A few clarifying notes:

This fic is set in Konohagure, as a fictional country in the real world. It is split down the middle between "Old" and "New" Konohagure, two regions with conflicting ideologies and dominated by two warring regimes.

America does exist in this world, but the culture in Konohagure is largely Japanese.

Oh, and a disclaimer: any resemblance to a particular series of uprisings occuring in the Middle East is purely your imagination. :-)

It's damn hot out, so damn hot that even Sasuke is stripped down to his combat pants, his skin splitting in red patches on his back. Even as the Jeep sputters over the mud-baked roads he's standing straight up without flinching, his one arm casually resting on the wheel. Casually, or at least it seems. Everyone knows that he spent years trying to perfect his one-hand technique, the way those American actors drive their Jaguars. The other hand, of course, sits on their girlfriend's thigh for convenient action. Sasuke tells us that we should all learn how to drive in the "American" style, because one day the Republic will finally be purified, and those long-legged, porcelain-skinned girls will flood in by the hundreds. And of course they will all expect us to know how to fondle them while driving like their boyfriends in Los Angeles.

"What is this trash?" Sasuke grumbles at Shikamaru, who is listening to some folk song on the radio, the type with the traditional instruments and warbling vocals that Sasuke hates.

"Song from the 60's," Shikamaru responds simply. "It was popular once."

"Yeah, the dying-cow shit that my grandparents used to listen to. What are you, some wannabe traditionalist?" Sasuke spits out gratingly, and jabs the radio button with his thumb. A pulsing rhythm oozes from the speakers, and he turns the volume dial up until the car trembles violently and the head shawls of passing women billow in our direction.

"Yeahhh. Jus-tin Tim-bura-lakuh," Sasuke purrs with exotic gusto, his head bobbing slowly to the beat and his lips drawn in a catlike smirk.

Kiba and I share a grin; we all know that he's in one of his moods now. "Want these?" I stand up shakily in the moving Jeep and pull out my sunglasses from my shirt pocket. I'm not trying to score any points with him, or anything like that. Everyone just treats Sasuke that way. He's one of those special types, the ones who know how to get people on down on their hands and feet without even speaking a word.

Sasuke sends me a quick smirk and snatches the glasses from my hands. "Fo' sho', comrade Uzumaki," he says easily, and thrusts two fingers to his forehead in a mock salute. He gestures for Shikamaru to reach over and take the wheel temporarily, because he has to use two hands to unfold the temple tips. I smile inwardly because I'm the only one who knows why Sasuke handles those glasses so carefully. When I first brought them back to the barracks Sasuke held them up in awe, claiming that they were made in the exact same style as Armahnee, some famous foreign brand. The indirect compliment on my fashion sense left me feeling so pleased that I conveniently avoided telling him that I swiped the glasses off my last target, a rich baron in Old Konohagure.

But the sunglasses look pretty damn good on Sasuke, and he's starting to sway back and forth to the music, his lips forming soundless words that I know he's committing to memory.

"She-cksy ba-kah!" someone in the back tries to sing along.

"No, you dumbass," Sasuke yells back. "Sss-exy bahk-ah. Timburalakah doesn't sing about shakshuka."

We all laugh. Shakshuka is a spicy fried-egg dish in tomato sauce.

"We're a half kilometer away," Shikamaru announces. I stick my head out from the side of the Jeep and shield my eyes from the scalding sun and billowing dust. The sharply-angled silhouette of Old Konohagure is surfacing from the murky horizon. The jagged outline of the ancient city, Sasuke told us, with its tall pagodas and low-lying temples, would soon be sheared off and replaced with the smooth modern skyline of New Konohagure.

"Those religious bastards only know how to make buildings like porcupines," he scoffed. "How fitting. They're cowards underneath all those needles. We'll shave them bald, shave 'em, shave 'em. Then they'll be as harmless as naked rats."

The motor sputters to a slow death as Sasuke parks the Jeep. The street is eerily silent for a moment in the absence of Timburalakah, and a few women urgently push their children in the opposite direction as they notice our amber uniforms. Sasuke jumps from the side of the car and nods at us to wait.

"Old man," he calls out, his voice soft and dangerously pleasant as he approaches a white-haired priest, sitting stoop-backed in front of a red temple. The sand crunches loudly under Sasuke's boots as he crosses the street.

"Good afternoon." The old man's voice is as flimsy as the paper fan in his hands, but his words are even and calm. "Have you come here to pray?"

"Pray?" Sasuke laughs, his voice still light. "No, but I've come to reserve a seat. There's a funeral approaching, you see."

"My young man, funerals aren't circus shows," the old man says as if he were scolding a disrespectful child, and I can't help but admire his casual brazenness. "Funerals are held to respect the dead. Respect, yes, respect. What a shame. The three pillars seem to wither away with each passing year." The old man sighs mournfully as he fans himself.

We all know what the old man is hinting at. Respect, honor, mercy. The three ancient pillars of Konohagure.

Sasuke leans forward until his nose is nearly aligned with the old man's. I smile triumphantly. We all know that in that one moment, with his breath ghosting hotly over the man's face, his blood-red eyes visible underneath the obscure blackness of his sunglasses, the man's confidence would crumple, just like all the others. "You're pretty gutsy for an invalid," Sasuke says.

We all strain to look, and indeed, one leg casts an unnaturally angular shadow from underneath the priest's robes. We murmur among each other in appreciation: nothing escapes Sasuke's snake eyes.

"May I take a look?" Without waiting for an answer, Sasuke bends down on one knee and folds the priest's robes over his lap. One leg is ashen and knobbed with blue veins, the other brown and glossy in the sunlight. Nestled in between the old man's thighs, the tip of a wrinkled appendage peeks out from under the folded robes. The old man's head hangs low in obvious disgrace.

