Chapter Rating: PG - 12

To My Reviewers:
Lady Samurai: Haha. unfortunately, things aren't looking to good so far, are they?
lilchishorty: NOOOO! THE JUTSU.IS.JUST.TOO.STRONG! And thank you. I'm really honoured that this is one of your fav fics. :D
the troublesome twins: iyay! Glad you're liking it so far. Lessee what I have in store for Naru-chan, eh?
BlueRamen: No no no. I read every word. And nah, don't worry. It was biatchy at all. Thanks so much for taking the time to write me a review. It really really is appreciated.
Elk: Wow. just - yeah. Thanks so much for your lovely comment. I'm so glad that someone out there enjoys my fic and thinks it's worth reading. Thanks for taking the time to read it and to comment. I really appreciate it - you have no idea. Thank you again.
GaaraBelongsToMe: Sasuke's such a dunce sometimes, ne? lol. but they're all idiots. They're BOYS, for God's sake. Totally incapable of doing anything "right". hahaha. ;) Oh, and about Gaara belonging to you, that's funny, coz I could have SWORN he belonged to me. hahaha.
srusse87: Your pokes have turned into stabs and I had to update. And here it is. Hopefully...uh...You won't have to reread everything to remember? hahahaha.
IcerenaMarie: I'm glad that you enjoyed my story so far. I hope I don't disappoint with this chapter. thank you very much for the review. It's reviews like yours that really really spur me to write on. I'm sorry for the lag in updates. :)
iyfanatic: Lol. Neither am I. But it's the only sort that I can actually write. Gah. Angst kills me. I hate angst. lol. Too much angst in the world and here I am shovelling my own crap into the pile. lol. But yeah. Angst apparently makes the sasuxnaru world go round. ;)
Dragon Keeper Erishla: sorry for the lag in updates:)


-VII-
Uncover

The rain - it was just so cold. It was unsteady and tumultuous. The scent of forest and ground was heady. The ache that pulsated through his arm nearly crippled him. But with the same determination he had when trying to kill Naruto, he walked on.

He did not look behind him.

He just walked on, dizzy with pain and dizzy with confusion.

No. There was no determination this time. The determination he had was gone. The determination that counted for nothing when put up against the bond he swore to break.

There was no determination this time. He walked in a daze, the pain in his arm ignored or perhaps just outshined by the pain that kept thrumming at his chest. That peculiar feeling. The spastic convulsing in his chest that made him feel as if he'd lost his family all over again.

Like he'd lost everything again.

There was no determination this time. But he kept on walking anyway.

o-o-o-o-o

Light came through the blinds in slivers of silver; strips of green from trees and strips of clear white fell on his face. He turned away from his window, his gaze landing on the stains on the floor. His blood, dried now, was illuminated by the streams of light. There were only five spots, small as they were, it did not take a genius to know that coughing up blood was not a good thing.

He blinked once, twice, thrice. And then the pain came back.

He turned in his bed, so that his head leaned over the edge. He coughed vehemently and watched as three more spots of blood joined the others already staining his floor. He turned again, the light hitting his blue eyes. He shielded his face with a hand, his eyes glazing over as a numbness he forced himself into took over his body.

He blinked once, twice, thrice. The pain didn't leave.

After a moment's hesitation, he sat up. He looked down at himself, before pulling off his white shirt, damp from the sweat of an uneasy sleep. The seal that curled around his navel glowed red. Touching it, he expected to feel pain. There was nothing. Perhaps it was because he was still groggy from sleep: but the spiral shifted a few degrees before settling again. Naruto's eyes darkened as he looked down at the spiral which was hot to the touch now.

His eyes shifted to the ground where the green and silver light danced still. And then the pain was gone.

o-o-o-o-o

Rebuilding Konoha was an arduous process and if anybody thought they would get their village back just the way it was, they were being delusional or were obviously in denial.

Sasuke knew that once a place was struck by tragedy, the sadness stains the very ground. Tragedy won't fade away as long as there are people alive who remember it.

Walking through the Uchiha compound, he was sure, that the walls were held together by his thoughts alone. He walked without looking around him, his body moving on auto-pilot. There were some things that you just can't forget.

Pushing open the door to the small apartment that was his – but then again, the whole compound was his – he walked to his bedroom. The window he'd expected to be open wasn't, and the picture frame still lay face down. He walked over to the window sill and picked up the frame, little shards of glass falling from the frame to drop on the window sill. Little shards of broken rainbow, which Sasuke ignored.

