Colors

*A/N : Wow, I can’t believe all these reviews. I thought the story had been permanently ruined. But here it is. Sorry for the long update but I was away for awhile, then work piled up and I didn’t have much time to edit this. So here it is and please bear with the long boring scene in this one. I just needed to narrate it for some odd reason. Was thinking of heading straight back into the paintings but my imaginations said ‘no’.

Ok, I know I’m rambling mindlessly but work normally fries your brains if you do too much of it. Lol. Cheers and I hope you enjoy this one too. Do continue to review if you see anything that sucks or doesn’t suck. Thanks again and my *HuGz* to all who have been supporting me all this while.

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Chapter 17

Once again, Naruto found himself locked in the limousine with Neji and Shikamaru. It was Saturday evening and they were finally making their way back to Tokyo. Trailing behind their vehicle was Naruto’s babe, the NSX with its lovely orange bonet heavily damaged from the crash during the first turn of the race. Naruto leaned his head on his elbow, which he had perched against the limo’s window pane. He let the sun’s setting rays bathe his blonde hairs and tanned skin in its calm orange glow. He fluttered his eyelids, the gesture causing the area under his right cheek to ache dully. As he stared blankly out the window he recalled the earlier heated incident that had taken place.

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Naruto was waiting to enter his car parked in 4th position on the starting straight. He took a couple of sips from his water tube and used a towel to wipe the sweat off his forehead. The weather was hot and he found himself melting in his stuffy orange racesuit. His blonde bangs dripping with beads of the salty residue bearing testament of the merciless heat. But despite how uncomfortable he felt, nothing could compare to the constant fear and sadness he now carried. The murky mix of emotions was slowly corroding his insides as if someone had made him drink acid. He looked at Sasuke, hoping that he would catch his eye and when he did, he smiled at him. But the dark prince played total ignorance, staring completely past the blonde in an expression that seemed so natural it made Naruto wince with the added emotional injury.

“Ladies and gentlemen, kindly clear the track as the race will begin in 10 minutes.” The announcement rang throughout the circuit.

Shikamaru put a hand on Naruto’s shoulder. “Don’t push it. Whatever you do, just make sure that you don’t kill yourself.” He gave Naruto a reassuring squeeze with his hand. With that, the rest of their team mates gave their final words of encouragement and Naruto accepted them whilst giving a weak smile with his thanks in return. He put the helmet on his head, adjusted the fit and entered his car.

“Radio test, Naruto, can you hear me?”

Naruto glanced towards the midnight blue bearing a bold number 6 parked just diagonally in front of him. *I’m chasing his ass, again* he thought.

“Naruto? Radio testing. Come in!” Kiba shouted.

“Oh, sorry, yes, it’s working now.” He finally responded.

“Ok, please, I’m begging you. Just do your best this time, ok?”

“Yeah..” Naruto answered but Kiba’s words didn’t quite run past his brain. He knew how much the race mattered to his friend and team but try as he might, he couldn’t tear his mind away from the dark angel. He continued staring at Sasuke’s car, fixated.

“Ok, it’s gonna start in 1 minute so watch the lights. We have the car in perfect condition for once so all you have to do is make sure we don’t screw up. Again, I’m asking. Please don’t screw up.” Kiba sounded cheerful but hesistant. He was proud of his hardwork and he wanted Naruto to revive his reputation as Tsukuba’s amateur race king. But after yesterday’s incident and a vague explanation from Shikamaru, he wondered if the blonde had it in him to keep his cool.

Meanwhile, Kiba’s voice had drawn guilt within Naruto and he answered, “K.” He tried his best to mask the half hearted reply and giving into his conscience, he did as he was told. He lifted his gaze to watch the lights. As he kept his eyes glued on them, he weighed his choices. One part of him knew that he shouldn’t disappoint his friends and another part of him just couldn’t find any will to move on. He was tired, lack of sleep and disheartened but he knew that if he didn’t do this well, he would risk disappointing his good friend and his entire team. Furthermore, there was nothing he could do about his and Sasuke’s situation now, which although was a bigger problem than the race, wasn’t something he could act on immediately.

