A/N: More than 10 favorites... I love you guys! You all rock! ztp611, toonamifan666, thunder16,seti31, and schak all get money! (...okay, fine, it's monopoly money, but still...)

If a night mare doesn't scare you...

It may inspire you instead.

Darkness.

He couldn't feel anything, couldn't see anything... he hated it. Naruto had once walked blindfolded, on an Academy assignment, and he could hear them more clearly than ever, those cold, mocking voices. He hated it.

Demon.

Murderer.

Pathetic. Nothing but a Dead Last.

How much had he tried his hardest to just run away from those voices? Just run and run, and run like the wind until they couldn't catch up to him, until the voices just disappeared...

He had tried to run, but he ended up running into a brick wall... yow that had hurt... Naruto was shaken out of his memory by a soft sound. What was it?

There it was again... the sound of something dripping... water? And suddenly he could see, thick black bars rising from the earth, reaching for the sky, liquid dripping from them back onto the watery ground. I'm standing... on... water? A white piece of paper rolled onto the black bars, and a rusted lock the size of Naruto clipped itself onto the bars.

A soft red glow filled the air and slipped itself between the bars, and then Naruto saw it.

Kyuubi.

A fierce, demonic beast that did nothing, but still scared him. Naruto drew back, suddenly feeling cold chills rush up him. "W-who are you?" He asked, even though he already knew the answer. There was nothing else this creature could be except...

"Kyuubi." It laughed. "I am the King of Demons, the Nine Tails, the most powerful of the beasts that the Great Sage created! I am much more powerful than you, scrawny human cub."

"You... you're the reason that everybody hates me?" He hated it too. It scared him.

"Am I?" The Kyuubi asks. "They hate you? Do they fear you, you stupid creature? They should fear me! It is their right to fear me, because I will kill them all..."

"Um... but you're in a cage..." Naruto replied. "So... how exactly are you going to kill them?"

"Stupid Yondaime..." Kyuubi swore. "Shut up, you useless cub." He commanded in his loud, booming voice.

Naruto sat down cross legged, then suddenly felt sick as he realized just what the dark liquid was. Blood. "You shut up!" He yelled at it, feeling scared. But he always yelled when he was scared, because he wanted to remember who he was. I'm Naruto Uzumaki, and the Kyuubi can stuff it! "I'm not useless!" He hated everything about the Kyuubi, it's loud, loud voice that made his voice feel unheard and invisible, it's giant stature that made him feel even more invisible, small and inferior, and how it scared him. He never though that fear would give him this numb sensation, but it did.

And he hated how it made him feel.

Somehow, being afraid of the Kyuubi... it made him feel invincible. Like, if here was the Kyuubi, it was the scariest thing there. Other than that... there was nothing that compared to this huge, superior being. He felt like an inferior, smaller being who was just there to make Kyuubi feel bigger and better.

And he hated it.

He hated being seen and hated, but he hated being invisible even more. See me. He thought. Don't laugh at me but... acknowladge me. See me. Laugh with me, smile with me. Just don't look at me... don't look at me with those cold, cold eyes.

Why did the Kyuubi have to be sealed in him?

Why me?

He couldn't give in. He just couldn't. Sasuke narrowed his eyes, his fists clenching together. Don't give in... you can do this! He could do this... Sasuke blinked.

Naruto leaped up, whooping in joy. "Yaha! Sucker! You blinked! I win!"

"N-no I didn't!" Sasuke yelled, feeling his cheeks go beet red. I can't believe that I just lost in a staring contest... against Naruto too... He groaned. "This is stupid anyways!" I'm serious. This isn't just because I lost or anything...

"Get over it, loser." Sakura commanded, punching Sasuke in the gut, her eyes narrowed in obvious dislike. "Naruto won, fair and square. He didn't blink for two hours and three seconds, and you didn't blink for two hours and two seconds. Therefore, you're the loser!"

"Hn." He really wasn't sure why the pink haired civilian seemed to hate him so much, all he knew was that she had hated him ever since that visit to the village.

"Now you have to fulfill your end of the bet." Kiba smirked.

Oh... no... Sasuke struggled to weave a calm composure into his stance and wrinkled his nose as a superior force. "Hn." He managed, hoping that he didn't look like he was mentally freaking out.

"No tomatoes for the rest of the school year!" Naruto crowed as he steadily tiptoed on top of Iruka-sensei's chalkboard. (Seriously, how did this guy climb that high in the first place?) "Sucker!"

Sasuke seethed. "Shut up." He muttered as Naruto slid down a slide made of... air...

"No." Naruto replied as he continued to slide down thin air. "You shut up, Sasuke-teme."

Sasuke's eyes twitched. HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE!? "You're sliding on air, Naruto." He said instead of dashing forwards and breathing a Goukakyuu no Jutsu at the blond. "And how exactly are you doing this feat? I didn't think that your chakra was that amazing, dead last. Actually, I didn't even know that you had chakra at all... do you have any, or are you just too stupid to use it?"

"SHUT UP!" Naruto yelled, lunging at Sasuke. "I don't know what the heck catra is, but you're making fun of me and I hate it when you make fun of me, Sasuke-teme!"

"Somebody's in a foul mood." Sasuke sniffed with a wrinkle of his nose, layering his voice with sarcasm.

Chouji watched the two with wide eyes, and turned to ask Naruto innocently: "What's wrong?"

Naruto scowled. "Nothing." He said angrily.

