Naruto 1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. I do, however, own quite a large patch of mud.

AN: This is a spinoff story from Beginnings (which you do not need to read to understand this) and will be told entirely in one-shots. I realize I should be finishing up Beginnings, but I am all Epically Long-ed out, and so am taking a break. This is only one desposit of one-shots, Facets is the other.

One other thing, those that have not read Beginnings may be confused at to who this 'Senji' person is. It's Sasuke under a pseudonym.

Enjoy!

oOo

"What is that smell?" I asked, pinching my nose theatrically and dangling a grinning Naruto by the ankle.

"I dun gone out and played in da mud!" Naruto said brightly, blue eyes barely visible in the thick covering of goop on his face. "And t'ere was a doggy and we played too! It was a nice doggy, Senji-san. Big, and hairy, and happy!"

"Ah," I said. At least the dog explained the stench. "And you dared to come into my house so messy?"

_Plop_ went a big piece of mud onto the floor, and Naruto giggled. "Yes! Yes, Senji, I did!"

The floor was solid oak, beautifully polished, and covered with a fine, thick rug. Senji was sure the smell of wet dog and unwashed child would never leave it now, and a blotchy stain would forever cover it.

Naruto couldn't stop smiling.

So I smiled, just a little bit, as well and carried him out to meet the business end of the hose.

oOo

AN: I know it was short, but... please review?


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Stop rubbing it in!

AN: As this may be cofusing for those who don't understand the backstory...

Naruto has been captured by the Uchiha. Sasuke, or 'Senji' as he is referred to here, is trying to save him.

A big thanks to reviewers and readers! You're awesome.

That is all.

oOo

It is dawn when I first notice.

_Dawn_.

The sun is already a thin line on the horizon and cloaked in pink and gold bursts. Birds have taken first wing, and the shadows flickering in the trees is the morning guard changing.

I am so angry I can barely _see_ any of it. All I can do is stare at the carefully crafted doll flickering in and out of reality as I switch my sharingan on and off.

There.

Gone.

There.

Gone.

And the only thought I can think is: _That's not Naruto. That's not Naruto. __**Gods**__ that's __**not Naruto.**_

The sky is blue and the sun a flat golden disk just above the trees before another thought can break through.

_Where is he?_

I grasp onto that thought, letting the cold wash of rage blacken my vision.

_**Where is he?**__ Who took him? Where is he?_

I leave the room as the blood from the doll drips on the floor, staining the pillow and floor. My kunai is through its head.

Naruto's empty eyes stare at me accusingly.

I have memorized every detail; from the brains poking out around the kunai to the blood leaking out the ears to the cold blue color settling into the tiny, loving fingers.

_I'll find you before it happens. I will._

My eyes burn red, and all that is in the room is a pillow leaking feathers and a kunai in a mattress. I close the door, and take the first step to find him.

_Naruto, Naruto, Naruto, Naruto, Naruto, Naruto._

His name has replaced the beat of my heart, thumping out its own primal rhythm.

_Naruto, Naruto, Naruto._

The door is down with a single kick, and then I am dragging Iruka from his bed and pinning him to the wall. His eyes are still sleep heavy and confused.

"Kinazawa-san," he says in surprise, rubbing one eye. "Wha…?"

"When did you last see Naruto?" I hiss. "Who was he with?"

"I—"

The crack his head makes when it hits the wall almost covers the growl that rips from my throat. It tears when it leaks out from my clenched teeth.

"When and who?"

"Yesterday after school," Iruka says dazedly. Blood is trickling down his wall, one dark bead following after another. I have cracked the man's skull. "He was sitting on the swing. I had to leave early. I assumed you—"

My knuckles tingle and Iruka's lip bleeds when I punch him. "Who was around? Details!"

"The—the—the little Hyuuga girl and Kakashi was across the road and… someone else. Someone I didn't know."

"What did they look like?"

"Ninja, not ANBU, but something like it. I don't _know_-" Iruka snaps. "What happened?"

_ROOT._

I am out the window and down the street before Iruka can remember to try and stop me.

ROOT headquarters are not hard to find.

Danzo is a rat after all, and rats are terribly fond of the sewers.

Water trickles by my feet as I walk down the hallway. It is so low I have to crouch. The walls and ceiling of the dark, curved hall weep water and are nursing dead, rotting things on their sides.

My long hair is dripping wet, and the cold sinks deep into the joints of my bones.

_Naruto, Naruto, Naruto._

"What's this? A spy?"

The man hidden behind a curve is under my control before he can say another word.

The mind is a terrifying place.

Red and yellow and pink and blue and green and hot, hot darkness engulfs my senses and drags me down into the darker corners.

He is a husband.

He is a father.

He is ROOT.

The last is all that matters, and I follow the thin string that leads to plans and secrets and knowledge.

