Allusion
to Midnight
By Kreyana
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, obviously. If I did, I think we all know what sasunaru would have been doing very early on…
Summary: After six centuries, Uchiha Sasuke finds himself surrounded with friends, but without the one person he needs; until he finds sixteen year old Uzumaki Naruto. But things with this boy are never what they really appear. SasuNaru
NOTE Please read I would like to know something, so please review and answer these questions Is the first chapter interesting? Does it start out a bit boring? What should I change about it? Do I need to revert to first-person (personal – I – pronouns) PoV? xD I hate that, but it seems to currently be the only way I can write my original stuff… blegh. Thank you! And please enjoy.
Another Note for you! Alrighty now, people. Sorry that took so long, schoolwork and general procrastination took over for a bit but now we're back in business. Ahead here, we have the next installment of Allusion to Midnight, and we do so very much hope it is to your liking (and worth the wait!) At the end of this chapter, you will find the progress report for the next chapter. Now, carry on, and please do enjoy!
Update: The Jiraya versus Jiraiya spelling errors from the last chapter have been fixed, and next-chapter status updated with post date, (not that any of you care!)
- - -
C.h.a.p.t.e.r2
PianoSonata
- - -
A light knock resounded from the bedroom door and Naruto replied with an equally light grant of entrance. Kakashi slipped in, closing the door to lean on it with arms folded across his chest. He watched the blond as Naruto fiddled around on his laptop.
"Uchiha Manor, huh."
Keys quietly clicked through the room. "Um, yeah," Naruto muttered, distracted.
Kakashi stood there, waited for the blonde's brain to kick in and the questions to fly.
The clicking stopped. Naruto shifted in his chair to look back at his teacher. "How do you know of Uchiha Manor?" His deep blue eyes were filled with excitement, and Kakashi couldn't help the small chuckle.
"I've spent some time around the place," he admitted.
"You know the owner?" the blond nearly vibrated with excitement toward his newfound live-source. His father-slash-teacher shrugged.
"One Uchiha is like the next, really."
Naruto turned back to his laptop. "I was curious about some history. That place is so old…" he drifted off into his thoughts and Kakashi continued to wait. "I know that name," the blond turned back to his visitor, "But I don't know how, so I was checking." His brow ruffled, as it always did when he was confused. "The Uchiha's aren't in any history books."
"Is that so?"
Kakashi's indifference annoyed Naruto; he glared. "Otou…"
Kakashi's exposed eye twitched, and he sighed. "All right," he moved to Naruto's bed. "Ambush me."
The computer chair turned fully around, Naruto propped eagerly on its edge. "Who are the Uchiha's? When was the mansion built? How long have you know Jiraiya? The owner? What stopped all of the balls – that 'event' Jiraiya mentioned?"
Kakashi easily absorbed it all. None of the questions seemed to surprise him. He hummed in thought. "You know that most families have been around for hundreds of years; well the Uchiha's have been around for thousands."
Naruto's brow creased, "That's a long time."
"It is," Kakashi nodded in agreement. "The Uchiha's are an ancient family. For centuries, they were large – whole nations of Uchiha's. The bloodline stayed strong for years. Festivals celebrated the first Uchiha's, their conquests and lives. When a new Uchiha was born, the child was celebrated as well. Over time, the family began to dwindle down. The mansion you visited today was constructed in the early eleventh century, following the event of a plague that devastated the bloodline. The cemetery at Uchiha Manor is the resting place of many Uchiha's, close friends and distant relatives.
"I have known Jiraiya for many years; the current owner of Uchiha Manor is around your age and I've met him a few times in the past; and I can't really say what happened to stop the balls, because it was over six hundred years ago."
Naruto frowned – Kakashi hadn't given much of an explanation, and certainly not as much as he'd wanted. He just knew that his teacher-slash-father was keeping something from him.
