Naruto couldn't see anything. He felt his eyes open and close, felt them moving from side to side, but there was absolutely nothing but darkness.

He began to panic. Was he blind? Trapped? Alone? Probably all three. His panicked breathing was the only thing he could register, going in and out startlingly fast.

Where was Sakura and Sasuke? And Kakashi-sensei? Had he been kidnapped by someone!?

He opened his mouth to scream, but before he could he was interrupted.

Suddenly, there was a bright burst of light, like a sparkler, and he could see a blurry image in front of him. He flinched at the brightness, but focused himself on the little light in front of him.

His first thought after seeing the light was "Ow. Bright." He voiced it out loud, surprisingly. The sound of his voice was...calming, surprisingly.

His second thought was "Um...so I'm not blind. Huh."

His third thought was "Ok, what's going on?!"

Squinting, Naruto looked on with his blurry vision at the scene in front of him. It was like watching a tiny movie encased in a glowing area. There was a man and a woman. The woman had...red hair? Orange? Heck, it could be purple. And the man was blonde, maybe brown haired. Something loomed over them, something huge. He could see bright burning eyes, red, on its head, and it fanned out behind the two people. He felt fear and helplessness. What was going on? Who were they?

The entire scene was from the ground pointing upward. He was...lying on the ground?

The two were talking. Naruto couldn't hear them though, it was unlike anything he'd ever seen before. Were they mute? Obviously he could hear his own voice, but then why couldn't he hear them?

The woman suddenly lurched, and the man caught her. He couldn't help but cry out in concern for the people in front of him.

Naruto still couldn't hear anything, but the thing lifted its head up and roared, and the man and woman were thrown back.

A rush of horrible, horrible chakra washed over his senses. It was tinged with darkness, filled with hate and scorn and anger and the burning desire to crush and kill EVERYONE-

The energy coursed through him as Naruto clenched his teeth. These feelings weren't his! Someone was forcing them on him! What the heck was going on!?

Naruto gasped as the feeling left. Suddenly, he wasn't suspended anyone, and in fact he was lying on the ground and encased in something tight and warm. He couldn't move and strangely felt tears rolling down his cheeks. He even heard a baby's wailing...which was him? Why was he crying? He wasn't feeling sad, he wasn't even trying to cry! Naruto tried but couldn't seem to stop.

Above him, further off in the distance it seemed, was the man and woman from before. They were equally blurry, though now Naruto could guess that the blurriness was from his own tears. The redheaded woman was turned towards the man, and her face was moving as if she was shouting. He couldn't hear anything but his own cries. Behind them erupted the burning orange-red thing. He tried to cry out but nothing came except shrieks and wails. Suddenly, there was red soaking the ground. He had to help them!

Trying to get out of his bindings, Naruto squirmed helplessly. His face continued to move with a will of its own, crying and yelling like a little baby. It was, for a lack of better terms, just weird.

The beast disappeared from sight, and he suddenly felt something tingle on his abdomen but couldn't look down. It was like he was frozen, suspended in space. Suddenly his chakra reserves spiked sharply, and his entire core was burning with that same demonic chakra and it hurt!

Vision tinged with red, Naruto couldn't help but cry out in agony. It was burning him, from the inside out. It hurt it hurt it hurt it hurt it HURT!

The man and woman rushed over, stumbling it seemed, and kneeled before him. Through his red tinted gaze he could see the two were worried. The man did something with his hands - probably a jutsu - and the pain stopped, so suddenly that he almost gasped with relief, but he could still feel the chakra, surging inside him. His body tingled from the phantom pain, now a distant memory. What the hell was going on!?

The woman reached out, hesitantly reaching to stroke his head, and he could almost feel the ghost of a hand touching his forehead, feel the warmth and care from that woman. Obviously, the woman knew him or cared for him in some way, and that made Naruto feel...happy, almost. There WERE grown-ups out there who cared about his existence!

