I'm quite fond of the title. Wonderfully cliché, isn't it?

I wrote this because I have an embarrassing weakness for high school and supernatural AUs, no matter how horrible they are. In other words, this is me throwing my own fic into the mass of AU Naruto fics out there, haha.

I bundled the prologue and first chapter together to give readers a bit more to bite into. Let me know what you think, and please don't be afraid to gift me with crit. Feel free to ask questions if you're confused, and I'll try to answer as best I can (and hit myself for not making it clear in-text, hah). Lastly, I'm not promising regular (or frequent) updates, but I'll do the best I can.

Enjoy!

Under the Red Moon
by Nilladriel

Prologue

It was nighttime. The moon's shine was obscured by heavy clouds, and the gardens were blanketed by darkness wet and thick enough to swim through.

There was a lake, in which floated a body. It was dead. No one could live with their neck bent at that angle. The corpse wore a dress, which billowed like a parachute. It was bright yellow and obscenely cheerful.

Just meters away, walking near the lake's muddy shores, was the murderer. He had eyes like dark pools and confidence showed in the straight line of his shoulders, but he moved erratically. Sometimes he moved his arms like he thought they were legs. And once he raised his head and sniffed, but then he frowned, a disgusted tsch spitting through his teeth.

Directly above him was a boy. He was sitting very, very still. The branches of the tree he was cradled in were full of wispy leaves. The slightest movement sent too-loud whispers dancing across the branches, which was why the boy endeavored to be as void of movement as a statue.

Minutes passed, but very slowly. The murderer began to move, from the lake to the nearby wall and then, after a leap that should have been impossible, beyond the boy's sight. But the boy didn't move for a very, very long time. He was trying not to piss his pants.

The sky began to brighten. The mist was chased away.

The boy dropped from the tree to the ground, staggering as he landed. His feet seemed to burst as feeling rushed back to his toes, to his calves, and then finally to his thighs. His fingers tingled. He straightened, taking a breath that felt like freedom.

He looked at the lake. The corpse was still floating there. It was still dead. And the dress was no longer yellow, permeated by the water.

The boy looked at the wall, over which the murderer had jumped. It was nearly fifteen feet tall, and topped by barbed wire. No one could escape barbed wire, as far as he knew. It dug its teeth into you and bit harder the more you tried to struggle free, until you killed yourself trying. But the murderer had jumped clean over the wire, too. No one could do that. No one human could do that. So he just wouldn't mention it. But he could tell people about the dead body at least.

The boy reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He was in luck: there was a single bar of battery left. He began to dial, and then a warm hand with digits like fire closed around his phone and firmly shut it.

The boy looked up, into black eyes and an unsmiling face.

He came back, he thought. He came back.

That's not fair.

Chapter One

Naruto sat in the office and stared at his shoes.

The one on the right was held together by duct tape, which he'd scrounged near the bins behind the local grocery. The laces were new--a gift from Haku. They were bright orange. Naruto reached down and traced them with his hands.

Right above him was a clock, ticking erratically, as if the second hand were hesitating before every beat. The only other sound was the secretary's typing, more erratic than the clock. She kept stopping to look at him with wide eyes.

They'd taken Sasuke to the nurse, to disinfect and bandage his fingers. If the gym teacher hadn't stopped the fight in time, Naruto probably would have bitten them clean off. He had sharp teeth and more determination than a dieting model.

The door opened, the hinges screaming as the door reached the end of its arc. The secretary, already nervous because of Naruto's presence, jumped, but it was only Haku. The boy was slight, though not as small and scrawny as Naruto. He had a round face and a half-smile built into the curve of his lips.

"The principal sent me here to talk to you," Haku said after a while.

"Yeah?" Naruto replied. His shoulders were hunched.

"I'm not sure what about, though," Haku admitted. He sat down next to Naruto, letting his bag fall to the ground with a loud thump. Haku kept a lot of books in his bag. It weighed five kilograms, which made it especially useful as a weapon. And it meant Haku was never bored on the trains.

Naruto's backpack, in contrast, was always nearly empty, except for essentials. Now the blond withdrew a stick of gum. "It was Sasuke's fault, anyway," he muttered, balling the gum wrapper up and throwing it neatly into the trash can. "He said, you know, shit."

"So you bit him?" Haku said.