"Expensive wood," Sasuke notes as he runs his fingers down the artificial limb. "Mahogany, right?"

"I've had it since I was young," the man says in defense, although his voice has lost some of its previous vigor.

"I wonder where that money came from," Sasuke says softly. "Your own pocket? Or maybe from the pockets of the people?" He raps the jointed knee firmly, and the man winces. "Top grade wood, for the priest who can afford to rip off a post from his fancy bedset and stuff it into his hip socket."

Shouts of approval fill the Jeep.

Suddenly the priest down looks at Sasuke with something akin to pity in his eyes. "What is it that has made you so bitter?"

"That's not a question you can ask me, old man." Sasuke's hand sweeps to the Jeep, where we are all sitting. "You take a good look at each and every face present. See them? Good. Now burn them into your memory. So the day Old Konohagure goes up in flames, you'll remember this image on your last dying breath, and then you'll find your answer."

In a frenzy of movement the priest hunches over and grips Sasuke's shoulder with frantic eyes. "My son, I understand, I understand. You are part of a troubled generation. Your ancestors have made terrible mistakes, committed terrible crimes, but we cannot go back in time. We cannot take back our actions. We have hurt you, our children, in so many ways, and naturally you must rebel. It is our divine punishment. But I beg of you, do not continue the crimes that your parents have committed, do not give into the primal urges that your parents have yielded to. Learn, learn, we must all learn."

"Aww, shut your preaching yapper!" Kiba shouts angrily from beside me.

Sasuke holds up a finger behind him to quiet Kiba. "So, you have repented for your sins," he says to the priest.

"The sins of my people, yes," the old man responds.

"Tell me, priest," Sasuke says, getting up, "have you ever masturbated before?"

The priest laughs incredulously at Sasuke's question. "Young man, I have taken an oath of celibacy for life."

"Have you ever thought of a woman sexually?" Sasuke presses. "Have you ever taken a woman to bed? A girl to bed? More than one girl to bed?"

The priest shakes his head, smiling. "No son, no."

"Then why," Sasuke whispers into his ear, and slips his hand under the man's robes, eliciting a pained gasp. "are you hiding five child whores in the basement of your temple?"

"Tha-that's…not…true…" the priest wheezes and grips Sasuke's arm. "Please, let go…hurts…"

The man's leg is twitching uncontrollably next to the prosthetic limb. I see the faint halo of white fuzz trace his calf in the sunlight. We'll shave them bald, shave 'em, shave 'em.

"Sasuke," Shikamaru calls quietly from inside the temple. My head whips to the empty front seat in astonishment. When had he slipped out?

Shikamaru's arms are circled around five figures swaddled in blankets. Curious blinking eyes are nestled in the thick layers, and thin bare legs poke out from underneath.

"You sick fuck!" Kiba spits out as he gapes at the children. He shoots up, quaking so furiously that I can feel the carseat vibrate beneath me. "And you still have the fucking balls to act so holy? Sasuke, rip off his fucking dick! Rip it off!"

"The people have spoken," Sasuke murmurs, smiling into the priest's trembling ear. "Guess it's time for another spare part."

Respect? Honor? Mercy?

A flashback:

"Faster! Can't you drive any fucking faster?" Sasuke's eyes are bleeding twin suns, his teeth glinting like a wildcat's as he stretches his mouth wide to summon a gleeful bellow. The wind sets his hair ablaze, wild locks licking his face like black tendrils of fire. He's perched on the seat as if some compressed spring will uncoil within him and he'll burst from the inside out, taking flight in the form of a raven.

I suddenly remember that Sasuke once said his old man died while tied down to a burning pile of logs.

"Faster! Faster!" His cries are becoming more urgent as a flash of blue cloth surfaces in the brown dust haze.

The screams are getting closer.

Fifteen girls, all dressed in ceremonial robes. Their sandals litter the road, and the Jeep barely hiccups as it rolls above them. I wonder if we can turn around to pick them up afterwards. Metal geta can fetch a nice price.

"Faster! Faster!"

Or maybe not.

"Give me the gun, Kiba! The gun! Hurry up!"

Fifteen pairs of ears are close enough to pick up on Sasuke's frenzied command, and the screams turn into sobs. Their head shawls inflate like balloons in the wind, and from a distance the cloths overlap to form a solid blue patch of sky in the dust storm.

A shot slices through the roar of the engine, crisp and deadly. The patch of sky chips as one headshawl deflates. The second shot rings out, and another shard of blue slumps to the ground.

I know it will only take Sasuke fifteen shots to finish, and my foot is poised on the brake, ready to stop and turn back. I hope no one has seen the geta yet.

The last blue piece is teetering helplessly as she looks back at the sky falling apart around her, and she crumbles to the ground although it's only the fourteenth shot. I'm starting to brake, but Sasuke nudges my foot off the pedal.

"Keep on going!" he yells.

I know what he wants me to do, but I really just want the geta. Please.

"Hurry up! Before the bitch runs away!"

His blood eyes are insistent, commanding, and behind them I see revenge, I see retribution. I see his father engulfed in an inferno, as a ring of priests looked on.

Geta are made of metal, but unfortunately emotions aren't.

I step on the gas pedal and feel myself internally peeling away from my fingers, allowing the Jeep to finish the job. A lone scream swells to soundless heights, a pair of tragic eyes disappears behind a billowing blue curtain. I feel the thump and unmistakable crush of bones underneath the wheels, and it's over.

Behind us, fifteen lumps sprinkle the ground in warped contortions, like baby-blue dolls carelessly thrown about. And above it all, Sasuke is laughing, laughing like a raven swooping over fresh carnage.

The raven took the robin's egg, the raven pecked it until it bled.