The photograph was still intact – or rather the photographs. Undoing the back of the broken photo frame, he took out the photographs; holding them as one would with a hand of cards. Four in all.

He slipped the two newest photographs into his pocket. The last two, he looked down at before slipping them into his pocket as well, wondering what Sakura had thought when she saw them. Carefully, he walked around the bedroom, with every intention of taking only what he wanted and leaving the compound for good.

He did not want to come back.

Walking out of his apartment, he closed the door behind him. He had taken nothing with him, finding no reason to. When he found himself in front of his old home, he stopped.

Carefully taking off his sandals, he slid the door open and walked in, sliding the door closed behind him.

With darkness slipping in with him from behind the closing door, Sasuke stood still and dared himself to breathe.

He could. There was nothing wrong with his breathing. It was just very wrong to be breathing in here. There was a faint smell of decay that hung in the air. Pools of light formed from where the boards on the windows had fallen off. The light just made the dark seem darker.

He walked through, not touching anything. He passed his old room without looking in. He passed his brother's room and paused for a few moments at the door. He didn't turn to look inside. He just went on through the house, disturbing the dust on the floor, the particles floating in the air like tiny discolored snowflakes.

He watched them for a while as they danced in a pool of light, before he turned towards the last room in the corridor. The door was open still, and he could hear the screams that hung in the air. He resisted the urge to cover his ears to drown them out. He knew though, there was no silence on earth that could end the screaming.

Hours or mere seconds may have passed before Sasuke moved from his spot at the door way. When he finally stepped through, he stopped again and waited. He waited for the screaming to amplify. He waited for shivers to run through his spine. He waited for the memories to come back and flood him all at once. He waited for the moment where he would drown in the sick turbulent remembrance of the past.

He waited. And none of those things happened.

Instead, he found a deep sorrow settle on his heart and it seemed to weigh him down; the feeling of grief. Suddenly he was a little boy again and he had just lost his parents. His brother – his own blood – had taken away all family he ever had. There was no anger in his heart. Just confusion, sorrow and loneliness.

He would have given anything and everything at that moment, to understand.

Because really, truly; he didn't understand.

He didn't even want his parents back anymore. That hope had gone. He didn't want his aunts and uncles back. He didn't want his family back anymore. He knew there was no returning of that particular loss. And as the setting sun outside turned the room a familiar crimson through the paper walls and windows, Sasuke finally moved.

He wouldn't be taking anything out of this house. There was nothing here he wanted to keep.

Pulling out the last two pictures from his pocket, he dusted the top of the bedside table and set the two pictures down, side by side. He left the room then, resisting the urge to shut the door behind him. He reasoned that there would be no need to. All of it had leaked out already.

He left the house and he left the compound. Inside his parent's room, the crimson of sunset began to fade as night began to weigh in on the house. The portraits of a young Sasuke and Itachi and the photograph of his parents lay on the bedside table, the smiling faces staring up at a darkening ceiling before a wind came in and blew them off the table so that they landed face down.

Sasuke wouldn't have cared if he had known. To him, the smiling faces of the others no longer existed. To him, his own smiling face had been lost all those years ago, with the screaming.

And no silence on earth could bring it back.

o-o-o-o-o

Shikamaru glanced lazily over at Naruto, the other shinobi being unusually quiet. Shikamaru sighed and shook his head. No. It wasn't unusual at all. They were all so used to Naruto being loud as a child. He was always the class clown and getting into trouble constantly. This silence didn't suit Naruto. The silence that began to creep into the other boy steadily over the past seven years.

Either no one had noticed yet or no one was ready to believe it: Naruto was rarely ever loud anymore.

"Stop staring at me, Shikamaru." Naruto mumbled without looking up from the ground.

Shikamaru only shrugged and looked ahead of him.

There was another silence that Shikamaru felt no need to fill. He waited and watched Naruto from the corner of his eyes.

"There's a serious lag in the amount of missions we're getting." Naruto said finally.

Shikamaru's reply consisted of a grunt that could have been interpreted as an agreement or otherwise.

"By 'we' I mean us. And by us, I mean…me."

Shikamaru didn't answer, his gaze shifting up to the sky. The sun was setting. He didn't turn to look at Naruto when the blond laughed. The laugh was laced with anger and scorn.

They reached the gates of Konoha where Naruto could go no farther. Naruto stopped walking and Shikamaru turned to see the other stare at the ground, Naruto's face unreadable. When Naruto finally looked up, Shikamaru raised a hand to say goodbye.

