A/N: Righto, this took longer than I would have liked. The fact that I hadn't read the manga for this chapter, nor seen the anime, means that the explanations here are severely paraphrased, or worked to my personal understanding, which I'm told at times is really twisted. I was also incapacitated by swine flu and a bout of depression following the mysterious disappearance of several irreplaceable pages of story notes.

However, the depression lifted after I cleaned my desk, and two days spent delirious cleared up that pesky flu. In the end, though, this chapter ended up dedicated to Twin1, who in spite of having coughing fits every half-sentence, is the only reason this chapter made it out at this time, particularly once my muse went on strike in protest at our latest English assignment. Everyone give her a round of applause. (My sister, that is, not my muse, who has been locked in the attic until further notice.)

Okay, onto the important story notices. Owing to the fact that underlining is plain painful to read and bolding is reserved for something else, a lot of stuff is in italics, including thoughts, dreams, flashbacks, memos, Kakashi's log entries and emphasis; so, italics has a broad definition of 'change in consciousness'. Please use your best reasoning to determine which it is; it ought to be relatively clear as memos and Kakashi's logs are marked as such and thoughts and dreams are generally pretty obvious; HOWEVER I flatly refuse to blatantly mark flashbacks and dream sequences. That's just dumb. And if you have any good taste whatsoever, painful to read.

SO. If it's a bit confusing, I'm sorry. But I'm not switching to underline. It hurts my eyes, and my head, and chemistry gives me enough headaches as it is.

Seven: Nightmares

I blinked. "Uh, come again?"

"Tree-climbing!" Sensei sounded waaay too happy. There was something to this exercise that I hadn't gotten yet.

"But, Kakashi-sensei, we can already climb trees!" Sakura's voice radiated confusion; her chakra signature, becoming familiar to my senses, rippled and twinged slightly – is that confusion? Interesting – "We learned that back in the Academy!"

"Or earlier, if you hung out with that monkey Kiba for any period of time," I commented under my breath. Sasuke snorted faintly, shifting near me with a rustle of cotton.

Sensei didn't notice our exchange, continuing, "Ah, but this time, we're going to learn how to climb trees without using our hands!"

I stared at him uncomprehendingly. Sasuke said, apprehensively, "You know, I really ought to have expected him to start asking us to do the impossible. The blindfold incident should have tipped me off – our teacher is insane."

It's a chakra exercise, you maggot-ridden fleshbag of idiocy, came the unwelcome drawl, as Sensei continued, "I'm hurt that you think I'd ask the impossible of my students, Sasuke! This is an exercise designed to help you maintain better control over your chakra. Watch and learn."

I bit my tongue, focusing on my teacher's movements as he limped over to the nearest tree, and… kept walking. I blinked, my head tilting as I followed his progress upwards, and mentally shrugged. He seemed to be climbing a tree. Man, if I could see what was going on this would make so much more sense…

Sakura made a choked noise and Sasuke shifted again, and now I knew I was missing something. I raised one eyebrow and let my mouth fall slightly open, mimicking a perplexed expression as I mumbled out the corner of my mouth to Sasuke, "What the hell?"

The Uchiha didn't have a chance to answer straight away, as Sensei clarified his earlier explanation with, "See? We're going to climb trees – without using our hands!"

I blinked, and suddenly my expression was real. The hell? Didn't he say that before?

"This is basically it, in a nutshell," Sensei admitted from where he was (Sasuke describing it to me in an undertone) hanging upside down from a tree branch, now sounding bored. "Focus as much chakra as you can in the soles of your feet and use that power to cling to the trunk. When you have full control over your chakra, there's almost nothing you can't do."

"But – Kakashi-sensei, how will learning to climb trees this way make us any stronger?" Sakura asked; her voice, loud and sharp, made me flinch.

Our teacher sighed. "I'm getting to that, listen and learn. The point of it all, the goal… is greater control over your chakra.

"A lot of the chakra you draw for jutsu is wasted, and you tire yourself out more quickly. This exercise will teach you better control so that you only use what you need for your techniques, and maximise the effectiveness of what you do use.

