Part Three
The sun was inappropriately bright. People in grief didn't seem affected by it, yet it felt unreal to be in such a big group of people in mourning clothes when the weather was so clear and warm.
Sasuke was standing in a place he could see everyone present from, a little to the side. Many people were crying, but the dark haired woman was obviously the most distressed one and he hadn't bothered to confirm that she was the girl's mother. The broken repeating of the girl's name through sobbing was more than enough to convince him.
They were civilians. It was not unorthodox they had a daughter in the Academy -Konoha was still giving a large grant for it- but if these people actually expected her to do anything but die young they were just fooling themselves. A shinobi from a civilian family, without a blood limit or jutsus to inherit was vulnerable and weak, even if they had talent and good teammates.
A cold blooded murder was might be harder to take then KIA, though. The girl had been home mere hours, if not minutes before she died. The woman was clutching a small boy, presumably another child. He looked lost and confused, and a bit annoyed with her for wetting his hair every time she would squeeze him tightly, as if to make sure he was real and still there. The child was just old enough to have an opinion on small things like that, but still too young to grasp the fact that his sister was dead.
Sasuke stopped looking at boy's face. He was trying to keep voices and pictures at bay, without much success. That Naruto came. People straightened even more, because that was the signal that the final ceremony was about to start. They made space for him to approach the open coffin, several people following. Hinata separated from the group and walked to where Sasuke was standing without a word.
Naruto gave Sasuke a single nod, with some apologetic air in the simple gesture. Was it because he was not giving him more courtesy in a public place or because he stormed out of the station earlier? With Naruto, it was hard to tell. It might have been something entirely else. Sasuke allowed the people who took Hokage's arrival as a sign it was time to bid last farewells to the dead girl to come between them. They lined up, each with a single white flower in their hands, picked from the tray a woman was holding nearby.
After Naruto placed a flower next to the coffin, Nara produced a bouquet of white lilies from someplace and left it on the opposite side from the one Naruto had chosen. Then others that came after them left their flowers one after the other. It was a good strategy, in a way; for the Hokage not to do anything different from the villagers, while his adviser made sure he was showing special attention in the name of the direction at the same time. Sasuke did not move, and neither did Hinata, until the graveyard was almost empty. In bright sunlight and without the overwhelming sounds of many people in mourning, it looked more a place for kids to play than a place where Konoha buried its soldiers.
Sasuke placed his own flower on the top of the huge cluster. He was the last who came to bid farewells to the dead girl. Her face was covered, but a curl of dark hair escaped from under the cloth. Sasuke wanted to fix the little imperfection, but it wasn't his place, so he turned away from the coffin to do what he came here to do.
The parents were still there, holding onto each other. The boy was in the father's arms. Sasuke made his way to them, with Hinata in tow. They offered their condolences – well, Hinata did - and introduced themselves.
"We need to ask you some questions," Hinata warned, but all she got as an answer was some empty staring that slid right through her. Taking it as the acceptance needed, Sasuke asked the first, most obvious question.
"When was the last time you saw your daughter? Alive?"
The man blinked, like mentioning the girl cleared his mind somewhat, and recognized Sasuke. "Why would I talk to you? I know who you are!"
That was not unexpected. That kind of reaction was one of the reasons Nara was so against Sasuke being in charge of the case. He took distrust and dislike for what they were, and calmly said, "I am in charge of you're daughter's murder investigation. You have to talk to me."
"I'm not…" the father started, but his wife shifted and squeezed his arm; a warning and support at the same time. He gave her an annoyed glance, but didn't continue.
Hinata used the opportunity to add, "We were chosen by the Hokage himself. He is confident that we are capable of handling this."
That made the man no less angry, but he shut his mouth stubbornly and looked to the side. If anyone else was the Hokage, what Hinata said would have been enough to grant them cooperation, if not acceptance. As it were, they were lucky he wasn't insulting them. Not only that the person sent there to catch a murderer was a criminal himself, but the Hokage sent him of his own will. Was he trying to help them, or make them all killed? From the look on his face, this man believed the other option.
