Elevated high above the sea the city of Zanarkand was built upon, a web of highways designed solely for the thoroughfare of humanity wove between and interlinked with the numerous buildings that rose towards the heavens – not a one lesser in height to any common mountain. Upon these highways trode a sea of humanity, emanating a cacophony of cries and chaos as they surged towards the night's entertainment and revel.

All in all, it was quite the typical night for the wondrous city.

Above it all, perched upon the shadow clad roof of one glass covered building indistinguishable from the fifty nigh identical towers that surrounded it, loomed a sole figure. The figure, a youth on the cusp of manhood glared down at the merry-making populace. He wore clothes that could more accurately be described as cloths, black in colour, full of holes and frayed to ragged edges with years of wear and tear. The pieces of scrap fabric found their home worn around the youth's waist – barely concealing from any discerning eyes that which made him a man and tied with an equally frayed cord. Another rested around his head, doing a much better job of concealing his left eye.

Around the young man countless billboards blared their messages and advertisements to the seething mass below. They were perfect for distracting wandering eyes from gazing upon the youth's figure as they moved from one to the next. That is, if they were able to see him in the first place. Which they couldn't.

A coal black eye set in an angular face gazed dispassionately down at the attire their owner was adorned with. 'I wonder what the idiot would say if saw me like this,' the youth mused to himself, taking a moment to blow and equally black bang away from his face. 'Hn. He'd probably be too busy laughing to say anything… I'd say intelligent, but he couldn't manage that even if he weren't laughing.'

Bare feet trod lightly through the darkness between billboards, the sword hanging through the cord at his waist banging against them as he lingered in the shadows. A bitter laugh escaped him as he progressed once more towards nowhere.

"I can't believe I'm actually missing that idiot. What a joke."

It would be yet another typical night for the youth it seemed. Perhaps he'd go and laugh at whatever latest piece of theatre these people had decided to remake for the umpteenth time. Or perhaps he'd instead go and waste a couple hours witnessing the latest in a never ending series of sequel films. That was something these people had in common with his own. He didn't want to recount the amount of times he'd listened to the idiot ramble about those damnable Fuun-hime films.

The idiot must have been shocked senseless once it occurred to him that he would miss the latest incarnation of greed that labelled itself entertainment. Once it occurred to him of course. The cloth clad teen allowed himself to think on better days, days where he wasn't a ghost; lost in a city larger than any he'd ever seen before arriving five years hence. Days filled with a buffoon that would never let him be. Days filled with smiles and laughter, and a sense of belonging.

The city around the youth was quiet as he lost himself in his recollections. It reminded him of the nights spent training into the early hours in his home village. The utter silence, as not even a wind blew. The true quiet as everything went still, not even the smallest of animals moving from their dens for the night.

It was a magical experience. One that should be impossible for such a large city. And yet it was present, there was not a single sound to be heard. Not the screams of excitement as fans ventured forth to see people hold their breath for 10 minutes. Not the buzz of electronics from the ever-present and looming buildings, signs, streetlights and more. There wasn't even the gentle sound of the waves lapping at the bases of the city's architecture.

'What the hell is going on!'

The teen was no idiot. He had existed within this city for five years, he had spent days after day training without sleep, week after week utilising the skills of his clan to learn the language these people spoke and steal every sword technique he could lay his eyes on. Never, not once in all of that time had the city been silent. It was truly impossible.

"Sasuke,"

The voice of a child rang out from behind Sasuke, another impossibility. There was no one there. There'd been no one there when he walked past that spot two seconds ago, and these people were incapable of sneaking up on him. So sure in the impossibility, Sasuke continued to walk on, not taking even the slightest pause.

"Sasuke, of the Uchiha Clan,"

The voice rang out again. Except it didn't. Because there was no one there. In fact, there wasn't even a voice. It was simply a memory, dredged up from its long forgotten pit because of his meandering down memory lane. And back it would go, unnoticed and unexplored, because Sasuke was done remembering people he hated for the night.

Taking notice that he was running out of buildings on this side of the street, there were only 20 left after all, Sasuke leapt across the frozen heads of the denizens of the night far below to reach the other side. He landed lightly on the balls of one foot, continuing steadily into a quite sedate pace. It was the inate grace of a true genius, and not at all because he'd done it a hundred times over until perfected to chase away the boredom.

