Of Samurai and Shinobi

Now that I semi-trust aff not to loose anything, I give you chapter 12!

Warnings, mild gore, a bit of language, but nothing too bad.

Disclaimer; Don't own Naruto.


Chapter 12 Of Shopping and Sharing

Sasuke P.O.V.

‘Five days...Five friggin’ days.’
The young Uchiha was annoyed. To say the least.

They had been walking in the words amongst the disgusting bugs and animals, the dirt, the stupid trees, the even more stupid shrubs and he hadn’t had a decent night of sleep in FIVE days!
And moreover, his ‘crush’ had been blabbering on and on about random things he considered to be ‘great’ about his village, which Sasuke now knew was called Konohagakure.
If he had to hear ONE more word about this stuff called ‘ramen’, he was going to throttle the blond. Said blond refused to acknowledge his plies to take a break and offered him a disgusting looking brown round ‘thing’ called a soldiers pill.
He may be stupid enough to fall in love with a shinobi, but that sure as hell didn’t mean he was going to eat something made by a shinobi.

Those things seemed to have something to do with Naruto’s ‘everlasting supply of energy’.
The only time Sasuke had seen the moron out of his constant happy/perky state was when Sasuke had raised an eyebrow upon seeing the shinobi walk –as in not run but WALK- up a tree, stood still upside down and had the gall to ask him if something was wrong with HIM!
“I guess we’ll have to travel on foot then…”
Like it was actually SASUKE’S fault he was a normal person and wasn’t some kind of tree-climbing freak.

So now they had to walk all the way to Naruto’s precious Konoha.
Especially after refusing to be carried there.
He was an Uchiha dammit! He would NOT be carried around like a frail woman or a child, no matter HOW long the journey was.

Uchiha’s walk on their own.

When this ‘little trip’ was through, he would take a hot bath, eat his favourites and sleep until he had caught up on all the hours he had missed while being tugged around by that loudmouthed blond. All at the moron’s expense of course…

“Hey Sasuke!!!!!!!”

Uchiha Sasuke
Age 18
Died of a heart attack while running away from home.
Cause of death: A stealthy shinobi attack from a tree-branch, executed with extreme loudness.

Or at least that’s what his tombstone would have said.

“What’s that?”
Sasuke grabbed the orange clad neck. Or at least tried to, as it moved away, causing Sasuke to make a rather un-Uchiha-like tumble.
“Why are you on the ground?”
‘That little-‘
“Well anyway, check it out Sasuke! A parade!”

The brunet raised an eyebrow. What in the world would a parade be doing in the middle of a forest?

Men in colourful armour, carrying even more colourful weapons and banners, were marching across the open field before them.
Sasuke recognized the symbol. It was a powerful samurai clan way up north. The symbols were a dead give away and those specific colours were a sign of war.
They were a rather awkward clan, pride even greater then that of the Uchiha’s. The all-powerful Oda clan often had ‘disagreements’ with the nearby Uesugi clan.

“That is NOT a parade Usuratonkachi, that would be an army.”
“An army? What would an army be doing way out here?”
“Are you THAT stupid? They’re here to fight a war.”
“You don’t exactly have to yell ya know. I don’t think that’s a good idea…”
“What do you ‘think’?! You NEVER think!”
The last thing Sasuke registered before hitting the ground was a whiskered face.
“What in Kami’s name do you think you’re doing?!”

A strange object appeared before them.
A brown long thing with hooves a mere few inches away from them hit the ground.
Upon looking up, the two young men realised the thing was a horse, or rather Sasuke realised it was a horse…..

“I told you…” Sasuke cringed. “Shut up…”
On top of the horse was a rather angry looking man.

Naruto P.O.V.

“And you call me an idiot...”
Naruto said while cleaning up the mess. Luckily the man had gone down fast and above all quietly. He had made quick work of him with the clever use of a kage-bunshin.
The two had taken cover around the nearby bushes and watched the distant figures move across the planes.

