dirt with her foot. “Didn’t leave us hanging like this.”
A slightly awkward silence followed. There was nothing much to say, though the slight surprise wasn’t something to be questioned. The adults had left the members of the camp, like mother bears leaving bear cubs. Couldn’t bring them fish or take them anywhere. Sasuke had obviously had no role whatsoever in this camp before, so he had no cents to put in. Naruto was partially amazed at the casualness Ino associated with him asking questions about things he should already know.
“Hey, when do we guard?” Sasuke impatiently cut in.
Ino groaned and tucked a loose piece of her ponytail behind her ear, her eyes droopy and lips frowning. She glanced at a small piece of paper in her hand and scribbled something on it. “You got dawn. Keep track of one hundred and twenty minutes. If either of you don’t show up,” she glared at Sasuke, “you get turned into Sector bait. Hear me?”
“Yes ma’am,” Naruto yelled and noted their guard time in the back of his mind. “We gotcha.”
Ino grumbled an incoherent response and turned her back on them, leaning against a mossy tree and glaring at her piece of paper.
Naruto pursed his lips as he and Sasuke walked through a small patch of woods connecting the center camp and parking area. “I don’t think she really wants to be in charge. I can tell.” He set his arms behind his head.
“No one put her in charge,” Sasuke said. “I wonder why she felt like she had to.”
“She’s always been kinda bossy,” Naruto blurted, a faint image of a blond boy with green eyes flying past his mind. His eyebrows scrunched as the image left again and he wasn’t sure if it had been there at all.
Sasuke arched an eyebrow at him. Naruto raised his brows back at him since he couldn’t raise just one like the raven. “What?”
“Did you just remember something?” Sasuke asked, his swinging left arm momentarily distracting Naruto from his train of thought.
“Uh,” Naruto scratched the back of his head, a reminiscent of where used to be a gnarly bump. “I dunno.”
Sasuke sighed. “Maybe you’ll remember in your sleep, ‘cause that’s all you seem to do these days.”
“Hey, I’m a growing man!” Naruto stretched his arms high above his head and let a loud growl escape his lips.
“Uzumaki!” A deep voice yelled, both of their eyes tracking to the side where Neji stood guard. “Keep it down!”
Sasuke bit his lip to hide a smile. They cleared the entrance of the camp, the fire now completely out and covered by a tarp to trap the smoke from giving their location away. Only a couple of bodies sat on the logs that were usually crammed with bodies. Even those had their back turned to fire, a gun in their hand and their eyes staring hardly into the woods. Sai was watching the densest part of the woods with an eerily blank gaze. In terms of creepiness, though, the award went to Gaara – who seemingly hadn’t blinked in all the minute they had been walking past. His eyes were empty, only clouded by their obligations and priorities.
“You think that’ll be us?” Naruto whispered to Sasuke.
“Nah,” Sasuke whispered back. “We’ll be better.”
The blond leant away from him, raising his eyebrows and grinning lopsidedly. “I’ll be better than you.”
Sasuke snorted and tilted his head to the side. “How can you be better than me if you’d forget that within a few minutes?”
Naruto spluttered for a second or two and grabbed Sasuke by the shoulder, waving his tan fist in his face and frowning. “Say that again, ‘Sas! Say it again!”
“For Kami’s sake, shut the fuck up!” Neji suddenly hissed from besides them, scowling and looking ready to snap any minute. “I’ll fucking shoot you!”
Sasuke jumped a bit higher than he’d like to admit. When had Neji gotten there?
“Hey,” Naruto said, looking a bit upset. “Saying you’re gonna shoot us isn’t cool, dude.”
Oh, Kami, Sasuke thought to himself, trying to resist rubbing his jaw.
“Yelling when you know we’re on high security isn’t ‘cool, dude’,” Neji spat and scrunched his nose. He rolled his shoulder so that his Uzi magazine clicked loudly against his hip. “You best listen to me.”
