Kat's Notes: Minor timeline adjustment for the first scene (and boy, will I be glad when the anime/manga timeline just ceases to matter after this chapter.) Shino is supposed to be on a mission with his father right now. Just assume he leaves on it a few hours after this scene, but had part of the morning free.
Also, I love Team 8. Why have I not written more Team 8 for this fic?
"How could I be so … useless." Sakura shoved a renegade lock of hair out of her face as she stomped past her teammates, turned on her heel, and stormed across their path again. Kiba silently swore he wouldn't ask next time. Even if Hinata asked him to. As far as he was concerned, Hinata owed the rest of Team Eight for foisting Sakura on them without warning not to ask how her sleepover went. It went straight to the Hokage, if Sakura's rant was to be believed.
Shino sat impassively on his heels, ignoring their female teammate's wrath, and communing with his bugs. Or listening to Sakura shriek. Or just spacing out.
The sun beat down on them all with a drowsy, baking heat, and Kiba bit back a yawn. It would only distract Sakura enough she would probably focus on him, and the beating she gave Ino during the Chuunin Exam would probably pale in comparison if she did. She hadn't been even close to furious with the other kunoichi during the exam.
Akamaru didn't have the same sense of self-preservation - or was just more secure on his place in their teammate's good graces - and yawned widely, tongue lolling out of his mouth before he settled his chin down on his paws.
"No wonder I wasn't promoted."
"Sakura, the only one promoted was Shikamaru," Kiba said, tuning back in and sighing at the despondency in her voice. Her eyes snapped up and she rounded on him.
"I was completely useless, Kiba," Sakura hissed. "Sasuke just tapped me on the neck and I was down. If Hinata hadn't followed me, then he …" Sakura choked up, and Kiba threw a panicky glance at Shino. She was going to cry, and he didn't know what to do with a sobbing Sakura; other than to hunt down Uchiha and blackmail Shino into helping him beat the bastard into paste.
"Uchiha Sasuke would have left the village, and likely become a missing nin and future host for Orochimaru," Shino said, pushing himself to his feet. "But he did not. And now, he cannot leave, or be removed, from the village without his teammates and the Hokage's authorization."
Sakura's eyes narrowed. "That's not helping, Shino."
A single eyebrow quirked up over Shino's dark glasses, soundlessly asking 'is it not?'
"Shino means you did good," Kiba told her. "And there isn't any shame in needing backup from your pack." Kiba shrugged, reaching over to scratch Akamaru's head as the puppy yipped in agreement. "Hinata's your friend. She's got your back when we aren't there."
"The hive is weak when only one soldier defends it," Shino agreed with a nod. He reached down and hauled Kiba to his feet, ignoring the other boy's protest at the manhandling. "You, even indirectly, preserved something of value to the village. You are not useless."
"I was against Sasuke," Sakura grumbled, looking mostly mollified from her earlier fury, but still surly.
"Then train so you will not be in the future. Though, if you wish to defeat an Uchiha, you will need to train something other than genjutsu. The Sharingan sees through them easily."
"And your taijutsu kind of sucks," Kiba added, cringing when Sakura glared at thim. "It does! It's not your best skill!"
"Locking either of us into a genjutsu has been the most efficient way to win up until now." Shino stepped between her and Kiba, blocking them from attacking or being attacked. "And none of us, to this point, have considered that we may one day need to fight an ally. This is an oversight."
Sakura and Kiba fell backwards a step, eyes widening at the idea. "Whoa, Shino!" Kiba protested. "I didn't mean anything like that! Not every other shinobi in Konoha's as batshit as Sasuke! I just meant Sakura should start sparring with us more, and stop cheating with genjustu when she does!"
"Kiba!"
Shino sighed at them and adjusted the sunglasses that slid down his nose. "As Sakura does not have a clan to learn from, she should find a second teacher, and develop a speciality in addition to genjutsu."
"Kurenai-sensei is our teacher!" Sakura protested. "I can't find another one!"
"Why not? Not to replace Kurenai-sensei," Kiba quickly added, then pointed between himself and Shino. "Shino's right. We have other teachers in our clans. Mom and Hana train me. And Shino's dad works with him. Maybe Kurenai-sensei will have someone she thinks you should work with that's not a genjutsu specialist. And beating down Sasuke can be your goal!"
Sakura hesitated, before drawing in a deep breath and nodding. "Do you think Kurenai-sensei will help me?"
"Sure!" Kiba assured her, echoed by an enthusiastic bark from Akamaru. "And we will too. Right, Shino?"
