Dedicated to Lisea18. A gift to her for surviving her exams.

Sasuke was searching for Oto's library which was said to have thousands of scrolls on all kinds of jutsu. Needless to say, he had been quite thrilled – of course, he didn't show it – by the idea of learning more jutsu. Orochimaru was still giving him easy exercises and tasks. Things which he could've done in Konoha. Hell, Konoha gave him much more than what Orochimaru was giving him. This would defeat the purpose of him defecting in the first place.

He was here to gain power, not to be babied.

It irritated Sasuke. Was he someone who looked weak? Did everyone around him think that he was like that? He was an Uchiha! He was far from being weak. Of course, when his thoughts started to drift to that direction, he began to think that his prowess... his reputation... they were all caused by his surname. He had been relying far too much on his Uchiha name. That served to make him even more frustrated and earnest to learn new things. He would make sure that everyone focused more on the Sasuke part of his name rather than the Uchiha part.

He was on the road to become more than just an Uchiha. He was on the road to become Uchiha Sasuke.

Quite a childish second priority – second priority because his first priority would always be to kill Itachi; rebuilding the clan was his last priority – but then, he reasoned with himself, Naruto was childish yet the blond was powerful. Very powerful. Ridiculously powerful. It was fucking insane really. It was unfair.

The frown on Sasuke's face was now more than apparent. It seemed as if the only thing he was doing today was aggravating himself even more.

He cleared himself of these thoughts as he opened the door to his right. This had to be the library. He was already quite tired. He'd been searching for the library the whole day. He hadn't eaten a thing since last night and it was already dinnertime. He was famished. Orochimaru just had to get bigger compounds each time they moved the location of Otogakure. Sasuke really couldn't understand what the hell was going on in Orochimaru's head. They'd move every week to a new place so why did they need bigger compounds? It wasn't as if more people were joining Otogakure anyway. In fact, Sasuke thought that the amount of people was diminishing each time they moved.

The only reason he could think of was that Orochimaru was insane and was most likely suffering from some sort of mental illness that was similar to schizophrenia. Yes, Sasuke was well-versed in med-nin-related things. He just couldn't trust Kabuto. That man looked like he was out to get Sasuke's blood. He most likely was.

Sasuke really wasn't as calm in the inside as he was in the outside. He suffered from inner turmoils everyday. But, thankfully, he did not have another side to himself like his teammate, Sakura. He, of course, was talking about Inner Sakura. Sasuke was the quietest member of Team 7. He liked observing people and looking for their weak points. In the process, he also learned more about them.

He shook himself of his thoughts yet again. He had a task at hand.

He looked inside the door and was surprised to see a laboratory. Well, not really. Tons of laboratories littered Otogakure. He internally sighed – ah, disappointed again, such was the fate of Uchiha Sasuke – and was about to close the door when he spotted something inside the room. Something he'd never seen before. Of course, this was only rational. Who the hell would put an aquarium inside a lab? Unless, of course, Orochimaru was interested in dolphins or sharks or something like that. And Sasuke knew that Orochimaru loathed sharks and could care less about dolphins. So why was there an aquarium in here?

Sasuke was, surprisingly enough, a curious boy. Orochimaru never did things without a reason, no matter how far-fetched the things that he did were. So Sasuke decided to investigate. Who knew? Maybe this aquarium contained something powerful which he could tame. Or maybe Orochimaru was making a fountain of eternal youth and immortal life...? Well, it had to be something with a lot of power for sure.

Everything that had something to do with Orochimaru was most likely something powerful.

Sasuke entered the room and closed the door behind him. He walked closer to where the aquarium was and looked at it. It was clear. This was definitely odd. And odd things tended to pique his interest nowadays. There was hardly anything to do in Otogakure. Orochimaru wasn't training him as much as he would've wanted. In fact, all that Orochimaru do was review with him all of the jutsu he had already learned before he came to Otogakure. There were also no orange-wearing, hyperactive blonds that had an insane obsession with ramen and becoming Hokage. There were no teachers that read perverted books. There were no evil brothers that should be killed. There were no pink-haired abominations. No nothing.

Sasuke stared at the aquarium some more before he made a bunshin and made the bunshin tap the aquarium with its index finger. The oddest – why, yes, odd happened to be his favorite word – thing happened. He made the bunshin disappear. He could see bubbles on the water. It wasn't frozen, for sure. But it was odd. A single tap wouldn't make bubbles appear on the water. Was his eyesight failing him? No, not that. Perhaps the problem was the water. Yes, it had to be the water. It had to be different. It was, after all, in Orochimaru's laboratory. Sasuke wouldn't be surprised if it started talking all of a sudden–

"Kid."

