Hey guys :) this fic will be SasuSasku eventually, but it's possibly really slow-burn. So please stay with me and hang in there :D

You'll find me and this story also on tumblr (my name there is tulpinchen2)

Enjoy!

CHAPTER 1: THE SAVAGED FIVE

With a heavy sigh he let himself sink into the comfortable office chair. And for a split second he wondered if it was possible that a chair could be too comfortable, almost cosy. That moment he just wanted to close his eyes and go straight to la-la-land where his much needed sleep waited for him. No one would be there to annoy him or to give him another workload because they were all too stupid and incompetent to do that shit for themselves. Just him and a giant bed and many soft pillows. Just like the one that waited for him at home. Maybe he shouldn't go straight home and first stop by that little restaurant and grab some food. When was the last time he ate something that was not the disgusting muck in the cafeteria?

He opened his eyes and glanced out the window. His office was far up so he could look over half the city. Even if it was past midnight everywhere glowed bright light. So bright that he almost couldn't see the stars in the sky. The ones he could see seemed insipid and weak. He remembered the one time he went with his family to France for vacation. They rented a little cottage by the sea in the south of the country. Just the four of them. It was almost fall and the temperatures had fallen with each day they spent there but it was beautiful. The sand dunes had been high and with the entire reed that grew there he and his brother had had thousands of possibilities to play hide and seek during the day. And more then often they would jump in the freezing water of the ocean. When the night had settled over them his father would light up a fire in front of the house and his mother told them stories over there meal. He remembered all the stars high above their heads and how he wondered if they could be counted, if it was even possible to visit them all. They'd shone in such a bright light that he almost had the feeling someone put flashlights in the sky. Or diamonds. Or maybe millionth and millionth of fireflies. That'd sounded nice. Back then it was his biggest dream to go up there and tell his parents how earth looked like from space. Well now, years later, he still didn't know because he was stuck in that stupid office with stupid files in the middle of the night. He groaned and pinched the spot between his eyes with his fingers, allowing the pain to push back his tiredness a bit. Just when he wanted to go back to the file on his desk he heard his phone blaring. A curse left his lips as he searched under the mountains of paper.

"Uchiha", he growled, rubbing his eyes when he answered the call. Normally he would be wide-awake when his partner called him to a new scene. But as he listened to the voice in his phone how it explained to him that again another body was found, bloody, ripped up like a pig and naked, there was nothing of his sharp awareness he used to feel. He was just tired. The fifth body in the last three months.

He closed the door of his car with a loud slam as he stepped onto the street. The large pine trees swayed gently in the wind and it could have been soothing if there wasn't the blue and red lights of the police cars which casted creepy shadows on them. Like it wasn't enough, there was the occasional howl of wolfs from the nearby woods. Uchiha Sasuke always loved the woods and the calmness it brought with it. The smell of the trees during a hot summers day or of the earth after it rained. Somehow clean and fresh and in the same time old and muddy. He liked that. During his college time he used to go to his parents old summerhouse in the woods when it was time to study for his exams. Just that he always preferred to use the house during the cold winter month instead. Sometimes when he just couldn't concentrate he'd sat by the large windows in the living room, a mug of hot coffee in his hands and just watched the snow settle on the trees. Every once in a while a fox would come out of its hiding place and sometimes he would even see an owl. He still went up there to the house sometimes when he needed space and wanted to be alone for a while, just not so often anymore. But now as he stood there on the street with all the police cars and the blood he could see more and more clearly with each step he took, the woods and the trees and the cold air failed him terribly.

One could think after four bodies, which were found nearly the same way as that one, he should be used to it now. He wasn't. Nothing of what he felt showed on his face. No sympathy, no disgust, not even anger towards the sick pig who did this. His eyes fixed on the naked body of what he assumed was a young woman. Her torso has been ripped open. The bones of her ribs were bent outwards to disclose the inner organs and pointed all in different directions. Her heart was half ripped out; the other half was savaged, shredded to pieces and decorated the street now just like her lungs and bits of her intestines. A few feet away lay one of her legs in a pool of glittering blood, coursing its way in a small trickle across the asphalt. No, he definitely wasn't used to this sight.

