Author's Note: It's been a while. Some of you readers will be old fans I'm hoping to impress (hey there!) and some of you are new readers (enjoy the ride!). I've tried my hand at this story before but quickly took it down because I couldn't see myself continuing to write. After a lot of revision and a renewed enthusiasm for the fandom, here's my second crack at it. It does start off a little slow but I'm hoping you all look forward to seeing the relationship between Itachi and Naruto develop just as I enjoyed their brief relationship in the anime.

Chapter 1

…:::Of Haircuts and Incognitos:::…

"We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly, all at once, before a word has been spoken." - Fydor Dostoevsky

The first time Itachi woke up, he almost panicked.

Almost.

He would have, if not for the haze that drifted through his mind like morning fog. So he just sat there without the slightest clue where he was and felt like he should panic, but could not quite bring himself to do so. To do anything, actually. He lost consciousness some time in his search through the fog of his mind.

The second time he woke up was different. There was an incessant ringing in his ears, pressure pressing against them, rrrrrrrrng rrrrrrrrng. It felt like he was underwater, submerged and drowning in thin air. Suspended. Someone in the distance was sniffling.

And his eyes were open, but he couldn't see.

He would never admit he was beginning to panic, beginning to realize that he was blinking and that nothing was coming into his vision, not even the blurs he had been growing accustomed to. Panic: a sensation he had little to no experience with. There was a liquid pooling into his tear ducts that was not the warmth of tears but the warmth of something much thicker, something that he could smell and that, coupled with intense agony, disturbed him.

". . . name?"

When had someone begun to speak? His name? He could not think about his name, not at a time like that. Not when his chest was on fire, when his legs redefined pain and his arms redefined their redefinition, and when there was an unnatural breeze on his head. Why could he feel the wind on his head?

There was something wrong. He was not supposed to feel the wind – oh no, oh no, his hair. His hair. Where was his hair? His hair. His identity. It was gone, gone, gone.

He felt different. Pain like he had never felt before, everywhere. Everywhere.

He would never admit that he was scared.

Naruto was lost.

From the very first minute he had awoken, he had been lost. The stone walls were unfamiliar to him. The dirtied and torn tatami mats that covered the earthen floor were rough against his naked body. With no recollection of how he had even gotten there, he had attempted to scrunch up tightly, only to uncurl his limbs when his stomach protested with pain.

He was lost but not alone. The lighting that had appeared from some makeshift ventilation system up, up out of his reach glinted off the rusted metal bars that separated his cell from another. It took several hours for the light to intensify (he guessed it was the sun coming up) to reveal a bundle on the floor in the other room. An unmoving bundle.

He narrowed his eyes at it in suspicion. Another human? Or an animal. Perhaps it was neither – some sort of experimental mutation. Quite frankly, he wasn't sure what it was and so his curiosity peaked to new heights and he found himself standing up again to move as close as he could to whatever it was.

A head.

A human head, he found after a moment of squinting and staring and rubbing his eyes from the dried tears. It was the back of a very pale human head from what appeared to be someone who had been thrown haphazardly into the cell and not bothered to move again, the dark hair of the head shaven very closely to the skull. His heart flipped oddly. Maybe this person could give him answers. Maybe he would wake up and he would stop feeling so lost and alone.

"Hey," he called to the person. His voice would not budge beyond a whisper; when was the last time he had had anything to drink? "Hey!"

But there was no reply. His hands gripped the bars that separated them tighter; a bit of rust on the bars rubbed off and tinkled to the floor. Desperation kicked in. He wanted – needed – the man to wake up and tell him just where the hell he was.

"Please, you've got to wake up."

Silence.

His heart began to beat faster. There was something so very wrong with the image of the shaven head, something so very disturbing in the way it did not move, and he finally noticed the glint of crimson liquid when he turned his head slightly. Vroom vroom went his racing heart rate, went his speeding thoughts, as his hands tried to extend to the body but they were too short and was he dead?!

"Please, no, no, no," he chanted in a whisper as the light revealed the head that was attached to a very pale, very naked, very beaten and bloodied body.

Like him. Naked and beaten, but he was not quite as bloody.

He did not notice the headband at the stranger's waist.

"Come on, come on," he willed the unmoving head quietly, but even it was unrecognizable through a curtain of blood and the amount of swelling. Not that he possibly could have recognized anyone anyway. One eye of the head was swelled shut in a rosy balloon of black and blue, a crust of pus sealing the eyelid like sickly cement. The other eye was swollen with bruises, but not to the same extent, so that he could see just a sliver of blank black pupil. It was moving.

"Hey, hey!" he sat up straighter at the movement, suddenly hopeful. "That's it! Open your eyes!"

But there was no other response.

"Hey," he pleaded in a whisper. "You've got to wake up."

