Do You Hate Me?
Title subject to change, rating PG13 to be on the safe side.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, I do own the plot of this story (for as far as there is one) and the extra characters I may or may not add.
Please read the A/N's, they have important notes in them.
Chapter 1 – Coming to Terms: (Revised)
Sunlight beamed down at two young boys who could be seen facing each other. They each stood on top of a huge statue of a male Shinobi, one hand in an eternal seal and one gripping a sword. Divided by a loud crashing waterfall they both shouted each others name.
"Naruto!!!"
"Sasuke!!!"
The blonde boy with sky blue eyes in an orange jumpsuit jumped towards the boy with black hair and dark eyes, one of them glowing ominously. As the blond boy fell down from the momentum of his jump he was horrified to see that the raven haired boy's skin on his left side was covered in a flame pattern tattoo. He quickly turned his horror into anger and slammed his fist in the other boy's face, causing them both to fall to the ground harshly.
Gripping his eternal rival by his jacket, Naruto started shouting at him. "Sasuke! How could you! How could you betray our village! How could you betray Sakura-chan?!"
Sasuke started chuckling softly. "Ku ku ku... You idiot. I don't need the Leaf. Orochimaru has promised me power. With it I'll finally destroy my brother. Thanks to the curse seal I'll definitely become stronger than him."
"You moron! Orochimaru doesn't want to help you gain power! He just wants to take over your body; you'll never be able to avenge your family!" With that Naruto hoisted Sasuke in the air and threw him away.
To Naruto's utter annoyance Sasuke chuckled again. "You know nothing, no- one in the Leaf means anything to me anymore, only power. You won't stand in my way of my goals... Dead last."
Rage burning inside him, Naruto ran towards the black haired boy. "You betrayed the Leaf and you hurt Sakura-chan's feelings. I don't know why she loves you but I won't forgive you!"
As he neared Sasuke he saw him disappear, only to appear right behind him. Sasuke quickly kicked Naruto in the back sending him flying into a large rock wall causing several boulders to fall on top of him.
As he saw Naruto buried under a pile of rocks, Sasuke smirked. "Hmmph, still useless as always."
"You should have learned not to underestimate me by now, Sasuke." Came the reply in a low growl.
Sasuke merely raised an eyebrow. "You're overpowered, just bow down and accept your fate. Go back limping to that precious village of yours." Hearing a laugh from the rubble he tensed slightly.
"Psst, over here." Naruto said as he jumped out from underground behind Sasuke. The tattoo covered boy swiveled around just in time to receive a fist full in his face which sent him staggering backwards. However Naruto wasn't done yet as he had created ten shadow clones which had tunneled their way underground towards the black haired Genin. Each of them jumped up from the ground like Naruto had done. Surrounding Sasuke they all started kicking or punching him.
Sasuke grunted in pain and leaped into the air. "Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu! (Flame Type: Powerful Fireball Technique)" He shouted and roasted all of Naruto's shadow clones causing them all to disappear in a cloud of smoke.
"If that's all you can do you're going to go down, traitor."
Sasuke's eyes widened as he saw Naruto appear before him with another batch of shadow clones. All of them grinning in a feral manner and showing off their rather pointy incisors. As one of them ran up to Sasuke and kicked him in the chin he heard and felt Naruto shouting and carrying out his favorite combo. "U..." A kick. "Zu..." Another kick in the side. "Ma..." A punch in the gut that took Sasuke's breath away. "Ki!" A kick in the back that sent him even higher into the air. "Naruto Rendan!!!" Four heels slammed into his chest and he couldn't even draw air into his lungs anymore. Coupled with gravity, the finishing blow sent Sasuke hurtling towards the ground where he created a small crater on impact.
Naruto and his clones landed and walked warily over to the edge of the newly created hole. As the smoke from the impact dispersed, Naruto gazed down and saw that the curse seal had withdrawn from Sasuke's body to the tiny symbol on his shoulders once again. Dismissing his clones he stumbled down towards his rival, no, his enemy. Leaning over Sasuke he whispered: "Sasuke, you idiot. You lost my respect, you're the weakling."
Hearing this, Sasuke's eyes snapped open and his hands went towards Naruto's neck, holding him in a vice-like grip. "I don't need respect from the likes of you." Sasuke then punched Naruto several times in the stomach, extracting several grunts of pain from the blond haired boy. Dropping him, Sasuke kicked Naruto in the gut and watched him slide painfully for several yards across the ground.
