Ten: Revelations

"Get down!" Sasuke commanded, his voice calm and authoritative amongst the sounds of screams and destruction.

Naruto and Sai were already on their feet again, searching for whoever had caused the explosion. Sasuke, meanwhile, was taking charge of the civilians' evacuation.

The royal family! Shit.

"Naruto! Sai! Go find those kids at the table and get them out of here! They're the Sasaki kids and they're in danger as long as they're here! I'll go find Lord Sasaki and his wife!"

Sai nodded, confirming he'd heard the order, as Sasuke took off into the smoke.

"Naruto," the pale shinobi said, turning to his comrade. "Find the kids and bring them back here. I'll work on drawing something that can get us out of here."

"Right." The blonde nodded and followed Sasuke into the fray.

The smoke stung at his eyes, and Naruto found it hard to not only see where he was going, but to breathe. The explosion probably hadn't killed many people, but if it were meant to be a distraction, it had certainly worked. He was sure that everyone else would be disoriented and confused.

"A trap," he muttered. He thought about warning Sasuke, but he knew his friend would have already figured that out long before he himself had.

Just find the kids. That's your mission. Leave the rest to your teammates.

"Damn it all! I can't see a thing!"

He cursed the density of the smoke as it surrounded him. He would have gone into sage mode, but he couldn't stay stationary long enough. Not when the enemy could be lurking around somewhere.

Just when he thought his eyes couldn't take the sting any longer, a large gust of wind came and blew the smoke away. Naruto blinked, and when his vision cleared, he saw Temari standing in front of him.

"Temari! Thanks. You blew away the smoke with your wind chakra, didn't you?"

"Yes, you idiot. And I'm surprised you haven't done that already. I seem to recall you proclaiming to be the strongest wind-style user in the Allied Shinobi Forces just a few years ago."

"Give him a break, Temari. He may be the strongest, but he's definitely not the smartest," Shikamaru said, coming up to stand beside the sandy-haired kunoichi. "What do you need us to do?"

"Can you make sure everyone gets out okay? We have to protect the royal family, but I don't want all these other people to get hurt either."

"Right," Shikamaru nodded. "Not a problem. Temari?"

"Let's go."

Naruto watched his friends disappear, Temari clearing the smoke as they went. With her advice in mind, Naruto formed a simple rasengan and used it to cut through the smoke as he made his way to the area Sasuke had been in earlier.

Three kids—although it was tough to call them that when they looked close to his own age—were standing next to a table, backs to each other, looking as if they were ready to fight anyone who came near them.

"Back off," the one with the darkest hair threatened. Naruto suspected he was the eldest of the trio.

"Easy," the blonde said, dissipating his rasengan and holding up his hands in a placating manner. "I'm not here to hurt you. I'm one of the ninja your father hired. You met my friend earlier. Dark-haired? Kind of sulky?"

The two brown-haired teenagers smirked, and Naruto knew he had the right family.

"Come on. I'm going to get you out of here."

Sasuke noticed that the smoke was clearing a lot faster than it would have naturally, and he wondered if that was Shikamaru and Temari's doing. He wouldn't have been surprised. The two geniuses would have thought to clear the air right away. He was thankful for the first time that night that the pair had decided to drop in.

One he'd activated the Sharingan, Sasuke had a much easier time locating Lord and Lady Sasaki. They were hiding in a back room. And they were right to, Sasuke thought. Because he could make out the form of another figure creeping around back there.

"Who are you?" Sasuke asked, jumping in front of a masked man. His clothing seemed familiar, and Sasuke suspected that he might formerly have been a Hidden Mist ANBU, but he couldn't be sure.

"I would ask you the same, but even I know Sasuke Uchiha when I see him," the man said.

"I see my reputation precedes me," Sasuke said with a smirk. "Do you still wish to engage me?"

"I have no quarrel with you, but I have been hired to kill Tanosuke Sasaki and all who stand in my way of that goal, so if you don't move, I'll be forced to take action."

"Hm. You know who I am, and yet you still want to fight me? Stupid. Chidori!"

The man barely had time to think before he was stabbed clean through by the technique. Sasuke scoffed. He hadn't even had to use the Mangekyo Sharingan. How boring.

"You can come out now!" he called to the couple hiding behind him. "I can assure you it's safe."

Lord Sasaki snuck out of the small room he'd been hidden in, followed by his wife.

"Who was that man?" Sasaki asked, coming to look over Sasuke's shoulder.

