Categories > Anime/Manga > Naruto > Innocence From Ashes
Innocence From Ashes
Chapter 21
Naruto stood by the banks of the windows in the Hokage’s office, several still without glass, and laid a trembling hand on the broad sill. Dilated eyes roamed over the city below. Over the buildings and roofs, a few citizens moving about now that the morning was advancing.
This is my city now; these are my people…
It was too much to take in. Too much change in too little time. In the short span of twenty two years, he’d gone from a lonely starving child, to a shunned and ignored youth, to an enslaved and tormented young man, abuse marking each and every year of his life until then. Then he’d had a bright and brief week of a literal second childhood filled with golden innocence, passion and freedom. Now he stood here, a young man once more, surrounded by love and acceptance and acknowledgement, proclaimed both demon lord and Hokage by all his friends and peers. The power of the Ninetails danced within him; he could feel it every waking minute now. He had only to reach out, and it was there.
“You know, Kyuubi, your little announcement there was a bit over the top,” Sasuke remarked to their Chichiue in a dry voice.
Kyuubi merely hn’d equal to any Sasuke could give, and said nothing. He was lying sprawled out on Tsunade’s desk, having shoved everything off to accommodate his bulk, and was leisurely grooming himself.
Sasuke watched the fox, a smile tugging on his lips. He knew why Kyuubi had done it. Neither he nor the ex demon lord really wanted to be here. Neither of them wanted Naruto put in this position. They wanted to be back out in the woods with their kit, wild and free once more.
Already, Naruto was different, standing stiff and still before the windows. Where was Sasuke’s impulsive and spontaneous lover, playmate, and friend?
“I wish they would hurry up with the preliminaries,” Naruto spoke suddenly from the windows. He was speaking of Tsunade and the council, now closeted away two doors down to discuss Naruto’s sudden rise in rank.
Sasuke was behind him in the blink of an eye, wrapping his arms around that slender waist. He buried his face in the warm sweet scented crook of the blonde’s neck, bestowing a soft lingering kiss.
Naruto sighed and shivered, tilting his head slightly to allow better access. What would he do without his wolf? It didn’t bear thinking about.
“Don’t worry, dobe,” Sasuke whispered softly. “It will be fine. You are just about Hokage already. You now have everything you ever wanted.”
“But it’s not…” Naruto began, hitching a breath.
The door opened slowly, and Shizune stood there. “The council is ready for you, Naruto-sama,” She said softly, smiling.
Naruto straightened up and stepped out of the circle of Sasuke’s arms. “Finally.”
Taking his mate’s hand, he moved to the door. “You coming?” He asked Kyuubi.
Kyuubi paused in the act of digging between his toes. “No. The temptation to eat one of them would be too great.” He wrinkled his nose. “Go, my kit. You are more than ready for this.”
Naruto gave him a tremulous smile, and moved out the door, pausing only to give Shizune a level stare.
“What?” She asked, seeing the gaze, almost a glare.
“We need to talk later,” Naruto said, waving a finger betwixt himself and the kunoichi. “About this Naruto-sama crap. Don’t you start with me. I’ll take that shit from the council, but not from you.”
Shizune gurgled with laughter. “Okay, Naruto-kun. Point taken.”
“Good,” he smiled, relieved, and then allowed Sasuke to tug him out the door and down the hall.
A few, too short steps down, and there were the double doors of the council room, guarded by two white masked ANBU. They saluted Naruto, and stepped aside.
Sasuke let go. “You’ll be fine, Naruto,” he reassured softly, kissing that whiskered cheek. “Go knock ‘em dead… eh… figuratively.”
