Fandom: Naruto
Pairing: Various. Whatever I feel like.
Summary: AU. SasuSaku. In a world where those caught out after Curfew are slaughtered, where Communism, fear and death are ways of life, and where the Akatsuki might as well be gods, Uchiha Sasuke discovers a group of people who still know what freedom means.
Disclaimer: Naruto © Masashi Kishimoto. Plot © me. The italised lyrics beneath the chapter title © The Last Firstborn — Celldweller.
Chapter Four: Guilt
Like a kid playing with a razorblade
"Kisame-dono! Kisame-dono!"
Kisame lazily swirled around in his chair, and lowered the newspaper that featured, who else but, himself.
"What?" he drawled.
The messenger, clearly a rookie, Kisame thought, bowed enthusiastically and whipped out a scroll from his bag and unrolled it.
"Itachi-dono has returned from his travels, Kisame-dono! He is requesting an immediate audience with you in the South Wing, Kisame-dono!" he read aloud to Kisame, unable to contain his excitement.
Kisame stared at him.
"Wut?" he asked eloquently.
The messenger repeated what was in the contents of his scroll.
Kisame swore and ripped his newspapers into shreds.
"He's not supposed to be back until next month!" hissed Kisame.
The messenger nodded so vigorously that Kisame thought his head would fall off.
"There has been a change of schedule, Kisame-dono. Itachi-dono had finished his business a lot earlier than he expected to."
"That stupid genius—brat," mumbled Kisame. "So why does he want to come back so early? Is the weather there like, horrible or something?"
The messenger shook his head before saying, "Itachi-dono says that he just felt like coming back early and would like to visit his brother."
Whatever colour Kisame had drained from his face.
"Oh fuck. I'm gonna die."
"Good morning, sunshine!"
The lights flickered on and Sasuke groaned.
"Time to get up, Sasuke-kun!" Sakura sang.
Sasuke twitched slightly, but made no move to get out of his (lovely, snuggly) bed that was hundreds of times more comfortable than the (cold, hard) floor in his old cell.
Sakura put a hand on her hip and began to tap her foot.
"C'mon, sweetie, wake up. It's morning," she tried once more.
Sasuke didn't respond.
Sakura pursed her lips.
"I said, wake up!" she screamed, running over to Sasuke's bed, intending to rip the covers off of him.
Sasuke, unwilling to get up just yet, grabbed the covers at the last second, preventing Sakura from wrenching it off of him.
Tch, annoying woman.
Sakura rubbed her temples and sighed.
"I'm sorry, Sasuke-kun, but I did try," she said sadly. "You really need to get up now, so if you won't get out of bed willingly, then I'll have to call Naruto—"
The door burst open.
"Did I hear someone say my name?" Naruto asked in a loud, obnoxious voice, looking left and right.
He paused when he spotted the sleeping lump that was Sasuke under the covers on the bed.
Naruto grinned evilly.
"DATTEBAYOOOO!" he shouted with glee, running over to the bed and leaping onto it, effectively crushing Sasuke.
Sasuke only made a strangled noise, momentarily panicking after hearing a few of his rib bones crack.
After Sasuke had showered and dressed, he made his way down to the cafeteria with Naruto and Sakura, where he had his first hot meal since he was eight. Initially his throat and stomach, unused to the warm temperature, had burned, but after a while it had calmed down, allowing Sasuke to peacefully enjoy his breakfast.
Naruto, on the other hand, had practically scoffed down his meal, stood up and choked out a, "Hey, I've got to go somewhere. Meet up with you guys later," without swallowing any of his food and ran out of the cafeteria, all in the time span of ten minutes.
Sakura watched his retreating back sadly, and when he was gone, she put down her spoon and sighed.
"He's still all beat up about Hinata," she explained, noticing Sasuke's inquisitive expression.
Sasuke made a disbelieving sound.
"He didn't sound 'beat up' about it this morning," he said bitterly, stabbing at a piece of meat on his plate at the memory.
Sakura smiled, but it didn't manage to reach her eyes.
"Naruto's a bit bipolar like that. I don't know whether you caught onto it yet, but he really loved her. And he's blaming himself for her death."
"Why?" Sasuke heard himself ask.
"Well," Sakura began, hesitantly looking around to see whether anybody was eavesdropping on them, "the Akatsuki have been targeting Naruto for about three years. No one really knows why, but They just have been. They've come so close to catching him at times that Naruto can only do half the number of patrols a normal recruit does, and he can only be paired with an experienced member, you know, someone who's been in the organisation for about five years and has proven his or herself competent enough."
Sakura looked down at her bowl of cereal.
"About a year ago, Naruto was paired with Hinata to do rounds in the South District," Sakura continued quietly. "They just came so suddenly. There were explosions and crashes everywhere, and Naruto and Hinata didn't have enough time to react. Thank God there were two members patrolling nearby. They quickly rushed to the scene, and got Naruto out before it was too late."
Sakura stopped talking and picked up her spoon, using it to push around the cereal in her bowl.
"But they were too late to save Hinata," Sasuke finished.
"Yeah," said Sakura sombrely, using her free hand to tug a few strands of her short, pink hair. "Naruto's always believed that if he had been more alert, the whole situation would have been avoidable."
Sasuke didn't have any reply to that.