"What? No!" Naruto frowned. "Punched him first."

Haku looked impressed. "Wow," he said.

Another scream from the door announced the arrival of the principal, who looked bemused. "I think," she said, when the boys looked at her, "that maybe you're supposed to dissuade him from violence, Mr., er…."

Haku smiled, and didn't offer his name. Naruto glared.

The principal continued on, unfazed. "We have called your guardian, Mr. Uzumaki--"

"What, Zabuza?" Naruto looked horrified. "He's going to be pissed!"

"That's rather the point, Mr. Uzumaki."

"Er, not at Naruto," Haku said. He was still smiling, but it was a strained smile, and he was suddenly watching the door in the manner of one who wishes to exit through it very, very quickly. Unfortunately, it was blocked by the principal. "When's he arriving?"

A shadow fell on the principal, because there was a six-foot man suddenly standing behind her.

"Ah," Haku said, defeated.

Afterwards, Zabuza took Naruto home. Or at least, Zabuza walked in the general direction of home, while Naruto half-ran so that he didn't fall behind. His near-empty backpack bounced against his back.

The principal had suspended him for a week. There had been the tentative suggestion of expulsion. It hadn't materialized. Zabuza could be quite convincing.

The poor secretary was probably scarred for life. And he'd never seen the principal look so cowed.

"Look," Zabuza said suddenly, while he walked and Naruto ran. "I know you don't like school. But you should stay in it."

There was a pause, filled with noisy cars and, somewhere, the muted scream of a baby from the nearby park. "Are you trying to lecture me?" Naruto said, incredulous.

Zabuza reached out and hit him, sending Naruto staggering forward. Only the backpack protected him from getting a new bruise. "Listen," he said, sounding impatient, "school's a good thing. It could send you places."

"Like where?"

"Hell if I know. But you're not half-bad at it."

"Zabuza," Naruto said, "I'm failing half my classes."

"But you're not failing the one that matters, are you?" Zabuza replied.

"… No," Naruto admitted. He waited, but Zabuza seemed to be done with the subject. Why had his guardian brought it up in the first place?

The city was crowded, buildings giving way abruptly to twisting streets, the pavements slim after-thoughts. The air seemed to glitter as sunlight shone through afternoon haze. Late mornings were always a strange time, with people off the streets and holed up in school or offices or other work. Outward activity was muted, manifesting in the occasional car rushing by. At the line of shops near their street, waiters lounged near the doors, waiting for customers.

They lived in a good house in a neighborhood tucked between an urban village and an expensive residential area. It was two stories high, and the previous owner had pulled out the garden and put in red brick that surrounded the house like a solid red moat. Haku and Zabuza each had their own car, too.

Sometimes, Naruto wondered where the money for all of it came from. Once a month, sometimes more, Zabuza would go on business trips, except he didn't own a briefcase and regarded laptops with the suspicious, disdainful stare of those confronted with useless technology. There was no way Zabuza conducted business, not if that meant executive meetings and suits. Naruto had tried asking where he went, but only once. He hadn't received an answer, either.

The inside of their home was always neat, because of Haku, who could scare even Zabuza if too much of a mess was made. Since Zabuza seemed disinclined to any more conversation, Naruto walked up to the room he shared with Haku.

The queen-sized bed dominated the room. Naruto's side, all multi-colored pillows and glaringly orange blanket, spilled over into Haku's, which was neat and gray. There was Haku's desk, stacked with books, his prized laptop cracked open. Notes for some test he'd been cramming for were scattered on the surface, but in an artful, organized manner Naruto could never copy. The notes were even color-coded.

Naruto didn't have a desk. Zabuza hadn't bought him one, because he wouldn't use it anyway.

Naruto took a shower, first, taking care to brush his teeth. Then he stood in front of the mirror, inspecting his wounds.

He didn't have many. It hadn't been a good fight, really. Sasuke had seemed distracted. He'd landed a lot of punches, as usual, but most of them hadn't even been hard enough to bruise. There were red lines on his left arm, though, where Sasuke had raked his nails after Naruto had bit him.

Naruto was proud of the bite. Sasuke had screamed. It'd been the perfect thing to finally get him serious, but the damn teacher had interfered.

Naruto allowed himself a few moments to bask in his pride. Then he reached for his clothes.

He wanted to paint.

