-Itachi-

The questions were never ending. Itachi had an equal hate for questions and things that didn't end. Everything was supposed to come to a close in his opinion – or else even life itself would not end in death. It would not have been so tiring if they could at least rotate the questions a little bit. He had been in the same room for one thousand, two hundred, and twenty days. Roughly three years – give or take a month or two. Some people needed to scratch off days on the wall, or else they'd all blur together in their minds. Itachi was much too well-minded for that sort of ridiculousness. If you were locked up in a room with nothing to do but count the days, then you damn sure better be able to do it in your head.

Itachi looked up from the cold stone floor he'd been sitting on when he heard the iron bars that kept him here opening. A man he'd grown very familiar with stepped in and frowned at him.

"You've got mail," The man grumbled out. He passed Itachi an envelope that looked like it must have been opened a million times before getting to him. He didn't even know why they went through the trouble of re-sealing it. Perhaps prison etiquette dictates that the convicts at least have the privilege of thinking they had privacy.

The return address was an ugly looking sticker. It had a symbol of the human brain on the left side, and a smiling face on the right. Between them, there was an image of a white building, and under it all the street address of the local Asylum was typed in italics. Upon opening the envelope, Itachi found twenty five sheets of blank white paper, and he couldn't help but laugh.

"What's so damn funny?" The guard asked, glaring down at the papers.

"An inside joke between myself and my brother, that's all." Itachi said, folding the paper neatly and placing it atop a disturbingly large stack of papers that varied in size and color but were all just as blank as the next one.

"Oh yeah? Well you'd better make that an outside joke! You and your stinking brother are both convicted murderers, so don't go thinking you can be keeping secrets!"

At this, Itachi smirked. "I assure you, sir – my brother and I are and will always be keeping a great deal of secrets. However, none of them are written on this page – so it's really none of your business."

Itachi knew he'd won that one when the guard slammed the barred door shut again. Stupid bloke would be sure to "forget" to bring him dinner that night, probably. But that still wasn't enough to stop Itachi from laughing again at Sasuke's hilarity.

Every single week without fail, Sasuke would use his mailing rights to compose a letter to his brother. This letter, however, was never so much a letter as it was a blank piece of paper. There was nothing written in invisible ink. There was no secret code. There was nothing. Nothing but the knowledge that Sasuke still refused to speak.

He wouldn't speak. He wouldn't write. He wouldn't do anything. This was greatly amusing to Itachi to begin with – knowing that his brother was forever mailing him, but never saying anything. What was more amusing though, was that today Sasuke had sent twenty five sheets.

The guards had clearly spotted the difference and thoroughly tried to decipher the message to no avail. Itachi understood it loud and clear. Twenty five sheets, for his twenty five years.

He guessed the guards hadn't taken the time to notice it was his birthday.

-Shikamaru-

"You really don't have to visit, you know. I'm not bored or anything," Shikamaru stated as he sat outside of his window and stared out into the gardens. He had a very nice room. It was homey, even.

It was only the highest floor of the Asylum, and had a skylight roof. He could see the clouds from his bed. It was actually the most peaceful three years he'd ever had. If he'd known earlier that confessing to murder a girl who was found dead a couple hundred miles away from where you were during her demise qualified you to be crazy- then he'd have confessed to quite a few more murders much sooner.

For now he was here simply because he claimed to have done it, but there was no physical way he could have. Oh well. He'd let them figure that one out for themselves. He may have been a part of this whole scandal, but he knew that if he talked much more about it he'd be digging his friends into that hole as well – so he simply blabbered on and on about nonsense and tried to sound as insane as possible when they came to check on him.

It certainly kept him a nice view.

"That's why we visit you! If you didn't have us here, you'd have absolutely no idea what was happening in the outside world. Or even just downstairs! All the lawyers and officers are here again, you know. I think Gaara may have said something…"

Shikamaru grinned at that. "Gaara? What could he possibly have said? If there are really that many people crowded around then I'd expect the person who finally spoke up would be Sasuke."

Ino shook her head. "No, he still hasn't spoken. I'd really like to go see him, but rumor has it he's violent and unstable."

Shikamaru nodded. He didn't really think Sasuke was unstable or violent. In fact, it was his fault that Sasuke had gotten involved with this whole ordeal in the first place. It didn't make sense that out of the eight of them, only two ended up in padded white rooms. Then again, Sasuke was the only one found covered in blood – and Gaara… well, Gaara was a different story all together most of the time. Neji had plead insane because his lawyers had told him to. He was in the room right next to Shikamaru's and they saw each other from time to time. Itachi was unfortunately the only person who was of age at the time, so he was in prison. No one knew what had happened to Sai. The other two were un juvenile hall.

Three years. It had been three years since the incident in room two-thirty-four.

Shikamaru frowned, and thought to himself about what Ino had said. It was impossible for Gaara to have helped them make a big break- because Gaara didn't know anything either.

This couldn't be solved without all eight of them. That much was certain. But they only had seven in custody, and out of that seven – the most important one wasn't speaking.

It seemed this would just drag on forever then… how troublesome.

A/N: I have no idea how I managed to thunk out another chapter for this so soon. Probably all of your LOVELY reviews xD That and the fact that this fanfic has been blessed with one of the most detailed outlines EVER. I did so well laying it out for myself!

Anyways, I hope that you enjoyed this chapter! You still have to hear from a couple more people before we can really dive into the plot of this correctly, but I hope you'll stick along for the ride!

Please review! They make me SO happy, and they make me update really quickly, see?

I love all the readers!

-Beloved