Sam-Sam-Samedi

Christy Brinkley - June 5th-9th, '08 --Click here to view--

Some Anime-Chick-thing. . . D: --Click here to view--

**Drabble # 1: Promise --Click here to view--

"Smiling. . . ? Heh. People aren't like that, Sakura," was his response, deadpan, and without connection. She had never noticed; she had not seen it, and she couldn't see it, and she wouldn't see until he told her so. Naruto was alone-- and she, too, belonged to no one.

Sasuke cut through the silence, leaving the bitter taste of cold, "I have other business."

'And that-- that's because. . .' Sasuke left. 'He still doesn't want us, Naruto.'

'"Sakura-chan, nobody said it was easy!"' That had been his cheerful goad to her concern, but, in reverse, she now understood that no one ever said it would be this hard.

Drabble # 2: Death --Click here to view--

A young Sasuke ran, not because Itachi was frightening, but because he knew he wasn't going to arrive anywhere.

Drabble # 3: Maelstrom --Click here to view--

"Sasuke and Naruto; all storms are little more than wind, water, and lightning-- from hell to heaven, before resting at the peaceful eye-- and then raging again."

"kitten, Jiraiya. . . I'd forgotten why you're an author."
"Hmph."

Drabble # 4: Demons. --Click here to view--

"He's supposed to have a demon behind him--" were the whispers that drowned the halls around him, hollow and frightened; the speakers waiting, as if monsters would grope their way from the shadows where they slept.

"The one that can level mountains? Control lightning? Demolish everything!" Even if twisted and mauled from reality, some would agree-- he would agree-- that a pathetic kind of truth could be found in their rambling paranoia.

"And eyes-- eyes with greater power than the Kyuubi!"

Drabble #5: Savior --Click here to view--

We remember moments, not dates or dreams-- the peicular remains of events and pieced burnings that live on in the little percent of the brain we use. To him, it was so clear; as if he was here now, the sky dyed pastel and graying, blood thrown in random splashes, ugly against the pavement. His supposed "last words" ringing in his ears, dull and maybe somewhat forgotten, but the outline still left in him, and the touch of his tremulous hand leaving mystified, empty warmth even in the present.

His motivation was as simple and honest as this: If he had saved him then, it was his turn to save him now.

Drabble # 6: Delusion --Click here to view--

"They come back sometimes," Sasuke drawled, aura draped in hopelessness, a lifetime loneliness struggling free beneath the simplicity of his words. Sakura, the knife sliding awkwardly from her hands, clipped her fingertips, breaking off a part of her middle nail; her blood was curled cold for other reasons-- his reality was his own, dark and deluded, full of faces that did not exist.

It wasn't long until he realized that Sakura did not.

Drabble # 7: Talent --Click here to view--

Sasuke had been everything he was not-- he was the intellectual, the talented, the rich, the handsome. He was born gifted; Naruto had quickly figured himself lucky he was born. For Sasuke, things were simplistic or at least looked as such; he was capable of understanding the world, something that Naruto had struggled, and failed to do.

When Sakura commented how Sasuke was "amazing", he had to begrudgingly agree.

Drabble # 8: Bird --Click here to view--

"You believe in destiny--" Naruto continued, his voice shrill-pitched and angry, but the Hyuuga shook himself free of his preaching.
Neji knew that when you ripped a bird of it's feathers, it would no longer fly.

Drabble # 9: Wind and Water --Click here to view--

Hinata soon realized that you cannot confine wind or water to your hands. As soon as you believe it caught, it separates again and slips away.

**Drabble #10: Wind and Earth --Click here to view--

Heaven and earth--- two worlds which never touch, united only by the churning of the wind.

Drabble # 11: Wind and Fire --Click here to view--

The wind dances, reviving the dying; the flames will once again rise, subdued, but destructive.

Drabble # 12: Lightning and Water --Click here to view--

Charged by an electric current, water becomes a trap ready to lure.

Drabble # 13: Fire and Water --Click here to view--

When the eternal fire is doused, water rids the world of hell.

Drabble # 14: Lightning and Wind --Click here to view--

Clashing forces; wind will push away the storm where the lightning hides.

**Drabble # 15: Flowers. --Click here to view--

Naruto had awkwardly visited Ino once in his youth, coaxed by the colored display window and the plants nestled inside. She had wasted no time in pointing out every negative aspect of his being there-- had preached loudly from across the counter, swept her hair some billion times, and impulsively explained all the failures he would meet raising her precious blossoms.