He could just see the unnatural placement of the jaw, could see the fresh drool that had made a trail of glistening saliva all the way down to the stranger's collarbone; it was mixed with the blood from where one of his lower canine teeth was visibly missing. The swollen face acted like hills, pooling the lake of blood that came from several cuts into unusual creases and wrinkles so that he had to look at the flat chest and exposed testicles to realize it was, in fact, a man he was staring at.

Oh no, oh no, ohnoohnoohno was he going to end up like him?

And then he saw it.

A headband.

It lay tauntingly just out of his reach, viciously scratched. The etching of the odd spiral was barely visible through the amount of scratches that littered its surface. His stomach flipped oddly and he felt the sudden urge to vomit. He could not recognize the symbol but it looked just like his. Just like the one he had found by his hand when he had woken up – a loose spiral, but his had no scratches. Had he not put up a fight when he was captured?

When the stranger was obviously not about to wake up any time soon, he gave up. Something inside of him pulled at his gut. Perhaps he was not supposed to be used to giving up, but then again, he was not used to himself. He had no idea who he was before waking up in his cell or who he was supposed to be.

Naruto fell asleep not moments later.

Third time's the charm.

Itachi opened his eyes to darkness and quickly assessed the situation with as much skill as he had been trained to do. Unlike his training, however, he was forced to count out one of his senses because he was blind. Blind, blind, blind, blind – he tried not to think about it because he could already feel his chest heaving in another panic attack.

He attempted to move his body slightly to find that he couldn't feel his body to begin with. It disturbed him. With his nose, he could smell the pungent odor of the cell wherever he was: a cornucopia of aromas, none of them sweet and pleasant to inhale. He could have smelled the stench of blood in the room from a mile away. Granted, it was close and, he would later feel, it was on him when it should have been in him. There was also sweat. Piss, he found faintly, which suggested to him that there was either someone else with him, or the room he was in had been used before. Or both.

Blood, sweat, piss, and other oddities. From his first sense, he could distinguish nothing of his location.

Taste was simple: blood. Perhaps – he moved his tongue around heavily in his mouth – he could taste some foreign substance, some odd concoction he could not place. Tangy and bitter like chewing on the floury plastic of a medical glove. He found that he was missing a back tooth and in its place was but a gap in his gums and a mouthful of blood.

Blood and some foreign taste. No doubt, he had been drugged.

The most prominent noise he could hear was sniffling. Strangled cries. A male's voice, he could tell, definitely young. He tried his best to turn his head in the direction of the noise. There was a twinge to his neck. Pain shot up his spine. He tried to call out to the voice – who are you?! – but his consciousness was fading fast.

And suddenly, he was out.

"You."

Naruto turned around. It had been a day since he had regained consciousness. There had been no other sign of life in the cell wherever he was, so naturally, when he heard the stranger speak, he wiped at stray tears and whipped his head around.

For a second, his heart stopped. It did not race, vroom vroom, but paused in its life pumping, because he had thought the stranger had recognized him, had somehow seen him through closed eyes and would suddenly answer all his questions. But after a moment's rationality, he realized the "You" was actually the end of a question, which had most likely started with "Who are".

". . . you?" it came again.

The bruised Adam's apple bobbed again in preparation for speech, yet nothing came out but the scratch of an exhale. The body attempted to raise itself to no avail and it fell back, limp and practically lifeless. Again, the Adam's apple bobbed as the stranger swallowed.

The face turned to him ever-so-slowly and ever-so-slightly and the swollen eyes opened in slivers, then wider, wider, and he saw them snap shut with a cringe from the man before they opened again. The stranger's chest began to heave faintly. His throaty exhales became pants and he gasped. Naruto watched as the stranger moved at what seemed an agonizing pace, watched him slide a hand up to his eyes, saw his injured jaw slack and his eyebrows shoot up in – distress?

And suddenly, the stranger was staring right at him.

". . . you?"

Naruto's heart stopped again.

That man was clearly staring right at him through barely opened eyelids. But he squinted and realized blank eyes were not often a characteristic of seeing, and that the stranger was not staring right at him, but his barely visible pupils wavered from side-to-side in search of something to settle upon.

He could not help the gasp that escaped his lips.

The stranger was blind.

Vroom vroom.

". . . are you?"

The voice was more prominent this time, more forceful, and he saw the stranger's jaw twitch at a painful attempt to grit his teeth. But ohnoohnoohno Naruto didn't know, he hadn't known who he was since he woke up in the current hell of a cell and he could feel his throat constricting for a moment and he couldn't breathe he couldn't breathe he couldn't breathe –

"I don't know," he rasped out in his panic. His eyes were tearing up. "I don't know, jeez, I woke up and I can't – I can't remember anything . . ." His hands were shaking violently. "I was just here and I don't even know my name, who doesn't know their name, and I'm naked and there's this thing on my stomach, and these numbers on my arm – is that my name? 2516? Is that my name?! A number?!"

