Falling, Falling
Title: The People We've Become (15/?)
Summary: At first, no one realizes the consequences of Uzumaki Naruto's disappearance. However, his departure begins a chain of events that changes the fate of Konoha and the two teammates he left behind. Seven years later, Uchiha Sasuke and Haruno Sakura are on the S-Class list and Team Seven assembles once more. AU, NaruSasu, SakuLee.
Rating: M or R
Warnings: Death, mentions of child abuse, torture...
To say that Naruto and Gaara hated each other at first would be an understatement. Neither Yugito nor Tsuyu particularly liked him either in the beginning, but they quickly got over his so-called ‘Konoha induced’ strangeness. It was different for Gaara. It might have been because they were both around the same age. It might have been because they were younger than there counterparts or maybe because they were both male. Either way they did not get along.
“You’re pathetic,” Gaara tells him.
He has just killed someone and he just stands there like that, as if who he just killed-no murdered-was a fly instead of a person.
“Y-You-” Naruto starts but, then his stomach heaves again and he is throwing up for the second time in a minute.
Gaara gives him a contemptuous look and turns, as if to walk away and Naruto snaps.
“No,” Naruto thinks, “No. You can’t do that. You don’t get to do that.”
And fury so intense fills him to the brim and he lunges at the other jinchuuriki. In his rage he doesn’t think about jutsu he could use or strategy or anything really. And they fight.
It is the first time Naruto uses the Kyuubi’s power, the first time he lets it build up inside him and just take over. He hates it. Fucking hates it. But at the moment he’s too angry to care.
It’s a harsh battle. There are no clever traps or complicated jutsu. There are just punches and kicks, clashes of brute force and demonic energies. Naruto wins, but only just. It is not because he is stronger than Gaara, but more because he cares more. Gaara’s apathy might be intimidating to an opponent but it doesn’t directly help in a fight.
“Now you listen,” Naruto snarls, grabbing the collar of Gaara’s shirt with his bloody fingernails and hauling him up, “Don’t. Do. Things. Like. That.”
Gaara coughs out a bit of blood, but Naruto doesn’t give a shit.
“So what?” he asks hoarsely, looking pathetic, but still managing to sound contemptuous, “I’m supposed to let them kill me?”
“Shut up,” Naruto hisses, “Just shut up. It’s not about that. Sometimes you have to kill people. I’m not stupid.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
Naruto hits him again, but not because he’s angry. Just to make him stop talking.
“You don’t do it unless you have to,” he says, “You don’t. And don’t treat people like that. There are lines you just do not cross, do you understand me?”
“You’re a fool,” Gaara whispers, “Haven’t you realized it yet? We’re monsters. Demons. This is what we’re meant to do.”
Naruto laughs in his face, “You don’t really believe that, do you? If you were such a monster, you wouldn’t bother with me or Yugito or Tsuyu, would you? Don’t give me excuses,” he says harshly, his voice sounding strange to his own ears, “If you’re going to be a monster don’t blame it on the demon. At least have the decency to own up to it yourself.”
And then he walks away.
It’s one of the hardest things he ever does. True, the gesture is undeniably cool, but Naruto really does want to makes a difference, to change his mind. A part of him doesn’t believe that what he said was enough and wants to go back and reiterate his feelings. But the majority of him knows that this is an integral part of showing Gaara how disgusted he is with him. He just hopes it works.
It does. Sort of. Gaara is definitely different from then on. He still kills, his philosophy of the only good opponent is a dead opponent untouched, but his attitude about it changes. He is less hostile to him, Tsuyu, and Yugito, but also the occasional civilian they come across. He and Gaara start a tentative friendship, which only becomes stronger over the years. By the time Naruto is fifteen he’s convinced Gaara to drink with him, Tsuyu, and Yugito. Partly because he just likes to drink, but also because Gaara says things whilst drunk that he never would sober. It’s funny and Naruto has always been curious about what the taciturn boy thinks.
One point they’re lying on the floor and sofas in the main room of their hideout (or lair, as Tsuyu calls it) is particularly memorable.
