Hello! Yay!! My first story! Please read, review, and enjoy.

Rated T for language and violence

Note: I do not own Naruto or any of its characters, sigh :( I don't claim to have any idea where Kishimoto-sensei is going with the story, this is something I would just like to see happen. This story starts a few years after the (presumed) downfall of Akatski. That would make Naruto about eighteen or nineteen. I'm keeping this pretty straight and true with the story so far. Okay... with all that over with, lets get this show on the road!

Acceptance-Chapter One

There was an festival-like air about the village of Konoha that afternoon. The final rounds of the chunnin exam were in full swing, and even the people not attending could feel the excitement as distant roars could be heard from the arena. The exams always brought extra custom to the village in the way of travelers from all over the five countries. People who came to cheer on their countries' young shinobi usually left with at least one piece of Konohas' fine wood work. Most of the artisan's shops were located in the neighborhood closest to the main gates, and the sounds of good natured dickering filled the air. The banter was easily heard by the keen ears of the one person on that street that wasn't having a good time.

Warm blue eyes gazed down at the masses from a deep shadow where one ornate roof overlapped its neighbor. There were probably some people in that crowd that would not be very happy if they knew they were being watched, especially by that particular individual. Which was why Naruto Uzumaki was skulking on rooftops and not joining the happy throngs below. He was watching the gate, waiting for one of the mere handful of people in this overgrown village that actually liked him for who he was and didn't think that he was going to murder them in their beds, to return from her mission.

Sometimes, he thought to himself, it would be easier to just turn hermit and live in a cave in the woods. Only the fact that he had some good friends, who would either come and drag his ass back, or most likely stage a mass mutiny and come share his cave with him, kept him in the village at all between missions.

Also, he much preferred ramen to roots and twigs.

In the past couple years the villager's attitude towards him had taken a rather alarming turn. It hadn't taken him very long to reason out why this latest change had occurred. It had gotten worse the older he got. When younger, he had always thought that people hated him because his birthday corresponded with the anniversary of the Kyuubi's attack and the death of the very popular Yondaime Hokage. His young mind realized they needed someone to blame and had somewhat accepted the cold looks and beatings, even when said beatings got bad enough to leave him hospitalized. This had mostly stopped when he started trying to make himself appear less threatening. He started pulling ridiculous pranks and acting younger than he was. This gave him a way to release excess energy in a way that would make people look at him like he was an idiot, which, to him, was preferable to the cold, calculating looks he usually got. His lurid orange outfit had strengthened that image, while the long sleeves and high collar were good at hiding bruises. After he graduated from the Academy and joined team 7, he was gone so much that he rarely saw his apartment, much less the villagers. When he had returned from his long training trip with Jiraiya he looked like a gawky teenager that still had a touch of the fresh faced kid he had been.

When he had turned sixteen he had started sprouting like a weed, and had that gaunt, starving look of someone who had done a lot of growing in a very short amount of time. Now, at almost nineteen, he had matured into the powerful young man that he was. He had filled out since then and his height had settled somewhere around 6'1". He was lean, with a certain wirey toughness and a much more graceful form. His face had lost the babyish roundness and was now longer and more refined. He had let his hair grow to the point that his bangs flopped over his headband and framed his intense blue eyes. In honor of his father he had taken to wearing a black, sleeveless, haori with orange flames dancing around the bottom over his flak jacket and mesh shirt. After Jiraiya had died, Tsunade had asked Naruto if he had wanted anything from the small apartment he used on the few occasions he spent any time not traveling. To her surprise all he seemed to walk out with were some scrolls that had not already been bequeathed to him, like the toad contract, and a large orange silk wall hanging with black writing he had found in a closet. Tsunade understood the next day when Naruto had appeared with a new cloth for his hitai-ate. He no longer wore his "oh shoot me now" orange jumpsuit, but he still had a thing for the color.

The biggest change was his demeanor. Naruto no longer bounced around the village like a dervish, he moved with the unconscious grace of a big cat. His speed had developed almost to the point of his fathers, and he was very graceful. While still as laid back and friendly as ever, he now had a serious and more businesslike air to him, and he no longer hid his very real intelligence. Since he spent as little time in the village as he could lately, that meant he was on missions and was acquiring a name for himself in the neighboring countries. That reputation had made it back to the village, and that was where the root of his recent problems were coming from. Along with the hatred and mistrust, there was a new expression on the villagers faces when they looked at him now. Fear.

