Chessboard World

Prologue

Author's notes: Hi there. Howdy. Those of you who were reading Diamond in the Dirt: I am not abandoning it. This story has just been re-posted and will be a little different from last time. It's just a stop-gap update of my writing while I look for a way to bridge the gap between the last section and the first section in chapter 18 of DITD. (that means I'm missing the middle part, to put it simply)

Those just dropping by: welcome, or welcome back. Hopefully this will be a bit more successful this time round. I put way too much effort into making each chapter incredibly long and forgot about a plot line. This time it has one. I'm making sure of it.

"Naruto!" Somebody hollered outside of his front door. The yell was soon followed by loud thumps that made the door bend inwards on its hinges. The blond cracked his eyes open a fraction and mumbled incoherently before closing them again. "Goddammit Naruto, answer the door!" Blue eyes opened again with difficulty and Naruto frowned blearily. Who the hell was that? Yawning loudly, he stretched out and sat up, running a hand through his hair absently. He'd better go and see what they wanted before they broke his door.

He stepped out of his bed and looked around his room for something clean to wear. There were dirty clothes piled on the end of his bed and scattered around his room. He groaned, thinking about how long he would be at launderette for. Frowning again, he picked up a pair of orange track pants and a black t-shirt and pulled them on, not really caring about the louder calls and thumps from outside. He walked from his bedroom to the front door at a leisurely pace, even stopping to stretch on his tiptoes to touch the door frame in his bedroom; he was still as short as always.

He unlocked the door, firstly telling the person outside to wait a minute. When the person outside swore, Naruto finally placed the voice. He laughed at how long it had taken him to guess and wrenched open the door (which was very stiff on its hinges and got stuck) to a disgruntled looking Kiba and his dog, Akamaru.

"Fuck Naruto, what the hell took you so long? And what the hell are you laughing at?" Kiba growled, pushing past the blond and walking into the flat, with Akamaru at his heels. Naruto glared after him, but closed the door and followed the dog-boy into the kitchen.

Kiba was helping himself to a drink from the fridge, oblivious to the amount of old food in there. Naruto cursed inwardly, this time thinking about the amount of time it would take him (when he finally got around to it) to clean up the kitchen. Kiba tipped the final dregs of milk into his mouth straight from the carton and 'ahh'-ed loudly, baring his fangs (had he sharpened them again?) at Naruto in a dog-like grin. Naruto decided it had definitely been too long since he'd last seen Kiba. "You'll never change buddy. Your fridge reeks."

"I know," Naruto replied flatly, sitting down at the kitchen table, ignoring with some effort the dirt that stuck to his hand as he rested it on the table top. "So what are you doing here?" Kiba only visited him when they had something planned, and he couldn't remember planning anything with Kiba.

"What am I doing here?" Kiba asked incredulously, backed up by a sharp bark from Akamaru. "You missed the first day of school! I had to see what was up – I thought you'd been in a fight or something." Kiba leaned against the dirty kitchen counter and watched Naruto expectantly.

"Oh shit, school," was all Naruto said. Kiba looked disappointed. "I forgot we started today. I was out on the mountain 'til four." Naruto yawned to prove his point. "It figures though," he continued lazily, "It must be about four now, right? That's a good twelvehour sleep. And I'm still bushed. "

Kiba ignored his question, now pissed off that he'd wasted his time. He'd turned down Shikamaru's offer of going with him and others from their class into town to see Naruto. "What the fuck were you doing out on the mountain? We could've gone to town with Sakura and her friends. Shikamaru invited me! Fuck!" Kiba cursed, making Naruto grin. "What the fuck are you smiling at now?"

"Nothing," Naruto answered innocently, down casting his eyes and letting a smile play on his lips. "You're just swearing a bit more than usual… any reason?" Kiba scowled at the blond and stood up properly, balling up his fists as if to punch him.

"I was stuck with my parents for the last two weeks." he said defensively. Naruto stifled a laugh. Poor Kiba with his strict parents – he always swore a lot when he got back to school after the summer holidays. Kiba let his anger disperse and grinned wolfishly at Naruto. "Come on Naruto, let's go into town. You've got to see Hinata!" Naruto stared curiously back at him.

"Why?"

