Song: Bono – rise above.

First day of class was not only extremely hectic but surpassingly boring. Sasuke expected classes to start right off the bat, but that wasn't the case. The professors turned out to be old geezers and lazy ones at that. The course descriptions were made to sound complex, but in reality it was no big deal. They let them go early, saying that first day should be introductory and that starting next class, real work would begin. Sasuke suppressed his snort at this.

He had taken a seat at the back of the huge hall, expecting people to leave him alone. That also, wasn't the case. The first moment he sat down, he was assaulted by a grinning freak. The kid had white hair, unusually pointed teeth and strange, violet eyes. An albino. At first, he just kept peeking at Sasuke, but he finally broke down and reached out a hand. " Suigetsu, a pleasure."

Sasuke glared at him before extending his own hand in return. "Sasuke, likewise." The boy smiled at him and fell into a rant about the shitty professors and how his older brother used to go here as well. "I can show you around and answer pretty much any question you have." He winked and Sasuke, despite himself, found that he liked the chatty kid. He allowed himself to be dragged to the nearest restaurant and shown the best foods Suigetsu thought there were. He was pleasantly surprised, although he did talk a lot, Sui was a rather cynically funny bastard, and the raven found himself laughing outright at his nonchalant and sometimes horrible jokes.

He also talked a lot about his brother, which Sasuke found intriguing but didn't think it was right to ask about. He was drawn out of his wonderings by a tap on the shoulder. "So hat about you? Where are you from?"

I live with a cousin of mine, and I lived abroad for a while, so Im not so good with this society thing." He smiled, hoping he sounded believable. "You've lived here all your life?" He found he was actually a bit curious.

"I used to live with my brother, but he passed away a while back." A small streak of pain flashed through his eyes. "I live alone now."

Sasuke cursed himself for even wondering. "Im so sorry, I shouldn't have pried."

Suigetsu smiled sadly at him. "It's all right, It's not so bad anymore and just so that there's no more awkward convos, I never knew my parents, apparently, they died when I was a small kid.. Small enough not to remember."

Sasuke felt like shit, completely at a loss for what to say. "It's better not to remember, trust me." The words were out of his lips before he could stop them but he tried to hide his slip of tongue by looking nonchalant. Inside, he shuddered, this was not how one started undercover research!.

"I'm not going to ask, if it makes you uncomfortable.' Sui looked serious. "But if ya ever wanna talk, you've got my ear- speaking of which," he stopped Sasuke answering him with a grin. "Here's my number, might as well start building up our social network ne?" he winked, and the subjects after that became lighter and less hard to talk about.

In short, Sasuke was thoroughly pleased with how his day turned out by the end of it. Sui had most of his classes with him, which made everything a bit more pleasant. Also, he could easily ask Sui about which libraries to start searching for old documents, and the teachers here proved to be just as eager to educate the first years in researching abilities. Sasuke had a list of stuff he wanted to look deeper into by the end of the week, under a locked file.

Him and Suigetsu got along splendidly, and he was more out of the house than in it. When he would come home Naruto was either gone or about to leave, depending on what needed to be done. And then he would fall asleep so soon, he'd never hear the blonde come in.

But now, now it was the weekend and he woke up on an early Saturday morning to the smell of food being prepared and the TV slowly chatting off in the background. He broke into a grin despite himself as he shuffled into the hallway and kitchen. There was Naruto, throughtly engrossed frying eggs, mumbling to himself as the TV blared the latest news.

Sasuke stood in the doorway, contemplating the innocent picture in front of him. In a movie, he'd walk up to Naruto and grab him from behind, maybe nibble an ear? Here, in the real world, Naruto was older, straight and a bit too tall to comfortably nibble said ear. That and the fact that Sasuke would burn through the ground to do more than think about such a fantastic idea. Still, he must have been letting something show, because Naruto stopped, pan still in hand, and raised an eyebrow in concern. "You ok there?"

These were the first words he'd heard form the blonde in a week, and that realisation frightened Sasuke somewhat. What if he seemed ungrateful? He certainly was, but he knew he didn't act like it much lately.

"I was just thinking…" he started, there was no way he'd actually say what was on his mind. "I really am grateful for what you did for me, even if I'm not too good at showing it this past week… it's been, hectic." – he could feel a slight buzz in his back pocket, Sui was probably going to ask to hang out.

'It's allright kit, I know what first week does to ya. And… " he shoveled the fried goodness onto two plates and turned his back to Sasuke as he rummaged through the fridge. "you don't have to beat yourself up over not showing gratefulness, that would be creepy." He winked. "we have a deal remember, Im getting something out of this too."

That did remind Sasuke, Naruto had said that this was a deal, but for the life of him couldn't come up one thing the blonde was getting from it. "Come to think, "he started, "What are you getting out of this?"

They had sat down on the couch, Naruto placing both plates on the coffee table while Sasuke thoughtful, was easily led into sitting beside him. Naruto was now immersed in his food, eyes glued to the screen. Sasuke suddenly remembered the drugs he was supposed to look into. Just like that, he remembered, and felt ashamed that he had let other things fill his mind up.

"looks like it will be a rather nice weekend, what say you to taking a small trip outside the city? Its going to get cold fast, so I thought we could enjoy the great outdoors while we can."

"like camping?" Sasuke asked, digging into his own food before it got cold.

