The Mission

Getting Naruto back was always going to be the first—if not only—priority for Sasuke. He understands why this is a horrible thing to admit out loud, but why lie about his incredibly obvious intentions in going along with this group of people he’d normally have nothing to do with otherwise? Lee is Naruto’s friend, not his. 

Does he feel bad for the guy? Of course he does; anyone from a clan like his will always his empathy. This does not mean he is anywhere close to being as high on his priority list as Naruto is. Lee is more of someone his boyfriend is friends with—in other words, he’s basically a stranger to him outside of what all Naruto tells him about the omega. 

As such, his focus is not truly on saving Lee. It’s about getting Naruto back before that horrible Orochimaru gets his disgusting hands on him. 

It’s part of the reason why he was able to calmly and carefully work with the group he was in. Because of his nonexistent confidence in their abilities (of course, this mainly applied to Chouji and Kiba; he was fully confident in Neji and Shikamaru’s abilities), he felt okay in leaving certain ones behind. 

However, it did not stop him from doing all that he could to pursue the one who had taken Naruto away from him in the first place—the one guy with the two heads. 

(Sasuke will never dignify anyone who steals Naruto from him by learning their name well enough to have it memorized.) 

Battling against him was tough, but then, his future mate did not make holding him captive easy. Naruto was as he expected him to be in this situation: angry, kicking, fighting, and doing all that he could to escape. Hell, it’s only because of his mate constantly annoying the guy that Sasuke got the opening he did to get Naruto out of his grasp. 

Of course, this did not pan out the way he thought it would. Here he had thought that when he released Naruto from his binds that he would simply be able to defeat the guy with his omega’s help. 

In the end, he proved to be a bit too strong for them to take on together. It took Kankuro’s assistance for the duo to defeat the young man, but it wasn’t done out of victory. 

Naruto was immediately upset when this was all over, “C’mon we have to go after the girl Shikamaru chased after!” 

“No, we don’t,” Sasuke is firm on this for a good reason, “we need to get you home, Naruto. That guy said a special sedative meant for omega shinobi was used on you; we need you to see Lady Tsunade for treatment—” 

“But the sick bastards have Lee still!” he argued, “I cannot leave him, he’s my friend! I have to save him no matter what, not after what I heard those jerks say!” 

“How would you know where to look for him? We didn’t see him the entire time we were chasing after those guys.” 

“Because they stuck him inside that large wooden circle coffin thing!” 

Sasuke, Shikamaru, Neji, Chouji, and Kiba had all thought the same thing, though it doesn’t quite answer a bothersome question on his mind, “Why was he placed in that thing, but you were out in the open, tied up and hanging off that alpha’s shoulder?” 

“Because I wasn’t that important to them.” Naruto admits so quickly while Kankuro keeps his ear trained to the conversation at hand, “Yeah, they wanted to use me to make you join Orochimaru’s village, but they were mainly there for Lee.” 

Kankuro interrupts then, “How were you kidnapped anyway, Naruto? I thought a strong omega like you wouldn’t go down so easily.” 

He growls at the memory of it all in shame because he should’ve been stronger and smarter than to fall for such cheap tricks. 

Naruto had been heading over to see Lee when he was kidnapped. 

It wasn’t anything unusual he had done before either—dropping off food for Lee became Iruka and his unofficial way of making sure he was safe with his mother—so it wasn’t like he had any real motivation to be extra careful or vigilant. 

He was just visiting a friend to ease his fears, that’s all. 

Which is why he had no reason to suspect he’d be arriving to the home to find the door open. 

He had been cautious, mind you—he did enter the building quietly instead of making a lot of noise. It’s because of this that he managed to overhear the group of alphas to a woman he could only assume was Lee’s mother, “Look,” he heard as he got deeper in the home, “I’m sorry but my son cannot be mated to your master unless if he pays the dowry amount in full before mating him.” 

“Lord Orochimaru has already sent you plenty of payments and yet you constantly demand for more while not giving your son as per your agreement.” the girl with the red hair spoke, “Either give us the omega or else we’ll take back everything he’s ever given you.” 

“I’m afraid I cannot do that right now—” was all she got to say before her throat was sliced open by the man with the spiky ponytail’s kunai. 

It was a repulsive sight to witness and yet, even though the victim was as horrible as Lee’s mom, he couldn’t help but to be angry over their nonchalance over not only killing someone, but openly speaking about another omega as though they were an object as opposed to a person.

