Naruto's P.O.V.
"Yes, yes, it's a time served for service proposal. Non-violent, minimum security, prisoners will be given week for week off their sentence for supervised community service projects. This will keep our beautiful city clean, keep inmates motivated to rejoin society once released, and will cost almost nothing to the average tax payer."
"Mr. Mayor, does this have anything to do with your fiancé's recent incarceration?"
"No, this program has been in the works long before that."
"Are you planning on staying with him during his fifteen year sentence for felony prostitution and threatening international security?"
"I am not at liberty to discuss that at this time, but I will gladly answer more questions about the served for service program."
"Will Sasuke Uchiha be a participant in the program?"
"If they meet the outlined criteria, all inmates are eligible for the program."
"Thank you that's enough questions for today, thank you." Shikamaru said into my microphone, taking my speech and leading me out of the press conference.
"Maybe we shouldn't have released our plans for that program so soon." Neji stated as we walked down the hallway.
"That was our tee off into office, no one knew Sasuke was going to get arrested." Shika snapped.
"Are you okay Naruto?" Kiba asked.
"Do I look okay?"
"Umm… well I can't really tell Naruto."
"Good, that's what I was going for." I said getting in my car, Shikamaru getting in the passengers seat, Kiba and Neji in the back. "Please tell me someone remembered his suit."
"It's in the trunk, I got you Naruto."
"Thank god, I've been so scattered lately, I'm surprised I even remembered my suit this morning. Thanks Keebs." I drove to the courthouse and my team fought off paparazzi as I walked in. Damn vultures. Two months of non-stop harassment, will they ever stop? The public has chosen to view me as the poor broken husband that was innocent and clueless in all of this. They pity me. A lot of my donors came out and said that the Akatsuki approached them with Sasuke, not me. Donzo has been leading the rallies to impeach me, but for the most part, although my popularity has dropped, it hasn't dropped all that much at all. My career might be able to recover from this, but I don't know if I ever will…
I met up with Jiraiya and the two off us were escorted to the holding room where Sasuke was. He was in an orange jumpsuit, hair a disaster, cuffed to the table where he was sitting. He was detoxing and hard. I didn't know about the cocaine addiction. I didn't know about any of this. I hate seeing him like this. I really do.
"How are you holding up?"
"Hn." That good huh. "How's Mikoshina?"
"With my mom, the paparazzi have swarmed our house and are setting up shop. It's safer just to keep her there with my dad's ombu." I said before kissing him quickly. I have no idea how many kisses we're gonna have left, but I had to make them count.
"Alright, lets uncuff him, get him dressed." Jiraiya said to the guard who uncuffed him. Jiraiya turned and I helped get Sasuke into his suit.
"Are you okay? Anyone giving you a hard time?"
"Not yet, they have me in a single cell where I'm by myself all day until the trials are over." Why won't he answer if he's okay or not?
"And after that?"
"They'll transfer me to County Correctional."
"That's not so bad, it's like barely outside of town, I can come see you every week."
"Thanks for sticking with me through this Naruto. You really don't have to." I would have jumped off a cliff for you if you asked me to. I guess you actually did, taking care of all our financial worries like you did…
"For better or for worse right?"
"Fifteen years is a lot of worse. Mikoshina will be almost eighteen."
"Yes, but I'll bring her with me for every visit, she will know her father Sasuke, I promise."
"Don't, I don't want her to see me like this, behind bars like an animal." He's become so cold, so broken.
"We need to get going, Kisame's testimony is almost over and you're up next." Jiraiya said.
"Alright, I'll see you on the other side, I love you Sasuke." I kissed him once more.
"I love you too Naruto." He and Jiraiya walked through the containment hallway and I went back outside. The moment I got out there I slammed my fist into the wall. How could he do this to me? Make me and his family go through this? Ugh I just wanted to scream, but if I scream any more I'll lose my voice and go bald. What the hell was Sasuke thinking jumping into bed with those guys? Of all the stupid reckless-
"Naruto? Is that you?"