He had even been held back from the jonin selections the past couple of years, as if the council could pretend he wasn't as strong as he was if they held him back in rank. Tsunade had given him something of a battlefield promotion to chunin during the Akatsuki affair, and the thunderous look on her face had told him that the council had even tried to prevent that. The last time he had been denied the rank of jonin, Shikamaru had been with him. Naruto had been at the point of apoplexy after the council had finished with the current list of stupid reasons for passing him over. They had then turned to Shikamaru to congratulate him on his selection. Shikamaru looked at them, than glanced at the expression on Naruto's face. Without batting an eye he had told the entire council, including his father, just where they could put their offer. While the stunned elders were trying to compose themselves and Tsunade's face was turning red with suppressed laughter, Shikamaru had grabbed his arm and dragged him out of the room. Once out of earshot the two of them had just sagged together and laughed until they wheezed.

Naruto growled under his breath as he watched the villagers on the street below. Look at them. They treated shinobi from villages who had once been mortal enemies with more trust than someone who had been protecting them since he had been twelve. He noticed that he was grinding his teeth and forced himself to calm down.

He wasn't surprised that he was dwelling on this so much. He always did when he didn't have his friends around to distract him. Unfortunately his team had all been assigned individual missions, and it had been just his bad luck to be the first one back. They were a team of individual specialists, unlike the others who usually specialized in something as a group, like team eight, made up of spies and scouts. Sakura was a med-nin, and usually acted in that capacity. He and Sasuke excelled at what they had always been good at, overall mayhem. With their speed they usually acted as scouts and information gatherers, when they weren't using their various talents for fighting.

They'd been working apart all too much lately.

To top it all off, with the chunnin exam going on, all the rest of his year mates were busy, either watching over the exam itself or picking up the slack for those who were. So all he found to do with himself was to hide up here and wait for Sakura to walk through that gate. She should be about an half hour away.

He smiled slightly. Sasuke was his brother, but they had been apart for so long that when he had returned, they had had to get to know each other all over again. But Sakura had been a constant in his life. She was his best friend, and he had noticed that relationship getting closer lately. They spent so much of their spare time together that it would be no great leap to make it official. She was someone he could talk to and count on. He told her things he was still uncomfortable discussing with Sasuke, his fears and uncertainties about his future in a village that hated him.

Though he had loosened up considerably since returning to the village, Sasuke still had about as much patience as ever with meaningful, heart to heart conversation.

Naruto looked down at a slight scar on his left palm and smiled again. He and Sasuke's relationship really was a brotherly bond now, with one watching the others back no matter what, even while getting on each others nerves.

Flashback- 2 1/2 years earlier

He hurt, which wasn't too uncommon, and when he opened his eyes it was to find himself in a hospital room, which was altogether too common. He felt cuts and abrasions all over his body, and his right side was numb where he had take a blow to the ribs from a club wielded by one of Pein's realms. Numb. Numb was a good thing considering he distinctly remembered feeling his ribs on that side shatter. He liked numb.

What had happened? How had he gotten hurt?

Oh yeah.

He had lured Pein to one of the training grounds, wanting to be able to go at full power without a chance of anyone caught in friendly fire. Also there was the always the danger of going Kyuubi. They had been going at it for what seemed ,to Naruto, forever. Neither was making very much progress and Naruto had been forced to use his still limited sage abilities. That had whittled his opponent down to three bodies, but had also left Naruto exhausted. He had too many sore spots to count and was using so much chakra for offense that he had almost none for healing. He had scrapped enough chakra together for one last try, and felt the fox doing the same. They both knew this was going to be the end, no matter which way the tide turned. He would never have gotten as far as he had without the fox's help. Luckily the Kyuubi had a well developed sense of self preservation, and hadn't liked the sound of what Akatski was doing to the other biju, and had decided that as long as Naruto kept things interesting, he would stick with him.

