Hi everyone! This time I'm uploading a rather unusual story in the sense that the style doesn't follow a "traditional" way of writing. Therefore, some of you might find it a little strange in the beginning, but I promise you'll adapt to it quickly, so please bear with me. I've written the entire story with the text aligned in the centre as I believe it helps portray the feeling I want to get across. If this bothers you, I apologize.
If you find yourself confused by anything, just keep reading as a lot of things are explained later on in the story.
This is an AU fanfiction.
Pairings: None. But it's open to own interpretations.
Rating is M because of themes of death and war later on in the fic.
This will be a three part story. Enjoy!
"Uchiha-sama. This boy is Uzumaki Naruto."
This name… I've heard it before.
"He is the single living inheritor of the Namikaze and Uzumaki bloodline, and possess an unique set of abilities that will aid to ensure your safety in and outside the premises."
Blonde hair… Blue eyes…
…Blue?
"From now on, he will be joining you in your daily life, and be assigned to you personally as your guard."
Tall and proud, the boy stood before the Uchiha. Blue eyes met onyx, glistening with life. Lips curled into a polite, but genuine, smile.
"Nice to meet you, sir."
Uzumaki… Naruto…?
"… Why did Madara choose you?"
His sudden question was met with a familiar smile.
"…Hm?"
Dark eyes narrowed slightly. He did not care much for repeating himself, but his curiosity of the blonde in front of him won over his pride.
"Why did Madara choose you?"
It was a question that had been nagging inside his mind ever since the blonde boy had moved in. To Sasuke, he seemed… light, was probably the only word he could use to discribe him. He was always smiling, and laughing – and talking, always talking to anyone and everyone – as he went about his days inside the huge mansion. He wore his heart on his sleeve; his face as easily read as any book in their well-adorned library.
And even though he was all that, Sasuke could sense the subdued, but none the less powerfull aura that seemed to radiate off the man's whole being as he slipped past him in the many halls; A dull, pulsating prescence of a strenght hidden deep within, carefully concealed beneath an easy smile.
Sasuke could tell that the boy was, as stated, of Namikaze and Uzumaki blood.
"… Who knows?"
The indirect answer was unexpected and tickled the Uchiha wrong. It was the first, and only time he saw such a secretive, taunting smile spread over the boy's features.
Thunder lit up the omnious, dark clouds that ravaged the sky outside the huge, framed, glass windows. The heavy rain thundered on the roof, and the strong winds had the mansion creak and groan in excrusiation of withstanding the force of nature.
War had never brought along sunshine and blue skies.
The door behind him creaked open, and the sound of two steady feet making their way into his room was somewhat comforting in the dark night.
Lightning struck once again.
The rain pattered against the glass.
"You don't need to accompany me at all times, you know."
White teeth glistened at him in the reflection of the window.
"I know. But it is my resposibility to keep you safe."
He scoffed at this.
"Like I need protection."
"…No."
The blonde agreed after a while, knowing that the raven was strong – more so than many – and could easily protect himself from most without breaking much of a sweat.
"But you're not what I'm protecting."
He knew this. They both knew this. His eyes stared into the darkness of the storm outside, looking past their own dimmed reflection.
How a pair of eyes could come to stir such fright within the heart of those who sought power – enough to declare wars and hire assasins – was beyond the young raven.
Subconsciously he brought his slender hand up to cover the right side of his face.
They were just eyes.
As another bolt of lighting struck, the sky thundered and the flash of light caused his reflection to appear crisper, the hint of red surrounding his pupil not going unnoticed.
"Why do you never go outside?"
Blue eyes looked away from the book of which's pages they had been lazily skimming over and drifted until they found and focused onto him.
Their conversations were few – unusual, really – because it was not often that the raven decided to ignore his fondness of the silence enveloping the many rooms and halls of the mansion. When they did talk their conversations were brief, fleeting, and the subjects they revolved around, petty.
Just when he was about to lose himself in the deep blue ocean, the eyes shifted back to the book held between the two tan hands.
"I do. You just never notice."
The raven tried to remember a time when the blonde had been absent from his side and frowned when he failed to find any trace of such a memory.
As he turned around to leave the room, he could've sworn he spotted a smile curl the blonde's lips.
Madara was not present very often.
If Sasuke tried to recall the occations when the ancient Uchiha had set foot inside the mansion, he could count them on one hand. Madara was never around.