"Can you believe the nerve of that – god, I still feel my blood boiling right now…" Kiba rolls over on his side, angrily plucking blades of grass from the ground. "The 'sins of his people,' what a sick joke."

Chouji lets out a hearty laugh from beside the charcoal grill. "Hey, Sasuke, you should have let me cut off his lunchmeat. I would have fried it like lamb kebab and hung it from the temple roof."

Sasuke snorts, his voice muffled by the magazine propped over his face. "Or better yet, stick it in the mouth of Buddha like a cigar."

"Like De Niro," I say, squinting my eyes and jutting my chin out in my closest impression of the actor.

Kiba lets out a bark of laughter. "Sasuke's turned you into an America fanatic," he says, and tosses me a peach from a nearby sack.

"Hey, shut your face. I saw Raging Bull before I met any of you," I snap back, and dig through my pockets for my switchknife. I flick out the blade and begin peeling off the skin silently. It's a half-truth: I really only watched the last few minutes of Raging Bull when it was playing in the local video store.

My pride doesn't let me admit that I started listening to American music and picking up English phrases only after Sasuke introduced them to me. But it isn't fair to single me out, and Kiba knows it. Sasuke just has a way of seeping into everyone around him, whether they realize it or not.

I suddenly realize that I'm being watched. I glance up quickly and meet a pair of red eyes lingering on my face in mild curiosity.

"You're dripping," Sasuke says, nodding to my peach-soaked hands.

"Yeah," I say, feeling slightly childish. I bring my sticky fingers to my lips and begin to lick the juice off. My tongue stops midway when I realize that Sasuke is still watching me with that curious expression. "What-"

"I want a piece," Sasuke abruptly cuts me off. The glint in his red irises is almost challenging, and the first traces of a smirk are beginning to spread across his face. For a moment I wonder if he's still talking about the peach.

"Sure," I say anyway, and slice the fruit down the middle. I take the flesh off the seed and hand it to Sasuke.

"Thanks," Sasuke says as he accepts the slice, but his gaze is directed on my face and not my outstretched fingers. He takes the entire half and tosses his head back, slipping it down his throat in one gulp.

"I want another," he says.

There is something vaguely irritating in Sasuke's actions, something in the curve of his catlike smirk that seems to suggest silent mockery. His voice is pleasantly neutral, but the head propped casually in his upturned palm, like some lounging king, speaks otherwise. "Okay," I say, but the word leaves a bitter residue on my tongue.

"You know, there's a saying about people," Sasuke says as he watches my knife split through the yellow flesh, "that no one ever gives more than a quarter of what they have." His blood eyes shift to the plump slice of fruit in my open palm. "And you've given me three-quarters."

I shrug. "It's a peach," I say mildly.

Sasuke sighs and sits up, brushing the matter away. "Whatever. I'm starving. Eat your peach, Naruto. I want a nice thick slice of meat. Chouji, you almost done?"

We are all orphans. Our parents abandoned us in some way, either by dying, running away, or getting themselves killed. ANBU collected us on their weekly rounds like recyclable scraps, and for the first time, we ate good bread and laced our callused feet into gleaming new boots. In return, the militia mopped up our sweat and blood, squeezed dry the last vestiges of our innocence. After twelve years we've learned to cut off any feelings towards the militia, no devotion, no resentment. For an ANBU soldier, family ties don't exist. But for a band of boys who ate together, trained together, and became men together, we came pretty close.

I remember the first day Sasuke arrived. He was always taller than all of us, and abnormally pale even after living for years in the desert sun. I was fascinated by the color of his skin from the very start. When he moved his skin seemed to stretch taut against his lean frame, and like thin silk you could see the veins and muscles rippling underneath. I had never seen ANBU collect a boy like him, no matter how desperate times got. His body looked like it was coated in a glass shell, so delicate that it would shatter from the sheer sound of gunfire.

But when he walked over with the ANBU supervisor to greet us, something about the boy's flimsy exterior seemed to shed away. Maybe it was the way he walked confidently in front of the supervisor rather than behind him, or the way he crammed his left hand casually into his pants pocket. But then the supervisor said, "This is Sasuke Uchiha," and I realized what it was: his eyes were the color of blood.

"Yo mah 'omies." The exotic words flowed easily from the boy's mouth, and he grinned and pointed two fingers down. We all tried to copy his hand signal as casually as he did, echoing his "yo". I think it was at that very moment when we all knew that Sasuke Uchiha was indeed exceptional.

Or if it wasn't so obvious back then, our next few experiences with Sasuke would have inevitably reinforced it. On his second night in the barracks he had already snuck out and brought back two bloody, beheaded chickens.

"They don't feed us enough meat here," he whispered as he laid them out on the ground. He turned to Chouji. "Hey, fatty. Cook us something nice on the grill outside."

From then on Chouji was designated the team chef.

Within the first month, he succeeded in riling up the silent, passive Shikamaru.

"You little fucker," Shikamaru hissed, his voice trembling with rage. "Give back that pendant."

Sasuke sat cross-legged on top of a cement roller, a gold chain glinting from his extended pointer finger. "Nope."

"If you don't come down with that damn necklace, I. Will. Kill. You."

"Can't have you looking at a picture of your mommy all day, now can we?"

"Does it matter to you? Why would you do something so low?"

"Sasuke," Chouji intervened tentatively, glancing at Shikamaru's seething expression. He too had never seen Shikamaru act genuinely angry in his life. "You really should give it back."

"Little momma's boy here doesn't want to accept the fact that his parents aren't coming back to get him," Sasuke drawled. "Once they run away, they're gone forever."

"I KNOW THAT!" Shikamaru roared, spittle flying out of his mouth, the whites of his eyes clearly visible. "BUT IT'S ALL THAT'S LEFT OF THEM!"

