CHAPTER ONE

Sasuke Uchiha woke up with fire in his mouth. Sweat was dribbling down his back and neck. Matting his hair against his head. Soaking his sheets; the soft, blue sheets that were tangled around his body like a tight cocoon. Hot—it was so hot.Fire burning muscle and bones, skin boiling hot.

His shaking hands (why did his fingers feel so clumsy?) fumbled with the hem of his shirt as he tried to pull it up and over his head. The fabric hitched under his arms. And the fire was still burning him. He wanted to fall into a glacial lake and drown himself.

He sat up and felt his head keep rising to hover far above his shoulders like a heavy balloon on a string. Dizzying. Sickening. He sucked in a breath that stopped somewhere between his mouth and lungs and came back in an explosion of phlegm-choked hacking. Back and guts wrenching, lungs working to breathe (gag) between the percussive convulsions. There were black shadows swimming in front of his eyes and through the haze he wondered whether he was about to lose consciousness. Then he was slouched forward and gasping with a steely taste in his mouth.

There was something damp in his hands. The shirt? He looked at the bunched fabric in his hands. Yes. The shirt. He didn't remember taking it off. The word delirium crept into his head and he understood that he was sick; bad sick, he knew it. Knew he needed a hospital. Knew….

It was still so hot. He wanted to untangle himself from the sheets but his legs were a thousand miles away and made of marble and—and…. THUD. He rolled off the edge off the bed and onto the hard floor, taking the sheets with him. The impact bounced off the back of his swollen eyes and then from ear to ear as it echoed in his head. The floor pitched under him. A hot knife dug into his belly and twisted against the sensory overload, making him retch, making him choke, making him—

—His hands were gripping the doorframe. Was it the doorframe to the bathroom? No…he was still in his bedroom, wasn't he? Was he?There was a mixture of saliva and stomach acid in his mouth. He spat it out. It dribbled down his chin and onto his chest.

The floor was cool against his flaming cheek. He wanted to lay that way forever, with his cheek pressed against the wood floor's comforting surface. Then he remembered. Get help, get help, get help…. "Help," he whispered. His voice was a low rasp that sandpapered his throat.

He crawled forward an inch…two…out of the room…down the hall…and then his stomach rebelled and he retched. There was a coppery taste in his mouth that wouldn't go away. It hurt—hurt to breathe. His quivering arms snapped at the elbows under his own body weight, sending him sprawling on the ground.

Lungs straining, inhale.

He was floating on a wave of dark water, swelling up and down, up…down…. Sasuke closed his eyes, letting the darkness claim him.

Breathe in….

Breathe…out….

It began no different from any of the hundreds of Tuesdays Sakura Haruno had lived through. Her alarm clock went off at 6:00 am. She rolled out of bed, got dressed, ate a light breakfast. Her mother scolded her, trying to convince her to eat more. She retreated to the bathroom to brush her teeth and wash her face without eating another bite. I've got to be careful. I'm already a heifer compared to Ino and now she's on a diet…no way am I going to lose to her!

She stepped outside at 6:30 and shivered. It was well past the time of year for snow, but a cold night could still bring out a gray sheen of frost over grass and trees. Even though the sky was thick with lint-colored clouds, she decided to make do without going back for a jacket. It would only get in the way later, she thought as she set off. Besides, maybe the cold will wake me up a little more. Why do I even bother to show up early when Kakashi is always late? There's no reason for it.

But whether or not she was willing to acknowledge it, she had always had a reason for being the first to arrive at the bridge where they met for their training exercises. At first it had been for the sake of her dizzying crush on her teammate, Sasuke Uchiha. After all, what better opportunity to catch the boy alone could there be? From day one she'd had it all worked out in her head.

The first rays of rich, sunlight would just be coming into view above the Hokage monument when Sasuke arrived to find her standing ever-so-cooly at the center of the wooden bridge. The sun would catch her forehead protector just right and he would suddenly be captivated by her creamy skin and her deep green eyes. As he walked to meet her a puff of wind would stir up her hair, just to seal the deal, and then he would say, "Good morning, Sakura." She would pretend that she hadn't even seen him coming, but then they would start to talk, and small talk would lead to a conversation, which would lead to a trembling request for a date (from him of course!), and then…then…then!She'd never made it past that "then", even in her imagination, because she soon discovered that although Sasuke Uchiha was strong, mysterious, and absolutely gorgeous, a morning person was something he was not.

