Chapter Text
His best friend, the other part of his own soul – gone.
As if he never existed.
"We will get you out of here," Naruto says in a measured tone, confident and assuring. The quiet gnaws at him. The darkness makes him twitchy. Bouncing his knee, Naruto looks into the unlit cell. "Please say something, Sasuke."
Only silence answers him.
Just like every visit prior, Naruto's words are met with a cold nothing. In front of him, behind bars, sits his friend... or what is left of him.
Naruto shakes his head. Banishes the thought.
Sasuke is here. This is Sasuke, and he is being his usual self. Stubborn. Defiant.
He is the same Sasuke Naruto has respected and admired.
His body chained, arm immobilized with a straitjacket, and his eyes covered with a suppression seal. His chakra silenced to the faintest hint of a heartbeat, just enough to keep him alive.
Alive. Sasuke is alive, and that is most important. He hates being here, and Naruto would too, so he understands the silent treatment. He hasn't done anything to deserve Sasuke's regard.
Naruto has been useless.
Naruto sighs, slumping on the stool and lets his eyes wander up. It is always a pain to get used to this darkness, but once he gets accustomed to it, his eyes run around the cell. The metal bars with a double seal on top of a lock; the additional barrier inside the cell walls, painted with tiny strokes on the ceiling just inside the door and over the perimeter, covering all inner corners where walls meet each other and the ceiling. On the outside of the cell – another additional measure: thin paper bombs layered on the base of each metal bar – from the look of it, pretty sensitive to detonate and incinerate anyone in close vicinity from a forceful enough impact.
A shackled man within a cell within a trap within a prison. The epitome of the village's fear, with Sasuke in the middle of it.
Naruto deliberately follows the strokes of the inner seal with his gaze.
"You know the meaner you are to me, the more I like you," Naruto smiles without looking at his best friend. "It reminds me of the Academy days. Remember when I sat in front of you once, and you purposefully ignored me to the point of missing the whole lesson? Was it the first and only time Iruka left you after class? I think it was."
The only sound coming from the cell is the faint splash of condensation falling onto the stone floor. The space is humid and clammy, and Naruto impulsively contemplates roughing up some seals. The never-ending maze of the underground prison does warp the sense of direction and depth, but he is pretty sure a couple applications of good old trusted Rasengan would get him enough to arrange a makeshift window.
"Mitokado-san passed away in his sleep," Naruto continues. He thought he would deliver the news with more decorum, but it comes out deflated.
Naruto still narrows his eyes and watches Sasuke's figure for any sign of a reaction. Surely the news of the Council member's passing would evoke something in Sasuke. He should be glad. Heavens know Naruto quietly was when he found out.
It is a morbid thought. Naruto lived his whole life not allowing himself to wish ill upon another person and now…
Now they are here.
Two heroes who saved the world. Two living legends sharing the frigid air of the highest-security prison in Konoha. Sasuke – successful in his revenge and now deprived of the right to move or even open his eyes, and Naruto – accomplished, recognized, his promise and most sacred wish fulfilled and still-
Naruto believed so earnestly that they just needed to win. Sasuke would come back, they would make everyone safe, and they would finally have time to be happy.
Instead, they are here, quietly waiting for the last member of the Konoha Council to go after her colleagues. Turns out even the Hokage's word and a result of a military trial can be overruled by the current Council's veto. They reserved the right to negate any ruling within Konoha's legislative and judiciary systems back who knows when. The whole village could do nothing but obey the ruling of Sasuke's term.
There were several options before them when Sasuke received the verdict. The most peaceful one – Plan A, if you will – was to wait until there were no more holders of the right to veto before appealing and requesting a secondary hearing.
Now only one is left to go.
"They held the funeral march from Hokage tower to the cemetery… twenty minutes ago?" Naruto scrunches his nose, trying to estimate how long he's been here. He got here around two thirty and was allotted one hour and forty-five minutes (one rule-bending Kakashi managed to get for him – Naruto can get the 15-minute visit increments for the week at once.) It feels like he's been here for hours, but the guards haven't yet notified him of the approaching limit. Time is weird here. "They probably are lowering him about now. Do you think Utatane-san will go on for much longer? She is a stubborn one; can't deny her that."