As he left Konoha for a mission, he could feel Naruto's eyes trained on him.

Shikamaru didn't know when it happened or how, but Naruto was rarely ever loud anymore. And Naruto's smiling face was gone as well. Where there had been a smile every time the two bid each other farewell, there was now a blank expression and eyes carefully trained to not reveal a thing.

His smile was gone.

The silence had taken it away.

o-o-o-o-o

Sakura looked outside her window. Dark was beginning to settle in on Konoha like a blanket. Sakura shivered lightly, her arms coming up automatically to wrap around herself.

Winter was descending upon Konoha. Sundown came earlier and earlier now. Looking down at the streets below her, she watched as one by one, the lights on the streets flickered on and then the streets were awash with a warm yellow glow.

She opened the window, leaning against the window sill, breathing in the crisp, cooling air. A wind blew through her hair and she turned her face out to it, smiling gently and sadly.

Looking down again, she could just see Konoha's gates. And she knew, if she were a Hyuuga, she would be able to see Naruto standing there, eyes transfixed on the large wooden gates, hands stuffed in his pockets. She waited, looking out at the road that lead from the gates. Sure enough, after several minutes, she saw a dot that was surely Naruto making its way from the gates. As the dot came closer, she could see Naruto, head down, hands in pockets. She wished now that she was a Hyuuga so she could see him better.

But she didn't need to be one of Hinata's kin to be able to tell that Naruto was upset. Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, she watched her teammate and friend walking down the street, alone.

All this time, and all the friends he'd ever wanted…and he was still alone.

From the corner of her eye, Sakura saw a shooting star cross the night sky. She turned towards it, about to make a wish. She stopped and turned to look below at Naruto, whose blue eyes were gazing up at the falling star.

Sakura smiled softly again, moving away from the window, closing it behind her.

Her wish went unmade. After all, what right had she to make a wish on someone else's star?

o-o-o-o-o

Kiba leaned against a tree, Akamaru a few feet away, the dog staring up at the sky. Kiba turned to look up above him, to see what had caused his companion to fall silent. And then he saw it: a star making its way across the blue-black heavens. Kiba's strange Inuzuka eyes gazed at the sky intently.

Moving away from the tree and walking slowly towards the gates of Konoha to start his guard duty, Kiba slipped on his ANBU mask. Guarding the gates wasn't the most exhilarating of duties, but it beat the gardening and babysitting of his Genin and even Chuunin days. And someone definitely had to do it.

Reaching the gates, he jumped and was instantly atop the wall.

It wasn't just duty and obligation that held him to guard the gates of Konoha. Yes, he was playing a part in protecting everyone within its walls, and yes, the pay was pretty good – but there was something else. Kiba, with a restlessness that rivaled that of Naruto's, liked the peace that came with resting on the walls, Akamaru besides him and below him; the fireflies of Konoha's lights.

As evening gave way to night, the warm yellow lights dimmed to make way for red neon and bright green signs that blinked on and off at regular intervals. Although Konoha was not known for its night life, it did have one. As a ninja, life was short and the opinion was, having a short life meant you had to get it wherever you could.

Beyond the cluster of gaudy lights and neon facades, Kiba could see the huddle of homes, doors lit by lanterns and bedrooms lit by candlelight. As a ninja, life was short. There were those who chose to live it as if on speed and those who chose to live it around others. They lived in houses whose foundations had been rocked not too long ago but still stood as homes – homes whose foundations were the people who lived in them.

Later on, he knew, towards dawn, the neon lights would fade and the clubs and bars would empty and out would stumble ninjas of all ranks; more than half of them would be so completely wasted, they wouldn't be able to walk. Then their companions would pick them up and drag them back home. Kiba would see once more, the pain etched on faces of those who were sober, sad eyes passing over their drunk companions. The sober ones would wonder, if all of it was worth it and those who were drunk, would have bleary thoughts of feeling warmth and wondering where it was coming from.

Kiba would have bet on an arm or leg that almost every single person down there, drunk or otherwise, was wondering what they were doing wrong. Was wondering if it was all worth it and wishing they'd actually live instead of exist.

Akamaru sat up, eyes trained on a lone figure walking towards the gates. Kiba didn't move. Noticing that Kiba did not seem bothered by the figure below them, Akamaru settled back down.

Every night since his return, Sasuke came to the gates without fail. At first, Kiba was weary, keeping a close eye on Sasuke's every move. But so far, all Sasuke ever did was stand before the gates and look at them blankly. Kiba still watched him, but it was different now. He didn't so much as watch Sasuke as he did observe him.

