I am back from my vacation, and have a new chapter up here for you all!

College officially starts on Sept. 7, so my workload might make updates less regular.

New works are being planned out, and shall be posted once they are planned out and finished.

Read, review, and enjoy!

Disclaimer: Who remembers back when people put up disclaimers for anything other than tradition or nostalgia value? Anyhoo, dreamysaturn doesn't own Naruto.

The wood made ominous creaking noises as Naruto walked across the room. He rested his hand on the doorframe of the little senbei shop. Naruto had heard that once upon a time, the Uchihas ran a shop in their district that sold the best senbei in the village. Naruto never got the opportunity to try any because by the time he was deemed old enough to go around without adult supervision by the village, the Uchiha massacre had already taken place. The recipe for the senbei was a closely guarded secret by the clan, and now it was lost forever because it was passed down through word of mouth and had never once been written down. A few days after the slaughter, Naruto had heard two middle aged women on the market street lamenting the loss of the shop and its delicious rice crackers. Not once did he hear them say anything about how awful it was that a significant part of the population had been brutally murdered. When he was younger, that had confused him. Now, it only made him angry.

The little wooden sign on a pole over the door swung in the wind, still hanging by small chain links. The metal clinked together as the sign moved and disrupted the silence in the area. Naruto rested his back against an interior wall and slid down to sit on the floor. It was dusty and had many splinters as the old wood wore down. Nails in the floorboards had gone missing over the years. Naruto closed his eyes and made a mental list of everything he'd need for this place: new nails, more wood, fresh paint, new glass…

Naruto heard the hesitant footsteps of Sakura coming in a few minutes later. Naruto was under the impression that she had gone home.

"What're you still doing here, Sakura?"

"Same thing you are," she said. "Checking stuff out for tomorrow."

Naruto opened his eyes, put his hands on his knees, and lifted himself up off the ground with a short and quiet grunt of effort.

"Part of me is reluctant to fix up this shop," he mumbled. "The senbei recipe is gone. What good will an empty senbei shop do for anyone?"

"What makes you think Sasuke doesn't know the recipe?" Sakura asked. "I was under the impression that the recipe was off limits to non-Uchihas. Sasuke meets the recipe-sharing requirements."

"Sasuke wouldn't know how to make food that wasn't utterly bland and tasteless. He wouldn't know flavor if it bit him in the ass."

"It doesn't have to be restored the way it was meant to," Sakura said. "We can rebuild the shop and get rid of the sign out front. It'll be just a generic shop."

"Do you think Sasuke would notice that?"

"Unfortunately, he would," Sakura shrugged. "I used to come here all the time with my mom to buy packets of their green tea. Sasuke spent a lot of time here with the shop owners."

Naruto sighed and walked to the back of the room to a small table standing on its last legs. He leaned onto it, placing his hands solidly on top of its round surface. A hazy and sleepy feeling crossed through his brain. His elbows buckled a bit, trying to hold him up steady. He knew this feeling.

"Sakura," Naruto whispered slowly. "Sakura, get me a chair…"

Sakura turned and her eyes widened as Naruto wobbled slowly back and forth. She didn't have time to get a chair; he had already lost his grip on the table and was falling backwards.

"Or catch me," he mumbled slowly as he fell into her outstretched arms. "That works too."

"When you wake up from this dream," she said, placing him gently on the floor, "tell me all about it."

"You betcha," he said as his eyes closed.

. . .

Sasuke ran down the road as quickly as possible, determined not to be late. He stopped quickly and checked his reflection in a window. He frowned as he tried to smooth the back of his hair down. His mother had gotten it to lay flat after getting a comb through it, but it was sticking up again. He supposed he could've just brought Mother's comb with him, but the combing had hurt. Mother said it was because his hair was thick and tangled. He sighed and continued walking along at a slower pace. All the other boys teased him behind his back that his hair looked like a duck's butt. They were polite to his face but mean when they thought he couldn't hear them. But he could hear them, and the teasing made him feel worthless, though he'd never admit it to anyone. The girls were nice to him. He could make friends with them, if girls weren't so yucky and full of cooties. Cooties were contagious- Itachi said so.

His pack hit his legs with every step he took, and it was starting to bother him. There wasn't anything too heavy or important in it, just his schoolbook and some notebooks and pencils. Sasuke kept it all organized and neat. Itachi graduated from the Academy early, and Sasuke was determined not to fall behind him. He was as much an Uchiha as Itachi was, right?

Sasuke stopped and switched his pack strap from his left shoulder to the right then sniffed at the delicious, warm scent in the air. His head turned to the right and remembered he was standing in front of one of his favorite places. He opened the door to Uchiha Senbei and Bakery and smiled at the middle aged woman sweeping in the back.

"Good morning, Uruchi-san!" he said cheerfully while waving to the sweeping woman.

"Little Sasuke!" she smiled. "Here to say hello before school? You want some rice crackers for your bento?"

"Yes," he chirped. "Can I help you out here after I get back this afternoon again?"

"If it's alright with your mother, it's alright with me," she said. "Look at you, already school age! I remember your brother when he first started school. Very talented, he was. He graduated shortly after entering!"

"Uruchi," said her husband as he walked out of the kitchen. "Don't go on praising his brother too much. You'll discourage the poor boy."

"Good morning to you too, Teyaki-san," Sasuke smiled.

