Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue. (Ha, always wanted to write that!).

iii. he who has many questions

People usually say that, when they are beyond exhaustion and are allowed to sleep, they don't dream. Naruto was not among those, and wasn't sure if that was a good or a bad thing, really. The fact is, he always dreamed. Unfortunately, his dreams became broken pieces of reason when he woke up, and he never understood what he had dreamed about.

He hated to be left in the dark. But it seemed his life was a huge blackout since he had first opened his eyes to see the white tiles of the ceiling inside his hospital's room, one year before. Back then, he had reached to a very true conclusion about his situation: the worst thing about being the sole survivor of a wondrous disaster wasn't the amnesia, or the scars, or the pain. In fact, Naruto didn't have enough of the last two, to begin with. The doctors were amazed and he was considered a miracle of nature when his spin just snapped back in place overnight. Only Tsunade's monstrous layers – and her divine-like rage, of course – prevented the boy from becoming some kind of laboratory rat. Thanks to his grandmother, he was not worldwide labeled as a freak, even though he felt like one.

Anyway, being a freak wasn't the worst. What drove him mad to the point of almost climbing the pristine walls of the hospital was the fact nobody knew WHY. Why he was healing so fast, why he was inside that building when it crashed down, why no one came looking for him for so long. Why he was alive, still.

It felt like he didn't know himself. And that was how he woke up after his trip to the Police Station: frustrated and confused, like trying to remember a word that was almost jumping from the tip of his tongue.

Well, at least he was like that until the door of his bedroom opened widely, revealing Kiba and his toothy grin, followed by the happy bark of a white furred dog. The noise and the surprise made all his confusion vanish for the day, and maybe he was glad for it. "Rise and shine, fox face! You have visitors", his friend called, jumping over the bed like a fish out of the water.

"Yeah, I can see and hear that", Naruto stated patiently, noticing he was still wearing his clothes from yesterday. His lazy grandfather hadn't even been gentle enough to take of his fucking coat, which meant the boy would be all bruised and probably stinking. Jerk. "Aren't you grounded for life after what you did yesterday, fur ball?"

Kiba laughed again. He seemed very happy; actually, he seemed too happy, and it was starting to get annoying. Naruto wondered if that was how people usually felt about him when he was overexcited, and started to feel ashamed of himself. "What? Mom's a vet, remember? I'm a hero, now. She baked me a cake today". Sighting, the blond tried to get of his coat, but discovered soon enough he was caught up inside his covers, just like a mummy. Great. Kiba jumping over his stomach wasn't helping his present situation, too.

"I'm talking about your real mom, which is Hana, your sister. I mean, dude, if it weren't for her, your mom would have let you eat dog snacks. Like, Scoobie Doo", making an inhuman effort to move away from bouncing Kiba, Naruto felt very satisfied when he managed to drop his friend on the ground. The Inuzuka cursed out loud. "I will not even mention that time you told us your mother buys you shampoo for dogs, 'cause, man, that's why you're the way you are".

"Shut up! She is just… Enthusiastic", Kiba sounded defensive, and Naruto just laughed, trying to drop the subject. "Well, your grandmother baked a cake, too, so I came to eat it".

"Your sincerity is touching, Kiba", his answer sounded strained, since he was making another attempt at freeing himself from his bed covers. With his arms glued to his sides, all he could do was try to worm his way out of the cloth, but that was proving to be worse.

Losing the rest of his short – and sleep deprived – patience, Naruto put all his strength in his arms and forced them to open. He knew it was futile, since his covers were really strong and his coat was a jeans coat, but he was frustrated and needed something to vent on.

He was pretty much surprised when there was an horrible sound of something ripping apart and, next thing he knew, his arms were free from the covers. The destroyed covers. And judging from the sudden freedom of his shoulder blades, his jeans coat had met the same destiny. "Wha—"

"Oh, man, your sheets are so old you ripped them like Akamaru here ripped the newspaper this morning", Kiba laughed, petting the white puppy. Naruto stared at his now useless covers, and at Kiba. He couldn't decide what he should pay attention first, so he said the first thing that came to mind.