“Shut up!” Yugito groans, throwing a pillow at him after he giggles for five minutes straight for no reason in particular.
“Hey,” he protests taking another swig of sake. The pillow doesn’t hit him, but this is more of a testament to how hammered Yugito is than his elite dodging skills.
“Don’t hate me because I’m pretty.”
“But you’re not. Not a’tall,” Tsuyu murmurs.
“Shut up.”
Across from him Gaara rolls off the coffee table with a thump.
“Ow,” he says, voice slightly muffled against the floor.
Tsuyu snickers.
“Hey,” Naruto says, sitting up excitedly, “We should play Truth-or-Dare!”
“That game’s for stupid teenagers,” Yugito snorts, “How old are you again?”
“Fifteen.”
“…Oh.”
“My head really hurts,” Gaara mumbles from the floor.
“What d’you miss the most?” Naruto’s mouth vomits without his permission. He is staring at the ceiling. It seems so far away, even though he knows it’s only a few meters above him, “You know. Things.”
“Things,” Yugito repeats, sounding like a librarian. Not that Naruto’s ever met one, “How descriptive.”
“You know what I mean,” Naruto says, even though he knows she doesn’t, “What did you wished you done differencingly…er, differently?”
“I’d ‘ave ripped Orochimaru’s stupid girly face off,” Tsuyu says, sounding disturbingly pleased at the thought, “Show him who’s boss…creepy, psychotic fucker…”
“I-,” Yugito starts, and then hesitates for a split second, “I wouldn’t’ve, you know, become a ninja. I think.”
“Huh?” Naruto asks, turning his head so he’s looking at her upside-down, “Why?”
She shrugs, but it doesn’t really work out well as she’s lying on a couch.
“I dunno, I never really wanted…but I didn’t have a choice, so…”
A pale hand appears on a edge of the coffee table and Naruto watches with amusement as Gaara pulls himself into a seated position.
“Something with books,” Yugito is muttering, “I like books.”
She does, really. Yugito is cold and ruthless to outsiders, but Naruto has known her for three years and has seen the fire in her eyes when she brings back another pile of books to add to the makeshift library in her room.
“What about you?” Tsuyu asks him.
“Well,” Naruto says, “I would’ve beaten the shit out of Uchiha Sasuke instead of waiting for an opportune momen-”
He is cut off by a loud groan from all three of the other jinchuuriki.
“I thought we agreed that you weren’t allowed to mention that name anymore,” Tsuyu says.
“We definitely agreed,” Gaara mutters.
“Fine,” Naruto says, enthusiasm unflagging, “You go then, if you having something better to say.”
Sabaku no Gaara doesn’t say anything for a long time. Naruto cranes his neck to see him staring off into space.
“Well?” Tsuyu asks impatiently.
“Sometimes I miss…” Gaara mumbles, still spaced out, “…I would’ve been different.”
“Different?” Yugito repeats skeptically, trying to raise a quizzical eyebrow and failing miserable.
“To people,” he clarifies.
Naruto frowns. Now that he thinks of it, does Gaara have parents? No, wait, his father was the Kazekage or something right? The one who Orochimaru killed? Naruto remembers the day Gaara found out. He hadn’t cared. But did he have a mother? Siblings? Friends? Unlike him, Gaara had left the Sand willingly, but what did he leave behind?
“Who?” he asks curiously, but Gaara just shrugs his shoulders and will say no more.
Chapter Fifteen-
Naruto wakes up to the unpleasant sensation akin to his head being gnawed off. He’s felt this odd sensation before and he bolts upright, ignoring the head rush. He’s sitting on a worn bed in a plain, unadorned room. For a second he thinks he might be in a prison, but then he sees Sasuke asleep against the wall. Sakura is sitting in a rickety chair, staring listlessly out the single dirty window in the room.
“What happened?” he blurts out, taking note of the bandage wrapped around her head, “Did I-?”
He can’t say it. It hurts too much.
“How many tails?” he asks dully after almost a minute of silence.
