I forgot to mention in the first two episodes, but I am the proud owner of Naru- oh wait, no I'm not. Sad face :(

Chapter 2: Escape from the Compound

Sasuke woke up in the dojo the next day, having literally trained himself into sleep. He let out a groan and sat up, his blindfolds stopping the light from entering his eyes. His muscles twitched in different levels of pain, and he had to roll his shoulders just to get some feeling in them. "Need to bring a futon next time..." he muttered before mentally cursing himself; what he needed was to adjust to sleeping in hard surfaces, he was training to be a ninja! Gritting his teeth at his own childishness, he stood up and took the blindfolds off. With his eyes closed, he tried to sense his surroundings as many books said sensor ninja did. Nothing out of a few birds chirping and the sound of running water from a fountain came up, and he sighed in frustration.

Making his way back to the house, the Uchiha tried but failed to stop thinking about the day before. His breakfast was already prepared; the genin team that came around must have had a good cook he admitted, but he also knew he couldn't grow used to it. He only had a month of such help to his own person, until he was supposed to take care of himself. The Hokage himself had suggested a legal guardian, but even from a hospital bed Sasuke's glare was powerful enough to shoot that down. No, there would be no legal guardian. What he discovered didn't help him accept the idea either.

His day went rather slow; he didn't move anywhere outside either the house or the dojo. At the dojo, he would train until his muscles were too tired to move. Then he rested, and practiced his sensing. He had no idea what he was supposed to do, so he simply tried to listen to everything while the blindfolds covered his eyes.

There wasn't much to listen to, as the compound was virtually devoid of life. That is, until he heard certain "clicks" coming from the roof. Sasuke rose an eyebrow; they couldn't be rain drops, and the roof tiles wouldn't sound like that even from a strong wind. He didn't have to wonder about it too much though, as a piece of the roof suddenly broke and an orange blur fell from it, crashing into the ground.

"Waaaah-PUFF!" Naruto screamed as he fell and slammed himself against the dojo's floor. He was covered in dust and even a couple of roof tiles. The blond gingerly stood up and shook off all the dirt on his clothes, then faced the glare of one very angry Uchiha Sasuke who seemed to be debating on how painfully to kill the intruder.

"What-How-Why the hell did you crash through my roof?" said Sasuke who had taken his blindfolds off the moment he felt the crash.

"Uhhh, I didn't want that to happen, honest!" Naruto exclaimed while holding his hands at front of him. It only made a tick mark appear on the Uchiha's forehead as one of his eyebrows quivered in anger.

"What are you even doing inside the compound…" he asked in a dangerously low voice that made Naruto gulp.

"Just wanted to hang out with you that's all!" the blond answered quickly while taking one step back and looking around. Sasuke wanted to hurt him, he really did, but those words made him stop and look at him carefully. He didn't feel Naruto was lying to him; in fact, just looking into his blue orbs nearly convinced him he was being honest right away.

"I see…" Sasuke said, looking at Naruto emotionlessly. The blond didn't know if this was better or worse than the Uchiha's glare and sweat started to cover his forehead. After a few tense seconds, Sasuke relaxed his posture and Naruto let out a breath of relief.

"Hehe, so uhh, wanna go play or something? I know lots of places-" Naruto started to speak until he had to jump back to dodge a sudden punch from Sasuke. "What the hell?" he exclaimed as the Uchiha lazily followed with another punch.

"We're in a dojo Naruto, so if you want to… hang out… with me, you'll have to fight." he said, an evil glint now in his eyes. Naruto's eyes widened as he recognized a prank when he saw one and barely dodged another punch.

"H-hey, that's not fair! What the heck kind of hanging out is this?" he exclaimed as he ran around the dojo while dodging Sasuke's lazy punches.

"What, never heard of training?" Sasuke answered with a smirk and stopped throwing punches, putting a hand on his hip and looking at Naruto with a mocking air around him.

Naruto looked at him surprised for a moment; he couldn't decide whether Sasuke was being hostile or friendly. But he smiled eventually, which turned into a smirk at the Uchiha as he moved into a stance of his own. "Training huh? You just want me to kick your ass!" the blond exclaimed as he dashed forward and put all his weight into a punch.

