A/N: YOU GUYS. 12 reviews last chapter?! You're AMAZING. I'm so overwhelmed with joy! A big thanks to your kidney 4lunch '3, chidoripotato, kayna96, TheRoadtoHell666, infinite eternity, Cryzis, bg28, NilrebFromMot, toorealreality, and the 3 Guests who reviewed!
This chapter is extra long because I was motivated by your reactions to last chapter's cliffhanger, so I hope I do it justice. Also please keep in mind the shady backstory of the Elders when reading to help put things into perspective.
Also, to address a few concerns, this story is NOT ITA/SAKU. There is currently no Itachi-Sakura pairing, nor will there ever be. Sorry to the fans of those two but I just can't see it manifesting despite what this story has you believe.
Chapter 11
…:::Of Traitors and Punishment:::…
"Criminals do not die by the hands of the law. They die by the hands of other men." – George Bernard Shaw
It happened so quickly.
Itachi was gone by that point. Naruto, struggling against the ANBU that held him as they jumped through the shattered window, could only wonder if they would kill him then and there, no questions asked. He couldn't have asked questions even if he wanted to; someone had cast a seal on him and Kakashi that stole their voices away no matter how desperately he wanted to cry out. He struggled so violently and became such a threatening vision – his canines growing longer and longer and his eyes reddening – that they knocked him unconscious with a swift hit to the tender vital point at his neck.
When he came to, he was in Tsunade's office. Without Tsunade. Someone was crying. There was a lot of shouting, faint and distant. He could not quite tell what was going on; his vision swam before his eyes, blurred from the hit to the base of his skull, but he turned his head – when had he ended up on the floor? He found he couldn't move his hands from behind his back.
Sakura was crying. Naruto turned to stare at her, eyes round. Her face was contorted as she sobbed unabashedly. Kakashi was there, too, hands bound and kneeling next to Naruto from their position on the floor, in front of Tsunade's desk that seemed far too large in that moment. He kept staring straight ahead, gray eyes trained on the desk, silent. From the way he was slightly hunched, Naruto could tell one of his old wounds had reopened.
"Naruto," sobbed Sakura. He vaguely wondered if their voices had returned. "It wasn't me."
Right.
Naruto had thought, for a fleeting moment, that Itachi had done something to Sakura since he had seen her crying and she had gone off to tell Tsunade. It had been a fleeting thought that had soon been forgotten that day when he questioned Itachi's health, but the notion resurfaced at the moment of their demise. He nodded his head, believing her. But if she hadn't done it . . .?
"Then how . . .?" he asked, surprised that his voice had come out. He tried to sit up. His head was throbbing. Too many things were going on too fast, too fast –
"ANBU sensed his chakra on a routine check."
That was Danzo. Naruto could recognize his chilling baritone anywhere.
The Elders walked into the room, their presence important and overbearing. Naruto choked on the tension that wafted in from behind them. Tsunade was there. Naruto felt himself cower unconsciously; her presence was not important and overbearing like the Elders, it was angry. Infuriated. She looked about ready to explode in a storm to end the village.
And then Itachi came in.
Or rather, was dragged in. Quite literally by his arms, one of them clearly dislocated. Naruto's eyes grew wide; Itachi looked similar to the condition he had been when the blond had first met him. Trails of blood followed his body and pooled into the carpet when he was dropped unceremoniously to the ground on Naruto's right side. The man was conscious but said nothing, simply keeping his head down. He struggled to get into a kneeling position with his hands and feet bound in chakra-suppressing shackles.
The second the door was closed, Tsunade exploded. The fuse had reached its core and suddenly, there were fireworks.
"You idiots!" she bellowed so loudly that the windows rattled. Naruto quite honestly feared for what she could do, vaguely musing 'idiots' was not the insult he would have picked to start off the conversation.
Kakashi said nothing. Did nothing. Naruto shifted uncomfortably in the bindings, attempting to sit like Itachi. His legs were growing numb. Sakura was crying silently at the wrath of betraying her own master.
"What did you think you were doing?! Huh?!" Tsunade's head whipped around so fiercely her pigtails lashed at her face. She smashed a hand into her desk and it protested beneath her power before promptly splitting in two. She did not flinch, nor did she give any indication that she had noticed. "Did you think you were completing Team 7 again?! Answer me!"
Silence.
