Writing a chapter'd story whut? Yeah, I know. But this came to me. Kind of sort of loosely based on an expansion of an idea I had going with that piece I called "untitled" from a bit of a ways back. Rating will definitely go up as the story goes on... story kind of varies. It's a NaruSasu, oh yes, but not just romance, also an exploration of the dynamics between the two. There may be a few other pairings thrown in here and there for realism, but nothing big. Angst and blood will run amok here, though, just so we all know.

Let's hope I get this idea out soon enough so I can start applying for college. whimper

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It had happened all in a blur, really, and Naruto hadn’t even been able to make some semblance of sense of it until days later, after he’d barely survived his injuries and had finally woken up from a coma.

All he could remember was the zip of a shuriken grazing his arm and looking up to see a grassy field with two blurs rushing around it, who he knew in an instant were Sasuke and Itachi. There was a girl with bright red hair standing quite a ways away with two other figures, one appearing to be injured and the girl herself looking as if she were about to pass out. A few screams in the background, shouts and yells and instructions, a shriek from Sakura at his side, a sudden explosion of pink and red froth right in front of his eyes, and then the world was sideways and upside down and the sky was the ground and there was grass in his mouth and he was out.

The next time he opened his eyes he saw a starry night sky and a bunch of fallen bodies littering the field, Sasuke sitting straight as a plank right in front of him and holding a kunai so hard that his entire arm was white.

“Sasuke,” Naruto said, but something was wrong with his voice and no sound was coming out. It felt like his throat was filled with dead leaves.

“Sasuke,” he said again, this time managing to make some noise as he tried to sit up. But he couldn’t move, couldn’t even feel his body, could only keep lying there with one eye pressed into the dirt and the other seeing the world from a slanted angle.

Sasuke seemed not to take any notice, instead was focusing with all his might on the lump in front of him. After a few more moments Naruto realized with a sinking, spine-chilling feeling of horror that the lump was Itachi, not just Itachi but Itachi in pieces, maimed and mutilated and spread out on the grass like jelly on bread. Sasuke was still as a statue, and Naruto called his name again as loudly as he could (just a whisper) and Sasuke finally slowly turned his head and looked at Naruto with a crazed, detached look.

Naruto swallowed (tried to) and peered at Sasuke as much as possible, staring intently at his eyes. Something was wrong with them. The Sharingan was spinning like mad, Naruto had seen that before, but there was just… something was off. The speed of Sasuke’s eyes seemed to flicker, going from very fast to very slow, and it was at one point when his eyes were spinning slowly that Naruto caught it, that different shape of the Sharingan, the marks extended and more defined, more gut-wrenching and horrifying for some odd reason that he couldn’t quite place.

He’d seen it before, and trying desperately to remember where Naruto thought with everything he had as he continued to stare numb with fear into Sasuke’s eyes, and after a minute it hit him like a train.

It was the Mangekyou.

Naruto’s entire body tensed and he broke into a cold sweat. He broke Sasuke’s gaze to notice that his entire world was red and black, completely unreal and utterly terrifying.

He wanted to scream, but no noise was coming out. His mind raced with everyone he cared about, everyone he knew was there – Sakura-chan Kaka-sensei Hinata Kiba Shino Sai Pakkun – and then he slowly noticed his world going completely black, not even the blood-red of the Tsukiyomi visible anymore.

Itachi was dead.

Sasuke had the Mangekyou.

And that’s all Naruto could remember.