Chapter 48 Rivals

"It's King Mu." The weak voice of the nine-tailed fox sounded in his mind, it hadn't even fully woken up yet.

Naruto stumbled down the street, not caring where he was and letting the sadness overwhelm him.

He almost fell, and finally stopped in the dim light on the street, staring in the direction where the pain came from.

He stood there for a long time, motionless.

******************

Sasuke woke up from his nightmare and sat up suddenly in bed. Sweat soaked his back, cold and sticky, and his lungs heaved violently, as if trying to escape the horror in the dream, even though he didn't need to breathe.

Itachi's Sharingan spun before his eyes, dark and full of mockery, no longer as bright and gentle as it once was. It was this transformation that made Sasuke more uneasy than any nightmare.

why?

His stomach churned and he swallowed hard, fighting the urge to vomit.

There was a sharp pain in his arms and back, as if a frozen knife had stabbed him in the bone marrow. This coldness had nothing to do with temperature.

Sasuke supported himself with one arm and covered his mouth with the other.

"Control yourself, Sasuke, this is humiliating," he whispered to himself.

He took a deep breath, but his heart was still beating fast and his stomach was still churning with nausea.

Now, he couldn't sleep at all. The clock showed that it was 1:40 in the morning.

"Maybe going out for a walk will help my nerves calm down."

It had become a habit for Sasuke, he would walk through the village in the early hours of the morning, maybe it had become a ritual.

The route was always different, but the goal was always the same - to be freed from his nightmare.

“Being haunted has nothing to do with the presence of the dead and everything to do with the memories of the living.”

The words of that strange ninja lingered in his mind.

What kind of mistake could lead to such terrible consequences? Whose death could cause such great pain?

Sasuke had lost his entire family, his beloved brother, but somehow that man knew more, he understood what true loss was. Somehow, the loss of a life was more painful than the destruction of a family.

He walked past the flower shop of the mountain family, gently brushing his hand across the large window, leaving traces on the wet dew. The humidity brought by the monsoon made the night air particularly hot and humid.

He turned the corner and suddenly stopped.

Naruto was standing less than half a block away from the corner.

Sasuke hadn't seen him in almost a week, in fact, Sasuke hadn't even remembered Naruto until Kiba asked him yesterday at the training grounds.

According to Inuzuka Kiba, no one has seen him since before the storm.

Sasuke noticed that Naruto looked...different.

It was a subtle change, but the blond boy seemed to have grown stronger; when he lowered his head, the bump on his neck disappeared, and his head was held higher and his shoulders were tilted back in a more confident manner.

Sasuke walked closer and took a look, his eyes widened.

He had only seen Naruto cry once, and that was a long time ago when they were still very young. Naruto sat on a swing near the academy, crying silently alone, and no one stopped to look at him.

But this time, it's completely different.

Naruto stood there in pain, staring blankly at a certain point in the sky, neither sobbing nor making any sound.

Sasuke wasn't even sure if he was breathing.

The only sign that he was crying was the tears that kept flowing from the corners of his eyes, flowing down his cheeks, and finally gathering on his chin to form crystal teardrops.

Naruto didn't wipe his tears or try to hide his pain.

It was a different kind of sadness than loneliness and abandonment, and one Sasuke was all too familiar with.

It's the sadness of losing a loved one.

Sasuke didn't understand what was happening.

He stood there blankly, his eyes searching Naruto's face, hoping to find a clue to solve the mystery.

However, he found nothing, and instead was filled with doubts - Naruto's expression was unusually calm, with only a look of sadness in the corners of his eyes, nothing else.

The silence was broken by the sound of a nearby shutter closing, and a light going out at the wrong moment.

Naruto turned around and saw Sasuke standing in the shadow of the flower shop. Sasuke's eyes were as big as two saucers.

In that instant, Naruto's expression went from sad to frustrated to angry so fast that Sasuke's heart skipped a beat.

The next second, he rushed away like a bullet.

Sasuke's brain seemed to shut down, short-circuiting at the changing emotions on Naruto's face.

His body, ahead of his mind, began to chase after Naruto.

He followed Naruto closely, chasing the golden figure in the darkness.

Naruto's speed was very fast, almost on par with Sasuke. It seemed that Sasuke's previous intuition was correct - Naruto had been hiding his strength.

Realizing this, Sasuke couldn't help but feel a surge of anger in his heart. This meant that every fight between them, every competition, and every victory that Sasuke thought he had won was meaningless.

Tracking Naruto in the dark was difficult. Anyone with a weaker sense would have lost him in a matter of seconds. But even without the help of the Sharingan, Sasuke's vision was much better than that of the average jonin.

However, Sasuke almost lost Naruto when he jumped up a tree like a nimble wild cat.

He dove headfirst into the bushes and nearly got tangled up in the thorns.

But he could sense that Naruto was using chakra, and he had seen chunins effortlessly moving between trees, so he focused his chakra on his feet and leapt up.

The first few steps shook the branches and bark under his feet to pieces, but Sasuke was a quick learner, especially under pressure. He quickly adjusted his chakra output and continued to chase Naruto.

Naruto moved quickly through the woods like a nimble bird, quickly putting distance between himself and Sasuke.

"It's the Flickering Technique," Sasuke realized, "a technique for moving at high speed."

This was not something they had learned in ninja school, but Sasuke, through his own research, was able to name the jutsu and make the correct hand seals.

The first time he used the instant body movement technique, he almost crashed into an elm tree because he miscalculated the amount of chakra to be used.

But this time, he managed to get close to Naruto.

Just then, Naruto suddenly made a sharp turn, catching Sasuke off guard and sending him flying past him.

Sasuke had to stop, turn around, and continue chasing Naruto through a dense forest.

The branches tore at his clothes, pulling off a large piece of fabric and revealing his strong arms.

"Damn it!" Sasuke cursed, threw the rag on the ground and continued to chase Naruto.