She strode forward in one long step and bent down so that her manicured fingers could latch onto Itachi's hair. Once again Naruto's mind wandered from the grave situation and he found himself thinking about the fact that Itachi's hair had managed to grow out enough to be grabbed. Tsunade violently jerked Itachi's head back from the ground and shook it. The man gave no reaction other than a long, long stare in Naruto's direction with his blind, blind eyes.
"Does he look like Sasuke to you?!"
She had said it. The forbidden name. The wanted name. The yearned name. Naruto dropped his eyes from Itachi to stare at the floor, ashamedly thinking Yes. Yes, he does look like Sasuke.
"Harboring a missing-nin! You fools! And of all people, Uchiha fucking Itachi?! I have no words! Do you remember the damage I had to undo the last time he was in Konoha? Have you outright lost your goddamn minds?!" She shoved his head back into the carpet of her office, back into the pool of blood that had accumulated beneath his chin. "You could all be executed! Thrown in jail if you're not!" She pointed a finger in Kakashi's direction. "Hatake Kakashi, you have better judgment! In your house of all places like some sort of tea party setup?!" Sakura's direction. "Sakura, I'm so disappointed in you." And then she turned to Naruto and narrowed her eyes. "But you, brat," and for once, she meant the insult, "I'm not surprised at all. And that's the most disappointing part of this whole ordeal."
She sat with a large huff behind her broken desk and put her head in her hands in defeat. "How do I even deal with you three? What on earth were you thinking?" She looked to Itachi with all the hate she could muster in a single glance. Uchiha Itachi. If she could blame the whole situation on the hypnotic powers of his eyes, she would. But she couldn't. She couldn't blame red when all she could see was telltale milky gray.
She turned to the Elders. "You three are oddly silent."
Naruto noticed Itachi's head lift ever-so-slightly at that.
Koharu, the only female of the Elders, shifted her shoulders back and forth. Back and forth. She placed her hands behind her back, one set of gnarled fingers in the other. "Due to the nature of the situation, Tsunade, we will have them placed in the cells until we can discuss this further in private."
"The cells –" Tsunade had begun, but Homura, the other male of the Elders, quickly interjected with, "Do not let the emotions attached to your relationship with these three cloud your decision-making, Tsunade. They will be placed in the cells. Uchiha Itachi will be placed in solitary confinement until a conclusion for future actions is reached."
A nod from Danzo was the equivalent of permission to manhandle Sakura, Naruto, and Kakashi. The ANBU (Root ANBU, Naruto noted bitterly, or else they would not have been treated the way they were) yanked the three up by the chains between their hands and began moving them from the room. Naruto looked to where Itachi lay, appearing rather defeated with his head against his own blood but making no move otherwise in protest.
"Itachi," he tried to say, to get the man's attention as he was forced from the room. "Itachi!"
The Uchiha did not even blink.
Naruto would not cease to apologize, down in the cells of Konoha where the stale air suffocated them and the dampness seeped into their clothes from where they sat on equally damp tatami mats. He looked to the silent Kakashi and the silently sobbing Sakura with his eyebrows drawn together and up in sympathy, words of sorrow and sorry tumbling from his mouth a mile a minute.
"Naruto," Kakashi spoke at last in his calming, calming voice. He offered his student a lopsided smile. "We knew what we were getting into. It's okay."
"Well, it's obviously not!" exclaimed Naruto, gesturing to the cell they were currently in with his newly released hands.
"What's the worst they can do for harboring Itachi? Kill us?"
"Yes!"
Kakashi turned to stare at the ceiling with indifference. "Not likely." He waved a lazy hand at Naruto. "You're a jinchuuriki." At Sakura. "Tsunade's prodigy." At himself. "They, perhaps, might dispose of me, as I am getting rather old and particularly useless."
"Says the man who's mastered a thousand jutsus," Sakura added quietly.
"So what're they going to do with us? Keep us here?"
Kakashi finally turned to stare at him, an odd, knowing twinkle in his exposed eye. "They're most likely going to set us free." He shrugged and turned back to place his hands on his knees. "With probation, of course. No missions for a while and all that jazz. Lots of stern lectures."
Naruto shook his head furiously. "No, you two can't get probation. It's all my fault. You have to tell them that when they ask you, okay? You have to say that I was the one who brought Itachi in, and that I asked for your help, and that I threatened you –"
"Naruto!" cried Sakura.
"- And that you were forced to take care of him for me, but tried to extract information from him all the same, but just make sure they understand it's my fault and I'll deal with the consequences later."
