The Sound of Dreams

AN: Hrmm, Had this big, long note all planned out in mind head last night, then I went to bed, didn’t get much sleep, and now can’t remember all of it. Bah.

I hope you all really like this chapter, a lot happens in here. I also wanted to take a moment and thank you all so much for your reviews, they really mean a lot to me! They let me know that what I write has an impact and that someone out there enjoys my mental ramblings!

Oh, last minute pimp for my other stories! Blackmail should be updated Saturday if I can write the chapter (been writing everything practically the day before I post the last few weeks… procrastination at its best!) Also, check out “Not My Lover” if you haven’t yet! It is better than I can make the summary sound, lol.

FanArt: Allys has outdone herself again and drew two pictures, one of Hiroki in color and the other of Sasuke and Hiroki hugging with Sasuke having blue eyes. It is really beautiful!!

http://yaoi.y-gallery.net/view/308708/
http://yaoi.y-gallery.net/view/308713/

Both can also be found on DeviantArt as well. Thank you Allys!!!


Chapter 63


Hiroki took in the four frozen figures on the battlefield. Shikamaru was maintaining the shadow bind on Naruto’s body, Yamato knelt and continued to suppress the red aura that had surrounded his Chichi, Kakashi was staring into his eyes and Sakura was unconscious against the tree trunk.

He had thought that Shikamaru had just been humoring him when he had assigned Hiroki to guard their backs, but he could see now that the teen had actually taken him seriously. It was an unusual feeling to be entrusted with the safety of others by someone who hardly knew you. He felt proud that they had done so and yet scared that he would mess it up somehow.

All of his thoughts came to a halt as he saw a man start to stride out from the trees. He didn’t know who it was, but knew that it wasn’t one of the ninja from Konoha. He quickly moved himself between this older man and his new friends.

The dark-eyed man looked down at him with a sneer. “Move aside, whelp.”

“No,” Hiroki countered firmly. “I won’t let you near them.”

A kunai appeared in the man’s hand and he threw it with a good amount of force.

Hiroki could immediately tell that the trajectory would not take the weapon to him, but rather past him and at the ones behind him. He pushed the chakra out through his wrists and the blade formed. He jumped slightly and knocked the throwing dagger away.

Narrowing his eyes, Kyoshiro took in the form of the small brat with renewed interest. Pulling out more weapons, he let loose a volley of kunai and shuriken, waiting to see what the child would do.

With a slight grimace, the child propelled himself into the air, twisting around to try to deflect the incoming projectiles. His body rippled as metal erupted from flesh, attached by thin, corded muscle and tendons. The newly formed blades darted out in various directions, knocking their targets from the air.

He landed in a crouch with the blades arrayed protectively around him, hovering and ready to strike.

Kyoshiro studied the child closely, trying to find a weakness, a way either through or around his defenses. The child couldn’t have too much chakra, therefore couldn’t be too skilled in ninjutsu.

Hiroki’s eyes widened as the man before him started to make hand seals. He himself used too much chakra in this form to have much left over for techniques, but he had had the seals and their combinations drilled into his head until he could recognize most jutsu and the base purpose of others that he didn’t.

He identified the ranged fire-based attack that the other was about to unleash and knew that it would hit Yamato and possibly Kakashi as well. He threw himself forward at a full out run. He had to get to the man before he finished the last seal.

As soon as he was within range, the supple, tentacle-like appendages struck out. One wrapped around Kyoshiro’s wrist and jerked the hand away as another pierced the back of his other hand with its metal kunai-like tip.

He couldn’t land the other blows as the older man let out a stream of fire that was aimed toward him rather than those he was protecting. He used the anchor he had on the man to pull and pushed off with the other cords to enable him to flip up out of the way.

He twisted in mid-air and managed to wrap a few more of ropey tendons around the man. He landed behind him, braced himself and pulled with all his might. He could feel the drain on his power as the shinobi was thrown through the air, further away from his friends.

Kyoshiro picked himself up, brushing off the dirt and debris. It was time to stop playing and get rid of the brat.

He looked up only to find that the boy was gone.

Smirking to himself, Kyoshiro started toward the frozen tableau once again. The nerve of the punk kid thinking that he could stand up to him. It was time to get Orochiamru-sama out of the trap currently holding him and finish off the Konoha-nin.

