Trapped and Chained

Orochimaru has been running out of time. For a long time now. Naruto has noticed it and it puts him on edge. Orochimaru has never been interested in him as a vessel but Sasuke. Naruto doesn’t want Sasuke to die and Sasuke hasn’t even completed his revenge yet. But as more time goes on it seems like Orochimaru can’t be patient any longer.

Naruto wishes Orochimaru wanted him to be a vessel instead not because he sees it as an honor as many of Orochimaru’s subordinates do but because he can’t bear to live a life that Sasuke isn’t in. Naruto has been clingy to Sasuke lately, afraid to leave the boy by himself. Sasuke doesn’t mind but he has questioned Naruto about it multiple times.

Naruto has explained to Sasuke his concerns and Sasuke reassures him by telling him that he won’t die before he gets his revenge. Naruto knows how strong Orochimaru is and how many followers he has so he can’t help but worry. He’s aware of Sasuke’s strength and that he wouldn’t go down easily if it wasn’t what he wished for himself.

Naruto’s worry comes to pass a couple days later. However, Sasuke isn’t fazed and even manages to defeat Orochimaru. Kabuto is horrified by this development but doesn’t stop Sasuke and the rest of the team from leaving.

Sasuke seems to be ready to take his revenge. Naruto’s happy for him but also has an insecure feeling in his chest for not being ready to also take his own revenge against Kichirou. Naruto convinces himself it’s only because he’s focused on helping Sasuke right now even though he’s convincing himself of a lie.

Sasuke collects a few new comrades. A crimson haired girl with black glasses that surprisingly has the same last name as Naruto. Naruto figures that they must be distant relatives of some kind. Unsurprisingly, Karin has an obvious crush on Sasuke and isn’t afraid to make advances towards him. Sasuke ignores them and clearly doesn’t return her romantic feelings.

The other comrade is Suigetsu. A boy that can transform into liquid. Suigetsu is talkative like Naruto so they get along well. Though their meeting was a little awkward as Naruto was embarrassed by the guy not wearing any clothes. Thankfully, the conversation was mostly between Sasuke and Suigetsu.

The third comrade is Jugo. Naruto thinks he’s sweet when he’s not struggling against his curse mark. He gets along great with animals so he gets along with Smokey which is immediately a good sign to Naruto.

Karin and Harumi don’t get along very well though. Karin believes that Harumi is her only competition because she’s the only other girl on the team but Harumi hasn’t shown any interest in anyone in that way. Harumi is clearly annoyed at the red haired girl believing she’s interested in Sasuke when she isn’t.

Suigetsu and Jugo get along well with the rest of them though. The seven of them have begun staying at Rio’s for a little while so they can get ready for their journey for Sasuke getting his revenge.

“Hope you guys know that I can’t afford to have seven kids in my house. Some of you guys are going to have to get jobs,” Rio informs them.

Everyone is reluctant to get jobs as it will interfere with their goals and plans. Naruto gives in and decides he’ll get a job at the tavern Rio brought him to once. Yumiko welcomes him and Naruto speaks with her about a job.

“Hm. Some extra help would be nice,” Yumiko says.

“I can’t be here all the time but I can help sometimes,” Naruto replies.

He can’t be here all the time especially since they’re leaving for a journey soon. But during that time he would like to make some money to help pay for seven kids living in Rio’s house.

“That’s alright. How about this if you ever need extra money you can work here and for how many hours you work I’ll pay you that much.”

Naruto smiles. “That’s perfect!”

Yumiko’s tavern is overfilling with criminals. What Naruto was surprised to find is how many criminals bring their kids here. Naruto enjoys being around kids so he would tell them all sorts of stories about his missions and even his missions back when he lived in the leaf village.The parents of these children got along with Naruto as he was giving them a break from their hyperactive kids and keeping their children happy.

Naruto can’t cook for the life of him and Rio happened to mention this to Yumiko so she gave him other jobs such as cleaning and making the drinks. Yumiko made sure that he didn’t make alcoholic drinks though. A majority of the time he’s cleaning since most drinks here are alcoholic but he doesn’t mind it’s not difficult and he’s paid well for it.

