And I Would Walk 500 Miles

[permetaform]

And I Would Walk 500 Miles

.o0o.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and am not making money off this.

AN: Brain was eaten by SheWhoHasLostHerMind's prompt and thanks to romantiscue for audiencing. XD

Warning: KakaNaru, NaruKaka, non-explicit.

.o0o.

"He won't."

"He will."

"I'm telling you there's no way. It's a one in a billion chance."

"Is that a bet?"

"You'll stop talking my ear off if you lose?"

"If you'll give me eternity if I win."

"...Deal."

.o0o.

Kakashi found Naruto familiar because of his father and the memories pain him.

He is almost not entirely wrong.

.o0o.

The second time they'd met, the old silver-haired midwife looked at the squalling blue-eyed baby in her hands and immediately has a heart attack. She never even understood why before she keeled over.

The girl grew up always being vaguely pissed off about being somehow late and was annoyingly time-conscientious with everyone around her.

.o0o.

Naruto hates that he was left behind that first day, tied to the log. I mean, yeah, he was supposed to be able to get out of knots like those, there was a test on it and everything at the Academy, but he'd skipped most of those classes because the teachers liked to try and cut off his circulation during practice and he'd barely squeaked by on those grades.

He doesn't really consider why he's more outraged at the rest of his team than at his sensei. A part of his mind kinda expected it of the guy, somehow, despite never having met him before.

.o0o.

She needs to get across the ocean, she thinks. She tilts against the balcony and examines the streets below her and stares at the docks. She's heard of the lands there, wild and beautiful and rich and...and there's something to see, over there.

Her father flutters around her and bewails his beautiful blond daughter being too delicate for travel and locks her into her room. Thank god he never knew she could climb trees.

She slips away in the night, in a servant's dress.

Across the sea, her heart sings, across the sea.

And she finally understood why eight years later, skin burned brown and battle scarred and hands calloused and a black flag on her ship. He was as dark as she was, but naturally so, tied up in a circle of her men, and even then his dark-eyed gaze is lazy looking, dismissive, and angry and dangerous and perfect.

When he died one and a half weeks later, coughing and shivering and a touch less dismissive but still insolent and still beautiful, died from the damned flu of all things, she thinks that someone must be laughing at her.

.o0o.

While Kakashi somewhat knew, as they are rushing towards Gaara, why Naruto was rushing like he did, he didn't understand why Naruto is in such a hurry about everything. Things will happen in their proper time, he thought, and rushing to a place unprepared will get you killed.

There is such a terrible tragedy in getting killed, he thought.

.o0o.

The sun was beautiful, but rather hot.

The snail tiredly drooped it's eyestalks in dismay, but luckily a large flat leaf was nearby, very close to the ground, leaving a pleasantly cool nook underneath it. When night arrived, the snail ventured out and established that it seemed to be a very perky growth of dandelion.

The snail returned to the dandelion the next morning because it was very accommodating, it felt very safe and familiar there, to curl up by it, though it does not know why. It'd never liked dandelions before.

But the following morning thereafter there was a hole in the ground.

There was not supposed to be just a hole.

.o0o.

Naruto takes one look at the waterfall where he's to be training his wind nature chakra and decides that he needs to take his shirt off. Definitely.

(He's almost there. Kakashi's nearly cracked.)

He's learned a thing or two from traveling with Jiraiya, among which is that he looks hot naked and even hotter wet. And he's learning from Kakashi how to multitask, with his jutsu.

And now he's multitasking jutsu and Kakashi all at once, with his score of damp, shirtless clones.

When he peeks down every hour or so, his sensei is pretty much still in the same position, slouching over his book with the vaguest impression of being gobsmacked. The book's still open to the same page, and even though Kakashi's posture screams "I am Not Looking", Naruto doesn't believe him.

He grins, and works harder at cutting the waterfall. And if he exhausts himself, hey, maybe the silver-haired man will catch him again when he starts losing consciousness. He'd only remember a moment of it, but at this point he'd take what he could get. And he's patient with this because he knows somehow that it's going to be a foregone conclusion.

But even with his plan he's kinda surprised when he finds himself falling, 'cause he totally thought he could have trained for another hour or two at least.

He feels himself caught before he hits the ground.

He lets himself sink into the darkness with a smile.

.o0o.

The hunter does not know why his damned dog's being so weird.

They'd finally chased down the fox that'd been harassing his chickens, and the darn thing's drooping about the house like his steak's been stolen. He'd even had to toss out the fox's tail he'd kept as a trophy because the mutt kept on snatching the thing. Its even now staring at him and making him feel all guilty.

Damn it.

.o0o.

"Got it Baa-chan! You can count on me!" The blond-haired brat saluted and bounced out of the room.

Tsunade rubbed her forehead, "Every time, I swear."

Shizune smiled fondly and Tsunade guessed that she was thinking about the nickname that Naruto had given the blond medic-nin. And Shizune would be wrong.