Hiroki smiled to himself as the man arrogantly assumed he had run off. He let his wrist blades fade away so that he could carefully move along the branches above the older ninja until he was in the best position that he could obtain in these circumstances.

He flung himself out of the tree and towards the target below as all of his ranged weapons reared back and prepared to strike. His eyes widened as, at the last moment, the shinobi turned with a kunai in his hand.

Unconsciously, his defenses kicked in. The tentacles that had been ready to strike went to encircle the limb holding the threatening weapon. However, they couldn’t stop his own momentum as it carried him right onto the blade.

He felt the metal separate flesh as it slid into his body, causing fire to race along his nerves, radiating outwards from the wound. He felt the other arm grab him around the back and attempt to shove him further onto the kunai since the man could not move the arm holding the weapon.

Forcing himself to ignore the wound, Hiroki turned watery, green eyes up to the shinobi’s face. The pain was overwhelming, greater than anything he could remember during training. He slid his hand slowly upwards between their two bodies, took a deep breath and shoved.

Kyoshiro chuckled at the pathetic blow to his chin until he felt a surge of chakra that went right through his skull and into his brain. There was a moment of almost numb coldness before agony exploded inside of his head.

Hiroki watched as bloody tears tracked down the other man’s face as the blade formed inside his skull. Blood gushed over the small boy’s arm from the entry wound and the body beneath him lost all tension.

They both collapsed to the ground, the tentacles pulling the kunai out from his stomach before he lost consciousness and they retracted back into his body.

***************
Naruto watched helplessly as Kakashi and Orochimaru tore into each other, giving neither quarter nor mercy. He could at least turn his head now and look around, not that it was doing him much good.

He jerked on the seals around his wrists, but they held tight to the bars, effectively sealing his consciousness inside of his mind while blocking his power. He turned his head around to stare at the furball behind him. “Can’t you do anything?” he demanded.

“Someone’s blocking my chakra. The exact same way as the first time we fought the bitch,” Kyuubi growled out. “I can’t do a thing.” Its eyes followed the fight even as it spoke to Naruto, its attention clearly on what was going on there rather than the blond.

Naruto frowned, his mind working through the problem from several different angles. Kyuubi couldn’t extend its power beyond its cage; Naruto was tied up to the cage and wired directly into the demon. He knew that Yamato was the one blocking them, probably so that Kakashi could get in here. But without the power, there was no way that he could get down since it was obvious that Kakashi was barely holding his own against the Sannin. Soon, Kakashi would run out of chakra from using the Sharingan to stay inside of Naruto’s mind.

Kakashi was the one that knew how to unseal him, but Kakashi was fighting the snake bastard. Naruto glanced behind him again and saw how riveted the Kyuubi was on the fight. He knew that the demon felt that it owed the snake one. If he could pull on its powers and overload Yamato, perhaps he could set it on Orochimaru while Kakashi got him down.

Deciding it was probably his best option under the circumstances, Naruto reached deep inside of him, searching for the main point of connection. Where he expected only to find his own quiet power being restrained and perhaps the tie to the demon, he found a mass of connections. While he had known that Ren had connected the two of them, he hadn’t expected the connection to be so vast. Where he expected to find a few, fine threads, he found thick cords.

He found the source of Kyuubi’s power within him and began to draw from it. He could feel the constraints upon it, like drinking through a straw rather than chugging from the glass. Naruto fought against the constriction, pulling the power out and then using it to force the pathway open further. He could feel the pressure slowly building, like a shaken bottle of champagne.

He pulled and pushed, ignoring the fight going on below him, ignoring when Kakashi was thrown up against the bars of the cage. He felt the familiar pain start within him and knew that outside he must be starting to manifest an aura. The pressure bore down on him harder as Yamato tried to keep the demon at bay.

He pulled on the power ruthlessly, feeling the cords and threads starting to melt together as he burned them with his endeavors. The force was pushing from both sides now, trying to hold the power in and trying to let it explode outward and Naruto felt like he was being crushed between them.

Gathering himself, he mentally ripped at the barriers between him and the demon’s power with everything he had. He felt as if his eyes were bulging, as if something were trying to erupt from his chest, from his guts.

He wanted to pop the cork on the champagne, but it felt as if the bottle would burst instead.