His friends got jobs too to help with money. Naruto got Sunday off of work but all of his other friends are at work so he decides to go for a walk so he can think of something to do. When he’s outside his mind wanders through all sorts of things. Then he begins thinking back to when he met Mayaka and how her village had so much information on every ninja in the village.

He wonders what information the village had on him. He wonders if he even knows all of it. Since he’s a jinchuriki he’s sure they have secrets about the nine tails that even he doesn’t know. On a whim he decides that he’s going to find out.

That night he sneaks out of Rio’s house and heads to the leaf village. Over the years he’s gotten a lot better at espionage missions. It’s difficult but since he’s so familiar with the village he manages to sneak in without being caught.

He keeps to the shadows and enters the Hokage tower as quietly as he can. He looks everywhere until he finds the do not enter room. Only the Hokage and selected shinobi are allowed to enter so it’s a locked room. Naruto has experience with those so he came prepared. He takes out a bobby pin and begins to pick the lock.

The door falls open. He grins in victory. As quietly as he can he closes the door behind him. He starts looking through the U section for Uzumaki. At the very end he finds his name but then out of the corner of his eye he catches sight of Uchiha. He should probably get Sasuke’s too shouldn’t he?

That’s when he hears a noise outside and his heart starts to race. He looks at the Uzumaki file then back at Sasuke’s file. He makes his decision when he hears a key opening the lock and exits through a window. When the door is opened the file room is unoccupied and looks undisturbed.

Outside of the Hokage tower, Naruto is leaning himself against the wall holding the Uchiha file. He’s panting from the adrenaline of almost getting caught.

“Naruto?” A familiar voice calls out.

Crap. He’s been spotted. The familiar voice is Kakashi.

“Nope. You must’ve mistaken me for someone else.”

“You do realize that I recognize your voice, right?”

“Damn it. Long time now see, Kakashi-sensei.”

Kakashi seemed taken aback. When they had seen each other a while back, Sasuke had taken to calling Kakashi without the sensei part. Naruto still had quite a bit of respect for the man so he still refers to Kakashi like that but back then he didn’t refer to them by name.

In a soft voice Kakashi questions. “What are you doing here?”

Naruto unconsciously looks down at the file he’s holding and Kakashi catches it and understands. This isn’t good. There’s no way Kakashi would let him leave, let alone with an important leaf village file.

Kakashi approaches slowly like Naruto is a wild animal that can easily be scared away.

“Naruto. Give me the file,” Kakashi orders.

Naruto sprints into the other direction. The direction to the forest that exits the leaf village. Naruto looks back and Kakashi is following him. Naruto knows that speed is one of his strengths. He can’t beat Kakashi in a fight but he can beat him in a race.

Eventually, he makes it away from Kakashi. He sits down against a tree to catch his breath. He feels guilty for not listening to Kakashi. Kakashi is someone he holds his utmost respect for but Naruto needed to get this file.

He opens the file and is absolutely devastated at what he sees inside. He can’t believe it. He doesn’t want to believe it. The leaf village is at fault for the Uchiha massacre. They ordered Itachi to kill his entire clan.

Naruto has no idea how he’s supposed to tell this to Sasuke. He closes the file and once he’s sure that Kakashi hasn’t followed his trail he walks back to Rio’s house. Immediately when he walks into the door Sasuke is sitting on the living room chair awake while everyone is either asleep on the floor blankets or the couch.

“Where the hell did you go?” Sasuke demands to know quietly so as to not wake the others up.

“Sorry, but you have to see this,” Naruto responds and hands over the file.

Sasuke looks over the file in increasing horror. “Is this some kind of joke, Naruto?”

“You think I would give you this as a joke?”

“...No. Where did you get this? Maybe it’s a fake.”

“It’s not. I found it in the hidden leaf’s ninja files.”

Sasuke is too upset to question what Naruto was doing in the hidden leaf village. Sasuke nods and puts the file down.

“Now what?” Sasuke says to himself.

“What do you mean?”

