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Starting Over	By : ladyvaltaya Category: Naruto > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 1113 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 7
- 8
- 9
Starting Over 8

Chapter 8

Kakashi was tired; it was late and he’d just spent
over an hour in Tsunade’s office reporting on the attempt on
Sasuke’s life. Now he just wanted to get home, but he was glad he’d
been in the village to sense the spike in Sasuke’s chakra. He was also
glad he’d obeyed his instincts and gone immediately to see what was
happening. He knew that Sasuke was spending absurd amounts of time training his
mind instead of resting; but after this, Kakashi couldn’t exactly blame
him for being wary.

He knew Sasuke; and that kind of chakra surge wasn’t
training. It was smaller than the wave of dark power that Naruto, Sakura and
everyone else had described when they’d watched Sasuke overpower
Juugo’s terrible rage with nothing but chakra. Tonight it wasn’t
driven by any particular need, but it felt just as focused- just as deadly as
Sasuke himself had become.

He was glad that he’d been there to stop him from
summoning the sword, but the imposed ban against him holding much less using
weapons during his house arrest wasn’t really about the weapons at all-
and Sasuke was smart enough to know it. Anyone could see that Sasuke had enormous
reserves of power; like Naruto, he was already the very definition of a living,
breathing weapon- and also like the blond, he was still developing. Even
injured he could’ve killed his attackers tonight simply using the
techniques he’d had since he was twelve. No, the weapon restriction’s
point was meant to assess his self restraint and Sasuke had been ready to break
it after only three days?

His former student’s recklessness made him angry, but Kakashi
couldn’t exactly call it a surprise. After all, Sasuke’s ancestral home
held dark memories that no one should have to face alone…

Kakashi had arrived on the scene first. As one of the people
who’d always known Sasuke the best, he was still remarkably attuned to
his chakra just as he could sense that of Naruto, Sakura and Iruka. This was
lucky for Sasuke because it wasn’t just the Hokage’s ANBU who had
been on hand to investigate that huge spark of chakra. All the other villages
were worried about the possible threat level posed by the last Uchiha. No one
wanted to risk the rise of another Orochimaru. Each village’s Kage had insisted on sending a number of their ANBU representatives
to help determine whether or not he could be controlled.

But with Sasuke, it had always been more a question of
whether he would allow himself to be
controlled. He’d had just spent the last three years proving that he was
too smart, determined, and ambitious for his own good. With his fiercely
independent spirit, if he couldn’t be trusted, then stopping him
wouldn’t be just the Fire Country’s problem. The council, along
with the other Kages, was making sure that Tsunade knew the position she was
putting them in. On the surprisingly positive side, Gaara adamantly believed
that Naruto would be able to make Sasuke see that this was still his home and
where he wanted to be.

Kakashi ran his hands through his wild hair and sighed. He
wanted to believe that the kids he’d watched grow up were right; after
all, Sasuke had allowed himself to be brought home alive but the Jounin just didn’t
want to risk trusting him completely again. After training alone with him just
before stage two of the Chuunin exam, he knew better than almost anyone else
how incredibly stubborn Sasuke could be…

“So, what do I do with him? He’s nothing like
you but he’s really the last member of your family… Unfortunately,
he’s more like me than ever now, and I think that’s why it hurts so
much… I don’t even know what I’d do in his place.”

The storm from earlier had passed and the memorial stone
glimmered in the moonlight that flickered though the swift moving clouds, but
there was no answer from Obito.

Kakashi sighed, he should’ve gone home. He wondered if
Iruka knew he was gone yet. If the chuunin did, he would probably be spending
the rest of the night on the couch…

A strong gust of wind rustled the trees all around him,
showering him with leftover raindrops and bright green leaves. Kakashi sputtered,
and started to shake off the water. But he paused as he felt the prickling
tension along the back of his neck that indicated someone powerful approaching
him. On instinct he ducked behind the stone and shuddered as he caught a bit of
a conversation.

