tricky

AU. The two of them would never have found him, if not for the miracle of coincidences and lazy maids. Now, they just have to figure out how to use him to find the real target. - slight PUSH crossover.

Notes and explanation at the end.

chapter one.

"I still can't believe that you hired me to sniff out a Shadow," Karin muttered to Sasuke, ignoring the fact that he seemed more interested in his way-too-damn-expensive cup of coffee than what she had to say. That was how things usually went between the two of them, and although she'd gotten used to it, she wouldn't claim that she wasn't harboring secret hopes it might someday change, all on its own. After all, Sasuke was a big pile of sexy young man, and she was a smaller pile of viciously-attracted young woman, and it was about damn time that he decided to become her bitch. "You, of all people, should know that I can't do that."

Sasuke didn't answer for a moment, instead flicking his eyes around the dingy little café they were seated in. He'd picked it out, when she'd suggested that they find some damn food already, and it held two of the things Sasuke seemed to love most in a building: poor lighting and shady-looking clientele. She wasn't sure, exactly, why it was that he loved the shadier side of life so much - he certainly hadn't grown up that way, as far as she knew - but it was always the same deal: Sasuke wasn't a fine-dining type of boy, and she somehow doubted that he saw anything wrong with the little café, aside from the fact that it was filled with potential Threats.

As far as Karin was concerned, nobody there gave a damn about their conversation. Her traveling companion, rather predictably, would never believe that the people around them were innocent of wanting to stab them both in the backs. Sasuke, however, was relatively at home in places like this - which really wasn't saying much, because the boy had a constant aura of paranoia flickering around him - and therefore finished his check for eavesdroppers rather quickly. If they'd been somewhere nice, he might've kept her waiting for hours. "Keep your voice down. And you may not be able to find him, but I've already told you, Karin: there are people he's never without - "

"And what, you don't think he's shading them too? He knows you're looking for him, doesn't he?" Karin took in this particular brand of broody silence - Sasuke's eyes trained on her, his lip pulled back into just a bit of a sneer, and a feeling in the air that definitely said "hey, world, Karin's right again" - and ascertained that she'd won this five-minute-round of Reasonable Plotting. Her own lips twisting up into a smirk that was hopefully both smug and sexy as all get out, she snagged his cup out from under him and took a long drink of the coffee, before promptly spitting it back into the mug and wiping her fingers on her shorts, not entirely bothered by the fact that they would probably stain.

He drank his coffee black, of all things, and nobody had bothered to wash that mug properly since it had rolled off the factory lines. Twin disgust.

Since he didn't appear to be about to offer anything more enlightening, Karin slouched back in the vinyl booth and glanced around the café as well, although she did it more out of a need for inspiration than a paranoid feeling that some Enemy Of Sasuke was listening in on their only-slightly-suspicious conversation. They'd had stranger, more incriminating conversations before, of course, and they still hadn't been picked up by the bad guys or the government.

Karin wanted to knock on wood, but she was pretty sure there wasn't anything organic in a twenty-mile radius, so she settled for tapping her fingers against the pink tabletop. Making do, and all that. Also, Sasuke would probably have given her that "you're-an-idiot" look, and she was getting tired of the freaking onslaught of those recently.

She'd known Sasuke since she was a kid; of course, back then, he had been That Pretty Boy Next Door and she had been the geek with glasses who didn't quite manage to hold up the most important geek archetype: being half as intelligent as That Pretty Boy Next Door, as her parents periodically reminded her. The two children never been particularly close, aside from occasionally getting pushed together at street parties and the like, and after Sasuke's brother had gone freaking nuts and murdered their father, mother, and an unlucky cousin who'd been spending the summer with the Uchihas, Sasuke had been whisked off to…somewhere. She wasn't quite sure where. An orphanage, probably, or a foster home, or distant relatives who hadn't been hacked into bits.

Well, that had been all fine and good, in a loose sense of the term, and Karin had grown up to find out that she was a Sniffer - a human tracking machine, capable of finding almost anybodyonce she'd gotten her hands on an object they'd spent at least a few minutes holding. She'd apparently inherited the ability from her father, who wasn't entirely pleased to find out that his daughter was a psychic, just like him. Something about occupational hazards; she hadn't paid much attention to his rantings.

Eventually, after a bit of thinking and the realization that, as a recent high school graduate, she was fucking invincible, she'd left home and started offering to find lost pets and runaway kids in a city halfway across the country from her hometown, for a price.

