Sai heard them first, the call coming from down the hall as the three of them -- himself, Sasuke and Naruto (looking paler when he came back from his washroom break) -- exited the home room.
"Sasuke!"
It was no wonder the Popular Kids were on Sasuke's case. Sasuke had never known how to keep several pans in the fire at once: when he'd first come to the school, he'd focused on the social circles, moved his way up the hierarchies, clambered onto the highest peaks of popularity. That summit climbed, he stopped going to parties, stopped hanging out during lunches, stopped going out to the club, stopped going anywhere, instead focusing on his academics. When he was getting the top marks in the school, to the sudden bewilderment of the faculty, he dropped his grades down and started forming his body, excelling at sports, joining martial art clubs, focusing every minute of his waking life to sculpting this ideal form of himself. When he reached the point where the wiry ditch-digger muscles would give way to actual bulk, he dropped that off again, went back to focusing on grades. Sasuke had to excel at everything, but didn't know how to excel at everything at the same time.
Still, he had once been popular, and the Popular Kids wanted him back.
The Popular Kids, as a clique, was a subjective, morphic bunch, its ranks constantly shifting. At the top, however, at the height, the kids whose names were never far from the lips of anything in the school, had a kind of borderline-sociopathicly tactical way of interacting with others, and that intimidated Sai to no end.
"Hey, you're that Naruto kid, aren't you?" Temari said, stopping near them, hands on hips, looking designed, looking beautiful. "Heard you punched my brother."
"Oh," Naruto said, standing up straight. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"
"He deserves it. I love him and all, but he's got some issues."
"Oi, Sasukee," Suigetsu said, leaning over and grinning at him. "You trying out for the show tomorrow, then, uh?"
Sasuke regarded them dispassionately. Back when he was clambering the social ladder, he could afford any amount of emotional availability that was needed at the time. Now he walked through the school like everything was on the bottom of his list. "What show, Suigetsu?"
The Popular Kids: Temari, blond and beautiful, standing in the center, playing with her purse, Suigetsu, lithe and just a little on the psychotic side, though handsome and bland when the situation needed to be, Karin, tall and strange, quiet at times, her odd hairstyle bleeding exoticism, Haku, long-haired, friendly when he wanted to be, and Kabuto, gazing at them intensely.
"The show in the cafeteria, man," Suigetsu said, grabbing Sasuke by the upper arm. "Posters up there and everything-!"
Sai sniffed. "I thought you guys were supposed to maintain an air of calculated indifference."
Karin cocked her head. "Where'd you get your clothes, Sai? The Salvation Army?"
Sai stiffened. "Ino already made that joke today, jerk."
"Yeah, but she didn't mean it."
"Nar-uto," Temari said, regarding the boy. "You like to party, Naruto?"
"Uh."
"'Course he likes to party," Kabuto said. He looked around, found a bench in the hallway, sat down. "He looks like a partier. You used to be a partier, didn't you, Sasuke?"
"Sometimes," Sasuke said.
"Sometimes schools need new students," Temari said, not taking her eyes off Naruto. "Shakes things up."
"You look nice," Haku said brightly, shaking Naruto's hands.
"Temari, invite him to our party," Kabuto said, pressing his glasses farther back on his nose.
"Naruto, you're invited to our party."
Naruto looked speechless. "Er." Bright grin. "Thanks, guys!"
Ah, Sai thought; the naivety of the inexperienced.
"Wear enough black there, Sasuke?" Karin asked.
Sasuke looked back at her. A slight smirk on the side of his mouth: "Sometimes I wear blue, Karin. And white."
Karin looked away, angry. She glanced at Sai's skirt, smiled and said, "Aren't you supposed to be a guy, Sai?"
"Fuck you."
ooo
"Don't mind them," Temari said, sitting next to Naruto outside the school. "They're a little threatened by Sasuke's new friends."
"More like disgusted," Karin said, walking by them.
