A/N: Done. Some of you cursed me out for turning this into a SasuNaru fic. To those individuals I say simply that you must not be familiar with my work. I said this is NaruHaku, and so it is. Those who know me, trust what I say. This fic is also listed as angst, which is present in the form of Sasuke, hence his prevalence in the fic.

Lastly, as I have stated times beyond number, most relationships aren't just about the pairing. There are frequently other parties involved, who get in the way, or cloud a character's thinking, or in general just fucks shit up. That's life. I refuse to get into a 'ship war with anyone over this, but it's not SasuNaru, even taking into account the events in this chapter. Sasuke or Naruto's ill will toward each other doesn't always mean hidden feelings and an eventual SasuNaruSasu ending. It's not always about secret love, and OTP, and happily ever after. Sometimes hate is just hate, angst is just angst, and things just aren't meant to be.

Oh. The KibaSasu is entitled Submission, and the first chapter is done. Not sure when I'll post.

And yay. Another fic complete. ^_^'

Chapter 11

Up behind the Hokage monument was a forest-covered plateau, followed by a grassy plain, and then more forest. Konoha's cattle herds and sheep were typically put to pasture in this plain, but seeing as war and the influx of immigrants and workers had depleted the herds, the grass was thick, tall, and uncut. Naruto was swallowed by this grass, running hell bent for leather when Sasuke landed in the plain, spotted him, and gave chase.

-oOo-

For a few minutes, the only sounds in the night were the panting of both boys, their running feet, and the snap and swish of the grass in the wake of their passage. Naruto pulled ahead a few times, but when Sasuke finally tackled him, both knew that he hadn't seriously tried to evade capture. They quickly disentangled themselves and rolled to their feet.

Sasuke lost no time. He shoved Naruto hard, but hung on to his jacket so that he could yell in his face. "If you hate me so much, why didn't you act like it in the forest?"

Oh, I am so owning his ass, Naruto thought furiously. He answered Sasuke by sending a chakra-enhanced punch right at his face. The crunch of bone and spray of blood were so primitively satisfying that he cried out along with Sasuke. "Nothing happened out there!" he screamed.

"Everything happened out there!" Sasuke's shout was slightly garbled by the blood he spat out. "You and I both know it."

The wind effectively taken out of his sails, Naruto was momentarily speechless. Sasuke's dripping nose reminded him of that night, of how hard he'd fought to save him. Taken with the months of stalking, the jealousy of Haku, the offer of friendship, and his own feelings, Naruto felt his anger slowly dissipate. It was replaced with bone-deep weariness.

A certainty crept up in him. It was the certainty that his issues with Sasuke would never be resolved. "What do you want from me?" he said brokenly. "You spent years making me feel like shit, a few months pissing me off, and a single night saving my life. How am I supposed to feel? What do you want?"

Sasuke considered defending himself against the accusations, but there was nothing he could say. He went with the truth. "I want you."

Naruto felt a chill pass over his skin. His heart did a single, painful spasm in his chest, but he forced himself to speak calmly. "You want me. What…what does that mean?" He stepped closer to him, eyes running over his bloody face.

"I don't know," Sasuke admitted. "Just-"

"As a friend?"

Sasuke tracked Naruto's progress toward him, while holding his forearm against his nose. His sleeve was soaked with blood, but he didn't want to break eye contact by tipping his head back. Naruto was waiting for an answer. He thought of the two of them laughing and joking around, and knew he could never be that silly or carefree. "Not as a friend, no."

Closer to Sasuke now, Naruto continued to study him. Sasuke was taller. Broader. Older. Masculine. Sasuke wanted him, but not as a friend.

Sasuke chose that moment to break eye contact at last and deal with his nose. He cursed softly.

Naruto reached up, grabbed Sasuke's head in both hands, and kissed him.

Sasuke, caught off guard by the grab, was already pulling back by the time Naruto pressed their lips together. They were still, as blue and black questioned each other. Both boys were stiff with uncertainty. Naruto's eyes dropped to Sasuke's mouth. He moved to kiss him again, but Sasuke jerked his head back, wide-eyed and confused. Hurt clouded Naruto's features. He began turning away, but just as it had on the night he'd saved him, Naruto's disappointment surprised Sasuke. Understanding burst in his mind, illuminating everything. And this time, when he yanked Naruto to him, he was the one who initiated the kiss.

