DISCLAIMER: IF I HAD MY WAY, ITACHI WOULD BE ALIVE AND SASUKE WOULD BE WITH NARUTO.

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Tenten stirred when a breeze wafted in through her window and pulled her green woolen blanket closer to ward off the chill that accompanied it. Lee, beside her, stirred as well, and pulled her closer, hand resting protectively on her hip. He always seemed to move in sync with her, always keeping her as close as he possibly could in his sleep, which was what she loved most about him.

She sighed, content, and was nearly asleep once more, when she heard the floor by her and Lee's pallet creak.

She stiffened, not really meaning to, and strained her ears for any foreign sounds.

Was that- breathing? Is someone in our room?

She shifted, rolling so that she faced Lee, and wriggled closer to him under their blanket. If someone was there, she wanted to be as close to Lee as possible.

Lee sighed softly in his sleep.

Another creak.

There was no denying it now.

Someone was in their room.

"I know you're awake, little girl." the intruder breathed in her ear, and she fought the urge to scream.

She nodded but kept her eyes closed.

"Tell anyone I was here, and I'll come back and kill you and your little friends."

She nodded again, tears beginning to leak from beneath her closed lids.

"Good girl. Are your other friends here?"

Nod.

"Good. I'm going to leave your room now. Scream or wake the others up and you'll all be dead. Understand?"

She didn't have to nod this time, the tears streaming down her face were answer enough.

---

She'd been under Sasuke's bed for three hours, wishing with all her might that he would wake up and leave so that Itachi would leave with him.

Finally, it seemed her wish was coming true.

He was sitting on the edge of his bed, curling and uncurling his toes, preparing to stand.

Itachi stood, and the chair scraped against the floor loudly. Sakura wished she could cover her ears against the grating sound, but didn't want to risk drawing attention to herself.

"Dammit, Itachi, I can dress myself. Sit down." Sasuke commanded, shuffling his feet as he went to his chest of drawers.

"We still haven't caught them, Father wants us to take you to the safehouse." his brother remained standing, though he kept a distance between them.

"I'll be fine. For what reason was I taught to fight, if not to defend myself?" Sasuke was pulling on a shirt.

"That's not the point. Whether or not you can fight is of no consequence." Itachi stood in front of his brother now, trying to reason with him.

"I don't care. Post guards around my room until they're caught. I won't be locked up in that dinky little room with no windows." He yanked his pants up.

"Father-"

"Right now, I don't give a damn what Father says. I'm the heir, I'll decide what to do. Or will he have me coddled like a child for the rest of my life?"

Itachi sighed.

"Just come and have breakfast, we'll talk it over then."

Sasuke followed his brother out, slamming the door behind him.

Sakura counted down from a hundred slowly then counted up to a hundred to be sure they were gone.

Slowly, she pulled herself out of her hiding place and stood, stretching her arms and legs.

After three hours of not moving, they were stiff, and they tingled as the blood flowed through them.

---

"He woke up."

"Indeed. We'll plant our 'intruder' after he returns to his room. I want them to be together when he's caught."

"What'll we do with him until then?" Keigo jerked his head at the unconscious teen behind him.

"Keep him tied up. He needs to be strong so that they'll have a chase."

"How much longer?" Keigo was beginning to get impatient.

"Patience. It won't be long."

"All right."

---

Sasuke returned to his room an hour later, Itachi following him so closely he could feel his breath on his neck. It was creepy and wasn't endearing his brother to him at all.

He resisted the urge to spin around and punch his brother in the face and contented himself with clenching and unclenching his fists.

Itachi seemed to notice his hands and stepped back a few paces.

Sasuke smiled, and popped his knuckles to further his point. Anything that would keep his brother away was gonna get pulled out.

The intruder, Sakura, still hadn't been caught, much to his amusement and annoyance.

Amusement because she was hiding right under their noses, and in his room no less, the last place anyone would think she was. Annoyance because it meant Itachi would be following him until she was caught, and that just pissed him off to no end.