He could tell the stranger regretted asking for his name but he wanted answers, damn it! He wanted to know why he had woken up with no memory of anything, with the skin of his stomach mangled and mixed with black symbols, with his shaven head stitched, and with some random blind stranger on his deathbed next to him.

He looked over to the stranger and let out a strangled growl of frustration when he realized he had fallen unconscious.

Hours later, he heard the stranger rousing again. And again, he repeated his panicked contemplation of his name (because he had been contemplating it hours before and was still contemplating it hours later). The stranger tried to lift himself to no avail, but he attempted to say something.

"Calm . . . down . . ."

He was unconscious after the second syllable.

He really felt like he was dying. Hungry and thirsty, bleeding, naked, cold, sore, unable to remember anything – he felt like death would be a welcoming to his reality. No one had bothered to come and check up on them. How long had it actually been? Hours? Days? Months? Not months, he thought. He would surely have been dead.

He wanted the stranger to wake up and keep him company. But most of all, he wanted a name. When he saw the stranger returning to consciousness some time later (he lost track, but the light was no longer shining through the makeshift ventilation system), he spoke.

"At least move a little closer," he tried to say despite his parched throat. "You'll die of blood loss."

Shshshshsh the stranger wriggled ever-so-slightly, skin rubbing against the tatami mats, leaving a stain of blood in his wake. He managed to move barely within arm's reach of the other cell before pain overtook his body and he was out again.

At least, Naruto thought, he could bring the stranger closer. He reached his unbroken arm through the bars in an attempt to grab onto the stranger's shoulder. The appendage flopped about in a way that shoulders shouldn't, and it took a while for him to realize it was dislocated.

Frowning, he tried for a leg – the one not at an odd angle. It was pale, the feeling of the black leg hairs odd against his hand as he managed to pull it and the body closer to the bars of his cell.

"You'll be okay," he found himself whispering, heart suddenly at ease remembering he was supposedly one of his own, if that was what the odd symbol on their matching headbands indicated. "Can you hear me?"

Silence.

He cradled the stranger's head in his hands until the sun shone through the vents again. It was all he could do to keep himself from going insane. All he could do to remember that, despite no memories and despite no name, he existed.

"My name."

The stranger spoke.

"What?"

". . . my name?"

Vroom vroom. "I can't remember anything."

The stranger seemed to contemplate something momentarily before he inhaled deeply and said, "Murakami Ryo."

"Murakami," he replied, respecting the stranger with his last name. "I . . . I don't know mine. I don't . . ."

". . . Ken."

". . . What?"

"Ken."

"That's . . . that's my name?"

The stranger's lips twitched but remained lax. "No. But . . . panicking . . . Ken, now."

His words were uttered farther apart. He recognized it as a sign that he was going to fall unconscious soon. So he gathered the stranger – no, no longer the stranger but rather 'Murakami Ryo' – in his arms as best he could and said, "Ken. My name is Ken."

'Murakami' did not hear.

'Ken' woke up to find that he had fallen asleep against the rusted bars, 'Murakami's head still cradled in his hands and light filtering in through the ventilation. He sat up straighter with a painful crick in his back. It felt awkward, having the head of a naked man in his hands when he was equally naked himself. A part of him was thankful 'Murakami' was blind.

The other part wondered if he would end up like that, and his bloody stomach tightened at the thought.

He set 'Murakami's head down gently to look at his stomach again. It had been scratched and gnawed at, it seemed, caked in dry blood. There was an odd tattoo around his navel. He presumed it had once been a perfect circle surrounded in kanji. The circle was far from perfect at that point, and some of the kanji symbols had disappeared where his skin had been peeled off. When he had first woken up, he had thrown up at the sight.

Now . . . now it was a normality. A painful normality.

His eyes averted to assess the swelling of 'Murakami's face. It had only come down the slightest, still leaving his eyes swollen and forced shut. A breath suddenly rattled 'Murakami's chest and 'Ken' took the opportunity to speak.

"Are you waking up?" The words were getting harder to form. His tongue getting harder to lift. "Come on."

The man's lips moved to form words, but 'Ken' could not hear them. He leaned in closer, feeling the puff of air but hearing no sound.

"Hey, come on. You can do it."

But the lips stopped moving and the breathing evened out, and 'Ken' was defeated once again.

'Murakami' did not attempt another break into consciousness until an hour later, when 'Ken' was staring around and realizing there were no doors to the room. Just two cells with bars betwixt. A violent sneeze rattled 'Murakami's body terribly before he fell into unconsciousness once more.

Another hour later, 'Ken' was on his back, waiting for death to come. He sent a glance in 'Murakami's direction briefly. The eye that had had the lesser amount of swelling had opened to more than simply a sliver, staring unblinkingly and blankly at the roof of the room. The other eye had opened as well, and it was flashing. And what it was flashing was what made 'Ken' feel his stomach flop oddly in vague recognition. Because 'Ken', although he did not know it, was staring at the flash of the Mangekyou Sharingan.

