As Above So Below

As Above So Below
Chapter 9

Despite the fire raging nearby, the rough and noisy, rather drunk men stumbling around, a gorgeous butterfly fluttered past, lighting on Narue’s shoulder for a second, antennae quivering, tickling her cheek. It was like the softest whisper of silk over satin, and Narue gave a tender smile.

She gave a tiny shrug, not enough to dislodge her graceful visitor, and hummed so softly, no one would have ever heard her.

And the butterfly fluttered away, weaving it’s graceful way near the trees that girdled the smoothly paved drive to the gates. Narue turned her head, as if to watch, and could sense her Daddy close boy. Close by and filled with rage.

She turned to her mother, already pressed to the woman’s side, and hid her face in Naruto’s short and disheveled hair.

“Daddy’s here,” she whispered.

Naruto’s face never changed, but the gentle shift against the little girl’s body let Narue know her mother heard and understood. She was such a wonderful Mommy. Her little friends and fellow playmates at the daycare always scoffed at her woodsy tales. Even her fathers would smile gently at her, but she could tell they thought she was playing make believe. But Mommy never did. Mommy understood. Mommy believed.

Just like Narue knew that Mommy had tales of her own, though she’d never breathed a word of them to her daughter. But Narue was uncommonly wise despite her youth, with a vocabulary that staggered even the high priced teachers at her Papa’s special school, which she attended just like her brother. Thus, when she’d overheard her fathers talking occasionally to each other, about Naruto’s ‘fits’, she slowly but surely pieced the tale together, and understood. And as Mommy understood and believed in her, so too did Narue understand and believe in Mommy.

And knowing her Mommy had once been a little boy, like Daddy and Papa so long ago, like Sasuke now, didn’t phase her one bit. Just as having two fathers, passionately in love with each other, didn’t phase her. Just like having three loving parents instead of only two didn’t phase her. It just made her life all the more richer, more sweet than the unfortunate kids at the school, for all their holier than thou attitudes. Despite how much their little comments and digs rankled, she felt sorry for them. Her life was so much more colorful and beautiful than theirs.

And though Mommy couldn’t use any of the powers she’d been born with, in that other world she’d come from, because of something missing, something called chakra, Narue knew she’d inherited something special because of it. And even when she was by herself; when Mommy was busy, when Daddy and Papa were at work, when Sasuke was in school, Narue was never alone.

There wasn’t a bug or a bird, a butterfly or moth, a squirrel or groundhog or woodchuck or mole, a deer or dog or cat that she wasn’t intimately acquainted with. Sort of on a first name basis with. These were more her friends than the children of her acquaintance that thought they were so much better than her, just because she had two fathers that like to touch and kiss each other, and three parents.

Idiots. All of them. They didn’t know what they were missing. Narue couldn’t wait until she grew up and could have two loving husbands of her own. Just like Mommy and Daddy and Papa.

But Narue couldn’t let such thoughts distract her now. Daddy was close by. Close by and watching, and waiting until he could save them. And so she let her senses flare wide.

Sasuke, on the other side of Naruto, gave an almost imperceptible jerk. He could feel Narue’s mind reaching out; he’d always been sensitive to his sister’s sometimes odd brainwaves. Reaching around their mother’s back, he touched his sister’s hand and somehow, he knew.

Daddy was here.

Sasuke’s black eyes brightened. They had a chance now. Daddy would save them. Mommy couldn’t do it alone, not with all these horrible men.

But… where was Papa? Concern gnawed on his brain.

“Alright, you whore, get up. Get your hell spawn up and get moving. We’re leaving. Say goodbye to your little den of iniquity, and while you’re at it, to those fags you call husbands. They are probably quite dead by now.” The obese man laughed raucously, the fat spilling off his body quivering with his mirth.

Naruto’s eyes narrowed; she trusted her daughter implicity. Shows how much you know, fat man.