Two great samurai households at war, one impressed-hyperactive blond shinobi and a completely mortified brunet Uchiha runaway.

The guys had been giving him weird looks ever since they left the village. It was starting to get a bit annoying really.

Sasuke’s flat out refusal to take any soldier pills freaked him out even more. Why refuse something that could help you? Unless it was a samurai thing…
That was probably it. It had to be right? No normal person could walk around for five days without sleep and a proper meal. Anything the brunet had eaten came from the forest and couldn’t possible contain enough vitamins and stuff to keep him going for that long.
Sasuke was starting to look a bit tired though.

Naruto grumbled. This all wouldn’t have happened had Sasuke simply let him carry him to Konoha. It would have been a LOT faster. Naruto really hated moving around this slow, it looked bad on his reputation…Which was bad enough as it is.

He just hoped Tsunade-baba could take a joke…

Going on a mission to study the samurai’s weaknesses and then bringing one home, funny…right?

‘She’s gonna kill me…unless-’

An idea dawned upon him.
It was one of those rare moments when the stuff his brain told him made sense.
He wasn’t Konoha’s number one ninja at surprising for nothing!

Clothes.
They would need clothes, or rather Sasuke would need them.
From this day forward Uzumaki Naruto had a new mission!

‘Keep a certain Uchiha Sasuke’s identity a secret and-‘

A sudden cry filled the entire forest. It was that primal and loud.
A sword had been driven through a man’s chest at an odd angle.

Naruto watched the battle intensify. The death count had been picking up at an alarming rate while he had been musing. The grass was tinted red, dead bodies were piled up all around. It didn’t take long for things to quiet down.
Soon, only a few red clad samurai stood amongst the mass of corpses and severed limbs.

Naruto didn’t get it though. Why fight this brutally? There were many other ways of killing an opponent. Hacking away at vital organs and cutting up anything that moved seemed such a crude way of waging war…
Why not simply use stealth and finish your enemy before the situation could turn into a massacre. Even if all else failed, why make such a bloody mess?

Naruto felled sasuke tug on his sleeve.
“Let’s go dobe…”
“Don’t call me that teme…”

Sasuke P.O.V.

“THIS is Konoha?”
They had finally arrived in the first civilized place in quite a while and Sasuke had expected it to be this ‘Konoha’ Naruto seemed to be so elated about.

At least he seemed perky enough to see this place, with that wide grin plastered all over his face.
“What are you so happy about?”
The grin widened, if possible, causing Naruto to resemble a fox.
“This isn’t Konoha stupid. This is the water country. We have to take a boat from here and walk for a couple more hours and THEN we’ll be there. We’re just going to make a stop here. You can’t go to Konoha dressed like that.”
“And what is wrong with my clothes?”
‘You’re kidding right? No sane person would dress like that.”
Sasuke glared.
“Well…sane shinobi anyways…”

Sasuke couldn’t really see how his clothes weren’t ‘normal’. Sure, the people wore odd rags around here, but still. They resembled his clothes in some way.

“Then what? Dress like a shinobi?”
“No, but you could dress a little more…casual.”
Raising an eyebrow at the suspicious grin, Sasuke looked around.
He could kind of see how his clothes would stand out, if this is how the general shinobi territory people dressed.

“Ooh! Look over there! That looks like a good place to start!”
Sasuke was almost deathly afraid to ask…
“Start what exactly?”
“Our shopping trip, duh!”
‘I knew it…’
Suddenly Sasuke didn’t feel like going to Konoha anymore…
He detested shopping with a passion, ever since Itachi had yet again made a fool out of him when he was younger. But that was one story best not remembered…

Not that he had time to reminisce, no, he was being dragged into a dusty old building.

>3>3>3

It didn’t take long for Naruto to ruin the mood.
“Check this out! A friend of mine named fuzzy eyebrows – I mean Lee wears this stuff! Isn’t it awesome?”