Naruto had called up a Great Sphere Rasengan, than injected it with wind chakra at a very rapid speed. He had hypothesized that doing this would make it unstable and cause it to break apart, and he had been right. He had two clones carry the swirling, shuddering mass of energy towards Pein, as fast as they could . Just as they neared, the massive RasenShuriken broke apart into hundreds of tiny ones. Naruto, crouching at a safe distance, came up with a name for this maneuver on the fly.

"Rasenhailstorm"!!

Then the edges of his vision had started to darken and he had to fight to stay conscious. He sagged to the ground, though he didn't know whether any piece of his enemy was mobile enough to continue attacking him. His clones had been destroyed as soon as the hail of compressed chakra had started to rain down. His cheek hit the cracked earth and his wounds all started screaming at him at once. Right before he lost conciseness, he felt a whisper of movement from in front of him and looked up to see someone standing protectively over him. Someone with black hair and a very familiar fan clan symbol on his back.

" That had to have been a hallucination", he mused, thinking over this strange memory as he lay in his hospital bed.

His train of thought was interrupted by the door to his room sliding open. A worried but strangely buoyant Sakura walked in. When she saw he was awake, the last traces of stress left her face. She ran across the room and for a moment Naruto was scared she was going to hug him. As much as he liked it when she hugged him, he didn't thing he was up to a Sakura hug right now. Luckily, she seemed to remember his injuries.

" Thank Kami", she said, sitting on the edge of his bed. "I didn't think you were going to come back from that one."

" To tell you the truth, neither did I ", he said, laughing as much as his ribs would allow. Than he sobered. " It was a close one, wasn't it?"

"To close". She picked up his hand and some of the anxiety came back to her face. "If you hadn't had help at the last minute, we would have lost you."

"Help? What help?" He was confused by her slightly amused look.

"You don't remember?"

"All I remember is having one hell of a hallucination as I blacked out."

"Naruto, it wasn't a hallucination." she smiled, a wide Cheshire cat grin that he hadn't seen on her face in awhile. " Are you up for a little walk? Someone wants to see you, and he's being confined to his room. We'll have to go to him."

" You're the medic, you tell me," he said cheekily " usually you're fighting to keep me in bed."

" I think it's alright this time," She helped him sit up and laid his arm over her shoulder. He put more weight onto her than he wanted, but he was almost ridiculously weak and he knew she could take it. Hell, she could have picked him up and carried him to wherever they were going if she wanted. Luckily for his dignity, they just seemed to be going next door, because his legs were wobbly after only a few steps.

Sakura nodded to the two ANBU stationed in the hallway, knocked on the door and opened it. The occupant of the room was sitting on the edge of the bed, rather than laying in it, looking out the window. The man turned around at the sound of the door and obsidian eyes bore into sky blue ones. He was bandaged on his arms and chest, and his left arm was in a sling. Sasuke looked at him, and smiled slightly, the first genuine smile Naruto had seen on him in more than ten years.

"Fuck me!" was all Naruto could think to say. Actually he was lucky even that came out.

Sakura looked up at his face and stifled a laugh. He looked like he had been hit in the back of the head with a board.

"Well, we haven't see each other in a while, I think we should probably wait on that", Sasuke said. " Sakura, put him on the bed across from mine, we have a lot to talk about and he can barely stand up."

Sakura walked a still stunned Naruto over to the other bed in the room, facing Sasuke's. She helped him into it, tucking him in with an almost maternal air, than climbed up next to him and crossed her legs.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow. " You two sure have gotten comfortable with each other."

"That's what comes from being a team," Sakura replied, a hint of coldness creeping into her voice.

Sasuke rubbed the back of his head absently. " I know I deserved that, and a lot more, but I want to make it up to you two, now."

" What do you mean "make it up" to us? How could you possibly make things just go back to the way they were, just like that?" Naruto looked over at Sakura, surprised by the vehemence in her voice.

"I've already had a bit of a talk with Lady Tsunade about returning to the village, permanently." He looked almost sheepish. " She yelled at me, made me feel like I was some sort of bug, and said that if I passed my interrogation and personality exam, I would be on probation for the rest of my life, or something like that. She really is the queen of the guilt trip, isn't she?"

