The Ultimate Art
"We could probably meet Itachi soon..."
"What?" Sasuke was astonished.
("Meeting my brother, soon?") Sasuke thought after having just learnt the truth behind his brother's actions.
"It's funny, somehow you're still gonna meet him just like the past where you had met him after the exam" Naruto voiced his thoughts.
("He's right, but that time, it seems that eventhough my brother came to check up on me, he beat me up...") Sasuke thought back to Naruto's recount of the past events.
"umm..., Is this a good idea?" Sakura asked from the side.
"Dunno..." Naruto said in a low voice as he tried to imagine how the meeting would go.
"..."
"I'll meet him," Sasuke suddenly said.
"..." Naruto silently stared at Sasuke who seemed to have made up his mind.
"It doesn't matter if he tries to kill me, or tries to make me hate him, I need to ask him about that day," Sasuke said.
"..." Naruto stared at Sasuke, thinking back to the previous timeline where Sasuke joined Akatsuki after hearing about Itachi's past with a vow to destroy the village. Later on during the war, he had questioned the Hokages about their thoughts on the matter and their idea of a village to make sense of the value of his clan being wiped off. In this timeline, Naruto already skipped all that and already explained how sasuke made his decision to protect that village after explaining what the other kages had said to Sasuke in the previous timeline.
("This might go one of two ways...") Naruto thought as he tried to imagine the scenario of their meeting with Sasuke's input from just now.
("Itachi would either brush Sasuke off and give me an earful for revelaing the past... or...") Naruto stopped thinking at the hint of a worser situation.
("was telling him a bad move after all...") Naruto questioned himself.
Naruto wasn't the type to shoulder burdens like this all alone, that would have a darkness of its own separating Naruto from interacting with his generation, keeping everything to himself. It would come at the cost of sacrificing any advancements his friends made in their progress to become stronger before the war.
"I'll head back home now," Sasuke said, turning around to leave the training field.
"..." Sakura stared solemnly at Sasuke's back as he walked towards the exit, thinking hard about asking him to wait so they could go together. All this was the effect of Naruto telling Sakura how close she was in dying to Sasuke's hands.
"Sakura-chan, how about we go together?" Naruto asked.
"Mm" Sakura nodded.
...
the two walked slowly towards the center of the village.
"... The village is a bit empty..." Naruto observed as he took a good look at the surroundings while walking.
As he thought about the lesser crowd, it made sense that some people had left for the event being held, that is the Sports Festival.
"I'm actually looking forward to it," Naruto felt excited thinking about enjoying a rather fun hangout event with people of his generation.
...
As Naruto and Sakura continued to walk, Naruto saw from the corner of his eyes how Sakura walked in a dejected manner, sometimes fidgeting and being absent minded, almost tripping over a simple stone.
"Ya know Sakura-chan," Naruto began pausing for Sakura's attention.
"..." Sakura kept walking as if she hadn't heard a thing.
"You and Sasuke do get married," Naruto said.
"What?" Sakura's eyes instantly popped with life compared to their almost dead appearance from before.
"you heard it right!" Naruto nodded.
"so... uh... How many... k.. k...k..kids d-did we... have?" Sakura asked in embarrassment.
"Just a girl," Naruto replied.
"oh..." Sakura felt a bit let down, but nonetheless, still happy for whatever she could end up with.
"Sasuke really cares about you and Sarada ya know," Naruto said.
"Sarada?, my daughter's name?" Sakura asked.
"yeah...
"she and boruto, my son end up together later on," Naruto scratched his head.
"EHH??" Sakura was shocked.
"Hm?" Naruto was thrown a bit off seeing Sakura's reaction.
"got a problem with that?" Naruto asked in a low voice.
"no..., just..." Sakura panicked seeing she had given Naruto the wrong impression.
"then?" Naruto asked taking a look at Sakura's panicked expression.
"It's just I was thinking how old you were, right before you came here," Sakura revealed.
"Oh..." Naruto was relieved, at the same time he felt a bit sad thinking back to his last few years. Especially after revently finding out his memories were forged to block the memories regarding Azumi's Life and death.
"Oh by the way, who were you married to?" Sakura asked with a lot of interest.
"Me, I married Hinata," Naruto replied.
"Oh, that's beautiful..." Sakura said, knowing Hinata's current feelings for Naruto, at the same time she understood that things were gonna be tough for Karin, especially after having interacted with he the past month, she started to feel sad in a way.
"Yeah, it sure is, We had two kids, Boruto, Himawari, Kaw..." Naruto stopped midway.
"eh? there was a third one...?" Sakura asked, stopping next to Naruto.
Naruto closed his eyes, trying to clear his thoughts, he looked at Sakura.
"Yeah, I adopted a kid named Kawaki for a while..." Naruto slowly said as he resumed walking.
"Adopting a kid huh..." Sakura was surprised at Naruto's choice, at the same time she understood something had happened between the two and it probably wasn't something that she should ask at that moment.
--------
Near the Hidden Leaf Magazine store
a few meters away in a nearby park, Deidara continued to stare at Gai's magazine while sitting on a park bench, meanwhile Lee was practicing his kicking routine against the trunk of a nearby tree.
"hmm..." Deidara frowned while staring at certain page in the magazine.
"what is it senpai?" Lee asked earnestly as he continued to kick at the tree trunk in front of him.
"I was thinking..." Deidara said as he put away the magazine and looked towards the sky.
"This whole muscle stuff might not be the same explosive art that I like..." Deidara voiced his thoughts.
"eh?" Lee was surprised.
"Why would you say that?" Lee asked, resuming his kicking.
"how to say..." Deidara paused, having one arm folded while the other arm holding his chin up.
"...its just, there's nothing explosive about it, nothing fleeting about it either..." Deidara explained.
"Hmm... explosive... and fleeting..." Lee stopped kicking and sat on the ground next to the stump and started thinking.
"..."
"Have you heard of the eight gates in the body senpai?" Lee asked.
"Eight gates?" Deidara asked, seeing Lee was onto something.
"The eight gates, as in the chakra gates, limiting the flow of chakra in our body right?" Deidara asked.
"Yes, it's that one, exactly" Lee confirmed with enthusiasm.
"What about it?" Deidara asked.
"My sensei and I have trained ourselves to open them" Lee said.
"ooo..."
"lee my guy, doesn't that mean you'll die if you do that?" Deidara asked.
"As long as we don't open the Eighth gate, we won't die. Opening a gate takes a lot of training and energy, once opened it takes a long time to recover after the battle as well. I've only been able to open 5 gates till now while Gai-sensei has achieved 6 gates,"
"You see, when a person opens the 8th gate, that person is temporarily able to obtain powers surpassing even Kage level ninjas for a short period of time. As such, there's only one end that awaits such an individual..."
"Death" Lee explained.
Deidara hearing the last bit, his eyes started to shine.
"Once the 8th gate opens, Our body explodes with a lot of energy for a a while before we end up falling dead, i think that's the fleeting and the explosive part you're looking for..." Lee concluded.
At that point Deidara was surprised.
"..." Deidara bowed towards Lee.
"eh?? Senpai, what's this about?" Lee asked.
"Lee... You and your sensei are training all your lives for the best masterpiece of art one can only hope to achieve..." Deidara said.
"Going out with a bang... If that's not ultimate art, then what is?..." Deidara hugged lee almost tearing up.