Chapter 4: Vengeance
-The day before-
Sasuke stood behind his brother's throne with his sword run through both the stone chair, and the man that was sitting on it. "Now, before you die, I have one question," Sasuke said before he put into words what had been bothering him for a few years now.
"Oh…that," Itachi managed to gasp out as the blood trickled out from his mouth and chest. "Well, you see…" With little life left in him, Itachi gave Sasuke his answer the best he could with what little time he had remaining. The words came through in an almost inaudible whisper, and the man's younger brother strained to hear.
As Itachi finished telling Sasuke what he wanted to know, the older Uchiha activated his enhanced bloodline trait. The black fires of the Amatersau washed over his body, and his last thought was that he wouldn't even get to see his little brother die. Then, he exploded.
-Present-
"…and so we landed, and the motion must have finally jarred you awake," Sakura told Sasuke as she finished explaining just how Naruto, Sasuke, and herself had ended up like this.
Naruto had been quiet throughout the whole explanation. After Sasuke had gotten dressed, and Sakura had started laying everything out for him, Naruto had taken off Jiraiya's scroll, and started to fall into a depression again; or as close to one he got anyway.
The campfire crackled as one of the logs burned all the way through, and Sakura found herself pushing the two halves close together with some of the unused kindling before throwing the small stick in to the flames. They had made their camp in the impact crater Sakura had created. It was wide and deep enough to fit all of them comfortably, and helped hide the light of the fire. Sitting on the other side of the small blaze, Sasuke seemed more interested in the shirt he now had on than her story. "I uh…didn't have anything your size, so I looked into storage and found a few things that belonged to you," Sakura told him.
"It's Itachi's," Sasuke told her in an even tone.
"Right, fuel to the fire it is then," Sakura replied before she reached towards him to take the thing off, only to have Sasuke hold up his hand to stop her.
"It's just a shirt."
Another long and pregnant pause soon followed. Sakura looked at Sasuke, Sasuke looked at his clothes, and Naruto had a blank look as he stared at the scroll Jiraiya had given him. The whole thing made Sakura want to scream! After more than two years she had finally gotten Sasuke in a position where they could actually talk to him, and all she was doing was staring at a fire!
It wasn't like there wasn't anything to talk about. She just could think of anything to start a conversation with.
Maybe she should apologize. Yeah, that'll work, Sakura told herself sarcastically. 'Sorry I almost killed you'…it just didn't seem the right way to start a conversation.
She looked over to Naruto. Why the hell had he finally chosen now to shut up? Okay, so Jiraiya was dead… I shouldn't be so hard on him, the girl told herself. Sasuke had been a distraction from his grief. Now that the rescue was over with, Naruto had drifted right back to what had previously been on his mind.
Looking back to Sasuke, Sakura racked her brain for something, anything to talk about. Not just with Sasuke, but Naruto too. If anything, he needed something to keep him from dwelling on the old man's death more than she needed to reconnect with her teammate.
"Oh! I have some food if either of you is hungry," Sakura said before turning around to search through the backpack on the ground behind her. After what had just happened, she was completely famished. Naruto was always hungry, and Sasuke had been unconscious for almost a whole day. There was no way the two of them didn't need something to eat.
On cue, Naruto's stomach rumbled. As she handed him a small package, the kunoichi wondered if he had eaten anything since lunch. Naruto just looked at the small square of packaged provisions, then back up to Sakura. "Food rations?"
Sakura raised an eyebrow at his comment. "I didn't exactly have time to go shopping you know," the girl grumbled. Thanks to that stupid comment she had made to Tsunade, Sakura ended up doing a rush job of gathering supplies near the end to make sure she got Sasuke out before the Hokage did something to stop her.
When she offered one to Sasuke, he merely held out his hand and she tossed it over. Then, he went back to staring at nothing while looking in her general direction while Naruto continued to look at the giant scroll.
"I…didn't mean to do it you know," Sakura finally said to Sasuke.
"Hn?"
"Technically, you left the village as a Genin who had yet to undergo a year of training," Sakura told him. "By the letter of the law, you couldn't have been punished worse than a few months of community service. I mean, you killed Orochimaru and took off instead of seizing power. You killed Itachi, and another member of the Akatsuki! You aren't a bad person Sasuke, you didn't deserve to die." Sakura lowered her head and looked down at the grass. There were half a dozen more reasons of curse, but she didn't she could tell him. They all revolved around things like friendship and comrades, something Sakura wasn't even sure Sasuke really understood anymore.