He was about to say something to the horrific scene he had witnessed when one of the alphas—a girl with red hair—had seen him and acted without hesitation: out of her pocket came a small, hollow reed that she blew into. Before he knew it, he was hit with a dart that made him collapse on the spot, his vision slowly starting to go black as the other alphas turned around to find him there.

The girl grinned, “Looks like it works like Kabuto said it would—who knew omegas who hadn’t had their first heat yet could be taken out with any heat inducing remedy?”

He was suddenly feeling sick to his stomach as he heard this. He had learned all about heat inducing remedies in the academy: herbs and other ingredients mixed with water to make a liquid that could induce a fully grown omega into heat. It’s something he had been told he’d be immune to until his first heat happened, but he didn’t think he’d be taken out with this—he didn’t believe it to be possible.

“W-What d-did you d-do to me?” he barely managed to get out of himself the group came to surround him, with the omega wondering if this is how he would die.

“Nothing much, just used a new treatment to make you more cooperative.” the one alpha with the multiple arms said, “Looks like it worked—you really can’t move and you’re unable to make a proper sentence. Which means it won’t be a total waste when we use a greater strength of it on that Rock Lee guy.”

He was growling at the mention of his dear friend’s name, yet it seemed today he would not die, “Wait—blonde hair, blue eyes, pleasant scent, tacky orange jumpsuit…” he pauses while taking in Naruto more, his excitement growing the longer everyone in the group takes in the sight of him, “you’re Naruto Uzumaki, aren’t you?”

When he nodded, he thought they would be prepared to kill him.

What happened was the exact opposite.

The one with the two heads appeared to be a bit too over the moon at getting the confirmation, “Well what do you know? Tonight is our lucky night: we got Naruto Uzumaki like our master ordered us to and we will be getting this Rock Lee soon enough!”

He crouched down and ran a hand through his hair, “You’re a pretty omega, you know that? Just my type too—feisty and pretty…” he purred when removing his hand from his hair, only to move it elsewhere he’d rather not think of, “I’ll have fun breaking you in should our master reward our excellent work with a shot at you.”

Naruto couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, and was left to watch on as one of them closed the door he came in. He was left to wishing they’d torture him or kill him—anything but the unwanted touching he was receiving from a group of alphas viewing him as though he were a piece of meat.

Suddenly, he saw the larger one of them move to the window and he heard the call of, “Hey, there’s a kid with a bowl cut and green jumpsuit coming up here!”

“Take cover and hide the blonde one—we should be able to get him if we go far enough inside the house.”

“I was only able to fight against the guy so well because the stupid remedy quit working on me outta nowhere.” Naruto would never say it was because of the demon within himself trying to protect him, but that’s a whole other issue he’ll have to talk about with Sasuke, Iruka, and his friends someday, “But that doesn’t matter now! Lee is gone and we have to save him!”

“Naruto, do you know if they plan to meet up with anyone? What about the name of the alpha Lee is supposed to be mated to?”

Waking up so far from his village was a bit off-putting since it meant everything that happened to him was not a dream like he had hoped it would be. What didn’t make it better was overhearing what they were saying, “Sasuke should be on his way here.”

“Please, if he was committed to coming to get the omega he would’ve been here by now!”

“Don’t underestimate those Uchihas—his brother did murder his whole clan and kidnapped Deidara.”

“You’ve heard of him?”

“The one said to be the most beautiful omega ever by everyone, including our master? Yes, I have. Who hasn’t at this point? He’s what made that backwards village famous.”

“…You’re the type to go for any omega, though.”

There was a huff as Naruto kept pretending to be asleep so they wouldn’t notice or do anything to him, “Whatever. All that matters is we got the one Lord Orochimaru thinks will be the key to getting Sasuke to join us.”

“What about the most important part? You know, the one where we give the ugly omega away to an alpha of Lord Orochimaru’s choosing.”

“Well, if Kabuto doesn’t want the omega—”

“Wait, was it supposed to go to Kabuto? I thought it was supposed to go to someone else.”

“No way, it was supposed to go to Kabuto! Master said—”

“When and where did you hear him say that specifically?”

There was a growl from the one carrying him, one that made both the girl and one of the guys stop their bickering, “Will you both shut up already! All that matters is getting them back to our village!”

To this, they did shut up but it didn’t stop Naruto from noticing how lowly they thought of not only Lee, but omegas in general to talk about him as though he were something to be given away to someone without his consent.

“Then when Sasuke came around with the others, I started to act up more because I realized it was the perfect time to strike. I only got lucky nobody really argued or anything, otherwise I’m pretty sure I’d be a goner.”