He could see, as Sasuke stood there in front of the gates, he wanted to leave. Nothing tethered Sasuke to Konoha anymore – all ties to the village had been cut away from him when his family died. Kiba could hardly imagine how it would feel to someday wake up and realize that the entire Inuzuka clan had gone.

Perhaps, because Kiba had always been so outgoing and had ties to Konoha outside his immediate clan, he would stay. In fact, he would have surrounded himself with friends. Pretend for a while that everything was fine. But he knew, the others would catch on.

And suddenly, Kiba could make sense of Naruto's words all those years ago.

"No matter how hard you try…try to cover it up…We're always found."

Kiba kneeled, absently scratching Akamaru behind the ears. Looking down, he saw Sasuke move away from the gates. Kiba didn't stir when Sasuke looked pointedly up at him. Sasuke then turned away and Kiba continued to watch, as Sasuke disappeared, avoiding the lights of the club district and disappearing into an area that seemed to be forgotten by the lights of Konoha.

It was only a matter of time and Kiba wondered, when Sasuke would be found.

Shaking his head to himself, Kiba smiled; remembering something else Naruto had said and wondering why no one noticed that Naruto could be pretty darn smart sometimes.

"We're always found – because we want to be."

o-o-o-o-o

Neji's eyes narrowed behind his ANBU mask, cloud-colored eyes watched Sasuke walk through Konoha.

Coming back from guard duty, having just switched with Kiba, he made his way idly through Konoha, on his way back to the Hyuuga compound. As he made his way through roof tops, his eyes caught sight of Sasuke and something about the picture made him stop.

Neji was a Hyuuga. He saw what others could not. But in a clan that could see so much, the Hyuugas spent a lot of time turning away. He cherished his privacy – what privacy he could have, coming from the branch family – and so he respected the privacy of others. But something made him stop.

And he looked down below him, at Sasuke, who seemed oblivious to everything around him. He had never seen the Uchiha so distrait. But that wasn't what made him stop. He wasn't sure what made him stop. But he did. And he stood there, and watched Sasuke with eyes that could see almost everything; searching for something in the image before him.

Sasuke continued, jaded. And Neji continued to watch.

A short distance away, Naruto walked in the opposite direction; eyes fixed on the sky. Neji shifted subconsciously, crouching lower to the rooftop.

And then he saw it.

As the two passed each other, it was all there.

They did not touch, did not look at each other, did not turn away from or towards each other and to anyone who wasn't Hyuuga, it would seem that they hadn't even recognized each other at all.

But Neji was a Hyuuga and he could see what others could not.

And he saw it there, below him, as Sasuke and Naruto passed each other.

The sudden straightening of backs, the clenching of fists. The moment where, for a second, they were both taut and ready to snap.

And the silent agreement not to look at each other. He saw that.

And he saw it too, when they were almost out of each other's sights, Naruto turned his head a fraction – just a fraction – and paused. Naruto's fist had relaxed and his hand twitched. In his blue eyes: remembrance.

Naruto disappeared then and Sasuke was left alone. Neji saw the slant in Sasuke's eyes, a shifted gaze that seemed to clamor to look at the other.

It was all there.

And as Neji pulled away, he saw Sasuke's gaze lift up to the sky. Neji looked up too. And for once, he knew, someone could see what he could not.

o-o-o-o-o

There was a clenching in his heart that he couldn't understand. And somewhere, at the back of his mind, he decided that perhaps it was better that he didn't understand it.

There was a lot that he didn't understand just then.

He didn't understand why Sasuke left. He didn't understand why Sasuke had tried to kill him.

Most of all though, he didn't understand why he was still alive.

All around him, the smell of rain hung low in the air and he was moving. He didn't bother to look at who carried him. He didn't really care.

He just stared at nothing at all. He felt detached, just then. Hollow, somehow and yet so full he could have burst. He tried to make sense of everything but it was difficult.

There was a lot that he didn't understand just then.

He wanted to close his eyes. But when he did, he saw Sakura. How would he tell her that he couldn't bring Sasuke back? She was going to cry then. He knew. And he wouldn't know how to handle her tears.

Tears he would understand all too well. She would be heartbroken. And right then, the clenching in his heart made sense.

But everything else still remained a mystery. His eyes stung but remained dry. He couldn't cry. The tears remained in his chest and settled there, simmering in his heart, causing it to thrum dully against his ribs.

The clenching in his heart made sense. A lot of sense.

And he had never felt more alone in his life.