Author's Note: Thank you guys for all the positive feedback. I'm a busy college kid with a lot on my plate so I'm trying to get everything on here as quickly as I can. But it's hard.

Chapter 6

Sasuke may never have known true light, what real vision was. The doctors say that he can never know what it is truly and yet something is unmistakably visual about what he is experiencing now.

Shapes with definition and color float around. Round things that when he reaches out seem to be bubbles. Festering bubbles, he thinks.

"Where am I?" he says and immediately screams as fires courses through his veins. He can't move, the bubbles are acidic and burn his body paralyzing inside and out. What has happened? Where are Sakura and Naruto?

Something appears before him. He squints unable to really discern what it is but it's moving. Painfully, he reaches up and feels his own face trying to make sense of the figure before him.

"My name is Orochimaru," the thing says and Sasuke immediately recognizes the voice as the creature he had just battled.

"W-what did you do to me?" he stammers the acidic fire seeming to have an epicenter on the back of his neck.

The thing grins and Sasuke's stomach lurches at the sight. Of all the things he ever imagined he would see, this was not it. The creature was pale. He didn't know anything of color to describe it better than that. His head exploded in pain as he tried to grasp for a way to understand this information.

Itachi would know how to describe this. He always knew how to describe things so Sasuke would understand

Tears welled in his eyes at the thought of his brother. That bastard. He was going to kill him for what he's done.

"Come to me, Sasuke-kun and I can give you the sight and the power to avenge your clan."

Foolish otouto, the ghost of his brother says. Don't let this conjuror trick you. Wake up.

Sasuke!

Sakura? It's always Sakura calling him back. But where is Naruto? What had happened?

He glared at the creature before him.

"I don't need you," he says coldly.

It hisses like a snake and laughs. "That's what you think, blind Uchiha."

…

Those words ran through his head over and over again as he crouched in the arena listening intently to Gaara's movements. The sand was shifting about the boy's chakra noisily.

Sasuke smiled to himself. This was going to be all too easy. For this battle, at least, he would not need sight. The sight was so sound he could hear every movement, pinpoint exactly where Gaara was.

He needed to be quick. He only had one chidori left and he needed to make it count. But of course that loser had locked himself in a cocoon of sand.

"Hey blind boy," came the cold jab. "You having trouble out there?"

Sasuke growled. "At least I'm not playing hide and seek, Gaara." He stood up straight, walking slowly toward the mass ahead of him.

"Sasuke!" Naruto was screaming like the idiot he was. "Sasuke! Stop! Sasuke, you're going to run into him!"

"Sasukeeeeeee!" Sakura was screaming. God they both hurt his ears. Couldn't they see that he had a plan?

Honestly, he wasn't an idiot. Didn't the forest of death teach them anything.

He thought about his curse mark.

It had been given to him for a reason.

He smiled and charged up his chidori, the electric like chakra freezing up his arm as it coursed through his body like wiring. He ran at the ball of sand that was Gaara making sure that his feet were soundness and barely touched the earth. The sand wasn't used to such light footing. Not that it would matter because it could sense him anyway.

Just as he could sense it.

He supposed they weren't all that different.

But he only had a second to register that thought when a fist of sand came lunging for him. But his opponent was growing careless and he used his feet to create enough momentum to place himself right about the weakened area of the sand dome.

He screamed as he released his second burst of chakra into the mass.

He landed hard on the ground not caring about grace at this point. His head hit the soil.

A scream erupted from the sand. He smirked to himself. "Gotcha."

"You're blind!"

"So what…" he grumbled when suddenly the atmosphere changed. People in the audience screamed. Gaara's teammates were suddenly grabbing at Gaara and pulling him away.

"Sasuke!" Kakashi was yelling from somewhere. "Follow them!"

A knot formed in Sasuke's stomach. Follow them? What was happening? Naruto was by his side in an instant dragging him forward.

Did he win?

…

"What are you doing, Sasuke?" Itachi asked, a softness in his voice.

Sasuke buried his face deeper in the grass, squeezing his toy reptile. He couldn't believe what his father had just told him. He couldn't believe it. He wouldn't.

His brother wouldn't lie to him. He wouldn't. Not like father. Father always liked Itachi better…

He sat up turning towards his brother's form. "'tachi," he grumbled. "I was walking around the house when I bumped into something. He said something about laundry baskets and got mad at kaasan."

His brother was extremely quiet. Quieter than usual, Sasuke noted with dissatisfaction.

"I was confused so I asked what was wrong. He said I couldn't see and kaasan should have known I was going to run into it and hurt myself." He crossed his arms. "But I didn't hurt myself."

A soft chuckle.

"Niisan?"

He felt his brother come up to him and pull him into his chest. "Where did you hit the basket?"

"My upper leg." What did that have to do with anything? "What did father mean by 'see'?" He felt like it was some dirty word by the way father had spat it.

Itachi exhaled slowly. "Seeing is what you experience when you use these..." He poked at Sasuke's eyes playfully.

Sasuke batted him away. "This is serious, niisan."

He felt Itachi nod. "We don't experience the same things with our eyes," he said softly. "You can't see like I can. Your eyes…" His fingers brushed by Sasuke's eyes again. "…they don't work right."

Sasuke pulled away from his brother. "That's not true. How can you say that!? What am I supposed to see?"

"You know when kaasan takes your hand and somehow knows where things are even if we haven't been there before," Itachi explained slowly. "Or how I can find you in hide and seek a lot faster than you can find me."

Sasuke took a deep breath, tears welling in his eyes. "So the world can cheat at hide and seek but I can't."

Itachi chuckled again and ruffled his hair. "Sorry about that, Sasuke. I won't cheat next time."

Sasuke crossed his arms. "You're a liar, niisan."

"But anyway," Itachi continued poking Sasuke in the middle of his forehead. "Just because you can't see me, doesn't mean you can't beat me."

…

Sasuke snapped back to reality.

He clenched his fists as Naruto pulled his arm. His curse mark throbbed. That demon was here. And Itachi had been a liar. Fuck sight, but he needed the Sharingan to defeat Itachi.

Maybe that demon had been right in those feverish visions he had when he was unconscious in the forest.

First he would test himself against whatever Gaaara ended up being, then he would decide then if eyes were really important.