"Of course, this is made more difficult by the fact that the sole of your foot is one of the hardest places in the body to accurately focus your chakra. If you can master the chakra flow in your feet, you will be able to focus it anywhere. In theory, anyway."

The last part was muttered very low, so I probably wasn't meant to hear it, but I rolled my eyes anyway. Of course, Sensei, because theory always works exactly as it should in practice and battle plans never randomly go wrong.

"So!" Chink-chink-clink, Sensei sounded gleefully cheerful. "The best way to learn is by doing!" The sheer whisper of split air – I took a step back and a kunai buried itself in the dirt near my feet. "I'm not expecting you guys to make it all the way up the tree first time, so use these kunai to mark how high you get each time to remind yourself. A running start will probably give you enough momentum for a good first attempt…"

I shot a withering look in his direction, kneeling to pick up the kunai. "Yeah, running headfirst at a tree sounds intelligent," Sasuke grumbled.

Kakashi's clothes rustled, and there were twin 'thunks' as he landed squarely on his crutches as he jumped down from his tree. "Suit yourselves."

I glanced at him as he started to move, the crutches making his steps uneven, and yelped as I smacked into a tree. "Ow!"

"Dammit, dobe, watch where you're walking," Sasuke growled, and I hid the quirk at the edge of my mouth in a sneer.

"Shut the hell up, teme."

Within three minutes I lost count of how many times I hit the ground. The first attempt was nothing short of disastrous, too much chakra sending me skidding backwards before I could even get both feet off the ground. Several tries later, I managed to get the right amount of chakra to stick, only to discover my usual problem was interfering: my chakra's overactive tendency to waver, flare, and otherwise excitedly escape my control.

"Ow."

A couple of steps, and my control would slip and send me flying. The repeated falling was enough to almost make me thankful I couldn't get very high, I admitted to myself where I was sprawled in the dirt for the nth time. At least this way I wouldn't break my neck.

"Idiot. Can't you do anything right?" Do you need any help?

"Yeah, Naruto! You're totally hopeless!"

Sasuke's hidden concern I could deal with, but Sakura's obvious barbs were stupidly hurtful. I mean, I didn't even care what she thought. "Shut up, the both of you," I snarled, dragging myself upright and shaking dirt out of my hair.

Okay. Deep breath, and let's try this again. I drew my hands together in the ram seal first two straight left over right and pulled.

Whispering fire boiled up, fizzing eagerly under my skin. Deep breath, and focus it in the feet… My shoes were starting to warm as I closed my eyes and carefully placed my foot on the tree. It stuck fast, and I stepped… and stepped… and kept walking, not faltering at the two-step mark as I had been for the past half-hour.

The flicker of surprise was my undoing. An extra flash of chakra – I wobbled, and slipped, with a yelp realising that I was probably high enough to hurt myself this time. I slammed the kunai Sensei had given me into the bark – and stuck fast.

From about two metres below my dangling feet, Kakashi-sensei asked wonderingly, "Naruto, are you afraid of heights?"

Both hands clinging to the kunai's handle, I peered downwards, trying to get my bearings enough to jump without breaking an ankle. "It's not heights I'm afraid of, Sensei, it's the ground."

Sasuke sighed and thunked to the ground. "Hang on, dobe, I'll come get you. You're pathetic, but I'll come get you anyway…"

I saved him the trouble by falling out of the tree.

Three days later, I was making little headway with the stupid exercise, and my patience was rapidly waning. I was eyeing the tree disdainfully, trying to get my flickering chakra to quiet down so that I could take another shot at this, but I wasn't yet at the state of exhaustion where that was possible.

"Naruto, could I talk to you for a minute?"

I jumped in spite of myself. "Wha – eh?" Sensei had managed to creep up on me – he was damn quiet at the best of times, and I was distracted anyway. "Kakashi-sensei? Um, yes? What's wrong?"

Something of his clothing shifted – a shrug, a shift of weight? – "Nothing's wrong, Naruto. I just wanted to try something with you, see if I could figure something out."

"Um… okay?" I tried uncertainly, confused and edgy. What had I done wrong this time?

