Sasuke waited for Kakashi with his other two teammates, who were both eyeing him. Sai's glances were a little creepy and intense, but they were nothing compared to Sakura's heart eyes. Sasuke sank a little lower in his chair, wishing someone would diffuse the tension somehow, but no one took the initiative and the clock ticked by while Kakashi's appearance grew later and later.
"Argh, how long is he gunna make us wait?" Sakura finally burst out, rather uncharacteristically.
"Not much longer I'm sure," Sai said, unruffled by the whole thing. Sasuke crossed his arms, wondering what Sai's deal was. Everything about him seemed so… fake, from his smiles to his flat laughs. Sasuke couldn't ever imagine getting along with someone so weird. Oddly, he felt like if there was anyone he could get close to on this team, it was Sakura, which wasn't a comforting thought. Deep down, he wondered if he'd ever find a true friend the way Itachi had found Shisui.
He shook the thought from his head as the door finally opened; trying to find a friend just to kill them was darker than even he was willing to go.
"You're late!" Sakura yelled, then glanced at Sasuke, blushed, and sat down. "N-not that there's anything wrong with that, Sensei."
"Hm, well, I just got lost on the path of life."
It was such a blatant lie that Sasuke fought the urge to smack his head on the table, while Sakura actually did. Sai was all polite smiles and nods as if what Kakashi had said made perfect sense. The three ended up following him outside for introductions, which didn't turn out very helpful. Kakashi was vague at best, Sakura's fawning was annoying, Sai's "I like sunshine, I don't like rain, and my dream is to serve the village" was generic, and Sasuke's introduction warranted concerned looks from all involved.
In the end, the only good thing that came of the introductions was the end when Kakashi told them where to meet him for one final test in the morning. After that, they were dismissed and the three went their separate ways, Sakura casting disheartened glances after Sasuke's hunched shoulders.
Itachi lay his head against the wall of the hideout's cave, letting out a long sigh. Going back to Konoha and speaking to the Third had made old wounds ache, so he hadn't gone to find Naruto immediately after coming back the way he normally would. He heard footsteps approach but he didn't bother to open his eyes; he could tell by the weight of the footsteps who it was. The person settled down beside him and they breathed together for a while before Itachi finally opened his eyes and looked over.
Sasori had his eyes closed as if he were sleeping, but at Itachi's look they opened lazily and he reached into his cloak, pulling out a vial. He handed it over without a word, inspecting his nails as if there was something interesting about them. Itachi uncorked the vial and drank it down as if it weren't the most bitter thing he'd ever tasted in his life, then handed it back to Sasori. After a few more minutes, Sasori stood, dusted himself off, and started walking away.
"You should tell him, you know," Sasori said over his shoulder, not pausing as he said it.
"What do you think would happen if I did?" Itachi asked tiredly, rubbing a hand over his face. There were some things that were better off left unsaid.
"I don't know what will happen if you do…" Sasori murmured quietly. "But I know how he'll feel if you don't."
He left Itachi alone with his thoughts, the faces of his light and dark younger brothers haunting him.
"So all we have to do is get the bells?" Sai asked, well-mannered as always. Kakashi's smile was visible through his mask as he held up the two bells, shaking them so they jingled slightly.
"Yep. Simple, right?"
As simple as it sounded, the three teammates could barely even touch the bells. Sasuke came close a couple of times, grazing a bell with a fingertip at one point, but the jounin teacher proved to be a far better opponent than Sasuke had ever expected. Even Sai's ink monsters couldn't get close, and pretty soon the blank-faced boy was sweating and his smile had disappeared.
Sasuke cursed his weakness over and over again, wondering just what the hell all his training had been for. He couldn't keep up to a guy who was probably half Itachi's strength, so where was he supposed to get the power to defeat his older brother? By lunch, he was fuming, and also running on fumes. His stomach growled like nobody's business, and he was pretty sure there'd be no sneaking up on anybody until he'd eaten.
Somehow, Kakashi had ended up tying Sakura to a log when Sasuke got to their lunch meeting spot, and she looked pretty pissed about it, though she tried not to show it.
"Now, the two of you who were doing the best can eat, but Sakura can't. Make sure you don't feed her anything or you fail and you can never become ninjas."