Not that she was ever stupid enough to let anybody know what she was; oh, no. Karin had known straight off the bat that psychic abilities were like a beacon to the less savory of the government officials: hey, look at me! I have supernatural powers! Why don't you come investigate how that happened, what's wrong with me, whether I might be the world's best new military tool?Yeah…no. Nobody was that stupid.

She'd been telling them all that she just had a way with animals, a way with kids - whatever the client of the week would believe, really. Some of her excuses had gotten wildly inventive; some of her payments had been wildly over-the-top.

And then, of course, it hadn't been long before some guy had dialed the number she'd left in fifty round-the-city periodicals, asking straight-up if she could sniff out a particular person for him. Although the use of "sniff" was, admittedly, more common among nonpsychics than one would've thought, Karin had agreed to meet the guy under the assumption that he was in on the world of psychic powers, just like she was - and lo and behold, she'd stepped into a Chinese Laundromat only to come face-to-face with Sasuke Uchiha, looking even prettier than ever before.

Of course she'd recognized him - hero-worship as a child had made her that she remembered him, and although his face had thinned out and he'd shot up like a dandelion, it was obvious that he was still very much the little boy who'd been carted away from a family crime scene.

He was after his brother, he said, who'd managed to evade the police for years. It turned out that Itachi had ended up joining a criminal gang of very powerful psychics, which lent him even more protection and immunity (and, Karin filled in on her own, affluence) than his own power alone.

Several more chats, absolutely no payment, and three months later, she found herself here, faced with a broody Sasuke who was probably rather upset about her defiling his coffee, on top of everything else. He was one of those people who dwelled on things, and she was starting to think that she was going to end up paying for that coffee, in one way or another, later that week.

"Sasuke, you know I'd find him, free of charge, if I could - but he's a Shadow, and we both know what that means: nothing. I could touch a lock of his hair, and I'll still be drawing a complete blank. I'm sorry, but I can't find him. Not to mention, you already said he's paranoid," just like you, babe, "which probably means that he constantly shades the people around him. What you need is a Watcher, Sasuke. I'm sorry I can't help you find him, at least not directly."

Karin finished her speech by looking back at him and folding her gloved hands on the table, waiting to see what would happen. Of course, she'd stay with him if possible - she could sniff out a Watcher for the guy, after all - but if he didn't want her here, well…

Sasuke was a Shadow too, after all - the trait was passed down through his family, apparently, just like Karin's own ability, which probably explained why her father had never mentioned any other psychics living in their neighborhood - and if he left when she was sleeping, or when her back was turned, she'd never be able to find him again. As much as she wanted to believe he wouldn't do that to her - after all, these three months had been close and friendly, in her eyes, and she'd been so good to him - Karin was no fool.

However, Sasuke met her eyes, and began to nod slowly - a plan, then? Sasuke was a prodigy, a genius, if you would, and it had been foolish of her to believe that he'd give up after just one failed idea! This was his family's murderer they were talking about, after all, and it was high time that the two of them brought Itachi Uchiha to justice. Together. "You can't find him directly. Of course. And he shades the people closest to him, there's no doubt about that. There has to be someone he doesn't bother to shade; someone he doesn't care about…someone else who could lead us right to the bastard."

He finished with one of Karin's favorite vicious grins on his face - one of the ones that he did his absolute best to show rarely, because emotion seemed to be a taboo when it came to the youngest Uchiha brother - and settled back in his booth as well, the defiled coffee absolutely forgotten. For now.

Karin couldn't help herself; she leaned forward and pulled her hair up out of her eyes, because it appeared to be deep-thinking time, and she couldn't be bothered with something like her hair when it was deep-thinking time. That, and she was back in business - no need for pesky Watchers, after all! Watchers were pretty full of themselves, at any rate, and she couldn't imagine that Sasuke would want to spend any time around one. "It can't be Hoshigaki, of course - "

"No, he shades Hoshigaki. I'm sure of it; they're partners, and that's well-known information. We need to know which of the other members he spends time around. He may be powerful, but he's an asshole, so he wouldn't waste time on shading someone he believes is useless - useless, or a weak link in every sense of the word. Out of all of them, there must be at least one of them that he leaves unguarded - one of them that will lead me to him."

Karin bit her lip. It was true, that as far as she knew, Itachi Uchiha didn't have much time for anyone with a weaker skill set than his own, but would he really be so careless as to leave them with a pathway right to him? Sasuke was a genius, sure, but Itachi was the older brother of a formerly-famous family: a family that had once been filled with geniuses. Wouldn't he have thought of this?…Probably. But she decided against voicing that opinion; it would probably sound too much like respect of his older brother, when it reached Sasuke's ears, and that was one of the biggest mistakes you could make around the guy. "You don't have anything belonging to a member, do you?"

