Restless

Hello all! Just as an fyi, I'm only going to be skimming what happens during the Chuunin exams because I'm guessing that probably all of you have seen it before. But, if you're like me, you may not remember what exactly happens, so I will be giving a small re-cap, but only a small one that is pertinent to the story. After all, I'm writing this as though these are just scenes that actually happened, but the anime and manga do not show these scenes (and/or thoughts). Enjoy!

This chapter has been edited. That being said, it may still need editing done to it. If you see any mistakes e-mail, leave a review, or personal message me about it. :-)

Restless

Chapter 3: Restless Dreams

After his shift was done, Naruto, despite having had less sleep than normal, and despite heartily complaining about how tired he was to Sakura, nonetheless bounced about the next morning as though nothing had happened the previous night. Or at least, that's what Sakura noticed. Sasuke, on the other hand, could tell that Naruto was more on edge than usual.

Sasuke and Naruto had decided to go fishing, and Sasuke had told Naruto he should be the one to get into the water and chase out the fish for Sasuke to catch. Naruto had a strange kind of expression on his face when Sasuke suggested that, but Sasuke followed it up with:

"Unless you don't think you're capable of doing something so simplistic," Sasuke taunted.

"Is that what this is all about? A challenge at who can best who?" Naruto asked.
Sasuke realized Naruto wasn't talking about his taunt about fishing. Sasuke thought for a moment. He had not been able to put a finger on what the two of them, or more realistically, what he, Sasuke had planned when he decided to continue whatever sexual activities that may or may not have been forgotten the first time, and instead molest Naruto as he slept. But yes, what Naruto said made sense. Sasuke felt Naruto was like a challenge. Sasuke was dominant, and Naruto wasn't. It was a way to keep the dobe in his place. Sasuke smirked in order to hide the fact that he felt irked that Naruto had come up with what his own mind could not.

"Yes. A challenge. Obviously I will win because I am the best at everything,"
Sasuke added haughtily. Naruto's face turned red. Sasuke couldn't tell if it was because of a blush or because of anger. Naruto muttered something about "we'll see about that," and proceeded to strip to his boxers and begin to try and catch fish, as though to say "Okay.
I'll play along."

Sasuke would never admit to how much fun he had while watching Naruto make a complete fool out of himself by jumping around in the water in order to catch their lunch, but Sasuke felt a lot more at ease. There was now an unspoken understanding (or at least, he thought there was considering that this WAS Naruto and he wasn't the smartest guy around) about what was going on between the two of them. It was a challenge. Nothing more.

Although there was much that happened between the time that they were out catching fish, and when team 7 finally managed to get to the tower with help from Kabuto ((AN: as you probably all know from reading the manga/watching the anime)), nothing more was exchanged between Naruto and Sasuke. Naruto had completely forgotten anything having to do with Sasuke as the three of them waited anxiously in line, all feeling extremely tired, and wanting an actual meal. Those fish had been barely enough to keep them going, and they were now being asked to fight again right away?

Sasuke felt the most miserable of all, standing there with the others who had managed to make it to the tower. Fighting the Mist-nin had had a poor reaction with his body, newly affected by the poisonous cursed seal. Naruto had seemed oblivious, much to Sasuke's relief. He didn't want to be seen weak in front of anyone, especially not Naruto. However, Sakura seemed to notice since she had been with him when he had been infected with the seal. Despite her whispered mutterings about the fact that he should not participate, Sasuke vehemently disagreed with her. He knew he could do this. He had to do this.

After slapping down Sakura’s hand when she attempted to bring attention to the cursed seal and the problems it could cause, Naruto finally noticed the argument between his other two teammates. Sasuke felt somewhat annoyed as Naruto sided with Sakura, and then Naruto proceeded to even yell at him because she was just concerned for him after all. Sasuke felt annoyed, but he explained that he wanted to be able to fight those who were strong in order to become stronger.

"I want to fight you too, Naruto," Sasuke felt himself saying. The look on Naruto's face was one that Sasuke was not used to seeing directed at him. Naruto's face went from one of surprise to one of excitement. Naruto merely nodded and then proceeded to stick up for him, changing sides quickly. Sasuke smirked to himself. Naruto's weakest point when it came to Sasuke was a good challenge.

The preliminary rounds of the Chuunin exams were a seemingly long process for those involved, but in reality, it did not last more than a few hours. Sasuke had to leave after his curse seal acted up, and, after being knocked unconscious from the other seal that Kakashi put on him in order to prevent the first from activating, he was taken to the hospital under a guard of ANBU. Of course, Naruto and Sakura did not know this. And if Sasuke could help it – they never would.