"Go to school and become a good shinobi. You'll do fine on your own." He laughed as he handed a small package of rice crackers wrapped in a cloth to Sasuke. "Your brother was certainly talented for his age, but you must learn to do things your way. You and Itachi are different."

"I will!" Sasuke said excitedly as he ran out the door to school once more.

"Ah, to be young and hopeful!" sighed Uruchi as she continued sweeping.

"He's such a rambunctious little tyke," Teyaki said as he smiled and headed back to the kitchen.

. . .

"Naruto!" Sakura yelled nervously as his eyes fluttered open. He lifted his head off her lap and blinked a few times to clear his vision. He was still on the floor of the old shop. He leaned his head over to hear more clearly. There was some sort of weird music playing in the background.

"What are we listening to?" Naruto asked as he tried to sit up.

"Eric Whitacre," Sakura said as she got up to turn the little portable radio she'd brought along off. "Nox Aurumque."

"Turn it off, I can't hear myself think."

"I thought it might make things calmer for you as you slept." She said, returning to his side.

"It kind of sounded like you were mourning my death or something," Naruto muttered as he stood up on shaky legs.

"Shut up. It sounded like a good idea at the time," Sakura sighed as she sat him down in a chair and kneeled down to face him.

"Sasuke came here," Naruto muttered as he stared at his outstretched hands.

"Yeah," Sakura said slowly. "I said that, didn't I? Did you hurt your head or something?"

"No, he came on his way to school one day. He came in here and talked with the owners."

"About what?" Sakura said, wiping his face with a cool cloth.

"About becoming a good shinobi in his own right and not just following Itachi."

"Itachi is a sore spot with him, as I'm sure you know," Sakura replied.

"Was being compared to Itachi really that much of a pain to him?"

"He never talked to me about it," Sakura shrugged. "That day we took the bell test, he whispered something to himself about how Itachi made him cry. I don't know what goes through his head when he thinks of Itachi. It's like he goes into his own little world that only exists in his head. He gets really weird where Itachi is concerned."

"I hope he's okay," Naruto said, leaning his head into his hands.

. . .

Sasuke watched as Kabuto exited the room and let out a sigh of relief. The threat of being caught got stronger each day. There was only so much telling off the henchman and maids could take before getting curious. He'd caught a few trying to sneak in his room after he told them all to stay out, trying to sneak around looking for something. Sasuke's room didn't have much furniture, Just a bed and bedside table. It was getting hard to hide his secret.

And now Kabuto was probably onto him. Running off to tell his precious Lord Orochimaru that Sasuke was "hiding" something, most likely. Kabuto was more than capable of stooping that low. He'd done it before. The only reason He was still here was because Orochimaru and Kabuto had him under their thumbs. Sasuke needed power, and came for that reason. He stayed because Orochimaru was the only one capable of giving Sasuke something else he desperately wanted but would refuse to share. So long as Kabuto taunted Sasuke with that thing he wanted inside the lab, Sasuke was trapped here.

Sasuke shook his head and stood up from his bed. His head turned to the door of his bathroom. A shower, he thought. I'll take a quick shower and try to get over it.

Sasuke untied the rope around his waist and let his belt and wrapping fall to the floor. He kicked his zori sandals off and let them fly off to a corner of the room. He tugged his shirt out from his pants and threw it to the side and finally yanked down his pants and reached for a towel. Keeping the towel securely around his waist, he walked over to his bathroom and stepped into his mildew shower. As he stood under the low pressure stream of lukewarm water, he tried to keep his mind blank. No matter how hard he tried to keep his brain a blank white slate, thoughts of Kabuto revealing his secret kept creeping back in. The water got colder the longer Sasuke stood there, almost freezing his scalp as the droplets of water soaked his thick and unruly hair. Sasuke rubbed the water out of his eyes and turned the shower knobs off. He stepped out of the shower and onto the concrete floor of his small bathroom and looked into his sink mirror. He still looked the same as he always did. Nothing ever changed.

Sasuke walked back into his room and toweled his hair dry before putting his night clothes on. He reached under his pillow for his secret.

His hands searched the sheet underneath the pillow and finally found what he was looking for. He grasped it and pulled it slowly out from under the pillow. He lit a few more candles to be sure he had enough light. The picture frame in his hands somehow felt heavier than usual. He stared down at the photograph, gripping the frame so hard that he was sure eventually, the frame would bend out of shape. The photo of Naruto and Sakura and Kakashi he'd managed to sneak by Orochimaru still looked brand new. Sasuke had taken it after a mission, and kept it framed by his bedside. It was the only thing of his former life he brought with him to this godforsaken place.

Sasuke turned the frame around and undid the latch holding the picture in. A small scrap of paper fell out from behind the picture. Sasuke picked it up and held his secret up to the candlelight.

Sasuke was rarely allowed out of Orochimaru's hideout, but when he was he spent hours wandering around the small village just a few minute's walk from the lair's exit. Sasuke kept to himself mostly, but one particular villager knew of Sasuke's imprisonment and reached out to him. He read the words on the paper that man had written to him a few months ago.

I know he keeps you there against your will. Anytime you can, come find me and I'll let you out of here. Just say the word. I'm here to help you.

Tomio

Sasuke put the scrap of paper from the helpful old rickshaw puller back into the picture frame and stowed it back under his pillow as he laid his head against it before sleeping. Someday, Sasuke would take Tomio up on his offer. That day was not today.