Hey faithful readers, a lot has happened since the last chapter!

I have some pictures of me dressed as Naruto at the NY-comic con. Please check them out on my profile and praise me for my Naruto-ness.

Just to clear up this chapter a bit the first scene take place before chapter two (meaning before the stories initial beginning) I haven’t set up an precise time line from when Naruto first fought back to this current chapter. So the flashback time period is a bit iffy. Sorry if that’s confusing.

On another note- I’m going to use the magic of fanfiction so I can skip over Anko teaching Sasuke how to fight. I did actually write the scene but after it was done I realized it wasn’t funny or even interesting …so delete!

As always I want to smother my beta, angstkitten, with love for beta this chapter.

And the last comment I want to make about this chapter….I HATE IT! Maybe it’s because I’m getting close to the end or because it’s so short but really don’t like how this chapter came out.

Sticks and Stone

Chapter 16-Heavens been erased

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Thou callest me a dog before thou hast cause.
But since I am a dog, beware my fangs.

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Eight months ago

Small fingers looped around the thick chalk stick and pressed the sharp edge into the sidewalk, causing small pieces to break away and form a shaky line that curved around to create a sloppy circle. The owner of the fingers blew softly on the chalk dusting and examined his work with a critical eye; the two circles still weren’t perfect, but they would do for the time being. He raised the chalk again and placed a white dot in both of the circles before moving off to the side and quickly writing down Konohamaru off to the side of the picture.

Konohamaru shifted slightly and would have began the same process over again if a scuffed-up shoe hadn’t suddenly stepped on his fresh artwork, thus smearing the lines. He looked up and scowled at the owner of the shoe before trying to shove the offending foot away and salvage the last of his art. He was met with no resistance but was disappointed to see his beautiful drawings destroyed.

“Sorry! I didn’t see you there! Whatcha drawing?” Although the voice above him sounded sincere enough, he didn’t care to look up and see. It was only when the person suddenly squatted down beside him and used his finger to smear the drawing even more, that Konohamaru answered back.

“Boobs.” He waited for laughter that was sure to come, but the other boy only let out a soft hum and tilted his head to the side to get a better look at the drawing.

“They don’t look like boobs,” the boy responded smartly. Konohamaru crushed the bit of chalk between his fingers and growled as it broke in two.

How dare he, you could clearly see the two biggest boobs ever drawn!

“Shut up! What do you know?” He bowed his head and started on another set of boobs. Hopefully the kid would get the hint and leave him alone.

He tensed up when the blond boy knelt beside him and a finger pushed its way into his view to poke the sidewalk drawing. “It looks like two plates with olives in the middle.”

Konohamaru gritted his teeth and opened his mouth to retort, but the hand moved quickly and grabbed his discarded chalk and began to draw. “Here, if you make a W first and then draw two tiny circles at the bottom…. Ta-dah! Perfect boobs!”

Konohamaru blinked and stared at the older boy’s drawing. It did in fact resemble boobs; gigantic boobs in fact. He turned to stare at the boy who was kneeling beside him with a grin that could rival any child’s smile and found his lips twitch into a smile as well.

The blond boy stood up and stretched, and Konohamaru found himself mimicking the older boy’s movements. The boy stopped and raised an eyebrow at Konohamaru. “What are you doing?”

Konohamaru’s eye twitched as he attempted to raises his eyebrow as well. “Following the leader!”

The older boy frowned and took a step back. “Me? Leader?”

Konohamaru quickly took a step forward not understanding the boy’s confusion.

“Yeah, like the game! You’re the leader!”

“What game?”

“You’ve never played follow the leader?”

The older boy shook his head and now it was Konohamaru turn to be confused. Didn’t everyone play that game at least once? Not wanting to be the one to explain the rules of the game, the younger boy decided to choose a simpler explanation.

“Well, we can’t be friends, you’re too old! So that makes you the leader!”