It is a bad thing to say, but in the past months Naruto learned that maybe not all people deserve only good words. That's why he is sitting the funeral out. He might be asked to speak as the village's hero, and he, for once, doesn't have honourable words to share with the crowd. He prefers Sasuke's company.
He shakes his head and taps his forehead a couple times, searching inside for a smile.
"Enough about morbid. Guess what! Sakura got something, a certification or an award, so now she is getting ready to go to some thingy with other medic-nin from different villages. Sounds like she'll go visit Suna to speak at a conference? I went to the clinic to check on my arm, and a bunch of nurses were talking, all panicked about how they would not survive a week without her. Sakura's cool, eh? If only these nurses and doctors knew that she never washes her dishes, but I'm a good friend and won't tell anyone."
On his way up, Naruto takes a short pause at the main doors, blinking slowly to get used to the sunlight. He looks at the sky, stepping out without rush with his hands in his pockets.
As Naruto turns into the street, his fingers find a small notebook in his pouch and a half-chewed pencil. He opens up the notebook and jots down on the go, replicating a portion of the seal he saw in the cell while it is still fresh in his memory. Someone ahead yells out his name, and with a quick swipe, Naruto closes the notebook, hides it and turns to meet the oncoming person with a smile.
The sun beats down onto his sweaty neck.
It has become somewhat of a habit when he visits Sasuke. A silly one – self-soothing more than anything.
The recovery after the final battle was long and gruesome. The trial was even more exhausting. Naruto waited for his new arm, wandering the village aimlessly. Without permission to continue his work or training to fill the time, he found something to banish the boredom. Fun fact: one of the rare jutsu that most people can perform with one hand is the primitive fuuinjutsu, which Naruto always sucked at.
Iruka would be very proud to find out Naruto got so bored he willingly started studying.
He hasn't been able to get his hands on the advanced stuff yet, which he found odd. The restrictions on some materials are an interesting choice, but Naruto is still planning to pull strings as the Hokage's favourite student and play hero and heritage card – he could bet his other arm that the forbidden scroll contains some of the Uzumaki's sealing techniques. However, he does have access to most library stuff, some fun materials that Gamakichi brought him, as well as a whole-ass Tenten. Long story short, in his time waiting for his arm to be ready, Naruto learned a thing or two about fuuinjutsu basics.
He is in no way masterful, but he gathered enough to manage to perform basic storage scrolls that always imploded on him before, resulting in either damaging or losing all the contents of the scroll. Now he can carry all his drinking water for the mission without packing canisters into his backpack, and he can bring an entire tent instead of suffering rain on the cold ground or looking for shelter until deep night.
And, of course, when Naruto saw an intricate seal of Sasuke's cell, he automatically started picking it apart in his head, wondering if he could replicate it. He started noticing patterns and common combinations, the pressure of the brush on paper that would slightly alter the effect…
When Naruto visited Sasuke, he looked at the seals and thought… These are not impenetrable. Even an idiot like him could figure it out if given enough time. The thought that he could pick apart the seal meant he could find a way to negate it, and if he could do that…
Feeling so utterly hopeless, the idea that Naruto could find a way to get Sasuke out even if he didn't intend to do it brought him some selfish comfort.
It is a hobby purely of professional interest, and he still doesn't feel comfortable letting anyone around him know about it. The notebook stays firmly hidden in Naruto's back pouch.
No one else can know. So Naruto keeps small notes in scattered places, never combines them to construct a full picture and never shows anyone. After months of visits, Naruto still can't get the seal down. It's as if a technique was changed with every four strokes, or two different styles were layered one onto another while still keeping both effects intact. It is an admirable and frustrating piece of militaristic art, and Naruto feels that he still doesn't fully understand all of the deadly effects the seal is bearing.