"Uchiha Sasuke"

It should be noted that the sedate pace of an Uchiha is in fact quite fast by the reckoning of an untrained civilian. But that was simply nonsense, conjured by those unaware of their might. They had things that constantly needed doing. There was simply no time to dawdle. Ever. They were trained from birth to ensure that they never wasted a single moment doing something as supremely boorish as, for example, trudging along on a path to nowhere with their hands behind their head. That was something only idiots who would be better off wearing orange jumpsuits and spouting off about foolish things like ramen would do. Not like him, not like a genius of the Uchiha clan.

"Uchiha Sasuke of the Leaf."

Now that he thought about it, he hadn't done any long distance running in quite a while. It'd been almost twelve hours since he last tested just how far he could go. And the feel of the wind rushing past his ears would be perfect for drowning out voices that weren't there because he most certainly was not going crazy.

"Uchiha Sasuke of the Village Hidden in the Leaves."

Perhaps instead of long distance running he should simply try engaging in some nice sprinting. The rush of the wind would be even greater then. He'd always loved the wind, especially how it did awesome things like putting out fires and impossibly weak fireballs that he had never produced just because he'd been too weak at the time. He was not weak. Weak people could go crazy. And after five years of soul-crushing loneliness there was no chance at all that he, Sasuke Uchiha could possibly go crazy and start hearing voices.

"Naruto said you might be difficult, but this is not what I expected."

Suddenly Sasuke stopped. The world was once more silent and frozen. Naruto. That's what the voice had said. Naruto. Not 'that idiot,' not 'the dead-last,' not even 'that sanctimonious blonde piece of shit that should have been drowned when he was born.' Naruto. A name he hadn't even dared to think since they had been separated.

Whirling around, a heated red eye glared fiercely at the figure of a small boy dressed in a blue hooded robe and khaki pants standing much too close for Sasuke to appreciate. Black tomoe swirled within said eye, creating a hypnotic pattern even some of the strongest of minds couldn't help but fall prey to.

"Ah, so that's what it takes to get your attention."

The tomoe swirled faster, fast enough that they appeared to be fusing together to create some form of pattern upon the furious red background that was once a calm coal black. One hand reached and grasped at the hilt of his blade, the other slipped beneath the cloths wrapped around his waist, reaching for the carefully maintained variety of short blades kept hidden in their pouch beneath.

"Calm yourself, Uchiha Sasuke. I bring you no harm, merely advice. You should watch the game tonight, you might just run into an old friend."

The boy disappeared in a flash of light before Sasuke's eye even had the chance to widen in surprise. Blinking harshly to adjust, his ears were assaulted once more with the symphony of screams that made up the nightlife of Zanarkand.

Sasuke's brows furrowed as he pondered what the boy (and most certainly not the figment of his imagination – because he was not crazy, thank you very much) had told him. 'The game' probably referred to that weird underwater sport everyone in this city adored. He'd overheard that it was supposed to be some big event. Kind of hard not to when they had announcers and announcements blaring out about it for the past week.

"An old friend, huh? If it's not the idiot, then I'm going to find that kid and kill him."

With a dark, savage grin spreading across his lips, the completely sane Sasuke Uchiha turned and headed towards his destiny.

And the Kilika Fried Chicken Stadium.

This was, without a single doubt, the stupidest thing that Sasuke had ever had the misfortune to bear witness to.

Which, considering just who he had spent the better half of his childhood interacting with, spoke more eloquently than a poet ever could the sheer apathy and tedium the lost Uchiha felt for the spectacle unfolding in front of him.

'The game' had yet to actually start, and so Sasuke had been forced to endure a repetitious onslaught of brain cell destroying buffoonery that he had once thought impossible. Having arrived early in the midst of a tide of city-dwellers expecting it to start soon, he had been forced to endure watching what these people thought made good entertainment while he waited for the idiot to show himself.

He had initially laughed at the pathetically basic athletic skills exhibited by the not very attractive women in synchronisation. They were performances that somehow proved that even non-existent faith could be rendered lower after turning most of the men (and quite a few women) into drooling fools. Stupefaction had found him soon after though as the amateur showing of skills from 'development teams' amazed the crowd of onlookers. Fresh into the field Suna genin were more proficient in underwater movement and combat.