Sasuke was as shaken internally as his lover. It was so hard to step down from the ascendancy the thought had been his due, and watch it happen to someone else. Not that he begrudged Naruto one iota, nor did he want to be Hokage himself. He’d always known, deep down inside, that he was too egocentric, too selfish to put himself in such a position. And he knew he was still too selfish to become the villages wise man and negotiator. As that is what a kage really was. He wanted what he wanted, and he would do whatever it took to get it. And as much as he loved Naruto with every beat of his heart and every fiber of his being, it was a touch surreal to watch it happen to him. And it made him nervous. What if Naruto wouldn’t need him anymore? He’d grown so much. He truly was a kage already, in his deep and endlessly giving heart. He would make a magnificent Hokage. And Sasuke felt he was being left behind somehow. That someday he would find himself walking back into the wilds where he now felt he belonged, and would do it alone.
Naruto snorted, then grabbed his hand back. “Where the hell do you think you’re going? Do you think I would go anywhere at all, least of all to somewhere so important, without my other half? I think not!”
And right there, before the ANBU standing ready to let him pass, Naruto lifted his head and kissed Sasuke, right on the lips. Warm and moist, quickly turning hot and wet. Sasuke gripped the hand tighter, and sank fingers in spun gold, feeling Naruto’s hand land possessively upon his hip. The kiss ended damply, lips parting with a soft smacking noise.
“We belong together, teme… forever…”
And Sasuke was reassured by his dobe, his heart made whole once more.
With a cheeky grin, Naruto pushed the doors open, and they walked in together.
It was rather gloomy after the bright sunshine flooding the hall. Lit by sconces and lamps, there was a long, seemingly endless table that curved along the far wall, and the council members were seated behind it, slightly elevated by an equally long and curving dais. In the very center of this table, members to the left and right, sat Tsunade in her Hokage’s chair. To one side of the circular space left behind in the middle of the room was a chair enclosed in railings, next to which stood a large desk. It looked disturbingly like a courtroom, because that was also a function of the council.
But Naruto would not be sitting in that defendant’s chair. No, to the other side stood an ANBU, sporting a white fox mask. The ANBU was turned to face them, one hand slightly held out in welcome.
“Uzumaki Naruto,” Tsunade intoned officially, “come forward, please.”
Drawing in a deep breath, Naruto moved deeper into the room, Sasuke following right behind him.
“What’s he doing here?” On member, a fat and florid man that Naruto had always detested. This council member had often tormented him verbally, both before and after he rose to his current position in the council.
A pudgy finger stabbed in Sasuke’s direction, to Naruto’s unspoken surprise. “He’s a traitor, a demon. He should be in prison!”
And Naruto felt bloodlust rising within him at just this slight provocation. He shoved it down.
“Watch what you say, fat boy,” he snarled, allowing the merest hint of fox ears to show among his glossy golden locks. “There is some uncertainty as to just who exactly should be in prison. And be careful as to exactly who you accuse of being a demon!”
There was a moment of frozen silence. Though most of the council had not been present at the riot yesterday, a few had, and a couple had even partaken, such as the fat idiot before Naruto now.
No one currently in the room now knew this, of course. Kyuubi had noticed. Much more used to wielding demon powers, he’d scented the council members, taken note. And he’d seen that fat red face breathing its stinking breath into his own as the man had shoved a kunai into his side when he was tied down with the chakra ropes. It was but one reason he’d refused to attend this meeting. Not only did Naruto and Sasuke not need him in that capacity, as he’d so claimed, but he knew… one look, and snap… there’d be one less fat council member in the room. And that council, they’d allowed the neglect, the abuse and torment of the young Naruto to continue unchecked. Yep, several quick snaps, and he’d be full. And as much as he’d love to dine on council members, greasy and stringy as they might be, he knew Naruto wouldn’t like it.
Naruto looked around the room, his normally warm blue eyes steely. “Uchiha Sasuke is my mate, my guardian. If you have a problem with that, too bad.”
“Mate?!” Another council member almost yelped. This particular man had always been on the Uchiha’s side, and had pushed through the years to keep Sasuke from being labeled a missing nin, had pushed to keep his Uchiha heir status alive even as the man was known as the Otokage of Sound. He’d been the last council hold out, and had argued vociferously when presented with Sasuke’s will the day before yesterday, bequeathing all his worldly goods to Naruto. Sasuke was an Uchiha, and he was back. The council member was hot under the collar for the young man to do the Uchihan thing. “He can’t be your mate!” the fool, good intended as he was, went on. “He must find a suitable woman, marry, and continue the Uchiha line and legacy!”