Depending on how he approaches the decoding of the thing, the seal either commands a total collapse of the space within its bounds, or immerses the space into a vacuum, leaving the inside without any breathable air, so anything living dies shortly upon disturbing the seal. The second layer could be either a very loud noise or a full laceration of all the senses of whoever disturbs the seal. Either way, an unappealing effect.
Late into the night, Naruto goes over his scribbles and feels like tearing his hair out. If after all this time and effort he can't even figure out the exact effect of the seal, how can he even hope to one day undo it?
He's on a mission with Hinata when she notices him sneakily taking his notes and gently points it out once they are alone.
"You are learning more about sealing techniques?" she asks, and her voice is soft but snappy like the span of a bird's wing near his face. Naruto blushes with shame, caught in the act.
"I um…"
Hinata smiles.
"Is it because of your parents?"
Naruto clears his throat in a panic. He was scrambling for a way to hide his notes, but now he is just lost in her train of thought. Hinata inclines her head and continues, sensing something in the pause that Naruto did not intend.
"I tried to learn more about the Uzumaki clan since you mentioned your mother. So much of the history is lost. A shame. But there are always roads to follow your heritage," she smiles reassuringly, and the connection she made clicks into place.
"Well, um, I guess," Naruto swallows on a dry throat. Hinata tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.
"It is a scarce collection, and I could not find much of value, but the Hyuuga library is open to you anytime, should you wish to explore. High clans always kept tight records on each other. I think you might find something if you search deep enough."
Things with Hinata are developing at a galloping pace.
To sum some of it up in short, Hinata avoided being alone with Naruto for several months after they returned home. Stuck around strictly in groups, around someone else's company, but vanished when Naruto tried to search for her alone.
Then, on a chilly December evening, she cornered him a block away from his apartment, gifted him a handmade scarf and delivered a short, quiet speech in which she essentially confessed and dumped him before he could even reply.
"I think our understanding of love is fundamentally different, Naruto-kun," she said, lifting her eyes to his, while her hands pushed the paper packaging into his chest. "And I regret the long time it took me to realize that. But as I was making this, I realized I treasure the opportunity to reflect on times near you and meditate on what your actions mean for me more than the minutiae of our realistic state of affairs. I admire you, and you deserve someone who likes you."
Naruto was bewildered and tongue-tied because it was the first confession he received while fully conscious, without shock or adrenaline pumping through his system, and from a person he actually knew. He said nothing, and Hinata wanted him to stay silent.
"Please accept this. I made it myself for you. Do not tell anyone it is from me, please."
"Alright," he hiccuped. As Hinata's hands left the package, he caught it in his hands. "Thank you."
Hinata smiled at him, looking him in the eyes with a new confidence. It was refreshing and chilling to get a sense of full eye contact from a Hyuuga. In a space between blinks, Naruto remembered Neji's face, and his fingers trembled. He realized he hadn't seen Hinata's eyes fully, maybe ever. She always was quick to avert her gaze.
Ever since then, Hinata endeavoured to look him in the eye. To stand next to Naruto as equal.
"I decided," she said once in that curt manner of hers. Laconic sentences that curl on themselves, but gain more weight the longer you listen. They walked from Kakashi's office after the renovation meeting, and Hinata put her hands behind her back, looking up to the sky. "I will take over as the clan leader candidate."
"But you hated even the idea, no?" Naruto frowned. Hinata smiled.
"If one sees a flaw and suffers from it greatly, how would they bring change if they run away from it?"
Naruto smiled back. Hinata basked in it and shrugged after a couple of moments.
"I did not have specific plans, but just before the war I wanted to support Neji as a candidate. We had little chance to change the clan structure, but my father would have supported accepting Neji as an exception. I had lived under the assumption that I would give up all responsibility. I think that was the reason I was so weak."
Naruto wanted to contest, but Hinata didn't let him. She wasn't looking for compliments.
"I know that there are people in both branches who would be willing to take on the role. Hanabi is one of them, but what she deserves more than this position is her childhood. She can learn, but the burden of responsibility is not hers to bear. She can compete for it once she gets older. As for the others, I will always compare them to the perfection that was Neji. They would not measure up, and I would not find it in me to support them fully. That would be a disservice to my clan as the heir."
