When Naruto had left through the gates of Konoha that morning, he could never have imagined that he would end up in a situation like this.

Maybe they had been too confident? It was only a C rank mission, after all. Or perhaps because they were still safely within the limits of the Fire Country? Whatever it had been, they had let their guard down, and they were paying the price.

A group of shinobi had attacked - their foreign headbands did nothing to indicate where they were from. To make things worse, these enemies were smart. They had already succeeded in separating Naruto from the rest of his team, forcing him to take on two opponents at once.

They also certainly weren’t lacking in skill - Naruto wasn’t able to identify the techniques they were using at all! How could anyone be in so many places, yet none of them at the same time?

Using his shadow clones, the blond set out attacking the enemy “copies,” but each time ended with them just vanishing, the enemies gone the moment his clones made contact.

Suddenly, Naruto was receiving blow after blow. After several long minutes and a volley of physical attacks, he was starting to realize that something was wrong. Very wrong.

His chakra flow was completely out of balance, and it was getting harder and harder to create his shadow clones. No matter what he did, he couldn’t seem to get a hold on his chakra, and the hits just kept on coming.

He began to feel anxious and suffocated. This was too much for him.

If he didn’t find a way out, he'd be dead meat for sure…

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Not too far away, a change in the atmosphere caught Sasuke’s attention and he came to a halt. Concentrating on it now, he could sense a huge source of chakra from somewhere nearby. Activating his sharingan, he scanned his surroundings and immediately located the source of said chakra roughly three hundred feet from where he was standing.

As the tomoe’s in his blood red eyes swirled, he could now easily see as two assailants attacked a third person. Whoever it was, they were a real idiot. They were clearly losing.

To be honest, he would have left this scuffle go and be on his way. He had no obligation to step into someone else’s battle, after all. But still, he couldn’t shake that feeling inside him that something seemed… off. The flailing shinobi who was trying to defend himself was using an incredible amount of chakra. It was ridiculous - couldn’t that idiot see how much chakra he was wasting? With that amount of chakra, he should have had no trouble dealing with his attackers, and yet...

He was intrigued. Curious, that’s all. He’d just take a quick look… Unfortunately, as he jumped from tree to tree, getting closer and closer to where the battle was taking place, his mood began to sour. Maybe that’s why he had stopped in the first place. He knew, deep down, that only one person could have such a ridiculous amount of chakra within them...

And, just as he had expected, not fifty feet away from them did he realize that his suspicions had been correct.

The world just wasn’t big enough, it seemed.

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"Kyuubi, God dammit!" Naruto tried to call for the fox for the umpteenth time.

Why wasn’t the demon replaying at such a tricky moment?!

He was really starting to get desperate.

He felt stuck, completely unable to access the Kyuubi’s chakra. What the fuck had those bastards done to his seal?! Had they manipulated it somehow?

Reality ultimately set in, though. This was an impossible mission at this point.

As much as it pained his pride, the only logical thing he could do at this point was to try and run away. He’d need to escape them somehow and reconnect with his teammates. He’d have to figure out what was happening with his seal later. For now, he just hoped that Kakashi was faring better than he was.

At least, running away had been the plan anyway. No sooner did he make a break for it, pain exploded against his side. Consciousness slipped away from him for a few precious seconds as he was catapulted into a nearby tree. By the time he next opened his eyes, a searing pain was burning up his side.

Things were going south, fast. His breathing was getting ragged, and panic slowly crept over him.

Was this really how it was going to end? Was this it for him?

No, he couldn’t die yet - not here, not now!

He needed to keep his promise to the old lady - he had given his word that he’d live long enough to show her with her own eyes that the curse about the amulet was all just nonsense. Not to mention he still needed to find Sasuke... After all this time he still hadn’t been able to help his friend.

Sasuke… He lamented to himself as he looked up, bleary blue eyes moving to meet with one of his attackers, who was slowly approaching him, likely going in for the kill this time.

If he died… there would be no one left to help him. Everyone had already given up and turned their backs on the last of the Uchiha. Even Sakura, who had been so passionate about rescuing him, was slowly beginning to sound like all the rest. Her faith was steadily dying that they’d ever have their teammate return to them.

No, he couldn’t give up just yet.

He couldn’t give up, but still…

His vision was getting blurrier by the second. Maybe it was the sudden depletion of his chakra, or maybe it was because of all the blood he’d lost - oh yeah, he was bleeding too, wasn’t he? There was a lot of blood, he realized belatedly.

But still.

He couldn’t give up.

Having no other weapon, he gripped onto the kunai that was sunken into the flesh of his side. This was going to have to do. Even if he had no real plan of attack… even though he wasn’t quite sure if he was going to make it out of this… he wasn’t going to back down.

However, before he could even begin to pull it out of himself, something suddenly appeared between him and the other shinobi. No, not something, someone.

Even with his bleary vision he could barely make out the form of a familiar, dark silhouette before him. He could almost taste the name on his lips, but he couldn’t manage to get it out.

With a painful lurch in his stomach, everything was suddenly fading into darkness. He was falling. He was falling into the void.

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Consciousness was slow to return to him, but when it did, the first thing he noticed was the pain at his side. God, it burned like hell. A groan escaped his lips, and suddenly the pain let up. Opening his eyes, he allowed his vision to adjust to the lighting around him once more.

