By the time Sasuke got home, it was dark and Kakashi was waiting for him on the front porch.

"Sasuke where the he- what happened to you?" The silver haired caregiver took in Sasuke's dishevelled appearance.

"Nothing. I'm going to bed."

"Don't you want din-

"no…thankyou."

And Sasuke stalked past his guardian and to his room. Kakashi watched him go, a look of surprise etched on his face. 'since when does Sasuke say thankyou?'

When Sasuke got to his room he threw himself down onto his bed and threw an arm over his eyes. He couldn't get the image of that eye from his head. Such an intense blue…Sasuke found himself wanting to know what the rest of the person looked like. Whether they were a male or female, adult, teenager, child whatever. He just wanted to know. But most of all, he found himself wondering, 'what were they doing in that old house?' Tired from his day's excitement, Sasuke promptly fell asleep. His dreams haunted by eyes of an intense blue.

"Sasuke! Get up it's time for school!" Kakashi's voice entered Sasuke's dream. He had been dreaming he was chasing someone, and when they turned around, all he could see was blue eyes. The raven opened his eyes groggily.

"Hurry up! You need to have a shower!" Kakashi threw a towel at him and he left the room.

Sasuke grumbled and picked up the towel and headed toward the bathroom.

He turned the water on boiling hot as he mulled over yesterday's events.

"I'll go back there after school…perhaps I should ask Neji to come with me…maybe not…I really want to know who this person is…damnit." Sasuke's head still swirled with questions after his shower. Usually he was able to clear his thoughts after a shower like that. Not today apparently.

He quickly got dressed, fixed his hair, packed his bag and left the house, shouting to Kakashi he would grab something to eat on the way to school.

As the raven walked the familiar path to his school, his thoughts drifted back to the day he had lost everything.

/flashback/

Sasuke rushed home, glowing with happiness and his report card clenched in his fist. He had gotten top of his class again, and he was eager to show his parents. And Itachi. Sasuke's heart swelled as he thought of his older brother, who had helped him study for his exams. He loved his older brother dearly, even if his father paid more attention to him than he did Sasuke.

Little Sasuke, only twelve years old, was happier than he thought he could ever be. He had his future planned out, and was going to get there easily. He was going to be a doctor like his father and Itachi, except better. He decided he was going to be the one to cure cancer. He was going to marry a pretty girl, one who didn't get in the way or expect to kiss alot and have lots of kids who would be geniuses like him. And he would be really rich and have a nice house and a nice car and would be the envy of everyone. A childish dream but one he held onto fiercely. He was going to get his perfect life.

Or so he thought, back when he was ignorant of the world.

He rushed into his home, remembering just in time to slip off his shoes, and he burst into the living room happily.

"mother! Father! I'm ho-

Sasuke stopped. His world stopped.

There on the living room carpet was his mother and father draped over one another, not moving. Not breathing. They were surrounded by a pool of deep red liquid.

Sasuke was old enough to know they were dead.

Dead.

Dead.

The word reverberated off his skull and tears threatened to fall.

"o..okaasan? (/mum?/) Otousan? (/dad?/)" Sasuke stuttered, breaking the house rule and speaking in his native tongue.

Dead.

Sasuke gulped and stepped back slowly, before quickly turning away from the scene.

"Itachi-nii! NIISAN!" Sasuke screamed, running as fast as he could toward his brothers room.

"now now Sasuke," Sasuke heard the deep voice of his brother behind him. He turned and threw himself at his brother.

"what would father say? Hearing you screaming Japanese like that. You know you're not allowed-

"They're dead Itachi-nii!" Sasuke cried into his brother's stomach, which was all he could reach at his height.

Itachi was silent.

Sasuke wiped his eyes on Itachi's shirt and then, confused, leaned back to look at his brother's shirt properly. Itachi's shirt was covered in a dark liquid Sasuke couldn't identify. He looked at his hands that were still clenched in his brothers clothes. Red.

Sasuke felt sick.

"nii-san…did they hurt you too?"

"no little brother,"

"doushite…(/why…/)" It was then Sasuke noticed the katana in his brothers hand. The weapon was covered in shiny blood. Still wet.

