New Friendships

Disclaimer: I do not own anything affiliated to Naruto!

Thank you all reviewers. I will work hard to answer your reviews! .

Sasuke slowly opened his eyes to the sunlight that crept through the windows. It was a summer morning, when the sun rose especially early. He glanced blearily at the clock in a sleepy daze. "5:10 AM" was what his clock read. He wondered for a moment where he was. He looked around the room until his eyes wandered to a book lying on his desk. All of last night's events came rushing back. He snarled in frustration of having fallen asleep. Was his will power that low?

What a piece of scum was all he thought of the guardian. He was just quietly reading a book to improve his skills. How was that wrong! How dare he order him to go to sleep when training is so much more important? Of course that idiot wouldn't understand since he wasn't a ninja. He tried to act like one but he wasn't good at all. A little muscle and a dorky mask didn't make you a ninja.

"Baka Kaishi, he treats me like a kid. I'll show him I'm more than that. I'm a full-fledged ninja. I'm better than some snot-nosed academy kids." Sasuke muttered.

At first Sasuke was somewhat excited to go to the academy, though after the examination and the death of his clan, he saw it more of a hindrance. That's what he called it, but anyone who knew anything knew he was a bit nervous of what people would think about him and his clan. He didn't think he wanted to face them. Though, he would never admit that, even under the most extreme circumstances.

Through Sasuke's silent five minute brooding, a brilliant idea came to mind to show that idiot guardian what he could do. He concluded that his guardian looked like the type of guy who slept a long time and that he was still asleep. He decided he would sneak in his room, throw a little fire at him in his bed, yell a few things, and maybe the guy would open his eyes and leave him alone. Sasuke smirked victoriously over his cunning plan, well as cunning as a deranged eight-year-old could get.

He quickly and quietly padded out of his room and down the hallway. He suddenly stopped. Wasn't there a rule about going into this room? Pfft, like he cared! He reached the door and he put his hand on the doorknob, he was about to turn it, yet suddenly a hand grabbed his wrist and whirled him around. He found himself staring at none other than his, fully dressed, fully awake guardian, Kaishi. Kaishi was crouched down so that he was eye level with Sasuke, his face was unreadable but the pressure on Sasuke's wrist was more than enough information on the mood his guardian was in.

Sasuke pulled his hand away from his guardian's hand and reveled in the small triumph of getting out of the man's grip. It was quickly quelled when the man turned from looking extremely pissed off to absolutely unconcerned. Did he let go of his arm on purpose! Kaishi was leaning against the wall once again staring condescendingly at Sasuke.

"Do you usually spend your mornings thinking of ways to cause trouble? If that's the case, I think I'll have to sleep in your room to keep a closer eye on you." He said suggestively.

"Pervert." Was Sasuke's biting reply, while he gave his usual death glare. The man was unfazed, agitating Sasuke even more.

"I expect, when you wake up, for you to start your morning exercises, as that is what the small gym in your room is for. I do not expect you to running around playing childish games. If that so-called genius mind of yours can't remember my rules than maybe you would like to recite them to me for an hour." Kaishi said in a more serious tone, emphasizing on words just to annoy Sasuke. Sasuke stared silently at Kaishi, Kaishi crouched down again and his more visible eye curved into a half-crescent, "Do I make myself clear?" he said in a fake sweet tone.

"Hn." Was all Sasuke said, only a slight nod indicated that he agreed. He walked to his room furiously trying to figure his guardian out. Yesterday he stops him from training and now he wants him to train! This guy made no sense at all! He aggressively took all his frustration out on the dummies doing various Taijutsu moves.

Kakashi was down stairs making breakfast and lunch. He shook his head in amazement on how this eight year old thought. In intelligence he was unusually beyond his years but emotionally he was very much with his age group, if not a bit stunted. The boy's priorities and reasoning were dangerously askew; which all pointed to his upbringing. Intelligence is priority and the well-being of the person is unheard of. That was the way of the Uchiha clan. Kakashi intended to change the mindset of his charge, and hopefully be more of a success than he was with Itachi. He closed his eyes briefly in regret; he still was trying to come to terms with what Itachi did. He sadly sighed for a moment before putting the food on the table.

Kakashi smiled wearily with the thought of dragging the boy out of his training. It was so much like calling a young child inside for bed. Well, in an unbalanced sort of way.

He lightly walked to the top floor and eyed Sasuke's room carefully; the dummy was torn to pieces. He remembered quite clearly the salesman saying the dummy was indestructible. He probably never experienced an Uchiha with a temper problem.

