Of Samurai and Shinobi

Some notes on this chapter, I added the rather famous Yuki-Onna fairytale in this story.
It’s the direct translation of the original work and therefore isn’t mine. It was copied directly since I didn’t want to change anything in it >_>

Those that want to know more about yuki onna and perhaps download the song I’ll be referring to can check out wwwDOTyoukaimuraDOTorg.
It’s a great website that has lots of information on demons, even kyuubi and the other tailed demons.

Disclaimer: Don't own.

Now onwards to the ficcage!

Chapter 8 Of Stalkers and Festivals

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-


Naruto POV

Sasuke’s mother Sen made quick work of putting down an extra futon.
Naruto didn’t complain since he was way to embarrassed about what had just happened, Sasuke was probably in the same situation.

‘I did NOT just kiss that guy.’
He really could smack himself.
‘One minute he’s being a jerk and the next he has his tongue down my throat!’
His eyebrow had started to twitch about five minutes earlier and seemed to refuse to stop.
‘Worst of all, he’s a perverted samurai!’

He was so not going to write this in his mission report…
Tsunade would never let him hear the end of it.

Not to mention he would be the laughing stock of the town.
Like he would give the townspeople more to talk about, it would only be harder to be acknowledged as a great shinobi and future hokage.

Sasuke was the first though…
The first to EVER stand up for him.

‘That’s because he doesn’t know what you are.’

Naruto grimaced, that really wasn’t a subject he wanted to dwell on.
‘It’s WAY too quiet here!’

The two of them hadn’t spoken a word since they were ‘caught’ so to speak.
He was never one to handle things being quiet for too long, he had had way to much of that as a kid.
That and he had the attention span of a rodent…
Not that he would admit it to anyone, but still, he had gotten hollered at for not paying attention in class since the first day of training at the academy.

It wasn’t as if it was his fault classes were so boring!
Besides it wasn’t as if he was the only one slacking off, his not-really-friends did it too.

They just didn’t get in trouble as much because they were normal kids.
Or rather more normal then Naruto…
They were actually kind of weird when you think of it.

The two young men settled in on their futons.
The kimonos they had worn neatly placed over the blanket.
A few more minutes of total silence passed, until Naruto truly couldn’t stand it anymore.
“Hey Sasuke?”
“Hn?”
“About your mom…did your dad? You know…hit her?”
“Hn.”
“Why? She didn’t do anything wrong.”
“She set an extra plate again and he needed to vent…”
“And that’s reason enough to hit her?!”
“Apparently…”
“Your dad’s kind of a jerk…”
“Hn.”
“Why does she set an extra plate? I mean, if she’s gonna get hit for it and all…”
“It’s a habit.”
“I kinda figured that out...But who does she set it for?”
“Can we not talk about this?!”
“Sheez! You don’t have to get so touchy all of a sudden! I was just asking!”
“Hn…”

Things grew quiet again for quite some time.
Naruto couldn’t think of anything to say in order to coax the brunette into a conversation.
He never really had friends before…
Is that even what they were? Friends?

“My brother…”
“Huh?”
“The plate is for my brother.”
“You have a brother?”
“Yes, an older brother, his name is Itachi.”
“Where is he?”
“Somewhere…”
“You mean he ran away from home or something?”
“……sort of.”
“Is he a rurouni like me?”
“Yes, something like that…”
“Must be really great to have an older brother.”
“Not really…”
Sasuke really didn’t seem to like the subject much, even though he was trying to act tough.
Naruto figured he shouldn’t ask anything more about the subject of brothers…
“I really wouldn’t know.”
“What do you mean you wouldn’t---Oh.”
“Yep. I’ve been an orphan since the day I was born.”
Naruto replied cheerfully.
“How can you be so cheerful about it? Don’t you miss having a family?”
“Not really. Sometimes I guess, you know, during holidays and stuff. But you can’t really miss what you never had right?”
“……Isn’t it lonely?”
Naruto’s eyes widened a little, he really didn’t get this guy.
One minute he’s trying to shut him out, now he’s asking personal questions…

“Kinda…but…I don’t know. I just try not to think about it that much. I was more or less raised by two wonderful people, well, more like they keep on eye on me every once in a while. So I’m not completely alone I guess…”
“Then why aren’t you with them?”
“One of them is away for work, he has been for several years. The other one is waiting for him every day, I guess I want to do him a favour for looking out for me all those years and try and find his lover.”
“They’re both men?”
“Yeah. I don’t really care about things like that. As long as you’re happy right?”
“I guess…”
“Is your father serious?”