“What I’ve been working towards till now has been for revenge against my brother.”

“Wait. Sasuke it was the leaf village elders at fault for this. I guess you can get revenge against them.”

Sasuke nods but his heart isn’t in it. Naruto’s worried since he knows how Sasuke can be when it comes to his clan. The boy loved them more than anything and that’s why has dealt with such intense hatred ever since they passed.

“Alright, goodnight,” Naruto says as he lays on the ground on his comforter and covers himself with a comforter.

“Goodnight.”

Sasuke takes the next few days off of work. Naruto goes with Rio grocery shopping. He also got a day off since he was worried about Sasuke. But he decided to go with Rio and give Sasuke a bit of space.

Naruto knows they don’t have a lot of money so he’s not sure why they’re going shopping now but Rio insisted. What Naruto didn’t expect is for Rio to stop walking to the store to flirt with some guy. Now Naruto knows Rio’s habits and he knows that Rio has a habit of flirting with practically everyone his age or older.

But Naruto doesn’t know why Rio is interested in this guy. This guy was clearly self obsessed and kept bragging about himself. And Rio was still here flirting with him. He thought Rio had some self respect. Eventually Rio says his goodbyes and they continue on their way to the store.

“Why were you flirting with him?” Naruto questions.

Rio grins at him and holds out a wallet full of cash. “Who says my intention was only to flirt with him?”

Naruto matches his grin. “How did you do that?! I didn’t even notice! You have to teach me how to do that!”

“Sure, it’s not too hard. Just distract the person and gently slip their wallet out.”

“I’m glad you weren’t flirting with him. He was a bit self obsessed.”

“I guess so. Anyway it doesn’t matter. Let’s spend his money.”

This must’ve been Rio’s plan from the beginning. To pickpocket someone and use that money to buy their groceries. They manage to buy all the groceries they need and even some extra treats just because. When they get back to the house Naruto helps Rio unpack the groceries into the fridge and cabinet.

Naruto has nothing to do now since the groceries are over and Sasuke is taking a nap and Rio has gone to work. Rio’s work is interesting, the man makes gadgets and trinkets and sells them to people. He makes a decent amount of money from it but it’s hard to afford to have eight people living in the same place.

He decides to take a walk outside. He’s taken to doing it when he’s bored. Either walking or running. Running would help with his training but he doesn’t feel like it today. He hums to himself as he walks among the trees near his hideout. He gets farther and farther away not paying much attention to where he’s headed.

He’s not focused on anything around him so he misses that there’s someone following him. Naruto stops in his tracks. He looks up. There’s no one there. Something feels off as if there are eyes in him. Maybe he’s being paranoid, everything seemed fine a couple moments ago.

Before he started walking again Kakashi appeared before him. Naruto flinched.

“Fuck! Oh my god, you scared me,” Naruto exclaims.

It slipped Naruto’s mind how close the hidden leaf village is to their hideout. He must’ve gotten too close to the village and accidentally caught the ninja’s attention.

“Where are you going?” Kakashi asks.

“No where,” Naruto begins to take a couple steps backwards. “Can you not mention that you saw me here?”

Kakashi notices his steps and realizes he’s about to run away. The masked man grabs Naruto’s wrist, keeping him in place.

Naruto tugs on his wrist. “Jeez, why do you have to be so strong?”

“Naruto. Let me bring you back to the village.”

Naruto scowls at this. “Why? So you guys can lock me up and tell me that they always knew I was going to turn out this way.”

Kakashi is taken aback at his sudden change in tone. Naruto has had a normal tone until then when his tone became more angry.

“No, it’s not like that. Of course you’ll be punished, but you’ll become a part of team seven. Hopefully, Sasuke too.”

“Kakashi-sensei…”

“Hm?”

“You know it’s not going to be that simple to bring us back.”

“Maybe for Sasuke. But I don’t understand why you would become a rogue ninja. You were a much more optimistic person than he was.”

“Sensei, I have my reasons. I know it’s your job to bring me back but… I can”t.”