Sasuke just shrugged. "It doesn't matter. It's done with now."
The emotionless reply made Sakura want to knock his head off and cry at the same time. This wasn't the Sasuke she remembered, the one she had wanted to save. Two years of being all alone, of having to watch his back and never let down his guard, of never showing a hint of weakness, was this what it had done to him?
"So, what are you going to do now?" Naruto asked, his first question to Sasuke since everything had quieted down.
Sasuke looked over to the former Leaf ninja with an unreadable expression. He stared at the Genin for a moment, and took another bite of his food. "After I get done eating, I'm going to head out."
The answer didn't surprise Naruto. "Don't."
One of Sasuke's eyebrows rose at Naruto's response. He wasn't begging, and if it was a demand, there wasn't any heat to it. "If you're going to start going on about that bonds crap, then I'll tell you now to save your breath."
Naruto smirked. "Naw, I know you're not the type of guy to go for that stuff," he replied. "And quite frankly, I'm not going to make the mistake of getting in your way when you want to leave for a second time, especially in the shape I'm in right now."
"Then what is it?" Sasuke asked.
"Me and Sakura wore ourselves out dragging your sorry butt out of that place," Naruto told him with a smirk. "I think I managed to loose anyone following us, but that won't keep them running in circles forever. The way I see it, the least you can do is-"
Sasuke threw the wrapping of the food ration into the fire. "You two are the reason I was in there in the first place."
"Whatever happened to 'it doesn't matter'?" Naruto countered. He took the last bite of his ration, and gladly got rid of the trash. Naruto hated those stupid ninja rations; they tasted like stale cardboard. "Just let us get a few hours of sleep. When we wake up, you can go without us bothering you ever again."
ARE YOU INSANE? Sakura mentally shouted to Naruto. After everything they just went through, he was just willing to let Sasuke walk off with a quick goodbye. While Sakura knew Sasuke's departure from her life would have been the likely outcome from the very beginning, she was at least willing to try and convince him to stay.
The very first thought that popped into his head was that Naruto was lying. But then Sasuke reminded himself that he was dealing with Naruto, not the usual kind of people that he'd been around for the past couple of years, and threw that possibility away. He considered just heading out on his own right then and there, but that had its problems. Naruto and Sakura wouldn't be able to stop him, but they would chase after him, and three people left a much more visible trail than just one.
If staying meant he'd have a lot less trouble in the long run… "Fine," Sasuke finally agreed.
With the deal struck, Naruto went to get their stuff out so he could finally get some sleep. Sakura may have rested up in preparation for their raid, but Naruto had been walking around the village until midnight, and the physical exertion had him ready to collapse.
After grabbing Sakura's backpack, Naruto dumped everything out and looked around at the assorted equipment. It hadn't been nearly as much as he was expecting. "Hey, where's the rest of the gear?"
The kunoichi rolled her eyes. Sometimes, she wondered if Naruto was unable to talk and think at the same time. "That's all I could bring without advertising I was running away Naruto. If I had known you were going to show up when you did, I would have had gathered more things and had you carry them. Everything in there was for me and Sasuke, I didn't pack for three people."
That was going to be a problem, Sakura realized. She had taken rations so they wouldn't have to waste time gathering food. With Naruto's appetite added to the mix, she didn't know if she brought enough anymore. If they did take time to forage, or even just caught something on the way and cooked it, that would mean all the more time for whatever ninja were sent from Konoha to catch up.
Naruto simply groaned in complaint. He looked around for something to make up for this little setback, and found it within reach. "Okay, then I call the sleeping bag," he told her before gabbing onto it before Sakura could protest, or move to snatch it away.
"NARUTO!" Sakura yelled at the other ninja while anger twisted her face.
With Sakura giving him the dreaded look all extremely pissed off women seemed to know, Naruto looked around the camp for either another option to his sleeping arrangement, or something to distract her. Finding nothing, he looked back at the rolled up outdoor bed, and then over to Sakura. Something very peculiar came to mind. "Hey wait a second…"
Sakura's scowl lessened a little bit as Naruto's voice became a bit more attentive. "What?"
"You said you only packed for you and Sasuke, but there's only one sleeping bag." The look on Naruto's face slowly became less thoughtful, and a mischievous grin appeared took its place. "…and you call me a pervert Sakura?"