Naruto woke up the next day with the glorious, wondrous knowledge that he didn't have to go to school even though it was a Tuesday.

Haku had already woken; the older boy was straightening his uniform. Today he'd tied his hair back in a neat ponytail.

Haku glanced back, and saw Naruto watching him. "Shouldn't you be sleeping in?" he asked.

"Yeah," Naruto replied, sleepily hugging a pillow to his chest. "Think I'll see Sai today."

Haku frowned, but didn't object. "I'll tell him you're looking for him. Keep your phone on you," he said instead.

"Yeah," Naruto said again. He closed his eyes and drifted back to sleep.

When he woke up again, Haku was gone, his side of the bed neatly made. He had also pulled back the curtains, so that sunlight flowed into the room. It was slightly yellow from the haze.

Naruto rolled out of bed, pulling himself through his morning ritual. Then he trooped downstairs, rubbing his hair dry with a towel.

Breakfast felt strange. Zabuza was--somewhere, Naruto didn't really want to know. He'd taken his duffel bag, which meant he'd be home late tonight, if at all. And Haku, of course, was at school.

It wasn't as if they normally talked during meals. Still, the silence was difference. It was a silence of absence, rather than purposeful quiet.

There was a shopping list on the fridge. Naruto recognized Zabuza's unnervingly neat handwriting, all the letters formed with strange care and patience. Zabuza was not a man who was fond of written words, but whatever he wrote behaved, probably glared into obeisance. Naruto tucked the list into his pocket.

Outside the world was tired and slightly yellow, but there was sunlight, and in the nearby village, children were laughing. It was a nice sound, except that Naruto was no stranger to what children really laughed about, and these were not nice things. He wandered into a corner store, where the old lady behind the counter gave him a long, hard look as he paid for chocolate and soda.

He was unaffected. He gave her a wide smile, which she pointedly did not return.

People rarely smiled at Naruto. Perhaps it was the ratty look of him: thin limbs and thin chest and big eyes that were too alert and watching. People expected him to lie, cheat, and steal, although the first two were skills he was frankly terrible at and the last was something Iruka had managed to yell out of him.

Naruto easily slid a few packets of gum into the pockets of his baggy jeans, just to be contrary. Then he went to find Sai.

Finding Sai was not easy. But it was a good day, and Sai hated being confined indoors, which was why his attendance record was even worse than Naruto's. Naruto tried all the parks he knew, first, which was a lot: first the smaller, brighter ones tucked between apartment buildings, and then to the bigger ones, the ones with proper names--Hyde and Queens and Frontier.

Nearly forty-five minutes later, he decided to resort to the private parks, although he'd probably get caught. It was easy for security guards to see he didn't belong. But Naruto was lucky; he only had to sneak into one, which was right behind the compound of some rich family. It was there he found Sai, who was apparently drawing some lake.

Except that he wasn't. As Naruto approached, he registered the splash of dulled yellow riding the little ripples in the lake. There were little bubbles of caught air under the material.

He got even closer, and saw thin lines of tan, which gradually became arms, and legs, and fingers and toes.

"What the hell are you doing?" Naruto asked, voice shaking.

Sai turned his head, smiling and serene.

"Drawing," he said.

Thirty minutes later, Sai had a black eye, and Naruto had just surrendered their lose change to the payphone they'd finally found outside a crumbling hotel. Naruto had forgotten his cell phone. Anyway, he wasn't stupid enough to call the police with it.

Naruto's hands had shaken as he'd surrendered the location of the corpse. He told himself it was because he'd punched Sai so hard.

Naruto found himself wondering if Sai had killed the girl, and then wanted to give himself a black eye. He shouldn't be thinking like that about his best friend. He shouldn't. Sai was creepy, but he'd never hurt anyone, not that Naruto could remember. It was Naruto who always got into fights, especially with Sasuke.

Now he clicked the phone back into its cradle and sighed. He'd planned to drag Sai to the mall, maybe play some pool, even though he always lost. But finding the dead girl had ruined Naruto's mood--but not, he noted, Sai's. So they just loitered in front of the hotel. Occasionally, a cruiser would come by, bored and slow, but the policeman never bothered to stop and harass the two.

After a moment, Naruto said, "Hey, let me see it."

