Disclaimer: I don't own nor have I contributed to Naruto in any way! Nope! None! -

Sky-eyed Kitsune: Hey y'all, it's been a while huh? I don't have much of an excuse besides life happening unfortunately; I wish I could think up something better like my fingers spontaneously exploded into firecrackers or something, but alas I have nothing T_T This chapter might throw you for a doozie because there's a TIME SKIP of five years here (did you see that one coming?). Answers and comments to reviews are below. Thank you all for your patience and I hope you enjoy!

Reviews:

To 13TailedArcticFox: 2.5 hours oh good lord 0_0 I'm so happy you enjoy! :)

To ChibiNekoBandit: Always so lovely to receive a review from you~ Oh unfortunately war in inevitable in this case...but just think of the romantic tension that rises from it!

To KiTsUnE-cHaN18: Thanks so much for the review! Sasuke is a stubborn meanie I know, but Naruto was pretty darn stubborn himself! You may find yourself hating Sasuke these next few chapters...

To marinav92: You may not support Sasuke for the next few chapters coming up ^.^''

To Forever Deleted: Ah thank you so much! I do enjoy that Naruto follows his heart in everything he does, but I think that he should also have a sense of obligation to his own kind and to Sasuke himself. How can Sasuke be with Naruto when their countries are at war? Wouldn't it cause Sasuke less heartache if Naruto were to break their bond? It's easier to eliminate an enemy than a lover, after all.

To PRC123: Thanks so much for being patient, I really appreciate it :)

Tanuki-chan: Waaah! Thank you! Hm war has a way of splitting lovers apart doesn't it? ...but oh god the romantic tension! ((squeal))

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Chapter Thirteen: Blood is Thicker

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Five years later.

Naruto rose, as he always did, from his bed with a silent groan, the first tendrils of moonlight seeping in through the windows that surrounded his room.

He blinked the sleep away from his eyes, ears pressed to his head in annoyance.

There was a shift beside him, and he looked down.

Gaara lay with his back facing away from the blond, tail curled tightly around his body.

It had been a little over five years since Naruto and Gaara were originally to be mated…but didn't. Or to be more accurate, couldn't. Due to a change in Naruto's Analiax markings, a strange force prevented him from mating. Time and time again Naruto found that unexplainable power thrusting Gaara away at each attempt. After the third try Naruto thought he owed it to Gaara to explain the bare minimum of what had happened while in the human kingdom and how it affected his ability to mate.

Gaara swallowed the explanation better than Naruto would have previously thought, and agreed it best to keep it from the king and queen.

When questioned on why they hadn't yet mated, they simply explained that they would get to it when they felt ready.

Jiraiya had expressed very clearly that until that day came, Naruto was not to ascend the throne as king. Naruto was more than happy to agree with the circumstances. He was not ready to be king, nor did he have any desire to be.

And so he continued his life as a prince, with his supposedly pending mate by his side.

Every so often Naruto felt his chest ache for no reason at all, and a call of his name echo in his mind.

His strange mental connection with Sasuke was still there, though any contact over the years was few and far between.

Naruto often found himself during the sleepless winter nights clutching Sasuke's clothes against him, filling himself with that wonderful, intoxicating scent that could only be described as purely Sasuke.

The first year without the raven had been the hardest. He had cried during most nights, his heart burning with longing to touch, just to once more caress that pale skin. Eventually the burning morphed into an aching, until it rounded to what it was now- a dull, ever constant throb.

For a while Naruto wondered if Sasuke even thought of him, but then he knew he did. The random wrenching inside his body, the call of his name in his subconscious—he knew it was from Sasuke.

Naruto felt immense guilt towards Gaara, who had tried to fill the void Sasuke left in him, but never even came close to being good enough. Eventually the redhead became tired of the fruitless venture and stopped trying. Their relationship was purely platonic, only sleeping in the same bed to keep up appearances for the king and queen.

Naruto felt nothing for Gaara, and he knew he never would. Sasuke, whether he knew it or not, had taken all of him.

Naruto stood and stretched in all his bareness, tail flicking. He scratched the back of his neck and yawned, canines glistening in the soft bathe of the evening light. Now that Naruto thought about it, both his hair and his teeth had grown quite a bit since he last saw Sasuke.