Because naked, bruised, bloodied, shaven 'Ken' was Uzumaki Naruto.

And naked, bruised, bloodied, shaven, blind 'Murakami Ryo' was Uchiha Itachi.

A lot of confusion ensued much later.

Itachi did not wake up again since Naruto had been conscious. The once-blond boy fell in and out of sleep, in and out of malnutrition-induced consciousness several times in what he assumed were days past.

One frightening hour, he woke up on a flat, metal table that was not the itchy familiarity of tatami mats, beneath a light that was too bright and there were fingers in his stomach.

Fingers.

In his stomach.

He could not remember if he screamed. All he could feel was pain, pain, pain – fingers in his stomach – before he was out like the light that flickered from the ceiling.

Bam!

Awake.

Except this time he was in a hallway that stretched farther than he could see, illuminated by torches bolted to the stone walls. He felt oddly better. His stomach tingled, but his muscles no longer ached and the crick in his wrist was gone. He realized in the confused haze of his mind that he felt better than he ever had in days. Aching muscles replaced what he had thought to be broken bones. Bruises replaced welts. He felt his strength, although dimmed by malnutrition, dormant in his muscles.

Had he been out for days? Weeks?

No, he decided when he looked down at his hands from where he was crouched low to the earthen ground. Something had happened. Something supernatural. After all, why were his fingernails broken and bloodied?

Blood.

There was a lot of that.

It was all over his naked body, covering his thighs and his abdomen, smeared on his throat. He panicked for a moment as his shaking fingers wiped through the curtain of blood on his stomach before he realized with a wrench of his gut that it was not his blood. It was definitely someone else's.

And that only frightened him more.

He hadn't the slightest clue what had happened, or what was going on. Or where 'Murakami' was. Or his cell. Or where he was, for that matter. It seemed his heart never ceased to beat so fast (vroom vroom). He was constantly shaking, constantly cold, constantly confused. With a slight limp to his walk, he staggered and bumped his way through the stone hallway in search of any other sign of life.

But there was nothing.

It was simply a long stretch of a hallway with no doors or windows. They were almost definitely underground, he deduced as the hallway only seemed to carry on and on like a poor design for a cave. His body left bloodied footprints with every step he took, the blood that was not his dripping off of him in slow, sickly droplets.

The first cell he came upon was empty. He vaguely wondered if he would ever be able to find his cell again because from what he could remember, it had not had any doors or windows. Simply two conjoined rooms, divided by rusted iron bars.

The second cell held Itachi.

Naruto's breathing was a permanent border on hyperventilation by that time. The hallway stretched and stretched and he walked and walked and finally, finally, he found his 'Murakami'. There were bloody footprints leading away from the cell and vanishing suddenly, as if the person who had left them evaporated into thin air, and the keys to the small cell were sitting patiently in the lock of the iron gate.

Yes, thought Naruto. Something had definitely happened.

He twisted the keys in the lock without question and swung open the gate haphazardly so he could reach the man stretched out on a metal table just like he had been. He called his name – once, twice, thrice. Nothing. Itachi's face looked exactly as swollen as it had been when Naruto last remembered. Had it only been hours? A day?

They had to get out of there.

"Come on, come on," he said aloud, his tongue still heavy in his mouth. He slipped one of Itachi's arms – the one that was not at an odd angle – around his shoulders. The positioning was odd and Naruto slipped and buckled as he attempted to drag the man off of the table, the blood on his own body providing no friction for Itachi's naked body to rest against. He struggled.

"Please, please, you can't die," he found himself pleading as he finally slipped the man from the slab of metal and began dragging his body across the floor. "You have to help me. You have to tell me what's going on. You have to help me remember. Please, please, you can't die."

There was something almost eerily ominous about 'Murakami', Naruto thought. Something silently frightening about the way his dislocated jaw hung open, about the way a sliver of his eye was visible, about the way his head was shaven. Something that made Naruto suddenly shiver as his veins rippled from the weight of the figure.

He stopped.

Vroom vroom.

There was a dead

man

on the floor.

And ohnoohnoohno had he killed this man? Had he taken his life, caved his head in like that? Naruto would have vomited at the sight of the way the head had been mangled and the eyes gouged out, but there was nothing left in his stomach to regurgitate but acid. He felt it burn his esophagus as it crawled up his throat and he spat, his body wanting to leave the corpse on the ground. His mind, on the other hand, looked at the loose pants and long-sleeved shirt the man wore and told him to steal it. Take it. He won't need them anymore.

He hated being naked.

So he set Itachi down and (eyes closed) pulled the pants off of the man by the legs, stripped the body of the shirt by stretching it and pulling it down instead of up over the (mangled, bloodied) head of the man. In a matter of seconds he was dressed in pants too big and a shirt too wide, but he had clothing and that was all he cared about.