"Itachi, what are you doing here?" I asked looking up at a now completely blind Itachi. Kakashi told me he's been so stressed out with all of this his vision is totally gone now. He's even using one of those red and white sticks to get around. He even looks sick standing in front of me, like he could die at any moment. We both were cleared right away, although Itachi got tied up a little bit. He knew about what Sasuke was doing a full week before Kakashi and the other ombu figured it out. That must have been what their fight was over that day. But they concluded that Itachi kept it a secret for his brother, not to protect the Akatsuki, so he was slapped on the wrist and cleared.
As for Kakashi, well he's been suspended with pay for three months. Mostly for not reporting the first breach, and hiring Sasuke without checking out his internship and making sure it was legit. Can you really blame him though? He's been in Sasuke's life for almost as long as he's been in mine. He's almost been like a father figure to the Uchiha brothers. Almost. Itachi had been working for Kakashi for years, hiring Sasuke almost seemed like a no brainer. I guess all of us made mistakes and Sasuke ended up slipping through the cracks. God, I wish we had just caught it earlier, before it came to this. The night we got back together, if he had just told me… I don't know, maybe it could have been different.
"Kisame needed me for support." I can't believe he's staying with Kisame. I can't believe I'm staying with Sasuke either… but he needs me… now more than ever…
"Are you going to stay for Sasuke's testimony?"
"No, I'd rather he not see me like this." He said with a cough. Blood, a lot of it at that. "I heard you're staying with him."
"I was going to marry him, just because we didn't say our vows doesn't mean we didn't have any." In fact we were supposed to say them today…
"All the lies, the deception, the way he would tell us a lie without batting an eye."
"And I believed him." There were so many signs not to and I didn't question a single one.
"We both did. I thought he was really turning a corner, making something of himself."
"Me too."
"Naruto we have to go." Shikamaru said, coming up to me with Neji and Kiba.
"I'll see you around Itachi. Neji can you make sure he gets home safe?"
"Certainly." Neji said helping him out the door. The three of us walked into the courtroom and sat in Sasuke's corner. Sasuke, Kisame, and Deidara all took plea deals, Kakuzu and Sasori decided it would be better to combine their trials, Hidan will be on his own and the power three will be prosecuted together. This is the trial of the century and Sasuke is right in the middle of it. Today is the first time Sasuke is testifying and it's against Kakuzu and Sasori. They all somehow got expedited trials because the ombu felt they had more than enough information to prosecute all of them. Sasuke actually got the best deal out of any of them. Only fifteen years. Kisame got 25 years for illegal importing of banned and endangered marine wildlife and Deidara got 40 years for drug trafficking and military grade explosives in his warehouse. Jiraiya was right, the first person to make a deal got the best deal. I'm really worried for his safety however, the Akatsuki are some really bad guys.
"State your name."
"Sasuke Uchiha."
"Do you Sasuke Uchiha solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you god?"
"I do."
"Please have a seat Mr. Uchiha." He did and the courtroom became silent.
"Please tell the courtroom about your first encounter with the defendant, Kakuzu."
"It was the first day I had been hired by the Akatsuki. I had told them about my financial situation and they sent me to him."
"What happened that day?"
"He pulled up my financial records, bills, history. He told me he's settle my debt for me."
"Sasuke, do you bank with the same bank Kakuzu worked with?"
"No."
"So how did he get your records?"
"He had a computer program that let him see the financial history of everyone in the Five Nations. He could make transfers and pull funds from any monetary system in the world."
"Objection, speculation."
"Sasuke is a security engineer, it is well within his skill set to understand computer programs such as this one."
"I'll allow it." The judge said.
"What did you have to do in exchange for him going through your financial status Sasuke?"
"He asked me to crawl under his desk while he pulled up my records."
"Why would he do that?"
"So the other bank employees wouldn't see what was going on if they were to look into his office."
"What was going on Sasuke?"
"He asked me to give him a blow job." I cringed. How could Sasuke be with him and then come home to me like nothing happened? Kakuzu is like ninety years old! It's sickening.
"In exchange for cleaning up your financial history?"
"Yes."
"What else did he do for you?"
"He would fudge due dates, giving me more time to pay the more expensive bills. He gave me a better credit score so I could actually buy my house. He would forge paperwork, he wrote letters using the insurance letterhead, faking that they had paid for my medical bills when, in reality, it was the money I earned with the Akatsuki. He also gave me internship experience I didn't have, establishing a fake job for me through a dummy account, falsified everything to look legitimate to the government and my family." That stung.