Out of nowhere Rio showed up. Naruto is surprised to see the man. Rio observes the leaf village headband and gets the gist of what’s going on.

“How do you always get yourself into trouble?” Rio asks Naruto.

“I’m fine. You can leave.”

“Ouch, you just disappeared, you’ve got to stop doing that.”

Kakashi stares at this guy. Naruto gets that he must not know who Rio is since he knows about Orochimaru and Kabuto but not Rio.

“Who are you?” Kakashi queries.

“Rio Aki, nice to meet you I think. I don’t know if Naruto hates you or not yet.”

Kakashi doesn’t reply with his own introduction. Rio pulls Naruto aside to whisper to him,

“Is he the one who did it?”

Naruto knows what he’s asking. Kakashi is the one who gave him the scars. Naruto almost laughs at the question.

“No. He was the leader of team seven. He’s my sensei,” Naruto whispers back.

“What do you want?” Kakashi directs the question to Rio.

Rio puts his hands up with a smile. “I mean no harm. I was just wondering where Naruto went. I’m going to take him back now.”

Unsurprisingly Kakashi isn’t okay with that. The masked man seems ready to start a fight but he’s knocked out by a hand behind him. One of Naruto’s shadow clones.

“He really wasn’t feeling it today, I guess. That would never usually work,” Naruto comments.

“What’s his name?” Rio asks.

“Him? His name is Kakashi Hatake.”

Naruto frowns. Kakashi must’ve caught on that he was nearby when he snuck into the hokage tower.

“What was he like when you guys were on the same team?”

Naruto spends a lot of time talking about team seven and Kakashi to Rio. Being a part of team seven is his fondest memory of the leaf village. He tells Rio a bunch about Sakura too and even how Sasuke acted when they were younger.

“You really care for them don’t you?” Rio asks, referring to Kakashi and Sakura.

“They’re why I can’t hate the entire leaf village because they were kind to me.”

“I get it.”

Rio and Naruto go back to the house. Taro and Suigetsu have been let off work and are currently sparring together in the living room for some reason.

“If you’re going to spar, do it outside,” Rio instructs.

Given it’s Rio’s house, Suigetsu and Taro listen and exit the house to spar outside. Naruto enters the guest bedroom where Sasuke is sleeping. He sits down on the bed.

“Mmm… Do you need something, Naruto?” Sasuke asks.

“I ran into Kakashi-sensei,” Naruto states.

“You did? Did you guys fight?”

“Not really. Just I think he’s getting close to knowing where we are.”

“That’s fine, we’re leaving tomorrow anyway,”

“We are?!”

“Yeah, we’re going to attack the leaf village elders. But first we need to get stronger.”

“So it’s like a journey for training?!” Naruto asks in excitement.

“Mhm, I’ll tell everyone tonight.”

Sasuke tells everyone that night that they’re leaving tomorrow and that the plans have changed. Instead of killing Itachi he’s going to kill the leaf village’s elders. Everyone agrees to leave and they pack up their stuff.

The first night they’re away they stay in an inn. Rio pays since he has extra money from pickpocketing that guy. That guy must’ve had a good job because he had a lot of money before they stole it all from him.

The next few days they spend traveling since they want to get away from the hidden leaf village. But after a couple of days someone was definitely following them. Naruto’s been worried that it might be Kakashi again.

They’re running out of money and they’re not sure where they’re going to be able to stay tonight. Naruto tries to convince certain workers of inns that he can do work for them to be able to stay the night but most people aren’t too keen on letting eight people stay there for free.

“Can you dance?” One inn worker asks.

“What?” Naruto questions.

“There’s always a dance show at my inn, yet today my dancer unexpectedly broke her leg and all my customers are waiting for a show.”

Naruto groans. “Fine. If this is what I have to do to get free rooms.”

Who knew this was how he’d have to spend his sixteenth birthday. He’s not a bad dancer. In fact he’s great at it but he’s quite embarrassed at the thought of dancing in front of an audience. He mostly uses the dance he knows for fighting.

