Disclaimer: I don't own nor have I contributed to Naruto in any way! Nope! None!
Sky-eyed Kitsune and Gomi-kun blab & Updates
Sky-eyed Kitsune: Helllooo everyone:D
Gomi-kun: Hi.
Sky-eyed Kitsune: Ok, I thought up this story and I just HAD to put it on paper. There are many stories like this, but this one will surely gain independence from the rest over a bit of time! But don't panic about S.T.R.A.Y! I'm still working on that fic as well. I will never abandon a ficcie! I promise!!!
Gomi-kun: --sigh— As usual, I'm your translator. Woot.
Fic warnings: rough violence, language, angst, a bit dark, SHOUNEN-AI, lime, LEMON in the future
Naru-tachi start off in the beginning as 18, but there will be a timeskip.
Main Pairings: Let me make this loud and clear: sasunaru vs sainaru
Side Pairings: One-sided NaruSaku, NaruIno and maybe some one-sided KibaNaru
Fic Summary: Naruto's been pushing himself to the limit, training day and night almost nonstop and killing himself. And for who? The bastard of course. After an attempt at bringing Sasuke back for the third time, Naruto's finally ready to cut the thread of his and Sasuke's bond that he had clung to for so long. But what happens when the Uchiha does come back on his own?
This song gave me some inspiration for this story, along with others. I find it very appropriate for this fic.
Now I know that I can't make you stay
But where's your heart?
But where's your heart?
But where's your...
And I know
There's nothing I can say
To change that part
To change that part
To change...
So many
Bright lights, they cast a shadow
But can I speak?
Well is it hard understanding
I'm incomplete
A life that's so demanding
I get so weak
A love that's so demanding
I can't speak
I am not afraid to keep on living
I am not afraid to walk this world alone
Honey if you stay, I'll be forgiven
Nothing you can say can stop me going home
Can you see
My eyes are shining bright
'Cause I'm out here
On the other side
Of a jet black hotel mirror
And I'm so weak
Is it hard understanding
I'm incomplete
A love that's so demanding
I get weak
I am not afraid to keep on living
I am not afraid to walk this world alone
Honey if you stay, I'll be forgiven
Nothing you can say can stop me going home
These bright lights have always blinded me
These bright lights have always blinded me
I say
I see you lying next to me
With words I thought I'd never speak
Awake and unafraid
Asleep or dead
(How can I see, I see you lying) 'Cause I see you lying next to me
(How can I see, I see you lying) With words I thought I'd never speak
(How can I see, I see you lying) Awake and unafraid
(How can I see, I see you lying) Asleep or dead
'Cause I see you lying next to me
With words I thought I'd never speak
Awake and unafraid
Asleep or dead
I am not afraid to keep on living
I am not afraid to walk this world alone
(Or dead)
Honey if you stay, I'll be forgiven
Nothing you can say can stop me going home
(Or dead)
I am not afraid to keep on living
I am not afraid to walk this world alone
(Or dead)
Honey if you stay, I'll be forgiven
Nothing you can say can stop me going home
Unshed
Chapter One: No More
"What?"
Tsunade was sure that she hadn't heard right. There had to have been a surge of chakra to interrupt her hearing, because there was no way he had just said that.
Tsunade searched the young man's face, the face of her brother.
Naruto had grown tremendously, physically and mentally. His body was defined and chiseled with the grueling years of training he had undergone. His chest muscles rippled under the tight black shinobi shirt that flexed over his covered sun-kissed skin. But somehow despite all of the muscle and tone he had received, Naruto was still slender and short for his age, now eighteen.
His hair had grown down to brush against his shoulders, the spikes now more seemingly tamed and quiet, but never loosing their bright glow. Naruto's whisker marks were darker and more predominant. Since his internal merging with the fox, this had been one of the side affects. The other was the accelerated growth rate of his hair, and the change of his eyes.
Naruto's right eye was a bright blue, though dimmer than it had once been when it was so full of hope, and the left was crimson red, its pupil black but fortunately not slit.
Naruto was decked out in his ANBU uniform with a fox mask hung over to the side of his face. He was a trainee, so wearing the mask constantly wasn't necessary. Though he did wear a mask over his lower face akin to Kakashi's, only this one reached up to cover his left eye so that he didn't have to use his headband for that.
Naruto now had his headband now wrapped over his arm below his ANBU tattoo so that his hair fell in free locks around his face. In all honestly, he had grown into a beautiful man. He could no doubt hold a candle to one Uchiha Sasuke.
