This work contain suggestive language and themes.
The current rating might change to M.
I do not own Naruto, Inception or any of the characters mentioned below.
The next day, Naruto was on the phone with Orochimaru when Sakura came in to headquarters. Naruto gestured her in and Sakura crossed the room as silently as she could, handing a smoking hot triple caramel latte to Sai, like every morning, and put down a simple black decaf for Naruto on the table by him.
Sai was quite fond of sugar and his teammates used to joke that unless he got his latte in the morning he would turn into the Hulk (he and Naruto had watched the animated series a while back, so Sai understood the reference, even if he didn't portrait himself as a monstrous green man dressed only in pants). On the opposite end, Naruto was too fond of sugar and couldn't get any without becoming obnoxious and starting to bounce the walls like a ninja.
Sakura sat down by him and opened a file she had tucked under her arm. She wore a sleek tailor-fitted suit that made quite the contrast to her bright pink hair. She fell into deep concentration like she was a student worrying about an exam and Sai sipped his latte carefully while regarding her.
In many ways Sakura was the most professional of them. She was their Point Man and chemist; her job was to be informed about everything. She was strong; and frightening enough to threaten a man if she needed to, and sweet and charming enough to gain knowledge while flirting in the bars.
She was well-kept, both physically, mentally and appearance-wise, and she had just the right amount of patience to let Naruto roam free and then shut him down when he was going too far. When Sai had first met her he had detested her, and the feeling appeared to be mutual. Sakura had been very emotional about a breakup with her on- then off again boyfriend and there was nothing Sai disliked more than a weak, pathetic waste of space. So Sai had told her that – and Sakura had beaten the lights out of him.
It had taken a while, with a lot of human relationship book purchases' and a few beatings, but after a couple of years he became a regular on their team, and now Sakura even called him a friend, openly, without being drunk.
Sakura even confided in him about the problems with her boyfriend – like Sai would know what to do – and the commitment issues she kept having. Now Sai didn't really understand what a Good Guy meant, but apparently Rock Lee was one – so maybe it had something to do with spandex, or really big junk – and while Sakura was fairly sure she wanted a guy like that, she kept getting cold feet and felt immensely drawn to the Bad Boy types out there; like the ones her childhood friend Ino kept fooling around with. Sai suggest buying slippers and watch X-men, because Naruto had assured him Wolverine was the biggest bad-ass ever, and it must have worked, because Sakura laughed and said she got the message.
Naruto hung up and grabbed his coffee, taking a long sip before looking at them.
"We're meeting Orochimaru back at the manor at noon to go over the conditions." Sakura looked up from her file and nodded.
"Then you'll be happy." she said and pushed the file over to him. "I've done some digging about Sharingan Productions and interestingly, their main investor is the Japanese military." Naruto ghosted through the page.
"They're making weapons?"
"Big weapons." Sakura corrected. "Bombs, chemical warfare, you name it. Back in World War Two they were close to making their own atom bomb." Sai frowned softly.
"And Matsumoto is a medical company foremost?" he asked. Sakura nodded. "That doesn't make sense. Why would they even be competitors?"
"Because," Sakura said and reached out to the file, pulled a paper from under the first and showed it to Naruto. "Matsumoto Gen is also sponsored by the army. They are developing for the private sector, but it seems like all the really good stuff is going to the military. Vaccines, foam-bandages, everything soldiers might need come from Matsumoto Gen."
"So Sharingan Productions feeds Matsumoto Gen by fuelling war." Naruto put his arms on the table. "Everything is going in circles. The Uchiha's arm the soldiers; Matsumoto patches them up so they can be armed again."
"Exactly, but it seems like Sharingan Productions wanted more." Sakura started making pink ringlets by her ear. "When Itachi-san became CEO he suddenly started expanding the business. It seems like he thought they could cut off Orochimaru-san completely by making their own medical supplies and they started releasing finished products Matsumoto was still trying to develop."
"And they started their race." said Naruto.
"So why wouldn't Orochimaru want Sharingan to shut down?" Sai asked. "They're stealing their field."
"I haven't found it, but I'll keep looking." Sakura said. Naruto looked to her and nodded.
"Alright." He grinned at her. "Good job Sakura-chan." Sakura smiled back, and then cast a quick look to Sai. Naruto shook his head discreetly so Sai decided to ignore them. "We should get some brunch; it might be a long day."
"I'm not going!" Sakura said quickly. "I paid for the coffee, and dinner yesterday." She leaned back in the chair and shook her head. "It's your turn." Naruto groaned and pulled up his wallet. Coins clinked together in the little frog-pouch as Naruto viewed the contents.
"Fine, I'm buying." he mumbled defeated.
"While you're at it you could buy yourself an adult wallet and grow up." Sai offered and Naruto glared at him.