Kakashi, on the other hand, seemed perfectly content with his explanation. The odd high school teacher stood from Naruto's bed and stretched lazily. "Well, time for some shut-eye," he muttered. The blond frowned as he followed Kakashi with his eyes. "Naruto," Kakashi paused, hand on the doorknob, to look back at him. He apprised the blond for a quiet moment. "Get to bed soon. Jiraiya means what he says." He paused again, thoughtfully scratching his mask-covered chin with a finger, "Though he is often late…"
"Hai, oyasuminasai."
Kakashi muttered a quiet good night reply as he closed the door behind him. Naruto sighed, turning back to his laptop. What Kakashi told him wasn't useless, but it also wasn't much. What was Kakashi hiding? With a dismissive shrug, he typed up what he'd been told and crawled, suddenly exhausted, into his wide bed.
- - -
At seven-thirty A.M. Naruto's annoying little alarm went off. The shrill noise made him groan and twist around in bed, pulling a pillow over his head as a hand slammed down on the poor, innocent black-metal-and-red-electronic-numbered clock. His one-third-conscious state was quickly fading back to full sleep mode when another annoying occurrence added itself to his morning.
Someone knocked on his door.
The blond photographer muttered bitterly, grumbling for the annoyance to 'go the hell away, he needed his beauty sleep!'
Instead of leaving him alone, the door opened and a displeased throat cleared. "Naruto, if you don't get up now, you'll never be ready in time and Jiraiya will have to wait for you."
Sapphire eyes glared through sleep-fog from beneath a blood-red pillow. Unfortunately for Naruto, his glares never had worked on Iruka.
Or Kakashi.
Damn them.
"Breakfast is getting cold," Iruka taunted.
Those sapphire eyes brightened slightly. "What is it?"
"What do you think it is?"
"Not ramen?"
Iruka smirked, shaking his head in mock-disappointment.
Naruto groaned, securing the pillow over his eyes. If breakfast wasn't ramen, it wasn't worth getting out of bed…
"Ten minutes, Naruto, and you won't get anything," Iruka threw over his shoulder on his way out of the room.
The blond threw back an inarticulate meh.
…Had Iruka said something about 'late' and 'Jiraiya?'
Oh. Right.
He shot out of bed, nearly smacking into his closet door in his hurry.
His shower was the shortest he'd ever taken, and within those ten minutes graciously given to him, Naruto was down in the kitchen, hair lightly dripping with excess water he'd missed. He sat at the table, all but inhaling the cold pancakes that awaited him.
Iruka shook his head disgustedly, muttering about annoying, messy teenage boys.
Naruto rushed back up to his room to gather his photography equipment. Camera, check; more film, check; cell phone, check.
Five minutes to eight-o'clock, Naruto sat on the freezing cement steps outside, bouncing his leg impatiently. He impulsively checked his wristwatch every few seconds. At five-past-eight, Naruto sighed. "I could have slept more," he grumbled bitterly, lazily toeing a medium-sized pebble around in front of him.
He looked up at the familiar rumbling in the distance. Sapphire eyes glared darkly at the black truck as it parked in front of his walkway, and the white-haired man stepped out, calling a far too cheery greeting.
"You're late," Naruto frowned at Jiraiya's laugh.
"Sorry kid, had something to do. You're obviously ready, so let's get going!"
Feeling particularly malicious toward the now-seemingly-in-a-hurry man, Naruto every so slowly stood, stretched, slung his bag over his shoulder and trudged down the sidewalk.
He only succeeded in amusing the Ero-sennin, as he'd just deemed to call him. He didn't really know why, but the nickname felt right. Naruto hopped up into the passenger seat, setting his bag between his feet, and buckled in. The truck's heater was on medium-high and felt blissfully wonderful in contrast to the cool autumn air.
"What did you have to do?" the blond wondered as Jiraiya started down the road.
"Hmmm," Jiraiya thought for a full minute.
Really, who had to think for such a long time to answer such a simple question?
"The kid had an errand for me," the Ero-sennin answered.
