Gone

Author's Note


Okay guys, I made this chapter my longest yet!


Woohoo!


Thanks for all the reviews guys! I'll try and make them longer from now on, but no promises.

With that said, enjoy!

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Just as Sasuke made it to the street where Sakura’s apartment was housed, he was sent flying by a blonde blur. With a snarl of rage, Sasuke kicked off the building he nearly crashed into. Sasuke used the force from the throw to propel himself with the same speed back towards the rapidly approaching blond. Crashing into the blond, they both went flying through the glass window of a closed shop. Inside the shop, they fought in an insane all out war. Some minor chakra jutsu’s were used, each doing damage more to the store than to each other.



As Sasuke scrambled to get the upper hand on Naruto, his fingers closed around the bar from a clothes rack. Gripping the bar tightly in his hands, he swung it hard at Naruto’s head, listening to the satisfying thud of the bar connecting with Naruto’s head, effectively stunning the male above him. Sasuke scrambled out from under Naruto and made a mad dash for Sakura’s apartment.



Sasuke got as far as the stairs before Sakura’s apartment when Naruto cornered him. With a growl, Naruto slammed Sasuke into the nearby wall, shoving Sasuke until he left an indent in the wall of his body. Sasuke finally managed to break free when he smashed his fist into Naruto’s chin, knocking the other back as Sasuke made it to Sakura’s apartment door before Sasuke caught him and sent him flying through Sakura’s apartment door, Sakura’s shriek of surprise and fear going unnoticed by both parties. Both were too busy trying to stop each other from advancing that neither noticed just where they were. As they fought, they left a carnage in Sakura’s home, blood splattered everywhere, Sakura’s things were all ruined in the process that when their brawl finally escaped out the window of the apartment, the only safe place in her apartment was outside her apartment.



Her walls had fist sized, or body sized holes in them and the walls separating her apartment from her neighbors had giant holes in them, allowing her no privacy. It didn’t help that the wall where the biggest window of her apartment was located was one huge gaping hole that allowed her to stare down at her neighbor below and above at her neighbor above. In short, her apartment was completely trashed. Yet, no one still noticed her strange, fluctuating chakra, it was as if she didn’t exist as their fight kept them busy.

At the same time, no one noticed how scantily clad she was and the fact that she wore a short pink fluffy robe that left very little to the imagination. She had been getting ready to take a hot bath to soothe her wounded heart when they had interrupted. Her tub was destroyed now and water gushed through the trashed apartment, dripping through to the floor below, however, that all went unnoticed as she found shoes to wear and then she found clothes she could wear while she went to find somewhere else to stay for the night seeing as her apartment was completely and totally trashed.

Sasuke and Naruto finally came to a stop at the bottom of Hokage Mountain. Before long, Naruto was sent flying by an enraged Sasuke, and by the time either party was actively conscious of their surroundings, they were both on the training grounds, a minefield of craters surrounding them. The two of them lay side by side, gasping for air, covered in wounds. Sasuke’s temper was still raging, Naruto or not, he would kill the bastard! Naruto, on the other hand, was just exhausted.

Sasuke said, voice full of rage and exhaustion “I will murder you.” Sasuke struggled to sit up and when he succeeded, he turned, Kunai in hand. Sasuke was far too tired to use any jutsu. In response, Naruto snapped tiredly “Shut up bastard.” With that, he sat up and punched Sasuke square in the jaw, effectively knocking Sasuke out. Falling on his back, Naruto said with a tired laugh “heheh….got ya bastard…….

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When Naruto came to, he found himself face to face with Kiba. Smiling jovially at the slightly disoriented blue eyes gazing up at him, Kiba said “Yo! Nice to see you’re awake Naruto!” Groggily Naruto asked “Kiba? What’re ya doin’ here? Where’s Sasuke?” Kiba frowned and said “About that man.” Seeing Naruto’s panicked look, Kiba added hastily “He’s fine! He’s back in the office, crutches, cast and all, but that’s not what I’m supposed to talk to you about.” Naruto let out a guffaw, but winced in pain soon after. Kiba said with a wince “Careful, the doctors said you had a couple broken ribs.” Kiba sighed and said “Anyways, I’m supposed to tell you to back off from Sasuke for awhile. You’re only making things worse. Just, leave him be you’re only making things worse.”

