Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Uchiha Hideaki was later called the Uchiha Maverick. The Forbidden.

He didn't care by that point.

To better understand why, you have to find out how it happened. It started before the Uchiha Massacre, before the Kyuubi no Yoko attacked, before Orochimaru turned Nuke-nin.

At eleven, Hideaki had been six years older than his younger five-year-old brother, Uchiha Itachi.

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"Hideaki-ku-u-un! Whatcha doin'?"

The eleven-year-old glanced over his shoulder his team mate from his previous Genin team and later Chuunin team, Mitarashi Anko. Anko was three years older than himself and one of the few people he had ever let close.

Truth be told, while he quite liked Anko, he had never taken to his Jounin sensei, Orochimaru, like he had his two female team mates. He had been especially close to his other, now deceased, team mate, Ayanami Rei.

Rei, a great prodigy from a civilian family, was generally a quiet and withdrawn girl. She had been the one to first treat him like another person. They were both the same age, had excelled to genin together at six, chuunin at eight and jounin at ten… and she had died for him in his arms one day when they were separated from the rest of the team. He had held her in his arms and watched the blood flow over pale skin to mix with short hair the colour of blue dawn; had watched the life fade from wine-coloured eyes that stared at him with pain-edged love, tears coursing down her porcelain cheeks. He had given his first kiss to a dying girl at the tender age of ten and never looked back. That had been during the Cloud-Rock-Leaf War ended by Kazama Arashi just months ago.

He had started growing his short hair after that. Rei had loved his hair and frequently played with it when no one was watching. It now hung just past his shoulders and was very beautiful, but Rei would never play with it again.

"Hideaki-kun?"

Hideaki's liquid black eyes blinked slowly and focused on the brown ones of the girl before him. "I am on my way home, Anko-chan. What are you doing in this part of town so late in the afternoon?"

She didn't even bother to glance at the flaming orange sunset.

"Orochimaru-sama is in a meeting with Hokage-sama about something so he told me to come and train with you or something."

Hideaki shrugged and continued walking. "Suit yourself. I have a few jutsu scrolls in my room I have yet to use."

"Okay!" Anko squealed. She punched a fist into the air. "ONWARD! To Hideaki's room!"

Hideaki's fangirls glared from their hiding places.

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Two weeks had passed and Anko was a mess.

Since he hadn't really liked his sensei, let alone hero-worshipped him like Anko did, he wasn't really all that crushed to find that Orochimaru had caught the wind and hit the ground running after an attempt on the newly appointed Yondaime's life.

As the snake sannin's old genin team, both Anko and Hideaki had been questioned and were under investigation; thus, they were not able to go on any missions. This was not a problem for Hideaki since he was from a rich clan, but Anko had been an orphan taken in as an apprentice by Orochimaru and had very little money of her own. Furthermore, vendors were beginning to turn her away, but they couldn't turn him away without offending his very powerful clan. Any chance they had had of achieving ANBU went out the window with their sensei.

He'd had been spending a great deal of time with Anko, just holding her while she cried, getting her groceries and making sure she ate.

But for the most part, she was unresponsive and Hideaki had approached his third cousin, a medic-nin, about anti-depressants for her.

"Thank you for being here, Hideaki-kun." The Uchiha hugged the purple-haired girl closer.

"It's alright." He told her.

A while later, "Because Orochimaru-san-" Anko flinched against him, "- was experimenting on people, Yondaime-sama wants us to have a full physical examination tomorrow morning at nine."

Anko started crying; deep, body-wracking sobs.

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