After the end of the Chuunin exams, having heard that Sasuke had had to leave, Naruto went to visit Sasuke in the hospital in order to kill two birds with one stone by checking up on Sasuke, and while he was there, ask Kakashi to train him. However, the stupid medics hadn't let him in to see Sasuke.

Naruto's loudness traveled down the hallway before Kakashi got there. He sighed; he knew what Naruto would want to ask him. After all, Naruto would not want Kakashi to train Sasuke over him. So when Naruto came bounding up to him, wanting to know about training, Kakashi told Naruto that there were other things that he needed to do, and the accusatory look as Naruto blank point figured out that Kakashi was going to train Sasuke instead, hurt the silver-haired jounin at the look of anger and disappointment directed at him. That was not to say that he had not been prepared. He had figured that Naruto would not be pleased with his choice of training Sasuke instead of Naruto, so he had called Ebisu to help the number one unpredictable ninja. As much as he hated to admit it, there were things that Kakashi just felt that he could not teach Naruto. The basics of how to be a shinobi being one of them.

He was a bit miffed at the strange greeting that Naruto gave Ebisu, especially the underlying sense of hostility between the two. Kakashi also noted the words "Harem no jutsu" and stored them in the back of his mind as he wondered what other techniques of Naruto's he had yet to see.

Kakashi watched in bemusement as Naruto left fuming about Ebisu, wondering what exactly he had missed between the two, and chuckling to himself. Ebisu did seem to have a stick shoved up his anal cavity, but he would be a good teacher for Naruto. And it was a good way for him to separate Naruto and Sasuke. He had a feeling something more had happened between the two of them during the Chuunin exam, and he didn't want to have to train the two of them when they were both acting so stubborn.

Kakashi had decided to train Sasuke during the break period rather than Naruto for obvious reasons. First off, Sasuke had the sharingan, and since he happened to be the only other person that happened to have said item, he felt it only natural that he train Sasuke to use it effectively. Second off, Sasuke already knew that Kakashi was aware of what was going on between the boys, and he wanted a chance to talk to Sasuke about what had happened. Besides, he wasn’t even sure yet if Naruto knew what was going on. He wouldn’t put it past Sasuke to keep Naruto in the dark.

If Kakashi were lucky, Sasuke would wake up soon and they would be able to begin the training sooner rather than later. He knew that Sasuke would not want to stay cooped up for too much longer.

- - - - - - - - - - - -


Kakashi was rather surprised when Ebisu showed up on his doorstep the following morning, smiling like the cat that ate the canary.

"I thought Naruto would want to be training non-stop with the final Chuunin exam only a month away," Kakashi had said, trying to keep the accusatory tone out of his voice, but failing. He had honestly expected more of Ebisu than this.

"Oh, I'm sure he is. However, fortunately for Naruto, a better sensei has come along to teach him," Ebisu said smiling, drawing out his words as though trying to get Kakashi intrigued so that he would begin questioning him. After all, Ebisu himself had been slightly miffed with the situation. When Kakashi had asked him to train one of his students, he had done so only because he felt that perhaps if he had the opportunity to straighten Naruto out, Konohamaru would also straighten out once his so called "boss" did. However, he had gained a slightly higher opinion about Naruto due to Konohamaru's praise and by watching Naruto train during the short time that he had supervised him.

Watching as Ebisu smirked smugly, obviously pleased with himself, Kakashi sighed, and decided to humor Ebisu. He pretended to be really curious as to who this mysterious person was, rather than show how annoyed he truly felt.

"Who is this better teacher?" Kakashi asked in a bored tone. He was rather concerned about Naruto.

"Jiraiya-sama." Kakashi, much to Ebisu's pleasure, was startled.

"Jiraiya-sama?" Kakashi asked in surprised. He knew that Sandaime had been looking for the man for sometime. For him to appear to teach Naruto helped further confirm something that Kakashi had always suspected but had never been sure of since the very first time he had actually came face to face with Naruto.

"Jiraiya-sama asked me not to tell Sandaime that he was here. However, since he did not give specifics, I figured I could at least tell you. You are the boy's sensei after all," Ebisu said. Kakashi smiled beneath his mask. After seeing the strange interaction between Naruto and Ebisu, he had found Konohamaru and asked him what he knew about how the two of them met. He figured since Konohamaru was Naruto's shadow, it was only fitting that Naruto must have run into the elite teacher due to Konohamaru.