This enraged Sasuke even more than the threat of prison had enraged Naruto. He stepped forward, allowing his eyes to bleed red, to let them move from one sharingan stage to another, finally ending in the new, rather alarming looking six pointed stars. “Do you know what these eyes can do?”
The council member swallowed nervously. “O..of course we do. We are the council, and naturally not only do we know about the mangekyou sharingan, we know you have to kill the one you love most to acquire it.” He gave a rather pointed look at Naruto.
This froze both Naruto and Sasuke for a moment. Sasuke had never attained the Mangekyou. Even to the last days in Sound, he’d not had it. He couldn’t gain it, because no matter how evil he’d become to Naruto, he couldn’t kill him. Yet, just now, letting the tomoes whirl and shift, merge and change, he’d shown that particular sharingan just before he’d moved to his now ultimate one, the Guardian’s Star.
Sasuke looked in dawning horror at Naruto. When the pillar meant for him had crushed and killed the blonde, he’d finally acquired that accursed ability. Naturally, he’d not known it at the time, and he himself had died very shortly thereafter. And likewise, he’d used it on Shikamaru in the grove a couple of days ago, and hadn’t even realized what he was doing, even if Kakashi had.
And it rushed into his mind once more… He’d killed Naruto!
Naruto just smiled, danced the few steps towards him, and gently cupped his stricken face. “Teme,” he whispered. “Let it go. I love you.” And laid the sweetest, softest kiss against those trembling lips.
“Stop that!” The council man squawked. “Didn’t you hear me? He must continue the line, not be perverted by the likes of you!”
And Sasuke lost his head. Gently thrusting Naruto out of the way, he let the stars bleed away into the webbed triangle of the Mangekyou. “You want this bloodline so badly? Then you shall have it!” And stared deep into the tall man’s wide opened eyes.
And for a moment, a split second of eternity, the man experienced the deepest layers of hell. But then, Naruto stepped in the way, his blue eyes trained on those deadly ones, and looked fully into the nightmare that was the Uchiha’s once ultimate power, and was unmoved.
“Come back to me, Sasuke,” he whispered softly.
The moment Sasuke realized he was looking into Naruto’s eyes, his own snapped into coal black once more. But it did not miss him that Naruto had looked into the Mangekyou, and had not been affected. He gave his blonde mate a sheepish smile. “Always, koi.”
The member had fallen into his chair, gasping and choking, wanting to scream and cry. Thankfully, Naruto had interrupted before too much mental damage had been done.
Once more, Sasuke stepped purposely forward and leveled a cold glare at each and every one of them, even Tsunade, who’d remained in her chair, unmoving and unfazed by the out bursts.
“These eyes, cursed as they are, are mine, and mine alone. They do not belong to any one of you. As for the Uchiha line, I will continue it, or not, as I see fit. You will not dictate to me who I will love, or who I share my bed with. This man,” One slender finger jabbed lovingly at Naruto. “Is my choice. I have given him my heart, my body, my love and passion. And he has given me his back in exchange. That is the way it is, the way it will ever be. Do not think otherwise.”
Another council member opened her mouth, and Sasuke forestalled her. “No, do not even begin with me about concubines or surrogate mothers. I am not convinced the Uchiha line should even be allowed to continue. I have used my lineage to do terrible things, as has my brother, Itachi. I do not know how much you know about my father or my father’s father, nor do I care. The Uchiha line long ago slid into infamy, and now into ignominy. I do not care to even entertain the notion of continuing it at all.”
The woman closed her mouth, but looked stubborn. And the subject was closed, just like that. At least only for now, if the female member had her way.
There was a noticeable lack of reaction from the other heads of Shinobi clans, such as the Akimichi, Aburame, Nara, Yamanaka, and Sarutobi. All the heads of the clans beloved by Naruto remained silent and still throughout it all.