Hopeless as it was, she'd held on to that fantasy right up until their team was split by order of the Hokage herself. The order had come after a nasty fight between Sasuke and Naruto that took place on the hospital roof just over a month ago. Tsunade had mumbled something about being "damned if history was going to repeat itself" which Sakura couldn't figure out for the life of her and that was that. The next day Sasuke was training under the eye of Kakashi while Naruto trained with Jiraiya and Sakura began her instruction under Tsunade.

On Kakashi's insistence, they were allowed to meet and train together as a team once a week. Tsunade's training kept Sakura so busy that she rarely saw either of the boys outside of these weekly sessions. She could have lived with this if not for the feeling that something had broken between the three of them that would never be fixed. Whenever the boys were within a fifty-meter radius of each other Naruto would become stiff and coldly polite while Sasuke simply refused to speak at all. Sakura felt as though she had to handle the two of them with kid gloves just to avoid having a repeat of the fight that had started it all. At any rate, it gave her a new reason to arrive at their meeting place first.

I don't even want to think about what would happen if those two were alone for longer than a couple of seconds, she thought as she passed the Yamanaka flower shop. She stopped to glance up to the dark window that belonged to Ino's room on the second floor of the building. I don't understand why her team gets along so well while mine…. When did things get this bad?

She walked on with a sigh and tried to pinpoint what could have caused the rivalry between the two boys to sour. Was it the chuunin exams? She shook her head. Even though Sasuke got that curse seal on his neck, he was almost starting to treat Naruto like a friend. He started acting strange after Tsunade healed him, so it must have been something before that…but what? Was it—

She never finished her thought because that was when the world went red. The whitewashed walls of the buildings on either side of her were the color of baked adobe, the road was mahogany-red—even her skin had taken on a pinkish hue. It looked as though a giant had coated everything in a layer of blood with an oversize paintbrush. Her first thought was, genjutsu? Then she looked to the Hokage monument and saw something that would never fade from her memory.

The sun was throwing its first light over the crest of the stone monument, and it was a violent red that seemed to burn the sky. Sakura stood with her mouth gaping open. The heavy clouds were textured hanks of cotton stained with old blood, and the sun was a furious eye glaring murder. "Sh-sharingan?" she stammered.

A feeling of acute unease settled in the pit of her stomach—a feeling that something that was just out of view was very wrong. Everything was so still it was as though she was the last living soul on earth. She swept her gaze around the abandoned street. She wanted to see somebody—anybody. Even an enemy ninja would do. The road was empty. Her breath choked in the back of her throat in a small whimper. Then she ran.

She ran without paying any mind to where she was going or what she was doing. All she knew was that she needed to see somebody alive so she could know that she wasn't alone under that fiery eye's leer. And all the while that feeling of wrongness gnawed more insistent.

When the bridge came into view, she came to a dead halt. Standing there with the sun's red light tinting his skin in an ugly parody of a sunburn was Naruto Uzumaki. His back was to her; she couldn't see his face. For one mind-lurching instant she thought, He killed Sasuke. Then she was walking forward with her legs trembling under her.

He jumped when she reached the bridge and her hollow footsteps echoed off the pink-stained water below. "Sakura," he whispered, and she could tell from the quiver in his voice that he was just as unsettled as she was.

They stood frozen in time until the light changed; the red fading to pink, and then to the dull, colorless light that comes on mornings choked with clouds. The process only took seconds, but it seemed as though they were standing there for a very long time before Naruto tittered hoarsely and croaked, "What was that?"

"I don't know…." She hugged her arms to her chest to hide her shivering while Naruto looked down at the wood planks of the bridge. Finally, it occurred to her to say something to try and restore some sense of normalcy to the situation. "What are you doing here so early?" She flinched. Her voice still sounded high and tight.

Naruto shrugged. "I thought I'd come early. We only get to see each other once a week now, you know."

"Yeah. I know. So how long do you think Kakashi is going to make us wait today?"

