Switched

Chapter Three – Truth Unspoken

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any of the other non OC's in this story.

Summery: What if the royal son and a peasant girl are "accidentally" switched at birth? And what if they eventually fell in love? AU.

Sakura stared, agape at her adopted brother, "Itachi! You're not allowed out of the palace!"

"Neither are you," Itachi told her calmly, "and I told you I would tell our parents the next time to snuck out."

"I don't care if you do or not, I'm having the time of my life, the life I never had!" Sakura told him, standing up.

"Do I care? We're going home Saku-- Who is that?" Itachi glared at Sasuke.

"One of my best friends! Haruno Sasuke, do you have a problem with that, Itachi?" Sakura growled at him, clenching her teeth.

Itachi didn't say anything. Look-a-like stared at look-a-like.

"What's going on? Hinata, Sasuke, who is this?"

Sakura looked around to see her blond friend with a number of different berries in his hands. She caught her breath as he squished them in his palms. Out of the corner of her eye she was Sasuke stand up, staring at the man he saw before him. They looked so much a like. Anyone village would have guessed they were brothers.

She sighed and growled, "Go away, Itachi!"

Itachi took his eyes off Sasuke to look at her, "No, I think I'll stick around. I want to know how he seems to know you from before you started sneaking out of the palace recently."

"Sneaking out of the palace?" Naruto questioned, he looked at Sasuke and then to Sakura, "What's going on, Hinata?"

"Nothing, Naruto."

"Nothing?" Itachi laughed quietly, "Why, peasant--" Naruto's eye twitched when Itachi said this particular word, "--You don't know? This is the princess, Sakura."

Naruto blinked and looked from Itachi to Sakura. Her eyes didn't meet his. She clenched her fists, finger nails digging into her skin. She felt her warm blood bleed from her palms.

"I don't know why!" she told her brother, "I don't know why I seem to know him from somewhere!"

Itachi sighed. He crossed the river and grabbed her arm before she could react.

"Let go of me!" she protested, pulling back from him, although he held on.

"Let go of Hinata!" Naruto told the tall man, rushing forward to help his friend while Sasuke just stood, continuing to stare at the man.

"Her name isn't Hinata, Peasant!" Itachi growled, making Naruto step back defensively, holding his arm in front of his face. He squeezed his wrist and a knife on a string popped out of his sleeve.

Itachi looked surprised. He had never seen anything like that before.

He snapped out of his little trance before Sakura could bit his arm. Itachi covered her mouth and she growled.

"We're going home now. You two better do the same if you don't want to be imprisoned." Itachi glared at Sakura's friends before turning and dragging his little sister back to the castle.

"What just happened?" Naruto asked after they had disappeared.

Sasuke looked around at Naruto, seeming surprised that his best friend was there.

&&

Sasuke lay on the couch, listening to his parents arguing about something stupid that was happening up at the palace. They seemed to argue a lot lately. He couldn't seem to get Sakura off his mind. Why had she lied about being the Princess? Sure, he would have thought differently about her if she had told he and Naruto her real name.

He listened as his parents fall asleep but continued to lay of the couch. He couldn't sleep for some reason.

A knock on the door made him sit up. Before opening the door, he looked out the window. It was a woman. He couldn't see her very well. But it was a woman, so she couldn't be dangerous.(AU, who knew Sasuke could be sexist? Haha. Kidding. Woman aren't usually as dangerous. He's stereotyping.)

So he opened the door. The woman flung her arms around his neck. He was about to push her away when he saw who it was.

"Princess Sakura!"

"I'm Sakura, I'm definitely not a princess."

Sasuke sighed. For some reason, it felt good to be in her embrace. He slowly hugged her back, "What's wrong?"

"Gomenasai!" she said, breathlessly, "I didn't mean to hurt you in anyway."

Sasuke blinked. What was she talking about?

"You didn't hurt me," he told her, "Surprised, but you didn't hurt me."

Sakura sighed and stepped away from him, "We need to talk, Sasuke, is there any place private?"

Sasuke nodded, not sure what she meant by private, since his parents weren't in the room. He took her hand and almost withdrew his when he felt a spark. He saw Sakura's face go a light shade of pink that matched her hair. He led her out of the hut and into the forest, where they sat on and old fallen tree.

He watched her as she stared up at the starry sky.

"Sasuke, I asked my mom if I could look through the birth records from nineteen years ago."

"Oh?"

"Yes, and I found something that disturbed me."

"Yeah?"

Sakura sighed, "Well, it turns out that my parents had two sons and never a daughter," she looked around at him, a small smile on her face, "You see, I was found by a guard up at the palace when I was an infant, the day a baby girl was born to the Haruno family."

"What does this all mean?" he asked, blinking sleep out of his eyes.

"Sasuke, I think someone switched us at birth. I think you're the second son."

"Impossible."

"Who else could it be, Sasuke? You look almost exactly like Itachi, you were--"

She was cut off by a low growling in the bushes behind them. Sasuke went pale. He leaned forward and slowly slid his knife out of his boot. He turned and was face-to-face with a giant gray wolf.