IDIL's note: So yes, after another extremely long hiatus, it seems that I am to be back again. I am planning for what I affectionately title my fanfiction stimulus package! Basically, due to my poor, lonely account and my overflowing computer, I am going to attempt a massive blowout fanfiction sale! (Don't worry, nothing actually costs money.) What I plan to do is basically clear out my inventory of "Unfinished Fanfiction" and possibly even wrap up some of my current multi-chapter fics. So here is number 1 in your stimulus package; hope you enjoy! :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Please Note: All of this fanfic is in Sasuke's POV.

I never thought I'd be standing here again, in front of the team I had abandoned. I never thought that I could be the outcast even more than I already was. But I can tell that I am. Something inside the two of you has changed. Maybe you think I have changed…I have but you'd think me crazy if you knew part of my reason for doing this, the part that involves you.

"Why are you back?" She asks me, her eyes intense with anger.

"Hn." I side-step her accusing face and for a moment it seems as if I'll just be allowed to pass by.

Then he steps in, his blond hair wilder than ever. "She asked you a question teme," he hisses through gritted teeth and for the first time my nickname has no hidden trace of affection. He thinks I'm a real bastard now.

I take a step back, startled by the difference between our team reunion in my mind and our team reunion in reality. It seems I've got some explaining to do. And so I explain.

"I did it so our bond could be stronger when I came back. I always intended to come back, don't you see? But first, I needed you to understand. And you have understood, haven't you? By me leaving, you now know what it's like to lose someone you love, and the fear and sorrow that comes along when you realize that they may never come back, that they could be gone for good.

Following that, you begin to feel the hate directed at the person who took them. How dare they? They didn't have the right to take your loved one! They must pay.

Then comes the obsession. You chase after the person, growing more and more powerful along the way so that when you face them in the end, you can make sure they'll pay for what they've done to your loved one. You'd do anything to get that strength. Anything. You recognize that what you must do is not always in your best interests and may cause you a lot of pain, but you know that you need to do it anyways. You feel the desire burn within you and suddenly nothing else but that one desire matters. Nothing but that one purpose is motivating you. There can be nothing else but that purpose because after all, if that purpose is fulfilled, then you shall feel a sense of completion like no other. That is what the promised reward is.

…You understand now, right? You must…after all, you've unknowingly done the same thing as I have."

"Yeah," they agreed, their eyes still hard as stone. "I suppose we understand because the person that we loved has died also."

"What do you mean?" I questioned them, "I'm still here! It's me! I'm still me!"

She was the one who spoke up now, and her cold voice was the first hint that things had changed. "You may look like the person we loved, but you are not him. You are just a memory of him, a broken ghost. You're a new enemy man in an old loved boy's body.

From here, my blond-haired teammate continued the thought. "To us, the one we love is dead, and we won't allow him to be replaced with a mockery of his old self. We want you gone. You deserve to be gone. Do the real Sasuke some justice and just leave."

The look in their eyes tells me they are not joking. My heart begins to beat with fear and confusion. This is not what I had envisioned; this is not the right outcome. Damn it, why wasn't I prepared for this? Instead of drifting off to a fairytale land where everything always goes right, why didn't I look to reality and plan my strategy from there?

Why…

Why.

Why?

Before I have time to establish what's happening, I'm being sucked out of the picture as if pulled by a vacuum. My head shoots up and all I can see is black; all I can feel is cold. I let out a sigh and rest back down.

Another sleepless night…