"Ha, it's not like you would be interested in flowers anyway--" He shrugged, and told her to shut the hell up and ring up his purchase. Besides, he knew plenty about flowers. Sakura-chan was a much more beautiful one, definitely.

Drabble # 16: Humanity --Click here to view--

Sasuke was bleeding, pushed against jagged rock and the sharp tip of another's knife.

". . . --been a long time, Naruto. . .", Other's blood-- masses of gore and red-- had been left behind as a reminder of his presence; in his youth, he'd been given names, a demon which crawled itself back from the depths of hell-- a snake, shed of its white, lost of its innocence. 'Mine, huh. . .' He mused, dryly aware of what he had refused and rejected, but seemed unable to escape from.

**Drabble # 17: Chocolate. (Crack alert.) --Click here to view--

"I happen to like chocolate," Sai announced boldly one day well the trio loitered at their ramen stand, tri-colored noodles threatening to tumble past the brim of the bowl (Naruto's an exception, already emptied). He had rebutted Naruto's literal distaste for sweets with such a vivid confidence that she actually wondered if he was capable of feeling. 'Well, for chocolate, maybe.'

". . . Why are you getting defensive about chocolate?" She asked, with some honest curiosity.

"'To preserve the wonderfulness of chocolate, one must be one with chocolate'," he answered matter-of-factly, as if that explanation should close the conversation, "I read the aforementioned passage in a book."

Sakura and Naruto exchanged glances, certain there was something to be feared about Sai and chocolate.

Drabble # 18: Tobi --Click here to view--

" . . What a whiny baby," Deidara said, an incredible lack of interest apparent. He was yet to be rid of the exasperated kitteniness that came with trekking some tens of miles of desert, all the while bogged down by an outfit not suitable for walking, running, jumping-- or, in general, any type of practical use. (Plus, the bulky cape turned coat was black-- black, damnit.) 'Jeez.'

Sasori had insisted on the long, dull and tiresome-- but that was his thing, Deidara decided. Besides, carrying the extra weight of his admittedly artistic albeit utterly twisted puppet shell must have taken its proper toll.

"Be quiet and save him. I don't have the time nor the energy to waste on an idiot."

"So, what! You're saying that I should---"

"If you can argue with me, I could easily say that you do. Hurry up," Sasori's seriousness crushed the argument in its short-lived prime, Deidara reluctantly resigning to assist Tobi-- but, even if he was forced into submission, he went on to curse Sasori once he was a safe five feet ahead.

Other pieces. . . --Click here to view--

"What the kitten did you do with Sasuke!" Madara was used to screaming; echoes of pain and anguish and all those things ringing loud against the blackened ash and brick of Konoha's dead fire.

"Him? Kid's here-- kind of dark for ya', though," He spoke with flimsy conviction, a masquerade of himself, of the man who had defied death, found hell, and lived it to climb from the ground-- from being the ends of Konoha to the raging fire that burned it's great leaders hands. That was his Uchiha; it was his birthright, and it belonged to the select few through whom his blood ran strong. 'Of course, it's not here now . .' A group, now narrowed to two, had trashed his little welcome home party very acutely, as he'd told his subordinate-- who was now drowsy and a little lost, but he was such ninty-nine percent of the time; one was a girl, a bold outline of pink hair and blurred red clothes in the shadow, and her fellow a boy, his blonde, spiked mop of gravity-defying yellow and orange jumpsuit positively bright in Madara's pit.

"Where the kitten is he!" Madara assumed that the boy had little class.

"What's your name? Naruko, right? Er--" He trailed, curious as Naruto's temper demonstrated an obvious flare, rising from hatred to absolute malice, a look most out-of-place on such cheerfully childlike features. "Hey, you'll get wrinkles glaring like that!" He was standing along the top step of a small staircase, raised enough to pay due respects, but lowered to remind them of their place, lying beneath a faded leaf etched within the arch above; Naruto shifted, and, barring his already prepared fist, managed to hold back-- waiting to hear anything-- and waiting to send him flying with a punch to the face.

'. . . I suppose he has nothing else to say.' Madara readjusted the folds of his cloak, facing the pair now, confident, and perhaps overly so. "I don't really want to deal with you." He waved his index-finger matter-o-factly in his cocky way and relished the respective responses of both, the boy's control slipping ever further, and the girl's face contorted with suppressed rage. "Call it a truce?" There was silence. "No? I guess you can fight him, then." With a restless flick of the wrist, he motioned to the gray masses of dirtied stone and wrapping dark behind him; Naruto gave the wall an impulsive look and his counterpart, Sakura, remained with her eyes locked on her enemy, ready to strike him dead for all his tricks.

