Pakkun watched while Kakashi slept. But not for long enough, he woke still tired, but encouraged by the thought that he could go home now. Pukkun attracted his attention with a gentle whine. Two men had left the gate and were running straight towards him. As they passed he recognised the chakra. They were the messengers that he had followed the day before. Could they lead him to Orochimaru?

He remembered what they had said. 'Some other poor fool to run it over.' It seemed they were out of luck and had been sent out again anyway. He scribbled a note and attached it to Pakkun's collar.

"Make sure this gets back to the Hokage." The dog gave him a concerned look but took off running, without a snide comment for once.

Kakashi sped after the messengers, concealed with total stealth.

He lost them a day later in the forest. The forest. Konoha nins did not get lost in forests. Particularly not ones as familiar as this seemed to be. He slowed to a walk, checking each tree as he passed. So many of them were tantalisingly well, familiar. It was disconcerting, confusing. He stopped and uncovered the sharigan to look around, taking note of the parts that seemed right and blocking the parts that did not.

Suddenly he knew where he was, the old salt mine. Why wasn't he surprised? It was a ginjutsu and he had walked right into the middle of it. He would have noticed a total deception at once of course. But this was subtle, little pockets of falsehood slipped in with reality, fooling him for long enough to lead him right where they wanted him.

He couldn't resist a smile, it was exactly the kind of thing he'd do himself. Then he froze completely in the power of killing intent from the most cold blooded killer Konoha had ever produced."

"What do you want from me Orochimaru-san?"

The white mask-like face looked him over. "From you nothing, there are only three things I want: Unlimited power, immortality and to see Konoha and everyone in it burned to the ground. And you aren't the one who gave give me those." He pulled at a tuft of silver hair. "So you're Sakumo's brat. You look like him. Almost as if he had found a way to come back from the dead. If he had he might finally have been worth listening to."

The copy nin bristled despite himself. "Some would say that the values we pass on to our children are the only immortality worth having."

Orochimaru laughed. The hollow laugh of someone who had never been happy.

"Yes, those that are never likely to have any other choice. But I see that you have something your father didn't."

He ripped off the Konoha headband and threw it onto the ground, then called out as if commanding a dog. "Kabuto come here!"

A moment later a young man was beside him. He was slight and light haired, wearing glasses. But with a menacing presence that gave the lie to his boyish, even effeminate appearance. Kakashi recognised him at once.

"Search him but don't kill him… yet. I don't won't to do anymore damage to that eye."

Kabuto gestured to a nearby tree. A strange, almost inhuman, creature with far too many arms clambered down and bound the copy nin in silvery threads. He then dragged him along the forest floor to a cave that Kakashi now recognised as the old mine entrance.

Inside the spider-like nin released his threads and withdrew. Kabuto pulled him to his feet and started to circle like a shark.

Using his uncovered sharigan kakashi looked around in the near dark. The cavern was outfitted somewhere between a medical museum and a laboratory. There were bottles of body parts, floating in various liquids, all around. Mostly heads and hands, but there didn't seem to be any part of the human anatomy that wasn't represented. There were strange medical instruments too, or were they bizarre weapons? Maybe both.

Kabuto took out a needle and stabbed it into Kakashi's neck, the poison spread at once, freezing him more effectively than Orochimaru's jutsu. Kakashi fought back wave after wave of nausea, he had to keep his focus. His timing had to be perfect, he must not let the Sound ninja find the scrolls.

The young man brought his face to within an inch of Kakashi's throat and inhaled deeply. Then ran the fingers of both hands in opposite directions under his collar. "So you're the lucky bastard who's been fucking Iruka-sensei.

He opened the scroll pouches on his jacket, taking out jutsu scrolls and tossing them on the floor at their feet. "He had your smell all over him, even though he was still wet from his shower. You must have really ground it in. I used to watch him sometimes, when I was in Konoha. It was obvious someone was having him, but I'd never have guessed that he'd go for a pervert like you."

He felt into each inside pocket in turn, taking out weapons and needles and throwing them down with the scrolls. Allowing his hands to slide over the well-defined muscles of the copy nins torso as he moved from one to the next. "I bet he's sweet, that tight little arse and those nimble fingers. Though maybe not so nimble now, eh?"