"So the change you are talking about…"
"Will you help me, Naruto-kun?" Hinata turned to him and asked with newfound passion. Naruto shivered.
"M-me?"
"Yes. Would you support me if I voiced my wish to become clan head?"
"You don't need my approval."
"You are correct, but I would appreciate a friend on my side. As well as a Hokage candidate and a hero's seal of approval."
Naruto finally caught up and lowered his hands from behind his head. Hinata nodded, driving the point across.
What she offered was not just friendship. She offered a pact, a political alliance.
"You have the changes in mind already?" he asked, and Hinata's quiet laugh was both delightful and just a bit eerie.
"I have a vision. Do you?"
They don't talk about this agreement, yet they become closer with it. There might be some talk of them possibly dating amongst some gossipers, but it doesn't matter.
It also doesn't matter if Hinata really thinks Naruto is exploring his Uzumaki heritage or if she knows more and supplies him with ideas for plausible deniability. What Naruto knows is that he is immensely grateful to have an ally like Hinata in his corner. She makes him think deeper than he would on his own, gives him a new perspective.
As she turns away to prepare the rations for a quick dinner, Naruto takes a deep breath in and closes his eyes.
On an exhale, Naruto emerges in his internal cave and looks up at Kurama.
"By the way, how did Mom hold you? What seal was it?"
He knows the story; he knows why Kushina Uzumaki was brought to Konoha in the first place. But he realizes he has no idea of the technicality of the seals she was using. They were different from the ones that Naruto himself had.
Kurama lies with his head on his paws, reluctant to open his eyes from a long slumber. Kurama may be an ancient demon equal to a force of nature, but once he exhausts himself, it takes a long time to recuperate. Kurama has been sleepy this past year, renewing the chakra he spent during the war and in the months after to help rebuild and heal in the aftermath of the final battles.
Without blinking awake, his maw stretching in a wide yawn, the beast lazily voices, "If I had that knowledge, you think we would be here now?"
Naruto snorts. Fair.
His mother had to die for the seal to fully break, which is a sad echo of a memory he now oddly has. It is also an admirable memory, one giving Naruto a sense of indescribable pride.
Blinking back into reality, Naruto hides his notebook at the bottom of his backpack and procures a storage scroll to get the dinner going. He makes a mental note to take up Hinata on her word and visit the Hyuuga archives once they are back.
"I spent like 6 hours there; it's so easy to get lost in that archive room," Naruto shares on his next visit to Sasuke. He yawns and stretches his arms above his head. "Turns out Hyuugas really did keep borderline psychotic notes on other big clans. Or do all clans do that? Their notes on the Uchiha family had like a whole row! Did you know that the Hyuugas tried to join with the Uchihas by offering arranged marriage more than once, and every single time the Uchiha family said yes but then sabotaged it? You probably did. I can see why you are so cautious. Seems like being careful is an Uchiha trait. But anyway, I got too into reading about your family that I forgot to look for mine, and at that point the day was over."
Naruto yawns again. The air here is so thick and stale. He gets tired from just talking.
"Now I learned my lesson and left a clone in that library. He's probably sleeping there, but I wouldn't blame him. Hyuugas write so dryly, can't even give a bit of a flair to all the clan drama. Do you think I'll find something on Konohamaru's family? That would be hilarious to hold over him."
Naruto's new arm feels odd.
"Whoa," he gawked at it when he came to after one of the most painful healings he has ever been through, masterfully administered by Sakura. There is no painless way to re-establish nerve endings, she said, and Naruto's mind went white with pain unlike anything he has experienced. The arm and hand were oddly sensitive, and the skin was a bit patchy, almost papery. But it obeyed his thoughts without any resistance and performed up to expectations in every following test.
"Will it stop feeling like this?" Naruto asked once Tsunade and Sakura had had enough of him and deemed him fit to leave their care. Tsunade put a hand on her hip and raised an eyebrow.