"Just for that you're carrying." He turned away. "Sakura-chan, what do you want?"
Sakura hummed softly. "See if they have some tuna-rolls." Naruto nodded and walked to the door. "Oh, and that spinach soup!" she called after him. "And a muffin." Sai stood and pinned the drawing he worked on to the board before following the blonde.
"Apple?"
"Not the sweet ones," Sakura said with a roll of eyes. "The food muffins." Naruto frowned.
"Disgusting."
"Just get it!" she ordered and turned, seeing the sketch of Orochimaru, the Godfather. Sai saw in the corner of his eye how she flinched in fright before collecting her wits and he smiled brightly. "Kami, that scared me..." she mumbled, Sai closed the door.
Naruto was already in his car, and Sai opened the passenger door carefully. The car was Naruto's baby. A black and orange Pontiac -54 muscle monster, the car was in better state then the day it was made. Naruto always parked it in a garage, and had a sheet over it during the nights. She, and Naruto insisted it was a she, was all original parts and received a spa-treatment every second week, where a much overpriced mechanic changed oil and checked the engine, while some bust-boys polished the lack and leather.
Naruto called her Victoria Faye, and he was now cooing to her softly, stroking over the panels while Sai sat down and strapped himself in. Sai said nothing, and Naruto started her up with a mighty roar.
It was only a ten minute ride to the shopping-districts from the industry warehouse but after two Naruto turned into an alley and fiddled with the radio.
"So," he said while Robbie Williams sang through the speakers. "Inception." Sai sighed, knowing it was a subject they had to discuss. He looked out through the windscreen at the rundown factories. Bags and other waste lied scattered on the sidewalk and he was struck by the forgotten beauty of the decay. He got the urge to paint it.
"Once you do it, you can change the very basis of a person. Sakura was right about the brain; it always knows when something alien is influencing it." Sai played with his fingers over the seat, drawing imaginary creatures on the leather. "That's why you need to go so deep that it's not about the brain anymore. It has to become primal; beyond consciousness, beyond thought. Basic."
"A dream within a dream," Naruto said, glancing at him. Sai shook his head.
"Three levels," he said, painting a three. "At least."
"That kind of dreaming is impossible – the dream would be too unstable!" Naruto argued, waving his suntanned hand around.
"You need sedatives."
"Sedatives powerful enough to stabilize that kind of multileveled dreaming would knock you out completely; the kick would be useless." Sai shrugged. This was true of course, you needed some kind of compound that would leave the inner-ear functions untouched, otherwise your balance would be tempered, and you wouldn't feel if you fell, but he was not a chemist, and he told Naruto so.
"It is dangerous; otherwise more people have done it." Naruto pressed his lips into a thin line and circled the block again.
"Have you done it?" he asked and Sai hesitated a moment.
"No." The blond looked at him again. "But I've had it done to me." The silence that ascended over them lasted for several minutes, Naruto waiting for Sai to continue, and Sai fighting to drop the subject. "I grew up on the street." Sai spoke eventually. "I shared a cardboard box with a man called Iva. Iva thought he was a Rottweiler, so he bit you if you came too close and he wasn't housebroken." Sai could still see the man in front of him, crawling on all four, beard down to the pavement, growling and barking at people passing by.
Occasionally he would have a moment of clarity and stand up, tell Sai what a cruel world they lived in, and how all the rich snobs robbed them of their lives. He couldn't stand straight anymore, and he scared Sai more as a man, then he did as a dog. Sai smiled.
"I never had any parents; it was just Iva and I. I begged for money on the street, and bought cat-food and whiskey for Iva in the grocery store at the corner. The shopkeeper was an immigrant from Russia, and he knew Iva, so he didn't care if I had an ID or not." Naruto pulled over to the curb and watched him with a strange face.
"Sai, I didn't know..." he started, but Sai ignored him.
"Danzo found me one day. He asked if I were hungry and brought me along in his car." Sai frowned in thought. "It was, blue, I think. Dark blue or dark marine; toned windows." Satisfied, he nodded. "I had been in cars before, but never in the kind of place he brought me to." In front of him Sai could see the skyscraper, reaching like the tower of Babylon to the heavens and its steel and glass catching the sun and turning the building into a beacon of light and warmth. "He said I would be taken care of, so I stayed. I didn't think of Iva." He shook his head. "I met other children like me. We got food and our own beds – no one threatened to beat or take advantage of us – so we were grateful. Danzo came every day and talked to us; at first he played with us, but eventually no one wanted to play anymore and – when we were told that people were giving Danzo trouble we all were ready to kill for him, or die trying. It seemed so natural.
"In reality there was a sedative in our food, and when we passed out they hooked us up to PASIV's and went under; redecorated our minds." Sai puffed softly and smiled emptily. Naruto wasn't fiddling with the radio anymore and through the static Sai heard some boy band he didn't recognise sing about their baby. Sai rocked his head to the beat and slipped deeper into the seat, looking back at the blonde.