“Why?” Naruto puffed out his chest a bit and inched closer to Neji, who still stood an inch or two taller than him. “The hell do we have to listen to you for?”
“Knock it off,” Sasuke interrupted and shoved Naruto to the side, out of Neji’s face. “Stop acting like damn kids. Why the hell don’t you get back to guarding, Neji?”
Neji snarled and jutted his shoulder away from Sasuke. A cold gust of wind sent a few strands of his long hair out of his face, revealing his already aging forehead and temples. He tilted his chin back and his hand up, shoving a finger in Sasuke’s face that Sasuke refused to cross his eyes to see. He bit his lip to keep himself from cussing Neji out. Be the bigger person, Itachi had advised him. He held steady eye contact with Neji’s cold gray eyes.
“Hey! The hell is wrong with you!” Naruto riled up again, throwing his hands up in the air and glaring at Neji. “I thought we were all supposed to be a team here!” He smacked Neji’s arm out of Sasuke’s face, the long finger nearly poking him in the eye.
“We’re not any type of fucking team,” Neji spat as if Naruto had asked him to pick up shit. “And we haven’t ever been, dumbass.”
“Come on, Naruto,” Sasuke shoved the blond in the back again, towards the tents. “Let’s just go to bed.”
Naruto didn’t budge for a while. He moved when Sasuke moved into the corner of his eye and gave him a nasty glare.
They walked briskly back to the tents, tense and alert. It seemed like the whole camp had been soaked in both physical and literal darkness, one of confusion and distrust. Only the sliver of a moon provided the slightest lighting for them to make their way back.
“Man, he’s such an ass,” Naruto growled and kicked a rock into the woods, hitting a tree and causing a few leaves to rustle. “Fuckin’ pisses me off.”
“Calm down,” Sasuke grumbled and toed off his boots by the entrance of their tent. “All you were doing was giving him bait for him to keep poking at you.”
“Not saying anything isn’t doing to do anything.”
“And saying something is?” Sasuke questioned and held open the tent for him. “You don’t always have to fight back, at least verbally. What makes them angry is appearing not to be affected at all.”
“Not to be affected at all?” Naruto repeated and thought about it. He remembered a few times where he had tried to tease Sasuke a bit to rile him up, but it didn’t work. He had stopped after a couple of times once he saw Sasuke wasn’t going to react or do anything. “I see.” Naruto kicked his feet out and let his boots hit the ground roughly.
“Yeah,” Sasuke murmured and rearranged his own blankets from where Naruto had created a nest with them.
Now they laid in silence, just about two feet between their bodies. Crickets had come out of their small homes to chatter at each other. Wind occasionally made sharp whistles against their tent. Their breathing, light and calm, alternated with each other as one breathed while the other let go of a breath.
“Sasuke?”
“What?”
“What if they do come?”
“Then,” Sasuke whispered and experimentally rolled onto his left side. “we fight.”
Naruto snorted lightly. “What if they beat us?”
“We run.”
“What if they catch us?”
Sasuke paused to think about that for a few seconds, his breath almost catching at the imagined scenario. They laid in silence once again in the few seconds that seemed like moments, minute that seemed like an hour. “Then we fight again.”
“Don’t give up?” Naruto asked and rolled over to face Sasuke.
“Yeah,” Sasuke said.
“Okay,” Naruto whispered, quieter than Sasuke knew he had the ability to. “Good night,” he murmured, even quieter than before.
Sasuke relaxed and rolled over to face Naruto. “Night.”
-------------------------------------------------
Sasuke slept on and off, for maybe minutes or an hour at a time. Each time he woke up, he listened very carefully to the sounds in the woods and the occasional owl hooting. Naruto had been sleeping peacefully for the couple of hours that had passed, curled into a ball and facing Sasuke.
Each time he woke up, he felt even drowsier than before. It was his mind doing this to him - setting an internal alarm clock that could potentially detect danger. It nearly felt like he couldn’t sleep at all, waking up with his eyes burning like they had been open or with his heart racing like he had been running.
