The Old Self of Mine Has Reborn

Anime: Naruto

Rating: K

Genre: Friendship

Summary: The fourth great ninja war had finished. New paths are waiting for Sasuke and Naruto.

Disclaimer: Kishimoto-sensei owns Naruto. I'm just playing with the charactes.

Warning: Not beta edited. Sasuke's personality would be kinda odd because I'm not too familiar with him.

I woke up from my sleep. My back could feel the soft mattress below my back. I could hear birds chirping near me. Where was I? I opened my eyes but the darkness was enveloping my vision. I touched the part near my eyes to feel the clothes wrapped around my eyes. Bandages?

"Sasuke-kun?" I heard a very familiar female voice. Sakura repeated his name. "Oh my god! Sasuke-kun, are you awake?" I could sense the trembling tone in her voice.

"How long have I been sleeping?"

"A couple of days. Wait, Sasuke-kun, you can't get up." She stopped me from sitting up. "Let me check your conditions first. Please." She begged.

"Make it quick." I groaned. She finished it in a few minutes.

"Your health becomes improved. It'll be fine in a few days." She said happily.

"What about my eyes?" I hate not being able to see anything.

"They still need more time to heal, but it's only a few days. We'll be getting rid of that bandage in no time. So don't worry." She pushed me down to the bed. "Now Sasuke-kun, you need to rest. Don't try anything stupid. If you want something, tell me." Sakura offered me a glass of water. I drank it all and lay down on the bed, with my right arm over my covered eyes.

I tried to recollect what happened a few days behind. Oh, yes. We were fighting with Obito and Madara. Both the first hokage and Naruto were able to take them down. I remembered I overused my Sharingan and had a hard time not to pass out in the battle field because my intense pain in my eyes. My eyes felt relieved now. I really passed out in front of annoying. I felt warmness was building inside my body. My eyes felt so heavy and my senses became dull and dull as seconds passed. Then everything blacked out.

xXx

Sakura looked at the sleeping boy before her. She was very happy that he had finally back to Konoha. She let out a soft sign. His eyes were greatly damaged, especially the right one. They had no choice but to remove them. The medical team replaced it with another one, but it was not an eye with Sharingan because he was the last one in his clan. They had to use someone's eye. She hoped he did not mad about what they had done to him. She knew that was not going to happen. She left the room and walked to the Hokage's office to inform the fifth about Sasuke. She added some medicine in Sasuke's water so he would be sleeping without waking up for once for five hours.

She walked slowly; thinking about what happened during Sasuke was unconscious. She loved him, but what that person did was something even she could not afford to do. "Naruto." She murmured, looking at the cloudless blue sky through the wooden framed window. She was not brave enough. Not as brave as him. She knew Naruto had a special bond with Sasuke. He promised her he would take Sasuke back as a lifetime promise. She knew he promised her not just for her but for both of them. But what he did was out of her capability. She was so lost in thought that she did not realized she had passed the Hokage's office. She turned back. She knocked, waited for some seconds then went in.

"What's it, Sakura?" Tsunade looked her through the piles of paperwork on her desk.

"Sasuke-kun has regained conscious. He's now sleeping because of my medicine." She informed her.

"I see. How's his body?"

"Fine, madam. It's normal. But his eyes need more time as we expected." She explained her about his condition.

"Have you told him about that?" She pierced a sharp glance at Sakura.

"Not yet. I can't…, don't know how to tell him." She shook her head and lowered it.

"Well done, Sakura. I'll leave him in your care." She noticed Shizune did not interrupt any word, but stood around Tsunade like a statue. She looked stressful. Well, the villages of the five countries were now trying to recover from the war so it was understandable that she looked worried.

"My lady, where's Naruto? I haven't seen him around lately. I need to tell him about Sasuke-kun." She asked the working woman. Shizune looked away. Tsunade did not say a word. "Lady Tsunade," she called.

"Naruto's on a mission in the water country."Shizune gave the answer of her question. Mission was not something she thought about. She had definitely believed that Naruto would rush towards Sasuke like a mad man as soon as he heard the news. She could not believe he actually left the village before Sasuke recovered. It was not like Naruto she knew.

"I think he does not dare to face him right now." Tsunade said softly.

"I understood. Now, if you excuse me." Sakura saluted Tsunade and left the room.

xXx

Three days passed after I woke up in this hospital-room-like cell. Every day, Sakura would come and checked my health. But no one came beside her. Well, I was not expecting visitors but it was really strange that Naruto did not bother to come to me when I was here, caged like a bird. In the morning of the fourth day, Sakura announced that my bandage would be removed in the evening. When time came, Tsunade and Shizune arrived, too. Sakura started to uncover my eyes. I opened them slowly. A sharp, bright light pierced through my eyes. It took me some time to get use to the bright light. I fully opened them. I felt strange. Although I can see clearly, I felt like there was some alien thing attached in my socket. I blinked and again blinked. But the feeling did not go away.