Too much to hope, and if he did, wouldn't he have told her already? Then again, this was Sasuke, as she kept having to remind herself, and Sasuke very rarely did things in a manner that would seem logical to anyone else. He had his own thought pattern, and it stuck to it like a well-loved holiday tradition.

A moment of silence passed between them, before he decided to grace her question with an answer. "Of course not. I would've already told you to search out the owner, and it's not like the Akatsuki just goes around leaving souvenirs behind. Think, Karin."

Karin was about to snap back at him - she was trying to help, after all, and as much as she would've liked him to gain a bit of appreciation on his own, some hunks just needed a strong woman to sort them out, and that was slowly becoming Obtain Sasuke Plan Number 5 - when the waitress sashayed up, and pointedly slapped her hand down on the bill. It had been sitting there since before Karin had finished her piece of pie, well over an hour ago, and had been thoroughly ignored by both Karin and Sasuke.

"I hope everything is to your satisfaction," the woman purred, shooting loaded glances between the two of them. Evidently, it was time for the slightly scruffy teenagers to get out and open table space for slightly better paying customers. Sasuke's face reverted to that careful, blank expression he favored so much, while he tossed down the appropriate bills, and the two of them slid out of the booth as soon as the waitress had scampered off, her meager tip having earned Sasuke a heated glare and a matching sneer.

"You could've given her a little bit more, you know. She was a pretty good waitress, for the first forty-five minutes." Karin pointed out as they pushed through the café's glass doors, the sudden ringing of bells assaulting her ears. Sasuke just grunted; apparently, without his coffee and a comfortable place to sit, he was no longer in the mood for conversation.

The two of them walked along the city streets in a state of relative peace; Karin couldn't think of anything mundane to bring up, and Sasuke never started small talk on his own. Hell, he barely contributed to small talk when Karin was the one who started it all off. It was a bit depressing, actually, especially since he'd been such a bright kind of kid, but it had been a while, and he'd been through the violent death of his entire family.

She could forgive moments of broodiness; it was the moments of outright assholery that usually got her up in arms.

The two of them were staying in a hotel not far from the café, courtesy of Sasuke's hefty inheritance. They'd come here based on a contact's certainty that "Sasuke, your brother was here, I freaking literally bumped into him on the street, believe me!" Naturally, the contact hadn't seen Itachi again after that, and Karin had a sneaking suspicion that the blonde-haired dolt hadn't even seen the real Itachi. However, Sasuke had some weird bond with his idiot contact, which had prevented Karin from ripping the boy a well-earned new one for wasting their time.

The silent walk, filled mostly by Karin mentally reflecting on the many idiots Sasuke had the charity to associate with, ended quickly, and before Karin really knew it, they were in the hotel room, having made it past the desk clerk, who believed they were a pair of cousins. Karin had wanted to use "newlyweds" as a cover story, but Sasuke was surprisingly adamant that their hotel room have two beds.

Hence, the annoying family cover.

"I'm taking a shower," Sasuke announced almost as soon as they'd made it past the threshold, ducking into the small bathroom. "And locking the door."Paranoia. It was terrible. He probably needed special medication; if he weren't so paranoid, Karin would've gladly taken him to the kind of doctor that could sort that out. But then again, if he weren't so paranoid, it wouldn't be necessary. A dilemma, to be certain.

Once the door had clicked shut behind him, and Karin had listened for the second tell-tale click - just in case he was terribly sexually repressed (definitely) and was expecting her to go in there and free him from that repression (unfortunately not) - she headed over to the beds, flopping onto the one nearest the TV and staring pointedly at the blank screen.

It did not respond to her mental command that it turn on.

Thus, the search for the remote began. Karin, having laid down already, did not want to get up, so she searched what she could reach first: the pillow, the pillowcase, the many rumpled blankets that came to being as a result of Sasuke's habitual tossing and turning, and underneath Karin herself. Nothing of interest came up, the shower was still blasting, and the TV was still refusing to turn on purely because she had telepathically ordered it to.

Still not wanting to move too much, she leaned over the edge of the bed and began to feel between the metal box-whatever that came standard with hotel beds and the bed's filthy skirt. Carpet, carpet, an oddly scratchy patch of carpet…and then her fingers brushed up against something small and thin that she was pretty sure didn't belong there. Although it certainly wasn't the remote, it was a good testament to the poor cleaning job done on their hotel room, and Karin picked it up more out of curiosity than anything else, quickly recognizing it as a thin piece of cardstock.