"Okay. I need you to sit down and close your eyes."

I shrugged and plonked down on the grass, shutting eyes that didn't work anyway and awaiting further instruction. "Tell me what you can hear. Identify it if you can, and describe it if you can't."

Biting my lip, I started to listen, opening my mind to the sounds I had been stubbornly ignoring all day long. "Ah… there's a breeze right now, stirring the trees. Sasuke is practicing tree walking… no, he's falling out of his tree and using language that would get him thrown out of most bars. Ouch."

"Where is he?" Kakashi-sensei asked, and I pulled an odd face.

"How the hell should I know what way I'm facing? He's that way, though," I added, pointing a little to the left. "About thirty, forty metres away. Um… not much by way of animal life. Most of it fled the noisy children. Although there's a pair of birds – smallish, probably about the size of a pigeon – maybe hundred fifty metres thataway." I pointed behind me. "Um… Inari just slammed his bedroom door again, and the breeze is picking up, I think – that funny hissing sound, I think that's the grass. I think that skittering sound about… a hundred metres that way might be a mouse. Pretty dumb mouse, that's a cat over there… and there's a flight of maybe a dozen birds going over…" I glanced up, forgetting that my eyes were closed. "Geese, I think. And there's an owl maybe fifty feet from Sasuke that might be thinking about moving…"

"Can you hear the ocean?"

"Sensei," I said patiently, "maybe you don't know this, but Wave is an island. That means it's a small landmass that's totally surrounded by water. That means the ocean is everywhere. It's a little faint that way, I might just be getting echoes from there and there, but I know it's about… three hundred metres that way. Oh, and Tsunami'll call us in for dinner soon."

Right on cue, the young woman called, her voice made slightly tinny by distance, "It's dinner time! Come and get it!"

I grinned and bounced to my feet, looking forward to food after wading through an annoying exercise and then dealing with my sensei turning weird on me again, but Kakashi-sensei asked me one last question before I could escape.

"How did you know she would be calling us in?"

Uncomfortably, I smiled. "I heard her setting the table," I responded, and ran for the house.

Kakashi's Log

Sakura's control is above average, even for a kunoichi; possibly look into some ijutsu or genjutsu training for her in future. Her stamina, however, is atrocious. I had a word to her about dieting, but I don't think it got through. Darn hardheaded genin… I am now remembering why I didn't want to do this in this first place.

Sasuke did about as well as predicted and is now improving steadily; however, he doesn't seem to be concentrating as well as he should – he appears to keep half an eye on Naruto most of the time. How long has this gone on for, and why? Needs further investigation – it makes no sense. He usually treats Naruto with utter contempt – he keeps pausing to tell Naruto off for not doing better. Naruto didn't appear to care much, either ignoring him or swearing at him. I may need to discourage this behaviour – based on their temperaments, it could get violent.

Naruto is still particularly wary of this exercise, although his lack of aptitude perhaps proves it to be a justified wariness. Note: is he actually afraid of heights? He's been rather jumpy since we left Konoha, and it seems to be getting worse: he snapped at his teammates earlier, although admittedly they were asking for it. He did seem to calm down a little as he practised, but his chakra control is appalling – he fell and knocked himself out earlier.

I also tested his hearing this afternoon, and I was right. He's hypersensitive to, as far as I can tell, all sound – he can hear almost everything within a three hundred metre radius, on a relatively calm day, down to plates clanking in an indoor kitchen at least a quarter of a kilometre away and a mouse at several hundred feet. I don't think he knows this is unusual – he kept giving me funny looks while I was testing him.

At this level of sensitivity, I wouldn't consider it strange for particular sounds to cause him pain or to be overly distracting, but I haven't noted anything aside from the ocean to cause him to reac------

Ink splashed over the page, and I winced, dodging back from the splatter. "Oops. Sorry, Sensei, I hope that wasn't important… but anyway! Did I pass?"

"…Pass?" My teacher sounded bemused. "Naruto, it's not a test it's exactly possible to fail…"

"Did I pass?" I repeated, tapping my plate.

