Here's to the Fox

Disclaimer: see chapter 1

A/N: welcome, minna, to another installment of 'watch sasuke thaw before your very eyes'. i told you this fic had me by the throat, so hopefully the quick update won't equal diminished quality. in this chapter, i introduce (sorta) an OC, because, come on. if naruto isn't a ninja of konoha, there has to be an OC to take his place on cell 7, ne? i mean, who would be satisfied with the rookie 8? also, the reader hopefully gets some more insight into sasuke's character. not to mention the establishment of a few konoha elements so when they show up in the next chapter, the reader doesn't feel as if they have no idea what's going on (assume that some who read have no idea who main characters are).

thank you to all my reviewers yet again. it makes me feel incredibly good about my writing to see so many praises. and nekohime, your enthusiasm amuses me. i feel the same way, really i do, but my problem usually comes from reading a multi-part fic that stopped updating years ago... and it isn't complete. rest assured, though, i will finish this fic, and as i've got up to chapter 8 planned out already, it'll be fast-going. hopefully.

let me know how i did, and i'll see you all in chapter 4! (longest A/N ever!!!)

*EDIT* KshLee brought something to my attention that i've now corrected. thanks, KshLee!

italics=jutsu and book title


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Here's to the Fox: Chapter 3
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Sasuke was meeting his… friend for lunch. He still couldn’t quite believe it. He’d met Naruto only yesterday, but the blonde had coaxed out more reactions from the Uchiha in one afternoon than his teammates had been able to get in ten years… minus those three years…

Sasuke shook his head. Again he had to remind himself that this was a vacation, and all dark thoughts and memories were banned. He didn’t want anything to ruin his lunch with Naruto. He may be new to the whole friendship thing, but he was smart enough to know that you don’t burden a friend with such dark emotions the second day in if you wanted to keep that friend.

The pale man glanced up at the sky, looking at the position of the sun, wondering where Naruto could be. Then he felt something tugging on his shirt, so he looked to the ground, finding his shirt in the small fist of a child.

“Saki-chan? What are you doing here?”

“Do you know where Naruto-nii is? This is his favorite restaurant, but he’s late.”

“What do you mean by that? Does he come here often?”

“He comes here everyday! When ojiisan lets him go for lunch, he usually runs here, but I don’t see him.”

“Did you find him Saki?” Sasuke looked up as the rest of the children he’d played with yesterday trotted up to where he and Saki were.

“Why are you lot looking for Naruto?”

“Because we want him to play! Naruto is the best at the Fox game!” Sasuke listened to the excited chattering of the children as their topic of conversation was shifted from Naruto to Naruto’s playing skills.

“I’m sorry, but Naruto can’t play right now. He’s having lunch with me.”

Saki released his shirt with a huff. “No! Naruto-nii is ours! You can’t have him!”

When Sasuke would have replied, he was cut off by a blur of orange and black racing by the group. It stopped some distance down the street and turned around. Naruto shouted for the kids to ‘catch him if they could’ and took off once again. In a screaming frenzy, the children raced off after him, leaving the Uchiha alone.

Sasuke was confused. Hadn’t they had plans for lunch? Was playing with the children more important than him? Sasuke’s features fell into his emotionless mask, hiding his pain that his first real friend had rejected him. Then an arm came around his shoulders.

“Whew, coast is clear. How about we get something to eat now?”

Sasuke looked into Naruto’s beaming face. He was here! He hadn’t abandoned the Uchiha after all. Sasuke nodded silently, not trusting his voice, and the two headed inside. The proprietors recognized Naruto and led them to a nice table away from other customers. It seemed that even though the blonde was friendly enough, he enjoyed his privacy like most people.

“Uzumaki-san, what can we get for you today?” Sasuke noticed that the waitress’ eyes held an amused sparkle to them. What did she find so funny?

“Do you really have to ask, Kagura-chan? Ramen!” Naruto looked over to Sasuke. “What do you want, Sasuke?”

“Onigiri.”

“Is that all? I thought shi-”

“Dobe!” The waitress gave Sasuke a look that clearly said, “Why are you calling this treasure of a man ‘dead last’?” But the idiot was about to call him a shinobi! He just narrowed his eyes at her, and she quickly left to relay their orders.