She brought the little card up to her face, squinting her eyes more out of habit than anything else - her glasses were pretty damn powerful, after all. The piece of cardstock was the size of a business card - in fact, it was a business card, for a local art shop she'd passed more than once while snooping around the city with Sasuke. It must have been from the previous occupants; Karin herself had never set foot inside the shop, and Sasuke wasn't exactly the artistic type.

Usually, Karin didn't sniff things out of pure curiosity. It usually led to her finding out things she didn't want to know, like what tourists did in their alone time. Anyway, this was just an art supply store's business card; it was unlikely to yield anything mildly interesting. Artistic guys really weren't her type - and if it was a girl, well, that was a complete downer no matter what the girl was like.

Then again, Karin still didn't want to move, she still hadn't found the remote control, and the television still wasn't turning on just because she wanted it to. Sniffing the card would be a way to keep herself entertained, however slightly, and something was just telling her that it would be a good idea. Intuition, or something - Sasuke would have laughed at her, if he'd seen her lying there or been able to hear what she was thinking.

Well, thank God he couldn't. She tugged off the glove on her left hand - kept there usually so she wouldn't accidentally sniff things; it could be a mind-melting experience, when everything you touched assaulted you with a candid view of what its previous owner was up to - and delicately laid her fingers across the top face of the card. A second's wait, and then it came, a familiar blast of color and images that tore her into a silent kind of movie -

A blonde man, in a hotel room, up to his elbows in clay - a little bird was taking shape in front of him - he was swaying slightly, jamming, it seemed, with headphones stuck in both of his ears - the hotel room was nice, ten times better than Karin's own, with red wallpaper and two neatly-made beds - he was at the desk, the next maid to see that mess would no doubt have a heart attack - the door was opening, she could see it out of the corner of her eye - a flash of red-tinted eyes, flash of scarred face, flash of black -

And the mental movie gone, more abruptly than it had started. Karin was left there in a state of complete shock and surprise, draped across a hotel room bed with a business card clenched between her fingers. After a second, she pulled her glove back on, purely out of habit, and then shifted the card back into her hand.

It couldn't be - that was the weirdest kind of coincidence, luck that nobody could ever have expected to have, least of all Karin herself , because Karin had never set much store by luck or experienced it herself -

She barely registered that the door to the bathroom had finally swung open, and that Sasuke had wandered out clothed only in a towel, which normally would have claimed all of her attention and then some, or sent her to her own happy, peaceful demise.

This was impossible, because shit like this just didn't happen…

Sasuke didn't appear to notice that there was something going on. He rarely did notice when Karin had just experienced something amazing. "Karin? Karin. Get the hell off my bed."

She turned her head to face him, eyes wide, and brandished the card in his face. He caught her wrist with his free hand - she did process that if he'd bothered to use the other one, which was clutching his towel, several of her favorite dreams could have come true, although it didn't appear that her luck was going to hold very well - and squinted at the small writing, obviously a bit confused.

"Sasuke! I found him. I found Itachi."


Oh, Karin, it's not quite that simple. We're only one chapter in.

Yup, a new project. This one is guaranteed to have longer chapters, an obligatory Ino, a better storyline, a bit of romance, and pre-plotting. Not to mention, it's going to follow up on EACH AND EVERY FUCKING PLOTTHREAD, and include less blatant angst/crack! This thing is crazy-plotted for several more chapters, and I've already decided what EPIC PLOT TWISTS and whatnot to toss in, so the cast of characters is large and random. :D We won't just be sticking with Karin's point of view, oh no.

This is a mild crossover of Naruto and the 2009 movie PUSH. The one with Dakota Fanning and some other people, like Djimon Han-something. Excellent movie. You have to watch it three times, and then check out the deleted scenes, before you get half of it. Like Stowe's storyline. BUT LOL GO WATCH IT IF YOU WANNA SEE A SURLY, DRUNK DAKOTA FANNING. Cassie is by far the best character she's ever played.

You don't need to have seen PUSH to understand any of this, however; all I'm borrowing are the psychic powers themselves and their names, which I plan to explain thoroughly. I'm also taking slight liberties with the psychic abilities, so seeing the movie probably won't help you much, lawl.

Feel free to ask questions. Fuck knows I write some confusing shit.

I probably characterize every-fucking-one oddly. :c Baaw. If it bothers you that much, point out specifically what you have a problem with, and I'll either make a mental note to change it or explain why I do that to the poor character. WHOOT YEAH.

I also DO NOT have a beta, which I kind of want, but none of my friends like Naruto, lawl.

(I'm also trying to cut back on my author's notes, so this should be the longest one. Fingers crossed.)