Adult-FanFiction.org : Naruto

Blood Orange	By : SSShitstorm Category: Naruto > Het - Male/Female Views: 1343 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto nor do I profit from this work of fiction. Naruto is owned by Masashi Kishimoto.

Chapter List
- 5
- 6
A/N : Forgive me for what must be an enormous amount of typos. I don't have a beta. This might get pulled and re-uploaded.
And I apologize for the shortness. I really couldn't fit anymore into this without attaching the next chapter entirely, which made it too long to upload.
Rates and reviews are so very, very loved.

Enjoy.
***********************************

To say that you feel awful would be a horrific understatement. It really would.

You wrap the makeshift jacket tighter around your body, desperately fighting off a persistent sneeze. It was cold. Very cold. February, March, whatever month it was now it was still unbearably harsh, dry, and freezing.

You frown as you wearily walk on, bare feet making a distinctive but subdued echo off the cobble-stoned village streets. Konoha never had weather like this, ever. It had winters, yes, but much warmer, and with snow. But god knows what happened to the climate after what Pein did, what you did.

And that's why you need answers, now more than ever. You needed to know before you moved on with your life. Needed to know before you answered Kakashi's question.

”I need some fresh air.”
“You're not supposed to leave my side. If you get caught-
“It won't be long” you say, sliding open the window, avoiding the copy-nin's gaze. “I just need to talk to someone.”
“-who-?”
“I'll be back” you cut him off, sliding over the ledge and out into the freezing night air.
“God knows I can't leave now.”

You can feel it eating at the back of your mind, hungry, eager, the onslaught of emotions just barely contained behind your emotional threshold, and with every bit of resolve you hold it at bay, because you couldn't handle it right now.

He'd never wanted you to leave. And yet you did, on your own terms no less.
He was willing to try to put everything behind him, no matter how difficult, just to TRY and be with you.
For the rest of his life.

You clench your fist painfully tight. It hurts to realize this. To know that while he was brave enough to let go of the past and start over even back then, you were fighting desperately to do the same after the fact.

“Maybe I could. . .” you whisper, knowing full well there's no one to hear it. “Maybe I could move on.”

It's near, his apartment hadn't been rebuilt like Kakashi's had, and due to the landlord having died some time of natural causes beforehand, plans to rebuild hadn't been made, and he was currently staying somewhere inside the Nara clan's compound, going on Sakura's information alone. You scrunch your face, trying your hardest to remember. Naruto DID mention one of his many friend's lived here, but where? Hopefully it wasn't a female friend, or you may have walked in on something you'd rather not see (though knowing Naruto's luck with the opposite sex, that was rather unlikely).

You close your eyes, hands positioned into the hitsuji symbol, weaving your chakra out into fine strings to grasp onto traces of his much stronger red and blue chakras. You've never been that apt at sensing other's chakras, given your technique calls for a buildup and explosion of raw energies, rather than refinement, but you knew the jinchuuriki's overwhelming aura well enough to find him no matter what corner of the continent he'd managed to hide in.

There's a tug, and you feel his chakra's grabbing at yours. He probably knows you're here now, and luckily, is only half a kilometer away, if your calculations were correct(though you DID fail math back at the academy) and just as you've managed to pinpoint his exact location, you foot catches on something.

/THWUCK/

And you faceplant unceremoniously onto the ground. A rustling sound followed by the clinking of metallic objects informs you that you've tripped over a trap wire, and that several hundred shuriken had already embedded themselves into the patch of ground you've just managed to roll away from, one of them just narrowly missing your left ear.

There's a sound much like heavy rain on a tin roof, and you find yourself surrounded by enormous deer. And mentally curse yourself for not taking into account that the Nara had fucking ninja deer acting as watchdogs for the entire estate. You can feel their enormous black eyes on your, judging, breathing your scent, and knowing full well that you're NOT supposed to be here.

Just as you've resigned to being either gored to death via antler or the victim of a stampede, they scatter, and in the bleary darkness you can make out two human sized figures approaching you, one of them stopping to chase off a more reluctant deer.

“Who the hell are you?”

It's a tall young man, brown hair pulled into a tight, messy ponytail(obviously done in a rush) with a lit cigarette poking out the side of his mouth, giving you the 'its-too-early-for-this-crap” look.

You let your head flop back down on the grass, blowing out a breath.

“I'm '____', better known as one of those lifeless zombies that razed your village.” you reply, voice dripping with sarcasm.

He raises an eyebrow. “So you're that active rinnengan body or whatever, right?” there's a hint of a smirk tugging at his lips. “Almost didn't recognize you without the Akasuki cloak.”

You roll your eyes. “Those cloaks were so tacky anyways. I switched to something more stylish.”

“A hospital robe?” he motions towards your current state of dress. “Aren't those things backless-”

“____-chan?”

It's then the second figure emerges, bright(albeit sleepy) blue eyes shadowed by vivid blonde bangs and faint whisker scars across his cheek, and you feel your heart leap into your throat.

It's Naruto alright.

You throw yourself into his arms, knocking him over in the process, wrapping your arms around him and hugging him as tight as you could, feeling the beginning of happy tears pooling in the corners of your eyes.

“Naruto, oh god I missed you!” you sob, burying your face into his neck, “Naru-

“Naruto?” you reply, confused as he doesn't return the embrace, and stiffens in your arms.

He takes your face into his hands, gently, leveling your gray ringed eyes with his impossibly blue ones, and you suddenly feel very, very self conscious.

“____-chan” he starts slowly, never breaking the gaze. “You don't look like you.”

