At Konoha Hospital, Naruto opened his eyes.
The ceiling was white, the curtains were white, the bedsheets were white. It was not cleanliness, but emptiness. He stared at the ceiling for a long time, long enough for his eyes to ache. He raised his right hand. The back of it was still wrapped in bandages. These were not injuries from fighting Sasuke—they came when he had chased Sasuke, clawing into tree trunks until three fingernails broke.
"You're awake."
Ringo sat beside the bed, not looking at him but out the window. Outside stood Kage Rock. The Fifth's face was nearly finished, while the Third's face looked gray beneath the moonlight. Naruto sat up, and the bandage slipped from his shoulder, exposing the red scar above his collarbone. It had been burned by the Nine-Tails' chakra—not a burn injury, but chakra burning outward from within when the seal had loosened.
"Where's Sasuke?"
"He left."
Naruto clenched the bedsheet, his knuckles turning white. It was not anger. It was pain. Not pain in his hand, but in his chest. Something had been torn out from inside him—not an organ, but a place. Sasuke had stood beside him for twelve years, and suddenly he was gone. That space had been left empty, and wind poured through it, cold.
"I'm going after him—"
"Lord Jiraiya is here."
The door was pushed open—not by a hand, but by a foot. Jiraiya stood in the doorway with two skewers of dango in hand, one red bean and one soy sauce. He glanced at Naruto, then at Ringo, and tossed the red bean dango to Naruto.
"Naruto, you're coming with me. Two years. Not to chase Sasuke, but to become stronger. The way you are now, you can't even beat Sasuke in Curse Mark State One. What's