Konohamaru was startled when older boy’s confused expression turned gloomy and tried one last time to form some kind of relationship. “I take it back! I want to call you ‘boss’ instead!”

The blond boy seemed to brighten up and nodded eagerly and plopped back down on the sidewalk. Konohamaru quickly followed and sat down in front of the strange boy. He watched as the boy grabbed the chalk with child-like delight to draw an arrow and sign his name next to the boobs.

Konohamaru squinted trying to read the messy signature.

“You’re name is Tsunade?”

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Eight months later

Moving at a sluggish pace, Sasuke winced as his backpack dug into the new bruise on his shoulder. He still didn’t know who to blame for that particular bruise, probably a little of both, plus the fifteen pound backpack wasn’t helping the matter at all.

He had been lucky all weekend, and escaped any questioning about his black eyes. This was due to his parents’ absence and the fact that Itachi was still trying to figure out why he continuously smelled like old cheese. Sasuke made a mental note to pick up more cream cheese after school.

Not wanting to waste another minute in his house, he left early and decided to do his homework before class started. He scanned the school yard for a nice safe spot away from prying eyes and eventually decided the bleachers next to the soccer field was the best choice. He quickened his pace, anticipating the moment he would get to drop his backpack and find some relief.

He turned the corner and carelessly swung his bag and dropped it on the bottom bleacher causing it to whack against the metal and smacking into the side of a small blond boy sitting on the bottom step.

Sasuke immediately took several steps back as Naruto glared at the offending backpack before shifting up to Sasuke with a defiant stare. Naruto held his gaze a few seconds before looking down and focusing on a small white object in his hand.

Feeling a bit braver, Sasuke took a small step forward and waited for some kind of verbal abuse which never came. Naruto resumed picking at the white object clearly, ignoring Sasuke’s presence.

Sasuke felt his eye twitch as he recognized the small item to be an egg.

“What are you doing out here?” Sasuke slowly crept forward, cautious with each step. Naruto ignored the question and continued to peel his egg.

Feeling even braver, Sasuke stood directly in front of the seated boy, looking down at the small figure. “Naruto, we need to talk.”

“Should I get the trashcan ready?” Naruto asked softly with no malice or spite laced in his voice. Sasuke felt his stomach clench but took a deep breath and pushed forward. “Anko asked me to tell you something.”

Sasuke waited for Naruto to give some sort of reaction, but the boy merely lifted his hand and picked out a tiny eggshell that was trapped under his nail. Sasuke waited another second before blurting out the strange sentence the woman had forced him to repeat over and over till he got it right. “She told me to tell you that her sleeping potion is just warm water. I don’t know what that means, but that’s what she said.”

Naruto’s face twitched and a tiny chuckle escaped from his mouth. Encouraged by the laugh, Sasuke moved a little closer and placed a hand on Naruto’s shoulder, which tensed under his touch. “She also wanted me to tell you something important about the day you were born when your father left you in the dumpster.”

“Shut up,” Naruto snarled, and his eyes narrowed into little slits. He moved his shoulder to escape Sasuke’s hand, but the other boy held on tightly and dug his fingers into the blond’s shirt.

“Someone must have found you, right? To bring you to the hospital and get your cuts treated.” Sasuke reached out and brushed the scars lightly with his fingertip. Naruto flinched and quickly pulled away from his touch.

“I don’t want to hear this.”

Sasuke winched at the volume of Naruto’s, voice but he used both hands to steer the boy so he was forced to face him. “It was Anko; you saved her life!”

Naruto’s eye widened as he stared up at Sasuke. The silence dragged out between them until Naruto looked down and return to peeling his egg. “What do you want from me?”

Sasuke took a deep breath and tried to compose himself. But it was difficult when his thumb grazed against Naruto’s neck and he could feel the warm skin against his fingers. His throat went dry when he felt the tan skin pulse as Naruto swallowed hard and took short breaths of air.