The inn worker woman dragged him inside after Naruto informed his friends and Rio that he got them a place. He’s forced to wear a white and blue kimono. Half his hair is tied back with a gorgeous hairpin. He’s given a white fan to help with the elegance of his performance.

When he looks in the mirror he’s reminded of Mayaka. Unexpectedly, a brown haired boy enters the boys dressing room aggressively. Apparently he’s to join Naruto’s dance. He must’ve just joined for some reason. The boy seems suspicious to Naruto in some way.

The brown haired boy changes while Naruto waits. They exit together and enter the stage. Naruto’s nervous as he’s had no time to prepare a dance for this.

They start and Naruto focuses on spinning around and showing off the fan he’s holding. The other boy isn’t a good dancer but he looks as if he's trying. At some point the brown haired boy gives up and brings out a knife and swings it at Naruto.

The crowd gasps. In the audience Suigetsu gets up and Sasuke puts a hand on his shoulder.

“Why are you stopping me?! He’s being attacked!”

“Keep your voice down. Naruto can handle his own and we don’t want to make the audience panic. Right now they think this is a part of the show. It’s better if we keep that way,” Sasuke tells Suigetsu.

Naruto is actually relieved when the boy pulls out a knife. He had no idea what he was supposed to do next for the dance. However, it’s a bit unfortunate because Naruto has no weapons on him currently.

He’s not worried though, this boy isn’t strong. He dodges each of the attacks as if it were a graceful dance. The boy tries to edge him closer to the edge of the stage. Right when Naruto’s about to fall he moves to the left elegantly.

The boy almost falls instead but Naruto catches him by the hand. Naruto gives him a smile. “The dance isn’t over yet.”

Naruto pulls him back to the stage. The audience cheers. “This is the best performance this place has seen yet!”

The dance doesn’t end much after that. When the boy that attempted to attack Naruto leaves the stage he’s ambushed by Naruto’s friends. He’s interrogated and given death threats if he ever tries it again and then sent back where he came from.

Naruto decided not to go back to the dressing room to change right away. He instead goes to his room in the inn that’s shared by Sasuke.

“You didn’t change out of your clothes yet?” Sasuke asks.

“Yeah, do they look bad on me or something?” Naruto asks back.

Sasuke’s cheeks turn red. “No, you’re just showing a lot.”

Sasuke’s not wrong, Naruto’s chest is fully exposed and you can see a bit of his legs.

“That’s hypocritical coming from you. At least my chest isn’t exposed everyday. Besides, this kimono is comfortable.”

“I’m not saying you have to take it off or anything.”

“I’m not going too, it’s comfortable. But the hairpin isn’t staying in, it would hurt to sleep on.”

He takes out the hairpin. It’s a nice looking hairpin and he believed it made him look elegant but there’s no way it could stay in while he was trying to sleep.

—

Naruto’s performance was so well loved by the occupants of the hotel that the boss asked him to perform again the next few days. So now they have an inn to stay at for as many days as Naruto performs.

Naruto decides he should actually choreograph something. Problem is that he has no idea how to choreograph a dance. Last time he got lucky because his fighting resembles dancing but now he isn’t sure how he’s going to keep the audience’s attention.

Out of nowhere, Naruto gets an idea. He sprints back to his and Sasuke’s shared room from where he was practicing on the stage. He drags Sasuke back to the stage with him.

“Dance with me,” Naruto instructs.

Sasuke’s eyes widened. “What???”

“It’s easier if I don’t have to dance in front of a crowd on my own.”

“But I can’t dance.”

Naruto can’t help teasing. “The feared Sasuke Uchiha can’t do something. That’s a first.”

Sasuke begins to walk away but Naruto takes hold of his wrist.

“C’mon, Sasuke. Just follow my lead.”

Sasuke relents and Naruto learns that the boy is actually a horrible dancer. Sasuke kept stepping on Naruto’s feet throughout the whole practice.

“Ouch, at this point I think you’re doing it on purpose,” Naruto comments.

Sasuke grins. “You made me do this, you can’t blame me.”

A few moments later, Sasuke steps on Naruto’s feet again and this causes them both to stumble and fall off the stage. Naruto ends up on top of Sasuke on the floor by the stage.