Tsunade was actually referring to, if they'd happened to meet during one of his lifetimes, how Naruto always, always, recognized her, on some level, despite what she called herself. And she has been known by many names: Shichi Fujukin, Benten, Bishamon, Daikoku, Fukurokuju... Lady Luck. But he always knows her, and it surprises her to no end. Perhaps its because of how he knows how generous she tries not to be, and how she fails at it. She doesn't like many people, she's fickle, and she could easily dislike someone or some place she'd once loved, but when she gives, she keeps no luck to herself.

This is why she is also known, at times, as Fate; as the one with no options to give. She sees the inevitable and falls into it anyway. She thinks of the bet that she'd made with her grandchild millennia ago, who'd raged at how the mortal he'd fallen in love with returned to stream of souls.

This is why we discourage such love, she'd said sadly, Mortals should only fall in love with mortals, and we each give ourselves only one chance to learn better.

Then make me into a soul, he'd demanded, I'll find them again.

There are too many souls, she replied, As a soul yourself, you'll barely remember him and will never find him. And even if by chance you find him, he probably won't fall in love with you again. It won't work, not without tragedy. There's no way that he'll remember you.

He will, her grandchild insisted.

He won't, she replied. And she took the bet that he'd eventually offered, seeing already the Weave of his pattern and his future heartache.

But.

One day she is summoned. They both summon her, and she opens her eyes and cries her outrage and she looks into her body's parent's faces and they smile down at her.

And her father says, "I win." Her mother giggles at her, closed-eyed.

She remembers promising him, them, eternity if they could find each other again both as souls, and if they could last long enough together to be considered 'lucky'. They are both shinobi and are raising a child; that is lucky indeed.

And the Weaver does not break her promises.

Though when she found out who her grandchild later rebirthed into, and did the math, well, that was the year she started drinking.

She calls out, "Come in," and Kakashi enters and she already knows to unlock her sake drawer. She waves Shizune out of the room with their signal to bring in Naruto.

"I would like to be transferred to another team." The Copy Nin states.

"No." She says, cheek on her fist, she'd been waiting for this conversation.

"I really think it would be for the best."

"That's not really a reason you know," she replies. "The answer is still no."

"I don't think I work well with them."

She snorts at him in disbelief. "Remind me again how many S-rank missing nin you've collectively managed to dispatch?"

"I don't think," is said just the smallest bit softer, then his voice raises and firms, "I should be allowed around my genin students."

"They're not genin anymore," she points out, decides to hell with it and grabs the alcohol. "Well, Naruto is, technically, but that's because the other villages refuse to test him in their exams, and no one else is willing to enter ours if he's in it." This had caused Naruto no little amount of outrage until she forced him to watch one of the experienced, though deeply average, genin teams during their training. He'd come out of it wry, and never asking for another test. She continued, "And Sakura's already jounin. But I don't think we're talking about Sakura, here, are we?"

"Are you," Kakashi pauses, lightly, "Condoning this?"

She measures him with her eyes, then smiles, wide and toothy. "I'm surprised you waited this long, actually."

"What?"

"Oh calm down," she says, not really meaning it. "I've already bought the wedding present."

"Wedding?"

She'd never heard Sharigan no Kakashi get that loud, she inwardly cackles. It's of course at that moment that Naruto pokes his head in the door.

"Wedding?" The blond parrots, a question.

The bit of cheek that showed below Kakashi's right eye was brilliantly red.

"You both should get that sorted out," she suggests. Kakashi makes a choking sound.

"You're getting married?" Naruto yells.

She hasn't been this entertained since both the Spinner and the Shearer died; her siblings had followed her out of curiosity into the mortal world when they felt her being summoned. Frankly though, she'd never expected Spinner to stay long, he knew how to start things, but not how to make them last (be it in bed, or out). And Shearer doesn't really know how to be mortal, and thinks that destruction automatically creates growth; honestly he was better off skulking as a shadow with a farming implement. It'd still been an interesting experience being on a genin team with them and she hadn't been bored until they'd got themselves killed.

But, as she watches the verbal explosions happening in her office, she's not bored now.

Suddenly, the prospect of helping her grandchild land his One True Bedmate for the rest of Time does not seem so awful.

Even if one of them ends up the wrong species, she mentally cringes, and takes a swig of sake.

.o0o.

end.

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Original prompt: "Gravity and eternity, is there a connection?"

AN: heee! XD I love reincarnation fic! Also, why aren't reincarnation fic more weird, huh? Huh? ::cackles::

Again, if you have a request for a KakaNaru (or NaruKaka!) one-shot either in this universe or in another, give me a prompt/idea and I'll see what I can do with it. This actually helps me write! And while it may take some time before the idea fully percolates, they do get written! I'll credit the idea to the person who gives it to me in the Author's Notes.