Kiba held up his hands and leaned back easily on the kitchen counter. "You'll see when we get there." Naruto hmm-ed. He couldn't understand why he'd want to see the Hyuuga. She was nice enough, but she was really shy around him so he never knew how to act, scared he'd frighten her. She was so awkward and shy that Naruto believed that his voice (which was on the louder end of the spectrum, like Kiba's) would blow her away. "Go and change then Naruto. You're not going like that." Naruto looked down at himself and supposed not.

He left Kiba in the kitchen and pulled on the cleanest pain of jeans he could find and found a white t-shirt with a swirly black logo on it, ignoring the fact that HQ would kill him if they found out he was using it for casual wear. Heck, if his pay had been halfway decent he could've gone to the laundrette earlier on in the month.

He would've had a shower but the gang wouldn't be in town forever, so he just stuck his head under the tap and towel dried his hair into its normal blond spikes. He caught sight of himself in the mirror and tilted his head to look at the black lines that marked both sides of his face. Whiskers, Kiba would always tease. Naruto hated them – they were just one more thing that drew attention to him.

Naruto knew where the crowd from school was before he even saw them. Sakura and Ino were arguing, as they always did, with their voices raised to maximum volume. Naruto smiled to himself, suddenly regretting not going to school. Kiba elbowed him in the ribs as they turned onto the main road and pointed out the group as if he hadn't seen or heard them.

"Yo!" both he and Kiba called simultaneously. The heads of those in the group snapped around to see who they were, followed by a chorus of squeals and greetings. They were all there: Shikamaru, Chouji, Shino, Lee, Sakura, Ino and Hinata, and although he didn't exactly regard these people as friends exactly, Naruto was happy to see them. It'd been a while, and being alone most of the time had its bad points. As he was bombarded with questions he switched off and looked at everyone, seeing how much they had changed.

Sakura had cut her hair short, but it looked nice, and she remained as pretty as ever. Ino had cut hers too, probably out of jealousy of her best friend's new look, but it didn't suit her quite as much as the long hair had. Hinata looked very different – Kiba was right to act so exaggeratedly. Shikamaru and Chouji had both grown over the summer; making the inch Naruto had been so proud of growing over the summer unnoticeable.

"Naruto! You're not listening! Where were you today?" Sakura asked him, rolling her eyes at Ino.

"Sorry Sakura-chan," Naruto replied, grinning broadly and rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. "I'm just surprised. You've all changed so much."

"You're such an idiot Naruto! It's been two months, not two years!" Kiba said, smacking the back of his head jovially. Naruto glowered and rubbed his head again; it hadn't hurt, but he had to put on a show. It had felt a lot more like two years, Naruto felt like returning. Still, he could rest now and enjoy himself; term time meant no work for a while.

They group went to a café and sat drinking sodas and milkshakes catching up after the holidays. Naruto surprised himself when he felt happy that Hinata was a little more confident. Her cousin Neji had moved in with them and she's spent a lot of the summer with him, and making a friend by herself had boosted her confidence a little.

It was going well and Naruto was feeling content and was reveling in the calm and normalness of this outing when he heard Ino and Sakura squeal over something he hoped he hadn't heard. He listened in for a bit and then – "I can't believe Sasuke-kun is back. He looks so cool now!"

The second those words left Sakura's lips, Naruto froze, his happy bubble popped. No, he tried to convince himself again, she hadn't said that name. He had left Konoha three years ago and nobody had heard from him since. Why the hell would he come back anyway? What could he possibly gain from what Konoha offered? Rumor had it that he'd been off at a boarding school out of the fire country. "What did you say?" Naruto blurted out sharply, turning heads once again.

"Sasuke-kun is back!" Sakura repeated brightly for him, albeit a little uncertainly. Kiba and Chouji exchanged glances. The atmosphere had changed visibly, everybody picking up on the vibe Naruto was giving off. The happy smile on the faces of Ino and Sakura faltered, and Hinata looked more worried than ever. Naruto was oblivious to all this, balling up his fists and grinding his teeth unconsciously. Just wait until he got his hands on the bastard who had convinced the stupid Uchiha to come back.

"I've got to go," he told them, the words ripped out of his throat in a feral growl. Why the hell should he be inconspicuous when they'd done this to him? The bastards – if he could he'd kill them all. He was passed working with a partner; hadn't he done his stint three years ago? He worked better alone, without having to cover somebody else and worry about his other half. No, he had to go to HQ and sort this out. He would not work with Sasuke again.

