Shadow Lover

Part 10

Naruto woke up to the soft babbling of voices standing outside his bedroom. He looked around to find that night had now fallen. He blinked up at the slowly appearing ceiling. His room was draped in the softness of night, shadows hiding the details of his room in soothing darkness, away from the glaring brightness of memories still hidden in the blur of sleep. 

Voices seeped into the quiet of his room,  varying in tone from scared to determined to 

"Someone should be in there with him. What if something bad happened in that tent? Did you see his face when he ran out? I have never been so scared in my life," Ino said in a fearful tone. 

"That's why I said one of us should be in there when he wakes up! Who knows what happened in there! I should be in there! I'm his best friend!" Kiba's gruff tone immediately responded.

"We are all his friends," Shikamaru interjected in a cool tone that bore no disagreement, "We all care about him and are just as worried about him. We are all equally qualified to be there for him." A brief silence preceded Shikamaru's words, as if they were all weighing the value of those words.

"We can't all go in there," Shikamaru continued, "We don't know what happened and it might be counter effective if we all go in. Iruka-sensei should be the one to go in but we have no way of getting in touch with him."

"I'll go in," said a quiet and measured voice.

"Hell no!" Shouted Kiba right away, "You're a stranger! You certainly have no right to be with him! Why the hell do you think we would trust you in there alone with him?! Hell, HELL no!"

"You can't trust me? Even a stranger like me would not take advantage of him in a vulnerable state," Gaara retorted, an edge to his voice, "Unlike you, mutt."

"What did you say?!" Kiba growled, a crashing sound following his exclamation. 

"Gaara is right though," said a muffled matter of fact voice belonging to Choji, "Naruto is going to be vulnerable when he wakes up, and even more vulnerable now while he sleeps. It would be hard not to take advantage. I know I would be tempted."

Naruto blushed in the darkness, considering when it would be a good time to join his friends in the main room.

"Even Shikamaru has sneaked a kiss or two when Naruto's sleeping in the garden..." Choji continued, "He really does that a lot. We really should tell him to be more guarded."

"What the HELL Shikamaru!" Kiba shouted. 

The time was not now, Naruto burrowed into his covers, deeply embarrassed as he tried to forget everything he had heard and stop himself from hearing any more. 

Naruto tented the blankets over himself, trying to remember what happened but finding his memory blank. He could clearly remember the day's events until the time Ino insisted they go somewhere together. But where?

Naruto prodded at his memory, but it would not budge. The walls guarding his memories felt like it was wrought in iron, strong and unmovable. It scared him. The seal on his memories together with his friends' concern could only mean one thing: something really bad had happened. But what? And do I want to know?

The blonde was scared of what lay within those walls, but admitting defeat was not part of his nature. Whatever was within, if it was important enough to keep locked up, it was critical for him to know why. So he pushed and he prodded his memories, theorizing anything and everything that might have happened that night.

Was I involved in an accident? Did I fall off a ride? That did not seem right as there was no injuries on his body. His shoulder was a bit stiff, but the culprit to that was his best friend who insisted on dragging him to that event. Maybe that is why he sounded so desperate to come in and be with me, because he felt guilty of having taken me there. I certainly would not have gone if it had been my choice.

Not that he blamed Kiba. Whatever had happened, Naruto was sure Kiba had not done anything to hurt him. If Kiba was something, he was fiercely protective of Naruto.

Then what happened? Food poisoning wouldn't be enough to merit the reactions from the gang. Was I attacked?

Naruto unbottoned and took off his pajama top so he could feel his body. After a few minutes of searching, he confirmed there were no obvious marks or scratches on his body that he could feel.

The glare of a passing car broke into the dark room, dyeing the cream color fabric of his bed sheets with a gradient of red and orange. Naruto's eyes were pulled by the rush of color on fabric as an image beckoned to Naruto from beyond the wall. Committing the colors to memory, Naruto strained against the wall to make sense of the image, pulling at the body of the memory as it slowly trickled out of its encasement.

Naruto could suddenly remember the soft, velvety flow of lavish fabrics embroidered with multicolored jewels casting multicolored shapes ok a plane of snow white skin. He pulled at that memory was started to recalled place dropped in fabric, hundreds of candles burning within with no regards to their precarious closeness with the panels of fabric that could at any moment erupt in flames. Another pull brought an image of a burning tower and the murmur of a voice dripping in sex, want, and possession.

Naruto stopped, his body rigid at the thought of that voice. No, at the thought of the owner of that voice. As if he had suddenly been drenched with freezing water, Naruto begun to shiver and unknown thoughts that spoke of familiarity erupted inside him like a mantra repeated in rounds without end.

Run... Run... Run away... Run... Run... Run away...

His body rung with an overwhelming sense of foreboding and the words within his head changed.

He's coming!

And like the breaking of a dam, the walls around his memories shuddered and blasted apart. Memories of raven black hair and electric onyx eyes, pale white skin invaded by black flames, and the feel of possessive lips and arms caressing and imprisoning him in a passionate embrace full of want, pleasure and pain.

Naruto tried to cry out, but just then even breathing was a laborious pursuit. A pursuit about to be made harder by the soft whispering in his ear too material to be anything but real.

"Found you, Dobe."

Naruto could feel his presence envelop him in a sense of anticipation, sending tendrils of pleasure from his head down to his toes. Increasingly breathless, Naruto felt the soft feel of ghostly fingers leaving ticklish trails of desire down his whiskered cheeks and neck before zip zagging down his bare chest to leave the feel of wet trails sucking and nibbling at the base of his hips, threatening to push downward.

The blonde could feel intricate figures being traced on his stomach, until a plunge into his bellybutton unlocked a world of searing pain, unlocking Naruto's voice at last.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"