"Akamaru?"

"Yeah, it's the name I gave him. It's mine, now, since I saved his life". Akamaru barked, shaking his tail happily and jumping at Kiba's legs when the boy started to walk towards the door.

There were many things occupying Naruto's head – like the fact he had broke free from his sheets by ripping them, or, he was remembering now, the bizarre scene of stopped time and Uchiha Sasuke – but he had to snort at Kiba's commentary.

"Right. I saved you; you saved the dog. This means I saved the dog. So I should be the one to name him."

Kiba opened the door walked out, barking his raspy laugh. "I fear your divine logic, foxy. Anyway, your grandma is downstairs waiting with the cake, so, hurry up and get ready to school".

Akamaru followed his new master outside before Kiba closed the door, leaving Naruto with too many things to think about.

--

In the end, the Namikaze Family – that was his father surname, Naruto had been told, and still wondered why he had gone to the trouble of changing his name to Uzumaki, but, whatever – celebrated Tsunade's birthday that morning. She was still angry about the whole near death experience her only grandchild had the night before, but refrained herself from hurting the boy more than it was necessary.

Kiba also received some of the bodily punishment, appeasing Naruto's indignation with the whole situation. Besides, there was cake, and his grandmother's cooking was the best. The blond went to school in a happy mood, even thought the two boys took the long bus ride to avoid the metro.

Unfortunately, the good mood Naruto had sported was draining during his morning classes. He usually got bored and restless when forced to stay in one place for more than five minutes and, trying to not get in trouble with the teacher, looked for something else to do. Like doodling on his books or taking Kiba's cell phone to play some random game and break the owner's records, just to piss off his friend.

This time, he didn't look for distractions, since his mind was busy enough with its own thoughts.

If his life was a normal life, Naruto would attribute the whole metro mess to panic fueled hallucination. That was the logical answer, the explanation everyone would reach with or without the help of a shrink. Unfortunately, Naruto knew nothing about other people mending their cervical column in less than seventy-two hours. Yep, he was not a normal person, and tried really hard not to think about it.

He probably could go on ignoring his super-healing abilities hadn't the whole Akamaru incident happened, but now… Now he could think that it was not insane to believe in his X-Men slash CLAMP slash Shounen Jump moment. There was just one way to prove it, thought.

Actually, one person.

"Sakura-chan… Where is Oto Gakuen?"

The girl had been drawing the graph of a function and, after hearing the question coming from nowhere, made a mistake and the x line became a curve. She looked behind her, clearly surprised. "Oto Gakuen? As in the school we were talking about yesterday?", Naruto nodded, uncomfortable, and she went on. "Why do you want to know?"

"Err…", really, how was he going to explain that? Oh, I dunno, Sakura-chan, I'm going crazy, but maybe that Sasuke you were talking about could explain to me why he seems to believe I am capable of stopping time. "Err, you see, I'm curious since that talk about the school. And Kiba said that I played basketball against them seven months ago, so…"

Sakura bit her low lip, thoughtful, and then started to write on the page with the wronged graph. "If you go walking, it'll take fifteen minutes", she explained, writing down what seemed to be the address. She ripped the whole page when finished, and gave the paper to her friend. "Here you go."

Looking at the address like it had the key to prevent the Apocalypse, the boy flashed a smile to the girl and folded the paper to put it inside his shirt pocket. Five hours later, he was standing in front of the hugest school building he ever came across (that he could remember, obviously).

Oto Gakuen was huge. From what Naruto could see through the black, elegant gates, the main building had six floors, all of them really large with high windows. Probably the classrooms' windows, which meant they were twice as big as the ones at Konoha Gakuen. There was an imponent garden between the gates and the entrance, and he could see that behind the titanic main building there were other constructions of what looked like a planthouse, a tennis court and a soccer field.

He wolf whistled, amazed. Looking at that place, he couldn't understand why that Uchiha Sasuke was using the train to go home. He certainly had a driver, if he could study in a place like that – because that was an elite school, no doubt.

