Sasuke's heavy for someone so thin, but most ninja are heavy for their size. Chakra only goes so far without muscle to back it up, and muscle isn't light.

Of course, Naruto could carry Sasuke three times over without getting tired, but the extra weight still slows him down. It changes his balance so he has to actually think about his jumps instead of just slipping through the trees. He has Sasuke slung around his shoulders, and floppy arms and legs keep getting in the way of his steps and jumps.

"You just had to still be taller, bastard," he grumbles under his breath, careful not to let Sakura overhear. She knows he doesn't really mean it, but he doesn't want to distract her while she's holding the genjutsu that says 'nobody's here.' He really doesn't want to get caught helping a missing-nin escape. Even if the missing-nin is Sasuke and most people would probably understand team loyalty.

Someday, Naruto reminds himself, he's going to be Hokage. He's going to have to make the hard decisions, like Tsunade-baba does, and he's going to have to have people trust him. People are already scared of the Kyuubi. Kidnapping Sasuke, which looks like he's turning traitor (even though he isn't!), really won't help anything.

But a team is a team, and Sasuke's his friend. His first friend, and probably still his best friend, as screwed up as that is. Naruto still doesn't understand why the hell Sasuke ran off to the Snake-freak -- yeah, he gets that Sasuke wants to kill his brother, and that the Snake-freak gave him a shortcut, but Naruto can't make the pieces fit together in any way that justifies turning on his friends -- and he doesn't think he'll ever really be able to forgive what happened to the retrieval team, but deep down, there's a part of him that hates the world and spits and claws like a rabid fox -- not the Kyuubi, just a normal fox with its paw in a trap -- and he knows Sasuke has a rabid animal inside too.

Probably a wildcat. Or a lion. Naruto considers as he slaps his left hand to a branch for stability before springing forward again. Yeah, a lion -- the bastard's hair sticks out kind of the right way.

The difference between them is that Naruto knows the rabid fox is wrong. He knows he's better than that. Somewhere Sasuke forgot that he isn't supposed to listen to the lion. Or maybe Sasuke thought he could cage the lion by himself -- which is stupid, 'cause the only way Naruto knows to shut up the fox is to remind himself that he's human, and that other people are there to help him if he asks.

For a genius, Sasuke can be really dumb.

Naruto's leading the way since he can track better than Sakura. She asked him, when they rescued Gaara three months ago, if he was cheating with the Kyuubi. It's a fair question, he guesses, since he used to be, um... kinda easy to distract... but Uzumaki Naruto does not cheat! He learned to track properly all on his own (well, okay, the old pervert beat it into him) and he can't help it if growing up with the damn demon inside kinda fiddled with his nose and eyes as well as his chakra. Nobody ever says Kiba cheats 'cause he has a dog's nose.

Anyway, he's heading for Wave Country. He spent some time there last year with the old pervert, and it's really come to life since Tazuna finished his bridge. It'll be easy to get lost in all those people, and in the meantime there's nothing strange about three ninja traveling that direction. There's a lot of business in Wave Country now -- mostly supplies and information trading -- and it's a good place to catch boats heading all over the continent.

"Hey, hey, Sakura-chan?" Sakura turns her head with a frown, and Naruto slaps himself for forgetting that she's holding the genjutsu. Oh well, might as well ask now. "Should we take a boat in Wave Country or head inland instead?"

Sakura considers this, her forehead wrinkling as she thinks. Naruto's never understood why people made fun of her forehead; it gives her character, and it shows that she's smart. Now she's got that gleam in her eyes that says she's calculating odds, figuring things out.

"It depends," she says. "A boat will get us away from Konoha faster, but we'll be isolated for a while. If we travel by land, Itachi will have a better chance of taking the bait and coming after us -- so we might be done sooner -- but if the council disobeys Tsunade, we might run into trouble with Anbu. We also might be targeted by other missing-nin looking to sell us to Akatsuki."

Other missing-nin? Naruto scowls, shifting his grip on Sasuke's limp weight. They can't afford to get worn down by trash before they find Akatsuki. ...And he's not sure how soon he wants to finish this mission. There's still no guarantee that Sasuke will come home with them, or that the council will think even Itachi's death is enough payment to forgive him for leaving in the first place. There's no guarantee that they'll be able to work with Sasuke like they used to.

Scratch that. If they work together like they used to, Itachi will rip them into bloody little shreds. They need to actually fight as a team.

"We need time," Naruto says. "We need a lot of time."

Sakura smiles at him, and he can see she already knew that and was waiting to see if he was going to be smart instead of just charging right in. "Yes, we do. We'll take a boat."