"And have them, what, think you're attempting to single-handedly take down Konoha? Join the Akatsuki? Do you understand how the Elders may possibly twist this situation around to insure you're controlled? You've got the Nine Tails in you, Naruto. Don't think they won't give you any reason to keep you inside of this village with the Akatsuki out there."
Before they could argue about the situation further, ANBU stood at the door of the cell and beckoned Kakashi to join them for their first bout of questioning. Naruto stared at him long and hard, begging him silently to follow with the story he had instructed and blame him. Kakashi smiled that frustrating, eye-crinkling smile of his and disappeared with the ANBU.
The time Kakashi spent away was spent in silence in the cell with Naruto and Sakura. Neither said a word. Naruto had shifted closer to Sakura and Sakura had shifted closer to Naruto, unconscious attempts to provide company for the other and a source of warmth in the otherwise cold and cruel cell. Eventually, Sakura rested her head against Naruto's shoulder out of sheer exhaustion. The blond frowned and rested his own head against hers.
They stayed like that for a while. It had taken a while to interrogate – No, thought Naruto, they weren't interrogating. They had nothing to hide. They were merely questioning. Asking. – Kakashi; either that, or they had simply lost track of the time. Kakashi eventually returned, unscathed other than the injuries he had already sustained. Naruto had no time to ask him what he had said. He was promptly whisked away next by the ANBU that handled him rougher than Kakashi had been handled.
He was led down the narrow, dimly lit hall of cells – cells that were all empty and that Naruto narrowed his eyes at. He turned his head to one particular door, guarded by three ANBU, metal and thrice bolted with only a shut sliding window. Naruto knew.
Itachi was in there.
Naruto was shoved none-too-gracefully into a square room at the end of the hall where there was a single chair in the center beneath a lamp that hung precariously on a fraying wire. The rest of the room was shrouded in darkness, like most of the things in that part of Konoha, from which a very familiar man emerged. Ibiki, he recalled vaguely. From the Chuunin exams.
He wondered why they couldn't simply have had someone else ask him questions other than the head of the Interrogation Squad. It wasn't like he had anything to hide. He was going to tell them everything.
Danzo was also there, half of him blending in with the shadows and the other half of him flickering with the flickering light. Tsunade was there, too, looking far too tired.
"Uzumaki," Ibiki said simply. "Sit."
Naruto sat.
"You understand why you're here."
Naruto crossed his arms freely over his chest. "I'll answer whatever you want. There really isn't anything to hide."
Ibiki smirked. Several of the scars on his face smirked with him. "Well, then, let's start with the basics. Why don't you tell us how you met the Uchiha."
So Naruto did, starting with "In the forest, while on a mission, which –" and he shot Tsunade a wry glance "- wasn't really a mission, but that's besides the point" and ending with ". . . naked, beaten, shaved, and . . . well, you've seen him."
"What made you think to take care of him?"
"I didn't know it was him for the first day."
He told them about how he had promised to help the injured man. And because he knew they would ask, he told them why he had continued to care for him upon discovering he was Uchiha Itachi. He told them about his plan – unfinished, unsure – to lure Sasuke to Itachi, to bring him home.
"You can't kill him," Naruto said levelly. "You can't kill Itachi until Sasuke comes back."
"Sasuke's not coming back, Uzumaki," Ibiki answered indifferently.
Naruto closed his mouth briefly in a tight, thin line. "You don't know that."
"Naïve child."
"Ignorant man."
Ibiki smirked.
"How did you find him, in the end?" Naruto shot the question at Danzo, meeting him with narrowed eyes. Tsunade's head perked up at his insolence. "He hasn't been in the village long enough for most people to recognize his chakra signature. ANBU shouldn't have been able to tell from just a check. How did you know –?"
"I do not answer to a criminal," Danzo bit at him. "It isn't your business to know, Kyuubi Jinchuuriki."
Naruto bristled in anger at the title. "My name is Naruto, and you –"
"Naruto, please." He glanced at Tsunade. She suddenly looked older, far more tired than usual, her eyes pleading with him. Please don't make this any worse than it already is.
When they had sucked him dry of information, they tossed his empty shell back into the cellar in exchange for Sakura. Kakashi toed him gently, gently in the thigh. Naruto kept his head against the cool concrete of the cellar floor. Sakura came back sooner than expected.
Silence ensued.
A lot of it.