It was a green…thing. A thing he wouldn’t be caught dead in…

“Forget it.”
“What?! Don’t you know style or something?! This thins is like Kami’s gift to men! It gives you free movement, blends in with the trees and looks really stylish!“
’ Do shinobi really wear that?’
“It’s not my colour…”
The blond scratched his chin while closing his eyes and looked thoughtful for a moment. If such a thing was possible… Anyone that deemed an outfit such as this ‘stylish’ had to be a total and utter moron…or colour-blind.

“Then what kind of colours do you like?”
“Dark ones.”
That really wasn’t a hard decision to make…

“Dark? Who would want to wear boring old clothes like that?”
“Who would want to look like a circus freak.”
“Circus freak?! Who are you calling a circus freak?!”
“You, you idiot…”
“Shut up bastard! I’m not an idiot! Or a circus freak for that matter!”

A giggle interrupted the two arguing young men. They looked around, trying to determine the source of the noise.

“My, my. The two of you sure seem ‘close’.”

And old lady behind a counter had a knowing smile plastered on her wrinkled old face.
Sasuke raised an eyebrow. ‘Close?’
The old woman had to be demented. The only thing the blond was close to right now was strangulation… He would never EVER wear something THAT repulsive damn it!

“Why don’t I help the two of you out.”
Help, help was good. Sasuke moved to bow out of gratitude but was janked back rather forcefully. He turned to smack the idiot responsible before realizing customs were probably different around here.
The old woman laughed kindly. “The two of you are something else. You’ll do great together. Now let’s go find you something to wear deary.”

The old woman stepped away from the counter and walked towards them, observed Sasuke a bit, walked around him and hummed approvingly.
She had to have some skill to be able to determine a person’s measurements without using a measuring tape or even touching the customer.

“Aren’t you a good-looking lad.”

Had this been an actual anime, overly huge sweat drops would have appeared and gravity would have caused him to fall to the ground.
This however was real life and not some anime, so Sasuke settled for an incredulous stare instead. ‘She’d definitely demented…’
“I think blue would suit you nicely! And perhaps a little bit of white?”
The infamous eyebrow threatened to rise…
“I can make it dark-blue so you’ll both be satisfied. Compromising after all is an important ingredient to the stew that is love and all matters of the heart.”
And up it went…the eyebrow.
‘She’s not demented…she’s on drugs.’

Naruto P.O.V.

If he had to help Sasuke pick ONE more time between two friggin’ shirts that looked almost exactly the same, he would murder someone.
As if the pants hadn’t been enough!
Two kami-damned hours moping about there not being enough pockets, then about a zipper that ‘just didn’t look right’. And let’s not forget the colour!
Naruto now knew there were several different shades of white!
How utterly…stupid.
Like he actually wanted to know. Now there ‘seemed to be something missing’ on the shirt the brunet had chosen. Which took another 15 minutes of pondering on what that something was. The old lady, Naruto’s only hope at redemption, actually joined in…

The two of them were staring intensely at a blue shirt, frowns on their faces.
They had yet to move…

Naruto seriously had to fight the urge to go and find a stick to poke Sasuke with until he got some sort of reaction…
Before such plans could be executed however, movement was detected.
‘Finally!’
The grin quickly left his face…
‘He scratched his nose? That was it?! Kami help me! The guy must’ve been a woman in a previous life or something!’

“Come on Sasuke! Hurry up! We’ll never make it home at this rate!”
“Shut up and have a little patience dobe. Clothes are an important part of first impressions. Surely you’ve been taught that much.”
The tension in the room was building up again. Only this time there wasn’t a pleasant feel to it. That last jibe had been a parental implication. One of the few types of comments Naruto took personally…
“Now, now. You two boys mustn’t argue. Teasing may be good for a good relationship, but fighting isn’t. Now kiss and make up.”
“Could you please just hurry up a little bit? We still have a long way to go and we won’t reach home before nightfall this way. Walking in the dark really isn’t my idea of ideal travelling.” Naruto looked at Sasuke with pleading eyes…who, being Sasuke and all, couldn’t resist.