“I’m sorry, Sasuke. Sometimes my mouth gets away from me.” Naruto’s hand came up and rubbed the back of his neck, a nervous habit apparently. “But, man, do you need to work on your people skills! That glare of yours probably scared the hell out of Kagura-chan.”

“She gave me a look.”

“Well, you certainly gave her one right back! She’ll get over it, though.” Sasuke nodded and left it at that. Then he looked at Naruto, really looked. The blonde had said he’d grown up in a shinobi village, and Reihi was most definitely not a shinobi village. What was Naruto’s story?

“Naruto, where are you from?” The blonde tensed, and Sasuke regretted asking the question. He’d already pushed the friendship too far. He was absolutely no good at this. “I’m sorry, Naruto. I shouldn’t have asked that.” He looked away from the other man, afraid to show that he was saddened by what he thought was the end of a friendship.

“I… I really don’t mind, Sasuke. It’s just… what makes you think I’m not from here?” Sasuke gave him a look. “Oh yeah, I guess it slipped my mind that I told you. Heh… Well, I’m from Suna.”

“You’re from Suna? Well, that does explain how you recognized me. They’re pretty serious over there. I’m surprised that you’re not a ninja, then. Most parents in Suna expect their sons to become shinobi, especially parents who are shinobi as well. Are your parents ninja?”

A small, sad smile graced Naruto’s lips, and Sasuke felt something tighten in his chest. “I don’t have parents. They died when I was born.” The Uchiha could feel the pain rolling off the blonde in waves, and he felt like dying for asking the question. He knew all too well how hard it was to talk about the dead.

“I’m so sorry, Naruto.” It was barely a whisper, but he supposed Naruto heard him anyway, the blonde acknowledging the condolence with a nod. There was now an awkward silence between the two. Sasuke didn’t know what to do, and he tried to break the silence with a mundane observance. But when his mouth opened to release something in regards to the weather or such, “I don’t have parents, either” came out instead.

Sasuke blinked. Had he really just said that? Naruto was staring at him with an unreadable expression, but soon a shy smile turned up the corners of his mouth. He’d acknowledged what Sasuke had tried to do, even if Sasuke had no clue what that had been.

Sasuke had every intention of returning the smile, but their food came, and he shut down his emotions in front of the servers. The waitress had brought his onigiri and Naruto’s ramen, but another server was just behind her with two more bowls.

“We didn’t order two more bowls of ramen.” He looked to the waitress, waiting to hear her apology. That’s what you did when you do something wrong, right? At least, that’s what his teammate had always tried to impart on him. Not that he ever did anything wrong, though.

“Uzumaki-san always has three bowls of miso pork ramen for lunch.” Their order delivered, the waitress left to tend to other customers. Sasuke looked to the blonde and saw him give thanks before diving into his first bowl with gusto. At some point when the Uchiha still had not touched his food, the blonde, mid-slurp, looked up at him to question why he wasn’t eating, words slurred by the amount of noodles still in his mouth.

Sasuke was hit with a picture of his academy teacher, Iruka-sensei, just as Naruto was now, questioning eyes and mouth full of noodles. Naruto quickly slurped the noodles into his mouth to chew, his questioning gaze becoming more confused than anything when Sasuke began to chuckle. They were just alike, Naruto and Iruka-sensei. Well, when it came to ramen anyway.

“What?”

“Nothing, dobe. You just reminded me of someone.”

“Oh. Well, eat! I don’t like eating in front of someone who’s not doing the same thing.”

Sasuke shook his head, but reached for a rice ball all the same. Their lunch passed with amiable talk and some comfortable silences, and Sasuke was amazed when Naruto was still hungry after his three bowls.

“Well, why don’t you get another. I think the deal was I’m paying.”

“I’d love to, but I have to get back to work. Ojiisan wasn’t going to let me go this afternoon because I was almost late starting the fires this morning, but I talked him out of it. Of course, that doesn’t mean I can lounge about all day. I hate to eat and run like this, but thanks for lunch, Sasuke.”

The blonde flashed him a wink and was gone. A small smile turned the Uchiha’s lips. “No, thank you, Naruto.” He sat there for a while just wondering what in hell was wrong with him. He’d talked and smiled—hell he’d laughed—more with this complete stranger than he’d ever done with his peers back home. And how could he call the blonde a friend when 1) he’d never had/needed one and 2) had only known the blonde for twenty-four hours?