Hours passed. Kakashi sat against the wall of the cellar, not thinking about what would become of them but rather of what would become of Itachi, and of Naruto if his plan to return Sasuke failed (which, he continued to think, it probably would, and Kakashi dreaded the moment when he would have to pick up Naruto's shattered pieces and put him together. Again.). He spread his legs out in front of him. As time passed, Naruto had somehow ended up on his back, on the floor, with his head cushioned by one of Kakashi's thighs. More time passed, and Sakura was resting her head against Naruto's chest. Their bodies made an imperfect Z-shaped figure on the floor.
There was the noisy ccccccrrraaaaaaank of the opening of the cellar doors that pushed Naruto from an uneasy slumber. Danzo walked in flanked by two ANBU that soon moved in front of him.
"Hatake Kakashi," he said in a tone of obvious condescension. "Haruno Sakura. You are to be released."
"And Naruto?" asked Sakura as the ANBU entered the cell to pull her up.
"Uzumaki Naruto is to remain here."
"For what reasons?" Kakashi said in his usual voice, although there was a snappish bark laced in his words. "I told you he was not to blame. I let him use my home. Only I could have put those seals in place. I, too, took care of Uchiha Itachi."
Naruto turned to stare at him, wanting to tell him I told you not to! You were supposed to blame me! Kakashi replied by squeezing his hand in reassurance.
"The decisions of the Elders are none of your concern, Hatake."
They were shoved from the room before they could question further. Naruto said nothing. He stared at Danzo, stared long and hard, attempting to connect Itachi's sudden interest in conversation at their mention. Danzo did not even bother looking at him, did not bother speaking to him, did not bother breathing the very air he breathed. He turned around and left, his ANBU following behind him like the dogs on their masks.
Naruto slept and woke up in the cell.
He woke up to a familiar voice calling him from a distance. At first, he had imagined it was a dream of some sort. Blinking his eyes, lifting his head and feeling his neck crick, he looked towards where someone's cream-colored hands were waving through the bar.
"Naruto! Sleeping at a time like this . . .! Naruto!"
Sakura. She was there, arms reaching through the bars, calling his name in a harsh whisper. Naruto finally raised his head and managed to get into a seated position despite the protests of his aching back. Their hands met and he relished in the familiar warmth of her skin.
"I don't have too much time," she said quickly as he inched his way towards her with their hands still together, mind still hazed with sleep. "They're bringing in medics to oversee Itachi's healing during interrogations. They won't allow me to do it because I apparently can't be trusted."
Naruto, quite frankly, was simply surprised Uchiha Itachi had still been allowed to live.
"But I've got a plan to talk to him. Tsunade brought me in to explain to her and the team what sort of healing I've been doing and what happened with his body. If my plan works, do you want me to tell him anything?"
Naruto rested his head against the bars of the cell for a few moments, feeling the contrasting coolness of the metal against the sweat of his bangs and rolling her hands around between his. He opened his cotton-filled mouth, tongue parched, and said, "Sorry. Tell him I'm sorry."
Sakura looked at him with an expression he could not decipher in the clouds of sleep.
"Is that it?"
"Yeah."
She squeezed his hands comfortingly. "You'll be out of here soon. I promise. They can't hold you in here for too long. They're going to have to understand."
Naruto smiled at her. "At least you're not in here with me."
She laughed. Softly. Pityingly. "I'll be back as soon as I can."
Naruto fell asleep again with his head against the bars. The only thing on his mind was his contemplation of Itachi's death, of how he could possibly get out of this situation that he had put the both of them in, and that Itachi, under any circumstances, couldn't die. He couldn't.
If ever there was a moment when Sakura questioned her loyalty more over the past two weeks, it was as she stared down her nose at the prone figure of Uchiha Itachi shackled helplessly to the wall of his solitary cellar. They were almost completely engulfed in darkness but she could see the glint of metal around his wrists from where his arms were suspended in air. The knees of the once handsome Uchiha had long since given out, leaving him half-kneeling as far as his arms would allow, crumpled and looking awfully small and frail without Kakashi's clothes to swallow him. He had been stripped of all his clothing and outfitted in an unfastened straitjacket and plain prison pants short enough to reveal the chains around his ankles that kept his chakra at bay. A strip of cloth with a hand-drawn seal covered his eyes in a redundant attempt to blind an already blind man.
"Sakura."