Yet, somehow, over the years, Naruto impeccably kept up to date with the progressions of the war. It intruiged the raven how the blonde, who never left the mansion – which he had confirmed through keeping thurough watch over him after their last touch upon the subject – appeared as if he knew every little detail of the distant ongoing conflict.
The blonde had been handpicked and personally assigned to Sasuke by Uchiha Madara himself. The young Uchiha had yet to discover, however, what exactly it was within the blonde that had earned him this duty of such a high importance.
Some days, he noticed how the blonde would slip into endless hours of exhaustridding sleep, his hair toussling and soft snores escaping his partly open lips, as he lay sprawled over one of the couches in the lounge.
Other days, the blonde seemed to concentrate deeply on something that completely escaped the raven as he sat unmoving in the small, inner garden. His brows would be furrowed, his jaw stiff, and he would focus so strongly on nothing at all that Sasuke would experience a small, creeping sense of unease in the back of his mind.
On most days, the blonde would be in a good mood, casually strolling around near – but still keeping his distance from – the young Uchiha, sometimes humming an unknown tune from an unknown land, or on rare occations, initiate an (almost) one-sided conversation with the silent raven.
Two mere times had the Uchiha witnessed the ugly side of Uzumaki Naruto. Two times had he seen the blonde angry, both times for reasons of which were unbeknownst to him. The dark emotion completely changed the boy and twisted him into something terrifying – almost threatening. His blue eyes suddenly appearing unnaturaly dark, and blazing hot with hatred, his blonde hair standing on edge, and his face, which usually lit up with a smile, scrunching together into a menacing scowl had the raven on his toes around the blonde for days afterwards.
The more months they spent in each other's presence, the more did it frustrate him that he seemed to find no pattern, or reason, for the blonde's different mood swings.
He kept asking himself what it was that Madara saw, that he was missing.
"…You're up early."
When the blonde's serious expression remained stiff and unchanged where he stood in the middle of the Uchiha's room, the raven frowned lightly, and fought to keep his eyes open despite his eyelids drooping heavy from sleep.
Supporting himself on his elbows, he rose from his position of lying on his stomach and peered catiously at the boy whom he had become so familiar with over the years.
"Why?"
When the question slipped past his lips, his gut had already twisted, because, somehow, he could tell that the answer wouldn't be good.
Uchiha Sasuke had cursed his excistance many times.
Born of high blood, he carried a unique legacy on his shoulders. The Uchiha were wealthy in land and renowned in name because they carried an abillity unlike any other, and which could only be passed down through their genes, making it impossible to learn or recreate by outsiders. A completely unique abillity: the red eyes that could see all. This was what the Uchiha carried.
Their all-seeing eyes held the power to manipulate people, which had granted the Uchiha power. With this power, they had made a name for themselves. Once they were strong and notorious, the Uchiha took hold of many prosperous lands, ensuring their wealth and seat at the top of the hierarchy, where they settled down into new, comfortable lifestyles.
This, however, didn't last for long. Through their demonstration of power, a small seed of fear had started to grow within the hearts of the people.
Soon, war broke out across the country as many tried to gain hold of and control the power that was the red eyes, and when this failed, the movement to completely annahilate the oppressing Uchiha began.
Thousands upon thousands of deaths, years upon years of nothing but slaughter of men, litres upon litres of spilt blood, over and over again, one battle after the other.
The young raven hated it.
He failed to understand why so many wished to obtain the red eyes of the Uchiha that had only brought despair, death and hatred to the world.
The red swirling and twisting inside his eyes to cover his iris reminded him of the cursed blood that he carried.
A group of skilled warriors had made it through the Uchihas lines and crossed the border. In the first village they came across, they murdered everyone: including all of the women, and 19 children.
19 children with red eyes.
"Don't scowl so much. You're much too young for wrinkles."
During the last months, the young Uchiha could now count the times Madara had visited him on two hands.
He was the youngest son of one of the purest families among the Uchiha, and thus, the curse of the red eyes rode stronger in him than in many others.
The Uchiha countered the assasination with full force, their newly lit hatred twisting their ways and means into cruler and more merciless tactics than before, continuing to spread death, and the unavoidable hatred born from it, across the land.
Madara never said anything to the young Uchiha, but he was sharp. He understood the reason for which the ancient man kept close watch over him nowadays, the explenation simple, yet troubling.
They were threatened. The situation was worsening.
He knew.
Whenever Madara visited, unlike the young raven, the blonde boy already seemed aware of the information of which he came to relay. Without talking, or making any sort of contact at all, Madara and the blonde boy danced around each other, and yet, at the same time, they were completely in sync.