“So you didn’t get the name of the alpha then?”

“No, but I wouldn’t doubt if he is supposed to be mated to Kabuto.” he growls then and insists one more time, “I need to get to Shikamaru before those sexist bastards do anything to him! I don’t have time to waste!”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Kankuro’s dismissiveness is enough to make Naruto want to wring his neck, “How can you say that! Are you just as horrible as your brother who couldn’t bother to apologize or give him a proper goodbye like he deserved? You have to be to say that!”

“No, I’m not.” he’s unaffected by everything going on and being said, which serves to create a desire to go out and find Lee for himself, “Gaara is here and trust me when I say it: he will find Lee and he will save him.”

Naruto is not buying it for good reason, “He left him without a proper goodbye the last time he was here; he didn’t care that he hurt him or betrayed him with everything he did! Why should I believe he’ll do the right thing for Lee now when he couldn’t do it when it mattered?”

Kankuro’s eyes narrow slightly yet it’s enough to make Sasuke take a step forward to stand by Naruto’s side in case things should spiral out of control, “Gaara does not show things the way normal people do. I had to learn this when we got back home and I saw for myself what all he had been doing for your friend.”

“What has he been doing anyway? Because talking to him sure as hell wasn’t one of those things!”

“Naruto!” Sasuke hissed, but Kankuro didn’t mind defending his brother on this end, “He didn’t know where he lived, so how could he have written to him? Writing to Tsunade and having her deliver the letters would have taken too long for a proper conversation to carry on while taking time away from Gaara’s duties at home in our village. Believe it or not, but he couldn’t exactly drop everything going on in our lives and revolve it around your friend.”

Naruto calms down somewhat as he goes on, “We’re the kids of the Kazekage—the one Orochimaru killed like it was nothing, remember? We can’t exactly abandon our responsibilities to the village to appease some random omega friend of the one omega Gaara ever had a crush on.”

Now they’re both slack jawed to the news, Sasuke for his own reason, “That guy can get a crush on someone? Why did I always think he’d be asexual like Guy sensei…”

Naruto for his own, “No way…Inoichi was right about him having a crush on Lee all this time! There’s just…there’s no way that’s possible!”

“It is, though,” Kankuro then tells them, “he shows it in weird ways though. Like, he won’t say he has a crush on him, but he will do things that clearly show it.”

He then tells them something he hadn’t told anyone else before since he was convinced his brother would kill him, but he didn’t really care since he was being painfully obvious in his weird, off-beat Gaara way, “After he returned home, he couldn’t stop worrying over your friend…he had a spy sent out to keep an eye out on the auction scene to be sure he wasn’t going to be auctioned off anywhere, but thanks to the letter he received from him recently, he had the spy focus his attention to the rumors of him being sold off without being auctioned. It’s only because of that he was able to find out a majority of the truth of what happened there.”

Naruto could not believe what he was hearing.

Inoichi was right all along…Gaara, he actually has a crush on Lee and a rather strong one too to do all that he did for him after going home.

Perhaps he was wrong about Gaara? Maybe he wasn’t so bad…maybe he’s actually a good guy somehow.

“I know you have a hard time trusting him with your friend and I don’t blame you. To be honest, I’d have a hard time trusting Gaara with my friend if he did have a crush on them. I can assure you though that Gaara has changed ever since leaving Konoha; trust me when I say this, his intentions—whatever they may be—are not founded in hatred and rage.”

That’s good enough for Naruto to hear, but still…

“I wanna go find Lee anyway.” he announced to the unsurprised duo with him, “I want to be sure Gaara won’t hurt Lee. I need to know and see for myself that he is going to be good to him no matter what.”

Kankuro agrees, though it is a begrudging agreement, “Fine, but don’t get too close—Gaara would probably take it the wrong way and get hostile.”

“Sounds good to me!” he faces Sasuke then, grinning ear to ear, “Let’s go, Sasuke!”

When Sasuke was fighting the one who had Naruto, Shikamaru was feeling a bit relieved knowing Lee had woken up and was out of that wooden coffin thing (he thinks it was one, anyway) thanks to using his own taijutsu and kunai to break out of it.

Except, when Lee was out of it and he saw his fellow shinobi, their relief was short lived, “Shikamaru, Kiba! Are you guys okay? Where are we even? Why am I here?”

“…We’re fine, Lee, but we have to get you home. These people are from Orochimaru’s place; they came here to take you back with them.”

Lee didn’t get the chance to react before a new guy appeared out of what felt like nowhere.