Shrugging off the pain, Naruto stood up and spat the blood from his mouth. "Well it seems that little love bite did give you a bit more power after all, Sasuke...chan!" Forming the seal of his favorite technique, Naruto glared at the black haired boy with glowing red fox-like eyes from behind the middle index finger cross. "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" Now more then two hundred menacing Naruto's appeared and glared down at Sasuke. All of them growled the same thing. "Let's get this party started."
For years to come Sasuke would still remember the beating he received at the hands of the blond haired Shinobi. And could recall thinking that pissing Naruto off was a very stupid thing to do. Beating the nearly countless clones with Taijutstu and Ninjutsu techniques, Sasuke was slowly being worn down. After what seemed like hours two clones managed to get behind him and was being held tightly by them. The now demon possessed boy himself stepped in front of him and started gathering his chakra in his left palm. Sasuke's eyes widened, he knew what that technique could do after seeing it rip a gigantic hole in a water tank on top of the hospital and immediately gathered all his remaining chakra.
Air seemed to be sucked in as Naruto managed to form a perfect glowing white orb of swirling chakra in his hand. Looking up he saw a hint of fear on Sasuke's face but he was beyond caring. Pushing it towards Sasuke's stomach he roared; "RASENGAN!!!"
With an earsplitting scream, Sasuke flew backwards, spinning out of control. He slammed with a huge force into the rubble that was created by Naruto only less than an hour earlier. Finally sated, the demon that resided in Naruto grew dormant once again and caused the sparkling blue to return to his eyes. He was surprised to find Sasuke still breathing. No the Uchiha wasn't dead, but he had broken just about every bone in his body and his limbs were sticking out at odd angles. Naruto jumped when he heard two voices behind him.
"That was excessive was it not?" A red headed young man said.
"Wow Naruto-kun! You're awesome! But you didn't kill him did you?" Another boy said, this one wearing what seemed to be a one piece skintight green suit. He turned his head with a black bowl haircut towards Naruto with wide eyes.
"Thickbrows... Gaara... Glad you could make it..." With that and a small smile, Naruto fainted.
'Aargh my head' Naruto thought as he fluttered his eyelids open. Sky blue eyes scanned his surroundings. 'I'm floating...?' He rolled his eyes upwards and saw the back of a red haired figure. "Gaara?" He whispered.
Gaara immediately turned his head, looked down at the Naruto and said; "You're awake." With that the blond haired boy immediately felt the nice floating experience disappearing as he was dropped on the ground.
"Oi! What was that for?" Naruto exclaimed when he stood up again. He rubbed his backside and followed Gaara who was already walking away.
"You were awake; there was no more need for you to be lying on the stretcher I made for you. We are also nearing your village." Gaara stated calmly.
"At least give him some warning eh, Gaara?" A brash voice said followed by a loud bark.
"Kiba, Akamaru, you guys made it ok huh?"
"Yeah, Gaara and his brother and sister saved me, him and you. We picked up Neji and Chouji when we went back to the village, they'll both be ok. I don't know what you did with Sasuke though, but he'll make it too I guess." Another voice explained, this one sounding rather bored.
Naruto moaned. "Don't ask, Shikamaru. I don't want to talk to about it right now."
"Meh, I didn't really want to know anyway. All I want to do is deliver my report and go home to get some sleep. This is all way too troublesome." Shikamaru retorted.
"There it is!" Kiba yelled as his dog started yapping excitedly.
The group entirely composed of Genin walked or floated on stretchers made of sand, courtesy of Gaara, towards the Gates of Konoha. The two guard's one duty stared warily at the three Sand siblings but quickly ordered the gates to be opened when they saw the wounded figures on the stretchers. Stepping through the gate they found themselves on a large plaza with a large path on the other end lined with benches. On one of those benches sat a pink haired girl. She was dressed in a long red dress with a skintight pair of black shorts. The dress had slits on either side that ran up to the middle of her thighs and it had circle symbols on the front, back and her short sleeves. As she saw them she jumped up from the bench and ran towards one of the stretchers.
Naruto started talking to the girl. "Sakura-chan, I..." But was shoved aside as she ran towards Sasuke, the boy he had promised to bring back for her. As she reached the raven haired boy she started sobbing uncontrollably. Naruto couldn't help but to feel hurt and it clearly showed on his face.