The brunette who had been looking to the ceiling the whole time, turned towards Naruto, a questioning look on his face.

“About what?”
“About you having to marry a girl pretty soon?”
“Hn…”
“Why? You’re still kind of young right? You have all the time in the world.”
“The life of a warrior isn’t an easy one, you can get killed any day.
My parents want to see grandchildren before I go of to battle.
Mother hasn’t been able to have any more children since father….
When my brother left, he also left behind those responsibilities and since mother isn’t capable of having any more children, I need to be the one to carry on our bloodline.”

Naruto frowned, this really was too much of a burden on such a young man.
That had been hammered into his mind since he was a kid?
What a life he must have had…

“Haven’t you ever thought about just going away yourself? To head out and live your own life, or to try and find your brother or something?”
“All the time…but I can’t…This is what I was born for, a back up plan if something ever happened to my brother. It’s my fate I guess.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Excuse me?”
“Fate and destiny aren’t things that should control your life.
People should always make their own destiny, fight for what they want in life.
You shouldn’t let your father control your life like that, if you want to leave, get up and leave, there’s no sense in sticking around somewhere you don’t want to be…”
Sasuke turned to look at the ceiling again, Naruto wasn’t sure if the dark haired samurai was thinking over what he had said or if he simply didn’t want to answer…

Naruto started to fall asleep.
The futon was warm and comfortable, the rather hectic day was starting to catch up.
He closed his eyes and let sleep take over…

He’d send a report to the old hag tomorrow.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

The warm sunlight was shining directly into his eyes the second he opened them.
Naruto flinched and closed them.

‘Great, now I’m seeing spots…’

The blond turned around, rubbing his eyes and trying to wake up without the sun practically blinding him.
Sasuke was still asleep, Naruto studied the calm and serene expression on his face.

His mouth was slightly open, breathing softly.
One hand was resting beside his head, the other was on his stomach.
The brunette’s legs were spread all across the futon.

He looked so much like a child, not a care in the world…
That is, until he would wake up though.
The young shinobi sighed, if only he could help him somehow.
He normally never felt like this, he wasn’t one to get attached so easily.
Attachment meant it would hurt even more when people finally showed their true colours and abandoned you.

Sasuke didn’t seem like the type to do that though.
He had to admit, even though he was cold and acted like a total bastard every once in a while, he really was a nice guy, if you looked deep enough that is.
‘Maybe he’s not such a bad guy after all. It’s too bad I can’t take him home with me…’
He could see it now, walking up to Tsunade with Sasuke in his arms, asking ‘Can I keep him?’
She’d knock him right into the hospital if he did that.
The sound of firework going of startled Naruto out of his thoughts.
It woke Sasuke up as well, more or less…

Tired dark eyes opened slightly, the owner of the eyes also made the same mistake of looking towards the direction of the sunlight.
Said owner groaned and did something rather unexpected…
He snuggled right into Naruto’s side, taking the blanket with him.
Naruto was shocked to say the least when a pale arm moved across his chest and a leg managed to somehow find it’s way between his own.

Sasuke…was a snuggler? (AN: That’s SO not a word XD)

Naruto felt like a child’s teddy bear…
“Oi! Sasuke! I’m not some stuffed animal, let go!”
A murmur that sounded strangely a lot like “Comfy” was the only response he got.
The blue eyed boy had to admit it was kind of endearing, but it really wasn’t situation he wanted to get caught in. Not after the events of yesterday…

“Come on! Leggo!”
He poked forehead of the dreaded snuggler, earning him a from and a tighter grip.
This was useless!
Naruto was about to make a move to shove Sasuke off of him, when a strange giggle caught his attention.
It was creeping him out…
He bravely looked towards the direction of the blinding morning sun.
A group of what Naruto figured to be young women were peeking through the wooden fence, several pairs of eyes focussed on the shocked blond and raven haired snuggler.
‘Not those women again!’
A particular loud giggle and the flash of what was most likely a camera caused Sasuke to snap to attention right away though.
It was almost as if the guy had an inner ‘fangirl-alarm’ or something.
He immediately looked towards the window as well…

‘Are all the women in this village crazy?’

Sasuke grabbed his kimono and put in on in a hurry, telling Naruto to do the same.
Several more flashes later, the two were fully dressed and ready to go.

‘If he has to live through this every morning, I can’t blame him from being a bit weird…
Is this why his brother left?’

