Categories > Anime/Manga > Naruto > Innocence From Ashes
Innocence From Ashes
Chapter 8
The others were tensed as Hinata looked at the blonde little boy with her all seeing gaze. She would easily see that this couldn’t possibly be whom he was trying to make them believe he was. She would see. After all, Hinata Hyuuga had been in love with Naruto since the very first day she laid eyes on him. As much a stalker in her own quiet demure way as Sasuke’s old fangirls had been, no one had seen as much of Naruto Uzumaki inside and out than she had.
Surely, Neji himself was looking at Naruto the same way, but he was in no way as familiar to the man that loved and owed Naruto so much as the girl that knew him like the back of her hand.
Better than the back of her hand, in fact, as she had looked at him as many times a day as she could when he was still in the village, and had hardly regarded said hand at all. What could her very own hand have to offer when there was such a handsome, vivid, blue eyed blonde to look at?
At any rate, though their hearts pounded with such hope, such desperate desire for this to be real, they knew that it could not be. They’d seen Naruto’s body after the column had done its dreadful work. He’d been shattered from neck to toes. And after Kyuubi got done escaping, he’d no longer even resembled something human. And though they wished for it with all the wild hope in their hearts, it was a cruel and dastardly thing to do, create a loathsome doppleganger of someone they loved and missed and grieved for so intensely.
The Kazekage’s wife would expose this terrible fraud. And then they would kill him. He would be executed for the heinous crime of pretending to be Naruto Uzumaki.
But she burst into tears, breathing that wondrous name. And to make matters even stranger, she did something totally unexpected.
Sabaku-Hyuuga Hinata dropped to one knee formally, clenched fist held to her breast, head bowed in loyal submission.
And though Sakura was no Hyuuga, indeed, being the very first ninja from a common if rather wealthy family, she too followed Hinata’s example.
Even as Sakura dropped, so too did Neji.
Shikamaru, blinked, coughed roughly and thickly, and offered his clan’s symbolic loyalty. Hands together as if in prayer, his head dipped low.
Kiba dropped to both knees, hands extended, palms up, and lowered his head.
Kakashi, sharingan eye revealed, tomoes wheeling wildly, stood at attention, one foot slightly behind the other, as if standing before his Hokage.
Gaara, beside the lowered Hinata, did not fall to his knee, but did lower his head, as he would to a fellow Kage, and slightly behind him Kankuro offered the Sunan tribute to a neighboring sovereign.
It was like a wave of wind in wheat, a line in lowering of heads in loyal, if not royal recognition.
Naruto stood there, blinking in confusion. Even if he had been in possession of all his memories, he still would have wondered what on earth would possess them to offer him such a lofty tribute.
And though he didn’t have any of those memories, he did recognize solemnity when he saw it, and then looked behind himself to see what could have provoked such a response from all these grown ups.
And saw that Sasuke too had dropped to one knee, very similar to the Hyuuga tribute, naturally since they had once been but one clan. The only difference was he was on the other knee, and his hand was not clenched in a fist, but only the two middle fingers clasped, leaving his thumb, pointer, and pinky extended. His dark head was lowered, but tilted slightly aside, looking up at his mate with a quirky grin, dark eyes gleaming with pride and possessiveness through his inky bangs.
There was a thunderous silence.
“What… what are you doing?” Naruto asked weakly, unable to understand what this portended. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, get up Sasuke!”
That seemed to shake some sort of reality back into the stunned group. They straightened up slowly, and they were no longer looking at Naruto.
They were looking at Sasuke, and they did not look happy.
Konohamaru was the one to give voice to their darkening thoughts.
“If he’s Naruto, then that means…”
And suddenly, they were all moving very quickly indeed.
With a yelp, Naruto found himself in a pair of deceptively slender arms, strong as steel.
Sakura caught him up, ripping away the hand that was held up to have Naruto lift him back to his feet. And bore him away from the only one he loved.
Sasuke sprang to his feet with a furious oath, dark eyes staining crimson, four tomoes whirling like a maelstrom deep within.
And found he couldn’t move.
Shikamaru, hands held stiffly before him, dark shadow long and thick between them, held him at bay, and made the mistake of looking into Sasuke’s eyes. He froze, caught up in a red and black nightmarish landscape.
