iv.
Please just kill me.
"Clearly I need to educate you more thoroughly, since you still haven't learned to shut your mouth."
He could barely breathe. So many of his ribs had been fractured and cracked, inhaling was literally excruciating. He'd been trying to index his injuries but the pain was so blinding he couldn't keep count and everything hurt to the point that he couldn't tell what was an injury and what was just soreness and what was just radiating pain. Teara had sunk multiple knives into him (one of them serrated), carving through bone and leaving one wedged between the joint in his shoulder. He didn't know how long the white-haired man had been gone but it seemed like an eternity. He was pretty sure it'd been at least a couple of days. He couldn't even seem to remain unconscious, and he definitely couldn't fall asleep.
He was positive that his hip was broken again. His shoulder had a knife in it and had to have been ruined to the point that repairing it back to full functionality wouldn't be possible. Teara had beaten him, tortured him, for hours. He hadn't seemed inclined to leave (to stop) until he'd jammed his knife into Sasuke's shoulder the last time and the Uchiha didn't scream (couldn't scream), didn't vocalize his pain at all.
His eyes were burning and then they were slowly leaking tears again, but his voice still wouldn't come out. Even though Teara wasn't there. He didn't want to make any noise anymore. At all. He knew that his captor was gone but he didn't want to risk it. What if he was still sobbing uncontrollably when that sadist returned? What if he couldn't get himself under control fast enough after he came back?
He was fairly certain that he'd completely lost his voice, anyway.
"Why are you crying? It's just sex, you child."
"F-... fuck you, you sick son of a bitch!"
That was the last thing he'd said to Teara.
Why did I have to say that?
He remained completely limp, didn't even flinch, when he heard the sound of the door being unlocked, opening, and closing. Familiar, heavy boot steps crossed the floor at their usual, steady pace. They stopped about a foot away from him, and he still didn't move. He couldn't move.
He felt the knife in his shoulder shift slightly, sending a blinding pain down his arm and across his chest and making him gasp through the gag, seconds before Teara ripped the blade out wordlessly. He wheezed past the cloth in his mouth and coughed harshly a few times, but still didn't vocalize an actual sound.
It took Teara at least an hour to heal all of the damage he'd caused. Sasuke remained limp throughout it. When the white-haired man was done, he picked up his motionless prisoner and carried him into the other room, practically dropping him in the tub. A moment later, he was hit by freezing water that quickly turned scalding hot.
It hurt but he didn't make a sound.
Teara used his hands to scrub the dried, crusty blood off his skin, rinsing his hair thoroughly. His touch was rough and harsh and Sasuke was getting the impression that he was still angry. That was weird, because Teara didn't stay angry with him for more than the twelve hours it usually took him to return. That wasn't something that happened. Clearly he'd infuriated the guy a lot more than he'd realized. His heart jumped into his throat.
Once the bathroom run was finished, he was dropped back on the wooden floor in the middle of the main room. He was freezing. It wasn't cold in the room, but he was soaked and malnourished. He'd been cold for... probably weeks, at this point. He curled into himself, shivering silently.
Teara didn't let him do that for long, though.
He felt a hand grip his shoulder and roll him onto his back, another roughly grabbing his throat. "I'm sure you've noticed that I'm still pissed," Teara growled. "So I advise you behave."
Sasuke went still for only a few seconds before he nodded mutely, knowing that he'd regret it if he didn't respond fast enough. His breathing was shallow and close to hyperventilation and his heart felt like it would give out at any moment. His lower lip was trembling again and tears were already spilling out of his eyes behind the blindfold. As soon as he nodded, Teara's hands were on him, pulling at his wet clothes without a second thought.
He wanted to die.
Please, please just kill me.
…
He felt like he was losing his mind.
