Flick Through

:: Flick Through III
:: Sekai (World)

--

Author: Ms Trick
Notes: I thrive on reviews and cupcakes. I would be honoured to accept either.

- - - - -

:: Reno ::

After a brief debate and digging their toes in the cool sand, Sasuke’s house was chosen for the ‘sleepover’ seeing as he had only one laidback foster father and an absentee brother while Gaara had nosy siblings, Sakura had protective parents, Lee had a father that would be constantly popping in to check that they had the required snacks/refreshments/movies/energy/board games, and Tsunade would never let Naruto live it down if he had a girl stay over.

All four boys winced at Sakura’s parking job in front of Kakashi’s house. Gaara quietly breathed in a big sigh of relief and tried not to look at Lee too much as Sasuke bypassed the front porch and led them into the garage.

Sakura could make out the shape of a small car in the dark and, being careful to avoid walking into its side mirrors, banged her shin on what her 2007 self assumed was Sasuke’s motorcycle--something she had fantasized riding on the back of since he’d bought it last summer.

Sasuke unlocked the door and entered the dimly lit kitchen, with the others following him gingerly. Naruto started flicking on lights and giddily made his way to the fridge. Getting superpowers had put him in a good mood...and made him hungry.

“Sasuke,” Kakashi called from the hall. “Are you going out again tonight?”

“No, we’ll be staying here,” the dark-haired teen called back as he took a seat on the countertop.

“Right. I’m heading up to bed. And Naruto, don’t eat the chicken. I need it for tomorrow’s dinner.”

Gaara and Lee had taken seats at the little kitchen table and were absently picking at the bowl of grapes. Both looked over to see Naruto grumbling and pushing a plate of chicken back into the fridge. Sakura tapped her foot nervously as she listened to Kakashi’s lazy footsteps potter up the stairs.

Naruto snagged a pair of chilled apples from a drawer at the bottom of the fridge and then ambled over to leap onto the wide marble countertop next to Sasuke.

“You’re kind of like that scientist that explains everything at the end of a superhero movie,” Naruto chirped to Sakura through a bite of his apple.

“Start explaining,” Sasuke ordered, folding his arms.

“Please,” Lee added, shooting Sakura a friendly smile.

In a very concise and intellectual manner (if she did say so herself), Sakura summarized Konoha’s history, the definition of a ninja’s role in society, the position of Hokage, the concept of chakra, and the basics of ninjustu, taijutsu, and genjutsu. Then, getting to her point, Sakura brought up--

“Wait, wait, wait,” Naruto said, waving a hand to cut her off. “Tsunade is the leader of the village?”

“The Fifth Hokage, that’s right,” Sakura said, tucking a pink strand of hair out of her face. “She’s not your sister though, and she’s much older. Jiraiya, too.”

“Am I older?”

“Actually, you’re sixteen.”

“Wait, so--”

“Shut up and let her get on with it,” Sasuke interrupted, reaching up and pulling Naruto’s goggles down over his face.

“So, Tsunade performed a complicated jutsu that allowed me to project my persona and the chakra attached to it to this time, the future.”

The blonde got his goggles back on top of his head and gave Sasuke a dark look.

“How is this your future?” Gaara asked, tiredly slumped in his chair. “We can’t summon oversized animals or replace ourselves with inanimate objects...and no history book I’ve read has ever mentioned a Konoha.”

Sakura sighed. “From what I can figure, I’m not in my future, I’m in a future. But if this is the dimension Kabuto was sent to, then it’s not really an issue.”

“Kabuto’s the one that got sent here first, correct? The bad guy?” Lee inserted, his hand raised as though he was in class.

“Right. Konoha and the Hidden Village of Sound are currently at war. The leader of the Sound Village, Orochimaru, sent Kabuto into the future to kill the doubles of ninja that could sway the fight in Konoha’s favour.”

“Looost me,” Naruto sung, shoving the second apple into his mouth.

“Uh...me too,” Lee chimed.