Danzo is trying to take over Konoha, he was stationed at the academy yesterday… Naruto is a nuisance he passed in the street. He knows nothing.

I begin to pull back, disgusted. Nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

_Nothing is always something. Think Sasuke. You can use him __**somehow.**_

I delved back into memories, forgoing gentleness for speed. An image of bright sunlight and a little girl on a swing, humming; she shouts daddy and runs into outstretched arms. Nothing of importance there.

Next is a flicker of blood and sweat and a body on the ground. ROOT dirty work. Uninteresting.

And _there_. There is the flash of the street outside the academy, and a shadow of a rat lingering in the trees. Iruka had not noticed the shadow, this ROOT had.

For just a moment, I allow myself to switch the scene to a glance of Naruto, swinging obliviously beneath the sun dappled leaves of the old oak. I should have finished my shopping more quickly. I should have _been there—_

But, no. That kind of thinking led to folly.

I switched my focus back to the shadow, gleaning impressions and thoughts. The ROOT man knows nothing of the shadow watching the scene, he assumes it is another officer, like himself.

_Useless._

I leave Danzo's lair as quietly as I came in, the ROOT man behind me who is a father and a husband and a killer all in one continues his patrol, intruder forgotten.

oOo

I go back to the house, and pace.

I think best when I am moving—when I am doing _something_—and now is the time I need to think hardest of all. I need a plan.

The sun if pulling toward noon when I leave the house again, and there is still the hot stench of bile lingering on my tongue. _Naruto_, I thought, my stomach still roiling. _I can't believe I've already screwed up, he can't die. He __**can't.**_

I go back to the tree.

I find the place the shadow must have sat, and I scour it as thoroughly as a hound. Every piece of bark, every bug, every shift of a leaf holds sound and place and scent, and my eyes burn and blood drips from my eyes as I memorize every miniscule atom.

There must be _something_ here I can use.

The sun has curved to hug the horizon before I have exhausted all my options. I have rummaged through every mind that could have been there, imprinted every scrap of cloth and movement of hand on my memory, and now I just sat, staring at nothing, as all the facts came together.

The worst _possible_ conclusion I could have come to.

The kidnapper was skilled in genjutsu, trusted around the academy, and Naruto had left with them easily, trustingly, because they served in the police force.

_Why?_ I thought. _Why would the Uchiha kidnap him? That's not something the Uchiha __**do**__, and they can't possibly want to attract more ire from the village by kidnapping the Jinchuriki… Why would they bother? What could they possibly have to gain?_

_Sasuke._

Little Sasuke, the little failure of an Uchiha heir, that could not be allowed to associate with a monster. Little Sasuke, whose mother believes that the Jinchuriki is uncontrollable and could mutilate her child beyond repair—

_They cared_, I realized, and the realization struck me like a hammer to the chest. They had been so different than I remembered when I came back. So full of cracks and holes and so utterly _human_ it seemed an insult. I had remembered every ill, every cold look, every shouted word, and when Mikoto had insulted _my_ Naruto I had given up on them completely. But—

_They cared. They loved me. They…_

I pressed my fists into my eyes and pretended the cold wet on my hands wasn't tears.

I took a deep breath, and reminded myself I was being an idiot.

They loved _this_ Sasuke, Senji Kinazawa was no Uchiha.

He was Naruto Uzumaki's guardian, and his whole life revolved around stupid grins and big blue eyes.

And my heart beat out the rhythm: _Naruto, Naruto, Naruto._

oOo

I didn't even try for subtle.

I just stalked right into the Uchiha compound, found the Fugaku household, and proceeded to knock until the door fell in.

Itachi's eyes were huge, and his parents assumed masks of shock along with him—sliding smooth as a noh mask over their placid eyes and worried lips.

"Where is he?" I asked, the words raw in my throat. "Tell me."

"I'm so sorry, Kinazawa-san," Mikoto said. "I'm not sure what-"

My hand wrapped around her throat and _squeezed._

"I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't ask to hear lies."

A brief brush of displaced air, and I kicked a charging Itachi through two walls. Fugaku didn't scream as I pinned him to the wall with a kunai through the shoulder—_still useable, no lasting damage-_, but his face went white as bone.

"Now," I said, loosening my hold slightly as Mikoto—not my mother, never my mother—turned purple. "Let's try this again."

oOo

I had always known the Uchiha were stubborn, but I had never realized exactly how completely _uncooperative_ they were.

Even threatened, they refused to reveal Naruto's location, and I quickly found torturing them was beyond my capabilities.

I went on to do the next best thing.

Someone screamed when my eyes glowed crimson, and black stars filled my eyes. I could see the surprise, and the fear in their eyes, when I flattened—empty, carefully emptied—homes in a blink.