Great Hokage! The water really did speak. At least, well, that was where the voice seemed to come from. Sasuke's surprise – he did get surprised; he was being sarcastic when he thought that the water could talk – was well-hidden. Uchihas were normally emotionally retarded so that was no wonder.

"Who are you?" Sasuke said.

He still sounded cool and composed. Hopefully.

"And where are you?" he continued.

He heard someone snicker. He swore that he came from the water.

"Who I am really isn't any concern of yours," the voice said (How can a voice say anything?, Sasuke thought), "and if you haven't figured it out, I'm in the water. Prison, really, but it must just seem like water to you or something."

"Hn," Sasuke said.

"So, why you here, kiddo?"

Sasuke payed no attention to the disregard of proper sentence structure. It wasn't that important. All that mattered was that they were still understandable. He went closer to the water or prison or whatever the hell it was and sat down in front of it. The water seemed to glow from where he was.

"Would you happen to know where the biggest library is in this compound?" he asked.

The structure of each and every compound never changed no matter how many times they moved. At least Orochimaru was consistent.

Another bout of snickering came from the water. Sasuke forced himself to be calm. No use being angry at something he most likely couldn't harm. Now that he was near the water, he could see – feel, to be more exact – that there was some sort of seal on it. A seal which he couldn't break anyway. He was no fool. He knew his strengths and he also knew how weak he was. He wasn't powerful enough to break that seal. He would someday. Definitely.

"So?" he asked. "Do you know or am I just wasting my time in here?"

"Don't be like that!" the voice said. "And don't leave so soon either!"

"How come?"

"You're the first person who's actually bothered to talk to me for longer than... three seconds or something. Because everyone gets freaked out and then they bolt out of the room here quicker than boo! Well, there are some who stay like that Orochimaru guy and that lackey of his, 'course. I was getting bored all cooped up in here and all! Those two don't talk to me. Okay, yeah, they do, but they're all 'how do you feel?' or 'more experiments to be formed.' I don't like formal shit and all 'cause I don't like it..."

And the voice kept on talking and talking. Sasuke was briefly reminded of Naruto, but Naruto would never talk to him like this.

"... I actually don't like Orochimaru since, 'ya know, he took me from Kiri and imprisoned me here and stuff and I can't even remember why. Oh! Kiri! Yeah, I came from Kiri. It's a pretty cool place..."

Sasuke could remember that village name. That Zabuza guy came from there.

"... They have this group called the Seven Swordsmen or something. It's pretty cool and all. I was actually training to be a part of the group – their swords are kick-ass and can do some pretty awesome stuff – yeah, so... where was I? Okay, okay, I remember now. So then, I was training to be part of 'em 'fore Oro-dude got me and put me in here or whatever he did to me. I actually forgot and all..."

And if Sasuke was reading those files right, Zabuza also used to be a part of the Mist Seven Swordsmen. Perhaps he could get some valuable information from this voice. Like some jutsu even Orochimaru had never heard of before. Though Sasuke knew that he was hoping against all hope when he thought of that. Orochimaru was, undoubtedly, a very smart man. He could've weaseled out all of the jutsu that this voice already knew. But still, there could be a chance that there was one jutsu. Just one jutsu.

"... The guys there were pretty nice and funny and all. Yeah, I remember them. Those were the good times. You know, when you can kill all you want and not have a horde of ANBU after 'ya. Before, you'd only have around one or two hunter-nins or ANBU. Less hassle and all– Hey, kid, you still alive or something?"

"You never told me your name," Sasuke said.

"It ain't important."

"Well, I can't keep on calling you the voice in my head, now can I?"

Ah, Sasuke, still as blunt as ever. Being blunt was actually one of his charms.

The voice – Sasuke really didn't think that it was right to keep calling this voice the voice; it just sounded so wrong – snickered.

"You're weird, kid," the voice said.

"You're one to talk," Sasuke said.

"I like 'ya."

"I'd like your name, too."

"What's your name?"

"I asked first."

"It's impolite to ask someone's name before giving yours first."

D'oh. Sasuke nodded his head. That was exactly what he said to that Hyuuga-guy in the Chuunin Exams. The Chuunin Exams that had changed his life. But now was not the time to dwell on things like those.