You swallow hard. “But, you heard, right? Sakura's been with me, she must've told you, I. . .” you falter , feeling your lower lip trembling slightly. You knew you weren't recognizable by most people's standards, but god, you'd never expected this from Naruto.

“I know it's you, I just.” he pauses, averting his eyes for the moment. “I just wish it wasn't.”

You bite your lip, a sick twisted feeling settling in your stomach. This isn't Naruto. This can't be.

“You have no idea how hard it was, when you WEREN'T you.” he murmurs, a pained expression on his face. “I had to fight you, “____-chan”, I had to KILL you.”

“That wasn't me.” you assure him. “Naruto, you only did what was right.”

“Just because it was right doesn't mean it was easy.” he gulps audibly. “I mean, I-”

“Do you two need a moment?” the other boy asks, taking a long drag off his cigarette. “I can leave if you want.”

Naruto gives him a sideways look, either perturbed or just surprised you can't tell. “Actually, yeah, but can I bring her inside? It's freezing out here!”

“Depends.” he drops the cigarette on the ground, smothering it with the heel on his sandal. “You guys gonna do anything inappropriate? Because I'll put you in the storage shed. I am SO not letting you bring a girl back to my room for th-”

“NO!” both of you shout in unison, Naruto blushing a deep red. “Geeze Shika, she dated my sensei, that's just awkward. ”

He rolls his eyes. “yeah, whatever. Just make sure she's back by morning, I don't want to have to explain to my mom why there's a strange girl in the house, especially when she looks like that.” he gestures towards you, either referring to your eyes or your hair you don't know. “No offense. ” he adds quickly sensing the anger radiating off you.

“None taken.” you sigh, rubbing your aching forehead as you follow the two back to the compound.

**************************************

“And she STILL won't go out with me.”

He'd been talking about Sakura for the last half hour, like always. You rub your forehead, keeping the ever persistent migraine that arose during his love-interest tirades at bay.

“Gee Naruto, have you ever thought about, I dunno, asking some OTHER chick out?” you ask flatly.

He scrunches up his face, as if horrified by the thought. “No.”

You blow out a breath. Stubborn enough to make you want to tear your hair out, as always.

There's a brief silence, in which you avert your eyes and Naruto's expression fades from disgust to genuine concern.

“Look,” he starts. “I know you didn't come here to hear me talk about Sakura-chan.” he says softly. “You must have something on your mind.”

He reaches out a hand, cupping your own in his.

“You CAN talk to me, y'know.”

You let out a sigh, wondering just how much he knew, and just how much you were willing to let him know.

“How much has Sakura told you, about what happened while I was at the hospital?” you ask.

“I know about Kakashi, I know about the one rod they couldn't extract from your forehead. I know that you're partially blind, about the rinnengan.” he blows out a breath, looking you dead in the eye.

“But I just now found out what happened between you and ero-sennin.”

You bite your lip, cringing, the beginning of tears in the corners of your eyes.

“I mean, I'd always kinda thought it was weird that you guys spent so much time together. “Naruto pauses, looking away. “Mostly because no girl I'd ever met wanted to be anywhere near Jiraiya for more than a few minutes. Not even Baa-chan.” you feel relief at the beginnings of a smile on his face, albiet a sad one. “I guess I just never really put two and two together..”

There's a pause, and this time, it's long, painful. You want to break it, to say /something/-

“I just-”

He starts, and stops abruptly, wearing an expression you can't decipher, which, for Narto, is a very, very rare occasion.

/Now/ you're genuinely concerned.

“It's just, I see Shikamaru with Kurenai-sensei all the time,” Naruto starts slowly, struggling with every word. “And I know that he's going through the same thing with Asuma-sensei, but-” he stops, and audibly gulps, deliberately avoiding your eyes.

“At least he gets to be a teacher. To his teacher's kid.”

You clamp your teeth shut, trying as hard as you can not to say anything, fight back tears. He didn't have to know. He'd be better off. Just feed him the same bullshit you did Tsunade.

“I don't know how to say this the right way, or if there is a right way to say this, but-” he exhales sharply, and you can see him visibly shaking as you looks up at you, so much hurt behind those blue eyes as he says softly-

“I wish your child had survived, “____”-chan.”

And as he fixes you with that look, that fucking /look/ of utter despair, and hopelessness, it's then you break. You break your resolve.

It's been a whole year since you left, since you'd buried your secrets, sent them off with Koji to Iwagakure, and went on the single-handed suicide mission to kill Pein.

It's been a year since you'd thrown everything away. A year that'd you'd been lying to everyone, been lying to yourself.

Maybe it wasn't too late. Maybe. You could take Kakashi up on his offer. Bring her back. Be a family.

You could stop running away. And start being a goddamn parent.

“Naruto.” you say sharply, getting to your feet. You had to do this now. While you were still stupid enough not to change your mind. “Can you request any time off from missions?”

“uh-yeah.” he responds, utterly dumbfounded. “But only like, a week or something like that. I already used up a couple of sick and vacation days, so- why?”

“He, he was your teacher.” it takes every ounce of willpower you posses not to falter, to choke on your words. “You deserve the truth Naruto. You deserve to know. And I need to stop crying and get the fuck over myself.”

You turn to the confused blonde youth, taking his hand in your own, and giving him the sincerest look you can mange-

“Jiraiya and I did have a child. Her name is Haru, she's one year old now, and-” you swallow hard, looking him dead in the eyes.

“She's still alive.”
- 5
- 6
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Blood Orange