Kakashi said the whole thing with his lips in a smile under his mask, and Sasuke had to clench his teeth from screaming about how unfair that was. How was Sakura supposed to have a fighting chance when she was weak with hunger? It's not like he was all that interested in helping her, but there were only two bells and he'd rather Sakura got one of them than Sai. As the three of them sat around together, Sai happily enjoying his lunch, Sasuke offered Sakura some of his food.
"S-Sasuke is giving me f-food?" Sakura asked, talking mostly to herself. Her eyes shone as if she were about to cry, but she quickly turned her head away. Sasuke frowned.
"Just eat it," he muttered. "You need your strength if we're going to work together."
"But Sasuke, if we get caught you won't be able to be a ninja anymore. I can't let that happen! I won't eat it and risk you getting in trouble."
"He's gone, just eat it," Sasuke growled, louder this time. Sai had paused in his meal to watch the two of them curiously, apparently having no desire to share his own food. Well, whatever, it wasn't like Sasuke had expected him to be much of a team player. When Sakura stubbornly shook her head again, Sasuke let out a loud, annoyed sigh and stood, holding out a mouthful of food on a chopstick for her eat. Her face went scarlet, but she still refused.
"Come on, you idiot!" Sasuke was yelling now, waving it in front of her face. "You need to keep your strength up!"
"The hell you calling me an idiot for?" Sakura finally roared. "I'm trying to stop you from getting in trouble!" She seemed to regret the outburst as soon as it happened, but when Sasuke still pushed the food at her she got even angrier until they started arguing. After a few moments of this, there was suddenly a huge explosion and everyone but Sai flinched back as Kakashi appeared in front of them.
"YOU!" he yelled. Sasuke lowered the lunchbox, dumbstruck. He was about to fail out of becoming a ninja for trying to feed a stubborn teammate. Out of everything he could've imagined happening, this was probably the lowest on his 'believable' list. Sakura Haruno had been annoying from the beginning, but he had to admit he'd sort of admired the backbone she'd shown in denying the lunch. Still, it wasn't like she was worth giving everything up for! He clenched his jaw, ready to argue back, when Kakashi said,
"…passed."
Temari went to visit Gaara on the roof a week after the initial visit. At his worried expression, her first thought was that his little friend still hadn't come to visit, but when she got closer she instinctively felt that it was something else. Gaara looked up at her approach, and even more than worried, he looked upset.
"What's up, little bro?" Temari asked, dropping beside him and crossing her legs. She wondered if he'd even tell her; maybe if it involved his friend he'd keep it to himself to protect his friend's privacy. But Gaara was curiously forthcoming.
"I'm worried about him," Gaara said, kicking his feet against the side of the building and sending up soft puffs of sand.
"Has he not come to see you yet?" Temari asked with a frown. It wasn't unusual for Gaara's friend not to come for a few weeks, even a month.
"He came to see me last night," Gaara sighed, pressing his palms together as if he were praying or performing some strong jutsu. "I once told him he could ask for anything he needed, but I never thought…"
Gaara's voice dropped off as he took one hand and used it to make images in the sand. Two boys grinning at each other, one offering his hand to the other. The two talking and pointing up at the sky as if pointing out stars far, far above. The two laying side by side and quietly watching the world spin. Each scene seemed to carry with it a peacefulness, the same sort of peacefulness Gaara had started carrying inside himself the day he'd fought his friend-to-be.
Then the sand shifted and the image itself seemed brittle, as if the sand itself were hurting. Gaara had his hands spread as if asking why, but his friend looked positively feral, teeth pulled into a snarl and hands curled into fists. The scene played out like a movie, the friend jabbing fingers at Gaara accusingly until Gaara threw his hands up and left. If it ended there, Temari might've thought things would be okay, because no one fought and made up quicker than boys. But in the next scene the small sand-Gaara was handing the other boy something. Three somethings.
"Are those…?"
