Trapped and Chained

Naruto’s in quite the predicament. All his comrades excluding Sasuke are unconscious. He underestimated their opponents by a long shot. His chakra is running out and he has several different external wounds. Sasuke is only in slightly better shape than him.

They’ve almost got their opponents defeated. Originally there were three powerful people against them now there is only one left who looks to be exhausted. She was the leader of the three and the brains but now she doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do.

Naruto and Sasuke know each other’s fighting styles well as they’ve sparred together on many occasions. Because of this they manage to take the woman down. Once they’ve finally finished fighting, Naruto can’t hold up his own weight and falls to his knees.

Sasuke immediately goes up to him and puts his hand out to help him up. Naruto smacks his hand away and looks at Sasuke angrily.

“What are you helping me for? The rest of our comrades are unconscious. We don’t even know if they’re alive,” Naruto snaps.

“I was only trying to help!” Sasuke says roughly.

“You should’ve tried helping them earlier! I was the only one doing anything to protect them! It’s as if you don’t care at all what happens to them!”

“Getting revenge is what’s most important.”

Naruto’s struck silent. He looks at Sasuke as if it’s the first time he’s seeing him.

“Fine. If that’s what’s most important, I don’t think you need us anyway.”

“Wait. What are you talking about?”

“If you only can afford to care about what you want then we might as well leave.”

Sasuke has an expression that says that this is not what he expected from Naruto. Naruto’s been with him since they were babies. Even when he left the village Naruto was with him. And he never questioned Naruto’s loyalty to him. He expected that people who came with him may leave if they get tired of him but the one person he didn’t expect to leave him was Naruto.

“You can’t be serious,” Sasuke says as if to convince himself. “You’re just feeling angry right now, you’ll get over it.”

“I’ll get over it?” Naruto dryly laughs. “Is that what you’re telling yourself? Not that you messed up and need to fix it?”

Sasuke doesn’t know what to do. Naruto has always been stubborn and he isn’t sure what he could say or do to convince him not to leave.

“Leave,” Naruto orders.

“What?”

“I said leave. I don’t want to have to look at your face.”

Sasuke looks as if he was slapped. He turns away and begins to walk away before looking back to see if Naruto changed his mind. Naruto had his focus on his other comrades and wasn’t paying any attention to him. He then walked away by himself fully.

Once Naruto felt that Sasuke’s presence was gone he couldn’t help but let his tears begin to stream down. He never thought there would be a day he and Sasuke went different ways and it hurts way more than he was expecting it to.

He can’t focus on that now though; he has to help his comrades. He brings them all back to Rio’s house and bandages all their wounds and makes sure to use ointments to prevent infections too. Luckily, every one of them had a steady pulse.

Each of them woke up at different times and when they’ll all awake Naruto explained everything that happened. They were a bit upset but they understood why Naruto told Sasuke to leave. When everyone but Rio left Naruto alone, Naruto couldn’t help but lie down on the couch.

“Are you okay?” Rio questions.

“Why wouldn’t I be? I’m the only one who didn’t fall unconscious,” Naruto replies.

“I mean, mentally. I know you have certain feelings towards Sasuke.”

Naruto’s face turned red. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Naruto took a couch pillow and used it to cover his face so Rio couldn’t see how red it was.

“I know you do. It’s okay to be upset. And you really should fix your wounds, you’re bleeding here and there.”

Naruto sighs and takes the pillow off his face. “I do like him, I still like him, but I feel like he’s too focused on revenge he doesn’t care about anything other than it. I just wanted to stress how important our comrades are, I didn’t actually want him to leave.”

Rio grabs the bandages from the coffee table and starts wrapping Naruto’s wounds. “You did nothing wrong. You were upset and worried about your friends, that shows you have good character.”

Naruto’s eyes well up in tears and he wishes Rio wasn’t wrapping his wounds so he can lie back down on the couch and cover his face with that pillow again.

“I don’t know if he’ll ever come back,” Naruto says in a downhearted tone.

Rio finishes wrapping his wounds. “If you want him back then look for him. He may not be sure if he’s welcome to come back.”

Naruto nods. Rio ruffles his hair and goes to his room. Naruto takes on a determined look to go find Sasuke. He knows Sasuke lost his family because of the leaf village, of course it would be extremely important to him to get back at them. His emotions were just haywire earlier today, he was worried about his comrades and wanted someone to vent them out on.

Naruto begins his search for Sasuke. The black haired boy couldn’t have gone far over such a short amount of time but still he has no idea where Sasuke could’ve gone. It helps that he’s familiar with Sasuke’s chakra but he’s still not having any luck with finding Sasuke.

During his search he runs into someone. He’s too distracted to pay attention to them so he attempts to continue on his way when he feels a needle prick his neck. He falls to the ground, unconscious.