But one finally spoke up… Hyuuga.
Chapter 21
Naruto stood by the banks of the windows in the Hokage’s office, several still without glass, and laid a trembling hand on the broad sill. Dilated eyes roamed over the city below. Over the buildings and roofs, a few citizens moving about now that the morning was advancing.
This is my city now; these are my people…
It was too much to take in. Too much change in too little time. In the short span of twenty two years, he’d gone from a lonely starving child, to a shunned and ignored youth, to an enslaved and tormented young man, abuse marking each and every year of his life until then. Then he’d had a bright and brief week of a literal second childhood filled with golden innocence, passion and freedom. Now he stood here, a young man once more, surrounded by love and acceptance and acknowledgement, proclaimed both demon lord and Hokage by all his friends and peers. The power of the Ninetails danced within him; he could feel it every waking minute now. He had only to reach out, and it was there.
“You know, Kyuubi, your little announcement there was a bit over the top,” Sasuke remarked to their Chichiue in a dry voice.
Kyuubi merely hn’d equal to any Sasuke could give, and said nothing. He was lying sprawled out on Tsunade’s desk, having shoved everything off to accommodate his bulk, and was leisurely grooming himself.
Sasuke watched the fox, a smile tugging on his lips. He knew why Kyuubi had done it. Neither he nor the ex demon lord really wanted to be here. Neither of them wanted Naruto put in this position. They wanted to be back out in the woods with their kit, wild and free once more.
Already, Naruto was different, standing stiff and still before the windows. Where was Sasuke’s impulsive and spontaneous lover, playmate, and friend?
“I wish they would hurry up with the preliminaries,” Naruto spoke suddenly from the windows. He was speaking of Tsunade and the council, now closeted away two doors down to discuss Naruto’s sudden rise in rank.
Sasuke was behind him in the blink of an eye, wrapping his arms around that slender waist. He buried his face in the warm sweet scented crook of the blonde’s neck, bestowing a soft lingering kiss.
Naruto sighed and shivered, tilting his head slightly to allow better access. What would he do without his wolf? It didn’t bear thinking about.
“Don’t worry, dobe,” Sasuke whispered softly. “It will be fine. You are just about Hokage already. You now have everything you ever wanted.”
“But it’s not…” Naruto began, hitching a breath.
The door opened slowly, and Shizune stood there. “The council is ready for you, Naruto-sama,” She said softly, smiling.
Naruto straightened up and stepped out of the circle of Sasuke’s arms. “Finally.”
Taking his mate’s hand, he moved to the door. “You coming?” He asked Kyuubi.
Kyuubi paused in the act of digging between his toes. “No. The temptation to eat one of them would be too great.” He wrinkled his nose. “Go, my kit. You are more than ready for this.”
Naruto gave him a tremulous smile, and moved out the door, pausing only to give Shizune a level stare.
“What?” She asked, seeing the gaze, almost a glare.
“We need to talk later,” Naruto said, waving a finger betwixt himself and the kunoichi. “About this Naruto-sama crap. Don’t you start with me. I’ll take that shit from the council, but not from you.”
Shizune gurgled with laughter. “Okay, Naruto-kun. Point taken.”
“Good,” he smiled, relieved, and then allowed Sasuke to tug him out the door and down the hall.
A few, too short steps down, and there were the double doors of the council room, guarded by two white masked ANBU. They saluted Naruto, and stepped aside.
Sasuke let go. “You’ll be fine, Naruto,” he reassured softly, kissing that whiskered cheek. “Go knock ‘em dead… eh… figuratively.”
Sasuke was as shaken internally as his lover. It was so hard to step down from the ascendancy the thought had been his due, and watch it happen to someone else. Not that he begrudged Naruto one iota, nor did he want to be Hokage himself. He’d always known, deep down inside, that he was too egocentric, too selfish to put himself in such a position. And he knew he was still too selfish to become the villages wise man and negotiator. As that is what a kage really was. He wanted what he wanted, and he would do whatever it took to get it. And as much as he loved Naruto with every beat of his heart and every fiber of his being, it was a touch surreal to watch it happen to him. And it made him nervous. What if Naruto wouldn’t need him anymore? He’d grown so much. He truly was a kage already, in his deep and endlessly giving heart. He would make a magnificent Hokage. And Sasuke felt he was being left behind somehow. That someday he would find himself walking back into the wilds where he now felt he belonged, and would do it alone.