Eventually, though, he drifted back into sleep, and one that would carry him into the night.
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A small boy, called the runt of the pack, stood amongst other boys that were a full head or so taller than him. They all stood side by side in a perfect single file line, in the exact same pressed uniforms that their mothers had fretted so much over the night before. Some of the boys had more golden pins adorning their breast pockets than the others, some of the boys without any at all.
A tall man, cloaked with a richer blue than the boys standing with their shoulders square and noses high, slowly placed one foot in front of another as he inspected them from the front. His long black hair spilt to his waist and slightly curled where its ends were dry and unkempt. His heavy footsteps created intimidating slams against the marble floor that so many of them had been pushed unto, waxed from its saliva and sweat from the previous afternoon.
A-17, the man counted to himself as he came across a lanky boy with only four golden pins on his left breast pocket. In need of improvement. Will be put in strength and agility training. Fixed diet.
The man shook his head as his eyes roved across the rest of the boy’s body and met with a wrinkle in the shoulder of his uniform. He uncrossed his fingers from behind his back and stood straight in front of the boy, ready to address orders.
“Name,” the man barked, his face giving away no indication of what he was about to do.
“Aono Matsuzaka,” the boy replied, his voice almost cracking and his fingers flinching.
“Matsuzaka-san,” the man replied and let a heavy frown come across his face. “I’ve noticed that you have a wrinkle on your right shoulder.”
A silence that was already grim turned tense among the boys. Pity washed over all of them and the amusement that had been there seventeen boys before was long gone.
“I-I’m sorry, sir.”
“You think that cuts it in the academy?” The man spat. “Tell me, what do you think we are?”
“We are,” the boy’s inhales turned shaky and he swallowed loudly. “We a-are trained here. For the military. To protect our Sector.”
“To be what?” The man hissed in his ear and hot spit hit the boy’s neck.
“L-loyal,” Aono stuttered and nearly gasped when the commander flinched in fury. “Aggressive,” he rushed. “Ultimate.”
The man sighed and backed away from the boy, looking at him down his nostrils. “I find it humorous that you have so diligently listed the morals of this school and have yet to follow them,” he crooned. “Quite disappointing, actually.”
The man lifted his leg and a few of the boys failed to conceal their flinches. All they heard as they gently shut their eyes as to not upset the commander was a crunch and a choke of pain, a thud and a few gasps. Then it was time for A-18.
Bodies, whimpering and gasping, now littered the ground as Orochimaru neared the end of the line at twenty three. Not one boy had been left standing, all of them found with an imperfection that left them unsuitable for their rank and platoon. He sighed in an odd-tasting mixture of awe and disappointment.
They had been arranged by age, A-1 being the oldest to the left and A-23 being the youngest to the right. Orochimaru’s eyes lazed from where A-2 and on had been standing.
A small smile stretched Orochimaru’s lips as his eyes reached the only one standing. He stepped up to the boy and saluted him, the smallest boy’s tiny hand hitting his small forehead in a brave gesture of honor.
Seven waxed serpent pins glittered on the boy’s breast pocket, of cobras striking boldly and boas ready to curl.
“You have yet to disappoint me, Sasuke,” Orochimaru said proudly. “I would be interested in moving you on to the graduation with the higher ranks so you will have an opportunity to professionally train with me.”
The little boy almost jumped and smiled in excitement, barely concealing a comical widening of his dark eyes. He quickly tensed his body like his older brother had helped him to, giving a professional nod. “Thank you, commander. I would be honored to accept your training you have so generously given me the opportunity to use.”
Orochimaru lowered his hand from his forehead and smirked. “Good.” In a genuinely proud gesture, he let his hand fall onto the boy’s shoulder a few times. A few loud pats.
“I will be enthusiastic to work with you in the future, Sasuke,” he said. “You’re dismissed. I will send a messenger for your parents.”