Itachi had searched the same fifty mile radius, a couple hundred miles north of Konoha, probably a thousand times. The only reason he hadn't moved on from the area – despite being positive that he'd searched every square centimeter of it – was because he kept picking up on Sasuke's chakra signature. He'd feel it for a few seconds, seemingly miles and miles away, and then it would be gone. He didn't even understand how he kept picking up on it, as he wasn't a sensory-type shinobi and it felt like it was coming from miles away – usually more than twenty. He shouldn't have been able to feel it.
Between the raging fevers that came and went as he continued to thoroughly neglect himself (I can eat and sleep after I find him) and the repeated panic attacks that would not leave him alone, he genuinely felt like he was going insane. He kept waking up on the ground with fevers so high he was barely able to see well enough to find the fast-acting antipyretics he'd made a point to get after Izumi had warned him that he would burn himself out with a fever. He knew that he was walking a very thin line between seriously ill and dead, but he couldn't make himself stop searching for more than the amount of time it took him to wake up after collapsing.
He never remembered passing out. He never even remembered feeling feverish beforehand. He was lucky to still be alive, considering how infamous he was and how vulnerable he was.
His chest constantly ached at this point, but he religiously took the medication for that problem so that it didn't get too out of hand. He hadn't stopped coughing up blood by any means, but for whatever reason the disease hadn't decided to take a turn for the worse (yet), so he more or less ignored it. He'd take the time to spit up blood when he needed to, but he did not let himself stop and catch his breath for more than three minutes, no matter how much pain he was in.
All of that, however, didn't matter to him. He was keeping himself alive enough to keep moving and that was it. Any time spent on himself was wasted time he could've spent looking for Sasuke. He didn't care what kind of condition he was in as long as he could keep walking, as long as he could keep searching.
He came to an abrupt halt, pulled violently out of his thoughts for the thousandth time, when he felt Sasuke's chakra signature. Due west, between sixty and seventy miles away. It was clearer than he'd felt it since his little brother had gone missing and, as he was memorizing where it was coming from, he realized that it wasn't disappearing in seconds like it usually did.
Itachi knew he didn't have a lot of time before it went away again, so he turned in the direction it was coming from and took off at a dead sprint. He jumped into the trees, using his chakra to propel himself forward at nearly inhuman speeds. His heart was racing and he felt like he was coming close to another panic attack, but he pushed through it. Now was probably the worst possible time for him to be wheezing around anxiety.
The feeling of Sasuke's chakra was still there after a good five minutes of leaping through the trees. He didn't know why, but he decided that it didn't matter. The longer the feeling stayed, the closer he'd be able to get and the easier it would be for him to track down the exact spot it was coming from.
He knew he'd been through the area he was heading to a hundred and ten times. He knew he'd combed through that part of the woods as thoroughly as was physically possible, specifically because he'd felt Sasuke's chakra coming from the general area so many times. He was always too far away to pinpoint exactly where it was coming from, and it was always gone long before he got there.
There wasn't a genjutsu around it, though. He would've seen it. He'd had his Sharingan, as half-blind as it was, to aide him in making sure there wasn't some form of illusion, and there hadn't been. There was no reason for Sasuke's chakra signature to be coming from that area, but he searched thoroughly every time he felt it. It really just didn't make any sense.
It was another five to eight minutes before Sasuke's chakra signature flickered a few times and then disappeared like a candle going out. He didn't stop moving, even though his heart leaped clear into his throat from fear of the absolute worst.
He tried to reason with himself (this has happened a hundred times so why are you assuming it's different now?) but it didn't help at all.
…
He felt numb.
When Teara was finished with him, he - as usual - took about three minutes to clean up his mess and replace his prisoner's clothes where they had been, and then left without a word. Sasuke didn't know why he'd been sort of hoping that the white-haired man would stick around longer (he never did), but he found himself feeling agonizingly lonely only a few minutes after his captor left.
His eyes were still streaming tears and his voice still wasn't working. He was sore and tired and he wanted nothing more than to be killed. Even if it was while being tortured, even if it was because he was in so much pain his heart gave out, he didn't care at this point. He just wanted to die.