"Uchiha," he said.

"Eh? Uchiha?" the voice asked. "I want your first name."

Well, that was a first for Sasuke. Usually, people just cared about his surname. Unless, of course, they were really, really interested in him like those damned girls back at Konoha. But this voice sure didn't seem interested in him in that way.

"Uchiha. Uchiha Sasuke," he said.

"Well, nice to meet'cha," the voice said. "I'm Suigetsu."

Sasuke tested the name in his mind. Suigetsu. It sounded nice enough. And it somewhat seemed to fit the owner of the name.

"You're awfully quiet, yanno," Suigetsu said.

Sasuke kept quiet. Suigetsu sighed. Sasuke had the feeling that he would've seen this Suigetsu roll his eyes if they were facing each other.

"You mocking me or somthing?" Suigetsu asked.

Sasuke still kept quiet. What the hell was he going to answer to that anyway? And why was he still here? It seemed as if this Suigetsu wouldn't be spilling any secret jutsu any time soon.

"Kid, your saliva's gonna get all dried up and then your mouth will turn pretty smelly. Nasty smell," Suigetsu said.

Sasuke was still quiet. Suigetsu let out an aggravated sigh. What the hell was wrong with that kid?!

"I know that you're still there and that you're awake and that you're not deaf or mute or anything like that," he said, "so talk to me! It won't kill you or anything."

"... I don't have anything to say," Sasuke said.

Suigetsu let out a tired sigh this time.

"Nothing? Kid, you have likes or something, right?" he asked. "You know those stuff... likes, dislikes, hobbies, why you're here or something like that. There are tons of things you could talk about. Nobody's that boring. Even Oro-dude's more talkative than you and that might be sayin' a lot, too."

Sasuke could remember Kakashi and his first day with... Team 7 now. This Suigetsu was giving him a trip to memory lane and he didn't know if that was a good thing or not. Probably not.

He pursed his lips. It really might not hurt to talk. What did he have to lose anyway?

"I don't like a lot of things," Sasuke said slowly, hesitatingly, "I don't know what I like, I don't have a lot of hobbies, and I'm here because I want to be."

"Well, that's nice for a start, I guess," Suigetsu said, though it did seem that he wasn't at all that pleased with Sasuke's answers, "but you ought to be stupid if you came to Orochimaru on your own."

"I need to do something."

"What's that something?" It was obvious in his tone of voice that Suigetsu was curious. This seemingly boring kid might not really be that boring. Perhaps he was only quiet but certainly not boring.

"None of your business."

"Don't be a spoilsport!"

"I barely even know you."

Sasuke could hear 'hmph' coming from the water.

"Hey–" Suigetsu started.

Then the door opened. Sasuke turned around and saw Kabuto in the doorway. He stood up and went to where Kabuto was. It seemed as if Orochimaru was looking for him. Kabuto looked sour and that man always looked sour when Orochimaru had sent him to look for Sasuke.

He was somewhat surprised to find out that Suigetsu didn't whine or complain when he went away. He expected Suigetsu to make him stay for just a while more. Oh, well. He couldn't be right all the time, could he?

He wasn't able to find the library but he was able to find something – someone – else. Suigetsu.

Sasuke really didn't know where he was walking to now. The hallways did seem awfully familiar though.

He had stopped searching for the library for now. Orochimaru had promised him last night that there would be more brutal training – the kind of training which Sasuke wanted and loved – soon. The day after today to be more exact. He would hold unto the man's word. If Orochimaru failed to follow their agreement of sorts, he would go and search for the library again.

So now that he wasn't searching for the library, where exactly was he going to? And then he saw the door. Suigetsu.

Soon enough, he found himself in the same position as yesterday. He was sitting beside the water or tank or aquarium or whatever it was. It was only a little bit of time before--

"You back?" Suigetsu asked. "That's a surprise."

Before Suigetsu would talk. He was like Naruto and so, Sasuke somewhat based his actions or, this case, words, on the blond.

"Okay, since I figured out that you wouldn't talk, why don't I just talk?" Suigetsu asked. "I seem to talk enough for the both of us anyway."

Sasuke got himself even more comfortable.

"I knew this guy, Kisame," Suigetsu started.

Kisame. Most likely Hoshigaki Kisame. Itachi's partner. Sasuke thought that maybe it really wouldn't hurt if he listened. He really might end up knowing something important from all of this.