Kakashi had laughed himself to death when he found out that Ebisu was a closet pervert, according to Konohamaru, the discovery coming about when Naruto had effectively distracted the teacher into being beaten at the hands of his harem no jutsu. Konohamaru had also hinted at the fact that Ebisu quite often referred to Naruto as a monster, and a headache to Konoha, but added that Ebisu-san probably only thought that because Naruto had beaten him, and Ebisu-san was just a poor loser. Kakashi knew better of course. Ebisu was clearly one of the ones that still held biases against Naruto because of the Kyuubi. So when Ebisu called Naruto "the boy", but more specifically, the way that he said it respectfully and even affectionately, Kakashi knew that Naruto had managed to win another person over.

"Thank you for telling me. This helps me to further confirm something," Kakashi said. Ebisu pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, looking confused.

"What does it help confirm?"

"Trust me, when I find out, everyone will know," Kakashi said cryptically. Ebisu merely shrugged and vanished with a poof.

"Trust me, once I have proof that Naruto is my old sensei's son, I will make sure that everyone knows it. Especially Naruto – he will finally know about his family," Kakashi muttered to himself.

- - - - - - - - - - - -


Kakashi left Konoha. He knew that training Sasuke in or near the village would be too dangerous, especially considering that Orochimaru was clearly after the youngest Uchiha prodigy. He knew that if he left a few scattered clues that Sasuke would come to find him, which Sasuke did very quickly.

Sasuke's body still felt stiff from being in the hospital, but he managed to loosen some of his muscles on the way out to meet Kakashi past the Valley of the End, towards the Cliffs of Insight. The clues that Kakashi had left made it clear that Sasuke was not to tell anyone of his whereabouts. All the better for Sasuke. He disliked distractions when training.

Kakashi and Sasuke trained almost non-stop for an entire week before an opportunity came about for Kakashi to question Sasuke about Naruto.

The first three days of training had been the hardest on Sasuke. His body was sore from all the unusually rough physical activities that Kakashi had demanded of him. He didn't mind it though. At night, as soon as his head hit his pillow, he fell asleep. However, as his body slowly adjusted to the training, and after he had managed to duplicate his sensei's chidori, Sasuke's chakra had been drained, and Kakashi had finally lightened his workload. That night, Sasuke did not fall asleep right away, and his mind wandered to Naruto. He hadn't asked what Naruto was doing, but he was curious why his fellow teammate was not there training with them. In all honesty, he was too busy to miss him, but he was worried about him. Once he did fall asleep, he began to dream about Naruto. It started off pleasant enough, (with Sasuke reliving the two sexual experiences they’d had) when his dream had turned into a terrible nightmare. Sasuke woke with a startled yell.

"Stop! Naruto!" He cried out. Kakashi was beside Sasuke in an instant. It only took a moment for him to realize that Sasuke had had a nightmare, but considering the trauma of Sasuke's childhood, he was far from brushing off a dream. Also, Sasuke did know how to use the Sharingan now. With all the rigorous training he had been going through, it was quite possible that Sasuke had finally reached "that" point in the stage of Sharingan use.

"It's alright," Kakashi soothed as best he could. "What happened?" Kakashi murmured. Sasuke blushed and looked away. Once he had awakened, and realized that he had been dreaming, he felt utterly embarrassed.

"Nothing," Sasuke muttered before turning away from Kakashi in his sleeping bag. Kakashi sighed. He debated with himself from divulging a sharingan secret without knowing the exact content of Sasuke's dream. However, with what had been going on between Sasuke and Naruto, he had honestly expected Sasuke to have "that" dream sometime soon anyway.

"Did you dream about Naruto obtaining that sharingan and then using it to kill you?" Kakashi whispered softly. The look on Sasuke's face as he turned around to look at Kakashi was more than enough of an affirmative response to know that that was indeed what Sasuke had dreamt.

"How did you know?" Sasuke asked. Kakashi sighed, wishing that his former teammate, Obito, was still around.

"**After the sharingan has been awakened in the iris of your eye, it triggers a chain reaction to the vitreous cavity which is the inner part of your eye that lies between what one might call the front and the back of the eye. It is made up of a gel like substance. Now, the difference between someone who has a normal eye and someone who has the sharingan is very simple. The gel-like substance in your vitreous cavity is something that has been formed by a special, red chakra. This chakra is not naturally occurring in humans. However, one of your ancestors happened to develop the technique to alter his genetic code to allow this red chakra to form with the gel like substance. The reason that you are not born with the ability to activate the sharingan is because, like normal gel in the vitreous cavity, it is actually rather firm at birth and only softens as you age. As it begins to soften, the red chakra infiltrates into the gel, causing the user to have a greater perception. It is almost like an optical wave being transmitted by your eyes, using a sort of radar in order to predict your opponent’s moves due to your heightened sensitivity to certain wavelengths that your opponent gives off," Kakashi took in a deep breath, wondering how much he should tell Sasuke - and honestly wondering how much he already knew. He continued.

