(c) Shiori-chan gone crazy

Warning!

AU, OOC charecters sometimes but for good reason, torture, mild language, not beta-ed, not much Naruto or Gaara in this one (sorry)

Disclaimer!

Guess what?! I don't own Naruto! Nor will I ever! Darn!

action

"talking"

'thinking'

flashbacks

((author's notes))

Chapter 1: Dear Jurnal

Hi Jurnal, Kakashi-sensei gave you to me and said I should write at leaste a little every day. I'm not sure what to write about. My day? My likes and dislikes? That sounds more like a diary...but those are for girls! Well, whatever, I have nothing better to do in this stupid room. Oh, I guess I should tell you about me. Maybe then, if I ever have kids, I can give this to them to read. Ok, well, my naame is Uzumaki Naruto. I'm 17 years old and currently living in hell on earth. It's a place they call Konoha. It's ruled by an organization called Akatsuki. Konoha is what you might call a village. It has shops, houses, and a place for the governers.

The Akatsuki call themselves a government, but they are really just an evil and dangerous gang! They use their strength to scare people into submission and use their power to get what they want, leaving the other people of the village to fend for themselves. Their biggest project right now is the jinjuriki. The jinjuriki are the people with amazing power, as opposed to those whose power is limited. Everyone here has a special ability but the powers of the jinjuriki are ten to one hundred times stronger than any others!

The Akatsuki also controll other, similar villages. There are nine major villages in all and each village has its own jinjuriki. At least, the used to, but all but the two strongest have been killed by a group called Hebi. This group, or gang, is determinded to take revenge on the Akatsuki no matter what it takes! They killed the jinjuriki before the Akatsuki could reach them. I am a jinjuriki. One of the last two. The other is my closest and best friend, Gaara. He came from the Sand village and I am from the leaf village (or Konoha) where we are now. Kakashi-sensei and Iruka-sensei are part of a third group, the Anbu, and thier top priority is to protect the two of us from Hebi and the Akatsuki. Right now, our hide out is a dark, cold, secret room inside the floor of Ichiraku's Ramen shop. I hate it here! It's so lonely! They took Gaara away. That;s why I got you, Jurnal, to have something to do. What else can I say? Well, more about me, I'm kinda tall, like 6'3'', and I'm blonde. I have only one set of clothes that Iruka-sensei gave me a while back. It's an old, ugly, orange outfit with a black shirt (which isn't that bad), and an orange jacket and pants. Ugh! I hate orange!! Uh...I think that's it. I would write more but I can hear someone coming so I'll stop here.

Naruto closed the little book and fit it into the inside pocket of his orange jacket. Foot steps over his head came closer and closer. The room around him was only tall enough for him to sit up straight and just wide enough for him to lay in a fetel position with his legs curled up, almost to his chest. There was a small trap door in one corner that let some light in through the cracks in the wood, but other than that, the room was dark. The walls were made of stone, so the noise of the foot stpes was exagerated greatly as it echoed through off them. Naruto curled into a ball as far from the door as he possible could get. He pressed his body to the wall, scared that someone might open the door and try to take him.

The sound stopped suddenly. There was a man talking but the words were too muflled to hear. Then, Naruto's fear became reality as the door began to slowly be pulled back. Amasked man reached his hand in and grabbed Naruto. The blonde strugled but his captor was too strong. He was pulled out and thrown to another masked man. This man wrapped his arms around Naruto from behind. The blonde's eyes visably widened.

Kami! Help me! I'm gonna be raped and killed! Naruto screamed in his mind. The man's arms tightened.

"Naruto! I missed you!" the man said. Naruto relaxed when he heard the familiar voice, but immediatly he tenced again. Instead of fear, though, his body tenced in anger.

"IRUKA-SENSEI!" he screamed and flailed his arms. Iruka let him go. Naruto jumped up and pointed an accussing finger at him. "You scared me half to death! Take your mask off before you come to see me!" Iruka took his mask off and smiled guiltily.

"Sorry! Sorry!" he smiled and higged Naruto again. "I'm so glad you're safe!"

"You're such a mother hen." Naruto laughed and returned the older man's hug. Iruka and Kakashi were like his father figures and his closest frineds apart from Gaara.

Kakashi stepped forward, removing his mask and putting his hand on Naruto's shoulder.

"We are glad you're safe, Naruto. Don't you know what happened?" Kakashi spoke quietly and calmly. Naruto shook his head. Kakashi sighed and took the blonde's arm. "Come.I want you to see something."

"Kakashi! No!" Iruka stood and spoke with nothing but pure authority in his voice.

"He needs to know." Kakashi's voice was calm and unwavering. He pulled Naruto through the ramen shop and up to the back where he and Gaara would stay while the ANBU where there to protect them. When the ANBU had to leave was when the boys were sent below the floor, into the secret room, where Naruto had just been.