Suddenly, Tony yelped, and slapped at his neck, face turning red. But the bee that had stung him buzzed away, and Narue felt a sorrowful regret. Her bee would soon die without his stinger. She couldn’t bear to have her little friends die on her behalf.

The other men were pleasantly buzzed on Stefan’s twenty year old scotch, but Tony hadn’t touched a drop. He’d planned to drink himself into a stupor afterwards. And he’d noticed something strange.

The surrounding forest was now deathly silent.

Shit, he didn’t have time for this.

“I said get up, you bitch!” He reached out, roughly caught Naruto’s upper arm, and hauled her to her feet.

And Naruto got up alright. And exploded into fury the moment she was on her feet.

Yeah, Naruto was a girl now, had been for almost two decades. And yeah, she’d been a housewife for most of them, and a mother for over half of them. But that had never stopped her from training. Sure, she couldn’t train with chakra, but she did keep her body hard and tight and whipcord strong. To her husbands’ everlasting appreciations. She trained herself, and like the good shinobi she would always be, no matter where she was, she’d started to train her children too.

Now that she knew Nathan was close by, and waiting, she could act. And though more than a decade had passed since she’d last resorted to this sort of violence, she still remembered all the moves, the kicks and jabs and punches. And she reacted accordingly.

Exhilaration she hadn’t felt in sixteen years coursed through her body. She was almost high on the giddy pleasure of feeling like a shinobi again. But sadly, Tony was no fit enemy for her. He went down with a garbled bark of pain after the first punch, his jaw shattered.

“Run to the woods!” She screamed to her children. They, especially Narue, would find a safe haven there. And hopefully they would run right into Nathan’s waiting arms.

Well trained, as Naruto had made sure they were should such a disaster as this arise, both Narue and Sasuke were up and bolting towards the drive.

But the dozen or so men Tony had brought, despite their slight inebriation, were on them like flies on stink.

Naruto’s next opponent was taller, slimmer, and much stronger than Tony, and had honed his battle skills on the crime ridden streets of the city. She gave a feral grin and threw herself into the fray. God, yes, it felt so damn good!

But another man, running at an angle, intercepted the children as they ran to the woods beside the driveway. He was so intent on recapturing them, he didn’t even notice Sasuke and Nathan explode from the kids’ obvious destination point.

He caught Narue’s long silken blonde hair, and jerked her right off her feet, eliciting a surprised shriek of pain.

“Roo!” Younger Sasuke screamed. A second later, the man had folded up, choking in pain as he clutched his groin. In a true shinobi move, he’d crouched down, leapt back up like a coiled spring, and had slammed his small but very hard fist right into the man’s most sensitive bits. Konoha would have been proud.

A shinobi trained ten year old can hit very hard indeed, as the poor unfortunate man discovered. Sadly, though this man would survive this fracas, he would never sire children again.

The other men, diverging into two groups; one to subdue the whirling dervish of death that Naruto had become, and the other on the children being joined by adult reinforcements, were suddenly hampered by a skyful of screaming, clawing birds; of all colors and species.

But little Sasuke didn’t care about any of that. He dove down, and caught up his sister in his arms, and pulled her close to his chest. “Roo, are you alright?”

Sasuke and Nathan were beside them now, and the sounds of thudding flesh, snapping bones, and screams of rage and pain were like a cacophony in her ears.

It had comforted Narue to know the men she loved and depended on would kill to protect her, but it was not at all comforting to be in the midst of it.

”Sauce,” She whimpered softly, the only one with permission to call her brother that, “I’m scared.”

Younger Sasuke flinched, cried out, and bowed over Narue’s body. His shoulder had just been kicked, hard, by one of the men now desperately fighting for their lives.

Suddenly, the man that had kicked Sasuke screamed, and was lifted up and away. Nathan had caught him on one side with a furious punch for harming his child, even as the dark, strange boy smashed him in the face.

