Afraid of the Dark

Afraid of the Dark

Chapter 8: What Now?

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"Instead of something I want, can it be something I don't want?"
"Okay."
"I don't wanna be scared anymore." - The Sixth Sense. M. Night Shyamalan

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It was the annoying chirp of birds that first startled Sasuke out of his sleep. He had a headache, and the sound of the birds was annoying.

Wasn't it October? Didn't they know that summer was fucking over?

"I hate birds," Sasuke hissed angrily.

"You're awake," Naruto whispered and his voice was thick with sleep. Sasuke blinked and finally registered more than just the annoying sounds of the birds.

It was common for them to end up pressed close together in their bed (usually Naruto ended up spooning him) but despite the familiarity of being so close to Naruto, there was something very off about the current situation.

He was pressed against Naruto, but they weren't in their bed. Instead, they were on two pushed together couches. Sasuke blinked, and sat up in a daze, looking around to see that they were in what looked like the teacher lounge of their high school. Sasuke felt utterly confused, and for a moment wondered if he were still dreaming before he remembered escaping from the trolls the night before.

All the lights were on in the small room, even though there would have been plenty of sunlight coming in from the window.

Sasuke looked to the left at the window that was propped open. Groaning slightly, Sasuke climbed over one of the couches' ends and moved to close the window, noting that the birds were muted substantially. He stretched his arms, feeling aches in his body. There was a dull throbbing in his head, and a strange tingling sensation in his back by his shoulder blades.

The tingling in his shoulder blades made him remember the fantastic wings that he had had, and he looked behind him. His shirt wasn’t torn as he had expected it to be. Perhaps he had dreamed up the part that he had sprouted wings? It hurt his head to think about, so Sasuke decided to focus on the present.

The clock on the wall said that it was 7:42am. At least they wouldn't have to worry about trolls for the time being. They had the entire day and the safety of daylight to figure out what to do.

So many questions whirled in his head, with so many concerns. He desperately wanted to ask Naruto these questions, but he knew with the way that Naruto was looking at him warily that Naruto knew just as much – or perhaps even less – as he did.

"How did we get in the school?" Sasuke asked. He figured Naruto should at least know the answer to that question. Naruto nodded his head to the window.

"It was propped open. You're fucking heavy to lift you know? And you slept through a bunch. It scared the shit outta me when you didn't wake up when I shoved you through the window and you fell to the floor. I thought I might have knocked you out or something which is why you didn’t wake up for a while."

Well, that explained the dull throbbing in his head.

"You remember what happened before though, right? How we got to the school?" Naruto asked, tentatively. Sasuke nodded.

"My mom..." Sasuke murmured, "we left her." Naruto looked guilty.

"She said she'd meet up with us later," Naruto said, trying to be reassuring. "We'll just wait for her to find us here. I called and left her voice messages telling her where we are."

"There were hundreds of trolls crawling all over the house. We shouldn't have just left here there," Sasuke said, trying but failing at not sounding accusing.

"What were we supposed to do? She'll be fine. Auntie Mikoto is strong."

While Sasuke wanted to argue against Naruto he knew that no good would come of it.

Everything felt surreal. They were sitting in the teacher lounge of their school, with no idea of what they were supposed to do. Did they wait there all day for his mom to show up? Did they go to the police? That thought was quickly thrown aside just as it had been last night; the police would laugh at them with their story about crazy trolls, magic, and fairies.

But what could they do on their own? They needed help.

"Why the school?" Naruto asked.

"What?" Sasuke asked for clarification.

"The school. Why did you pick the school? Yeah, it's well lit, but they could have followed us."

"A hunch. If there was protection for us at home, wouldn't there be protection for us here as well?" Sasuke said. In fact, he hadn't thought about that when he was soaring through the air at all, but now that he said it, it seemed to make sense. Saying ‘I didn't have any energy to go any further’ didn't sound cool at all; it made him feel less weak if he said it was guarded than because all he could do was keel over as soon as he landed.

