Author's Notes:

Most importantly here, I guess, is that this is basically the beginning of my major diversion from the original storyline. Some of it is changing out of sight (such as Kakashi's condition when they arrived at Tazuna's home), while there are going to be some blatant, extremely obvious differences. I hope that it all makes sense, but I just wanted to give you all a head's up.

I'm a bit nervous about this chapter. It was most definitely the hardest to write (which figures because this is the week before finals, which I should not have been spending the last several days in intense revision), and I still almost didn't post it, but my beta convinced me to, anyway.

Thank you everyone for the reviews, favorites, and alerts! I appreciate it so much!

The quote this time is from Kaiza, who is Inara's (Tazuna's grandson) father. I thought that it was fascinating because of how differently everyone on the team would interpret it.

And, I've never explicitly stated this before, but I've never seen the anime, so everything that I'm referencing comes from the manga.

Thanks again to my beta: The Laughing Fool

Chapter dedication: Silver Serval


Quote:

"If something is truly important to you... even if it's heart-breaking, even if it's sorrowful... you keep on trying and trying, even if you lose your life, you keep on protecting it with these two arms! Then, even if you die, you leave behind the proof that you are a man... forever..."

-Kaiza


They were given sleeping arrangements within the house itself. Sakura was given the tiny guest room, while Kakashi, Naruto, and Sasuke had bedrolls that they would use in the living room at night and stow during the day. Not that they all slept at the same time, someone was always awake, keeping watch.

It was usually Kakashi. They'd keep the hours fair amongst the other three, but he was the one most used to taking these nighttime shifts and, quite honestly, he was still the best at noticing and sensing the presence of others. Besides, he wanted his team to be training during the day. And they'd train until exhaustion so it wasn't a good idea to count on them being awake enough at night.

Sakura could not understand how he was able to get by with so very little sleep. Until she realized that he spent a good portion of the day lightly dozing behind that orange book of his.

She very much mourned the fact that she couldn't sleep in the same room as Sasuke and she was a bit resentful of Kakashi, because he was the one who had made that decision. It ruined her opportunity to...she wasn't quite sure what, actually. All she knew was that her heart beat faster as she imagined Sasuke and herself both sleeping next to each other.

Or even across the room from each other. That was fine as well.

It was strange though, just how much time they all had together. Sure, they'd met almost every day in Konoha, but during that time they spent all but the initial three hours in intense training and then they went home.

But here it was different. They would train for several hours, but then... There was all of this time. It was especially noticeable after dinner when they were able to just roam around for hours before going to sleep.

After the first few restless days they settled down into a pattern. Sasuke would just read whatever was in the house, or else just sit in silent contemplation. Sakura commandeered a completely reluctant but perfectly compliant Naruto into the living room or the porch for another session of reading lessons.

"The 'c' makes a kuh sound, like cup," Sakura said as she repeatedly circled the letter, "Or it can make a kah sound, like cackle... But, um, it also kinda depends on what letter comes after that. If it's a 'ch' it will be a cha or a chi. Like champion or chip. Oh, but...there's also a suh sound, like cinnamon."

Naruto let out a silent sigh. There were so many different sounds and it seemed like there were just thousands of letters and combinations. Most of them sounded so similar. Everyone else was able to figure it out, but he just couldn't.

"Here, write the 'c,'" Sakura said, handing him the pencil.

He made the simple half-moon shape and handed the pencil back to Sakura, who hesitated, erased it, and drew another model, one that wasn't so far on its side. That was one of the worst parts, knowing that she felt bad about correcting his mistakes. When they were practicing their ninja moves, she never hesitated in telling him that he was doing something wrong, or taking advantage of any opening he'd mistakenly leave.

It was because she considered him something of an equal in combat. But she thought that he would be embarrassed about the reading or writing. Which meant that she thought he was failing and she felt embarrassed for him.

It certainly didn't help that Inara would occasionally sit and watch their lessons. Naruto was completely aware that Inara had small books that he could read and that Sasuke was often nearby, reading everything indiscriminately or else watching with an empty expression.

Everything was fine before. I've gotten this far without knowing these things. Please just leave it alone.

It was so different while he was away and he was beginning to truly realize it.

Sure, he sustained injuries in battles, but they were so insignificant when he compared them in his head and he had always healed so quickly. Because-

He decided to not think any further on that.

But he was slowly getting used to sleeping uninterrupted and it sometimes made him sick because he knew that when he went home, it was just going to be...all of the anxiousness and feeling so...so terrible all the time. He dreamed of hands forcing him away and burning him alive.

He was starting to notice that Sasuke never seemed to sleep either.


The room was dark and an uncovered window painted the room with a bluish hue. It was quite early, three a.m. at the latest and there was the sound of only one other person breathing.