"Feeling like what?"
"Weird."
"You are not helping me, kid." She tapped her foot without much patience. Naruto scrunched his nose at her.
"It feels like it's shaking, I guess. Even if it doesn't. Y'know?"
Tsunade looked over the bioprosthetic and sighed.
"We will run secondary tests in a couple of weeks. You are the first person to receive a prosthetic grown from wood cells, so I won't pretend I have all the answers for you. My best guess is that you have decent neural connections and your brain considers the limb its own, but fails to register that it doesn't have the same blood flow the flesh does. The trembling you might be feeling could be the tissue friction as it has a different viscosity from your muscles, and it crosses some wires. Or you finally can feel how piss-poor your chakra control is, and your nerves register the stutter in the chakra flow. Honestly, there are too many possibilities for me to start this right now. As long as it doesn't grow into severe pain and does not interfere with your mobility, we can figure this out later." She swayed her hand, as if turning the page away from the topic and turned to walk away. "For now, do your stretches and work on some chakra flow exercises. And get your ass up and get out. Free up the bunk for a patient in actual need."
"Yes, ma'am," Naruto laughed as she left his ward. He looked to Sakura, who shrugged.
"She is right. There is not much point in detailed exams and calibration while it's still fresh. You have to properly heal and get used to it first. Maybe it'll go away."
That was thirteen months ago. Not for a minute since then has this odd shaking feeling left him.
Naruto sometimes has to look at his hand to ensure it is still there and it is not actually buzzing with weakness. It feels strange, empty. It doesn't feel temperatures and can't feel the sunlight when he emerges from the dark of the prison tunnels into the smouldering July afternoon.
The shaking did not evolve into pain either. But oddly enough, lately this empty feeling has been spreading. Naruto feels the sweat on his skin but struggles to feel the warmth.
He wonders if Tsunade would make fun of him.
He won't tell her though.
Shikamaru is smoking on the roof where Naruto finds him.
"I am not signing," Shikamaru says without turning to greet him, and Naruto has this childish urge to smack him upside the head with the scroll.
"I will tell Kakashi that you are hiding here."
"That's blackmail, which in certain cases can be prosecuted." He takes the cigarette out of his mouth to shake off the ash onto the concrete flooring. Cracking his neck, Shikamaru yawns. "Besides, it means nothing. I am taking my mandated break, and no one can impose on my thirty minutes."
"Not even Hokage?"
"Hokage can do whatever, but Hokage is smart enough to know he's fucked if I unionize."
"I thought unions applied only to trades and not to the military?"
Shikamaru shrugs, returning the cigarette to his lips.
"Strike is a strike. Will you take my job if I go on one?"
Naruto shivers at the thought. Shikamaru smirks.
"What can I do to make you sign?"
"I am not participating."
"You really think we have such a just system?"
"This is not really your question," Shikamaru makes a swaying gesture with his hand and looks sideways at his friend. "What you really want to ask me is if I consider what they did to Sasuke fair. Those are two completely different questions."
"And do you?"
Shikamaru looks at his watch. Several seconds pass in silence.
"I believe my break is over. No personal conversations while I'm on duty."
He leaves, and Naruto is left wondering why he let him go so easily. It is quite strange how angry he is, how frustrated, but how that frustration does not emerge into yelling and forcing his friend to listen. Instead, there is this bitter feeling of futility, telling him he is slamming against the brick wall again and again.
Naruto pesters Shikamaru every time they need to sign a new appeal. He yells for Shikamaru to just read it over and tell him his thoughts.
Shikamaru never touches the scroll.
"We submitted another appeal," Naruto shares on his next visit. Sasuke keeps quiet as usual.
Naruto wanted to bring an orange, but the guards tried to confiscate it at the entrance. Instead of giving it over, Naruto peeled it and ate the whole thing right there, showing his empty mouth afterward.
He rubs his palms together and leans just a bit closer to the bars.
