The Sound of Dreams

AN: Hi there, posting this early (way earlier) since I am going to be out of town this weekend. Had company all week (my nephew) so I didn't get to write much. *frowns* I need to do some serious make up time.

Allys: The sorting system Naruto had in chapter 19: He pulled out the two packs containing the scrolls and started to sort through them. He made three piles which he mentally labeled “Boring”, “Interesting” and “What the hell?” He scowled at the number of scrolls that ended up in the third pile.

Mike: You got it exactly about Sasuke. He wants someone strong, but hates it when he thinks they might be stronger than him!

Hope you all like this chapter! As always, thanks for reading and ever so much for your reviews!!


Chapter 31


Sasuke watched as the clone appeared and the Rasengan forming in Naruto's hand slowly changed with the blonde's wind chakra. Knowing better than to try to use his lightning jutsu against a wind based attack, he made the hand seals for one of his more powerful fire based techniques. Once he disrupted Naruto's jutsu and eliminated his clone, then he would bring the Chidori against him.

Even as he formed the seals, a part of his brain was screaming at him to stop, was telling him that this was going too far. He drew in a breath just as the wavering spiral arms formed on the Rasengan and blew fire into the wind jutsu. He was expecting the wind to amplify his attack and to blast the area around the blonde, but he didn't believe that it would harm the other shinobi too much. The Kyuubi vessel had a tendency to weather fire attacks well.

The flames hit the area and seemed to be sucked into the swirling vortex in Naruto's hand. Eyes widening as the sphere quickly lost stability, he did the only thing of which he could think. He threw the ball away from him. It spun through the air, flying by Sasuke as the dark-haired ninja dodged out of the way. It impacted the far wall of the training grounds and erupted.

The swirling ball swelled up like a miniature version of when Rasengan had hit Chidori at the Valley of the End. Only this time it wasn't a ball of light but of flames. After attaining about four meters in diameter, the ball burst outward, spreading flames in an intense flash fire that left only ash behind.

Sasuke's eyes widened as the wall of flames raced at him, he knew even with his speed that he didn't have time to avoid the inferno. Something hard and heavy plowed into him, covering him protectively as he felt the heat rush by.

After a moment of silence, he opened dark eyes to find himself buried within Naruto's embrace. There was a shimmering red hemisphere of chakra surrounding them, sheltering them as the flames died out. A blonde head turned and red eyes looked at him searchingly, checking for signs of injury.

Sasuke pressed his face back into the warm area of Naruto's neck. "Why, dobe? Why do you keep saving me? Why haven't you left me after all I've done to you?" He didn't understand. After everything he had done to push the other way, he kept coming back to him.

Naruto huffed a laugh into his shoulder and tightened clawed hands into his shirt. "I already told you. You might be a bastard, but you're my bastard."

It was then that the smell of burnt cloth and charred flesh made its scent known to Sasuke's nose. Eyes widening, he quickly maneuvered out from under the blonde and rose to his knees. The red chakra shield around them dissipated, but the presence of power stayed. Naruto remained on his side, not trusting himself to move just yet.

Sasuke's breath caught as he saw the burnt silk of the blonde's shirt partially melted into his slowly healing skin. He gingerly pulled the material away, trying to make sure that the reforming flesh didn't enclose the cloth. Several inches of blonde hair was missing, but it was still long enough to hang over his shoulders. Sasuke didn't want to admit that he was partially relieved. He had gotten used to grooming his dobe in the mornings.

He paused when he realized he wasn't sure if the other boy was still his dobe. He finished stripping the tatters of both shirts from the tanned back and watched with some wonder as the skin re-knit before his eyes.

"Why the hell did you attack me, teme?" came Naruto's uncertain, muffled voice from the floor.

The pale features pulled into a frown. "You attacked me first," he protested indignantly.

The body shifted and suddenly hurt red eyes were staring up at him. "I did not! I was forming my new jutsu to show you how far I'd gotten when suddenly you're fire balling my ass."

Sasuke felt a fist clench around his heart and couldn't help but feel slightly nauseous. "You... you were showing me..."

