Jun: "So I get to be in a story that isn't crack?"

Me: "Yup, you, Sasuke, and Itachi star in this one. Edo gets to be in it too, 'cause I like him."

Jun: "Nice. She owns nothing but a possibly disastrous story."

-Dreams-

The dreams were common by now. Almost familiar in fact.

They weren't of his clans massacre any longer, he almost wished they were. He remembers a boy, a little older than himself, with deep black hair and pale skin, typical of an Uchiha. The boy was, different, at the same time. Always a bruise or a wound to mar his otherwise predatorily beauty. The marks were never easily seen, they were always hidden, but they always seemed to make their presence known. It was scary, how something unseen could reflect so much hurt.

His molten silver eyes reflected pain beyond his years, but he always hid it when he was around mother and him.

The dreams were mostly of the boy, whose name he can't ever remember, Itachi and Shisui. In the dreams, phantom memories dance in his subconscious. The boy, talking with him, playing with him. Taking walks. Sasuke asking why his arm was bent funny. At such a young age, he never knew it was impolite to ask.

The boy was a few years older than him, so he spent some time with Itachi. He always thought it odd, when he woke up, that while the boy and Itachi were obviously close friends, why he only ever hung out with him while he, Sasuke had been in the immediate vicinity. If Sasuke left the house, the boy stood abruptly, cast an apologetic look at Itachi, and followed the younger of the brothers.

The boy carried weapons, at all times. He never smiled in public. He was constantly in pain, physically. And seemed to writhe in mental agony. Even as a child he knew that was the wrong way for someone who wasn't even a genin to be.

When the dreams progressed, he was older. Both of them, and Shisui and Itachi. He was at the Academy, the boy was too, shadowing his every step. Those silver eyes, always so comforting grew colder, to all but him. A face that once embodied the essence of mistrust, grew more predatory. He scared people, even at this young age. He never scared Sasuke or the other two Uchiha's, Itachi and Shisui. He was safe, familiar, they knew he would never hurt them, and they were aware that he could.

Sasuke dreamt of the time he was hit by a kunai during practice, he had needed stitches. The boy had helped him to the hospital. But never came to school the next day, or the day after that, or the day after that.

Sasuke wonders in his waking hours, why he never knew where the boy lived, he was a relative, after all.

When the boy did return, a strange thin mark showed persistently from under his collar. Young dream Sasuke didn't know what it was. Waking Sasuke did.

Whip.

He had been beaten, viciously, why?

Sasuke blearily opened his eyes. These dreams were so real. So vivid, he woke in a cold sweat nearly every night. Muscles shaking, legs unable to support his weight, bile rising in his throat. The way this boy was treated was sickening, and while the dreams wouldn't be particularly scary in themselves. The feelings they caused were. In these dreams, he was little Sasuke. Memories of feelings long left behind were reawakened.

He couldn't live with that again.

Having long since returned to the village after completing Tsunade's mission. Or missions…One was to go to Orochimaru and gather information, then destroy him. The next part of the mission was to destroy as many Akatsuki members as possible in his quest to kill Itachi. By doing so, his family in the Leaf Village would be safe.

Sakura with her warm green eyes, and charming laugh.

Naruto's never-ending addiction to ramen.

Neji's standoffish attitude.

Kakashi's disturbing ways….

These were just a few of the things he had learned he could never live without. His family. Because of this, he had taken the mission. Only he, and Tsunade had known. He hated every wound he inflicted, every life he took, every friend he betrayed. But it had all been worth it. He doubted any of the Akatsuki had actually died, no matter the evidence, but they were definitely not threats to his home anymore.

But shortly after his return, after the anger and rejoicing was done, he had started noticing things.

Light bulbs exploding, things being moved from their original place. Voices and apparitions, just beyond sight and hearing.

He had told Tsunade, fearing that his fragile sanity had broken. She worried too. And had prescribed sleeping pills and anti-psychotics. Soon, he had stopped behaving erratically due to the anti-psychotics, but the nightmares persisted.

