CHAPTER 6

It was late in the afternoon and the sun was getting ready to set. Naruto slowly opened his eyes and rubbed his sleep away. He lay still on the bed for a while. He remembered everything that had happened last night.

"Sasuke…" he said as he got up. He needed to confront Sasuke about last night.

He looked around and took time to observe the room. It was Sasuke's bedroom, he could tell. The walls were plainly white, the ceiling was also white but tinged with a little enamel. The window was draped with thick white drapery. He slowly walked out of the room, went down the stairs and into a room which he assumed was the kitchen. It was awfully tidy. Sasuke seemed to have an obsession with neatness.

On the center across the counter was a medium-sized wooden table.

He moved closer and saw food on the table. There was quite a lot. He wondered if Sasuke had cooked them all. Wait, where was Sasuke anyway? He looked around and noticed a piece of paper lying on the floor under a chair. He picked it up. There was neat handwriting on it that read:

"Help yourself with the food if you eat this kind. I'm going to work. Be back in the evening. You can use my clothes on the closet in the bedroom if you need to change. -Sasuke"

He looked at the food on the table again. He decided he did not want to eat and started walking again.

I think I'll just look around his house.

He exited the kitchen and glanced around, wondering where to go next. There were dark hallways to the left and right of the kitchen door. He chose the right one.

This house is freaking huge. It's more like a mansion than a house.

He thought as he passed a few doors along the hallway. Some of them were locked and some were empty when he opened them. As he walked, he noticed how dull the house seemed albeit the few framed masterpieces adorning the walls. There seemed to be an aura of loneliness covering the whole mansion.

He reached the end of the hallway. There was a door that had elegant designs. He assumed it was an important room, or perhaps a guest room. He walked in carefully. When he finally got a look at the entire room, he was amazed by what he saw. It was indeed an elegant room. Contrary to his previous assumption, the room was not a guest room. It seemed more like a room where a family gathering was held. It was incredibly wide, elegance marked all over it, on every piece of antique furniture up to the tiniest decoration. He walked around but did not dare touch anything. There were two sub-rooms adjoined to the main room.

At the far end of the room was a wide wall where huge framed portraits were hung. On the center was the largest one. It was a picture of a family, he could tell, of a middle-aged man, woman, a teenage boy with long hair whose portrait was full of scratches, and a small boy. He looked at the boy closely and recognized him. It was Sasuke. Sasuke and his family. He wasn't smiling in the picture. None of them was. But there was a look on the little boy's eyes that Naruto thought he knew too well. Sadness.

His hands reached up to touch the sad portrait of the young Sasuke. The portrait was like staring back at him and he got the feeling again that the raven was seeing right through his soul. He closed his eyes as he touched his palm on the glass. The moment he did, the room went black.

He shot his eyes open only to see the framed portrait now broken into pieces on the wall. There was blood on the wall. He heard screams coming from somewhere and it scared him. He looked around him and saw blood all over the place, on the furniture, on the floor, everywhere. He was now shivering with fear, heart pounding loudly in his chest. He quickly got out of the room and ran through the hallway. There was an excessive amount of blood on the walls of the hallway and on the framed portraits that hung on them. Blood flowed from inside the closed rooms. He closed his eyes and ran, not looking back until he found the door to exit the mansion. He stepped outside and ran as fast as he could.

It was his first time stepping outside the mansion and he did not know where to go. There were old houses outside and they seemed abandoned. He knew then that he was in a compound. He ran past the houses along the concrete road and he saw more houses ahead. He heard the scary screams of pain again getting closer. He looked up to see the clouds uncover the bright full moon on the sky.

On the end of the road where a light post stood, a tall figure stood in front of a smaller one. He ran closer and stopped. It was Sasuke. No, it was the younger Sasuke, crouched on the ground, arms held up in defense as the taller figure, which he recognized as the long-haired teen on the portrait laughed maniacally before slashing a knife at the small boy's arms which he held up in a futile attempt at defending himself. His eyes widened at the sight. The taller person gripped Sasuke's hair pulling him up before slashing his arms once again. Sasuke screamed in pain. His stomach turned. Blood flowed from Sasuke's wounds, dripping, staining the boy's body and the ground.

He tried to move his body but he realized he couldn't. He couldn't stand the sight. He felt his knees go weak. He heard Sasuke's cry of pain once more before his vision blurred and everything turned black.

"Sa…suke…" he called out weakly before collapsing to the ground.