"That's gross," he heard his partner Uzumaki Naruto say beside him. Sasuke glanced at the blond for a split second then nodded as his eyes wandered again to the savaged girl.

"Who found her?" He wanted to know.

Naruto pointed with one finger to an old looking man who stood by some uniforms. "Kumura Arata," he answered. "He drives a truck and was on his way from Osaka to Sapporo. He says he wanted to find a place to sleep for the night so he took the next highway exit and landed here. He thought she was a deer. If I'd thought it was a deer I hadn't stopped and just would have driven over her."

Sasuke made a face and punched Naruto lightly in the face. "You are so gross shit face!"

Naruto shrugged like he wanted to say Just sayin' and he looked again over to the dead, killed girl. He looked pitiful and sad and even if Sasuke didn't show it like the blond, he could feel how the pity for the girl took a grab of his gut and twisted it painfully. Even he wouldn't wish someone to die like that.

"Morning gentlemen!" Naruto and Sasuke turned both to the cheerful voice behind them and watched Yamanaka Ino, coroner, walk over to them. She was clad in those ridiculous white jump suits every one in the forensic team wore.

"You have something for us?" Naruto wanted to know.

Ino shrugged. "Not much really. She's a female Asian, between eighteen and twenty-five. The wounds," she pointed with her chin to the ripped open chest.

"Are not post mortem." Naruto winced beside him and Sasuke tried to suppress a flinch. "I'll call you both when I've found something. Maybe I can ask for her dental file if we don't manage to identify her."

Sasuke nodded and sighed. "Yeah thanks."

They watched her go for a bit. Chances were that they had to wait for the dental info. The last four times were the same. The victims hadn't been listed in the database for missed people, they were found too early for them being missed by someone. Every single time he and Naruto knocked on the door of the victims house and had to tell the people in there, what happened to their child, husband or friend was hard. It was not rare that he and Naruto became targets of angry mothers.

"You look like a zombie, man. Don't you sleep?" Naruto clapped him on the shoulder and looked him over with worried eyes.

Naruto has been always like that. Since he knew him at least. Sasuke first met the blond guy ten years before when they both were seventeen years old and new at collage. Even if the Uchiha hadn't wanted to at first Naruto became immediately his friend. His best friend even. Always trying to cheer him up with his clumsy stupid way. And more then often he wanted to strangle Uzumaki Naruto but in the same time he didn't know where he would be without him.

Sasuke rolled his eyes at him. He wanted to say that the stupid dork didn't look any better but the truth was he did look way better. Like always not a single sign of the immense stress that both of them had. So he just settled with a "Shut your face."

"Go home Sasuke," Narutos voice was soft. "We have over twenty people on this case. We'll manage without you for a couple of hours."

Slowly Sasuke nodded. The blond was right, they definitely could manage the case for a couple hours alone. It wasn't like there would be any fantastic or mysterious break through during his little nap back home. There wasn't one in the last couple of month and Sasuke doubted there would be one for the next three. This case was the worst case he ever had in his entire career as a homicide detective. In such a big city like Tokyo existed a lot of sick people that lost it and murdered some people here and there. He's seen a lot of dead, killed people, more than enough for an entire lifetime and five more. He'd seen the wife killed by her drunken husband because he had five litres of whiskey in his system, accusing his wife of being unfaithful in spite of the fact that he was one who put his filthy cock in more filthy cunts. He'd seen the old ladies and gentlemen. The friendly old people that couldn't fully walk because their back hurts and always worried if you really ate enough because you looked like you'll drop of your chair. Old people that were killed because they couldn't defend themselves properly and just happened to cross the way of a coward.