Naruto's face was bowed. Sasuke had to scrunch down to reach it. He kissed him again, feeling his body begin to crackle with desire, then pushed his hands through the wild blond hair, tipped that whiskered face up, and swallowed Naruto's whisper of his name.

Wolf pulled up some couple hundred yards away, and was treated to the sight of Naruto pushing Sasuke's shirt off, Sasuke unzipping Naruto's jacket, and both of them kissing hungrily the entire time. Then Sasuke lifted Naruto so that Naruto's legs were around his waist, before they sank out of sight and into the tall grass. He stared at where the grass rustled and swayed with their movements, then turned to where his companions crouched behind him, just as uneasy.

"Now what?" one of them asked.

Behind his mask, Wolf wore a worried frown. "Well…technically, he's not harming anyone…"

"So we just sit here and wait?"

"I see no other choice," Wolf said. "Hokage-sama never said to prevent him from anything except violence, and approaching the council building. This-"

A moan drifted on the breeze, to where the three agents sat.

"We wait," Wolf muttered.

Where Haku's body was always so satiny smooth, Sasuke's was like living stone. Hard with muscle, and rough with scars, but warm and yielding. He didn't submit, not to Naruto's tugging hands, or his initial attempts to lead, but he yielded himself with more intemperance than Naruto would have believed him capable of.

He spent long minutes making love to Naruto's face. Kissing him with hot, firm insistence until Naruto had to turn away to breathe. Sasuke's head followed him, kissing his jaw, then his mouth again once he'd turned Naruto's head back to him. Naruto gave in. He slipped his arms around Sasuke's back with a moan of surrender.

It was so much more than either of them ever thought they'd have from the other that for a long time this was enough. Just feeling one another's solid weight and tasting each other was enough. It satisfied something raw and gaping in each boy for a time. It was an answer to a question that had gone unasked for as long as they'd known each other.

But for Naruto, it wasn't the answer he'd expected.

The kiss sealed a wound he'd carried for four years, but in doing so it also connected him to Sasuke as he'd never been before. Obviously, they were sharing themselves with each other, but he wondered if Sasuke knew just how much of himself he was sharing. And he wondered how much longer he himself would have continued to be blind to who Sasuke was had this night not happened.

He let Sasuke touch him. Touched him in turn. Kissed when he wanted to be kissed. Tasted what he wanted to taste. Inhaled the spicy smell of him. This was happening here, right now, and he would experience it all. It was what he'd wanted. Not to immerse himself in it completely would have been criminal at this point; the arrival of this night had cost him way too much.

And it wasn't bad at all. Sasuke's lips and tongue and hands made him feel good. There was power in those hands that Sasuke made no effort to hide. They bruised in their excitement, and soothed immediately afterward. He responded to it, to being handled so roughly, and returned the caresses with just as much heat and excitement.

It hurt when Sasuke entered him, but it was a good hurt. Sasuke held his face, gazing into his eyes. Naruto looked back and thought, There. There he is, I've reached him. I've finally reached him. He looked and looked, for as long as Sasuke moved inside him, and saw everything. He thought his heart would break then, but it didn't. It held.

And when their excitement built to its peak, he brought Sasuke's head to his, so that they were nose to nose, and closed his arms tightly around him. He held him close as the world imploded in a silent shower of sparks for them both.

His walk to the west sector was a quiet, solitary, and peaceful little journey. The sun was barely over the horizon. No one was up yet. He was early. The air was crisp and cold, but the sun promised to take the edge off by mid-morning. He filled his lungs with the invigorating air, held it, and let it out slowly. Turned his face up to the light and let it bathe his face in warmth.

Naruto stood still in the middle of the dusty road. Just stood there, with his face toward the sky and his eyes closed. He wanted to remember this moment. This little walk to work. Then he opened his eyes. He looked behind himself and saw the boy he'd been. Looked ahead and saw the man he could be. He slowly put one foot in front of the other, leaving it all behind, and knew peace. It filled him. And the feeling was wonderful.