Sakura's eyes widened. " I cant believe she would let you come back with that little consequence. She wasn't here for very long before you left, but she took it a little personally. And she holds a grudge for, like, ever." Sakura then proceeded to prove that she was like her teacher in that regard as she continued to rail Sasuke. " You become a nuke nin, almost kill Naruto, willingly go traipsing to Orochimaru, even though you knew full well that he wanted to take over your body, than proceed to attack us the next time we see you. "

Sasuke sat looking down at his hands, and let her go on like this for a while, until Naruto raised a hand and gently placed it on her shoulder. She stopped in mid harangue and realized Sasuke was looking at them with a haunted expression in his dark eyes.

" You two have no idea what it is like to have a curse mark." he began quietly. "It's like having a little voice in your head 24/7, sort of like a conscience, but instead of giving you good advice, it tells you that you are invincible and above everyone around you. It took my already angsty little mind and forced me to think that no ones feelings were as important as my own. Naruto, when we fought on the roof, and later at the river, it was almost like the seal had taken over a bit, and wanted to test itself against the one person that my mind was saying it didn't want to fight. I only got control back after I had exhausted myself and you were unconscious. At that point I knew I was a danger to you and everyone else, so I left." Sasuke sighed. " After that I began to learn more about the Akatsuki from the Snake and I knew Itachi was a part of it and looking for you. I knew they were collecting the tailed demons, and that the fate of the vessel containing the demon wasn't a pleasant one. I knew I still had to confront Itachi sooner or later, so I resolved to keep you as far away from myself as possible. What I failed to take into account is that damn stubbornness of yours." Sasuke gave a snort at that.

" I had heard rumors that you were traveling with the other sannin, Jiraiya ( Sasuke noticed Narutos' wince at the name, and decided to leave that subject for later). I figured you would be too busy to look for me, or had given up. When you showed up at the underground complex a couple of years later, I didn't know what to do. I was completely caught off guard, and decided to mess with you a bit, see if I could finally discourage you. I thought I had until I ran into one of your clones on my way to fight Itachi." Sasuke smiled. "Humph, should have known better."

Naruto and Sakura were quiet on their side of the room for a while, digesting the information they had heard in the past few minutes. Finally he looked up at Sasuke. " That really was you I saw as I passed out? You came to help me?"

" I had sent my group to help in the fights against the other members of Akatski, then followed your chakra to where you were fighting. I made it just in time to see that crazy last jutsu of yours. Pein was still moving, or at least one of him was, and you were out for the count. I finished what you started, but not before he managed to get a few licks of his own in." Sasuke held up his arm ruefully.

All through this, Sakura was watching Sasuke. There was something so different about him. The last few minutes he had strung more words together than she had ever heard him speak. He had facial expressions, and fidgeted. She wasn't used to this new chatty , animated, Sasuke yet. She suddenly realized that this was probably what he would have been like if the massacre of his family had never happened. They were seeing the real Sasuke now, and not the moody, tortured child he had been. Though she had lost her fan girl obsession of him long ago, she wondered if she would have been attracted to this Sasuke in the first place. She was pondering this when there was a knock on the door. Shizune stuck her head in.

"Sakura, I hate to interrupt, but we need your help. Some more wounded have come in and its "all hands on deck" again."

"Coming!" Sakura slid off the bed and started for the door at a run. "I'll be back when I can. Naruto! Stay put!"

" Yes mother!" That earned him a half hearted glare, then she was gone, leaving the two young men in a slightly uncomfortable silence. It was Naruto who finally broke it.

"What happened?" he asked quietly. "What happened to change your mind about all of this?"

Sasuke knew that question would come sooner or later.

"I had a bit of an epiphany not too long ago. Actually all that happened is that I got my head out of my ass and finally realized just what a good thing I had had here. I learned that my brother was not the monster I had thought he was. He had been forced into killing our family by the village council, then went into exile. He did it because he loved this village, and everything it stood for, and leaving broke his heart. He knew some of what was coming and decided that the best way to make sure I became strong enough was to piss me off." Sasuke smiled a sad little smile. " He made me hate him because he loved me and wanted to protect me. I began to get a better idea of what brotherhood could mean. It was a good feeling. Itachi went through hell for this village, and protecting the village he loved just seems like the right thing to do." Sasuke looked into Naruto's eyes then. There was a sudden fierce determination in them. "When we were fighting on the river, you said that you saw me as a brother. Do you still feel that way after all this time?"