"Sand Village headbands, yes," Gaara answered, his eyes narrowing as the tiny sand theater collapsed into dust. "He wouldn't tell me why, but he wants to enter the upcoming Chuunin Exams as a Sand shinobi. Usually, if it were him, I'd think it was to test his strength, but…"
Gaara moved his hand again and conjured up two images of the same boy. One of them looked bright and happy, his mouth opened in a laugh with his tongue out as he flipped his middle finger. The other's face was twisted in a horrible sneer, the inviting look in his eyes replaced with a bloodlust so great Temari could almost feel it radiating from the sand. She swallowed nervously, looking from the figure back to Gaara. The cruel figure's eyes were like Gaara's before he'd made his friend, except there was more hatred than emptiness.
"That—that's how he feels about the Chuunin Exams?" Temari asked, hating the fear in her own voice but knowing it was smarter to be scared. Gaara shook his head, smashing the sand with one fist and turning to take in the view of his village.
"No. That's how he feels about the Leaf Village."
"Where's Naruto?" Itachi asked, stepping into the large cavern where most Akatsuki members were hanging out. He'd been thinking about what Sasori had said for the past three weeks, and intentionally avoiding the Akatsuki's little prodigy. Usually, Naruto would freak out when Itachi avoided him, so it was something Itachi did as little as possible. This time, when he asked, he half expected the tiny blonde to launch himself out of the shadows and wrap his arms around Itachi, complaining noisily like he usually did after an absence, but no one said a word.
"Anyone going to answer him or you all just gunna sit there with your fuckin' traps hanging open?" Hidan said loudly, as if he wasn't supposed to be one of the ones watching Naruto. Itachi took in every face in the cave (most of them were studiously painting fingernails or toenails) until everyone had paused and were looking around.
"Does anyone have an answer?" Pain asked, prompting everyone to speak at once.
"—thought Sasori was—"
"—said he had to go out to take a leak—"
"—mention it, he hasn't been back in a while—"
"—training or something—"
"—didn't think he'd actually—"
"The entire Akatsuki, some of the strongest ninjas in the world, and we can't watch one kid, hm," Deidara sighed, scratching idly at his ear. No one seemed all that upset yet; Naruto was known for his frequent disappearances to train or go visit his Sand Village friend, but Itachi felt uneasy. He narrowed his eyes, searching every face in the room, until he finally found one looking steadily back at him.
"Sasori?" he asked curiously, because out of everyone Sasori seemed the least likely to stir up trouble with Naruto. Sasori, Pain, and Itachi were the only people in the organization the boy even listened to, so it made no sense that Sasori could have anything to do with why he disappeared. Yet…
"Forgive me," Sasori said, and suddenly everyone's boredom evaporated and all eyes in the room were focused sharply on the puppet master. Even though he could get on people's nerves and he was often handed from one member to the next, Naruto's loyalty to the Akatsuki made him a favourite, and his power had earned him a ton of respect. Kisame aptly called him their mascot, and their one source of endless amusement. At one point or another, every single member had taken Naruto under their wing to teach him something.
"Where is he?" Konan asked, rising from her spot. She rarely showed much emotion or spoke, but Itachi had once seen Naruto make her laugh. It was common knowledge that he, along with Pain, was her soft spot. Of course, he was everyone's soft spot, including his distant cousin Nagato's.
"He's gotten too good at hiding his presence," Sasori said flatly, pressing a finger against his temple. "I was filling Deidara in on what was going on with Orochimaru, and he overheard."
"I understand Sasori not hearing him, because Sasori has all those creaky puppet joints, but what's wrong with Deidara? How crazy is it that he let a twelve-year-old boy sneak up on him?" Tobi asked, shaking his head regretfully. Sasori ignored Tobi, but it took Kakuzu and Hidan both to hold Deidara back while Tobi cowered.
"Never mind giving and taking blame, the problem here is what Naruto intends to do with that information," Pain's deep voice rang out, cutting the fighting off. Itachi nodded his agreement; a pit of dread had made a cold, hard lump in his stomach and it took everything he had to keep it off his face.
Naruto hated the Leaf Village, and no matter how much Itachi had gently tried to steer him away from his hate, Naruto's desire to destroy the village that had cast him out was unwavering. He wanted it crushed into the dust, smashed down, every last piece burned, and it wasn't just because of how he'd been treated when he was younger. Although Itachi made sure nothing of his reasons for slaughtering his clan got out, Naruto had somehow gotten a hint as to why the massacre took place. Further, he blamed Konoha for the death of Sasori's parents, the death of Nagato's parents, and even the death of his own parents, who had sacrificed themselves to save the village. His hatred for Konoha was so great that Itachi feared it would overcome him.
