No.
Itachi's mind had gone completely and utterly blank apart from that one word.
Asahi's report was exactly the last thing he needed to hear right now. He had finally sorted out his small clansmen, calming the panic attacks and sending the little kids up to bed to sleep off their jitters. He was alone in the kitchen, doing the dishes by himself, when his crow came back to report.
They now needed to replace their dinner set.
Haruna came in at the sound of dishes breaking and immediately knew that something very serious was up. Itachi braced himself for her freak out, but she managed to hold herself together.
"Sasuke's in trouble, isn't he?" She asked flatly.
"Yes."
"Go." Haruna told him. "I'll distract the others for a while."
Itachi let out a shuddering sigh of relief, gave Haruna a swift squeeze of a hug and darted out of the kitchen door and into the night. It would only take him a few minutes to sprint to Hokage tower. Hopefully more concrete answers about what the hell was going on would be waiting for him there.
"Kakashi..." Pakkun's voice was low. "There's nothing we can do..."
"No!" Hound's voice was a snarl of desperation. "We keep going! We'll pick up the scent again eventually."
The ninkin all exchanged looks, and Bull nudged Pakkun to speak up again. "Boss. The trail is gone. It's a miracle we managed to get anything through all this snow." He paused. "We're just going around in circles now."
"We can keep going longer." Hound said stubbornly, pushing his mask to the side so that he could smell the scents in the clearing they had stopped in clearer. All he could smell was frozen water.
"We can, but..." Pakkun trailed off. "There's no point. We've lost them."
"No we haven't! Not yet!"
"Boss. We can waste time here chasing our tails, or we can go back to the village so you can regroup with your ANBU pack and decide what to do next." Pakkun's voice was sharp. "Which do you think will actually get Naruto back faster?"
"ARGH!" Hound howled in frustration.
He had failed.
Itachi had arrived at the tower to find that he knew about as much as anyone, much to his frustration. The Hokage was just in the middle of issuing the general red alert on top of the ANBU one when Itachi jumped through his window, breathless and the least composed he had been since the night he had to sit through the screams of his relatives being butchered above him. Hound's report on Sasuke's disappearance must have reached him before his arrival, because the Hokage did not seem surprised to see him at all.
"Itachi-kun." He inclined his head towards him. "I'm afraid we have very little to tell you."
"Let me help." The words spilled from his lips, half plea, half demand. "Let me join the pursuit."
The Hokage shook his head. "You're not thinking straight Itachi-kun." He said. "What of the rest of your clan? Surely you don't think it's a good idea to leave them alone for any significant stretch of time right now?"
Itachi faltered, thinking of the crying children in his dining room earlier that evening, brought to the edge of panic just because Sasuke had merely been late, not yet confirmed as missing. As much as he hated it, the Hokage was right. He couldn't abandon them.
"I... I have to do something." He insisted, "It's... it's Sasuke... I... I can't..."
"Hound is tracking them." The old man told him. "Surely you have faith in your old captain? The man has as much on the line as you do to find them. He'll get them back."
"I know... it's just..." Itachi ran a hand through his hair. Was he having some sort of breakdown? He thought he was an expert on panic attacks now, considering what he had to weather each and every day, but he hadn't really experienced one of his own before. Now Sasuke was gone, his chest was tight, he couldn't stop trembling and he was having trouble stringing words together. He knew what he had to do. He had to stay with the rest of the kids and trust his old ANBU comrades to do their jobs.
He also knew what he desperately wanted to do, what he needed to do, was to drop everything and run after his little brother. He needed to find Sasuke, take him back from the morons that took him and put him in a very safe place where no one else could touch him. Then he was going to string up Sasuke's kidnappers by the ankles with some very sharp, very tight ninja wire and use them for piƱatas... using his katana as the stick. Once he got tired of that he'd probably do the standard revenge gutting, breaking of every single bone in their bodies and/or setting them on fire.
And Itachi thought he leaned towards pacifism. Turns out that only works out for him when Sasuke wasn't being threatened... hmmm...
Guess I'm a little more Uchiha than I thought...
"Itachi-kun. I will send word. Go home." The Hokage looked at him sternly. "I know what this means to you. Rest assured, I will find your brother and bring him home. Failing that I will have the ones responsible dragged to your feet for you to take care of."
Itachi took a shuddering breath and squashed the lid on his turbulent emotions once again. He bowed his head to his Hokage. "I would appreciate if you could keep me updated, Sandaime-sama." Then, before he could break down and actually start begging for permission to leave the village and hunt down the bastards that snatched his closest living family, he turned and jumped straight back out the window again, heading for home.
Hound made it back to the Hokage as dawn broke over the horizon. A whole night spent tracking, with next to nothing to show for it. The only thing he could bring back was confirmation that Naruto and Sasuke had been taken out of the village, making the case officially a kidnapping. Hound knew the boy's scents, and he had picked up traces of them outside the walls. It was as close to confirmation as they were going to get anyway.