I was furious, I was exhausted, and my head spun and my hands trembled and all I could see was the mirage of my little Naruto with his head split open—the tissue torn and the brains splitting the skull.

There were screams in the night, not one distinguishable from another and I knew Naruto was there—I _knew_ it, he had to be—but I couldn't _feel_ his chakra and—

It was like nirvana flooded through my veins and bound to my eyes. It was a flare, a beacon, brighter than any of the chakras around me that flared beneath the rubble of a building. It was gold and carmine and blue and navy and red all mixed together to be _Naruto._

_Naruto, Naruto, Naruto._

Shinigami burst into life around me, and the roof of Naruto's cell was ripped up and tossed aside in seconds.

And there he was.

He had tears in his eyes, his lips were blue with cold, he was dirty and his hair was smoking, and shock chains lay in a tangle on the chakra-suppressed runes at his feet.

His glare was triumphant, exhausted, desperate, and as Shinigami faded that tiny face broke into a smile that made his lip split.

"Senji," he said, voice high and tiny and in pain, and I then I had him in my arms. "Senji," he choked, and tears wet my neck.

"It's okay," I found myself saying, and silently vowing I would never let him go again. "I've got you now."

_And no one will ever hurt you again._

oOo

AN: Voila, tis fin.

Please tell me what you think! I am delighted by comments. :)


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: This is not the plagiarist you're looking for...

AN: Just a little something that hit me...

oOo

There was the academy (_gutted, flames sputtering, sign hanging by a hinge and a charred body clutching at the doorway_) brightly painted and filled with children waiting to leave. It's fence was newly made, (_broken and twisted on the ground_) the other probably so charred and scarred by accidents they finally had to replace it. The concrete had tiny growing things in it (_a gaping hole where the ground used to be from Naga tunneling and a shard of rock through a tiny chest_) and was worn from the many years of tiny feet.

The oak tree (_leaves curling from the heat and roots withering, smoke pouring up into the sky_) was just beginning to gain its fall colors, a tall lady dressed in her finery of red and orange and gold. The swing, attached so long to a branch the bark had worn away, swung slowly in a warm breeze blowing from the South, carrying a faint scent of salt and hot summer sun.

He watched a woman shepherd her child across the street, dust clinging to worn feet and affectionate scowl firmly in place. The child was too young to control his volume, but old enough to know a little better, and whined pitifully as he clutched at his mother's leg. He did not know her, could not recognize her face, but something in his bones said _I've seen your eyes staring wide open at nothing, seen your flesh split open and the bones underneath and __**I didn't care.**_

_It's strange,_ Sasuke mused, taking a moment to lean against a fence, face wiped clean of expression except a vague fondness in the crinkle of his eye. _To see things two ways. Strange to see things so perfect and so horrible, and show neither in my eyes. To be unaffected in the face of—_

He blinked, looking away from the woman staring curiously at him, and continued on his walk.

oOo

AN: Oh, the Sasuke angst!

I would really like to know what you think. Any where I can improve?


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: No.

AN: See, if I update Aftermath, it's almost LIKE I'm updating Beginnings, right? Right...

oOo

I swallowed hard, my hands shaking in nerves and my forehead smudged with sweat. The rice was sticking to my fingers, and the tuna was being mashed into fishy oblivion. Naruto chattered away obliviously, perched on his stool and grinning like a loon. Naruto was forever smiling, even when he was trapped in that tiny, rat-infested, hole-in-the-wall, disgusting—

I forced myself to loosen my hold, and set aside the ruined onigiri.

"Are you making onigiri for dinner?"

I blinked, and it took me a moment to realize Naruto actually expected his question to be answered.

"Tuna and fruit," I said. I found suddenly that I couldn't remember if he liked onigiri, and it made me unnaturally upset.

"Yay!" Naruto cheered, rocking back and forth on his stool. "I like that stuff!"

Relief nearly choked me, and I got out a: "Good." And then saved him from more brain damage by stopping his rocking.

"Hey, Didja hear what Kage-sama did?" Naruto asked, blue eyes sparkling.

To my surprise, I felt an old annoyance wriggle inside me. I thought I would welcome Naruto's chatter after so long an absence from it, but after only a few hours I found myself exhausted by it.

_I can't believe he's already annoying me. I should be strong enough to—_

"Well, didja?" Naruto asked.

"Which thing?" I asked tiredly.

"The underwear thing."

Naruto's grin was stretched from ear to ear, his eyes sparkling bright as the sun. Slowly, I felt a small smile tug at my own lips. I was exasperated, I was exhausted, but somehow Naruto managed to make me set that aside, if only for a moment.

"No," I said, and set aside a perfect onigri. "Tell me."

oOo

AN: Yes, this is part of that 'first meeting' bit. Please, tell me what you think!


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Naruto, Drama, Humor