Sasuke patiently waited as the commander left the room. He immediately slumped once the footsteps were completely out of hearing range, glancing down at the limp bodies so much larger than his.
He let out a shaky sigh and ran towards the window, climbing on top of the sill and hopping out to roll into clipped and kept bushes lining the gray brick building. Sasuke quickly pushed himself up and sprinted towards the metal gates with barbed wire on top of them, sparkling with a blue aura that he knew was called artificial energy.
The gates stopped in their circuiting as he appeared, the energy shifting to a small bulb rising out of the ground. Sasuke looked down at it and let a gentle blue light scan his eyes, his academy identification and credentials being called out robotically and allowing the gates to open. He ran away once again, towards his special neighborhood that was very close to the school and protected its habitants against anticipated attacks.
He went through the same process at the entrance of his neighborhood, his mother sent a notification that he had arrived at the main gates and was to arrive in an estimated number of seconds. He turned to the immediate right and ran across his large front lawn with fluffy green grass and weird lawn gnomes that looked like his commander.
Sasuke broke out into a grin when his mother opened the door and offered a warm smile to him. He charged at her, leaping into her arms as she groaned with his weight and squeezed the life out of her.
“You’re getting too big for this, Sasuke,” Mikoto grunted and planted a kiss on his cheek. “You look very cu-handsome,” she corrected herself once Sasuke narrowed his eyes at her and detected the beginning of ‘cute’.
Sasuke, in his childhood innocence, let the matter drop and broke out into more grins as he played with his mother’s hair. “Guess what, mama?”
“What is it?” She wiped the sweat off of his forehead with her apron and carried him to their great kitchen, setting him down onto the marble counter and smiling her pretty smile in his face. “How did your rank testing go?”
Sasuke yelled and pumped his little fists in the air, an impish smirk coming across his face. “I was the only one!” He leapt off of the marble and kicked off his loafers, flying somewhere into the living room. “Me! Me! Me!”
Mikoto stood with her eyes wide and mouth slightly agape. She hadn’t dealt with this kind of energy since Sasuke was four. She had thought that three years would have burnt off that excess energy.
“You got a perfect grade?” She questioned and tilted her head, sitting on her knees so that she was closer to her son’s height.
“Yeah, and everyone else got kicked down!”
“Kicked down?” Mikoto raised her eyebrow. “What do you mean, Sasuke?”
The child sighed in exasperation and yanked off his thick socks. ”Everyone else failed!”
Mikoto opened her mouth to question him again, but quickly shut it as she realized she probably wasn’t going to get any answers. ”Well, I’m proud of you, honey!” She leant forward to give him another kiss but was met by a gust of air and a pair of small socks on the ground. Mikoto shook her head and picked up what Sasuke had managed to throw around, thinking about scheduling an appointment at the local spa.
Deeper into the Uchiha household, Sasuke ran through another hallway that he knew he would get more appraisal for. He passed his father’s office, of who wouldn’t be home until tonight, and his mother’s craft room, which he was banned from.
He skidded and nearly fell on the white marble floor, of which he had already broken his arm on a while ago. Sasuke startled himself and finally slowed down, not wanting to get hurt again.
Sasuke reached a room with an open door and ivory carpet, jogging in and letting another smile bloom across his face. His brother looked up from his homework, a pencil in his hand and a ruler in another. Itachi’s hair just barely touched his shoulders, moving stiffly when Itachi turned to look at his brother.
“I was the only one that won!” Sasuke jumped on Itachi’s twin bed and tackled a large pillow.
“See, I told you that you would pass, hm?” Itachi yanked on his brother’s thin ankle and dragged him off of his bed. “I’ll let you choose dinner tonight. Even if it’s that’s stupid soup you like.”
Sasuke cheered and smiled at his brother. “The older boys all failed! Orochimaru said he was proud of me!”
Itachi chuckled. Before Sasuke knew it, Itachi’s hand had rose and he was soon sent stumbling back and scowling.