Five more winters had passed, making Naruto a ripe twenty-three years old, in the prime of his life. Then again, he would stay that way for a while. Demons were immortal; that is, if they weren't killed by another factor aside from age.

They grew year by year from the beginning as a human would, but after full maturity was reached they would stay the same for many more years, aging only every handful. The equivalent of a year for a human became five years for a demon, then six and seven, until time was simply lost in the mix.

Jiraiya, Naruto knew, was over three hundred years old-alive during Kyuubi's time-yet took the appearance of a 60-something old man. How it must be, Naruto wondered, to live only a hundred years? Such a short time to do anything.

One hundred years to learn, to love, to simply live. Such staggering brevity…

Naruto felt his eyes drop as he thought of Sasuke.

It was not much time.

Naruto reached into his dresser and pulled out a white blouse and black pants. He took his coat off the rack where he had thrown it the night before after a long evening's patrol.

Naruto knew that patrolling was specifically for royal guards and as a prince he was not to bother with such "trifling" matters, but the knowledge that humans had once again obtained tamers stone worried him. And so every night he went out, lone from the guards, and walked the whole border of the kingdom from north to south. Not a patch of grass went overlooked.

Naruto flung the dark red cloak up, billowing it out as he tied the hooded collar around his neck loosely. His fingers accidentally brushed against the black silk scarf around his neck.

Sasuke's collar had remained concealed by bandages and the help of Iruka, telling the king and queen that his "wound" from the humans was infected and must remain covered.

Tsunade, being a powerful healer, demanded to see it at once, but Iruka managed to explain how highly contagious it was yadda yadda, only given by humans, yadda. Naruto knew that the only reason Iruka's excuse slipped by was because the queen knew nothing of human diseases.

Naruto pressed a palm gently to his neck. True to Kakashi's words, the collar burrowed deeper and deeper into his skin with the passing months. Now after years what remained were the small black tamer stones, once raised now flat, as if a part of his skin; it adorned him like a chainless choker.

The process had been painful; the more the stones pushed into him, the greater amount of blood that seeped out. Bandages had to be changed every other day until the blood stopped flowing, and he was able to wear a small scarf most of the time. Naruto ignored the whole thing to the best of his ability. There was nothing he could do. As Iruka had said, only the one that had placed the collar on him could take it off, and that person was an entire kingdom away.

To Naruto's surprise, he held no fear of whether or not the collar would disappear completely into his neck as Kakashi had warned, and then could never be removed. In a way he didn't care. He was, in a twisted manner, resigned to the fact that he would probably have it for the rest of his life; his chances of Sasuke taking it off after five years apart was slim to none.

After knotting the cloak at this neck, he shook his head, lifting his hair from under it.

Naruto's once messy spikes had developed and calmed into an orderly chaos on his head. His rich buttermilk locks had grown down a little past the nape of his neck, just enough to tie back into a ponytail if he wanted; he preferred it flowing free in a way that framed his golden face. He had lost all signs of teenage features, his face and body chiseled down to slim yet firm muscle. Naruto's whiskers were darker, but he barely ever noticed. There was too much going on in the kingdom to worry about his appearance.

Humans had been able to breach the borders recently. The attacks were few and far between, but always sudden and violent. Upon each report it was said that minimal harm was inflicted, as if the humans were attempting to kidnap one of the guards.

Naruto found this deeply worrying.

He had no doubt that there were probably collars being manufactured daily now, and the humans were just itching for a demon to tame.

Naruto would not let that happen…not again.

He fastened his sword to his belt before leaving.

Naruto crunched through the barren landscape of what was his kingdom's border. It was late fall, and the ground should have been crunching with dark golden leaves, but instead it was from the decay of dead grass and trees all around him.

Naruto wasn't sure what was happening, but more and more of the land was dying. He had remembered this place once to be a green meadow where healthy trees provided shade from the balmy summer heat.

Nothing but their skeletons were left.

Naruto pulled up his hood, along with a black mask that covered the lower half of his face. It was cold, but that was the least of his worries; if the royal guards recognized him they would no doubt report to the king and queen and he would be stripped of his rights to roam the land so freely.

Naruto walked, ears under his hood twitching and swiveling for any strange sounds, and his nose sniffing for any nonnative scents on the wind.

It was like every other night. Everything was still, almost eerie in its silence, but it didn't bother him.