Realizing the danger they were in, Sasuke shrugged off his pain, and leapt to his feet, taking his little sister with him. Then he yelped, when a boy, looking so much like his Papa, the one from the barbeque, suddenly picked Narue up and placed her piggy back upon her brother.

The youngest Sasuke didn’t need any prompting. The moment little Narue’s arms went around his neck, he wheeled around and galloped for all he was worth into the safety of the forest, literally haloed in a cloud of shrieking birds, which had abandoned the fight in favor of surrounding the two children in their flight.

Panting, Naruto wheeled back to the fight, seeing Narue and Sasuke had reached the sanctuary of the forest, only to find the fight was over. The few men that weren’t seriously hurt, or worse, dead, had fled themselves.

Adrenaline still pumping through her body, she had to squelch a spurt of disappointment. By god, that had felt so damn good! She hadn’t had the joy of such a glorious fight in so many years.

The wailing of sirens in the distance, was heard in the now quieter lawn.

“The fire department,” Nathan panted. His face was a rictus of pain, and he was clutching his side, which had started bleeding again, even worse than before.

”Nathan!” Naruto cried, horrified, not yet realizing who was with her husband. She took several half running steps, before they faltered.

Sasuke?

But it couldn’t be. This boy had to be another hideous trick this world tended to play on her. Her heart lurched painfully. God, he looked so much like her long lost Sasuke. She hoped the boy would go away, and soon. She couldn’t take this haunting pain. Seeing Stefan every day had been hard enough at first. But her older, darker husband was now a very mature man, and this male was the spitting image of the boy she’d lost so long ago. She hated the very sight of him.

Nathan gave another groan of pain, and fell to his knees, so dizzy he thought he might faint.

Naruto dismissed the haunting boy with difficulty and finished running to her husband’s side, falling to her knees as well, and running hands over his body.

“Nathan, my god, you’re hurt!” She gasped, staring down at the blood on her hands, appalled.

“I’m okay, sweetheart. God, look at you!” Nathan said mournfully, lightly touching the bruise on the side of her brow. “Those fucking bastards hit you. Damn them!” Then he kissed her.

“Oh, god, Nathan,” Naruto suddenly burst into tears. The high of the fight had abruptly waned when she realized her blonde husband was badly hurt, and the fright of not knowing if she could protect the children, and the sight of the accursed boy that just stood four feet away, and stared at her destroyed any peace of mind she might have somehow scrapped up.

“Shhh, baby, it’ll be okay. Don’t cry, Naruto. The kids are safe, I’ll be alright, and Stefan, well…” Everything was happening too fast, and he was so damn dizzy. The sirens drew closer. Nathan knew they’d reached the gate at the drive, and would soon open it with their pass keys. They would be here soon, and find a burning house, dead and wounded men littering the lawn, and they would have questions that Nathan wasn’t sure he had, or could even begin to answer. Not to mention, he’d been seen and recognized leaving the scene of a murder, and for all he knew, they would all be arrested as soon as those sirens reached them.

“Naruto, honey, we have to go.” He panted urgently.

”But, Nathan, you’re hurt!” She cried, still ignoring the boy that seemed frozen in his tracks.

“Yeah, but how the hell will we explain this? I killed a man today. And I was seen doing it.” Nathan said, his words beginning to slur. “We have to go, Naruto. Now.”

She bit her lip, stunned to hear that her gentle blonde husband had killed someone, and worse, been seen. But he must have had a very good reason. Nathan cherished life, mostly. Only when they threatened those he held dear, would he resort to bloodthirsty violence. Suddenly the realization that Stefan wasn’t here, and Nathan had killed a man, struck her like a blow to the gut.

With a gasp, she lurched to her feet, taking Nathan with her, and staggered towards the woods, where the children had vanished, well away from the driveway, and detection.

“Where’s Stefan,” she asked urgently, trying to ignore the boy that had finally begun to follow them. “Nathan!” She lurched to the side, jarring him. “Where’s Stefan?” She repeated frantically.