“Ow!” he whined, rubbing his forehead and alternating glares at the two fingers Itachi had practically stabbed him with and Itachi’s face.
“I’m proud of you, little brother,” Itachi smiled again and pat Sasuke on the head. “What do I always tell you?”
Sasuke sighed and rolled his eyes, ready to run to his room and play with his toys until his father arrived home early. “I’m not gonna say it! Today is my day!”
Itachi chuckled again and shook his head. “It’s our day, as a family. Say it and I’ll play a game with you.”
Sasuke froze at that sentence. He loved it when Itachi played one of his cool games with him. Should he run away and not play with Itachi, or give in to him and play?
Sasuke simpered. “I know I don’t have a lot of blood, but…” he deadpanned.
“It only takes one,” Itachi whispered.
-----------------------------------------
Sasuke gasped and sat up from his sleeping position, robbed of his breath and covered in a cold sweat. Itachi.
A wave of dizziness washed over him and he cradled his head in his knees, clutching the sheets to bring himself to reality. He worked to slow his breathing and fell backwards onto his pillow again, resting his arms over his eyes.
Sasuke dropped his arms to his sides and turned his head to the right. Naruto was gone.
He sat up again and let his right hand wander over to his left shoulder, pushing on the collarbone that used to be so fragile and running over his large, slowly healing scar.
He laid back down and wiped his forehead, pushing the blankets off of himself. Naruto had probably gone to the bathroom.
Sasuke rolled back onto his left side and stared at the tarp floor until his eyes got too dry to keep open. He relaxed and tried to will his body and mind to go to sleep.
It only takes one? Sasuke could very vaguely remember Itachi ever saying that, and might as well have forgotten it. He did remember that day, though, but not ever that conversation with Itachi. His seven year old mind had probably overridden.
Karin would occasionally say that all dreams had meanings to them, maybe a few years ago. If only he could research dreams like he had for many other damn things at the city library.
His eyelids felt heavy once again and he didn’t question Naruto’s long absence. Sasuke welcomed sleep, yanking the blankets back over himself and concentrating on the gentle whistle of his own breathing.
Heavy footsteps jolted him back awake, this time so he was squatting. The footsteps were angry, accompanied by the metal clanking of what Sasuke recognized as the metal of an assault rifle. He fished around in the sheets as quietly as he could for Kusanagi, crawling over to Naruto’s side of the tent to find her nestled in a corner. Hoping the moonlight wouldn’t give away his stance, he unsheathed Kusanagi and pressed his side against the entrance of the tent. He focused his weight on his back leg and silently unzipped a portion of the entrance enough for his finger to fit through. He held the opening zipper lips with his pointer, silencing the sound.
Once the entrance had a space large enough for him to look through, he peeked outside of the tent. Nothing. Fresh snow had fallen during the night and was still falling, Naruto having left some time ago, maybe an hour. Did he miss their shift because Naruto wanted him to sleep more?
If he missed it or not, Sasuke wasn’t going to ignore the risk of intruders in their camp. He quickly unzipped the rest of the entrance and smoothly moved outside, holding the chokutō in a defensive position. Sasuke inspected the area around him, snow glittering in the moonlight and silencing his steps against dry grass. Coldness seeped into the ankles of his sweatpants and chilled his bare feet, but he would have to sacrifice his own comfort for the safety of his friends.
Sasuke slowly moved out farther, glancing all around himself once more. So far, he saw no sign of danger – the others were probably sleeping or guarding. He lowered Kusanagi and stabbed her into the earth so that she stood out of the ground.
If that had been a military official, Sasuke thought, then he got past me. Sasuke still felt anticipation in the cold air, though, but dismissed it to put his boots on. He turned back around and tensed when he heard light footsteps coming from a direction he couldn’t tell.
He stared at Kusanagi, merely teen feet away from him. The footsteps became louder, echoing off of the snow so that his only option was to turn in a circle and look if he wanted to see where they were coming from. Sasuke guessed he was cornered, though, and leapt for Kusanagi.