One time, the raven made an attempt to understand.
"The battle at the river bank – how many casualties were there on our side?"
A tilt of the head had the blonde strands of hair shifting across the tan forehead.
"Only 12."
"How would you know?"
The blonde hadn't talked to Madara, nor had he been around when the older Uchiha had come bearing the news.
Blue eyes twinkled mischieviously, and lips slowly curled into a sly smile, refusing the raven an answer.
"…Where is he?"
Madara refused to meet his eyes.
Black spun into a blazing red.
"WHERE IS HE?!"
The blonde man watched the two ravens in silence, concealed by the shadow of the hall.
The sensation of two eyes drilling into his back abruptly awoke the raven, his eyes already wearing the colour of blood as he swiftly spun around in his bed, prepeared for battle.
His blazing red irises met calming blue in the darkness.
The raven noticed something about the blonde was different immidiately; his red eyes swirling as he quickly let his gaze rake over the body of the man standing in the door to his room.
He looked the same.
He wasn't.
It was barely noticable, but when he spoke, his voice was slightly lower, a little rougher, but the words he spoke were spoken ever so softly, the sound of the blondes voice folding like velvet in the Uchihas ears. The red within the raven's eyes slowly disipated, and the orbs returned to their usual dark tone.
"He is allright."
Never had the young Uchiha felt such relief surge through him from a single sentence.
"Madara is coming soon, isn't he?"
Onyx challenged blue. Naruto blinked slowly, a slight change – appearent only to the Uchiha because he knew the blonde's face so well by now – in his gaze once he opened them again. A small smile started to form.
"Yes."
"…Where was he?"
"Safe."
The answer he received was short and dissmissive, but the raven still felt a sense of reassurrance. Perhaps he believed him only because his red eyes had gazed upon the blonde that night and seen that he spoke truthfully.
He didn't know how the blonde knew, how he'd found out that his older brother was okay, but he was starting to figure him out. Slowly, but surely, he started to get to know Uzumaki Naruto.
"Sleep with me."
It was rare to draw such a sudden change in expression from the blonde, his blue eyes widening, his hands stopping mid-movement, and his shoulders squaring. The blonde looked like he'd been frozen to the spot by the young Uchiha's request, and the raven savored the moment.
He soon came to be surprised himself when the blonde agreed to his strange proposal. He only blinked once, and though it stayed silent between them, the blue eyes had met the ravens in an intense stare, conveying an agreement without words.
That night Uchiha Sasuke, for the first time, shared his bed.
As busy people, his parents hadn't been around much during his upbringing, leaving him to fend for himself with only the maids, cooks, and guards for company. Silence was something he got used to, even begun to enjoy, as he spent many endless days walking through the empty halls and exploring the countless rooms of the mansion. In the silence, he was left alone with his thoughts, finding comfort and solace in the calm mindset the isolation brought him.
"It's only us…"
He wasn't sure if it was a statement or a question, and judging by the look he received from the blonde, neither did he.
"Yeah. Just us."
Lately, the silence resting throughout the mansion had become suffocating.
He hadn't noticed at first, (mostly because the young raven rarely set foot inside the kitchen, since he himself never cooked) but when he stumbled upon the blonde putting away the sharp kitchen knifes into their drawers one early morning, he could tell something was wrong.
The smile the blonde had offered in answer to his questioning gaze didn't quite reach his eyes that day.
It was a quick work; Madara made sure his staff was swiftly removed and disposed off without hesitation, leaving only the blonde to accompany the young Uchiha within the enormous mansion. The ache of betrayal from the staff that had surrounded him since birth throbbed dully in the raven's heart.
"Do not worry. He's more than enough." Madara had assured.
Even though the war raged on, the young Uchiha spent many days only discribable as peaceful inside the mansion with the blonde, where they lead lazy, comfortable lives unsullied by the darkness of war that slowly corrupted most of the land.
Even on the rare days on which the young Uchiha allowed himself to be languorous and sleep in, he was always the first of the two to get out of bed, the blonde joining him first when he headed out of the room.
It puzzled the raven how each meal throughout the day presented itself without Naruto ever leaving his side to head to the kitchen, or how he cold slip into the newly pressed sheets of his made bed every evening, and how not a single one of the many rooms in the mansion gathered any dust over the many months, wheter they were visited often or not.
His mind leisurely wrapped around the puzzlebits, trying to piece them together as he observed the blonde day in and day out, intent on figuring him out.
