Notes: I know I said another Rozen Maiden story was probably next to be posted. But to be honest, if I told you guys about every unposted Naruto fanfic I started writing and could finish at any given moment, depending on inspiration, the list might actually be longer than all the stories I have posted. So it might just be safer to assume I always have around ten Naruto stories in various stages of completion, despite anything else I say. Which is either scary or sad when you really think about it. And on that note, an appropriately titled story:

Object of My Obsession

A Naruto Oneshot by

Nate Grey (xman0123-at-aol-dot-com)

There is a difference between obsession and love. The line tends to blur among ninja.

It can be slight, or it can be wider and deeper than a canyon. Either way, people always tend to confuse the two, especially if they happen to be experiencing one.

Haruno Sakura is obsessed with Uchiha Sasuke.

If Sakura had actually loved Sasuke, she would have discovered the means to obtaining his heart inside of a week.

Sakura was book-smart: she tended to thoroughly research anything that puzzled her even the slightest bit. Her stellar grades in the ninja academy were less because she had something to prove, and more because she was naturally curious about being a ninja, having lived in a ninja village all of her life.

Thoughts of Sasuke had a peculiar impact on Sakura: they turned her brain to mush, and if she wasn't careful, they made her drool a bit. Not at all conducive to research, in other words. Sakura simply couldn't think when Sasuke was near. So she stupidly approached him for dates, knowing what she wanted from him but never even getting close to getting it, unable to understand why he kept rejecting her.

If Sakura had loved Sasuke, she would have researched him thoroughly: what he liked and disliked, what he did in his spare time, what tunes he found himself humming despite himself (there were actually three, one of which Sakura even hummed herself, before she met him and decided that humming might annoy him). She would have found that the one thing Sasuke was obsessed with was power, and that there was no better way to hold his attention than to challenge him.

In other words, if Sakura had bulked up a bit, taken her ninja training seriously, and then repeatedly attacked Sasuke out of the blue, she would have been Uchiha Sakura by her nineteenth birthday, if not sooner.

She would have stood no chance in a fair fight, but Sasuke didn't need that, and wouldn't have respected it (especially if it came from a kunoichi). Any girl dumb enough to challenge him head-on deserved whatever she got. A girl smart enough to get the drop on him, even after she got drilled into the mud, was worthy of respect. One that managed it more than few times was marriage material, as far as he was concerned.

But that never happened. Girls were always too busy drooling over Sasuke, and the few that ever did attack him only wanted to kill him, not marry him.

Sakura ended up in a loveless marriage, certain that her husband was cheating, but only because she would have done so if given the chance with the object of her obsession, never realizing that the one person who had robbed her of the chance was herself.

Uzumaki Naruto was in love with Haruno Sakura.

Oddly enough, he did exactly what Sakura should have done with Sasuke.

He talked to everyone who had ever even seen Sakura, and asked about her. He talked to her family, her friends, her enemies, her associates, and even a guy she had tripped over once while wearing a sundress (though all he could tell Naruto about Sakura was what color panties she'd been wearing that day, which had still been much appreciated). In this way, Naruto found out nearly everything a person could ever want to know about Sakura.

The rest, he found out simply by being her teammate.

Naruto examined all of that information, and found that he still liked Sakura, flaws and all, and wanted to be with her. That was when his love for her truly began.

Sakura killed it the moment she asked Naruto to bring Sasuke back to the village.

It was not the way she asked him: tears on a girl always made Naruto give in, and he would have done anything for Sakura no matter how she looked at the time, simply because he loved her.

It was not even that she asked him in front of the guys. They might have teased Naruto a little if he hadn't made the promise, but in the end, they were all ready to risk their lives. But then, at that point they were all still under the assumption that Sasuke was just a little confused in the head, and that they could convince him to come back with little trouble.