-oOo-

Kiba was already at the site, bent over a blueprint he'd spread on a stack of planks. He looked up when Naruto entered the far side of the area. Naruto smiled and lifted a hand in greeting, but Kiba's face seemed to close up. He went back to staring at the blueprint.

Naruto strolled over, prepared to greet him properly, but Kiba walked away from him. He actually went into the foreman's hut and slammed the door.

Tsunade tossed her pen down on her desk, leaned back, and folded her arms. "Absolutely not."

"But Granny!"

"Naruto." When he'd closed his mouth and slumped back in his own chair, she continued. "It is out of the question. And you should know better than to ask me for such a favor."

"But I have to! You don't understand, if you don't let me do this, then-"

"Then what? The world will end? Tell me, is this matter really so urgent, or are you simply too impatient to let things take their course?"

"Well, it's urgent to me," he grumbled.

"Exactly. To you. Not to anyone else. And where personal feelings and matters are concerned, Naruto, it's best to remember that they always take a back seat to everything else. Children and civilians put their needs before others. Not ninja. And not Kage."

He remembered his feeling of peace from before, and his decision to leave boyish dreams behind. He would never be a man if he didn't begin to act like one. "That's not fair," he whispered. "But I guess you're right."

"No one said life was fair, but I'm glad you agree." Then, because he looked so disappointed, she added, "I'm sorry."

She had to wonder at his capitulation, though; Naruto never gave up.

Naruto was back at the site right as the whistle for second shift blew. Kiba continued to ignore him. It was hours before he realized what was wrong. "It's not what you think," he said quietly.

"I'm beginning to think you're a liar as well as a traitorous, disloyal piece of shit," Kiba said as he sawed a plank. "I told you he was off limits, and what do you do? Show up with the stench of you two fucking all over you. We're done."

Naruto straightened from his own plank. "What?"

"You heard me. We're done." Kiba threw down his saw and walked over to poke Naruto hard in the chest. "And you know what? Bad as you stabbing me in the back is, it's not as bad as how you did this the second Haku left. He's been sent away because of you, and you couldn't wait to celebrate your freedom. That…you're just garbage, Naruto. I don't associate with shit like you."

"The fuck! You know me better than that, Kiba. You know I wouldn't-"

"So you didn't fuck Sasuke last night?"

Naruto's mouth twisted. "I didn't betray Haku. He left. He's not coming back."

"So that makes it okay?"

"It makes it none of your business," Naruto shot back. "You have no idea what happened, or what you're talking about. I didn't go after Sasuke, okay? He came to me. "

"And you just bent over for him out of the goodness and charity of your heart. Well here's what I think of that." And Kiba violently spat at Naruto's feet.

Naruto stepped right up to Kiba, whose chest swelled with anger as he stood his ground. "If he's yours, he doesn't act like it, so why don't you just lay the fuck off me?" He shoved his plank at Kiba, who caught it out of reflex, and stalked off the premises.

Sasuke woke in his bed, in his apartment, to find that the sun was setting. His escort was there, crouching in various spots in his room, and watching him. They straightened up to form a line at the foot of his bed once they saw he was awake. Sasuke sat up, looked at them, then frowned toward the window.

Confusion had him for a moment, but that cleared up soon enough. He remembered an amazing night with Naruto, but he had no memory of coming back to his place. The last thing he did remember was lying side by side with Naruto when they were done, and watching him calmly stare at the brightening sky. Dawn had been moments away. He'd touched Naruto's shoulder, intending to ask him something. Naruto had turned his head to look at him, and his eyes had been so blue, Sasuke remembered. Such a deep enigmatic shade of blue. He'd smiled at Naruto, and remembered thinking how seldom he ever smiled from genuine pleasure. And Naruto had smiled back, one of his wide, blinding smiles.

He must have dozed. He'd never been able to sleep comfortably while left in the mountain, and he hadn't taken the time to rest once he'd been released before setting out after Naruto. Wolf and his team must have crept up on him while he'd been sleeping, put him into a deeper sleep, and carted him back here. He looked at them now.