He seemed concerned and troubled, trying to process Sai's words while forming a plan for their mission that just seemed to get harder. Sai liked Naruto liked that, silent and thoughtful. If Sakura was around she would always start an embarrassing story about their childhood, when Naruto had been loud, obnoxious and orange and how rare it was to see Calm Naruto, as she called him.
"They started on our training, special agents taught us where to shoot, stab or press – or how to go under, extract information vital to the State." said Sai and gently started picking at a thread from his teammates pants. Naruto let him and drummed his fingers against the wheel along with the rain that started to fall. "I had killed fifty men before I turned eleven." Naruto snapped his head to him. "No one suspects children." answered Sai with a shrug.
"But they missed something with the mass-production of assassins," Sai said and got the thread loose. He rubbed it against his index finger and thumb.
"What?" asked Naruto with furrowed eyebrows. Sai smiled brightly.
"Inefficient background data."
"The idea clashed?" Sai nodded.
"In one." he agreed. "All of us were taken from the street, but not everyone was orphans. There was a boy, he was called Shin; he had been taken from his parents when he was seven. Trafficking and slavery is quite common, it happens every day to thousands of people." Sai looked out. "We don't know what's going on behind every curtain, so we pretend that everything is well in the world and shut out the fear so we don't have to take any kind of responsibility for how rotten mankind have become.
"Shin knew his parents were looking for him. He knew he was... loved. He had so much faith in them. Always talked about when they would find him and take him back home. It sounded nice." Sai fell silent for a while.
"And?"
"The Foundation wasn't his life." Sai shrugged. "There were people who cared for him out there, so he didn't believe that Roots were the only ones willing to look after him. He played along and when we were old enough he tried to escape. We weren't even teenagers."He shook his head, thoughtful. "I killed him."
"What?!" exclaimed Naruto with a stare.
"Danzo demanded it." said Sai silently. "And when he died, he looked at me and called me brother." He bit his lip unconsciously. "He was my best friend. I didn't know it, but we were brothers."
"How did you –" Naruto started hesitantly.
"It took such a long time... but I realised the Foundation didn't care for me. My brother had cared for me." Sai looked back with a straight face. "I had to find his parents, tell them that they saved him. It was my only mission. Danzo never noticed I was pretending just like Shin, and he sent me to put out a law enforcer working on Extraction-crimes. Instead, I told him everything I knew; where headquarters was, every name I had heard, every person I knew they had killed, what they did to us and how they'd train us.
"He took me to a safe place, promised he'd take care of everything and shut it down; even promised to track down Shin's parents. The Foundation had captain Yamato killed the next day."
"And you ran?" Sai nodded.
"I know how they operate, so I know how to avoid them." Naruto twisted completely to see him, watching him seriously. Sai tilted his head, wondering if the blonde was angry now.
"Is everything true Sai? I need to know if you're just yanking my chain here." Sai gave him a pointed look and crossed his arms.
"I have no reason to lie."
"That has never stopped you before," Naruto butted in, but resolved. "It just sounds like a Bond movie or something!"
"Then why were there so many ugly women?" Sai said seriously, but Naruto ignored him and dragged a hand through his mop of golden hair.
"Timothy Dalton, step aside." He mumbled, strongly believing Dalton to be the best Bond-actor in the world. "Do you think we should do this? Honestly." Sai watched him with the same gravity.
"It's too late to pull out." Naruto made an annoyed sound in the back of his throat and shook his head.
"Can we do it?"
"We can do it," Sai answered after a moment. "The sissies won't know what happened."
Naruto and he made it back to Head Quarters quickly after that. True to his word Naruto had forced Sai to carry all the bags and only gracefully held the doors open for him to pass. Naruto closed the door silently behind them and shouted merrily towards Sakura.
"Honey, we're home!" Sakura peeked up from her desk and grinned. Her laptop was up and running now and it cast a blue glow against her face.
"Good," she said and leaned back, her fingers ceasing their tap dance over the board. "I think I have reached a breakthrough."
"Sakura-chan, coming to the rescue." Naruto sang his praise and flopped down in his chair, spinning a circle before coming to a halt. Sai dropped the bags of steaming food on his desk, his mood damp.
"We got you your muffin." he informed and cast an evil glare towards the blond. "But Naruto ate it."
"Naruto!" Sakura screeched. "You said you don't even like them!"
"What can I say – I was starving." Naruto gave his winner smile, but still managed to look a little bashful. "I'm a growing man, I need sustenance."
"The only way you will grow is sideways." Sai shot back and unpacked the boxes. Sakura glanced between them.
"Did you two have a fight?" she asked attentively.
"No." snorted Sai as he tossed Naruto's ramen towards him.