It was that, in Sakura's mind then, she truly believed that Naruto stood no chance of beating Sasuke, and she still asked him to do it. Ignoring Sasuke's state of mind, Sakura was basically asking Naruto to start a fight that she didn't think he could win. What she expected to happen, Naruto wasn't sure. Maybe she thought that once Sasuke had beaten him to a bloody pulp, he'd suddenly come to his senses, and drag Naruto's dying body back to the village.

Naruto was not stupid. He knew the look in Sakura's eyes. If he refused to grant her request, she would hate him forever and never speak to him again. The only thing he had to do to prevent that was bring back the one person she truly believed that she loved. In that moment, he knew it would be far kinder to simply kill Sakura and spare her the pain that Sasuke would continue to heap on both of them as long as he drew breath.

Love causes a person to do incredibly stupid things.

So Naruto promised to bring back Sasuke, no matter how long it took. That's why it was the promise of a lifetime. Because Naruto knew he'd spend the rest of his life either hunting Sasuke or wishing one or both of them was dead.

Hyūga Hinata is obsessed with Uzumaki Naruto.

She could have loved him, easily, but she was far too timid.

She knew almost everything about him: the songs he sang in the shower, what type of ramen he preferred on certain weekdays, and that he only allowed himself to cry when he thought he was alone.

If Hinata had worked up the courage to approach and comfort him in any of those vulnerable moments, just once, their love would have flourished, and she would have been Uzumaki Hinata by her seventeenth birthday, no matter what her clan said. Naruto would have held on to her with an unbreakable grip, and not only was he the only ninja foolish enough to challenge an entire clan by himself, he was also one of the few that would eventually have the power to do so.

But much as Hinata cared for and wanted Naruto, she hated herself, and could never convince herself that she was worthy of him.

Inuzuka Kiba is obsessed with Hyūga Hinata.

He knows she will probably never see him as anything other than a brother, and he doesn't care.

He also knows that she will never be with Naruto. That's fine, too.

What he doesn't know is whether Hinata will ever dare to open her heart to anyone else.

If and when she does, he will be there to claim it. That's all that matters to Kiba.

Shino often tells him that he's wasting his time.

Kiba often tells Shino to shut up. Shino does, so they're still friends.

Yamanaka Ino is in love with Inuzuka Kiba. Only she doesn't know why.

They have been intimate a handful of times, and both seemed to enjoy those times.

But Kiba only has eyes for Hinata, and Ino is determined to make him see her instead.

She compliments his mother on her eye shadow (Ino is a talented liar). She spends time with his sister (who is at least approaching normal, for an Inuzuka). She even lets Akamaru sleep on her couch (he is a good doggy, and Ino loves him in spite of herself, but like most doggies, has to be told when his smell offends, and not to eat her best shoes).

Kiba still doesn't see her. Maybe he never will.

Maybe Ino will get tired of waiting and simply possess Hinata, forcing her to tell Kiba that there will never be a chance for him.

Maybe that would be kinder to Kiba and Hinata both, in the long run.

But Ino has her pride, and the day she can't win a man away from Hinata is the day she admits that looks aren't everything.

Because they damn well should be, and if they were, Kiba would be asking how many babies they should have, and Ino would tell him as many as she'd let him, and he would be fine with it.

Hatake Kakashi is obsessed with Yamanaka Ino.

She is just so beautiful. Not like Rin. Better than Rin.

Rin was sort of plain. Kakashi never really saw her. Obito did, and that, more than anything, was why he hated Kakashi.

Kakashi couldn't see what he had, and it was right next to him, begging to be taken.

It was better that way. If Kakashi had taken it, he would have ruined it and tossed it aside like trash, and then Obito would have had to kill him (and been well within his rights to, in retrospect).

Ino is different. Ino is sexy and funny and bright and kind and Kakashi wishes he had never been so weak, but he was.

He should have never let it go that far, but he was drunk and Ino wasn't, and neither of them was being haunted by their ghosts at the time, so things had just happened that way.

He knew that she loved Kiba. She hadn't cared at the time, but Kakashi had known she would regret it later, and hadn't stopped her. Hadn't even tried.