“Four,” she answers, and her voice is hoarse and sounds pained.
Naruto clenches the comforter to keep his hands from shaking.
“How many did I kill?”
She shrugs and then winces, the movement obviously causing her pain, “Twenty or so. I didn’t count.”
Naruto feels bile rise in his throat but he holds it back, and instead leans over, gripping the comforter as if it is the only thing that is keeping him alive. He can hear his heart pounding as if magnified ten times.
“God,” he thinks, “Why am I even alive?”
“You don’t have to feel bad, you know,” Sakura tells him mildly, “If you hadn’t killed them, I would’ve.”
This, surprisingly, does not make him feel any better.
“How did-” he manages to spit out, “How did you stop me?”
“Sasuke did it,” she replies, glancing over at the sleeping man in question, “Something with his Sharingan. I don’t know what. He mentioned something about separating you from the demon, but is must’ve really worn him out because he fell asleep pretty quickly.”
“Oh,” Naruto murmurs, “Your head…Did I-”
She shrugs, “Suffice to say, I got in the way.”
He opens his mouth and then closes it. He has no idea what to say. He never wanted them to see this side of him. He thought…he thought he had it under control. And now…
“Anyway,” Sakura continues, “I examined the bodies and I think they were acting under the influence of some sort of drug. I’m guessing it’s experimental and all the villages we stumbled upon were trials of some sor-”
“Shut up!” Naruto says loudly, “Shut up! Don’t you know what I just did?”
She raises an eyebrow, “Yes,” she says baldly, “And I don’t really care.”
To his left Sasuke lets out a sleepy groan and opens his eyes, but Naruto ignores him.
“You’re-” he hisses, but it cut off.
“I know what I am,” Sakura says, calmly, “And while it’s not really optimal, I am a ninja. Morals aren’t part of the job description. Now that Sasuke knows how to stop you, it doesn’t really matter anyway.”
“How can you think like that?” Naruto gapes at her, “How can you excuse the deaths of twenty people at the hands of a monster?”
“It was, admittedly, different than I expected,” she says, ignoring his question, “But as I said-”
“Different than you expected?” Naruto repeats furiously, “Different than what you expected! Fuck you! What did you think it was going to be like? A fluffy little fox cub?!”
He is on his feet now, teeth clenched, hands formed into fists.
Sakura frowns slightly, as if this new development is merely a slight irritation, “I didn’t say th-”
“You’re a bitch,” he tells her, shaking slightly.
“Naruto…” Sasuke interrupts from the floor.
“Shut up,” Naruto snarls and leaves the room before he kills them both.
He leaves the building via the backdoor, ignoring the stares of the other patrons and leans against the wall. He lights a cigarette, but almost crushes it in his anger. He inhales a deep breath of the toxins that he knows won’t affect him and exhales slowly.
He should’ve known they wouldn’t understand. Humans, he thinks derisively. Tsuyu was right. After all, how could they? Only jinchuuriki could know the pain and guilt that accompanied having a demon in your stomach that you couldn’t control. He wishes she was here right now. Tsuyu always knows what to do. Or Gaara or Yugito. He’d even take Waka, for what it was worth.
He’s on his third cigarette, when the door opens and Sasuke slides through with catlike grace that Naruto might have been jealous of if he hadn’t been so pissed.
“Figures you’d be smoking,” Sasuke says, raising a ridiculously perfect eyebrow.
“Screw you,” Naruto mutters having no inclination to speak to him at the moment.
Sasuke doesn’t say anything for a while.
“You’ve never killed anyone before?” he asks cooly, but not without curiosity.
“Yes,” Naruto replies tersely, “What does that have to do with it?”
He pauses and allows himself to glance curiously at the darkhaired man
“You?”
“Eight,” Sasuke says, without any vestige of shame, “Orochimaru and seven interrogators when we were in Konoha last month.”
Naruto’s face heats up for reasons he doesn’t understand, “Really,” he says carefully, “I’d have thought…more…”
“I don’t kill unless I have to,” he says, “Avoid it if I can.”