Sasuke shrugged. "You'd have more answers than me. But if I had to guess, I'd say he's a missing-nin from the Hidden Mist."

"Hidden Mist? We should bring his body back for an autopsy," Sasaki said, glancing over the body of the failed assassin.

Sasuke nodded. It would be a start. He bent forward to pick up the corpse when he heard a sizzling sound. His eyes widened as his Sharingan took in exactly what was about to happen.

"Get back now!"

He wasted no time in grabbing both Sasakis and hitting the ground. He rolled to his feet, performing the hand signs for a fireball jutsu to block the oncoming flames from the assassin's explosion.

"Well," he muttered as he dusted soot off his arms, "at least we can be fairly certain that that man once came from the Hidden Mist. Only they have such developed methods for destroying their own corpses."

"Sasuke!" Sai called, running over to them. "Naruto got out with the others. It's just us left. Did you catch the person who did this?"

Sasuke shook his head. "I killed him, but the body was destroyed before we could gather anything useful from it."

"Hidden Mist?"

"Hidden Mist."

"Well, there's nothing we can do about it now I suppose."

Sasuke nodded curtly. "Yeah, you're right. Let's just get out of here and regroup. Then we'll figure out what to do from there."

He hoped Shikamaru and Temari were still around. He wouldn't mind having the input of a few more geniuses.

Kakashi held his breath as he stood in the back of the room with all the other recruits, awaiting the arrival of their mysterious leader. He didn't know if they were going to meet the rebellion's number one—he suspected they weren't—but whoever it was had to be important to garner this much secrecy.

Sure enough, when the man came out, Kakashi recognized his face. Jin Takahashi. He'd been in the Bingo Book before, but where he'd initially come from escaped him at the moment. He didn't have one of the higher bounties in the Book, but the fact that his face was even in there at all meant that he was strong.

The Copy Ninja was going to have to be on his guard even more than he'd thought.

As the black-haired man came out and started examining the recruits, Kakashi found himself very glad that he'd decided to stand in the back. He know he didn't look exactly like himself any longer, but his height was still a bit taller than average and there was no way for him to fake having another eye without the use of a genjutsu, so he was just going to have to remain as inconspicuous as possible.

"Good evening," Takahashi started, and the room suddenly grew deathly quiet. "I want to thank you all for volunteering to fight with us."

Us. That means he's probably not the leader.

"Regrettably, our leader could not be with us tonight, but our second-in-command, and the man that you will be taking most of your orders from when the time comes will be arriving tonight to oversee the final day of your training. You may know his name. Kenji Mizushima."

That led to hushed whispering among the recruits, for it seemed even they knew Kenji Mizushima. Kakashi knew him too. He was a very powerful rogue shinobi, and widely considered the strongest the Land of Silver had ever seen. But without a hidden village, he'd taken to wandering and doing jobs of questionable morality.

Kakashi frowned. If he were involved in the rebellion, things were not going to be as simple as he'd hoped.

Kakashi closed his eye and tried to bring a picture of Mizushima to his mind, but it wasn't cooperating with him today. It had been a long time since he'd last looked through the Bingo Book—he hadn't felt the need to over the past few years—and he was beginning to regret his slacking off.

He seemed to recall that Mizushima had somewhat eccentric red hair, and Kakashi hoped that would allow him to recognize him before he ran into him. That was an encounter he wanted to avoid at all costs. He was fairly certain that a ninja like Kenji Mizushima would recognize him right away. The Copy Ninja had been in the Bingo Book since he was a child, after all.

Surely he had enough information by now. Sasaki would be able to act, knowing the names of two of the opposition's main leaders. Even if he couldn't discover who the actual man in charge was, this was more than enough. If he stayed much longer, Kakashi would risk blowing his cover, and then he wouldn't be of use to anybody.

Suddenly, he realized that Takahashi had stopped talking, and was now weaving his way through the recruits, looking at the men that would become his soldiers.

Takahashi stopped in front of Kakashi, narrowing his eyes as he looked him over.

"One eye, huh? You can fight like that?"

"Yes sir."

"How'd you lose it?"

"An accident when I was a child, sir. My older brother and I were sparring, and well, you know how things go."

"Ah." Takahashi inclined his head, but Kakashi got the feeling he didn't entirely believe him. He knew he was probably being paranoid, but his gut hadn't failed him yet. He was still alive after all.

