Hi guys! Life jumped out and slapped me across the face this week... Between being ill, family drama and, of course, uni work, I just didn't have time to update. Right now, I'm laying in bed, aching all over. :')
Thanks to the people who are following/ have favourited this story! :D
I don't own Naruto!
Enjoy! :3
Chapter 9
Sasuke limped through the corridors of his mindscape, trying to escape the madman behind him. He had invaded other people's minds before but had never been subjected to it. This was not something he knew how to fight against, chakara or not, and so he just tried to keep the invader from the older parts of his mind.
"Come on, traitor-kun, I know you're hiding the memory of trying to kill the nanadaime somewhere in here!"
A flash and Sasuke was lying prone on the ground staring into Sakura's lifeless eyes. He couldn't move or find his voice. The teen whimpered as he took in the Hokage's office, trying to avoid looking at his dying team mate. Beyond her he could see the Yamanaka approaching. The man stopped short of the Sakura in Sasuke's memories and looked towards the child laying across from him; a gleeful, wide smile spreading over his face – the picture of insanity.
"Oh yes!" The blonde haired man said as he crouched over the woman's body, "I nearly forgot!"
Sasuke felt himself being picked up by Naruto as his memory played itself out. He curled in on himself as the man carrying him ran from the room. While their surroundings disappeared upon their leaving the room, the memory Naruto remained.
A singsong voice called after them as they raced through the mindscape, "You killed the lady Sakura too!"
The teen closed his eyes and let the memory of the smell of ramen and summer give him temporary relief. He was quickly becoming exhausted from all the strain his mind was being put under. It was only a matter of time before his true identity was found.
"Nii-chan, I don't know what to do!" Ame cried.
"Okay," she heard Seiten's soft voice from above, "first let's get you inside and dried. Then we can talk about what all this is about."
Ame nodded and accepted the towel he offered her.
Once he had supplied her with a change of clothes and had sat her down in his kitchen with a hot drink she explained all that had happened.
"He didn't do it!"
"I believe you." Her brother replied, "I've seen Sasuke in and around the Hokage building, he's a good kid."
Ame slumped down in relief, "Thank goodness!"
"I still can't see what brings you here though, Ame. Wouldn't your husband be better for sorting this out? There's not much I can do for Sasuke."
"They've assigned Jiro to interrogate him."
"What?" the man's eyes widened, "but I wasn't consulted!"
Ame sighed, "I thought so… I know you can't do much to help in proving his innocence but I thought you might be able to stop Sasuke's mind being torn apart and Itachi… Itachi will have nothing to do with it! You know better than most what he's like…. So I walked out- he's going to be so angry at me!"
Seiten got up and looked down at his younger sister, "Ehh, it sounds like you and your husband had quite some fight, you wanna stay here tonight?"
Ame looked up, surprised, "I don't think I have the right to your hospitality after the way I chose to leave you all those years ago."
"Ahh, that." Seiten scratched his head, "The way I see it, I kinda forced you into a corner when I left to join the clan."
Ame smiled, "I forgave you for that years ago, Nii-san."
"Just as I forgave you years ago, Ame." The man smiled back, "Besides, I'm your big brother, you'll never get rid of me! That's just the way it works! So, you staying?"
Ame nodded her head and took another sip of her tea finally relaxing her tense body. She sighed in relief; Seiten would be able to do something to save her son. All her worries about being turned away by her brother long gone.
Her brother went to change into more suitable clothes for the weather, not forgetting to grab his work identification tag- he would be needing it.
"Right," Seiten said, mostly to himself, "Off I go to rampage on the police department."
One did not use the head of T&I's own department to cross him or his family. It was time for Jiro and the vice-chief of police to learn that there are scarier things than the remains Danzo's legacy.
Sasuke was now running behind his memory of Naruto. The old man's hand gripped the teen's arm tightly and his face was set in an expression of determination that Sasuke had seen countless times before. The part of his mind that they were running through was in tatters, as was the most of his current life's part of his mind.
Memories of the people in his current life would appear and try to ward the Yamanaka off. The invader was merciless in fighting his way through them; throwing them through walls and slicing through them.
The raven could feel himself break a little with every wall they crashed through, with every room the madman defiled with his presence and the blood of his memories. The only thing keeping Sasuke sane was the relatively unscathed part of his mind he had separated and hidden away when the nightmare had started- that and the hand still firmly tugging at his wrist.
"How can you still be here?" The invader screeched waving his clawed weapons around, "I've slashed through your whole family, scarred your mind and pulled apart your walls! You should be a sobbing mess by now!"
The teen crashed into memory-Naruto after glancing back at the Yamanaka. The memory had stopped abruptly upon reaching a blockade in Sasuke's mind. Nomally, the corridor would have led to the newly integrated, old part of Sasuke's being but as Sasuke had been hiding that part of him, they had ran into a dead end.
Sasuke panted and got ready for the next attack but it never came. Memory Naruto jumped in front of him and took the hit. The Yamanaka closed his clawed hands against the memory's throat and started hitting the man against the wall blocking their way. Sasuke went to stop him but it was too late; the wall crumbled and through the hole created seeped through all the anger and hate Sasuke could remember feeling for so long of his last life. The Yamanaka threw the weakened memory of Naruto to his side.
"Oh ho ho! Look what I've found, Traitor-kun! My my, what a naughty boy you are, thinking you could hide anything from me!"
Just as the madman was about to pull apart the wall even more, the Hokage was replaced by a much younger version of himself. The younger Naruto stood up and as joined by another memory that had seeped through the hole in the barrier; Sasuke's brother, Itachi.
"What- what is this?" Sasuke's interrogator gulped at the killer intent the two memories were emitting.
He looked over to Sasuke whose form had changed from the child that had fallen from the Hokage's roof all those years ago to that of the original Sasuke Uchiha in his prime.