The question made Sakura flinch. "H-Hey! Now wait just a second!" Sakura looked away from Naruto as the blond was barely able to stop himself from snickering. She glanced over to the other member of her group and found herself sweating. Even SASUKE'S looking at me like I'm a weirdo now, she cried.
He didn't have as big a scandalized expression as Naruto, one of his eyebrows had just risen a few centimeters, but that was saying a lot when it came to Sasuke.
"It's not like that!" Sakura assured the raven-haired shinobi while frantically waving her hands. "I only had one at my house, and…" Finally, she just turned back to the blond teenager who had started all this. "Fine Naruto! You take it!" If that would keep Sasuke and Naruto from thinking she was like that…
Wait a second, she told herself while the young man in orange jump suit quickly threw off said apparel and slipped inside the dark brown sleeping bag. As he zipped himself up, Sakura found herself wondering just how the hell had Naruto tricked her out of the finest sleeping arrangements they had.
A few seconds later, Naruto was asleep and snoring.
With her sleeping bag taken from her, Sakura looked over to the boy sitting to her right. She tried to think of something to say, something that would show Sasuke that they all needed to stick together now. She needed something to convince him to stay with her.
"We need to put out the fire," Sasuke said, stopping Sakura's attempt to develop an argument against splitting up. "If you're cold, then put on some of the clothes you packed for me for the extra insulation."
As he started to rise, Sakura quickly blurted out the first thing that popped into her head. "Why did you leave us?" The demanding tone, and yet desperate at the some time made Sakura freeze. It was a question she had wanted to know since the day Sasuke left, and yet…she knew there would be answer that would cause her anything but pain. But still, she continued. "I…we could have been happy Sasuke. When I look at you now…even after you've gotten your revenge-"
Sasuke looked over to the kunoichi and cut her off with his stare. Happiness? She was still going on about that? All such talk did was prove to Sasuke she understood nothing, and never would.
He didn't really care if she knew or not, having to justify himself to Sakura wasn't important. Still, if it would shut her up… "The goals in my life have never been about happiness. Orochimaru offered me a better chance of success than Konoha could. He offered me power that I could never had obtained through normal training methods, while Konoha had already assured me that I would never be able to use my abilities to their fullest. That was all it boiled down to in the end."
What he said, and his tone made Sakura clench her fist. That was all it boiled down to? Did he not even think of the bonds between her, himself, and Naruto worth considering? "Do you…regret it, even just a little?"
Sasuke turned his head away and scanned the tree line. Despite the distraction Sakura posed, he still needed to keep watch. Getting back to the question, he did think it over before answering. "…I guess, at least…a little. Everyone has regrets and second thoughts. I'm no different."
The answer made her look up at his face. However, he wasn't done talking, and Sakura couldn't get a word in edgewise. "But, I also know I would never have gotten strong enough with just Kakashi training me. If I had simply stayed in the village and been surrounded by distractions, if I had to adhere to their regulations, I would still be training to reach Itachi's level. Or, I would have already fought him and been killed." Done with his explanation, Sasuke looked back down at her with the same lack of expression as before.
As much as she hated to admit it, Sasuke had a point. Sakura knew just which one of those two would have happened as well thanks to Naruto being Itachi's target. Oh, she and Naruto would have been there when the time came, as well as Kakashi, but the end result would have more than likely been what Sasuke had already concluded.
"So…what are you going to do now?" Sakura asked hesitantly.
What was coming was her only real chance to keep Sasuke with her and Naruto. With Itachi dead, his life goal had been fulfilled. The only thing Sakura could see Sasuke doing now was…well, nothing. With the one major purpose in his life completed, he would be directionless, at least for a little while. If she would ever have a chance of talking him into traveling with them, now was the time.
For a moment, Sasuke just considered lying to her. After years of being under Orochimaru, it would be easy for him to disappear and never be found by any nation again. Considering that, it would be easy for anyone who knew anything about him to believe Sasuke could just fade away into the night.
But at the last second, he decided to just tell the girl the truth.
"There's someone that I need to kill."
Sakura blinked. That didn't make any sense; until she remembered something about their mutual enemy. "Wait, that body we found next to yours wasn't Itachi's?" It had been pretty…mutilated. In fact, the only identifiable thing about the body had been the cloak laying on the floor, most everything else had been a charred mess. It wouldn't have been the first time she ran into Akatsuki's doppelganger technique.
When Sasuke shook his head, Sakura just got more confused.
"I guess I should start at the beginning," Sasuke said after a moment of thought. He sighed and looked up at the sky in thought. The question was, just when was that?