3 out of the 5 lights turned green and Naruto tightened his grip on his steering wheel. As the fourth light turned green, the other racers began revving their engines and Naruto did so in response to hearing his competitors’ roars. Naruto swallowed and finally decided, *I can’t do anything about Sasuke, but I can do this for my friends now.* He closed his eyes and affirmed his resolution. When he opened them, the 5th light turned green and the race began.

The cars sped off simultaeneously, all except for Rock Lee who had choked his engine during the start, shocking Gaara and allowing Sasuke and Naruto to over take them easily. With Naruto placed second behind Sasuke, he trailed the Farilady closely down the straight. He stole a glance through his rear monitor and ensured he took the best line to prevent the racers behind him from over taking. He then returned his focus on Sasuke’ car, which was quickly tearing away and opening a huge gap in between their vehicles as they headed towards the first hair-pin.

*Wait a minute, his going fucking too fast!* Naruto suddenly realized as he took a quick glance at his speedometer, 230 km/h. His body filled with dread at the impending danger. Sasuke must have been just as upset if not worse and if he didn’t slow down in time, he would be skidding off on a tangent past the first hair pin’s chicane and heading straight into the tire barricade at frightening force. In a matter of mere seconds Naruto formulated a rough plan and did the only thing he could do. Being highly experienced and reckless, he picked up his own pace and caught up with Sasuke. But he didn’t stop. At 250km/h he hit the back of Sasuke’s car, tipping the Fairlady and causing the vehicle to lock its tires. Naruto tried hard to gain control of his own car as Sasuke spinned 180 degrees before crashing into the NSX’s bonet with his own front-end. The two tangled beasts skidded off the track and onto the gravel before finally coming to a halt, the gravel’s friction and safety features serving its purpose by slowing them down and preventing both cars from crashing into the side walls at full speed.

Once their vehicles had stalled, both drivers got out from their cars as quickly as they could. Slightly shaken, they removed their helmets slowly and started scanning themselves for injuries. Then, their eyes met. There was no doubt each was worried about the others’ well-being as concern was fully painted upon their features. But then, anger took over Sasuke and he lashed out angrily at the shocked blonde.

“What the fuck do you think you were trying to do?!”

“For Fuck’s sake Sasuke, you’d think you would be a litte more grateful for that. You weren’t slowing down!”

“I wasn’t slowing down? I could’ve made that turn if you hadn’t fucked my behind!”

Naruto’s eye’s widened at that remark and he blushed, fully riled and slightly embarrassed at having imagined Sasuke’s ass in that split second. He blinked and continued, “No you fucking wouldn’t. Nobody breaks in time before the turn after passing the 230km/h mark and you were way past that! If I didn’t take you out you would’ve killed yourself and maybe some other racers in the process!”

“What? Oh, so crashing us in the middle of the race wouldn’t kill anyone else. How the fuck could you have been sure of your shit and what made you think you were the expert huh?!” Sasuke remarked sarcastically and folded his arms.

“So tell me, which exactly is your problem Sasuke? The fact that I thought better, the fact that I rescued you or the fact that you actually like having your ass harassed painfully, HUH?!” and before Naruto could react, Sasuke had walked over to him and threw a hard punch, hitting Naruto’s cheek hard and causing the blonde to lose his balance. As he fell, Sasuke readied himself for another round of punches but Neji had arrived at the scene. Stepping in front of the fuming dark angel, he placed a firm hand against his chest and shoved him backwards harshly.

“Calm the fuck down.” Neji said sternly, his gaze unnerving and his stand confidant. Sasuke glared at him in defiance but then realized Kisame and Deidara would’ve been at his back already and watching the incident. He backed down, turned and stomped off without even leaving Naruto a single glance.

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Naruto’s head bumped against the window as the limo rolled over a pothole; his eyes flying open at the hard contact.

“Ow..” he massaged his forehead.

“Sigh… stop spacing out.” Shikamaru finally voiced from his position across the troubled blonde.

“You better say something to us about the whole situation before you blow up.” Neji urged as well. Although his feelings were still hurt, he kept his gaze upon Naruto concerned.

