A/N: Starting things off with a nightmare. I hope you enjoy!


A wall of fire surrounded her as she ran through Morino. The skies were navy, nearly black, as if it were night, and the orange-red flames reached endlessly to the skies, as did the screams of the people within them.

She was thirteen again, dressed in the thin gray nightgown with the darker gray sash tied in a bow that she always used to wear to bed. She was confused and frightened; She had, for some reason, been left behind in the attack.

"Help! Help me!" She cried out, holding her arm. She'd awoke in this hellish landscape by falling into a forgotten katana on the ground, and she was almost certain it had broken in her fall. Luckily it hadn't been stuck in the ground, otherwise she wasn't certain she would have survived it.

She looked around wildly, trying to find survivors. Where had Tsunade gone? Hinoki? Shizune? Karin?

"Auntie!" She screamed, racing to the village center. "Tsunade, where are you?"

She thought she saw the silhouette of someone walking up ahead through the fire, and she ran towards them. "Wait for me!"

The person stopped, turned around, and in that moment the flames lit up their face.

She stopped short, a look of shocked betrayal on her face. "Sasuke?"

His eyes were activated, the scarlet gleaming in the flames. The tomoe were sharp contrasts against the pool of glowing ruby, and his expression was mostly unreadable, save for the moisture pricking his eyes from the heat. Twelve again, with the same bedhead hairstyle he'd had since they were children.

"You brought this on yourself, Sakura," he said far too calmly. He didn't turn his entire body so that he could look at her, instead merely watching her over his right shoulder. "If you hadn't betrayed us like that, the people of Morino would still be alive."

"No, I- I didn't-" She protested weakly, tears filling her own eyes. "I didn't mean for this to-"

"Look at what you've done to yourself," he continued, as if discussing the weather. "You'll never be the same again. You're broken. You're a beast."

"I'm not!" She insisted, taking a step towards him. He didn't budge an inch, and yet still seemed a hundred yards away from her. "Sasuke, please! I didn't mean to hurt you! I didn't mean to hurt anyone! All I wanted-"

"-Was to get revenge," he interrupted in a deadpan. He slowly turned his whole body, and as he did, his face changed. It grew older, more solemn. He was turned to the right, yet never broke her gaze. His body seemed to melt into the roaring fire, and she caught a silvery trail down his cheek as he gazed at her almost sadly with coal-black irises. His hair tamed somewhat in the flames, his bangs messier and falling into his eyes the way they did now at age eighteen.

"Everything is your fault, Sakura," he said in a deeper voice. "Look at what you've done to me. I never would have awakened the three-tomoe Sharingan without your cowardice. Look at yourself. Your family is broken. Your friends are traumatized. Face it: While you fight against a regime you fear, you leave a trail of destruction in your wake. You're no better than me, the dragon to his king, Madara."

"No!" She cried out, trying to move her body. She couldn't move her legs, nor her arms; all she could do was stand there, knees knocking together, as her back trembled with emotion. "I- I'm not a murderer, like your father is! I'm better than this!"

He slowly shook his head. A pitying look gleamed in his eye.

"Because of your actions, an entire village was destroyed, its townspeople murdered in cold blood." He replied in a crooning voice, as if explaining to a child. "Because of you, Morino will cease to exist."

"N- no, I..." She tried to speak, but the words caught in her throat. Tears burned in her eyes as her wobbling knees gave way and she fell to the ground. "I- I..."

He continued to stare at her for a few moments more before he closed his eyes and sighed.

When he opened them again, they were red once more, his tomoe spinning rapidly.

"I pity you, Sakura, I really do." He sighed again. "But I pity more the ones who have suffered because of your greed. I pity your parents for giving birth to you. I pity Naruto for having loved you so dearly. I even pity Tsunade for having to pick up the slack when you ran away a foolish traitor."

"Stop... please..." she sobbed, gripping her nightgown with tight fists.

"I pity Arata most of all for having such a heartless demon of a sister," he continued, a hateful gleam in his visible eye. "It's really quite a shame that he'll never see the day when he learns the truth of his birthright. Unless you come clean, he will never have the chance to meet you again. You will break your promise, and he will die at your hands."