Sasuke eyed at the apple clenched in the blonde’s teeth for a second. He reached out and pulled it out, leaving a large chunk of the red fruit behind for Naruto to chew on. Naruto swiped the back of his hand across the juice splattered on his chin and Sasuke took his own bite.

Sakura clenched a fist and fished out some patience. “Even if this isn’t our future, it’s still a world with many parallels. The theory is that these parallels are sent out like radio waves, meaning that if Kabuto kills people here, the impact could easily ripple back to our world and drastically affect the war.”

She exhaled noisily and continued. “Like I said, Tsunade had me project myself into this world and told me I had enough chakra to activate the chakras of only four others...namely, you four.”

“Are we going to remember who we were in the other world?” Gaara asked. His calculating, kohl-rimmed eyes appeared even darker in the kitchen’s overhead lights.

Sakura clapped her hands together and grinned at them. “That would be why I called a sleepover. Your memories will worm their way from your subconscious minds thanks to the boost of chakra I gave you. You won’t be your ninja selves...but my chakra did manifest as your trademark abilities and you should remember how to use them properly thanks to your dreams.”

“Your chakra? Oh yeah, the weirdo tattoo. My mom’ll kill me for that, by the way,” Naruto said, tossing the apple core into the sink and waving his arm in front of him.

Sakura frowned and caught his wrist to get a good look at it. On the exact place she had injected her chakra into him was a small black replica of the Konoha leaf.

“Are all your marks this symbol?” She asked curiously.

“Mine isn’t,” Gaara said, stretching in his chair and tiredly glancing at the clock on the microwave, which was blinking 8:20 p.m. He squinted at it uncomprehending for a few seconds before realising that it was wrong. Regardless, he was tired.

Sasuke hadn’t said much throughout her entire explanation, leaving the shrewd remarks to Gaara and the bombardment of questions to Naruto and Lee. Sakura knew she didn’t have his trust yet; the quiet, sombre attitude implied that Sasuke was still collecting data, so to speak, and wouldn’t come to a decision about where he stood until a little later on.

“Naruto! We match!” Lee said, enthusiastically getting up and shoving his long green shirtsleeve up to bear his forearm.

He situated himself next to the blonde and the two held out their arms with the palms of their hands facing the ceiling. A puzzled frown was settling onto Sakura’s face as she looked down at the twin Konoha emblems.

Gaara slowly ambled over to the other four grouped around the counter, his Converses tiredly dragging over the hardwood kitchen floor. Sakura waited expectantly, already guessing what his mark was. The redhead unfolded his arms, and sure enough, the Suna emblem stood stark on the pale skin of his inner forearm.

Lee reached out and gently cupped Gaara’s wrist so as to tilt his arm slightly and bring the tattoo more into his line of sight. Lee ran a hand through his spiky hair as he intently scrutinized the younger teen’s arm and completely missed the pink spots blooming quietly on Gaara’s cheeks.

Sasuke was still casually sitting on the marble countertop with his arms crossed in front of his chest. The black button down was rolled up to his elbows but he made no move to show off his new tattoo. Then Naruto elbowed him in the side and ignored the dark-eyed teen’s glare in favour of getting Sasuke’s arm into a position where Sakura could get a proper view.

She reached out to get a firm grip on Sasuke’s elbow but froze when she caught a glimpse of a dark, inky sound note plainly visible on the teen’s skin.

Her hand lowered and her heart sank with it until she was sure it was lying bare and helpless on the wood floor.

...Maybe recruiting Sasuke hadn’t been such a good idea.

- - - - -

Sakura sat on the comfy couch of Sasuke’s living room, sleepy and deep in thought.

Sasuke and Naruto were grabbing extra blankets and pillows from an upstairs linen closet and Gaara and Lee were still chatting in the kitchen.

She felt the weight of what she hadn’t told them lie heavy on her shoulders. Regardless of what their dreams would show them, she had neglected to mention that Sasuke wasn’t quite on their side in the war of her world.

She wasn’t stupid. When she had first arrived in Reno, she had scouted out the situation and joy had swelled in her chest when she found Naruto and Sasuke both alive and healthy and on good terms with one another. She had been initially wary of including the dark-haired teen but the person he was in this world had let her believe that maybe this Sasuke could be trusted.