"How're you feeling?" Naruto asked.

"I'm up and about. My head hurts," Sasuke said, glaring at Naruto, "but I'm alright. Hungry."

As he said it, he noticed a small refrigerator, a microwave, a coffee maker, a sink with some dishes stacked in them, and cupboards that he hoped had food in them. Off to the side he noticed a soda machine and a vending machine. He didn't think he had any money on him, but he was sure he could break into the machines if necessary.

There was a phone mounted on the wall off to the side. Even if Naruto’s phone ran out of battery, they could call for help from there. Thinking about calling for help made a sudden thought strike Sasuke.

"Where has my dad been? There's no way they really would have taken Itachi to a mental institution. How could anything be more crazy than this actuality?" Sasuke murmured to himself, going over to the phone.

"What are you doing?" Naruto asked.

"Calling his cell and finding out what the hell is going on," Sasuke said.

"I already tried calling. He didn't pick up. It kept going straight to voicemail."

"Then I'll call again," Sasuke said, picking up the receiver and dialing anyway. Like Naruto said, the call went right into his father's voicemail. He left a quick message with the extension of this phone number that he found printed across the side of the machine.

Just for good measure, Sasuke tried calling him again. When there was no response, Sasuke slammed the receiver back, feeling beyond frustrated.

"We can't just stay here and wait all day. It's daylight now, so the trolls won't come out. We need to get away from here while we have plenty of daylight on our side," Sasuke said, arguing against Naruto's earlier comment that they should stay here and wait for his mom. As much as Sasuke wanted to see that his mother was okay, he wanted to make sure that they were both unharmed if, no when, she found them.

"Should we go back to the house and..." but Naruto trailed off, both of them suddenly not wanting to see what horrible destruction and possibly death lay in the house.

"No. We shouldn't go back. There could be another fairy involved watching the house. Mom thought the trolls wouldn't be there without aid. We don't know for sure if there was someone there or not, but they could also be looking for us in the area. We can't rule out that possibility. First, we should eat. I need strength and energy for all of this. I haven't eaten anything in days. It's a wonder I haven't died yet."

As soon as Sasuke said the words "died yet" Naruto turned his head away immediately. Even so, Sasuke saw the dark look that crossed Naruto's face. Sasuke didn't have to wonder very long to find out what had made Naruto look so upset.

"Don't say that. Don't joke about dying."

"I-"

"I thought you had died when the other car hit us. Your heart stopped. It felt like my heart should have stop then too. You haven't ever lost anyone in your family before. I don't know if my mom is dead or not, but I lost her. It's like she's dead. I don't know what I would have done if you had really died. I can't – I mean, I love Auntie Mikoto, and Uncle Fugaku and Itachi, but if you had died..."

Sasuke processed Naruto's words. He had never really thought about Naruto losing his mother in those terms before. Yes, he had thought for years that Naruto's mother was in a coma and alive, but Naruto was still without her. Sasuke had gotten so used to Naruto being there, that he had never stopped to think about what it must be like for Naruto to have been uprooted from the mother he loved and thrust into an entirely new lifestyle.

A strain of dark thoughts began to form in Sasuke's head. What would it be like to lose everyone he had ever held dear? What would it be like to be an orphan?

How different would he have been without the support of his family, and without Naruto there alongside him through everything in his life?

His family were the only ones he truly cared about. If they died he’d have no one. No parents. No Itachi. No Naruto.

Just the thought of that loneliness swept over him, a wave of depression hitting him hard, pulling his thoughts down, making it hard to breathe at the mere thought of such aloneness.

His mother could be dead. Itachi and his father were missing. For all he knew, something could have happened to them too.

And those things, those monsters were after Naruto. They wanted to take Naruto away from him. There was no way he could let that happen, especially now that Naruto might be the only one that he had left. He had to think: make up a plan in order to make sure that the trolls didn't take away his most important person.