All in all, what had once been a feeling of dread at the thought of being bored all evening had been transformed into hope. Hope that something interesting would happen. Hope that this whole evening hadn't been a complete waste of his time. Hope that little not-imaginary ghost children bled the same colour as random thugs. Hope that something would capture his attention and prove to be worth stealing.

Once he might have tried to defend himself to himself, and claim that using his hereditary abilities to learn something just by seeing it was indeed just that, learning. Years of the same argument with himself every time he'd gotten bored and started watching things he had no idea about had worn the justification more than a little thin.

So stealing it was. Stealing was fun. Stealing kept the incessant knowledge that he was all alone in this world with nothing and no one to help him and it was all his own damn fault at bay. Stealing was something he knew would piss the idiot off, and he relished every chance he could to do so.

Seated on the roof of the stadium stewing in frustration as he was, Sasuke was vaguely aware that the sphere of water that had previously been used for the opening games had dissipated. The process used in the creation of said sphere had actually been interesting. Two large, mechanical rings that spun on independent axis, arcing around an invisible sphere until, with a flash of sound and roaring noise not unlike lightning, what was empty air was suddenly water. For the life of him, he couldn't work out how the water was formed, nor how the two suddenly still rings kept the giant sphere afloat in the air.

He paid half-attention as some random guy on the loud speaker started talking about a coffee shop or something, he'd been talking all through the night about various things that had had Sasuke tuning him out quicker than one of the idiot's speeches about ramen. Whatever he was talking about had somehow managed to bring the mood of the crowd down before reigniting fiercer than ever. He assumed that was probably something that might have been important, but he really couldn't bring himself to care.

A commotion at the entrance captured his attention briefly; the blonde kid whose sword techniques he'd been liberally stealing for the past couple years was trying to fight his way through the crowd. Mystery solved as to why women were screaming like little girls, Sasuke returned to staring absently at where the centrepiece of the night was set to be redeployed.

A blast of music suddenly echoed out of the speakers, replacing the drone of whoever had been speaking about whatever. The rings that formed the water sphere began to shift from their idle position, and the roar of the crowd echoed out into the night with volume with equal measure to Sasuke's impatience.

The sphere was created. The teams were introduced. The crowd swelled in size as those who only cared about the actual match itself (how Sasuke envied their knowledge of just when this thing would start). Some form of anthem was sung. And suddenly the game begun.

It was, Sasuke admitted, not as bad as the preliminary matches might have made the sport seem. There was a fluid aggressiveness to their movements within the water, movements that made it appear as though they had been born to move within that water sphere. They managed to communicate through subtle gestures and body language, and tactics were altered on the fly in bizarre methods as the blonde managed to capture attention in one way or another, diverting it all from his teammates to the point where they seemed almost invisible – 3 unanswered goals proved the tactics most useful.

A gimlet red eye paid close attention to every movement every player made, if nothing else, he would take advantage of this opportunity to steal new ways of operating underwater – he could easily translate the gentle tackles into much more effective and deadly combat abilities. Focused as said eye was on all of the players, it almost missed the way the blonde leader's – in the midst of some overblown attention seeking stunt – own widened in shock.

Turning his head to see what had shocked the man, Sasuke could only stare in disbelief at the large creature floating in its own sphere of water in the distance. The city of Zanarkand distorted around it, the buildings twisting and warping as though they were drawn into an irreversible well of gravity. The blasts of seemingly pure energy that lanced towards the city seemed almost insignificant compared to the sheer wrongness the creature exuded.

Almost, because there was nothing insignificant about being blown off the roof of the arena as the energy blasts impacted throughout the city. The shockwaves of the resulting explosions ripped through countless skyscrapers; man's modern marvels no match against the sheer devastation wrought by the creature.

A crimson eye continued to memorise every inch of the thing in front of them, even as their owner plummeted head first towards the ground far below. Sasuke saw in his peripheral vision as the blonde athlete fell from where he'd been trying to cling to one of the water genesis rings. The predictive element of his hereditary abilities showed him what fate awaited the man; a pool of red slowly bleeding into blue from a broken body. It was sufficient distraction from the thing to allow Sasuke the wherewithal to alter his flight path.

The last thing he wanted to do was end up like whatever-his-name-was.

