I Was Trapped in a Canyon With My Rival, and He Claimed Me in the Storm

One minute, the mission was going exactly as planned. The next, it was a complete disaster. One second, I was weaving through the trees, the wind cool against my face, Sasuke a silent shadow just ahead of me. The next, paper tags with intricate, spiraling ink were exploding all around us. Not with fire or force, but with a sickening purple energy that clung to my skin like static.

My chakra, usually a roaring furnace inside me, sputtered. I tried to summon a shadow clone, my hands flying through the signs, but nothing happened. It was like trying to draw water from a dry well. Panic, cold and sharp, pierced through the adrenaline of the fight. Across the clearing, I saw Sasuke falter, his Chidori crackling in his hand before fizzling into nothing. His face was a mask of cold fury, but I saw the flicker of alarm in his dark eyes.

The rogue ninja, four of them clad in gray, swarmed us. They weren't powerful, not really. But their jutsu was a perfect counter. It didn't block our chakra; it scrambled it, made it unusable. Every attempt to mold it felt like my insides were being twisted into knots. I was reduced to clumsy taijutsu, my movements sluggish and uncoordinated. I felt like a genin again, fumbling through my first sparring match.

I dodged a swipe from a kunai, the blade slicing through the sleeve of my jacket. I stumbled back, my feet getting tangled. One of the ninja was in front of me, his face hidden behind a mask, his eyes gleaming with victory. He lunged, the point of his blade aimed directly at my throat. I was too slow, my body refusing to obey the frantic signals from my brain. This is it. This is how it ends.

A blur of motion slammed into my side. The force was brutal, knocking the air from my lungs and sending me sprawling across the rocky ground. I landed hard, my head cracking against a stone. For a second, all I saw were stars. It was Sasuke. He’d shoved me out of the way, taking my place, his own sword a silver streak deflecting the killing blow.

Before I could even process what had happened, the ground began to tremble. A deep, guttural roar echoed from above, a sound that vibrated through my bones. I looked up, my vision swimming, and saw the entire cliff face shearing away. The enemy ninja who had triggered the rockslide was already gone, a phantom in the trees. Rocks and earth rained down, a deadly avalanche sealing the sky away.

The last thing I saw was Sasuke’s silhouette against the crumbling wall of stone before the world went dark, filled with the thunderous noise of the collapsing canyon and the suffocating taste of dust. Then, silence. A heavy, absolute silence that was somehow louder than the chaos that came before it. The air was thick and hard to breathe. Pain flared in my shoulder and along my ribs where Sasuke had pushed me. My head throbbed.

I was alive. But as my eyes adjusted to the dim light filtering through the dust, the crushing reality of our situation settled in. We were at the bottom of a deep, newly-formed chasm, sealed off from the rest of the world. And we were completely, utterly alone.

“We have to get out of here,” I grunted, pushing myself up. My whole body ached, and my head felt like someone was trying to split it open with a hammer. Dust coated my tongue. A few feet away, Sasuke was already on his feet, his dark eyes scanning the top of the chasm, a sheer wall of jagged rock disappearing into the sky. He didn't say a word.

“Hey! Did you hear me?” I snapped, my voice raw. “We can’t just sit here!”

His silence was more infuriating than any insult he could have thrown at me. He was just… assessing. Calculating. Like this was just another problem to be solved, and I was just a noisy distraction. Fine. If he wasn’t going to do anything, I would.

“I’m getting us out,” I declared, marching toward the nearest wall. It was steep, almost perfectly vertical, but there were enough cracks and ledges for handholds. At least, I hoped there were.

“Don’t be an idiot, Naruto,” Sasuke’s voice was low and flat, devoid of any real emotion. “Your chakra is unstable. You won’t make it ten feet.”

“Watch me,” I shot back, not even looking at him. I found my first handhold and started to climb. My muscles screamed in protest, but I ignored them. I could do this. I had to. I poured what little chakra I could feel into my feet, trying to get them to stick to the rock face. For a second, it worked. I felt that familiar hum, the comforting stickiness. I pulled myself up another few feet, a triumphant grin spreading across my face. See? Easy.

Then, just as quickly as it came, the chakra vanished. It wasn't a fade; it was a switch being flipped off. My feet slipped. My fingers, slick with sweat and grime, lost their grip. For a terrifying moment, I was just hanging in the air, gravity pulling me back to the earth.