And he'd seen the little children in every possible age. The baby, hardly a week old, dumped in the trash, the toddler hidden in the freezer. The little schoolgirl, naked and raped, dumbed behind the school in a bush. But every single case he had, he solved. He's found the one who'd done all of that and put him behind bars. And now he had five bodies, savaged in the worst way possible and he hadn't a clue what kind of sick bastard has done this. He felt like he was standing in a maze and couldn't see which way was the right one. He wasn't even close to solving anything. This case was strange. They've found just the bodies in different places. Sometimes it was an empty street where rarely someone came by; just like this time. One time it was in the parking lot of a supermarket. But that was it. Only the bodies and not a single trace of the killer. Not even one security camera that has recorded anything, because they mysteriously just all happened to be defect. Every single one.

Sasuke rubbed his eyes again and walked over to his car, Naruto trotting behind him.

"Now that I think about it, I don't want to go sleep," he sighed and glanced at Naruto. "I'm going to go spar a bit, I guess. Perhaps run. Want to come?"

Naruto came to a stop as he reached Sasukes car and when the Uchiha opened the door and the light in the roof jumped on, he had a good view of the face of the blond. Sasuke had to revise what he said before about Naruto not looking like he was a bit stressed. In the strangeness of the red and blue blinking lights of the police cars he hadn't noticed the haggard expression, the dark circles under his eyes and the pale colour of his skin. Naruto looked like he hadn't slept or eaten in weeks.

"Yeah," he said. "I guess I'll come with you."

Sasuke raised one of his brows, eying his friend warily. "You sure? You look like you just crawled back out of your grave."

Naruto puckered his lips and threw a sulky look his way. "I look better than you fuckface!"

Sasuke smirked, an arrogant smile on his lips. "In your dreams."

Naruto pulled his phone from his pocket and glanced at it for a few seconds. "But I need a ride. I came here with one of the uniforms and first I need to go to the hospital in the west of Itabashi." His fingers flew over the display, and then he let himself fall into the passenger seat and pressed the phone to his right ear.

Sasuke followed him and started the car to drive back into the city.

"Why do you need to go to the hospital? And then the one in Itabashi it is? He wanted to know and threw a confused look Narutos way.

"Need to fetch some-" Sasuke looked over to him out of his peripheral vision when the Uzumaki stopped mid-sentence.

"Hi, it's me," he heard Naruto say into the phone, then heard him chuckle a bit nervous. "I also need vitamins." Silence. "I know, sorry but I really really really need it. I'm running on empty." Again the idiot fell silent. Then there was a relieved sigh before he shut the phone off with a "Thanks. I love you."

Perplexed Sasuke fixed his best friend with a wary look. "Are you on drugs or something? Because you just could go into a drugstore for vitamins. "

Naruto scraped his neck. "No, no. I know someone there and she can get me the real good stuff," he tried to explain. "Besides I need to grab some medicine for my grandma. It's faster when I ask my friend for it."

"You mean the one in the retirement home?"

"Exactly. She's not that well lately."

"Sorry."

"Nah, it's okay" Naruto answered.

Silence fell over them for the rest of the drive. It took them almost twenty minutes to get to the hospital in Itabashi. Apparently half the city was on the street and every now and then a drunken idiot stepped into the street, regardless the oncoming traffic. Sasuke took a sharp left turn and drove onto the parking lot of the hospital, parking near the entrance.

"Just wait a sec teme", Naruto said and jumped out of the car.

Sasuke watched him walk to the entrance in fast steps and coming to a stop in front of a woman in a lab coat and scrubs. She seemed angry the way she stood there with her arms crossed in front of her chest and glaring daggers into his skull. The wind gushed her light pink hair around, long strands falling in her face and she tried to push them behind her ears. They talked for a couple of minutes. Then she pushed a plastic bag in the blonde's hands and Naruto gave her a kiss on the cheek. Just a few seconds later and Naruto jumped into the car, tossing the bag behind him on the back seat and smirked. Sasuke could hear the pills hitting their packing.

"Jeez, she gets so pissed lately. Must be the stress," Naruto sighed.

Sasuke threw a glance to the hospital entrance but the woman was already gone.