Shino answered with a solemn nod, and turned away from them to walk towards the targets set up on the far side of the training field.
"Guess that's our cue," Sakura said, reaching to give Akamaru one more scratch behind the ears before she turned and jogged after her teammate.
.oOo.
The compound walls, splashed with graffiti scrawled over fading red and white paint, were looking worse for the weather and wear. Sasuke ignored the words and pushed through the tall gates as the hinges groaned in protest.
He hated coming here; had taken a place outside of the compound walls specifically because he hated facing the ghosts of silence where there should be laughter and life. But right then, it was the right thing to do.
He shoved the shrine door aside, putting more muscle into it when it protested and groaned, the wood warped inside its tracks from years of neglect. Inside was shadowy and filled with a fine layer of undisturbed dust. At first he had avoided the shadowy confines of the Uchiha shrine because the reminders that they were dead – all dead except for the final one he had sworn to kill – was too painful. It was easier to face only their ghosts in his memories.
For the past several months it had been his neglect had been due to distraction. Team Seven, with its false sense of camaraderie, and even – almost – friendship had lured him away from his duty and his sense of vengeance. Itachi had corrected that mistake. And now he had time for the ghosts.
He hoped it wouldn't be very much time. He had a staggeringly long way to go before he could stand in front of that man and survive, let alone avenge the Uchiha. But he would find a way. As ANBU, probably, but he would find a way. Sasuke's hand crept up to where the curse mark slumbered against his skin, its power caged by Jiraiya's seals. And, Orochimaru could still be a stepping stone to the power he needed later on.
He could draw the Snake Sannin into battle, and the Sharingan could copy every technique used during the fight. He could do the same with every powerful shinobi he had to until he had enough power to destroy Itachi. In some ways, this appealed to Sasuke more than apprenticing himself to the man. He was almost guaranteed Orochimaru – and anyone else – would use lethal strikes in a battle that he wouldn't teach a student.
Sasuke moved further into the shrine, trailing one hand along the wall until he found a switch. Light guttered into existence when he flipped it, casting strange, shadows throughout the room from the mismatch of working and burnt out bulbs. Sasuke frowned up at them, noting one more thing to attend to before his training as ANBU began. He doubted Kakashi would show any patience with sentiment for the fallen once the training began.
A relatively tiny shrine was tucked out of the way, with the photos of his parents, and the months-old ashes of two sticks of incense. He ignored the torn slashed edge of the photo, the place where Itachi would have stood, and knelt briefly, Sasuke setting a new set of sticks to one side of it, ready to be used.
Rising, Sasuke took a final look around the Uchiha family shrine and squared his shoulders, forcing any taint of emotion off of his face. He was turning the page with this, and that meant it needed to be ready to be turned. And soon, the village would remember why … and this was far too many angsty words just to say he was going to clean house, then lock it up until he felt worthy to face his family again.
.oOo.
"There you are!" Naruto's shrill voice cut into the silence of the shrine with a tone just below a shriek, forcing Sasuke to stomp on the instinctive desire to jump. He wouldn't give the dobe that satisfaction. Nor would he give it to the dobe's ever-present shadow that lurked just behind.
Sasuke lit the incense he was holding with a match and watched the grey smoke curl up into the still air, making swirls as he set it into the holder before his parents' shrine. The lights of the shrine burned clear now, replaced and cleaned of any nesting spiders. The fine layer of dust over the shrine's interior had been cleared away, much of it still cling to Sasuke's clothes … and skin, and hair.
"Oi, teme!" Naruto called, trying to catch his attention. Sasuke ignored him. Hinata drifted in behind the blond, silent as a ghost, and fidgeting almost imperceptibly as she watched him. Sasuke felt a curl of irritation with her, and shifted his eyes deliberately away. He still saw her bite her lip and drop her eyes. Naruto rolled his eyes. "Teme, you cannot still be pissed that Hinata-chan kicked your ass. I thought you wanted her to get better."
Sasuke paused, before answering with a noncommital grunt. He pushed past his teammates and walked out of the shrine, into the warm light of a sunny day. Good, he thought bitterly. Anything was better than rain. Naruto's squawk of protest followed him out.
"Well hey, she got better!" Rushed footsteps - one heavy, the other light - sounded behind Sasuke as he walked towards the tori gate marking the entrance to the shrine. "She's never won a spar against you, Teme. We should be celebrating how awesome Hinata-chan is. And that you couldn't do something as stupid as ditching all of us to go to that creepy snake guy."