Naruto grinned and said “Man, I never thought I’d hear you defend the teme, Kiba! You were always telling me that he was a dick and I should leave him.” Kiba threw his hands up in the air and growled “Fuck man, this isn’t by choice. I drew the shortest straw.” Naruto looked slightly stunned and said “You guys drew straws on who would tell me to give up on him?” Kiba shook his head vigorously and said “No, I drew the shortest straw with the telling of the ‘what it was like’ while you were gone.” Kiba rubbed at the back of his head and said “I have no choice in the matter. I tried to get Sai or Neji to do it since they have had more contact with him since Sasuke went to the darker side but they wouldn’t do it.”

Confused, Naruto asked “Why?”

Kiba had the grace to look a little embarrassed as he said “Well, I think it’s probably because they’re afraid you might injure or kill them”

Naruto shot Kiba a confused look and Kiba, after some deliberation, gave in. He said with an almost nervous sigh “Sasuke drank a lot at first. When he drank, he came onto people if they had legs. It got bad Naruto. Really bad. When he was drinking, no girls went near the office. So, Neji, and Sai volunteered themselves to go and work with Sasuke when he was drunk. They’ve both slept with him….how many times, I don’t know, but I know he’s slept with them sober too. So, understandably, they’re both afraid to face you.”

Naruto growled, angry with this news “I’m going to kick their asses as soon as I get up!” Kiba shook his head and said quietly, trying to placate the blond “Don’t. They were doing a service to Konoha. It was that, or let him get thrown out of town because of a rebellion for raping one of the female kunoichi.” Naruto’s temper immediately fade as understanding came through.

Kiba nodded and said “Naruto, I’m going to start from the beginning, so this is my version of what the three years were like. Neji’s is probably far more informative because he was closer to Sasuke as Sasuke’s Anbu captain. So, you should probably ask him what happened when it was just the two of them…..Besides sex.” Kiba added hastily at the end as Naruto’s face darkened. Clearing his throat, Kiba continued.

“When you missed your anniversary, Sasuke was a bit pissed off. He thought you were upset with the idea of celebrating it, or just didn’t have a gift for him and didn’t want to go home. He came to my apartment, practically banging down my door, demanding if I’d seen you anywhere. When I told him no, he left. It wasn’t until the next morning when I had lunch with Chouji, TenTen, Lee and Hinata that I learned that Sasuke had knocked on every door he could think of. When he found you weren’t there, he’d gone home.

Over the next few days, Sasuke was his usual bastard brooding self, but it was different. I don’t think any of us knew why at the time, but we just ignored it. We were all so sure that you were probably being held up by the mission and would just be back in a couple more days. We tried telling Sasuke that too, but he shrugged us off. When a month had gone by, he’d convinced Tsunade to let him leave the village to look for you. She couldn’t let him go. The Elders were afraid he’d take the chance to leave as a means to go rogue again so they forbid it. Instead, she sent out four two man teams to scour for you as far as they could. Neji and Lee went together. Sai and Sakura, Shino and Shikamaru and Chouji and I. We looked everywhere for you. But when we got back two months later, we still told him we couldn’t find any trace of you anywhere.

Sasuke went nuts man, he beat nearly everyone up. It wasn’t until Neji said something that knocked some sense into him. I dunno what he said since I was pretty much knocked out, but it worked like a charm. He simmered down and was willing to listen to us and to reason. So, we let him go, thinking that he’d be okay.

We were wrong.

From that point on, he started training relentlessly. We don’t know what kind of training he did since he was so secretive about it, but he became a ghost as he trained and trained, trying to get stronger and stronger.

The more he trained in secret, the more reclusive he became until he all but disappeared from everyone’s memory. It was like we really had forgotten him. His crazy training regime had lasted for two months and a week or two, give or take. By then, you had been missing for about four months. He was different. Man, it was like someone had taken him apart and put him back together without a heart. His eyes were the sharingan. All the time. He wouldn’t let down the Sharingan and seemed to have enough Chakra to maintain it while he was awake, which became most of the day and night as we later discovered.

At first, the asshole was like himself, only quieter and colder. Sakura fawned over him a bit more, but was easily reminded of his relationship with you when he blew her off. Anyways, we started training with him, and pretty soon, the training sessions with him became like fights for survival. He kept pushing and pushing himself past his limits as well as us past our own limits. It was insane, but he didn’t stop until he had beaten all of us several times over. Then he tried fighting Kakashi. He lost at first, but soon he got better, and better. Finally, he beat Kakashi.”