"I don't know. Not too long, I hope. The less time we have to stand around waiting for him with jerkface the better, right?" Sakura gave him a warning frown, but he grinned wide enough to narrow his eyes into slits and added, "Hey, you think maybe Sasuke won't show today? Like maybe he got sick or something? Then it'd be just me and you. Oh, and Kakashi."

"Naruto, that's not funny."

His smile never wavered. "Who says I was joking? Ahahaha—ow!" He trailed off his cackling to rub at his shoulder and give Sakura a look of exaggerated hurt. "What was that for?"

"You know perfectly well what it was for!" she snapped. Inside she felt like giggling with relief. This—all of it—Naruto badmouthing Sasuke, Sakura lecturing or punching him in retaliation…it was so normal, so safe. It was enough to remind her that Naruto was still Naruto, regardless of blood sunrises or uneasy feelings. And if Naruto is still Naruto, then Sasuke is still Sasuke. Nothing's changed, she thought.

"But Sakura, wouldn't it be nice to get some attention from Kakashi for a change? Seriously, Sasuke's the only one he ever pays any attention to anymore!"

"That's because Sasuke is his only full-time student now, Naruto!" she snarled back. "What do you expect?" Sakura felt the knots her stomach had twisted into begin to loosen as the argument continued. Arguments between the two of them—especially arguments that concerned their dark-haired teammate—were so predictable they might as well be reading lines from a script. It was exactly what she had needed. Not that I'd ever tell him that, she thought.

Several minutes later, Naruto was in the middle of an impressive monologue detailing everything that they could do without "that bigheaded fun-killer" there to stop them. He had just reached the topic of lunch ("We could eat at Ichiraku and Kakashi would totally treat us because it's way cheaper with just you and me!") when their sensei arrived. Naruto didn't miss a beat. He trailed off his rant about how Sasuke "has some kind of weird aversion to eating good food" to scream, "YOU'RE LATE AND YOU'RE TREATING US TO ICHIRAKU BECAUSE SAKURA AND I SAID SO!"

Although most of Kakashi's face was obscured beneath his mask and forehead protector, Sakura was able to imagine the smile on his face from the way his visible eye lit with a childlike innocence. "Ichiraku sounds delicious, but I'm afraid I left all of my ramen money at home in my sock drawer today. And I believe I'm on time."

Naruto shouted, "LIAR!" and then, once the meaning of his sensei's words sank in, muttered, "No, wait a second…."

Sakura had opened her mouth to shout along with Naruto, expecting to hear another of Kakashi's outlandish excuses for his tardiness. She caught herself only just in time and stammered, "You…you really are on time today."

Kakashi looked at Naruto, who was blinking with confusion and then turned his attention to Sakura. Sakura belatedly realized that her mouth was gawping open and closed it with her cheeks burning pink. "If it's going to affect the two of you this badly, I'll make sure it never happens again," said Kakashi. "And it looks like we're missing Sasuke."

The feeling of foreboding that had retreated to the back of Sakura's mind came roaring back, stronger than ever. Kakashi's tone had been nonchalant, but to Sakura's ears it was too bright; too unconcerned.

Beside her, Naruto rolled his eyes and groaned, "Oh, him? He probably decided he's too cool to be seen hanging around with us mortals anymore. Can't we just start without him?"

Sakura balled her hands into angry fists, but she was so distracted she didn't even send him so much as a glare. She thought she had seen a troubled expression flicker across Kakashi's face. Does he feel it, too? she wondered.

"I'm afraid that's not an option, Naruto," Kakashi replied, clapping his hand on top of the blonde's head to silence his scathing remarks. "After all, you meet with me to train as a three-man team. You can't practice three-man tactics with only two people. We're just going to have to make a detour to pick up Sasuke on our way to the training grounds."

Sakura felt her stomach clench as she followed behind Kakashi and Naruto. Again, Kakashi's tone had been too detached and airy, as though he was trying to convince himself as well as the two of them. Her unease sharpened when she realized that Kakashi was walking so quickly that she and Naruto were forced to trot to keep up. If there's nothing to worry about, she thought, why is he in such a hurry? Trying her best to echo Kakashi's carefully measured air of indifference, she said, "Is something wrong, Kakashi?"

