9When someone called for him, a stone's throw away, Sasuke froze in his tracks.
He couldn't believe his own eyes.
"Naruto?"
"Yeah, who else?"
"You're dead…" Sasuke took a few steps back.
"Stop joking around, Sasuke, and come back with me to the village! Sakura is waiting for you!"
"I don't think so."
"What are you talking about? We all miss you. I need my rival back so I can become stronger and protect everyone."
"I accidentally killed her," Sasuke replied with a monotone voice.
"Huh? Did you hit your head or something? First you say I'm dead, and then that you killed Sakura. I saw her yesterday in Konoha, there's no way she could have reached you. Land of Iron is a three day trip away from the village, and neither of you is that fast. Especially not her." Naruto shook his head.
"So how are you here?"
"What? How am I here?"
"Yes, how can you be here if you were in Konoha yesterday?"
"Stop being a smartass, Sasuke…" Naruto raised his voice.
"What's the last thing you remember from yesterday?"
"I was called back to Konoha to defend the village against someone called Pain. I think he's the leader of Akatsuki." Naruto replied. "And then Sakura hugged me and said… good bye… I never fought him did I?"
Sasuke took a few steps closer to Naruto before his teammate started to talk again.
"Nothing to worry about, I tend to forget things. Especially after a big fight." Naruto chuckled and scratched his back head as usual.
Sasuke brought a hand up to Naruto's face. "You're cold."
"And you're hot, maybe you can warm me up a bit?" He replied.
Sasuke formed a snowball and threw it at Naruto's face.
"Hey! Bastard, what did you do that for?" Naruto said with a grin, and sent one back himself, hitting Sasuke right between his eyes.
"Did you notice something?" Sasuke asked, and cleared away some of the snow from his face.
"Yeah, the snow is warmer than normal. Strange, huh?"
"Don't you see, Naruto? your body is cold because you're dead!" Sasuke screamed at him.
"If I'm dead, how can I be alive?"
"Remember the Chuunin exam? Orochimaru's fight with the Third?"
"Yeah, he brought the First and Second Hokage back to life... Are you saying that I… that I'm controlled like them?"
"Not yet. But soon…" Sasuke wiped a tear away with his hand.
"I do feel a bit of an headache and some voice in my head is telling me to kill you. But I'm used to ignoring voices in my head like everyone else." Naruto gave him another one of those bright smiles. "But when did you start to worry about me?"
"The village sacrificed you."
"Kyuubi didn't bother me too much, the Fourth did what he had to do. He's still my hero."
"I'm not talking about Kyuubi, I'm talking about them sending you to your death!" Sasuke was visibly distressed.
"The old hag would never do that," Naruto said. "Right?"
"The Hokage does whatever she wants." Sasuke shook Naruto by the shoulders. "They don't care about us. Everyone that is close to me is dead because of the them."
"Calm down Sasuke. I'm here for you." Naruto embraced him in a cold hug which made Sasuke shiver - though something about it still warmed Sasuke up. "I'll never give up on my friends. It's my nindo."
"They are not your friends. For all you've done for them..." Sasuke cried on Naruto's shoulder, "and they thank you with that?"
Naruto patted Sasuke on his head in response. "Let's find a place to stay. You're getting warmer every minute, and I'm not letting you die of a fever. Perhaps your head will clear up with a good night's sleep - you're saying a bunch of crazy stuff."
"I'm fine," Sasuke said with a muffled voice, still resting his head on Naruto.
Naruto looked around in every direction for somewhere to stay. "Do you know somewhere we can stay?" Naruto made a confused face, as he had no knowledge about the area around him.
"No."
Right about then Naruto's face brightened up. "You know what would be fun?"
Naruto didn't bother to wait for an answer, and with Sasuke's increased fever he didn't think he was able to give a proper answer anyway. "We could make a snow cave. If we shared our body heat we'd have no problems staying warm."
"I guess that isn't a bad idea," Sasuke responded, even if he found it way too cold to dig anything at this point of time, and it was starting to get a bit too late.
Naruto was digging down into the snow with his bare hands laughing like a child, while Sasuke breathed into his fists so they wouldn't freeze solid.
The weather was starting to get a lot worse.
After half an hour, Naruto's hard work had bore fruit. The cave wasn't the smallest Sasuke had seen, but it was still not roomy enough for more than them and a small fire. There was certainly no chance at all of standing up inside. But none of this mattered - this was about surviving the night and not about any luxury.
"Nice, eh?" Naruto asked.
"Yes, it will do," Sasuke said with a muffled voice as he didn't want to breath in any more of the cold air around them.
"'Will do'? It's perfect!" Naruto said. "Now we just need to find some firewood."
"No need," Sasuke said. "Just carry that stone there," he signalled with his foot, "into the cave."
Naruto did as told and joined Sasuke inside the cave.
"So, what's your big plan?"
"Just watch," Sasuke said, as he lit the rock on fire with his amaterasu.
Naruto's eyes were wide open in disbelief. "You can't burn a stone, it doesn't work like that." But Naruto knew it was real as he felt the warmth radiating from it. "I don't know about you, but I'm tired after all the digging, let us sleep." Naruto then took off his jacket and shirt, before sneaking inside Sasuke's. It was a bit of a snug fit, but Naruto couldn't complain. Sasuke's warm body, smoothing heart beat and just being close to him made it all perfect.
"Night, Naruto."
"Night, Sasuke, I'm glad to be with you again."
When Sasuke woke up the next day, Naruto was still sleeping. But to not wake anyone up, he just sat there.
Then he felt something strange. Sasuke froze.
A minute later it came back. Then another one the minute after that.
Naruto's heart was beating. Quite slowly, but clearly it did work. His face was also more colourful. His eyes were a bit more lively.
"What are you looking at, bastard?" Naruto said, throwing Sasuke out of his trance.
"You're alive?"
"I told you that yesterday. You didn't want to believe me." Naruto put a hand on Sasuke's forehead. "It's seems like your fever is completely gone."
"But you weren't yesterday."
Naruto sighed. "What kind of ninja doesn't know if they are alive or not?"
Thanks to EndoplasmicPanda for great help (as always) with editing this piece.
Cover art by Pixiv user 1741302 (いの字)