"It also created a sort of rift between him and Neji," Sakura said, pausing to shove more cereal into her mouth. "They used to be quite good friends, you know," she continued, after she had swallowed her food. "But that changed when Hinata was abducted. Neji said that it wouldn't have happened had Hinata not been paired with Naruto. Which is unfair, but you can't really blame Neji for thinking like that, because it is true, I suppose. I mean, Hinata was his only family left in the world and Naruto is the Akatsuki's main target at the moment. If it had been anyone else with Hinata, the incident wouldn't have happened. But Naruto couldn't control it, so it's not his fault. Neji doesn't see it like that, though. But it's only natural that he feels upset about her being taken. We all were," and here, Sakura's voice lowered to a whisper, "I mean, she was a lovely girl. And she didn't deserve what happened to her."
Sasuke paused, lowering his fork as he remembered Hinata's screams as she was held in the Torture Chamber, being put through horrors even he dared not even think of whilst they tried to get information out of her. He remembered hearing her sobs in her cell next to his after every session with Them when she refused to break.
"No," he said. "No one deserves it."
He stared at his almost empty plate for a few moments. Sakura, noticing this, stood up, her chair scraping against the tiled floor as it moved backwards.
Sasuke looked up at her.
"You finished eating yet, Sasuke-kun? Come, I want to show you something."
"What do you mean, someone's stolen our documents?" Tsunade demanded.
"It's just that, Tsunade-sama," said Shizune, cringing at the blonde's loud, angry tone.
"Well, who stole it?"
"We… don't know, Tsunade-sama."
Tsunade blinked and then narrowed her eyes.
"You mean someone managed to sneak in here, past all of our surveillance and security, past all these people, and stole some vital plan documents from right under our noses? That's impossible, Shizune."
"But Tsunade-sama—"
"What was stolen?" Tsunade asked, already having turned her back to Shizune.
"Um, well, whoever came in managed to steal our blueprint of the Akatsuki Detainment Unit. Since that's only a copy, and is probably not very accurate anyway, no one was that worried."
Shizune stopped talking, and fidgeted, scared of continuing.
Tsunade turned around and looked at her.
"What else?"
Shizune closed her eyes and took a deep breath before saying, "Well, numerous things. Mission details, information on the area around us. But there was one thing that stood out from the documents stolen. Someone's stolen the profile we took of Uchiha Sasuke."
Tsunade stared, and said, "Why would anyone want that?"
"I don't know, Tsunade-sama," said Shizune, relieved that Tsunade had taken the news relatively calmly. "Maybe it was the Akatsuki?"
Tsunade scratched her chin, thinking over that possibility.
"I doubt it," she said after a minute. "If They had actually found our Headquarters, They would have attacked us and killed us all already. Coming in to steal a file about an escapee, albeit one that is related to one of Their members, is pointless. They might as well have taken him back while They were in here, in which case someone would have seen it and notified us."
Shizune flipped through the file in her hands.
"But Tsunade-sama," she said, looking up again, "the Technological Department say they've seen no sign of a break-in, or any one trespassing in any of the surveillance cameras. No one could have gotten past our security undetected except for the Akatsuki, so it must be Them."
There was another pause.
"It just doesn't make any sense," Tsunade said quietly. "Why would They steal a file off someone who They already had a file of? It doesn't add up."
"No one else could have broken in without someone noticing," Shizune said.
Tsunade nodded her head.
"No, no one could have," she agreed. "But then, that would mean…"
Tsunade stopped halfway through her sentence and walked over to the window, pulling back the curtains slightly to let some light in. She leaned her forehead against the cool glass and sighed, closing her eyes. She stayed that way for a few minutes.
Shizune didn't move, tentatively standing in the same spot and watching her superior.
Tsunade opened her eyes and looked out at her surroundings, before turning away from the window and focusing her attention back on Shizune.
"Shizune," Tsunade said gravely, any hint of confusion or defeat gone from her face. "Arrange multiple meetings with all of our recruits, one after the other, according to what department they're in. Start with the guys down at Tech, working your way up in the building. Leave the battle divisions until last."
"Of course, Tsunade-sama," Shizune said, snapping the folder in her hands close. "But, if you don't mind my asking, why?"
Tsunade had already turned back to the window, and didn't look at Shizune as she said her next words:
"Because there's a traitor among us."
"Where are we going?" Sasuke asked, as he was dragged by Sakura past numerous doors and through numerous corridors. His arm was beginning to ache from her strong grasp.
"It's not much further, don't worry," she assured him, taking a left turn and climbing up some stairs.
There was a door waiting for them on top of those stairs, and Sakura opened it once they had climbed up. It led to a large, open area.
"This is the rooftop," Sakura explained. "Technically, we're not supposed to be here. You know, in case They swoop down from above and snatch us away. But They haven't found us yet, and I doubt us going up for some fresh air makes much of a difference. Besides, we've got fencing all around us, so we're all right," she said, gesturing to the wired fences that bordered the porch.
She continued to walk to the end of the rooftop, reaching out a hand to grab onto the fencing. Sasuke noticed that her other hand was still holding his.
He was too busy noticing this that he didn't notice anything else around him for a while.
"Look, Sasuke-kun," Sakura said in a gentle voice, gazing into the distance, the gentle breeze ruffling her pink tresses. She took her hand off the wired fence and raised it, pointing upwards to the endless sky.
Sasuke looked up.
"Look, Sasuke-kun," Sakura repeated, smiling softly. "It's dawn."
A/N:
I honestly don't know where on earth I'm going with this.
BUT OH WELL.
I want to hug Kisame. I like fish.
I also like Shino, and wanted to slot him in multiple times, but... I couldn't, because it didn't make sense, and I wouldn't want to make Shino seem worthless or something
-does hand-flippy thing- Pshaw. Shino's NEVER useless. He is Win.
Lessthanthree.