He waved goodbye to his friends and stormed furiously towards the mountains. He had to take his time in the centre, but as the number of houses thinned and the open space grew, he ran at top speed as he had been trained to do. It took a half-hour from the border of the town to get to HQ, and when he arrived he was well rehearsed in what to say.

Outside the doors of the ridiculously conspicuous Konoha ninja headquarters, Naruto pulled on his mask and entered the building. The reception was empty, as always, and Naruto walked straight through and down the corridor that lead to the stairs at the heart of the building. For reasons that had obviously made sense to the first ninjas, the head's office was at the top of the tower, and although Naruto didn't mind climbing hundreds of stairs, he was still scornful of the poor architectural design.

The head ninja also doubled up as Konoha's fifth hokage, the Godaime, Tsunade. Naruto liked Tsunade; they argued a lot about his attitude in his work and about how he couldn't live as he was and countless other subjects, but she was good to him, and cared about him. She had told him once that he was just like her little brother, who had died in the War years and years ago, and Naruto had honestly been touched. He'd never felt so important before in his life. On the other hand though…

Tsunade had played a part in pairing him up with Uchiha Sasuke, the rich snob, famous for the massacre of his family and for excelling in everything he did. He and Naruto were the only two new ninjas and he and Sasuke had ended up as rivals within seconds of meeting each other. Sasuke hated Naruto's attitude to his work (like Sarutobi had and Tsunade and most of the other ninjas), his loud character and how he rushed straight into combat and Naruto hated how Sasuke sneered at the way he carried out his assignments and could survey a scene for hours, analyzing every detail before engaging in combat – with that damned Sharingan. He wasn't one to complain about advantages, that would be hypocritical, but Sasuke always had everything handed to him on a plate.

"No," he said resolutely to himself as he ran up the stairs, "I will not work with that bastard again."

When he reached the top of the tower, there was more activity. The missions and tasks were assigned to each ninja or team up here too and there was already somebody leaving or arriving. By one of the photocopiers in the corner, a woman in her late twenties or early thirties with short brown hair stood, thumping the machine. That was Shizune, Tsunade's apprentice. Naruto grinned to himself behind the mask and made his way over to her.

"Shizune, is Tsunade-baa busy?" he asked in a low voice, grinning cheekily at the disrespectful suffix he added to her name. Shizune knew who it was behind the mask, being Tsunade's apprentice, but all ninjas had to be anonymous outside of teams.

"No, kyuubi-kun, you can go straight in," she replied quietly. And then she gave a little hassled 'che' when the photocopier started producing black smoke. "Could you tell her for me that her paperwork will be a little late? She'll be over the moon, I'm sure…"

Naruto nodded, eyeing the smoke warily, and went to Tsunade's office. He knocked twice and opened the door without waiting for a reply. The hokage looked up at him, irritated, but her expression softened slightly when she recognized the mask.

"Close the door and come in," she told him, indicating a seat in front of her desk with a sweeping gesture of her hand. The office was huge: there was a window that stretched across a whole wall, looking out upon Konoha, and the view never ceased to amaze Naruto. He had vowed that one day he would become hokage and have this office way back when Sarutobi was hokage. The old man was dead and gone now, his face on the mountain to remind the town of all he had done for Konoha. He too had died in a War. "What can I help you with?"

Naruto sat down and removed the mask, ruffling his bangs back into place. He set the mask on the table with a clack of chakra-infused porcelain against polished wood. "I found out that Sasuke is back. I wanted to tell you that I won't work with him again. I work alone now." He stuck out his chin defiantly, looking Tsunade in the eye. He was so calm now, and his eyes were hard after five long years of working as a ninja. Tsunade found it quite remarkable how he had grown from the boy only Sarutobi had vouched for this fearless fighter. Tsunade sighed and opened her drawer, pulling out a pile of papers that Naruto guessed were Sasuke's.

"Naruto, you're the only one who has worked with Sasuke before. I think that you would be the best one to…" She struggled to find words that wouldn't anger Naruto too much. Naruto was bright; she wasn't surprised that he knew that he would be paired with Sasuke again but at the same time she had underestimated him; had given herself more time to find a way to break the news to him gently.

"I won't work with him." he said flatly. How else could he handle the situation? Losing his temper would get him nowhere, knowing that Tsunade's stubbornness was on par with his. He had a faint hope that she would take pity on him and dump the Uchiha with another poor unsuspecting soul.