Naruto stared over at him incredulously. "That's it? You had to think about answering that you had an errand?"
The older man just shrugged with a grin.
Naruto sighed, rolling his eyes and turning to look outside the passenger window again. Minutes rolled past, with the thick trees outside, in silence.
"Is he there?"
The sudden question surprised Jiraiya, "Who?"
"'The kid,'" the blonde's tone clearly said duh.
"Ah. No, not at the moment."
Naruto pouted with disappointment.
The truck pulled up into the circular drive and stopped, but the engine didn't cut off. Naruto loosened his seatbelt, looking questioningly toward Jiraiya as he grabbed his bag.
"You're on your own today, kid," the man grinned, nodding toward the mansion. "It's not locked, and like I said yesterday – you're allowed anywhere you want. I have some things I still need to do."
"Errands?" Naruto guessed. Jiraiya nodded a confirmation and Naruto sighed. "All right. Thanks, Jiraiya. When will I–"
"Around noon, I think. Maybe later," he shrugged. "Don't hurt yourself – or anything else," he teased.
Naruto slammed the door.
- - -
He'd toured the East Wing yesterday, and explored the back yard. So, today belonged to the rooms of the West Wing. Naruto stamped up the entryway's marble steps, curving left with the banister at the top. He paused to ready his camera, securing the strap around his neck, bag slung back over his opposite shoulder to rest behind him.
This hall was different. Instead of the normal tile or marble, as with the others, a plush maroon carpet stretched from the landing all the way back as far as he could see. Periodically placed desks mounted with vases, lamps, and an occasional telephone lined the walls. Between them, several doors broke the flat crème of the walls. Some doors, not surprisingly, were locked while others stood open.
Naruto filmed bathrooms, guest rooms, and even one particularly magnificent closet - stocked floor-to-ceiling with white and colored linens, towels, bathrobes, and toiletries. It reminded him of a spa storage room.
One deep mahogany door made him pause. It could have been locked, looked like a room that would be. The wood was dark stained grain with the usual Uchiha signia carved in its surface. He'd seen many of these doors. There wasn't anything particularly different about the door, but Naruto could feel something. When he touched the door, pushed it open, his skin shivered. When he went into the room, his skin adjusted to a point of discomfort that became actual pain. He ignored that pain to the best of his ability, because his photographer-instinct told him that this room was something he could not miss out on.
Naruto took as many pictures of that room as he could, at least two dozen that spanned around the room, before he dashed out. He threw himself against the wall, sucking a deep breath into his clenching lungs and closing his eyes. The door slammed shut after him, whether from his haste or another force, he had no idea. Naruto continued down the hallway.
There was only really one word that could describe that room; evil. He couldn't help wondering who that room once belonged to.
The next that Naruto wandered into had an opposite effect upon the blond. A large sense of comfort shimmied down his spine within the deep blue walls. The pale blue bed at the left corner of the room looked invitingly comfortable, and Naruto had to remind himself to take photos. The desk directly across from the door sat beneath a wide, pale-blue curtained window. A modernized metallic lamp sat on the desktop, a bottle of ink and a modernized feather pen set out next to it, and a small stack of books took up the left hand side.
Naruto photographed the left, middle, and right sides of the room, once again wondering who he was intruding upon.
A door on the right, upon investigation, connected that room to another. Naruto gaped through the doorway. Despite its old fashion, this room mirrored his own almost exactly.
Black walls, dark curtains, dark desk, black and red bed linens - Naruto shook himself from the surprise. Striding to the window, he pulled open the curtains to allow light into the room. He photographed every inch, and when he moved on, his mind lingered.
Add the electrical conveniences of modern-day Japan, and that room would be an exact duplicate of his own.
Or was his room the duplicate?
Shaking his head to clear those thoughts, Naruto pushed open a door to the next room. This one was exactly like the last in that it evoked the strange sense of familiarity. The bed, centered directly across from the door, took up more room than any of the others he'd seen thus far. The room was much larger as well, and completely black.
