This has not been spell checked. At all. So if you find anything I'd really appreciate if you'd point it out. Whether by review or PM. I'd like to thank each and every one of you for your reviews despite my little time and fandom hopping. Just know that this fic is my happy place and I'll always return to it. Strange, I know, given the... disturbing aspects.

If I didn't get around to replying to your reviews, I apologise and to KuramaxChan, merci beaucoup! I agree, I love writing from Sasuke's point of view, I think it makes things more interesting. I'd reply in French but I haven't employed it in sometime and do not wish to insult you.

Ovicati, hopefully this will help explain the sparseness of Sasuke's reaction from last chapter. ;)

Anyway readers, please enjoy. I know it's only five pages, but still.

サスケxナルト

V

The Bond

サスケxナルト

Sasuke wasn't sure how long he'd stood there. Several hours? Minutes? Time seemed to drag on and yet suspend itself for an eternity and nothing was working; Tsunade was yelling out orders to Shizune, hands a shimmering green and sweat pouring from her furrowed brow; the latter had the sleeves of her yukata rolled up with various medical utensils clutched in her hand and Naruto...

The dark-haired teen swallowed the uncomfortable feeling in his throat.

The tiny blond still wasn't moving. Wasn't breathing.

His face was unnaturally pale and greyish, eyes copper and lips a sickly blue-purple. He wasn't meant to look like that. Limp, like a ragdoll tossed aside. He wasn't... He was meant to—

Wasn't Tsunade well-known for her skills in healing? One of the legendary Sannin? Wasn't she meant to fix him? Then why wasn't it working? Why wasn't Naruto getting better?

Sasuke's hands fisted at his sides as something like helplessness and despair clawed at him.

Healing had never been his thing, that was all for Sakura and in situations like this, she shone while he was forced to take the back seat and everything was taken out of his hands... There had been a reason he sought power when he went off to Orochimaru those years ago and yet he'd obtained that power and still found himself not strong enough.

He was never strong enough.

He couldn't fix whatever was wrong with Naruto and...

What was the point of having that power anyway, if he couldn't use it in situations that really needed it? What good was it when he was left standing on the sideline, just as helpless as he'd been as a child and discovered his family gone, murdered?

Nails punctured the callused skin of his palms.

"AGAIN SHIZUNE!" The Hokage bellowed at her assistant, though her eyes didn't leave her charge's face. "C'mon brat, fight it! You haven't come all this way just to toss in the towel now, have you?!"

Blood dripped down the Uchiha's hand, through his clenched fingers and dribbled to the floor in an irregular drip... drop... drip.

Tsunade was the only one with the power—the knowledge—who might be able to save Naruto... and it looked like she was... That she couldn't—

—Couldn't save him.

The realisation was like a physical weight crashing down on Sasuke. He hadn't considered the possibility before; focused on the main issue and path to the resolution rather than focusing on any other variables.

Get to Tsunade, his mind had urged him, narrowed down to that singular, central point on the horizon that stretch out impossibly long. Get to Tsunade, she will fix it.

It all seemed so simple and yet, now...

When he'd gone off to Orochimaru and abandoned his team in the pursuit of power; was this crushing weight on his shoulders, in his chest, this... overwhelming despair, was it how Naruto felt?

How had things come to this? From a simple picnic lunch outside to watching the de-aged version of his friend—

De-aged.

He jolted out of the dark spiral his thoughts had taken him and sprang back out Tsunade's broken window, landing on a random roof. If he couldn't be of use here, he'd be of use elsewhere and there was a long list of people he still needed to interrogate.

He ran into Sakura and Kakashi as they were making their way to the Hokage tower. Iruka was with them. All anxious.

"Sasuke-kun!" the sole female on his team gasped, trembling and for once, he didn't begrudge her the weakness. Her eyes were close to overflowing. "Naruto...Is Naru—"

"Stay with him," he ordered his pink-haired team mate.

He didn't stick around to see if they listened.

サスケxナルト

He wasn't a coward but several hours and as many interrogations later, Sasuke was torn.

He'd discovered one of the people who had mistreated his friend... a disgusting pig of a man, who'd apparently lost his wife and children to Kyuubi... it hadn't mattered to the Uchiha. Intentionally withholding food from a defenceless child, leaving that same child in soiled clothing for days without changing them until that child developed sores and rashes...

No one would find the body and while covered in an inordinate amount of blood—some of if caked on his skin, like mud—the dark-haired teen hesitated, unsure if he could go to the hospital only to discover—

He bit back the growing tightness in his throat, tried to push away that heavy-hollowness that had remained settled deeply in his chest. The battle was an ongoing one, one he hadn't felt since... since the loss of his family but... worse.

What if while he was out, seeking vengeance Naruto had...

Had left him?

Would he feel it? The way old folk sayings claimed, that once your life was so firmly intertwined with another's—as Naruto and his surely was—you'd feel them as if a twin. Hadn't Naruto call him a brother?

No, he decided. It Naruto had... If he'd... Sasuke was certain he would have known the instant it happened.

The journey to the hospital left him more irritable than anything but once Tsunade had Naruto stabilised, the building would be where he was kept, for observation.