But Nathan had reached the end of his rope. The blood was hot against his side and thigh. “Safe…” he mumbled, only half conscious. “Safe… Sas’ke said was safe… Safe…” And his head dropped and he became dead weight on Naruto’s side.

The boy, that hateful, dreadful boy, suddenly stepped up and took Nathan’s other side, helping her bear him into the forest. As the leaves closed around them, Naruto was startled to notice tears streaking that young, haunting face.

It felt like a long nightmarish trek though the woods. The boy on the other side of her unconscious husband was utterly silent, though his face had now dried and was set in hard lines. But Naruto had a very good idea where Narue and Sasuke were. Long ago, this had been a prosperous farm. But the farmers, when the city had encroached too closely, had sold out, and moved to sparser pastures. Though the farmhouse and most of the out buildings had long ago been torn down, there was a cow byre or two that still existed, leaning drunkenly on half rotted posts. Naruto had often taken refuge from sudden storms while training nearby, and the children were very fond of playing in them. Not that Naruto had ever felt comfortable with that, having visions of collapsed roofs and crushed little bodies. But naturally, the children had politely nodded their heads, and went and played there sometimes anyway.

And she was right. Almost an hour after their escape, the vine encrusted hovel came into view down the path, and Narue and Sasuke both flew towards them. There was no sign of the birds.

Gasping with effort, Naruto and her silent companion half dragged Nathan inside, and eased him back onto a pile of ancient hay, topped by an old frayed blanket Sasuke had dragged in there weeks ago.

The first thing Naruto did, was lift his blood soaked shirt, removed the bloodstained make shift bandage, and gave a soft cry to see the mended wound, neatly stitched, but now half torn open again. And once more, clothing fell prey to the need for bandages. She wished heartily she had her first aid kit, but it was likely nothing more than ashes and melted plastic by now. But she wouldn’t let that stop her from taking care of her stricken husband.

At first Narue and Sasuke were nearly frantic to see their strong blonde father so still and pale, his natural tan washed away because of his injury, and Narue had almost been in hysterics. But Naruto was able to tell them, with no little relief, that though it had bled terribly, it was nothing more than a deep and bloody scrape. Dangerous, but not life threatening. Their Daddy would be alright.

Assured by her mother that her daddy would survive, she felt pain of another sort, radiating outwards from a darkened corner of the rickety byre. Sasuke, after sending the familiar boy a dark, yet curious look, couldn’t take his eyes off his wounded parent. He was anxious, despite his Mama’s words. But Narue, she felt the tugging on her heart, when she glanced over and saw that the boy had retreated to a far corner, had sunk down onto his rear, and bowed his head against his jean clad knees. His body positively radiated crushing grief.

She skittered over to him, and wrinkled her nose, noticing not only was he splashed with blood, but he bore a striking resemblance to her Papa and brother, and was indeed, the boy from the picture she still kept crumpled against her chest in her shirt pocket.

Sasuke felt the girl child, Naruto’s daughter, looming over him, but he didn’t care. About anything. His heart was crushed in his breast. Watching Naruto kiss and touch another man, even Nathan, her own biological double, had wounded him to the core. Especially after she had all but ignored him. But she’d seen him, she realized who he was; he saw it in her eyes before Nathan dropped to his knees. But she’d… ignored him, like he wasn’t even there. Sasuke felt such pain he thought it would kill him.

After everything he’d been through; the murder of his family, the horrors of Orochimaru and Sound, the painfully hollow triumph of finally killing his brother and avenging his clan and it’s ensuing guilty grief, the year and a half without Naruto… And now, he’d finally found his lost blonde lover, his reason for being.

And Naruto acted as if he wasn’t even there!

There was a rustle, and suddenly something warm and soft was pressed to his side. It took all Sasuke’s will not to shove the little girl away. God, Naruto… right across the way from him, acting as if he didn’t exist; Nathan, looking more like Naruto than anyone had a right to, enjoying her kisses and touches and concern; and this little female Naruto clone, his lover’s child by another man. Fuck, wasn’t his heart bleeding enough?