When he wakes up he’s in a room that’s both familiar and unfamiliar. It’s as if he’s been here before but not in a long time. He looks around and recognizes that he’s on a hospital bed. And that he’s in the leaf ninja hospital. He checks his wrists and sees that there are handcuffs to prevent him from using his chakra. He hears faint noises outside of his hospital room.

“This beast is so aggressive! Why would he ever keep such a thing as a pet?!” What Naruto assumes is a doctor exclaims.

Another doctor responds. “You do realize he’s a criminal right? It’s fitting that he has it as a pet.”

The doctors walk in with an amusing amount of cat scratches on their face. Smokey immediately jumps out of one of their arms and onto the bed to lie on him. Naruto would laugh at these doctors but he’s more concerned with how he’s in the leaf village.

The doctors startle when they see that he’s awake. They look hesitant to go near him as if he would attack them at any moment. Naruto had no such intentions. He’s not one to attack unprovoked.

Naruto gets up from his bed and his doctors back up slightly. He inwardly rolls his eyes at them. These are ninja medics. They shouldn’t be so easily scared. The doctors scold and tell him to get back into bed. They look ready to sedate him so he listens and Smokey hisses at them.

Now that he thinks about it. This might be a good opportunity to do that thing he’s been thinking about. After he does that he’ll escape from this place.

He allows the doctors to check his wounds and they’re shocked by his obedience. Naruto’s not a complete idiot, he has one goal to accomplish while he’s here and once he does that he’ll leave.

Once they’re done checking his wounds, Kakashi and a couple other ninjas enter the room. They look relieved to see that he isn’t attempting to murder everyone in the room.

“At least it’s better than Sasuke's room,” One of the ninjas whispered to Kakashi.

They said it quietly so Naruto wouldn’t hear but Naruto has amazing hearing and managed to hear it. He looks at Kakashi.

“Sasuke?”

“Yes, he’s here as well, and all of your other comrades.”

Damn. The hidden leaf village had to get them while they were disoriented and weak. Naruto processes what he hears. What’s wrong with Sasuke’s room?

“What’s wrong with Sasuke’s room?” Naruto asks, suspicious.

“Nothing’s wrong with the room, the problem is Sasuke,” Kakashi explains. “He won’t stop attacking anyone who comes near him. He appears to be in an awful mood, more than usual.”

Naruto gets up from his bed. “Can I see him?”

The other ninja are reluctant. Clearly, they won't keep them all apart so they’re easier to manage. But they also don’t know how to calm Sasuke down.

“It might help him calm down if he sees one of his comrades,” Kakashi placates them.

Naruto’s not sure if he’ll calm Sasuke down all that much but he’s not going to tell them that. They all surround him as they walk to Sasuke’s room as if they expect him to take a run for it the moment there’s a chance. He wouldn’t.

Once they make it to Sasuke’s room all the ninja back up. Even Kakashi doesn’t seem very thrilled to be near his room. Naruto enters the room and closes the door behind him. There’s no ninja in this room, probably all have been scared off by Sasuke. Sasuke looks ready to attack again before he recognizes who entered his room.

“You’re here too?” Sasuke asks.

“We all are,” Naruto replies.

Naruto’s nervous over their earlier argument. But he figures he shouldn’t stand around saying nothing to Sasuke.

“I’m sorry for what I said earlier,” Naruto tells Sasuke, sincerely. “I didn’t mean it.”

“No, you were right,” Sasuke refutes.”I should’ve shown more care towards my comrades.”

Naruto walks closer to him and takes a seat on the hospital bed. “I don’t actually want you to leave. It’s something I said in the moment without much thought.”

“We should get the others and get out of here.”

Naruto shakes his head. “I have something I want to do here first.”

“What is it?”

“Can’t tell you. We’re in the hidden leaf village, I never know who’s listening in on the things I say. I need to be cautious about it.”

Sasuke nods. “Does that mean we have to stay here for a while.”

“No, I can handle everything fine on my own.”

“I’m not letting you stay here alone with someone like Kichirou.”

“I’m not that little kid anymore. I can protect myself fine.”

Sasuke wouldn’t budge on his decision to stay so Naruto sighed and allowed it.

“Okay, but if you’re going to stay here, you’re going to have to stop attacking every single leaf ninja who walks in through the door.”

Sasuke scowls. “Fine.”

Naruto walks out of the hospital room and the leaf ninja looks surprised that he isn’t terrified for his life. A ninja medic walks slowly into the hospital room expecting to be met with an attack but Sasuke only gives her an arrogant look.

Naruto begins walking away from the ninja and Kakashi follows him. It seems they figure he doesn’t need to be watched as much as Sasuke does. Naruto doesn’t go back to his hospital room, instead he meets with each of his comrades. They all agree to the same thing Sasuke did, to wait for Naruto to accomplish his goal before leaving the village.