Kakashi's thoughts were abruptly interrupted by a kunai whizzing towards his head. He stepped to the side with an air of ease. The kunai promptly stuck into the wall putting an unattractive dent in it.

"You threw a kunai at me." Kakashi stated plainly, though a question rang in the air.

"You were spying on me." the boy answered accusingly, glaring vehemently.

"How did you know I was going to dodge it?"

"I didn't." Sasuke smirked impishly. Kakashi couldn't help but chuckle at this causing another kunai to fly his way.

Sasuke stared stonily at the academy that loomed before him. Groups of children were spread across the front, some running, some sparring, some hurriedly doing homework.

Sasuke shoved his hands in his pockets and frowned with his head towards the ground. He quickened his pace towards the front office and inquired about the location of his classroom. He was pointed towards a classroom but not without a group of women crooning at how handsome and adorable he was. This only put him in a stormier mood as he quickly walked to his classroom. He found himself in the room and no one was in there. He gave a sigh of relief and quietly took the furthest seat from where his sensei was going to be. He took the book he was reading the night before and lost all consciousness of the world around him.

"Hello Sasuke." A voice suddenly rang through the air; Sasuke quickly smothered him being startled by smoothly getting up and nodding to his teacher. The teacher gave a weird smile like he knew better, but in some way it was very comforting. His guardian's smile was the opposite; it always seemed… Sadistic.

"I'm Iruka-Sensei. It's pleasure to have you in class." He genuinely welcomed Sasuke. Sasuke could tell this guy was weird; he acted as if he knew nothing about the Uchiha clan and what happened in the past week.

Sasuke just humored the teacher with a nod and sat down. Right then a rush of students walked in, most talking animatedly while stacking papers on the sensei's desk. Everyone took their seats and Iruka-sensei started to explain something on charka. It was obviously very boring and unimportant. Sasuke already knew this stuff, so he slumped in his chair and quietly read his book.

"Hey." A gruff, low voice called to him. He ignored it, like he wanted to talk to some stupid kid. "Hey, Uchiha." The voice called again nudging him slightly. Sasuke still ignored, trying desperately to concentrate on reading only to find the book taken away. He looked up while mustering the angriest death glare. His eyes landed on the one and only Hyuga Neji.

"Give me my book back, Dobe." He whispered furiously. He did not care at all about this brat's "social status." The boy chuckled slightly strumming precariously through the book.

"Hmmm, do you know what I could do to you with the power I have? I'll be lenient on you this time if you give me this book." The boy said haughtily. Sasuke glared with a slight temple throb; this only made Neji smirk.

Sasuke grunted slightly and made a lunge for his book. Neji leaned backwards on his chair bringing the book an inch away from Sasuke's grasp. Sasuke, beginning to get frustrated, pulled out a shuriken and threw it at Neji's back chair legs, causing them to slice and half. Neji did a quiet back flip and caught the chair before it clanked to the ground. Sasuke aimed and kicked Neji's hand that was holding the book. Neji just flipped the book to his other hand. After several attempts to kick the book out of his hands and Neji throwing the book from one hand to another, Sasuke took another route by slamming his foot in Neji's nose. This only ended in Sasuke damaging his book because Neji used it as a shield.

Although there was barely a bit of sound made by the two, the only person not staring at Neji and Sasuke was Iruka-sensei. The man was busy writing something on the board.

"Give. Me. My. Book." Sasuke whispered putting an emphasis on each word.

"See if you can catch it before it reaches that opened window." Neji said, aiming for the window right by Iruka-sensei. Neji threw the book like a kunai but it only touched the tips of Sasuke's finger. They watched in slight trepidation as the book, aimed for the window, slammed and firmly lodged itself right into Iruka-sensei's chalkboard. Iruka's neat handwriting was now completely crooked and his chalk was angrily dispersed into dust.

"Nice aim." Sasuke muttered sarcastically.

Iruka whirled around angrily and pointed to his ruined chalkboard.

"Who did this!"

After a long lecture, repairs, and staying an hour after class, Neji and Sasuke finally left the academy. Sasuke glared whole-heartedly at Neji as much as he could. Neji looked unfazed so Sasuke shoved his hands in his pockets and walked the pathway to his place. Neji ran up to him.

"Look, I'm sorry and whatever I'm supposed to say. It wasn't that big of a deal, you don't have to act like it is." Neji said with a slight haughtiness. Sasuke continued to ignore him and started to walk a little faster.