Sasuke felt sick.

He took a tentative step back.

"nii…san…"

"I told you Sasuke, no Japanese. We are in america now. No more Japanese."

Sasuke looked up to see a crazed look in Itachi's eyes.

"Itachi…"

"run little brother, or I might have to tell father you were using Japanese in the house. Then he would have to…punish you…" Itachi's eyes glowed red.

Sasuke felt sick.

"…why? Itachi! Why?" Sasuke screamed.

"…because I was bored."

Sasuke felt like he had been hit in the gut. This wasn't his brother. This was someone else. Something else. So Sasuke turned on his heel, and ran. And ran. And ran. To the furthers corner of the house he could find. A laundry cupboard.

He could still feel the blood from Itachi's clothes on his hands and he frantically wiped them on the linen in the cupboard. The little raven haired boy cried and cried, but he couldn't fall asleep.

He was in a daze when the cupboard door opened and he heard a soft voice calling his name. He opened his charcoal eyes to see a familiar face…a family friend…what was his name? Sasuke could remember. The man had silver hair and a mask on the lower half of his face.

"Sasuke! Sasuke! Can you hear me?"

..Something…starting with Ka….Sasuke fainted.

/flashback end/

Sasuke shook his head free of those painful memories. That day had been the day his naive plan for life was stolen. The day he became the shell he was now. Barely talking, no friends…a loner. Sasuke looked up and realised he was already inside the school gates of Hebi Private Academy. He sighed and made his way to his locker.

A piece of paper was pasted to the front of his locker. A newspaper clipping. A small, scared Sasuke Uchiha looked up at the camera with wide eyes. "HEIR TO UCHIHA FORTUNE GOES INSANE"

Was the eloquent title.

Sasuke rolled his eyes and ripped off the offending material. He grabbed his books and slammed his locker angrily, scaring some of the younger students standing in a group across the hall. They looked at him with wide eyes. They recognised him. Sasuke glared at them and walked off toward his first class.

Sasuke was the first one to arrive at his home room class. His teacher, Iruka Umino, looked up, surprised.

"uchiha-kun! The brunette smiled warmly. Sasuke nodded and sat at the back of the class, next to the window.

"so…how was your weekend?"

"fine."

"that's good."

An awkward silence fell on them. Well, only awkward for poor Iruka, Sasuke was too enraptured in his own thoughts to realise the teacher was trying to start a conversation. Suddenly a gaggle of girls showed up and Iruka happily talked to them and left Sasuke to his brooding.

By lunch time, Sasuke was determined to find out who the blue eyed voyeur was.

The five of them sat in the shade of a large oak by the school fence. It was far away from where their annoying classmates usually hung out at lunch, so it was very quiet. Although, it was probably only like that because they were all petrified of the five teenagers.

Gaara and Neji sat with their backs to the tree sharing an Ipod between them. Their eyes were closed, and sometimes one of them would start mouthing lyrics. Sasuke could hear the heavy metal pulsing from their ear phones from where he sat with Karin and Suigetsu.

He had decided half way through his first lesson that he was definitely going to the old house again that afternoon. And he wasn't going to bring anyone. He didn't care if no one was their to have his back; his pride couldn't take another episode like the last time he had visited the house.

"I think you're obsessed." Suigetsu said matter-of-factly. "You haven't even noticed that Karin has you practically half naked."

Sasuke snapped out of his daydream and looked down. Karin had indeed managed to get most of the buttons undone on his school shirt. He would have to kill her later. He huffed, quickly fixed his uniform, and glared the redhead away.

Karin pouted and sat back in her place.

"Gosh just ruin all the fun Suigetsu."

The boy grinned. "Only so I can have you all to myself later," He threw her a lecherous grin.

She made a disgusted face. "Not in a million years, I'm waiting for the day Sasu-chan finally admits he's been in love with me all along."

Suigetsu laughed and Karin shot him a glare.

Sasuke resisted the urge to massage his temples.

"one, I will never love you. Two, ever call me that name again and I will make sure you never have children. Am I understood?" He asked her coolly. Karin gulped and straightened her glasses.

"Crystal?"

"good." and Sasuke went back into his own mulling.