Outside, a shockwave burst from the Kyuubi vessel, sending a whiplash of power towards Yamato, flinging the man backwards and trying to burn his pathways. The shadows that were holding the vessel immobile were melted away and Shikamaru collapsed, exhausted. The only one that seemed unaffected was Kakashi, who still held Orochimaru trapped with his gaze.

Inside, the demon’s chakra poured through Naruto’s body and then manifested outside of the cage. The creature immediately went to Orochimaru, trapping the snake Sannin within its coils of red power.

Taking the distraction for what it was, Kakashi quickly went to Naruto where the boy hung limply from the bars, pale and trembling. “Naruto,” he called softly but urgently. Wasting no more time, he quickly went to work on the seals. He only hoped that the young man pulled it together so that he could help them stuff the demon back in its prison.

Kyuubi hovered over Orochimaru like a malicious cloud, the bubbling red chakra dripping from its fangs like so much spittle. “You,” it growled out darkly, “are going back where you belong, bitch. You should have never left.”

Orochimaru shook himself out of the shock of seeing the demon before him and pulled up his bravado. “You will never drag me back in there,” he hissed out angrily.

The Kyuubi ran the tip of a large claw gently against the Sannin’s hair. “I chose you which means you belong to me now and you will stay with me until I deem otherwise.” Unlike the caress, the tone was implacable.

“It doesn’t matter what you chose,” the Sannin sneered. “You are just another tool to get the immortality that I desire.”

“You desired my touch,” the demon growled out, daring the human to contradict him.

“Not once!” he spat out, rising to the challenge in the tone. “The only thing I want from you is your power which I will rip from your dying carcass if I have to. You are nothing to me but a means to an end!”

A rumbling started deep within the demon which quickly transformed to the howl of a wounded beast.

Kakashi had just removed the last seal and was thanking whatever gods that were listening to find the Kyuubi’s seal intact, if perhaps a little frayed around the edges. The glowing lines that had entered through Naruto’s navel exited out his back and into the seal itself.

As he was lowering the barely conscious teen to the floor, he heard a howling that turned his blood cold.

**********************
Gai watched the fight between the two siblings with a fair amount of sadness within him. If only they could see how much of their emotional turmoil was of their own doing.

He glanced to the side, trying to keep an eye on his students as well as the Uchiha brothers. They seemed to be doing well against the blond bomber. Tenten had managed to pin the man down as the explosive tag burned away merrily beneath his bird.

Deidara seemed to note this however and made a scathing remark about performing the same gimmick twice. He moved to jump off of the clay creature, but didn’t realize that his cloak had been pinned down from the barrage. The man had obviously underestimated Tenten’s accuracy.

Gai looked back to where Kakashi and the others stood and realized that they would be exposed to the blast with no protection. Giving a last glance at Sasuke, Gai took off to protect his comrades that needed it.

***********************
Sasuke could feel his brother’s eyes run over his form with a look of disappointment and distain. He felt anger and resentment surge through him at the look. It was his brother’s fault that things had gone so far. It was his fault that they now stood as they did.

Regardless, he would do whatever it took to keep Naruto safe from the murderer before him.

He threw himself back into the fight, hoping that the power of the curse seal would be enough. He knew very well that he couldn’t kill his brother with his current abilities, but maybe it would be enough to give them time to free Naruto from Orochimaru’s control.

As before they exchanged blows with Itachi beating him in speed, but with the curse seal activated, he had more brute strength at his disposal and when he did hit his brother, he could hear the soft grunts of pain.

He launched himself into the air and let loose a handful of shuriken which Itachi easily dodged. His brother countered with the same attack and Sasuke demonstrated just how agile he was in the air as well. What he didn’t count on was the ninja wire attached to the shuriken.

Itachi pulled his hands apart and the wire tightened painfully, binding Sasuke’s wings to his body. As he began to fall, he saw the fireballs racing toward him. He tilted his sword up through a gap in his wings and cut the wire, then ducked behind the cover of the overly large, hand-like appendages for cover. The fire washed around him and the shuriken that was hiding within imbedded themselves into flesh.

Trust Itachi to use one of his favorite attacks against him.

His brother was right there as the injured wings unfurled. A foot smashed into his gut, causing his sword to drop out of nerveless fingers. Itachi scooped up the sword, gave a flourishing spin and brought the blade down on the base of his left wing, effectively removing it from his body.