“I told you,” A cold male voice said.
“This brat is dangerous. We all know what must be done; the Uchiha is
beginning to ask questions. He knows
something.”

“That’s impossible, it’s ancient history!”
It was a woman who answered and she sounded just as angry as the first voice.
“Itachi is dead by Sasuke’s own hand and if you hadn’t been
so impatient in the first place then perhaps the Third was right after all-”

“There was no other way! But I see that time has made
you soft.”

“Perhaps I’ve simply grown wiser as we’ve
gotten older? Apparently you’ve forgotten what really happened. The Third
tolerated our decision- he never agreed with it.”

“Koharu, Danzou, that’s enough of your
bickering!”

Kakashi was
startled as he realized why these voices seemed so familiar; it was all three
of the most respected village Elders? Stranger still, ‘why are they still arguing over Sasuke?’

“This is neither the time, nor the place to be digging
up the past,” The councilman continued more evenly. “I suggest that
for now, we just wait and see. Lady Tsunade never allowed the Uchiha to be
fully interrogated or tortured for information on the chance that he can indeed
be trusted. She also knows she already has a much easier means of getting
information from him. Whatever his real intentions are, he did come back willingly so all we have to do is sit
back and continue letting Uzumaki Naruto and Hurano
Sakura befriend him. Sooner or later he will tell them where he heard the name Uchiha
Madara.”

Kakashi scowled. ‘Uchiha
Madara?’

Koharu spoke again. “Yes, we must wait. If the boy dies
now, then the Leaf village will loose one of its most potentially valuable
resources. There must be no more mistakes.”

Danzou snorted his resentment. “You mean the Sharingan?”

“Of course, he is the only one who can pass it
on.”

“It amazes me that you want that abomination preserved
when you know its history…”

“Dark history or not, the Sharingan’s power in
battle is still undeniable. It has made Hatake
Kakashi one of our most powerful ninja and he only has it in one eye, which is slowly but surely
loosing its extraordinary power. The Uchiha clan has never been known for
fertility problems and the Sharingan doesn’t favor either male or female wielders
so every child he sires will probably develop it.”

“And I suppose your interest in the rebirth of his clan
and thus the bloodline limit has nothing to do with the fact that you have a
great granddaughter that’s about his age, does it?”

“Enough- he’s a teenage boy not a breeding stud!”
Homura snapped. “Now, this decision has already been made; the citizens
of the village are wary because of all the tension among the shinobi, and as news
of the attack on the boy spreads, it will only get worse. The Hokage was right
when she spoke at the hearing; the Leaf must band together now and abide by our
own decision or the other villages could attack, exploiting our distraction as the
weakness it is.”

Kakashi stayed hidden silently in the shadows, watching them
separate. “How had they known about the attack tonight? Well, they were
all wily old veterans of countless battles and were used to political intrigue,
and he knew they had to have an endless supply of contact too. And yet,
something about their meeting tonight still left him deeply uneasy.

**

“Why?”

Naruto glared at Sai. The two of
them stood facing each other, beside a stream. What does he mean why? Why was Sai
so jealous of his… friendship with Sasuke? It was starting to look like
it and since Naruto couldn’t define it as anything but friendship-

“Right, Kit,” Kyuubi chuckled interrupting his
thoughts. “Because
best friends kiss each other like that
all the time, eh?”

Naruto growled audibly at the Bijuu’s amusement, but Sai nudged him.

“Why,” Sai asked
again. “I just want to know why you still care so much about him when
he’s nearly killed you more than once? You’ve
risked everything for him! Would he have done any of that for you?”

“Yes. He’s risked his life to protect me more
times than I can count, Sai.” It was the truth;
he thought with pride. Sasuke was a fierce and powerful shinobi warrior- yet
Naruto noticed that his voice didn’t sound as certain as he meant it to.
Those times had been mostly in the past- before
the cursed seal.