Sasuke didn't respond. He stood up and bounced the pendant in his palm. "Well, this won't do," he sighed. "Batter up!" He wound up his arm in a pitcher stance.

"DON'T-!"

The pendant smashed into the side of the water tank behind us, shattering into a thousand golden raindrops.

A tense month passed by, and our Jeep driving lessons began. We had to pair up, and naturally all the boys clamored fiercely to decide who would drive with Sasuke.

"I want to go with Shikamaru," Sasuke's voice cut through the heated debate.

"I refuse," Shikamaru said immediately.

Sasuke hung his head low in mock disappointment. "Oh well. You know what they say about some people. Once they run away…"

"FINE, I'LL DO IT!" Shikamaru stomped past Sasuke and hopped into the nearest Jeep.

Sasuke turned to wink cheekily at us and leapt into the front passenger seat.

A few weeks later, Shikamaru shocked us all by motioning to designate Sasuke as captain for our first mission. We all voted, and the motion passed. Shikamaru voluntarily became Sasuke's second-in-command.

We all have our own stories about Sasuke Uchiha, most of them not quite as dramatic. But if we were asked to sum it up in a nutshell, we might say this: one day, a strange bird perched on the window of the barracks and said, "Let me in," and so we did.

But ever since the peach incident I've felt some sort of tension around Sasuke. He's always had this habit of layering his words: when he cracks a joke, for example, his voice is always perfectly serious, but once you see the look in his eyes you begin to laugh as if he said the funniest thing you've ever heard. But now, he's starting to do it so often that I think I'm going soft in the head, because I'm hearing double every time I talk to him.

Like this one time:

It's 3 o' clock in the morning, and Sasuke's walking down the bed rows, stripping off our blankets and yelling about headquarter orders, religious extremists, violent uprising, god I'm so fucking tired…

The boys are forming a line in front of the supply closet, passing down bulletproof vests and guns. Sasuke is in front of me, and when the guns reach his hands he pauses, looking at me with that unreadable expression on his face.

"Can I have that big piece of metal in your hands there?" I gesture at the gun. "You know, the thing I'm using to blast holes through people's hearts?"

"Yeah. Make them extra big holes," he responds, and places the cool metal in my hands. But his eyes are hesitant, and I can almost hear him saying in afterthought: be careful.

And this time:

It's after dinner and I'm walking to the washhouse, humming a tune that I heard on the radio in the Jeep earlier. Inside, Sasuke is alone, hunched over the faucet while brushing his teeth. I nod in greeting and join him at an adjacent sink.

"That's a good song," Sasuke comments.

I grin in response. "Yeah, but I wish I knew the lyrics."

Sasuke begins to hum along to pick up the tune. "Whoa-oh, and gravity," he sings, "wants to bring me down." His voice fits the song well, because when it drops low it rumbles pleasantly, like a cat's purr.

"What does it mean?" I ask him curiously.

Sasuke shrugs. "Hell if I know. Do you have any toothpaste? I ran out."

I glance at the thin streak of paste on my toothbrush. "Sorry, that's all I had."

"Whatever, then." Sasuke brings the toothbrush back to his lips.

"No, wait," I say, and grab his arm. I take the toothbrush from his hand and swipe it against the paste on my own bristles. "There you go." I grin and hand it back to him. "Three-quarters of what I have, right?"

I look up at Sasuke, and my grin falters as I realize that his face has gone completely solemn. "Sasuke?"

"You're an idiot," he says. "That's disgusting."

I shoot back a defensive retort, but it doesn't matter. All I know is that whatever he could have said at that moment, he wouldn't have really meant it. Because Sasuke's eyes told me that, for the first time, he was taken completely by surprise.

It's nighttime, and we're in a section of New Konohagure we have never entered before. We know we've crossed the line before we even see the difference, because for the first time, the smell of hot tar, urine, and burning oil fades away. The streets are uncluttered and wide, so wide that they look like gaping tunnels to us. The neat, linear rows of tall buildings are a far cry from the jumbled mosaic of shanty houses in our own district.

The women walking by us whisper of perfume and lofty places, discarding their headshawls and wearing Western-style dresses split all the way up to their thighs. They barely cast us a glance at us as they walk by, hanging on the arms of sleek men oozing money and power. I wipe my palms self-consciously on the jeans I bought from a flea market near the barracks.

But Sasuke isn't intimidated by the unfamiliar environment because he strides confidently in front of us, wearing a new collared shirt and my Armahnee sunglasses. I know that if we weren't standing like a pack of nervous crows behind him, he could have transformed himself into one of those elegant beasts moving around us.

He stops in front of a glassy black building, the faint pulse of music floating from within. Above us is a pink neon sign, featuring a woman's bare thigh emerging from the rim of a top hat. Under the picture, in cursive letters, reads "OPAL."

"What do we do when we get in there?" someone asks anxiously.

"You sit at the bar. Pick up a few women. You might see some American girls if you're lucky. Dance with them a bit, and use some of those lines I taught you. Ch-ill," he says, savoring the last word as if he were drawing the juices of a succulent meat.

Sasuke leads us to the door guarded by a muscled man in a tight black T-shirt, his arms folded imperiously.

"Don't worry. We're of age," Sasuke says smoothly.

"Too bad, brat. Scram," says the man.

Sasuke sighs and shakes his head. "Listen, we've all had a long day. We just came to relax and have some fun. We never have had this trouble getting through before." He rolls his eyes at us for support, and we all pipe up in agreement.

"I'm always on guard," the man retorts. "And we don't need your kind here. Now beat it."

"I don't understand what "your kind" means. We're protectors of the Republic."

The man snorts. "Protectors, you say? You mean the orphan scum that ANBU hires to go around collecting the human trash in the streets? I told you, we don't need your kind here."