"What do you know about it?" Sasuke muttered under his breath, clamping down on his temper, and forcing himself to leave the curse mark alone, as it flared to life beneath his skin. He could feel the mark's dark power ram into the old man's seal, and the clash threaded his nerves with electricity.
"I know plenty! We're Team Seven, right?" Naruto's hand came down to clamp onto Sasuke's shoulders. The blunt edges of Sasuke's fingernails bit into his palms as his hands clenched at the unwanted contact.
"That wasn't why she stopped me." Sasuke gritted out, frustrated by Naruto's obliviousness. Most of the time he ignored it, and sometimes the subtle maneuverings between his eartswhile teammates was even somewhat entertaining. Hinata, at least, had enough sense to never let her painfully obvious obsession get in the way during missions or training, and Naruto was just dumb. At the moment though … it bothered him. And Sasuke wasn't too keen to examine the root of that annoyance too deeply.
"Sasuke-kun …." Hinata started, only to flinch when he turned on her, eyes flat and dark.
"Why are you even here?"
Her pale eyes dropped away from him and Sasuke snorted distainfully. "What, Hinata, no Sakura to defend, so now you're back to shrinking away from the slightest hint of confrontation? Predictable. I think I preferred you when you were kicking my ass last night."
"Oi, teme! Leave her alone!" Naruto shouted, pushing between them, and letting Hinata hide behind him. "And what the hell are you talking about?"
"It wasn't for me, it was for you!" Sasuke lashed out. "So stuff it, Naruto. We're not a team if it's always going to be you two and me on the side!"
Silence echoed between them, making their disjointed breathing sound unnaturally loud, until Sasuke broke the tableau by walking away. Naruto gaped after him for a long moment, trying to piece together everything in some way that made any sense.
Sasuke didn't feel like he was part of Team Seven? They'd never left him out of anything! Naruto had even been doing his best to act normal, trying to make Sasuke talk to them instead of locking down like always did. The teme would hide behind insults and icy silence before one, or both, of them launched into the first physical attack. Naruto knew it scared Hinata, and disappointed Kakashi. However, most of the time he didn't know how to get through to Sasuke, and attacking the jerk at least caught his attention. This time, though, he would try talking.
"It's never been us against you, Teme," Naruto told him. "We're a team."
Sasuke snorted derisively and kept walking. Naruto jogged forward, breaking the hold Hinata had on the back of his jacket, and clamped a hand on Sasuke's shoulder. Sasuke stilled, surprised at the sudden contact, and Naruto hauled on his shoulder, turning him back to face the other two. Sasuke's eyes narrowed, and he threw Naruto's hand off of him with a quick jerk before catching Naruto's extended wrist and tossing the shorter boy over his shoulder in a text-book flawless throw.
Naruto yelped as he tumbled over his teammate and crashed into the gravel of the shrine path. He rolled to his feet, anger sparking deep in his stomach, and threw himself at Sasuke, impacting and tossing the other boy off his feet in a full body-check. The two hit the ground with bruising force, and rolled, fists flying; wildly on Naruto's part and with better form on Sasuke's.
Hinata lurched forward, her hands forming the seals to activate her Byakuugan. The world flared into clarity around her, and her teammates' chakra pathways pulsed with swells of energy traced through their bodies. Chakra coated her hands in a pale glow as she ran forward, muscles sliding into trained the strikes of her family style.
She had defeated Sasuke once before, her father had praised her, and even her sister and cousin had looked surprised-but-pleased at the news. She had been useful. She had stopped Team Seven from splintering with distance and betrayal. They would patch the rest of it up. And she would make this second betrayal of trust up to Sasuke. But first, she moved to stop their attacks. Even striking Naruto-kun was worth that. And this time, she would do it for both of them.
Sasuke had pulled himself to his feet more quickly than Naruto, and shifted out of her path, cognizant of the threat she presented. His dark eyes lost some of their icy indifference as he looked at her, and Hinata forced herself to carry through without pausing for the apology she so wanted to give him. She pulled more chakra into her hands, aiming for the tenketsu point in his wrist. A strike there would disable Sasuke's ninjitsu, and if he left her undamaged, or even lightly damaged, she could continue on to Naruto-kun's unprotected back. Surely he - both hes - would forgive her interfering. She hoped.
Then Kakashi appeared behind her, and ducked to wrap his arms around her waist. He hoisted her easily off her feet before forming a hand sign of his own that yanked them both into a teleportation jutsu.
Hinata felt the world spin for an instant before they reappeared with a crunch of rooftop gravel, her still dangling from Kakashi's arms. Her sensei set her on her feet gently, keeping his grip until she stood stably on her own, and straightened.
