The Jutsu of Love and Art: A Naruto Fanfiction

☆ Prologue-Peace ☆

There—that should do it. I lay down the pen. I lean back in my chair of cotton and stare up at the ceiling.

Its sepia, grey-toned blankness irks, although it's a sight I've seen before.

Two days and nights in Iwagakure isn't enough, I think—I look at what I have drawn. I look down at what I have written.

It's only an illustration, Kuse, I tell myself. Only an illustration. Not many shinobi make drawings and your nighttime escapades into just two things are making Karina worried.

As I thought—with my ki, I sense her. She's by the door again, tapping her foot, pushing up her glasses. Finding some excuse to break down the door. But only one can break down my door.

That's poetic, Kuse. Look down at what you have written.

                                            the sakura drifts

                                           away from cloud, and the snake

                                           again to the grave.

The hasty sketch of her hairband. Unfinished. I grit my teeth and pick it up, crumpling it into my fingers. If there was a moratorium on visiting Naruto's grave, it would have lapsed by today. And while Karina stood by my door, the only cherry-flower that mattered was in Konoha, by the Memorial Stone.

Cherry-flower? How trite. She wouldn't like that. I pick up the crumpled stone of another failed drawing, and with my other hand, combine fingers for the jutsu of my family.

Sakura can be your family, but I whisper the voice down. I am not worthy to think her name. I cast the paper into flames, breathing from my mouth; the sketch burns.

And then, the door flings open.

"SASUKE!"

Karina stands in the doorway, her red eyes bright. She pushes her glasses up with one hand; in the other, she holds my guitar. Only by one hand.

"Karin," and I get up. I extend my arm for it.

Karina takes my hand with the hand that hadn't been holding the guitar. I shake it.

"Good morning, Karin," I tell her. She blushes in her usual red-faced way. "I brought your—"

I extricate my hand, and with both, take the guitar.

It trembles in my grip. My love trembles.

I quickly move my hand down her neck. She has been roughly handled.

With my other hand, I reach into my pouch for the sea-soap that Suigetsu gave me. I can imagine him smirking at the love I bear for such a thing. An object that produces no jutsu, does not help in our quest. Only an accessory. One Suigetsu cannot understand, with his water-addled brain. One Karina cannot hope to understand. At least she lets me clean the rubber turning pegs in peace.

If only Jugo were here. He'd understand.

I wipe off the soap-stone grains with my cloak. Karina scowls. "Don't get Sasuke's cloak dirty," she says. The soap-stone grains glitter to the floor.

"But I am Sasuke," I say.

"YES! You are Sasuke—"

"I am an Uchiha, and you are clanless," to which the incessant glasses-pushing finally ceases. Now, perhaps I can strum mi guitarra in peace.

Or the Amaterasu. I look at Karina.

She looks back in a terrible but muted fanfare of adoration and misunderstanding. I remember the Book of Aizen. Adoration is the furthest emotion from comprehension. And Karina does not comprehend me.

The Amaterasu for another day. I give Karina a deeper look, and she slides back to the entryway. I watch her go, and heave the guitar onto my bed; its dry springs croak in resistance. Crick, crick. A green band appears across Naruto's forehead as he enters Sage Mode.

The guitar beckons, and I clear my head. I shake it off. I walk over, and retrieve the instrument. It needs tuning; Karina must have tampered with it. She is only a healer. Incompetent, compared to Tsunade-sensei's successor.

My cherry blossom; my pink star-eagle. I smile, and lie back on the cotton chair. It creaks. I'll contact Suigetsu for its reparation. But right now mi guitarra demands my attention. I cradle it, and rock it gently back and forth. Back and forth. I strum.

I feel my eyes recast to the haiku, and think of love.