Yeah, I know, I know it has been a while and now I come back with such a short chapter. I did lose my notes for this fic though so that's not fun. And I have like other fic's that I'm also trying to figure out. Writing is not easy I'll tell you that, especially when I keep having ideas for new fics. So I do want to reassure everyone that I am still writing just very slowly.

(chapter unbetaed)

Chapter 8: Underground

When they had told him that the location was underground he didn't expect to be brought to the Konoha metro station. He looked around the busy area, people going in and out not realising what the real world was actually like. That they were surrounded by a secret world of monsters and mutants, or whatever he was meant to be. Really part of him didn't know what was going to happen now, all he could was follow his… guardians? Chaperones? Is that what these people he 'just' met where to him, or did that really matter now?

It was too late for him to turn back .He was going away from his home, his school, work, and everything he knew; to a new place to discover him himself. God as if that didn't sound like some sort new age ideology, but maybe that's what life changing experiences did to you. You become a douche philosopher.

Naruto couldn't help but sigh as he followed Kakashi through the crowded subway station, he couldn't understand how silver haired man could slither through those crowds like a snake without bumping into other people. While he couldn't even more a few feet without getting elbowed in a shoulder, or nudged in the side. The moved past the ticket station through the large hall, past random restaurants, and girly gift shops. As he looked around the his gaze landing on a ramen shop he felt a hard slam against his side and lost his balance.

Naruto could feel himself falling, he knew that he wouldn't be able to catch himself. He expected to meet the cold hand ground, but instead he stopped mid air. Blue eyes opened and he realised that he was being held from behind, his toes barely touching the ground while his upper body was slumped just a foot above the cold marble ground.

"You need to be more careful Naru-chan," Sai whispered into his ear, and then he felt something grinding against his backside.

A heavy blush bloomed over the blonde's tanned cheeks, filled with both embarrassment and anger. He moved quickly, turning to punch that obnoxious bastard only to have hand caught by Sasuke who gave Sai a deadly glare. Naruto was surprised when he realised that for some reason he had been positioned behind the dark haired man while they had some sort of silent conversation going between them. Although by getting a better look at them he saw that it was more than just a conversation… it was a fight. Or something like that, it was like they were posturing, puffing out their chests like gorillas.

Somehow it made him feel very warm inside.

As soon as they started they had stopped and now Sasuke was dragging him away back to where Kakashi was waiting for them outside an out of order men's bathroom. Now the situation had gotten even sketchier, he was going to a public bathroom in with 3 other men, yeah he felt really safe. Chances were he was actually drugged and everything was actually a hallucination distracting him from being triple teamed by 3 burly men. The blonde couldn't help but giggle, he must be going crazy, Sasuke noticed his behaviour but didn't comment.

Kakashi arched an eyebrow when he saw their joined hands, but didn't say anything only opened the bathroom door to let them through. Once inside Naruto felt queasy, it was a clean place, almost sterile actually. Kakashi went towards one of the mirrors he swiped his across the reflective surface, suddenly five glowing dots appear on the mirror. He pressed them in a random sequence, suddenly there was scraping noise and the blonde turned around to see the toilet stall moving. The walls seemed to buckle and then slowly moved back into the wall, toilet included, to reveal a hole.

An opaque box rose from underneath, a partition opened and Sasuke dragged him inside with Kakashi and Sai following them right behind. While on the inside it box looked plain in the inside was the opposite, there were lights around the edge illuminating the small space in a light blue glow. It sort of reminded him of an elevator, it even had a small monitor on a wall that only had two buttons. The older man pushed the second button, the lift started to lurch and they started moving down.

Naruto couldn't see how fast they were going it was dark outside the opaque glass, but he could feel the effects of the speed. They were going down but Naruto wondered how far, he vaguely remembered from science classes to get to the centre of the earth you would have to dig down over 6000km. So how far down were they going? Although there probably wouldn't be a more cooler way to die. By now he was sure that he was going hysterical, unless he already was.

"So when you said it was underground you meant that it was actually 'underground'?!" nobody answered him. Naruto didn't take that as a good sign.

The lift started to slow down and then stopped, breaking him from his musing, they waited for a while then the doors slowly opened. He was met with another dimly lit tunnel, and they calmly went through it until they met by a thick metal doors. Kakashi placed his arm against a pad until the display turned green, the metal doors slowly slid open to reveal a mass of glowing lights in the distance. Naruto stepped forward to get a better look and a gasp left him when he saw the amazing sight before.

In front of him was a bridge that lead over a canyon, the bridge connected to a large structure in the middle. It was like something out of that movie 'City of Ember', the structures carved out of hard stone, with string of lanterns looping from building to building, all leading towards the massive almost temple like structure in the middle. But it wasn't that barren and arid like stuff in that movie had been. There was a lot of vegetation of actually, probably enough light from the thousands of lanterns. For water there was a large water fall that came through the out of the stone wall behind it, the torrent of water going down straight into what looked like a reservoir.

There were random bursts of steam, bursting from odd areas in the city, Naruto guessed whatever powered the whole city was geothermic. He followed Kakashi in awe as he followed the older man towards the bridge. Again the grey haired man placed his on a small podium next to him, suddenly light emerged from the edge of the cliff. Connecting one side of the cliff to the structure in the middle, it seemed to solidify to make a proper walk-way; which Kakashi walked across confidentially.

Sasuke followed and maybe understanding Naruto's apprehension held his hand as they walked across the bridge, with Sai bringing up the rear.

As soon as they entered the village Naruto felt eyes on him. Lots of eyes piercing him, inspecting him, following his every step. This was very reminiscent of his experience with those horny alpha's in the park. But he had that pheromone blocker stuff on him, they shouldn't be able to scent whatever he was. Hopefully they were just curious as to who the new guy in their home was, and those looks didn't mean anything else beyond that. Naruto had also noticed that there were many stares aimed at Sasuke, most filled with admiration and something that Naruto could only explain as lust. He did however miss the envious once that noticed their still joined hands.