He grabbed Kusanagi and raised her in front of his face. Sasuke tensed his biceps, left muscle weak, and turned to glare into darkness once again. The footsteps echoed again, this time a bit more coherent. Sasuke quickly turned to face where they came from, but again, there was nobody they were coming from.
Sasuke soon felt the predatorial gaze in his lower back. They were staring at him. If Sasuke couldn’t track this person down, then…
The same footsteps crunched in the snow to his left, coming towards him at an alarming rate. Sasuke charged at the footsteps with Kusanagi protecting his chest, his left shoulder already sore. Sasuke couldn’t see anything except white.
The footsteps stopped and then started again towards his right. If this official wanted to play a game… then Sasuke would win. He tossed Kusanagi down and prepared himself for a physical fight.
The footsteps, loud and clear, charged towards him again and Sasuke charged back. The official and him ran towards each other, his face almost revealed by the moonlight—
Suddenly, a cold force shoved him back and went inside his sweater, immediately melting. Sasuke fell onto his back and into the six inches of soft snow that bundled him. He sat there for a few seconds, listening to the pathetically concealed snorts that he recognized as Naruto laughing with himself.
He stood up and brushed himself off, angry that his clothing was going to be soaked and that Naruto would dare mess around at a time like this. Sasuke had genuinely thought that he was a military official and had nearly fucking attacked Naruto.
Sasuke seethed for a few moments, clenching his fists and biting his lips. He felt hot in the face, for both being stupid and being tricked by Naruto, and cold on the rump because the blond had fucking shoved him.
Naruto wheezed a few times and panted, bending over and wiping his face.
“Caught your breath?” Sasuke said in a neutral tone, quiet enough for the night.
“Yeah, I think s-so-“Naruto launched himself off into another bout of silent laughter, this time falling to his knees and clutching his stomach. “You looked so fucking serious! A-and you-”
“Because I was serious!” Sasuke hissed and resisted from stomping on Naruto. “I was fucking serious because I woke up in the middle of the damn night to footsteps not even twelve hours right after we see Sector officials!” He shut his lips and felt his face heat up again, this time in anger.
Naruto had calmed down sometime during his blowup. He raised himself into a kneeling position and then stood up, face serious. “Are you really that angry?”
“Yes! I am this fucking angry!” Sasuke’s fist nearly raised itself to punch him.
The blond sighed and looked at his feet. “I’m sor-“
“Don’t act like a child,” he snapped and stalked to where Kusanagi had been thrown. Sasuke picked her up and stabbed her back into the earth.
“But I am,” Naruto spoke up and grabbed his shoulder so that they were facing each other. “I just…” the blond looked to the side, his irises visible in the moonlight. “You were just so tense and I didn’t want you to get a hemorrhoid or something-“
Sasuke, despite himself, hid a short laugh with a cough to the side. “I think you meant ulcer.”
“Yeah! Yeah, that,” Naruto held both of his shoulders now, hands warm and fingers comforting the scar tissue on Sasuke’s shoulder. “I wanted to lighten the mood. I didn’t mean for this to get so serious.”
He tried to move away, but Naruto’s hands were persistent. Sasuke looked up into Naruto’s face, deep blue eyes sincere and his blond hair being barraged by “dandruff”. He sighed.
“Whatever,” he grumbled and tried to jostle himself free again, but Naruto held on once again. “Just let me go.”
“Do you forgive me?” the blond’s eyebrows furrowed and he shook Sasuke’s shoulders slightly. “I mean it, I’m sorry…”
“Not this shit again,” Sasuke grumbled under his breath. “Stop being such a sap. It’s fine. Just don’t fuck around like that again.”
Naruto slowly let him go, his hands returning to his sides. “I still don’t feel like you’ve forgiven me.”
“I don’t see why it matters. Don’t we have guard duty in a few hours?”