He hopes the remaining hint of citrus reaches Sasuke. Hopes a familiar scent might bring a bit of relief. He feels somehow ashamed of eating fresh fruit when his friend can't. Now that Naruto thinks about it, it was a foolish idea. Sasuke might hate him even more now, for reminding him of something he can't have.
Naruto pushes through the flush of shame that bursts from inside.
"Had all the usual signatures. Kakashi, Sakura, me. I tried to get Hinata to do it, but her position is kinda gentle now. She can't be open with her motions now that everyone is looking at her. Some family may take it the wrong way if she supports you openly right now. Which is-" Naruto shakes his head. "Sorry, you don't want to hear about all that now. I don't know why I'm talking about it. But! The new signatures we got were Tsunade and Shizune. I don't think Tsunade cares anymore. I mean, she cared about her position between the village and the council and other Kages, but now she just does what she wants. And apparently, she wants you free as well! That's nice, no? She's a badass lady to have on your side. I thought I'd tell you."
The number of declined appeals has already cleared into double digits. Every time one is declined, they submit a new one. This is what they are doing in the meantime while their retrial request can be vetoed on the spot. It is a stupid bureaucratic game that Naruto detests, but it is a way to show they are not giving up.
Clasping his sticky fingers together, holding tight, Naruto sighs.
"I know none of that is enough. I wish I could just…"
He doesn't know what he wants to say there. He lets the silence stretch instead of saying something dumb again.
His eyes find the outline of the protective seal once more.
On his next birthday, Naruto receives a gift from Kakashi.
"I think you might get more use out of it than me," his teacher says it so casually, like he is regifting a candle.
In his dry office full of paper and dust, Naruto loses words for the first time, maybe ever.
"Kakashi-sensei… Is this…"
"I already gave up other gifts from that day. Might as well get rid of this one," his teacher drones with his gaze glued to a novel. "But yeah, it is."
When Naruto doesn't answer for a full thirty seconds, Kakashi lowers the book to look at him properly.
"Naruto?"
In his hands, Naruto holds Minato Namikaze's kunai with the seal of the God of Thunder on the handle. His hands are actually shaking for once.
When he first met his father, Naruto decked him.
He doesn't remember why he did it.
Well, maybe he understands for a moment.
Without Naruto's conscious decision, Minato Namikaze's kunai ends up stuck in the wall of Naruto's bedroom after he throws it as if burned. He has no idea why he's done it. The weight distribution of the kunai is unusual, slightly heavier on the front. It dives into a wall, splitting the drywall around it, and a thick crack makes its way up and down from the impact point in a scraggly pattern. Naruto leaves it there for he has no better place to keep it.
Sometimes, when he comes home and feels too restless to fall asleep, he walks over to his bedroom wall and tries to read the tiny etchings on the handle. The elegant writing mocks him, fairly simple to read but impossible to understand. He gets the symbols, but he has no idea how the formula works.
It is unlike any seal technique he saw in the books. Naruto feels so uniquely inadequate and longs for Sasuke like a missing limb.
Back at the hospital, with his ribs freshly healed, bruises slowly turning green, missing an arm and restless, itchy, Naruto found a pencil and a piece of paper and scribbled the simple formula on it in the middle of the night.
Sasuke had been unconscious ever since Naruto woke up, which was not that surprising, considering Naruto always got on his feet faster than most. Having Sasuke right there, in the next cot over, reminded Naruto of their early days, of the wounds that landed them on neighbouring hospital beds, the stubborn looks and the childish urge to beat up each other even more.
Naruto felt a pull to use the time as well as he could. Imagining being right here when Sasuke finally woke up filled him with this buzz, almost giddiness. The idea of trying a seal technique came to be this way – above all, Naruto wanted to be here when Sasuke woke up, and he wanted to declare that he won in some way. Both of them were missing an arm each, but Naruto had a head start, a perfect opportunity to show how little it affected him.
Just to imagine: Sasuke wakes up, looks over to see Naruto and thinks Naruto also just woke up. Naruto won't tell him much, but sooner or later – bam! Naruto can use one-handed jutsu. Suck it, Sasuke!
Sasuke would die inside from envy. Naruto couldn't wait to show him.