He sighed heavily. "Yeah, you pass, your ears are hypersensitive, now go away."

"What test?" Sasuke asked, his words slightly jumbled by whatever he had stuffed in his mouth at the time.

I blinked at him, absently twirling my chopsticks in my hand and then dropping one of them. "Damn. Sensei went a bit weird earlier when I was training, said he was testing me for something… what does hypersensitive mean?"

"Che. Idiot." Sasuke's fingers drummed rapidly against the table. "It means your hearing is generally far sharper that normal, and you're overly aware of sounds most of us never pay attention to; some sounds that are normal to us would be painful to you. I think pitch has something to do with it as well, but I'm not exactly an expert in this area…"

"Wow, Sasuke! I didn't know any of that! That's amazing!" I flinched and clapped my hands over my ears, wishing briefly that I'd had the sense to sit further away from my squeal-prone fangirl of a teammate.

"Ah, Sakura, maybe you should tone it down a little," Sensei commented, his voice dampened by my protective hands.

"What? Why? What's wrong, Sensei?" It was a testament to her observation skills, or lack thereof, I growled mentally, that Sakura didn't notice her teammate trying to escape her increasingly strident voice. Sasuke's feet tapped mine under the table as he shifted down the bench away from her. Make that teammates.

"I think your voice is hurting him," Kakashi-sensei was explaining, and I cringed, waiting for her to swat me and tell me off (at top volume) for being melodramatic.

Instead there was a muffled murmur that I couldn't understand, and impulsively I pried one hand loose to listen, ready to clamp it back down at any second when she started shouting.

I was surprised to hear a soft whisper. "Is… does my voice actually hurt?"

Warily, I nodded, still ready to duck at a second's notice. "Not all the time," I amended, after a moment's thought. "Just when you get excited… or loud… your voice changes, and that hurts."

Sakura let out a squeak, and began to babble frantically. "Oh, I'm – I'm sorry, really! I didn't know I really hurt you! Oh, man, I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"

She was getting gradually more and more high-pitched, and I winced. "It's – Sakura, it's fine, just – don't shriek, or, or raise your voice. Just normal talking is fine…"

My female teammate was near-hysterical with apologies to my total bemusement, but Sensei eventually managed to get her to calm down.

Tsunami's kid, Inari, I think his name was, suddenly slammed one fist down on the table, understandably getting everyone's attention. "I don't know why you're bothering," he snarled, but I'd heard scarier Academy students. "If you stand up to Gatou, you'll only get yourselves killed! No one survives defying him!"

I tipped my head curiously at Sasuke, who audibly shrugged, before voicing the idle question, "So you don't think we can do it? You think we should just forget the mission and go home?"

The kid made a noise that was a weird cross between a sneer and a choke that I'd never heard before. "Better than ending up dead!"

I leaned back slightly, already losing interest in the argument, and nearly ruined my dignity by falling off my chair. "You're pretty cynical for a kid," Sasuke observed, tapping my shin lightly under the table, and a faint tinge of disdainful amusement translated: Nearly as bad as you.

I surreptitiously stuck out my tongue at the Uchiha as Sakura commented, "Yeah, Sasuke-kun's right. Don't you believe in heroes, Inari?"

Another choking sound, although I recognised it this time hot thick can't breathe the kid was struggling with tears. "Heroes don't exist!" the brat snapped. "They're just ordinary people and they die like everybody else, like you will unless you give up!"

He bolted up the stairs – the seventh one still creaked – and slammed a door. As an awkward, tense silence descended on the room, I heard sandaled feet clapping against the wood upstairs. Tsunami let out a ragged sigh. "I'm sorry about Inari… he…"

The conversation died even before I silently escaped outside. I'd only get an hour or so before Sasuke dragged me back in, but that would still be an hour of undisturbed training that I sorely needed.

A low, growling chuckle echoed.

I frowned. Mostly undisturbed.

Kakashi-sensei sighed behind me, and I heard the soft squidge, barely audible even through the still-open door, as he started writing again.

Why wasn't this in his medical file? If he had been properly tested this would be in there, and it's definitely serious enough for someone to have noticed.