"Yeah, you stupid bastard. If I wanted to attack you, I'd come over and beat the hell out of you. I wouldn't start throwing Rasengan balls at you." The scowl made the deeper whisker marks look more sinister as the fangs peeked out between pale pink lips.

Naurto slowly sat up as the last of his skin mended, leaving behind a rosy hued soreness that he knew would be tender for a while. He looked over the shreds of his clothes and closed his eyes. He remained quiet for a moment longer before murmuring. "We need to talk, Sasuke. We need to get things ironed out between us. I don't want this to happen again."

The dark-haired ninja shifted uncomfortably for a moment, before relenting. He nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

They slowly pulled away from each other and got to their feet before surveying the damage to the training room. Two sets of eyes widened in astonishment.

There was a curved indentation in both the wall and floor where the rock had been literally melted away, molten stone still dripping onto the floor. Scorch marks covered the rest of the area and anything that hadn't been stone had been wiped from existence. Even the wooden door was nothing but ash drifting lazily in the breeze and the burnt marks continued down the hall a ways.

"Kami-sama," Naruto breathed.

"It's like Orochimaru said," Sasuke uttered quietly. "'Apart they are deadly, but manageable. Together...' Together we are..."

"Where we're supposed to be," Naruto finished with conviction.

"I was going to stay 'unstoppable,'" he shrugged, still not sure where he now stood with the blonde.

"Nah, there is always someone else stronger, no matter how strong you are. I started to understand that when we met Haku. But that doesn't mean I can't train and become the strongest that I possibly can." He looked at Sasuke and narrowed his eyes as the other's words came back to him, but he forced himself not to react again. They would work things out. And if they didn't, then he would have to kick the bastard's ass to prove himself.

Sasuke surveyed the room one last time. "This is far superior to what I was going to work on," he admitted reluctantly.

"Of course it is," Naruto said a little smugly. "I was using the new jutsu that I had developed."

"Hn. I'm still surprised that the dead last in class is capable of developing anything," he said in a dry but teasing tone, hoping his friend would be able to pick up on it.

Naruto slid him a sideways look. "Arrogant prick. If you think about it, I've been developing my own jutsu's since I was twelve."

"I don't think your bimbo jutsu counts," he demurred.

"It doesn't have anything to do with the sexy jutsu. It has to do with knowing the nature of your own chakra well enough to develop a technique that does what you want it to," he retorted calmly.

Sasuke tilted his head slightly in acknowledgment of the point.

"I was always last in my classes because, apart from Iruka, none of my teachers could see past the Kyuubi and teach me anything. By the time I was in Iruka's class, I was already way behind." He looked over at Sasuke. "It was only after I was assigned to Team 7 that I started to catch up. Suddenly, I had a more immediate reason to try harder, not just the vague idea that I had to prove the village wrong. I had one person that I wanted to prove myself to."

Sasuke looked away, not wanting to see the naked emotion in Naruto's eyes. "I was jealous," he finally murmured. "Even with all the training Kakashi gave me, even though I was supposed to be a genius, you were starting to surpass me." He knew that Naruto would understand that he was both referring to then as well as now.

The older ninja cleared his throat and stared at the cooling stone. "Ever since I was little, it was always a competition on my part with my brother. Father acknowledged him, father praised him. Even though everyone calls me a genius, I'm not. Not like Itachi. I was never good enough because I was never as good as he was. That's why I always have to be the best. Because if I’m not, then I'm not worthy of being an Uchiha."

"That's bullshit. You are who you are. As long as you are doing everything within your power to be your best, then you are worthy." Naruto placed his hand on the shoulder of his stiff, unmoving friend. "So, we're in agreement then," he said, trying to lighten the mood. "I'm a dobe and you're a bastard."

"I guess so," he said quietly, still thinking about what had been said.

"And together we're....unstoppable," he added with a grin.

Sasuke gave him a shadow of his usual cocky smirk.

"Come on. Let's go eat dinner and get some rest. We have a lot of training to do starting tomorrow," Naruto urged before heading toward the empty doorway.

Sasuke lingered just a moment, staring at the wall before turning to follow his companion.