Kiba added excitedly “Man, you’re never gonna believe this. After Sasuke had beaten Kakashi to the point where Kakashi could barely move from exhaustion, he removed the mask covering the lower half of Kakashi’s face!” Naruto perked and asked “And?”

Kiba grinned broadly “And you wouldn’t believe it! Kakashi is pretty damn good looking without the mask!” Coughing, Kiba said sounding embarrassed “Anyways, after that point, he began to get better and better until he could beat everyone of us with ease and no longer needed to use much chakra. Kakashi on the other hand, he beat with a little more difficulty, but he had succeeded in growing stronger. That itself had begun to worry the Elder’s. They suspected he was preparing to throw a Coup d’Etat.

Little did we all know at the time, that they were right.

One day, I think it was about…eight months since you were gone; there was a particularly stormy night, around dinner time I think. We had gone to check on the Elder’s since it was time for the monthly meeting with them. At least, for Neji and Kakashi since they were Sasuke’s primary ‘guards’. I went along because, well, I had nothing better to do plus Kakashi was looking like he wanted to peek on Hin- anyways. When we got there, what we saw……Man, I swear that till my dying day, I will never forget it." Naruto sniggered. "Aren't you supposed to be a ninja and not a complete and total pansy Kiba?" Kiba flushed in embarrassment and snapped "Man, shut up! This was different! You should have seen it Naruto, it was bad." Kiba shuddered before he quieted down. After a few seconds, he continued, sounding relatively calmer and more relaxed "So anyways, when me and Neji got there, Neji went weird. It was like someone had shocked him. Neji was really tense and he was sweating. Not to mention he was acting like he was on an Anbu mission. So, me and Akamaru got on the defensive too because seeing Neji like that outside of a mission is really weird. When we got to the door of the Elder's meeting room and opened it, I think if it were possible at the time, Neji would have had a heart attack or something.

When the door swung completely open, there was an incredibly tangy smell of blood in the air. The carnage of the room was worse, but Neji didn't seem to notice it. Before I could even ask him what was wrong, there was an incredible aura of killing intent in the room. It was bad, but then, I finally noticed what Neji had seen, and that, I think was what made things worse. For Akamaru, it did anyways. Akamaru was terrified! He was clawing at me trying to get away. He left a couple deep gashes on my chest and he even bit me a couple times. It was horrible! I finally had to hide Akamaru inside my jacket so that he couldn't peek out. Only then did he calm down. But I don't blame him for freaking out because Sasuke was pretty damn scary looking at that point.

Sasuke was in the Anbu clothing 'cept his mask was on the ground shattered into three pieces. He was covered in blood, and the blood smeared across his face, with the spinning Mangekyou, it wasn't hard to see why Neji was sweating. Hell, even my knees were shaking in fear! It was really scary. But, his eyes, they were really....evil. He looked at us like, if he could kill us, he would have killed us on the spot.

Before either of us could say anything, there was a particularly bright flash of lightning and the real horror of the room was lit up. For that brief second, we'd seen enough. All around the room were various body parts of the Elders, as well as small craters from where they had fought. They had put up a good fight, but Sasuke was stronger. He'd fought them with all of his strength and totally decimated them as a whole. We looked at Sasuke, and Neji's eyes went wide in fear... I think. Or maybe it was terror, but when I saw what Neji saw, I honestly couldn't blame him. In one hand, Sasuke had the severed head of one of the Elders. In the other hand, his katana. The blade dripped blood, as if we had caught him in the middle of something, and I'm not even sure if we did. The bodies of the Elder's that were strewn around were all missing heads, but then again, at that time of night amidst all the carnage, we wouldn't have known. The heads were never found, except maybe, for the one Sasuke had in his hands. At least, it would have been 'found' if he hadn't destroyed the head completely.

Before we could stop him from leaving after destroying all the heads, he broke through a window and escaped into the storm and back to the compound. Since we didn't have time to give chase, we let everyone know what we had found.

By morning, all the medical nin were there, and Tsunade was there as well. She claimed it was her duty as Hokage, but I think she just wanted to make sure we were telling the truth. In the morning light, we really saw and understood the carnage. The Elders arms, legs torso were strewn about the place, and they were all missing their hands and feet. Pretty much any thing we could use to identify them was gone, but we knew it was them because of the clothes they were wearing and the blood that we took from the bodies to test it. By noon, everyone knew and they were all in an uproar. The Villagers were kept out of it since the Uchiha name was supposed to be protected. All the Nin knew though, and everyone in the Special Anbu ops wanted Sasuke dead for his crimes. It was a huge mess. It really was. Only Sakura, Ino, Chouji and TenTen really stood up for him.