Without another word, he turned his back to her. Ignoring her pleads for him to come back, he vanished into the flames, leaving her to be engulfed in the fire.

"Sasuke!" She sobbed. "Sasuke, please! I'm sorry!"

Just as the smoke began to veil her vision and choke her throat, her eyes snapped open, Sasuke's name on her lips.


She awoke abruptly, her hands tangled in the disheveled sheets. "-suke-!"

Sweat dampened her brow and felt cool against the back of her neck on her pillow. Her hair stuck to any inch of exposed skin it could, and when she swept her hand across her face to remove it, a few strands caught on her dry lips.

She panted, trying to calm her racing heart at the nightmare. Never before had she had one quite as vivid as this one had been, and she'd seen just about everything, from her mother dying in childbirth to her own death at the hands of the prince himself, his ancestor Madara's face a morbid swap for his own.

She let out a whimper, hugging her knees to her chest. A single tear made its way down her cheek as she reflected on the dream.

"It's my fault," she whispered in despair. "It's all my fault."

The last thing he'd said to her had really struck her deep. Even though she'd only met him during the daylight once, she could tell he was a wonderful boy. Her parents had obviously raised him with the love and care she recalled from her own childhood, and it sent a pang of regret through her heart. What if she failed him? What if he died before the war was over? What if... what if he hated her for all that she'd done? What if he hated her for abandoning them? For abandoning their mother when she had needed her most?

She decided to get up and watch the stars to try and feel sleepy again, and to hopefully shake off the terror that still gripped her heart in a vice grip. She grabbed the soft mint green robe hanging on the wardrobe door that she'd been given and slipped it on, tying it tight around her waist until it nearly stole the breath from her lungs. She crept along the tiled floor to the door and slipped out, wrapping her arms around herself as she walked up to the massive floor-length windows that were in the hall.

She blinked, and the tears in her eyes dribbled freely down her apple-red cheeks. She sniffled, wiping her nose with a handkerchief that Rin had given her before she left.

"What if I was wrong?" She thought desperately, looking over the sprawling forests surrounding the castle behind. "Maybe I'm making a mistake... maybe I should just leave. I could try and smuggle a letter to Auntie and pretend I have a 'family emergency'."

She heard a doorknob turning from the room beside her and she stiffened for a moment.

Sasuke poked his head out from his room, hair disheveled and eyelids sagging, but the moment he realized it was her he became more alert, glancing back into his room (presumably to see if Naruto was still asleep; from the loud snoring, he was) before exiting the room and walking out into the hallway, shutting the door quietly.

"Couldn't sleep?" He asked in a hushed voice.

"Yeah," she whispered, trying to stop crying. She wiped at her eyes, stuffing the handkerchief into the pocket of her robe. "You could say that."

"Are you alright?" He asked in concern, reaching for her face. "You look like you've been through a storm."

"Not quite that, just..." She trailed off with a heavy sigh, giving him a glance before looking back up at the starry night sky, "just... nightmares."

She could hardly look at him, not when his anguished face was still burned into her mind's eye.

"So it was a storm of a different kind," he slowly replied.

She made a noise of affirmation.

He seemed to understand, giving a slow nod and shifting back and forth awkwardly in his spot.

"Was... was I in it?" He asked quietly, gaze dropping to the floor.

She turned to face him, studying him for a second. He was quite exhausted, the dark half-moons under his eyes pronounced even in the dim light of the hallway. He was swaying almost invisibly on his feet. His skin held more pallor than usual. "Is he getting enough sleep?"

She felt guilty for having snubbed him, but the memories of what she'd seen kept resurfacing. She didn't know whether it was from exhaustion or paranoia, but she kept seeing the visions of his impassive face, deceptively calm, but with the rage burning in those blood-red eyes like the flames that suffocated her so much like the real thing.

She quietly sighed once more, hesitating, before she reached out to touch his arm.

He remained still as she gently grasped his shoulder instead, shaking her own head in sorrow.

"It was of..." she swallowed thickly, but continued, "... something that happened in my past."

He looked up with a troubled look in his eye. "... it was of death, wasn't it?" He asked in almost a whisper.