Sasuke blinked, finding his face down on the bloody ground, pain racing through his body from every limb. He just wanted to go to sleep, he was so damn tired. He blinked blood-caked blue eyes to see the blurry form of his brother turning away from him, Sasuke’s sword dropping carelessly from his hand.

Looking beyond, Sasuke could see the form of his lover, a red aura flickering to life around it. No. They couldn’t fail. They had to save him. He refused to lose the one thing that meant everything to him.

Sasuke found the strength to move his legs and started to try to pull them up under him. His arms dragged themselves towards him to lever him up. Even his right wing twitched and then braced itself on the ground, adding its strength to his efforts. He suddenly discovered he was standing, albeit shakily.

“No,” he uttered quietly. His brother ignored him and continued moving. “No!” he yelled out, using most of his breath in the effort.

He staggered a few steps forward and grabbed the sword on the ground, his wing acting as a crutch as he did so. He was about to start a shuffling charge, when his brother was unexpectedly there, a hand grabbing around his throat, half lifting Sasuke off his feet.

“Why won’t you stay down?” his brother said, the faintest hint of anger filtering into his voice.

Sasuke forced his voice out from the tightness around his neck. “I won’t let you… take him away… as well.”

“He makes you weak,” Itachi stated coldly.

“He makes me strong,” Sasuke countered softly.

“Hate is the only thing that can make you strong,” his brother stated arbitrarily.

Sasuke merely shook his head minutely within his brother’s grip. “Hate is hollow. It leaves you cold and alone. It gives you no future and steals away all of your hope. It leaves you focused on just death, whether your enemy’s or your own,” he whispered hoarsely. “He taught me that there is another kind of strength, one that fills you with so many things besides just itself. It gives you courage when you have none, gives you hope when there is only despair. It lights up your whole world.” ‘Just like he does,’ he finished in his mind.

Itachi’s hand tightened warningly. “Get rid of it. It is false, only an illusion. When you strip away everything, you realize that you only have yourself and your hatred for everything else. It is a weakness to believe anything else.”

His younger brother had the audacity to give him a short, painful laugh. “Remember when you said that the clan couldn’t see beyond itself? That they couldn’t recognize their true potential because of their limitations? Maybe you’re the one who can’t grow, who can’t fulfill your true potential because you cannot see past your hatred. It is limiting you. Making you near-sighted. Making you weak.”

Sasuke felt his feet fully touch the ground as his brother stared at him intensely. It had been a gamble, taunting his brother while he was in such a vulnerable position, but apparently it had paid off. He reached down to his weapon’s pouch and slipped a kunai into his hand as his brother continued to stare at him, as if trying to decipher some kind of complex code.

Just as Sasuke was about to strike, there was an explosion behind him. Even before his reflexes had kicked in to instinctively duck, Itachi had grabbed him and spun them both around. His brother’s body jerked against him as the last of the echoes filled the clearing.

Sasuke drew back to see a large broken, metal shard of a spear running through his brother’s left shoulder. His brother blinked a few times, a small rivulet of blood starting to soak his cloak.

His brother had just protected him.

“You’re ready,” Itachi said quietly, an edge of pain barely lacing his voice. “You’re ready to be the avenger. We will meet again.”

His body blurred before disappearing in a whirl of leaves, leaving behind a very confused younger sibling.

************************
The raging power of the Kyuubi effectively kicked Kakashi from his mental lock with Orochimaru. He came to lying on his back on the ground with an insanely howling demon before him. The aura was in full force around … the body. He wasn’t sure if it was Naruto’s or not because it no longer looked like the blond shinobi.

Some kind of anthropomorphic fox stood in his place with a blondish red mane, short snubbed snout, a lightly furred body of the same color as the hair and four blood red tails waving behind it. It was overlapped by the familiar crimson aura which held a ghostly white shape within its chakra-formed paws.

“You could have been mine,” the creature snarled in a voice similar to Naruto’s, but deeper and filled with an anguished hatred.

With that the creature curled its hands into claws and yanked apart, the chakra formed claws mimicked the motion.

Kakashi’s eyes widened in horror as a ghastly, wailing scream erupted from the armless white humanoid shape as it was ripped in half.

If the wailing scream didn’t stay with his nightmares for a while, then the soul-piercing howl that followed would.

However, what truly terrified him was when the creature lowered its head and he could clearly see the pinwheel spinning in its eyes.


TBC