They made their way through the many narrow streets, until they reached the giant tower that stood in the centre of the vast village. Kakashi nodded at some masked men that stood on either side of the doorway and went through an archway into the foyer that held that spiral staircase. The blonde felt more apprehensive as they simply walked through the place with no one telling him what was going on, although he felt like he couldn't ask what was going to happen to him either. He was pretty sure however that it wasn't going to end well for him.

Kakashi opened another set of his double doors that led into a large office, were a busty blonde woman sat behind a large oak desk. She looked up from her paperwork, her dark blue eyes narrowed at the sight of them.

"So Kakashi is this the kid, the lost little beta?" she asked, her red lips twisting to a smirk.

"Yes Tsunade-sama, this is Uzumaki Naruto he just came of age," the silver haired man replied.

The blonde woman stood up and walked towards him her long manicured fingers grabbed his chin, and forced him to look straight into her eyes. She scanned his face with a thoughtful hum, her thumb travelling across his scarred cheeks for a bit then she let him go.

"We'll have to take blood sample and verify his linage, but I do have a few suspicions. Shizune ready a room for the procedure."

Naruto nearly jumped when he saw a dark haired woman melt out of the shadows, giving a nod at Tsunade, and leave just as silently as she came. Kakashi nudged him in her direction, and with one last apprehensive look at Sasuke he followed her out of the office, leaving everyone else behind.

After the blonde had left Kakashi turned to look back at the older woman. "You have some suspicions Tsunade-sama?"

Tsunade tapped a long fingers against the shiny surface of her desk, as she rounded it. Then she sat down on her chair clasping her hands together under her chin. "There's something very familiar about him…," she then trained her stormy blue eyes on Kakashi. "You must have noticed it to."

Kakashi froze, he had noticed that there was some similarities between and someone else, but he didn't think that it was possible.

"We'll have to wait for the blood test results first of course to establish his lineage, until then however you Uchiha have a new mission. I'm assigning you to keep the kid company during the season and look after him. The last thing we want is something unfortunate happening."

Sasuke spluttered in disbelieve. "Tsunade-sama!"

"Think of it like a small vacation Uchiha, you could use the time of."

"I could do it Tsunade-sama!" Sai chirped in, a little to eagerly for Sasuke's liking. A fixed a glare on the dark-haired man, the thought of that smiling bastard and Naruto alone together just set him on edge.

"Hn, I'll do it," he said and quickly turned to leave ignoring the knowing look Kakashi was giving him.

It didn't take Sasuke long to find the blonde, he was in the medical bay, sitting on the examining table, the sleeve of his right arm rolled up to expose his inner elbow. His other hand clasped around it to apply pressure. Shizune had already taken the blood, Sasuke just saw her place two veils in a container, then reach for a plaster applying it on Naruto's needle mark. Then with a final nod at the blonde, picked up the container and walked out of the room.

As soon as she was gone, Naruto turned to Sasuke with a wiry smile. "Not very talkative is she."

"Hn, assassins don't have much to say much," not at all regretting his words when he saw how pale the blonde beta had suddenly become.

"She's a what?!"

"Hurry up, you must be hungry right?" then turned around to leave confident that Naruto would follow him.

"Hey wait, what do you mean she's an assassin, Sasuke!"

OOoOoOoOoOoOo

They found a ramen stall not too far away from the tower. The blonde was surprised when the place looked like any other street vendor, he expected something grander. Well not that it mattered as long as they served good ramen. Naruto dug into his bowl with gusto, but as soon as he took his first bite all he was reminded of was what he was leaving behind. His father, his school, his job… everything he couldn't go back to. He slurped on his noodles without enthusiasm. The sudden change in his demeanour must have been noticed by Sasuke, who sighed placed down his cup of green tea.

"What is it now, dobe?" he asked passively.

Naruto could feel his temple throb in irritation, "Don't call me that that teme! " he shouted, but his face heated up in embarrassment when he realised that everyone was staring at him. Quickly he sat down on his stool trying to hide his face under his hands.

Silence passed between them, Sasuke nursing his tea, while Naruto played with his broth. Finally the beta decided to talk to other, it wasn't like he knew anyone else in this place expect for the bastard. "It's just… I always knew that I didn't fit in with… everyone," thinking of himself as anything but human was still…well he didn't want to go into that. Naruto looked up from his cooling noodles only to realise that Sasuke was waiting for him to continue.

He blushed and looked away, "But I still knew… or at least I thought I knew what I was, but now everything is different. I feel alone now. I had a family, I had purpose, it might not have been real but I did have a life. Now what do I have, I don't have a home, I am surrounded by 'Kaiju', with half the population trying to hump me to death!" he finished out of breath.

Sasuke was silent, slowly he put his empty cup down, and gave a thoughtful hum. Which only managed to infuriate the blonde more, he had more of less poured his heart out to the bastard and he wasn't saying anything. Before Naruto gave him an earful Sasuke raised his hand to effectively stopping his rant.

"I don't know how you feel, I grew up knowing who I was, but I do understand that it can't be an adjustment, and I promise you, "he said turning to him, dark eyes staring into his own blue earnestly. "that you won't be feeling so alone anymore."

At that moment Naruto thought that he would never stop blushing ever again, he turned back to his ramen and grabbed a bunch with a chopsticks. "I'll hold you to that," he mumbled between bites

"Hn Dobe," Sasuke replied and then ordered another cup.

Naruto just smiled.

Hope you all enjoyed!

Review and join the dark side we have cookies!