So during the day he had visitors, listened to stories from missions, slept while someone else held watch. At night, Naruto practiced while alone.
Scribbling a seal from memory, he mumbled meaninglessly to himself. In the absence of a better test subject, he placed his pencil on the paper and folded his fingers into the hand seal. Nothing happened. Naruto sighed and slumped forward. He couldn't even make clones to try and speed up the process. A frustrating endeavour.
Something felt off. Naruto couldn't tell what, but suddenly he realized something had been odd for some time, and he just noticed.
He raised his head to look at the window, but didn't see any signs of intrusion. Scanning the room in the relatively bright moonlight, Naruto did not notice anything out of the ordinary.
Then his gaze landed on the cot next to his and met the pair of dark eyes watching him.
The spring breeze caressed the flimsy curtains by the open window, and the moon was unobscured in the night sky, its light a gentle shimmer on the ward floor. In that silver light, Sasuke blinked with his mismatched eyes, holding Naruto's gaze.
Naruto held his breath involuntarily. His instincts were right – something was off, and that was the barely heard sound of Sasuke's slow inhales and exhales changing tempo. Naruto kept count of them in the back of his mind, without realizing it, afraid of the moment when that wax and wane might cease. He knew that Sasuke would wake up, but something desperate and terrified inside him could not believe it until the last second.
Now, Naruto realized he had completely failed to prepare for the actual moment Sasuke would wake up. What should he say? What might Sasuke do? Would they have to fight again?
In the prolonged quiet, Sasuke shifted his body to lie on his side. He watched Naruto, then his eyes blinked down to the paper on his bed. Naruto had no idea how long Sasuke had been awake.
"You still suck at this, don't you?" was the first thing Sasuke said in a whisper, and Naruto felt tears well up at the sight of a weak smile.
They started flowing without his permission. Naruto realized he was weeping once he felt the tears trickle down his cheeks. His hand went on its own and smacked him first before wiping the wetness of his tears and snot from his cheeks and chin.
"Shut the hell up, Sasuke," he said automatically. "No, don't- Wait."
The heat at the back of Naruto's neck was building up to a searing burn, and his stomach felt terrifyingly empty, a ghost of vertigo overtaking his senses. It was so close to a genjutsu: his naive body believing things that could not be true, feeling as if it was falling when his eyes told him he was safe.
Naruto did not know it, but the profound relief he felt was not enough to painlessly banish the stress that quietly built up inside of him as he suppressed his fear of Sasuke never waking up again. Days' worth of quiet dread had to go through him before it could leave him. And so, his body felt as if the ground disappeared beneath it. He fell, and the tears kept flowing so embarrassingly free, and he wanted to punch them back into his own eyes. But as quickly as the feeling came, it left, and his body sat there shaking, weightless.
Sasuke blinked slowly, and even that was graceful. He pushed to sit up, and Naruto marvelled at him with his mouth open and vision blurred from crying. They watched each other for a long time, and Naruto found that more than embarrassed, he was deeply happy.
The night was quiet and peaceful, only with the occasional beat of the nurse's steps making rounds coming closer and then farther again.
Naruto watched as Sasuke slowly moved to sit on Naruto's bed, facing him. Sasuke picked up a pencil from the parchment between them and started writing on a corner of the paper. He was slow and a little clumsy – his fingers were stiff from the IV drip.
After a minute, Sasuke pushed the paper over to Naruto, and it crumpled slightly as it slid on the soft surface. Naruto studied a circular seal with a scatter of lines, a single kanji binding a simple command. Above it, Sasuke handed the pencil over, and Naruto took it.
He copied the pattern in silence, blinking away the wetness in his eyes to see in a very weak light. Once his copy was complete, Naruto found that he had calmed down and his tears stopped. He looked at the two wonky seals, then up at Sasuke. Sasuke nodded and extended his hand. Automatically knowing what was asked of him, Naruto held his pencil forward, and Sasuke took the other end. A quick snap broke the pencil in half.