The man suddenly fell, sharply, and the woman caught him. For a second, he got an image of clarity. The woman in front of him was beautiful, with long scarlet hair and fair skin streaked with blood and dust. He could see her bright, lavender eyes - they were really pretty - filled with tears as she examined the - blonde, he could finally see - man, whose cerulean eyes were locked on hers. The man told the woman something, before weaving a hand seal. The woman placed her hands on his and he could feel chakra radiating off her, the last of her reserves. Placing a kiss on Naruto's forehead, the woman said something to him - something meaningful, and it killed Naruto that he couldn't tell what - before everything went fuzzy again and he was suddenly being whisked away into darkness.

The next time he could see clearly, he was on the ground at somewhere completely foreign. He saw someone rush up to him, an blurry figure with a bearing and gait that he could've sworn was familiar, but couldn't place the name or face. Then, everything went dark.

The next scene he came upon was much more familiar - it was their fourth hideout, back when they were on the streets.

Their fourth hideout was behind a dumpster near the back of Konoha, far away from the Hokage Tower and and central shops. They didn't have any walls, but there was some soft blankets that an old lady named Kae gave to them. She was kind, really kind, and would sometimes bake them bread to eat. Naruto recalled that she was one of the kindest souls he ever met.

He was sitting on the floor, on top of his makeshift bed, while examining one of the books Sakura had pillaged from the library, a civilian vocabulary book. She was a terrifyingly adept reader, he recalled, and loved books to the point of obsession. Though she never had much tutelage, her parents had given her a private tutor when she was young, and Sasuke had the same treatment as well. It was thanks to them that he could read or write at all.

The memory in front of him, he realized, was one of the rough nights where Sasuke and Sakura were both plagued with nightmares - Sasuke of his clan and Sakura of her abusive parents.

Naruto remembered feeling guilty because yes, he didn't have any parents, but he was never in as much pain as they were and he couldn't really relate. Sakura had always told him, however, that him just being there was a comfort to them both, even Sasuke. Though he apparently refused to admit to such a thing.

Naruto drank in the familiar scene, counting down to when his sister would come out to talk with him. It was one of the fondest memories he had of their time in the streets.

Five, four, three, two, one-

"Naruto-nii," a young Sakura appeared in front of him, her eyes teary, "Can...can I just talk to you? I don't wanna be alone," she whispered. Her voice was teary.

"'Course, Kura-chan. C'mhere." Naruto felt his body move and the words echo, even though he himself didn't say them. It was...weird. Just like before.

"I had a nightmare. It was really scary and now I'm afraid to go back to sleep."

Naruto was silent, waiting for her to continue.

"It was about Mommy and Daddy...they really scare me, nii-chan!"

"I know, Kura-chan."

"Naruto-nii, do you think I was a bad kid? Is that why Mommy and Daddy always had t-those b-b-bottles of nasty stuff and would hit me with them? Was I doing something wrong?"

Naruto still felt anger resonate through him at those words. "Of course not, Kura-chan. You're so nice and stuff, they were probably just lame old geezers who didn't deserve you as a daughter."

"B-But they always said I was a 'demon child', nii-chan. That I would shame the family. Why would they say that?" Sakura's voice was broken-hearted.

"I don't know, Kura-chan. But don't listen to them, okay? They're wrong. You're not a demon."

"Are you sure?"

"Totally sure. Just you wait, when you become a super strong ninja, they'll never talk bad about you again!"

Sakura let out a giggle. "Yeah, I'm gonna be the strongest ninja EVER! Just you wait, Naruto-nii! I'll even be stronger than you!"

"We'll see about that, Kura-chan. I'M gonna be the best ninja, and I won't hold back against ANYONE. Not even you!" He rubbed her hair.

The girl was silent for a while, before speaking up frantically.

"Thank you, nii-chan. You're-you're one of the coolest, nicest people in the world, a-and I don't know what I'd do without you!" She burst out, and Naruto smiled.

"Thanks Kura-chan! You're the coolest, nicest sister in the world!"

He felt warmth in his chest form the kind words she had spoken, but suddenly the world twisted and he was looking at another image.

This time it was Sasuke, only more recently. It was when he found out that his family hadn't banished him. They had gone back home afterwards, with Sasuke disappearing to go to the yard. Sakura, concerned, asked Naruto to go find him.

"But Sasuke," Naruto felt himself saying, "If they didn't banish you, why aren't you going back? Don't you love your family?"