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"C'mon, dobe. I can't do anything until you can convert the damn thing," Sasuke said a bit impatiently.

They had been working several days now on trying to combine their two techniques, but Naruto's jutsu was still too unstable to safely add fire yet.

"Just pull up the damn chakra and add the wind element to it. I do it all the time with Chidori. It isn't that hard."

"Dammit, it's not the same thing, teme! I don't just pull it up and convert it. I have to pull it up, get it spinning in fifty directions at once, keep it compressed and then add wind to it."

Sasuke lifted an eyebrow. He hadn't realized that the jutsu required all of that. How in the hell had someone like the dobe actually mastered it? He then mentally kicked himself for the thought. He had to stop underestimating his companion. Not only had he mastered the basic damn move, but could use it many more times a day than he himself could use Chidori.

"You just have to compartmentalize your brain. Force it to think of more than one thing at a time." He grimaced at the 'no fucking shit' look he got from the blonde. He repressed a sigh as Naruto let the jutsu collapse so he could rest a moment.

Sasuke watched as the blonde sat heavily down on the soot streaked stone floor. He had replaced the melted kanji that had decorated the far wall so that they were once again training in a sealed area. "Look, it's like patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time. You just have to get one started and maintain it as you move on to the next," he said, trying to sound helpful, but coming off as irritable.

Naruto blinked at him for a moment then started to pat his head and rub his stomach. However after just a few seconds, the hand on his stomach stuttered and the other hand started rubbing his hair.

Sasuke tried to hold back the overwhelming urge to drop his head in his hands disparagingly. Instead he closed his eyes and took a deep, calming breath. "Maybe you should use a clone for that, too," he derided scornfully. "And while you're at it, get one to walk and chew bubble gum for you."

Naruto opened his mouth to deliver a scathing retort and froze that way. Sasuke frowned after a moment in concern as the blonde didn't move, mouth still hanging open. Suddenly blue eyes widened in an epiphany. "That's it!!"

Sasuke was abruptly knocked to the floor as the bundle of energy glomped him. "Teme! You're a genius!"

"So I've been telling you," he murmured, unsure what was going through the other boy's head. His thoughts were quickly derailed as a pair of enthusiastic lips sealed to his for a breathless kiss. Just as he recovered enough to start to respond, Naruto was up and running back to where he had been practicing.

Two clones formed and they immediately huddled around a broad tanned hand. Sasuke allowed his Sharingan to come to life as a ball of chakra formed. He watched as one clone spun the strands in conflicting directions while Naruto concentrated on keeping it compressed in a tight sphere. The second clone then began molding wind into the mix. Spiral arms started forming like some mutated shuriken and wind kicked up in the room as the air swirled and pulled into the creation. It resembled a small hurricane with no eye in the storm.

'That's it!' Sasuke thought excitedly.

The blonde let out a startled exclamation and the jutsu swirled apart, tearing through the clones and knocking their creator down to the floor. "Dammit, teme! Don't do that!"

Sasuke blinked in confusion until he realized that he had said his thoughts out loud. "Hn, you need to work on your concentration," he said sourly, trying to not to look embarrassed over his outburst.

Naruto gave a happy laugh as he picked himself up. "You can't help it that you were overcome by the awesomeness that is Uzumaki Naruto."

He rolled his eyes at the other's antics. "Just do it again so we can move on to the next stage."

"Damn, you're bossy," he grumbled. His hands moved to make the seals, but instead of just two clones, he formed well over a hundred.

Sasuke lifted an eyebrow. "What are you doing?"

"Now that I know what I need to do, I just need to practice it," Naruto replied with a shrug. "So, I'm going to practice." With that, all of the clones grouped together in threes and started training the jutsu.

Sasuke looked around in confusion as dozens of Rasengan whorled into existence. "Why are you training like this?" he asked.

Naruto shot him a grin before returning his attention back to his training. "Because it speeds up my training. I 'remember' all the information that my clones learn whenever they disperse. I can quite literally get in hundreds of hours of training a day. When I first started working with wind, I was training with a thousand clones at a time."

Sasuke's eyes widened in both understanding and a touch of reluctant admiration. "That's how you learned to teleport in a day."

