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To Salute
Author of 6 Stories |
Our Many Shades of Gold
Disclaimer: Naruto is not owned by me.
Our Many Shades of Gold
He was tipsy, stank of sake, but his voice fell quiet with sober sincerity. Hot rice wine sloshed in his cup, nearly breaching the brim before it touched his lips and disappeared with three swallows. When the cup settled onto the wooden table of a cheap bar, Naruto repeated his questions of what and why (must have had to repeat them, or the boy wouldn't have looked so annoyed when Jiraiya finally acknowledged him with a grunted "Hmm?").
Spittle touched the bridge of his nose and flew into his beard from the anger in Naruto's interrogation, and Jiraiya gave the boy a bit of credit.
Naruto. He is a strong kid, if nothing else.
Hope settled in his chest, shifting inside of him as if it couldn't find a proper place to take root. He was too old for ignorant optimism, he knew. But please, he begged silently in the bowing of his head, let me have faith in this boy.
The old man relayed news of the Akatsuki, of Orochimaru and the organization of his troops. Naruto's cup shattered in his grip by the end of the night. In the haze of smoke from pipes and flickering lamps, his sensei gave him directions to a caravan preparing to move across the shores of Suna. Jiraiya mentioned, after a brief curse from his student, that he wasn't going to be alone. Naruto did not look up from the pieces of ceramic crushed into his palm.
You hold me close, and you don't know my name.
Little was said of the Blessed Prophet when she carried a dirty runt of a child into her wagon; even less was said of the cat as black as whetstone which followed her inside.
She laid the boy on her bed, eyes blinking with the effort to see him. He was flushed and sick, so she dampened a rag in her basin before kneeling by the bed. Water shook in the clasp of her fingers (everything about her trembled from age and traditional housewife frailty) but she managed to press it to his sweating brow. The cat perched itself on a frail little chest that heaved in a breath before the abdomen sunk past his ribcage.
After a few heavy gasps, Naruto opened his eyes, peering at the thing sitting on top of him before slanting his head in the direction of the woman and asking who the fucking hell she thought she was.
"I saved you, child," was the reply. She turned her head and cough before she could say anything else.
"Oh," he said simply. Then something whapped him on the side. Tilting his chin towards his navel, he saw a tail thump almost soundlessly against his hip.
"Is this your pet?" he shrugged towards the cat, scowling when it's hiss vibrated through his tummy. Her smile crinkled each corner of her mouth, stretching her lips in a manner that was endearing for a nervous old woman. "I thought he was yours."
Curious, the boy stared, eyes briefly flickering from blue to violet in their intensity, then a grubby hand reached out.
He touched the animal on an ear- the kitten accepted no more than a fingertip to his twitching whiskers before walking down the length of the child's legs and sitting on his thin ankles. After another swish of it's thick tail, the blonde boy smiled his acceptance and fell asleep.
You. I don't need you.
Sasuke was careful in controlling his henge, just as Naruto managed the henge of his eight year old self (sans whiskers) with strict discipline, but the Uzumaki boy could feel Sasuke's presence, could almost see it from the depths of pupils too lively to be a normal cat's eyes.
Naruto watched the shadow of the animal strut across the foot of his straw mat. Sometimes it passed through beams of moonlight and the fur turned into a canvas of silver and ebony, which was nice but annoying because Naruto couldn't sleep if Sasuke insisted on pacing back and forth. The night was just damn cold in the desert, and Blessed Prophet (Naruto learned her title during his first meal in the wagon) couldn't offer him more than two blankets. He was grateful for at least that much- she really needed the last few covers to relieve the pain in her chest.
Naruto dipped his chin to his chest and cursed when a breeze slipped through the flaps of the wagon. He hated the stiffness in his toes and stuffing his hands between his thighs was pointless; he couldn't get comfortable enough to fall asleep. Sasuke kept pacing around his feet.
The night they arrived, Sasuke started this horribly pointless habit of moving restlessly at the bottom of the straw mat. Naruto simply kicked the damn thing and winced when a claw sunk into the heel of his foot. Blessed Prophet heard him cry out, tended to his wounds with patience he had never known before, and kissed his forehead goodnight. He felt embarrassed, hating the mantra of 'You are lying to her', so he didn't kick his stupid cat again.
