Shadowed Sun

Interlude - Sasuke

"Hmph. Miwako, can't you tone your jutsu down a bit? You're scaring all the girls away!"

"Sorry, Jiraiya-sensei," I replied, not feeling sorry in the least bit. Okay, I was a bit rueful that I had caused something of a distress to those girls and Jiraiya, but not really enough for it to bother me. It had been a week since I had trained along with Naruto under Jiraiya's tutelage, and I was content with my progress.

"Oh, go take a break!" Jiraiya grumbled, not bothering to look up at me. Naruto glanced up from his frenzied practice at the summoning technique.

"Bring me food!" Naruto called out, his eyes wide and pleading.

"Alright," I agreed easily enough. "Sensei?"

"Hmph. Alright, brat."

I smiled again, a bit more amused now, before I turned on my heel and left.

('･ω･')

(Third Person POV – Sasuke)

Sasuke was a little surprised. On his and Kakashi's quick return in Konoha, he wasn't expecting to bump into any familiar faces, least of all one of his teammate's. Sasuke wasn't entirely sure how he felt about that.

Sasuke had, ever since the massacre, holed himself up. He was one-mindedly focused on his main goal of eliminating That Man. He threw himself into training at such a rate that had people believe he was a prodigy—which was not at all the case.

At least not a true prodigy like That Man or Hatake Kakashi or Namikaze Minato. Sasuke just had (now deserted) private training grounds in Konoha, along with some of the best instructional scrolls. Granted, he couldn't read most of them without his Sharingan, but even those he could read at first were immensely helpful.

He never intended to form relationships of any sort with anyone until That Man was dead. He told himself it was to make himself stronger, to harden his heart for what he knew would be an emotional battle, but that wasn't it at all. In truth, Sasuke was terrified of losing anyone again.

The very thought sent him shuddering and cringing like the small little boy he was during That Night. So he retreated inside himself, and didn't bother to play nice and make friends, didn't bother to focus on anyone but himself because he just wasn't brave enough to do otherwise.

When he had first been assigned a team, his feelings were a bit torn. On one hand, he was beyond grateful that he wasn't stuck with one of those girls. On the other hand, he really didn't want a team.

But then his team surprised him.

He knew Naruto wasn't a total dead-last. Anyone who could escape capture so many times by shinobi of the village had to be gifted in some way. He just didn't quite manage (bother, really) to think about how he had done it. He was skeptical when Miwako first told him, but after mulling it over and thinking through the facts, he accepted it.

Naruto was a rising prodigy in evasion, traps, and infiltration. Most of the time he was so hotheaded he lost his cover, but that was something the little blond was quickly fixing. There were times during practice when both he and Miwako couldn't find Naruto and the boy evaded them for hours.

So having someone on his team that wasn't a total failure was a nice change. Especially when he considered how useful Naruto's talents could be in his plans for That Man. It certainly helped that while Naruto excelled in the more subtle shinobi techniques, he didn't fail the least in straight up fighting. In fact, he was quite good at it. Granted, his skills were lacking, but Naruto's ingenuity and spontaneous plans created somehow during a fight more than made up for it. It was a sort of pleasant feeling knowing that Sasuke could turn his back to Naruto and know that the Academy dead-last could and would defend it with every last fiber of his being.