He sent a brief glance to Itachi's naked body and lamented. Briefly.

He took Itachi's arm and he ran, ran, ran.

His stomach hurt not moments later. Flick. Lights out. His consciousness was like a television and he had lost its remote to someone else.

Flick. Lights on.

He was outside somewhere. There were trees and grass and shrubs and – Naruto realized with relief – a river. He was on his back. A coppery tang filled his mouth. He sat up and stared around.

There was blood on his lips.

It was on his lips, his tongue, his teeth, his chin, his chest, like poorly applied cherry red lipstick. A furry white foot lay by his bloodied hand. It was not attached to a body. What he assumed was the body of a rabbit was rather by the riverside, no longer round like it should have been but instead looking like some hungry and desperate carnivore had gnawed at it.

He put two and two together and vomited.

Had he just –?

Did he eat –?

Vroom vroom went his heart and his thoughts and he was crawling up to the river so he could dunk his entire head into it, to wipe away the evidence of what he thought he had done, to gulp the fresh water to eliminate the taste and to save him from dehydration. Perhaps, he vaguely wondered, he did not want his memory to return. What had he been? What kind of person (animal?) was he?

Or rather, what had been done to him?

'Murakami'. Where was his 'Murakami'? He pulled his head from the river with a gasp to fill his lungs and stared around wildly. Itachi was stretched out on the ground beneath the shade of a tree, unmoving and unconscious. Naruto dragged his body further along the banks of the river before he attempted to rouse the man in desperation.

Worry stabbed at his heart; he was unsure of the full extent of damage to Itachi, unsure of how long he had left to live, and now that he had found him, he did not want him to die. He needed company, someone to tell him he was not insane, someone to tell him it was going to be all right. He tenderly laid the man's body by the bank of the river, as close to the water as he could possibly move him, and tried to get into a comfortable position.

Itachi was stirring again. Naruto crossed his legs as close to the calm waters as he could and slowly pulled the shaven head into his lap.

"Damn, you've lost a lot of blood," he whispered and was surprised to find his voice returned. The river had quenched his thirst and – he shivered – he was oddly no longer hungry.

He instinctively reached into the water with one cupped hand to dip it into the river before bringing it back up to rain on the man's face. "At least you're breathing." Itachi stirred again, breathing harshly from his nose. "Hey, hey, don't move too much."

The man's visible eye flickered briefly, attempting to blink, before it rolled to the back of his head.

"No, no, stay with me," Naruto pleaded, quickly splashing more water onto his face. Blood fell in pinkish streaks through the creases made by the swelling. Itachi had been pulled back into the depths of unconsciousness. Naruto sighed a sigh that made his stomach twinge.

They would need food, he thought as he looked around. And clothing. And shelter. He grew angry. It was like he had just been born: naked, confused, and helpless. Like he was starting his life from scratch again.

It began to become insufficient to simply pour the water on his body and so Naruto bit the right sleeve of his (not his) shirt to tear off a part of it. He dipped it into the river and sponged the crusting blood from the bruised porcelain. What better could he have done? He did not know his name, his age, his location. All he had was 'Murakami'. And he was going to make sure he kept the only thing he had.

"You look pretty young."

No longer alone, Naruto had someone to speak to and he had to speak to distract himself from the tragedy in his lap and the tragedy around him. He sat in the noisy forest, surrounded by the flow of the river, the caw of the birds, and the rustle of the leaves, speaking to Itachi as he sponged and stemmed blood from the stranger.

"I bet you've got a family worried sick about you."

Naruto wondered if he had his own family worried sick about him. Were they out looking for him? He imagined his mother, crying for him to return. He imagined his father, gathering up a group of friends and trekking through the forest to search for him. He even imagined a little brother who he probably hated but loved.

His eyes were tearing up again.

The removal of blood seemed to do little to make Itachi look any better. Parts of his skin were lacerated or shredded, others bruised in a vibrant array of colors. Naruto dipped his shirt back into the river and wrung the water from it before placing it onto Itachi's face.

"I'm sorry I can't do much to help," he whispered so he would not think this could have happened to me. Naruto pressed the sodden shirt against Itachi's eyes. Itachi gasped quietly in the noise of the forest.

"Please, please live," he whispered as he wiped the trail of saliva away and prodded the dislocated jaw. "I need . . . I don't know what I need, but I just . . ."

He sat there, even as his legs numbed, Itachi pulled into his lap and the gentle rush of the river soothing him, hoping for the man to pull through so he could figure things out. The sun was still harsh overhead. Naruto decided his best option was to attempt to find some sort of shelter until the man regained consciousness.

He set Itachi down, walked a little here, walked a little there. There was a particularly large tree not too far down the river if the sun became too harsh, but other than that, nothing. No convenient berry tree, no freshwater fish, no more rabbits or signs of wildlife but the birds above.