“Fine. This shirt will do.”
“Are you sure sweaty?“
Sasuke nodded, Naruto nearly jumped for joy.

“Now, let’s go see you try them on!”
This time it was Naruto’s turn to raise an eyebrow, Sasuke was rubbing off on him…
But that was beside the point. Did she mean she wanted to see Sasuke in his chosen outfit or did she want to see him get changed into his chosen outfit?
This old lady was probably one of the freakiest he had ever met.
Tsunade still ranked number one though, she was one fucked up old lady.
Whoever heard of an old woman with a breast size like that and pretend to be a 20 year old while parading around in a jutsu that made her look like a 20 year old.
That and the monstrous strength…

Naruto wouldn’t be surprised if Tsunade would be able to move the mountain in which the hokage’s carved faces were eternalised with bare hands.

Speaking of carved faces. Tsunade’s should be added in a few weeks. He wondered if they had found out about his little ‘change’ in the original plans…Heh.
He may have grown up, but that didn’t mean he quit being a prankster.
The day he retired, if he lived that long, he would start pulling pranks full-time again.
But like he said, if he lived that long. Most shinobi didn’t exactly live very long. Especially hokage’s.
They were expected to lay their life on the line even more so then ‘common’ nin.
The entire village’s well-being rested upon their shoulders. That was part of the reason Naruto wanted to be one.

He wanted people to respect and acknowledge him for who he was. Maybe the people wouldn’t see him as the monster they made him out to be anymore. He never did quite get it why they did so in the first place, but somewhere along the way he lost the will to argue with them. Nowadays, whenever one of the villagers made a nasty remark, he would simply grin at them. He let them think it didn’t affect him in any way.
Then eventually they’d get tired of it and stop looking at him that way. It hadn’t worked yet…but perhaps some day. Yeah right…

What was most surprising however, he more or less argued with Sasuke non-stop. It was the first time in several years he had had the energy to fight back.

The blonds thoughts were interrupted as Sasuke stepped out of the dressing room.
He was now out of those odd clothes that made up for samurai fashion and was wearing a blue shirt, that showed off his creamy white skin. White shorts made the pale skin even more delicious looking.

The samurai almost looked like a shinobi, minus the footwear. But that wouldn’t be much of a problem. The particular ones he was wearing were common even in the streets of Konoha.

“You look great!”
“You really think so?”
“Yeah I do! You kind of remind me of those guys from this old clan I know. Now that I think of it, your last name is kind of similar too.”
“What do you mean similar?”
“Well, you’re an Uchiha. I have a team-mate that’s part of that clan. You actually kinda look like him. Same dark hair, the face, eyes.” ‘Personality…or lack thereof…’
“You guys could be related!”
Naruto said as he handed the old woman the money for the clothes.
Sasuke looked pensive for a moment before looking up with an unreadable look on his face.
“A long time ago there was a ‘dispute’ within our clan, no, more like a civil war.”
Naruto put his change back into his frog-wallet.
“A civil war? About what?”
The two of them walked out of the shop. Sasuke’s old clothes neatly folded and stowed away in Naruto’s backpack.

“I’m not sure. We never got to hear the full version. Rumour has it there was a disagreement about some sort of power. They never said what this ‘power’ meant though. All we were told is that the family divided into two different households over 100 years ago. Eventually it became so bad, one of the groups was forced to leave the village… They never came back…”

“Wow! So what if these guys are like your long lost relatives!”
“It’s possible…”
“I bet I could ask my team-mate, him being an Uchiwa and all. His name’s Sai and like I said, you look like him. Minus the weird behaviour though…”
“Weird behaviour?”
“Yeah, he always smiles. That and he seems to have a weird obsession with ‘penises’…
Like I said, weird.”
“How can anyone be obsessed with…the male anatomy.”
“I have no idea. Looking at the way he dresses, it’s not really surprising… Don’t ask. You’ll see when we get there.”