But it wasn't important how the guy choose to move himself from place to place. The important matter at hand was: how Naruto planned on finding the Uchiha? Sakura had said Oto finished its activities the same time Konoha did, unless someone had club practice. Since the school yard was almost empty, the students had gone home, probably, and Naruto didn't know if Sasuke was a club type of person. He should have asked Sakura, who looked like someone who knows her idol's whole schedule.

He spent good ten minutes evaluating his options while looking at the closed gates. Maybe he should have taken the train the same time he did – err, tried to – the day before because, after seeing the school, he doubted someone would give him any information about one of its students.

Even so, there was something telling him he should stay there, in front of the gate. That strange feeling he had before, at the metro, when everything went silent and the only things he could hear were Sasuke's harsh words.

No. Now that Naruto could feel it clearly, he wondered why he never noticed it, because, as long as he could remember – and that was exact seven months – he had always felt that thing. He just never acted on it, thinking it was his own wariness after the earthquake episode or something.

After meeting Uchiha Sasuke, he started to be aware of it. This strange pulsing, like a heartbeat that looks like your own, but it's actually someone else's.

Ariadne's thread. The words reverberated inside his mind, complementing his musings. The voice that said them didn't sound like his own. It sound like a memory of another's voice, the voice of…

"What are you doing here, moron?"

That voice.

Naruto turned left, and there was Uchiha Sasuke, again dressed in his school's blue uniform, but with damp hair like someone who just took a shower. The blond opened his mouth; then closed, and then opened again. What, indeed, was he doing there, listening to voices inside his head and trying to grasp the abstract pulsing feeling he never paid attention before?

But the pulsing was there, and so was Sasuke, who looked annoyed but had not walked away.

"Uchiha Sasuke, right?", he finally said, happy his voice sounded as loud as usual.

The other teen lifted one eyebrow. Naruto felt to urge to lunge at him.

"Right. I think we kind of met, yesterday."

This time, the Uchiha snorted. He snorted, like time bending experiences involving trains was an everyday occurrence.

"No, we didn't."

Naruto walked forward, suddenly furious, but the other youngster stood still, face blank. "Well, I have real good eyesight and would recognize you duck but hair anywhere, so, I say we met yesterday!"

The brunet closed his eyes for a moment, as if trying to be… Tolerant. At the sight, Naruto remembered the whole mess his life was since he could remember, not having any memory of his entire existence, trying to understand how he could mend his bones overnight and rip jeans coats with shear force and stop time to help a dog. He snapped.

"Listen. I don't care. I just want to know what YOU know about the whole Jean Grey thing with the train and the people at the station, and then, I'll leave you alone again trying to pretend you didn't meet me yesterday."

He was an inch from holding Sasuke by his shirt when he finished, surprised he hadn't noticed when he moved forward during his little speech. From this distance, Naruto could see he was good seven centimeters shorter than him, and had to lift his head to glare at the other boy.

Sakura said, once, that no one had black eyes – not real black ones. People could have dark brown eyes, but never black. It only appeared so. But Sasuke's eyes could only be black, because Naruto couldn't see his pupils, even standing so close. And those black eyes didn't blink once during the unbearable silence their owner provided after Naruto stopped talking.

Great. It was really a hallucination. Now, he thinks I'm crazy, and I'll also think I'm crazy, because I myself can't believe that—

"Tonight, ten o'clock, meet me at the elevator of the Tokyo Tower", Sasuke finally said, sidestepping the blond to go down the sidewalk towards the metro. "And I'm not pretending we didn't meet, moron."

Dumbstruck, Naruto blinked and watched Sasuke walk away like a big feline in the jungle. Just after the Uchiha disappeared in the next street turn Naruto understood that: 1. He had not denied the Freeze-Time incident; 2. He had, apparently, decided to talk about it later that night; and 3. He hadn't denied they had met. Which meant they really did know each other.

Too much information, and Naruto went home (by bus), forgetting about the red pulsing that was still there, never ending.