"It will only be for a short while. Think of it as a group mission. You know how they work – you work together, you help each other, you cover each other – this pairing is the same. You'll be solo again in no time at all." She sounded upbeat, but Naruto knew that a short time could be years depending on the person. When Naruto started to protest she spoke over him. "It'll only be for training and your missions; Sasuke will be rehabilitated here by Mirror-san and others."

Naruto knew 'Mirror-san' by name: Hatake Kakashi. Kakashi had been one of his first teachers at HQ, teaching him the very basics and taken him on D and C ranked missions and one memorable B ranked one. Inwardly seething, he turned away from the hokage, glaring resentfully at the tiled floor. He didn't know what else to say to her, and willed her to say something more to reassure him. After all, nobody else would be remotely sympathetic – each ninja had his own problem.

When Tsunade remained silent, he turned his glare to her and got up to leave, inclining his head in forced respect. She hesitated, and then stopped him.

"Naruto, I know that you find it hard to work with Sasuke. He had his reasons for leaving, you must know that." She was being sympathetic, and Naruto felt a fraction better. He hadn't gotten what he wanted but at least Tsunade understood what she had assigned to him, which was something at the very least. However, her sympathy did not change what was to be a long period of fierce competition, terrible missions and regular intense conflict. Naruto bowed his head again, curtly, and left.

In an act of rebellion against the hokage's orders, Naruto neglected his training and had an early night. He managed to wash all of his clothes and have a long hot shower and be in bed by ten o'clock. He was ecstatic; it had been so long since he'd been able to do things at his own pace. He set his alarm for seven, put out clean clothes for the next day in the bathroom and packed his school bag. He envied his classmates now – they had everything so easy.

He started reading through his schoolbooks to refresh his mind. The last academic year seemed eons ago as he flipped through the first few pages of each text book; he couldn't remember learning a thing about any of the subjects he had supposedly studied. After half an hour of grumbling and growls of irritation, Naruto gave up revising as a bad job and turned off the light. He was tired, and if he did not get some sleep he feared that his meeting tomorrow at school with the stupid bastard Uchiha would not go well.

Annoyingly, lying comfortably in his warm bed with the lights out did not send him off to sleep but did the exact opposite. He felt wide awake and restless. There was a streetlamp right outside his window that shone through the gap in his curtains and was really irritating him. Somewhere in the street somebody was arguing loudly with a group of friends and his harsh voice was grating on Naruto's nerves. What he wouldn't give at a time like this to live elsewhere. Every night was the same.

He found himself getting up some hours later to see if his living room served as a better sleeping place, and after much fluffing of pillows and tossing and turning on the lumpy sofa, he was fast asleep.

"No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main"

Naruto stared boredly ahead, his chin resting on the palm of his hand as he leaned forward on his desk. The high school had employed a new Literature teacher, and he was just as wimpy as his job. He had smiled at Naruto when he had sauntered in ten minutes late, but Naruto had only stared blankly back. What was the point of being nice to the new teacher when his life had taken yet another bad turn?

The only thing he was glad about was that the class wasn't sat in alphabetical order again. His partner was on the other side of the class, surrounded by a human girl barrier so, unfortunately, Naruto's constant glowers were ineffective. He was about to test his aim and stealth by throwing something at the bastard when the teacher called on him. "Uzumaki-kun, could you give the class your own interpretation on what this means please. It doesn't have to be very detailed, just give me some ideas." The teacher smiled encouragingly at him.

Naruto reread the line. He didn't need encouragement; this line was just a fancier way of saying what had been thrown at him yesterday. "It means that everybody is responsible for everybody else; there is no such thing as a person who is completely independent and unbound by responsibility for another. It means that everybody is intertwined - their ideas, perhaps, or fate," he spat out 'fate', "or even their lives." How ironic that he was called on to analyze that phrase. The teacher was impressed, but Naruto had always been passionate about things that were important to him.

The teacher praised him and wrote his ideas up on the board, asking the rest of the class if they had anything to add to that. Not many did, and Naruto was pleased that Uchiha hadn't any thoughts to contribute. Not only would he be even more enraged if the bastard gave the correct answer in that oh-so-irritating 'of-course-I'm-right-I'm-an-effing-prodigy' voice, but he would have to endure everybody's rapt attention to the genius and his answer would have been forgotten. Nobody could compare to Sasuke, obviously.