May need further investigation.

One-two-three-CRAK-thump.

One-two-three-four-fi-CRAK-THUMP!

"Ow," I grumbled as I rolled with my momentum and stood up. "I am getting way too good at that."

Dew had soaked eagerly into my jacket from its contact with the grass, and I shrugged it off to heap at the base of a tree. Sneaking out early for some pre-dawn training had been difficult, and was almost guaranteed to land me in trouble, but was depressingly necessary. My chakra control was terrible. It would take me ages to get this, and I'd need to spend every spare moment I had practising.

One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-CRAK-thud.

One-two-thud.

One-two-three-four-BANG-thud.

Stupid chakra.

I lay flat on my back for several seconds, gasping and wondering if I was just doing it wrong. That had happened before – I'd get the wrong idea on how a jutsu was done, and stubbornly forge ahead until someone figured it out and corrected me or I got the damn thing to work my way. The bizarre noises Sasuke made when he figured out why it took me so long to learn Henge…

But I was pretty sure I was on the right track this time. The right track just happened to be a dead end.

A faint whisper made me frown and lift my head off the ground – was that breathing I could hear? I might have passed it off as a random animal, except for the fact that anything with sense had run away from the racket I was making, so it was either something really hungry, which was bad, or human, which might be even worse.

"Who's there?" I said calmly as I stood up and glanced around reflexively, not letting my voice quiver with the thought of who might be out there. Sasuke would only sigh at my dawn training, but I didn't know the rest of my team well enough to guarantee their reactions.

The lack of response made my stomach twitch nervously, and I took a couple of deep breaths. "Alright then, if you're going to be difficult…"

The chakra I reached for came much more clearly than usual – I sensed the slow dullness of trees, grassy ripples, and the quickbeat of a flitting bird with the sharp clarity of the corners of a page unlike the usual hazy mess. I don't know why – I was exhausted, this should be downright impossible to manage at all – but since I could feel out that chakra source now, I wasn't going to pay common sense any attention whatsoever.

"It's awfully early to be out," a feminine soft quiet curious? female about my age maybe friendly voice remarked from the human chakra source. "I didn't think anyone else would be around."

I blinked slightly at the unfamiliar voice, settling my weight back on my heels. "I thought the same thing. Guess we were both wrong."

She laughed softly – a light chuckle, not quite a giggle – as she knelt nearby. Her chakra wasn't hidden, like I had first assumed, just so quiet, almost passive, that until I pinpointed her voice it blended into the background. Or maybe I was just tired – who knew. "Are you a ninja?" she asked curiously, her clothing shifting with faint rustles – she was probably looking at the destruction my chakra had been wreaking on the nearby trees.

"Uh-huh!" I said cheerfully, tapping the metal plate of my hitai-ate with one finger.

Very faint sound of slipping hair – her head tipping? "Is that why you're awake, with the sun barely up?"

"Yeah…" I laughed sheepishly, brushing hair away from my face. "I'm pretty much the only one out here this early, 'cos I need the practise. Out of my team, my chakra control – wait, you do know what chakra is, right?" I remembered to ask – not all civilians knew. But I heard her nod quickly, and grinned as I continued, "Well, my chakra control is kind of pathetic, really, so I need to train a hell of a lot more to keep up with the others."

"It sounds difficult," the girl said softly.

I shrugged. "That's life," I responded quietly, glancing away. "If you have to fight for every step, then so be it."

"That's an admirable streak of determination," the girl commented – was she fiddling with the grass? I heard her fingers pluck something up, the plant's roots tearing through the damp ground. "If… you don't mind me asking, what keeps you fighting so strong?"

It was my turn to tip my head to the side, this time in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"Do you have any precious people?" she asked dreamily. "Who do you fight for?"

I blinked. "Precious people?"

"The people who you fight for," she replied. "The people who are your reason for fighting, even when it looks like there's no point."

Slowly, I frowned. Well, duh, Sasuke and Ita- wait, not that last one, but definitely Sasuke, and – well, I always fought for him before, too, right? Does that mean he counts? Nii-san would have counted before – I squashed the thought and nodded at the girl, trying to smile but probably failing, the memories she'd inadvertently dredged up making it harder than usual. "Yeah… I do," I whispered.