Naruto snorted, then grabbed his hand back. “Where the hell do you think you’re going? Do you think I would go anywhere at all, least of all to somewhere so important, without my other half? I think not!”
And right there, before the ANBU standing ready to let him pass, Naruto lifted his head and kissed Sasuke, right on the lips. Warm and moist, quickly turning hot and wet. Sasuke gripped the hand tighter, and sank fingers in spun gold, feeling Naruto’s hand land possessively upon his hip. The kiss ended damply, lips parting with a soft smacking noise.
“We belong together, teme… forever…”
And Sasuke was reassured by his dobe, his heart made whole once more.
With a cheeky grin, Naruto pushed the doors open, and they walked in together.
It was rather gloomy after the bright sunshine flooding the hall. Lit by sconces and lamps, there was a long, seemingly endless table that curved along the far wall, and the council members were seated behind it, slightly elevated by an equally long and curving dais. In the very center of this table, members to the left and right, sat Tsunade in her Hokage’s chair. To one side of the circular space left behind in the middle of the room was a chair enclosed in railings, next to which stood a large desk. It looked disturbingly like a courtroom, because that was also a function of the council.
But Naruto would not be sitting in that defendant’s chair. No, to the other side stood an ANBU, sporting a white fox mask. The ANBU was turned to face them, one hand slightly held out in welcome.
“Uzumaki Naruto,” Tsunade intoned officially, “come forward, please.”
Drawing in a deep breath, Naruto moved deeper into the room, Sasuke following right behind him.
“What’s he doing here?” On member, a fat and florid man that Naruto had always detested. This council member had often tormented him verbally, both before and after he rose to his current position in the council.
A pudgy finger stabbed in Sasuke’s direction, to Naruto’s unspoken surprise. “He’s a traitor, a demon. He should be in prison!”
And Naruto felt bloodlust rising within him at just this slight provocation. He shoved it down.
“Watch what you say, fat boy,” he snarled, allowing the merest hint of fox ears to show among his glossy golden locks. “There is some uncertainty as to just who exactly should be in prison. And be careful as to exactly who you accuse of being a demon!”
There was a moment of frozen silence. Though most of the council had not been present at the riot yesterday, a few had, and a couple had even partaken, such as the fat idiot before Naruto now.
No one currently in the room now knew this, of course. Kyuubi had noticed. Much more used to wielding demon powers, he’d scented the council members, taken note. And he’d seen that fat red face breathing its stinking breath into his own as the man had shoved a kunai into his side when he was tied down with the chakra ropes. It was but one reason he’d refused to attend this meeting. Not only did Naruto and Sasuke not need him in that capacity, as he’d so claimed, but he knew… one look, and snap… there’d be one less fat council member in the room. And that council, they’d allowed the neglect, the abuse and torment of the young Naruto to continue unchecked. Yep, several quick snaps, and he’d be full. And as much as he’d love to dine on council members, greasy and stringy as they might be, he knew Naruto wouldn’t like it.
Naruto looked around the room, his normally warm blue eyes steely. “Uchiha Sasuke is my mate, my guardian. If you have a problem with that, too bad.”
“Mate?!” Another council member almost yelped. This particular man had always been on the Uchiha’s side, and had pushed through the years to keep Sasuke from being labeled a missing nin, had pushed to keep his Uchiha heir status alive even as the man was known as the Otokage of Sound. He’d been the last council hold out, and had argued vociferously when presented with Sasuke’s will the day before yesterday, bequeathing all his worldly goods to Naruto. Sasuke was an Uchiha, and he was back. The council member was hot under the collar for the young man to do the Uchihan thing. “He can’t be your mate!” the fool, good intended as he was, went on. “He must find a suitable woman, marry, and continue the Uchiha line and legacy!”
