Beneath the great wooden gates of Konoha in the Fire Country came a shadow. It slipped through the walls without notice, invisible in the form of a man. He hid his face behind a hooded cloak and covered his hands in light cloth. A ferocious Chakra still itched against his skin, he hadn't felt anything similar to it for the past five years…until now. He had tracked it to the Hidden Leaf Village, Konoha, and with patience he had waited for his moment. He would find the source of that Chakra and extinguish it, smother the life of its vessel. That murderer would atone for his sins…the Heaven's had chosen this man cloaked in nightmares to fulfill the task.

Uchiha Sasuke rolled his hands through the hand seals of his strongest ninjutsu and readied himself, the practice dummy in his sights. With a soft groan, the Chakra began to accumulate like a flood into his right hand. He could feel it popping against his skin like tiny bolts of lightning, chirping almost happily against the stillness. He honestly didn't care about becoming a Chuunin, titles mean nothing, only deeds. To fulfill his deed he needed one thing more than anything else. Power. More power. With a scream of rage, he charged the dummy, his Sharingan already targeting the spot he could do the most damage: the heart. With practiced perfection, he made contact with the dummy in the spot, already avoiding imaginary counters. With a fierce grin, he surveyed the outcome. Halftime score: Sasuke 1, Dummy 0. Perfect. He almost jumped out of his skin when clapping met his ears. He whirled to face a man in a hooded cloak.

Sasuke's grin of success turned to a glare of annoyance, "Who are you and what do you want?"

The man chuckled, "Nobody suspicious. Call me a fan of sorts. A fan of Uchiha's power. No pun intended."

"You know who I am then?"

"How could I not know the great Uchiha Sasuke, the pride of Konoha? Your name graces the lips of every last one of these villagers, pathetic though they are. Uchiha this. Sasuke that. Genius?" The man suppressed a chuckle. "I have a question for you, oh genius of the leaf."

Sasuke surveyed the man slowly, "What's that?"

A thin line of the man's white smile appeared from beneath the hood, "Has the name Uchiha Itachi graced your lips recently?"

Sasuke tensed at the name of his older brother. "Who wants to know?"

The man chuckled again, "No one suspicious. A partner of his perhaps. Yes. A partner of his."

Sasuke shuddered. There was a certain edge of insanity to this man. Something Sasuke hadn't felt in him before. His Chakra level was certainly very low…he couldn't be too threatening. Sakura might be able to overpower him in ninjutsu.

The man suddenly straightened and looked directly at Sasuke, "One thing puzzles me though Sasuke. I know what Itachi did to you and your family, but one minor detail still eludes me. I worked alongside Itachi for a good amount of time and never did he show mercy to anyone…why would he spare you? What makes you so special? Genius?"

Sasuke glared back angrily, "I am his avenger. Itachi let me live so that he can be haunted knowing I'm still out here, waiting to kill him. I will end his insanity-"

The man's cackle met his ears before he could finish, "How touching Sasuke, I honestly thought he let you live because you weren't worth the effort."

Sasuke tensed, "What did you say?"

Suddenly he felt the man's hard gaze on him. "Let me spell it out for you Sasuke."

Sasuke felt the man's Chakra suddenly spike. "You can't kill him like this." Sasuke took a cautious step back…the man's Chakra kept increasing!

The man disappeared, "I will make Itachi pay for his crimes." The voice was behind! Before Sasuke could even whirl to face him, a heavy blow descended against his back, and with a yell of surprise, Sasuke found his face against the ground. Sasuke tried to get up, but the man had knocked the wind out of him with the sheer force of his blow.

One blow.

He looked up at the man out of the corner of his eye, his Chakra had returned to normal. "Stay out of my way you weakling."

With that, the man turned on one heel and started to walk away. "You think you know the extent of your brother's madness, but I have lived through the hell that is Itachi. I survived him once, but he will not survive me. I will make him understand the greatest mistake of his life: If you think letting you live was a grave mistake, you've got another thing coming. Letting me live is by far his greatest error." With a rush of leaves, the man vanished, leaving Sasuke struggling to his feet in the wake. Sasuke stood holding his side and knew one thing positively. This man and he were more similar than he'd care to admit to anyone.

Hatake Kakashi watched solemnly as Sasuke paced anxiously in his rooms. With a rush, a masked ANBU member appeared and turned to face Kakashi.

"We haven't found this man Sasuke-san mentioned. Whoever he is, he's quite good at hiding himself from surveillance."

Kakashi nodded, "Just keep looking, its likely he'll come to us before we'll be able to come to him, but perhaps we'll get lucky."

The ANBU member nodded and vanished as quickly as he appeared. Kakashi was in deep thought. Abilities like this man's were unheard of. The ability to create a pulsed buildup of Chakra and temporarily increase his physical power. Like an eight gates manipulation. He wanted to kill Itachi, but the why of this dilemma was still missing. What grudge did he have with Itachi? What secrets did he hide? Most puzzling of all was why was he in Leaf Village? Clearly Sasuke wasn't the only reason to come here, and if it was information he wanted there were other sources he could have sought; Orochimaru for example. No…something else was in Konoha that he wanted or needed. Something valuable. Kakashi eyed the window Sasuke was standing near. The night had finally come, the Shinobi's best ally.

Against the silvery light of the moon atop a tall building in Konoha sat the man. Absently, he watched groups of ANBU moving below, presumably looking for him, but all was well. As long as he kept his Chakra where it had been when he met Sasuke they wouldn't find him. The boy was just like Itachi and not like him in many ways, and despite what Sasuke probably thought, there was much more to Kasairyuu Souka than met the eye. In a way, Sasuke and he had a great deal in common. One thing drove both of them. But where Sasuke wasn't able, he would succeed. Revenge. Revenge on the murderer, the betrayer of Uchiha and Kasairyuu. Vengeance.