I know that Sasuke is seething internally, but he won't show it. "This is bullshit," he says, and motions for us to go in. "This guy can't keep us out."

As Sasuke reaches out to open the door, the guard grabs him by the scruff of his shirt and shoves him to the ground. He stands above Sasuke menacingly, his arms crossed over his chest again. "Leave."

Sasuke's chest is heaving as he props himself up on his elbows, his eyes burning a brilliant, savage red. We all avert our eyes tactfully; no one has ever pushed him down before.

"Let's not start a fight," Shikamaru says softly.

Sasuke spits on the ground, defusing his rising anger. He gets up and mutters, "Let's go."

There is a heavy blanket of gloom in the air as we return the barracks. We all glance at Sasuke anxiously as he walks to his bunk. For a few quiet, tense seconds he stops in the full-length mirror, and I can see the reflection of his eyes, bright and searching. Then in one fluid motion, he rips off his shirt viciously and flops onto bed, his back facing us.

Kiba nudges me. "Go cheer him up. You're good at that," he whispers.

"Me?" I stare at him in confusion. "Why do you think so?"

"You can talk about your American movies with him. De Niro, or whatever. Get his mind off…that."

Kiba pushes me insistently towards Sasuke. I look back helplessly, but he waves me forward, and the rest of the group disperses casually. I sigh in defeat, and cautiously approach the brooding man.

"Don't say anything," Sasuke's voice is muffled. "I don't want to hear it."

"I wasn't going to," I respond immediately. "I don't really have anything to say to you."

Sasuke lifts his head from the pillow and looks at me. "Then what are you doing here?"

I shrug. "Moral support."

Sasuke's head flops down again. "Whatever."

I can't help it; I begin to snicker.

"What is so goddamn funny?" Sasuke peers at me, a scandalized expression on his face.

"No, it's just that…I've never seen you mope before," I say, sniggering.

"I'm not moping. You think I'm moping?" He sits up, his back rigid. "Like some teenage girl?"

"Ok, ok, you're not moping," I relent, and struggle to compose my face. An involuntary snort breaks through only seconds later, and I double over, laughing.

A glint begins to form in Sasuke's eyes. "You little…" he hooks his elbow around my neck and pushes me face-down onto the bed. I grunt in protest, flailing wildly as he smothers me into his pillow.

Now Sasuke is laughing too. As his grip relaxes, I retaliate by yanking the pillow from his hands and pressing it down against his face.

"Mff! Mmmmf!" His muffled voice rises an octave as he gasps for breath, and I can't help but laugh at his panicked shrieks.

"You sure you're not a girl?" I taunt.

His hands suddenly grab at my torso, and my screech jumps two octaves higher than his.

"Other way around," he retorts with a smirk, tossing away the pillow from his head. His face is flushed from lack of oxygen, lips bruised a dark cherry red. I can't help but stare for a moment. "What?" Sasuke asks instinctively, peering at my sobering expression.

"You're really pale," I breathe.

His eyes deepen several shades at the husky tone of my voice. "So I am," he murmurs.

"Really pale." My hand travels upwards, experimentally brushing against the skin of his inner arm.

A sharp intake of breath startles me, and I'm suddenly painfully aware of Sasuke's calves lining up with my own, the warmth of his naked chest brushing against mine as it rises and falls rhythmically. And worst of all, Sasuke's eyes are pinned onto me again, that eerily blank expression on his face.

"Hey, Naruto!" Kiba is calling me from across the room. "When I said cheer him up, I didn't mean in that way!"

"Shut your face!" I yell back, and I feel Sasuke chuckle underneath me, the sound rumbling against my chest. "What?"

"I might be pale," he says, smirking, "but right now you're tomato-red."

I shove the pillow back into his face.

The week after, ANBU gives us a two-day vacation, in celebration of the Hokage's toppling of the Akatsuki monarchy, the Republic's 18th birthday. We spend the entire day playing poker, pooling our money and smoking imported cigars at a nearby parlor. At mid-afternoon, a boy in an ANBU trainee uniform bursts into the poker room breathlessly.

"What's wrong, Konohamaru?" Sasuke asks, placing his cards onto the table as the boy leans forward to catch his breath.

"They…parents…looking…Shikamaru…" Konohamaru wheezes.

Sasuke's head snaps to Shikamaru, whose face has gone ashen-white. "Now wait a minute," he says, grabbing Shikamaru's arm. "Get a hold of yourself. We don't know what this means."

"I'll find out for myself." Shikamaru pries his arm from Sasuke's grip and bolts out the door, running toward the ANBU barracks.

"Let's go!" I call, and we all scramble to follow him.

Shikamaru's mother and father are sitting on the bench outside the barracks, next to a patrol officer. Shikamaru abruptly stops in his tracks as he sees them, his arms going rigid against his sides. The sun casts his black doppelganger on the ground, stretched thin like a pole precariously tipped to the side.

"Shikamaru," his mother calls out despairingly, but she stops herself before reaching out. The distance between them is reinforced by several layers of glass wall, and she cannot breach them. She's waiting for a signal from her son, a sign of his forgiveness.

Shikamaru's body is quivering, his stance wide like a child's. "Ma," he responds, but his voice cracks. The glass walls burst in a spectacular cascade of glittering raindrops. The couple grabs him and touches his face, his arms, his shoulders, and kisses his forehead, his lips, his neck.

Silent tears run down Shikamaru's face.

"You can't go with them!" Sasuke's voice is boiling over with barely suppressed rage as he hovers over Shikamaru, who is folding his clothes into a large pack. "They abandoned you, and now they come crying back to you. And you're just going to run back into their arms, like a little boy?"

"I'm going," Shikamaru says. He zips up his bag and heaves a strap onto his shoulder.

"No you damn well are NOT going!" Sasuke shoves the bag off Shikamaru's back, his red eyes blazing.

