It happens on their first C-rank—of course it does. They’re not a three-man team, will probably never be again with the way the Council drags their heels and tries to stop Team Seven from going on any missions, but even Kakashi had become fed up and fetched them something anyway. Their client is a drunk old man, too busy sneering down the length of his nose and pulling at his bottle to care for much else.
All in all, it’s been a pretty shitty mission in a pretty shitty chain of events, so Naruto’s really not that surprised when two men fling themselves from a puddle.
No, what surprises him is the masked nin who decapitates them with two slices of their sword.
It’s hard to see much about them beyond a pitch black body suit—like a more tasteful version of Lee’s, his mind inanely supplies—and the blank white mask covering even their hair. Leaf-green eyes peer from the eye slits, several shades darker than Sakura’s but close enough that Naruto’s heart lurches, but beyond that there’s little else to identify them.
By his side, Sasuke stares at the masked nin with a decidedly neutral expression and the drunk old man clutches his chest, still too shocked by the first pair’s appearance to react at this one’s. Kakashi, though…
Naruto’s no expert on reading faces, but that’s clearly not shock on Kakashi’s face.
(it’ll be too late when he figures it out, but that’s not for a while yet)
“Maa, that was timely,” Kakashi finally says, when the masked nin makes no move to leave and the silence is so dense that Naruto almost chokes on it. “What’s our mysterious saviour’s name so I know for future reference?”
Too obvious, someone that sounds a lot like the bastard hisses, but the masked nin only inclines their head and jerks their fingers around a few times before retreating to the trees. They’re not hand signals like Jiji’s bodyguards sometimes make and they don’t look like the beginnings of any jutsu he knows, either, but—
Kakashi’s face is blanker than Naruto’s ever seen it before, Sasuke’s eyes are inexplicably red and the drunk old man… well, he’s still drunk and old, but it doesn’t stop him from looking as white as a sheet.
So if Naruto follows their lead by flinching at the smallest noise and chattering a little less than usual, it’s nobody’s business but his own.
(he never notices red eyes roving over his body, too busy fixing the smile on his face to care)
“I know it’s you,” Naruto hears when he’s creeping back into his tent. “Now get out here.”
It’s meant to be his watch in ten minutes’ time, sandwiched between the others’ while the drunk old man snores obliviously into the night, but Naruto finds himself inching towards the low growl. There isn’t much to identify it by—it’s too clipped, for one, and he wouldn’t have heard it at all if he’d relieved himself faster—and it could be an enemy, for all he knows. The bastard’s on watch anyway, and goodness knows Sasuke needs to do some actual work instead of posturing all the damn time.
He should go to bed, get a little bit more shut-eye until Sasuke kicks him out of bed like the ungrateful asshole he is. He should leave the low growl to whatever it’s doing because it’s probably not that close anyway, or he’s so tired that he’s imagined it all. He should just turn around and leave.
But Naruto doesn’t, and soon enough he sees someone silhouetted by the light of a full moon.
Sasuke—because the low growl has to be him, there’s nobody else around for miles beside their team—half-turns towards Naruto and he freezes, fearing the worst. There’s a tense moment where he thinks he’s been had, that the still-inexplicable red of Sasuke’s eyes can see him even though he’s half-hidden behind a tree trunk—but then Sasuke turns away with a tch and Naruto sighs as quietly as he can.
Only to almost blow his cover when someone appears between one moment and the next as a weirdly distorted voice says, “Impressive, but expected of one with your eyes.”
“Cut to the chase,” Sasuke hisses, and it’s at this moment that Naruto sees beyond the shadows and catches sight of a blank white mask. Thankfully, the bastard’s next words cover up his surprised gasp, but Naruto’s missed them all by the time he’s calmed down.
Still, hearing the mask-nin’s cryptic, “You know what will happen next. Be sure you make the right decision,” clears some things up, even as other questions clamour to take their places. There’s little left to say after that and the mask-nin’s gone before long, but by then…
Ah, I’ll leave it for later, Naruto thinks, and wriggles into his sleeping bag in time to get ‘roused’ for his shift.
“Naruto,” Kakashi says in a voice Naruto can’t place, “wake up.”
He’s never been a morning person and the most he can do is gurgle in protest, but Naruto forces his arms to move before long and he finds himself blinded by sunlight soon enough. “What’s wrong?” he asks when there’s nothing to see, but then—
That’s the thing, isn’t it?
There’s no Sasuke, no drunk old man—only Kakashi and himself, and nothing else.
“We’re going back to Konoha,” Kakashi adds after a while, as though he’d just forgot instead of seeing Naruto collapse to his knees and doing nothing to help him up. “Get packed.”
But why? Naruto wants to ask, except… there’s no reason, is there?
He was playing you all along, his mind says, and…
She’s still gone.
She’s still gone.
(and now he’s gone too, gone after he’d talked about love like he knew what it was)
(there is only Naruto left, and the non-entity is—)