"Although the archives of my clan might mention the Mangekyo Sharingan, it does not offer any instruction on how to obtain it," he began. "Even my father, the head of the clan, never knew the answer to that question."
Sakura frowned. The question that begged to be asked was obvious. "Okay, so how did Itachi find out?"
"Somebody told him," Sasuke answered. "In return, he joined Akatsuki." There was more to it, but that was the only important part. "Itachi was the one who did it, but whoever told him the secret was the one who set it in motion. It's also very probable that person also knew what was going to happen when he told Itachi. But even if that isn't the case, the spirits of my clan can never rest in peace while those responsible their death are still alive."
But how in the heck could he possibly know-Sakura cut the thought short. Itachi had to have told him. That was the only possible way Sasuke would be thinking such a thing. But why?
Hell, was it even true? She could see such a monster lying to Sasuke with his last breath just to make sure he never found peace.
No wait, that doesn't make any sense, Sakura told herself. Itachi's corpse had shown he'd died instantly; there wouldn't have been time for a last minute confession. She supposed he could have told Sasuke before the fight begun, but that would have meant he had been expecting to loose against his little brother. That was a scenario she couldn't envision.
Maybe he had just been overconfident, and told Sasuke what he wanted to know.
"So I take it that means-" Sakura stopped in mid sentence to yawn. She blinked at herself as the action reminded her of just how tired she was. Although she had taken the food pill just a few hours ago, her body had been completely exhausted beforehand, greatly decreasing its effects.
She tried to shake it off; she couldn't fall asleep right now, or have weariness cloud her mind. "I take it that means you'll be going after the rest of Akatsuki then?"
Sasuke made an almost undetectable shrug. "That is my only lead, so I don't have much of a choice. Even if none of them are the person I'm looking for, I can obtain information about whoever it is I'm chasing and follow the trail from there."
With that said, Sakura knew she and Naruto could convince Sasuke to come with them. She looked away from the other ninja to hide her smile, and then over to Naruto in her stolen sleeping bag in order to get rid of it.
It looked like it would be easy to get Sasuke to come with them after all.
--
"LADY TSUNADE! LADY TSUNADE!"
The door to the living room banged open, and Tsunade looked up from her spot on the couch. The light coming in from the hallway blinded her for a minute. She dropped the bottle in her hand, and barely reacted in time to catch the thing before it could hit the floor.
She looked up at her student, and frowned at the intrusion. The girl knew better to barge into her room when she was trying to be alone with her thoughts. But, if she was barging in at a moment like this… "What is it Shizune?"
The younger ninja ran into the room with a worried look on her face. "It's Sakura and Naruto. Something awful has happened!"
That what this was all about? Tsunade had the urge to smack the girl. But settled for rolling her eyes at Shizune's distraught face. "So?"
"And so this is how the Third's replacement reacts to the people she entrusted turning traitor?"
As soon as she heard the voice, Shizune's frantic actions fell into place. The young woman had known Sakura was going to try and break Sasuke out, and although getting Naruto to go along with it had been an unexpected twist, Tsunade wasn't all that surprised. If anything, she was mad at herself for not predicting it.
Tsunade put her anger over her lack of ability to predict the future aside. She looked up to see Danzou coming into the room, with the two village elders on his heels. And so it begins, Tsunade told herself.
"Tsunade, a little over an hour ago, your student, and the Leaf's Jinchuuriki, Naruto Uzumaki, attacked the detention facility where Sasuke Uchiha was being held. After murdering three medical ninja, they attempted to sneak out of the prison. When they were discovered, Sakura Haruno freed multiple prisoners, and were able to escape in the ensuing chaos," the female elder Koharu explained as she followed behind the bandaged man alongside Homura, the male leader of the village council.
The Hokage looked up to the old man and slowly moved to set down her saké on the table. Although she had known there would be a few broken bones caused by the girl, the death of Leaf ninja was something Sakura would have avoided at all cost. But there was something else odd about his statement that drew even more attention. "Medical ninja?" Tsunade asked.
This time, it was Danzou who answered. "At your student's insistence, I ordered a team of medics to go and examine the prisoner."
He was lying, that much was obvious to Tsunade from the moment she picked out the misplacement of the medical ninja. Perhaps not a lie outright, but one by omission in any case. But why? Tsunade asked herself. That was the important question, and one she didn't have an answer for as of yet.