“Don’t look into his eyes,” Kakashi cried, shocked and horrified to see those hellish eyes. Out came a scroll, and he bit his thumb.
Hinata was rushing forward, hands moving like the wind, even as sand leapt up from the ground, rising and undulating, shifting like some monstrous wave.
“Stop!” Naruto shouted, writhing in those unyielding arms. Satiny ears popped up on his head, deeply tanned flesh rippling into golden fur. “What are you doing? Let him go! Let him gooooooooooooo….” He degenerated into a furious howl.
“Holy shit!” Sakura shrieked, suddenly finding a fox kit wriggling madly in her arms, two tails lashing her face painfully. Shocked, she let go.
Naruto landed lightly and scampered over to where Sasuke was still held, and still holding Shikamaru, both frozen in place, yapping frantically. He hurled himself into his littermate’s nerveless arms.
“STOP!” Sakura screamed, as once more, Naruto threw himself in harm’s way to protect that black hearted Uchihan traitor. “Don’t hurt Naruto!”
The sand slammed harmlessly but agitatedly to the ground, and shifted restlessly. Hinata stopped her deadly attack by plowing face first into the ground, but the sand rose up again, caught her mid fall, and cradled her gently before she could injure herself.
Akamaru, and another monstrous dog, aka Kiba, prowled uneasily, growling helplessly, circled by an outer ring of Kakashi’s summoned nindogs.
The shock of the kit’s small body impacting with his own made Sasuke close his eyes, breaking the connection. Shikamaru collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.
Sasuke held tightly to his mate, trembling, black ears now twitching on his head, eyes once more dark and cold. He looked around, and found every avenue of escape blocked off.
Naruto twisted in Sasuke’s arms, barking furiously, both tails fluffed up to three times their size.
And Sasuke was shrinking, darkening, rippling with ebony fur, whiskers bristling fiercely, and he added his own sharp voice to his mate’s.
And the circle of ninja stared, eyes wide with shock, and beheld that which staggered the mind. Wolf cub and fox kit snapped and barked defiantly at them.
Neji’s mouth tightened. “The Kyuubi’s work, no doubt.”
None of them would ever forget that terrible summer night, only a week ago, when Kyuubi got free and destroyed Sasuke, and then vanished with both his and Naruto’s body in a streak of fire. A small blazing comet that had shot southwards… to this general direction.
“It all makes sense now,” Kakashi said softly, his voice almost lost in the yelps and barks of two very angry canines. “The Demon fox has saved Naruto before. He is a demon lord, after all. Perhaps it is possible after all…” And he tapered off, brow furrowed in thought, eye covered once more. The nindogs had vanished as quickly as they had appeared.
So too Kiba took his human form. It wouldn’t do to further antagonize Naruto.
Naruto, who stood on four paws, all of them digging into the dirt, as he and Sasuke circled back to back, watching warily. They were no longer snarling, just turning slowly, watching and looking and searching for a way out.
“They’re gonna bolt,” Kiba observed dryly, very familiar with the antics of wild canines. He was, after all, just a whisker away from being the same, as was his whole clan.
“No!” Cried Sakura, desperately. She’d just found him again! She couldn’t lose him now. “Naruto… forgive us!” She fell to her knees, and leaned forward, trying to look into those crimson eyes, and failing. “We’re sorry, please, please don’t leave.”
Akamaru whined softly, sitting back on his haunches, whined and yipped softly.
The two wild animals halted, heads cocked, ears perked, but no less wary.
“Attaboy,” Kiba whispered. “Tell him we’re sorry. Tell him we thought Sasuke would hurt him. Tell him we know we were mistaken, and that we are sorry.”
And Akamaru burst into a long and incomprehensible string of yelps, barks, and wuffles.
The wolf simply growled and looked away. The fox began another round of furious barking.
The humans could barely repress smiles. The kit was obviously giving the dog, and the rest of them, a piece of his mind. It was so very… Naruto!
Naruto gave one last angry yip, huffed, fur ruffling, and tails coiling around his paws, only now deflating. He sniffed in disdain, and turned his nose into the air.
Akamaru gave a soft whine and bellied up slowly closer, eyes big and begging.
The fox peeked out of the corner of his eye, which sparkled, and then huffed again.
Whiiiiiinnnnnne….