That’s how they all started their brief visit to the hidden leaf village. Naruto attempts to be on his best behavior. It unnerves and relieves the leaf ninja that are looking after him. They’re terrified to death of making him angry but he never does anything to hurt them in any way.

Despite being on his best behavior so people wouldn’t question what he’s planning, Naruto can’t help having a slip up. It’s not his fault, he just couldn’t stand hearing what he heard.

“Did you hear about that Mayaka lady who used to spend a lot of time around Naruto?”

“Yeah, I heard bits and pieces.”

“I hear she was really ugly and had a terrifying flute jutsus. She was truly a horrible woman.”

Naruto punched the grown man before he even thought about it. He didn’t hesitate. He wasn’t a ninja so he didn’t have much fighting experience against someone who has been a leaf ninja. It took several leaf ninja pulling him off to finally stop hitting the guy. The guy was actually sobbing by the time it was over.

Naruto had a lot less freedom after that. He knew he messed up but he also couldn’t find it in himself to feel remorse over it. The leaf ninja were now actually terrified of going near him. They didn’t think he would attack and they didn’t know why Naruto got so mad at that man. They all believed Naruto got tired of it all and snapped and beat that man up for no reason.

“What happened?” Sasuke asks Naruto.

“They were talking bad about Mayaka-sensei,” Naruto answers.

Sasuke understood that. Naruto has extreme loyalty to his comrades. If he hears someone talking bad about one of them his usually warm personality goes out the window and he gets into a fight with them. Sasuke has witnessed it multiple times.

Sasuke looks entertained by the whole situation. “I can’t believe you actually made a grown man cry.”

Naruto smiles in pride at this. “He should learn to be more careful what he talks about and who is around when he talks about it.”

The next day the hidden leaf ninja decide to try and get information on them. They’ve continuously tried to ruin their missions so it was bound to happen. They put all of them in one room and one of them begins their jutsu looking into memories onto Rio.

Rio doesn’t look thrilled at this because this guy’s jutsu causes the memories to be seen by everyone but also would rather he be first instead of anyone else.

—

Rio Aki’s Memory

“**** come down here and do the dishes!”

Rio walks down the stairs and pouts. Why does he always have to do the dishes and not his older brother? It’s not fair and he said so.

“Why doesn’t Kazuki have to do it?” He asks.

“Because you’re a girl. Girl’s do the housework and chores,” His father answered.

Rio pouts. That’s not fair at all! And he doesn’t even see himself as a girl but he could never say that allowed as his father wouldn’t understand. Rio knows it’s no use arguing with his father. And he can’t complain to his mother as she is taking care of his many siblings.

He begins doing the dishes and Kazuki walks down from the stairs. “Why are you doing the dishes?”

Rio’s brother is four years older than Rio at fourteen. He has crimson hair that matches his but blue eyes that match their mother. Kazuki isn’t a bad person and he’s a great big brother but he can’t help but feel jealous of him. Rio always has to do the housework and look after their little sibling while Kazuki can do whatever he wants.

Kazuki joins him in washing the dishes and gives him a smile. But at the same time, Kazuki never lets it be too much to him. Kazuki takes after their mother instead of their father and Rio couldn’t have been more grateful for that.

Once they finish the dishes his father finds something else for him to do. “**** go get the groceries.”

He’s given the grocery list and almost cries at not getting a single moment to himself. Kazuki offers to go with him but their father gets angry and tells him that it was Rio’s job. Rio sighs and heads to the store. No matter how angry Mom has gotten before about Rio being too young to go places by himself Dad never listens.

It’s a far walk from his house to the store. He gets everything on the list in the store. It’s not the first time he’s done this so he has the store pretty much memorized, so it didn’t take long. His father has always given him enough money to pay for everything so it’s never been a worry of his.

As Rio begins his walk back home he gets the distant feeling that something’s wrong. He starts walking faster despite the grocery bags he’s holding weighing him down. When he makes it to his house he hesitates. His house looks the same but the feeling of it is different.

He opens the door and walks in and immediately drops his grocery bags. His parents are dead on the ground. His little siblings and older brother as well. These random people are in his house and they all look towards him. He’s about to run out the door when someone knocks him out.

He wakes up in an unfamiliar room. There’s other people there too. A brown haired boy with matching brown eyes, a blond haired boy with blue eyes. Then there’s a black haired girl with dark violet eyes. Apparently, everyone here had special jutsus.

Rio had never heard of it before, no doubt his parents wanted to keep it a secret because of people like this. He has the jutsu to knock people out right away by causing their chakra to get super low that they have to fall unconscious to get better.