He was tall, pale, with silvery white hair and jade green eyes rimmed with red markings around them. The man exuded alpha so obnoxiously his scent gave it away enough for no one to ask questions about it. Shikamaru readied himself, knowing him and Kiba are the only ones left who can save Lee.

Kiba had a hard time keeping Akamaru in line at the sight of this alpha, his first instinct being to whisper to Shikamaru, “I don’t like the looks of that guy…you sure we can take them both on?”

He’s not sure they can. The other guy is clearly unfazed by their presence for good reason and the girl seems to be intimidated by him—which only means this guy is not someone they can take on if he does fight with the girl.

Even with Lee on their side, something tells him they’d be in a bad position if they tried to fight these two together, this is with the best case scenario of if they did work perfectly in sync with each other in mind.

“I don’t know, let’s see how this plays out. If he leaves with Lee, you go after him: you’re the one with the best sense of smell, you will be least likely to lose him. I’ll stay here and fight her so you can go and save him, okay?”

(Kiba wishes he had been able to save Naruto instead since he figures it wouldn’t have been as difficult, but oh well…beggars cannot be choosers, after all.)

“Got it.”

He addresses Lee then, his eyes never once leaving his person, “Are you this Rock Lee I’ve heard so much about?”

“…You heard about me? Where did you hear about me from? I’m not Deidara famous, so there’s no way you should know about me.”

“I do, though: you are the mate my master promised me, the one he said would bear me a child.”

The Konoha alphas—including the girl, who is in the same state of shock as them—were taken aback by this as he went on in a manner that seemed to be a bit too…happy, but almost in a way one would be if a prophecy they had long believed in was true, “Yes, you’re him—master said I’d get to see you soon if I got well enough, he said we’d be able to be together and you would bear me a child. I know he wouldn’t lie to me; you have the same bowl cut black hair and green jumpsuit too! You really are him…Rock Lee, the one I’ve been promised as a mate to reward my loyalty to him.”

“Wait, how could this be possible? My mom was supposed to either arrange me or sell me off at an auction…there’s no way—”

“Kabuto said Lord Orochimaru bought you from your mother when he was in Konoha during the Chunin exams on the day before the attack on the village. He said he got you for me, but she kept trying to get money out of him while trying to get you back on the auction scene before he found out she never had any intention of giving you to him.”

Lee’s blood ran cold to this and he realizes then this is not a situation he can get out of so easily, “…My mom is dead, is this not good enough to get me out of this?”

“A deal is a deal. You are coming home to me, just like master intended, and you will bear me the child I was promised.”

Underneath such an intense stare with an equally powerful scent, most omegas from strict, conservative clans would have caved and submitted if they were in Lee’s shoes.

Lee—upon learning what his mother did, connecting the dots mentally of why she acted so cold towards him at the end, and coming to a depressing conclusion—fought against his indoctrination and did something he had never done before: reject his clan’s tradition, “No, I’m not going back with you!”

“…What?” he asks with a flabbergasted glow to his eyes, his shock slowly making itself known in his scent as the atmosphere becomes so tense, it feels as though a pin could drop and all would hear it.

“I’m not going back with you! I’m done with my clan and their traditions. All it has done is brought me nothing but heartbreak and pain! My mom isn’t around anymore, my clan isn’t around anymore—I don’t have to abide by this stuff, endanger my life as well as others, and leave my friends when I don’t want to. I am going home to be with my friends and sensei. If you don’t like it, then you can get over it and find someone else to mate!”

The idea of bringing a pup into the world in Orochimaru’s land, raising them somewhere where they would be endangered, all while having a potential madman as a father is what makes Lee stand firm in his convictions. He knows he has things to work out from being raised the way he was, but he won’t let it stop him from keeping any potential pup safe and sound, especially if they’re his own.

“…Looks like I will have to take you back then.”

He made a move to grab Lee, but the omega was swift in dodging him, leading him to order the girl, “Tayuya, handle the alphas. I’ll bring my mate back myself.”

“Y-Yes, Kimimaro.” she stammers slightly at his clearly contained rage seeping out bit by bit in his scent.

Shikamaru then makes an order of his own: “Lee, run! Do whatever you can to get away from this guy! I can handle the girl on my own!”

He turns to Kiba and orders him, “Go after Lee, make sure he gets away from him and brought home safely.”

Kiba nods and heads their direction with Akamaru feeling slightly braver than he did earlier.

Shikamaru, on the other hand, hopes Gaara shows up soon because he’s not certain Lee and Kiba can defeat that guy on their own.