"Hm?" Sai sent Naruto a questioning look. Like Haku, Sai was always smiling. Unlike Haku, the smile wasn't natural. Expressions in general weren't natural on Sai's face.

"You were drawing her, right? The dead girl." Naruto paused, disliking the way the words felt on his tongue. "So let me see it."

Sai opened his backpack, which was unabashedly devoid of schoolwork and textbooks. He located his sketchbook and gave it to Naruto.

Normally, Naruto liked looking at each page in Sai's sketchbook, absorbing all the drawings one by one, even if he'd seen them before. Sai was good. But today he flipped right to the back.

The lake was lazy, snake-like lines, the edges suggested by firmer strokes and hints of shadow. But the main focus was the girl. She'd been pale, but Sai had bruised her dark with the flat of his pencil. The lines were all anger, her hair like the outline around a wrathful god.

All the emotion Sai couldn't quite feel, couldn't quite show, was always pulled into his work. To Naruto, it seemed as if Sai had exactly captured that twisting revulsion and anger he'd felt when he'd seen the girl--that feeling of no, of wrongness. His mouth felt suddenly dry.

"It's really good," he said.

Sai brightened, although not a muscle on his face twitched. Maybe it was that his smile was suddenly a touch real. "Thank you," he said.

"But you shouldn't just--I mean, you shouldn't--"

Naruto's eyes fell to the drawing, and he sighed. No. Sai wouldn't understand. He didn't get concepts like right and wrong. So he said, "It's a good drawing," and felt old.

"I'm sorry," Sai said.

"What for?" Naruto muttered.

"I won't--" Sai began, and Naruto turned the page and dropped the book.

It was the girl. The dead girl. She was staring up at him, eyes blank, face gaunt, and Naruto said, "Oh, god, Hinata--"

Sai rescued his sketchbook, carefully wiping it free of dirt. He didn't look mad; Naruto stared at him for a few moments to make sure he really wasn't. "Sorry," he murmured, just in case. Sai offered him his usual smile, which wasn't at all comforting.

"Who's Hinata?" he asked.

Naruto looked at the drawing again. It wasn't Hinata, he thought. It was just that those blank eyes--

"Forget it," he said. "Let's head to my place and… I don't know, watch movies."

Sai nodded, and helped Naruto up. His grip, the blond noted, was warm and sure. It was too bad Sai's eyes were always so cold.

They had only met once.

Naruto was twelve. Iruka had just died. He had met Zabuza, and hated him. He even hated Haku. It was a desperate hate, shot through with grief and potent guilt.

He met Hinata in the lobby of the hotel they were staying in. If he'd been himself, he would have marveled at the chandeliers, the black fog dancing through the brown-white of the marble floors, the water running rings around the businessmen and rich tourists. It was a five-star hotel. Naruto had never stayed in hotels before, let alone five-star ones.

She was a girl in white, with ribbons in her hair. He was a scowling boy in scuffed, worn shorts and a shirt that was missing two buttons.

She was waiting for her father; he was waiting for Haku, and missing Iruka.

She bought him ice cream, and they talked. And then, quite accidentally, she gave him his smile back.

It hadn't been a good joke. But Naruto laughed, anyway, suddenly and harshly. His laugh was rusty from disuse, and too hysterical to be actual laughter. And it didn't stop for a long time, until it dissolved into tears.

They swapped names and phone numbers, even though Naruto knew that, after he moved in with Zabuza, his phone number would be invalid. It felt good to write it down, anyway. Then she dug a little container from her purse. It was small, and plastic. "It's ointment," Hinata said, very solemnly. "It heals people."

Naruto took it, and thanked her, and didn't think about her again until he saw her face staring out at him from Sai's notebook four years later.

Naruto was tearing their room apart when Haku entered.

The older boy, in the middle of unbuttoning his shirt, stopped to stare. Naruto was a fairly neat person, a trait Haku had gradually forced into him. Walking into a room filled with clothes and papers and open containers was--jarring.

"What are you looking for?" Haku said, very slowly, in the same dead patient tone of voice he employed whenever he caught Zabuza smoking. It was a tone that demanded explanation. More than that, it was a tone that demanded a damn good explanation.

Naruto stopped in the middle of emptying his underwear drawer. "I can't find her phone number!" he said.

His eyes were wide and red. His face was haggard.

Haku took a deep breath. "Whose phone number?" he asked, forcing lightness into his tone.