"Kakashi-sensei!" She turned to him, eyes still luminous with her bloodline limit. "We have to stop them! Naruto-kun and Sasuke-san will hurt each other!"
"Oh probably," Kakashi smiled at her, and reached out to pat her on the head, before. "But they'll heal just fine, Hinata. They've done this before."
"No, they haven't!" Hinata insisted, her normally soft voice cracking with worry. "Sasuke-san tried to leave the village! Naruto-kun …"
"Isn't doing anything more drastic than trying to beat sense into the other brat," a third spectator said from beside them. Hinata looked sideways and up to where Jiraiya stood next to Kakashi, his arms folded into his sleeves. "The Uchiha brat can take care of himself even with the trouble he's currently in, and can't escalate it. If Naruto does, then we'll step in and stop them. Don't worry, Hyuuga-sama, we're keeping an eye on them."
Hinata pressed her fingers together in continued worry and looked down to where a crack of splintered wood echoed in the near distance, marking where her teammates were brawling. She wanted to leap back down into the fray, to stop them and try to mend everything, but had the feeling that Kakashi would just scoop her back up to safety, or order her to go home entirely.
"What is going on here?"
Hinata started at the question, and twisted to see the Hokage stalking towards them, two of her ANBU flickering into view behind her.
Kakashi tilted his head back and smiled a greeting, along with a small wave. "Just a discussion between teammates, Hokage-sama."
Tsunade tapped the fingers of one hand against her opposite elbow, her look of displeasure sharpening into a glare at Kakashi's explanation.
"Dango, Tsunade-hime?" Jiraiya held up a stick in front of her nose, and Hinata caught a breath of its sticky sweetness in the breeze. She had not noticed that there before, but a small box of dango sat innocently between her sensei and the Sannin. Tsunade unfolded her arms, pinched the bridge of her nose with one hand and pointed at the brawl below them with the other.
"Jiraiya, Kakashi," she said, just short of growling at them. "One of those boys has absolutely no chakra, and the other has entirely too much. You are both aware of that, I assume."
Hinata squeaked, hands flying to her mouth and she tensed, moving to leap down and force her teammates apart, until Kakashi's hand clamped back down on her shoulder. "They're not going to kill each other, Hinata-chan. Settle down."
"Kakashi," Tsunade growled, her arms folding beneath her chest and her foot tapping. "Whether they're likely to kill each other is up for debate. But neither of you saw fit to stop them from destroying parts of my village?"
"They're keeping it to the Uchiha district," Kakashi shrugged and tugged his sleeve down to reveal a seal inked on the inside of his wrist. "And there's no point telling them to take it outside. Naruto won't escalate it unless Sasuke does."
A distant crack punctuated his statement, and Naruto tore through a paper screen below them, leaving a gaping hole, and revealing Sasuke as he straightened from the throw.
"Stop them." Tsunade stabbed a fingernail towards the brawl, pinning both Jiraiya and Kakashi with flint-like amber eyes. "Now."
Naruto groaned and rolled out of the rubble he had landed in, and a flare of chakra erupted around him before any of the watchers could move. Sasuke stepped into the open and subtly braced himself, seeing a faint glow of red chakra start to bubble around Naruto's form. The mood on the rooftop darkened abruptly, and Hinata found herself alone with the two ANBU guards as the older nin vanished from beside her.
The Hokage reached the two genin just as Naruto lunged at Sasuke, his nails suspiciously sharp, and snagged him mid-leap. Naruto gagged as the hand wrapped in his jumpsuit's wide collar yanked him back, and twisted with a yelp as Tsunade strode forward, dragging her hapless prisoner behind. She reached Sasuke in a handful of steps, and he ducked out of her way, but not fast enough. Her free hand struck out, digging into the back of his shirt and yanking him off of his feet.
The two boys grunted as she wrapped their heads together and hoisted them into the air, dangling both by the scruff of their necks. "That is enough." She gave them both a firm shake before turning and tossing them at Jiraiya and Kakashi to catch. The two men caught the twelve-year-olds and steadied them, hands wrapping around their shoulders to keep them in place between them and the irritated Hokage.
She folded her arms beneath her chest and regarded all four with narrowed eyes. "I don't care which one of you started it," she told them without preamble. "Uchiha Sasuke, you are already on thin ice with me, and with the Council. I expect better of you if you ever wish to have your chakra restored. Uzumaki Naruto, attacking a fellow shinobi of the Leaf is absolutely unacceptable. Particularly your teammate," she stressed, "when he is unable to defend himself properly."