“You could’ve in Konoha,” Naruto thinks, but doesn’t say anything.
“Sakura,” Sasuke says, startling Naruto into remembering that there are other people in the universe, “she doesn’t understand. She’s been twisted, most likely by being in the ANBU. It‘s not her fault. Mostly.”
Naruto shrugs uneasily, “She expects me to just let go of the fact that I just killed twenty or so people. I can’t do that.”
“They were going to die anyw-”
“Stop that!” Naruto nearly shouts, “That’s not an excuse! Because they were going to die anyway makes it okay that I killed them?!”
“You didn’t kill them,” Sasuke says without emotion, “The demon did.”
“It was my body!”
Sasuke lets out a quick breath that might’ve been a laugh, “That was not your body,” he says stoically.
And then, in a lower voice, “I’d think I’d know.”
Naruto scowls, “That’s not funny,” he mutters, turning away.
“It’s true.”
Naruto jerks to look at him and finds that he is very close,
“Uh…” he says, trying to distract him, “I suppose I’d better apologize to Sakura then?”
“Mmm,” Sasuke says, clearly not paying attention. He reaches up with his left hand and cups Naruto’s jaw carefully. The places where the pads of his fingers connect with his cheek burn in a way that isn’t exactly unpleasant.
Naruto wants redemption. He has spent so much of these past few years feeling guilty and unlike his two teammates Naruto doesn’t like being sad. He doesn’t like brooding about past mistakes, but when there is this much blood on his hands, how can he not?
But above all he craves forgiveness, so when Sasuke leans in to kiss him he doesn’t push him away. Instead he wraps one arms around his shoulders and one around his waist and pulls him closer.
“Alright,“ Naruto murmurs in his ear when they part, some time later, “I’ll apologize to Sakura.”
But he never gets the chance to. Sakura is gone when they return to the room and when she bursts in half an hour later there is no time for regrets.
“There’s been a revolt,” she says, face pale and eyes wide, “There’s been a revolt in Konoha.
--
It is bad. The civilian populace of Konoha had been on thin ice with the shinobi every since Tsunade-sama’s ‘betrayal,’ but Danzou’s atrocities were the final straw. Civilians outnumber ninja ten to one and to make matter worse, Konoha isn’t the only place where civil unrest has become commonplace. It is happening all over the Fire Country. Already half the Council is dead and hundreds of refugees have trickled across the border into the Grass, Waterfall, and even the Rain overnight.
Sakura wants to leave right now to see what’s happening, to make sure that they’re all okay-oh, God, Mom, Dad, Lee, Ino, Kakashi-but she knows that it’s too dangerous in the present climate.
Naruto looks at her pityingly and even Sasuke is less blunt than he usually is over the coarse of the next few days. She tries to busy herself by testing the properties of the drug she found in the blood stream of the people in the village (or the ‘zombies’ as she has taken to calling them privately,) but the image of her parents beheaded like Tsunade-sama in the morgue keeping flashing before her eyes. Her parents are not ninja and if they are persecuted because their daughter a ninja, not to mention a traitor…She doesn’t like to think about it, but she can’t not think about it.
She wakes almost a week later, to Naruto banging on her door in the middle of the night. Has something happened? She leaps up and opens the door quickly.
“What?” she asks hoarsely, “What happened? Did something-”
“N-No,” Naruto says, looking a little abashed, “It’s just…I have to leave. Now.”
“What?”
He looks torn, “I…see, I haven’t met up with, you know, the other jinchuuriki in months and when they get worried they, you know, contact me and-”
“Contact you?” she snaps, annoyed, “How?”
Naruto wordlessly holds up the holographic card that she and Sasuke had found on Naruto’s person all those months ago and had been unable to make any sense of it. It shines an eerie emerald green in the darkness.
“It’s a signal,” he explains, “If one of use hasn’t come back to base in a while, they send it out. If I don’t reply and show up in a few days, they can track me using this. We always keep it on us, just in case…” his voice falters and he looks uncomfortable, “just in case one of us gets captured. I can also use it as an emergency signal.”