It was slightly jarring, but with everything that had happened, he found it was true. Naruto was the most important person to him. If Sasuke lost his parents, he would be devastated. Still, he would know Naruto was there with him. If he lost Naruto, he would be broken.

Sasuke didn't say anything to Naruto's comment. Instead he distracted himself from his dark train of thought by turning to rummage through the refrigerator to see what the teachers had in the way of food. There was no way he could formulate a good plan unless he had nourished himself and made sure he had sustenance.

"Whoa," Naruto said, coming up behind Sasuke to look in the fridge as well. "Two couches, a TV, lots of food in a fridge, a microwave, a hot drinker maker, an adjacent bathroom – all this stuff kinda makes me want to become a teacher."

Sasuke decided not to point out that he doubted one measly planning period assigned to teachers where the teacher needed to plan out a lesson, make copies, and other such jobs meant that they got very little time to spend in the teacher lounge. Not to mention all the grading they had to do. One homework for each student times that by 130 students worth of homework to look over a day. That's not even mentioning having to deal with all the unruly students and the parents of obnoxious students who insisted that their snot-nosed, delinquent, lying, and misbehaving teenagers were truly little angels.

Sasuke never, ever wanted to be a teacher. And even though Naruto wouldn't think about all the downsides to becoming a teacher, Sasuke actually thought that Naruto would make a great teacher.

They just had to manage to live that long and successfully hide all their secrets for that to happen.

"If we take this, isn't it stealing?"

Sasuke turned around and blinked at Naruto. He was being serious. Naruto actually thought they'd be coming back to school after this, and that they would get in trouble for taking the food. Naruto was viewing this like a weekend adventure like in the movies with the problem solved by Sunday night, and then back to school Monday morning.

There was no way this situation was going to be that easy.

Sasuke's family had hidden Naruto away for years. Things were about to change, and there was no going back to what they had been before, that was for sure.

Sasuke didn't bother to respond to Naruto's question of integrity. Instead, he took out some frozen, instant breakfast platters from the freezer, one for him and one for Naruto since he doubted Naruto would want to do the "stealing" as he put it.

Sasuke grabbed some plastic forks and cups that he found in the cupboard (he didn't want to use the teacher's dishes that had been left in the sink, especially since quite a few of them had some funky colored stains on them).

"Eat," Sasuke said after he got the breakfast platters out of the microwave. "You need to eat as well. I'm sure the teachers would understand." He thrust the platter at Naruto and then made sure that he got a cup of orange juice as well. The simple sugars would give them both a quick boost of energy.

Thinking about his own statement, Sasuke doubted that anyone would actually believe their situation let alone understand it. Fairies, trolls, and demon foxes didn't quite fit the norm. But he wasn't about to bring that up to Naruto.

They ate in silence. After he finished, Naruto dumped his trash in the trashcan and turned to look at Sasuke.

"What you said last night about healing..." Naruto started. Sasuke put his fork down and looked at Naruto curiously.

"Healing each other?"

"Yeah...that..."

Sasuke waited for Naruto to keep talking, but he didn't.

"What about it?" Sasuke prompted. They had moved the couches back to their normal spots (or at least where Sasuke assumed the normal spot was as he'd been unconscious for that part). Sasuke sat on one couch, Naruto on the other. Sasuke frowned as he saw the way Naruto was looking down at his hands, fidgeting with them nervously.

"And the thing with the lights...and the black light..."

Sasuke's eyes widened as he saw the blush on Naruto's face. Suddenly Sasuke realized something.

Naruto remembered. Or at least, remembered some things.

After all, Sasuke’s mother had said Naruto would get his memories back; it just might take a little more time. She never specified how much longer.

Sasuke propped his elbows on his knees and gently let his chin rest in his hands. He was thoughtful. Naruto continued.

"Your birthday, the black light," Naruto started, but he refused to meet Sasuke's eye.

"And?"

"Never mind. It's nothing," Naruto quickly muttered out.