“Sasuke knew he was still risking his life rather than
just his freedom when he let us bring him back here, Sai.
Sasuke also told me the morning we left, that he had no choice but to act the
way he did when you first met him,” Sakura said. Her eyes were downcast
and sad. “He was protecting all of us from Orochimaru.”

“You’ve said that, but Sakura, what makes you
think he was telling you the truth?”

“Captain Yamato, you didn’t know Sasuke before,
but it’s his eyes when we found him at the lair. They were so dead…
I wouldn’t have believed it was him if I hadn’t seen that look with
my own eyes… He refused to come home with us that day, but that encounter
did give him back the will to live and fight Itachi himself. Whatever happened
between him and Itachi- it must’ve been horrible though. He told me that Itachi
tried to take his eyes…”

“What do you mean, Itachi tried to take his
eyes?” Naruto demanded.

“Sasuke told me that Itachi thought he would gain
immortality if he replaced his eyes with Sasuke’s.”

“What?” Naruto shuddered remembering all his
other encounters with the ice cold murderer. If anyone could come up with the
idea of stealing his little brother’s eyes, then it would have to be
Itachi- the man already struck him as inhumanly cruel, this only confirmed it. “Gross!
No wonder he can’t sleep!”

“Adjusting to being back is still going to take time,
you two,” Yamato said. “However powerful he may have grown, he just
killed his own brother. So, if he didn’t
seem to be showing physical symptoms of emotional distress, then I’d be deeply
concerned about his mental state. The Hokage will make sure that she has
someone she trusts watching over him for that very reason. But, if you really
believe in him the way Lady Tsunade thinks you do, then you already know he
won’t let you down by wasting away now, right?”

Naruto nodded reluctantly.

Yamato gave a small reassuring smile. “Alright then,
let’s get back to tracking these guys so we can head home.”

**

The monster was using
those murderous eyes again, shaping still another genjutsu around him, and once
again it took time to collect himself, to fight off the images that were being
projected in his mind.

“For decades,
members of this clan killed their best friends to obtain the Mangekyou
Sharingan and then sacrificed their younger siblings to make its power
permenant! Our clan was forever tainted because they couldn’t stop flaunting
their power! Your fate has been drenched in blood since the day that you were
born an Uchiha!”

“Now face me, my
little brother! Once I kill you I’ll be transformed… I’ll be
freed from this clan’s wretched destiny!”

The writhing fingers
of pure shadow waved almost hypnotically as they reached for his eyes.

He shuddered, trying desperately to awaken- to find a way
out of this nightmare…

“Sasuke!”

Itachi still had him
bound by the swirling mass of shadows- snapping; reaching again and again for
his eyes- the one chance he had to escape that nightmarish memory- he closed
his eyes.

“Any ideas of
limits, of capacity will be shattered forever. You and I are each other’s
spare! That is the bond between all Uchiha brothers!”

“Sasuke!”

Sasuke sat up in bed; unable to do anything but try to keep breathing; he didn’t even realize the
voice that had awakened him was real until it spoke once again.

“Hey, you okay there, Sasuke?”

“Pakkun?” As his heart
rate and breathing finally began to slow down, Sasuke sat up and swung his legs
over the side of the bed.

“Must’ve been some dream,” said the ninja
hound. “Glad to see you’re awake anyway.”

Sasuke looked at the talking animal. “So it was
Kakashi who intervened.”

“Yeah, well he was up all night thanks to the excitement
around here, so he left me to baby-sit.” The ninja hound ignored his
scowl and kept speaking in his usual calm tone. “A friend of yours
stopped by earlier, but your house was literally crawling with ANBU so he just
dropped off your little housewarming present. I’m willing to bet
he’ll be back in a few days though when things settle down again.”

“What?”

“Look behind you.”