Feeling braver, Sasuke stroked the warm skin beneath his thumb and was rewarded with a tiny shiver as the skin grew hotter from his touch. He slowly shifted his fingers so they could all touch a slice of skin. He then used his thumbs on either side of Naruto’s jaw to tilt the boy’s blushing face upward and finally asked, “Naruto, you like me, right?”

“No.” Naruto answered quickly, with no hesitation, but Sasuke was not discouraged. He took a long breath and tried again.

“You like me more than a friend should, right?” He took a small step forward so that now he was standing in between Naruto’s legs. All his weight was centered on leaning against Naruto’s shoulders which pushed the boy back until the edge of the metal bleacher was pressing into his back.

Naruto titled his head upward and stared at Sasuke with an uneasy frown. He slowly raised his right hand and placed it delicately on Sasuke’s shoulder. The boy glanced at the tan hand before turning back and giving Naruto a half smile.

Naruto’s hand tightened on Sasuke’s shirt and he pulled the boy down roughly, and with his left hand smashed the unpeeled egg in Sasuke’s mouth.

Sasuke’s eyes widened and he gagged as the egg was forced down his throat. He nearly threw up as his gag reflexes forced the whole egg to shoot back up his throat. Naruto quickly used the distraction to escape Sasuke’s hold and barely avoided being sprayed with regurgitated egg.

Sasuke gasped, finally feeling his air pipes cleared up, but before he could stand up, a sudden pressure on his lower back knocked him over onto the ground. Even with his face planted in the ground, he could hear Naruto’s snickers and cruel jab. “Blow it out your ass.”

Sasuke raised his head to see Naruto sauntering away with a hop in his step. He watched the boy enter the building and never even glance back to check on him. Sasuke cursed and looked down to see that Naruto had pushed him directly into the pile of egg that he had just spat up.

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Halfway through study hall, the sound of a textbook caused everyone in the room jump before settling back down in their seats with a grumble.

Naruto had jumped as well, but was able to stifle his scream when he felt someone slid next to him and asked with a bored voice, “Did you understand problem eleven?”

Shikamaru ignored Naruto’s stiff position and placed one elbow on the desk and cradled his face in his hand. “It’s a trick question; instead of using the formal formula to get the solution you have to go backwards and plug in the information and the solution to find the grams.”

“Go away.”

Despite himself, Shikamaru felt a shiver run down his body at the sound of Naruto’s cold voice. Nevertheless, he tried looking as calm as possible while riffling through his own textbook. He pushed the book between them and opened to the current chapter. “No can do. I’m your tutor; you asked me for help.”

“Well I’m un-asking it. I don’t need your help,” Naruto hissed and pushed the textbook away from him.

Shikamaru frowned and moved the textbook closer to Naruto only to have it pushed away again. “How troublesome. If you didn’t need, my help why did you ask me?”

“I was failing and you were just convenient at the time. But now you are useless to me.”

“Useless?” Shikamaru stopped the childish fight as Naruto’s words left a sharp pain in his heart. He cleared his throat and tried to act as if the words hadn’t affected him. “So you’re saying our friendship was just convenient for you at the time?”

Too late, Naruto already caught sight of Shikamaru’s stunned face. He spoke quickly and tried not to think too hard about the words coming out of his mouth. “What friendship? I only pretend to like you guys so you’d stop picking on me.”

Shikamaru said nothing and stared at the blond boy. Naruto struggled to breath normally. He forced himself to smirk and let out a convincing chuckle. “What, you think anyone actually likes you? Geez, your supposed to be the smart one, but you can’t even see that that’s the only reason people are acting nice is so they can use you.

“Plus, you’re so desperate for people to like you that you let them walk all over you.” Naruto tugged Shikamaru’s textbook out of his hands and reached in his pocket for a small jar.

He moved silently and opened the jar while talking quickly to distract the boy. “I almost feel sorry for you.”