>3>3>3

Naruto was humming. They had crossed the waters of the Water Country and were heading towards Konoha. Surprisingly enough, Sasuke initiated a conversation.

“How much further is it?”
“About one hour on foot.”
“By the way, you said ‘team-mates’ as in plural? Who are the others?”
“Well, like I said, there’s Uchiwa Sai, Sasame-chan and our teacher Yamato-sensei.”
“What are they like?”

“Well, Sasame-chan is really pretty, bit a bit of a tomboy. She has read hair and she’s a medic nin, that’s kind of like a ninja doctor.”
The two boys turned left at a fork in the road.
“Then there’s Yamato-sensei. He’s just creepy, he’s got this freaky stare he uses to scare people into doing whatever he tells them to do.”

Naruto shivered at the thought.

“He can be really nice though. I’ll bet you’ll really like Iruka-sensei though!”
“Iruka-sensei?”
“Yeah, he’s my former academy teacher. He’s dating this scarecrow-like guy named Kakashi.”
“Academy?”
Sasuke seemed to be sincerely interested in all of this.
“It’s where we learn to be shinobi’s.”

Naruto pulled some items out of the holster on his leg.
“You see these star like thingies? These are called shuriken. And this one, this is a kunai, kind of like a knife or dagger. These I don’t use much. They’re Senbon, kind of like needles, you can use them with poison for example.”
Naruto put them back into the weapons pouch and pulled something out of the tiny holster on his shoulder.
“This is a scroll. This one isn’t really that effective, but it has it’s use every once in a while. Scrolls are used for all sorts of stuff. Like summoning, healing and communicating. This is a basic healing one.”
Naruto placed it back in the place it had come from and opened his pouch again.
“I almost forgot about these…”
He blushed and pulled out something that looked like stickers and golf-ball sized brown balls.
“The paper things are tags. I only carry the explosive type. There’s lots of different ones, but this is the most commonly used. Just attach one of these babies to what you want to blow up, add a little chakra to the mix. And bang! The more chakra you use the longer it takes for them to blow up.”
Sasuke seemed to be a little wary of the explosive tags, Naruto would have laughed, but that would have certainly dragged the Uchiha out of his inquisitive state, and Naruto was enjoying teaching others stuff. He now knew why Iruka-sensei liked his job so much.

“These things are smoke bombs! If you’re ever in a jam, use one of these! They create smoke ones they make an impact. They come in all sorts of colours, but the coloured ones are for kids. Mine are standard grey.”

He stuffed the previous items back in their rightful place and took out the tiny brown pills.

“Last but not least, soldier pills. The things you refused to eat. They restore a persons energy and gives them the essential vitamins and stuff they need, it takes away hunger too. Don’t eat too much though, not good for your health. Here! Try one!”

Sasuke looked rather hesitant, but reached out and gingerly put it to his lips.
“You should feel your energy returning soon enough.”
Sasuke looked at him rather sceptically, Naruto kept grinning though, he after all had been eating them for years.
The shocked look on the brunets face was hilarious.
“See?”

Never one to admit making a mistake, Sasuke changed the subject.

“You mentioned something called chakra?”
“Ummm, chakra is kind of like blood. It courses through our body and is attached to our organs and stuff. It’s kind of like ‘life energy’ so to speak. We use it in jutsu’s, that’s ninja techniques by the way.”

He had Sasuke’s full attention again. The samurai was staring at him, barely keeping an eye on the road ahead.