"To tell you the truth I like you. I think we have a lot in common. Our own family member killed our family and I'm sure you want to get stronger for revenge like I do. I mean you may be a little on the weak side but you think we could maybe train together?" Neji said offhandedly. Sasuke stopped and looked at him for a second.

"Fine, but don't get in my way." Sasuke said as he continued to walk to the orphanage. Neji silently followed. Once they reached the area Sasuke quickly went in and went to his apartment as to avoid any of the other kids. Neji followed the suit if not a little confused by Sasuke's actions.

"I don't want to bump into some spoiled, orphan kids." Sasuke answered the silent question that hung in the air.

"So this is where you live. It's pretty nice. Do you live here alone?"

"No, I have a case guardian."

"He seems to leave you alone. You must get to do anything you want." Neji said longingly.

"I don't know much about him but he doesn't really let me do anything." Sasuke muttered bitterly.

"What does he do for a living?"

Sasuke shrugged at this question and sat down on the couch.

"I don't know anything about the guy. He seems to be intent on keeping it that way. He won't even let me in his room."

"You're actually listening to him?"

"Yes. I'm not exactly interested in the guy"

"If you want to be a good ninja you have to have good information gathering skills. I mean, who knows who this guy is?"

"He told me not to-"

"Who cares what he says, let's check it out." Neji said casually, Sasuke stared at him for a moment. "Sasuke, seriously, what's the most a little case guardian can do?"

Sasuke got up and showed Neji where his guardian's room was. Neji slowly opened the door to a very plain and practical room.

There was a bit of workout equipment in the right-hand corner while a dresser with a mirror to the left. A neatly-made bed stood between these two items. At the furthest corner was a bookshelf full of adult books and on the top shelf held some old, tattered books that were not labeled.

"Well, he's a pervert. That's usually a good thing to know." Neji said walking to the bookshelf. He pulled out one of the top, unlabeled books. He strummed through it.

"This is strange, none of this makes sense. It's all written in code. Why would he have this?" Neji asked as his snow-white eyes narrowed in confusion. Sasuke walked over to see the book written in what seemed to be another language. Neji carefully put the book back.

"That helps a lot." Sasuke said facetiously.

"Well, let's try his closet; that might help some."

They walked to his closet and opened the door only to be thoroughly surprised. There were jounin vests neatly hung across the room. There were shelves of scrolls, books, and any sort of literature known to a ninja. There were more weapons and some didn't even have names. There was also a lot of medical equipment sprawled on the floor.

Neji turned around with a slight laugh, "You're screwed."

"Thanks for pointing that out." Sasuke answered sulkily.

The rest of the afternoon was spent hiding all evidence that they even entered the room. Neji thought it was the greatest thing to have a jounin as a guardian and talked about how Sasuke could learn so much. He even had the audacity to ask if he could train with Sasuke. Sasuke held a more pessimistic view on this. A jounin was more alert, strict, and could beat him up.

It was evening time and Sasuke was studying one of his books. Well, he more stared at it broodingly while deep in thought. What jounin had the gall to take care of an orphan? Who would even care enough about him to want to take care of him? Thoughts were whirling through his mind; it kept him busy enough not to notice the silver-haired ninja quietly peeking into his room.

Kakashi just arrived and thought he would just take a quick glance at his charge just to see if everything was alright. Satisfied, he silently walked to his room and began to change his appearance. After he was done he went to put away his book in the bookshelf when something caught his eye. The dust around his fathers journals; there was a gap with no dust at all. It was as if someone took one of the journals out. He looked at the area with his Sharigan and everything became clear. He saw everything touched and everything moved.

The door opened to Sasuke's room. It wasn't loud and it wasn't quiet, but it was enough to cause Sasuke to start out of his thoughts. He quickly got up and turned around to see what he expected, his guardian, Kaishi. He wasn't looking happy and he wasn't looking mad. He gave off that vibe that intimidated Sasuke. It's not like Sasuke would ever admit that though.

Kaishi pointed at Sasuke's bed, "Sit" he said in a deep professional tone. Sasuke sat down on the bed and looked at Kaishi.

"Answer all my questions truthfully. I have my ways of knowing where you are and what happened." He said as if he was interrogating a criminal. Sasuke resisted the urge to glower seeing as his new discovery that his caretaker was a Jounin. He nodded curtly instead.

"What time did you get home?"

"Two-thirty."

"You were an hour late than when you're expected to be here. Why?"

"I had to stay after class due to some trouble with another kid."

"The kid's name?"

"Neji."

"Did he come with you home?" There was a pause.

"Yes."

"Did he convince you to enter my room?"

Silence.