And it was too much for the gregarious kit. Without a second thought, he bounced up and came down on the white dog, tugging playfully on an ear almost as big as his whole body, tails wagging madly.
The wolf cub gave a long suffering sigh, rolled his dark eyes, but still had fur pricked up on the back of his neck. And he watched his mate carefully. Very carefully. If that damned white dog thought he would harm his Naruto, he had another think coming. Painfully.
And already the change was upon him, dark fur receeding, ears dropping, whiskers vanishing, and once more Sasuke stood in their midst.
And then there was Naruto, blonde and blue eyed once more, rolling around in the dirt with Akamaru.
”Naruto.”
Naruto looked up, still with a mouthful of ear, and then spat it out, along with sundry hairs, and got up with a sheepish grin, scratching the back of his head in the old familiar way. He took the pale hand held out to him, and allowed Sasuke to draw him into the safety of his arms.
“Dobe,” Sasuke said with exasperation. “Will you never learn? They just attacked us!”
Naruto looked up from the crook of his lover’s neck. Oh yeah…
“Why?” He asked instead, staring at them all. “You seemed so nice at first. What have we ever done to you?”
“Naruto-niisan,” Konohamaru finally broke in, unable to remain silent. “It’s us, don’t you remember?” He was so frustrated. This was Naruto, impossibilities aside, sudden ability to turn into a fox aside as well. “Don’t you remember us at all?”
Naruto’s brow furrowed. “You know me?”
“Yeah!” Konohamaru waxed enthusiastically. At least they weren’t running away. “Don’t you remember the last time we talked? I told you that you were the Light of Konoha. The eternal flame. And that we would save you from Sasuke!”
“Save me from Sasuke?” Naruto’s blue eyes widened in disbelief. “Why would I need to be saved from my littermate?”
“Littermate…” Neji murmured, deep in thought. So much was coming clear at last.
“Because he enslaved you!” Konohamaru was beside himself. “Sasuke enslaved you, and then killed you!”
“SHUT UP!” Sasuke suddenly screamed, dark eyes filled with panic. Naruto must not remember!
“What’s the matter, bastard,” Kiba said venomously. “Afraid your lover boy will find out the truth?”
Naruto turned bewildered eyes on his companion. “S…Sasuke?”
Chapter 8
The others were tensed as Hinata looked at the blonde little boy with her all seeing gaze. She would easily see that this couldn’t possibly be whom he was trying to make them believe he was. She would see. After all, Hinata Hyuuga had been in love with Naruto since the very first day she laid eyes on him. As much a stalker in her own quiet demure way as Sasuke’s old fangirls had been, no one had seen as much of Naruto Uzumaki inside and out than she had.
Surely, Neji himself was looking at Naruto the same way, but he was in no way as familiar to the man that loved and owed Naruto so much as the girl that knew him like the back of her hand.
Better than the back of her hand, in fact, as she had looked at him as many times a day as she could when he was still in the village, and had hardly regarded said hand at all. What could her very own hand have to offer when there was such a handsome, vivid, blue eyed blonde to look at?
At any rate, though their hearts pounded with such hope, such desperate desire for this to be real, they knew that it could not be. They’d seen Naruto’s body after the column had done its dreadful work. He’d been shattered from neck to toes. And after Kyuubi got done escaping, he’d no longer even resembled something human. And though they wished for it with all the wild hope in their hearts, it was a cruel and dastardly thing to do, create a loathsome doppleganger of someone they loved and missed and grieved for so intensely.
The Kazekage’s wife would expose this terrible fraud. And then they would kill him. He would be executed for the heinous crime of pretending to be Naruto Uzumaki.
But she burst into tears, breathing that wondrous name. And to make matters even stranger, she did something totally unexpected.
Sabaku-Hyuuga Hinata dropped to one knee formally, clenched fist held to her breast, head bowed in loyal submission.
And though Sakura was no Hyuuga, indeed, being the very first ninja from a common if rather wealthy family, she too followed Hinata’s example.
Even as Sakura dropped, so too did Neji.
Shikamaru, blinked, coughed roughly and thickly, and offered his clan’s symbolic loyalty. Hands together as if in prayer, his head dipped low.
Kiba dropped to both knees, hands extended, palms up, and lowered his head.
Kakashi, sharingan eye revealed, tomoes wheeling wildly, stood at attention, one foot slightly behind the other, as if standing before his Hokage.