Sasuke couldn’t twist his body without pain, so he
stood up to look around. The room looked normal enough, but lying in the bed beside
his pillow, was a little ball of fur, all curled up. Pakkun’s
expression remained impassive, but Sasuke didn’t doubt that the ninja
hound had encountered ninja cats before and probably already knew the kitten
would grow up to be one.

The Ninja cats and Uchiha’s had been allies for many
generations, predating even the Leaf’s founding fathers, but he was still
surprised, and touched by the Elder Cat’s generosity. He knew that the
Elder saw all the ninja cats as her own children and for her to send one of
them back here...

The Elder was too kind and he sensed that as ridiculous as
it was, she thought of him as one of
her kittens too. The ninja cats around the Clan’s compound had been his
playmates and closest friends as a child. He’d idolized his brother more
than anything, but where that love had turned to hatred; he’d never out grown
his love for the intelligent, but playful ninja cats. The mansion was painfully
quiet without Naruto and Sakura, and having a growing ninja cat in the house
would definitely lighten things up.

Pakkun snorted, and jumped up on the bed. “Aren’t
you going to wake her up?”

Sasuke hesitated and the pug huffed out a deep breath.
“Looks normal enough to me, but she’ll never survive on her own at
this size… You have to keep her.”

He nodded and sat down on the bed, watching the
kitten’s soft breathing. Her solid black coat was still baby fuzz but it
looked soft and thick. She was so tiny that her whole body looked like it would
fit neatly in the palm of his hand.

Finally, Sasuke reached over and stroked her tiny shoulder.
The kitten stirred but didn’t awaken; instead, she covered her eyes with
her paws and her tail and rolled onto her back. Sasuke smirked, brushing the
tip of one finger lightly along one of the kitten’s tiny paws. The kitten
rolled partially back onto her side again and her ears twitched back as she
cracked one blue eye unhappily.

Sasuke smirked, looking down at her. “So, what do I
call you, little one?”

“I-I don’t have a name yet. Elder Cat decided
when I was born that you should name me.”

“Why did she decide that?”

“I was born just as you arrived at our home- and the
Elder took it as a sign of things to come, when all of my brothers and sisters
were stillborn. She is afraid for you. She told me that something familiar and
evil is stirring again.” She stood up and stretched.

“So you are here to protect me?” He made sure
his expression was dubious.

The tiny kitten scowled and arched her back as she hiked up
her tail indignantly. “You are Uchiha Sasuke; my ancestors once swore a
blood oath to serve your noble clan and-”

“It’d be best not to say that too loudly these days.” Pakkun interrupted.

The kitten looked around, wide eyed and crowded closer to
Sasuke. He smirked and petted her back, enjoying the softness of her silky coat.

“Y-You’re a ninja hound?” She looked over
the edge of the bed at Pakkun.

“Yep.”

Sasuke saw the way the kitten shrunk back and hung her head
and he smirked. “He’s a friend; his master was my sensei.”

“Then you-you won’t send me back?”

“No one else was close enough to have heard that, just
be more careful in the future when you use your ability to speak. Deal?” Sasuke shrugged. He scooped her up in one hand
and looked her in the eyes.

The kitten gazed back proudly. “Okay, I promise, I
won’t let you down again.”

“We’ll see, but I guess I should name you if
you’ll be staying...”

“Okay! How about Bagheera? Or Isis-”

“How about half pint? Or Big Mouth?”
Pakkun drawled, getting a scowl from the kitten.

“You’re just jealous because I’m cuter
than you. I’m gonna be a great house guardian
and protector, and I’ll be the best ninja cat ever!”

“You’ve got a lot of growing up to do first.”
The hound observed dryly.

“I’ll do whatever it takes! You’ll
see.”

“At least I know what to call you now.”

“You do?” The ninja hound and the kitten both
looked up at him, startled.

“Angel,” Sasuke said quietly.

“Should call her Sassy or Pest
instead,” Pakkun grumbled.

Sasuke smirked; he could almost see the kitten turning the
word over and over in her mind, behind those luminous, liquid blue eyes.