But after two nights of this, he was still cold.
The cat sneezed suddenly, loudly. After snuffling, and hearing Sasuke snuffling, and feeling as if the whole thing was too stupid to go on, he stretched out a hand.
"Oi. Come here, or we'll both freeze to death."
Pausing near his feet, Sasuke actually stopped moving for the first time in who knew how fucking long. It pinched Naruto's curiosity enough to have the Uzumaki boy pick up his head and squint at what he assumed was a cat, but could have been a shadow of anything. He found eyes, a swishing tail, heard a meow and confirmed that Sasuke was padding towards him.
With his arms outstretched towards Sasuke, he waited. The cat paused, radiating a thoughtfulness that just wasn't human. Naruto shifted a leg to shake away growing numbness. The cat's tail thumped on the covers.
They both waited.
Finally, the child heard another sequence of pat pat pat on his covers. When bright red eyes peered up at him from a mass of inky black fur, the boy stared at it with a comfort he didn't appreciate- this was Sasuke, this little cat that blinked at him with seemingly infinite patience. It had to be Sasuke, because there was something familiar about the cat- a feeling it evoked whenever it's eyes passed over the boy's little body, like the feeling Naruto got when his eyes casually glance towards the faces of the Hokages. A bit overwhelmed, maybe, because he had to live up to them. Defiant and consumed with the impulse to prove hismself, whatever that meant.
Naruto raised a hand, and placed it softly on the animal's back- warm, was Sasuke always this warm?
It hissed, made a swipe at the offending hand and scuttled to the other corner of the wagon.
"Fucking bastard!" Naruto yelped fiercely before sucking on his index finger. The cat did nothing but glare bright red as the wagon rattled onward.
Pride, Pride- I can't ask you for a damn thing.
A week later, the blonde boy noticed Sasuke's fatigue. Lunch was brought to the both of them inside the wagon, by Blessed Prophet's insistence, and they ate their meals together in not-quite companionship. The snip of Naruto's chopsticks joined with the clickity clickity clack of wheels and rocks; sometimes the water jug would rattle when they hit something big.
He refused to share his rice, held a chopstick of it teasingly near the saucer of milk before stuffingas much as he could into his mouth. A distinct mrow had Naruto laughing out loud, but he received no retaliation for it. The cat sat near his saucer, barely twitching his long whiskers. He wasn't doing much of anything else, except maybe breathing, so the Uzumaki boy felt brave and poked the milk with a fingertip.
"Saaaasuke. Stupid, you have to eat."
The cat's eyes quickly blinked into Sharingan, but red flickered in his pupils like a pulse before turning a pure shade of ebony. Sasuke was panting, his breath heavy enough to create ripples along the surface of his lunch. The tail curled neatly like coiled rope by his belly; eyelids lowered to half-mast before closing completely.
"Sasuke?"
When the cat didn't move, didn't even stir as Naruto prodded it's back paw gently, the eight year old bit his lip in bizarrely appropriate helplessness. If Sasuke needed medical attention…medical attention. They couldn't afford that chance. Sasuke was never sick, Naruto couldn't recall a time that he had ever been sick before and what they hell could he do about it?
The boy slid across the floor and pressed his palm to the center of the cat's chest. The beating of a heart under his quaking hand gave him some clarity, and he tried to think of what to do. How did this happen? Sasuke…he used the Sharingan, pinning Naruto with those ugly red eyes. He only held it for a second, maybe not even that long. Stray fingers ran down thinning fur. He was a pathetic looking cat- pathetic little cat, God why does it look so sickly? Medical chakra, chakra damn it all why can't I use medical chakra? I have so much, so much of it! And Sasuke…
Then realization came to Naruto with a quickly gasped "Damn it!".
After half an hour at most, the cat awoke with warmth running along it's spine. When it made to move, the warmth pushed Sasuke to the floorboards.
"If you move now, giving you all this chakra will be a waste. So stay still, fuckwit."
There was a tussle between the cat and boy, but Naruto only licked the sweat from the corner of his mouth and grinned when Sasuke's Sharingan blossomed in eager bloodlust under his hold.
"Look, asshole. If you suddenly die on me as a cat and break your henge, we are going to get caught. So either take the chakra or fail the mission."