Figuring that this friendship was something he shouldn’t question for fear of losing it, he paid the tab and left the restaurant. The sun wasn’t far past its zenith, and Sasuke wondered what he’d do for the rest of the day. Walking the town didn’t particularly appeal to him, but it was better than returning to the inn. So he turned down a little side street and followed it as far as it went. At the end, he found that he’d stumbled upon some kind of bizarre.

Vendors had set up booths within a rectangular area between some of the bigger buildings in town and were selling their wares. The booths were still fully stocked, and there was a huge crowd, so Sasuke guessed that the bizarre had just rolled into town. And he’d never really been to one before, so he decided to check it out.

Women eyeing pieces of jewelry and bemoaning the fact that they hadn’t brought their husbands along to buy them surrounded the first booth he came to. Not one for such things, Sasuke still found himself glancing over the goods. His eye caught a stone pedant of a teal color. It was the same color as his female teammate’s eyes. Sasuke’s thoughts quickly flitted to her, Haruno Sakura. He saw her in her usual pink clothing and thought that the pendant would bring out the color of her eyes perfectly.

But the Uchiha hadn’t bought a gift for anyone since he was a small child. And Sakura was already in love with him, no matter how much he ignored her. Getting her a gift was the last thing he should do if he didn’t want her practically humping his leg every day. And let’s not forget that he’d have way too much trouble with his fan club if Sakura received a gift from him. So, teammate or not, Sasuke wasn’t buying the woman anything.

Moving on through the booths, Sasuke saw things here and there that caught his own personal eye, but at one booth selling books, he found an old volume of The Philosophy of Jutsu that he thought would be perfect for his other teammate, Igarashi Akira. Not exactly a solitary figure, but Akira would sometimes lose himself in a book for days. He was always reading, trying to find new jutsu that weren’t taught in the academy, learning more and more about how and when the very first jutsu were performed… things that no young ninja really wanted to know, except about the unknown jutsu. All young ninja wanted to learn new jutsu. But for very different reasons, Sasuke was well aware.

But yet again, Sasuke and gift giving were just two things that didn’t go together. And if he bought a gift for Akira and not Sakura, he’d never hear the end of it from the pink-haired kunoichi. Why was he even thinking about buying his teammates gifts? Did the fact that now he had an actual friend make him want to be friends with everyone? Tch, that wasn’t going to happen any time soon. Sasuke felt that people in Konoha treated him a certain way because of what had happened, so he couldn’t be friendly. He didn’t want to be friends out of pity or sympathy, so he just decided not to have friends at all.

But Naruto was different. He didn’t know Sasuke’s past, wasn’t judging him every time he saw him, secretly expecting something of him that the Uchiha didn’t know if he could deliver. If he bought anyone a gift, it’d be the blonde, the only person Sasuke thought really deserved one from him.

Moving on once more, Sasuke came to a weapons booth. No one was there except the vendor and a lone customer. When the pale man came up to inspect the wares, the taller man turned his attention to him, and Sasuke had to hold back a startled laugh. The man was wearing a turtleneck, but he had the neck stretched up to cover half his face. The man turned away from the Uchiha, and Sasuke smirked as he moved along. That had reminded him quite strongly of his sensei Hatake Kakashi, Konoha’s very own masked man, the Copy Ninja, the man who somehow shared Sasuke’s bloodline limit, if only in one eye.

Sasuke had always wondered, for the ten years he’d known the jounin, how the man had gotten the Uchiha clan bloodline limit, the deadly and powerful Sharingan, but he’d never really found out. Every time he’d actually asked, the jounin would just play dumb, acting as if he didn’t know either. But Sasuke never lost his temper. He’d find out some day, because even though Kakashi-sensei had the Sharingan, he didn’t have the power that came with both eyes possessing the characteristic, and Sasuke could use his to find out anything he wanted. He’d learned a few things in those three years…

Damn it, Sasuke hated when his thoughts turned to that time. But it usually happened when he didn’t have something to focus on, such as a new friend or a mission. Passing by a group of elderly women, Sasuke caught tidbits of their conversation, the topic of gossip something that made his stomach turn.

“Did you hear about Hinara-sama? His son’s wife gave birth recently to a strong baby boy. Now Hinara-sama can relax with an heir for his son born. The clan will continue!”

“Oh yes, I remember how distraught Hinara-sama was before his wife finally gave birth to a son. Imagine, four daughters and the danger of the clan ending.”