He knew better than to try and see her afterward. Ino made no attempt to contact him, and Kakashi was not fool enough to visit. Someone would see, word would get back to Inoichi, and then someone would have to die. Kakashi preferred that it not be himself.

Sometimes they passed each other on the street. Kakashi would nod. So would Ino. But no words passed between them.

There were times when he wanted her so badly that no one else would do.

Those times, Anko would wear the wig. It helped, but only a little, and never for long enough. She claimed to understand, and maybe, probably, she did. Anko knew more than a few things about obsessions. She had her own, and she was willing to share them sometimes.

Kakashi had never thought he would be willing to put his hand anywhere that Orochimaru's tongue had been. But he'd done that and then some before he ever stopped to think about it, and by then, he was too hooked to stop. Anko was safer by comparison, anyway. Orochimaru didn't mind people playing with his toys, so long as they weren't broken when he came to play again. A man like that had plenty of other obsessions to keep him busy. A man like that could never appreciate that Anko was the best thing that had ever happened to a man like Kakashi.

A man like Kakashi would never realize that what he felt for Anko was as close as he'd ever get to love.

Mitarashi Anko is in love with Hatake Kakashi.

Only she doesn't like to admit or discuss it.

So we won't, either.

Hyūga Hanabi is obsessed with Mitarashi Anko.

Anko knows what she wants and goes after it. Then she either gets it, or kills and pisses off enough people until it's hers.

Hanabi likes that. She envies Anko's freedom, and wishes she had it, too.

People think Hanabi is free. They think she is a spoiled princess, and considers herself above them.

This is false. One of Hanabi's most frequent fantasies, as a little girl, was to sneak out at night, find the biggest mud puddle she could, throw herself into it, and roll around until she was covered from head to toe. Then she would sneak back in, smearing mud on everything she passed within the compound, and get back into her bed.

The reason for this was simple. Any number of things could offend a Hyūga and put a person on their blacklist. But dirtying their clothes, even with just a smudge, was the absolute worst thing. Hanabi strongly suspected that if she went out, slept with twenty different men in the same night, and returned home, most of the clan might pretend nothing had happened. However, if there was the slightest bit of evidence of her activities on her clothes, they would tie her to a tree and burn her alive.

You could be filthy on the inside, so long as it didn't show outside. That was the Hyūga way, or so Hanabi believed.

That was how Hanabi saw Anko, but instead of being disgusted, she was intrigued. If half of the rumors Hanabi heard about Anko were true, twenty men in one night was a slow day for her. But it wasn't even the sex that Hanabi desired. It was the freedom.

Anko wasn't afraid of anyone or anything. Maybe it was Orochimaru's training, or maybe it was being left with nothing when he'd abandoned her. Whatever it was, Anko wanted what she wanted, and anyone who wanted anything different simply didn't exist in her world.

Hanabi took a page out of her sister's book: she watched Anko. A lot. She knew far too much about Anko: what size she claimed her breasts were, what size they actually were, the surprisingly long list of people that she wouldn't sleep with for all the dango in the world (rather fittingly, Hanabi's father is on the list, though interestingly enough, Hanabi is not), and her favorite hobby: shooting groups of drunken men with poison darts and guessing which one would fall over first.

Hanabi even knew that if she were supplied with a locked bedroom, enough alcohol to last a week, and unrestricted access to Anko, she might even be able to convince herself that she loved the woman.

Two things prevent this, however.

The first is that Anko would definitely pick the lock and sneak out for dango and toys in between sessions.

The second is that Hanabi, like Anko, inwardly considers herself unworthy of or incapable of loving someone, and so neither would ever accept that they actually already do.

The End.

Endnotes:

This has been collecting dust on my hard drive for a while, so I dusted it off and finally managed to get it to a halfway decent ending. And don't worry if you don't get it. You should be more concerned if you ever truly do understand these people after I've gotten done with them.