"Yeah, he was nice and his sword, Samehada, was super cool, too. Instead of cutting people and stuff, it absorbs their chakra or something like that. I think it skinned people or something like that. I forgot the word..."

As expected from someone like him. Just like Naruto indeed.

"... Big sword. It made me remember chicken wings or something like that. Looking at his sword always made him hungry. And maybe looking at him made me hungry, too. He looked awfully like seafood, you know..."

He did have a point in there. Even Sasuke had to admit that his brother's partner resembled some sort of aquatic life form. Some sort of a shark, to be more exact. Yes, now that he thought more on it, it did seem as if Kisame resembled a shark a lot. People from Kiri were weird. Suigetsu was no exception.

And so, it would always be like that. Everyday, Sasuke went to where Suigetsu was and Suigetsu would talk and talk and talk until Sasuke had to go away or until someone came inside the room and fetched Sasuke... which was also the same as the former. They had both found peace in this odd little routine of theirs. They didn't know why it still continued, why Sasuke still came even though he learned nothing of significance from Suigetsu's blabberings and why Suigetsu still bothered to talk when he received no responses. They didn't want to question it though.

They were both ninja. They knew that they should take whatever they could. As long as neither of them were harmed it should be alright.

Besides... this feeling... it was nice. As reluctant as they were to admit it, it was nice. But they'd both die before they said that out loud.

So Suigetsu continued to talk and Sasuke continued to come. This would happen everyday. There was no fixed time, but Sasuke would always come.

"I heard that huge explosion yesterday," Suigetsu said. "It was you who caused it, right?"

"I'm planning to kill Orochimaru," Sasuke replied.

Suigetsu was already used to the oddness of his silent companion. Well, he was already happy enough that the boy was talking. It didn't happen often. And what was more was that it seemed as if he was willing to talk this time. Maybe something important had happened yesterday. Yeah, it definitely had to be important if the kid declared that he was going to kill Orochimaru.

"He has nothing left to teach me," Sasuke continued, "and therefore he is already dispensable."

"You talk cruel," Suigetsu said.

Sasuke knew that a grin was on Suigetsu's face.

"I like that kinda talk," Suigetsu said.

"I cannot let him live because he wants my body. He will continue to chase me if I don't do anything with it," Sasuke said.

"Yeah. You're right there. You're going to be doing the sensible thing."

"And then I will free you."

"Okay– Wait! Say what?!"

"I will free you."

"The hell?!"

"You. I can use you. You're useful."

"Okay..."

Both of them had a feeling that it was more than just that. That the reason that Sasuke gave wasn't the only reason. But both of them wouldn't dare to say that out loud. They would take what they could have.

Suigetsu knew that Sasuke was more of the person who would do things alone. He didn't ask for help. That just wasn't Sasuke-like in Suigetsu's opinion. He thought that maybe he'd know all the answers to all of the why's as soon as he managed to get out of this dump. And he'd get a clearer view of Sasuke, too. The glass tended to blur things a bit.

Sasuke had been studying a few individuals. Suigetsu had obviously been one of them. He thought that if he had the assistance of others, then maybe his revenge would go more smoothly.

Though he couldn't help but think that there was just something special about Suigetsu.

"Has anyone ever told you that you look like some sort of a gay pirate?" Suigetsu commented, a grin on his face.

Sasuke thought that Suigetsu looked much like some sort of aquatic life form...

"Has anyone ever told you to get clothes?" Sasuke asked.

... And what a coincidence! His brother's companion was a fish man, too! Maybe having fishy men was the secret to getting powerful.

He said this to Suigetsu. He didn't know who he was trying to kid around, but at least he did know that his joke was rather funny. Well, at least Suigetsu laughed.

"I never would've thought that you had a sense of humor," Suigetsu said, that grin of his on his face.

Sasuke nodded. Apparently, neither did he.

"So, since I'm the first one..." Suigetsu started.

This odd little routine of theirs had been broken. And both of them were fine with it, too. But none of them would dare to say this aloud. They didn't even need words anyway.

Thank you for taking the time out of your busy life to read this. Please don't hesitate to point out mistakes. Comments will be much appreciated.

This takes place during the two-and-a-half timeskip if anyone's wondering.

I'm also reveling in my newfound pairing, SuiSasu. I've become somewhat addicted to it. Makes me remember KisaItaKisa.