Sasuke hissed and spat- You have no right! his eyes said. But when Naruto released him, he only leapt to his feet and scampered to the beams of the wagon.
I don't even know what it's like to receive a friendly face.
The cat and the eight year old kept a distance far enough apart for comfort but close enough so that Naruto only had to lean down if he needed to brush a hand on Sasuke's fur. Even as a toothless girl ran up to her adopted onee-san and asked him to play, Naruto's eyes would pause on ebony pupils in a shimmer of blue to violet before he nodded his head and followed. They didn't have much as far as toys went, and most were broken.
"Nii-san, toss the ball to me!" the girl would ask him.
"Hai hai," he would say with a pleased grin. More children joined, so many that they often threw themselves onto his back and he would never know who would be next. The boys were rough, and they loved tackling him. The girls liked that too. He tried to distract them with their only leather ball, and that was successful at times; other times he was a more tempting target for no other reason than the fact that they loved to have something of him to hold. Not going to disappear soon, he reassured them with his bold laughs. His cat swerved between little bodies covered in dust and cotton dresses, often lost in the mix but never far from Naruto.
Dusk would come with the task of feeding each child and making sure they ate every bite, but Naruto rarely finished the bean-paste loaf. It never went to waste- the loaf was his little sister's favorite and when he passed it to her over the loud wails and bantering of the other children, she laughed in such a fit that he had to place a finger to his lip in a signal of silence so that the adults wouldn't scold him for spoiling her. The crowd near the fire danced, sung to the rhythm of a family heirloom, beat their lives on the drum until Blessed Prophet ushered her people to bed with a hesitant smile. These moments occupied most of the time Naruto spent with the caravan, besides listening to stories told by Blessed Prophet.
The cat and his master sat near the fire on the eighth day of traveling, the little girl's head settled in Naruto's lap. She giggled, making a game of biting him in the calf when Naruto's gaze drifted to the flames. He growled at her, but she kissed him sweetly on a cheek, on the nonexistent whisker marks.
"Nii-san, have you ever seen the ocean before?"
He shook his head as he threaded his fingers into her hair. "Nope! Bet it's going to be really cool."
She nodded before she fell into a nest of legs, digging soft black curls into his lap.
"You'll like it, nii-san! The water is really nice and, and you can make things, you know, with the sand!" A little head tilted back, she giggled againwhen her forehead touched the thin white cloth of her onee-san's shirt. "You'll come with me every year, neh?"
Her eyes were pleading, stung like the sand under their legs because he didn't want to see the dissapointment in her molten-honey eyes. 'Every year'? Naruto thought as the fire licked the air and smoke burst forth like the haze of a dream.
Blessed Prophet laughed at his side, patting the knee of a mother-to-be. The woman had a boy seven years ago, the same child scampering through the dancing crowd with his cousins before running behind the sand dunes, away from the chief with a bad leg who threatened that the monsters from Blessed Prophet's stories would trap them all in hot coffins if they didn't respect their elders. The chief gave them a minute's patience before limping back to Blessed Prophet's circle.
"Naruto-kun's bad habits are rubbing off on them," he said gruffly as he ruffled the blonde boy's hair. His sister squealed in agreement; after a surprised blink, the chief laughed so loudly that those in the circle told him to be mindful of his leg. During the fuss, Blessed Prophet lowered her face to cough and passed Naruto another piece of bean-paste loaf. A little smile flickered on her face when he thanked her, but it seemed sad and Naruto couldn't understand why, didn't really try to understand when he felt an impatient tug on his collar.
Before he could pass a sticky piece of bread to his sister, fur tickled her on her lip. With another loud squeal, she made a new game out of chasing the cat. It weaved through the boys, scampering past the wagons, then hid under a wheel. It's expressionless face turned to Naruto.
The girl's mother, after hearing the commotion, peered out of her wagon to see her daughter crouched in search of her playmate. The woman picked up the girl and told her that she could play with the cat tomorrow as the flap closed behind them.
Naruto watched his cat saunter back towards him. Wrapping his arms around his legs, he cursed that damn bastard.
Those lips you press to my brow, and these gentle hands. I'm sorry; I wasn't born to trust you.
