Hey guys, sorry it took so long. I've been really busy. Well I hope you like this chapter.

And thanx to all who reviewed! You guys are awsome!

Chapter 2

Sasuke

Sasuke wiped the rat's blood from around his mouth. It was not as satisfying as human blood, but it would do. There had been no food at the park, except the girl, of course. She had suprised him. He did not like suprises. But how he remembered the way she had held him with her eyes, and the slight taste of fear on the night air. He regretted having left so fast.

He crouched in this alley behind a row of shops for twenty minutes now, catching and drinking, catching and drinking. They were hiding now, the rats. They knew something was up. Big cat, he thought, and smiled a thin, glittering smile.

Time to move on. He stood and stretched, lean-muscled arms reaching skyward. He wore only a t-shirt despite the col fall night. It was black like his jeans, like the high-top chucks trimmed with white. He was fond of black. Shadows, he thought. Night. It satisfied him to wear black, yet his laces were red. "Blood," he had whispered that evening at the thrift store, when his fingers would not leave them alone in the bin. They tangled around his nervous hand until he had to fling them or buy them. He handed a dime from the gutter over to the woman with the suspicious frown and fled to this same alley to put them on.

Where would he go from here? The park? Maybe that girl had left by now. But maybe not. I should go anyway, he thought, and smiled again, the same glittering smile. She was beautiful, dark like the night, but thin, as if one of his brethen had already claimed her. A frown changed his features suddenly, then disappeared just as quickly. No. She did not have the smell of that upon her. There was some thing voluptuous about her, though, that reminded him of death. Big breasts, too, he thought, and chuckledat his particularly human preference.

But she had startled him. He had found that park two weeks ago, and no one came at that time of night. He let his guard slip. That was dangerous, foolish. No, he would not go back to the park, he decided. It would keep. She sat there with a familiarity that suggested a habit. He would see her again. He would go to that house instead. He had only a few blocks to walk from here. He would see what that boy was up to.

Sasuke left the alley cautiously. It was not good to be seen at the same place often. It was an excellent hunting place; he did not want to lose it. he walked the pavement with shoulders hunched, handsin jeans pockets, as if against the cold. Who knew who was watching? He would have to get a coat. The street he travelled intersected the alley that ran behind the houses on the main village street. He made a right. Five houses along he stopped at the end of a long backyard.

There were no lights on at the back of the house. The yard was mottled with moonlight. Sasuke flowed from shadow to shadow, between trees and bushes, as if he was a shadow himself. He might have been a cloud in front of the moon. He reached the rough brick of the houseand crept to the oak tree at the corner. With the ease of a cat he scaled the tree and flowed up to a perch on a sturdy limb. He barely rattled the brittle autumn leaves that still clung tightly to their twigs.

He could see into a bedroom. It was an anonymous room. The walls were bare, nothing there to suggest the personality of the occupant. But there was an occupant, a small huddle on the bed. A boy of about seven or eight curled with a book, reading by moonlight with a teddy bear close beside him. You'll ruin your eyesight, boy, Sasuke thought, and grinned wickedly. It was a thicker book than you would expect a seven-year old to be reading, and Sasuke itched to see the title. Occasionally, the boy would suppress a laugh and shake his head, whisking his delicate brunette hair through the moonlight.

Then the door opened. Gold stole silver as the hall light shone into the room. A young woman stood in the doorway, smiling as she caught the last flurry of the book being concealed under the covers.

"Neji," she said softy, "Its a little late to be playing. It's nearly midnight. Settle down, dear. Get some sleep."

"Uh-huh," the boy answered, and snuggled into his pillow. She blew him a kiss and left, closing the door.

Sasuke saw the boy lying there with his eyes open, staring into the night, still defying sleep, still smiling. There was a growl in the back of Sasuke's throat he could barely contain. It almost choked him. He climed down the tree before it burst from his mouth. It was not the right time or place.

Below, there was a clatter in the kitchen. Dishes were being put into the dshwasher, and two sleepy voices were talking. He listened close to the window.

"... should have settled in by now," came a man's voice.

"But it's hard for a young child," the woman answered, "adjusting to a new home."

"It's been a month."

"Yes, but after a year in that home, and God knows what before?"

"Yeah, guess you're right."

"He's a sweet boy."

"A bit quiet."

"Oh, he'll be a brain. You'll see."

The man laughed. "Got it all planned out, have you?"

"Sure. Jounin in no time."

He laughed again. "Come on. Let's go to bed." The light went out.

"It'll work out, you'll see," said the woman. "You can't expect perfect when you adopt an older child."

"Yeah, it's a pity about that delicate skin as well. Too damn sensitive. Maye if we..." His voice faded into the center of the house.

Sasuke sat in the bushes for a long while. He breathed the night, made plans and abandoned them.No one in the house stirred. Dreams shimmered in the windows; all except one window, where dark hunger beckoned.

Finally, Sasuke heard the first predawn bird cry, and he rose to his feet in a single supple motion. His body made no protest at the breaking of the vigil. It was as if it were only seconds ago he had crouched there to watch. Silently he left the yard by the way he had come and, accompanied by awaking birds, made his way back to what was home this week- an abandoned elementary school on the street behind the new Konoha Ninja Academy.

He pulled aside a board and slid through a smashed window into the principal's office. the room, begrimed with dust and cobwebs, had once been a synonym for hell to sixth graders. But now all that was left was an old file cabinet with only one drawer working and a desk with rusted seams. There was no chair. Built-in shelves lined the room, and the wooden floor had once been handsom. A battered suitcase sat on one of the shelves.

With the board back in place the room was dark. The needle thin rays spotlighting dancing dust motes, but they barely penetrated the dark. This did not bother Sasuke. He did not need much light to see. He took down the suitcase, put it on the desk, and opened it. Inside was a small painting in a gilt frame. It was a family group: a man, a woman with a baby in her arms, and a small child. the varnish was cracked and old. Beneath the painting was soil, dark dry soil almost as flyaway as the dust of the room. Sasuke ran his fingers through it and sighed. This was his sleep; the soil of his homeland. The earth he would have rested in for eternity, if he had truly died, still had the power to bestow a little of that peace. It was a taste of that death, perhaps. It restored him. Without it he would waste away to nothing and become a shriveled thing, unable to move, unable to feed, but still unable to die. An undead hell.

He raised the painting to his lips and kissed it softly, then replaced it in the suitcase, closed the case, and flicked the catches shut. He needed rest but not a comalike trance that sometimes took him. He could always tell when that was coming. It took a big feed; a human feed. Now he just needed a dormant period to recharge, so to speak. He lifted the suitcase off the large desk and slid it into the cubbyhole beneath. He crawled in after it. He curled, encircling the case, and wrapped his arms around it, clutching it as if it were tresure.

He lay there, eyes open, staring beyond the room, beyond the school. Before he lept into the dream, he thought of the girl again briefly. "Beautiful," he whispered. "Pale as the milk of death, thin and sharp like pain." And he drifted out to the stars.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I will try to get the next chapter up soon, i am in the middle of writing it. Anyways, please review.