“Here,” Naruto knelt down and spread his arms around a large portion of snow. “If you throw all of this on me,” he grunted as he brought up the fluffy substance from its stubborn spot, “then I’ll know you forgive me.”

Naruto packed part of the lump together, making a snowball about the size of his own head. He did that a couple of more times, finally totaling three and smashed them all together to make a monstrous ball of snow. He stood up and rubbed his hands against each other, frozen and numb from playing with the snow too much.
Sasuke sighed again and rubbed his temples. “I don’t think we have time for this kind of shit. Let’s just go to bed and get up in time for guard, Naruto. This has to be serious.”
Naruto glared at him and puffed out his chest, standing tall and squaring his shoulders. “I’ll be serious once you throw this snowball at me.” I can’t ever sleep when someone’s mad at me.
“Naruto, it’s not that big of a deal,” Sasuke said, exasperated now. “Can’t we just let it go?”
“Just throw it at me!” Naruto snapped. “Why don’t you want to?”
“Well, like I’ve been saying for the past damn five minutes, one, we need to get to bed, two, I’m sleepy, and three, you’re gonna attract the officials if nobody else does.”
“I think you forgot four,” Naruto crooned and swayed from side to side.
“There is no number four.”
“Yeah, there is…” Naruto looked into the crescent moon and mumbled something under his breath.
“What?” Sasuke asked, genuinely confused. He was sleepy and irritated and didn’t need to deal with Naruto’s shit right now.
Naruto raised his hand to his mouth and coughed a bit, turning his back and lacing his fingers together behind him.
Sasuke rolled his eyes. “I’m going to bed. Goodnight.”
“Chicken!” Naruto yelled, pointing at Sasuke with wide eyes. “Chicken, chicken, chicken!”
Sasuke turned around, contemplating whether or not he should punch Naruto in the neck to shut him up. “I’m not a fucking chicken.”
Ah, he took the bait, Naruto thought to himself and grinned. “Then why won’t you throw this perfectly good snowball at me?”
“Because we have priorities,” Sasuke snapped again and waved. He walked over to their tent and sat down inside, unlacing his boots. “I think you should get to bed before I lock you out.”
“Are you scared, Sas’?” Naruto called and made devil horns on his head with his index fingers. “Scared that your little reputation will get all messed up?”
Something in Sasuke felt like it was being pinched and he glared at the blond. “Shut up.”
Naruto raised his hands to his armpits, sending Sasuke a defiant look that spoke a hundred words.
Sasuke glanced around the tents and then into the woods, then back at Naruto. “Don’t you fucking dare.”
The blond slowly and dramatically tilted his chin into the air, like a wolf ready to howl. “Bach,” he sang and then turned away from Sasuke. “Bach bach!” He yelled.
Holy shit, Sasuke thought. Is he for real? “You are not doing this right now.”
“Bach! Bach!” Naruto flapped his imaginary wings and glared at Sasuke. “Bach!”
“Shut the hell up!” Sasuke stood up and cracked his knuckles. “I’ll knock your fucking teeth out if you yell one more time.”
“Bach!” Naruto turned away from him and begun marching around in circles, flapping his wings and yelling into the night.
“Shut the fuck up,” Sasuke grumbled and picked up a handful of snow. He threw it straight into Naruto’s face, who spluttered and sneezed.
Naruto continued on with his chicken noises, making Sasuke’s ears feel like they were on fire and probably beginning to wake the others. Sasuke jogged back towards the entrance of the tent and bent over to pick up the gigantic snowball that he had made.
Sasuke lugged it into his arms, hugging it to his chest and moving as silently as he could to sneak up behind Naruto.
Before he knew it, he had slammed the ball over Naruto’s head, sending Naruto tumbling to the ground and falling in even more snow.
His blond head was buried under the snow, not moving or breathing at all.
Sasuke snorted and shook his hands of the snow, ready to return to bed.
Naruto’s head rose out of the snow and dopily grinned at Sasuke. “That’s more like it.”
- 14
- 15
- 16
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Sector Five