Two weeks, and Blessed Prophet still had more stories to tell her apprentice. Her hands, which often laid folded in her lap during conversations with the chiefs, animated the story so that Naruto nearly leapt from his straw mat when she reached the best part. His knee bounced absently as the tale was brought to a close, and it bumped into Sasuke's head. The cat brushed a line down Naruto's outer thigh with his tail; the Uzumaki boy cupped the neck to smooth fur behind his ear. When her hands neatly steepled under her chin, the boy lifted the corners of his mouth in a sleepy smile. He told her that the chiefs were very brave, and that he hoped he could be just as amazing one day.
"You will be such a wonderful chief one day, Naruto-kun."
Again, that guiltly feeling.
"Saa…thank you, Blessed Prophet," he said. Then teeth sank into the webbing between his fingers and he cursed.
"Ah! You stupid cat!" He flung his water flask at the animal, missing it entirely as the cat leaped to the beams and hissed.
"Naruto-kun," Blessed Prophet whispered, coughing into her laced fingers. After apologizing, the old woman pinched him on his cheek but bade him goodnight.
Stupid cat, he thought as he prepared for bed, shutting off the gas from his lamp when he was under his cover. It wasn't long afterwards that Sasuke jumped down in simple elegance, strutting his way to Naruto's face. Naruto wasn't in the mood, didn't want to bother with the stupid cat that would only scratch his face. He shifted onto his side, his back to the obnoxious animal.
"Naruto," Sasuke hissed in his own voice.
His voice, holy fuck, scare the shit out of me you complete BASTARD. Scrambling, Naruto twisted the sheets, threw them to the side in a tangled heap of scratchy wool and when he was able to adjust his sight to the dark, he saw pale and ink thrust into the high contrast that was Sasuke. Flesh, smooth and hot but –flesh, his face- and lips pursed into a thin line.
"Shit," he breathed. "Holy shit, don't- damn it, don't do that again without giving me some warning, you fucking asswipe!"
"Naruto," Sasuke repeated with more force, gripping the other boy's shoulders hard enough to whiten the skin. God, he was so much bigger in his 15 year-old boy body. Naruto glared with boyishly round cheeks and large blue eyes.
"What the hell are you doing, Sasuke? Do you want our cover blown?"
The Uchiha's nails dug too deep into little bare arms; they had to be bleeding. "Don't get comfortable here," Sasuke spat in his ear.
Skin, a human, a boy body towered over him, and Naruto wanted to release his stupid henge too but this was already so risky. Uncomfortable, Naruto chewed on the inside of his cheek. "I'm not."
"Lair."
"I said, I'm not!" the blonde growled, shoving that damned asshole in the chest. Sasuke choked, twisting his body as he pitched forward. His whole weight pressed against the younger looking boy, and they both fell back. The eight year old's head smacked against the wall behind him, his back bending under the Uchiha.
He couldn't move. Sasuke wasn't moving either.
"Oi!"
"Don't…don't..say anything…" Sasuke gasped into Naruto's hair, a string of saliva connecting the corner of his mouth to blonde spikes.
"But…"
Footsteps pattered nearby, Naruto could just hear them above the confused shoving. Someone was coming, and they couldn't afford to have their cover blown. Not now, not now, not when they only had a few days left to travel before the could return home! But shit, those feet were coming closer and the gentle coughing of Blessed Prophet caused guilt enough to make Naruto groan against the Uchiha's chest. She must have heard something, what the hell was Sasuke thinking? That asshole had to change back, had to change back now!
The blonde clung to Sasuke's shirt, pressed himself as close as he could and jammed his head into the crook of the other boy's neck.
"Get over yourself now and let me help you, or else we're both screwed," he muttered in a haggard breath.
When Blessed Prophet stepped inside to check on Naruto, she found him curled in a ball and sleeping with the covers bunched around his torso. She looked to the bottom of the mat for the cat, but he was missing. She crept closer. When she was able to bend over the boy's sleeping form, she could see the little animal sound asleep as well. It huddled into Naruto's arms, into his warmth, with it's back spooned by the boy's body.
She stroked her apprentice's hair briefly, tried to stifle a particularly bad fit of coughs, then left a while later.
I can steal, especially from you. You'll never know what you took from me.
"Nii-san, do I look pretty?" she asked.
His sleepy eyes squinted away from the fire as flames licked air like a tongue lapping milk. "Hmmm?"