"And why did he do that?"
"The Akatsuki were very paranoid about covering their tracks, they wanted to make sure every base was covered."
"What was your job description while working for the Akatsuki?"
"I was their pet. All the members of the Akatsuki would pass me around on a daily basis, to fulfill their sexual needs so they could focus on their work." Their pet? A daily basis? Sasuke and I had plenty of sex, all the time. How could he do that all day and still come home to me? Acting like he hadn't had sex in months when that was literally all he was doing!
"Their illegal work?"
"Yes. I was also the first point of contact with new clients."
"And what did that entail?"
"After they were thoroughly investigated and screened, I was to approach the client, show them a good time, convince them to take their business to the Akatsuki's establishment."
"Show them a good time?"
"Have sex with them, escort them on dates, court them." I felt my heart break all over again. More than half of those men were donors to my campaign. That's why he was so chummy with them, how could I not see it? How could Kurama not sense it?
"Did these men pay you?"
"No, the Akatsuki did."
"Objection, relevance."
"To establish the flow of money."
"I'll allow it."
"So the Akatsuki paid you to have sex with…dozens of wealthy men a week to convince then to come to the club on a later date?"
"Yes."
"How did they find these new clients?"
"Kakuzu chose potential clients based on their bank accounts."
"And if the client refused?"
"He'd freeze their bank accounts and assets."
"How many accounts did he freeze?"
"Several before I was hired, none after, that was the main reason I was sought out. I was their ringer."
"Sought out?"
"Yes, the Akatsuki looked for me specifically."
"Why is that?"
"I had a reputation of being one of the best prostitutes in Konoha." Ouch.
"Did they know of this reputation?"
"Yes."
"But you had been retired for nearly a year at the time, how did they convince you to join?"
"Kakuzu looked into my credit history prior to approaching me. He knew I was in trouble financially. They approached me with a figure he calculated, working out every contingency and how long it would take to pay off my debt with my family's current income at the time and how well off I would be in a year's time if I worked for them."
"And the result?"
"I was able to purchase my home and pay off 80% of my debt in a little more than a year. Had I not my family would have gone bankrupt within the month." What? No way! I was working two jobs, Itachi was working all the time. I mean yeah, the insurance company wasn't really helping us, and Itachi's medications cost like two hundred dollars a pill and he had to take like seven pills a day. But bankrupt within the month? Really? Oh Sasuke…
"Objection relevance?"
"I'm getting there."
"Well hurry it up Mr. Tazuna."
"Was this all within the financial guidance of Kakuzu?"
"Yes."
"So what your saying is the defendant forced you back into prostitution through financial means of control?"
"Yes."
"And had you not accepted his offer?"
"Objection speculation!"
"Answer the question Mr. Uchiha, but Tazuna, I'm warning you."
"He threatened to alert the IRS of my taxes. Being a prostitute in my past… they would have taken everything from me, my family would have been out on the street, I had a newborn at the time and my brother was very ill." Oh Sasuke… I can't even imagine what you went through for us.
"I see, well I guess that's a pretty big indication of menacing, blackmailing, laundering, and breach of contract with the bank, now isn't it? Let's move on to the defendant Sasori, please tell the courtroom about your first encounter with him." I couldn't take it anymore. I just wanted to throw up. The whole room was spinning and it wouldn't stop. Yeah he was doing it for me, but hearing the words in agonizingly descriptive detail, I just couldn't handle it. It was all too much. Wither he was doing it for me or not, the details, the heinous acts…
Over the course of the next six months and the rest of the trials, I just got sicker and sicker with every detail I heard. The porn, making him take drugs for performance, threesomes, celebrations for shipments getting smuggled in, getting covered in illegal elephant blood while he rode them, all that violence. Hidan brought Sasuke to the brink of death so many times. Consensual? There's no way, he was forced to do it for the money! I became numb.
Even still, even if he was doing it for all the right reasons, Sasuke hurt me so bad and he had no idea what he was doing to me. Either that or he didn't care. I want to stay by his side, to forgive him, be the support he needs to get through prison, but it is just so hard. Sasuke is my sole mate, that much I know. But even still, for my sole mate to betray me on this level? To hurt me this bad? I feel like my soul has been ripped out of my body along with my heart. I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to recover from this. Sasuke ruined me.