"No."

"N-No? But you always said how much you loved and admired Itac-"

"I did once, but never again! He betrayed me!"

"But, Sasuke! Weren't you listening? He said he was looking for you and never found you! Did you see how relieved he was? You even seemed happy then!"

"Well, things change! He-he...he was being a jackass, and it took me until now to get it!"

Naruto recalled that he had never heard Sasuke that angry before.

"My clan was horrible to me! If I did something wrong my father would beat me! They made me train in taijutsu for hours when I was three! I never loved that place, I was just told it was the best and I believed everything they fed me!"

"The worst of all was my brother! He knew I wasn't banished and did NOTHING. He's an ANBU, he should've been able to find three runaway kids! But he left me, alone, in the streets, for YEARS! Years, Naruto!"

"Sasuke, you're being unreasonable! Your clan didn't do anything w-"

"Shut up!"

The Naruto from the memory shut up.

"I've seen their hatred for everyone else in this village. I've heard how they hate Hokage-sama, how they don't wanna share their power with anyone else. It's messed up!"

"Sasuke! You're getting so upset! They're your family!"

"That clan wanted nothing but power. My mother and my brother was the only one in the entire clan who was nice to me, and she still loved Itachi more than me!" Sasuke was on a rant now. "I finally get why the Uchiha are so hated and feared in this village. They're a bunch of bastards."

Naruto had been gaping at this point.

"My family is messed up and doesn't care about me, not anymore. You and Sakura are my only real family, and it took until now for me to get it."

The next scene was about an hour later, once Sasuke had screamed himself hoarse ranting and Naruto had screamed himself hoarse trying to reason with him. Finally, for the first time Naruto had ever seen, Uchiha Sasuke broke down crying. Real, ugly, torturous crying.

"Sasuke..."

"It hurts. It hurts, Naruto." The whisper was desperate and absolutely begging to be understood.

"I know."

"H-He..." Naruto waited.

"H-He didn't want me to go back..." Finally, finally, Naruto understood the glaringly fake grin Sasuke had given his brother before he left.

The final scene was only for a couple seconds, barely enough to get a good glance.

But it was enough.

Naruto's world was bathed in red. The smell of death hung on every corner of the room he was suddenly in, and bloody handprints and drips of scarlet clung to the walls like sickening graffiti. There was a flickering light above him, illuminating the center of the room.

Three very human, very familiar, very dead bodies.

The boy screamed.

Naruto gasped as he came to, sweat beading on his forehead and his hands clenching the sheets. His entire dream - no, nightmare - was the most vivid he had ever encountered, and it scared him.

He frantically searched the dark room for his siblings, relieved to hear Sasuke's slow, steady breathing next to him. Sakura was to the far right, and she too seemed peaceful.

Naruto breathed deeply.

The blonde haired man and red haired woman, Sakura's moment with him, Sasuke's breakdown, and his family's murder.

It was all so real.

He had to stop thinking about such dark topics. He was Naruto, the cheerful, ridiculous nut job with a million pranks planned out at any given moment. Nightmares weren't part of the deal. Besides, he made Kura and Sasuke happy. He couldn't afford to be unhappy.

He took another deep breath. So much was in that dream, so many strange things. I was unnerving.

Remembering something, he hesitantly pulled his shirt up and looked at his stomach. Just like always, the strange black seal appeared on his abdomen. It was twisting black marks, dark as ink, swirling around a central core. It appeared and disappeared, like it had a mind of its own. It had been there for as long as he could remember, and it never seemed to go away, no matter how he tried to wash it off. He didn't know why it was there, because no one else he knew had it. Sasuke and Saukra certainly didn't have it.

Naruto tried finding answers for months. He even went to Sakura, the smartest person he knew, but even she couldn't tell what it was for or how it got there. Sasuke, too, was stumped. They both, however, agreed to keep it a secret for the time being, on one condition.

"Naruto, if you find out anything, anything that could be dangerous about that seal, you need to tell Kakashi. Promise me!"

He had sworn, and that had been that. Most of the time, he hadn't found anything unusual about it at all. Until now.