The blonde gave him a distracted nod of affirmation as he worked the ball of swirling wind into being. "If you want," he said absently, "you can go get dinner ready or something. Give me a day or two and we'll be ready to combine our techniques."

Sasuke gave a quirk of his lips at the off-handed dismissal. Knowing that he couldn't leave until the barrier was dropped, he tried to find an unoccupied corner to work on some of his katas. He couldn't help but be amused as the work of the clones around him suffered due to their inattention to their training.

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Naruto sighed as he picked up the green leafy vegetable. He hated vegetables. If he didn't buy them, however, Sasuke would start nagging him again. He blinked as he thought that he would never have described his friend as 'nagging'.

He smiled to himself as he felt a warm feeling in his chest at the thought. Sasuke, no matter how much he tried to deny it, cared about him. Him, Naruto. Demon vessel for the Kyuubi. To have someone care about him like that made his heart want to soar. Even if the one who cared could be a bastard at times. Not to mention had more issues than a news stand. Then again, he could almost say that about himself.

He just stopped himself from tossing the wad of leafy something in the basket he was carrying. 'A young lady wouldn't act like that,' he told himself. Not that he really knew how a young lady would act while shopping.

They had progressed to the point that they were starting to work together to combine their different elemental chakras. Naruto thought it was fitting that his element fed Sasuke's. It was further proof to him that they were meant to be together. Whether as friends, rivals, lovers or whatever else they wanted to call each other, their lives fed into each other. Made each other whole.

He picked up a rather large radish, inspected it and then added it to the rest. He paid the middle aged woman that stood by the wooden bins of the outdoor market before moving on to the next merchant.

Ever since the incident where his dark-haired friend had mistakenly thought he was starting a fight, Sasuke had been strangely attentive. Not the attentive where he did everything for the blonde (aside from brushing his hair every morning and harping on him to take his vitamins), but rather the way that he watched what he did and listened to what he said.

He looked over the selection of shrimp and squid and wondered if he could afford to splurge on some meat. The fish that he caught regularly from the stream was plenty for what they needed, but he was ready for something different. Maybe he should just try to catch a few rabbits or squirrels and save the money. It wasn't as if either of them were doing missions anymore to earn cash.

He had to admit that the extra attention was a bit unnerving at first. Almost as bad as when he spent the entire week staring at him after the first time they had went all the way during sex. It was almost as if the bastard was looking for something, or perhaps seeing something that he hadn't previously. Naruto wasn't sure, but he hoped he either found it or came to terms with it soon because it was starting to seriously creep him out.

He wondered if he should buy some tea. They were running low. Naruto himself could survive with just water or perhaps some milk. Sasuke however seemed to need the stuff every morning or he was snappish until he finally got all his faculties working. Naruto snickered as he thought that perhaps he should pour some down his lover's throat after sex.

The shrill scream of a horse pulled his attention away from his thoughts. A pair of horses had been pulling a wagon full of goods down the road when something had apparently startled one of them. Horses weren't rare but neither were they common in this area. The spooked horse started to run, transmitting its fear to its harness companion. There was no one at the reigns but a man had started to run after the pair.

Naruto started towards the animals, intent on helping, when he saw the young girl playing to the side of the dirt avenue. Eyes widening as he realized that she was directly in the path of the frightened creatures, he started to dash her way.

He pushed chakra to his legs, forcing himself to move faster to get to her before she could be run down. He leapt the last few meters, scooping her up as he jumped again and flipped to put his feet under him as he landed against the side of a post. He immediately sprang away, leaping over the wagon that was too close for comfort before landing behind the rampaging animals.

He was about to move toward the horses again when he saw a few of the men he had spotted on his last trip here converge on the scared animals. He made sure that the girl was okay before checking his basket. Not a single nasty vegetable had spilled. Damn.

He straightened up to see that a few ninja were looking him over suspiciously. His hand immediately went to the back of his head as a sheepish smile crossed his feminine features. The smile dropped as shinobi started to head his way.

"Shit." Unable to think of anything else, his fingers flew through a few seals and he disappeared in a puff of smoke.

TBC