Temari gave her a look and then looked back at Naruto. It was the end of the day, and classes were over, and a breeze flowed along the cement sidewalks and tousled her hair. Buses in the distance came around the corner, coming up the leaf-strewn streets. It was getting dark, stormclouds building over the church across the street.
"Don't mind Gaara either," she said quietly. "He's gotproblems."
"I don't know about that."
"He does. He-- he's got this-- problem. He can't, I don't know how to describe it-- it's like he can't feel anything unless he's hurting someone."
Iruka's voice in Naruto's head spoke up with Iruka's jargon: schizoid personality disorder mixed perhaps with some ASPD.
"Kabuto does want you to come to his party, though," she said, looking at her shoes.
"Well, I'll admit," Naruto said, "parties are fun."
A brief flash of a smile. "Sometimes."
The bus lurched to a halt in front of them, and with a smile and a wave, Temari was gone, disappearing through its door. Naruto stood up, put his hands in his tracksuit pockets and let the other students pour out of the school towards their freedom.
ooo
Damn, Naruto thought, crouching on the gravel of the school track.
Boiling dark clouds gathered over the trees at the edge of the field. The wind was strong, buffeting his tracksuit and his hair, making the nearby telephone posts creak and the church spire across the street groan. Leaves blew across the gravel.
It'd been way too long since he'd ran last. Now his muscles felt tense, ready. He fell to a crouch, digging his shoes into the gravel. Gravel flew into the air and he was off, making tracks towards the trees on the other end of the field.
"Hey."
Skidding to a halt. Naruto watched the trees ahead of him move. Oh god, he thought; shadows here already?
Someone grabbed him from behind, moving quickly, gripping his wrist and twisting his arms behind his back. Pain spiked up his shoulder, and he fell to one knee. "Ouch!"
"Quiet!"
Naruto could feel heavy weight on him and he could smell cologne, strong cologne.
"Kankuro--"
Gaara. He stood by the trees, his eyes staring at Naruto intensely. "Can he move?"
"He can't move--" Kankuro hissed.
He was right, Naruto had to admit. Whoever this asshole was, he knew how to trap limbs, render him paralyzed.
"Bring him along," Gaara said, turning back and vanishing into the trees.
The forest was dark inside. Gaara leapt over a small creek, looked about. The light came in through the bare branches above him, but ahead was a copse of thick pine trees, and the shadows there seemed to Naruto as black.
"Let go of me," Naruto said. "C'mon, man, people know where I am."
Gaara glanced back at Kankuro and said, "Think you could block his air passage a bit?"
"Urk."
Well, Naruto thought, fighting to breathe; I guess that's the end of conversation.
"Can I show him Karasu, Gaara?" Kankuro asked.
"Later."
"Gaara, c'mon."
"Through here."
Moving through the pine trees plunged Naruto into a chilly blindness. When light struck again, he was looking up at the silvered side of stone of a gaunt angel. Kankuro released him, hurling him onto rocky grass. He tumbled into an ice-cold tablet of stone sticking out of the ground. Something fell over -- a glass vase broke, and two roses fell across the grass.
He blinked through the pain, and saw the church spire in the distance, and the wings of the stone angel framing Gaara as he came into view with a strange smile on his face.
Oh, Naruto thought; graveyard.
"Uh," Kankuro said, crouching and looking around. "Gaara, I didn't think we were coming here."
"What's the problem?" Gaara said, kneeling down and reaching through his pocket.
"This graveyard is haunted."
"God, you're an idiot sometimes-"
Naruto saw the flash of the switchblade appear in Gaara's hand and realized he had to move now. He made it across to Kankuro and kicked the man in the side, knocking him over with a cry. He ran for the trees.
Gaara was fast, much faster than he had any right to be. Naruto got his arm up in time and got a gashed arm for his trouble. He cried out and fall back, Gaara cutting the air in front of him.