Sasuke.
That was the reason for the blonde's sudden arrival.
"Naruto," Tsunade said slowly and clearly. "What did you just say?"
"I'm giving up on chasing Sasuke," he said sternly.
Tsunade looked at Naruto. She had never seen him so serious before, even when he said he was going to bring Sasuke back. It had become more than a promise, but a dream. Even higher than his dream of to become Hokage it seemed.
Naruto never listened when people told him to call it quits on Sasuke.
Never.
He trained day and night, coming home to his apartment bloody and bruised, collapsing onto his bed from sheer exhaustion, sleeping until the Kyuubi's power healed him fully, and then he woke up and started over again. He stopped for nothing but missions and to eat, which was scarcely.
Naruto closed his eyes as he remembered the torturous training.
Flashback-
A sixteen year-old Naruto punched and kicked furiously at a log in front of him at the training grounds. His face speckled with blood, his clothes stained with it, and open gashes framed his skin.
"Kit, take it easy! You need to rest!" the Kyuubi inside Naruto cried.
Over the years he had become like a father to Naruto, talking to him when he needed it, and comforting him through the hard training. In other words, Naruto was his kit. But this was just too much.
"Kit, you just got back from trying to get the Uchiha back! Rest for Kami-sama's sake!"
Naruto punched so hard into the log that a surge of chakra erupted form his hand as he hit the wood, and the log exploded.
Naruto panted, staring at where the log once was, now lying in rubble around him.
He looked down at his hands, drenched with blood.
Naruto collapsed from exhaustion, holding his side where a deep wound was.
"Kit!" Kyuubi cried anxiously.
"I won't…give up," Naruto growled between pants.
"Kit, you could beat the Uchiha into oblivion! Why don't you?"
It was true.
Everyone had always thought that when the red surge of chakra morphed around Naruto and he became stronger, it was the Kyuubi's power.
They were all wrong.
It was Naruto's power alone. The years of training had not betrayed him. Naruto had never once unleashed Kyuubi's power, keeping it locked away tightly. Only one person had been witness to it, and Naruto had had him promise he wouldn't tell a soul of his real power.
The man was true to his word and kept up with the ruse that Naruto wasn't the strongest of shinobi when he could beat the shit out of the fifth Hokage herself.
But when faced with Sasuke…Naruto always held back. He could never let his true strength out; the strength that would undoubtedly bring the Uchiha back.
That's what all of the training was for really.
Naruto was stronger than any ANBU alive already. He didn't need to become stronger. No, he wanted experience. He wanted to fight blindly, to fight every day until he became so used to it that even if it was Sasuke he was facing, he wouldn't hold back.
Yet here Naruto was after his second attempt to retrieve Sasuke, and after all his training, he could only half-ass his strength. He couldn't fight Sasuke like that.
Anyone but Sasuke.
His heart wouldn't let him.
Sasuke had been Naruto's friend, his rival……and somewhere in between, his first love.
Yes, Naruto was in love with Sasuke. He would never go so far for him unless he wasn't. Sasuke of course never knew.
How Naruto had fallen for the bastard he didn't know, but he definitely fell.
Naruto struggled to his feet again as Kyuubi reprimanded him in his head. He looked up to the stars, an empty feeling solidifying in his stomach and running through his veins like a quick poison.
He felt so meager compared to the twinkling beauties above him.
End Flashback
"Naruto…" Tsunade said quietly. She couldn't believe that the man in front of her was Naruto. The Naruto that would never give in, never stop, never listen. She wouldn't!
"This was your dream, Naruto."
"Dreams die hard," Naruto said, and Tsunade cringed at the coldness embedded in his words and his eyes.
He was serious.
Tsunade sighed, and then slowly nodded.
"I won't stop you from doing what you want, just as I have before," she said, and Naruto nodded a thanks.
"You'll now be getting more missions, difficult ones in which you will be away from home for a while. I also expect you to train under me as an apprentice if you hope to become the next Hokage."
Tsunade smiled as she saw a flicker of life in Naruto's eyes, but it was quickly fizzled out by his sorrow.
"Thank you, Tsunade-sama," he said, bowing lowly.
Tsunade wished that he would call her a hag just one more time; for she was sure she would never hear it again.
Sky-eyed Kitsune: The chappie was short because this was just the intro to the story! Expect much longer chapters!
Sky-eyed Kitsune and Gomi-kun