The two stare at each other for a good minute, Sasuke scowling, Shikamaru impeccably calm.

"You're just bitter," Shikamaru says quietly, breaking the silence.

"I'm what?" Sasuke looks at him in disbelief.

"You're bitter because I proved you wrong, Sasuke." Shikamaru's eyes are firm and resolute. "My parents ran away, but they came back."

He hefts the pack onto his shoulder again and leaves Sasuke fuming but silent.

"I'm telling you, something's off here!" Sasuke says for the fifteenth time as he paces around the field. "He's been gone for a week, no phone call, no letter."

"I wouldn't be surprised, considering the way you guys left each other," Kiba drawls, bouncing a baseball in his hands. He draws back his arm, aiming the ball at Sasuke. "Batter up!"

Sasuke catches the ball with an experienced flick of his wrist, but he's scowling at Kiba. "Friends are friends, no matter what."

Kiba shrugs, scratching his stomach lazily. "Leave him be, Sasuke. Family is where he belongs. Just because we've missed out on our parents all these years, doesn't mean we can keep him from living with his own."

Sasuke's lips are pulled down in frustration. "Still," he grumbles. "Who was his family for twelve goddamn years? It sure as hell wasn't them. Those fuckers couldn't even keep him for eight."

I grab a nearby bat and gesture for Sasuke to pitch me the ball. "Even so," I say, digging my heels into the sand, "we aren't his real brothers. I'll tell you right now, blood binds people better than anything. Doesn't matter whether people want to be tied down to their family or not." I swing the bat experimentally. "It's something they call 'duty.' I'll bet you a million ryo that he didn't want to leave ANBU, didn't want to leave us."

"There's something shady about this," Sasuke says, shaking his head. "I can't figure out what it is though." He winds his arm up and launches the ball.

Crack.

"I don't think you understand. It's been a month, and Shikamaru hasn't contacted us once." We all fidget in the leather seats of the ANBU office except for Sasuke, who is leaning forward in rapt attention.

The supervisor sighs, propping his fingers on his rotund stomach. "Shikamaru is well. His parents called in last week."

"But did you hear Shikamaru's voice? Did he say so himself?" Sasuke presses urgently. "How can we be so certain that they brought him home with good intentions? Isn't it strange, that after twelve years they suddenly come back-"

"It sounds like you've been overthinking this, Sasuke," the supervisor interrupts. He stands up dismissively. "Family is family, and you all have lived long enough without one to forget the complexities of blood relations." He points to the door. "Now, out."

"But, sir, if we can just find their address…" Sasuke's voice is insistently pleading.

"I said, OUT!"

Slam.

Two weeks later, they found Shikamaru's body.

He was tucked behind the pipes of a boiler room, near an Akatsuki facility. The newspapers ran his autopsy results in grisly detail: rope burns on his wrists, most likely from being tied to the ceiling. Ruptured blood vessels in the head and linear dents in the skull, most likely from being hit repeatedly with poles or bats. Burn marks on his arms, his chest, his genitals. The handiwork of cold-blooded murderers, those Akatsuki zealots. Down with religion! Down with Old Konohagure!

"Nara's parents were Akatsuki followers, eventually finding themselves trapped in severe debt to a head priest, whose identity is presently being concealed by Akatsuki intelligence forces," Kiba reads quietly to us. "This unnamed priest promised to write off their debt in exchange for key information from Konoha headquarters. They learned that their son was serving in the 7th division of the ANBU squad, and they met for a brief reunion after twelve years of separation. And without honor, without mercy, they lured him into the dark torture chambers of an Akatsuki facility for the sake of their own security. Another show of inhuman cruelty by Akatsuki militants. Down with- goddamn it!" Kiba shoves the paper onto his bed and buries his face into his hands.

I peer at Sasuke, who is sitting on his bed, his back toward from us. Gently I walk over and touch his shoulder. "You okay?"

"There were burn marks, weren't there?"

I hang my head. "Yes, there were."

"And he was tied…to something?"

I suddenly remember the story Sasuke once told us. My old man died a long time ago, in an Akatsuki temple. They set fire to a pile of wood, and tied him to it. And they stood and watched him die, thumbing through their prayer beads. Praying to the Gods to save his soul.

Rope marks around the wrist. Burns on his chest.

"God, Sasuke." I wrap my arms around his shoulders tightly. "I'm sorry."

"No, not God." Sasuke begins to laugh, but the sound is cold and metallic. "Not God, never again."

The next morning, insistent hands roughly shake me awake. "Get up, Naruto! Get up!"

My eyes groggily peel open. "What is it?" I grumble. My heart quickens when I realize that Sasuke is standing above me. "Sasuke, why are you wet?"

"The pipes, the pipes." His eyes are brimming with an exuberant fire, and he's laughing happily. "They're broken. There's water everywhere!" He bolts down the row of beds and shrieks with laughter, flinging the sheets off the boys' sleeping forms. "Get up! Round up all the neighborhood brats! There's finally water in this dead city!"

The upper district of New Konohagure has become a pulsating pit of brown skin and vibrant shawls. Jets of water gush from the dented pipes that are bolted to the corners of the buildings, curving in the air in sparkling arcs. Kids throw their water-logged shirts skyward, tilting their faces up to catch the streams of water in their mouths. Women in headshawls bump against each other, stretching out large buckets as if holding out offerings to the gods. Throughout the streets, the water trickles with a thin film of human dirt and oil. There is not a well-groomed man or woman in sight.

"Come on!" Sasuke shouts, and pulls me into a blinding stream of water. We lose ourselves in the human sea, drowning in the flailing limbs and the deafening voices. Faces bob up by the hundreds, surfacing for a moment and disappearing. I feel my senses rise to the boiling point, and the faces, the sounds, they're too much. The world around me goes mute, and I can't hear my voice, I can't hear anything...