The voices became more pronounced, he began to see people moving around. He realized one day with a start, they were the massacred members of his clan. Unable to be shepherded to the underworld by Anubis, as is what usually happens. They were left behind. Yet another mystery.

The gory apparitions followed him, and he let them. They were still his family, after all. He could live with the blood, just to have them for a short while.

Later, as the relief passed, he began to think he was crazy once again. And he began to fear these apparitions. They whispered strange things, things that sounded innocent, but scared him.

"Sasuke, you're home. It's nice to see you."

The simple statement by his aunt, Chiyo who had been a baker, terrified him. The voice was the same, she looked the same, if not for the stab wound, but he feared her irrationally.

He would need to figure out why. And he suddenly knew he needed t find out who the boy was, from his dreams. He had not seen him among the ghosts.

So he followed his former steps to the secret Uchiha meeting room, with his deceased uncle Taro, Chiyo's husband.

There were of course files, for every Uchiha. He looked them all over and was about to give up, blaming the dreams on an overactive imagination, when he noticed a false back on the cabinet. He wouldn't have found it, if he hadn't knocked his hand on the back of the cabinet when he was putting the other papers away.

He removed the papers and files once more, and opened the back….more papers.

He removed them as well, and left for training, after placing all of the papers in a bag, so he could bring them with him. Perhaps Kakashi, or Naruto or someone would help him look through all of these.

"Sasuke-teme! What's with the bag?" Those were the first words out of his best-friends mouth when he arrived.

Sasuke didn't answer at first, weighing the pro's and con's of telling Naruto what was really going on. Before he made the decision, Kichi, a cousin of his drifted into the field behind Naruto.

He instinctively knew he couldn't say anything about his investigation in front of the ghost.

Naruto, whilst not the brightest of ninja, was able to tell the difference between Sasuke's look of curiosity, an oddity for Sasuke, but the expression he was wearing when he arrived. Indecision, the look he had worn when the blonde had asked about the bags. And absolute fear, he had never seen that on his friends face before, and for him to wear this new expression, something bad was definitely behind him.

Naruto whipped around, following Sasuke's line of vision, and saw nothing.

'The cub sees the ghost, Kit.' Kyuubi hissed

'Ghost? What?'

And Kyuubi let him see. The man was mid-height and young. With blood showing from the slit in his throat. And he was undeniably an Uchiha.

"Sasuke, lets go to Ichiraku. We can talk there."

Sasuke knew that he had seen. And he could only hope that the spirit wouldn't follow him to a crowded area, lest someone else see.

When the two reached Ichiraku, Sasuke opened the bag and added half of the stack of the new papers to Naruto.

"These are what was in the bag. I need help getting through all of them, I cant do it in the compound, something tells me not to let them see."

He was shaken, understandably so. But shaken, was unusual for him.

"Do you want to stay at my place for a while?" Naruto whispered "Maybe they-"

"They can go anywhere, I need to stay with them, or they come looking, I don't want them near you." Sasuke said softly "I'm scared, Naruto. I'm afraid of my own family, how sick is that?"

"About as sick as the fact that dead, gory people are following you. I can see why you're afraid." Who wouldn't be? Even the mighty Sasuke Uchiha withered before something. "What am I looking for?"

"A boy." Sasuke replied immediately "With silver eyes, he looks hawk-like. Handsome for someone his age, and may have a bruise or other mark somewhere." He finished hurriedly, "I know it sounds crazy, but I need to see if he is real. I'm supposed to know, I just don't know why I'm supposed to know."

And they did find him, an hour later, after learning of a side-branch even an Uchiha heir didn't know of. After learning of the brand they used to mark them as such. And after learning that a side-branch member was assigned to each main-branch, and they paid in physical pain for each time a main-branch member in their care was injured, no matter how menial. Sasuke had gotten slivers, and fallen down and other things as a child.

The boy had had a mark for each time he was hurt.

Skinned knees, slivers, the kunai. He had been a reckless child, the other boy had paid for it. He lived only to serve him. He was not meant to have friends or feelings.