“You’re hurting,” Narue said softly, almost crooning.

Sasuke shrugged without lifting his head. “I’m fine. The blood’s not mine.” His voice was cold and curt.

Narue shook her head, dirty blonde hair flying; even Sasuke could see that from under his arms. “I know, but you’re hurting… right here.”

And to Sasuke’s horror, the girl nudged his head up, his arms down, and pressed her hand right against his chest, where the shattered remains of his heart cracked and bled.

She peeked up into his eyes, and suddenly, her own widened. “You’re Sasuke, aren’t you? My Mommy’s Sasuke, not my brother.”

Sasuke stilled. How could she know that? Had Naruto told her? “Yeah,” he whispered. “I was…”

Narue’s little brow wrinkled. Just like Naruto’s would, when he was in deep thought. Sasuke fought off a wave of tears.

Narue stared at her mother for a long time, making her brother twitch and glance at her briefly. Narue turned back, and gave him a hesitant smile.

“She doesn’t believe in you. She thinks you’re someone sent by this world to torment her. She doesn’t realize it’s really you. But it is really you, isn’t it?” She dug into the pocket of her shirt, and then shyly offered him the half crushed picture.

Sasuke took it, numbly. And recognized it as one of the pictures Nathan had stolen from him yesterday. He wondered dully how she’d come by it. Surely her father hadn’t just given it to her. It was the last thing any sane man would do with a picture of his rival with his lover.

But then again, Nathan was Naruto. And when push came to shove, Naruto could be wildly unpredictable.

He recrushed the picture in his fist. What good were pictures but tangible ghosts to haunt him for what he’d lost and would never have again.

“Hey, Sasuke,” Narue whispered conspiratorially. “Don’t be sad. My Mommy loves you… so much. Even after all the years she’s waited for you, and all the years she’s thought you would never come. She loves you. She loves you like my Papa and Daddy love each other. She dreams of being with you, and being a boy again, in the woods that surround a very strange city. She dreams of you, every night. She has for weeks now.”

Sasuke blinked. Naruto… had been waiting for him? All this time?

But of course. Sasuke had always come and saved him, just as the blonde had always been there for him. Naruto had been waiting, at first in despair, then in vain, for eighteen years.

“Narue, go sit with your brother,” Naruto’s higher pitched voice was almost cold.

Narue gave Sasuke a last encouraging smile, and then scampered away.

Naruto squatted down on her haunches before Sasuke, and stared at him, her face cold and determined, but her eyes filled with anguish.

”Just who the hell are you?” She asked, her equally cold voice threaded with pain.

Sasuke tipped his head back, staring into her beloved, endlessly blue eyes, as his own spilled over with tears.

“Naruto…” he choked out, the picture, half facing outwards, crinkling in his tightening fist.

Naruto was turned to stone. Those eyes, that face, that voice! And... and... that picture.. in the boy’s hand… she could see a goodly portion of it. Enough to recognize it completely. It was the most recent one of them both, after Sasuke had told him they would marry, no matter what the council might say. It had last resided, to her knowledge, on Sasuke Uchiha’s nightstand, framed in silver. In Konoha. Naruto himself had paid to have it put together so nicely, just a month before he’d been pulled into this world. Sasuke had smiled, thanked him with his eyes, and set it on the nightstand where it had remained ever since. And then, he’d taken Naruto into his arms, and made love to him so tenderly. Even after all these years, Naruto remembered the endless orgasms Sasuke had given him that night.

That face, that voice, those eyes, that picture, god, the very scent of him…

God, please, please don’t let this be another dream, another haunting, another delusion! Please, god, let this, let him, be real.

“S…Sasuke?” Naruto’s voice was faint, torn between frightened disbelief, and wild, desperate hope. “Sasuke… is... is that really you? But… you’re so young!”