Temari, Gaara's sister, watched the girl and the blond haired boy with a slightly confused expression. Kankuro, Gaara's brother, who had been watching his sister noticed this and asked; "Temari, what's wrong?"
"Nothing. That girl is just rather rude, understandable but still..." Temari said in a soft voice.
"Uh... Whatever." Kankuro said and turned back to the leader of the five Konoha Genins. "So what do we do now?"
Shikamaru scratched the back of his head and said; "You guys come with me to the Hokage's office after we drop Neji, Chouji and Sasuke off at the hospital. Tsunade-sama will want to know why you guys showed up and everything."
"She already knows." Gaara said.
Shikamaru sighed. "Well, Kiba I guess you, Lee and Naruto... Huh, where's Naruto?"
Kiba looked around. "I don't know he was here a minute ago." His faithful companion Akamaru barked his acknowledgment.
"Oeh! Naruto-kun is so stealthy!" Lee shouted, showing his admiration for the blonde Genin clearly.
"How troublesome." Shaking his head, Shikamaru decided they would have to find him later. "Well let's get going, the sooner we get this over with, the sooner I'll be rid of you guys and get to see my bed."
The person in question was going nowhere in particular, he just wanted a place where he could be alone and mull over the thoughts brewing in his head. He knew he was a mess; blood matted his blonde spiky hair and was splattered all over his orange jumpsuit. Whether it was his own or Sasuke's he didn't know. But he really couldn't care any less at the moment. His normally sparkling sky blue eyes seemed subdued, more or less reflecting his mood.
If he was quite honest with himself he was alone and unhappy, very much so. His haggard appearance was noted by many of the villagers, but instead of trying to make sure he got his wounds taken care of, they glared at him with cold eyes and whispered insults and snide remarks behind his back. He inwardly winced every time as he overheard one of them, not that they bothered to keep their whispers that unnoticeable from him anyway. Even though he was kind of used to the cold stares and insults it didn't really make it hurt less. Normally he would have just told them to shut up and respect him because he was going to be the next Hokage. But even that didn't much appeal to him. He could understand the villagers but he at least thought Sakura would thank him. 'Damn that Sasuke' he inwardly cursed.
Not really noticing where he was going, he bumped into a tree, Naruto glared at it as if daring the tree to say anything. He sighed and climbed up the tree to sit on one of the thick branches high up in the canopy. Hidden behind the leaves he went over all the things that had happened. Sasuke, almost drunk with power the curse seal had given him, still didn't know where true power came from. He had made one big mistake in the fight; he underestimated Naruto yet again as he always did. Naruto summoned countless shadow clones and wore Sasuke down. Naruto, in the end, had to use his most powerful technique; the Rasengan taught to him by Jiraiya, one of the legendary three sennin affectionately called: Ero-sennin.
'Bah, why didn't she just say thanks? I deserve that much don't I?' Naruto thought and slammed a fist in the tree trunk. A part of him understood, it really did, but now it was conflicting with the other part of him, the huge part of pure stubborn pigheadedness that was the normal day to day Naruto. Yet that small part that understood spoke up again, it knew Sakura really liked Sasuke even if he didn't deserve it. And deep down he understood and began to let his childish crush go. He took a deep breath and embraced that little defiant part of himself. 'No sense in depressing myself any further. She doesn't like you, now get over it already.' With this final determination, Naruto jumped out of the tree, groaning as the nerves in his weary legs sent waves of pain in protest to his brain from the landing. He looked up at the sky; the sun was nearly winking out of view to let the moon begin its shift for the night. He walked gingerly and slowly towards his own home for a tasty bowl of ramen and a good night's sleep. Maybe tomorrow he'd have a good idea of what to do.
A/N: This is a revised chapter. I'm in the process of getting a beta-reader so it might get revised again. Anyway I added the fight between Naruto and Sasuke as I thought it would happen in the first place. Besides I hate Sasuke, hehehe. (Gets beaten to a pulp by Sasuke fan girls) Anyway, I've refined my plot and I'll try even harder to make my fic the best it can be. The way it's turning out now I think I'm doing a pretty good job for my first time :)
Please leave a review with your thoughts on this chapter. Even small ones are appreciated.