"Exactly!" Naruto nodded in between mouthfuls. 'Could grab a tent, some jackets, flashlights and marshmallows and dip it in say…" he looked at his watch. "an hour?"

"You're in a hurry." Sasuke smiled. "Sure, no problem, I'm in. Just let me message a friend and grab the essentials."

"What would the essentials consist of?" Naruto smirked as Sasuke squished between him and the table on the way to drop off his empty plate. He grabbed Naruto's on his way.

"Oh you know, " Sasuke threw back a glass of orange juice and made a face. Naruto laughed but kept it to a snicker when Sasuke glared at him. "toothbrush, deodorant, a fresh pair of this and that and the book I'm supposed to be reading but cannot stand."

"Allright then, you do that and Ill pop downstairs to check the mail and make a round to the corner gas station, Ill be up here in about 30 minutes to grab you."

"Should I grab your stuff as well? Sasuke hollered at him. Naruto was out the door that fast, and popped his head in to nod. "just grab whatever comes to hand." Sasuke nodded and pulled out his cell. Indeed, Sui had called him.

"What's up?" sauske was pulling out his socks and underwear as he held his phone between an ear and shoulder. "Sui sounded sleepy. "Just wondering if you want to hang out today, you woke me up actually, I passed out right after I called you."

Sasuke laughed out loud. "Sorry to disappoint, but I have the weekend planned and not in town.. You're going to have to survive without me."

"Sasuke, you cruel sonofabitch, you know I can't live without you!" Sui was smirking now, Sasuke could tell. "You going with your cousin?"

"yep." He felt weird about lying to Sui about this, the guy had told him everything about himself, but there was no way he could. "The guy wants to go camping, and I…" He was about to say he'd never been, but caught himself just in time. "I haven't been in a while, so I kinda wanna too, sounds like it might be fun." – he couldn't believe he'd just said fun… A while ago he didn't know that he'd ever think the word.. he really needed to show Naruto how grateful he was, words couldn't explain… "Anyways, I have to pack up my shit and his, so I'll talk to ya later kay?"

"have fun your highness." Sui laughed and hung up, no doubt to fall right back to sleep.

Sasuke threw his stuff into a small bag. He walked to the bathroom and looked about. Grabbing their toothbrushes, razors, paste. What else? He mumbled to himself crouching to peek into the shelf below the sink. His eyes caught the pill bottle, innocently stuffed on top and in a dark corner. Away from view.

Naruto had never mentioned the incident where Sasuke passed him the pills from behind in front of Sakura, now he wished there had been something said, that might have answered a few questions. Still, he pushed the pill bottle further into the back until it fell behind the box it was standing on. Naruto would think he'd taken it and he'd have a perfect excuse and say he'd never even seen it. Play stupid and get away with it, maybe observe what Naruto was like without the pills, see the side he was attempting so hard to hide…

He straightened up and slipped into Naruto's room. He inhaled deeply, he'd missed the spicy scent that seemed to float whenever Naruto was in the vicinity. He hadn't even realized how much he'd missed it. Suddenly he was very happy to spend two full days only with the blonde, sleeping in the same tent. Yep, the perspectives here were great. Naruto couldn't have had a better idea.

He flopped down to the couch and opening the dreaded book, submerged his nose in the pages.

xXx

Naruto hopped the stairs to the garage. Shikamaru was already there, leaning on the car and reading through a thick leaflet of pages. Naruto walked quickly up to him, eyes hard and serious. "Well?"

"There's absolutely nothing that could lead to Akatsuki being behind it this time. They either really aren't the ones, or they learned to cover up really well." The sharp, dark eyes looked weary and tired. "we've been checking out every blade of grass man, there's no internet leads, no DNA… nothing but," I think that they've always been able to hide completely, looks like they wanted us to find clues before, now they're dealing with something they don't want us to know nothing about.

"Which is exactly why we have to find out something!" Naruto gritted his teeth. Have you got many confessions, people talking?

Shikamaru shook his head sadly, "Ino's been working around the clock, there's nothing concrete, damn, there's nothing that could even get us started."

"fuck!" Naruto kicked the wheel of the car and hissed in pain as his toe throbbed angrily. 'I can come in, maybe help you guys—" he was cut off by Shikamaru's hand. 'Dude, do I run around doing your job, no. Stick to yours man, when we have a lead it's all yours but for now relax.. you need it."

For the last week the team had been turned inside out and backward. The week started off like any other, buzzing and people running around small scale investigations and stories. Naruto was at his desk, having just come in, he was chatting it up with Shikamaru. The mass murder of the children still fresh on their heads. They knew who did it but their hands were tied, there were no people talking, no leads besides the obvious one.

Then the girl that usually did the front desk secretary job walked in, smiling, holding a small package in her hand. "That's for you Mr. Uzumaki." She smiled politely. "I found it on my desk when I arrived." She put on her best smile and with a wink, walked back out into the foyer.

That had been the end of the peacefully started week. Naruto opened the box and was frozen in place. Breathing deeply, his mind reeled with disbelief. "Oh hell no."

Shika was leaning behind him, peeking in. "Dude is that….?"

Naruto nodded, sweat covering his forehead as he dumped the box onto his desk and stood up, running a hand through his hair, still unable to believe…

"Is that…" Shika muttered, "is that a tongue?"

"that is, more specifically, it's Sai's"

AN: And Imma cut it here to preserve the mood! LOL hey yall! I'm back! ;)