Summary: Alright, this story is basically that Sasuke and Naruto keep meeting each other in various lives, as they're reincarnated again and again. Thought I'd clean that up to avoid any confusion.

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A black haired man stormed down the street, glancing briefly at the road before walking onto it to cross.

"Yes, I know, but I need those figures on my desk today, I told you th-"

He broke off as he slammed into a blonde man - a magazine street seller - who dropped the pile he was holding onto the floor. Swearing, the blonde man got onto his knees and began to scramble them up.

"Look, I'll call you later." The raven paused, glancing down at the boy and then glancing ahead. He could help, but... he checked the time on his watch. No, he needed to get moving. His phone began to play its ring tone of REM, 'Losing My Religion'.

Answering it, the raven picked up his speed, and darted off.

The blonde looked up, to see the man ignoring him, and just walking off. "Bastard!" he yelled after him, before going back down to gather up the rest of his papers. The world would be better with a few less of them, he thought.

- - - - - - - - - -

The blonde bartender passed the gin and tonic over the bar, before moving to take the next order. Just after getting that, he felt the manager grab at his arm.

"Hey, we need you to take a customer home for us."

"You need me to what?"

The manager pointed across the tavern to a brunette, slumped over a barstool, only remaining upright as he was balanced against a wall.

"But why can't we just call him a cab?"

"He's a respected customer, his father used to own this bar. We have to make sure he gets home safely." The blonde still seemed unsure. "Oh come on, we'll pay you overtime for it. And you're the strongest out of us - you're the only one who'll be able to hold him up."

"Fine," the blonde gave in. "Where does he live?"

"Just down the block, number 9 Elm Street. His wife will be in, so just knock for her. Thanks a bunch," the manager darted back off into the back, and the blonde sighed, approaching the brunette.

"Hey."

The raven looked up at him, bleary-eyed. "You... you is - you are takin' me home?"

"'Fraid so," the blonde replied, slumping the raven's arm over his shoulder, and heading toward the door. They walked down the road in silence at first, until the brunette began to hum 'Losing My Religion', by REM, under his breath.

The blonde slowed slightly, deja vu hitting him by the tune. He shook it out of his head, as they turned another corner, onto Elm Street.

"You're number 9, right?"

"Uh-huh," the drunk replied.

As they passed the other houses on the road, the blonde rebalanced the brunette on his shoulder. "Y'know, I could've been anyone. You had no idea I was actually the man coming to take you home. Next time you should ask people for their name, before letting them cart you off somewhere."

The raven pouted at him. "But you has - you have the prettiest blue eyes. And pretty blue eyes don't lie, not to me... na-ah..."

The blonde smiled, beside himself, and walked up toward the brunette's door, ringing the doorbell. "Aren't you even gonna ask my name now?"

The brunette looked at him again. "I'll ne'er forget those eyes."

With that the door opened, and a flustered pink-haired woman helped the brunette over the threshold, thanking the blonde over and over for his help. As she closed the door, the blonde wondered if he would see the man ever again.

But the brunette never did go back to the bar. And the blonde moved out of the city three months later.

- - - - - - - - - -

The raven briefly looked up from his bed when a man entered his room - with spiky blonde hair and the bluest of blue eyes. He smiled briefly at the raven on the bed, before getting to take out the dead flowers in the corner of the room. They'd been dead for a few days now, but the raven had never bothered to ask for them to be removed. As the blonde threw them down in the bin, he sang near silently under his breath, 'Oh, life is bigger, it's bigger than you, and you are not me...'

Just as the brunette tried to figure out what was so familiar about those words, the door opened again, and in walked his doctor.

"We have a new nurse helping out with us today," the doctor told him, introducing the raven to a blonde man, whose blue eyes were wide and excited and youthful and so healthy looking.

"Aren't nurses meant to be girls?" the raven said, with one eyebrow raised, as the blonde man glowered before him.

"A nurse is actually a unisex job," the blonde man growled at him. "Who stuck a stick up your arse?"

The doctor quickly hissed at him, before leaning in and saying something under hushed breaths. By the way the blonde's face physically whitened, the raven guessed that the doctor was explaining the little amount of time he had left. Cancer does that to a person: it pales them. Nobody knows what to say when they hear that.

"It still doesn't give him a right to be rude," the blonde murmured back, and the brunette smiled. He'd never heard someone talk back after hearing what was wrong with him before. That was a happy development.

"I'm so sorry, sir," the doctor apologised, and he'd apparently meant it - the blonde was taken off his case later that day.

But the raven still didn't forget his words.

- - - - - - - - - -

Two men walked straight past each other in a street without even a second glance at one another, and somewhere in the background a familiar tune began to play.

- - - - - - - - - -

A blonde man flinched at the sound of another explosion - however long he'd been here he still hated that sound - and looked up to see two men carrying another man into the tent. As if they weren't wiped off their feet as it was...

"Quick, we need help," one of the men carrying the wounded soldier said, placing him down onto a desk. "There was an explosion, and a hot bit of debris caught his stomach. It looks real bad."