Mommy? Or Daddy?

The person was sitting beside where Naruto lay on his stomach and leaning over him. He tensed when he felt the hand lay on the back of his shirt and the warmth seep through the cloth. The touch was so light, though not necessarily gentle. It was delicate almost, as the other hand touched his shoulder to hold him in place while the fingers slid across the back of his shirt and then to his bare arm.

The texture wasn't right to be either of his parents. They didn't have calloused fingers or palms.

Sasuke, he suddenly realized.

Sasuke ran his hands along Naruto's bare skin, feeling carefully and noting every bone. He changed positions in order to better reach Naruto's other arm, completely uncaring that Naruto was awake. Naruto let the examination continue, for that's what it was, an examination. Sasuke was feeling for everything, for every injury, cut, and broken bone.

Sasuke's chest was almost flush with his back and the heat was uncomfortable. He didn't like being touched and most people weren't willing to touch him. Mommy was the only exception and her skin was always so cold.

"There's nothing," Sasuke whispered in confusion.

He pulled Naruto's shirt up and Naruto tiredly closed his eyes as Sasuke carefully felt his back, his spine, his shoulder blades, his sides. "How can there be nothing?" Sasuke murmured, "I've seen you with those injuries. I pulled the glass out of..." his hand slid upwards and searched his shoulder, "how can there not be a scar?"

Naruto pulled away, something he was unused to. He had never fought these kind of things before, but he couldn't bear to let this continue. "Get away!" he hissed, "What are you even looking for?"

Sasuke seemed completely unperturbed by Naruto's reaction and he took hold of Naruto's hand, a strong grip meant to trap, and touched the bony wrist, silently measuring.

"They starve you."

"I hate eating."

Sasuke was suddenly on his knees right in front of him and he reached beneath Naruto's shirt to feel the ribs beneath stretched skin. "Did they make you this sick or did you do this on your own?" he asked.

Sasuke yanked down one of the white cloth guards on his arm and pressed Naruto's hand to it. Naruto's breath paused at the feel of the thick scars under his fingers. "How is it that you heal?" Sasuke asked. "I don't want these. Help me heal this and I'll help you heal yours."

"Heal my what?" Naruto whispered in the darkness.

"I'll help you kill your parents."

Naruto yanked his arm back so suddenly that it drew Sasuke forward and Sasuke had to catch himself with his hands on either side of Naruto's knees. He tilted his head up, looking at Naruto's almost terrified expression from only inches away.

"Why won't you fight back?" he whispered.

Naruto's eyes were huge and caught what little light there was, making them shine. It wasn't beautiful. "They're my parents. I could never hurt my parents."

Sasuke's face tightened at Naruto's trembling breath. "Yes," he whispered harshly, "What kind of son kills his parents?"

Sasuke shut his eyes and the hesitancy was clear. "I'll kill my brother anyway," he muttered, his head lowered, "I won't forgive him. He can't be forgiven."

Naruto already knew that there were some things that couldn't be forgiven. There was nothing that he could do in his life to make up for how much he had hurt, the lives that he had destroyed. How could he could be alive when all of those people were dead?

The two of them stayed in silence broken only by their breath. The loss of heat let Naruto know that Sasuke had moved away. He couldn't hear footsteps on the floor, and he didn't know whether Sasuke had lain down on his bedroll or not.


Daddy sat in the chair as he stared at Naruto. Naruto wanted to bow his spine and hide his face, but he didn't. He had to face his present, just like he had to account for his past.

"I can't understand why they let you live?" daddy said in a blank voice. "They don't seem to understand that everything you do, the demon does as well. When you sleep well at night, when you take pleasure in the food you eat, when you feel happy. All of it is experienced by the demon. He gets to take pleasure in all of the pleasures and the happiness of your life."

Daddy's mouth was open, almost in the expression of shock. "How could they let it survive like that? To get this comfort? There are hundreds of humans, each with a past, people who loved them, cared for them, and dreams, that are disfigured corpses in the ground. They died in pain and fear and good god, how could they let it survive!"

Daddy stood up then and he stepped forward until he was above Naruto. "And it takes care of you! You, of all people! That filthy creature, that took joy in screaming destruction, it cares for you! It heals every injury that you get, it gives you power when you're so close to dying, it offers you protection!

"What does it tell you? Does it reassure you that you'll be okay in the end? That no matter how much it hurts you'll be able to move past it? Does it promise you that old age and sickness will never make you decay?"

Naruto felt so cold. His mind and his body seemed to be in perfect synchronization, they experienced this horrifying guilt as one. "I try not to," he said, "I try not to heal. I don't want to have this."

Daddy's eyes widened and had Naruto's hair in a tight grip. "But you do have it. You have this cursed blessing in your mind and in your skin and I can't look at you without feeling sick to my stomach. You're revolting, a horrific waste of flesh and bone, how dare you be alive?"

