A loud crash echoed throughout the entire apartment, the sound of a gunshot fading easily into the mess of noise. Soon, all fell completely silent in the room, where the only sound was that of blood dripping from the stained-over table's edge.
The beeping of the machine regulating the show of the young male's heartbeat was becoming annoying; it was redundant and slowly biting at the back of the ebony-haired head, through the ears hidden by the matted, sodden hair and into his brain.
"How come you passed out like that out of no where?" he asked, heaving a sigh, staring at his blonde friend–and he'd always used that term very loosely. "When we were getting lunch a couple weeks ago..." A light yawn couldn't be helped from Sasuke. "It makes... absolutely no sense. Because, one second you're there, all cheerful and eating and acting so energetic, and the next second you're passed out cold on the table with that stuff all over your face." His finger gently reached out, prodding the boy's cheek. His eyes were only half open and dark ringlets circled under his eyes; he'd had maybe one good night's sleep in the past two weeks ever since Naruto had gotten hit by the car. He still wasn't able to find out who did it.
"Damn it... Come on..." He sat up, staring at the blonde, before closing his eyes and leaning back, inspecting the room. He'd been in the hospital once before... He remembered getting a bunch of flowers and presents and Get-Well-Soon cards, balloons and all of that. Naruto... Sasuke had brought the stuffed, multi-tailed fox and set it near the window, and Sakura brought a small boquet of flowers by every other day. Kakashi, their old teacher from five years previous–in their High School third year, before Sasuke had moved out of town for his last two years–send Naruto a special card and a snack for the blonde when he woke up. But that was... pretty much about all.
"I said wake up..." he growled, though his voice was lost in his throat and no sound emerged past his closed, dry lips.
His head lowered, body sinking down once more to rest with crossed arms on the edge of the bed. Thoughts, ideas, and decisions were racing through his head.
He might die... You have to find and kill whoever did this to him. You promised him... and you can't go back on that now, genius.
His head rose, eyes fixated on the blonde's expressionless, sleeping state. His left hand rose, again moving towards the cheek of the unconscious boy, tenderly pushing aside loose, blonde locks. He'd become quite pale–Naruto had; Sasuke had always been pale. However, Naruto's lack of a healthy, sun-kissed skin tone was rather frightening.
He stood from his seat as a light beeping sounded from his pocket. Pulling out his cell phone–and rather surprised that it was still charged enough to work–he flipped it open, holding the device to the side of his face.
"Hello?"
"Uzumaki."
"What? Who is this?"
"Haruna."
Sasuke's breath caught in his throat. "I demand you tell me who you are!"
"Uchiha."
"Who the hell is this?"
"Thirteen is the pattern. There is an alphabet..." The voice was a cold, low hiss that easily sent shivers down the Uchiha's spine. "The recognition of personal fault..." A beeping sound clicked, and Sasuke could tell the person on the other end had hung up. He snapped his phone closed, glaring down at Naruto.
It wasn't hard to piece two and two together. The man–as it sounded like a masculine voice–was somehow connected to Naruto's injuries. He quickly flipped his phone open again, hitting the buttons required to navigate to his Received Calls list. The number was listed as 'unknown'.
Sasuke had to control his anger to be able to merely pocket his cell phone instead of throwing it across the room. As they had been for the past many hours, the onyx optics focused on Naruto.
There was a soft tapping at the door. With a "come in" from Sasuke, Tsunade pushed it open and closed it behind her. She leaned her back against it, eyes closed now.
"Unconscious still?"
"Yes,"
"There's a problem."
Sasuke glared at Tsunade, but not at her directly. He was angry at whatever the problem was, because, obviously, if it didn't involve him, she wouldn't have brought it up.
A light sigh escaped her pale-pink lips. "There's been another accident. Similar to that of Uzumaki. Exactly like his, really. The girl was hit, and after a short hour, she woke up, but fell unconscious into a coma right as we were trying to call you. But you were already on the line with someone else. Haruna Sakura's in a coma like Naruto's, now."
Sasuke remained dead-silent for a moment, staring at her. He could almost feel his body shake. He'd been on the phone... just as Sakura went into the coma? And he'd been talking to someone who knew about Naruto's injuries. And he was convinced already the man knew about Sakura's, as well.
"Who were you talking to?"