A hand took a firm hold of his cheek, small but powerful, and pulled him close to sweet smelling curls. Lavender, something very simple, maybe vanilla?
"See? Mommy made it," she explained with courteous patience.
"Oh! You look very, erm, nice. It smells good too."
"My mommy wants to get me ready, 'cause we are real close to the ocean. There is going to be a big, BIG party, you know!"
Her forehead bumped into his, and he grabbed an arm to shove her away but she simply swung into his lap by the living bracelet of her nii-san's fingers. Sasuke settled himself on the edge of her dress and she cooed when his fur brushed under her knee. Her laughter was like a puppy's, Naruto thought when his other hand went for her stomach and he inadvertently tickled her side.
"Oi, why don't you go bother Blessed Prophet?"
A foot jammed itself into a calf. "Because onee-san looked lonely." He took hold of her ankle, she kicked him with the other foot. "Did you and your cat come from the same place?"
"Ano… I suppose."
"Oh. He looks sad like you." She bent foreward and kissed his pink nose. "I hope you aren't lonely, kitty-cat!"
The wooden pin fell from her hair; little patches of sand clumped in the ends of locks that couldn't decide on one direction. She tipped herself onto the cold ground to look for her clip, quietly murmuring a prayer to find it because otherwise her mother would feed her to the monster.
When she forgot the cat but found her pin, a yell sounded throughout the camp and, with a toothless but pretty grin, she left.
Naruto went to bed that night, watching as the cat moved to his feet. He couldn't fall asleep. It just felt so damn cold, he couldn't feel his toes at all. Absently, he peered around the wagon for a thicker blanket, or just a quilt.
In the dark, he saw glimmers of pale yellow from the sashes hanging off worn hooks. They were the only things lit by the moon tonight.
Blessed Prophet hung them there in preperation for the shore with a little cough and a smile. She said that they were traditional sashes for the next Prophet, or maybe for her- he didn't pay that much attention when she was explaning. But when she placed them in his hands, they reminded him of his sister, faintly. Gold, like her eyes. Soft like her arms when she clung to his neck.
"Oi, why don't you go bother Blessed Prophet?"
"Because onee-san looked lonely."
He felt such a sad urge to cry that he was surprised when his vision blurred and he actually heard his breath hitch in his chest. And he just couldn't keep quiet, he tried so hard, choked on hiccups that caused his whole body to shake from the effort of staying silent.
Because he was trying so hard, so fucking hard to stop fucking crying, he almost thanked the cat for stiffening him into silence when warmth settled against his chest. But he still couldn't stop crying, soaking it's fur and finally Sasuke pressed Naruto's head to his chest and ordered him to stop. But Naruto cursed and screamed into his chest, released the stupid henge so Sasuke could really see, yelled on about how it wasn't fair and why did they have to go into hiding and why the hell did he not want to go back to Konoha?
"And Sasuke, fuck- aren't you tired of being alone yet?" he asked in a desperate voice.
'Please, be tired. I'll admit it if you do too.'
Sasuke bent down, mashed his lips against Naruto's, whispered a heated mantra of shut up, just shut up. The blonde, still shaking, mouthed "sorry" over and over until a tongue began to trace the roof of his mouth, and he clutched the fabric of Sasuke's shirt. It felt like a kiss, he never really kissed before. So warm, so hot- he wondered if he would ever feel cold again.
Even as I live in this ecstasy…
Dancing that night was the celebration of their arrival, but escalated to a commemoration for life.
They stomped, twirling magnificent ribbons from their hair and in their hands. The singing, which had always existed as gentle background noise, became as loud as the beat of the drums, as if to match the height of their spirits. Colors fluttered, reds that must have been dipped in a liquid horizon, with hues of gold catching the gleam of the firelight and indigos that melted as they touched the purple sky near sundown. Music engulfed any sense left to the caravan with ease as they tossed their worries, their cares, into the flames like their small bags of explosive powder.
Pwoof! sounded the fire as the bags burst and smoke arched towards the night sky! Rumble rumble rumble cried dozens of feet, raging like a thunderstorm. Everything felt limitless, like the cragged chuckle of the old chief with his stump of a leg perched on a rich cushion or the bounty of food made by husbands and wives.