“Are you okay, Sasuke?” Naruto asks since his fall had been cushioned by the other boy.

Sasuke doesn’t respond at first. Naruto finally realizes how awkward of a position this is. Their faces are inches away from each other and Naruto is lying on top of him. Naruto quickly scrambles off of Sasuke with a fierce blush on his face.

“I’m fine,” Sasuke finally responds as he gets up.

“I have a better idea of how you can learn to dance,” Naruto tells him.

“Like what?”

“You have sharingan, if you watch two people dance while it’s activated it should become easy to you.”

That’s how Naruto and Sasuke ended up at a fancy party. There were lots of people dancing with each other and Sasuke is following Naruto’s advice of using his sharingan to remember the dancing.

However, Naruto didn’t have much to do and felt out of place at the party. He decides to stick nearby the food and drinks so he can eat. What he doesn’t expect is a guy about his age to start a conversation with him. Then the boy asks him,

“Would you like to dance with me?”

Naruto is taken aback by the question. When he came here he didn’t even consider that he might be asked to dance. Sure, lots of girls were asking Sasuke for a dance and a couple guys too but Naruto didn’t expect that he would be asked by anyone.

Naruto gives the guy a soft smile. “Sure,”

The guy grins at him and takes him to the dance floor. It was fun dancing with the guy. He was nice to Naruto and a great dancer. They could easily converse with each other and not have any awkward silences or pauses. Eventually, the dance ends but even when Naruto feels the happiness from someone actually taking an interest in dancing with him. Naruto goes back to the food table and is immediately ambushed by Sasuke.

“What were you doing with that guy?” Sasuke asks, scowling.

“What did it look like? We were dancing together with each other,” Naruto answers.

Sasuke had an upset expression on his face. Naruto doesn’t know what’s upsetting the boy so much.

“Do you just dance with any guy who asks?”

“I don’t know what your problem is, Sasuke. He asked for a dance and I agreed. So what?”

“What if he was some ninja from the leaf village trying to get intel from you?”

“That’s stretching it, Sasuke.”

The guy didn’t ask Naruto any suspicious questions. And Naruto would notice if someone was trying to get something out of him, he’s not that dense. Naruto’s beginning to get irritated with Sasuke.

“Can you really not believe that someone would ask me to a dance because they’re interested? Do they have to be some kind of spy just to want to spend time around me?”

Sasuke looked as if he realized he just messed up. Naruto walks away from Sasuke. Tears begin to well up in his eyes. How embarrassing, crying over something so stupid when he’s sixteen years old. It hurt to think that Sasuke thought so little of him that he couldn’t believe that someone would actually want to dance with him.

He exits the party and relaxes his back against the wall. He’ll wait for Sasuke to leave here. He doesn’t need to wait because Sasuke has been following him the whole way.

“Naruto, I didn’t mean it that way.”

“Sure seemed like that’s what you meant.”

“I just,” Sasuke looks as if he is struggling to tell him something.

“You just what, Sasuke?”

Sasuke takes a deep breath and uses his next breath to reply. “Ijustgotjealous.”

Naruto almost missed the words because Sasuke said them so fast they got jumbled together. He took a few moments to process them and then figured out what he said. He felt better knowing Sasuke wasn’t thinking Naruto couldn’t get anyone to dance with.

“There’s no need to be jealous, Sasuke,” Naruto states. “I know he was a good dancer but with your sharingan you’ll be just as good as him. No need to be jealous of his dancing.”

Sasuke looks both relieved and disbelieving. “Yeah… I can probably dance just as good as him now.”

The next few nights that Naruto and the others spend at the inn, Sasuke and Naruto dance a performance together. Naruto would never admit it to Sasuke but he enjoyed these dances more than he should. It made him feel like there was something more between them but he knows that’s not true.

During their dances, Sasuke will give him a look that makes Naruto’s heart flutter. He knows it’s only for show but still he wanted to believe that longing look was genuine.

Their audience loved Sasuke and Naruto’s performances together more than all the other shows that have been shown there before.