He no longer had the strength to sit himself up and lean against the wall, and Teara had left him in the middle of the room anyway. Between being starved and being unable to move because of the rope binding him, he was positive that he had lost every ounce of muscle in his body. He didn't think he'd be able to walk at this point. It had to have been months by now. It felt like it'd been years, but he was sure that was an exaggeration his mind had come up with because of how miserable he was.
Well, pretty sure.
He had considered just refusing to eat or drink anything until he died of dehydration, but he knew that wouldn't work. Whether Teara beat him into submission or forced a feeding tube down his throat, he knew it wouldn't work..
If he could've spoken, he would've tried to make Teara so angry he accidentally killed his prisoner, but nothing he had said since he'd been kidnapped had ever infuriated that sadist enough to come even close to actually killing him. Sasuke couldn't tell if he was genuinely enjoying what he was doing to the Uchiha or if he just loathed his captive that much and wanted to make him suffer in every possible way for as long as he could keep him alive.
He was trapped in the most miserable possible situation and it was looking like he was never going to be able to escape.
…
It wasn't until late morning the following day when he reached the area Sasuke's chakra signature had come from. He was pretty sure it had been closer to seventy miles, but he'd been running for about two-thirds of the trip, total. He'd ended up traveling for a solid twenty-six hours, refusing to stop unless he absolutely had to.
Itachi walked through the forestry, Sharingan activated, scanning the area thoroughly. He didn't see anything out of the ordinary. There wasn't a genjutsu. There wasn't anything, but he knew he was within a hundred yards of where Sasuke's chakra signature had been.
He wanted to cry. How many times was he going to search this area, anyway? There was nothing here. Someone was probably messing with him, or he was so deranged and tired and anxious that he'd been hallucinating. What was going on made no logical sense. At all.
Clearly I've-... Before he could finish his train of thought, he heard a sound, like someone walking through the shrubbery. He blinked, startled, before he realized that, whoever that was, he couldn't sense their chakra. From as close as they seemed to be, he definitely should've been able to sense them.
He took several steps backwards and turned away, taking long strides up a tree. He stopped partway up, where he was completely concealed, and crouched down while still sticking to the side of the tree. If he tried getting on the branches, the tree was going to shake and attract attention to him.
He peered through the branches for about a minute before the person he'd been hearing stepped through his field of vision. His hair was long and white and held back in a loose ponytail that was distressingly similar to his own. His eyes were dark blue and he looked furious. His expression was mostly still and blank, but Itachi recognized the smoldering look in the man's eyes as one he himself often wore.
He watched the man stalk past him, hands buried in his pockets. He didn't look to be armed at all. Itachi's brow furrowed in suspicion. He kept an eye on the man – moving around to the other side of the tree and everything – until he was completely out of sight, before carefully and silently dropping to the ground.
He stared out in the direction that man had been coming from, eyes narrowed. He still didn't see any genjutsu. Itachi started off, retracing the man's steps as best he could. He didn't look like a shinobi so much as he looked like a civilian. He hadn't been armed, his chakra was evidently nonexistent if Itachi couldn't sense it (that doesn't seem right), and his clothes didn't look suited for fighting or anything else that required a bit of movement.
He walked for about five minutes, looking around carefully, trying to figure out what he'd missed. The forest seemed to be much denser in the area he was walking through, and he faintly remembered having to cut around all over the place to get around them. He felt like he was missing something.
His Sharingan still wasn't picking up on anything, but he had a strange feeling that he hadn't had any of the times he'd been through before. There was a prickly feeling in the air, almost like static against his skin. It felt like a massive amount of chakra in the atmosphere, but at the same time it didn't really feel like chakra at all.
It was extremely odd, because he'd never felt it any of the other six hundred times he'd been through the area.
He didn't know why his Sharingan would've failed him, but it couldn't hurt to see what happened. He closed his eyes and took a breath, concentrating for only a few seconds to interrupt his chakra flow briefly.