"Naruto! Hey, Naruto, where the hell are you?"

I couldn't help the grin as I tossed over my shoulder, "Coming, Sasuke!" before turning back to the girl. "It was nice meeting you! Maybe we'll see each other again someday!"

She giggled again. "It was nice meeting you, too, Naruto. I wish you luck in your training.

It wasn't until I'd caught up to Sasuke and was halfway back to the house for breakfast that I realised I'd forgotten to ask her name.

I was terrified. I'd been afraid many times, many more than I could clearly remember, but I had never been so scared as I was right now. A foot brushed past me and I scrambled away from it with a choked-back yelp, cracking my head against a wall I hadn't known was there. I knelt in the centre of the shrieking noise with frightened tears coursing down my face, hands clinging to my throbbing head, and as something else rushed past me, I bit back a scream and ran, barely thinking to hope whatever few shreds of luck I had would keep me from running headfirst into a fence.

Something grazed my arm and I stumbled, my balance long gone – I was so dizzy – falling to the ground with a thump, feeling cold hard sidewalk under my cheek. I was gasping, every breath like a blast of cold against my throat; my head still burned fiercely, and I didn't think it was from the knock I'd gotten when I found that wall. My chest ached, and I dragged in another breath, shuddering with the effort as hot water wet my cheeks.

I… I don't understand…

Ice cold pain and red hot fear.

I felt a glimmer of – something – gasped – shot to my feet and bolted again, the sharp edge of something catching my arm but I didn't care. I just ran, tears streaming down my face as my chest twisted painfully. It hurt, and my head hurt, and I was so scared and hurt and confused and I didn't have anywhere to go.

Stumbling to a halt, I sank to my knees and curled up in a ball, chill wind whispering over my skin as I huddled miserably with my back to something uncaringly hard and quietly sobbed.

"Who're you?"

I jerked back in shock and fear, not knowing someone had come close, so close to where I was huddled against something that felt like a tree – at least, that's what I thought it was. I gulped and did my best to glare at where the voice had come from, but if nothing else, the voice was small and young like mine, so its owner couldn't be very much bigger than me – if he tried to grab me I'd beat the stuffing out of him –

"And why are you here?"

I swallowed reflexively, dashing my sleeve over my eyes. He – or she? – didn't sound upset – just – curious. "I… where am I?"

"The Uchiha compound," the other child replied matter-of-factly.

The Uchiha compound? Wow… how had I managed that?

The other child – at least I hoped it was a child, stayed silent, apparently waiting for an answer. I had never gotten a good response by telling someone my name, so I avoided that question, consciously or not I have never remembered. "I… I dunno. I was runnin', an' I just ended up here."

Maybe it was disinterest, maybe some form of childish intuition, but he didn't ask me what I was running from. He just sat there and stared at me, at least that's what I assumed he was doing – it's what I'd've done in his place. I sat still, struggling not to start crying again.

I wasn't sure how long we'd been quiet for before my companion said, sounding a little hesitant, "My mom made cookies this morning. D'you want some?"

I looked up, startled at being offered food, although my stomach growled hopefully. I hadn't eaten since – since – I bit my lip, hadn't been able to find my way back. I didn't even know how long it had been – I couldn't tell anymore. The sun never rose; the sun never set. It had gotten very cold once since – since they – I swallowed, it was cold at night, had it been that long?

When you stop and think about it, the strongest friendships are formed by food.

Warmth, peace, and the feeling of a full stomach.

"You've been hurt."

This was someone else. Bigger, stronger. And his voice was different – still sounding young, but so much older, so much more that I drew back warily, wanting to be ready to escape.

"I'm fine."

My voice sounded hollow even to me. How could I do this? What could I do? Should I even do anything? Everything had been turned upside down, the ache in my chest rising in a piercing wave, and I didn't know what I was meant to do any more.

The first child – I was more and more sure it was a young boy – chirped happily, "That's my big brother! He's the best!"