Tsunade let out a long sigh and pushed herself out of the seat. After getting the cricks out of her neck, she looked back to the others. "In that case, I will assemble a team of ninja immediately," she told them before looking over to Danzou with a glare that would send most men running. "Unless of course, you would like to undermine my authority once again, and perhaps cause the death of yet more shinobi."
Much to Tsunade's annoyance, the man didn't even flinch as he made his reply. "I was merely doing what was best in the end. If not, who knows how long it would have taken for us to realize that Uchiha had escaped."
"Tsunade, the Leaf must re-capture its Jinchuuriki before the other villages learn of this fiasco," Homura told her.
The seemingly young woman looked over to the council members that Danzou had dragged in with him. With the two of them there, she couldn't allow herself to be outmaneuvered by the man in any way. The only problem was that she had no idea what had really brought them to her room at this late hour. Was it Danzou's instance, or their own need to find a reason for her replacement?
The answer to that question was what determined by just how wide a margin she needed to beat him.
"If you think the lives of three trained medical ninja are worth a few measly hours of pursuit, then you are an even bigger fool than I originally thought," Tsunade told him with a frown before she stormed out of the room; and ordering Shizune to follow right before turning down the hallway.
After Shizune caught up with her mentor, she looked over to the woman's face with a worried expression. The younger medic saw how much the older one was fighting to keep her mind focused on the task at hand, and then reached over to help support her once they were out of sight. "Are you alright?"
Tsunade simply shook her head.
"Once we get to your office, I could draw the alcohol out of your system and fix a remedy to deaden its effects," the young woman told her.
"It's not that." Tsunade pushed Shizune off of her, and turned to look out the window and over to the Hokage monument. She leaned over, and rested her hands on the windowsill The face of her grandfather seemed to be frowning, she knew it had to be her imagination, a trick of the night's shadows, but still…
"Do you know why my grandfather founded this village?" Tsunade asked without looking back to the girl.
Shizune blinked. She had read about it in the history books of course. Every ninja was taught it from practically their fist day at the academy. "The First Hokage wanted to create a place where all of his friends and family could live in safety and grow to be strong. A place where we could form ties of unbreakable camaraderie."
The answer that seemed to be quoted directly from a textbook made Tsunade laugh softly. "Yeah, um…that's a complete load of crap."
As her student's mouth dropped open and her eyes enlarged until Shizune's face showed nothing but shock at both Tsunade's disregard fro her grandfather's words, and the way she had said it was a lie, the Hokage covered her mouth to keep the noise coming out of her mouth from carrying too far. Once she had gotten herself back under control, Tsunade wiped a tear from her eye, and then looked back to Shizune.
"But…but…but…"
Tsunade waved her hand at the girl to try and get her back under control, then turned to look at her grandfather's face, and the one beside it. "Well, maybe that isn't entirely inaccurate. Uncle wouldn't have run the village like he did if that wasn't also the case. But, the real reason he founded The Village Hidden in the Leafs was because of politics. Or rather, because of his hatred of them."
"Huh?" Shizune mumbled as she snapped out of her stupor.
"You know about the village that represented the Land of Fire before this one, correct?" Tsunade asked her as she turned to face the girl.
"Not much. I haven't heard much anything about the Village Hidden Within the Magma besides its name, and that is where a lot of our older clans come from." Although, in her defense, no one else alive in Konoha did either. All she knew that it had been in the mouth of a volcano many miles to the south thanks to some old maps. There was nothing left of it today, and hadn't been for several hundred years.
Tsunade sighed, then looked back to her grandfather's face. "Well, according to the Second Hokage, my grandfather and a handful of other ninja that were trained in the Hidden Magma were part of dozen of factions vying for power. When my grandfather took over his faction, he just decided the hell with it, and left, taking whoever wanted to come with him. There's more to the story, I think his best friend, or wife, someone close to him at least tried to kill him one morning, and that's when he decided to get the hell out. Of course they were branded traitors and hunted down; but that's not really relevant to what I'm trying to say."
When it looked like Tsunade had lost her place in her story, Shizune crossed her arms, and frowned at the woman. "Which is?"
The question made Tsunade flinch in surprise. "Oh right, the point." She let out a sigh and collected her thoughts. "Well, long story short. The whole reason this village was founded in the first place was for the want to get away from things like this. People like Danzou, who think of only the institution, not the individual."
"But then, am I really all that better?" Tsunade mumbled to herself.
ANBU guards redirected, a known security risk ignored, and purposely wasted time when haste was needed. If someone else had taken the same actions Tsunade did and she had been the one on the sidelines, Tsunade would have done everything she could to bring that person down.
