Again with the long winded intros! I guess I should update sooner because I hate apologizing for my absence… this chapter was tricky for me to write because I hadn't really planned farther into the story but this is all recreational so… yeah. I hope you enjoy the chapter!

(Well this is awkward)

The man sighed as his eyes glowed in the darkness of the room. Watching the scene unravel before him he felt the authoritative control he once held slip from his grasp.

"What to do, what to do?"

Hunched over the man rubbed his aching back and glanced down into the water once more, touching the shimmering surface and creating ripples in the frozen image.

"Sasuke…"

He swatted angrily at the bowl and watched as it smashed against the dark wall; the precious liquid that once held the image of the enraged ringmaster now glibly flowed down the side of the wall and pooled onto the floor.

A boy appeared at the entrance of the room and silently opened the door.

"Sir I heard a noise. Are you okay?"

The man nodded and turned towards the boy's stoic face staring with his red eyes, eyes of crimson and eyes of death.

"Yes leave me."

"But sir you are bleeding." The boy held out his hand and pointed to the man's face.

The man reached up and touched his cheek feeling the blood warm his finger tips and trickle down the side of his hand. The man got up and walked towards the shattered bowl; he picked up an intact semi circular piece of the destroyed pottery and stared at the water still clinging to the inside of the plaster. Blood dripped from the man's face and distorted the remaining water turning it a murky red.

"Sir" The boy questioned once more.

"Leave me be." The man grunted in response, the boy nodded and closed the door vanquishing the only light left I the small room.

(I eat cookie ( O )

"Thank you Thank you!" Kiba ran out of the ring whopping and hollering every step.

"Oh man did you see that show! Oh yeah that's what I'm talking about!" Kiba slapped Shikamaru on the back causing the boy's eyes to bulge as he repeated coughed from the force dealt to his back.

"Quality entertainment right here!" Kiba pointed to himself proudly.

"More like a cheap night right there." Sasuke entered into the room and grinned.

Kiba rolled his eyes. "Glad to see you're off your period Uchiha."

"My period?" Sasuke questioned the boy as Shikamaru shook his head.

"Kiba guys can't have…"

"Ah what a great gathering of youth! Shall we all stop to admire each other's vigor before taking our final bow?"

"You can admire Sasuke's vigor after I get him ready for the finale." Temari sauntered over to the brunette and placed her hands on her hips.

"Well?"

Sasuke sighed as a sign of defeat and left the tent with the blonde woman. The duo walked towards the makeup and costume trailer while Kiba left the makeshift tent and went to tend to his tired animals. Shikamaru had left as soon as Lee entered the room mumbling the word troublesome to himself as he exited the tent.

Lee stood in the center of the room fist still pumped in the air with a disheartened look on his face. "Am I the only one excited about the completion of our grand performance?"

Lee looked around and saw a dot of red hair walk past the opening in the tent.

"GAARA! Come celebrate our youth with me!" Gaara took a step backwards and spotted the bushy browed boy furiously sprinting towards him shouting words of nonsense.

"Uh oh."

()

Temari opened the door and Sasuke walked into the trailer. He always hated the makeup room something about the piles of powders, creams, body paint, along with the myriad of brushes seemed to drain him of any remain masculinity he had left after Temari and her crew had already stolen most of his virility by viscously sewing Sasuke into whatever bedazzled number they had come up with for the show that night.

"Temari my face looks fine. I don't know why you insist on drowning my pores in powder every time I come here."

"First off your lovely pale skin would get washed out in our amazing lights without my expertise, can't have you looking like a ghost my dear" Sasuke rolled his eyes as Temari's fingers grasped his chin.

"and secondly you and Gaara get the least amount of makeup so quit complaining."

Sasuke shrugged and leaned against the wall while swatting away Temari's hand.

"I'm still not letting you touch my face and I can complain all I want."

"I don't need to touch your face retard." She reached out and grabbed Sasuke's folded appendages. "It's your palms that I need to deal with."

Sasuke's eyes widened as he clenched his fists, regaining his lost composure he reverted back to his stoic face setting his onyx eyes on the blonde.

"How did you know?"

"I would say news travels fast but I just know how to weasel information from my baby brother." She slyly grinned.

"Damm Gaara sure is a blabber mouth for a guy who doesn't talk."

"Well his boyfriend filled in all of the gaps he left so blame the both of them."

Sasuke narrowed his eyes mentally promising to kill both Neji and Gaara once released from the confines of his outlandish prison.

Temari walked up to the pouting brunette and took his hands running her fingertips over the markings causing Sasuke to inhale at the burning sensation.

"Do they hurt?"

"Obviously" He gritted between his teeth.

"Sorry" She flipped his hand over and examined the rest of his arm.

"I was too young to remember my markings, to remember the pain that they may have caused me or to notice any of the side effects they may have delivered."

"Do you hate him?"