"What do you remember?" Sasuke asked, his voice calm, his face blank, expressionless.

To most people, Sasuke had always been cold and distant. Sasuke knew that. There were very few people in his life that were important to him. In fact, everyone who was important to him was in his family. Everyone else was just there. He had parents, an elder brother, and his best friend.

He didn't need more. He was happy with the people he had close to him.

Those that were dear to him always saw the real Sasuke. Any emotions and problems he had, he didn't hide it from them.

Everyone else thought his expression rarely changed.

And Sasuke felt a coldness settle inside him as he realized that something like this made him put on such a front with Naruto, his most precious person. Naruto narrowed his eyes. He apparently knew that too.

"I know that look. Don't you dare give me that blank look! I'm not a fucking nobody," Naruto hissed, angry. Sasuke let his own anger leak into his face.

"How am I supposed to deal with this? The memory is fuzzy. All I know is one minute we were fine, and the next minute we were having a grind session. It's not normal," Sasuke said, standing up quickly, regretting the decision as he did so. He felt dizzy, and weak, and cursed as he had to sit back down again.

Naruto moved to help him, but Sasuke all but hissed at him to back off. Narrowing his eyes, Naruto pointed an accusing finger at Sasuke.

"That's why you were so fucking moody last night. I wondered why you were all uptight with me for something that wasn’t even my fault. You took it out on me because you remembered it and you didn't know how to deal with it."

"Do you?" Sasuke asked, rubbing at his head.

"I don't even remember everything that happened. And you started it anyway!" Naruto said, accusingly. Sasuke glared at him, and found his sudden sense of vertigo intensifying.

"Me? You're the one that got me the black light!"

"I didn't know what would happen with it! I mean, I guess light affects us weird too, you know, like the trolls, but your mom didn't exactly explain that to us beforehand. How was I supposed to know?"

Neither spoke. It was awkward talking about what had happened. Sasuke looked across at Naruto, and Naruto stared back at him.

Sasuke didn't feel anything sexual when he looked at Naruto. No stirring desire rose in the pit of his stomach. He cared about Naruto, and if he had to say he loved someone, yes, he would say he loved Naruto. But not like that: not romantically.

And with the way that Naruto was looking back at him, he could tell that Naruto didn't feel anything remotely sexual for him either.

"It's probably just something that happens with certain types of light, most likely black light. Come to think of it, probably any light that's got a short wavelength on the electro magnetic spectrum."

"The eleca-maga what?"

"The electro magnetic spectrum; it's another term for the light spectrum."

"If you say so."

"Think of it, violet/purple has a short wavelength, and that colored lens on your multi-colored lens flashlight was the only color that kept breaking. I bet Itachi or Mom kept breaking it."

"Er, right."

Sasuke all but rolled his eyes at Naruto. Naruto had some good ideas at times, but he wasn't the highly acclaimed academic scholar that Sasuke was.

Sasuke was about to explain further, when the phone in the room rang shrilly.

Naruto jumped at the sound, while Sasuke's heart beat a little faster. Naruto shot out of his seat to answer the phone. Part of Sasuke wondered if it was a good idea to do so. What were the odds that someone would call this extension in the middle of a Sunday? Hope suddenly rose inside him as he remembered that he had left this phone’s extension in a voicemail for his father. Maybe that was him now!

"Hello?" Naruto answered. Sasuke got up, wanting to hear who was on the other end of the phone.

Naruto gave him a puzzled look before sharing the receiver with Sasuke.

An eerie breathing sound buzzed through the phone, the noise making a cold chill run down Sasuke's spine.

"Is the little one there?" the breathing voice croaked out in a deep rasp. The color drained from Naruto's face and he slammed the receiver down.

"What the-"

The lights flickered out, and Sasuke did his best not to lose his calm. The light shone in from the window, but Sasuke still dashed to where the flashlights were lying on one of the couches. He tossed one to Naruto, and they both clicked them on.