She had no idea what the sudden appearance of the tattoos implied. But the fact that Sasuke’s was the emblem of Sound rather than Konoha’s had to mean something.

Naruto dropped the pile of blankets onto the plush carpet in the living room and gave Sakura a grin. Sasuke placed the stack of pillows next to it.

“Y’know, when I look at it I kind of get this warm feeling,” Naruto said, eyes fixed on his tattoo. “Like this symbol really means something to me. What about you, Sasuke?”

Sasuke looked down at his for a minute and shook his head. “Don’t really feel anything. It’s just a mark.”

Hope fluttered in Sakura’s chest.

“I, too, feel a sense of love for this symbol,” Lee said as he wandered in with Gaara.

“Maybe it’s just this particular one?” Naruto suggested.

“No, I feel it with mine too,” Gaara interjected.

“Why is that, Sakura?” Sasuke asked, genuinely curious as to why he could honestly say that the mark on his arm just looked like a sound note and nothing else.

The pink-haired girl looked up at him with an apologetic smile. “No clue.”

Naruto slung an arm around Sasuke’s neck and grinned. “Maybe you really are made of stone, Sasuke,” he teased.

Sasuke smirked into Naruto’s face. “That’s me, the Ice Prince of Reno.”

Gaara snorted and Lee shrugged.

“I don’t get it,” he said.

Naruto let go of Sasuke and said, “Let me demonstrate,” with a flourish.

He cleared his throat, clasped his hands together and gave Sasuke the biggest googly eyes he could. Then in a breathy, high-pitched voice, said:

“Oh, he’s so mysterious! That silky hair I just want to run my hands through! Those dark eyes I could drown in! Those lips that must just be petal soft.”

He leaned in close to Sasuke, blue eyes sparkling, and then hopped to Sasuke’s left. “Maybe if I ogle him from THIS side, he’ll notice me!”

Sasuke folded his arms and turned his head away, trying not to let his wide smile split into laughter. Naruto flung an arm over his eyes in mock woe.

“And the asshole qualities that do attract me so reveal themselves! I guess my number is too low on the fangirl ranking to even be considered! Maybe...Maybe if I wore a little less?” He said devilishly, slowly dragging up the bottom of his orange shirt and exposing his toned stomach.

Sasuke was still grinning with mirth but his eyes roved over the exposed skin with a completely different intention. Naruto caught the look and his eyes glittered hotly. He let his shirt fall back into place and pirouetted towards his best friend.

“Oh my Ice Prince, take me away in the moonlight! Since I know nothing about you, I’ve decided you must be my true love!” He clutched onto Sasuke’s shoulders and gazed deeply into his eyes, somehow managing to keep a straight face.

“I can see your soul and it radiates like diamonds. The hard, cold gems that you remind me of, you complete jerk!” Naruto finally dropped the breathy, girly voice and laughed hard into the side of Sasuke’s arm.

By now, Gaara and Lee were hanging off each other and gasping with laughter. Sasuke had covered his mouth to stifle his own chuckles and even Sakura was laughing, though she realised to some extent that Naruto was making fun of her and her friends.

And suddenly Sakura realised the utter impossibility of this scenario in her world. Her laughter died in her throat and she looked around at the other four teenagers still cracking up.

Could she really do this? Intrude upon the lives of these boys, who were normal and generally happy? Was that fair? She bit her lip and swallowed down a sudden bolt of sadness. There was nothing she could do now. Within a few days, Gaara would remember that he had had to kill people to feel alive; Sasuke would remember the sight of his dead parents and his brother standing over them; Lee would remember being told his dreams had vanished with Gaara’s attack; Naruto would remember that his best friend had put a fist through his chest.

The doorbell rang and Sasuke good-naturedly shoved Naruto off him as he went to answer it. Sakura looked at the doorway Sasuke had exited through when a loud voice was heard:

“Wahoo! We are here to CRASH this party!”


- - - - -