"Kill me," Naruto whispered, "I just...want to make you feel better. I want you to be happier."

Daddy's grip tightened and he forced Naruto to his feet and yanked him out of the room and through the front door to the porch. There was a brick ledge encompassing the side of the porch and daddy slammed Naruto's face against it.

His nose broke instantly and the cartilage was forced back into his skull and he felt himself suddenly lose control of his body. His limbs were useless and he was being held up only by daddy's grip on his hair.

He tried to speak but the sounds coming out of his mouth made no sense, just a string of nothing. Daddy yanked his head back and then slammed it forward again. Droplets of blood splattering against the pale brick was the only thing that let him know he was bleeding.

The next impact split through the skin and thin muscle of his chin before the force cracked through some of the bone. His teeth slammed together and his mouth became a tangled mess of exposed nerves. Blood flowed freely from his face. Naruto could vaguely see someone walking their dog past the front yard.

He knew that both daddy and he himself wished that he would die.


Sasuke had tried to promise himself that he would never think of it again. The dual agony that he had felt after leaning over the bodies of his dead parents and feeling how cold their blood was. How it was thickening, congealing.

And then he stayed in a bed at the hospital, while ANBU guarded his room, worried that Itachi would come back to complete it. He'd heard whispers, snatches of conversations, about how workers were still trying to empty the district of all the dead bodies. About how they'd found a little girl and her brother who had tried hiding in an attic. They hadn't found the three-year-old and her two-year-old brother until a week after the massacre. Two little children that they wouldn't have found if not for smell.

Sasuke had almost vomited. Those were his cousins. Two children that lived down the street. He'd seen them at a park, holding tightly to the bars of the merry-go-round which their mother gently pushed. She'd laughed as the wind blew her long black hair around and her son grinned in wide-eyed delight.

Hanae. Their mother's name had been Hanae. The boy's name had been Nori. And the girl...

What was her name? How could he not remember her name? He had been three when she was born, his mother had taken him to see her. He and Itachi had walked by them at the park. She waved to him a few times. What was her name?

Those memories and faces. It would always juxtapose with images. Flesh stretching and sinking until all that was left was browning, thin skin stretched delicately over the girl's dainty features, now grotesque, while her wavy black hair fanned across the wooden floor.

He shouldn't. There was no sympathy, no mercy for his brother. There was nowhere in his heart that allowed any of it, his heart was empty because if he let it fill, if he let anything enter then he'd have-

Oh god. How could he still love his brother? How could he long for the only family that he had left? How could he possibly feel any fondness when he looked back on memories of his life, of any of it? He'd missed it all and now everything was awash with blood that he wanted to wipe away so he could simply cling to his brother's blackened form, just something that could keep him alive-

Stupid. There was nothing there, nothing but a deep, dark blackness that hurt terribly, that cut so deeply. He wished desperately for blindness, anything other than what reality was.

Reality was that little boy's face, his big eyes gone and only sockets remaining. Huddled under the arm of his sister. Had he cried for her to protect him? Had they screamed for their mother? There would have been time for them to panic. Surely Itachi would have taken out all of the ones that had the ability to fight back first. It would have been the adults, the elders, the teens. Then it would have been the children.

Had they screamed for their mother?

Mothers were worthless when they were dead. Theirs was lying at the bottom of the stairs. His had been on the floor with his father.

Worthless. How did everything get so small?

What kind of monster did that? What could possibly equate for that kind of genocide?

Reality was the part of him aching for something different, begging for some different story, a reason, a method to draw reason-

please give me a way to forgive you

Reality was something concrete, something that was waiting to face you as you fell. He'd hit with such force that he couldn't remember, couldn't discern, which way was up anymore.

I used to be able to see the sky


It was almost a relief that Sakura had instant control over her chakra.

Kakashi turned an eye towards his other two students that were glaring up at the marks they had made on the tree trunks with evident frustration. It was going to take them longer, though neither of them seemed to comprehend why it was so much more difficult for them. They had far more chakra, and potential, than Sakura did.

Not to say that Sakura was weak or sub-par. The truth was that she had the ability to be a better-than-average ninja, so long as she learned to think faster and act sooner. But the simple fact was that she was never going to be as good as the other two.

Well, as good as the other two could be if they would stop being so confused. Sasuke always acted as though the ground beneath him was far too hot, as though if he stayed too long, or got too comfortable, if he didn't surpass everything quickly, he would be burned.

It was almost admirable how well the kid could keep his composure. Sasuke was an unwilling spectacle in Konoha. The bloody massacre of the Uchihas had been the biggest news in years and ninjas were terrible gossips. And terribly harsh.