The blonde boy, whom everyone thought would turn into a fine young man as evident by the number of times he was told as much, hoisted her sister onto his shoulders when she asked him to join her. With spins and jumping they moved about the fire, adding their shadows to the mass of gray moving along the sand.
The song could not speak of any less- it sang 'This is life; energy and motion with chaos as it's companion, so dance!'
The black cat move fluidly around clustered feet, and when the Uzumaki child could no longer stand the weight of his sister (it was already impressive to see his small body carry a five year old for a heartbeat, much more so a whole song), he tossed her onto cushions that made up Blessed Prophet's circle.
But there was no laughter here. The chiefs and their wives sat murmuring to themselves, and as Naruto slowly climbed from the peak of his ecstasy the lame chief noted that he hadn't seen Blessed Prophet for some time.
...you leave me.
With the rest of the caravan swept up in the intense vigor of the night, Naruto began a search for his caregiver. He found her near the waves, motionless but standing in a way that could only be described as proud. Her chin jutted out to meet the bank of the waters, her eyes declaring defiance. She looked younger, even with her gray hair riding the breeze in thick ringlets.
"Blessed Prophet?"
She must have sensed his presence before he spoke, because she did not seem surprised to hear his voice. She took a step towards the water, her arms opened as if to embrace it.
"Naruto-kun, how did you find me?"
He watched as she took another step, a faint tremble in her frame.
"Wait- what are you doing…?" he asked, and her eyes turned to meet his. Her arms fell to her sides, as if they were given slack. She was misty, sad again,but she looked as if she had reached some ultimateconclusion to a question that he thinks has bothered her since his arrival. He has never seen her look so resolute.
Naruto couldn't understand the sudden fear that overtook him, then she walked with her slow steps to him and fell to her knees before wrapping him tightly in a hug. She smelled of the sea, which made perfect sense to Naruto because she always had that smell before but he hadn't known what to call the scent until now.
"Please forgive me, Naruto-kun" she crooned in her soft voice before coughing over his shoulder. He had his hands pressed to her collarbone, immobile but unwilling to push her away. What could she be sorry for? What was wrong?
When she gasped for air, her hug grew tighter and she managed a few more words. "I've kept this story for you only, a prophecy that no one knows but me."
She held him so tightly, it scared him so much that he hardly dared to breath. Even the cat, which had been standing a foot or so away from Naruto, shifted closer until they were touching and the boy liked to imagine that it was comforting, even if Sasuke only needed more chakra. Blessed prophet leaned away just enough to look at his face as she brushed his bangs from his forehead and spoke.
"I was once told," she began in that careful way of hers that had irked him before but he suddenly missed as he heard her speak,"that one day I would see my end in the wake of a golden dawn."
When there was no sign of clarity from the little boy in her arms, she looked so apologetic.
With a final nervous little smile, she released him and continued to walk into the waters, laughed when her feet could no longer touch the bottom. As her laughter was shrouded by a fierce wind, he thought her vitality in that one instance could never match that of the drums and thunder.
She disappeared under the next rushing wave.
That was your end, and this is mine. But you and I, we find ways to live on.
"Sasuke, please!" he yelled as he tried to push the other boy away.
"Don't be selfish, moron!" Sasuke yelled back, just as loud.
"But I need to go after her, I need to save her you fucking bastard!"
Nothing could get through to Naruto, he was just so angry, so pissed that something like this happened while he was just standing there like a useless idiot. Sasuke swallowed his anger in a kiss, because this was the only way that Naruto could understand.
Naruto used his teeth, tried to pry Sasuke off of him. But Sasuke pulled back, held Naruto in a hard grip before kissing him again. With the handicap of living as prey, the blonde was about to walk to his death. There was no jutsu he could use that wouldn't give him away, because a henge was low-level and eventhat was playing it dangerous.
Sasuke pulled back again, pinning the blonde firmly under his wieght. "Dimwit, you're worth more than a suicidal woman on her last breath," Sasuke muttered. "Don't you fucking die on me."
Naruto stopped struggling then, when dusk darkened into night and the light of the fire could no longer be seen. Water reached the nape of his neck from the tide. It soaked his shirt; his shorts were no better. And Sasuke looked tired, but there was still warmth, still the heat of Sasuke's presence.
The beat of drums echoed in the distance as they both fell asleep on the beach.