He started to check the outer pockets, starting at the top and working his way down. "Did you ever make him cry? I tried to, but the man was stubborn. I kept cutting and cutting… Oh I really wanted to see tears in those pretty eyes."

His hand was hovering over the pocket that contained the scrolls. He leered into kakashi's face, looking for a reaction.

"You almost killed him." Kakashi made eye contact and activated the sharigan for a fraction of a second, before letting his genuine fury show. With any luck the kid wouldn't be able to distinguish the intensity of one from the other.

Kabuto's hand passed over without noticing the scrolls inside and moved down to his waist. "Yeah, I heard, guess I got carried away. Good thing you were there, he's no use to Orochimaru-sama dead, but I needed him softened up a bit so that I could use the eye." Kakashi stiffened as he felt himself groped roughly. "Memory modification is very tricky, difficult to know exactly what to seal, and it's all so much more exposed when someone thinks they're about to die. You know, the 'whole life flashes in front of your eyes' thing"

Well that explained a lot, good thing the kid was in a show-off mood. Iruka always did have a way of opening people up.

"Whose eye did you use? Itachi's?"

Kabuto laughed, it wasn't as sinister as his mentor's but not a happy laugh either.

"That's a joke, our old friend from the Akatsuki coming to help us out. No Orochimaru-sama found it in a corpse. The poor fucker had fallen into one of the shafts and been preserved in the salt. But it's been dead for hundreds of years, the chakra use to activate it would be deadly. Although the snakes can handle it, for a while."

So that's how he had done it, snakes and graves. Snakes had hypnotic eyes anyway, they would be natural sharigan users. And he'd heard that Orochimaru always did have a way with snakes.

Now all he needed to know was why.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Naruto didn't know how long he'd been in the woods. The crushed nest of leaves and yellowed grass where he'd been sleeping told him that it was at least a few days, maybe much longer. His stomach was empty but he wasn't hungry. Instead he felt hot inside, as if he was filled with fire. It was strangely pleasant.

He had no idea why he was out there in the first place, perhaps he had passed out while training, it wouldn't be the first time. If he had been with Sasuke and the bastard had just left him then the arrogant prick would pay. They may be rivals but you still took care of your teammates.

His clothes were dirty and stiff as if they had got wet and then dried on his body. He should go home and take a bath. Then he would go and see Iruka-sensei, he was on a mission to make his teacher like him again and he didn't want him to think that he was ignoring him. With a big grin on his face he started back towards home.

The stares of the people he passed seemed more hostile than usual. An old man with a donkey, that he saw coming towards him on the road, led the animal way out into a rice paddy until he had passed. He was just being paranoid, lots of people hated him, they always had. He directed his eyes straight ahead. There were people that liked him too, Sasuke and Sakura. And of course Iruka-sensei. The teacher did still love him didn't he? Despite what he'd heard him say? He felt as if a cold hand had just clutched at his heart, he couldn't afford to think about that right now.

The marketplace was its usual bustle of activity. Naruto was relieved, he was less noticeable in a crowd. Sakura was buying vegetables for her mother when she noticed the familiar blond hair. Her feelings were torn between relief at seeing him and fury that he had scared them by disappearing for so long.

Suddenly an old woman hobbled out in front of her. Sakura was shocked, she had obviously been savagely beaten. One of the woman's eyes was swollen shut, there was a clot of dried blood matting her white hair and from the way her left arm was hanging it was clear that her shoulder was dislocated.

Sakura took her hand. "Old Grandmother, you're hurt. Let me get you to a healer."

The old woman stood unsteadily for a moment, eyes twitching horribly. She looked a Sakura blankly, as if the girl was speaking a strange language. Then she became frantic with fear, she pointed to Naruto and screamed. "It's the nine tails, the kyuubi. It's come here to kill us all."

A sickening hush fell over the whole market. Naruto stood still, blinking uncomprehendingly. A small boy wandered over to him, smiling. Then another woman screamed too, a younger woman.

She ran towards him and snatched the boy into her arms. "My baby, don't you hurt him you monster."

A murmur rose from the crowd. "The kyuubi boy is attacking women and children, kill him."

A large farmer pushed his way to the front, wielding a heavy stick. Naruto watched as the stick swung towards his head, couldn't believe he was really going to hit him. Suddenly Sakura's foot connected with the man's chest, sending him sprawling.

"Naruto, what's going on?" She asked as she landed beside him.