With nothing, Naruto sat down next to Itachi's body, knelt forward so that his forehead touched the grass, and wanted to cry.

It had been hours and still Itachi did not awaken.

Naruto did not grow worried. As long as he could hear the breathing of the man, he was content. As long as he was far, far away from wherever they had been, he was happy. He busied himself with gathering water in large wax leaves from the freshwater river for drinking; it was not the cleanest water, but it would do. He would return to Itachi's body, hold the man's head in one arm, and help him drink the water with his other.

Still, Itachi did not stir.

Night was drawing nearer and the temperature was beginning to drop. Naruto looked at the man's naked body and lamented. He ended up shedding his own shirt in favor of covering the man, since he already had pants. To make matters worse, Itachi was coming down with a fever, meaning there was definitely an infection to one of his wounds. Naruto did his best to keep his sodden shirt soaked with water and over the man's swollen face in hopes the fever would break.

"Please get better," he pleaded quietly from time to time. "Please, please don't die."

Night had officially painted the sky black. Naruto had attempted to set up a small fire. To his surprise, he could. He could remember the types of stone for flint, could remember dry leaves and not waxy ones, could remember the way his muscles twitched when he wanted clap the stones together to create sparks.

He could not remember his name, but he was thankful he could remember how to keep himself warm.

Still, Itachi did not stir.

Naruto could no longer find anything to busy himself with. He had made makeshift splints for the man's left arm and right leg, had ripped another strip from his sleeves to tie around Itachi's head to support the dislocated jaw, and had nothing left to tend to but his growling stomach. Not wanting a repeat of what he had woken up to, he tried to ignore his stomach as best he could.

Itachi stirred seconds before Naruto was about to fall asleep.

Naruto could hear it in the way he moaned quietly from the back of his throat, could see it in the way his bare fingers twitched. He tried to egg him on, saying, "Hey, come on, you can do it." Itachi's eyelids were flickering. He was definitely conscious.

The only thing coming out of his mouth, however, was a throaty exhale. His left eye, the one with the lesser bruising, opened wider to stare blankly at nothing in particular. He exhaled roughly again as if attempting to say something; Naruto saw blood fleck his lips.

Water, he thought before he stood up to run to the river with a waxy leaf, bringing it back filled with the liquid.

"Here," he whispered as he raised Itachi's head with his arm and began pouring the water down his throat.

Sapphire eyes fixed upon the slow bob of a bruised Adam's apple as Itachi attempted to down the water. Most of it came back up his throat, bubbling in his barely open mouth like a pinkish geyser before spilling over his lips and falling past his chin. He spluttered and choked and Naruto was forced to turn him – gently, gently – on his side so he did not drown in his own saliva.

Itachi was beginning to attempt to speak once more, the hand that was not in a sling reaching for his hip and groping for something that was not there. A weapon, Naruto was sure. He was looking for a weapon. Naruto frowned. Even on the verge of death, this man would fight? Who was he?

"Hey. Don't worry. I'm just trying to help."

The moving hand became more desperate for the imaginary weapon when it did not find it at the waist. Naruto's frown deepened and he placed his own hand upon Itachi's.

"There's nothing there. Just get some rest. I need to talk to you."

The bruised Adam's apple bobbed again in preparation for speech and still nothing came out but the scratch of an exhale. Another bob. And another. Naruto decided he would remind the man.

"It's me," he said. "Ken. Remember? You gave me that name. Your name is Murakami Ryo."

Itachi's head moved ever-so-slightly from where it rested, propped up by leaves. His blank eyes rested on a tree; he had not given any indication that he remembered. Instead, his bound dislocated jaw hung open again, and he was silent for a while.

Minutes later, when there appeared to be no more movement, Naruto realized he had fallen back into unconsciousness.

Naruto stayed like that for several hours, simply sitting and watching over Itachi. When he grew tired, he leaned down to rest his head, a part of him frightened he might wake up again devouring another animal's body.

Itachi woke up several times, each time more sporadic than the next. And each time, he asked one more thing of Naruto, with an increasingly firm voice. It annoyed Naruto somewhat. He was the one who wanted to ask the questions, not the other way around, but he complied. For his sake.

"Where am I?" Itachi whispered faintly the second time he returned to consciousness. The words were slurred. He could not open his mouth properly with his dislocated jaw.

Naruto almost burst into tears. "I want to know that, damn it!" he exclaimed, pounding the grass roughly with a fist. Minutes later, when Itachi was unconscious, he regretted the action. He had not meant to scream so loudly. He hadn't meant to curse, either. Honestly, he was unsure where the outburst had come from.

Some time later – Naruto did not know when, but the sun was beating fiercely in the center of the sky – Itachi attempted to get up, felt the pain flare in his chest, and fell defeated once more. "Did you . . .?" came another faint whisper, another faint slur.