Kakashi opened the door and pushed Naruto inside. He stumbled a bit but caught himself before he fell. When he looked around, the room was dark. Two beds were pushed together as one so that they could fit in the tiny room. The walls were bare. In fact, nothing was in the room but the beds. Naruto stood confussed, wondering what he was supposed to do there, when he heard a creaking from the bed.

"Naruto?" a voice called hoarsly. Naruto crept closer to the bed. He leaned against the edge to see who it was.

"Gaara?" Naruto whispered.

"Hey," the redhead tried to sit up. He fell back on the bed. Naruto climbed onto the other side of the bed and sat by Gaara.

"You got yourself got, didn't you?" Narto's voice was low and laced with anger. Gaara propped himself against the wall.

"Yeah, I guess so." Gaara shrugged a bit, chuckling to himself.

"Who?!" Naruto wasn't kidding around. Gaara could here it by the way he said that single word. His smile dropped.

"Akatsuki." he side quietly. A second later, Gaara felt a stinging on his cheek.

"BAKA!!" Naruto growled. His bangs were over his eyes and his fists were clenched. "BAKA!! I told you to be careful! What would I have done if they'd killed you?!"

"They tried." Naruto slapped Gaara again.

"SHUT UP!" Naruto tried his hardest to hold back the tears, but they came anyway. After minutes of silence, Naruto finally said, "You're ok, right?"

"Yea," Gaara answered. Naruto nodded.

"What did they do to you?!"

"Do you really want to know details?" Gaara raised an imaginary eyebrow.

"I guess not." Naruto admitted. "I'll let you rest," he said, getting off the bed. "Get better, ok?"

"Chill, Naruto. I'm fine. Just need a little rest." Gaara laid back down on the bed.

"Yeah, right you lier!" Naruto teased. Gaara smiled as the blonde left his friend to go find Kakashi and Iruka. He found them eating at the front of the shop.

"Iruka-sensei! Kakashi-sensei!" he called happily. His heart was breaking for his best friend, but Naruto had learned a long time ago that if he faked happiness, he also avoided a lot of questions.

"Naruto! What are you doing up here? You should be in the back where it's safe!" Iruka scolded.

"But Iruka-sensei! Gaara needs rest and I'm not going back into that musty, dirty, old shoe box you call a hide place! I can't even freakin' breath in there!"

"Ok, ok!" Kakashi laughed. He ordered a bowl of whatever they were eating and gave it to Naruto.

"Ramen? Again?" he whined. "I've been eaing this stuff for every meal! Every day!!"

"Well, you do live in a Ramen shop!" Kakashi countered.

"Besides, Naruto, you used to love ramen!" Iruka said, slightly shocked.

"Yeah, I used to! You can have too much of a good thing, Iruka-sensei. Even ramen!" Naruto scolded. Kakashi laughed again. So did Iruka.

"Naruto, we're leaving tomorrow." Kakashi suddenly said, very seriously. "When we come back next week, I'll bring you something good to eat. Agreed?"

"Yeah, agreed." Naruto said dissapointedly. "Wait!" he jumped up. "You're leaveing again?!"

"Yes, Naruto, we are." Iruka said guiltily. Naruto sighed and began to eat. His thoughts wandered to Gaara. He wanted to know what happened and how the ever-so-careful Subaka no Gaara got caught! But at the same time, he didn't want to here how his friend just barely escaped with his life, or something like that.

When Naruto came out of his thoughts, he had already finished his food, Kakashi and Iruka had gone to bed, and the owner was closing the shop. He looked over and glared at where the blonde sat, his eyes ful of pure hatred.

"It's ok," Naruto told him. "You can go home if you want. I'll clean up myself." Without a word, as if he had been waiting for Naruto to say that - which he probably had been - the owner left, turning the corner at the end of the block on his way home. The blonde watched him leave and stared a while after that at where he had been. It made no sense to the poor boy why he was so hated by everyone! What had he ever done to them?!

Naruto's mind wandered again, this time to the Akatsuki and Hebi, while he cleared the counters and began washing dishes. He'd head storied from costomers. They were all about Hebi and it's terible leader, Uchiha Sasuke. He was heartless and emotionless like his brother, Uchiha Itachi, member of Akatsuki and leader of Konoha. They said that Sasuke had been trained by Orochimaru, also a member of Akatsuki and leader of the Sound, with the hope that he would join them. Sasuke didn't. He, instead, made his own gang to take revenge on his hated brother for murdering his family. They said, Sasuke was like Itachi's other self.

But Naruto heard other opinions, like the ones of the young girls who came to visit the ramen shop. They all said that Sasuke's looks rivaled that of any other male on the planet! The blonde had overheard Tsunade, the ANBU's physician, telling Kakashi that obviously, those girls had never seen her boys, meaning Naruto and Gaara.