“You’re leaving?” she asks, just to clarify.
“Tonight,” Naruto replies, “It should only be a few days, though. A week at the most. I just…haven’t seen them in months.”
“Fine,” she says, “We’ll meet you in…old Sound, by the border. I believe there’s a city called Ningyo. We’ll probably be staying somewhere cheap, knowing Sasuke.”
“Near the border,” Naruto says worriedly, but the corner of his lips twitch at her comment, “Do you really think that’s wise?”
“I want to know what’s going on,” she says, “News takes a while to travel this far. Where is this hideout of yours anyway?”
“Underground,” he says without reservations, “Near the connecting point between Rock, Rain, and Waterfall. Technically in Rock, but they’re bastards, so I don’t like to admit that.”
“Be careful,” she says, “Have you told Sasuke yet?”
The guilty look on his face is enough, “Figured, I’d tell you first,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly, “You’d take it better.”
“Say hello to Sabaku no Gaara from me and tell him thanks for the broken ribs,” Sakura wants to say.
Instead, she laughs for the first time in days and pats him on the shoulder.
“Good luck,” she says, and turns in before she can hear Naruto’s goodbye to Sasuke. She just hopes he doesn’t break anything. Or they don’t break anything.
Sasuke is not happy the next morning when they leave, but Sakura didn’t really expect him to be. It takes them two days to get out of Cloud, and on day four since Naruto’s departure they reach the border of Old Sound. Sakura has heard more rumors of death and destruction in the Fire Country, but the violence seems to be winding down a bit. As far as she can tell, this isn’t a result of any decisive moves by the ninja, but more because the civilians have worn themselves out and are tired of the fighting. She has heard the name “Copy Ninja Kakashi” come up several times, but in such wildly differently contexts that she has no idea what the truth is.
Sakura is sick of it all. She’s sick with worry for her parents and Lee. She’s so, so sick of Konoha. She just wants to be done with them. She cut her ties almost three years ago, but they keep coming back to haunt her. She wants it over. But she supposes that would be too easy, wouldn’t it? She feels trapped, and spends hours and hours pacing back and forth until Sasuke throws a kunai or some other sharp object at her. She doesn’t eat, doesn’t sleep. Suffice to say, she’s a total wreck.
And just when she thinks things can’t get worse, they do.
They’re at the edge of the mountain range when something just feels off. Sasuke feels it first, but once Sakura realizes it’s there the worry gnaws away at her. It isn’t chakra, it’s more subtle than that, but it’s something.
Suddenly something in Sasuke’s face tightens and he speeds ahead.
“Sasuke, what-”
“Stay there,” he tells her, voice strange.
She doesn’t. Something is wrong and she’s not about to let him throw himself headlong into danger. It’s strange, usually he’s so levelheaded about everything, even when she and Naruto aren’t. Unless…
Sasuke comes to a cliff and stops. Sakura can feel rage and power emanating off him and it’s with trepidation that takes those last few steps forward and sees.
Uchiha Itachi and Hoshigaki Kisame stand on a large rock several meters below them, cloaks billowing in the wind.
“Hello, Sasuke,” Itachi says, as if he didn’t slaughter his entire family and hasn’t seen him for the last twelve years.
“You,” Sasuke hisses, every muscle taut, “I’m going to kill you.”
Itachi’s lips curve into a smile and Sasuke lunges at him, eyes red and spinning furiously. Sakura stares openmouthed behind her mask as they fight. Only a minute later they’ve disappeared down the mountain and into the forested valley below.
“So,” Hosigaki Kisame says, looking over her contemptuously, “Who are you again?”
Sakura swallows her worries for Sasuke’s life and sanity and bares her teeth, tossing aside her mask.
“The person’s who’s going to kill you,” she snarls, bloodying the palm of her hand with a kunai, “Kuchiyose no Jutsu!”
--
“Shut up!” Sasuke shouts, but it comes out less threatening than he wants it to. Partly because his energy is nearly depleted from the fight and partly because of the rain.