“Does this happen every morning?”
“More or less…”
“Why were they taking pictures?”
“Who knows, you want to go out and ask them?”
Naruto mulled over it for a moment but decided not to, they were creepy enough from a distance, he wouldn’t want to meet them up close…
Fangirls are SUCH strange creatures…

A rather cheerful ‘Ohayou!’ greeted the two young men when they walked towards the kitchen, Sen was already up and about.
True, it was kind of late, but by the look of those bento-boxes on the table, she had been up REALLY early to get them ready.
She grabbed the boxes and put them in a rather large basket.
Sasuke walked inside to ask what exactly she was doing, but he wasn’t even capable of uttering a single word…
His mother seemed to be overly cheerful today.
“I fixed you boys some lunch, I added a blanket so you can make it a nice picnic if you want to.”
She grabbed the basket and walked up to Sasuke, she pushed it into his arms and pushed him out of the kitchen.

Naruto stepped aside to let Sasuke pass through.
“Now stay out of the kitchen, I’m helping Kaede-sama prepare tonight’s feast. Enjoy!”
She winked at Naruto before disappearing into the kitchen, the blond yanked on Sasuke’s sleeve.

“What in the world was that about?”
Sasuke merely shrugged and walked towards the exit.
“It’s better not to ask…”
Naruto ran up to the brunette and walked beside him, it really was a beautiful day.
The sun was warm, the birds were singing and the people were cheerful.
Women of all ages seemed to be wearing their most expensive kimono’s, some even more colourful then the flowers themselves and each a pattern of their own.
It was impossible to mistake one for the other.
The men were neatly shaved and groomed, regal kimono’s adorned with symbols of their respective houses shimmered in the sun.

The streets were filled with people, children raced from one game-booth to another.
Naruto was pleased to see a lot of the same games they had back home.
The traditional ‘fish catching’ booth, food stands, and the good old puppet theatre.
He pulled and Sasuke’s arm and dragged him to the knife throwing booth.

Since this was a village event and outsiders rarely came here, everything was free.
It was almost as if it was one huge family…

Back in Konoha everything cost money, people mostly stuck to their clans and only spoke to others who belonged to clans as well.
Naruto was never allowed to join in on games though…
He was going to have fun today though.
‘No thinking about home or those nasty arrogant clan jerks.’

Naruto finally got his turn, he had practically been throwing kunai since he was a toddler, he was going to show them how good he was!

“Do you even know how to throw a knife? It’s not like anyone can just---“
Each of the knives hit the bull’s-eye.
“Yatta!!!! Sasuke! Did you see that?!”

People were staring wide eyed at the young blond, Sasuke was no exception.
“H-how did you…? You hit all of them!”
‘What’s so special about it! Look at the size of those targets! I mean----oops…’
Naruto rubbed the back of his head and grinned sheepishly.
“Talk about luck huh?”
Sasuke smiled back at the blond nervously.
“Yeah…lucky…”

A group of little children jumped Naruto.

“Mister! Mister! You’re so cool!”
“Could you teach me how to throw like that?!”
“You might even be better then those shinobi people!”

The adults expressions of shock were replaced by gentle smiles as they looked at the spectacle, the young shinobi didn’t know how to handle so many kids at once.
He wasn’t used to dealing with kids at all.
Most parents dragged their kids of the minute they saw him walk in the same street as them, they were afraid he would be a bad influence or something…

He felt Sasuke grab his arm and pull his from the little midget army.
Naruto got his prize from the owner of the booth, a huge bag of candy.
The blond wisely decided to create a diversion by giving the candy to the evil midget folk.

“You have quite an arm there! Where did you learn how to throw like that?”
“I didn’t. I guess I picked up a thing or two back in that ‘you-know-what’ village.”
Sasuke nodded, talking about a shinobi village would simply create mass-hysteria..

“They must be great warriors to be able to throw like that…”
“They’re even better.”
“Even better……?”
The blond nodded his head, it technically was the truth. Naruto never really was good at throwing kunai, he knew enough though, so he didn’t feel the need to practice.

“Yup. Now come on! I wanna see the puppet show!”
Sasuke was dragged off once again, this time to the puppet show.
The puppets were absolutely gorgeous! They were placed on a rack where they were displayed for all to see.
They were extremely detailed and adorned with all sorts of golden trinkets, there were all sorts of puppets.

Beautiful maidens, noble samurai, little children, even shinobi ones!
The tiny clothes seemed to be made of fine brightly coloured silk, the makers definitely spared no expense into creating them.

Naruto sat down on one of the make-shift benches, for a simple carved tree-trunk it was actually rather comfortable.

The brunette sat down beside him, a bored expression on his face.
He had undoubtedly seen this before, since he grew up here and all.
Not to mention, most of their fellow viewers were little kids.
Naruto made a mental note to thank Sasuke for keeping him company though, Naruto already knew, sappy as it sound, that he would treasure this memory forever.