"I don't know." he stated, turning around in his chair to stare at Naruto, not allowing Tsunade to see either of their faces; Sasuke kept his chair beside where the blonde's head was.
An awkward moment of silence passed, with both of the two thinking to themselves.
"Tsunade?"
"Yes?"
"The man that talked to me said something very straight. He said, thirteen is the pattern, and there's an alphabet... Recognition of personal fault... Something like that."
She shrugged lightly. "I honestly am not sure. It could mean there's a pattern in the alphabet, following thirteen, or that thirteen is an age of something or someone, or that the alphabet has something to do with the actual location of their accidents... Recognition of personal fault... I don't know what that means." She shook her head. "I can have someone look into it for you?"
"Thanks," he muttered, crossing his arms on the side of the bed as he rested his forehead against his wrist.
"You need sleep, Uchiha. And food. And fresh air."
"The window's open, there's a coffee machine near the door, and I'll sleep when the person who did this to them... is dead." he decided, eyes only half open as they stared at the younger male's sleeping--no, not sleeping, almost... dead--face.
"That's not healthy." She shook her head. And, for the moment, Tsunade had chosen to ignore the last part of the last sentence the male had said. It was just very much like him to think in such a manner. She exited the room--and grabbed some coffee for herself while doing so, as well.
Sasuke's eyes, for another hour or so, were continuously rested on Naruto's closed ones, while his mind went through ideas. Hundreds. Maybe thousands. Maybe millions. Anything.
He reached over to the desk near the side of the bed, drawing a pen and a clipboard of blank paper from inside. With his back leaned against the bed, he set it down on his knees, the pen held in his left hand as he wrote down the alphabet quickly. It was all he honestly had. He wrote the number thirteen, and drew a box around it, in the corner.
What else had the man said?
He thought hard, then remembered the man had said Naruto's, Sakura's, and his own last names, in that order. They had all been friends since a young age--and... he honestly meant it when he thought the term 'friends'--but other than that, what did they have in common? Why them?
Five hours passed by, and it was midnight by the time he finally muttered something that sounded like 'fuck this'. He glared at the paper, which was doodled, written and drawn on all over. It and ten other papers nearby. On each he'd square-surrounded the number thirteen and wrote out the alphabet in the center of the page.
He drew up another sheet, writing the same thing he did on each of them. This time, he wrote out 'Uzumaki', then under it--under the alphabet--'Haruna', then 'Uchiha' under it. All he notice right away was 'UHU' pattern, but it was hardly significant.
Sasuke stared at the alphabet written up. Another five minutes of staring at it made him mutter another thing under his breath and cause him to groan aloud, leaning back and resting his head against the blonde's hand, which was at the boy's side. He opened one eye, staring at the fingers that hadn't moved for... forever. His right hand reached up, gently touching Naruto's, twining his fingers within the other's.
"Why don't you tell me, Naruto? Tell me this psychopath's reasoning. I don't know where he is, and too many cars match the description of what I remember. Voice is nothing to go on, because it sounded like he was using an electronic device to mask it... I can't make sense of this nonsense he's told me... and meanwhile, I'm trying yet being able to do nothing, while you and, now, Sakura, are just lying here... Dying..." His ebony eyes shut lightly, the pale lids hiding them well.
He sat up another few moments later. He had no ideas, but just laying with his head there and his hand in the blonde's wasn't helping anything at all.
His hand retracted, he stared at the paper. Sometime he'd written 'UHU' under the three last names. Glaring at the paper, he circled H and U, then underlined U to represent two uses of it.
A pattern? What pattern was there in the alphabet? And thirteen was the pattern.
It was a stupid idea, but hell, it might be right, so it was worth a shot, right?
He set his pen on 'U' and counted thirteen letters forward, going from Z to A when he reached number five and six. His pen stopped and rested inside the circle he drew around H. For a moment, his eyes remained there, and he began counting again. Thirteen letters from H, his pen rested inside the circle drawn around U.
Well, there was the pattern. It barely was a pattern, but it was there. And it was stupid. What the hell did the number thirteen have to do with absolutely everything? When he was thirteen, what had happened in his life? He tried to recall. It was quite a few years ago, after all.
His parents had died when he was thirteen. Along with other family members. His brother, Itachi, had been the one to murder them all.