“Yes, but he had a son, and now that son has had a son. It seems the tragedy of the Hinara clan is finally being left in the past.”

Sasuke moved away. He wanted to be alone now. His stomach was in turmoil. Reviving a clan… That was his destiny. After the decimation of his own clan… Konoha expected nothing less from the last of the Uchiha. That, and vengeance. Though his brother was still alive… His brother… Well, even if his brother had an heir, it would be slaughtered the minute it stepped into Konohagakure. There’d be no other way… Not if it was his child…

Sasuke made it back to his room, threw up his lunch, and collapsed onto his bed, darkness consuming his consciousness.

~*~

The accumulation of a huge amount of chakra had Sasuke awake and out the window in an instant. Night had fallen while he’d been passed out, and the streets were as crowded and alive as they’d been the previous night, regardless of the late hour. The Uchiha didn’t go slow enough to notice, however. He had to get to the source of the chakra before something-

A sound louder than thunder shook the ground and buildings, the roof Sasuke was on becoming unstable. He could hear the screams and cries of the people of Reihi below him and could see smoke and flame rising from some place to the west of where he was. Taking off in that direction, Sasuke had to wonder if the Fox was part of this explosion as well. He hadn’t given the mystery man a thought all day, but he was the first to come to mind at the moment.

When he arrived at the site, the Uchiha came up short. What he saw was a red fox, crouched on all four, but if he looked close enough, he thought he saw the outline of a human body. So that would mean the red fox he was seeing was some kind of armor of chakra. He’d never seen the like!

The Fox—Sasuke was sure it was him—was surrounded by ninja, all without hitai-ate to tell from where they hailed. They were too preoccupied to notice the silent figure behind them, but Sasuke knew without a doubt that the Fox knew he was there. And he was waiting to see what Sasuke would do just as much as he was waiting for the missing nin.

“Katon Housenka no Jutsu!”

Sasuke took out a handful of the ninja with his jutsu, startling them enough to break their concentration and focus on the Fox, who took the opportunity to strike. The Uchiha watched again as the animal-man ripped ninja apart and let them fall lifeless to the ground. Sasuke had to activate his Sharingan to keep up with the Fox, instantly copying the speed whether he could meet it with his own body or not. He saw the Fox go after the last missing nin. Once he was dead, Sasuke knew the Fox would disappear on him, so he thought quickly. How the hell could he retain him long enough to get a few answers? Watching as the last man slid off the Fox’s claws, Sasuke decided to use a jutsu he’d copied some years ago.

“Kanashibari no Jutsu!”

The Fox only had enough time to face him before the Uchiha froze him in place. Red eyes met red eyes, two extremely strong and stubborn wills clashing in an instant. Sasuke wanted answers, and the Fox was trying to break the jutsu. Was that possible?

Apparently, because before he knew it, the Fox was dispelling the jutsu with a staggering amount of chakra and was away the instant he was free. Using the speed he’d copied, Sasuke raced after him, chasing him across the rooftops of Reihi.

Not long after the chase started, Sasuke got the impression that the Fox was slowing on purpose. Perhaps he was finally willing to talk. He saw the Fox duck into an apartment, but his chakra signature completely disappeared. An effective way of losing the Sharingan wielder, as now he had no trail to follow.

But Sasuke never gave up easily, if ever, and he ducked down to the same apartment window he figured the Fox had entered. And he came up short. The Fox was standing in the middle of a bedroom, his back to the pale ninja, and then his form… shimmered. The pale hair color brightened to the color of gold, and the skin lost its red tint in favor of the bronze of the sun. A cheek was turned to the window Sasuke peered through, and fangs disappeared while whisker marks thinned and faded slightly. Then a henge was activated to disperse them completely.

Sasuke’s eyes widened, and he tried to hold in his surprised gasp. Uzumaki Naruto stood before him, transformed from the infamous Fox. Sasuke had to get away. It was too much. He retreated across the rooftops as fast as he could, seeking the familiarity of his inn room, unknowing of the bright blue eyes that followed his fleeing form into the night.


TBC

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jutsu-Sasuke's Phoenix Fire jutsu
Orochimaru's Body Freeze jutsu

book-i made it up, but if it does happen to be real, i do not claim it as my own (if it's not real, maybe i should write it...)