Tsunade's clipped command broke through her thoughts and she turned to meet her master's curious glance. Tsunade had eased her anger after Sakura's brief interrogation, during which the pink-haired girl had explained how she had needed to heal Itachi to keep him as a vital source of information after Naruto had brought him back. When it became obvious she had intended to do more good than harm for Konoha, despite being what Tsunade had deemed incredibly misguided, Tsunade had requested Sakura's experience in dissecting the Uchiha.
Hopefully, Sakura thought, not literally.
There were two medic-nins standing behind her, their eyes revealing unbridled fear at being so close to someone as notorious as Uchiha Itachi. Sakura mentally scoffed. The Elders had hand-picked the medics from a squadron specifically trained to handle prison healing but they were clearly still in training; no doubt the elders had wanted someone with as little experience as possible so that the Uchiha would not be able to be completely healed between interrogations. They wouldn't afford Itachi the luxury of a full recovery.
Tsunade was unhinging the shackles from around Itachi's wrists. Sakura tried not to roll her eyes as the inexperienced medics took steps back in caution; she had to remind herself of Itachi's reputation, and that not everyone had had the pleasure of being close enough to Itachi to kiss.
She felt the ghost of his lips on her forehead and shuddered.
That had been their last communication, she remembered. The last time she had talked to him, he had kissed her. Then that same night, ANBU had swooped in to arrest her privately as she was washing her hands from surgery and ushered her out of the hospital without causing a scene before they had wrenched her arms behind her back and half-dragged her to the Hokage Tower.
And now she stood over Itachi, unsure if he was even conscious to experience her company again.
The last of the shackles fell away and Itachi immediately crumpled to the floor without a sound. Sakura worked with Tsunade to spread his body face-down. With the belts of the straitjacket unbuckled, his back was fully exposed, covered in fresh bruises.
Danzo appeared in the entrance of the door, holding up a lantern to bask the room in a warm glow. In the light, Sakura could see the unnatural bend of Itachi's arm. She leaned over to prod it gently and barely heard the soft grunt of discomfort that escaped Itachi's lips.
So he is conscious.
Tsunade spared Danzo a second's glance before she placed her hands on Itachi's bare back. The Uchiha, she had made sure, was of no threat to them. He was under her mercy. He would be her specimen to observe. Her finger trailed the healing line by Itachi's spine. "Is this the line you talked about?"
Sakura nodded her head. "Kakashi-sensei had one too." Her fingers lightly brushed against Itachi's shoulder blades and she felt him stiffen beneath her touch. "There were nail marks here." They moved further up. "Two stab wounds here, one definitely kunai and the other from a scalpel." Further down. "Lash marks, makeshift whip."
She continued to graze over every inch of Itachi's skin she had memorized in her days of healing, detailing the list of injuries to Tsunade with Danzo and the two medics overseeing. Tsunade wanted to understand the condition Itachi had been in and the wounds he had sustained – for what reason, Sakura could not fathom, but her gut feeling told her it tied in to Kakashi's recent string of missions.
When she was done mapping out his back, Sakura gently turned Itachi over. He did not resist despite Sakura knowing he was conscious. The man simply set his mouth in a thin line. Sakura wondered what he must be thinking. Did he know he was days away from death? Did he realize how grave his situation was?
Did he hate them?
Did he hate her?
She applauded the steadiness of her fingers as she lifted the blindfold from Itachi's eyes and forcefully lifted his eyelids so Tsunade could inspect the damage up close. One of the medics gasped at the sight, but Sakura was far too used to the scarred irises to let it faze her anymore. Itachi's eyes flickered from side-to-side with nothing to settle on. His pupils were still cloudy from the damage Sakura had yet to heal, reminding her of the famous Hyuuga coloration; the right one (she noted with pride) was clearing up significantly.
Sakura gently released his eyelids and reflexively moved her thumbs to massage the area. She caught herself quickly, hoping Tsunade hadn't taken notice. Luckily, Tsunade seemed mesmerized.
"He's completely blind?" she asked in awe as she took Itachi's face into her own hands to inspect the damage up close.
"He can't even activate his Sharingan or read chakra signatures." She remembered the delight in Itachi's expression when he had thanked her after discovering he could distinguish between night and day and decided to leave the detail out. Itachi cocked his head ever-so-slightly and somehow Sakura just knew he was thinking the same.
Danzo's voice suddenly rang hollowly in the room. "What is an Uchiha without his eyes?"
