Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto

Cocoa-latte: Thank you SOOOOOOOOOO much for reading my story

And now! Onto the main event!

Ch. 5

Darkness…There was only darkness now, but not the bad darkness. It was a calm darkness, soothing to Sasuke's senses. As he drifted in it, he tried to figure out where he was, why he was there. The memories began to come, after a few minutes. First, the white hot anger at Orochimaru, then the despair of his nightmares becoming truth, and the feeling of worthlessness. Lastly, he remembered a sharp pain in his back, and a pair of purple eyes, wide and horrified. But the owner of the eyes, he could not recall.

Sasuke brought his attention back to the blackness surrounding him. He didn't know how, but he could sense that he had drifted forward as he was thinking. He could see something up ahead now, a pale blue light. There was something familiar about it, reminding him of the days before Itachii's betrayal, and the murdering of the Uchiha clan.

Sasuke snorted to himself. It was funny, but wherever he was, he could think about his brother, and no feelings of anger or hatred would appear. In fact, he really did not care about it anymore…

He floated there, pondering this, when a whispered nothing made him whirl.

"Sasukeee…" Sasuke whipped around again, trying to pinpoint the location of the ghostly whisper.

"Sasuke, my son…" He turned one last time, to find himself staring at the bluish light, now much closer than before. There were two somethings immersed in it, and he squinted to make them out. When he could finally discern what the two shapes were, his eyes widened, and he tried to backpedal through the blackness.

"No! No! It can't be you! You're both dead! You're both dead…" He heard a soft, loving, familiar laugh ahead of him, and he stopped trying to back away, as a frown appeared on his face. A soft hand, with skin the color of porcelain reached out for him, as the owner spoke.

"You silly! We are dead." Sasuke stopped frowning at that.

"Oh… Well, I guess that that's all right then. Am I supposed to be coming with you?" He beckoned to the hand still stretched before him.

"Yes. It is time…" Sasuke sighed, feeling relieved. He could finally forget about his brother, Orochimaru, that annoying loud-mouth… He reached for the hand, which stretched farther to reach him. Just as he was about to clasp the delicate fingers, an immense force, huge and invisible, gripped his body.

He could feel himself being pulled backwards, away from the hand, whose owner cried out a strangled

"NO!"

The hand pulled back then, and it was Sasuke's turn to cry out, fighting against the invisible force pulling him.

"NO! Let me go! I want to go! MOTHER! FATHER!" He fought and fought against the force, but no matter how hard he tried, he could not escape it. He had one last glimpse of their figures growing smaller and smaller, and then he was rushing through whiteness, then back to a less surreal darkness as the pain in his back knocked him unconscious…

Sasuke awoke with a groan.

What happened? I remember Orochimaru, then…

Sasuke sat up straight as he remembered what had happened. As he did so, a weight slid off of his chest and into his lap. He looked down, startled, then relaxed when he saw Aori's face. She was asleep, a slight smile on her face. Sasuke frowned then, for he noticed a long rip in the sleeve of her shirt, and a bit of her arm was exposed. There was some sort of tattoos on her skin, but he couldn't quite make them out. Sasuke bent, closer, trying to discern the writing… and jerked back suddenly, his nose bleeding.

Aori had awoken, and seeing him bending over her arm had leaped up, accidentally hitting his nose in the process. As he tried to stop the bleeding she turned her back to him after picking up a needle. Once he could take his hand away from his nose without blood gushing everywhere, Sasuke stood up and walked in front of Aori. He grabbed the sleeve where the rip was before she could stop him, but she had already sewn it up. He looked at her quizzically.

"What was that on your arm Aori?" Aori just shrugged, pulling her arm from his grasp. She waved around the room.

"We should leave here…" Sasuke stared at her, surprised. Her voice had been raspy, as though she had been yelling or screaming. She turned, heading for the door, and Sasuke grabbed her arm again.

"Wait!" Aori turned back around to look at him, her eyes and face guarded. "Did you save me Aori?" She nodded yes, then turned and headed out of the door, Sasuke having let go of her arm.

She defeated Orochimaru! And Kabuto! How!

Sasuke raised his hand, about to call for her to stop, but paused, and then lowered his hand. There would be time enough for questions later. Right now Aori had the right idea. They needed to get out of Orochimaru's hideaway.

A few days later, they were sitting next to a fire, having already put miles between themselves and the haunted building. Aori had caught a few rabbits, and they were roasting over the fire. Sasuke was sharpening some shurikens that he had taken from his rooms at Orochimaru's building. He looked up when Aori spoke.

"Where do we go now?" Sasuke kept on sharpening the shuriken, used now to how little she spoke. He had an idea of where they should head to but…

"I have an idea, if it's okay with you…" He glanced up and saw Aori looking at him, the question in her eyes.

"It's the village I was born in. Before…before Orochimaru, I lived and trained there, part of a team of three." Images flashed through his mind as he spoke. Images of an annoying pink-haired girl, a loud-mouth boy in an orange jacket, and a young man with a book in one hand, a set of bells in the other. He kept talking, although the memories hurt.

"I-I think that we can go there… Except that I didn't exactly leave on the best of terms so…" He looked up at Aori, to see what she thought. She was sitting quietly on a log, her chin resting on her gloved palm. Sasuke could see emotion trying to fight its way out of her eyes. For a moment it won, and fear showed through, then was suppressed again by an iron barrier.

"…Aori? Are you alright?" She jumped slightly, as if she had forgotten that he was there, blinked once and then spoke.