The man pulled in had raven hair, and dark, pained eyes, and such a familiarity about him the blonde was surprised he didn't know who this man was.

Grabbing at a towel, the blonde dampened it and began to clear the blood out from around the raven's wounded stomach. If he could only find the actual cut, then he may be able to stitch it up. But there was so much blood, and the man looked so pallid.

The brunette hissed, and tried to control his body from shaking involuntarily, but to no prevail.

"Try and keep yourself calm," the blonde told him, dabbing briefly at his forehead. "Think of something familiar. Sing a song - what's your favourite song?"

"Song?" the man replied, trying to think. He'd been taken ontoa war site, when was the last time he'd listened to some good music? He couldn't remember. But one song came clear out in his mind, and he began to whisper the lyrics to himself.

The blonde paused, briefly, as the lyrics hit some branch of his memory, before continuing to clean the raven up. He could see the wound now, and it was far deeper than he'd imagined. It looked as though it cut straight the stomach wall, and was charred all around the outside. There was an explosion, and a hot bit of debris caught his stomach. Of course.

Trying to sort out the wound - although faintly aware that there wasn't much he could really do - the blonde kept catching parts of the lyrics, and finding he knew the next line. He slowly began to join in, and started singing along with the man.

The raven gave a sort of lost smile to that, and the two continued, the raven growing fainter and fainter, and the blonde knowing more and more that he couldn't do anything else. They needed more equipment. They needed more doctors.

The man didn't get to finish his song, but the blonde sang it to the end, not really wanting to leave the brunette's side. He'd seen deaths, in the past few months he'd seen so many deaths, but he'd never got to share the last song of a dying man.

As another wounded soldier was carried into the tent, though, the blonde moved away from the raven, and continued his work.

- - - - - - - - - -

It'd been a week from his divorce, and the raven haired man was still thinking it over.

Divorce was meant to be such a horrid experience, but he and his pink-haired wife's marriage had been so disastrous he really didn't agree with that. They'd been living apart for years, really. They may have shared a bed, but that was about it. And sometimes they didn't even share that.

They didn't have any kids, and very few mutual friends, which made it a clean break. But the raven did feel slightly guilty, for leaving her. Not for her sake: she wanted things the brunette couldn't give her, she wanted happiness that she deserved, and she could at least get that now.

He felt guilty for his family, who'd wanted so desperately for it to work.

As the song on the radio changed, there was a ring at the doorbell, and the raven went to answer it.

"You ordered a pizza?" the blonde delivery man asked, and the raven nodded, handing over his money and taking the food.

"Keep the change."

"Cheers," the blonde replied, with a smile, and the raven wondered how anyone could smile like that.

- - - - - - - - - -

A blonde boy walked proudly into the classroom of Konoha School, where he could finally start learning how to be a ninja. He'd always wanted to do this, and at last he was getting his chance. He'd even turned up early for it, he was going to be prepared. He was going to make an impression. He was going to make them like him.

He saw that there was only one other person in the classroom this early - and the blonde strolled up to him with a toothy grin, holding out his hand.

"My name's Uzumaki Naruto," he announced, proudly. "Who are you?"

The raven gave him a glance up and down, with a half-disgusted expression. "Uchiha Sasuke."

"I'm gonna be the best ninja of all time."

Sasuke looked at him, only half-believing. "You mean the Hokage?"

"Yeah, like that! I want to be the Hokage!"

The brunette rolled his eyes. "Only the best ninjas get to be Hokage, my father told me that. And you're not the best. I bet I'm better than you."

"I'll race you?"

The two began to race toward the monument and back, and both ended up five minutes late for their first class.

My name is Sasuke Uchiha. There are many things I dislike, and not much I do like. And I have an ambition that I have no plan to leave as a dream. The restoration of my clan, and to... kill a certain someone.

My name is Uzumaki Naruto, and I'm not going to lose to any of you!

Why...? Why did you come so far for me?

When I'm with Iruka-sensei, I think if that's what having a father is like... When I'm with you, I think if that's what having a brother is like.

Did you know... This place is called "The Valley of the End." It's the perfect stage. Right... Naruto?

Sasuke, I always knew you were alone. In the beginning I was glad because I thought you were like me - I wanted to talk to you! But you... didn't speak. You always had everyone watching you. You could do everything and we were too different. So I decided that you would become my rival. I didn't want to lose because I was called a loser all the time. Even when we became Team 7, I still thought this way. I always tried to lie but... but the truth is... I always wanted to be like you. I aspired to be like you. Because of that... I was glad that you wanted to fight me.

Naruto, don't... let your dream die

Sasuke won't give into someone like that! He's strong enough as it is, I promise!

No, it wasn't meaningless... You've become my most important person.

I always hated you Sasuke... and yet...

- Maybe not in this life, but how about the next...? -

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A/N: I don't own Losing my Religion by REM, btw. It'd be good if I did, but I only chose it 'cause I thought I should have a link between the scenes, and had just put it on my I-pod. I figured everyone would know it, so it'd be a good choice. Well, thanks and R&R