He recalled the feeling of bloodlust, of dread and anger and utter desire for annihilation when he saw Sakura being beaten up. That moment when his vision turned red and he could barely breathe and he was so, so, so angry.

The same thing that happened with the monster in the first part of his dream.

Could it be that they were related...?

He took another look at the peaceful, unburdened figures besides him, and with that he made up his mind. Naruto had never kept something this big from his siblings before, but he could remember the look of fear, concern, exhaustion, and utter burden on their faces as they spent hours fruitlessly trying to find something about seals in the public library. He never wanted to see them like that again.

He had no solid proof, Naruto reasoned. Until then, he shouldn't unnecessarily burden them.

Closing his eyes, Naruto drifted back into a dreamless sleep.

Sasuke stared at the breakfast table in shock.

"Dear Kami, please tell me that isn't a human eyeball you have skewered on a fork." Naruto said shakily.

Anko grinned. "Okay. It isn't." She paused. "That was a lie, but you asked so I said it."

"Not helping!"

Sasuke wrinkled his nose. "You have a blood stain on your floor."

"Do I?"

"Yes."

Anko blinked. "Whoops. Forgot to clean that one up. Such a hassle."

"Uh, sensei, is that a plaque commemorating ten years of Torture & Interrogation work!?"

"Mhmm. Totally proud of that one. That was a couple years ago though. I should be getting my commemorative fifteen year one soon."

"...You're psychotic." Sasuke deadpanned.

"Yup! Pass the dango!"

"Whoa whoa whoa, I'm eating it first!" Sakura replied, holding a stick of dango protectively.

Anko narrowed her eyes. "Now just hold on a damn second there. I will fight you for that fucking dango."

"I will fight you back for this fucking dango."

Naruto and Sasuke gaped helplessly as the two females engaged in a glare war, in which Anko seemed to be winning. After a tense seventeen seconds, Sakura gave up. "Hmph. You always win."

"Course I do. I'm just badass like that."

"Am I the only one still not over the whole eyeball thing?" Naruto asked plaintively. He was ignored.

"More like you're 'picking on a six year old'." Sakura grumbled.

"Aw, the way you say that makes it sound like I'm being unreasonably mean!"

They stared. "Anko-sensei," Sakura said plaintively, "you made us do manual labor for a hour last night after we suffered severe emotional trauma at the hands of the Hokage. You woke Sasuke up at 2:40 in the morning with a ghost mask and made him scream bloody murder. And then you tried serving us cow intestines for breakfast, which we continuously refused until you relented and gave us dango instead." She glared. "You are, for all intents and purposes, unreasonably mean."

Anko had the gall to look sheepish. "Just having some fun with you pipsqueaks."

"Well it's not funny!"

Sasuke had a feeling that Anko was crazy the second he saw her.

Now, he had proof.

Anko was sadistic. She was one of Morino Ibiki's - his father once called him a 'madman' - best torture experts, not to mention she was a bit unhinged.

Anko was obsessed with sugar. Dango, to be specific. Sasuke himself hated sweets, so that was more points lost in her favor.

Anko was horrible at parenting. She first treated them like glass dolls, saying absolutely zero swear words and tip-toeing around them like glass, before realizing that yes, thry were alive, yes, they knew the 'f' word, yes, they were mature for their age, and yes, they could move and think like your average human being. Then, she treated them as equals, playing pranks and games and swearing like a sailor - Sasuke was almost positive he would never swear again.

No, seriously. He did NOT want to turn out like Anko.

Anko had gotten dangerously drunk last night, leading to her tossing curse words around like candy - to the point that 'fuck' and 'shit' didn't sound like real words anymore. If Kakashi was here, he'd most certainly skin her alive.

Kakashi. There was a sobering topic.

Despite his outward appearance, Sasuke was completely and utterly guilt-ridden. His now surrogate father - he would take that secret to his grave - was out there on an incredibly dangerous mission that, in all likelihood, he would not return from.

Sasuke was young, extremely young in fact, but he was also a prodigy, a genius if you will. He understood that death was something you couldn't come back from, that it was a final and permanent end to everything. As such, Sasuke feared death. The thought of not living, of not breathing or thinking of moving and just being gone, was terrifying.