“There’s three different types of jutsu’s. There’s ninjutsu, your basic type of jutsu’s like kage-bunshin. Genjutsu, illusions and the sort, and taijutsu hand to hand combat. That Lee guy I mentioned? He’s a taijutsu-expert. You should see him move! It’s no wonder he was promoted!”
“Promoted?”
“Oh...right. We shinobi, our word for ninja, have different ranks. Were divided into academy students, genin, like me, chuunin and jounin. Once you graduate the academy you become a genin.”
“You’re a rookie shinobi then?”
Naruto puffed his chest.
“No, I’ve been a genin for a while now, I just have the bad luck of being on missions while the exams are held.”
‘No doubt the elders are behind that one…’
“This info-gathering mission could mean my promotion though! I’ve been taking extra hard missions so I’ll be prepared!”
“And your team-mates? They’re genin as well?”
“Yeah, minus our sensei of course, he’s a former Anbu.”
“Anbu?”
“That’s another rank. I’ll get to that one in a minute. After you pass the exams, you become a chuunin. Then there’s the jounin level. That’s basically the highest people go.
But for the really good ones, there’s the Anbu. They’re elite shinobi that get handed the most important of missions.
Assassination is their number one skill. They have several divisions within their organisation, one of them is called the ‘Hunter Nins’.”

Naruto cleared his throat before continuing.

“Hunter nin hunt down renegade shinobi’s, who are called missing nin. Then there’s the ones that guard important people. Those guys are all pretty mysterious though. There’s not much to tell about the Anbu unless you’re one of them. Even then you’re probably sworn to secrecy.
Anyways, the big honcho that calls the shots is know as the Kage. Kage’s protect and govern the hidden village they belong to. They’ll die protecting their people if necessary.”

Sasuke looked somewhat impressed about that.

“Ya know, amongst them was this really cool guy. Yondaime, aka the fourth Hokage. He died while fighting this huge demon known as the Kyuubi. He’s my hero!”
“Kyuubi? Why would anyone want to attack a deity?”
“First of all, I have no idea what a deity is. Second of all, the overgrown rat nearly destroyed
our home and massacred our people.”
“Why would it want to do that?”
“We didn’t exactly stop to ask it what was wrong.” Naruto replied sarcastically.
“A deity is something like a god. People worship them and give them sacrifices to keep the appeased.”
“Sacrifices?! As in you let it eat people?!”
“No. Stuff like food and incense idiot. Kyuubi was known as a protector of innocents, he was mostly worshipped in the northern regions of this continent.”
“Was?”
“He just disappeared some day…Most likely this Yondaime person defeated it.”
“More like killed it.”
“You can’t kill a god moron.”
“Yes you can! How else do you think Yondaime stopped it!”
“Kyuubi is immortal, it can NOT be killed. Now trapping it I would believe.”
“Trapping it? With what? A giant mouse-trap? Must’ve been a huge one.”
Sasuke let that comment slide.
“I don’t know how they trapped it. They must have sealed it away or something…”
“I wonder where though. The object has to be HUGE to be able to fir that fur ball.”
“How should I know? Go find that out on your own!”
“You expect me to go ‘treasure seeking’ with my only clue being given by a person that believed Shinobi’s were some sort of wizards? When the source is unreliable, we call it a wild chicken chase!”
“The correct term would be ‘wild goose chase’. Usuratonkachi…”
“Whatever bastard, you know what I meant. Besides I see ‘em as I call ‘em. And your hair looks like a chicken.”
“And that would be call them as I see them. And my hair does NOT look like a chicken.”
“AAAAAAAARGH!”
“Let my guess, you’re not talking to me?”
“You’ve got THAT right!”
“Then if you don’t mind me asking, why are you still talking? I was looking forward to a little piece and quiet after that longwinded speech of yours.”
“Do you enjoy making fun of me?!”

Sasuke turned his head away from Naruto, his long dark bangs coming in handy to hide the smile on his face.

“Let’s just hurry up dobe, or we won’t make it by nightfall.”
“Answer me dammit! And it’s your fault we’re late to begin with!”
To Naruto’s surprise, Sasuke started to laugh. Not chuckle, smirk or even smile, but a nice gentle laugh. A rich pleasant sounding noise that could only be described as laughter.