"Who are you?" The Yamanaka cried as the three men surrounded him.
"Get out." Sasuke said through clenched teeth.
"I've seen the photos… That's the Hokage in his youth- the other one is the original Itachi Uchiha and you… that form! You're-"
"I am Sasuke Uchiha. Both this life and my last." Sasuke informed the man, "and now you know, I can't let you live."
Sasuke steeled himself for what he was about to do but before he could, he felt two hands grasp his shoulders. Looking over to the memories of two of his most precious people, he saw them shake their heads. He sighed, even in his mind Naruto's sense of justice was unwavering and his brother didn't want him tainted.
While he was distracted, the Yamanaka fled through the barrier. Cursing, Sasuke followed after with his companions close behind.
He found himself in a hauntingly familiar forest clearing and turned to see the madman holding a teenaged girl and a baby hostage. Sasuke froze; the two memories being threatened before him were the two he could never let any harm come to. He had failed them in life so it was all he could do to preserve them perfectly in his memories.
"Y'know," the Yamanaka drawled, "I never thought I would ever meet the esteemed fourth member of team seven."
"Do you think that meeting his reincarnation counts?" The man asked, his head tilted questioningly, "I think it does. I also think this changes everything!"
Sasuke's only reply was the raising of an eyebrow.
"I mean, if you're the Sasuke Uchiha, then we need to remove you all the more. You are bad for the Hokage! You'll hurt him!"
It was dark in the hospital room when the dark figure entered some time after the interrogation started.
Itachi moved closer to the Hokage's bedside, his pitch black eyes never leaving the man's face.
He cleared his throat, "Hokage-sama, you must wake. They think Sasuke tried to kill you."
There was no response.
The Uchiha wetted his lips and tried again, "I- I can't do anything to help him. When they came for him, the stupid boy ran. They took it as a sign he's guilty."
Still nothing.
"Hokage-sama? Please help my son."
Itachi glowered, then closed his eyes and swallowed his pride for the sake of his son, "Please wake up, Naruto-ji. Sasuke nee- no- I need your help. I'm begging you!"
Itachi waited a moment before sighing and turning to leave the room. It had been a waste of time after all.
"Geeze, 'Tachi-chan, you only needed to say it once." A weak voice came from below him.
Itachi stopped but kept silent.
"Don't be like that 'Tachi-chan! Help me up!"
The raven haired man helped the Hokage up out of his bed and into his clothes.
"Argh," Naruto moaned rolling his shoulders, "How long was I out?"
"A little over a week."
"Really? Man, I must be getting old if it's taking me over a week to wake up after an injury." Naruto laughed.
At first, Naruto needed some help in walking but soon enough he was well enough to force Itachi to follow him onto the rooftops.
Sasuke's eyes flared red, "I would never hurt Naruto!"
He would have attacked the man were it not for the two hostages and the tanned and pale hands holding him back, "I couldn't-"
"Oh? You couldn't hurt the Hokage? Then what were all those years and fights in your youth doing if not hurting him? What about when you left him again after the war? Everyone knows that when you died the first time the vengeance the Hokage sought was just as much for you as it was for his only child! No you wouldn't hurt the Hokage! You would chip away at him until he was completely destroyed!
"You are the reason his daughter died, you are the reason the lady Hinata died, you are the reason the Hokage and your current father are so estranged, you are the reason it took him so long to take up the mantel of Hokage, you are the reason the lady Sakura died and you'll be the reason the Hokage himself dies!"
Sasuke struggled to reconcile all this with his memories and the Naruto he knew. He knew he had hurt Naruto in the past but he had fixed it! Naruto was happy with him! No, it was those who would take Naruto from him that were hurting Naruto. People like the one that tried to kill him and the man before him right now. No one- nothing would separate Sasuke and Naruto again. Sasuke couldn't lose his best friend. He wouldn't. Sasuke could feel a familiar rage flow through him and directed it at the Yamanaka.
The memories of people in the area vanished like smoke and Sasuke started advancing on his interrogator.
The fight was a fast one. With emotion as strong as his behind him, Sasuke pulled no punches. The Yamanaka man stood no chance. Just as Sasuke was about to irrevocably injure the interrogators mind probe, the two blinked back into reality. Sasuke felt so disorientated by the change in his surroundings, he couldn't feel either the smothering killing intent filling the room or the two new men in the room, one being the producer of the atmosphere in the room, the other a trembling mess.
All he could feel was the warmth of his mother's arms holding him and the smell of summer and ramen permeating faintly around.
Okay! So that was chapter 9! :)
I have a good idea of where I want to take this fic and the the events of both parts A and B are planned out and seem fine in my head. It is the getting from part A to part B that is giving me problems...
I want it to flow so badly but right now but it just doesn't seem natural in my head... :')
Ahh... I'll solve this problem like how I do most problems; talk to a friend about it. ^^
Either way, I think I'll be good for the next couple of chapters but then Imma have to sit down and seriously think about how to get to part B smoothly. :')
In other news! Behold: each of my OCs have back stories (in my mind)! Basically, Ame's mother was a Yamanaka and her father was a distant cousin of Sakura. She and her brother were raised together until it was found that her elder brother, Seiten, had inherited the Yamanaka clan's mind jutsu ability. Ame hadn't.
Seiten left his immediate family to join the Yamanaka clan properly and, in the backlash, Ame got friendly with Itachi who, at the time, was beginning to harbour some anti-shinobi sentiment...
Of course, the head canon/ imagination of a fan girl is infinitely more complicated than the summary above so look forward to more background OC angst from just about every OC and lest see if you can piece together what is going on in my mind! :P
Enough rambling, I hope you enjoy your week!
Until next time! :)
(Please review!)