'Hn, I probably should have learned his name.'

An hour later Sasuke had managed to extricate himself from the crumbling arena and its crazed denizens. The sheer level of delirium and panic the people exhibited was ridiculous, it was like these people had never been trained on what to do in case of sudden attack from hostile forces. Which couldn't be possible – he had never heard of anyone, anywhere, not knowing exactly what to do in case of sudden explosions.

Sure, for the most part, civilian villages' version of said training tended to consist of 'huddle in a corner,' and 'pray to whatever you believe in you don't die,' but that was better than running around like a rabbit with a kunai thrown into it ass. Or even like an idiotic genin trying to retrieve said thrown blade. The blonde fool had never got that kunai back, in the end.

Picking his way through the piles of rubble and crushed bodies that were arrayed in front of the once lively arena, Sasuke noticed a lone calm figure in the sea of madness. Moving closer to the only other sane individual he could see, he felt a great sense of ill premonition.

"Hey, you!" The sheer disrespect and disregard layered into the two exceedingly common and vulgar words of his natural tongue proved that premonition correct. There was no one in the world who would dare address him in such a manner. No one but that moron.

"Dead-last." Much to the rejection of what copious memories showed should be the correct response, the wide smile on the face of the figure in front of him seemed to just grow impossibly larger. The fiercely warm embrace he found himself enveloped in was even more impossible. Shock was much too simple a word to accurately describe what Sasuke felt in that moment.

"What do you think you're doing?" The voice that escaped Sasuke's throat was choked and guttural, a gamut of emotions each vying to be the one most expressed as the Uchiha greeted the one he once thought of as a brother. He adamantly ignored the feeling of wetness on his cheeks, and the sudden dampness of his shoulder, where the figure's blonde head had burrowed itself.

"I'm sorry, but I'm just… so glad!" Sasuke didn't know what that was supposed to mean. He didn't want to know what that was supposed to mean. He also really didn't want to know just why the other man had appeared amidst an attack on the city by a creature whose powers seemed equal to the walking nightmare that had assaulted his home village in the year of his birth.

Shrugging his way out of the embrace, Sasuke carved a scowl onto his face as he walked on into the destroyed city.

"Hn, whatever." Scowl carefully, and perfectly, crafted, he allowed his eye to take in the other man's figure properly. Blonde hair sat atop a tanned face, sapphire eyes red with tears gazed blearily back at him from their placement above the black stripes on each cheek – reminiscent of whiskers. The blonde was dressed in layers of predominantly white robes; orange waves artistically patterned on to the haori worn as the outermost layer. Simplistic straw sandals sat surrounding sore soles, and a bandaged left arm used one of the arms of the haori as a makeshift sling.

"So? What now, Naruto?" Quickly gathering himself, Naruto wiped the remaining tears from his eyes and gave Sasuke a blinding grin before finally settling into a more serious state. The blonde's entire self seemed to steel in front of Sasuke's eyes.

"Now? Now we move forwards," Naruto said cryptically. Red eye narrowed, but the blonde showed no sign of being affected by Sasuke's glare. In fact, he seemed amused. "We'll head toward that thing," he pointed towards the floating monstrosity in the distance. "That's our way out of here."

Seeing that he wouldn't be getting anything more out of Naruto, Sasuke let out a grunt and took off. He wasn't surprised to see Naruto keeping pace with him easily as he leapt and ran across the buildings and bridges of the destroyed city.

"What is that thing anyway," Sasuke questioned. As much as he didn't want to know just what connection his once-friend had with it, knowledge willingly disregarded was not something any shinobi worth a damn would allow to happen.

"They call it Sin. The 'manifestation of all the wrong-doings of their ancestors,'" Naruto explained with finger quotes. "It's a stupid belief, but it's what they're taught and no one can tell them otherwise."

Sasuke didn't know who 'they' were, but for even the idiot to call them stupid… he really didn't want to meet these people. He had a feeling it would end with quite a few left traumatised by the colour red.

"So, how have you been?" Sasuke responded to the question with silence.

"Anything interesting happen these past couple years?" More silence.

"Do you know how to use that sword you got?" That question managed an eye-roll, that Sasuke realised only too late would probably only encourage his fool companion.

Honestly, Sasuke was never one for making small talk, and while he remembered his fellow shinobi being quite fond of it, had no interest in it. Or appreciation for it.