A thoughtful look appeared on Naruto's face. Sasuke let him mull the question over for a while. His face was tense and his eyes would darken or lighten, depending on the train of his thoughts. Sasuke suddenly had the same thought that Sakura had earlier about him. This was a Naruto that had been hidden underneath the flamboyant personality he showed to the rest of the world. It was something he would have to get used to.

" I never really stopped thinking of you as a brother." Naruto wouldn't look at him. "A part of me always thought that you were doing those things for reasons of your own that made sense to you. All I wanted was to be there in case you needed my help, even if you were to proud to ask." He looked across the room and the hurt in those blue eyes made Sasuke feel even lower than when Tsunade had been chewing him out.

"What about your group, the scary people you were traveling with?"

"We parted on good terms. They each said that they were going to return to their respective villages and shake things up there. I said I didn't care where they went as long as they never shook things up here." Sasuke shook his head. " I also completely agree with you. They were scary. In many ways."

Sasuke slid from his bed and rummaged around in a pack against the wall, coming up with a kunai. " I've been thinking like I'm on my own for so long that its going to hard for me to change right away, but I promise to let you watch my back from now on, if I can watch yours. I want to be teammates again, and brothers, if you'll have me. He took the knife and cut a small nick into the palm of his right hand and walked over to Naruto's bed. Naruto looked up at him, conflicting emotions still causing his eyes to change like clouds across a clear sky. Their eyes met, and Naruto saw the sincerity in Sasuke's face. He reached up and took the kunai and made a cut in the palm of his left hand, and clasped Sasuke's outstretched right hand.

"Brothers."

They stayed like that for a minute, not hearing someone else enter the room until Sakura's hand came down on both of theirs.

"Team Seven." was all she said.

"Team Seven!"

-present

Sasuke had been true to his word that day. He was there for them. They were a team like they had been before that chunnin exam, long ago. Oh, they had had some rocky moments when they were getting used to working together again. Sasuke didn't have that obsessive superiority complex anymore, but he also didn't have anything in the way of social skills, either. He had been out of practice dealing with people that weren't crazy or homicidal and it still got him into trouble sometimes. Naruto and Sakura were more forgiving of his slip ups than any one else. After all, they had gotten used to Sai.

Naruto laughed silently. Compared to Sai, Sasuke was practically cosmopolitan.

Naruto continued his watch on the gate, oblivious to the chatter from the street below. It was definitely his team and his friends that kept him sane. As his mind wandered back down this well worn trail, something tweaked his senses. Over the past year he had gained a reputation for knowing when something bad was going to happen before it did. Any of his peers with him on a mission knew to trust these hunches of his. The council and some of the other shinobi took it to mean that the Kyuubi fed him information, proof that the demon was taking over. Actually, all it happened to be was that his naturally keen senses of hearing and smell combined with his good observation skills. He was always looking around him, a habit he had picked up while dodging irate villagers. As a result, he didn't miss much. He called it good instincts. Sasuke called it being paranoid.

The wind was blowing towards him from the land outside the gate, and he began to be aware of a strange scent that he couldn't immediately identify. The only reason he picked it up at all was that it was like nothing that belonged in this particular neighborhood. All he should be smelling here is different woods and varnish. This was a sour, almost putrid smell that was vaguely familiar. He scanned the woods outside the gate, looking for anything else out of the ordinary.

There. A small flash of light reflecting off of metal. Another one.

Soon he was seeing movement in the forest on both sides of the road. Not the road, but rather the brush on either side of it. That was a bad sign. Whoever they were , they weren't regular travelers. And because of the impromptu festival going on below him, he was the only one seeing this. Naruto's bad feeling was getting worse. Most of his year mates were out of the village. The rest of the jonin and elite chunin were either observing the exams or proctoring them. There were still guards on the wall and strategic spots in the village, but today of all days, they were of low power, little experience, and spread pretty thin.

