Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Sleepwalker ❯ sleepwalker ( Chapter 1 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Title: Sleepwalker
Author: desolate butterfly
Genre: Angst/Drama
Pairings: NaruSakuSasu, KabuSasu, OroSasu
Rating: PG 13
Summary: Sasuke has a few sleeping problems in Sound that he needs to take care of before he can break his bonds to Konoha.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, Kishimoto does. Neither am I making any money off this.

Sasuke wasn't sure what was happening, but he knew it wasn't good. This was the second time he'd woken to find himself outside his sleeping quarters with no memory of how he'd gotten there or when.

Sasuke was pretty certain he'd closed his eyes in the security and privacy of his room, and now he was opening them to the dingey grey stone of Orochimaru's front entranceway. He'd gotten farther this time, almost to the threshold of the door. His muscles ached from sleeping on the hard floor, and his nightclothes were soaked in sweat rapidly cooling in the pre-dawn air.

Sasuke pulled himself slowly to his feet, staring hard at the doorway. Where was he trying to go? He had never been prone to sleepwalking before, so why now?

A silver-haired head poked its way into the hallway and Sasuke turned to Kabuto with a blank face.

“Sasuke-kun?”

“I'm going back to bed,” he said, ignoring the other man's curious look and the calculating way he slid his glasses up his nose as he nodded.

“They found him trying to cross the village limits, Orochimaru-sama,” one of the guards was explaining.

Sasuke ignored the suspicious looks the other guard was giving him, and the heavy hand on his shoulder. He watched Orochimaru's eyes gleam thoughtfully and those pale fingers stroke against thin lips.

“Sleepwalking, Sasuke-kun?” the sannin mused quietly, motioning for the guards to let him go. They did so reluctantly and Sasuke stepped forward, closer to the seated man whose seal he wore. The curse marks blazed and stung a little as he approached, but Sasuke no longer flinched. He had become used to that kind of pain fairly quickly.

“I don't know why it's happening now,” Sasuke said, frowning a little.

Orochimaru smiled and Sasuke caught a flash of fang before those lips closed once more into a mocking smirk.

“Perhaps subconsciously,” Orochimaru said, “you are trying to escape me, Sasuke-kun.”

Something sizzled across the skin of his neck and Sasuke's hands clenched into fists. He dared not drop his gaze.

“The only thing I want is to kill Itachi,” Sasuke stated, flatly. “You can give me the power to do that. Why would I want to escape?”

“A good question, Sasuke-kun,” the other man crooned as he reached a hand out to caress Sasuke's cheek, an action he endured stoically. “A very good question.”

“Do you remember what you dream about when you sleepwalk, Sasuke-kun?”

Sasuke watched Kabuto warily, not in the mood to be teased about his night time excursions again.

“No,” was all he said, before turning back to his exercises. He could feel Kabuto's eyes on him as he went through another pattern, kusenagi flashing in the air and biting into invisible opponents like a striking snake.

Power surged through Sasuke's blood and he thrilled in it, craved more, cursed his waning stamina. The amount of chakra he could control now was enormous, but essentially useless, since he hadn't built up the reserves to contain it. It was the one thing Orochimaru kept holding back, like a pearl just out of reach under the water.

You aren't ready for that lesson, was all he would say whenever Sasuke asked. The sound was the same as Itachi's laughter, of bones snapping and blades slicing into flesh. You aren't ready for me, little brother.

Shaking with frustration, Sasuke slid kusenagi back into its sheath and knelt on the ground, chest heaving with the exertion. Kabuto watched him, silently, before pulling a small vial out of his vest pocket and tossing it on the ground in front of Sasuke's nose.

Sasuke glared at the clear fluid in the vial, and then at Kabuto's sharp eyes.

“What is it?”

“Something that'll help you to remember your dreams.”

Sasuke snorted and rose to his feet, brushing grass and dust from his pant legs. “And why would I need that?” he sneered, not especially pleased with the thought of taking any substance Kabuto would offer him.

The healer just tilted his head to the side and offered Sasuke a knowing smile, one that made the Uchiha want to rip his skin off and nail it to the wall. He knew what was coming next.

Kabuto's fingers tapped against Sasuke's wrist as the vial was pressed into his palm, and the lips curling at Sasuke's ear were wet and cool.

“Once you are aware of your dreams you can take control of them Sasuke-kun,” the taller man whispered. “You should remember that.”