The first festival where he actually got to enjoy himself, with company no less.
He would miss this place when he had to go home…wait a minute.
Miss this place?
This was samurai territory!
The same people that were butchering his own!
No matter if it was this particular village or not, samurai were samurai!
If they knew who he really was, they would kill him on the spot!
There’s no way they’d let him stay here…
Besides, he couldn’t.
If the samurai didn’t finish him off, Tsunade most likely would…or order someone else to do it…
‘Lazy old hag…’

The show was awesome!
Two samurai dolls were duelling over the affections of a beautiful princess.
The lady watched from behind, her tiny face hidden by the long sleeves of her royal red kimono.

The battle came to a spectacular climax, as the evil one made a move to kill the fallen hero.
The lady jumped in between of the two fighting warriors, protecting her lover from the fatal blow and using a dagger to end the villains life but ultimately dieing herself.

Her lover was left alone in the world.

A lone sakura tree grew in the place where the princess had fallen.
The hero returned here every single day, until the day he died.
Several of the children and their parents were crying.
Naruto simply shrugged, he had seen things far worse then this.

The lady had been rather foolish. She should have grown strong herself, that was she wouldn’t have gotten abducted, or at least would have been able to escape.
She could have at least kept out of the fight, it wasn’t certain the man would have died.
The way she died was pointless…

It was useless to die for each other unless it had a good reason, emotions should be kept our of battles. It was what he was trained for…

Another show was starting, several samurai “walked” on stage.
The children cheered happily at the sight of their “heroes” and gasped at the beautiful robes of the lords and ladies.

The story was a lot more interesting then the previous one.
A samurai village was under attack from a group of mononoke, so of course the brave group of warriors set out to protect their friends and loved ones.
Naruto couldn’t wait to see the mononoke puppets!
They hadn’t been on display, so he was getting curious as to how they looked.
The warriors entered a forest, the one where the mononoke were supposed to live and they were attacked from the shadows….by the shinobi dolls.
Naruto flinched as the samurai cut through the ninja clan as if they were nothing but animals.
All round him the children were cheering them on, huge smiles on their faces, screaming out for the samurai dolls to finish the monsters off.

Was that really how samurai saw the shinobi? As monsters?
Was it because of the current situation?
Or had it always been like this…

The children cheered as all the “monsters” were defeated and now lay “dead” before the feet of the samurai. Naruto tried to hide the sad look on his face.
Shinobi weren’t monsters!
Suddenly a hand was placed on his shoulder.

“Are you ok?”
The blond smiled at Sasuke, shinobi and samurai could get along.
He and Sasuke were proof.
“I’m fine! I wanna see more of the festival!”
It was kind of funny, the day before the brunet had seemed reluctant to “date” him.
If his foster-parents could see him now.
Iruka would probably cry about how his baby-boy had grown up all of a sudden….and undoubtedly blame Kakashi for it…heh.
He kind of missed them, oh well, he would see them again soon enough.

Sasuke and Naruto got up, the young Uchiha already put out his arm to be dragged of.
Apparently he was a quick learner.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Next up was the ‘anything goes-foot race’.
Of course, Naruto wanted to enter and where would it leave Sasuke not to respond to Naruto’s challenge.
So as expected, the two young men were currently lined up with several of the other villagers ready to start the race as soon as the judge said…

“GO!”

Sasuke and Naruto quickly left everyone in the dust, earning quite a few shocked looks from the bystanders. Naruto glared at Sasuke’s back, he had slowed down considerately after a while, since he didn’t want to make a scene like before.

But the young samurai turned out to be faster then he had originally thought, a lot faster…
Since the two were pretty much equal in speed, Naruto had a rough time catching up to the brunet. The finish line was getting closer with every step.

Sasuke was still in the lead…and made it a point to rub it in with a smirk on his face, angering the struggling Naruto.

“What’s wrong? Can’t keep up?”
“Shut up!”
Sasuke was seriously breaking his concentration, if he got distracted now there was no way he could win.
“Are you getting tired? You run like a girl.”
“AAAAAARGHHH! You bastard!”
He was ready to strangle him!
‘I just KNOW he’s doing it on purpose!’
And it worked too, rather then to keep his eyes on the ground or the finish line, he kept glaring at Sasuke…eventually tripping on one of the tree roots that were sticking out.
This short time of being on the ground was enough for Sasuke to finish…and the other runners to pass him and finish as well.