"This village of yours… Will there be other men there?" Sasuke raised his eyebrows, startled.

"Well, yeah, there'll be other men there. Why?"

"It's just that…men make me nervous." Sasuke set down the shuriken, looking closer at Aori. He could now see that the hand not supporting her chin was quivering. He frowned slightly. What was it about men that scared her so much?

"But, you never seemed nervous around me, after a while, and I only ever saw you hating Orochimaru." Aori's eyes blazed at his words.

"You were different… And the tall man was not a man. He was an evil thing. I am not afraid of things! Just men." He drew back a bit, startled by Aori's outburst.

"All right, all right! We don't have to go there if you don't want too." But Aori shook her head.

"No. Your friends are there. I will just stay hidden for a while…" Sasuke's eyes narrowed slightly. How did she know that his friends were in Konoha?

"Okay then. We will set out for Konoha tomorrow."

"Yes, tomorrow is good…" With those last few words, Aori disappeared into her tent. Sasuke stared after her, then picked back up the shuriken, shaking his head.

"I think that that was the most I've ever heard her say in one day."

"LEE! GET BACK HERE YOU CATERPILLAR-BROWED ASS-HOLE!" Rock Lee turned the corner running at full speed, Sakura hot on his heels. It had been four and a half years since Sasuke had gone to Orochimaru, and things had almost gone back to normal. Sakura was training under Tsunade now, but Lee had given up on her long ago. Even now, he would still catch her staring off into the distance, thinking of Sasuke. They were friends now, and as happens with all friends, they sometimes played little jokes on one-another.

At the moment, the Sakura chasing Lee did not have pink hair. It was bright green. Lee was having troubles running, because at the same time tears were coming out of his eyes from laughing. He turned another corner, and ran smack-dab into somebody, both of them falling into a tangle. Lee was able to stop laughing long enough to make out a lock of shockingly blond hair.

"Hahaha!-Sorry-Hehehehe!-Naruto I'm-GAhahahahaha!-running from Sakura-Aie!" Lee shrieked as Sakura rounded the corner and grabbed his hair, dragging him off of Naruto.

"LEE! I'M GOING TOO KILL YOU!" Lee cringed, waiting for the punch that he knew was coming, but instead heard a THWAK and "NARUTO! LET ME GO!" Naruto, trying hard to keep his face straight, had stopped Sakura's fist.

"Easy there green-hair. We don't want to damage Lee's pretty face now do we?" Lee shook his head at Sakura, using his puppy eyes skill to its fullest extent.

"No no no! You don't want to hurt me!" Sakura growled, then ripped her hand from Naruto's fist, dropped Lee and stormed off. Lee turned to Naruto, massaging his head.

"Hey, thanks for tha… Naruto? What's wrong?" Naruto had his back to him, and was shaking, hard. Lee frowned, and reached out to touch Naruto's shoulder, but before he could Naruto broke out into peals of laughter.

"BWAHAHAH! I will NEVER forget that! Sakura with green hair! BAHAHAHAH!" Lee just stood there, shaking his head, a smile on his face. It was amazing how unchanged Naruto was inside. For his physical appearance sure was different.

His hair was longer now, enough so that he could keep it in a pony-tail. Naruto's voice had changed too, going from the high-pitched whine to that of a pleasant tenor. He had gone through a few growth spurts as well, and was now taller that Lee. Along with that, and intense training came a lithe, muscular form. Many of the girls in Konoha nowadays swooned over Naruto. Unfortunately, it had gone to his head, and he had an immense ego.

Naruto had stopped laughing by this time, and wiping the last few traces of tears from his eyes turned to Lee.

"Thanks Lee. I needed a good laugh…" Lee frowned.

"You did? Why?" The smile that had been on Naruto's face slowly slipped off.

"A scout just came back from watching Orochimaru's hideout, and his report was…disturbing. According to him, all the people on the grounds dropped dead when a golden light flashed from Orochimaru's chambers. Our scout was a few miles away when this happened, and the aftershock was still enough to knock him out for half a day." Lee shivered. Everyone knew that ever since Sasuke had left, both Tsunade and Naruto had had scouts find the hideout, and then keep it under constant surveillance. The scouts weren't ordinary chuunin either. They were special jounin, whose expertise was in the field of intelligence-gathering. In other words, they were spys.

At the beginning of the third year, when it was hypothesized that Orochimaru would try to take Sasuke's body, Naruto himself had been the scout. Nothing had happened, and so the normal watches resumed. That one of the scouts had been knocked out was worrying news.

"So, what had happened?" Naruto shrugged.

"We don't really know. But when the scout woke back up, everybody was dead. He went to investigate, but Sasuke's body wasn't there. There could have been a fight though, because one of the windows into Orochimaru's rooms was broken. The scout also thinks that Orochimaru is dead. There was a pile of ashes in his rooms, and they were identified as the robe that Orochimaru always wore…" Lee shivered stronger this time. For something to kill Orochimaru and all of his followers, their chakra must have been immense.

"So you don't know if Sasuke is alive or dead?"

"…No…"

Sasuke stopped outside the walls of Konoha, turning to face Aori.

"Okay. How do you want to do this?" She looked at him, then jumped, grabbing a hold of the wall and scaling it easily. She peered out over the vast village, then let go, landing soundlessly next to Sasuke.

"You go in… I will follow you a little ways behind, staying hidden…" Sasuke took a deep breath, then let it go. He couldn't think of a better way so…

"All right then. Are you ready?" Aori nodded and they simultaneously jumped up the wall, climbing up, over, and into Sasuke's past.