Then Sasuke shoves me down, and the sounds explode into motion again.

Sasuke's legs are caged above my torso, and I'm laughing hysterically as he scoops the murky water from the ground and pours it down my chest. Someone's foot bumps against my cheek, but Sasuke slaps it away.

We begin to wrestle, our bodies flashing in a tangle of legs, haphazard scratching, soundless howls. I feel Sasuke's hands grab the hem of my shirt, and I hear the faint sound of ripping cloth.

"Fuck you!" I yell, but he can't hear me. So I grab the collar of his shirt and, with a mighty yank, tear it down the middle.

Sasuke swings his leg over mine and rolls my half-torn shirt down my belly. I grapple at the ragged edges of his shirt and rip it further down. His slippery hands brush against the front of my pants, and I gasp involuntarily. I don't realize that the action is intentional until he repeats it, skimming his fingers against my groin with the lightest of touches.

I slap away his hand and clamber on top of him. My hand wriggles down to the juncture where my groin meets his, and I press my palm firmly against his bulge. My determined eyes meet his surprised ones. And then his lips break into that blinding smile, and I know that it's worth it, it's all worth it. He says something that I can't hear, but I can read his lips: "Well, well."

His hands shoot out and he pushes my head down onto his chest.

In the middle of a pulsing mass of people, slippery bodies sliding against each other, two men are groaning, touching, writhing.

Sasuke's head is descending onto mine and he sinks his teeth into my lips. I know he wants to kiss them. I jerk my head pointedly in the direction of a building, and Sasuke nods in agreement. He shoves his way through the crowd, his hand tightly clasped to my arm.

"Isn't this…" I point to the pink neon sign above me.

Sasuke nods. "Opal."

Realization dawns on me, and I draw in a sharp intake of breath. "Was it you who broke the pipes?"

Sasuke smirks. "You caught me," he says.

"You little fucker!" I burst out laughing. "The city's gonna run out of water for a month!"

"Nothing major, make them sweat a little," Sasuke says offhandedly. "Let's go in."

I realize how important it is for him, to walk up to those glass doors and pull them wide open. "Then go," I say, and gently nudge him forward.

The door won't budge, but Sasuke easily slams his boot through the glass and reaches in, unlocking it from the inside. He leads me into an unlit, high-ceilinged room, and I shiver. "It's fucking cold," I say, rubbing the gooseflesh on my arms.

Sasuke is pressed behind me like a burning wall, his strong arms trapping my chest. "Let's get warm, then," he breathes into my ear.

I feel heat seep into my groin at the tickle of his rumbling voice in the shell of my ear. I exhale weakly. "Where did you pick up those corny lines?" I try to joke, but my throat is dry and the words tumble out like a girlish whine.

He chuckles and responds by burying his soft hair against my back, pressing a kiss against the ridge of my shoulder blade. He knows I'm trying to fill the tension, but I know I'm doing a bad job of it. So I shut up.

His hands unfurl against my chest and begin to sweep, slow and steady, against my front. They feel like red-hot coils of metal against my naked skin, branding me with the unholy essence that is Sasuke, Sasuke the sun god.

His hands descend to my pants, again, and I hear the pop of a button, the sound of a zipper being pulled down. I feel a lump in my throat, and I swallow nervously.

"You're hard," Sasuke comments absentmindedly as his hands begin to squeeze and rub me through my underwear.

I feel my cheeks burning, and I can't help but think: this is Sasuke, the boy I've known for twelve years, touching me and breathing those hot words over my shoulder. I should feel mortified, humiliated even, but my growing arousal is telling me otherwise.

"What are you thinking about?" Sasuke murmurs, slipping his hands under my dampening underwear and tugging at my hardness for attention.

A groan escapes my lips at the feel of his heated hands wrapping around me, and I reach behind me and clutch his shoulder. "N-nothing. Just that I've known you for so long. This should be weird, shouldn't it?"

"Should it?" He throws the question back at me.

"You know, if they find out…" my voice trails off, but the implication is clear.

"Fuck them," Sasuke says harshly, and he's starting to stroke me, rough and fast. "I don't give a damn anymore."

"But…" My thoughts are becoming less and less coherent as I'm starting to lose myself in the dizzying waves of pleasure. "Wh-what about…those American girls…"

Sasuke's hand stills for a moment, and he fists my hair and yanks my head back. His face is swimming in the top corner of my eyes, and his eyes are scowling red fire. "I'm sticking with my brothers from now on. Got a problem with that?"

No, no, no, I say. Please hurry up and touch me some more.

Sasuke finds a leather sofa in a corner near the bar and spreads me out on it. He finds a canister of syrup behind the counter and dumps it over my chest, spreading the slippery fluid over my belly, my thighs, my leaking cock. Then he bends down to lick me up, everywhere, lower, oh lower, oh god, yes, there…

He flips me over and his finger slips down the valley of my buttocks, yes that feels good…wait no it doesn't stop stop stop pull out don't go any deeper…

I hear the click of a belt buckle behind me, and the rustle of pants being pulled down. My knees are being drawn to my chest and my ass is tilted in the air. What are you doing Sasuke? Are you putting that in…ahh-no! Wait!

It'll feel good, he says. You'll scream so hard that you'll forget everything, everything.

My legs and arms are glued to the leather couch, and I wonder if you poured the sticky syrup all over my body to bind me down, keep me from escaping. My head feels like it's going to explode from the pressure, my hole feels like it's going to rip all the way up to my spine, and I think I hate you right now…

How does it feel? you ask.

Like I'm taking the worst dump of my life, I spit back.

You laugh and push in harder. I'm selfish, you say. Just like everyone else. Just like Shikamaru. Just like his parents.