He couldn't look the Hokage in the face as he reported, his failure felt too great, too personal. Was his curse of enforced solitude already applying to Naruto? If so, it was hardly a fair trade. He hardly got any time with the kid at all. Nine years of pretending not to care, of silently watching over the boy when things got turbulent, of avoiding the kid so that he had a decent chance of making it to puberty without his father's enemies hunting him down. If Naruto was gone for good, what had he ever managed to give him in his short life thus far? Six attempted murders he had personally thwarted and a stuffed toy tucked into his cot at the orphanage. Not very much at all.
"Hound." Sarutobi's voice was sharp. "This isn't failure. Just a setback. We will get them back."
"Yes, Hokage-sama." Hound's own voice was wooden.
"The sensor division may have some information about how the intruders got in for you now, and Intelligence has already gone over Naruto's apartment with a fine toothed comb. Start investigating what leads we have. You will have no other missions until Naruto and Sasuke are home."
"Yes, Hokage-sama."
"Dismissed."
He couldn't hide the truth from the kids any longer than three days. There was never hiding anything from the older children; they were too smart to buy his 'sleepover at Naruto's' bullshit that he tried to feed them. Haruna and Matsu knew from the first night, of course. They were the ones that distracted everyone while Itachi made his mad dash to the Hokage's office. By the next morning, Arata, Hikari, Hideki, Miyoko and Akane figured out that something was wrong too. They bore the news that Sasuke was missing about as well as could be expected, but agreed to keep silent so the little kids wouldn't panic. The weakest link was Miyoko, who shut herself up in her room for most of the day so that no one would see her cry.
Three days was the longest they could continue the lie though. Eventually it came out. Sasuke was missing, and they had no idea who had taken him and where they had gone. Luckily no one seemed to notice the fact that Naruto-nii (really, when had they adopted Naruto so thoroughly? Itachi quickly counted on his fingers... damn it, the kid was over for dinner three or four nights a week now...) wasn't around either. Nevertheless, there were some significant breakdowns that Itachi had to deal with when the truth came out. Eri screamed non-stop for three hours in the hopes that would summon Sasuke to her. The Twins actually worked themselves into a fever crying. Chizue hid under her bed for two days, Itachi couldn't even get her to come out to eat. Everyone had nightmares.
Everyone asked the same question non-stop: Why haven't they found Sasuke yet?
Itachi wished he had an answer to that question.
Sasuke wondered if anyone had noticed they were missing yet. Probably, considering that he hadn't shown up for dinner and Itachi was trigger happy when it came to worrying about his family. He wasn't sure exactly how much time had passed since they were snatched by the stupid ninja (Any ninja that crossed Itachi were stupid in Sasuke's mind, and surely his brother was definitely mad by now) that had come through Naruto's window, but he was sure it had to be more than a few hours. It might have even been as much as a day, because he and Naruto were now trussed up with ropes and lying in a rather barren, dimly lit room. Sasuke wondered if they were even still in the village.
Sasuke tested the ropes tying his wrists together, frowning slightly. Either these ninja were terrible at kidnapping, or they didn't think much of him and Naruto. Sasuke knew how to escape rope bonds, even if he wasn't very fast at wriggling his way out of them yet. Hopefully Naruto would wake up soon, because this was actually one area of expertise that Naruto was actually better in. Naruto was a wriggly eel of an escape artist. The only one that could ever hope to contain him was Iruka-sensei, and Sasuke knew that that probably wasn't because Iruka was good at tying people up, but rather because Naruto liked him well enough not to try too hard to slip away from him.
Hmmm... Sasuke thought. I wonder if we're going to end up missing school tomorrow? Or today. He wasn't really sure how much time had passed, like he had noted earlier.
"Urgh..." Naruto stirred awake, groaning loudly.
"Naruto!" Sasuke hissed at him, wriggling a little closer to his friend.
"Sasuke? Wha... what happened?" Naruto blinked groggily at him, slowly taking in the ropes and dim light of the empty room they were lying in. "...wow..."
"We got kidnapped." Sasuke said dryly, feeling like Captain Obvious.
"Uh... okay..." Naruto nodded, carefully storing that information away in his head. "... why?"
Sasuke shrugged. "I got kidnapped because I'm an Uchiha, and they want my bloodline." Sasuke told him. "You... I have no idea why they took you."
Naruto huffed a sigh. "I'm nothing special." he said bitterly. "Or did they take me because I was with you?"
Sasuke shook his head. "I was a target of opportunity." He replied. "They only took me because I was there. They definitely planned to snatch you: they broke into your apartment deliberately."
"Huh." Naruto said. "Maybe I've got a super cool bloodline that I didn't know about?" He suggested. "Or my parents were such awesome ninja that they wanted to steal their kid for themselves!"