Sasuke shook his head. No, Itachi was in prison on, maybe... five life-term sentences. With no chance of parole, either.
He scribbled his brother's name in the bottom corner and underlines it neatly regardless. He'd go to the prison in the morning... Just in case. He'd made sure Itachi was being a good prisoner. There was no need to--the guards were the best in the area--but, still. He'd started becoming paranoid about it. He had to make sure.
If asked, he'd say he just... wanted to make sure. Not that he needed to.
He set the clipboard down, the pen clicked close, on the desk, and sat down on the bed, staring at Naruto. Fatigue was causing his eyelids to become heavier. His finger gently traced over Naruto's forehead, pushing the blonde locks to the side. The boy had become so pale... and before, he'd been tanned. Sun-kissed from head to toe in a beautiful light bronze.
----------------------------------------
A light sound was rousing him from his sleep. A light whimpering sound, to be exact.
His onyx eyes were slow to open, but when they did, they met with painfully-squinted blue ones. He blinked lightly before the snapped open, and his arms pushed him from off the side of the bed, then realising he'd been half laying on Naruto in his sleep. He must have just... fallen asleep.
"Naruto?" he whispered, his voice light with the question. He reached out his hand , about to touch the boy's face that was enveloped in pain, but his hand went right through the other's flesh.
He pushed himself off the bed and looked around himself. Naruto was now laying on the grass, still staring up at him in a pleading way, and around them was all grassland enshrouded in darkness.
"Sasuke-kuuu," Naruto's frail, weak voice called out, his eyes opening slightly more as he pushed himself up, trying to grope around.
"I'm right here," he whipsered, kneeling down and trying to rest his hands on the other's shoulders, but his hands fell straight through. He pulled the digits up, staring with fear towards them. He was transluscent.
---------------------------------
His eyes slowly opened again as Naruto had begun to fade into nothing, only to show that he was back in the hospital and Naruto was back under him, and he was back on the other, and the blonde was still unconscious and unmoving.
He gently sat himself on the corner of the bed, shifting his weight very carefully, and traced a finger against Naruto's forehead, pushing blond locks to the side.
"Why won't you wake up?" he asked, frowning deeply, feeling his body shake. He felt his eyes squint, and his head duck slightly, and his breath catching in his throat. He heard and felt himself breathing through his teeth. "Why?" he asked, half yelling--if his voice could be called a yell at that time--and gently resting his hands on the boy's shoulders, shaking him tenderly. "Why!"
His eyes moved to the window, where pale sunlight was filtering through. It was morning. Wasn't he supposed to do something?
Yeah, that's right, he told himself. I have to go to the prison...
He pushed himself from the bed, finding his jacket nearby and sliding his thin arms through it and holding it close. He didn't stare back at Naruto as he left the room, not bothering to tell anyone that might have been there where he was going. They could ask if they wanted to know.
And a half hour later, he was waiting in a very short line until it was his turn.
"I'm here to visit my brother."
"His and your name?"
"He's Uchiha Itachi. I'm Sasuke."
The man at the desk looked up, then typed something away at his computer, flicked through a few papers, then shook his head, holding out a large slip of white paper with a few words in the center. "Uchiha Itachi doesn't reside here any more. He's escaped, or something. He just disappeared one night with no sign of anything at all."
Sasuke stared at the man, then stared towards the door. "Thanks," he muttered, stumbling towards the door. He'd chosen to walk there, since it wasn't that long a walk and he hadn't gotten too much exercise in awhile. He started in a run once outside.
Itachi wasn't here. Maybe it had been him. And he'd left both Sakura... and Naruto alone and unconscious in the hospital. And if Itachi was the cause of it...
Thoughts were racing through his head. How had Itachi escaped, and where had he gone? How long ago had it been? Why hadn't he asked? And why hadn't the police found him yet?
He was in such a fast run he didn't even notice that he was dodging in and out of traffic every now and then. He tripped once, a car nearly running into him, but he pulled himself up on the curve fast enough. He was delirious, and his vision was blurred. He continued his sprint, his heart racing and banging painfully in his chest, which was already really tight.
Sasuke could barely even tell if he was conscious or not. He didn't even notice when he felt a leg kick under his feet and his body dive downwards into a deep pool of water, the darkness of the deep roadside stream with its pollution and chemicals claiming his body.