Sasuke reached out with a shaking hand, and softly stroked Naruto’s shock paled and bewhiskered cheek. “Time moves faster here than in Konoha. I’ve been looking for you for so long. Naruto… Koi… I’ve missed you so much.”

Naruto gave a gasp, a whimper, and was suddenly in his arms, their lips locked together.

Sasuke was drowning; god, so quickly. Naruto’s mouth was warmer and sweeter than he’d remembered. And she was crushed to Sasuke’s chest, hard and wiry, yet soft and yielding. Tongues tangled, hands gripped and stroked, and both were dizzy with overwhelming desire. They writhed together in the endless, wet kiss, until Naruto was lying on her back, Sasuke half covering her body, and she felt the wondrous dig of a hard cock against her hip. Then a hand found its way blindly under her torn and blood dotted shirt, and cupped one generous breast, thumb brushing fervently across a stiffening nipple.

To Sasuke, it felt wildly strange, this large and firm globe beneath his hand, so very unlike Naruto’s smooth, well muscled chest from before. He shifted more fully above her, sliding into the cradle of her body, and he pressed down with his hips, and met a groin that didn’t pulse back up against his, but simply yielded more fully to him, radiating moist heat he could feel even through both their pants. But Sasuke didn’t care. This was Naruto, his Naruto, at long last. In his arms, under his aching body, and in his mouth, wet and sweet, deliciously submissive to his aggressive passion.

As for Naruto, her head spun. God, Sasuke, warm, alive, here! His body weighed fully upon hers, hard and insistent between her legs. His mouth was ravaging hers even more hungrily than she remembered from the distant past. His scent, so familiar, so delicious, drugged her senses, as his hands danced upon her body, tugging at her shirt and pants, seeking an entrance to the pleasure both of them remembered so well, and yearned for so much.

And in a distant, hazed corner of her brain, she catalogued all the differences between his well remembered touch, and that of her tall dark husband, Stefan.

The haze abruptly departed. As much as she wanted this, yearned for this, had dreamed of this, it couldn’t happen. She jackknifed, almost throwing Sasuke off her body.

Sasuke fall back, panting, eyes glazed, his lips and chin glistening with saliva, and he scrabbled a moment to seize her again, and then noticed the river of silver tears that had suddenly overflowed pain clouded eyes, and began to drip off that gently rounded, quivering chin.

And that quiver was as effective against Sasuke as it ever had been against Stefan. A moment later, he stilled, hateful clarity settling on his mind and brushing away the cobwebs of passion.

Naruto wasn’t his. Not anymore. No matter how much he wanted her to be, how much she obviously wanted to be again, she still wasn’t his anymore. She belonged to other men. The two silver rings on the fourth fingers of each hand now knotted below her chin, glinted accusingly up at him; badges of her status as other men’s wives. He’d never realized, nor paid attention to the identical set that had rested on the same fingers of the now unconscious Nathan.

Married. With not one, but two husbands. And children. And utterly beyond his reach now.

Still breathing harshly, still excited from the moment of blind passion, Sasuke lowered his head, and struggled not to give way to the tears that burned in his once more fracturing heart, as Naruto had.

There was a horrible, endless moment of utter silence, broken only by the rushed breath both still experienced. Naruto’s head dropped forward, that wild mop of blonde hair hiding her stricken face.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered brokenly.

The raw pain of her aching heart, burning with the knowledge of what lay between them now, threaded through with multiple layers of guilt and regret, struck Sasuke like a blow. With a shaking hand, he took one of hers, and felt the cold metal of the ring upon her finger.

“It’s okay,” he said hoarsely replied, even though it really wasn’t, and never would be. But what could he say? She’d waited years for him. Waited even though she knew he would never come for her. Waited while years and years and years had passed, until she had no more hope, but only a gnawing ache deep in her heart.

And then his tears came, as silently and remorselessly as the sunset.