He opened his eyes and froze. The dense forestry was extremely thinned out now, a lot of the tall flora moved around. And, through the trees, he could see a very small... he wouldn't have called it a house, it looked more like a hut. He couldn't feel any chakra coming from inside, but for all he knew there was a corpse in there. For all he knew, there was something impeding his ability to sense whoever was in there, just like there had been something preventing his Sharingan from picking up the genjutsu.
He swallowed hard and walked through the trees, walking around the place. It appeared to have exactly two rooms. There was a small window on every wall, basically along the roof, and a sliding door that was padlocked shut. The door also had notes all over it – ones specifically made to completely conceal chakra.
There wasn't a key around the door, so he pulled out a senbon needle and stepped up to the padlock, taking a few minutes to get it open. He pulled the lock off the door and dropped it in the grass next to him, his heart hammering in his throat.
Please, please, please...
…
When he heard the door unlocking again, Sasuke was struck with panic.
Why is he back so soon?
It was difficult, but he curled into himself, beginning to tremble. His eyes were already burning. It hadn't even been twenty minutes. Had he decided to kill him after all? Or had he decided that he needed and wanted to punish his prisoner further? Or had he not been leaving at all, just going to get something?
He angled his face towards the floor as if it would hide him, his shaking worsening. The door slid open, and he immediately noticed that it was slower than usual. Was that... actually Teara? It had taken him almost thirty seconds to get the lock undone. Usually he did it in under ten seconds. He always opened the door at the same pace, and as whoever that was started crossing the room, he found that they were walking a lot faster.
He wasn't sure if it was someone here to rescue him or someone here to kill him or anything, really. For all he knew that was Teara, and he was hastily moving his captive before someone found him. He heard one of this person's knees crack as they crouched down, and that struck him as odd too. Teara's knees didn't crack. Ever.
He flinched violently and cringed away when he felt a hand touch his shoulder. Whoever it was, they hushed him in the quietest voice, gently touching his shoulder again. He heard a sound remarkably similar to someone beginning to cry, but they were still very quiet.
His level of confusion was rising exponentially. He didn't know anyone who would have been looking for him, found him, and then began to cry, but still remain extremely quiet. Naruto and the rest of his team from Konoha would have hollered his name, Kaisuki probably wouldn't have been looking for him, and Karin would've yelled louder than Naruto even if Suigetsu and Juugo didn't.
There was a sound of metal touching metal and he stiffened, "It's alright, hold still, I'm not going to hurt you." He froze, going completely still, at the voice that spoke to him. "I'm going to take off the blindfold first and work my way down."
Even with that voice being thick and shaky as he was evidently barely choking back tears, Sasuke didn't for a second mistake the sound of Itachi's voice.
Impossible.
His eyebrows came together in confusion (you're dead), but he nodded slightly (please save me), eyes beginning to water. He wanted to sob in relief but he wasn't sure he trusted that it wasn't a dream. Itachi was supposed to be dead. It didn't make sense for him to be here now. Maybe Sasuke had passed out. Maybe he'd wake up any minute. He'd had dreams like this before. He usually woke up when the blindfold came off and it was actually just Teara.
He felt Itachi's finger slide under the blindfold carefully, giving him just enough space to cut through the cloth. As soon as it came off, he was suddenly able to feel Itachi's chakra. So it had been the blindfold that was impeding his ability to sense chakra? He went to open his eyes but the amount of light he was met with was blinding. That hadn't been a problem in his dreams. The bubble of hope that was expanding in his chest was becoming unbearable.
"Okay, now the gag," Itachi said quietly, shakily, before quickly slicing through that cloth and pulling it away. "I'm going to roll you towards me so I can get at this rope."
He nodded again, still working on getting his eye to adjust. Itachi placed his hand on his shoulder and his side and slowly tilted him forward until he was resting at an angle against his brother's knees. Itachi wasted absolutely no time going at the rope, slicing through it in about four different places and pulling on one, and the next thing he knew, it suddenly loosened. He let out a relieved sigh that hitched on the sobs that wouldn't come out. He still couldn't speak.