"Anyway, it seems you have a little competition anyway in that department." Suigetsu said nonchalantly.

"What?" Karin and Sasuke both looked up at the same time.

"Pretty Princess seems pretty obsessed with this blue eyed person. I bet they're gonna meet and its going to be like…zaaaap! Love at first…well not really first sight."

Suigetsu grinned. Sasuke snorted. "who knew you were such the romantic, Suigetsu?" he shook his head.

"I'm just curious as to who has been sneaking about in that house."

Suigetsu shrugged. "Just one possible scenario."

Suddenly a small fluttery movement caught Sauske's eye and he looked up. A small piece of paper, yellowed with age, was fluttering down into his lap. Before it landed, Sasuke rested his hand underneath it, and let it fall into his palm. Carefully, he inspected the scrap of paper. It was blank.

So he tried to flip it over, but the paper was so old, the corner broke off in his fingers.

He then delicately put his other hand underneath the one with the page and let it fall into his other hand.

The other side wasn't quite so boring.

In neat, well formed characters was two words.

"Na-ru-to u-zu-ma-ki?" Sasuke whispered.

"What's that?" Karin asked rudely, trying to grab the paper. In doing so, the fragile page broke into tiny pieces.

Sasuke glared at her.

"hehe…whoops?"

Sasuke refrained from hitting the girl. He grabbed his bag, and set off toward the library.

He loved the library. It was so interesting. The ancient librarian, Chiyo, never threw any books out, just kept adding to the library. Now it was huge and half filled with books that hadn't been touched in over a decade. Sasuke liked going through these old books. Granted some of the factual ones were wrong, but it was always an interesting read nonetheless.

"Naruto Uzumaki?" Sasuke thought to himself as he wandered through the shelves.

Finally he decided to google it. He dropped his bag beside his chair and sat down at the computer. He logged in, and opened the webpage.

"Na…ru…to…U…zu…ma…ki…" He typed into the search engine.

A few cooking sites came up, which involved fish cakes, but nothing useful.

Suddenly the library search engine popped up.

"Newpaper article: The Namikaze incident"

Intrigued, Sasuke clicked on the option. It gave him the number code, and after jotting it down, strode deeper into the library.

Finally he came to a stop in front of a few ancient filing cabinets. They looked as if they hadn't been touched in years. Sasuke gentle prised the one he needed open, making rust fall to the ground. He quickly flipped through the files. Sasuke assumed they were colour coded once, but the colour had long faded.

"Nami..kaze…here!" He pulled out the folder with a flamboyant wave and quickly shut the draw with a loud bang. He slid his back down the cabinet until he was resting on the floor, and he opened the folder.

A newspaper clipping was attached to the inside of the folder. Inserted in the article was a picture of a family, a black and white photo. There was a tall, fair haired man with his arm around a shorter, pretty woman with long hair and a vague expression. Her arm was hung over the shoulder of a sitting teenager, possibly a little younger than Sasuke. He had fair haired and greatly resembled the man sitting behind him.

Underneath, the caption read,

Minato Namikaze, (45) Kushina Uzumaki (45), Naruto Uzumaki (13).

Sasuke inspected the picture again. They all looked very happy. He decided to start on the article.

"On Saturday June 2, 1964, Kushina Uzumaki (pictured) took a knife to her husband Minato Namikaze (pictured) and grievously injured him and their son, Naruto Uzumaki (pictured). She was suffering from depression and a victim of frequent anxiety attacks. The doctors quoted it was only a matter of time before something like this happened. Uzumaki had refused any medication for her illness. After she realised what she had done to her husband she hung himself with the Piano chords she so loved to play. Minato Namikaze and Naruto Uzumaki lived through the incident, although Minato soon lost his mind, due to the loss of his wife, and the stress from the neighbourhoods suspicions that the boy, Naruto, would go insane as well, and killed himself. The boy went missing at the same time, his body was never recovered. Presumed dead. Their house has been given to their only relatives. This has been a terrible ordeal for anyone involved with the family, a service will be held…"

Sasuke stopped reading. This was a horrible thing to have happened to anyone. He wondered what had happened to the boy…Naruto….