Naruto was unsure if he was asking if he was the one who put him in the near-death state, or if he was the one who helped him heal. So he decided to clarify himself with, "I don't know how, but we escaped that place, wherever it was. And please, I would really appreciate it if you could tell me what you can remember." He tried not to sound too hopeful.

Silence. Itachi was out again.

When Itachi woke up again, Naruto was asleep.

Naruto was awake for Itachi's longest burst into consciousness. The sun was up. The boy was hungry, sore, and shivering. He yearned for any other sign of life and for the truth. Itachi seemed to stay further in consciousness that time and even attempted to sit up again – to yet another futile attempt. He coughed once, twice, his lips suddenly coated in cherry red lipstick.

"Leave," was whispered through a bleeding mouth. All attempts at anger and menace failed.

Naruto grew angry. "You have got to be kidding me!" he almost yelled, pointing an accusing finger at Itachi (and then taking it away, because he could see the numbers that had been tattooed onto his arm that reminded him of the cells). "I just saved you from wherever the hell we were and tried healing you and all you tell me is leave?!"

". . . Why?"

For a second, Naruto thought he was asking why he was angry. Changing his thoughts, he said, "I needed someone to tell me what's going on. I woke up and I don't remember anything so please, please, if you remember something, tell me!"

He growled in frustration when Itachi did not answer because he was no longer conscious.

Night had fallen once more and Naruto prepared another fire. The second the sun lit the sky, he would leave. He would trek as far as he needed to in order to reach any form of civilization, Itachi dragging behind him. For now, however, he would have to survive through the cold of the night without the slightest bit of food, and that was what worried him. It was far too dark to catch fish from the river – if there was any to begin with – and he was not sure how much longer he could survive.

He was still debating whether or not he actually wanted to survive in the first place.

He sat, mood officially dampened by the gurgling acid in his stomach.

"Ken?"

The voice was quiet but the forest was quieter. Naruto's head perked up and recognized the hoarse whisper. He crawled closer to where Itachi was laid out to find the man conscious again, and something inside of him reeled in shock at the fact that Itachi was actually looking for him.

"I'm here."

But Itachi did not speak for several minutes and Naruto wondered if he had simply been looking to see if he had left or not. Probably planning to escape soon. Or contemplating whether or not he could trust Naruto. It appeared to be the latter, because Itachi's blood-crusted mouth soon opened again, barely parted.

"I cannot see."

Naruto turned to him with a glimmer of hope in his sapphire eyes. "So someone blinded you?" he asked softly. He squinted through the darkness as he recalled the scabbed line running across one eye and wondered what had happened to the other. "Your face is pretty swollen."

"I must go."

Once again, he attempted to stand. Once again, he found himself on the floor.

"You'd be thankful to even walk in a week, Murakami. Please. I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to know how I ended up there."

Itachi was already unconscious.

It wasn't until Naruto was falling in and out of sleep did Itachi speak again. Naruto was tired of thinking, tired of knowing he was someone else but not being able to remember. And he was hungry. Very hungry.

"Ken?"

Sigh. "Still here."

Silence. Then, "You cannot remember anything at all?"

Naruto had to lean closer to hear him. His heart jumped to his throat.

"No, God, Murakami, I can't even remember my name or where I'm from . . ." He stopped himself. He could feel another panic attack coming on.

". . . How do I know I can trust you?"

The question startled Naruto somewhat. It was an honest question – no malice, no threats. Naruto frowned. He had never thought about it. He had just expected 'Murakami' to help him. As a favor. He had saved him, hadn't he? He wondered what feeling was suddenly fizzing in his stomach, because he knew what Itachi must have felt in his position.

I'm forced to trust you. How do I know you won't kill me? Stab me in the back? I have no choice; let me know I'm making the right one.

Naruto sighed and sat more comfortably, a little closer to Itachi so he could suck in some body warmth. "I guess you can't know," he said in a simple whisper. "You never know who you can trust." He wanted to curl up again. "But if you want to judge me, I helped you, and I'm still here. You're hurt, you're blind, and you have nothing on you, but I'm just the same. If you're going to judge me, base your judgment off of that."

Although he was conscious, Itachi was silent for the rest of the night.

Naruto woke up with the grumble of his stomach.

He could have cried then and there, really – in a hypothetical sort of way, because he decided he would stop crying. He had not had the urge since he had released the last of what he had presumed were drugs from his body in a stream of piss. He quickly splashed his face with water from the river and peeked around a few shrubs where he had hidden Itachi's body from the sun.

The swelling of Itachi's face had gone down considerably so that it was no longer puffed like a balloon but rather like a puff pastry, more rounded than usual and a collage of colorful bruising, but not as grotesque as it had been the first time Naruto had seen him. Both of his eyes were open more than slight slivers; both, Naruto saw, were bloodshot and unfocused, one more dilated than the other.

