Illusions

Chapter I: Game Start

It was bitterly cold; the night sky was overcast by thick clouds that obscured even the moonlight. It was the kind of night that had civilians double-locking their doors because they had enough common sense to know that this was the kind of night that sentries ended up missing from their stations on the village walls. The kind of night that half-dead shinobi dragged themselves home, most likely to die before they even reached the hospital or a friendly face. A hand laid heavily upon rough, scratchy bark, leaving a bloody print behind when it retracted to hang limply at its owner's side.

The owner himself was a shinobi, not that such a fact was much a surprise; it was, after all, only a few hundred feet from Konoha's wall and the middle of the night. His attire was simple; he wore black clothing with blood-stained bandages wrapped around his wrists and ankles to keep the edges of the cloth from flapping. A regulation shuriken and a kunai holster adorned his right leg, empty. Everything about him was simple and efficient, as was expected; even his unruly blond hair was covered mostly by the bandanna that holds his hitai-ate - it was also black. The only reason he wasn't a textbook example of a Konoha shinobi was the absence of a chūnin vest, his steely, bright blue eyes, and the six whisker marks set into his cheeks.

Well, that and the fact that he was drenched almost head to toe in blood. It was drying between his toes and fingers and caking his shirt and pants, leaving them an unattractive and disturbing brownish-maroon color. Most textbooks didn't like to depict ninja as bloodstained killers.

His mouth was twisted into a hard line that looked strange on his young face as he stared at the gates, tilting his head back slightly. He could ignore most of the pain as long as he didn't shift from side to side - or move at all, actually.

But he couldn't just keep staring at the walls all night. Naruto swallowed and took a step forward -

- shit -

and went down hard on both knees, his hands slamming harshly into the cold ground. Idly, he thought something might have cracked. He could practically hear Genkaku's voice yelling at him in his head - 'don't let your muscles stiffen, you won't be able to move, what is this, the Academy? Get up, brat, didn't your sensei teach you better?' He didn't have a chance to teach me much at all, he thought wryly, and finally exhaled slowly. The slow burn on his chest and down his sides had flared up like a banked fire; he gritted his teeth and thought, I've felt worse, I've been in worse, almost there, I'm almost -

Fuck. He took another deep breath and braced himself on his arms, closing his eyes. The night air bit at his lungs; he didn't remember it ever being this cold in Konoha before. Well, you learn new things every day. Naruto thought about the dog tags lying innocently in his pocket and his resolve strengthened again, just as he knew it would. Come on, he snarled mentally, this is pathetic. Pick yourself up off the fucking ground - you're almost there. Almost there.

He inhaled once more and carefully, carefully sat up on his heels. Pain sent black spots swarming through his vision; he shut his eyes and counted to ten, then twenty when that didn't help. Eventually he stood up. Fuck, I need a cane or something.

As he approached the gate, he heard one of the chūnin on guard say something in a surprised voice to the other and he would have snarled at them if he'd had the energy. And they can't see me just a few feet to the side, in the trees, practically writhing in pain? Idiots. Genkaku would've had their heads for such an amateur move. "Finally noticed me, didja?" he rasped out, surprised at how hoarse and utterly pissed his voice sounded.

At that, the two chūnin blurred into action, and Naruto was rather annoyed that his exhausted eyes couldn't keep up with their movements; his eyes pulsed painfully and for a moment he couldn't see anything at all until he shook his head firmly. Their voices mixed together into a nonsensical mishmash of words and everything went black.

"Is he - ?"

"Shit, that's a lot - !"

"- kage-sama!"

" - you sure that's - ?"

"I honestly don't know, Kakashi-san, but we'll - "

"- do fucking better then try!"

Naruto found himself amused by the fact that Kakashi was expelling such a huge amount of anger over little old him. Hell, he hadn't even seen the man in - what, four years? No, three. Still. It felt like a lifetime; he tried to recall the man's face and remembered, for the first time in months, that damn cloth mask he'd always worn over it. He wondered for the first time if that wasn't something left over from his ANBU days; maybe Kakashi missed the mask. Now that he was in Konoha again, he could ask him... holy shit.

He was in Konoha.

Naruto jerked and his eyes flew open. The bright fluorescent lights shot straight into his eyes and seemed to pierce his brain; he groaned and turned his head to the side, shutting his eyes once more. His throat hurt; probably from too much screaming. Torture tended do that to a guy.

"You're awake."

It was a statement, not a question, but it felt like one. "Yeah," he said anyways, for lack of anything better, then he opened his eyes to see who the hell he was talking to.

A face mostly covered by a black cloth mask greeted his. It was achingly familiar; that single grey-black eye, drooping and unconcerned, that tilted hitai-ate, that silver hair, sticking defiantly straight up in the air. "Kakashi-sensei," he said, "hi."

Kakashi swallowed. It was an unusual display of emotion that (tells many things - remember this, Naruto, body language is important - ) Naruto hadn't expected. His memories of Kakashi were of an apathetic, slouching man, an orange book in one hand and his one eye fixed on it while he absently doled out criticism after criticism, and smiled very slightly at their achievements. So, not the best sensei in the world, but he remembered Genkaku telling them stories about Sharingan no Kakashi, possibly one of the most skilled shinobi that ANBU had ever had in its ranks. Not the best sensei, but a damn good ninja.