Sasuke's mind flashed to the latest of the dreams, with the little black wolf cub. It followed the boy around after he and Sasuke freed it from a trap. He wondered what ever happened to Amoraq as they had named it. The boy had kept it as a pet, secretly. And the cub had saved Sasuke from hurting himself on more than one occasion. He couldn't imagine it dying, even now.

"Jun Uchiha, Side-branch, assigned –Sasuke Uchiha. Siblings, Chosaku and Shoji Uchiha. Parents- Kita and Hiro Uchiha." Naruto recited "and since your 16 now he would be 18. That's all of the information I can find on hi- The paper is a fold over. One second." As Naruto read the words inside Jun's file his eyes widened.

"Under surveillance, close ties to Torike Hyuuga, heir to main branch of the Hyuuga."

" D'you think Neji or Hinata know anything about this Torike person?" Naruto said with a gasp

"I don't know, Naruto, but I need to get home. Would you keep this file for me? I need to try and get some sleep" And he went home.

Naruto definitely agreed he looked like he needed sleep. He looked exhausted. It was one of the reasons he was being so serious. Sasuke needed help, he would be there for him all the way.

Quarter past one in the morning, Sasuke rolled over again, only to find Chiyo's face next to his.

He yelled, of course.

"You need to come, child. You need to relax your muscles to sleep, a nice bath would be nice, don't you think? Then maybe you can get some sleep."

She said the words sympathetically, and even that didn't stop the shadow of fear.

"It's late, I'm not getting up to take a bath." He growled

"The water is warm, the bath salts smell nice, we don't want you getting sick. Just this once, trust me."

"Hell, no!" The words were out before he could help it.

A shadow crossed her eyes, cold and dead and white eyes, oh how he wished she would just leave him in peace.

"Why are you scared of us? It's your fault we're dead!' She shrieked 'That crazy brother of yours thought we were going to hurt you to get the demon out, we would never have hurt you! Mikoto would never have allowed it. Do you want a death god in you?" She accused "A black corrosive soul eating yours. Do you want Anubis to devour your sanity? He would have killed you! And knowing this you turn your back on a well-meaning aunt? How dare you!"

'I'm a jinchuuriki..he thought through the daze. A god, inside me…Why am I not more powerful…

As if she read his mind she said softly

"The boy, who was supposed to protect you, Jun. Was power-hungry. He was supposed to guard you, but he wanted out. So when the others were dead he took our parts of Anubis and since we all needed to hold the parts until you turned 16, he could take them. Then the greedy little thing fled the scene with his brothers. He left us for dead. He took your birthright and skipped dimensions with a forbidden jutsu."

And then she spoke plainly

"Come, take that bath and relieve some stress."

He was too shocked to argue, he was still scared, a part of him still knew and loved Jun. He would never do that to him without reason. But he let himself be pulled to the bathroom.

"Test the water dear, I won't hurt you like that side-branch, Hyuuga loving traitor. He would hurt you, I never will." Aunt Chiyo crooned

And as he sunk to his knees robotically, something hit him from behind, something held his head underwater. And the ghostly compulsion over him broke, he fought back, hard.

And couldn't get air, the world was going black and red and the dots were everywhere and he knew he was stupid to give in and Jun wasn't the one trying to hurt him and his aunt was drowning him and he couldn't get a grip on her to fight her off and others were helping and he couldn't breathe!

All of his thoughts ran together, as he gave in and tried to breathe. His body jerked once and went limp. And the spirits released him.

Itachi gently cradled his younger brother, glad he had come when he did. He gently coaxed the water from his lungs as he pulled the unmoving body to the door. Carrying the limp form to the hospital.

He would be fine, this time. But they needed to stop this from happening again. Itachi would tell him when he woke. Tsunade had welcomed the faux- Akatsuki members to the village. He could care for him again. But, they needed someone who wasn't present, and he may be the only one with enough power to disperse the spirits.

They needed Jun.

I want you guys to read and review. And thank Yami's Devil for making me go through and completely redo the story.