Hi there guys I am back and this next chapter is going to be good. Okay the poll for my story is up on my profile so go ahead and vote. Don't worry if the poll seems a bit vague I am going to be doing a more specific one once I get a feel for what the audience wants, okay. I am going to deviate a little bit and involve Sasuke a little bit more in the plotline.

The reason I am doing this is he is one of the main characters and he gets a mostly bad rap among other writers. Ever heard of dark but not evil people.

Now I am not saying everyone does it, prime example Dark Fayt's story "Demonic Nemesis, I loved the way he did Sasuke in that story. And by the way can somebody tell that man to update for peat sake. Okay, okay I am a little bit of a hypocrite with this chapter.

Ahhh. One more thing before I forget, did you notice the way Naruto moved during his fight with Kiba and how I described it? Yes it was intentional he moves really really fast like the lord Marshall from Chronicles of Riddick, he may or may not have all the abilities that go along with that but I'll decide that later.

Well anyways Lights, Camera, Action.

Sasuke was walking home from the hospital. He was meeting Kakashi the tomorrow morning to get started on his training but at the moment Sasuke's mind was focused elsewhere.

Uzumaki Kazama Naruto, the greatest tragedy besides his own clan's massacre that had occurred in the history of Konoha. Sasuke pondered his return in such an impressive manner. The druids and his entrance into the arena had been frightening but that, Sasuke had realized, was half of the Kazama's strategy.

He was trying to get into his opponents head, Sasuke had to admit that he had at first underestimated this Kazama and had written it off as mere attention seeking. The thing that had eliminated this presupposition was the way in which he had utterly destroyed Kiba. Then there was that strange possession technique he had used, Sasuke mulled over the possibilities of having such a power at his command.

The applications for intelligence gathering had been obvious but for combat as well had been astonishing. Only now that he actually thought about it did Naruto's possession of Hinata make sense. It was just another part of the Psychological tactic that he had used to keep Kiba off his game.

'This Kazama is a master at psychological warfare which is even more evident in the pranks he pulled last night,' Sasuke thought. 'Maybe if I can find him I can pick his brain on ideas on how to do that.'

The seal on Sasuke's neck ached suddenly and his hand went to it as opened the front door to his apartment. He turned and slowly closed the door, smiling a little to himself, his girlfriend would be in her room and by the smell of shampoo and amber in the air she had already gone to bed.

But wait there was another scent in the room one he distinctly remembered. It had been in the arena in the exam just when Naruto had passed him and—

Suddenly had the distinct feeling that he was not alone, carefully activating his Sharingan he turned to face the living room.

He picked out the dark figure hiding in the corner easily by the low almost untraceable chakra signature which he emanated.

"I can see you so come on out," he said.

Slowly the figure moved away from the wall and stood in front of Sasuke. Even without that hat that shadowed his eyes and the black trench coat he would still have recognized Naruto by the red slitted eyes that burned beneath his hat.

"What do you want," he asked?

Naruto gazed at him calmly, "To talk."

Sasuke stared at him a few seconds longer, then nodded and went to the kitchen, "Coffee."

Naruto simply nodded and sat down at the table in the Kitchen; Sasuke started the coffee-maker then leaned against the fridge.

They stayed that way in silence both appreciating the silence the other provided. Finally Sasuke spoke up, "That was an impressive way to enter an exam if you don't mind me saying so."

Naruto's eyes moved to Sasuke's black one's, "Theatricality and deception are powerful agents when used correctly. When they are misapplied the affect is somewhat comical." (My shout out to Batman Begins).

Sasuke nodded, "Surely there is more than that to what you did to Kiba, he was the top Taijutsu ninja's at the academy so he is no slouch."

Naruto nodded removing his hat and letting his blond hair free, "True there is and it speaks well that you managed to pick up on that."

Naruto seemed to meditate for a moment then looked directly in Sasuke's eyes, "In the mind of your opponent you must become a terrible thought, a monster. You must make your opponent feel that he is trapped in a living nightmare. Control your opponent mentally and then beating them physically is no problem."

Sasuke pondered this for a moment, Naruto spoke again, "The ordinary ninja is merely someone lost in the scramble for his own gratification he can be destroyed or locked up. But," Naruto leaned forward, "if you make yourself more than a man if you devote yourself to an idea and if the world cannot stop you then you become something else entirely."

"What," Sasuke's voice was low?

Naruto gave a small grin, "Legend, Uchiha, legend."

Sasuke nodded, "So what did you want to talk about?"

Naruto accepted the mug of coffee Sasuke handed him, "A seal, a snake, and an invasion."

Sasuke's eyes became wider, "Keep talking."

Naruto took a sip of his coffee mug, "Orochiamru wants your sharingan, his ambition is to copy all the jutsu in the world and to master all the ways of the ninja. His ambition is immortality, that dream is turned his mind to insanity. His four body guards are all marked with a similar seal like yours."