Or maybe Kakashi actually had cared about his students? It was starting to look like that, as Kakashi's eye had gone from lazy to alert in the space of about a millisecond when he'd seen Naruto had wake up, and was now trained on Naruto's face like he was trying to memorize every centimeter of it. Which was kind of weird, and vaguely creepy, but nice.

"Welcome home, Naruto," the man said finally. His voice sounded more like the Kakashi Naruto was used to; straight to the point and bored-sounding.

"Thanks," Naruto rasped, laughing weakly. The chuckle quickly morphed into a fit of harsh, wracking coughs that shook his whole body. He was still weak, from both the torture and unleashing a great deal of the Kyūbi's power.

There was another pause, and Naruto didn't need Genkaku's training to know that Kakashi didn't know what to say; there was something on the tip of his tongue, but he was unsure of how to put it into words. But then, what are you supposed to say to your student who had been gone for the past three years, and oh, by the way, none of his teammates survived?

After an unbearably awkward pause that Naruto spent wishing that he was still unconscious for, Kakashi stood up. "I'll tell Sakura and Sasuke you're awake," he said quietly, and for a second it seemed like he was going to touch Naruto's cheek or pat his head or something, until he turned and left. Naruto settled down against the pillows and stared at the ceiling, trying not to think.

Sasuke and Sakura were sparring on one of the training fields when Kakashi found them. Sasuke first noticed him standing to the side, looking off to the side absently and leaning against a tree, while he caught his breath after flipping Sakura back a couple dozen feet. He heard her wheezing, trying to get her breath back, and decided it was payback for the mild poison burning in his arm, which would limit mobility for a couple of hours. Sakura didn't use the heavy stuff when training, but it still hurt like a bitch.

There were senbon littered around him, dark with his blood; he left them there for Sakura to pick up and stalked over to the side, wiping the blade of his sword on a ripped-off piece of his mostly destroyed shirt. Damnit, he thought, staring disgustedly at the tatters hanging off his torso, that was my best one. He tore off another sleeve before the acid soaking it could eat into his arm, and eyed Kakashi. Kakashi looked back, amused. "Remember when you thought Sakura was weak?"

"Shut up, old man," Sasuke muttered, and shrugged past him, starting towards his apartment. "Naruto's awake," said Kakashi, and Sasuke froze.

"What," he said, turning around and fixing the man with a hard look, his tone completely lacking inflection.

"Wha'?" Sakura came up, her hands full of senbon and a few clenched in her teeth. Sasuke glared at her and hoped that she swallowed some of her own poison. He knew it wouldn't matter even if she did, though, because Sakura had spent time slowly building up an immunity to her poisons. Maybe she could ingest acid. That would be painful. The sting in his arm flared up as if in response.

Sakura spat the senbon out and repeated, "What?" more clearly. She dropped the rest on the grass and tugged her shirt into place, before kneeling and starting to clean them with a cloth from her belt pouch.

"Naruto's awake," Sasuke muttered, watching her bloody hands still and her head snap back.

"Really?" She sounded inordinately excited, Sasuke thought, considering how she hadn't actually liked Naruto when he was a part of their team.

"Yep," said Kakashi, and glanced up at the sun. "Where's Sai?"

Sakura snorted, gathering up her needles. "Who cares?" she muttered, shoving them into various places about her person. She glanced up, eyes bright, and squealed, "Naruto's awake!" Then she took off at a run for Konoha General Hospital, grinning. Sasuke and Kakashi watched her go.

"Aren't you going with her?" asked Kakashi.

Sasuke shrugged brusquely. "I'll go later," he said, "when she's not so hyperactive."

Kakashi glanced down at him, unreadable, before shrugging as well and giving him a slightly mocking salute. "Here, tomorrow, at eight thirty five." Sasuke nodded, knowing that Kakashi expected him to somehow relay this information to Sakura as well, and then started walking to his apartment.

So, he thought, Naruto's back. Somehow this fact hadn't really sunk in since last night, when he'd been brought in, unconscious and badly injured, by the idiot chūnin currently managing the gate. Sasuke snorted at the thought; manning the gate was a task given to ninja who were either injured but not bedridden, or too plain stupid to be sent out in the field, and had only passed the Chūnin Exams by getting opponents even more intellectually challenged than they were. The pair now on duty fell into the latter category. Well, there was also Kotetsu and Izumo, the Godaime's dogs, but they didn't really count.

He wasn't quite sure what to think of Naruto's return. After all, he hadn't seen the other since they were both - what, thirteen or something? Three years. They had gotten another teammate to fill the empty position, and he honestly hadn't given Naruto much thought for a year or so. Sasuke had presumed him dead - though he'd never voiced this thought to Sakura, who had been inconsolable for months on end - after the first half-year, and tried very very hard to put him out of his mind after that. He'd stuck all the memories in the little cranny of his heart where all his dead went, next to stern-faced Uchihas and older brothers full of promises about "tomorrow", and moved on. Kind of.