Naruto huffs to himself. Sakura can be so patronizing sometimes, especially when she thinks she's got everything figured out. She's still precious to him, though. She'll always be precious, even if she doesn't ever see him the way he wants her to.

He grins now, tickled that he's thought of something she missed. "Yeah, and what's Sasuke going to do to the crew when he wakes up in the middle of the water?"

Sakura frowns. "Oh. I didn't think of that -- do you think he'd listen to us if we told him not to be upset?"

Naruto shrugs as best he can with Sasuke slumped all over his shoulders. "Eh, who knows? He didn't seem crazy back in the room, but I don't think he really gets that we're going to stick with him. And he is a missing-nin. I bet he won't like witnesses."

"Shit. You're right."

It always throws him for a second when Sakura curses. It doesn't seem to fit her, not Sakura-chan. When she's mad she hits something, but she always talks politely -- except really she's not so polite anymore. Naruto frowns as he thinks back over the past few months. Huh. Maybe Tsunade-baba taught Sakura more than just medical ninjutsu and how to hit even harder.

He'll have to yell at the old lady when they get home. He and Sasuke curse more than enough for one team. They don't need Sakura starting as well.

He bickers back and forth with Sakura over how pissed off Sasuke's going to be when he wakes up, whether he'd actually kill random people or burn a boat to bits before he calms down and listens to them, whether they can train better on land or on the water, whether Sakura can learn to run a ship from reading and teach Naruto (Sasuke, the cheating bastard, can just copy a sailor), what direction to go after they reach Wave Country, and stuff like that.

Nobody wins any of the arguments, and they don't ever talk about changing their plans, but when they set up camp for the night Sakura slices a kunai across her fingers and releases Sasuke from his forced sleep. "He'd better not go nuts and make you put him under again," Naruto grumbles. "I'm sick of carrying him, and he drooled all over my jacket."

Sakura flushes and throws a stick at him. Naruto lets it bounce off his forehead, then uses it to spit the rabbit that stumbled into one of Sakura's traps. He might as well have food ready when Sasuke wakes up.

It takes the bastard almost half an hour to finish his beauty sleep.

Then, one second he's out of it and the next he's halfway across the clearing with his fingers in the last seal for a fire jutsu. Red-and-black eyes blink, narrow, and watch Naruto and Sakura warily. "This isn't Konoha," he says.

Sakura's hand makes a cut-short motion, and Naruto grins to himself -- ha, she wanted to throw a stick at the bastard! Not so cow-eyed over Sasuke-kun anymore. Of course, she still loves him -- that's just a fact of life -- but she actually sees Sasuke these days, not just her crazy fantasies and rivalry with Ino.

"Yeah, it isn't Konoha, genius. Sit down and eat," Naruto says, slicing a wide strip of meat from the rabbit's carcass. He holds the kunai and meat out toward Sasuke.

See? he wants to say. I'm giving you a weapon. We trust you, you stupid bastard. Come on, trust us.

Sasuke hesitates, then slides forward and snatches the kunai from Naruto's hand. He takes a bite of the rabbit, chews, and says, "You cooked it too long."

Typical.

Sakura catches Naruto's eye. 'No boat,' she mouths. 'He'd drive everyone crazy in half a day.'

'Told you so,' Naruto mouths back, grinning.

"I can read lips," Sasuke announces, not actually looking at either of them. His eyes are still red-and-black with the Sharingan, like he won't let his guard down for a second even around them. What will it take to make him trust them again?

'Oops,' Sakura mouths, undaunted, refusing to turn her head toward Sasuke. Her green eyes sparkle. 'We can use Zabuza's old hideout instead.'

"Good idea," Naruto says out loud, folding his hands behind his head and letting a wide grin slide over his face at Sasuke's disapproving grunt.

Heh. So they can't go back to the way things used to be. That's not so bad, Naruto thinks -- obviously things kinda sucked if they weren't willing to deal with the real people instead of who they tried to show each other -- if he pretended nothing could hurt him; if Sakura pretended he was an idiot, Sasuke was perfect, and she was nothing but sweet and pretty; if Sasuke pretended he didn't care about anyone; if they all pretended everything was just fine.

No pretending this time. Sakura's dropping her act. Naruto's not shoving himself in people's faces anymore -- there are better ways to prove that he's worth something. And Sasuke... well, this time they won't let him listen to the rabid lion.

'Cause maybe you can't cage the beast. But you can hold out your hand to the person and never take 'no' for an answer. You can stand at his side. You can believe in him.

And you can make the lion human.

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