Black curtains, black carpet, black walls, black linens; deep mahogany bedposts, desks and shelves with each book cover a matching dark shade.
It was a room he could like; a room he did like, in fact. The high-tech computer that sat atop the mahogany desk only helped to appeal to the blond. He wondered what programs the contraption held - what its owner intended it for. Such a beautiful piece of black and blue plastic ingeniousness could hardly ward away a creature as curious as Naruto for long.
But as he drew closer to the computer, his hand hovering over the cool mixture of metal and plastic, something faint made him stop.
In the distance, a small tune drifted to his ears. The melody drew him from the bedroom and down a hall to the left. That sound was faint for nearly three hallways, before it became clearer in his right ear. Naruto moved slowly down that hallway. The nearest door, ten paces from his turn, was open a crack and the light sound emanated from it.
As he drew nearer, the song's final note was struck, and vibrated into silence.
Naruto pushed open the door.
In the center of that room stood an empty, black Grand piano that still hummed with the final note.
This room was bright. The far wall consisted purely of window, and Naruto walked over to it. His hand hovered inches away from the glass surface as he looked out. Beyond the glass wall loomed the large garden, misted in an unnatural fog. He had a perfect, clear view of the tree swing he'd found yesterday.
Another of the walls consisted of mirrors, which helped explain the room's brightness, and glass ornaments hovered from the ceiling, all around. These ornaments ranged from spheres to spirals, and all clear as water.
He liked this room, but it also made him a little uneasy. The room was too familiar to him, even more so than those bedrooms. With a sigh and a shake of his head, Naruto set to photographing the amazingly light, musical room.
- - -
By 2 p.m. that after noon, Naruto had finished photographing the Uchiha Manor and returned home, where he proceeded to lock himself in the basement. When he'd first picked up photography, the dark, damp area had immediately been confiscated and morphed into the perfect developing room.
He developed his photographs beginning with the last and ending with the first, so that they were more easily organized into his assignment folder. When he reached the photographs of that mausoleum, he paused on the entrance picture. Again, the language above the door was unfamiliar, but again he could understand it. The letters were not based on any previously written language in the world, yet it was obviously old.
Love lost doth rest beyond, stolen on this sacred night; Offered sanctuary before the final stroke, so the soul might find peace.
What did that mean? With a sigh, he continued to the very first photograph, and loaded them all into a manila envelope.
It was time to hand them over to his boss.
- - -
A large, thick manila envelope thumped heavily on her desk, and Tsunade glared darkly from beyond the rim of a mug. Her youngest employee, Uzumaki Naruto, flashed a bright grin, and unceremoniously fell into one of the seats in front of her desk.
Tsunade set her mug down and leaned back into her chair, boredly eying the thick envelope. "So, you've finished photographing Uchiha's place, then?"
Obviously.
She ignored any response the blond gave - or would have, had he even bothered to try - and reached for that atrocious, invading object. She pulled out the stack of photos and flipped through them, one at a time. "You certainly did go crazy," she muttered.
"Tsunade-baa-chan, why did I get this assignment anyway?"
Her eye twitched. Why onEarth did he insist on calling her 'grandma'?! She wasn't even half of-
"Tsunade-sama."
Sigh. Uchiha would not be happy with her, if he heard about this... "Uchiha requested you photograph his home, personally."
"Uchiha? ...But why?"
Tsunade shrugged indifferently. "He didn't tell me everything, you know."
The blond fell back in his chair and huffed, glaring across the wide desk.
"What?! You enjoyed the opportunity, didn't you?"
Naruto looked away, his face falling into indifference. After a moment of distant, shifting eyes, he nodded. "Yeah. I like that place a lot."
"It's no surprise, really," Tsunade muttered. When blue eyes turned up to look questioningly at her, she changed the topic. "So now that I have these, you're done. I'm sorry to make you work during your weekend off. Go home, have dinner, get some rest - and get your ass to school on time tomorrow!"