Sasuke grunted and simply let him pass him by, something Naruto couldn't correct as he crashed face-first into the ground because of his own momentum. "Hn, you suck" the Uchiha commented as the blond hurriedly stood up again.

"Hey, I was this close to hitting ya dattebayo!" Naruto exclaimed heatedly while holding a fist up. Sasuke chuckled and went into a loose stance while looking at him calmly.

"Wrong. Also, what does dattebayo mean?" the Uchiha asked while raising his eyebrow, earning a scowl from Naruto.

"Shut up!" said Naruto between embarrassed and angry while throwing a punch. The Uchiha easily dodged every punch and kick Naruto sent at him, but after a minute of it he felt something was wrong. He himself, although tired, was well trained and could keep going for quite a long time in such an easy fight. But Naruto was giving it all he had, doing a really bad job at it, and he wasn't even sweating!

"Shouldn't you be tired of playing around or something?" Sasuke said, trying to goad Naruto into showing his secrets. He either had to be a better fighter than he looked or he had been trained, there was no other option in his mind. But Naruto simply grinned and kept his clumsy barrage of fists and kicks that didn't even come close to hitting Sasuke.

"I've fought for way longer than this!" the blond exclaimed and again rushed at Sasuke, trying to pin him to the ground. Sasuke met him with a knee straight to his nose that made the blond stagger back in recoil. Without giving him a break the Uchiha dropped to the ground and swept at Naruto's legs, making the boy fall to the ground flat on his ass. "Owww! How'd you do that?" the blond asked a smirking Sasuke while rubbing his bottom to get some feeling in it again.

"I'm an Uchiha, we are bred for combat." Sasuke replied with an amused tone, as if the question was a stupid one.

"Yeah, well I can still kick your ass." Naruto replied while standing up, some dirt here and there on his clothes but otherwise unscathed. Sasuke narrowed his eyes and drew a kunai while staring intensely at the blond.

"I could had drawn this and killed you Naruto. You lost this first fight." he stated to a scowling Naruto.

"Yeah yeah whatever, but kunai or not I can still kick your ass!" he crossed his arms and looked away, obviously not about to give up on his argument. Sasuke snorted, which earned him a glare from the blond. "What's so funny?" he demanded with a voice that could have been threatening if he wasn't a child.

Sasuke felt like laughing at his face, but instead he chuckled before explaining. "Maybe you can outlast me, but I'm a much better fighter than you Naruto. I have my own style, and you're just throwing punches to see if you're lucky to hit me. What type of fights you have anyway?" he asked, already knowing the most likely answer. The Military Police was certainly no stranger to breaking up brawls, and Konoha was too big for a single police corps to stop each and every one of the underground fighting groups. But that was before they – well, the massacre.

Naruto kept looking away, but his body passed from showing stubborn determination to slumped defeat. "Just thugs… and stuff…" he said in a low tone, clearly not wanting to answer. Sasuke rose an eyebrow and tilted his head in curiosity.

"Brawls, huh. No wonder you don't have a style…" he said which made Naruto glare at him again.

"My style is kicking your ass!" he said while stomping on the ground. Sasuke chuckled again which only made Naruto angrier.

"If we keep practicing, you could at least learn some taijutsu. Err, do you know what taijutsu is?" Sasuke asked him, and it seemed like Naruto's anger evaporated.

"Hell yeah I know! One day I'll learn all about taijutsu, and ninjutsu, and genjutsu, and then I'll become Hokage!" he exclaimed and grinned, obviously happy to reveal his goal. Sasuke just stared at him blankly, which unnerved the blond after a few seconds. "Uhh, do I have something on my face?" Naruto asked him while tilting his head to a side, studying the raven haired boy with a curious expression. The Uchiha suddenly burst into laughter which confused the blond even more. "Hey you bastard, if I do have something on my face then just say it, don't just laugh at it!" he said with a tick mark appearing on his forehead.

Sasuke stopped laughing and looked at Naruto curiously, wondering if the blond was serious. "I thought you were joking about being Hokage" he said while rolling his eyes. It seemed like a funny joke coming from Naruto, though now the boy's blue eyed glare and determined face made him think otherwise.