Sasuke looked into the blonde's disheartened eyes.

"My father?" She questioned as Sasuke nodded.

"No, he was a scumbag from the start lying, stealing, cheating and abusing my mother experimenting on his own children was just the icing on the cake but in order to hate him I would have to acknowledge him as a person, which I don't, because no human could do what he did." Her eyes glazed over as she gazed onto the past that she once called her life.

"Would you take it all back? Would you become human yourself, do you wish you didn't have the power that he granted you, after all it was his experimenting that made you into what you are."

Temari looked down at her feet thinking for a moment; Sasuke could tell by the furrow in her brow that she had often thought of this topic like most their makeshift "family" did in their spare time. Their twisted existential was why not who am I? He took her silence as an answer and dropped his hands away from her touch, she'd never understand.

"No" Sasuke's head snapped to stare into the blonde's eyes.

"I wouldn't because I don't know any different whatever this-she pointed to her body- is it made me who I am today, it brought me and my brothers closer and it ended the life of an animal. No I wouldn't give up my abilities to be some weak sniveling abused girl" Sasuke nodded.

Temari pointed her finger at the brunettes face scowling."But don't lump me into your category Sasuke."

He glared at the blonde, mentally accusing himself allowing his motive to be seen so clearly but of course Sasuke wouldn't give her the satisfaction of seeing through his rouse.

"I'm not you Sasuke and not because I didn't have a choice…"

"No it's because you don't lack a soul." Sasuke turned away from the girl and started walking towards the door.

"You made your choice as we did ours."

"I choose untold power over a meaningless existence!"

"And I choose rejection and death over my father!"

"You're father was a terrible man!"

"And was your life so terrible that you had to throw it away?"

Sasuke snapped his jaw shut and huffed.

"You know nothing about life because you never had one." He gritted out of his clenched teeth.

Temari knocked over the chair in her path and marched right up to Sasuske staring him in the face.

"I may have never had a life but I know how to live. If you're going to let your past screw with your future then get the fuck out because everyone here came for a fresh start."

Sasuke smirked and raised his eyebrow.

"There are no fresh starts just like your shadow your past always stays with you giving away your every thought and showing the world your deepest secrets; can you guess what your shadow shows?"

"Just cover your hands with your gloves for the show and leave." She pointed towards the door defiantly.

"Good" Sasuke felt the adrenaline pumping in his veins. "Because it looks like the Moulin Rouge threw up in here." (2)

Sasuke walked out the door grinning as Temari slunk into the adjacent chair with a thud. Maybe she was wrong to bring someone as unstable as Gaara here, maybe she was wrong to endanger her family, maybe she was just wrong.

To Sasuke none of Temari's words mattered in the end he had won. The look on Temari's face when he had dug up her past was enough to send the boy on a euphoric trip, some called Sasuke a sadist other's a narcissistic bastard but none of those words could describe Sasuke Uchiha once the proud heir to the massive Uchiha fortune and now the proud owner of Temari's self esteem. Sasuke enjoyed security, he had the money, he had the looks, he had the charm and he acquired the power who gives a rat's ass about something as fickle as a soul. Hey if the devil could get people to sell their souls to him surely the Uchiha could do that and more, to Sasuke that was the name of the game, its simple math really if you win everything then you never lose anything. That was the sole promise the boy had made to himself 10 years ago, a personal promise that he would never lose control. (3)

(Oh I had an epiphany)

Naruto was walking throughout the darkness with a strange eagerness oddly enough his eyes had adjusted to the darkness and with his newfound "night vision" he felt comfortable walking through the abyss.

THUMP or so he had thought.

"What in the world?" Naruto looked up from the ground and held his aching head. What is there to hit in a place where there is nothing. Naruto slowly placed his palms on the ground and used his fingertips to feel out his surroundings.

"Come on, come on" BANG.

"Ow" Naruto had hit his head once more on the offending surface.

"Stupid fing hard ass box…"

Clink clink. Naruto froze.

"Hello?" Naruto opened his eyes as wide as they would go and cautiously stood up from his current position on the ground.

Clink clank.

Slowly he looked into the gleaming surface in front of him.

"It's a mirror." They whispered as he touched the solid surface with awestruck wonderment.

CLANK.

Naruto focused his gaze on the center of the mirror, there in the middle of reflection stood a boy or at least Naruto hoped it was a boy but there was something about this kid that made Naruto shiver like an evil aura sucking everything into the child.

"That's….that's…"

"you" The boy in the mirror looked up and stared Naruto in the face.

"or should I say me" The boy grinned a crooked smile that made Naruto's stomach turn and caused him back away from the horrendous creature.

"No I'm right here." Naruto pointed to the ground while grabbing his clothes mentally reassuring himself of his existence.

"Yes and you're also here." The boy, no the thing- Naruto refused to accept that the person talking to him was himself- growled out at Naruto.