Itachi rolled him onto his back, being sure to get his arms out from under him and crossing them over his stomach, then taking about a minute to get the tape off of them. Sasuke's shoulders were aching and it was such a huge relief but the sudden movement was making his upper extremities feel like they were seizing up. Itachi moved down to the ropes binding his ankles together and deftly sliced through that as well before he moved back to where he'd been. He dug his arm underneath Sasuke, who was actively shivering and shaking, and lifted him upright. His brother made a soft sound of distress, hugging him to his chest.
"I'm so sorry it took me so long to find you," Itachi whispered. Sasuke felt both numb and like bursting into tears. He didn't want to believe that this was really happening, especially since it was Itachi, but he wanted to believe so badly that this tragedy was what brought his brother back to him.
Itachi gave him one last squeeze and pulled back, still supporting him. He couldn't hold himself up at all, but like this he could see his brother's face. He looked like he'd seen hell. "We can't stay here for obvious reasons," he muttered, and Sasuke noticed how raspy and hoarse Itachi's voice sounded. "You..." There was a pause, and Itachi took in another shaky breath and looked down at him with an unreadable look on his face. "You can't move much on your own, can you?"
Sasuke was still for a few seconds before he shook his head mutely, throat tightening. Itachi hummed in acknowledgment and looked towards the door, clearly pondering the best way to carry him. "Alright, bear with me here." He said. After much maneuvering and the use of one of the shorter lengths of rope, Itachi tied Sasuke's forearms together so that they wouldn't move from around his neck, taking care to make sure he didn't tie it too tightly. It didn't hurt at all, though his elbows did not approve of still being bent.
Itachi hoisted him onto his back and stood, stalking out of the hut immediately. Sasuke's heart was in his throat. He wouldn't be able to believe it was real until he was at least miles away from the place and he still hadn't woken up. He probably wouldn't believe it until he'd gone to bed and woken up outside of that room, preferably in a bed somewhere.
"We're going to be traveling for a few hours," Itachi told him as he jumped up into the trees and started moving. "So if you can, you should try to sleep."
Sasuke nodded against Itachi's shoulder but he wasn't sure if his brother felt it. Itachi didn't say anything else, and he was so exhausted simply from being untied, from not being in such an uncomfortable position anymore. It wasn't long before his eyes were slipping shut on their own accord.
…
Kaisuki helped them look, but it didn't help their strained relationship at all. If anything, her level of stress was making the fighting worse.
Naruto stared at the back of the girl's head. Well, more like glared. She was reading a map, as she had been periodically for days. When they stopped, she'd mark where they had been, where they were, and how they had gotten there. She was being so thorough, Naruto wasn't sure when she found the time to sleep.
It's possible that she's not, he thought to himself, peering through the trees for anything. Ever since their encounter with Itachi, she seemed to be driven in a way that she just hadn't been before. He'd been like that at one point, but he hadn't walked through every patch of trees to do it, he'd just waited for leads. He hadn't used a map and marked where he was going, he'd just forgotten where he'd been and who he'd already talked to. He hadn't been this thorough, he'd only had the drive.
"When you give up your whole life for someone that everyone thinks you hate, for someone you know wants nothing more than to see you dead, then you can talk to me about how much I care about my little brother!"
He didn't like the implications of what Itachi had said. Although, he wasn't sure if he even believed the older of the two Uchiha brothers. What he'd said didn't make sense, but he had looked so desperate and miserable and sick that Naruto felt like he couldn't possibly have been acting. Itachi was an excellent liar, but Naruto couldn't imagine him faking his search for Sasuke to point that he gave himself a fever.
"You don't fucking get it, Naruto!"
He scowled. Kaisuki appeared to be taking what Itachi had said very seriously, and it seemed to be stressing her out. He didn't understand why she was letting that psychopath get to her. Itachi had never shown any signs of caring for Sasuke after the massacre, until now. He had always shown nothing but disinterest and annoyance, like Sasuke's very existence was a bother to him.