She slowly nodded.

"I know how you feel," he said, slowly turning to gaze out of the windows. "For the past six years, I've dreamed of my loved ones dying. Mother, Father..."

He clenched his eyes shut for a moment, but ground out, "Itachi."

"The long-gone prince?" She coaxed gently.

He nodded his head stiffly, opening his eyes to stare determinedly at the tops of the trees. His eyes were blazing with anger, but thankfully he didn't seem to be in danger of activating his bloodlimit. She honestly didn't think she could stand to see those scarlet eyes again without reliving the smoky horrors she'd just awoken from.

"He left us when I was young," he explained. "Mother, Father, Itachi, and I have been plagued by nightmares for as long as any of us can remember. It comes with the curse. It forces us to relive our worst failures and our deepest fears so that we can bring out our power."

"Fire..." she murmured in wonder, remembering at least one time where she'd seen him angry enough to summon flames to his hands.

"Yes." He nodded once more. He lifted his left hand and clenched it tightly for a few seconds before releasing, watching the pink crescent marks slowly fade away. "Mother never speaks of them, Father has learned to control it, but I... still have much to learn. Itachi was always silent about them to Father, but sometimes... when I lay feigning sleep, he would come to my room and speak of them with me."

"From what I can remember..." he paused, rapping his fingers on his leg as he thought. "... He often dreamt of our cousin Shisui dying in his arms. Or of Mother dying in battle... or... of me dying, and he was helpless to save me."

He fell silent after the words left his mouth, contemplating something, from the look of his downcast gaze.

"The worst of them, I think," he continued, scrunching up his face in a frown, "were the ones of our cousin Obito dying."

"You had another cousin?" She asked curiously. She wondered about him; she hadn't remembered him around the palace except from when she was a very little girl. Sasuke's parents certainly hadn't mentioned him very much around them. It was a sore topic for the family for quite a while afterward.

"Yes, a long time ago," he confirmed. "He was from one of our great-uncles, I think. He was much older than both of us, already married by the time Naruto and I had reached adolescence."

Shien distantly recognized him, and remembered that Rin had spoken of him fondly during the rare times she wanted to confide in someone about how she felt. Normally, she went to Tsunade, but very rarely when Tsunade was away would she go to Sakura. She only really got into the topic when she was drunk or even more depressed.

"Married..." She repeated quietly to herself. Loud enough that he could hear, she asked, "Is he... deceased?"

Here, Sasuke went quiet for a few moments. The only sound he made was of his breathing, but although his breaths were relaxed, his body was rigid, his eyes stormy with anguish. His hands clenched and relaxed rhythmically, once, twice, three times in succession.

Finally, he replied, "Obito... Obito was a soldier when his squadron went to the Honsen Pass. The- the bridge they were fighting on suddenly exploded, and the entire squadron - almost all of them, thirty soldiers - and Naruto's parents were killed. Some say it was an accident, but most claim that it was planned... that Obito was fighting for the enemy."

Her eyes went wide in shock and she stared at him in horror. Although she'd known his parents died in an explosion, she hadn't quite known the specifics of the event; Naruto and Sasuke refused to bring it up, and the king and queen surely weren't going to mention it.

"That's what happened to Naruto's parents?" She gasped.

He nodded grimly. "He's never... quite recovered. Neither have any of us, really. Mother and Father were very close to them. Ever since Aunt Kushina died, Mother hasn't been the same."

"Oh, Kami-sama," she breathed, staggering forward a step as if physically struck. She hadn't had much contact with the palace as she grew up, and she'd heard of a 'great tragedy' for the royal family, but... she never could have imagined this!

"The last I heard of Cousin's wife, she tragically drowned in the Oshi river just out of town. They said she couldn't take it anymore." Sasuke sighed heavily, smoothing back his bangs, only to frown when they fell right back into place. "Itachi was... well, I don't exactly know how much it affected him, but at least to me he didn't seem all that sad about it. Just plagued with nightmares."

"But what of your cousin Shisui?" She asked weakly, regaining her composure as she steadied herself against the wall.