"How do you feel?" Tsunade asked him.

"Something's wrong with my eyes, especially the right one." I looked coldly at her.

"Well, we replaced your right eye 'cuz it was too damaged. You'll get used to it." They replaced my eye! I had replaced my own eyes with Itachi's eyes, but I did not feel anything wrong with that. Why was I feeling strange?

"Sakura, mirror." She hurriedly handed him the mirror on the cabinet beside the bed. I held it up in front of my face. There was a boy with one raven eye and one sapphire eye who was looking at me from the mirror. I recognized that azure eye which was glowing crazily right now. That eye had always looked at me with envy, respect, happiness, sorrow, hope and pity ever since I was young. It used to belong to no other than Uzumaki Naruto.

"Why did you put Naruto's eye here?" I looked up to Tsunade. I moved my eyes from Tsunade to Sakura.

"Don't think we wanted to do. At first, I thought about leaving the hole to be hollow forever. But, that fool just kept insisting to take his eye and gave you. For us, his eye is more precious than yours." Tsuna was the one replied. I ignored her freezing stare and looked at the mirror again. I hated it. I hated Naruto's eye being inside my body. I threw the mirror at the wall and it smashed into pieces.

"Where's he?" I asked.

"He's currently on a mission, Sasuke-kun." Sakura gave him the least answer I wanted.

"Sasuke, you'll be locked up here until the elders finally decide what to do with you. This's a special cell that nullifies any taijutsu, ninjutsu or genjutsu. And don't try to use your Sharingan, yet. It'd burden your body." Tsunade finished her instruction and she and Shizune left the cell. Sakura went out with them, but returned with some cleaning materials. She cleaned up all the shattered glass pieces and threw them into a trash can.

"Sasuke-kun," she called in a soft voice.

"Shut up. You're annoying." She continued no more and sat beside my bed quietly while I was lying on it, closing my eyes shut. Why the hell did you do that, you bastard?

It had been weeks that I was locked up in this freaking cell. Every day, Sakura would come to check my health conditions and sometimes Ino or Shikamaru would tag along. But I found no trace of him.

"If he's back from his mission, tell him to come and see me." It was not like I wanted to see him, but I needed answer for his action. Sakura's reply was always a yes, but a month had already gone and he did not show his damn face to me.

One day, I was taken to the elders to hear their judgement upon me. "UchihaSasuke, you left the village, became a criminal and caused harms to Konoha. Our answer was to execute you at once, but Naruto boy had been resisting that idea. He begged for your release over and over again, so we decided to let you go this time. But we'll be watching you and if we detect any sign of bad things from you, we won't hesitate to kill you. Now remember that. You may go now." One of the elders declared. Tch! I did not need more saving from him. I would rather die here than live out there.

"I don't care. Feel free to kill me." I stared at them.

"I won't allow that." Tsunade shouted. "As long as you've his eye inside you, I can't afford to kill you." What? Am I being saved again by him?

"Then take it out. It's not like I want it. You just put it inside me against my will." I yelled back at her. We were having a staring contest. Both of us were furious. I should have been the sixth hokage after the war, and cleared my clan's name. But now, I was here, being saved by my ex-best friend. That was not my liking.

"You can leave, Uchiha Sasuke. But remember you aren't allowed to do anything bad. You can still be a ninja and do your work. That's our final decision." Another elder said. I turned around and walked out of the court. It had been a long time I did not see the sky. It looked wonderful. Wonderful? What was I thinking? It was not like me to enjoy nature. I felt weird.

I walked around the village. People who saw me whispered one another. I did not care. I stopped at my destination, the Uchiha compound. I stared it for some seconds. It was empty like me. I went inside. I believed I could still use it since it was belonged to the Uchiha. The place had dirt and dusts all over it, but I had no intention to clean up the house right now. I went to the place where Itachi and I used to sit. I lay there, looking up the evening sky.

Days had passed. I would usually stay in the house, cleaning everything or go into the forest and stay there without doing anything. Sakura, Ino, Ten Ten and Hinata sometimes came to my house to help me restoring it. I did not like being around them, but I never actually refused. Naruto also had not come back from the mission, yet. What a jerk. It was like he was hiding from me. I sometimes saw Kakashi, Gai or other ninjas in the village. Just like this my boring days went after another.

One day, when I was returning to my house, I heard a familiar laugh from Ichiraku ramen shop. Naruto? I hurried to the shop, but when I arrived, there was only Iruka, Teuchi and Ayame.

"Huh? I heard Naruto's voice. Where's he?" I asked Iruka.

"Naruto hasn't come back, yet, Sasuke." Iruka replied. I knew he was playing dump.