“I like it. I’ll live up to that name
too,” she promised. “I’ll be your Angel.”

“Oh goodie just what this place needs; a pint sized
ball-of-fluff house pet with a lot of attitude.”

The kitten looked down at Pakkun over the side of
Sasuke’s hand and glared at him. “And what does that make you- a quart?”

‘Angel is
definitely a ninja kitten alright,’ he smirked. It was perfectly
normal to have a ninja cat accept attention and affection from just one member
of the house it watched over- and it was usually children that they bonded with
the best. His mother had two ninja cats close to her, so it had been hard to
get away with anything as a boy- but
the rest of the cats had been devoted to Sasuke.

Spirited, intelligent creatures of
honor, curiosity and elegance, the ninja cats were ideal as the guardians of the
homes and children of shinobi. The animals were capable of fending for
themselves while their masters were on long missions and they knew how to
observe their territory and the people close to them without being detected. As
such, it usually took an extremely powerful genjutsu to fool the eyes of a
ninja cat in its home territory and they were fiercely loyal to those they
chose to bond with. They often learned clever techniques that allowed them to
distract intruders and warn their bonded family of danger too. Yet these same
creatures were playful, warm and affectionate in times of peace, so he’d
been heartbroken when he woke up in the hospital bed after Itachi’s
betrayal. When he ran home only to find that even their ninja cats were no
where to be found- he’d never felt so horribly alone…

Later he found out that a few had survived, but they now
lived with the Elder Cat in the safety of the abandoned village. As glad as he
was to see them safe, he had always resisted the urge to approach Hina and Denka in their new territory. Apparently, that had
been very wise. Except for her coal black coat, Angel reminded him strongly of Hina. Obviously she wasn’t a purebred Siamese like
her father, but those baby blue eyes and the sassy spirit reminded him of the
kitten he’d raised.

“I-I’m hungry…” The kitten said
shyly.

Sasuke stood up, still holding the kitten. “Hn. Come on, Pakkun.”

**

“Is that the last of the stolen supplies?”
Sakura asked, placing yet another crate onto the back of the wagon. She wiped
her bow with the back of her hand and looked around.

“Sure is,” Naruto said,
the tall mare was done drinking so he put down the water bucket and patted the
cart horse’s neck. “Captain? You need any help
over there?”

The enemy ninja wore a sound headband and Sakura had already
dressed his wounds so that he could be brought back to the village for
questioning. His whole body was bound by Captain Yamato’s wooden
restraints; he could’ve talked if he chose to try, but Naruto
wasn’t surprised that he remained stubbornly silent.

“No, I’m fine, is Sai
back yet?”

“My scouts reported that there is no one else still in
the area but us, Captain.”

“Good, we should head back. Someone else will take the
wagon to the northern watch tower where it belongs. I want to get back to the
village. The Kages have all sent ANBU warriors as envoys to Konoha, so things
must be tense there.”

Sai nodded, without any expression
at all.

“What?” Sakura looked as stunned as Naruto felt.

“Everyone is afraid that Sasuke can’t be trusted.”

The prisoner laughed bitterly. “Anyone who gets close
to that little viper ought to watch
their back. Orochimaru’s plaything is nothing more than a soulless
traitor like that brother of his that everyone was so afraid of. You Leaf
shinobi were fools to take him back! Kabuto-sama has done you morons a favor,
but if you hurry, you might just get back in time for the funeral.”

Naruto was on the injured ninja in a second; his eyes were
red with the Kyuubi’s chakra. “W-What?
What do you mean a funeral?”

“After he betrayed Orochimaru-sama, Uchiha Sasuke was
marked for death by our shinobi. Any Sound ninja that encounters the bastard is
ordered to kill him on sight- even at the cost of other goals. We will hunt him
to the ends of the earth if we have to, but that traitor will die.”
- 7
- 8
- 9
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Starting Over