"Sas--" Having been brought back, she resisted the urge to turn and study the face of her long since lost love; she didn't, and waited, hands nearly at Madara's throat.

- - -

'Is that--?!' The fourth's rasengan did not frighten him, but the weak skin of his subordinate did. He knocked him out of arm's length, air alive with dancing orange and heavy with smoke; Sasuke, usual blank face having convinced everyone that his state had forgotten what it meant to "feel" properly, displayed a fleeting surprise in gray eyes.

- - -

Naruto grabbed Kakashi harshly by the loose collar of his vest, "What are we supposed to do! You saw zombie Sasuke!"

- - -

"I'd like to switch rooms," Sasuke requested off-handily, Madara seated behind him, hands at rest.

"And why is that?"

He paused, thoughtful, ". . . I don't like the smell." Madara looked up; he was the most arrogant son of a b*tch with whom he'd ever crossed paths. He felt an internal twitch, a guttural feeling of irritation, of disgust and disregard for respect.
'I can't wait to kill him.' He mused.

- - -

"I don't sleep," he responded finally, quiet in his ramblings-- his dreams were never still, black, or anything of the sort Naruto described; they were dark, he thought, but he rarely gave them time to disrupt his placidity, to run him into the ground with their shadow and waves.

"Sure, whatever. Then what do you dream about?" He muttered, slurred voice loud despite the aching in his muscles and bones.

There was a moment of uncertainty where he didn't answer, "I remember that . . . drowning."

- - -

Sasuke had been playing extraordinarily badly-- horrible in comparison to his usual syrupy notes, hiccupping over the sounds as if a broken record, and Naruto couldn't understand why. He knew how to play; he'd heard rumors of his amazing artistic talents (as well as all those other side talents he got to have)-- but if this was what normal people considered "excellent music", he assumed that they were very, very confused people.

"Damn," Sasuke murmured, managing to turn a "d" note into some nonexistent letter that was probably not in any human alphabet (or, thank god, music score)-- and if it was, it certainly did not belong there. He struggled with the finger placement, slipping from his balance, and consistently losing his count as a result; he was terrible, and it jolted Naruto back to the reality that he was not completely perfect at all the things he tried.

'I-- I can't even understand this.' There was no describing the trickling feeling of watching someone you admired fail drastically-- it was both strange and god-awfully distressing. 'He already knows how to do that. . .' In his past attempts to harass and bring attention to himself, he had come across Sasuke playing before--- and it did not sound like that. Whatever that was.

"Sasuke! Stop killing animals in your spare time!" Tobi yelled from the second-story window. Sasuke, in response, threw the flute-- hard. "Geez, what do you have! PMS? Scary-- oh sh---" Naruto frowned; PMS, huh. It wouldn't surprise him-- but he had to thank Sasuke for it. Otherwise he would not have had the chance to see the arrogant face of his enemy slammed with an instrument.

- - -


"Heh, 'bonds' crap. . . No wonder you lost," he kicked him aside, blood staining the stone a sickly red. "You don't even love yourself."

- - -

"For what? The friend you failed to save, or the jinchurriki you failed to save--- pretty pathetic, if you ask me!" Tobi hissed, amusement no longer concealed and voice hoarse.

- - -

"I don't know how. . ." he hesitated, disgusted by the pitiful reasons he had, "how to give affection." Sakura shuffled uncomfortably, moving one foot and then the other, as if debating whether to leave-- an deep sense of untimely intrusion and forced attempt hung in the air, pressing down on her and her good intentions.

"No-- no one I know has died," she finished, soft and broken
.
"Ask Kakashi," Sasuke responded, traditional hardness in his tone cracking barely beyond notice, slightly despondent and broken by the reopening of old wounds. Sakura's indecisive, final analysis of the situation had brutally tarnished the shinobi facade, reminding the world that inside and beneath all layers, there are cracks.

"I did," she muttered, voice strong, but hushed to a dull whisper. "He wanted you to do it." Sasuke said nothing, opting for his usual answer of quiet thought, removed from reality, existing only physically in the present. "Look-- if you-- if you don't want to, I--"

"Sakura," Sasuke cut her sentence short, still facing away from her, looking past the sky, the wind, and the world-- it was his way of asking for solitude, and, for him, was awkwardly polite. Almost a plead, if his pride would allow it.