Naruto had also heard that Sasuke planned to kidnap and keep alive all the jinjuriki he could. It would be a terrible life, Naruto assumed, but it might be better than dying at the hands of the Akatsuki for unknown reasons. Naruto also thought about other members of Akatsuki. There were many but only ten leaders and one king. Itachi ruled over Konoha, the leaf village. Orochimaru realed over the Sound village. Kisame ruled over the Mist village. Zetsu ruled over the Grass village. Sasori rulled over Suna, the desert village. Deidara ruled over the Wind village. Kakuzu and Hidan ruled over secret villages that no oneknew about. Tobi ruled with Itachi over Konoha as well as having a small leadership in the Sand, Grass, and Wind Villages and a secret village of his own. The last leader was a strang girl with blue hair. No one knew anything about her except that she was always with Pain, the King. He was strange. He ruled over all the leaders and members of Akatsuki as well as all the villages, even those without a meber ruling over them. Other than that, he was also a mystery. No oneeven saw his face!

While Naruto was cleaning up, Gaara was lying awake in bed. He never slept. He couldn't. His life had taught him to do without. Naruto knew this. But he also knew Gaara's greatest weekness. It was something that only he knew. Gaara did, in fact, sleep. Once in a big while, he would allow himself to fall asleep on certain conditions. One: He had to be with someone and two: he head to trust that someone so completly that he would put his life in thier hands, because that's actually what he was doing. So far, Gaara had only found one such person, Naruto. That's why Kakashi and Iruka kept Naruto and Gaara together as much as possible. They were more like brothers than friends.

Naruto walked back to the room. Everyone was asleep now and everything was dark, but he found his was easily. The blonde opened the door quietly, even though he knew Gaara wasn't asleep.

"Yo," Gaara greeted. There was some light coming from Gaara's reading candle. Naruto could see that his friend was bandaged completly around the chest and both arms. There were various red spots where the cloth caught the blood from his wounds. Naruto crawled onto his place on the opposite side of the bed. There was room for one more person to lie comfortably between them, but they both felt safer knowing that if something happened, they could protect eachother.

"Hey, Gaara." Naruto said through a yawn.

"Yes, Naruto?" Gaara answered, turning his head to face his brother.

"You can go to sleep now. I'll be here." Gaara chuckled.

"I swear, Naruto, you sound more and more like Iruka every day. Yeah, I'll go to sleep." He turned to face the wall. Naruto smiled sadly and also turned so that there backs faced eachother. Soon both boys were fast asleep.

A man dressed in black stood in the shadows near the entrance of Ichiraku's ramen shop. Another stood near each window. Two women walked by laughing but were secretly watching the shop. There were others inside. Two, in particular, were watching even more closely and carefully than the others. Iruka and Kakashi were in rooms on either side of Naruto and Gaara's room. They sat awake on their beds and waited for the inevitable. One of the ANBU, Shikune, had spotted Itachi with some other Akatsuki coming to this part of town. Kakashi knew, right away, that Itachi had found out where they were. He now knew that Gaara and Naruto were here and that he was coming to get them. Iruka knew that the boys should be moved but there was no time! The Akatsuki were almost there!

A konoichiwas the first to see them. Itachi jumped from his hiding spot and landed right in front of her and another konoichi while they walked their rounds near the shop.

"Hello, miss." he said in a sickeningly charming way. "I'm looking for a couple of teens. They are both boys. One is blonde and the other a red head. I believe they are staying here. Have you seen them?" The girl shook her head.

"No, sir." she bowed. "I'm sorry but I haven't see them." She lied, playing her part to the fullest. The other bowed too.

"Come now, I'm sure you've seen them around. Eating, talking to others perhaps?"

"No, sir," the other said. "we haven't."

"Are you sure that's your answer?" Itachi asked on more time. Neither of the ladies turned, but they knew that two men stood behind them with kunai held to there throats. The women felt threatened but didn't want to show it. They held their ground, though, and played their lie.

"Sir, please," one said with false fear. "we know nothing!" Her voice was shrill and tears began to fall from her eyes.

"Please let us go!" the other said in mock panic. She was almost screaming, acting hysterical. Itachi decided to play along. These women amused him. He motioned for the men behind them to leave, saying, "Alright, if you really know nothing, I'll let you go."

"Thank you, sir!" they bowed and ran off to tell Kakashi and Iruka wat had happened. Itachi watched after them but made no attempt to follow. The ANBU would come to him. He only had to wait.


so this is the first part!! what do you think?

Sai: It sucks!

Shiori-chan: Shut up, Sai!! Readers, Sai decided he wants to read this story. I'm not sure why but he will be joining us for a while!!

Sai: Don't like it? get used to it!!

Shiori-chan: Stop being rude!! Sorry everyone. So please review and tell me what you think!! Thanks for reading!!

(c) Shiori-chan gone crazy