There was something about Danzo that raised the delicate hairs along Sakura's arm as the man leaned closer to Itachi's face so he could inspect it by the light of his lantern.
"An Uchiha is an Uchiha because of the blood in his veins."
Itachi's unexpected reply momentarily stunned the occupants of the cell. His words seemed to hang heavily in the air. Sakura found herself mentally relieved to hear the velvet of his voice in spite of herself. Not once had she heard him speak since they had been discovered. She had been terrified he had finally been broken, had finally resigned himself to his death. To hear him speak so easily against his captors – and about Uchiha pride of all things – released some of the tension she had been holding.
It was nice to hear his voice again.
Danzo sneered. "You would know all about the blood of Uchihas, Itachi. It is on your hands."
"Masami-chan," Sakura quickly interjected, feeling the tension of the room return and noticing the way Itachi's body seemed to tighten. "Erika-chan, make sure not to touch his eyes when you are healing him. The blood vessels around them are extremely sensitive and induce seizures immediately. You'll want to stay away no matter the damage."
Tsunade glanced at where Sakura was guiding the medics on the details of his eyes before she stood from where she knelt and looked over to Danzo. "Danzo, a word if you will." She moved to leave the cell. Sakura's heart began to beat faster at the thought of finally being left alone with Itachi, but Tsunade quickly added, "The three of you will return to my office no later than fifteen minutes from now. Sakura, do not linger. The ANBU will reattach his bindings once you're gone. Am I understood?"
Sakura nodded her head meekly. Tsunade still did not trust her, with good reason. "Yes, Tsunade-sama."
She watched the Hokage's blonde pigtails disappear from sight but the door to the cell remained open. She knew there were three ANBU standing just outside, waiting for them to exit before they could bolt the iron door once more.
It did not take long to explain in excruciating detail how to maneuver Itachi's body in the case of any kind of injury. Sakura made sure the medics understood that Itachi could sustain life-threatening injuries without giving any indication of pain and so they would have to manually assess the damage after each interrogation (torture) session. The medics seemed incredibly wary about the task at hand.
"Don't worry," Sakura assured them, masking the distaste behind her own words, "you're not here to heal him as good as new. You just need to make sure he survives the next day until we've learned everything we need to know." She looked down to Itachi and wondered if he knew her true intentions. "Now ladies, I'm going to ask you to please wait outside while I heal some of these fractures. Some of the bones are dangerously close to poking vital organs."
Masami looked unsure. "But Tsunade-sama said –"
Sakura patted her hand patiently, forcing a smile. "The first time I healed the Uchiha, he got so violent he almost killed me. I'd like you two to please step outside so I can handle him this first time around just in case there are any similar complications. The ANBU will protect you just outside the door, don't worry."
The two medics were still hesitant but Sakura was nonetheless their trustworthy senior. She knew there was a chance they would report back to Tsunade and she would face the consequences, but it might be her only chance at seeing Itachi alone. When Masami and Erika were out of sight, Sakura immediately began propping Itachi into a seated position against the wall.
"Itachi," she whispered harshly as she patted his cheeks. She left out all suffixes to his name; any attempts at politeness would be futile. Sakura knelt down beside him and used an arm against his shoulder to keep him up as her free hand supported his neck. His skin was ice against hers. "Itachi."
Itachi opened his sightless eyes but did not turn to face her, his eyes intent on staring at the concrete floor.
"Let me die in peace," he finally bit out.
Sakura frowned. "Then you won't be able to see Sasuke."
"That was merely part of an act." At last he looked up in her direction and the fury in the furrows of his brow was unmistakable. "Part of the pleasant Murakami Ryo, Yuriko-san," he spat out the suffix.
Sakura was unfazed. "I can see right through your lie. We spent days with you, Itachi. You aren't who you make yourself out to be."
"And you? You lied to me. For days, you deceived me," replied Itachi instead. The naked fury in his words sent shivers down Sakura's spine.
"Yet we didn't turn you in. It wasn't us."
At this, Itachi looked slightly intrigued. His eyes flitted back and forth in Sakura's direction, searching for an answer he could not see and so he asked, "Why?"
Sakura placed her hand on his arm. It was bent backwards. She began working her chakra into his muscle fibers, knowing her time was limited and that it was the worst of the injuries she could see. He did not resist. "For the same reason we think you keep yourself alive," she whispered. "To see Sasuke."