The blond teen chuckled, waving her off as he pushed out of the chair and made his way to the door. "Hai, hai. See ya later, Baa-chan."
He snickered as the murderous glare burned through the office door's wood and into his back.
- - -
Monday morning, Naruto was, not unusually, late to wake up, late to dress, late to eat, and late to school.
He flopped into his desk seat, sinking down low enough to just barely be able to peek over the tabletop. His first class was with Kakashi-sensei, who, like Naruto, was always late. Except that Kakashi-sensei was always much later than the blond, and he didn't exactly want to know why. It'd been years since Iruka quit teaching grade-school, so that excuse was out-the-window.
"Yo." Kiba hopped onto Naruto's desk, setting his jean-clad thigh eye-level with the blond. He snickered as Naruto shot up straight in his seat, gagging. "I'm hurt," he mock-sniffled, and laughed again as a punch aimed its way toward his shoulder. "Have a good weekend?"
Naruto rolled his eyes. "Yeah, great." Kiba knew perfectly well that he was working the entire time. "Actually," he amended, "it really was a lot of fun. You have no idea how huge that Uchiha place is!"
Just as Kiba opened his mouth, the classroom door burst open and in strode their teacher. "Good morning, class!" Kakashi greeted, far too happy. "Inuzaki, kindly get your ass off of Uzumaki's desk and into your own seat," he said, without as much as a glance in their direction.
With a roll of his eyes, Kiba did as told.
"Today is a very interesting day," Kakashi propped himself against his desk, positioned at the front-and-center of the classroom. "Today, we have a new student. Anti-social bastard that he is," a few snickers rang throughout the classroom (and should the principle hear Kakashi refer to any student in such an informal manner, the man would have his head,) "please do your best to make him feel welcomed. Come in."
With that, the new student entered the classroom.
Excited whispers rose in the room, mostly from the girls. Most consisted of He's so cute!, and Do you think he would go out with me?
The new kid ignored them all, staring blankly toward the ground as he bowed. "Uchiha, Sasuke desu," he quietly voiced. More squeals rose in the room.
As Naruto discretely stared at the new student, he couldn't shake the feeling that he knew him. Every inch of the dark haired teen screamed familiar… lover. Naruto flushed. How could he think that about a boy he hadn't even met yet?
The new kid's eyes turned from the floor to the blond, black locking forcefully with surprised blue – as if Naruto had called out his name. A small, devious smirk pulled up the corners of his lips. His eyes conveyed silently to Naruto that he knew.
The feeling that the new kid knew exactly what Naruto had thought, churned in his stomach.
- - -
ToBe Continued...
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Notes:Okie dokie… So uh… Yeah I'm taking a while to get this stuff done. But that's mostly because I'm multitasking xD 1- working somewhat on my very first manuscript (wohoo.) 2- until about November 27th I have stories to write for my Fiction Workshop class (Finals will be complete on the 18th,) and 3- my muses pounce on me at the worst times imaginable… almost always after 10 PM, weekday. You have no idea how often I try to sleep and end up writing in my mind xD when will they invent those mind recorders/ Like the thingies in FF-Spirits Within (been ages since I've actually seen it…) Oh well! I'm workin.
Ch. 3 is in progress.
Please review! Give me criticism and encouragement, I often thrive on it… pathetic, I know.
Update: Important info for all of y'all who love this story and/or want to know a little bit more before you actually get to! I have decided to write a companion fic! Yes, a real, live companion fic to this lil piece of work right here! This companion fic will tell you some of what you'd like to know about that Secret Event dear Jiraiya is skirting around, and it will follow Sasuke (vaguely at least) through the six hundred years between the event, and cover AtM up until the end of this chapter. It'll probably be 1 or 2 chapters, no idea as of yet. And, in case any of you were wondering wtf is with this title, this companion fic will give meaning to this story's title! Yay. So, let me know how badly you want this! (If you do… I'm doing it either way, though)
