AN: Thanks for all the wonderful reviews I've been getting! I'm glad you all like it n.n

Enjoy and review? x3

Oh, by the way, the title of the story I stole from a Michael Jackson album XD "History" and "His story", before people go telling me I spelled 'history' wrong XD

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The Prince And The Fox

By SmexLemur

Chapter 4: Hisstory

"Oi, Kakashi!" the blonde boy hollered as he rushed down the stairs. The silver-haired man looked up briefly from his book. "D'you know where Sasuke is? I'm bored!" he declared, crossing his arms firmly. "I demand to be entertained by him." Kakashi chuckled lightly, before shrugging.

"He's out. Nobody knows where he goes," he said. Naruto blinked once, realising where Sasuke had to be.

"You do know where he is," he said, the words slipping from his mouth before he knew it. Kakashi looked up immediately, his blue eye locking with Naruto's. Said blonde immediately unleashed a string of stuttered sentences—he shouldn't have been able to know that Kakashi always came to pick Sasuke up from the dock. "I—I mean, you're his guard after all!" Naruto finally managed to exclaim, grinning and rubbing the back of his head. Kakashi still eyed him suspiciously. "I'll go look for him, bye!"

Before the silver-haired man could say anything further, Naruto had sprinted out of the castle and headed towards the forest. Kakashi blinked once before shaking his head. There was something weird about the kid, but he couldn't quite place it.

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Naruto ran towards the dock where he and Sasuke had first met, figuring him to be sitting there as usual. It didn't really take a genius to figure that out. The blonde didn't know if Sasuke wanted him there, but he didn't really care—he was sent to help him after all. Naruto still didn't know what he needed to do exactly but he figured he just needed to befriend him and to make him feel like there are other people there for him.

He saw Sasuke sitting on the dock as expected, watching his reflection while swinging his legs in the process. Naruto was happy, because now he could ask him why he came there everyday and what he was always thinking about—when he had been a fox, he couldn't do that.

"Sasuke?" he questioned. The prince was snapped out of his thoughts and looked up, surprise evident in his eyes. Naruto sat down next to him and grinned at him.

"What are you doing here?" he asked him rudely. Naruto shrugged.

"I was lookin' for you. What are you doing here?" Sasuke looked away from him, back to his reflection.

"Thinking." Naruto blinked.

"You can do that in the castle," he pointed out. Sasuke shook his head.

"People annoy me there." It was silent for a long while. Sasuke kept his eyes on the water, while Naruto was just randomly looking around, enjoying the soft noises of the forest—birds, the soft rustle of the leaves when the wind started to blow. He had missed it. "You know," Sasuke said suddenly, breaking the silence. "There usually sits a fox where you're sitting." Naruto blinked. Sasuke looked a little uncomfortable, but continued anyway—he wasn't used to talking, but there was something about Naruto… "I brought him food, but he hasn't showed up today." The blonde fox-turned-boy somehow felt a little guilty, though he couldn't help but feel warm at the statement.

"Maybe he's hunting," Naruto opted, grinning at him. Sasuke briefly looked up at him, gave him a very, very tiny smile and looked back at his reflection.

"Maybe," he agreed. "Or he's just afraid of your face." Naruto stuck out his tongue at him, before pouting.

"You're so mean Sasuke," he said. "Maybe that's why he's not here today!" Well, technically he is here, but I can't tell that to Sasuke, Naruto thought bitterly. Sasuke shrugged, smirking a little.

"Believe what you want to believe, dobe," he replied. Naruto fumed—Kakashi had explained to him what 'dobe' meant.

"Bastard," he muttered.

"Gaara told me he had never heard of you," the Uchiha said suddenly, ignoring the 'bastard' comment. Naruto gave him a questioning look. "And by the looks of it, you had never heard of him either. I didn't say anything about that at the banquet yesterday, but I'm certain you're not from Suna. Where are you from?"

"Why would you ask Gaara that?" Naruto said, his voice shaking. Great, what was he supposed to say now?

"Gaara is the Prince of Suna. He should know," Sasuke said firmly, looking at Naruto from the corner of his eyes. "Why did you lie to me? And where are you from?" Naruto sighed, running a hand through his blonde hair.