"What do we do?" Naruto asked, his eyes darting back and forth. The staff room was unusually quiet, and Sasuke realized it wasn't just the lights that had turned off, as the hum of the refrigerator was suddenly absent as well.

"It's not just the lights; the whole power went out," Sasuke mused.

The distant sound of a door being slammed open echoed from down the hall.

They needed to get out of there, and they needed to get out of there fast.

Sasuke lost no time in turning around and shoving open the window, deciding it was better to be outside in the open light than shut inside of a dark room with who knew how many lurking trolls.

Sasuke climbed out, flashlight in hand, and Naruto did the same. They both walked quickly away from the school, neither saying a word even though they both stole nervous glances behind them.

It was like nothing was out of place as they walked away from the school, but Sasuke couldn’t shake the feeling of eyes on him. He didn’t hear any sounds coming from behind them, and he stole another backward glance, watching his school looking as harmless as normal.

The feeling of being watched refused to leave him, and he and Naruto picked up their pace, walking a few blocks away to a more lively area.

There were people milling about on Sunday morning in this part of town; some were heading to church, others out to breakfast. Sasuke and Naruto decided to head into a little cafe that a lot of the upper classman liked to visit before school for a quick breakfast.

The initial fear that had hit him when the power went off in the school slowly drained away, allowing Sasuke to think a little more rationally. He realized that Naruto had a lot more friends than he did. Sometimes Naruto had come here with those other friends without him, and Sasuke realized that he had been jealous of those taking Naruto's time away from him. In fact, he clearly remembered the relief when Naruto had decided not to pursue a relationship with Sakura because Sasuke had felt that he would have gotten pushed to the side if Naruto had a girlfriend.

Sasuke may not have had any sexual feelings for Naruto, but he could grudgingly admit that he didn't like the idea of Naruto spending too much time with anyone else.

As they entered the cafe, both scanned the crowd to see if there was anyone there that they knew. Being around so many people had made that feeling of someone watching them all but vanish. It was like nothing was out of the ordinary.

Neither had any money, and they had just eaten, but it was one of the closest places they could think to go to that had enough people that they hoped no one would try and mess with them there.

Since it was a Sunday morning and not a school morning, they didn't see anyone from their school. Sasuke wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. It was good because it meant that if something were to happen to Sasuke and Naruto, at least no one they knew would get in the way and get hurt too. On the other hand, they had no one there that they could try and enlist help from.

"This is getting freaky," Naruto said as they slid into a little booth in the back. Thankfully no one at the cafe was too picky about people not ordering right away, else they might have been asked to leave. "We can't just keep running from them. We need to find a place where we're safe," Naruto said thoughtfully.

Sasuke's mind whirled.

"We need to go to the hospital where you were checked out when the trolls hurt you the first time. There was a man there, a doctor, that knew about the trolls. He could help us."

"Why didn't you think of him sooner?" Naruto asked.

"My memories aren't perfect yet either," Sasuke retorted back.

"Oh, right."

The look of sheepish apology that crossed over Naruto's features made Sasuke want to apologize. He really had been snapping at Naruto a lot more. It wasn't like him to snap at Naruto like that. His emotionless and his snappish nature were usually reserved for everyone else but Naruto.

"Good morning."

Sasuke and Naruto turned to look at a man with long white hair standing at their table. At first glance, Sasuke wanted to call the man old, but his shocking white hair seemed to contrast to his young features. He wore sunglasses over his eyes, and a relaxed smile on his face. His greeting had made Sasuke think he was a waiter, but the shine of the black leather jacket, and the starched white pants told him that this man was definitely not a waiter.

Despite his relaxed smile, and the smooth tone of his voice, Sasuke felt a sudden urge to grab Naruto and run for the hills.

"Do you mind if I join you?"

"We were just going to leave," Naruto said, and Sasuke was grateful that Naruto too seemed to sense the weirdness of the sudden appearance of the stranger.