The reply was slow in coming, and it did little to calm her jumping nerves. "Sasuke is required to report to both the Hokage and myself if he's going to miss training for any reason. He's aware of this, and he knows that if he refuses to abide by that rule there will be consequences."

"Eh? Consequences? So he's in trouble?"

Kakashi sighed. "We'll see, Naruto."

Naruto let out a low chuckle. "Sasuke's in trouble, Sasuke's in trouble," he crowed. Although he was singing the mocking chorus at the top of the lungs, Sakura was so worried that it registered as nothing more than a buzzing in her ears. No matter how hard she tried not to think about it, the image of the Sharingan-red sun rising above the Hokage monument continued to burn in her mind like a warning flare. By the time they were standing in front of Sasuke's door she felt like she was being scrutinized from the inside out by a furious red eye.

Tok, tok, tok! The sound of knuckles rapping on wood jolted her back to reality. She let out a startled yelp, and then hurried to compose herself as Kakashi announced, "Sasuke, this is your wake-up call. Open up!"

Sakura held her breath, waiting to see the dark-haired boy open the door with a grumbled apology. There was no answer. Beside her, Naruto stirred and whispered, "Hey, Sakura, how come you're shaking? Are you all right?"

She cast an anxious glance to Kakashi as he knocked again, pounding loud enough to wake even the heaviest of sleepers. "I…it's—it's stupid, really, but I'm afraid that something might have happened to Sasuke."

"What, like something bad?"

"I don't know. It's just…the way the sun came up red like that. Didn't that feel wrong to you?"

The ever-present glimmer of mischief disappeared from his eyes and he shuddered. "Ugh, don't remind me. That was creepy! You think it means that there's something wrong with Sasuke?"

A tendril of embarrassment curled through her. Hearing them voiced so plainly, her suspicions seemed ridiculously childish; nothing more than the product of an overactive imagination at work. "It just gave me a bad feeling, OK? That's all!" She crossed her arms over her chest and turned away with a huff.

"OK, OK. I didn't mean to make you mad. Sorry."

Sakura wasn't sure whether to offer a scathing reply or say nothing at all. Before she could make up her mind, Kakashi said, "He's not answering, which means that I'm going to have to go inside. You two wait here in case he comes to the door; I'm going to run downstairs and pick up the spare key."

There was a long, heavy silence after Kakashi left them alone. When Naruto finally broke it, his voice was hollow. "Do you really think that something bad happened to Sasuke?"

She swallowed hard past the lump in her throat. "I don't know. I—"

"That jerk."

"What?"

"That jerk! I bet he just doesn't want to open the door because he knows we're out here." The edges of his mouth edged up into a crooked grin. "Heh. I'll show him!"

"Naruto, what are you…." She trailed off as she recognized the hand seal he was forming. Shadow clone? What's he planning to do with that? Her eyes went wide when she realized that the clone was sculpting a mass of blue chakra into a concentrated ball of spinning energy in the boy's hand. "Naruto, don't you dare!" she screeched.

Naruto didn't seem to hear her furious warning. With a jubilant cry of "Rasengan!" he leaped forward and smashed his glowing fist into the door. The cheap apartment door juddered with the force of the blow and Sakura saw a web of deep cracks rip through its frame before it splintered and fell into a heap of rubble in the doorway.

I see, she thought, waving away a cloud of dust from the wreckage. He's worried, too. Leave it to Naruto to break something when he's upset. Sasuke's not going to be happy. Sakura stood on tiptoe and craned her neck to see into the apartment. Between Naruto and the wreckage of the door blocking the view, she could see only enough to know that the room beyond was utterly dark and still, as though it was holding its breath.

"Hey, Sasuke! Are you—" Naruto's words caught in his throat, and a short, sharp gasp came out instead.

Sakura's head swam with worry. "What? What is it?" she demanded in a hysterical squeak. She jumped up and down, trying to get a better view.

"Sasuke!" Naruto shrieked, leaping over the debris in the doorway and disappearing inside.

She climbed in after him, stumbling over the ruined door in her haste to get inside. There was a moment in which the silence in the hall was stifling. And then Sakura's horrified scream split the air.

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