"You remind me of that Leaf shinobi," Takahashi continued. "The one with that implanted Sharingan in his left eye. The Copy Ninja whatever."

Kakashi froze, cursing the fact that there weren't any other one-eyed ninja around.

Still, he forced himself to laugh. "Well I'm not sure what a Sharingan is, sir, but if it could get me back my eyesight I'd gladly take one."

Takahashi smirked, but there was still suspicion in his gaze. "Well, I wouldn't be too sure about that."

Kakashi didn't let himself relax until Takahashi was all the way down the line. That man was getting far too suspicious, and he was worried now that Kaoru or Hideki would think something was off about their lunchtime conversation. And with Kenji Mizushima coming in later that night, Kakashi couldn't afford to stick around much longer.

He needed to get out of there, and he needed to get out of there fast.

Sure enough, Sasuke found both Shikamaru and Temari calmly assessing the situation when he and Sai arrived. Naruto, unsurprisingly, was freaking out.

"Sasuke! Glad you're okay. But what happened? Did someone attack? I didn't see anyone during dinner, so where did they come from? Is the royal family alright?"

"Naruto!" four voices rang out at once, shutting the blonde jinchuriki up.

"Sorry," he said sheepishly.

"What do you think?" Sasuke asked, ignoring his friend and going straight to Shikamaru. If anyone would have any idea about what had just happened, it would be him.

The brown-haired shinobi shrugged. "I'm not entirely sure. It was definitely exploding tags, but from what I can tell, the intent was to make a diversion, not to kill anybody."

"Hm," Sasuke frowned. "So then why send the assassin if whoever did this didn't want anyone to die?"

"Beats me," Shikamaru said, "unless they wanted to make sure only a certain person died."

Sasuke's eyes narrowed. "So you're saying…"

Shikamaru nodded. "I think the real culprit behind this was someone in that room."

"It looks like Lord Sasaki wasn't paranoid after all," Sasuke muttered, looking over at the dark-haired man. He was fussing over his wife and younger kids, making sure they were all uninjured from the attack.

Sasuke didn't particularly like the man—he hadn't given him a good first impression—but that didn't mean the guy deserved to die.

"So what are we gonna do?" Naruto asked, following Sasuke's gaze over to the family. "As long as we don't catch the people who did this, they're still in danger, right?"

"I'm afraid so. And there's no telling who was behind the attack. There are too many people here." Shikamaru let out a long breath. "I sure am glad this isn't my mission. Seems like this one is shaping up to be long haul. What a drag."

Sasuke closed his eyes. That was what he'd been afraid of earlier. Getting sucked into whatever conspiracy was taking root in the Land of Silver. He'd had a hunch that something bigger was going on here the second he'd heard Kakashi was having trouble pinpointing anything having to do with the rebel army. He just hadn't wanted to get involved. He quite liked his peaceful existence back in the Village Hidden in the Leaves.

"Sasuke?" Naruto prodded.

"As team captain, the decision is up to you," Sai said.

Sasuke rubbed the palms of his hands against his eyes, a bit sore from using the Sharingan. He was getting rusty. He barely used the Sharingan at all, let alone a high-level technique like Amaterasu or Susanoo, and he was already a bit worn out.

Maybe he'd become too dependent on Sakura's healing over the years.

He didn't want to become embroiled in a battle in a land far from his home, for a family he didn't really care about. In fact, he'd go as far as to say he disliked them. Sure, he hadn't spoken many words to the Sasakis, but there was something about their attitude that he didn't like. At all.

They remind you too much of your lost clan.

Sasuke refused to listen to the little voice inside his head. The resemblance to his lost family had nothing to do with the mission. Nothing at all. He just didn't like the idea of someone suffering when he could easily do something about it. Maybe it was his penance, Sasuke didn't know, but whatever the reason, the dark-haired Uchiha sighed and turned back to his comrades.

"Alright, we'll stay. It's not like we can really leave them alone and unprotected in good conscience, is it?"

A/N: Sakura will be back soon, I promise! And there is more action on the way ;)

On a side note, next week is KakaSaku week! I'm going to try to do the prompt everyday, so I may not be putting out a chapter for this story every other day like I've been doing lately. I've still been able to work ahead here, though, so this forewarning may be for nothing. I do have the entire "first arc" of this story planned out, which is through the next 6 chapters, so hopefully you'll at least get two chapters this week, in addition to my KakaSaku week stuff. The story will go up on Monday if you want to read it! And hopefully it'll be updated everyday!