Shizune shook her head. "I don't think that at all." The woman was just letting her emotions could her vision. Once she got everything out of her system, Tsunade would be back to thinking strait again. "You're doing what's right."
But right according to whom? Tsunade asked herself.
Naruto…if she had done as Danzou insisted, forcefully kept him in the village, would things have been better? Would they have turned out worse?
The fear of a Jinchuuriki was well founded after all. The older the vessel got, the more the more control the demon inside them gained as the seal weakened. While the Fourth had tried to fix this problem by creating a seal that could be strengthened over time, with the Third, Jiraiya, and Orochimaru gone, no one else in the village had enough experience with sealing jutsu to fix it.
Now, with the seal weakening, Naruto was off in the world without anyone to watch over him.
Then there was Uchiha. If he was with Naruto…Tsunade didn't know if that only made the situation worse.
Should she send a team out to re-capture them, or make sure whoever went was doomed to failure? If Naruto lost control over the fox again, the amount of destruction would be catastrophic. But just thinking of things in terms of only numbers was the first step in a very slippery slope towards a destination she never wanted to end up.
Trust in Naruto to keep his control? Or play it safe at the cost of the boy?
Even if Tsunade did end up sending a team to recover Naruto, would that make him loose control in the end?
Tsunade looked up to her teacher's face in the monument, and sighed. How the hell did you always make this look so easy?
When no answer came, she just reached over, and put her arm around Shizune's shoulder for some support. "Well come on, let's go mull over personnel reports for an hour or two before we decide to send out a tracking squad." Then, the smile faded from her face, and Tsunade led Shizune down the hall more than leaned on her. "Also, I want the files on the three men Sakura killed, and their autopsy reports."
Shizune nodded. "You thought something was off about that too then?"
There was no need to give the stupid question an answer. The number of people Sakura had killed during her career as a shinobi totaled zero. Although she had gotten into plenty of battles, the girl had never been the one to land the deathblow. Now she had supposedly slaughtered three ninja from her own village that had been sent to look after the man she went in to save?
Either Danzou didn't know the first thing about Tsunade's appetence, or he thought Tsunade was about as dumb as dirt. So either those three medics were doing something that made Sakura angry enough to kill, or they had been killed to keep something quiet. The answer to that question was what Tsunade needed to finally pull the man down; she had to find it.
--
Naruto found himself brought out of his sleep by one of the rudest awakenings he ever had in his whole life. The teenager rolled over in his sleeping bag as something kicked him in the ribs. He immediately shot up, only to have the evil thing Sakura had lent him keep Naruto from gaining enough motion to stay there, and he quickly fell back to the ground, hitting his head on the dirt.
"OW! Hey! Who did that?"
After opening his eyes, Naruto saw that they were still in the pre-dawn hours. He couldn't have gotten much sleep, but with Sakura already up and packing, it looked like the little he had was all there was to get. In fact, Sakura had probably given Naruto a few minutes more than she got, what with her almost fully packed and all.
Above him, Sasuke stood staring at the boy with that damn emotionless expression of his. "Sasuke!" Instead of saying anything back, the other ninja simply turned around and started to walk away, and out of Naruto's current line of sight. "Hey! Come back here!" He tried to get up again, and ended up hitting his head on the ground again. "Somebody get me out of this thing!"
Rolling her eyes at her teammate's idiocy, Sakura finished putting the last of her things in her backpack, and walked over to let Naruto out of her sleeping bag. Hopefully, this incident would keep him out of it for a long time to come.
Once he was free, Naruto jumped up, quickly thanked Sakura, and ran after Sasuke; who hadn't gotten very far. "Hey Sasuke hold up a second!"
The other teenager's demand made Sasuke roll his eyes. Common sense said to just turn around and knock the blond out, running would only make Naruto chase him while shouting very loudly; which wasn't a good thing when people were trying to chase you down. But then, attacking him would cause Sakura to loose it, also causing a lot of noise and wasting time.
So, against his better judgment, Sasuke turned around to glare at Naruto. "What?"
The edge to Sasuke's voice brought Naruto to a halt. It took him a few seconds to find his voice. "Uh…so, what're you going to do now?"
Was everyone going to be asking him that now? "None of your business," Sasuke told him evenly before turning away and heading in the opposite direction from the former Leaf ninja.
"Wait!" Naruto yelled as he took another step and held out a hand as if to grab Sasuke, although the teen was far too much out of reach.