Sasuke walked back to where the blond had fallen.
“Aren’t you going to finish?…….Dobe?”
(AN: Roughly translated; dead last Yeah…I couldn’t resist >>)
“That was your fault! You broke my concentration on purpose!”
“You should have watched where you were going rather then to watch me.”
Naruto blushed at that comment, he was pretty sure he didn’t mean it like that…but still.

He vowed he was going to make Sasuke pay for this…

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

The day went by pretty fast, after several games, some delicious food – although not as good as ramen – and a lot of shows later, it was now time for the children to go to bed and the adults to have some fun of their own.

Musicians were playing several of their most beautiful melodies on their instruments.
There were all kinds of instruments, a koto, a shamisen, even a shakuhachi.
Most of the songs were unknown to Naruto, there was one however that stood out of them all.
“You like it?”
The blond nodded, he liked it a lot.
“It’s the song of the yuki onna.”
“Yuki onna?”
“It’s a rather famous story around here, a fairytale you might say. She is supposed to be a youkai (AN; demon) who has the capability to freeze humans.”
“A youkai that freezes people?”
“Hn.”
“Could you tell me the story?”
Sasuke looked rather annoyed at the idea of having to tell a fairytale and sighed deeply.
“Come on! Tell me!”
“Fine…”
Naruto grinned triumphantly.

“A long time ago in a cold northern country, there lived a lumberjack father and son. One winter day, while they were gathering wood a snow storm began. They rushed back to their cabin to wait the storm out. But the storm continued and the two fell asleep by the warm fireplace. It was so cold, the son woke up. Outside the wind howled and the snow fell hard. Suddenly the door of the cabin flew away in the wind. Snow blew into the cabin and the warm fire went out.

Just then, a beautiful woman with a pure white kimono and seemingly transparent skin came into the cabin with the snow. She went to the father and breathed frosty air on him. He became white as snow and appeared as ice and breathed no more.

The son said, "It's the yuki onna!" He remembered the story of a fearsome woman who comes with the snow to take away the life of people in the night. Having just seen his father killed, the son's body started to shake. Although he wanted to run, his body couldn't move.
The yuki onna moved ever closer to the son while blowing white air from her mouth. She stopped just in front of him and said, "You have received my favour. I will let you live tonight since you are so young. However you must never tell anyone of what happened tonight." And she disappeared into the night and snow. He fainted. The next morning, the boy awoke to find his father's body and wondered if he really did see the yuki onna. He never spoke to anyone about the matter though.

A year passed and the snow again began to fall. One night the young man heard a tapping on the door and he opened to see what it was. It was a woman. She said, "I'm caught in the snow. Is there anyway I could stay here tonight?" The young man was nice enough to let her stay and eat with him. She said her name was Oyuki. They talked and talked. As time passed by they grew to like each other and were married. A few years later they had a child.

In the north country another harsh winter came. One of those winter nights the young man looked at the side of Oyuki's face while she was sewing and said, "You know, you remind me of a woman I saw a long time ago. You look just like her." She immediately stopped her sewing and asked, "Where did you see this woman?" He answered, "Just before my 20th birthday there was a snow storm and she came to this cabin. It was the yuki onna!"
Oyuki sadly said, "The yuki onna must have told you sternly not to speak of this. Why do you say this?" He replied, "How do you know this, Oyuki?" She slowly stood up and her kimono and face became freezing white. "It was you... It was you..." "That is right. Why did you say that? Now I cannot live with you." He said, "Forgive me, Oyuki!" But she only said, "I will never forget you. Somehow take care of our child. Fare well!" Just then the door flew open and Oyuki disappeared in the snow. The young man searched for her, but couldn't find a trace.”

When Sasuke finished Naruto was staring at him wide eyed.
‘He really knows how to tell a story…’
The brunet quickly got annoyed with the staring though.
“What?”
“Who knew that a none talkative bastard like you would be good with words…”
“Whatever…”
The young samurai had one of those voices that - while reading to someone - demanded attention and could easily keep you entertained for the duration of the story.
His future kids would be really lucky to listen to stories from him…
Sasuke would probably make a great father some day.

After a while he noticed the people were leaving the dance floor.
The fireworks display was going to start soon, they all wanted a good spot to see it.
“Let’s go dobe.”
“Stop calling me that! The only reason I was last is because you distracted me!”
“Hn. Fine, then how about a rematch some day.”
“You’re on!” Naruto said with a grin on his face.
Maybe he’d let Sasuke’s prank slip and forget about revenge….just this once.

TBC

Yup! Final one for today XD
I know I'm evil, but hey, what can a poor fangirl do ;-; *puppy dog eyes*