But before anything could really even be decided, Sasuke walked in, cool as a cucumber with his nose upturned arrogantly at the onlookers. He was still wearing his bloody Anbu out fit from last night and he was soaked, as if he had just walked out of a shower. But, I think it was from the storm. It had ended like an hour before, so it woulda made sense if he'd been out all night. Anyways, like I was saying. He walked right past all of them and he walked straight up to Tsunade. Pointing his still bloody Katana at her, he said in that arrogant voice of his 'Fight me Tsunade' Tsunade just stared at him at first. She looked like she couldn't decide as to whether or not he was serious. I don't think she was going to, but she asked him anyway. 'Why do you want to fight me Gaki?' Sasuke just smirked at her and he was all like 'If I win, I want you to step down as Hokage.' Tsunade just smirked at him and she looked really interested for some reason. So she's like 'Interesting, brat. I'll take you up on that deal then.' Before anyone could even protest, the two of them left the Hokage tower, heading for the training grounds to finish their match.

The news that the two of them were fighting spread like wild fire. All the Nin who were of an age to fully understand what was going on, went to the training grounds to watch the fight. Even Iruka went. He let his classes out early just so that he could go watch the fight. A group of medical nin went to because they wanted to make sure that when the fight was over, there were nin that could immediately take care of the injured Nin when their fights were over. When I finally got to the training ground, Tsunade and Sasuke were both having an epic showdown of stares. You could feel the tension in the air! Man it was incredi-OUCH!” Kiba was interrupted by the resounding whack of a clipboard smashing into the back of his head. Turning around to glare at the nurse, the nurse spoke to Naruto, ignoring the growling teenager next to her “Take this medication for the pain Naruto, and it should be gone. I’ll bring your dinner by in another hour.” Shooting Kiba a dirty look, she left the room, shutting the door behind her quietly.

When Kiba was sure that the nurse was gone, he started talking again, ignoring Naruto while he took the medicine. Kiba cleared his throat and said “It was incredible! Anyways, after a few more minutes of staring each other down, they started fighting. At first, Sasuke was at a disadvantage. Tsunade was easily defending herself as they fought; she even threw him down a few times! But, Sasuke wouldn’t give up, he kept fighting and fighting.

The fighting didn’t change at all until Tsunade threw Sasuke to the ground. She threw him pretty hard. He left a dent in the ground where she threw him, but when he got up, a necklace fell out of his shirt. Like the one you usually wear. He saw it, and like, his eyes glazed over for a few seconds before he got to his feet, when he got to his feet, the tide of the battle changed. Like, he got a power boost or something. He tucked the necklace away again, and he attacked Tsunade with a lot more force. He was fighting her to the point where Tsunade had to actually fight him seriously. She was on the defending end mostly, and she seemed to be waiting for Sasuke to tire out, but he never did. Finally, she began to tire out since she had to exert chakra to protect herself, and defend. But, by the end, she was worn out, and she had to yield.

Sasuke was like a fiend. He was still standing with blood oozing from his arms and legs, and gut, but he as grinning like a maniac! It wasn’t until he’d been laid out did he pass out. The only thing he said before passing out was ‘I did it Naruto’. Then he was unconscious and they were taken to the hospital.” Naruto said, interrupting Kiba briefly “I don’t get the necklace part. I mean, I know I lost mine when I was in the village, chasing after the nin, but-Oh!” Realization dawned on him as Kiba butted in “He found it, and assumed the worst. Especially when he couldn’t find any information on your whereabouts. “ Naruto nodded glumly. Sitting back in his seat, Kiba let out a surprised whistle. Getting to his feet, he said “Well, I think that’s everything. For the rest, talk to Neji. He knows more about what went on behind closed doors.”

Naruto nodded glumly and said “I will. When I get out of the hospital, I’ll ask him about it.” Kiba nodded his head and clasping an arm on Naruto’s shoulder, he added “Take care, I’ll come back and visit tomorrow.” Naruto nodded to show he understood and watched as Kiba left out the door. After Kiba shut the door, he let out a tired sigh as his head drooped.

It really sucked that Sasuke and Naruto ended up this way, but hopefully the two of them would be able to sort this out before either of them died in the process.