What more was Naruto supposed to do to assure these people he really wanted what was best for them? How many sacrifices they would demand before they could sleep at night without the fear of Naruto going berserk and killing them all?
"If you want to know what happened to your daughter, we are all you've got," Sasuke explained. It got them no results and so he added, "If you refuse to cooperate, we'll arrest you for…" something, and he needed something good, "disrupting investigation."
If would be embarrassing to really arrest him and bring him back to station without even knowing where the cells were located, or how to operate them. Luckily, the man raised his head and gave Sasuke a measuring look, as if he was trying to figure out if he were being told the truth.
It was the mother who talked, though.
"She… She had dinner with us that night," she answered finally, in a hoarse, broken voice. "And then she used the bathroom and went to bed. We haven't seen her after that."
"Does she always go to bed that early?" Hinata asked, in a gentle, calming tone.
The parents exchanged a glance.
"No, not always," this time the father answered, maybe because Sasuke was not the one who asked the question. "She said she was tired and that she had a team meeting early in the morning."
The meeting was something that could be verified.
"Nothing else? Nothing out of the ordinary? Maybe she was acting oddly or…"
The answer was no, and the questioning went in circles after that. No, she was not fighting with anyone lately. No, they saw no reason why this would happen to their little girl.
In short, they got nothing out of the parents. The next step was talking to her teammates and the team leader. Hinata knew who they were, so the two of them visited the team leader's – a female jounin with unfamiliar name - house. She was out on an urgent mission.
With the next stop they were also not lucky, because the boy they were looking for was not at home. According to the sub-text Sasuke managed to pick up from the mumbled apology the mother gave them, he was moping somewhere.
The third team member was a Nara, so Hinata and Sasuke walked out of the urban part of the Konoha and headed to the Nara farm. The boy was home, just arrived from the funeral. They could have talked to him back there, if they hadn't spent so much time with the parents.
The boy had sharp dark eyes and short hair. He invited them in, offered refreshment and started to talk before anyone asked him anything.
"I saw her the afternoon before she died." His voice broke just a bit on the last word, but he cleared his throat and continued, "Our sensei told me we had a meeting in the morning and to tell everyone, so I went to her house. She looked tired even though we didn't have a mission that day, but otherwise normal."
Hinata went through more or less same set of questions, and she got more or less the same answers. The girl was a good daughter and a good friend, she was nice and smart and no one had any reason to kill her. Only she was dead, and none of that 'don't speak ill if the dead" was helping. Saying that she was only twelve could maybe work on someone else, but Sasuke could still remember clearly what he was capable of at that age.
As the silence spread over the three of them, when Hinata was trying to think of the next question, the boy said to Sasuke. "You weren't there the last time."
The last time? Was he interrogated by someone before they got here? If he was, then there was someone stepping over their boundaries, and all over the two of them. What made Sasuke not react was that Hinata visibly stiffened in the chair next to his.
"The last time?" he asked the boy, who raised his eyebrows, but answered anyway.
"A month ago, when a murder like this one happened the last time. I was there, but I don't think you were investigating then."
Just how many 'murders like this one' had happened before?
Sasuke said nothing. He was obviously wasting his time. He just had more questions now. How was Naruto expecting of him to find out who is doing this if he wasn't even entitled to the appropriate information? How was he supposed to know what to ask and where to look? A murder of a single person was an entirely different thing then a series of murders.
When Sasuke walked out of the house, Hinata followed.
"How many people have died like this? How long has this been happening?" ha asked when only thing visible of the farm was its roof, looking straight ahead and not expecting at all for Hinata would answer.
"I am not allowed to say." There was far less regret than her general character suggested she would inject in such blunt refusal.
So that was it. Sasuke would be breaking in the Hokage tower that night.
IVIVIVI
It never went that far, and Sasuke was almost sorry for it. He needed to move, to take some action - not that getting past Naruto's guards would be much of a challenge. But even that would be more than what he had in a long time.