"Why, Naruto-kun, I think this would be a nice place for us to sit and chat, don't you think, little one?"

Sasuke's adrenaline kicked in, and instead of being fearful of the man in front of him, he went on alert, wanting to protect Naruto.

"Back away," Sasuke murmured quietly, deadly.

It felt like something awoke inside Sasuke at that moment. A flaring burst of energy swept through him, a sort of freezing flame. He could feel it fill him, wrap around him, filling him with a heat the he felt practically pouring out of him.

"No need to raise your aura around yourself. I mean you no harm," the man spoke quietly. He lifted his hands in the air, making a gesture as to show he was unarmed.

If he had meant to show he was unarmed, his long nails detracted from the sentiment. Sasuke narrowed his eyes at the long, pointed nails on his hands, and for a moment he thought the man might be a troll. He had dark sunglasses over his eyes, perhaps to hide the way they glowed like the trolls did…?

But no, sunlight was hitting him from one of the windows, so he wasn't a troll.

But Sasuke was also pretty sure he wasn't human.

"Let me sit and talk with you gentlemen," he said quietly, his voice deep, amused in a dark sort of way.

"What do you want?" Naruto asked his eyes narrowed.

The feeling of power that had built up around Sasuke at his sudden burst of anger didn't fade after the initial burst, and Naruto’s voice seemed to affect the power he felt suddenly swirling within him. The power seemed to grow steadier, as if a dam had burst, a fresh surging of power at once, but instead of thinning out, a continuous source of energy flowed through him.

He felt neither weak nor tired anymore, and even more amazingly, he felt as though he could feel things on an entirely different level. For instance, Naruto's words seemed to hold a power to them. Sasuke looked at Naruto, and for a moment, he could have sworn that Naruto was glowing. Looking closer, he realized that he wasn't glowing at all, but Sasuke was able to feel a sort of pulse from his friend. It was like the rush of energy that surrounded him had allowed him to see the steady wave of power flowing off of Naruto.

Sasuke finally understood what his mother was talking about when she said that Naruto was now going to be difficult to hide. If Sasuke could see this glowing aura around Naruto with just a sudden flux of untrained power washing over him, what could powerfully trained beings see that he couldn't?

"I want to speak with you," the man said, and his voice was calm, quiet. "May I sit down?"

"You sent the trolls after us," Naruto accused, and the man's attitude went cold. Sasuke felt a power similar to Naruto's well up around the stranger in front of them.

"Don't ever associate me with those monsters again," he snarled.

For some reason, even if Sasuke didn't instinctively like this white haired man, he couldn't help but feel grateful that the stranger saw the trolls as monsters as well.

"Then what do you want, and why the creepy phone call?" Sasuke asked, pressing his hands on the table. He was sure now that this man’s voice was the same as the voice on the phone. Neither Sasuke nor Naruto made a move to let the guy sit, and in a strange way, it helped make Sasuke feel powerful.

"I needed to get you out of the school before the trolls got inside, naturally. I’m not the only one after you. I didn’t think you would trust me if I said you needed to leave as soon as possible. I thought a little intimidation might help save you," the man said, his voice icy. "You're welcome."

Naruto and Sasuke didn’t bother to thank him.

"Who are you?"

The man raised an eyebrow. "You don't remember me, Naruto-kun?"

That comment didn't sit well with Sasuke, and by the look on Naruto's face, it didn't sit well with him either.

"Obviously not. And you brought up a good point. Why should we trust you?" Sasuke snapped. The man turned his head slowly to look at Sasuke. He rested his long fingers on the table and let those long nails tap in irritation. For a moment, Sasuke feared that the man would lash out and claw at Sasuke's eyes. If Sasuke could see the man’s eyes, he had a strange feeling that he’d see hatred directed at him. Sasuke honestly expected the man to try and hurt him. Instead, he seemed to seize up Sasuke and his question.

"I am known by many names and many titles. You may call me Uncle." Sasuke noticed that the man hadn’t answered his question as to why they should trust him.

