A/N: OK, this time I have to say it. Last time I said you wouldn't want to hear excuses and I guess you don't but...last time my pc was crashing every few minutes, now it's died completely. I finally got it on a little while ago and transferred everything off of it onto another pc which means I have all my stories again *yay* so yeah I just wanted to say that ^^

Naruto yawned as he walked up to the school gates, Gaara just behind him. Naruto looked around at Gaara. "Are you sure you don't want to wash that off?"

Gaara shrugged, touching the small red felt tipped drawing on his forehead that he'd made Naruto redraw. "I like it."

"You like it?" Naruto paused as he looked at Gaara with a frown.

"Yeah, that a problem?" Gaara looked slightly put out at the way Naruto was acting.

Naruto grinned. "No, it's just there's not a lot of stuff you actually like so I was shocked."

Gaara shrugged again before looking back towards the gate, a glare gracing his face as he noticed they were being stared at.

"Gaara?" Naruto looked to where Gaara was looking, confused at the sudden change. It didn't take him long to notice the two men watching them. "Let's just ignore them OK? Let's not start a fight or anything?" Naruto had noticed Gaara getting tense and knew it would not be good to start a fight here just for being stared at.

Gaara nodded though he kept his eye on them as they were about to walk past.

"Naruto?"

Naruto froze and looked back, Gaara not far behind him.

Gaara's glare deepened. "You know them?"

"No. At least I don't think so." Naruto frowned as he stepped forward, towards the men. "Do I know you?"

The man in front of him smiled, though it didn't reach his eyes and for some reason Naruto thought he looked familiar but only for a second. "No, but we know you." He motioned to the man behind him. "And you, Gaara." His smile extended to Gaara who tensed in return. "Would you mind coming with us for a bit?"

"No, sorry we can't. We've got school." Naruto replied coldly, not liking where this was heading. "Come on Gaara, let's go." The man who hadn't spoken yet made him pause when he snorted at them.

"Good little boys, aren't you?" The man grinned, though the boys couldn't see his face. He was shut up with a look from the other man who turned back to smile at the two. "We'd just like a word and you do owe us a favour."

"What? Why?" Naruto blinked at him shocked, not understanding at all.

"It's because of us that you could get out of the laboratory so easily."

~In school~

"Where are Gaara and Naruto?" Iruka looked up from his register, frowning. There was no way he wouldn't have been told if one of them was ill and he couldn't see them skiving. "Has anyone seen them today?"

There was a mostly negative reply which had Iruka's frown deepening before Sakura raised her hand. "I saw them outside the school but they were talking to some people. It looked serious so I didn't intrude."

"Some people?"

Sakura nodded. "Never seen them before but one of them…" She blinked as if realising. "That's what's been bugging me! He had Sasuke's stare, I thought I recognised something about him."

"Huh?" Sasuke finally looked up, having been worrying himself about where the other two were.

Sakura shrugged. "Sorry but he reminded me of you."

Sasuke frowned at this comment, unnerved but not knowing why by it. It took a second for his mind to take a drastic turn but he shook his head, there was no way he'd be here now…was there? He paused for a second, knowing there was a way to find out but he knew that he would have to destroy his pride to do it. In his bag there was an old photo, just one that he'd never got round to taking out he had always told himself. A photo of him and his family. He took it out slowly, knowing that he would never hear the end of it if he was wrong but it would be worth it if he was right. He folded in half and wrote 'pass to Sakura' on it before nudging the person ahead of him and giving it to him.

Two seconds later. "That's him!" That was all Sasuke needed to hear.

"Sakura, what are you-?" Iruka stopped as he watched Sasuke dart out of the room. "Sasuke?" He peered around the door as he disappeared down the corridor.

Sasuke's voice echoed back. "Call Kakashi!"

Iruka frowned, not understanding but did as Sasuke said, knowing that he was serious. "Sorry guys, this will only take a second." Not that the kids minded in the slightest and probably wouldn't have listened anyway after seeing Sasuke run off like that.

"Iruka? Now's not a good time." Iruka heard a tired and frustrated sigh down the end of the phone. "Some of the kids that were with Naruto and Gaara have gone missing again and no one thought to tell us. Stupid, god damn-"

"Stop, Kakashi." Iruka decided it was best to stop the tirade now before Kakashi got really annoyed.