Sasuke was better than almost all of his peers, but he was absolutely in no way an equal to his brother. Itachi had been an ANBU captain at twelve and Kakashi had seen Itachi fight before. Every adult in Konoha knew that Sasuke was no match either. The pressure in the boy's chest must be incredible at the beginning of every fight, because a single loss would be the confirmation of what everyone already knew. That he was the weak shadow.

And Itachi would either die of old age, or a group of ANBU would take him out.

They'd actually told Sasuke not to worry about it.

Kakashi felt sorry for the kid.

But Kakashi felt sorry for a lot of things. He regretted a lot. He made a lot of mistakes.

Kakashi looked idly back at Sakura. "Go and take care of Tazuna at the bridge. If anything happens, signal to me immediately."

Sakura smiled and was gone.

Kakashi wanted to get back to Tazuna's home. He felt particularly uneasy, more so than he had during the past few days. It was strange, he already knew who their enemies were, and he already knew most of their abilities and weaknesses. He had hundreds of strategies, plans, and counter-plans. There was no reason for him to feel this strange uneasiness.

"The same for you two," he said to Sasuke and Naruto, "If anything happens, signal to me immediately."


After Kakashi left, the two studiously ignored each other and worked endlessly. Once when Naruto fell with a particularly hard thump, Sasuke's frown tightened though neither of them said anything. The silence was painful.

It was also exhausting work. Sasuke hadn't brought any food and he wasn't used to expending this much energy for this long without having any food. Both of them needed water, but, once again, neither had brought any.

And there was a kind of impenetrable sameness. Almost like a safety. If one of them were to move away, it would break the beautiful repetition. Not necessarily beautiful. But safe.

The shadows lengthened and Sasuke was breathing hard, willing Naruto to give up so that they could just go home and not think about it anymore. He stood up, knowing that he wouldn't be able to do another. Naruto made one final sprint up the tree and fell with a hard exhalation at the impact.

Sasuke waited a moment to make sure that Naruto wasn't getting up on his own, and then went to stand above him. "You idiot," he said, though his voice was a bit too hoarse to give it the intended malice. "It's stupid to train until you can't move."

"I know," Naruto said without opening his eyes.

"Are you expecting me to help you back?" Sasuke sneered, though already reaching for Naruto's hand, to haul him up.

Naruto's eyes remained closed. "No."

Sasuke stopped moving, "You're going to lay here?"

"It'll get better. Then I'll go back."

Sasuke stepped back and gazed down at Naruto for a moment. He went to the base of the tree to retrieve the dropped kunai. "Kakashi will get angry if I leave you. Just-"

The only difference was the sound that escaped Sasuke's mouth. A choked sound, somehow, suffocating above water. Naruto opened his eyes and sat up slightly.

Sasuke stood frozen, completely frozen. His heart had stopped beating in his chest, so he couldn't understand how it could reverberate so loudly in his head.

"Itachi," Sasuke whispered.

He was long black hair and disinterested expression. Hazy eyes and pale skin. His lips were colorless.

And he was standing in front of them.

"Itachi!" Sasuke snarled.

Itachi didn't even look at him. He didn't even waste the second it would take to flick his eyes in Sasuke's direction. Instead he stood, his gaze fixed with dispassionate interest on the figure before him.

"Naruto," Itachi said.

Naruto didn't know who it was, only that everything about him screamed of silent malice and terrible. And his presence seemed to bring Sasuke to such rage.

"...to kill a certain man...I'll kill my brother...I'm going to kill my brother..."

This was Sasuke's brother?

Naruto flinched as he heard Sasuke's voice. Itachi moved closer to Naruto. "You were how old when I left?" Itachi said, "My brother was six so you must have been about five or so. Odd that you should still look the same."

Itachi calmly caught the kunai aimed for his neck. Sasuke already had another kunai in his hand and was starting to move when Itachi turned to him suddenly and his eyes changed.

Sasuke gasped, the kunai dropped out of his hand and he just stared.

"Sasuke!" Naruto said, crawling towards him.

Was he under a genjutsu? If that was true then all Naruto needed to do was touch him. But once he reached Sasuke, the boy cried out and fell to the ground. Naruto was able to catch his shoulders and did his best to hold him up.

Only ten seconds had passed. What had happened?

"Sasuke?" he said, shaking him.

Sasuke opened his eyes and stared up at him. His face was completely pale and his mouth moved silently.

"No," he finally moaned, pulling himself up painfully, "No..."

Itachi ignored him as he continued to look at Naruto.

"They aren't ready for you yet," Itachi said to Naruto, "but you were here and there's no one to stop me. I wanted to see you. You're nothing to be concerned about."


And there we finish this time. Major deviation at the end there. I hope that you all liked it!

If you saw any mistakes please point them out and I will go back and edit them.

Thank you and please review!

-CR