Naruto caught it like an expert and broke loose his chopsticks. "No." he agreed. Before he had the time to say anything else Sai released a huge sigh and straightened up.
"Naruto finds it completely impossible to keep a low profile. He's going to alert everyone within a ten kilometre's radar to our presence."
"I just said hello to her!" Naruto defended and raised his hands.
"I can't for the life of me understand why he's so compelled to flirt with just about everything he sees," Sai continued like he hadn't been interrupted, focusing entirely on Sakura. "Especially when he possesses such a small penis," he ended with a snap and tossed a glare at the blond again. Naruto met his gaze silently for a moment, but they broke apart and the blond turned to Sakura.
"Sakura-chan, I'm sorry I ate your muffin." he offered sincerely. Sai didn't see properly but he thought he saw Sakura give him a pointed glare in his direction. "As for anything else," he continued and Sai tensed up, listening. "I have already said everything I can say."
Sai thought back to the car-ride back from the diner, but he could still think of a whole lot more to say on the matter. "Now," Naruto asked seriously. "Can we return to work and act like professionals?" After a thick silence Sakura spoke up.
"Sometimes it's hard to work with family," she said and Sai felt like it was directed directly at him. "But there are no other guys I would rather have watch my back than you two." Sai glanced up from his fruit-salad and gave her a small smile in response to her own. He even glanced to Naruto and saw a similar smile.
"Likewise, Sakura-chan." Naruto agreed and their eyes met for a second. His smile changed faintly, but it didn't disappear and his blue eyes were soft. "That applies to everyone in the room." Sai nodded faintly and went back to picking out apples from his box. "Now, what was the breakthrough?"
Sakura worked with her screen again and walked over to their projector. With nimble fingers she hooked it up and her desktop lit up in a monstrous scale on the white wall in front of them. Sai turned his attention to it.
"Well, like we knew, Matsumoto Gen is competing against Sharingan Productions and they're both largely funded by the military, but there is still a private sector in both companies.
"As it is now, Itachi-san owns twenty-eight percent of the company and that is the majority." Sakura brought up a sheet with seven staples, each one going higher than the next. "I've checked and it is an insanely popular company to own stocks in. For years another large portion has been owned by something that is called ShiIah inc. but two years ago the CEO went missing. The local police have declared him presumably dead and they had to go into bankruptcy.
"Nothing really looks suspicious, a lot of different people bought up the stocks that became loose, but if you dig a little deeper you'll realise that all of these names, people – they're aliases and shell-companies, all which leads to one source."
"Let me guess," Naruto interrupted with a drawl. "Matsumoto Gen."
"Ding, ding, ding!" Sakura brought up another chart – this one as a circle. "When all of these stocks are combined, Matsumoto Gen owns twenty five percent of Sharingan Prod. That's almost as much as Itachi-san."
"Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't this a very bizarre business-plan?" Sai asked and pointed with his sticks. "Orochimaru would be raising the value of his enemy-company by buying stocks, and lowering his own."
"You're absolutely right Sai. So here's where it gets even more twisted." A picture came up. This was of a man in a stuffed, dark Armani suit and slicked back, dark hair. He was talking on his mobile and his eyes were almost straight into the camera. "This is Uchiha Obito. He's Itachi-san's uncle and Sharingan Prod accountant. According to his forecast of the coming year, if Itachi-san dies and Sasuke-san takes over as CEO, Sharingan Prod stock will fall in value.
"It appears like the faith is in the current CEO and not actually in what they produce." Sakura pursed her lips and watched the wall. "I think Matsumoto Gen will be able to buy up to 59 percent of Sharingan Prod, to a very cheap price. I don't think he's after Itachi-sans revolutionary idea of unlimited power, he just wants the youngest brother to seize control so he can buy them up.
"He just needs 51 percent to be able to lock out the committee – that means that Orochimaru would gain full control over the company – Sasuke-san would just have to sit back or sell."
"And together with Matsumoto Gen that he already owns, Orochimaru would suddenly have monopoly of the field. He'd own everything." Sai said and frowned.
"Exactly." Sakura unplugged the computer from the projector. "I'm starting to think this is very deep waters."
"They're funded by the military," Naruto spoke up suddenly. "Let's face it, they are the ones with monopoly."
"Even more reason to worry," Sakura offered. "If we fail, there would be bigger fish after us than just Orochimaru."
"Let's worry about that later." decided Sai. His teammates could focus on the most useless things sometimes. "Eat up, we have to get to the manor, or we'll be late.
If you enjoyed chapter two, please review.
If you're looking for more Sai-related stories, feel free to visit my story, I still remain, within the Sound of Silence at s/5421940/1/I-still-remain-within-the-sound-of-silence although you should beware that it is darker and have a higher rating than this tale.
Yours truly, Qayin.