Naruto suddenly felt his chest wrench sharply and he gasped and fell down to one knee. He panted as he kneeled, clutching at the front of his robes. He felt sweat knit at his brow under his hood as the onslaught of stabbing continued...

...until all at once it completely vanished.

Naruto stared down at the petrified grass he leaned his foot on, evening out his breathing. He eventually stood, cleared his throat, and continued his trek.

These episodes were not unusual, though one had not occurred in quite some time.

It was Sasuke. Naruto didn't need to wonder or confirm it, he knew it was him.

After the original sorrow of losing Sasuke had passed, Naruto had thought, 'I'll find someone else, someone better'. He chuckled now at his young, foolish thoughts.

He would not, could not, accept any other.

Naruto closed his eyes as the chill carried on the wind reached him, but he didn't shiver. He pictured Sasuke, only Sasuke, in his mind, and clutched his chest as if replying to violent episode beforehand.

He had no doubt that his thoughts must of reached Sasuke, but he knew not in what form they did; whether they were delivered in feats of physical pain and calls of his name as he had experienced, or in an entirely other manner. He would always wonder, but never know.

What he would have given to see him one more time.

Naruto froze in his walk as a familiar scent reached him.

It was too quiet.

He turned, sword in hand in time to deflect a blow from another weapon, the sound of metal clashing with metal igniting the flammable stillness of the night. He pushed forward, flinging his opponent away and moving into a defensive stance.

Under his hood his ears swiveled and twitched wildly. It wasn't just one.

He attempted to fight and assess his surroundings at the same time.

Four…no, five. Two carrying items of tamer stone origin.

Naruto grinned a little under his hood. He would be lying if he didn't admit that he liked the challenge of a human wielding a weapon that could actually harm him; it enhanced the chase that much more.

Naruto turned as he heard the grass behind him shift, and slashed out his unarmed clawed hand at a would-be attacker. He heard the man cry out as his claws riped through the warm and vulnerable flesh of his face.

Three.

Naruto turned back in time to guard against two men coming at him at once. He winced as a dagger flew and cut his arm through his robe, the sting of tamers stone making his skin shudder.

He ducked and swerved in an almost elegant motion, stabbing one man with his sword as he reached under the other to grab the dagger being used against him, and used it to deliver an upward slash at its owner's throat. Naruto couldn't help but cringe at the gurgling and retching sounds that followed as the human choked on his own blood.

Two.

Naruto almost laughed as he sensed a man attempting to grab him from behind.

Humans were so slow.

The man looked almost terrified as he clutched air where Naruto was, turning in time only to see the blade that struck him down.

One.

Naruto waited, panting a little. He then held his breath. The onslaught had stopped.

He knew there was one more-he could sense it.

Naruto quickly turned and kneeled down, dodging a slice originally aimed at his head; this human had to be well trained to have been so silent.

Naruto made to stab the man in the ankle to hinder movement, but his blade caught on another. Naruto slowly stood, pushing back against the human's sword.

It was almost laughable the way Naruto pushed and the human began to skid backward on the grass from the sheer force. The balance of power would have seemed almost unfair to Naruto if it weren't for the fact that Tamers stone existed.

The man suddenly broke away, abandoning his sword and dodging Naruto's stab, successfully tackling the blond to the ground and knocking his weapon away.

Naruto placed his hand on the human's shoulders, pushing. Again, his strength was so great that their situations were flipped, Naruto on top, but it kept going. Naruto suddenly realized that they were rolling down a hill, body over body as neither one conceded to let go.

They landed in a heap, Naruto making sure that he landed on top with a tight and forceful grip.

He growled fiercely at the human and-

Stopped.

The man's hood had fallen during the tumble. Naruto felt his mouth grow dry and his iron grip grow limp.

Not a chance wasted, Naruto suddenly found himself flipped, and he heard the slice of metal through air before his chest cavity exploded with pain.

He cried out in agony as the tamers stone dagger was twisted into him like a screw, right down to the hilt. The sickening scent of his own blood reached him, and his mouth hung slightly ajar as a deep burgundy began to seep into his clothing and pour down his body underneath.

A tear escaped him as he stared up into the pale milky face of his dreams.

Dun dun duunnnn!

Sky-eyed Kitsune