"Ken?" came the slurred question.

Naruto's stomach flopped.

"Good morning."

"I must say, I do not trust you."

"I would be surprised if you did."

"But I am in your debt. And I am as confused as you are."

"I thought you said you didn't trust me."

"I have nothing more to lose."

Thud. Naruto's heart fell to his stomach at the words. Nothing more to lose. Who was this man? What life had he led, to have nothing more to lose? No family? No home? Was he just a wanderer, alone with no one to care for him? He wondered if that was all that Itachi did: wander alone.

He put a hand on Itachi's uninjured shoulder. "You don't remember anything?"

Itachi grimaced as best he could. "I was being experimented on," was all he offered, was all he was going to offer for the moment, and Naruto understood he was a man of few words. He inwardly sighed. Extracting information – no matter how desperate he was – was going to be a delicate process with his man.

"Well then," he said instead, "as soon as you can stand, we'll go searching for a village."

Because he really, really wanted to leave.

"Then let us be on our way."

Itachi attempted to sit up for the umpteenth time. He had made it further than Naruto expected him to, but still, he failed. Naruto sighed and inwardly cursed the man. It would take days to move at that rate. His stomach did not have days. He heard a sudden pop and looked to see Itachi testing his jaw with a visible wince; he had skillfully popped it back into place with his least damaged hand.

"You're still pretty weak," said Naruto. "At least wait a few more hours to be sure your ribs have properly set before we even think of moving. I've got to fashion you a crutch; there's no way you can walk on that broken leg."

"Clothing?"

It was only then that Naruto remembered that beneath the shirt that was used as a makeshift blanket wrapped around Itachi's waist was nothing. He did not remember that waiting back in the cells where they had been were their two matching headbands, one scratched and the other pristine.

"Sorry," he said quietly. "We were both naked. I managed to steal some pants and that shirt on you from a dead guy. You could tie it around your waist?"

Itachi did not seem amused. Naruto did not expect him to.

"I'll find an odd job to do at whatever village we reach, and I'll buy some clothes with the money I earn. Fair enough?"

Silence.

Naruto scrunched his nose. He sighed. He sighed again. And again. Turning around for privacy despite knowing Itachi was blind, he removed the pants he was wearing and tossed them to the man on the floor before snatching the shirt up from his body with closed eyes. Itachi lifted what had been tossed at him in confusion.

"Pants?" he questioned. His lips drew into a thin line. "You took this off of your own body."

Naruto's eyes widened slightly. "What?" Could he see?!

"It is warm." Itachi rubbed the material of shirt between his thumb and forefinger. "And I heard you take it off. And you said you only had one outfit from a single man. I cannot wear this."

"It's going to get cold. At least the pants will cover you up more than the shirt."

"I cannot –"

"The shirt is bigger on me than it is on you." It wasn't completely a lie. If he wore the shirt, it was stretched enough so that it barely covered his private parts. All he had to do was not bend down. Or run. Like a boyish dress. He picked up Itachi's undamaged arm and brushed it against where the shirt reached his thigh. "Feel that? So don't worry."

He did not catch what Itachi told him after that. He was far too concerned, too confused, too debating at what he just done. Was this who he was? The Kind Stranger. Did he often play this part? Was it normal? It felt like a very comfortable role.

He turned back to the broken man who was having trouble putting on his new item of clothing. Itachi could not sit up to bring the pants to his feet. Naruto sighed inwardly, knowing that if Itachi did not put on the pants, they would never be able to move to their final destination.

"Here, I'll help," he whispered reluctantly.

"No."

No, Itachi told him. No, I want to keep what's left of my dignity. No, I don't rely on strangers. No, I am not weak.

"Seriously. I have to take the splints off of your leg anyway and put them over the pants, or else they'll never fit you." And it wasn't like he was seeing anything he hadn't seen for hours on end anyway.

He was sure Itachi would have argued if he had not quietly realized Naruto was telling the truth. The had-been blond smiled sadly.

Itachi hissed and Naruto realized he had pulled on a splint that had been stuck to his leg with crusted blood. The wood had pulled at the dark hairs along Itachi's pale leg.

"Sorry."

He released the leg from the splint and carefully slipped the pants over Itachi's injured feet, pulling slowly, slowly, up, up. He closed his eyes, partially to allow Itachi to retain some dignity and partially because he had seen enough. He finally felt the jutting bones of Itachi's hips and stopped, thankful that the pants had been loose and baggy. Naruto began to replace the splints on Itachi's leg.

"I'll try and find you a crutch," he told the older man and did not wait for a response before he left.

Meters from the tent, just by the banks of the river, Naruto's knees gave way and he collapsed to the ground with one large gasp. The weight of being alive but not alive was too much to bear. The thought of being someone but not himself was killing him.

Oh God, oh God, ohGodohGodohGodohGod.

He just wanted the truth.