"Have you lost the ability to speak? Answer my question."

"Yes" was an exasperated reply.

"You know I'm Jounin?

"Yes"

There was a pregnant pause. Kaishi straightened himself up.

"It seems that we need to strengthen your willpower. You blindly followed a Neji when I told you not to. Follow me."

Sasuke followed him warily not too sure what in the world this Jounin was playing at. After a while, they reached a large field, and Kaishi put a stool and a glass of water on it.

"Will power is the trait of resolutely controlling your own behavior; or the strength of will to carry out one's decisions, wishes, or plans. Either way you did not do either. In order to become a good ninja, willpower is vital become strong. Tonight we are going to work on strengthening your will power. I want you to not drink the glass of water."

Sasuke scoffed slightly.

"I'm not finished. I want you to not drink this glass of water until you finish 20 laps around this field. With the right amount of willpower you will be able to boost your survival and endurance skills."

Sasuke just stared at him.

"Come on, start now." Sasuke started to run. After a long, grueling half-hour and many strong urges to grab that pure, clean cup of water he finally made it. Kaishi handed him the cup.

"It took you a certain amount of willpower to succeed in finishing the laps without drinking the water. In training as a ninja you'll need a lot of willpower to defeat things like genjutsu moves and to survive pain. Use willpower to break this illusion."

Kaishi shaped his hands to look like the rat and yelled, "Narakumi no Jutsu"

Suddenly, Sasuke found himself in a lake of fire. He was burning! He looked around and was trying not to panic.

"Sasuke, do not panic. Use your willpower to break the illusion. Remember, do not give in to it. Your mind has strength. This will help exercise it. Concentrate on what the area used to looked like and resist all effects of what you see. You must come to me and disrupt my chakra flow to disactivate this illusion. Come to me."

The field was larger than what it used to be and Sasuke felt like he was actually on fire. He wanted to roll up into a ball and try and get rid of the pain. He knew that wouldn't work. He was drenched in sweat and pushed forward to make it to Kaishi. After several pauses and tiring attempts he made it to Kaishi. Kashi was instructing him the whole time, with several yells and taunts added in. Suddenly, there was a large wall in front of him. He ignored it, it couldn't be real, could it? he pushed through it and gave the hardest kick possible.

It was enough for it all to disappear. Sauske was on the ground breathing heavily. He looked around and saw that he only walked about ten feet. There was nothing anywhere. Kakashi helped him up.

"That took you about two hours to do. We'll need to work on that.We'll work on it next week, maybe. Study your books and maybe it will take a shorter amount of time." Kakashi admonished him, but Sasuke was to tired to be embarrassed.

"Who are you?" Sasuke asked through his heavy breaths.

"Another time, Sasuke." Kakashi said softly. They walked home for what seemed like hours. Sasuke stubbornly refused any help whatsoever. When he got home, he went straight to bed without any food.

Kakashi shook his head tiredly. He would have to admit that holding that justsu for two hour took a lot out of him. Kakash went to Sasuke's room and stared at him for a while. He wondered if he could change him, or help him better than he did Itachi. He didn't want to fail him. There still was a nagging feeling that failure was what will always follow him. He shook his head once again, and retired to his room.

Sasuke woke up in a sweat. It was four 'o clock in the morning and he was shivering from his nightmare. He looked around to find he was in the safety of his room. The last few days he was sleeping longer. Before, in the hospital, he would wake every hour, but his exhaustion tonight caused him a longer term of dreamless sleep. He got up from his bed and took out a book. He say down and started reading it.

After ten minutes of staring blankly, he sighed. The last few days had been so busy he hardly had time to remember his clan's death. It was like an ache that appaeared everytime he remebered. He wanted to throw up as his stomach plummeted into the truth and the reality. He wanted it to be just a dream. Was there ever such a thing?

He wondered if he could've stopped it. Maybe if he was home earlier… It was just like Kaishi said, he lacked willpower. He was late because he lacked willpower to stay alert in his training. He sighed heavily. Was it usual to think everything was your fault? He decided it was half his fault and the other half was his older brother's. He threw the book against the wall in rageat the thought of his brother. He started training harshly with his equpiment. The heat of his anger was boiling his blood.

"You will not survive me, Nii-san!"

A/N: Hey readers! I just finished this chapter. I'm must say it was a bit difficult to characterized Neji. I also added many diferent types of scenes here to balance out the chapter. Tell me your thoughts and what you'd like to see in the stories. I love experimenting with characters. Give my you input! Thank you! Please review! Thanks to my Beta, SarahofEarth.