Rio ended up getting training on how to fight by the adults here. And he learned the other kid’s names. The brown haired boy's name is Asahi and the other boy’s name is Touma. The black haired girl’s name is Sana.

The years pass by as they become assassins for these people. They’re fourteen now and Asahi and Touma have gotten killed in battle. Now it’s only Rio and Sana.

That is until Sana ends up getting killed too a year later. Rio couldn’t take it anymore, he assassinated every person that was in charge of making them assassins. He couldn’t help his anger and grief over all his friends dying.

Now he had no place to go and no family. He was only fifteen and he was homeless. It’s not like he was old enough to get his own place. Caught up in his own self pity he began pickpocketing to buy alcohol for himself.

He ended up in a town full of criminals who could care less if he was legal age for drinking. So he never hesitated to enter bars around here and straight up buy from them despite only being fifteen. Most people were glad he had money to give, not worried about him being too young to drink.

That was until he wandered into one tavern. He ordered a beer and a brown haired lady looked him up and down. Her gray eyes were kind but she didn’t seem amused by him ordering a beer.

“You can’t seriously think, I believe you’re at least twenty one,” The lady states.

“What do you care?!” Rio snaps at her.

She sighs. “What’s your name, kid?”

He hesitates. He cut his hair but his voice still is a bit feminine. He never decided on his new name because he didn’t really have anyone to call him by name anymore. He contemplated it for a moment before replying to her.

“Rio.”

She smiles. “That’s a nice name. My name is Yumiko. Do you need somewhere to stay?”

Rio knows he looks ragged and homeless so he doesn’t doubt this lady knows. A place to stay would be really nice so he nods.

After that he lives his life up till he’s eighteen with Yumiko. Once he’s old enough he works to make enough money to get his own place to stay. And after a couple more years he has enough to pay for his own house.

Then one day he comes across a blond boy bleeding in an alley.

—

Naruto’s surprised. He had no idea that Yumiko looked after Rio. It did cause him to have a lot more respect for Yumiko though. The blond is mostly focused on his worry of his memories being seen though. They are not pretty ones.

The memory jutsu user moves on from person to person. They then look into Sasuke’s memories. Seeing this they got into a bit of Naruto’s past but then they turn to him and he’s ready to jump out the window.

Naruto begins running around the room fighting anyone who tries to get close to him. His friends do their best to protect him but then Kakashi stops and Naruto can’t help that guilty look that crosses his face.

Naruto relents and sits down and allows his memories to be shown and looked into. When they’re done with that they are all horrified. Sure, Naruto told his friends what happened but it’s different to see it since he never really got into the details about it.

Surprisingly. Tsunade is so horrified she lets them all go. Everyone except for Naruto heads back to Rio’s house. Naruto is sneaky and doesn’t show himself to the leaf ninja. He already told his friends that it would only take him a little bit to accomplish what he’s trying to do.

Naruto sneaks into Kichirou’s house. Kichirou looks at him with the most surprise on his face. Despite thinking he would be, Naruto isn’t scared.

Kichirou gets up ready to attack Naruto but Naruto attacks his first. He gets him to the ground and stabs him over and over until Kichirou can’t move.

“Oh, I’m sorry, does that hurt?” Naruto mocks. “I never would’ve guessed.”

Naruto gets up and Kichirou spits up blood. Naruto doesn’t feel an inch of pity for this asshole. He takes out a lighter from his pocket and some matches. He lights one match and drops it on the floor.

Kichirou looks at the fire in horror and barely manages to sputter out. “You’ll die too if you do that.”

Naruto gives him a chilling grin that sends shivers down Kichirou’s spine. “Does it look like I care.”

The fire gets to Kichirou first and he begins his screams in pain. Naruto starts to feel the warmth of the fire when he’s suddenly pulled out of the house.

Sasuke is holding onto him with horror on his face. “Are you okay?!”

Naruto gives him a weak nod. He didn’t expect Sasuke to still be here. Sasuke pulls him into a tight embrace.

“Please, stop almost ending your life, I can’t live my life without you.”

“Sasuke…”

“No, listen to me. I… I love you. And I don’t believe I could love anyone else so you can’t die.”

Naruto’s shocked silent. Sasuke looks nervous about being rejected. Naruto’s never been happier and an overjoyed grin overtakes his face and he pulls Sasuke close to kiss him. Sasuke’s eyes widened before he kissed back roughly. When they pull apart Naruto asks,

“What are you still doing here?”

“I may or may not have just gotten done with killing the leaf village elders.”

Naruto laughs. He should’ve expected that. Kakashi and Sakura find them too and they ask to leave with them. After seeing what happened to Naruto they couldn’t bear to stay in the leaf village. They all leave together and the leaf village ninja leave them be and they leave the leaf village be.