Gaara, beside the lowered Hinata, did not fall to his knee, but did lower his head, as he would to a fellow Kage, and slightly behind him Kankuro offered the Sunan tribute to a neighboring sovereign.
It was like a wave of wind in wheat, a line in lowering of heads in loyal, if not royal recognition.
Naruto stood there, blinking in confusion. Even if he had been in possession of all his memories, he still would have wondered what on earth would possess them to offer him such a lofty tribute.
And though he didn’t have any of those memories, he did recognize solemnity when he saw it, and then looked behind himself to see what could have provoked such a response from all these grown ups.
And saw that Sasuke too had dropped to one knee, very similar to the Hyuuga tribute, naturally since they had once been but one clan. The only difference was he was on the other knee, and his hand was not clenched in a fist, but only the two middle fingers clasped, leaving his thumb, pointer, and pinky extended. His dark head was lowered, but tilted slightly aside, looking up at his mate with a quirky grin, dark eyes gleaming with pride and possessiveness through his inky bangs.
There was a thunderous silence.
“What… what are you doing?” Naruto asked weakly, unable to understand what this portended. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, get up Sasuke!”
That seemed to shake some sort of reality back into the stunned group. They straightened up slowly, and they were no longer looking at Naruto.
They were looking at Sasuke, and they did not look happy.
Konohamaru was the one to give voice to their darkening thoughts.
“If he’s Naruto, then that means…”
And suddenly, they were all moving very quickly indeed.
With a yelp, Naruto found himself in a pair of deceptively slender arms, strong as steel.
Sakura caught him up, ripping away the hand that was held up to have Naruto lift him back to his feet. And bore him away from the only one he loved.
Sasuke sprang to his feet with a furious oath, dark eyes staining crimson, four tomoes whirling like a maelstrom deep within.
And found he couldn’t move.
Shikamaru, hands held stiffly before him, dark shadow long and thick between them, held him at bay, and made the mistake of looking into Sasuke’s eyes. He froze, caught up in a red and black nightmarish landscape.
“Don’t look into his eyes,” Kakashi cried, shocked and horrified to see those hellish eyes. Out came a scroll, and he bit his thumb.
Hinata was rushing forward, hands moving like the wind, even as sand leapt up from the ground, rising and undulating, shifting like some monstrous wave.
“Stop!” Naruto shouted, writhing in those unyielding arms. Satiny ears popped up on his head, deeply tanned flesh rippling into golden fur. “What are you doing? Let him go! Let him gooooooooooooo….” He degenerated into a furious howl.
“Holy shit!” Sakura shrieked, suddenly finding a fox kit wriggling madly in her arms, two tails lashing her face painfully. Shocked, she let go.
Naruto landed lightly and scampered over to where Sasuke was still held, and still holding Shikamaru, both frozen in place, yapping frantically. He hurled himself into his littermate’s nerveless arms.
“STOP!” Sakura screamed, as once more, Naruto threw himself in harm’s way to protect that black hearted Uchihan traitor. “Don’t hurt Naruto!”
The sand slammed harmlessly but agitatedly to the ground, and shifted restlessly. Hinata stopped her deadly attack by plowing face first into the ground, but the sand rose up again, caught her mid fall, and cradled her gently before she could injure herself.
Akamaru, and another monstrous dog, aka Kiba, prowled uneasily, growling helplessly, circled by an outer ring of Kakashi’s summoned nindogs.
The shock of the kit’s small body impacting with his own made Sasuke close his eyes, breaking the connection. Shikamaru collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.
Sasuke held tightly to his mate, trembling, black ears now twitching on his head, eyes once more dark and cold. He looked around, and found every avenue of escape blocked off.
Naruto twisted in Sasuke’s arms, barking furiously, both tails fluffed up to three times their size.
And Sasuke was shrinking, darkening, rippling with ebony fur, whiskers bristling fiercely, and he added his own sharp voice to his mate’s.
And the circle of ninja stared, eyes wide with shock, and beheld that which staggered the mind. Wolf cub and fox kit snapped and barked defiantly at them.
Neji’s mouth tightened. “The Kyuubi’s work, no doubt.”
None of them would ever forget that terrible summer night, only a week ago, when Kyuubi got free and destroyed Sasuke, and then vanished with both his and Naruto’s body in a streak of fire. A small blazing comet that had shot southwards… to this general direction.