"What are you?" Naruto quivered.

The boy looked into Naruto's frightful eyes and moved forward the chains on his wrists and ankles dragging noisily across the floor.

"I am you and you are me." The boy's eyes were red with black slits in the center and he grinned once more at Naruto's gasp.

"No, no you're not me. I'm not."

"You're not what? Angry at the people who took away your parents, how about the people that put you in this place, this is not a place where good people go Naruto, in fact this is not a place for people at all." The boy slammed his palms on the glass cracking the hardened surface and scarring Naruto into believing that the glass wouldn't hold.

"Look at yourself, you sniveling coward if it wasn't for me you wouldn't be alive."

"That's not true! I am fully capable of taking care of myself!"

"oh really, a newborn left stranded by his worthless parents." The boy smirked once more highlighting his dangerous canines.

"My parents didn't desert me; they died in a fire!" Naruto was crying now tears streaming from his face as his voice became more horse from crying out.

"Your parents died because I wished it!" Those blood red eyes widen with a sick and twisted amusement consuming any shred of humanity within the creature's eyes.

"What?"

"You're parents are gone because I needed them to be, how else would you ever foster enough hate to let me survive? You're loneliness and despair are the reasons I live: we're the same person Naruto."

"I couldn't have killed them." Naruto shook his head scattering tears on the ground.

"I loved my parents! I wouldn't have the heart to do that to them." Naruto looked at the devil through his water eyes.

"Fortunately for the both of us I have no heart." The silence was unbearable as Naruto's façade broke down and he began to sob.

He felt a chill run all over his body as a pressure squeezed his limbs closer together. Naruto frantically twisted and turned hoping to remove the annoyance that was slowly carrying him away from the mirror.

"Wait, no stop! Let me go!" Naruto tried to worm his way out of the torturous grasp but to no avail, the mirror was dimming along with his vision of the chained up boy.

"No Please you can't be me!" Wide sapphire eyes met the boys blood red orbs.

The boy casted his eyes downward and hung his head in defeat as the last of Naruto's body fell farther into reality and out of the strange dwelling of the chained up boy.

"Ouch" He rubbed his sore backside while covering his eyes from the blinding light shinning downward on his face. With his vision slowly returning Naruto saw three figures in front of him, two which had already lost his trust. Naruto's eyes widened and he shouted.

"Don't touch me!" Naruto scooted away from the pupiless sword swallower and the creepy magician looming over him. Neither of the two flinched upon Naruto's sudden outburst.

"I swear if you pull that shit on me again I'll!"

"My my it seems like this one is going to be some trouble." The third figure sighed.

"Shut your trap! Um, um…"

"Kakashi" The man smiled as he held out his hand. Naruto scowled at the limb and folded his arms over his chest pouting like a defiant child.

"Not in the mood for introductions I see, well then let Neji" The man turned toward the shirtless performer "and Gaara" he glanced over to the angered magician. "Show you to where you'll be staying"

"Staying?" Naruto looked up at the odd man. He'd seen him before, somewhere…but ever since visiting the chained up boy he couldn't tell what was reality and what were hallucinations. He severely hoped that everything up to this point was a dream, clenching his fists Naruto remembered the markings from early but in his mind he dare not look towards his palms. Whether it was the fear of knowing that everything that had been happening was real or the fear of knowing that his mind could possibly come up with something this twisted sent shivers down Naruto's spine causing the boy to dig his fingernails into the exposed flesh of his arm.

"Well of course, you're now part of the Greatest Show on Earth." Kakashi smiled once more, though the only way one could tell he was smiling was due to the fact that his one visible eye was closed shut and turned downward like a crescent moon.

Naruto finally registered what Kakashi was saying and stood up abruptly.

"Seriously I don't ever remember…"

The brown haired man whispered in Kakashi's ear, who nodded in response. The red head and the brunette moved closer to Naruto who attempted to back up but in his disoriented state he fell onto the floor. The pair grabbed Naruto by the arms and hauled him upward, forcing the blonde to clumsily walk on his legs.

"Hey what are you!"

"I hope you enjoy the finale!" Kakashi smiled once more as Naruto screamed.

(Intensity)

He watched as the door way closed and the blonde was carried out of the la terra del perso.

The boy sighed as the echoing of his chains reminded him of his permanent solitude. Glancing around the abyss he shook his head and chuckled to himself.

"Fortunately for him you still have your soul."

(Fin)

Just Kidding! Wow how horrible would I be if I actually made that the ending but don't worry because chapter 7 will be up ASAP I actually have a majority of it written so editing it will be the biggest part which for me it always is. I'm going to New York next week for a personal visit and I will be writing when I go but not posting so, I'm sorry it's out of my control. Well I did book the flight so there's that but still I haven't forgotten or given up on this story and since it is summer I will be updating more often so you have that to look forward too!