Naruto paused to let the words sink in. He used the time wisely by shoving the white gunk from the jar between the pages. Satisfied with his work, Naruto closed the textbook and shoved it back between them. He felt a tiny sense of relief when he realized that Shikamaru was facing away from him. That made it much easier to lie. Naruto folded his arms behind the back of his head and smirked. “You mean nothing to me, so do me a favor: get over yourself.”

“You were my friend.” Naruto’s eyes snapped up at the sound of Shikamaru’s strangled voice, but he didn’t dare look at the boy.

Shikamaru laid his head in the folds of his arms and looked away from Naruto. “I should have asked you first if the story was true before making assumptions. I’m sorry; you’re my friend but I didn’t trust you.”

“I’M NOT YOUR FRIEND!” Naruto’s head snapped to the side and he finally looked straight at Shikamaru. A few students turned around at Naruto’s shout and the teacher shot them a disapproving look. Naruto blushed and quickly lowered his voice to a whisper. “If I had known all this friendship stuff was bullshit, I would have never gone through with it.”

The heavy feeling in his chest suddenly grew lighter. Shikamaru grinned slightly and leaned back in his chair. “So you admit we were friends at one point.”

“No!” At this point, even Naruto’s ears were turning red

Shikamaru grinned cockily and raised on eyebrow. “Then what made you save Chouji from getting hit by a car?”

Naruto calmed down a bit and the redness slowly began to leave his face. He crossed his arms and stared at the clock willing it to move faster. There were only a few minutes left anyway, and Naruto was determined to speak as little as possible. “What, and sit back and let my reputation as a murder grow?”

A wrinkle formed on Shikamaru’s forehead as he noticed his time with Naruto was quickly running out. “Naruto, do you remember your first friend?”

The blond boy said nothing and began packing his backpack. Shikamaru struggled to try again “Was it someone at the orphanage?”

Still no response. Shikamaru wracked his brain and recalled one of Iruka’s students who had been attached to Naruto. “That Konoha kid, was he your first friend?”

“Konohamaru,” Naruto mumbled without thinking. After realizing his mistake, he stood up and shoved Shikamaru’s textbook into the boy’s chest. “Here’s your book back, by the way.”

He watched as Naruto spun around and walked away. With a frown, Shikamaru tried to open the textbook only to hear the sound of pages being ripped.

He glanced down in surprise and examined the textbook before a small smile crept over his lips. They had a chance. Yes it was slim and almost impossible, but there was a small fraction of hope.

And the evidence lay right before him; a textbook super glued shut.

Contrary to what people may assume, the opposite to love is not hate. Both emotions require a strong feeling of attachment.

The opposite of love is indifference.

And if Naruto had taken the time to plot and devise a way, then that proved his feelings towards Shikamaru were anything but indifference.

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Chouji knew the right thing to do was to tell an adult. That’s what everyone was taught even before school: if someone is hurting you, then you should report it to an adult. So why was he using his math book to hide the writing carved on his desk?

Chouji moved his textbook a little and caught the beginning of the word. He waited until the teacher had her back turned before slowly lifted the book and staring at the message.

‘Fatass’ was carved deeply into the wood.

A snicker came from behind him and Chouji closed his eyes. It was just a word. Why should one little word cause him so much pain?

He opened his eyes and tried to focus on the lesson, but a sharp pain erupted on the back of his neck. Without thinking, Chouji turned around to see Naruto smirking at him.

He watched as Naruto reached into his jacket and pulled out a penny. Naruto maintained the smile as he balanced the penny on his thumb and then placed his middle finger on top of it. Chouji opened his mouth to ask what the boy was doing, but Naruto suddenly snapped his finger, causing the penny to shoot out and smack Chouji on his left cheek. Chouji’s hand quickly covered the spot and winced at the lasting sting.

Naruto grinned and seemed to take pleasure in Chouji’s pain. He slowly reached into his pocket and revealed a roll of pennies.