Naruto lifted his blue eyes to look at them wearily. “I just don’t know where to begin and what to think anymore.” He finally said before leaning back into his seat. Closing his eyes again, he felt them warm up as tears began pooling underneath his lids.

“I thought you guys had patched up, I mean, you did leave with him yesterday night.” Neji spoke but from his tone, Naruto could tell that the majestic brunet had averted his gaze, which made him feel guilty about his friend’s feelings for him once more.

“What happened exactly yesterday night and I’d like to hear more about this whole brother wants to kill you business.” Shikamaru said; his voice inquisitive but he was careful not to sound too interogatory.

Naruto reopened his eyes and stared out the window, wondering where to begin. He finally spoke his most troubled thoughts. “Sasuke’s… being abused.. and literally being fucked by his insanely possessive brother. We had a fight about him going back to that mad man.”

Neji perked up and Shikamaru’s usually bored expression filled with worry.

“But please… don’t say this to anyone. If Sasuke found out about me telling you guys I think… he wouldn’t be able to take it too well.”

“Any person would be mad to keep something like that to himself. Why the fuck is he doing it?” Shikamaru finally concluded.

Neji smirked. “Cause his brother is cuckoo. To tell you the truth I’m not that surprised about Sasuke’s actions since that senior Uchiha is warped.”

Naruto suddenly became interested. Why hadn’t he figured this out before? The Hyuuga of all rich aristocrats would surely know about the Uchiha’s and their dealings being in the same group of socialites.

“What did you mean by you weren’t surprised?” he questioned Neji, determined for any answer that would aid in his endeavor.

“Sigh… I don’t know if it’s true. Get it through your thick skull firstly that whatever I’m about to say are just purely rumours and unsupported speculations.”

“Ok whatever, just tell me.”

Both Naruto and Shikamaru stared longingly at Neji with anxious faces.

Neji paused to take a deep breath and then he began. “Uchiha Itachi has always been known to be more than brutal. In fact it’s sort of a known fact that the Uchiha pays a large amount of unrecorded incentives to the police and certain politicians. His connections, being that vast within the Yakuza as well as the police allows him to do anything that he pleases and he gets away with it. Rumour has it that this includes murder.”

“Yeah I think I know that part already. But what the fuck did he do to gain such a reputation anyway?”

“Well petty bribes aside, the murder rumour first came about from several years ago, when the Uchiha construction arm was suffering heavy losses, partly because they were up against a formidable competitor, Mist Corp. Itachi tried all forms of sabotage to subdue them, from sending in corporate spies to deploying moles to turn their corporation inside out. Nothing worked until one day the company’s CEO just disappeared sending the corporation into total chaos without their leader. They later discovered his corpse, butchered, at a dump site.”

“Please don’t tell me they never caught the murderer?” Naruto looked at Neji worriedly.

“Nope, they arrested the wife though but couldn’t find any evidence to support. So they let her go.”

Shikamaru digested Neji’s story before making a rebuttal. “So what made people think that it would have anything to do with Itachi? I mean, any mad serial killer could’ve done it.”

“Apparently, Itachi had set an appointment with his secretary on that very day and time he disappeared. His secretary had thought he was going to meet Itachi. But when Itachi made a call to the office to say he didn’t show, the secretary then started making calls. Police did bring Itachi in for questioning. But nothing resulted since it seemed he had an alibi having called from his office at the time of the murder.”

“Although it’s suspicious that he would set an appointment with a competing firm and a strange coincidence for it to happen on that day, it still doesn’t give off any alarm. He could’ve wanted to negotiate selling his business to this company or something of that sort.” The analytical brunet voiced whilst stroking his chin in deep thought.

“Well, according to sources, a policeman who accepted the bribery spilled the beans on Itachi’s instructions during one of his drunken night outs. He then disappeared as well. But that’s not what really made me think Itachi was in on the case. You see, one of the Hyuuga’s top steel clients was Mist Corporation itself. Hinata even considered the CEO as a good friend of the family and we were shocked and saddened by his death. We debated the issue within our clan and then decided to do his family a favor by offering to conduct our bit of digging through our own police contacts.”