He didn't contribute any more in that class; it would be too suspicious, like everything was. His image had to be perfect, and everything he did had to be executed in the exact way HQ said 'Uzumaki Naruto' should act. Hell, this person he was at school was nothing like the real Uzumaki Naruto. This person was a loud, annoying, idiotic teenager – his twelve year old self - no wonder everybody was surprised when he passed all of his exams with flying colors. When the lunch bell rang, he threw his books into his school bag and left the classroom as quickly as he could. He would have liked to wait for Shikamaru, but Shikamaru was next to Uchiha, and if he dawdled in that room too long he might have to face Sasuke. He wasn't ready to do any facing at this moment in time.

At the canteen he joined Kiba and Shino at their usual table. Kiba was looking disgruntled, and Naruto guessed that it was because Shino made him feel uneasy – the bug-boy and the dog-boy were not very compatible. His grin could have split his face in half when he spotted Naruto, jumping up and waving like a lunatic. Naruto cringed inwardly; he could feel the radiating tension between Kiba and Shino from where he was standing. Naruto made his way over and sat next to Kiba, who looked ready to pass out. He didn't know whether it would help at all but he used himself as a barrier for Kiba against Shino's 'weird rays'.

"The new literature teacher is a complete pushover," Naruto commented, trying to ease the tension with neutral conversation. Kiba nodded enthusiastically. "I wonder how he got a job here. He'd be better fitted teaching prissy rich kids literature than here teaching us low-lives how to read." Shino grunted in agreement and the mood lifted, just like that. Naruto didn't even have to do anything more; Shikamaru and Chouji arrived and the real conversations started. Naruto was happy to just switch off and let his mouth do all the work; he didn't have to make sense; that was the beauty of being Uzumaki Naruto.

Lunch flew by, going smoothly. Sakura and Ino joined them, with Hinata reluctantly tagging along. Naruto's sharp eyesight caught Ino pushing Hinata toward the empty space opposite Naruto, where their legs would inevitably touch because of the large group at the four-seater table. He watched her through his peripheral vision; her cheeks went pink as she sat down gingerly and looked down at the table top so that her hair curtained her face. As their legs brushed under the table Naruto saw her hold her breath and blush bright red; it was almost painful to watch.

The last two lessons were a repeat of the first. The dreaded alphabetical order so that he was sitting next to Uchiha again. He was glad that Sasuke looked (beyond his stoic expression, anyway) just as pissed off about the arrangement as him. He enjoyed last period knocking Sasuke's table every time he started writing and then tipping his table so his pen fell at Sasuke's feet and asking him to pass it to him, all chewed up and covered in drool. He was almost looking forward to having Sasuke handed over to him tonight. Their training session would undoubtedly be interesting.

He left school with Shikamaru and Chouji, who were in his class for the last lesson, and they walked together into town before they went their separate ways. Shikamaru had his flat in the beginnings of the classier district and Chouji had a nice house just five minutes from Shikamaru. Naruto had his grotty flat in the worst neighborhood.

Once at home, Naruto kicked his schoolbag into a corner to be ignored until the next day and went through to the kitchen. He was starving, and was having one of his ramen craving episodes where his mouth filled with water at even the thought of a noodle. He located a pot of instant ramen and prepared it, waiting eagerly as it heated up in the microwave.

He surveyed the kitchen - it desperately needed cleaning. He was exploited in every sense of the word: he was acting as Stupid Sasuke's babysitter, doing missions and doing the housework and was the grudging owner of one evil, powerful and potentially-fatal-to-the-container demon. Shouldn't he get a nice house with a housekeeper? Sasuke probably never had any problems with his darling mummy and daddy's enormous cash stash left solely to him, along with the whole Uchiha complex to house his sorry ass. He glared sullenly at the cheap grime-covered linoleum that made up the kitchen floor, feeling bitter about the differences between himself and his new-old partner. The microwave beeped, jerking him out of his bad mood and back into the good - his food was ready and his stomach would finally stop rumbling!

Taking the steaming ramen with him, he went into his bedroom to pull on his orange track pants that he usually wore to train and found a white t-shirt to wear with it - he'd been too hot when he'd worn black. He slurped thoughtfully on a chopstick-serving of ramen and wondered how much stronger Sasuke had gotten. He hadn't seen many fighting techniques from outside of the Fire Country, and if the rumors were true and he had been out of the Fire Country he didn't know what he'd be up against. Damn, now he was psyched - things had been too easy for too long.