Sasuke rolled his eyes at the suggestion that Naruto may have a secret bloodline. All of the families with bloodlines were pretty much common knowledge in Konoha, and Naruto couldn't have looked anything less like any of them. The only two bloodlines in Konoha worth risking a kidnapping to gain were the sharingan and the byakugan. Naruto had unmistakably blue eyes, and his blonde hair and sunny smile were about as close to an anti-thesis of the Hyuuga clan as you could get. Sasuke was also pretty sure he would have noticed by now if Naruto belonged to the Uchiha clan, you know, on account of it being his own family.
The idea that this could be about Naruto's mysterious parents was not without merit though. It was probably the most likely explanation that they had right now.
"Or maybe you're an international object of interest that we were commissioned to steal by a certain kage from another village." A cool voice interrupted their conversation, and the two boys stared up at the tall man dressed in black standing above them, a small bowl in his hands.
"Wha... what are you talking about...?" Naruto stuttered, trying not to show how much the sudden appearance of the ninja had shaken him. Sasuke knew how he felt. He very much wanted to be cool and crass in this situation, throwing easy insults at their captors, but mostly he just felt scared. It was easy to pretend this was just mildly annoying when it was only Naruto in the room with him. Now the threat to their lives felt very, very real.
Nii-san... It took all of Sasuke's self control not to whimper, and he had to squash back a rising wave of panic. He couldn't freak out here! This wasn't home, where his brother would rub his back and help him ride out that panic attack with ease. This was an unknown room in an unknown location where he was being held by unknown nin.
The ninja just laughed at Naruto's question. "God, I thought the intelligence was screwing with us, but it really was the truth: you're utterly clueless!"
"Don't call me clueless!" Naruto hissed, the ninja hitting his trigger for people calling him stupid. Naruto always bit back when people made fun of him or insinuated he was dumb.
"Kid, you don't even know you're a jinchuriki... I'd say that's pretty clueless." The ninja snorted, crouching down by Naruto's head and helping him to sit up. "I'm in here to make sure you guys don't die of dehydration or something before we meet our contact, so drink up." He shoved the bowl at Naruto's face, and Sasuke heard a couple of frantic gulping sounds as Naruto was practically forced to drink the contents of the bowl.
Naruto fell back with a thud, looking slightly light headed, as soon as the man took the bowl away. The ninja then turned to Sasuke, propped him up as Sasuke glared at him, then forced the bowl on him too, tipping it until Sasuke was forced to either drink or drown in the bitter tasting water.
Sasuke choked a little as the man took the bowl away and let him fall back again. He hadn't said anything to his captor yet, and he was feeling more than a little pathetic, but he was in no condition to throw any words at the man's back as he turned to leave.
Naruto was though. "What the heck is a jinchuriki supposed to be, arsehole?!" He spat at the man.
For a minute Sasuke thought the man was going to ignore him, but he turned around to face them again with a chuckle. "Power of human sacrifice." He said shortly. "You've got a demon sealed in your gut."
Naruto immediately paled, and Sasuke's brain stopped working. A demon? What the hell was going on?
"How could I have a... a demon... inside me?" Naruto choked out.
The man shrugged. "Don't ask me, I'm not a fuinjutsu expert. All I know is that you're the vessel of the Nine Tailed Fox, and we were hired to kidnap you."
"Nine Tailed Fox?!" Sasuke squeaked. Of course the first thing he managed to say to their tormentors was not something cool, witty or sarcastic, but a squeaky cry of surprise. Typical.
"You're wrong!" Naruto laughed in weak relief. "Everyone knows that the Yondaime killed the Nine Tailed Fox years ago!"
The ninja just rolled his eyes. "Really? Is that the garbage they're feeding you kids in Konoha these days?" He shook his head. "Can't kill a tailed beast kid, they're masses of malevolent living chakra: it'd be like trying to murder a hurricane. Best you can do is seal it away." He leered at Naruto. "Looks like your precious Yondaime wasn't as good a monster killer as you thought."
Then he turned on his heel and left them alone in the gloom once again, minds reeling.
"It's not true... right Sasuke?" Naruto whispered finally. "Right?"
"...right..." Sasuke whispered back.
But he couldn't shake the unease.
A/N:
Bit of a shorter chapter this time, but this felt like a good place to cut things off. Most of this chapter was from Itachi or Kakashi's POV, but we'll be back to mostly Sasuke in the next chapter. The Fox is out of the bag now, so to speak :) wonder how things will turn out...?
(Well, I know how things are going to turn out. Duh. This is my fic. But you guys don't, muhahaha!)
Thank you for reading! I was a bit blown away with the reviews I got last chapter: eight whole reviews! Thank you all so much!
So... shout out to those eight awesome people that reviewed! Thank you yara9292, Dulemina, leafpool5, carpediemdftba, AndIwannabesomeone, Lamelinam, davycrockett100 and a lovely Guest!