The boy threw his arms around her, convulsed in tears.

"The girl, he's got that young girl!" Someone shrieked. Then Sakura was knocked to the ground by the press of people as Naruto ran, the mob screaming at his heels.

Iruka and Sasuke were drinking tea when they heard the sudden uproar. They both froze, ears straining for clues, was the village being attacked? Suddenly they heard a single word above the din.

"Kyuubi!"

"Naruto!" Iruka yelled, leaping to his feet and dropping his teacup. Sasuke had him by the arm before he could reach the door.

"I'll go, you might get hurt again. You aren't well enough to fight."

With a grim nod of acknowledgement he stood aside and let the boy pass, then watched from his window as he disappeared across the rooftops towards the marketplace.

Naruto was easy to find. Sasuke just had to follow the most frenzied and loudest part of the mob. The fox boy was cowering, backed up against a wall, filthy and bleeding. His clothes were torn and there were leaves sticking to his hair. The crowd pelted him with rocks, sticks, vegetables, anything they could find.

With a graceful leap Sasuke landed in front of him, a kunai in his hand and eyes whirling.

"Back off!" He screamed. "If you hurt him I'll hurt you, all of you!"

The mob became very quiet. Konoha people knew those eyes, Uchiha eyes. It was one boy against a hundred of them but they didn't like the odds. An old man at the front of the crowd threw the stick he was holding at Sasuke's feet. He glared at the two boys, eyes glassy with fear.

"Ok kid, you can keep your demon. But get him out of our village or we'll come back for both of you."

Then he turned around, muttering and shaking with fury. The rest of the villagers dropped their weapons and stepped back, slowly dispersing to leave the three gennins alone in the marketplace.

Naruto sank to his knees then sat on the ground exhausted. He scrubbed at the tear tracks on his face with the back of his sleeve. Sasuke may have saved him but that was no excuse to look weak in front of his rival.

Sasuke crouched beside the fox boy and put an arm around his shoulder. If it had been anyone else the gesture would have seemed kind and reassuring, but the Uchiha looked more like a wild animal guarding its meal.

Naruto looked up at him. He had his hands on his stomach trying to control the strange chakra that was threatening to tear him apart.

"Why did they do that?"

He grabbed his headband, pulling it off, staring at it and polishing the leaf insignia with his fingers.

"I'm one of their own ninja's, I risk my life for these people. I really care about them, I do!"

Sasuke's chest hurt with the mess of conflicting emotions inside him. He took the headband.

"It's stupid to care, love people. It just gives them power over you, makes you pathetic."

Naruto felt dead inside. He reached for some kind of anchor.

"But don't we all need precious people to care about, to fight for, or why would we do it?"

The Uchiha spat back his answer. "I don't. I don't need anyone, caring just makes you weak. Look at Kakashi-sensei fawning over his beloved Iruka. He's a genius, he can do anything. It makes me sick seeing the way that weakling drags him down."

Sakura staggered to the scene just in time to see Naruto pulling himself to his feet, screaming at the dark-haired boy.

"IRUKA-SENSEI IS NOT A WEAKLING! He risked his life for me! It's a million times braver to do that when you think you really might die than when you're strong enough to know that you won't. You're just jealous because Iruka-sensei likes Kakashi-sensei and me better than he does you."

Sasuke's blow connected hard with Naruto's jaw, sending him flying backwards across the street. Naruto crashed into the wall of the building on the other side, cracking it. As he pulled himself to his feet, slightly dazed, his eyes widened. Their colour changed to deep amber and his pupils narrowed to red slits while chackra poured out of his body taking on the shape of an animal with tails. Nine tails. The sound that came from his lips wasn't that of a boy, it was the deep growl of a demon animal.

He took off and ran towards the gate, it was open. A man was waiting for him there. There was a snake coiled around his neck like a collar, holding the guard paralysed in the stare of its one red baleful eye. The snake became limp and he took it from his neck and plucked out the eye, storing it in a little stone jar that he took from his pocket. He threw the dead snake aside and stepped into the shadows as Naruto ran past him.

Sasuke reached the gate a few minutes later. "Open it!" He yelled at the guard.

"But I have orders, I mustn't…"

"Open it!" He yelled again, and for the second time the man was caught up in the swirl of red sharigans. He opened the gate without another word and without seeing the second Konoha ninja run through it either.