But even that hatred paled in comparison to Naruto's deep, personal hatred of Orochimaru. Itachi had just brought Naruto into the Akatsuki and Naruto was just beginning to develop bonds with all of the members when Orochimaru betrayed them and tried to take Itachi's body over. Itachi had the ability to stop him, but Naruto hadn't known that. The end result was… horrifying. To say the least. Orochimaru was injured and fled, but it hadn't been much of a victory. It had taken nearly the entire force of the Akatsuki to stop Naruto from continuing his rampage.
Itachi quickly banished the thought from his mind; dwelling on the past wouldn't help anything. What he needed to focus on now was what Naruto was planning. The Chuunin Exams were about a month away, which meant Naruto was probably getting ready to begin his travels so he could sign up and get comfortable before they started. But how could he enter without any teammates?
"Puppets," Sasori said suddenly, and for the second time that day everyone stared at him. He looked thoughtful, his fingers twitching as if just thinking about puppets made him want to play with some. "He's gotten very good with them. Even I can't see his chakra threads anymore. If he were to make a couple of human puppets and bring them with him…"
He didn't need to finish; everyone understood.
"Woah, he's gunna do the entire Chuunin Exam by himself?" Tobi asked in awe. "That's pretty cool for a twelve-year-old. Knowing him, he'll probably win too. He's much stronger than Deidara was at that age… or even stronger than Deidara is now, actually…"
While Deidara put Tobi in a choke hold, Konan spoke to Sasori, her usually unruffled expression tensing up.
"Why don't you check your collection before we get too worked up?"
It took a while, even for the Akatsuki members, to go through every single puppet Sasori had. Besides the one hundred he kept in a room to be summoned with his scrolls, there were nearly five hundred. And out of those, many were human puppets he'd collected from the time he'd wiped out an entire country.
"There are three missing," Sasori finally said. "Two human puppets and a wooden puppet Naruto was in the middle of making."
"Which two?" Tobi asked, as if it even mattered. It had taken him a while to recover from being strangled. Sasori answered him nonetheless.
"A girl and a boy. They were young, probably a couple of years older than him. I can understand them being taken if he needs companions around his age for the exam, but I don't understand why he'd take his own puppet. He can only control two right now."
"So he really is planning to do it," Konan murmured under her breath, worry creasing her brow. "Is there any way to find him?"
"In the desert, hm? Doubtful, hm."
"We don't have the time to go looking; it could take weeks to find him," Pain said, a decisive note in his voice. "For now we'll continue with our operations."
Three voices immediately raised in protest, followed by another three before the first were done. Pain raised both hands and the members grumbled back into silence.
"If he's planning to go through with this, I doubt we'll be able to stop him. The best thing to do is let him enter the Exams, and keep an eye on him there. If Orochimaru appears before him, the team I send after him can deal with it then. If not… it may prove an enlightening experience, pitting him against shinobi his age."
"And if he's recognized?" Itachi asked. His feelings were mixed; on one hand, he wanted to protect Naruto, but on the other, what if this was the thing that helped the little jinchuuriki see reason about Konoha? Naruto had a tendency to make friends wherever he went, and he was always absolutely loyal to a friend. If he made friends in the Leaf Village, maybe his desire for destruction would fade. Maybe he'd even meet Sasuke and…
"He's stupid, but not that stupid," Kakuzu piped up. "He gets hotheaded when he thinks about destroying his old village—I understand the feeling completely—but he's not as impatient and mindless as this one."
He gestured to Hidan, who glared at him, then the two started arguing, Hidan spewing a creative and numerous amount of foul profanities. Itachi ignored their arguing, only shooting Hidan a mild glare when he recognized one of the words Naruto had been using a lot recently.
"I believe you're right," Pain said, inclining his head toward Kakuzu. "So that's our move for this situation. Wait it out, and only interfere if things go bad. That way should ensure both Naruto and our organization will be satisfied."
And things might've turned out just fine, had Orochimaru not been involved.