They laid their halves on their respective circles, and Sasuke showed a simple hand sign Naruto copied. Then both of them passed their hands over their writing and touched the outermost circle of the drawing.
Both halves of the broken pencil disappeared before their eyes.
Sasuke's smile grew a touch wider.
"Good."
He passed an empty hand over his seal again to show the release pattern. With just a flicker of chakra, the end of the pencil lay into his hand once he completed a swipe. Naruto did the same slowly, although he never bothered to learn minor chakra control, so his was more of a burst than a flicker, which sent the pencil spinning in the air, and he clumsily had to catch it. He looked at the piece of wood in his hand.
This was surprisingly easy.
It was the first jutsu he had managed since his battle with Sasuke.
"I use these all the time to store small weapons. Mostly my wires and shuriken. Its limit is the object's dimensions. Anything larger than palm-size will fray the seal too fast or will not work at all."
"This is unfair."
"This is how seals work. They have limits."
"No, I mean…" Naruto had to cough and clear his throat. He let the pencil drop. His eyes looked into Sasuke's. He silently pleaded with all the gods that he was not a dream. "I was supposed to teach you a one-handed jutsu. I woke up first. It was my turn to show you a cool trick, not the other way around! You are so damn annoying, Sasuke."
He was not sure if he hiccuped or sobbed through the last sentence, if he really meant any of it at all. Suddenly Naruto felt a laugh clawing its way up his chest.
It was somewhat an absurd situation. Naruto was silly for thinking even for a moment that Sasuke would ever let anyone one-up him. He woke up from a coma and was already better than Naruto at handling it. It was the same as it always had been.
Well, except one thing.
Naruto looked over, and instead of being called an idiot, he was met with silence.
Sasuke still watched him with some hesitation, as if something was on his mind. Then, when he noticed Naruto looking, he blinked it away and once again smiled.
"You will teach me something too."
"How can I teach you anything? You are better than me in all of it! Stupid Sasuke. Woke up without a fucking arm and first-minute already perfectly adjusted."
"Sure. If you really believe it."
He was so serene and calm, and he went with what Naruto said, and it was so weird.
Whisper-yelling and being mad at Sasuke over nothing was an almost natural behaviour Naruto reverted to without realizing. It was so easy to find something and provoke Sasuke so they wouldn't have to sit in silence or worse... talk about what happened. It was silly but also so strange, how Sasuke did not take the bait, yet acted in a way that still satisfied Naruto's craving to save the moment from the inevitable return to reality. Sasuke silently refused to revert to their childish selves, but also refused to break the spell of the present moment – he willingly went along pretending the past and future did not exist, or at least did not matter in the slightest. In looking at Sasuke, there was this feeling that tomorrow would not come. Naruto really wished it were true too.
Naruto would know later that he felt something next to Sasuke he hadn't felt in years. It was so unfamiliar that it felt foreign at this point.
Peace. He felt at peace.
He tried to replicate the seal once again, and Sasuke guided him. With nowhere to go, with nothing else to do, they were patient with each other. Sasuke sat a bit closer to see better as the moon started to lower.
They did that until Naruto's hand began shaking. In their fight, he fully ran out of chakra, and with Kurama deep asleep, he was slower to refill it. And the nights of keeping watch, ensuring Sasuke still breathed while no one else kept an eye on them, did exhaust his body and mind. This tiny jutsu practice drained him.
Naruto fell asleep while Sasuke told him more about the limits of a primitive formula.
"I bet if I really put my mind to it, I'd beat you in fuuinjutsu," Naruto mumbled through a yawn as his eyes stayed open less and less against his will. "I just didn't think about doing that before."
He heard a quiet snort as a hand guided him backward onto a pillow. A feather-light motion swept his hair away from his face.
"Sure you'd think that. Fuuinjutsu requires thinking, and your dull head wouldn't find a way to even break a simple barrier. Well, maybe only by bashing through it."
There was the Sasuke he still remembered. Right there, with him. The relief melted Naruto's bones, and he fell asleep halfway through composing a snarky response.
And in the morning, they took Sasuke for questioning.