"Doesn't sound like nothing." Sasuke noted, his tone nonchalant and monotone.

"It's nothing, okay!?" Naruto stomped off, and clamped his hands over his ears. The blond couldn't get the voices out of his head. The quiet, hateful whispers, as one word repeated himself in it's head.

Monster.

And in the stories, the monster was always stupid, stupid, stupid. And the hero was always so smart... Am I that stupid? Am I really a monster? Am I- Am I Kyuubi?

He could see it, right in front of him. The Uchiha symbol. His fingers extended, and his hand stretched, his legs pushing him forwards.

The pride of the Uchiha.

Then he could see cracks begin to form...

NO! NO! Don't break!

The symbol was getting further and further. Sasuke reached forwards all the more, feeling fury.

Don't you dare leave me! You can't- you can't leave me! Stay! Or take me with you! No! You can't go!

And he heard a sharp, shrill scream of pain.. no terror, no fear, only pain. And the voices came.

Avenge us... the clan's traitor...

All he wanted to do was scream, scream at them to shut up, to just go away and leave him alone... but he couldn't.

Kill me, hate me...

Itachi's voice whispered.

SHUT UP! GET OUT OF MY HEAD!

Why couldn't he just have a normal life? Why couldn't he be like Naruto and be a normal kid, laugh with friends...

Be like him? He's a pathetic dead last, beneath the great Uchiha! Why do you want to be like him? He is nothing!

Sasuke wished that he could just take a break... but life wasn't an anime. He couldn't just like a happy, fulfilled life, or anything like that.

I can't do this anymore!

Maybe he was like the Uchiha symbol in his dreams. One more crack, and he would break. Or maybe he was already broken.

He couldn't think.

He couldn't clear his head.

Why had he just snapped like that? It was so stupid.

I can't think... hanging out with that dead last and his friends are just making it worse! Why did Iruka-sensei ever give me this mission? All Sasuke wanted was to feel better, feel at peace with Itachi gone and dead... but now that dead last was distracting him, messing with his thoughts. He wanted to scream.

Naruto shoved a piece of ramen into his mouth. "I knew that you'd be here." Who's that? He stiffened momentarily, then relaxed when he saw who it was.

All that Sasuke wanted was for his family to still be alive, for someone who could say 'I knew it! You always..' like mom did. He just wanted his mom and dad to still be here... to still be alive... was that such a bad thing? To want his family?

"Sakura-chan? How'd you know?" Naruto blinked as the pink haired girl sat down next to him. Sakura laughed as she ordered a Naruto ramen with no miso, then broke her cheap wooden chopsticks in half.

Itachi had known him. Or... at least Sasuke had thought that the brothers had known each other fairly well. After all, even though Itachi always poked him in the head, he had played with him before, and had always known how to comfort Sasuke when bad things happened. But Itachi didn't comfort Sasuke when the worst thing ever had happened... why did Itachi do it? To test his skills... Sasuke wanted to cry.

"You're absolutely obsessed with ramen." Sakura laughed with a slight roll of her eyes. "It wasn't hard to guess where you were, Naruto-kun. After all, if I didn't know you, we wouldn't be friends!"

"It was one of your family members, right? I asked my Tou-san about what happened to the Uchiha's... then from the fact that you're the only survivor and that you're so dark and in your thoughts, it's the only reasonable answer." There was a shift, and someone sat down next to Sasuke. "Well, can you confirm it for me, Sasuke?"

"No way!" Naruto laughed. "You're my friend no matter what!"

"...Shikamaru? Why are you here?"

"That's right! But friends have to know each other really well, Naruto-kun. And... they don't hide secrets from each other either, right?" Naruto felt cold at Sakura's words. If I told her.. then what would she say? What would she do?

"Well, I just wanted to visit on our very own fake friend." Shikamaru replied nonchalantly, tilting his head to watch the clouds. "What are you doing here? I take it it's not to watch the clouds, is it?"

"Well, what if a friend had to lie?" Naruto asked. He felt his his throat was swelling, and his voice came out like a croak. "I mean, say that they were just protecting the other friend, or didn't want the other friend to reject them..."

"No, I'm not here to watch the clouds. As for what I'm doing here, it's none of your business." Sasuke hissed, feeling his face turn red as Shikamaru smirked.

"No one has to lie. And I think that keeping something from someone just to protect them is stupid. I mean, we're almost ninja, right? And ninjas can protect themselves. As for rejection..." Sakura laughed at Naruto's worried expression. "No real friend would reject their friends! Only fake friends will ever reject you. Don't you know how a friend is?"

"Oh boy... you look like Iruka-sensei, all serious and stuff, and you're talking really adultish too. That's not how you talk to friends, you know. But since you're a fake friend, I guess that you wouldn't really know anything about that, eh?" Shikamaru laughed. "Seriously, haven't you had any friends before?"

Naruto had always been a loner. He had never had friends before Kiba-kun had invited him to work together as partners, then the two had discovered that they both seeked revenge on Iruka by the punishment of serious pranking, and both had no clue what political meant, and thought it probably had something to do with toilets. "You're my friend." He finally told Sakura after a long pause. "That's all I need to know." Sakura smiled at that.

Sasuke had always been a loner. His father had told him that he was above the other students, and shouldn't mingle with lessers. "No." He replied coldly as he stood up. I want friends though. He wanted to say, but Shikamaru would probably reject him, laugh at him and how pathetic he seemed. "I don't need any." And he walked away, feeling more lonely than ever.