Ain't That a Kick in The Head?

14 - Don't Dream

They ran without stopping until they reached Fire Country, then decided to make camp for the night. They still had another day's run ahead of them until they reached Konoha.

Sakura declared that Captain Yamato was still recovering from the poison and refused to allow him to create them a house to sleep in, even though, unfortunately, the gloomy weather had followed them from Grass Country.

They're taking shelter underneath the canopy. The evening is cold and gray. It's drizzling lightly. The fire that they cooked their squirrels with isn't really a fire, so much as a bunch of embers hissing underneath damp wood.

Naruto's got first watch. He doubts, somehow, that someone would be stupid enough to attack them. The night is peaceful. Just in case, he's created shadow clones to guard the perimeter.

He holds his copy of Jiraiya's first novel. His stomach's been in knots ever since they left Grass Country.

Naruto knows on a subconscious level, the shitty fox was probably right. He's the jinchuuriki, he can't go impulsively running off for a sloppy revenge– not when Pervy Sage died for intelligence to defeat the Akatsuki.

He's got a village to protect!

But that doesn't mean that he doesn't feel like he failed him, like he could've done something.

He watches the restful forms of his team. In the distance, there's an aggressive rustling in the bushes. He gets a kunai from his pouch and slowly rises to a crouch. A pair of brown rabbits run out and chase each other across the campground.

Naruto sighs. He drops the kunai on the damp grass.

Everyone's been acting weird the whole mission. And he still doesn't know what it is. It's not just Sasuke–he'll decide if he believes that "restore my clan" crap later– Sakura is being weird. 

It's like... she's decided she doesn't like Sasuke anymore.

Clearly, the real Sakura's been abducted by aliens and substituted with a pod person.

...

(Probably not.)

But why? Because she's matured from when she was a genin and he hasn't? Because he's obviously hiding something and... she and Kakashi-sensei clearly know what it is?

Everyone but him seems to know what the thing is.

Naruto doesn't really believe whatever it is is the reason why Sasuke came back, so much as it is why he's been acting so damn strange lately.

Like, come on. The guy goes from repeatedly trying to kill him in the name of power or whatever, then goes back to acting like nothing changed from their early genin days, then tries to kill him again, then flips wildly between pretending he doesn't exist and being his friend again.

"Would you prefer he keep trying to kill us?"  the Nine Tails asks, amused.

"No." He grumbles back.

But that's the thing, though. Maybe he does...Because whenever Sasuke tried to kill him in the past, he always knew why.

When he tried to bring him back at the Valley of the End, Naruto knew he was an obstacle to whatever weirdo super-powered shortcuts Sasuke thought he'd gain from training with Orochimaru. (He was severing any links that created weaknesses in the village, Naruto knows, but Sasuke left him alive because he was too weak. It was a reminder that he had to get stronger, though now he wonders what the point of that was.)

When he tried to bring him back at Orochimaru's hideout, it was a warning. A threat to leave Sasuke alone. A reminder that they were still nothing to one another, and their bond was still severed. He had trained and trained and trained and still, he was powerless to bring him back.