The tension coming off them suggested that they were very aware of what he'd done last night, but they made no move to bind or seal him. Maybe escaping them the way he had would go unpunished. He hadn't touched them, after all, and he hadn't hurt anyone. He decided to just come right out and ask. "Am I in trouble?"

Wolf was a few moments answering. "That would depend."

"On?"

"On whether or not you plan to engage in intimate activities in the future."

Sasuke's heart lurched hard just at the idea of touching Naruto again. "Probably."

"Then I will ask Hokage-sama if this is to be allowed. If she says yes, there will be no need for you to behave as you did last night, will there?"

"No," Sasuke blinked. "There wouldn't."

"Which would mean that last night's rebellion was a single occurrence that will not be repeated. Even if Hokage-sama says no." His question hung in the air.

"It won't be repeated," Sasuke said gravely.

"Then we understand each other. May I ask your plans?"

I plan to fuck Naruto again as soon as possible. A feeling of such gladness swept over Sasuke that he forgot himself enough to grin where he sat. The agents stood looking at this with their bland masks, until Sasuke eased off the bed.

-oOo-

He was sore, he realized. His chakra might have been stronger than ever, but his body was still weakened from his incarceration. Naruto hadn't been gentle, either. He made it to the bathroom, where Wolf followed him, and got a good look at his face.

His nose was broken and swollen, and he looked like hell. "I guess I need to go to the hospital," he said in answer to Wolf's question. "But after that I want to speak to Naruto." And he was starving. Maybe Naruto would consent to eat with him…

It wasn't until he was in the shower that his mission came back to him. His hand stilled in the process of scrubbing his chest. He'd told himself that if Naruto accepted him, he would set the mission aside for a time, but now a new thought came to him. He could have the council dead and honor his brother. Naruto need never know of it, and the mission itself would only require added stealth if he was going to remain in the village. That would need careful thought, and his plans would have to be restructured. Which would take time…time in which he could explore this new thing with Naruto. See just how much of Naruto he really had and what could be done with it.

Perfect.

Naruto was on his way to the east sector, where security was a bit lax, when Sasuke dropped down beside him. His escort landed a second later, and Naruto suddenly had a sneaking suspicion that they'd witnessed him and Sasuke going at it last night. That thought stained his cheeks red, but Sasuke was speaking to him.

"-okay?"

"Huh?"

"Said are you okay."

Naruto pulled his mind from the way the agents avoided looking at them, and focused completely on Sasuke. The broken nose he'd given him last night had been bandaged, he saw. Sasuke's voice was a bit nasally because of it.

He was actually glad he'd run into him. Saved him the trouble of hunting him up later. "Yeah, I'm fine. You?" Sasuke seemed to be trying not to smile, he noted. Weird.

"Yeah. Good. I'm good. "Do you…" he stopped, but Naruto only put his hands in his pockets and blinked at him. "Do you want…food?"

Naruto considered responses, before deciding that food was safe enough. "Yeah, I can eat. I got something to do first, though."

"Oh. Okay." Then, because he thought it was expected, he leaned in and awkwardly tried to kiss Naruto. Suigetsu and Juugo had known to keep their distance from him unless they were all in bed together, but he'd seen the way Naruto behaved with Haku. Sasuke thought maybe Naruto was the kind who liked that sort of thing. He could comply, if he had to.

"Whoa." Naruto checked him with a hand on his chest. "Sasuke…"

Sasuke pulled back immediately, and hid his relief. "I shouldn't have done that, you're right."

Naruto nodded…then sighed. He put his hand back in his pocket. "Look, I think we need to talk about last night."

"Yes." Here they would have their relationship established, Sasuke knew, the way his clone had heard Haku ask Naruto on that fateful day. Naruto would ask him how committed he was, and what his feelings truly were. And though he had no idea how to answer either question, Sasuke was confident that Naruto, at least, loved him enough to overlook that.

Naruto loved him. The knowledge still left his insides feeling shaky and unraveled. He wouldn't need to control Naruto. His love for Sasuke would do that on its own-

"I'm done," Naruto said quietly.