He took a bath to wash the day off his skin, but the night was so stuffy and warm that the feeling of cleanness and refreshment didn't last long. It was like that for months already, not a drop of rain and then sudden, furious hail storms that were not helping the agriculture – or the windows. Even the spring was too hot, and the winter was warm and without snow.
The dinner would probably be a better idea, but Sasuke settled on the edge of the hiding place for weaponry under the floor of his room that he had made with Itachi's help a long time ago, and cleared and sharpened all his bladed weapons. What he actually needed was sex; that helped a lot with keeping his head leveled and mind focused. Because Naruto was not only a moron, but also a vengeful hypocritical asshole, that was out of question for now.
The irritation lingered despite of the satisfying clinging of sharpened blades, and Sasuke was about to give it all up and try to sleep for a couple of hours when there was a knock on the door. It startled him, because he didn't feel anyone approaching and his protective barrier showed no signs of being disrupted.
So what was Naruto doing here?
Sasuke made his way to the door only after the knocking repeated, this time louder and longer. It really was Naruto on the other side, startlingly bright against the early night behind him. It was a surreal sight until he grinned widely and pushed the source of a spicy smell into Sasuke hands; a paper bag presumably full of ramen.
"Hi!" he said, like it this was all normal, and not hard and uncomfortable. "Would you mind letting me in? It's kind of cold out here."
Yeah, very cold, about a half a degree colder then in the fire demon dimension. Deciding Naruto was trying to convey how insulted he was because Sasuke failed to give him a warm, brotherly welcome, he turned back and left the door open. Naruto followed, as a good Hokage should.
"I thought we'd have dinner," Naruto added.
Sure, they could have dinner. Naruto could talk, Sasuke could glare and be rude, and then Sakura could come to help them dig up Kakashi, and everything would be perfect. Maybe Sasuke could find out some answers along the way as well, like what the fuck had changed in the last two days?
"I'm not hungry. Anything else?"
Naruto took a chair at the kitchen table, with his back to the solid wall in the position that allowed him to see the entire room. The grin was still there when he reached for the bag and then looked back where Sasuke was still standing.
"Well, I'm hungry, so we should have dinner anyway." The paper bag opened under his fingers without a sound. "And a talk."
"About all the important case information you forgot to tell me?"
"I did not forget to tell you," Naruto answered, after swallowing just enough of his first mouthful to be comprehensible. "I was outvoted on the subject. No matter what amount of Hinata's back pain salve I was offering, it wasn't making any difference on the results. Weird, the stuff is really good."
If Naruto was trying to bribe his in average very young committee with a back pain salve, it wasn't really strange that it wasn't working. Sasuke made his way to check if ramen was still warm; it was, so he turned to take a bowl for it. No reason to eat from paper cup when he didn't have to.
Naruto added, "For all kinds of sores, you know?"
The statement was innocent enough, but Sasuke almost stopped in mid-movement anyway. It was right there, in Naruto's voice; the obvious implication. And when it comes to sex…
"No, I don't," Sasuke said to interrupt his own line of thought. Naruto laughed so he demanded, "How many murders like this one had happened before?"
"Hmmm," Naruto swallowed that laugh with some difficulty. "Four, all in the last year."
"And you think that's funny?" He was not in a good mood to begin with. Naruto showing on his doorstep and laughing without a reason at inappropriate time were not helping. Just sitting there, at his kitchen table, Naruto was making him irritable.
The words made Naruto stop the snickering right away, as they were supposed to. "It's not funny. I wouldn't be sneaking around like some kind of a thief to tell you things you are not permitted to hear if I thought it was finny."
"Why am I not permitted to know things about the case I'm supposed to solve?"
"So you wouldn't manage to actually solve it, I imagine," Naruto answered, looking longingly at his paper cup and then hopefully at Sasuke's unfinished bowl. "It wouldn't look good on all those people who tried before you."
Sasuke resisted the temptation to ask who exactly had tried before him and ate the rest of his dinner, enjoying thoughtfully both his ramen and the growling sounds of Naruto's stomach. It was his own fault he was unable to judge how much he would need for a meal, so there was no place for guilt. Or a reason to share.