"Hinata's," Naruto said, turning back to the underwear. "She wrote it on a piece of paper for me--"

"When?"

"Huh?"

"When did she give you her phone number?" Haku elaborated. Who was Hinata?

"Four years ago," Naruto said.

Haku closed his eyes, in case he was dreaming. When he opened them again, the room was still a disaster, all the clothes he'd spent hours folding were still a crumpled mess on the floor, and Naruto had still lost his mind.

"Naruto," he began.

"Maybe I should try the storeroom!" Naruto said, standing up.

Haku had spent weeks organizing the storeroom. He'd meticulously labeled and organized, and bought big boxes and bigger containers, and put up shelves and more shelves and--

"No!" he said, catching Naruto's wrist.

Naruto gave him a wide-eyed, pleading look. Buried under the puppy expression, however, was an edge of desperation Haku didn't like. It nearly made him let go.

Nearly.

"What's Hinata's full name?" Haku asked.

Naruto thought for a moment. "Hyuuga Hinata," he said, finally. Haku's grip tightened in surprise. He ignored Naruto's wince.

"Why are you looking for her number?"

Naruto's gaze dropped to the ground. His shoulders slumped. "I--"

Suddenly, the mess in the bedroom was less important than the mess in front of him. "Why don't we go downstairs," Haku said, in a tone that clearly said this was not a suggestion. "We can have tea. And then you can explain to me what the fuck just happened."

Naruto nodded vague acquiescence. Haku pulled him downstairs.

It was Naruto that made the tea. Haku, who preferred to wait for his cup to cool, idly stirred it. Naruto, apparently immune to the heat, gulped his first cup down quickly and then stood to pour himself another one.

It took him a while to explain. He said, "I mean, I met her when I was twelve, right?" He said, "I just need to make sure it's not her." He said, "Sai's good, right, but it could still be a mistake, maybe it wasn't her." He said, "I mean, I didn't get a good look on her, maybe it wasn't her." And then he said, "It could be the shock, yeah? From finding a fucking corpse."

Haku took a few sips, patiently re-assembling the pieces into coherency. Naruto had found a girl. Sai had--drawn her? (This made him frown. He didn't like Sai, and knowing the boy drew corpses didn't make him seem any less creepy.) Naruto had seen the drawing, and thought the girl was Hyuuga Hinata. (He wondered if Naruto knew who the Hyuuga were. Probably not. He wondered if he knew who Hyuuga Hinata really was. Probably not, either.) Naruto wanted to call Hinata to make sure she wasn't truly dead.

"You don't need to find her number," Haku murmured at last. "You just need to make sure she's--"

He stopped before he could say alive.

"--well, correct?" he said, although the word was hardly an improvement. "I'll be able to do that for you."

It wouldn't be hard. The Hyuuga were a prominent family; gathering information on them would be easy. As a bonus, his storeroom wouldn't be decimated.

"Thanks," Naruto said. When he smiled, Haku instantly forgave him for messing up their room.

Sai sat in his room, carefully wiping his sketchbook clean from dirt. He wasn't angry at Naruto for dropping it on the ground. He was never angry at Naruto.

What he often felt, instead, was puzzlement. Sai studied his recent drawing. Naruto hadn't liked it, but he'd said it was "good". So perhaps he did like it? He did, Sai decided uneasily. He'd complimented it, after all.

He set the drawing aside, and then looked at the portrait of--

Hinata, Naruto had said.

It was a good drawing, but Sai didn't like it. Naruto's reaction had been--confusing. Strange. Had he been scared? He'd certainly been suddenly eager to rush home.

Carefully, he tore both drawings out, setting them aside. He wouldn't throw them away, but he would store them elsewhere, so that Naruto wouldn't have to look at them.

He went back to inspecting his sketchbook. It was clean enough; the dirt had stained only the bottom-most part of the pages. And the most important drawing, the one he'd tucked carefully into the cover-slip so that Naruto never found it, was unharmed. He took it out now.

It was his best work--it would always be his best work, he knew, no matter how much he improved. It was done in pencil and ink, the strokes raw. And there was red pastel, for the blood.

Sai smiled fondly at it. Smiles didn't usually look right on Sai's face, but this one did.

On the page, Naruto looked back, feral, a grin stretching his lips and revealing sharp fangs.