Yells suddenly erupted outside and he threw open the shutters, Itachi protesting loudly that it was dangerous and that he should close them immediately.

"Catch him! Catch him dammit!"

"I'm trying!"

"Damn, he's fast!"

"You, there, grab him! He's the intruder!"

There was a yell of pain as the intruder was caught.

"Tell Fugaku we caught him, Sasuke's safe!"

Itachi breathed a sigh of relief.

"Finally."

Sasuke could do nothing but stare in shock at a boy his own age being forcibly restrained by no less than five members of the Uchiha family guards.

"Let me go! Let me go, you Uchiha bastards! I've been framed, dammit!"

"Not likely, street rat."

"I'm not lying! It's the truth! It's the truth! Let me go..." the boy's voice faded as he was carted off, probably to the secure room his family kept for prisoners.

Itachi left to tell their father that the intruder had been apprehended and Sasuke pulled the shutters closed slowly, suspicious.

It could only have been Sakura they'd been talking about, so how had the boy-

Was it a set-up? To get the heat off Sakura?

Why?

"Sasuke? Is it safe?"

"Yeah, they caught someone. You were the only one who came here last night from outside, right?" he knelt by his bed and put his hand down for her to grab.

She took it and he pulled her out.

"I was alone, yes. Why?"

"Could you have been followed?"

"I don't think it was possible. It was so pitch black last night, I could hardly see my nose on my face, and it started raining not long after I got here." Sakura patted herself down, trying to get rid of the dust that had accumulated on her body from her frequent visits to the floor under the bed. Sasuke watched her, pondering the boy's sudden appearance and capture. For an heir's room, it was surprisingly dusty under there. Maybe he had lazy maids? She'd have to clean it out properly as a precaution. If someone saw the disturbed dust they'd be able to tell someone had been under there.

"In any case, he was screaming something about having been framed."

"Really? What did he look like?" she was pulling her hair back into a horse tail and tying it with a leather strip she pulled from who-knows-where. Sasuke really didn't want to know at the moment.

"Well, he had blonde hair and whisker marks on his face, and-" he stopped, concerned about the horrified expression on Sakura's face.

"Naruto."

---

"He was caught too quickly, and he was seen by Sasuke. What if he tells her that it was him?" Keigo punched the stone wall in frustration, bruising his knuckles.

"That is a problem we did not foresee. I would have thought the boy would have put up more of a fight..." violet eyes narrowed dangerously, deep in thought.

"Typical street kid. He was a fucking pickpocket, they're supposed to be fast. What a waste of time." Keigo sneered with disdain. He'd been a pickpocket himself once, and he sure as hell would not have been caught.

"I agree."

"What do we do now?"

"We wait of course. She's sure to slip up and then we'll have them both."

---

"Naruto's gone!" Kiba yelled, appearing in the entrance to Lee and Tenten's room, Akamaru yipping at his heels.

"What?!" Lee jumped to his feet and Tenten sat up quickly, eyes wide.

Had he taken Naruto? Or did Naruto leave after?

Why would he take him?

They were one gang of street kids out of many. Pickpocketing, burglary, theft, they had done it all. Everything but kill. Killing got the police after you, and the punishment was death if you were caught. They didn't even care if they caught the right person or not. Once they had a kid off the streets, that kid instantly became the murderer. More than one kid in their gang had disappeared from their lives like that.

"He's probably at the Uchiha's, we've gotta stop him!"

Lee and Kiba dashed out of the house, leaving a torn Tenten behind.

Should she have told them about the intruder last night?

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A/N:

Thank you all for reading this far! It makes me very glad that people have been reading and enjoying my story.

Don't expect such regular updates for awhile cos school ends next week and I'll be jobhunting for the summer.

Also, no it isn't Orochimaru's favorite henchman, though it did just occur to me that it could have been him. However, it isn't, cos I don't really like him =)

As usual, R&R please!