"Would you like a bowl of ramen?"Ayame offered me.

"No, I'm fine. If you see Naruto, tell him that I've got a matter to deal with him." I stared a certain place for a minute then I walked away. I knew he was there. But I did not want to drag him from the collar when he had no courage to see me. I wanted to meet him face to face and asked him why he had given me his eye. Not when he was too concerned and hid from me.

xXx

White clouds of smoke appeared in the shop where Sasuke kept his eyes for a long time. A blonde ninja with an eye-patch on the right eye appeared.

"Naruto, why are you doing this?" Iruka asked his pupil.

"Huh? I'm not doing anything." Naruto grinned.

"Don't lie to me. If you're really doing anything, you've no reason to turn into a soy sauce bottle and hide from Sasuke." Iruka shot several icy glares at him. Naruto lowered his head.

"I don't know. I'm scared to meet him. I…I…" A ramen bowl was placed before him.

"Eat up. Mourning doesn't suit you. Our Naruto is someone who is very brave and doesn't run away from anything. Now fill yourself in and go meet Sasuke-kun with confidence." Naruto looked at her.

"Nee chan, thanks." Once again he smiled, but this time his smile had reached his eye. He devoured the ramen like a beast.

"Hey, I'm not paying for you." Iruka said when Naruto asked for the seventh bowl.

"Eh? Noooooo. I don't have enough money, Iruka-sensei!" Naruto shouted awkwardly. Iruka let out a sigh. He had not changed all these years after all. He looked, with a gentle smile, at his precious student.

Later that night, Naruto stood in front of the Uchiha house, deciding whether he should knock or not. He hesitated for a second and then slowly knocked the door three times. A minute passed. Then the big door slipped up slowly, revealing a dark-haired ninja in a black yukata.

"You've come." Sasuke looked at him coldly. He rubbed his hair worriedly. He tried to act innocent.

"I heard you're looking for me. What's up?" He let out an awkward laugh.

"Come in" Sasuke went inside the house after closing the door behind Naruto. Naruto silently followed. They both settled down on futons in the living room.

"Why?"Sasuke looked at Naruto. Even under the faint moonlight, Naruto left eye was glittering like a star.

"What do you mean?" Naruto asked.

"Don't act like you don't know, you jerk. I'm asking about your eye." Naruto was silent for some time then he looked at Sasuke and said

"I don't want to lose your eye sight." He smiled brightly.

"I still have my left eye, idiot. What are you planning, giving me one of your eyes? Are you trying to humiliate me, making me look weak?" His tone changed. His voice became louder.

"No. I just wish you won't become blind."

"You did it without asking me. Are you thinking I would gladly accept it?" He shouted.

"I know you won't agree with me." Naruto also shouted. "I just want to make you see the world in another view. I want you to see how beautiful the world is. I want to drag you out from your darkness." He moved his eye which was locked on Sasuke's heterochromatic eyes away.

xXx

I looked at him in a surprise way. See the beauty of the world? It was his idea? Naruto continued.

"Neji once told me that I've a better eye sight then him. I've got eyesight which can see the darkness in one's heart and I can save him from his own paranoid world. I gave my eye to you 'cuz I don't want you to suffer from the cold loneliness of the darkness. I want you to enjoy your life with no hatred." I was speechless. I definitely did not understand what he was thinking. He wanted a new me so he gave his eye to me. I never heard anything ridiculous as this. I laughed out. Yes, I laughed out because I don't know what to know anymore. Naruto looked at me surprisingly.

"You're mad, Naruto. No one do foolish thing like this."

"Eh, what do you mean?" It could not be help. After all Naruto was being the No.1 surprising ninja for nothing. I could not keep up with his stupidity.

"Welcome home, Sasuke." Naruto said with great happiness. "Now I've fulfilled my lifetime promise with Sakura-chan." He was smiling so happily.

"Hey, I came back by myself. You did nothing." I argued with him. I wondered why I became quite soften these days. It might be just like he said. I thought I was enjoying my life. These days I really did feel no pressure, no hatred inside me, just like the days when I was with the team 7. I smiled inwardly. "I'll become the next Hokage." I declared.

"Huh?" Naruto smiled suddenly dropped to the floor. "No way. I'm not giving that position to anyone." He yelled.

"Let's see who will achieve it." I said while laughing.

"Yeah. You bet." He also said happily. I felt like the old me who would pick up fights withhim, yell at him for doing stupid things, say 'You're annoying,' whenever Sakura tried to hit on me and follow Kakashi to see what's under his mask. I gained that life again and this time I would definitely treasure it. I really regretted, yet did not regret for accepting Naruto's eye.

"I'm home."

A/N: Anything except reviews couldn't make me feel the best. Review onegai.