Naruto was uneasy.
He could tell.
Observing the blonde moving about, jaw stiff and a furrow between his brows, a crippling feeling of anxiety slowly crept up the young Uchihas spine, causing the small hairs at the back of his neck to stand on edge. The atmosphere in the mansion took a turn for the worse, and with every day that passed, the silence grew thicker and heavier.
No words were spoken, yet the raven could understand by the grim expression that the blonde wore, that something wasn't quite right.
A sudden explosion of terribly frightening noises awoke him one evening, startling the young Uchiha into a sitting position on his bed, eyes wide and alert. The sounds cut into his ears and clawed at his insides, shaking and tearing at him from within. The mansion rumbled and groaned, almost vibrating around him, as the rythmatic 'thump-thump' of his racing heart grew louder in his ears. The horrific noises twisted their way past his eardrums and into his head where they echoed eerily.
'Thump-thump-thump-thump-'
Screams. They were screams.
'Thump-thump-thump-'
Terrifying shrieks and horrible roars filled the air around him, their noise shooting through him and electrifying every nerve within his body.
People were screaming, and by the sound of it, there were many.
When his door burst open with an earsplitting bang, his head whipped around and his wide, crimson eyes found the blazing gaze of the blonde.
"Get up."
He was on his shaky legs within a heartbeat. A tan hand shot out, wrapping around his wrist in a painful grasp, and the young raven found himself unable to do anything, other than attempting not to stumble on his partly paralyzed legs as he was dragged out of the room.
'Thump-thump-thump-'
Within the hallway the resounding roars were greater in both volume and number. People's feet rumbled like thunder through the mansion, shaking the floor beneath their feet. The sound of blades meeting in quick succession rang through the air, cutting sharply into the Uchiha's ears as he struggled to keep up with the blonde.
- And the screaming.
Orders were barked with determination, roars of anger shaking the walls. Frightening cries of utter agony had the hair on Sasuke's body standing on edge as a cold feeling of dread settled in his gut and created a lump in his troath, his mouth becoming dry.
'Thump-thump-thump-'
He felt lost; his thoughts tumbled around inside his head, trying to assemble the visions his eyes picked up and the noises his ears were absorbing, but failing. Everything around him was a neausuating jumble of chaos.
It felt as if he had woken up within a nightmare.
'Thump-!'
The man appeared suddenly.
"Go!"
In the blink of a moment, many things happened simultainiously.
Naruto shoved the raven, forcing him to stumble backwards. Startled, red eyes briefly met with a pair of unfamiliar brown, which, in turn, widened in recognition, the man's mouth flying open in a roar as he swung his spear towards the two of them. Eyes hardening, the blonde moved swiftly, stepping between the man and the raven, hands quickly shooting out and snapping the head off the spear, stoping the attack, a single word slipping past his lips in a commanding roar.
'Thump-'
The trembling raven was on his feet before he could properly register what had happened, his body instinctively jumping into action. He got up, turned around, and ran.
Naruto appeared at his side only seconds later, his hand finding the raven's wrist once more as he guided the young Uchiha down a different corridor. Looking back, the raven saw the stranger kneeling in front of a blonde figure and only caught a quick glimpse of a crimson liquid before they disappeared completely behind the corner.
'Thump-thump-thump-thump-'
His muscles were burning, his eyes were stinging, and his lungs were screaming for him to stop, but they didn't. Even as the screams became more distant behind them, they didn't slow down, they didn't stop; they kept on running.
An earthshaking explosion had them both hesitating and glancing back at the old mansion, now enveloped in dancing flames that reached high into the night, crackling loudly and casting an ominous, orange glow over the surrounding scenery. The north wing stood aflame, a gaping hole in the side of the wall, the supportive pillars and the second-story floor groaning deeply as they folded inwards and collapsed, pulling the wing with them to the ground.
The realisation that he'd been right there only minutes ago completely paralyzed the Uchiha on the spot where he stood and watched his home burn.
The flickering light of the dancing flames reflected in the eyes of the blonde beside him, burning the image into Sasuke's memory for eternity.
'Thump-!'
That night, the usually blue eyes had been red.
Tbc...
A/N: Do you know what Naruto's power is?
If there's anything you are curious about or don't understand with the story, don't hesitate to post a review voicing your questions or thoughts, and I'll gladly send a reply as soon as I'm able :) Of course, even if you don't wonder over anything, a review is welcome nonetheless ;)