Dialogue, Memory & Laugh
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto nor do I own it's characters. I make no money with this.
Author's Note: Every now and then, I realize that I can't let go of facts that I believed to be true at one point, only to learn that they are, in fact, wrong. The scene at the Valley of the End, for example. Back when I watched those episodes, I read a fanfic implying that Sasuke's hand went through Naruto's heart, and not his lung. If you think it over logically, it's impossible, and I know that. Still, I can't get it out of my head... *headdesks* So, if you could forgive my stupidity, I'd really appreciate it. *glares at part 32*
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Part 31 - Dialogue
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The mission had been a joke, and a bad one too.
“B-rank my ass!” Naruto cursed, wiping the blood off his katana before he put it back into its sheath, fastening it onto his back where it belonged. “That was barely still A-rank!”
“Hn,” Sasuke answered, taking a last calm glance at their surroundings as the sharingan slowly faded in his eyes.
“Fucking morons...”
“Hn.”
“Really, I mean it can’t be that hard to actually check who they send us after before doing it! B-rank!!” Throwing his hands up, he stomped over to one of the bodies, rolling it over with his foot. “There! Look at that!”
Raising an eyebrow, Sasuke sauntered over to do as told.
“This guy’s listed as S-class in the Bingo Book. And he’s been for a while now, I know that by chance.”
“Hn.”
“Moronic idiots! I’m so gonna kick some ass when we get home! It’s the third fucking time something like this happens to me! Fucking new guys in the office or something...”
Sasuke merely shrugged. “Hn.”
“...you really are one emotionless bastard,” Naruto mumbled as he calmed down, giving him the look.
A, “Hn,” and a smirk.
“Asshole.” A grin. “So, two days until we reach the border, another one ‘til we get home. Any plans?” he said as he bent down and grabbed the body by the ankle, dragging him over to where most of the others were rather carelessly. Sasuke followed him, pulling an empty scroll from his backpack.
Naruto watched him as Sasuke quickly painted the necessary seal, then he started collecting the corpses and gathered them on the scroll that Sasuke had placed neatly on the floor, all the while complaining about how it wasn’t right to send someone on missions that they weren’t properly informed about.
It was only after the bodies were safely sealed inside the scroll that he turned towards the raven, frowning.
“You’re awfully talkative today, you know that?”
Sasuke only smirked in reply and deliberately hn’d.
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Part 32 - Memory
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Sasuke knew he had a lot of scars for his age.
There were the thin lines on his arms and legs where Orochimaru’s sword had cut him during training, the even thinner lines on the insides of his wrist – the reason he still always wore his arm guards.
The scar on his back where Orochimaru had managed to almost kill him in their last fight, just before Naruto had practically torn the fucker to pieces.
The scar on his left upper thigh where he’d been stabbed with a katana, that time when Sakura had almost been killed.
The scar on his left arm from the burns when he had once been hit by one of the Kyuubi’s chakra tails.
The small scar on his shoulder where that arrow had embedded itself into his flesh and Naruto had refused to pull it out until they were home.
And the scarred claw marks on his hips from that time, when... well, just that time.
There were also a lot of other, smaller ones, because Sasuke’s skin simply scarred unnaturally easy.
Naruto’s, on the opposite, didn’t scar. It never had. Not the time when Iwa had gotten their hands on him, not the time when Orochimaru had tried to slice him to pieces, not the time when he’d thrown himself between Kakashi and that explosive tag, not the time when he’d had his throat slit, not the many times when the Kyuubi had burned him from the inside.
No matter what he went through, Naruto’s skin always stayed perfectly unmarred.
Except, of course, that patch of skin above his heart.
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Part 33 - Laugh
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Naruto knew it wasn’t that funny.
It had been a fight like most of their other fights – a stupid argument over whatever had seemed like a good enough excuse at that time that had quickly turned into something bigger and more dangerous. Naruto never clearly remembered what had lead to what afterwards. This time, however, they kind of hadn’t managed to make it to the training grounds and he still had only a vague idea of where they were...
He didn’t know what exactly had happened, but somewhere between dodging one of Naruto punches and trying to kick the blond’s stomach, Sasuke had lost his balance or slipped on the muddy ground or god knows what. Naruto just knew that one second, he’d been there and the next, he’d been sitting in the small rivulet that neither of them had really paid attention to before.
It wasn’t the fact that Sasuke – Uchiha Sasuke and not Uzumaki Naruto – had ended up falling into the water (nor was it the fact that he’d managed to get himself completely wet when the water was barely deep enough to cover his thighs now that he was sitting in it) that had Naruto toppling over, laughing so hard his stomach hurt and tears ran down his face.
It was the way he looked, sharingan red eyes wide with shock, lips slightly parted, cheeks flushed. It was much more than Naruto could take...
Several minutes later had him gasping and panting on the ground, because he just couldn’t breathe he was so busy laughing. When he finally managed to get his body back under control, he looked up just in time to catch Sasuke erase the last reminders of what could have been a grin.
And Naruto knew Sasuke well enough to translate a grin into a full-blown laugh.