What he ultimately saw nearly knocked the wind out of him as hard as that shinobi’s kick had earlier.

Cerulean eyes widened almost comically despite the pain. Was he hallucinating? Was this some sort of genjutsu?

“S-Sas...suke?” He just barely managed to articulate, his mouth suddenly feeling dry.

“Shut up and don’t move,” came the curt reply.

He couldn’t believe his eyes. And he didn’t know how to feel, truth be told.

On one hand, he felt rage running through his veins for having been caught in a trap like that. And now he was paying the price.

But most importantly…

Had Sasuke saved him?

He couldn’t find any other logical reason for him being there, treating his wounds. Ah, so that’s what had hurt so bad. Sasuke was tending to his side, and to be honest, the bastard could stand to be a little bit gentler…

The battle was slowly coming back to him - how his chakra had completely gone out of control, then getting the shit beat out of him, and then that kunai had struck him right in his side… how could he have been so careless? After that though… everything got kind of blurry. Blurred colors and images returned to him, echoes of voices around him, but he couldn’t tell what they were saying. And then he had fallen.

After that, it was just darkness.

And silence.

"Where is the Kyuubi...?" he asked himself, startled as he slowly realized that along with the silence in his head there was a distinctive lack of a certain fox. He couldn’t feel him at all...

He couldn’t focus on that thought for long, as he let out another pained whine before Sasuke finally pulled back from his side. He felt his head being tipped upwards, and with it a canteen was pressed to his chapped lips.

That’s what brought him back to reality once more. That’s what reminded him of exactly who it was here next to him.

It wasn’t as if he wasn’t glad to see him, though. The truth was, he actually felt at ease. One could say it was even touching. He would have never thought that, given the chance, that Sasuke would ever go out of his way to help him. Well, at least not with how things were between them right now.

What was really starting to unnerve him though was the deafening silence between them. From what he could hear, it was raining outside of wherever they were. A cave? And the fact that the blond could hear it as clear as if he were outside was driving him nuts.

“How much longer do you plan on staying like that?” he asked, needing to break the silence.

For once, he didn’t feel like he had the energy to go into another of his monologues that seemed to happen every time he met Sasuke. Still, he had to do something to break this awful quietness.

“Honestly, Sasuke, it’s not like I’m not glad it was you, but I didn’t know you were the type of person who would come and rescue me…”

Naruto waited a few seconds as he looked for some kind of reaction on Sasuke’s part. But, as per usual, he had the same grumpy face. Some things never changed, did they?

“Seriously, Sasuke, you should take that stick out of your ass ‘cause you look constipated,” he chuckled weakly.

That seemed to work. Sasuke’s brows had furrowed, his scowl deepening.

“Heh, what? Nobody told you that already? You should tag along with someone who can tell the truth to your face,” Naruto pressed, teasingly.

But anyway, what did he know? From what little of Konoha’s intelligence had been able to figure out, he knew Sasuke was moving in a team with another three other people. Him being on the road alone right now didn’t mean he didn’t have anyone by his side. That would certainly be sad…

So he kept quiet for a while, waiting for Sasuke to call out to him.

Instead, Sasuke remained completely indifferent. Apart from his grumpy face, that is.

Although, that shouldn’t be that strange, in any case. Sasuke never was one for change, and this must certainly have thrown a wrench into whatever plans he had that day.

“It’s not like you, you know,” Naruto commented, quietly, once he accepted that Sasuke wasn't going to react to his previous gibes. “Going out of your way to help me... It’s not like I’m complaining, but I thought that the next time we met I’d have to tie your hands and feet so you would sit and listen to me.”

“It wasn’t as if I felt like doing it, you moron.” Sasuke responded tersely.

“Well… that’s at least something,” he chuckled.

It seemed Naruto could get a few words out of him. It was nice, actually. This is how Sasuke used to sound, before...

Maybe he shouldn’t have chuckled after all; the pain began to radiate up his side shortly after he had spoken. Closing his eyes, he focused his breathing and did his best to allow that feeling to fade.

After he felt like he’d gathered enough strength and oxygen to keep going, he turned his head, pausing before speaking.

“Is it that bad?”

He was starting to get a little anxious. It just wasn’t like Sasuke to do this - to tend to his wounds and then stay with him on top of all that. He thought they’d be at each other’s throats the next chance they got to meet, and yet here they were.

It also didn’t help that he still hadn’t been able to communicate with the fox. His inner occupant was, so far, dead silent. Not to mention the pain. God, the pain. He couldn’t even manage to crane his neck down enough to get a good look at it, but it must have been pretty bad. Kyuubi was quiet, he couldn’t feel his chakra, and his wounds weren’t healing like they normally did. Something was definitely wrong.

This was starting to look pretty bad, actually.

Naruto didn’t have the slightest clue as to where they were at the moment - how far Sasuke had taken him, how far they were from the village… He couldn’t exactly just ask Sasuke to take him home; the very moment he stepped foot in Konoha he would surely be taken prisoner. And that was the kinder option.

“You’ll survive,” Sasuke eventually spoke, seemingly impassive.

Well thanks, that sure is reassuring. Naruto huffed.

“Then why the hell are you making that constipated face?” He asked, both curious as to the answer to that question as well as just trying to distract himself from the pulsing pain.

Maybe that had been the last straw… Sasuke had immediately gotten to his feet and before he knew it, he was gone.

Just like that.