But, he thought before he could stop himself. He's never actually gone to kill Sasuke, and he's had plenty of time and opportunities to.
That didn't excuse nearly a decade of tormenting his little brother, though. Seriously, who did that?
Kaisuki slowed to a stop out of the blue and looked skyward. Naruto stared at her for a moment before looking up as well. There was nothing there.
"What?" Naruto grunted. "Is Saeka sensing someone in a flying chariot?"
Kaisuki didn't so much as look at him. "That's definitely Kuroi."
"Itachi's crow?" Kakashi asked for clarification, looking to the sky as well. Sure enough, after a few seconds of watching the sky, a large black bird flew over the trees. Kaisuki watched it circle for a moment before it started dropping, and she lifted an arm for it to land on. Naruto stared, feeling queasy. Itachi was contacting them now? Since when, and why?
Kuroi landed on Kaisuki's wrist, and she used one hand to untie the red thread that was holding a scroll to the birds leg. She held Kuroi to her shoulder, and he obediently hopped off her wrist. Then, she opened the scroll. Naruto could just barely see over her shoulder, and the first and only thing he could read was a large, thickly written sentence:
DO NOT RESPOND
His eyebrows came together. Kaisuki rolled the scroll back up for a moment and tucked it under her arm before carefully reaching up and blindly (but skillfully) tying the red thread in a bow on the bird's leg.
"You can go back now," Kaisuki said. Kuroi looked at her, cawed loudly once, and then jumped off her shoulder and flew away. The Yurei took the scroll and reopened it, eyes scanning the letter. Naruto wanted to read over her shoulder but he had a feeling she'd punch him if he did. So he, Sakura, and Kakashi all waited with somewhat baited breath.
Kaisuki's eyes had widened and it looked like she was rereading the same sentence over and over. "What?" Naruto asked, his stomach flipping.
Kaisuki didn't look up. "Itachi..." she began quietly. "Itachi found Sasuke."
Naruto was immediately somewhere along the lines of furious and disbelieving. "What? Where?! How?!" He demanded, unsure of why he was so angry.
"He was..." she swallowed, her face turning the color of sour milk. Naruto's eyebrows came together. He was beginning to grow anxious.
"What, Kaisuki?" Sakura asked, and Naruto glanced at her. She looked pale and she was clenching and unclenching her fists. Kakashi looked grim, but he was silent as the grave as he waited for the verdict. Naruto clicked his tongue impatiently. Kaisuki was staring, glassy eyed, at the scroll. Then, after a very long pause, her eyes flashed to blue.
Khrai looked pissed.
"He was securely tied up, blindfolded, and gagged in a very small house of sorts a couple hundred miles north of Konoha. He was in there, like that, for the entire three and a half months." She was probably reading almost word for word what Itachi had written. Naruto's stomach plummeted. "His muscles… have atrophied to the point that he's not strong enough to walk, or even sit up, by himself. He's covered in new scars that point very clearly to extensive torture and beatings, which appears to have rendered him completely..." she paused, gritted her teeth. "Completely mute."
Naruto's eyes widened in horror. Mute? Sasuke was... Sasuke had been put through so much torment that... that he'd been rendered...
Khrai had continued reading but had stopped speaking. She was staring at the scroll, frozen solid, eyes wide, mouth slightly open. He watched as she pressed a hand to her mouth, and for a moment Naruto thought she was going to cry. Her jaw was working, blue eyes showing a tempest of emotion.
"Khrai," Kakashi called, sounding wary and worried. "Can you... are you alright?"
Her face had lost what little color Kaisuki's skin naturally held, which wasn't much. Then, after a few more seconds, her expression shifted to one of near-blackout rage. Her hand came away from her mouth and Naruto could see that she was struggling to keep from clenching her fists around the letter and destroying it.
"It appears as though he's also been..." she said in a quiet, strained voice. "He's also been raped."