“It all makes sense now,” Kakashi said softly, his voice almost lost in the yelps and barks of two very angry canines. “The Demon fox has saved Naruto before. He is a demon lord, after all. Perhaps it is possible after all…” And he tapered off, brow furrowed in thought, eye covered once more. The nindogs had vanished as quickly as they had appeared.
So too Kiba took his human form. It wouldn’t do to further antagonize Naruto.
Naruto, who stood on four paws, all of them digging into the dirt, as he and Sasuke circled back to back, watching warily. They were no longer snarling, just turning slowly, watching and looking and searching for a way out.
“They’re gonna bolt,” Kiba observed dryly, very familiar with the antics of wild canines. He was, after all, just a whisker away from being the same, as was his whole clan.
“No!” Cried Sakura, desperately. She’d just found him again! She couldn’t lose him now. “Naruto… forgive us!” She fell to her knees, and leaned forward, trying to look into those crimson eyes, and failing. “We’re sorry, please, please don’t leave.”
Akamaru whined softly, sitting back on his haunches, whined and yipped softly.
The two wild animals halted, heads cocked, ears perked, but no less wary.
“Attaboy,” Kiba whispered. “Tell him we’re sorry. Tell him we thought Sasuke would hurt him. Tell him we know we were mistaken, and that we are sorry.”
And Akamaru burst into a long and incomprehensible string of yelps, barks, and wuffles.
The wolf simply growled and looked away. The fox began another round of furious barking.
The humans could barely repress smiles. The kit was obviously giving the dog, and the rest of them, a piece of his mind. It was so very… Naruto!
Naruto gave one last angry yip, huffed, fur ruffling, and tails coiling around his paws, only now deflating. He sniffed in disdain, and turned his nose into the air.
Akamaru gave a soft whine and bellied up slowly closer, eyes big and begging.
The fox peeked out of the corner of his eye, which sparkled, and then huffed again.
Whiiiiiinnnnnne….
And it was too much for the gregarious kit. Without a second thought, he bounced up and came down on the white dog, tugging playfully on an ear almost as big as his whole body, tails wagging madly.
The wolf cub gave a long suffering sigh, rolled his dark eyes, but still had fur pricked up on the back of his neck. And he watched his mate carefully. Very carefully. If that damned white dog thought he would harm his Naruto, he had another think coming. Painfully.
And already the change was upon him, dark fur receeding, ears dropping, whiskers vanishing, and once more Sasuke stood in their midst.
And then there was Naruto, blonde and blue eyed once more, rolling around in the dirt with Akamaru.
”Naruto.”
Naruto looked up, still with a mouthful of ear, and then spat it out, along with sundry hairs, and got up with a sheepish grin, scratching the back of his head in the old familiar way. He took the pale hand held out to him, and allowed Sasuke to draw him into the safety of his arms.
“Dobe,” Sasuke said with exasperation. “Will you never learn? They just attacked us!”
Naruto looked up from the crook of his lover’s neck. Oh yeah…
“Why?” He asked instead, staring at them all. “You seemed so nice at first. What have we ever done to you?”
“Naruto-niisan,” Konohamaru finally broke in, unable to remain silent. “It’s us, don’t you remember?” He was so frustrated. This was Naruto, impossibilities aside, sudden ability to turn into a fox aside as well. “Don’t you remember us at all?”
Naruto’s brow furrowed. “You know me?”
“Yeah!” Konohamaru waxed enthusiastically. At least they weren’t running away. “Don’t you remember the last time we talked? I told you that you were the Light of Konoha. The eternal flame. And that we would save you from Sasuke!”
“Save me from Sasuke?” Naruto’s blue eyes widened in disbelief. “Why would I need to be saved from my littermate?”
“Littermate…” Neji murmured, deep in thought. So much was coming clear at last.
“Because he enslaved you!” Konohamaru was beside himself. “Sasuke enslaved you, and then killed you!”
“SHUT UP!” Sasuke suddenly screamed, dark eyes filled with panic. Naruto must not remember!
“What’s the matter, bastard,” Kiba said venomously. “Afraid your lover boy will find out the truth?”
Naruto turned bewildered eyes on his companion. “S…Sasuke?”
Sign up to rate and review this story