"Are you going to try and stop me again, Naruto?" Sasuke asked before reaching behind his waist for the sword that rested there. Now that the other ninja had some rest, Naruto could very well put up a fight. Sasuke hadn't though the boy was that deceptive, but then, they were ninja after all. "If you get in my way, I'll kill you this time."
He looked back at Naruto with his Sharingan, guaranteeing the end to any fight before it even started. If Naruto even tried to move, Sasuke would see the signs, and trap him in a Genjutsu that very instant. Even if he could counter the illusion, the distance between them was son short that the one second it took Naruto to do that would be all Sasuke needed to get in a deathblow.
Sakura paused in the middle of rolling up her sleeping bag to look at the two boys. They weren't going to start fighting already, where they? She just groaned and looked to the sky for strength. Once she told Sasuke what had happened, Sakura was sure they'd be sticking together.
"I…I need your help!" Naruto shouted as he bowed his head slightly to break eye contact.
The almost frantic tone to Naruto's voice actually aroused Sasuke's curiosity. "What?" He saw that behind Naruto, Sakura stopped packing and looked up from her things.
With Sasuke's question asked, Naruto took his time to try and organize what he was going to say. It had been something he had been thinking about since he and Sakura actually got Sasuke out of the Konoha prison; when his mind wasn't distracted by the fact he's never see a lot of his friends again.
"It's…it's about those Akatsuki guys," Naruto began. When he looked up to see Sasuke had deactivated his Sharingan and looked interested; at least as far as Sasuke could look interested while keeping that emotionless mask on his face anyway.
Now the only problem was, Naruto had no idea how to keep him interested. Since Sasuke had been with Orochimaru, he had to of known that Akatsuki was after the tailed beasts; hell Sasuke had probably known that even before his defection from Konoha thanks to Itachi. With Itachi dead, Naruto couldn't offer himself as bait, so that option to keep him around was out.
Finally, he just decided to just lay it out for the young man, and let Sasuke decide. Tricking the other guy into helping him wasn't really something Naruto felt comfortable with anyway. Besides, he doubted that such a thing was even possible.
"A few hours before Sakura and me broke you out, we got a report that Jiraiya infiltrated Akatsuki's headquarters and got into a fight with their leader," Naruto began. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath to keep his emotions from overflowing. He needed to keep a cool head for this. After making sure he wasn't going to get all teary eyed or something, he looked back up to Sasuke.
"Jiraiya, the Sanin that trained you, right?" Sasuke asked evenly. Orochimaru had mentioned something about Naruto being handed his own elite ninja to train with during the first few weeks of his time in the snake ninja's organization; the memory still left him feeling a bit…agitated. "I take it he was killed then?"
Naruto nodded wildly in response to the question. When his head dipped down for the last movement, it didn't raise back up "I want…I wanna kill this guy! But…Jiraiya was like the best ninja in the village, and he could just barely get a hit in edgewise on this bastard!" Naruto grit his teeth. "He was way better than me, and he still lost! So, if my teacher couldn't take this guy down, I know I'll get slaughtered if I go up against him on my own," Naruto said as he looked up to his friend's face. "Please, help me! I can't do I alone, and even if Sakura came with me, we'd both die.
"Sasuke, You're the strongest guy I know. You even took Orochimaru down on your own! If I want to have even the smallest chance a killing this guy, then I need people that are at least as strong as Jiraiya, or better…like you."
Revenge. That was something Sasuke could understand completely. The pain written on Naruto's face…he had seen it in the mirror many years before. It was almost enough to get him to agree…almost.
The fact of the matter was, if Naruto knew he wasn't strong enough to do something on his own, then Sasuke didn't want the blond slowing him down. It was the same as it had been years ago. Naruto had talent, Sasuke had long since become aware of that fact, but he lacked…something. Maybe it was focus, or control, or just a killer instinct, but the fact was that during a battle, Naruto had never been able to pull his act together until the fight was half over.
"In case you're wondering," Sakura cut in as she walked over with their things. "Naruto found out about all this from a toad Jiraiya had with him during the battle. The summon also saw Pain's techniques. Since you're heading after this guy anyway, I think it would be best to take us with you."
Naruto looked back at Sakura with a frown, then over to Sasuke. "Wait a second…YOU WERE GOING AFTER AKATSUKI ANYWAY?" he shouted to the Uchiha. Then he turned over to look at Sakura, looking at her with a waterfall of tears in his eyes. "And you just let me go on like that?"