Sasuke blinked. "Done? Done what?"

"Done chasing you."

It was a long moment before the meaning of that clarified itself to Sasuke. When it did, it brought such a sharp feeling of pain in his chest that he couldn't breathe at first. He kept his face blank only by force of habit, trying to understand, to be logical about why Naruto's words would hurt him. "What?" he managed. His voice didn't shake. He was proud of that. "What do you mean?"

Naruto spoke. Said some things Sasuke found trouble hearing, much less understanding. He stared at Naruto lips. They were hurting him now, but last night he'd been unable to stop tasting them. Had marveled that for all the noise and screaming that mouth was capable of, it was surprisingly gentle and skilled when it came to love.

Love?

Naruto stopped speaking. In the silence that followed, Sasuke felt his pain begin crystallizing into something hard and icy and unbreakable. "You're giving up on me," he said.

Naruto didn't respond at first, looking down at his feet. You're a coward, Sasuke thought at him viciously. The pain was locked away behind his new shell, but he could still feel it. When Naruto lifted his face, he saw that his eyes were swimming in tears, and the sight quieted his fury for the moment. Maybe he'd misinterpreted…

-oOo-

Sasuke's face was as close to panic as Naruto had ever seen it. He hadn't thought this conversation would be so hard, but then he hadn't expected Sasuke to behave the way he was doing.

"I guess I am giving up on you," he whispered. He scuffed his shoe in the dirt, fisting his hands in his pockets. He was unable to look at Sasuke now. This felt like a betrayal, not what they'd done last night. "I used to think that if I ever gave up on something it would mean I was weak," he went on when he could manage it. "That I would never achieve anything if I gave up. Now, though…I think I'm starting to realize that there had to be at least one thing I gave up on in life. That sometimes you have to give up, or you end up destroying yourself. That giving up doesn't always mean you're losing something. Sometimes giving up lets you see things you were missing." He finally looked up at Sasuke, whose face was frozen. "Maybe you should give up too. Whatever it is you can't let go, that makes you so mad all the time."

Now Sasuke spoke, swallowing hard as he said, "And what was last night? What was that?" His voice was rising and his mask was cracking.

Naruto marveled that he'd been on the other side of a conversation exactly like this not quite 24 hours ago. "Last night was me finally realizing that what I'd been chasing all this time was a dead end. It was me seeing it as a dead end for the first time. Realizing that that, what we shared, was all I'd ever have of you. Your body. The rest is empty.

"I have limits. I realized that last night too. That I can do some pretty amazing things when I try hard, but that I'm still just me. I can't do the impossible, much as I'd like to. I know that now. Just as I know that you're broken, Sasuke. And that I can't fix you. Last night," Naruto finished heavily, "was me letting you go."

A stiff wind blew down their deserted street, as if washing away hopes and dreams.

"That's it?" Sasuke yelled suddenly. "You give up on me and what…go back to Haku?" Why was this hurting him so much?

"Haku loves me."

"I can love you!"

Wolf and his comrades had been listening intently. It wasn't just them who gasped when Sasuke said this last, but Sasuke himself. He stood there, mouth hanging open in apparent shock over his own words, but he didn't take them back. He repeated them. "I can," he said stubbornly.

Naruto gave a sad smile. "No you can't."

"You haven't given me the chance to."

Naruto considered it. He really stood there and considered Sasuke's white face, the way his voice shook, and how close he looked to violence. But he also remembered every day of the past four years. Every single one. Last night wasn't enough to turn that around, or make him forget. Even if it was, it still didn't change the truth of what was. "Love isn't something you try to do. You either love someone or you don't. Remember what I said about dead ends?

"You-"

"You have one too. Whatever it is you're chasing, whatever your reason for coming back to the village is, just stop. Let it go. See it for the dead end it is, turn around, and just…try something new."

"If I did, would you give me a chance?" Sasuke asked. His voice was so low that his lips barely moved, but all present heard the faint tremble of desperation in it.

Another long moment passed, wherein they stared hard at each other. "No," Naruto said. "I don't trust you."