Naruto stood and disappeared in a poof of smoke, materializing in front of the guard stand. The two young kunoichi stationed there couldn't of had their rank very long. One actually yelped when he appeared. Naruto sighed. They probably made chunin in the exam earlier in the year. They couldn't have been more than fourteen.

"Get this gate closed," he snapped. "Something's coming."

The two just stood there looking at him. "What?"

Naruto had gotten good at unnerving people with certain facial expressions, and put this into good effect now. Blue eyes flashing, teeth bared, he rounded on the two young ninja.

"I said, somethingbadisabouttocomethroughthisgategetitclosed! Now!"

That got a response alright. "Yessir!" One leapt over to the controls that opened and closed the massive gates. The other went for the phone, to alert whoever she could. After a minute they both turned to look at him, wide eyed.

"Sir, nothing in this booth is working. The controls aren't responding and the phone is dead."

Naruto swore. For the power to have been cut, it could only mean two things. Someone on the inside was helping whoever was on the outside, and this had been in the works for a while. They were about to be invaded.

Naruto looked over at the two scared gate guards, trying to come up will some semblance of a plan. He tried to smile encouragingly. "Ok, we'll deal with this together. I have very important jobs for both of you."

To the first young kunoichi, "I want you to head for the arena, as fast as you can, and alert the Hokage and Kazekage. I'm going to need backup here as soon as possible. Go!"

"Hai!" She leapt to the roof of the guard shack, than to the nearest building, and was gone.

Now the next one.

"You need to clear this street and start moving people away from this gate. I know its going to be a big job. Grab anyone you think you can trust to help you." He thought about making some clones to help her, but thought better of it. The people wouldn't trust him and he had the feeling he was going to need all his chakra for whatever was coming. Gods only knew when his backup would arrive.

The kunoichi looked at him for a panicked second more, than seemed to gather some resolve.

"Yes sir, Uzumaki-san, I'll do my best."

"I know" was all he said, laying a hand on her shoulder briefly. He was gratified to see she didn't wince away from him. Than she was gone, tearing up the street. He watched her for a minute to see if the crowd was going to listen to her, and was relieved to see most of the people gather their things and begin to move further into the village. The kunoichi chivied and harried the stragglers, like a sheep dog with very stupid sheep.

That left Naruto very much on his own, the lone defender of a very large gate through which Kami knows what was about to come, most likely to do its best to pound him.

Sounded like fun.

He took a stance in the middle of the road, just inside the gates, and waited, sences alert for anything that might come his way. His weight was balanced on the balls of his feet, ready to fling himself in any direction. He cursed himself that he wasn't wearing his flak jacket. Or his hitai-ate. A haori and a mesh shirt wasn't going to be much help against sharp pointy things. He took a mental inventory of the weapons he had on him. He had been training with Tenten earlier, so he had his shuriken and kunai holsters, and he had his wrist holster on. He also had an ace up his sleeve. Or on his back rather.

When Naruto had been picking through Jiraiya's apartment, he had come across a wrapped package in a closet. When Naruto had picked it up, he had found, to his surprise, it had his name written on it. He hadn't unwrapped it then, but had bundled it up in a wall hanging and spirited it back to his apartment. It proved to be a finely made tanto (short sword) with a tsuba ( guard) bearing a design of toads. He didn't know when the old man had been planning on giving it to him, but he had obviously thought he would be around to do it. Naruto had sat looking at it for a while, not noticing when tears started running down his face.

Only a few people knew he had it, much less knew how to use it. He rarely used other blades beside a kunai, and still was fairly uncomfortable with something as long as a katana. The tanto suited him though, as its blade wasn't all that much longer than a knife. He had gotten Kakashi to train him in the use of it, because Naruto saw the potential with some of his jutsus. That and he was determined to use this last gift from his godfather.

Now, two years later, the weapon was like a part of him. He rarely went anywhere without it, it fit nicely under his haori in the hollow between his shoulders. He could infuse it with wind chakra, much like Asuma's blades. It could, and had, cut cleanly through any blade it met with. Many a surprised samurai had been left holding a stump after Naruto had flashed by.

Naruto looked up as movement on the road caught his attention. They were here.

--

Sorry about the long chapter, I'm still getting the hang of this. Slowly. Next chapter will be up soon. I know. I hate "to be continued-s" too.