Naruto is the property of Kishimoto Masashi, etc.

Here we are at chapter seven... I'll apologize again for taking so long. Right now I should be studying French, for which I have an oral exam tomorrow (yes, insert dirty joke here). Oh, well, if I can't speak French by now, then nothing's going to help me.

And oh yes, I worship chapter 306. Any outfit that shows off Sasuke's chest has my vote.

So enjoy my sweat, blood, and tears. Or rather, Sasuke's sweat, blood and tears.

Vengeance

Sasuke's eyes few open at the sudden pressure on his neck. He was blindfolded and being strangled. His hands were tied behind his back in a painfully unfomfortable position, but he could only register that fact for a moment before the struggle for air took over all mental funtions. He thrashed, squirmed, bucked violently trying to shake free, but to no avail. With a final, weak shiver he fell limp in his assailant's grip.

The moment he stopped struggling, cold fingers loosened their grip on Sasuke's bruised throat. Instead the fingers began carressing, petting him like you would stroke a favoured cat.

"Don't forget to whom you belong."

Sasuke woke belted hand and foot to a bed in a cage-like room. Eyes squinting to adjust to the bright surgical lights, he began to notice the details of the room. There was nothing but the bed in the empty, white-washed room. The wall on his right had a barred sliding gate and was caged behind thick, closely-spaced iron bars. The walls had been scrubbed clean in most areas, leaving only the faint residue of red and black paint coating the floors, walls, and ceiling. The wash job, however, could not conceal the gouging claw marks that covered the room, ripping in maddened, irregular patterns.

Turning his head, Sasuke noticed irregularities in the faded pattern of washed-over seals, places where it seemed someone had spilled a cup of paint. But no-one who was careful enough to have constructed a room like this would have spilled paint sealing it. The flaked and now-pale spots and pools on the floor had the familiar aura of blood.

Why am I here...?

Sasuke began to recall the fight. Fucking Kisame. Didn't back me.

Cursing Kisame was only a cover for more relevant thoughts, and he knew it. Sasuke closed his eyes. If he slept again, he wouldn't have to think.

xxxx

It was only by virtue of his status and strength that Naruto got into Sasuke's cell alone. His assistant had practically begged for him to take a couple jounin with him, but Naruto had refused.

"He's had the crap beaten out of him, has been unconscious for three days, and is strapped to a bed. He's not going to attack anyone. Forget it."

It was not without trepidation that Naruto entered the room where he had been caged for a length of time unmeasured. Broken, feral, and lashing out like a wounded animal, Naruto had been locked in a semi-fox state for nearly two months as a result of using the power of five of the nine tails, with periods of madness only broken by drugged sleep. Afterward, he had been told that he was lucky to be alive. He didn't feel lucky.

Then, many of Konohagakure had petitioned for his death, fearing the re-emergence of the demon fox. Only the devotion of his friends and the intervention of the fifth Hokage had saved him.

It made Naruto ill to see Sasuke in this same room. To the others, it was folly to put him elsewhere. Ranked nearly on par with Akatsuki, Uchiha Sasuke was one of the most wanted persons in the ninja countries. By law, Sasuke should have been killed on sight.

Softly palming the code-seals on the bars and sliding the gate open, Naruto opened the locks and stepped in, facing Sasuke's limp form. His regular (if one could call wearing the clothes of your dead older brother regular) outfit had been removed to search for hidden weapons, and now he was only clothed in while hospital garb. He was pale (he had always been pale) and breathing shallowly in sleep.

Looking at his face, Naruto couldn't bear to wake him. Naruto left.

xxxx

Through days and nights that bled into each other in their monotony, Sasuke began to notice Naruto's visits. Naruto would come in, look at Sasuke for a while, and leave. Sasuke found it unnerving.

The only other visiter was Sakura, who came every day to work healing ninjutsu on him. He ignored her as well.

After about a week, Sasuke found one morning that fresh seals had been painted in glowing strips around the room. His bonds we undone. He got up, weak and dizzy on his feet, and poked the writing on the walls. The words flared up, burning his fingertip. Those were no amateur works.

He wander-stumbled to the door-gate and found it a maze of seals and symbols in patterns that he didn't even recognize, much less understand. His captors had left no holes in his white cage.

On the second week, Naruto visited him again. This time Sasuke couldn't feign sleep. Sasuke noticed that the seals on the gate expanded the moment the door was opened.

Naruto sat on the floor in the middle of the room, eyeing Sasuke's slouched form in the corner. They didn't speak for a long time.

"Why haven't you killed me yet?" Sasuke broke the silence.

"I'm not going to kill you." Naruto's eyes were on the floor.

"Why the hell not? I'm only a threat to you. It would be best for everyone in your village if I were killed."

"Why the fuck do you talk like that!" Naruto's eyes shot up to pin Sasuke, enraged.

Sasuke, momentarily stunned by Naruto's fervor, said nothing.

"Tell me!"

Sasuke shrugged, still not making eye contact. "Because it's true."

"I don't care if it's true or not! I want to know what you feel!" Naruto punched the ground for emphasis.

"What I or you or anybody else feels isn't important. You took the job as Sixth Hokage, you took the responsibilites, and you have to ensure the best thing for your people. Things aren't always as black and white as doing what you 'feel'."

"Do you think I don't know that?" Sasuke found a tone in Naruto's voice that he had never heard once, ever. It dislodged him, sett him off-balance. Naruto's words were sinking into defeat. "I know that. I know I'm supposed to do certain things, and I want those things. I used to think that if I never gave up, if I kept trying, if I never gave in, then everything would work out in the end. I still want to believe that. Please, Sasuke, don't... don't make this any harder for me."

"You're not making sense, Naruto."

"I know, I know! Nothing's making sense now. I don't know where I should go anymore. All I can trust is the memories of people who used to be close to me. I don't even know who you are now, Sasuke. I..."

Sasuke stood up. "Now I get it. You want me to be who I was before. You want to believe that there's something left of whatever we had... our 'bond', beacause it's the one point of stability in Naruto's happy little ideal life that's falling apart."

Naruto's shoulders were bowed, his face hiding itself in shadow.

Sasuke began to pace around the room. "Naruto, the idealist, gets a dose of reality. Poor baby, it happened when he was only fifteen. Well suck it up, boy, I've been living in the real world since I was eight." Sasuke's eyes bored into Naruto's hunched back.

"Stop acting like you know everything!" Naruto stood suddenly. "Pitying yourself doesn't mean you can look down on others for not being as miserable as you are!" Naruto flung his arms wide in frustration. "It's easy to be depressed all the time! It's easy to say you hate everyone, so don't even dare to pretend that you're somehow superior to me because you think your life is worse than everyone else's!"

"And you're a fool for going back again and again, trying to fix what can't be fixed! I chose to follow a path that would lead me to this place, I don't fool myself into thinking that what happened so many years ago is more important than right now! But here you are, standing here as vulnerable as a sheep in front of me. I could kill you right now!"

"But you haven't!"

Sasuke's reply was choked into thin air.

"You haven't killed me. Even though you kept saying you were Itachi, you speak to me as if you were Sasuke! You don't know who you are, either!"

Naruto stood there, held immobile, waiting for a Sasuke's response. But Sasuke couldn't say anything. All false conviction had drained out of him and he was an empty shell again – pale and cracked open, the whites seeping onto the ground and the yolk split.

Facing away from Naruto, he jerked when he felt Naruto's arms slip around him from behind to embrace him warmly. All his instincts and his head were telling him to throw Naruto off, but a force he didn't understand kept him rooted to the spot, gripping his white, baggy sleeves and wondering what was happening to him.