"I… can't tell you," he finally said, swallowing. It was the truth, for once—he really couldn't. It occurred to Naruto that he hadn't told Sasuke anything about himself and he did feel rather guilty for that, but it wasn't his fault! It was that stupid rule Kyuubi made up! Sasuke looked back at his reflection, narrowing his eyes.

"I see," he stood up, which made Naruto panic slightly. Was Sasuke mad at him? He wouldn't be surprised, he was even mad at himself! But he didn't want to leave Sasuke, so he had to lie, right? He quickly shrugged his head and stood up as well. Sasuke turned around, stuffing his hands in his pockets as he walked away. "You don't have to tell me where you're from, just as long as I don't find out you're a serial killer or anything like that," he said as he walked away. Naruto blinked.

"Wait, you're not mad at me?" he asked hopefully. Sasuke stopped walking for a moment.

"Why would I care where you're from? You only need to serve and obey me," he finally said.

Somehow, those couple of words were even worse than Sasuke being mad at him.

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"He's so confusing!" Naruto exclaimed, pulling his hair frantically. Iruka chuckled lightly, pouring them both a cup of tea (Naruto didn't really like the warm substance, he preferred water, but Iruka had insisted). "I mean… when I try taking one step forward, he takes two steps back. I don't understand, was he always like this?" Naruto questioned. Iruka shifted his eyes.

"Don't tell anyone I told you this, Naruto," he said in a hushed voice. Thankfully, Kakashi had not yet returned from his duties (note: duties meaning he had not finished reading his perverted book), so he could talk freely about it. Sasuke didn't like people talking about his past—he'd rather have it if they would all keep their mouths shut and pretend it had never happened, but Iruka figured that, if Naruto really wanted to understand Sasuke, he also needed to know about his past.

"I promise, Iruka!" the blonde said. The brown-haired man smiled, taking a sip from his tea.

"Sasuke… he used to be a very cheerful young man, very timid too," Iruka said, figuring that was the best way to begin the story. "He was always looking up to his older brother Itachi, who was the pride and joy of King Fugaku. While Fugaku was always bragging about Itachi, he left Sasuke out of his stories, which made Sasuke try even harder with studying and fighting and whatnot. Itachi had always been very kind to him, he helped him whenever he had the time, which made it even harder for Sasuke to actually hate him for being so perfect.

"But," Iruka paused for a moment, finding this part of the story to be the most difficult one. He had always liked Fugaku—he was a very kind man. "When Sasuke was eight, Itachi began to change. He didn't spend time with Sasuke any more and he acted coldly towards everybody. He began to distance himself from everybody, including Sasuke and his parents.

"He became arrogant, he wanted the throne for himself. So he killed Sasuke's father and mother and uncles and aunts—just everybody who was his family," he paused again, taking a deep breath. Naruto was listening intently, with his mouth hanging open. "When he finally arrived at Sasuke's room, whom he had 'saved for last', as he had said, a maid had found one of the guards dead on the floor and had been screaming her lungs out. Guards flooded the castle and found Itachi hanging over Sasuke with a sword in his hands. Sasuke was crying and Itachi was laughing—some guards even said that his eyes had turned red, instead of black.

Anyway, he was about to kill Sasuke in front of everybody's eyes when Kakashi dashed forward and stopped him. Itachi was sentenced and executed, leaving Sasuke without a family," Iruka finally finished. They stayed silent, both of them, for a long while—Naruto thinking everything over and Iruka reliving the memories of that night. After a long time, Naruto was the one to break the silence.

"Thanks Iruka, for telling me that," he said truthfully. Iruka gave him a small smile.

"You're welcome. It's strange, but somehow you've made more progress with him in one day than Kakashi had in eight years. I figured you ought to know so you don't give up on him," Iruka chuckled softly at the offended look.

"Hey! My name is Naruto and I won't back down on my word(1)! I will help Sasuke!" And with that, Naruto dashed off, with new determination—what had happened to the prince was terrible, but he really needed to get over it. The blonde could understand something like that wasn't easy and he would never understand the pain Sasuke had to go through, but if Sasuke stayed like that… he would be living in darkness for the rest of his life.

And Naruto was not going to let that happen.

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(1) Does that sound familiar? X3