He knew the severity of an S-Rank. He had seen cousins go on missions and never come back. He had been to the clan funerals, where everyone would gather next to a gravestone dressed in mourning colors.

The thought that Kakashi would suffer the same fate, and by his hand...

Sasuke was devastated.

He had already lost one family, to the hate and corruption. He could not bear to lose part of his new one.

"Oi, Sasuke." Naruto called.

"What?" Sasuke was immediately snapped out of his depressing thoughts when his blonde, hyperactive nutjob of a brother interrupted.

"Stop brooding! You have that look on your face!" Whoops. "C'mhere and play! Anko gave us a cardboard box and some markers to play with!"

Sasuke blinked. Looking around, he noticed that, in fact, there was a cardboard box sitting on the ground in front of them. Immediately a hailstorm of ideas started swirling into his head about what kind of adventures they could have with the box. They could be pirates, or samurai, or even a daimyo...

Sakura, who was sitting next to said box, looked surprisingly subdued. She was normally peppy, albeit not to Naruto's extent.

His older brother instincts reared their head and pushing his growing excitement aside, he asked her curiously, "You okay, imouto?"

She blinked, jumping slightly. Obviously she was startled. "No, nothing." she replied, laughing it off. "Let's play!"

"Sure." Sasuke let it go, but promised himself to keep an eye on her. He wasn't stupid.

Grabbing a green marker, he wielded it like a sword. "Let's do this."

Normally, Anko didn't make a habit of spying in general- okay, that was a lie. She didn't make a habit of spying on little kids, because that was pedophilia. Doing creepy underage stuff like that was more her old sensei's forte.

But Anko was observing those kids, watching their personalities and interactions. She had a feeling that they were more mature and much more fucked up than the general populace realized, Kakashi included. And as his friend-enemy-rival-torturer, it was her responsibility to make sure that those kids were okay, that Kakashi would be okay with raising them, and that those kids would be okay with him raising them.

They were smart. Maybe not so much the blonde one, but Pinkie especially was extremely intelligent. They knew words and theories and general knowledge that should be far beyond the average children.

They were determined. She didn't really know their motivation, but she assumed it had something to do with protecting one another and shoving it in their former family's faces that they were awesome and badass and stuff.

But most of all, they were mysterious. Each and every one of them was holding a secret from her (and maybe Kakashi). Whether it was dangerous, tragic, or both, they were an unknown variable and as a ninja she knew to fear the unknown.

Did she fear those kids? No. Did she fear what they could become, if pushed hard enough in the wrong direction? Yes.

Anko knew first hand what a bad upbringing could do to someone. How it could fuck that person over physically and mentally, maybe for the rest of their lives.

Training them to be weapons was an extremely bad call on Kakashi's part. Perhaps he didn't know any better, being a child prodigy himself, or maybe he wanted them to be able to protect themselves. But the life of a ninja was dangerous, and bloody, and for kids with so much potential but so much darkness in them, it could ruin them.

Like it ruined her.

She was a sadist, a psychopath, a snake mistress with no loyalty, a loose cannon. She knew it, and so did everyone else. She knew she was fucked up and could do NOTHING.

She smiled. It was hollow.

There was nothing she could do. The ball had already been set in motion, and she couldn't stop it.

They were brilliant. They would become prodigies. Legends. Monsters. Weapons. That she was sure of. It would either raise them up or completely decimate theme inside.

Anko was growing attached to those poor brats. She just hoped they could make it through this, that they were stronger than she was.

That they were stronger than she could ever be.

Summer has come to relieve me and my muse has returned from her hibernation/pouting session. Thanks for your patience and reviews, everyone! Also, it's been over a year since I first posted this, which is making me nostalgic.

...

I've only posted 11 chapters in one year...this is going to take forever.

This chapter, while nice, was really just to move the plot along a bit. We get some really weird dreams for Naruto, some angsting from Sasuke (who finally revealed how he feels betrayed by his brother), and some mysterious sadness from Sakura. Anko is more observant than they realize, too.

Hope you guys enjoyed.

R&R!

Love,

ShiningSunsets