Gaara's eyes were wide; he was practically frothing at the mouth.
Naruto tried to swallow down the stunned shocking fire appearing in his arm, and rolled to his knees. Gaara kicked him in the chest and he fell back against a tombstone, knocking his head hard enough to cross his eyes. Yellow spots floated over two versions of Gaara, coming towards him.
"I'm a forgettable person," Gaara said. "That's the kind of guy I am -- forgettable, but when I leave you here I bet I'll be remembered."
Oh good god. Naruto threw himself to the side, and Gaara missed, the knife glancing off the tombstone. Naruto got him in the thigh, and Gaara went to one knee. Scrambling to his feet, Naruto tried to make it to the trees but Gaara's hand lashed out, caught his ankle, and Naruto ate dirt. Red spot from the pain. Tumbling sky. Naruto skidded across an ice patch (ice? in this weather?) and smacked into a huge headstone.
He couldn't get up, his palms slipped across the ice (since when is ice so slippery? and why is ice ever there). The best he managed was getting to his knees. He looked up. His mouth opened, and beneath him his reflection in the perfect ice did the same. He became uncomfortably aware of his own warm blood running down his arm, beading at his fingers, dripping onto the ice, where the liquid spread out like flowers. A massive headstone this was, and perched above it, a winged anti-christ figure, monstrous face open, roaring at him. Who the hell put this up.
He read the grave name : Orochimaru.
The grave was covered in frost, and when he touched it, it was icy to the touch.
Gaara's footsteps behind him; Naruto moved to the side, and the knife glanced off this headstone. Feet up -- oh shit -- and Naruto hit the icy on his shoulder -- goddamn, why was it so slippery. He stared at himself, his reflection's cheek pressed against his as he slid back on the ice. When he lifted his head, he left a string of blood from the cut in his temple and the surface.
"You move around too much," Gaara said, turning towards him, knife flashing in the cold light.
Oh god no, not here, not to him.
A flash of black.
Sasuke looked like he was floating. He was in the air, foot plunged into Gaara's solar plexus, driving the young man now into the rocks and the grass. His feet didn't even touch the ground; he came back up, coat billowing about him, and landed on one of the graveyards, dark hair falling about his face.
"Naruto!" Sai shouted, running into the graveyard, cigarette not leaving her mouth.
"Sasuke-" Kankuro sputtered, stepping back, tripping over a rock and falling back over.
"Naruto," Sai said, kneeling beside him. "You're bleeding. Sasuke, you've got a phone, right. Call the cops, call the hospital-!"
But Sasuke's eyes were watching Gaara, hawklike, watching the boy climb to his feet.
"Sasuke-" Gaara said, looking about for the knife. "You're dead-"
Sasuke watched him dispassionately, almost fascinated.
The knife had landed somewhere on the ice, so Gaara ran for it, sliding across the slippery surface, reaching for it.
That's when it happened.
Gaara's scream was the worst part about it, and it was what jostled Naruto out of his pain. He sat up and watched in horror as the arms came out of the ice, grabbed Gaara and pulled him down into the reflection on the ice.
"Oh what the fuck-!" Sai said, clambering back.
"We have to get out of here," Naruto said, crawling back. "We have to get out of here, get out of here, get out of here-"
The blood pooling around him made the going along the ice even slicker, and he fell back, his eyes not leaving the ice. He saw Sasuke in the corner of his vision, watching the ice, stock still, paralyzed.
Get to the cell phone, Naruto thought; call Iruka, call Iruka.
Mizuki was already crawling out of the reflection. He stood up, that same sick grin on his face. He held Gaara's switchblade in the palm of his hand. The wind played with his ponytail. "Nice knife," he said, "but I like mine more."
And from his belt he pulled out this massive blade the side of Naruto's forearm.
"Oh god," Naruto said.
"Come on, nine-tailed fox," Miziki said. "Let's see some spilled intestine."