"Believe it you bastard, I'll be Hokage one day! And then I'm gonna be stronger than you!" Naruto declared while pointing at Sasuke, who suddenly didn't know whether to laugh again or punch him to a wall.

After a second or two, Sasuke snorted but looked at him with an equally determined expression. 'I need to be stronger than you' was what Sasuke wanted to say, but he refused to say something like that to anyone other than himself. "I'm always gonna be stronger than you." he declared, with such intensity that Naruto took a step back. Sasuke had a moment of panic at seeing his friend back down from him like that, but the blond grinned and clenched his fist, then stuck it out at front of himself while making a pose.

"Oh yeah? Well I'm gonna make you eat those words, then I'll be stronger than you, and then I'll become Hokage dattebayo!" the blond declared and then let out a cheery chuckle.

"…And then you'll tell me what the hell dattebayo means?" asked Sasuke with a grin of his own.

"Shut up teme! That was badass and you know it!" said Naruto while crossing his arms, but still grinning.

"Hn, maybe it was" Sasuke replied while shrugging, finally making Naruto scowl.

"That's it, I'm gonna beat you up one of these days! Believe it dattebayo!" the blond declared and charged at Sasuke, who sidestepped him and blocked every punch Naruto threw at him with a smirk on his face.

Evening came for both boys, one of them lying on the ground and looking up, while the other sat next to him and sobbed at his many bruises. Eventually Naruto stopped sobbing and looked at his new friend, who was trying and failing to keep his breathing steady. The fight had taken too long, and while Naruto was beat up but relaxed Sasuke was completely spent. The Uchiha felt his muscles protest even from his breathing, and he didn't think he could move much without collapsing. All the while, he wondered how the blond did it. Even with his superior training, Naruto simply had more stamina. And by the looks of it, not by a short amount.

What was worse, the blond came every day to the dojo! Once there, only one thing happened: they trashed talk each other while punching one another to oblivion. Sasuke couldn't help but think that it was fun. He grudgingly admitted, and not without flashbacks of pain and sorrow, that no other Uchiha boy actually fought him like Naruto did. Wild as he was, the blond simply didn't give up and he was actually learning to abuse his higher stamina and endurance. Every punch Naruto took was given back, maybe not as strong or fast as Sasuke's but eventually it was the Uchiha that was pushed back. Neither one could understand it, and it frustrated Sasuke to no end.

And it was because of this that one day, after Naruto had left whistling as if he hadn't had the crap beaten out of him, that Sasuke decided to get out of there. The boy groggily stood up; he had taken a beating, and his stomach felt like he hadn't eaten in days. But he knew that staying there meant another training day with Naruto. He couldn't get much stronger that way, and the blond's company unnerved him. There was something about him that made him too friendly, and Sasuke almost hated it. Almost.

He just needed to be out of that house, of the dojo, of the whole compound, out and somewhere the blond couldn't follow him. Looking around, there were only dark alleys and stores to hide in. He stood at the compound's entrance contemplating this, and then simply walked aimlessly through the streets. The hope of somewhere to hide lead him to an iron gate to what appeared to be a forest. 'A forest inside Konoha, he can't find me here' Sasuke thought with a weak smirk as he climbed his way over the fence. It wasn't easy, but his kunai made short work of the barbed wire and he landed safely on the other side.

The forest felt wet to Sasuke's skin, as if there was a never ending rain. But rain was much cooler and didn't make his clothes stick to him like this, and there were many times he had to swipe sweat off his forehead as it wouldn't evaporate on his own. The heat was all-consuming, and he felt like lifting a ton of bricks every time he gave a step. Eventually, he couldn't take it and sat down under a tree. That was his last mistake of the day, as his eyes closed in sleep and a pair of yellow eyes, like those of a snake, suddenly opened and locked in on the boy.

Author's Note: (that's me in case you're wondering)

I must thank Suza-sama for working with me as my beta reader! This means I'll be having extra help from now on, at least until Suza-sama finally changes the world and becomes Zero or until I'm too annoying. Either way, until next time!