I hit the ground hard. A sharp, white-hot pain shot up from my right foot, so intense it stole my breath. A sickening crack echoed in the enclosed space. I crumpled, clutching my ankle, a choked cry escaping my lips. It was broken. I knew it instantly. Tears of pain and frustration pricked at my eyes, and I hated them. I hated being this weak, this useless.

Footsteps crunched on the loose gravel behind me. I didn't have to look to know it was Sasuke. I braced myself for the inevitable “I told you so.”

Instead, he just knelt beside me. “Move your hand.” His voice was still flat, but it was an order, not a taunt. I reluctantly pulled my hand away, biting my lip to keep from crying out as a fresh wave of agony washed over me. His dark eyes scanned the already swelling and discolored joint, his expression unreadable.

His hands, surprisingly gentle, probed the area. His touch was clinical, efficient, but it sent a strange shiver through me that had nothing to do with the pain. He was so close I could feel the heat radiating from his body. Without a word, he took the torn hem of his own dark shirt and ripped a long strip of fabric free. He began to wrap my ankle, his movements sure and practiced, creating a tight, supportive brace. He worked in complete silence, his focus entirely on my injury. For all his coldness, for all his sharp words, his hands were taking care of me. And the realization was just as painful, in its own way, as my broken ankle.

He finished his work, the knot tight and secure. He didn't offer me a hand up, just stood and looked around, his gaze sweeping over our prison. The sun was already beginning to dip below the newly-formed rim of the canyon, casting long, distorted shadows that bled across the ground. The temperature was dropping fast, the air taking on a sharp, biting edge.

“We need shelter,” he stated, his back to me. He found a sturdy-looking branch and broke it down to size, then tossed it at my feet. A makeshift crutch. I hated that I needed it.

Getting to my feet was a clumsy, painful process. Every ounce of weight on my injured ankle sent a jolt of fire up my leg. Sasuke watched me, his expression impassive, but he didn't move on until I was steady. He led the way, his pace slow enough for me to keep up, my hobbling steps echoing his steady ones. He found it after about fifteen minutes of painful searching: a shallow indentation in the rock wall, barely deep enough to be called a cave. It wasn't much, but it was out of the wind.

We settled inside, the silence stretching between us, taut and heavy. The last rays of sunlight vanished, plunging the canyon into a deep, inky blackness. The cold was immediate and invasive, seeping through my thin jacket and into my bones. My teeth started to chatter. Beside me, I could hear Sasuke’s breathing, steady and even, but I saw the way his shoulders were tensed, the slight shiver that ran through him.

“We’re going to freeze,” I muttered, my own breath fogging in the air.

He didn't answer for a long moment. Then, “Get closer.”

I stared at his silhouette. “What?”

“The cold will kill us faster than starvation,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “Don’t be a child. We need to share body heat.”

He was right, and I hated it. I hated the logic of it, the necessity. But the cold was a physical thing, a crushing weight, and my pride wasn’t going to keep me warm. I shuffled closer, my movements stiff and reluctant, until my side was pressed against his.

The contact was electric. His body was solid and warm, a stark contrast to the freezing air. The heat from his side soaked into my own, a desperate relief. We sat like that for what felt like hours, shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh, not speaking. The silence was suffocating. It was filled with every argument we’d ever had, every blow we’d ever exchanged, every inch of the distance that had grown between us.

My eyes adjusted to the dark, and I found myself watching him. In the faint, ambient light, I could make out the sharp line of his jaw, the dark sweep of his eyelashes against his cheek. He looked exhausted. There were faint lines of fatigue etched around his eyes that I’d never seen before, or maybe just never bothered to notice. He was favoring his left arm, holding it tight against his body. He was injured, too. He’d been injured in the rockslide, or maybe even before, and he hadn’t said a single word. He’d just tended to my ankle, his focus absolute.

Who was this person? This quiet, capable man who could patch up an injury with a strip torn from his own shirt and endure his own pain in silence? My entire world, for years, had revolved around bringing him back. Chasing him, fighting him, screaming his name until my throat was raw. But I had been chasing a ghost, an idea of who he was. I didn’t know this version of him. The man sitting beside me, his warmth a solid, undeniable presence against my body, was a stranger. And for the first time, my burning annoyance was overshadowed by a flicker of something else. A deep, unsettling curiosity to know who he was now.