He paid little attention to the few people he past, many of whom kept their distance anyway. No doubt startled and wary of the macabre picture he painted. The receptionist at the hospital was just as bad.

"Sir, I'll have a nurse look at you, if you'll just—"

"Naruto Uzumaki's room," he demanded, patience long since depleted.

The woman shook her head, brown eyes wide flittering about his face and clothes. Sweat beginning to bead at her forehead and face paling to the colour of snow. "I'm sorry, but we have no record of a Naruto Uzumaki listed as bei—"

Onyx swiftly transformed to swirling crimson as his eyes locked on the woman, daring her to lie again. "I'm his teammate. Where is he?"

"Sasuke-kun," Sakura's voice warbled from a little down the hall, her footsteps a hollow, dazed, clip, chop, clack.

He turned, stalked toward her, startled several bystanders that got in his way. "Sakura, where—"

His sentence met a mangled end.

The girls eyes were overly bright, pink and evidence of fresh tears recently shed on her flushed cheeks, her lips were trembling and as she spoke more tears fell. "Sasuke—"

No.

Numbness settled, froze the heaviness in his chest. No, he refused to believe it... Naruto couldn't have. Shouldn't he have known? Felt something? He was sure... So sure...

He held himself carefully, his limbs feeling suddenly weak. His legs, like they were about to give out beneath him with the weight he'd carried around that day.

He felt so stupid. So incredibly... hadn't he learned anything over the years? Again, vengeance had taken precedence over his friend... He should have been there! He should have stayed, even if he hadn't been able to do something, like Sakura and Kakashi. Did Naruto know he'd been abandoned by Sasuke again? For revenge? Is that why he gave up?

Strong, slim arms wrapped around him.

"He made it," Sakura sobbed into his shoulder and he felt more dampness mixing, mingling with the blood in his already ruined clothing. She didn't seem to mind his state and he didn't care much for her tears either way. "Sasuke-kun, he pulled through."

The Uchiha jerked out of the girl's grasp, studied her face, determined to catch any lie. "He's alive?"

He didn't dare breath.

Sakura nodded and more tears fell. "It was so close. So, so close. Tsunade-shishou said if he'd been even a couple of seconds later..." her breath caught, as if envisioning the horror, then she was smiling tremulously, "But you got him to Tsunade on time. Thank-you, Sasuke-kun. Thank-you."

The tightness in his muscles loosened imperceptibly. "Where is he?"

サスケxナルト

The hospital room was the same one Naruto had occupied the first time, the bed still too big for the blond's impossibly tiny body, but Sasuke noted he was bigger than he had been when rushed to Tsunade. He must have gone through his first transition period but it was difficult to tell just how old the boy was now.

"I'll wait out here," Sakura sniffed, still wiping her tears away. "I don't want to make him upset by seeing me in this state."

The door closed behind him, barring the girl from sight.

Kakashi's gaze swept him briefly as he entered the room but said nothing of his bloodied, horror-inducing appearance. Tsunade's stare was far more critical, but she too, refrained from comment.

"Brat," she grumbled, wearily. "Your 'S'ke's here."

Sasuke blinked, surprised. Naruto had asked for him?

A tired, azure eye crept open at that. "S'ke?" The bundle struggled to lift his head, like a baby bird. It wobbled, flopped boneless back amidst a halo of too-long gold. That horrible, tight, fear-like feeling surfaced again at the reminder of what he'd nearly lost.

He stared.

Tsunade speared him with a glance, long and considering, then gave a toss of her blond hair. "Not bad, Uchiha," she frowned at him. "Just don't leave it until the last minute, next time."

The Uchiha merely returned her look coolly, knowing that was her weird way of saying 'thank-you' but unable to bring herself to actually voice the words.

"Kakashi," she grunted, opening the door and stepping outside, "you'd best go inform Iruka that the brat's stabilised. No doubt he's gone and worked himself into a right state of nerves somewhere..."

The white-haired man nodded. "Of course, Hokage-sama. Be good, Sasuke-kun. Naru-chan, make sure Sasuke doesn't run off again, alright?"

The teenager watched as both adults left the room, the door closing with a soft snick and he was alone with Naruto.

Very purposefully, he seated himself in one of the chairs next to his best friend's bed. The dried and drying blood made it all uncomfortable but making himself presentable for the general public was the very last thing on his mind. He didn't concern himself with what they thought of him. There was only one person still alive whose opinion he cared for.

The little boy squirmed, shifted with a soft rustle of blankets and squinted over at him, regarded him in concern. "You'a hurt. You'm covered in blood."

"I'm fine," he assured, voice lower, submerging himself in his idiot teammate's presence; the soft, rasping lilt of Naruto's still young and underdeveloped voice box; the shade of azure that was his eyes and impossible to replicate; his rounded, babyish face that even as a seventeen year old, he would still somehow possess; mostly that stubborn determination to never give up.

"Not fine," the child mumbled. "Hurts," he repeated, lifted a small, too-thin arm and pointed directed at Sasuke's chest with a single chubby digit. "There."

His... chest hurt?

What a way to end it. I'm cruel, I'll admit it. But Naruto pulled through.

Comments, critique, anything? Let me know. Hope you liked the instalment.