Naruto froze at that. His stomach twisted and he had to swallow hard to get the bile that rose up his throat to go back down. He felt numb. He opened his mouth to say something, to ask some question, but he lost his words before he'd even been able to discern what he was trying to say.
"By his clearly male kidnapper, likely more than once." Khrai continued after a brief pause. The blue-eyed spirit sounded disgusted, furious, and like she wanted to cry and kill. "He's become extremely adverse to touch, but Itachi was able to help him change his clothes, which is the only reason he knows. He hasn't... he hasn't asked Sasuke about it yet."
Naruto could hardly breath and his fists were clenched so tightly, his nails were digging into his palms. He felt physically ill and it was taking a lot of compulsive swallowing and teeth clenching to keep from heaving up what he'd eaten for breakfast.
"O-oh, oh no..." Sakura was whispering past her hands, her eyes filled with tears when Naruto looked over at her. Her face was ashen and she looked just as nauseous as the rest of them. When he looked at Kakashi, his jounin team leader had lowered his head and pressed his palm over his eyes.
Naruto's eyes were burning with a mixture of emotional agony (I should've been the one to find him long before now, oh my god) and frustration (how is it that his psychopath brother was looking harder than we were?). He didn't know why he was angry that Itachi had found Sasuke instead of Team 7 finding Sasuke, but he tried to quell it by being angry at the person who had hurt Sasuke in the first place. Besides, the point was that the younger Uchiha had been found, he kept reminding himself. It didn't really help.
"When... what is Itachi going to do with him?" Naruto asked hesitantly, unsure of whether he should be asking when Itachi would bring Sasuke home or if he should be asking what horrible plans the older Uchiha had for his teammate. Khrai was still reading but she looked up at Naruto, her eyes haunted.
She looked back to the letter after a couple of seconds. "He said that he's not in any shape to be transporting Sasuke anywhere, since he's rather sick and almost definitely couldn't fight anyone in his current state of health." She explained, eyes narrowing as she continued reading the letter. "He's keeping them both hidden until Itachi's recovered enough to feel safe bringing Sasuke back to Konoha."
Naruto blinked, startled. Itachi was planning on bringing Sasuke back to Konoha? No, he wouldn't believe that until he saw it. He didn't know how long it'd be until then, but if he didn't hear anything in a few weeks, he would go looking for them. He didn't know exactly how sick Itachi had made himself, but he didn't expect it to take him more than two weeks to be fully recovered.
"He also says," Khrai continued, "That he doesn't want us to ever, ever, ever answer his letters, but he'll try to keep us updated."
There was a pause as Khrai rolled the scroll back up and swung Kaisuki's bag off her shoulders so she could put it in one of the pockets. Naruto was staring at her. She looked angry and upset, but she didn't look like she was the least bit worried about leaving Sasuke with Itachi for an indeterminate amount of time.
"Is it a good idea to..." Sakura began slowly, sounding uncertain about what she was saying. "To, um... leave Sasuke in Itachi's care? I mean... considering everything..."
Kakashi dropped his hand, and Naruto looked over at him again. He looked gaunt all of a sudden. "There's not a whole lot we can do about it even if it isn't a good idea, Sakura," he said wearily. "We have no idea where they are, and there are few people on this planet who are as good at disappearing as Itachi."
Sakura still looked upset and anxious. "I just... I don't want anything else to happen to him..." She whispered.
"Nothing's going to happen to Sasuke," Kaisuki's vocal tone was distinctive, even if she sounded hollowed out. "Itachi's not going to hurt him."
Naruto frowned. He didn't understand why Kaisuki was so trusting of the older Uchiha brother. Itachi was an enemy. He'd been an enemy for years, and yet Kaisuki had never quite treated the situation like that. She had never seemed to see him as the horrible person he was. She'd told Sasuke off about his quest for vengeance more times than Naruto could've counted, and it had resulted in their friendship dissolving.
"You don't fucking get it, Naruto!"
She was right. He didn't.