Chouji couldn’t help but see the irony of the situation: the victim had become the bully and the bully was now the prey. Wasn’t this what everyone was warned about, it was kids who get pushed too far and finally snap and climb on the roof to shoot students.

Chouji’s heart stilled before he let out an easy sigh. Naruto wouldn’t do that, he wasn’t anything like those kids.

There were so many times where Naruto could have done something but decided against it. He called him a faggot and Naruto didn’t so much as flinch. Even after all of that, Naruto still cared about Chouji’s safety and had saved him from getting hit by a car on more than one occasion.

Chouji slowly mouthed the words, “I’m sorry I hurt you.”

Naruto seemed to freeze as he stared at Chouji with wide eyes. Chouji could see a slight tremor in Naruto’s hand that was holding the roll of pennies. Naruto’s face seemed to pale and Chouji panicked for a moment, thinking the boy was going to pass out. He breathed a sigh of relief when Naruto calmed down. He continued to watch as the boy reached into his pocket again, this time pulling out a small plastic container filled with red liquid.

Chouji’s jaw dropped as he watched Naruto break open the red plastic and proceed to smear the red gunk under his nose and on his desk.

Naruto stood up and called out to the teacher, “Excuse me! My nose is bleeding, can I go to the nurse?”

The teacher turned around and made a face of disgust but pulled open the drawer and retrieved the pass. Naruto quickly made his way to the front without even glancing at Chouji.

It was only after Naruto sprinted out of the room, that Chouji finally collected his thoughts and raised his hand. “Can I go to the bathroom?”

“Wait till Naruto gets back with the pass.”

Chouji sighed and put his hand down, of course.

He shifted in his seat and glanced up at the clock to see there was still another forty minutes of class left. Chouji resisted the urge to slam his head against the desk and instead laid his head against the folds of his arms. He could vaguely hear the sound of ringing going off before the teacher began yelling about turning cell phones off in class.

Chouji’s head snapped up and scrambled in his jeans pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He hid it under his desk and began pressing buttons and typing out a quick text message. When it was done he, pressed send and try to relax.

Hopefully the message would be received in time.

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This was not good. Naruto rubbed his face vigorously and washed away the fake vampire blood he had bought earlier that day at a party store. He had wisely opted to clean up in the bathroom instead of the nurse’s office.

When all traces of the fake blood disappeared from his mouth, Naruto began working on the blood that had gotten in between his fingers. His anger grew as he slammed a hand against the soap dispenser and attacked the stubborn stains.

Where was the change? He was supposed to be in control now! But when Chou-, no, the fatass started apologizing, he zapped all the fun out. And what was with the nerd’s questions; who was his first friend?

Naruto looked up and saw his reflection staring back at him with tired eyes. Acting on impulse, he flicked water at the mirror to distort the image, but the droplets clung together and dripped down the surface.

Naruto watched as his reflection cried.

“YOU…” He closed his eyes and drew his hand back into a fist. He mentally prepared himself for another seven years of bad luck before letting his clenched hand shoot forward. Naruto felt a second of satisfaction as his knuckles made contact with the mirror’s surface. However, that satisfying moment was short lived when his elbow was pulled back, causing his intended punch to become nothing more than a hard tap.

Naruto felt something around his elbow tighten and opened one eye to look at his reflection. His double seemed to wince as well and tilted upward to see the dark blur standing behind him.

“…Dobe.”

Naruto tensed up and the hand around his elbow began to turn him around. Just as Naruto broke eye contact with the mirror, he swore he could see his reflection mouth one word to him,

‘Fuck!’

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Ok who here thought I was going to have them kiss? Tsk tsk you should know me better by now.

Please don’t ask me where I learned to draw boobs…I’m glad I changed the beginging to Naruto and konohamru’s first meeting. Somehow I can see Naruto being more childish then konhamaru.

Like I said, I’m really disappointed with this chapter, it’s too short and I jumped around during scenes

One more chapter people!!

Peace

sam