"We first thought about just letting you break into my office and steal the files," Naruto told him with a sigh, giving up the hope he'd beg more ramen off. "But I have some sharp-eyed watch dogs."
They expected him to break in? That sounded like if he was being led on and it made Sasuke even more annoyed. "Your guards would never have even noticed me."
The grin was back, wide and more like a really big smirk than anything.
"You think? But I would have to fire them then. I hate firing people."In a more dignified tone, Naruto added, "Kakashi loved that part."
Sasuke stood up and dropped his now empty bowl into the sink. Talking about Kakashi with Naruto – or anyone else for that matter – was on the very bottom of the things he was willing to do. Things were better back in the time Kakashi was the Hokage and, more importantly, when he was alive. Things were better because they were not quite so lonely.
Not that Naruto wasn't right. Kakashi did like dismissing people. He said it was helping building character of Konoha ninjas; it was just the thing a proper Hokage should be doing. Sasuke thought he was looking for the most idiotic pair of guards so he could get away with escaping for some time alone at the memorial from time to time.
Naruto thought he was writing his own series of books and thus needed someone really strong to make sure he would never be caught at it, not that Sasuke had that pleasure to hear it directly from him. But Sakura found it funny, and told him about it.
"This would be much easier if you brought those files with you," Sasuke finally said. His voice startled Naruto from wherever he'd drifted away. "You could leave them and go."
Glaring, Naruto stuck his right hand under his shirt, and took out a file that had been stuck in his belt. Sasuke thought about how rumpled the papers would be and then he found himself quite a bit fascinated with the little bit of flesh Naruto showed in the process of retrieving them.
This was not good. Thinking about Naruto in any kind of sexual way was fucked up, unhealthy and doomed to end in pain and blood. It was the direct consequence of practically being banned from having sex.
"Um, Sasuke?" Naruto called, breaking his morbid reverie effectively. "You look sick."
That made sense. Maybe he was sick.
Not willing to dwell on the little slip of sanity, Sasuke took the files. They were thick and worn out, like they were read and reread many times.
"Are you okay?" Naruto asked after he'd grown tired of waiting for response.
I will be once you're out of my sight.
"Yes. You can go now."
Naruto insisted, "But you are really pale."
Sasuke made a dismissive sound in his throat and opened the first file.
The relief in finding out not all the victims were kids was overriding his need to kick Naruto out for the moment, so there would be no blood, unless the moron kept insisting. Naruto didn't, so Sasuke read on.
The first case, which happened almost a year ago, was a forty year old man who was drowned in the fish tank he had in his store. Sasuke remembered when that happened; people were talking about the freak accident loudly enough for him to overhear without trying. There were no traces of struggle or bruises to suggest he had been held underwater, but the right side of his brain was active at the time of death, a good reason to believe he was under a genjutsu when in happened.
The second case, a really old woman, was drowned in the public toilet. Pictures going with the file were disgusting and bizarre. Pathology results could have as well been a copy of the previous file, if not for the name of the victim at the top.
The third victim was a guard at the back gate. He told his partner he was going to use the public convenience and never came back. He was found with his head in the mud puddle not a hundred steps away from the guarding spot, just around the corner. Same pathology results, but the blurry pictures of the scene made Sasuke stop and look at them more carefully. For some reason, he kept thinking of Shusui – not from the time he died, but from before, when Itachi and he were kids, ordered to take care of Sasuke…
Sasuke snapped out of the weird memory. It would do him no good to think of the past right now. He curved the file so the picture was more or less obscured at the odd angle and thus couldn't distract him.
When he finished reading, Sasuke became aware of the nervous shifting on the chair across from him. Naruto looked uncomfortable and maybe a bit embarrassed for some reason.
Sasuke snapped, "Why are you still here?"
Naruto licked his lips. Sasuke refused to allow himself to get sidetracked by the gesture and hated that took will power.
"Well, that is not all," Naruto declared, waving at the files. Sasuke did not like the regretful expression on his face, or the troubled quality in his voice. It suggested Naruto did, or thought he did, something very wrong. "And it's not getting better."