- - -

They were a disgruntled, dirty bunch, cornered into a joint venture only because they were damned to forever taste failure in their academy career-- connected through little more than their recognized status as "confused, kitten-it-all kids". Two of the trio were tall and lanky, bodies trapped within puberty, and comically stretched; the first, shorter than the second, was unruly and maybe a little animalistic, brown hair completely wild and cheeks streaked with identical maroon markings. The second was inherently bored-looking, eyes rather glazed and arms propped behind his head, hidden by a pony-tail, brown, messy, and gravity defying. He was dressed in a dull gray pair of shorts and a loose shirt, while his friend sported nearly the same thing, except with a hoodie, and a gaudy one at that.

"This loser's going to sit with us," was Kiba's cheery opener, grinning at the rest of his table. He gave a quick flick of the wrist towards Naruto (who had already decided he didn't particularly like him very much and was preoccupied with the multiple insults running wild throughout his mind).

"Eh, hey," Naruto reacted just as blankly indifferent as he figured anyone else would, hoping he gave off some aura of being rough around the edges or something "cool". Shikamaru shrugged, cracking an amused, sardonic smirk.
"-- this is the drop-out, eh?"
'Argh--' Naruto swallowed hard on the dropping feeling he had somewhere in his stomach, reminded suddenly of his "nickname"-- apparently he hadn't done as spectacular a job as he'd hoped.
"Haha," he began through gritted teeth, forcing a half smile in an attempt to hide his disgust, "I'm gonna be hokage, not a drop-out--"
"Yeah, right," Shikamaru added, dismissing him, and giving the blank, empty school walls more attention.
"Don't mind him," the bigger of the three, oddly colorful clothes ranging from green to red, answered, his face more inviting. He had a placid, eternally easy-going aura around him, as if his peace was never disturbed. "He's just like that--" He managed through handfuls of chips, continuing to eat.
"Yeah, he's a b*tch," Shikamaru shrugged at Kiba's comment, remaining unchanged. "Ha, you'd think he wouldn't like being compared to any type of b*tch-- doesn't like chicks."
"How can he not like--?" Naruto questioned, still trying to hold his dignity and passive demeanor intact.
"Dunno. Just like that, I guess, although I agree with you that--"
"It's personal choice," Shikamaru scoffed, soft pink staining his cheeks. "It's none of your business."
Kiba happily took Shikamaru's fumble as a chance to piss him off, "heh, sounds queer."
"Damnit, Kiba--" Shikmaru growled, quickly shrugged away.
"Fine, fine. . ." Kiba trailed off. "Yeah. This guy here-- he's hanging out with us."
"Whatever," Shikamaru responded. "Pass the salt, Choji."

((OOC: -_-; . . . Shikamaru strikes me as the most likely to have been subject to teasing. Thankfully, he's pretty laidback. I'd pin them up as around eleven in age.))

- - -

There was a distinct connection between himself and the flunkie four, Sasuke realized--- a profound bond that was born through teasing, particularly at the hands of Naruto Uzumaki and Kiba Inuzuka, the former his usual victim and the latter his typical tormentor. He tugged at the lone thread of his bag, a ratty old thing that tittered dangerously on the edge of his desk; he was too young to manage his own money, so little-- or none-- of his funds went into producing a new, completely usable backpack. To be honest, the total lack of class associated with his bag-thing was embarrassing. He wished he was less poor at times like these, so that people would leave their questions in the dusty, empty pits of their brains.

- - -

"Uzumaki," Sasuke began, the harshness in his tone softened by curiosity, "That's an idealistic view of family."

"Yeah, well--!" Naruto stammered, face flushed; he was barely able to spit out the words, angry at Sasuke, and even angrier at his own sheer stupidity-- it hadn't occurred to him he'd yelled it that loud, goddamnit. 'And besides, how's it the stupid Uchiha's business anyway--!'

"That kind of commitment doesn't exist," Sasuke finished, gruffly, carefully choosing his words-- formulating them, forcing even himself to understand the finality.

"Well, I don't have a family--" he was cut off, Sasuke simply talking over him, with the same "you-don't-exist-therefore-it-doesn't-matter" persona, mind still occupied with the subject at hand.

". . . Hmm. It's forgivable," he breathed, face turned towards the window, apathy replaced with a peaceful-- Naruto might have even called it "understanding"-- sort of placidity. ". . . Your stupidity, Uzumaki."

"You a**hole---!" Naruto screeched, taken aback, and his voice rattled the school halls.