1I don't own Naruto. Sorry.

Chapter 1

"If I could change one thing about my past, I wish I could have returned Sasuke." -Naruto

Sasuke kicked and punched wildly, his hands and feet guided by the insight from his Sharingan. Clones of Naruto popped out of existence when they came into contact with Sasuke's blows.

Even more clones exploded out of the water, speeding out like guided missiles toward Sasuke. In yet another complex series of taijutsu, Sasuke destroyed them. After regaining his balance from that set of acrobatics, he prepared himself for the next attack.

"Sasuke!" Naruto growled. Sasuke gasped as he felt hands grabbing onto his ankles. He was slowly dragged underwater. Sasuke was pulled completely under and he frantically began to kick to get back up to the surface.

"Damn. My Sharingan is inhibited by the constant movement of the water. I'm at a disadvantage here," Sasuke thought to himself. He broke free of Naruto's grasp, but was dragged down even more by his clones. A punch in the stomach caused the air in Sasuke's lungs to bubble up to the surface.

"Shit, this isn't good," Sasuke thought frantically. He struggled even more but slowly his vision was filled with spots because of the lack of oxygen. After a little longer of blurry vision, Sasuke finally collapsed unconscious into Naruto's grasp.

Naruto quickly dragged him to the surface. As he pulled Sasuke on shore, he realized something was wrong. Sasuke wasn't breathing at all. Naruto pounded on Sasuke's chest and didn't get a reaction. Old feelings of brotherhood bubbled up into Naruto's chest.

"Did I kill Sasuke?" Naruto said out loud. Tear's slowly began to drip out of his eyes. The Kyuubi took advantage of Naruto's weakness and infused more power into him. Naruto was surrounded with an orange glow and a chakra tail sprouted out of him.

"Take him and rush him back home, you weakling," the Kyuubi said to Naruto.

Naruto continued to cry, but the tail whipped around Sasuke and they took off through the forest at high speed.

A thing with a black cloak with red clouds rose out of the ground. His head was vaguely shaped like a venus fly trap with a human head inside.

The Akatsuki member grunted and said, "I see."

Kakashi was running through the forest as fast as possible, trying his best to catch up to Naruto and Sasuke. He was extremely worried and hoped that no one had gotten killed.

Pakkun, who was with Kakashi, whined and said, "Someone is coming."

Kakashi looked up and saw an orange streak fly past him the other way. Thinking quickly, he lifted up his headband and looked out with his Sharingan. Kakashi sighed in relief but was suddenly burdened with other worries.

"So Naruto is taking back Sasuke. But it seems as if the demon fox has taken over more of him. Is the seal slowing wearing away, or is Naruto allowing it to happen?" Kakashi thought, turning around and running after Naruto, who was running through the forest like a fox.

A week later

Sasuke's eyes blinked open and his vision was blurry. "Am I with Orochimaru yet?" Sasuke thought. As his sight cleared, he saw a pair of green eyes looking into his face.

Sasuke's eyes widened in recognition. "Dammit, I'm not supposed to be here!" he yelled and jerked up out of bed. But he was violently punched and forced back down.

"Sit still, you traitor," Kiba growled. Akamaru barked in agreement. Sakura looked down and walked out of the room sadly, realizing that Sasuke hadn't changed.

"Since I'm stuck here guarding your ass, you better keep still. You haven't fully recovered yet, so I can kick your butt anyday," Kiba warned.

Sasuke tried to jerk back up again, but found himself suddenly strapped down with wires. The wires dug into his chest and made him grunt in pain.

"Yeah, that's right. Naruto brought you back with broken ribs, cracked femur, and water filled lungs. I don't know how he beat you, but he did. I even had to stab myself in our mission to save you, so I'm not happy with you at all. Akamaru was hurt, and that isn't helping your case," Kiba explained.

"Where is dobe?" Sasuke gasped through the pain of breathing.