“Boy, you sure are cheery all of a sudden. What’s gotten into you?”
“Nothing dobe, let’s just hurry.”

He was smiling again.
For the first time, since he had met him, he seemed calm and serene.

“You should smile more often ya know. It’s not as if your face is going to crack…”
“I haven’t had a reason to smile in a long, long time…”

Sasuke seemed rather uncomfortable about this subject.

“You know he hits my mother. You’ve seen the way they act.”
‘His father…’
“He always has, as far as I can remember anyways. Mother used to talk about how much she loved him, after a while that just stopped. She started to put all her love and affection into me and my brother, mainly my brother.”

That particular look of hatred was on Sasuke’s face again. Naruto decided he didn’t like it at all.

“My brother was always everyone’s favourite. The perfect older brother, the prodigy. I despised him. At first it was all about attention. Then my entire place in the family. He tried to practically run me out, or at least it felt like he tried to.
Whenever I tried my best to be good at something, he would do the same and surpass me in a short period of time. He was older then me and he was naturally gifted. No matter how hard I tried, I never once managed to surpass him…”

Naruto flinched. He had always imagined it would be great to have sibling, being an only child and all.

“That wasn’t the worst part though. He always tried to make me look like some sort of idiot, I got sick of it. Soon I stopped trying to surpass him altogether… It just seemed so futile all of a sudden. They didn’t notice me either way.”

Sasuke seemed hesitant about continuing, but did so anyway.

“After I got a little older, a little boy moved into town. He appeared to be an orphan. Jiraiya kept quiet about his background though. People didn’t trust that boy at all. The area surrounding our home was filled with dangerous animals, mostly carnivores. It was a mystery to them how a little kid managed to walk around in that forest without getting into even the slightest of trouble. Especially in the shell-shocked state he was in, he was practically catatonic, crying out something about his mother and father. Mostly his father.”

The word father sounded like venom, the way Sasuke pronounced it.

“Jiraiya took him to his place. When they came out, it was decided the boy was to live in our village. We learned his name was Haku. It didn’t take long for him to find a place in our ‘society’ though. People melted when they looked at his innocent face. The two of us became close…”

As Sasuke blushed, Naruto felt a pang of jealousy.
He didn’t let it show though.

‘When Haku and I got older, a man came to our village. A shinobi like you. This was before the ‘war’. Haku fell in love almost instantly and pretty much forgot about being careful around strangers. It didn’t matter how many times we warned him. Eventually that’s what got him killed.”

Sasuke stopped talking for quite some time. Swallowing the lump that was forming, he mentally relived the horrific scene from his past.

“The man was known as Zabuza. He decided to leave the village. It’s safe to say we didn’t complain. But then Haku wanted to go with him, saying stuff like ‘bloodline limits’ and about being a shinobi as well. That this Zabuza guy was going to teach him to become a great shinobi like that man.”

The brunet stared at the ground.

“I tried to convince him to stay. He just wouldn’t listen…He left regardless of how much I begged and pleaded. Then another shinobi came along and killed both of them…We didn’t even give them a decent burial, the people were too afraid the shinobi that killed them was going to come back.”

Zabuza…
Why did that name sound so familiar?
“Did that Zabuza guy have this huge sword?”
Sasuke looked up in surprise.
“As a matter of fact, yes he did.”
“No wonder it sounded familiar. I don’t know the whole story, but near the Water Country somewhere, there’s this hidden village. Some time ago, there were these bad-ass duded. They wielded huge swords. They all left after trying to kill their Kage and take over their village though. They’re missing nin. The shinobi that killed them was probably a hunter nin.”

Naruto nodded, he was sure of it. Zabuza was one of them.

“He probably showed up on your doorstep to hide for a while. Sorry to hear your ‘friend’ was caught up in it…”
“It’s alright.”
The two of them walked in silence the rest of the way. A comfortable silence though.
Soon the gates of Konoha came into view…

TBC