“You’re alive, aren’t you?” Uchiha Madara says calmly, Sharingan peering eerily out of the hole in his mask, “You aren’t as strong as you think you are. Itachi may have been half blind, but you underestimated him. If he had wanted you dead, you would be.”
“Lies,” Sasuke snarls, struggling to find the energy to kill this man who dared tell him Itachi was anything but pure evil.
“You really don’t understand,” the man says, sounding infuriatingly smug. Sasuke doesn’t want to even look at him, but it’s infinitely better than looking at the prone form of his older brother, whose sightless eyes leak rain like tears.
“It’s not true,” Sasuke chokes, but already he knows it is. Details of his childhood come back to him and every tiny one hurts more than the last. And finally…
“Sorry, Sasuke, this is the last tim-”
“Who the fuck are you?” Sakura’s voice comes from behind a huge pine tree, whose branches are being consumed by black fire. Sasuke has never been so glad to see anyone in his entire life.
Her strangely girlish pink shirt is covered in blood and is blackened from what looks like fire. She’s limping badly.
“Sakura,” he gasps, sounding pathetic, more pathetic than he probably ever has.
“I have no business with you,” Madara says, “Leave.”
Sakura looks over Itachi, him, and then Madara again.
“You leave,” she says, limping to stand between them, her back looking like a bigger and stronger wall than it really is.
Sasuke sees the Sharingan spin and yells out a warning, but not before Sakura falls to her knees.
“Know your place, scum,” he says coldly.
Sakura spits out blood and throw several shuriken at him, which he dodges with ease.
Sasuke can’t think. He can’t think. Because Itachi is lying over there dead and Uchiha Madara has apparently come back from the dead to tell him that his parents were planning a coup and that Konoha-
Sakura hand swings out to grasp his shoulder and she looks straight into his eyes.
“Sasuke,” she says, “Look at me.”
He does, but it only last for a second because then he has to throw her out of the way to avoid the black fired Amaterasu Madara sends her way.
“Get out,” he says to Madara as Sakura moans in pain on the ground.
“What?” For the first time the man seems surprised.
“I said get out!”
And for the second time he uses the power Itachi gave him, but this time willingly. Madara screams in pain and it’s like music to his ears. He pulls himself to his feet.
“Get out,” he says the third time.
“You’re making a mis-”
Sasuke grabs his sword and feels the strange new shape his eyes have taken on revolve.
“Leave!”
Madara pauses, “Just think about what I-”
“Get out of here, you motherfucker!” Sakura hisses from the ground.
The strange black figure seems to hesitate, “I’ll be waiting,” Madara murmurs and then he is gone.
Sasuke sinks to the ground and empties his dinner onto it.
“Sasuke,” Sakura whispers, having managed to pull herself off the ground, “Sasuke, what-”
“You’re bleeding,” he murmurs because she is but also because he doesn’t want to think about what she’s asking.
“I-” she seems momentarily startled and looks down at her bloody pink shirt, “I fought Hoshigaki Kisame. He’s dead.”
Sasuke lets out a great heaving cough that shakes his entire body and Sakura grasps his shoulders to steady him.
“Sasuke, what happ-”
“Get me out of here.”
She pauses, turns to look at Itachi-don’t think about that!- and then they both stagger away from the scene, leaving Itachi’s cooling body under the soft, gentle pattern of the rain.
A/N: Dun dun dun! Ahem, I live! I bet you all thought I dropped off the planet, which I may well have considering how much updating I’ve been doing lately. Anyway, sorry about that, but I’ve real busy and I was gone a lot too.
For those of you that had no idea what just happened, that’s probably because you’re not up to date with the manga. Read it (or a summary) because I’m not going to go into that, but assume you already know.
As to why Sasuke didn’t just pass out after he killed Itachi like in the manga, you have to remember that Itachi’s eyesight was getting worse and worse as time went by. Sasuke is nineteen in this fic, not sixteen (or seventeen?) like he is in the manga and so Itachi’s eyesight is worse, giving him a bigger advantage.
So, credit to Sleeping Soundly for making this all make sense and please review!