"Naruto? He went on a training mission with one of the sannin. I can't remember which one. I really don't know why they'd take him on as an apprentice. But the man looked worried about something. Hinata says they won't be back for a long while, and she looked sad about it. But speaking of teammates, look who is here," Kiba said.

Tsunade, Kakashi, and Neji walked through the door into the hospital room. None of them looked particularly happy, especially Neji, who had his right shoulder in bandages. The wires around Sasuke became loose, and he sat up with an angry look on his face. He opened his mouth but was suddenly cut off by Kakashi, who had picked him up by the throat and slammed him up against the wall.

"You!" Kakashi yelled directly in Sasuke's face like a marine drill sergeant, "I told you Chidori was to be used for protecting your friends, not impaling them! I taught you that technique because I thought you would be able to discriminate the difference! I guess the Uchiha genius is just a stupid nobody. The Uchiha I knew would have killed you for what you had done."

Sasuke hung there, his breath rasping because of the pain coursing through his body. Outside the door, he could hear Sakura crying. Anger bubbled up inside him, but was suddenly stopped by a hard slap across the face from the Hokage. And that hurt...badly.

Through Sasuke's mind, the image of Naruto and his doofy grin flashed by. Sasuke suddenly felt a huge amount of remose, but held back crying. Kakashi, seeing that Sasuke was starting to feel bad, put him down and nodded over to Neji.

"Seeing as you used Chidori incorrectly, I'm going to take away you using that, and any other jutsu for a while. Until you learn responsibility," Kakashi said gravely. Sasuke just nodded slowly.

Neji grabbed Sasuke's left hand and held it palm up. Quickly, he activated his Byakuugan and used his fingers to stab at multiple points on his hand and arm, closing the tenketsus. Then Tsunade bit her finger and dripped a bit of blood into Kakashi's hand. Kakashi bit his finger and mixed the blood with Tsunade's and wiped it on Sasuke's arm. Kakashi formed a few seals and clapped his hand with Sasuke's. The blood turned black, and spread across Sasuke's hand.

"We've just permanently sealed all the tenketsus in your left hand. Until Tsunade and I remove the seal, you will not be able to perform Chidori, nor will you be able to channel chakra through it, making you unable to do any jutsus," Kakashi explained, "You are free to go now, but if you look, you notice you no longer have the curse seal."

Sasuke looked in a mirror and noticed the curse seal actually had taken on a different shape.

"Instead of trying to eradicate the seal or seal it up, I found a text from the Fourth that showed how to transform seals. Now, if you try to leave the village walls or activate your curse seal, the new seal will drain all your chakra immediately, causing you to faint. So now you are free to go," Tsunade said.

Kiba, Tsunade, Kakashi, and Neji left the hospital room, leaving Sasuke by himself.

Sasuke felt horrible for what he had done, and he collapsed face first into the hospital bed, trying to hold back his tears.

"I actually thought killing my best friend would help me get closer to killing Itachi. What was I thinking? I'm trying to kill Itachi by being just like him." Sasuke thought to himself. Suddenly, his eyes widened as he put two and two together.

"If Itachi is after Naruto like he said, then I can train myself to protect Naruto from him and kill Itachi in the process. If I can prove myself capable of this to Kakashi, maybe he will give me back Chidori, so I can finish off Itachi once and for all," Sasuke said out loud. Sasuke suddenly felt better and vowed himself to find out a way to train to defeat Itachi and protect the ones he loved most. He pounded his fist into an open palm and went to go catch up with Kakashi to ask for some advice.

Sasuke walked over and opened up the door to see Sakura sitting outside. She was still crying, and Sasuke knew it was his fault. Sasuke knew his first step to healing his bonds and killing Itachi would start here, and for the first time in his life, Sasuke smiled and said, "Sakura, I...I'm sorry."

Sakura looked up at him, her green eyes glittering from her tears. She cracked a smile and wailed, "Sasuke-kun!" and gave him a hug.