Mostly.

...He wasn't expecting Naruto to come back, was the point. Wasn't expecting it, and didn't really know how to react now that he was back. Sasuke figured he should probably go see him before he got out of the hospital. Sakura would probably be pissed if he didn't - either that, or she would give him that strange, surprised look, edged with pity, like she'd finally figured out that Sasuke was kind of a fucked up human being, and be very nice to him for the next couple days. Until he did something else to piss her off.

Sometimes he regretted the fact that Sakura had gotten over her crush. It'd had perks, one of them being that he'd never met the wrong end of Sakura's fist.

He finally raised his head and looked around, realizing he'd passed his apartment. Grumbling to himself, he turned around and jogged back, fumbling for the keys in his pocket and hoping they hadn't fallen out. His arm stung, and a long, shallow cut on his leg decided to make itself known with bright flares of pain that made his vision go white every time he put weight on the leg. He focused and finally managed to get the key in the lock; opening the door, he stumbled inside, slammed the door and went straight into the bathroom, showering to wash the sweat and blood off, then getting the first aid kit out and cleaning his cuts, bandaging the worst ones. He'd guilt-trip Sakura into healing them properly later.

That done, he flung himself on the bed and pillowed his head with his arms. He'd moved to this apartment a year or so ago - Sakura had started giving him those looks and gently suggesting a move after she realized he still lived in the Uchiha compound, and, well, wasn't like Sasuke was stupid. Staying in that house might not be the healthiest thing in the world, and the Godaime had started making hints about using the empty houses in the compound for something. He didn't want to stay and see grubby civilian children running down the same streets where Itachi had once carried him on his back. He still wasn't used to the apartment, though. He hated the feel of the still, dead air inside it; the ceiling fan that he routinely forgot to turn off rotated lazily above his head. He stared at the circling spokes and the cracks in the off-white ceiling, and had the brief thought that his very clean, very high-class mother would probably have a minor cardiac arrest if she ever saw where he lived now. The houses in the Uchiha compound had all been designed for natural ventilation; Sasuke hadn't had an electric fan while growing up.

He sat up so quickly that his head swam and clenched his teeth. Naruto's return was dredging up old memories, it seemed. Enough, he told himself, and went to go find something to eat.

The next couple of hours were incredibly awkward. All of the Rookie Nine, as they had once been known, had come to visit except for Sasuke. It was clear they had all long since buried Uzumaki Naruto. He couldn't really blame them, though; ever since Genkaku's death, he had believed he would not complete the mission alive. Yet here he was, sitting safe and sound in Konoha's hospital. He didn't really know what to say either; somewhere between watching Genkaku coolly slaughter one of the nukenin's daughters and seeing the blade of a sword appear, like magic, through his chest, he'd slowly forced down the memory of Konoha until he could go entire weeks without thinking the name.

It wasn't like he could blame them for changing and moving on. He was no longer naive enough to believe things would go back to the way they used to be.

Naruto could still remember the sick jolt of hopelessness, like someone had snapped a thread in his soul, when he'd woken up in that dark cell and listened to the one teammate he had left scream until her vocal cords had become tattered and raw and they'd thrown Tomoko's broken body in with Naruto hours later.

"Please, stop! Stop!"

"Now now, stop complaining. Wouldn't want to let such beauty go to waste, right?"

Naruto's hands slammed down onto his skull, weaving fingers through his hair and digging nails into his scalp to silence the clamoring voices of his memories.

"Naruto!" Sakura exclaimed. "Are you okay?"

Naruto managed a lopsided grin. "I'm okay, Sakura-chan. Just a headache."

"Okay, if you're sure..." Sakura frowned. She looked out the window and started slightly. "Guys, visiting hours are over! It's time for us to leave and let Naruto get some sleep."

After a momentary chorus of grumbles and goodbyes, Naruto was left alone again. He allowed himself to collapse on to his pillow.

They had changed. He had changed. They had moved on. His goals were no longer in their best interests.

But really, none of that mattered. The board was set and the pieces were ready to move.

The reward for winning the game?

Salvation.

Failure meant not death -

- but deletion.

A/N: So this fic is Yukihana Hisako's brainchild, but after a while we realized that twenty fingers were better than two and now I (misssilivren) am her writing-partner. So, yes, this is a collab.

Another thing that we're both painfully aware of is that there are waaay too many Super!Naruto fics out there. We'll try to make Naruto, y'know, flawed and human and things, but please feel free to tell us when you think out characterization is off or something. ...Keeping in mind that neither of us are actually Kishimoto. And this is a fanfiction.

We'll try to keep updates semi-regular, and since there are two writers involved, there probably won't be any hiatuses. Then again, we have no idea how long this thing is going to be - I was surprised that plot even decided to show it's smug face...

When the story really gets going there will be teasers and extras available over at my (misssilivren's) LJ. You can find the link in my profile; you can find the link for that on the RTS page.

Genkaku: Hallucination