"Sorry, rough day. You wanted something?"

"Well, actually…" Iruka coughed, wondering what to do now, his worries increasing.

"Iruka? What's wrong?"

"Naruto and Gaara aren't here."

"They're what!"

Iruka winced and held the phone away, noticing that the class went silent after hearing the shout.

"Shit! I'm going to go look for them then, we can't be too careful. Do you have any idea where they might be?"

"No, sorry but I know that Sasuke's gone to look for them."

"Right, try not to let any of the other kids go; we don't know what we're up against here."

Iruka nodded, glad that the other pupils couldn't hear them now that Kakashi had stopped shouting. "OK, ring me if anything happens OK?"

"K."

Iruka pulled the phone away from his ear as Kakashi hung up and stared at it for a while.

"Are Gaara and Naruto in trouble?"

Iruka looked up at the class seeing the worried glances and would have felt proud that Gaara and Naruto had fitted in so well and that their classmates cared about their safety if it wasn't for the situation. He smiled, trying hard to push the negative thoughts out of his head. "No, everything's going to be fine."

"So are you going to tell us or what?" Naruto tried to look unfazed by everything but he couldn't help looking round as he noticed that there were more people than just the two that had been first talking to though he couldn't make out any features under the hoods they wore. He could feel Gaara tensing up beside him, ready for a fight and he was hoping they wouldn't have to choose that option if they decided they wanted to leave."How do we owe you a favour?"

Itachi smiled, though it didn't reach his eyes. "Let's first get to know each other. We're 'Akatsuki'."

"And you think we care because…?"

Itachi sighed. "You should care. We choose that name in honour of what had happened to us." He paused and looked around. "Well, them I should say, I was a volunteer." He took off the sunglasses that had been hiding his eyes, not that the two had really paid attention to what they were wearing, showing the blood red irises underneath.

"I don't understand." Naruto tried to look away from the disgusting sight but felt drawn to it as if morbidly curious.

"We're experiment: Dawn. Your predecessors, you could say."

Naruto blanched as the other members of the group pulled down their hoods showing themselves for what they were, genetic mutations. Naruto looked around them in shock. "But we don't look like that…" He hadn't meant to say anything, it had just slipped out.

"That's because we were the prototypes, you could say." Kisame grinned at him, his sharpened teeth showing through. "Also the genetic experiments don't work as well on adults."

"Why?" They all paused as Gaara spoke up, who seemed less threatened now. "Why were you…we tested on?"

"We were tested on because we were easy to obtain." A blonde man smirked from the back, leaning against a wall. "No one cares if criminals expecting the death penalty disappear, as long as they haven't escaped of course." His smirk widened.

"But you escaped from the facility." Naruto spoke, clicking it all together in his head, remembering his conversation with Sasuke and having a foreboding feeling about why he'd found the man with red eyes familiar. "So when you said that you made it easier for us to escape…?"

Itachi nodded. "We destroyed everything as we left. All the security systems, anything we could get our hands on. As the facility had to pretend it had shut down they couldn't pay for a new system to be installed without it looking suspicious. So you were able to escape with minimal hassle, correct?"

Naruto nodded slightly, there had been trouble but only after they'd got out of the laboratory.

Itachi continued talking. "We would have brought you with us when we escaped if we'd known you guys were there. You were being held very secretly. I had only heard mention of you children, for all we knew you were all in a different facility."

Naruto nodded again, not convinced but at the same time not angry at the men in front of him. He shivered slightly as he remembered the laboratory and everything they'd gone through there and decided to see what these people knew. "But as Gaara said, why? What was the purpose of us all being experimented on?"

"You don't know, Naruto?" Itachi blinked, trying not to show his shock though Naruto saw it for a split second.

"Huh? Why would I?"

Itachi frowned. "You were the first experiment, Naruto. Well not the first experimented on but the first one to be kept in the facility."

"Huh?" Naruto's eyebrows rose, not understanding.

"You're the reason for the experiments."

A/N: Just thought I'd put~ I looked up the word Akatsuki and it apparently means 'Dawn' or 'Daybreak' which instantly got my brain ticking over them being the first group of experiments. ^.^