This enraged Sasuke even more than the threat of prison had enraged Naruto. He stepped forward, allowing his eyes to bleed red, to let them move from one sharingan stage to another, finally ending in the new, rather alarming looking six pointed stars. “Do you know what these eyes can do?”
The council member swallowed nervously. “O..of course we do. We are the council, and naturally not only do we know about the mangekyou sharingan, we know you have to kill the one you love most to acquire it.” He gave a rather pointed look at Naruto.
This froze both Naruto and Sasuke for a moment. Sasuke had never attained the Mangekyou. Even to the last days in Sound, he’d not had it. He couldn’t gain it, because no matter how evil he’d become to Naruto, he couldn’t kill him. Yet, just now, letting the tomoes whirl and shift, merge and change, he’d shown that particular sharingan just before he’d moved to his now ultimate one, the Guardian’s Star.
Sasuke looked in dawning horror at Naruto. When the pillar meant for him had crushed and killed the blonde, he’d finally acquired that accursed ability. Naturally, he’d not known it at the time, and he himself had died very shortly thereafter. And likewise, he’d used it on Shikamaru in the grove a couple of days ago, and hadn’t even realized what he was doing, even if Kakashi had.
And it rushed into his mind once more… He’d killed Naruto!
Naruto just smiled, danced the few steps towards him, and gently cupped his stricken face. “Teme,” he whispered. “Let it go. I love you.” And laid the sweetest, softest kiss against those trembling lips.
“Stop that!” The council man squawked. “Didn’t you hear me? He must continue the line, not be perverted by the likes of you!”
And Sasuke lost his head. Gently thrusting Naruto out of the way, he let the stars bleed away into the webbed triangle of the Mangekyou. “You want this bloodline so badly? Then you shall have it!” And stared deep into the tall man’s wide opened eyes.
And for a moment, a split second of eternity, the man experienced the deepest layers of hell. But then, Naruto stepped in the way, his blue eyes trained on those deadly ones, and looked fully into the nightmare that was the Uchiha’s once ultimate power, and was unmoved.
“Come back to me, Sasuke,” he whispered softly.
The moment Sasuke realized he was looking into Naruto’s eyes, his own snapped into coal black once more. But it did not miss him that Naruto had looked into the Mangekyou, and had not been affected. He gave his blonde mate a sheepish smile. “Always, koi.”
The member had fallen into his chair, gasping and choking, wanting to scream and cry. Thankfully, Naruto had interrupted before too much mental damage had been done.
Once more, Sasuke stepped purposely forward and leveled a cold glare at each and every one of them, even Tsunade, who’d remained in her chair, unmoving and unfazed by the out bursts.
“These eyes, cursed as they are, are mine, and mine alone. They do not belong to any one of you. As for the Uchiha line, I will continue it, or not, as I see fit. You will not dictate to me who I will love, or who I share my bed with. This man,” One slender finger jabbed lovingly at Naruto. “Is my choice. I have given him my heart, my body, my love and passion. And he has given me his back in exchange. That is the way it is, the way it will ever be. Do not think otherwise.”
Another council member opened her mouth, and Sasuke forestalled her. “No, do not even begin with me about concubines or surrogate mothers. I am not convinced the Uchiha line should even be allowed to continue. I have used my lineage to do terrible things, as has my brother, Itachi. I do not know how much you know about my father or my father’s father, nor do I care. The Uchiha line long ago slid into infamy, and now into ignominy. I do not care to even entertain the notion of continuing it at all.”
The woman closed her mouth, but looked stubborn. And the subject was closed, just like that. At least only for now, if the female member had her way.
There was a noticeable lack of reaction from the other heads of Shinobi clans, such as the Akimichi, Aburame, Nara, Yamanaka, and Sarutobi. All the heads of the clans beloved by Naruto remained silent and still throughout it all.
But one finally spoke up… Hyuuga.
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