"Certain events, and even people, trigger emotions. When these emotions are triggered inside the body, a chain of events occurs. Hormones are released within the body to help it cope with whatever the emotion the body must deal with. These hormones eventually get back to the eye. The strongest emotions: anger and fear, as well as affection and possession, trigger different hormones. These hormones are the strongest, and affect the sharingan. These hormones and red chakra mix until they form a hard substance. This hard substance is an image of the item that causes these emotions. In this case, for you, it seems to be Naruto. With the amount of training you have been doing with the sharingan, and the emotions that have obviously been trudging through your body since several weeks ago have finally gotten a chance to mesh that substance to burn the image of Naruto into your retina. His image has now become a catalyst linked to your sharingan,"

"Wait a second," Sasuke interjected, sounding panicked, "you mean I can't use my sharingan now without thinking about Naruto?" Kakashi shook his head.

"I wasn't finished yet. Naruto is the one that causes the strongest emotions to rise within you. Therefore his image is the strongest in your mind. It's only natural considering the first time that you used the sharingan was during the mission to Wave Country during a battle when you were protecting Naruto. He is forever linked with your sharingan. However," Kakashi said a bit harshly, stopping Sasuke from interrupting again, "it does not mean that he is the only thing that affects your sharingan. Other people, or even objects, will be burned into your retina, and they probably already have some sort of image floating around in the gel substance of your vitreous cavity."

"So basically Naruto is connected to my sharingan because he is the most important person to me?" Kakashi raised his eyebrow.

"You consider Naruto to be the most important person to you?" Kakashi asked, truly curious.

"I guess so," Sasuke shrugged. Kakashi had never hinted that Naruto was Sasuke's most important person, only that he brought about strong emotions within him. Though it did make sense, considering his dream.

"Your dream," Kakashi began, getting back to the original reason he had started the conversation in the first place, "is triggered once the image is burned into your mind. For whatever reason, quite possibly some sort of side effect of faulty genetic reconstruction on the part of the man who first obtained the sharingan, each person does eventually dream about the person they care about most, and that person gaining and then obtaining the sharingan to kill that person," Kakashi could see the question forming on Sasuke’s lips, finding gaps within his explanation. However, Sasuke quickly closed his mouth before he said anything. Perhaps he was being paranoid, but Kakashi had a sneaking suspicion that Sasuke wanted to ask about the mangekyou sharingan. In reality, after having a dream that signified who one's most important person was, to gain even higher sharingan power, the sharingan user had to forcibly rip the image of their most important person from their retina. To do so, that person had to personally stop the heart of the one they cherished the most, and then touch the stilled heart with their bare hands.

Kakashi shook his head. He was being paranoid. Sasuke would not ask anything like that. The mangekyou was something terrible, and something he hoped he would never have to explain to Sasuke.

"You're not explaining everything," Sasuke finally accused. Kakashi nodded, and then shrugged.

"Not tonight. You need to sleep in order to be prepared for training tomorrow," Kakashi evaded. Sasuke merely nodded, not fully satisfied with the answer, but knowing it was useless to argue. He rolled over on his mat and went to sleep. Kakashi sighed. Things were really getting complicated. He almost wished that Sasuke were Naruto. Naruto would have been happy with “things are moving in your eye that make you dream about your most important person,” and he wouldn’t have had to explain anything else. Sasuke was different. He wanted to know everything. Not that Naruto didn’t want to learn. He was just too bouncy and energetic to sit still for more than 13.46 seconds. Kakashi knew. He’d done several observations of Naruto and found 13.46 seconds to be the average time Naruto was able to sit still.

Thinking of Naruto made Kakashi wonder how Naruto’s training was going. Kakashi sincerely hoped that Naruto and Jiraiya were getting along okay.


Next chapter: Restless Fighters


**AN about the dreams/sharingan link:First of all, this is not mentioned in the Naruto series. A lot of people thought this was actually in the manga/anime, and I’m very flattered you thought so, but it is not.

Second, feel free to ask if you are confused about the whole dream thing. Basically, the sharingan is affected by emotions. The person or thing that brings about the strongest emotions acts as the trigger to the sharingan’s power. However, if the sharingan user kills the person that triggers those emotions, the sharingan becomes stronger because the image of that person is forcibly ripped from their own mind when they commit murder, resulting in the magenkyou. Dreaming about one’s most important person is the “trigger” notifying the sharingan user that it is possible for them to obtain the mangekyou. (And for those of you wondering, yes, I made all of that up too. I’m flattered that so many of you thought my explanation was actually part of the real manga series. It’s not. But thanks to those who thought it was.)