“So you mean you have ways to search for information within the police force too?” Naruto’s eyes widened in disbelief, *Just how corrupt is our fucking government?*

“Yup, each major family in Japan has some form of police contacts or a group of supporters within the force, which can be of use when you need simple things like permits or have some work strikes subdued.” Neji cleared his throat, having realized that he just gave away a little too much information surrounding his family’s secrets. But he continued, “Anyway, according to my sources, who have no proof, the policeman who disappeared belonged to the Uchiha clan of supporters. He was out with his comrades the night he went missing. My contacts say that they probably disposed of him cleanly there and then.”

“Oh my God, if they suspect can’t they do anything about it?” The blonde’s anger began rising once more.

“They tried, but the chief super intendent is apparently himself an Uchiha supporter and he was the one who declared the case closed. So naturally, unless you wanted to get your ass fired, you would lay off from getting involved. Hence my contacts just left the case as it is and obeyed the super intendent.”

“You’re not fucking serious?” Naruto couldn’t believe what he was hearing. In fact, he was slightly shocked at his own friend’s involvement in this corrupted web.

“I’m not joking, no. But remember when I say this is all purely speculation from what I’ve heard so far.”

“God, Sasuke wasn’t joking when he said I didn’t know who I was dealing with and I think I hit the bullseye when I said it was the devil himself.”

“You may very well be dealing with that.” Shikamaru concluded.

“Sigh… arrgh… is there nothing I can do about this? I mean, if everyone’s so fucking corrupt there must be someway we can expose their shit!” Naruto gave both Shikamaru and Neji a pleading look as he wringed a hand through his blonde bangs roughly.

“Hmm… actually, you have a point.” Shikamaru spoke as he rolled his eyes into his head, seemingly searching his brain as he developed on Naruto’s suggestion.

“I do?” Naruto’s expression turned hopeful.

“Well, it all boils down to how lucky you can get. No one commits the perfect crime so I’m sure that Itachi could’ve screwed up, somewhere.”

“That’s not very helpful Shika, I doubt that my luck’s been great my whole life. If you’re telling me to rely on that I might as well give up now.” The blonde sighed.

“Not really, I can always do some digging again with Hinata.”

“What?! Don’t bring her into this!”

“Too late, Shika already told them about you and Sasuke.”

“Which parts?!”

“The parts that you’re together but have problems. No, I didn’t go into details if that’s what you were worried about.” Shikamaru enlightened his flustered friend.

*Kiba must hate me even more now since crashing the car*. Naruto wondered briefly what his friends thought of him currently, but he pushed his worries aside to avoid thinking further about being discriminated. “Sigh… but really. I don’t want to trouble either of you anymore. I feel like a fucking idiot having rejected the both of you and then having to make use of you guys again. It... it just isn’t right.”

“Naruto, you’re not going to be able to handle this guy alone. He’s dangerous. You’ve met him and I think you should think twice before standing up to him on your own. We’re all worried for you. I for one don’t agree with you going any further down this road but if it’s your choice then I’d be an ass not to do what I can to help as a friend.” Neji spoke softly.

The blonde grew silent and looked down at his palms as he fiddled with a callous on his thumb. His friends were more than right and they knew about his stubborn decisions too well. He was grateful for their support but felt really helpless for not being able to contribute at all. Neji eyed the blonde quietly and then he sighed.

“Shikamaru, don’t watch if you don’t want to.” Neji said to the tanned brunet.

“Huh? What?” Shikamaru replied, confused.

Neji then scooted over to Naruto and pulled him into a fierce hug before shifting to cradle Naruto’s soft blonde waves against his chest gently. “Although you don’t realize it, you’ve helped more people in your life than you know just by being your inspiring hopeful self and a good friend, me included. So don’t start thinking that we don’t owe you anything in return, cause we do.” Naruto broke into tears and sobbed silently.

Shikamaru watched the scene for a few minutes but he gave up. “Ah.. what the heck,” he spoke from his corner before diving into his friends for a group hug. With Naruto in between Shikamaru and Neji, the two guardian angels watched over their emotionally drained friend as he drifted off into slumber amidst his drying tears.

TBC

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