Meeting the Uchiha brothers, I think, saved my life.

"Who, me? I'm Sasuke! Nice to meetcha, Naruto!"

I would never have made it this far without them.

Safety. Knowing that someone cared.

'Tachi-nii was probably the main reason no one ever found me out. I mean, a village full of ninja – a blind child – how hard would it be for them to spot it?

But they never did.

The door slid open abruptly and I jumped, almost falling off Sasuke's mattress, only to be gently pressed down to the floor by a broad hand, guided under the bed by 'Tachi-nii. "Eh? 'Tachi-nii, what's –?"

"Sh. Be still."

A faint creak as he sat on the bed; I flattened myself against the floor without question and went silent.

"Itachi!"

I went stiff, frozen with horror. We hadn't known Fugaku was home!

"Itachi, where – ah."

Itachi shifted; the bed creaked as his weight moved a little more overhead of me.

"Itachi, I had not finished –"

Sasuke interrupted with a peal of laughter and some violent squirming; 'Tachi-nii was tickling him.

"Aniki, stop it!"

"Itachi!" Fugaku sounded… what was the word…? Frustrated.

"Yes, Father." That seemed to be 'Tachi-nii's favourite sentence whenever he had to talk to his dad.

"Itachi, I meant what I said before," Fugaku said warningly, and Itachi shifted slightly above me in the slight pause. "Sasuke is not to play with him, do you understand me?"

"I comprehend your words, Father," I heard 'Tachi-nii say neutrally, and frowned internally. What did that one mean…? 'Tachi-nii always used real big words when he talked to his dad…

"Good." The door slid open again. "Mark my words, Itachi, that boy will prove dangerous." And then the door slid shut. I couldn't hear Fugaku's footsteps – I never could – but I assumed he was moving away.

I heard 'Tachi-nii murmur to Sasuke, "Oh my. A blind four-year-old. Whatever shall we do if we meet him in a dark alley?"

Sasuke giggled, and I let out a relieved breath of laughter, Itachi chuckling softly along.

For a long time, they were the sole reason I kept breathing.

"Again."

I bit my lip, staring intently into the blackness that would never go away, and the sudden 'chank' made a flinch judder through me before I quickly hurled my weapon in the direction of the sound. There was no replying sound, and I scowled, crossing my arms and ducking my head to hide my miserable expression. I was never gonna get this.

"Again."

'Chank.' I didn't move. What was the POINT? This was stupid, why'd I ever thought I could do it…

"I said again, Naruto-kun."

'Chank.' I flashed him a bitter scowl and threw.

'Chank.'

I stiffened with shock, staring blindly at the tree I had just heard the answering sound of kunai meeting wood from. Not one of Itachi's throws, the ones meant to give me a reference, but mine. I'd hit the tree!

Whooping, Sasuke nearly bowled me over, and I quickly scrambled away from him. He was gabbling excitedly and almost cheering, he was so happy, and it didn't make much sense to me at all. Sasuke was much better than I was – even at six, he was a good marksman. Even 'Tachi-nii said so. Grudgingly. If we bugged him for an hour.

He sure didn't have to throw fifty times to hit the target just once.

But I felt an insane grin stretching my own face all the same, because I'd done it.

Maybe… maybe I could do this, after all.

'Tachi-nii wasn't just Sasuke's big brother. He was mine, too.

"Yowch!"

"The spoon keeps tipping! You gotta hold it steady!"

"How can I do that if I can't even see it?"

Tachi-nii broke up the impending squabble easily. "Naruto, you need to feel the edges of your spoon and hold it horizontally from the ground. That will stop you from spilling the soup."

Four-year-old understanding stuttered to a halt. "Uhn-wha?"

A sigh. Warm hands over mine, carefully steering my spoonful of soup towards my mouth. "Hold it like that. Keep it level…"

"Ow!"

"Doesn't food go in your mouth?"

"Now, otouto, be nice…"

Both of them were my best friends, even if the rest of the Uchiha Clan hated me. They were always on my side. I think, maybe, that's why it hurt so much when he turned against us.