Here, he shrugged loosely. "That's the one mystery we haven't been able to solve. One night, Itachi barged into our parents' room and said that Shisui was in some kind of danger. Father promised him that he would be protected, but... the next day, Itachi discovered that Shisui was just... gone. Vanished without a trace."

He turned to give her a wry smile. "It's funny, you know? One moment, Father is so concerned about our dear cousin, but the next, it's like he never existed to begin with."

His smile dropped in the next moment, and he rested a hand against the glass, gazing up at the sky. "To be honest," he said slowly, "if Itachi ever had any reason to snap, I feel that must have been it. That's the one thing I know he never forgave Father for."

"I know how that feels," she agreed, folding her arms across her chest. "To be faced with indifference when you try to call for action, especially when it concerns your dearest friend..."

"He tried his best to hide his resentment, but, sometimes, I saw him weeping." He confessed. "Always in the tapestry room, where we keep our patriarch statue. He would go there every night after midnight and would stay until morning."

"It must have been so heartbreaking for him," she lamented, clasping her hands over her heart.

"Itachi always had a gentle soul," Sasuke affirmed, his lips tugging into a fond smile. "He always had a calming air about him. He hardly ever raised his voice, but when he did, it always seemed to command your attention. He was a born leader, and he seemed to be content with that role. He loved helping people. He hated conflicts."

"But... Father suddenly decided that Itachi was too soft." He glowered at his reflection, his fingers digging into the cold glass. "Suddenly, he reversed our roles; I was the crown prince, and he decided to make Itachi one of the major generals of the royal army."

"It was almost like he banished him, simply because of his grief." Sasuke's shoulders were tense, his tone soft, yet simmering with deep-seated anger. "The week after Father made the choice, Itachi snapped. That night, the castle was attacked, and Itachi murdered one of Father's closest advisors right in front of him."

"I... I tried to stop him, but-" He choked, pausing for a few moments before starting again. "-but what could I do? I was only six, weak, and I was too blinded by my own emotions. He managed to land a solid hit on me, one that momentarily knocked me out, and by the time Naruto was waking me, he was gone."

Shien listened with a sinking heart. She'd never heard Itachi's escape story, and always assumed that he'd just disappeared during a raid, like so many in their ranks usually had. But seeing now what it had done to Sasuke was heartbreaking.

It had obviously cut him deeply, as even now his right eye grew shiny in the dim lights. His left hand was clenched to his chest, and he still leaned on his right, but when she looked into his eyes, she could see glimpses of his fear, and all at once the solemn face from her dream flashed before her.

"Sasuke..." she crooned, reaching over to hug him.

He froze in his spot, his shoulders tensing even more at her touch.

His hand was like a barrier between them, and it dug uncomfortably into her ribs when she tried to calm him down. She could feel a faint heat emanating from it, strong enough to be felt through her robe and nightgown. For a brief moment, she tensed, remembering the hellfire from her nightmare, but she forced her heart to calm and not to fear it.

"It's Sasuke, the real Sasuke," she firmly told herself. "This Sasuke... he would not hurt me."

After what seemed like the longest thirty seconds of her life, she finally felt his body relax a little, and he pulled his left hand out from between them.

He bowed his head enough so that it was half-hidden in her shoulder, and she instinctively reached up to lace her fingers through his mussed-up hair.

He sighed quietly, his breath warm through her robe. Slowly, tentatively, he reached around and gently rested his arm on her lower back, pulling her in closer into the hug.

"I'm sorry," she whispered to him, closing her eyes as she basked in his omnipresent warmth. "I'm so sorry, Sasuke."

For a moment, his voice from her dream echoed in her ears: "You brought this on yourself, Sakura."

She was brought back to the present when Sasuke squeezed her gingerly, letting go of the glass to cradle the back of her head in his hand.

"You've done nothing, Shien," he murmured back. His breath hitched for a second before he continued. "Just being here is enough."

When the words left his lips, she allowed herself to smile mirthlessly, her eyes growing misty. She absentmindedly ran her fingers through his familiar, soft raven hair as she allowed her tears to flow again, this time with the safe presence of the boy she still loved.


A/N: Please tell me what you thought!