Before sliding into his bed, Sasuke looked at Kabuto's vial, which he had thrown against the mirror hanging in his room. The mirror had broken into large, silvered shards but the vial itself remained intact, proving that it wasn't made of glass as Sasuke had first thought.

`I shouldn't take it,' he thought to himself, but the temptation to know why he kept wandering in the night was great.

In the end, he ended up swallowing the contents and dropping the empty vial to clatter on the floor and roll under the bed.

He justified it by saying that Orochimaru wouldn't allow Kabuto to poison his future container anyway, and he wasn't concerned with anything short of dying.

He would die after he killed Itachi, and not before.

It was those thoughts Sasuke closed his eyes to.

“Hey bastard, wake up.”

Sasuke's eyes blinked open and struggled to focus in the darkness of the room. A face wavered in front of him, like he was underwater. Sasuke reached out a hand and found the air around him was thick and slow.

“Naruto?”

The face distorted into a watery grin and Sasuke found himself lifting, his feet settling unsteadily on the floor.

“Yeah,” his former team mate said, “Hurry up, everyone's waiting.”

“What do you mean?” Sasuke wanted to ask, but he was nodding instead, his body wading through the thickness of the air until the stone beneath his feet disappeared and turned to grass.

Another face floated up beside him and Sasuke half-turned to greet it, arms spreading outwards for balance.

“Sasuke-kun, we thought you'd never come! Hurry, hurry.”

Sasuke frowned and shook his head, the focus becoming a bit clearer. Pinkness flooded his vision.

“Sakura,” he mumbled, “I thought I told you not to follow me here.”

“Hurry!” was all she said, tugging his arm, and Sasuke obeyed, still feeling a bit like someone had struck him in the head.

He didn't hurt it just…felt strange. Like a large impact had knocked the ability to think out of him and he was just reacting late to a blow already dealt.

“Come on Sasuke, let's go.” Naruto was there at his shoulder, prodding him onward and Sasuke went, spinning dizzily on his heels.

They were almost to the limits. Sasuke could see the guards through the blackness of the moonless night, which meant that his Sharingan had activated without his prompting.

Unfortunately, they could also see him.

“Should we wake him?”

“No.” The voice was clinically cold, and Sasuke didn't have to turn around to verify that Kabuto had arrived at the gate. Sakura's ghostly palms soothed across his knuckles and he twitched.

“Don't touch him. I want to see what he does.”

“Sasuke-kun?” Sakura's voice quavered and she tugged impatiently on his hand again.

Naruto glided over to stand beside her, extending an arm.

“Come on man,” he urged, eyes tinged red and slightly frantic, “You're so close now. Just take one step."

Sasuke's foot lifted and he hovered, uncertain. Naruto's arm stretched but no matter how far he did, it never seemed to get close enough to reach Sasuke. His eyes flickered to Naruto's chest where a hole seemed to be growing, blood spreading wet across the orange fabric of his jacket.

“You…You're—”

“Don't quit on me now, Sasuke,” Naruto was saying. But there was a thread there, of mockery and coldness and Sasuke took a step back, watching Naruto's eyes widen in something like pain.

You aren't ready yet, little brother.

“I'm not going with you,” he whispered and ghost Sakura crumpled and faded into the ground where she stood. Naruto held out longer, his shoulders hunching as he stretched a little further.

“Don't do this Sasuke,” he begged, and blood dripped down his sleeve and puddled in the space between them.

Sasuke took another step back.

“I'm severing this bond.”

Kabuto's hand on his shoulder brought Sasuke into full consciousness. The strange fuzziness fled and Sasuke shrugged off the touch with a certain amount of resolve. He looked at the ground, where Naruto's blood no longer stained the grass, and sighed.

“Sasuke-kun?"

The Uchiha's eyes deadened to black and Kabuto backed away from him carefully, knowing dangerous ground when he saw it.

“It's over,” Sasuke stated, turning away. “This won't happen again.”

Kabuto watched the boy walk back to Orochimaru's compound with a slight smile.

“If you say so, Sasuke-kun.”

Sasuke never had problems with sleepwalking after that, although Kabuto often saw strange marks and bruises surrounding Sasuke's wrists and ankles.

When he asked about them, he only got a cold stare in reply. By the looks of the dark circles under Sasuke's eyes, it really wasn't necessary for Sasuke to say it out loud anyway.

When Kabuto smoothed a healing salve over the bruises each morning, Sasuke submitted to the treatment without resistance.

The next week, when gossip went through Sound about the chains in Sasuke's bed, no one in Orochimaru's compound was surprised.

fin.