You start pounding into me hard and fast, and suppressed mewls escape my lips. Fuck yes, you groan. Yes, you're so tight, so delicious…

I turn my head to look at you, and the expression on your face makes my heart want to split down its seams. If it makes you feel better, I say. If I can do anything.

Liquid heat shoots into my bowels, and you collapse over me, heaving.

"I told you, I told you," Sasuke is sobbing, his arms wrapped around my waist. "They gave up a quarter of what they had, Shikamaru's parents. People are selfish. So damn selfish."

A quarter of themselves. A quarter of the mother, a quarter of the father, to make up a half of the family, the beloved child. They gave up Shikamaru.

"Sasuke…" I reach out to pull him forward, but a sound flickers in the distance.

"You saw him come in here?" Voices begin to float in from the front door.

"Yeah, his red eyes were unmistakable. He was with a blonde kid."

My eyes snap to Sasuke's in fear. "They found out," I whispered.

Sasuke's lips curl upwards. "Took them long enough," he says.

"Let me put on my clothes," I say, and prop myself up.

"No." Sasuke's hand firmly pushes my chest down.

"They're going to find us," I hiss, my eyes widening in panic.

"You mean, they're going to find me," Sasuke says.

Fear trickles into my body in an icy stream, and I stare at him in horror. "You mean, you're going to…"

Sasuke smirks, pressing his large hand over my mouth and bending a knee to my chest. There is a solid warmth pressing against my hole, but I dig my fingernails into his shoulders until I feel warm liquid ooze down my fingers. He doesn't stop. In one fluid thrust, he enters me, and I can't hold my scream back.

"Did you hear that?" The voices are louder, they're coming nearer. "There was someone back there! Did you hear it?"

"No," I breathe against Sasuke's palm, and I'm telling him with my eyes, don't do it, don't do it. But he only smiles and says, "I love you," as if it is the most simple fact in the world.

I know it's true. I know he loves me, and he loves Kiba, he loves Chouji, he loved Shikamaru. Maybe not in equal parts and in equal ways, but it's love all the same.

A stream of brilliant white light suddenly floods Sasuke's face, and for a moment all I can see are the intense rubies of his eyes.

"What the hell is going on here?"

They see Sasuke now, his hand muffling my mouth, his cock dripping inside of me. The light is getting brighter, so bright that even Sasuke's eyes are fast disappearing.

And then the light is gone, and the warmth is gone, and they're dragging him away.

"SASUKE!"

He told them that he raped me, and that anything I said in defense of him was out of my loyalty to him as captain. In a single statement, he succeeded in climbing into his own cage, locking it, and swallowing the key. I couldn't help him.

"Sure they were angry. But all they wanted to do was to give him a slap on the wrist and send him on his way when they found out he broke the pipes. But then…they found him…with Naruto…"

"God, how could he?"

The next time I saw Sasuke, he was kneeling in a sand pit, surrounded by hundreds of solemn spectators. His hands were bound behind his back by thick cords of rope. The wind blew softly into the arena, rustling his black ceremonial robes and exposing the milky flesh of his arms. Against the darkness of the cloth, his skin almost looked grotesque in purity.

"In the name of God, the Merciful, the ever Merciful…"

Mercy? Honor? Respect?

"…I sentence you, Sasuke Uchiha, on charges of sodomy, rape…"

He loves me.

"…to death by stones. In the name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful, what are your last words?"

I can't see his face under the black bag, but his voice still rings out calmly. "For the country I love."

His words confused me that day, but I understand now: He has a habit of layering his words. I now know what his face looked like underneath that black curtain. His red eyes must have been glinting with laughter, his lips must have been turned up in that cat-like smirk, as if to say: Fooled you, bastards.

Thunk. The first stone hits Sasuke in the chest, and he careens over. Thunk. The second hits him in the head, and he slumps to the ground. Thunk. Thunk.

I realize my heart is beating to the dull cadence of the rocks falling upon Sasuke, slow and steady. A wind filters into the arena and rustles the black hairs on the back of Sasuke's exposed neck. For a moment I see the last vestiges of the black inferno that once lit his head ablaze, that day he chased the blue piece of sky in the dust storm. He stood on those seats as if he waited for the wind to take him high, to slice through his arms so he could bleed feathers and fly, in the form of a raven.

They broke his wings with stones. But right now, he's curling up into the robin-egg sky, waiting to be reborn.

oooooooo

Final comments:

Wheww. Okay, this is the smoothing-out time. I know I'm going to get a lot of flak for killing off Sasuke at the end. Character death is painful, but I believe it served the right purpose.

I think a major point I wanted to hit on in this fic was human hypocrisy. Religion runs deep in any culture, and as you may know, corruption is its unfortunate sister. The Akatsuki were portrayed as religious extremists, perhaps most closely related in ideology to Buddhist monks, and tactically most closely associated with the Taliban. Sasuke mentions in the beginning that he wants to "purify" the Republic (Konoha), meaning he wants to get rid of any traces of the religion that had killed his father. And yet, despite his ardent nationalism, he worships American culture and wants to shape his country in an exact imitation of it.

You may remember another more obvious instance of this conflict, when the club bouncer refuses to let Sasuke through even though he is a "protector" of the Republic. With this incident, Sasuke's overbearing confidence in his "New Konohagure" is beginning to wane. The proverbial straw that breaks the camel's back, however, is when the ANBU supervisor, his closest link to the new Republic, refuses to help him find his teammate. Then it starts to become clear as to why he chooses to retaliate against the government and not the Akatsuki for Shikamaru's death by vandalizing a part of the Westernizing city.

Ok, ok. I'm not going to make you read a full-blown lit analysis. I hope I could clarify some things, though. I'm eager to see some commentary of your own!