Ignoring Naruto for the moment, Sasuke turned to face Sakura. "And I suppose that if I refuse, then that information won't be given?" he asked, the minor irritation he felt previously completely gone.
"Well, it wouldn't be much of a bargaining chip if-"
"No," Naruto told him in a completely serious tone on top of Sakura's reply. "If you don't want to help me, then I'll tell you everything you want to know about this guy right now, and you can go and do whatever you want."
Sasuke frowned at him in curiosity. Some things about Naruto he would never understand. "Why?"
Naruto just gave him a smile. "Because you're my friend," he explained before the mask fell off, and his depression reappeared. "And I don't want this guy to kill you too." From what he had heard, there was no way Sasuke was beating this Pain guy on his own. Plus, a small part of him was hoping that after hearing the information, maybe Sasuke would decide to stick around.
"And if I just walk away?" Sasuke asked as he raised an eyebrow.
Naruto smirked at the question. "Then I'm just going to have to kill him first."
The show of bravado made Sasuke roll his eyes and turn away. A much as Sasuke hated to admit it, with his platoon gone, he did need replacements. Akatsuki still had him greatly outnumbered. Still…Naruto and Sakura? The thought of having to put of with their presence again left a bad taste in his mouth.
Then again, it wasn't the first time he had done something unnerving.
Finally, he made a decision. "If you're coming, then hurry it up. I'll leave you behind if you start to slow me down."
"HEY!" Naruto shouted as he followed the other boy until they were side by side. He looked over, and scowled at Sasuke. "Just who the hell put you in charge, huh?" After all, Naruto was the one with all the information; Sasuke was the one who was helping him!
"I did," Sasuke replied as he turned his head to look at Naruto.
Behind her teammates, Sakura watched the two of them walk thorough the forest as she followed behind. For a moment, an image of the past replaced that of the present. She saw a scene of two thirteen-year-old boys having the same argument they were now, and couldn't help but smile.
--
It was just half an hour before dawn, and Tsunade found herself wishing she had something to drink. She paced back and forth in front of her desk with a worried frown covering her face. Sober again thanks to Shizune, memories of Jiraiya were starting to creep back into her thoughts. If only she had just…
The door opened, and Tsunade quickly looked up. She was glad for something else to focus on. A few seconds later, and all the shinobi she had arranged to chase of Naruto had arrived except…Tsunade waited another minute, and looked around the room. "Lee isn't coming?"
The boy's teacher coughed into his hand. "Uh yes, about that. You see, Lee had a bit of an accident last night while working out. He put one too many self-imposed rules on himself and…well, long story short, he's got some pulled ligaments. I didn't know until I went to wake him up."
Tsunade simply shook her head at Guy's explanation. Those two and their rules… If they were unable to do one set of exercises, then how did they expect to complete a second set when they were completely worn out from the first failed attempt?
Then again,things might be better this way, the Hokage told herself. She looked at the assembled ninja. Although most belonged to the same team, she had chosen each of them in correspondence to their target's abilities. Tenzou, or Yamato as he was being called without his mask, would be able to get Naruto under control if worst came to worst. The rest of Team Guy would be squared off against the former Team Kakashi. Then there was the final member of their group: Kakashi himself.
"Tsunade, if Lee isn't coming, then shouldn't we take on a sixth member to replace him?" Kakashi asked the older woman.
The question made Tsunade thoughtful for a moment. As much as she hated to admit it, there wasn't a group of people better suited to the task at hand.With their diverse strengths, and Yamato filling in for Lee, Team Guy is to be the perfect counter for Team Kakashi…the former team Kakashi that is, she reminded herself.
Finally coming to a decision, Tsunade shook her head. "No. Although another long-range fighter would be useful, it would take too much time to drill what the ninja would need to learn in order to fall into synch with the rest of you. Time is of the essence here. Move out as soon as you are ready."
Tsunade took in a deep breath. She knew that she was going to need a few drinks after this. "You are to recapture both Sasuke Uchiha, and Naruto Uzumaki, and return them to Konoha by whatever means necessary. Sakura Haruno is to be killed on sight."
The harsh order made Kakashi frown. "Lady Tsunade I know that-"
"You heard my order, now go!"
As soon as the group of shinobi disappeared from the room in a cloud of smoke, Tsunade sat on top of her desk and looked down at the ground in despair. Her friends, her family, her love, and now her student. How many more people close to her would have to die in order to keep Konoha safe?