Sasuke looked sullen at this and looked away, shoving his hands into his pockets. Naruto just looked confused, and Tsunade sighed at him. "As punishment, Uchiha Sasuke's chakra has been sealed, and he is being forced to stay in the village until you, your sensei, the Hyuuga girl, and myself decide he can be safely allowed outside of it." Naruto squinted at her, clearly still not understanding, and Tsunade rolled her eyes. "Without chakra, he's really not a match for you, brat. You could have hurt him."
Comprehension began to dawn in Naruto's eyes, and they widened. "Teme was doing fine! And why did you tell me, you jerk?!" he demanded, rounding on Sasuke.
"Hn," Sasuke looked away from everyone, a clear refusal to answer further.
"Hm," Tsunade regarded them closely for a few moments before shaking her head. "Well, you can discuss it while you clean up this mess. Not you," she snapped, halting Hinata, who was creeping forward to stand with her teammates. "They made this mess, and they can clean it up."
.oOo.
"Hey, Teme?"
Sasuke's eyebrows slanted down a moment before he drove the pole of his shovel into Naruto's side. The clone dispelled with a pop, and the smudged scroll in the clone's hands dropped to the debris-strewen ground. Sasuke snorted and reached down to pick the scroll up. The Hokage's orders to clean up the mess made of the Uchiha shrine and its surrounding buildings went faster with Naruto's clone army, but it didn't make Naruto any less of an idiot in Sasuke's opinion.
Moments later, Naruto - presumably the real one this time - came storming up, bristling with irritation. "What the hell, teme?"
"Come talk to me yourself next time," Sasuke told him blithely, ignoring Naruto's growl and opening the scroll. Naruto was an idiot, but the scroll had the uchiwa fan sealing it, meaning it might be important. At least it was a clan document, and that made it worth reading.
"This …" Sasuke trailed off and his eyes scanned over the scroll again, pulling it open further. Naruto watched what little color Sasuke had in his face drain, and his fingers tighten almost painfully around the wood edges, crushing the thin paper. "Where did you find this?"
"Over there," Naruto pointed behind him. "It had one of your drooling pokeballs on it, and looked like it was maybe important? Thought you'd appreciate having it." Naruto shrugged, and jumped back with a yelp as Sasuke stalked past him, the scroll dropping to the rubble behind him. "Oi! Teme!" Naruto stumbled into action and scooped up the abandoned scroll before he hurried after Sasuke. When Sasuke continued to ignore him and stalk for the compound gate, Naruto reached out to grab the other boy's shoulder.
Sasuke turned on him, hand poised for a gut strike that missed as Naruto dodged. "I just want to know what's pissed you off this time," Naruto shouted, exasperated. "And where are you going?"
That brought Sasuke up short and cracked through the haze of anger as he realized he didn't know. He was just getting away … away from the compound and its whispering ghosts, and the unnerving bone-deep weakness of his locked chakra, and away from the scroll and the words scratched across it and sealed mockingly with the symbol of his clan. And all of these things seemed intent on following him.
"It's a suicide note," Sasuke said, looking anywhere but at the object itself.
Naruto's face screwed up a bit and he lifted the scroll up for a better look. "Creepy."
Sasuke growled under his breath and snatched it out of Naruto's grip. "Written by my brother." The edges of the paper were tearing under the strain of Sasuke's grip.
Naruto scratched at his hair, nose wrinkled in confusion at Sasuke. "You swore vengeance on a guy that already killed himself?"
"Dobe," Sasuke muttered under his breath. "My brother isn't dead."
"But he wrote a suicide note..." Naruto said, leaning precariously over Sasuke's shoulder to see the paper better. "You're sure you didn't write it? Y'know … wishful thinking?"
Sasuke sidestepped and dragged Naruto off balance, ignoring the other's shouted protest, and the heavy thud as Naruto crashed into the ground. Sasuke dropped the crumpled scroll, bouncing it off Naruto's head as he walked away. "Whatever."
Kat's Notes: so, after a really, really long hiatus, I am back. And I even have the next chapter almost written. After that, time skipping! Sort of. Eh, you'll see. So, if you've been hanging in there, and suddenly saw this show up like the Ghost of Fics Long Past, welcome back! If you're new to my special brand of insanity, welcome! I should be back... oh, next weekend, with the next chapter. Just gotta go bludgeon Sasuke into cooperating with me.
... most of the delays seem to be Sasuke-related. Huh. Drama queen.