And with that, Sasuke felt the pain in him break. His head lowered till he was looking at the ground, and he didn't have to see those blue eyes anymore. All he felt now was the coldness of his shell within, where it was now moving through the rest of his insides, sealing away the unprotected parts of him. It was comfortably familiar, and he realized that this was how he'd lived before killing Itachi. And I will kill you too, Naruto.

"I'll still be your friend if you want," Naruto said uncertainly. "Try to be, anyway. But beyond that…"

Sasuke raised his eyes. Only his eyes. At seeing the dark, wild hatred in them, Naruto wisely shut his mouth. Sasuke would never see, and never learn. And that was fine with him, he decided. Sasuke was someone else's problem now. There was an entire world out there that Naruto had ignored for four years. And there was one person in it that he intended to discover it with.

"See you around, Sasuke." That's how the other conversation ended too, Naruto thought as he walked away.

He felt a million pounds lighter. A smile stretched his lips, and he thought, I'm free! He hadn't felt free in…Never. I've never felt this good.

Up in a tree, nearly directly above where the boys had stood, Tsunade narrowed her eyes at the feel of Sasuke's chakra. She was sure he thought he'd fooled her in the hospital. She'd let him think so, but she'd been keenly aware of the spike his chakra had taken during his confinement. Even so, what she'd felt then had only been a taste of what she was feeling now.

She'd brought along three ANBU units when she'd set out to follow Naruto, simply because she was sure he'd go against her decision. They were hidden nearby, and masked. She made a hand signal now, and directed those units to assist Wolf and his small team, who were now standing around Sasuke and asking him to release his chakra.

Before she dropped down to join them, she glanced at where Naruto was disappearing around a bend in the road, completely uncaring of the chakra Sasuke was putting out. She realized that he must have known she and her team were nearby, and a gave a small, approving smirk.

The speech he'd given Sasuke was one she would commit to memory. She would repeat it to him when he took office, and let him know that it was the day she'd realized that he was finally growing up.

-oOo-

"What's the meaning of this?" Sasuke asked when she landed in front of him. His eyes traveled over the other three ANBU units. "I haven't done anything wrong."

"No, you haven't," Tsunade agreed. Though she would be speaking to Wolf immediately about whatever Sasuke and Naruto had done last night. That was a development she should have been apprised of immediately. "However, your chakra is considerably more than what you let on. I think now would be a good time for the practical assessment of your skill set."

Whether or not he believed her, she couldn't tell. All she cared about was the way he let himself be led away by Wolf and the other units. He appears meek, but that look on his face speaks volumes. After a moment, she followed them.

By the time she made it back to Naruto, she was alone. She sensed him at a broken down section of the east wall, where security was mysteriously absent.

He'd shown great strides toward maturity today, so it disappointed her that he would still go behind her back like this. She was about to unmask herself and make her presence known when she finally arrived at his location and saw just what he was doing. Her eyes widened.

-oOo-

Naruto looked up and behind himself. For a moment he thought he'd heard a sound, but the tree was deserted. He could access the natural energy around him and sense if he was being followed by Granny again, he supposed, but there wasn't time.

He turned back to where his clones, one thousand of them, were clustered below him, just outside the village wall. They looked up at him with serious eyes, faces camouflaged with dirt. "Okay," he said quietly. "Repeat the message one more time. What are you going to say when you find him?"

They spoke with one voice. Subdued as they were, it still made the tree Tsunade was standing on tremble.

"Haku," the clones intoned. "Granny has forbidden me to come after you in person, and she won't abort your mission, so I'm sending clones.

"Maybe you were right about some things, but you were wrong about others. I hated you for leaving, but I'm glad now that you did since I might not have realized the truth if you hadn't. I'll explain more when you come home. Please come back to me, Haku. You're the only one I want, and the only one I love. If you don't come back, you'll force me to come after you, and I will. I don't care what Granny says. I'm not letting you go, not ever. So hurry home. Please, just hurry back home when your mission's done."

Naruto nodded, but chewed his lip. Should he say more? He couldn't think of anything else. "Go," he told his clones. "Find him. And tell him…tell him I love him. Don't forget that part. Tell him I love him more than anything else."

The clones scattered like so many leaves in the wind.