"That's a very strange statement, coming from you." Sasuke and Naruto's heads turned to see another man standing there. He seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.

This man's hair was the same shocking white as the man with the long fingernails, but the newcomer was broader in the shoulder, and taller than the first man. He didn’t wear any sunglasses, and his eyes seemed crinkled in a happy smile.

"It's been some time, Jiraiya," the first man spoke, his voice heavy as though tired from their conversation which hadn’t even started yet.

"And here I thought you were dead, Kyuubi."

Naruto and Sasuke exchanged looks, feeling at a loss. Jiraiya’s attention was distracted from the man he had just called Kyuubi, and he gave a hearty wave to Naruto.

"Yo! Naruto! Haven't seen you since you were this big!" Jiraiya said, his eyes scrunched up and made a small measurement with his hands. "You probably don't remember me, but I'm your godfather."

Sasuke and Naruto exchanged incredulous looks this time. Uncle? Godfather?

"So, kid, we need to get outta here before trouble shows up," Jiraiya said, his face cheery, but there was a sense of urgency and resonance behind his cheery facade.

"Then he ought to come with me, don't you think?" the man called Kyuubi said to Jiraiya.

"I don't know what rock you've been hiding under for the past eighteen years, but now is not the time to collect on debts that he knows nothing about."

"Will the two of you stop talking about me as though I'm not here? And won't you even acknowledge Sasuke!" Naruto said, his voice rising. At this point, the few occupants in the cafe were starting to turn and look at them. The others in the cafe were definitely paying attention to them. Sasuke and Naruto, who were clearly high school students, sitting at a table while two strange men with blazingly white hair standing at their table was not a normal sight to behold.

"Hi Sasuke," Jiraiya said, nodding to him to recognize him as Naruto had requested. "We need to get moving before the shit hits the fan."

For some reason, of the two people, Sasuke had a feeling he would rather go with Jiraiya than go with the man who wanted to be called Uncle.

"They need to come with me. Both of them, from what I can tell," Kyuubi stated.

"It's suicide."

"Can't we all go together?" Naruto said, and Sasuke nearly snorted. Leave it to Naruto to try and find a compromise in a situation like this.

"No," Jiraiya and Kyuubi stated simultaneously.

"Then I'm not going anywhere," Naruto said firmly, crossing his arms across his chest.

"I'll drag you out of here myself," Kyuubi snarled. And it was literally a snarl. It didn't sound like any human noise that Sasuke had ever heard before.

"No you won't," Jiraiya said, his voice a deadly lull.

Sasuke looked back and forth between Jiraiya and Kyuubi. The two white-haired men looked like they were about ready to start a fight in the middle of the cafe. He wasn’t the only one to think so. One of the cafe waiters was on his way over, a tentative look on his face as though not wanting to get into the middle of things but not wanting a fight to breakout.

"Let's go Sasuke," Naruto said, standing up quickly, grabbing Sasuke's wrist, and pulling him out of the cafe before either of the two men could protest.

Sasuke didn't bother to look behind them as they exited the shop and crossed the road, but he could practically feel the eyes of the two men as they made their way across the street, heading away from the cafe as fast as possible.

"What the hell are we supposed to do now?" Naruto asked, his pace quickening as he chanced a glance behind him. Sasuke did the same and was a little apprehensive to see that he couldn't see either man behind them.

"I already told you," Sasuke and Naruto stopped, as the white haired man appeared in front of them, "you need to come with me. Now."

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Life would be easier if it had music to go along with it to announce the difference between the good guys and the bad guys. ~ Jelp

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Next Chapter: Tails of Old


And yes, I purposefully spelled it tails instead of tales. :D

Sorry updates have been taking long. I don’t think I can promise an update in two weeks, but I will do my best. I will update on Fridays so you have an idea of when to look for a new chapter. (If I update in two weeks, it will be the day before my birthday, yay!)

What did you think of this chapter? ~ Jelp