"It's… real quiet out here, tonight," Sasuke said nervously, his voice just a little tight with anxiety.

I was already on edge, the breeze tugging at my clothing and bringing with it a feeling of inescapable uneasiness that brought a sour taste to the back of my mouth. It took me too long to place the ghost of a memory the wind played with, and I swallowed, the scent bittering in my next frightened breath.

"'Suke… I smell blood…"

Then darkness. Cold. The smell of blood so thick and choking I'd never forget the scent again. Adrenaline flaring, sharp breaths burning, screams I never wanted to hear – and the shocked, ice-cold pain of something torn apart.

I don't understand…

Itachi-nii-san…

Why did you do it?

RUN, SASUKE!

I jerked upright with a stifled cry of pain. It took me a few minutes of frantic tugs to extricate my wrist from the tangled blankets, and my struggles had wound the sheets around my legs in a smothering cocoon that was easier to wriggle out of than unwind. Eventually, I escaped my bed linen and slipped onto the porch, cool night breeze rapidly chilling the sweat on my skin.

I was trembling, and gasping, air damp and cold against the back of my throat. The rough solidness of wood under my feet and palms was locking me back in the present and the painful memories back in their box, coarse splintery ridges contours of pressure. The wind stopped tasting of blood; my ears stopped ringing with screams. I shuddered, and crumpled against the post on the corner, leaning against it for support as I fought to stop the shaking.

Just a dream…

Just a dream.

Don't lie to yourself, you little fool.

I shuddered again, mind ringing with the remembered cutting words, and almost missed the soft scrape of the door behind me opening again.

"Naruto?"

I relaxed once more, closing my eyes and looking away from where he had just slipped outside. Swallowing past the lump in my throat, I gasped another breath, the pain in my chest slowly loosening, but didn't otherwise respond.

"'Ruto, you okay?"

I sighed quietly. "Just a bad dream."

He didn't say anything, but I could sense the question anyway, and glanced back in the direction of the door with a tired half-smile. "It's alright, 'Suke. Just memories that don't seem to want to stay that way."

He didn't say anything further, just moved up to stand beside me on the porch, the wind teasing at our hair. I was calmer now, calm enough that I didn't jump when his fingers lightly brushed my exposed forearm, instead readjusting my weight so that I was leaned on his shoulder instead of the corner-y post.

I don't understand…

For all he was an Uchiha, Itachi had been part of my family, too.

'Tachi-nii…

Despite the common sense that told me he'd never be back to the same older brother I'd known…

Why…

Why did you do it?

…I missed him.

Japanese Definitions:

-nii: This isn't grammatically correct; it's the slang form of sorts of the suffix 'nii-san', which is shortened from 'onii-san', which indicates that a person is an older brother (or is regarded as close enough to be an older brother).

Ijutsu: I may well have this one wrong, as I only have two reference sources for it and one of them's not reliable, but I'm fairly sure it's the broad term for medical jutsu.

Otouto: Little brother. Itachi is famous for using this one for Sasuke all the freaking time.

Aniki: As far as I can tell, another version of 'older brother', noun form rather than suffix. If anyone can give me an exact definition I'd appreciate it.

Concept of the Day: Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji

Japanese writing doesn't use the same script as English – script means letters, alphabet, by the way – like French and Indonesian do, and actually has three different 'alphabets'. They use characters called 'hiragana' for general use; each character represents a different syllable, like ka, ki, ho, mu and be. This way of organising their lettering is part of why Japanese is such a syllabic language.

'Katakana' are different characters generally representing the same syllables as hiragana (some slightly more foreign sounds are represented as well). They are generally less complicated, blocky, and 'childish'. So if you've seen Japanese symbols that refuse to appear on hiragana charts (like me), they're probably just katakana and you're confusing yourself.

Kanji are the most complicated, with each character representing a different word. Japanese people spend most of their schooling learning their kanji, so forgive me if I don't know a lot of them. Kanji are also pictorial, most of them having originated from an image that was later stylised into the symbol we have now. Hence why it's so confusing. And complicated. The pronunciation, however, follows the same style as hiragana and katakana.