"Why are you wearing rags?" A good question, and one that earned the blonde a flinch of barely repressed anger and embarrassment. It was hardly his fault that he'd outgrown most of his old clothes. Nor was it his fault that he'd worn out all those that still fit. He needed to train after all. And only a pervert would do that naked, no matter where or for what reason.

"C'mon, why wo- Oh, we're here." Naruto cut his next question as short as he did his running; coming to a full stop to glance down at the creature implanted into one of the walkways below.

"What is it?" Sasuke asked, taking in the appearance of the creature. It appeared to be some sort of squid-like thing, tentacles flailing in the air casting scales off throughout the city. A couple of the scale that landed close by transformed into some bird-fish thing. They were strange, but seemed incredibly weak. He couldn't fathom why Naruto would stop because of any of it.

"A piece of Sin. This one looks more annoying than dangerous, but it'll probably make it a pain to get outta this place." Saying that, Naruto dropped down to land on the bridge in front of the squid-thing. Seeing no reason not to do the same, Sasuke followed him.

Looking at it close-up, Sasuke noticed that it was a bit bigger than he'd thought. It was still nothing impressive, but it was worth noting. The only thing worth noting, really. Scanning the crowd of bird-fish around the squid he estimated that it'd take less than a minute to wipe them all out. Maybe a bit more if the squid was more resistant to electricity than he was giving it credit for. An annoyed sigh at his side indicated that Naruto had come to a similar conclusion.

"You hit the big one," the blonde said, his unbandaged hand coming up in front of his body, two fingers extended from a fist. "I'll take the rest."

A blast of smoke bloomed from around Naruto as he appeared to suddenly multiply. A horde of blonde clones charging off to deal with the crowd. Once, Sasuke might have been annoyed at the blonde for taking all of the enemies, but these ones were so weak that the blonde might as well have been doing the red eyed teen a favour.

Extending his hand, Sasuke began to channel his chakra – the physical manifestation of one's mental and physical prowess capable of forming feats beyond limited imaginings – into his hand, steadily converting the raw ethereal material into an electrified energy. Steadily gathering more and more, Sasuke shaped the electricity crackling in his palm, sharpening it and the hand it was in to a state of pinpoint piercing potential.

The gathering of lightning had taken him a brief three seconds, and yet in that time he could see that his blonde compatriot had managed to take care of his share of the creatures. There were a couple stragglers, but for the most part the blonde was free to watch as Sasuke rushed forward. He covered the distance between he and the squid within the blink of an eye before piercing his lightning coated arm directly into centre-mass.

Arcs of lightning blasted outwards from within the piece of Sin, leaving countless cauterised hole from where they had emerged. The thing barely had time to twitch before it scattered apart into glowing orbs. Sasuke allowed his eye to track them in confusion before flickering to meet blue in silent question.

"Pyreflies. Everything nasty this side of the world seem to be made of 'em. Don't know what they really are though."

Letting out a grunt, Sasuke lowered his arm and allowed his red eye to bleed back to black. He'd had his Sharingan active for most of the night, and his eye was beginning to hurt. He followed Naruto as the whiskered teen charged off ahead of him, closing in on Sin until they were right below the colossal creature.

Spinning to look straight into Sasuke's eye, Naruto smiled a small smile. "This is it, this is where everything changes." The world around Sasuke began to distort, he attempted to disrupt the illusion to no avail. "This isn't a genjutsu, Sasuke. Just your ride out. Relax and when you wake up, the world will be a different place. So try and use this language, -ttebayo"

Sasuke scowled, and if looks could kill (an hour ago, his could) the blonde would be burning in fires blacker than night. He hadn't even realised they'd been speaking different languages, too used to listening to everyone in the city speaking the same as Naruto has been. Seeing the look on Sasuke's face, Naruto's smile turned into a luminous grin.

"My teacher loved stories. One of his favourite beliefs was that everyone is the hero of their own. I feel like, at a time like this, he'd say: 'This is your story.'" The blonde was stretched out impossibly long before his eye, and yet Sasuke could still see the mischievous smile that he wore. "So try and enjoy it, -ttebayo."

The numerous curses that Sasuke screamed at him would go unheard and unanswered as his world was entirely enveloped in blinding light.