Sasuke's eye's narrowed as Naruto spoke; this was a side of the snake sannin that he had not heard of before. They certainly were not taught that at the ninja academy.

"That's impossible," Sasuke replied, "the Uchiha have the most extensive jutsu library in the elemental nations and none not even the legendary Uchiha Madara ever tried to master all the Jutsu in existence and besides there are some jutsu that are simply beyond Uchiha's reach. We cannot copy bloodline jutsu as I recently found out."

"Sasuke are you going to—Sasuke who is this, is he a friend of yours?"

Both young men turned to see the porcelain face of a girl not yet a woman but with a figure and face most girls her age would envy. She had doe brown eyes that shimmered in the pale light of the kitchen and that seemed to be full of feeling. She wore a light pink yukata that showed her slight but lean and lightly muscled frame.

Naruto, at the first sound of the girls voice, had dropped his hand to the small pole at his hip. Sasuke on the other hand smiled at the girl, "Kazama Naruto meet Haku my girlfriend."

Haku gazed at the strangely attired dark figure who was sitting at her Sasuke's table. Those red slitted eye's had burned fiercely when they had first turned to her but now they relented and seemed to glow less brilliantly in the low light.

Naruto relaxed slightly and inclined his head towards the female.

Suddenly one of the tattoos on Naruto's neck moved and seemed to detach itself from his body, it was a small hell scorpion that had become attached to Naruto when he had saved it from being the meal of some of its larger brothers. While small and seemingly insignificant, they did have the ability to sense bloodline limits at close proximity.

Larger hell scorpions could detect bloodlines from larger distances but they were a pain to seal away and lastly although Naruto held the summoning contract for the normal scorpions almost all the others some as breakfast.

Haku watched in horrified fascination as the little scorpion trundled up to Naruto's ear; it made a series of clicking noises then moved back to its original spot and sunk back into its cozy space.

Sasuke watched the process Sharingan activated, there had been an energy swirl around the spot on the Kazama's neck but had not been one he had seen before. In fact now that he could see him up close, Naruto from the standpoint of a medic his entire body seemed to be dead, lifeless devoid of energy accept those spots where a tattoo was located.

"So," Naruto began, his gaze moving up and down Haku's form with a critical eye, "you are an ice-user."

Haku's and Sasuke's eyes narrowed, "My scorpion told me that you seemed very cold and that the feel of your chakra was frigid, that combined with the knowledge that you have a bloodline made ice a logical guess."

Haku stared at him for a moment then nodded, "That is true I am an Ice-user from the land of mist."

Naruto leaned back for a moment. "Tell me Haku-san, Sasuke-san, have you ever heard the legend of the Undertaker."

Haku giggled for a moment before a sad look crossed her eye, "My mother used to frighten me to bed by telling me the dead-men were coming to get me before"—Haku's face tightened and Sasuke got up and wrapped his arms around her, still holding her shaking frame to his he sat back down in his original seat.

Naruto politely let the couple have a moment, when Haku calmed he resumed speaking. "Deadmen," Naruto grinned slightly, "That is one way to call us I suppose."

Sasuke and Haku both looked at Naruto strangely, "The legend of the Undertaker and those who followed him has been passed off by ninjas as a child's fairy tale meant to frighten children to bed, but the Undertaker was no myth, he and those that followed his order existed."

Naruto shifted slightly his thoughts far away as if in thought on some deep mystic lore he alone was privy to.

"However that order lies shattered in the Nether forsaken, gone forgotten, but," here Naruto raised his eye's and it seemed to Sasuke that they burned with more than an inward fire "that order shall walk the earth again, I have been sent as the heir to the immortal Undertaker to rebuild the order on earth."

Sasuke and Haku were speechless at his seemingly impassioned and yet passionate speech.

"That is why I have sought you out Sasuke Uchiha, for we are much alike in that we both are the last of our clans, both heirs to prestigious clans in Konoha and what's more you are an heir to power. Power you have only begun to realize in those eyes. That is why I have come to forge an alliance with you."

Naruto so far had spoken in an impassioned voice but in these last sentences his voice trembled with barely controlled fervor.

Sasuke's eye's narrowed at this, teammates he understood were necessary until he advanced in the ranks of Shinobi. And besides, his eyes tightened, he had already experienced the loss of a teammate, that idiot Xia (made up) had jumped in front of Sasuke at the last moment and taken Zabuza's blade for him. That had given him the momentum he had needed to break through Haku's ice mirrors.

However the benefits of such an alliance suddenly occurred to Sasuke's mind.

"And if I agreed with such an alliance how would this benefit Haku and I?"

Naruto grinned slightly, "Listen well then…

Kill-joy-no-jutsu

Hi please review, no flames.

Until next time…

REST…IN…PEACE…