The elder Uchiha closed his eyes and squeezed his lips together in a firm line. When he finally opened them, Sakura had finished his arm and was moving on to the angry, bleeding lines across his face.
"You are in love with him."
She did not stop her healing, but her shoulders stiffened. She refused to look at the expression on Itachi's face. "It's scary how well you can see without your eyes, Itachi," was all she could reply.
A pregnant pause ensued. Sakura brushed her fingers over his cheeks, closing the welts and removing splinters of wood from what she assumed was an interrogation gone awry. She did not notice Itachi's hand until it was wrapped gently around her wrist. He pulled her hands away from his cheeks and rested them gently over his eyes.
"Sakura." No suffixes. She realized it was the first time she had heard him say her real name. He paused. "Heal my eyes. Please. Not my body. I need my eyes."
Sakura bit at her lip and noticed the way Itachi's hand did not release her wrist. If ANBU peaked in, they would beat the Uchiha to unconsciousness in a second for touching her. She stopped her flow of chakra to bring one hand to his.
"I'm sorry," she said quickly. "I know we went too far and we manipulated you out of desperation to see Sasuke, but I don't know what to believe. I don't know who you are, Uchiha Itachi. But I know the sweet, polite Murakami Ryo –" Itachi's eyebrows furrowed "- and I want to believe that there's more to you. That there's good inside of you, and that you're connected to your brother by more than just the murder of your family. When Naruto brought you home, I was ready to send you straight to Tsunade, but now . . ."
She took in a deep breath. She was slowly losing her composure. Knowing her time was limited, she reached up and began pumping calculated chakra pulses into Itachi's eyes. He breathed a soft sigh as the warm sensation washed over him.
"I don't know if I'll ever be able to see you again, but I want you to know that I was glad to meet you, Murakami Ryo."
Before Itachi could respond, an ANBU who had been guarding the cell tapped her on the shoulder.
"Time's up," he told her.
She let her hands fall away from Itachi's temples and stood without protest, watching the other two ANBU grab Itachi's newly mended arms and lift him back into the shackles against the wall. Itachi's sightless eyes stayed on her figure.
"Naruto wanted to tell you he was sorry," she said, not caring if the ANBU heard. An apology would not incriminate him. "I asked him if he wanted to send any message, and all he told me to tell you was that he was sorry."
If the words affected Itachi in any way, he did not show.
Naruto was released two nights later.
He went home escorted by three ANBU, two of whom would sit watch at a distance from his apartment until Itachi's interrogations were over. He had breathed in the refreshing night air and was confined to his room for the first night. Tsunade had refused to speak to him altogether.
A pebble struck his forehead and bounced onto the table he sat at, narrowly avoiding the bowl of instant ramen he had made. He looked to the windowsill where it had come from and found Kakashi crouched beneath the frame, one eye crinkled with the force of his smile.
"Heard you were allowed back into the real world," his sensei said lightly as he climbed down from the window and sauntered over to Naruto. "Thought you might like some updates on our situation since Tsunade frequently has me coming into her office for some verbal beatings. Figured the ANBU following me would like to mingle with yours, too." He waved out the window at no one in particular.
"No one will tell me anything," muttered Naruto, then brought a hand to knead his tired eyes. He had been intentionally kept in the dark, his stomach in constant nausea at the thought of what they were doing to Itachi and how it had all been his fault. He had gotten the Uchiha trapped. He had deceived the man. He had carelessly left the door open and the seal incomplete too many times. Naruto could still remember the unmasked fear in Itachi's eyes in the moment he had been caught.
Before everything unraveled.
Kakashi leaned against the refrigerator. "Word is, they're trying to bring in Yamanaka Inoichi. Itachi, predictably, isn't breaking. He hasn't given any information at all."
Naruto looked up at him. "If it wasn't for my dumb plan, we wouldn't be in this mess. He said he didn't want to come back to Konoha. I dragged him back."
Kakashi hummed in amusement. "Sound like another Uchiha we know?"
At that, Naruto scoffed. "You know this isn't the same thing as Sasuke! Something happened to Itachi, before the massacre. Something bad. And we were so close to finding it out. Sasuke's angry and confused. Itachi's . . ." He trailed off, unable to find the words.
"You have to remember Itachi slaughtered his clan without batting an eye, Naruto. Women and children. Whatever good you think you might have seen, whatever odd quirks and manners that make him likable, you have to remember that there's some evil in him too. He's a criminal first and foremost." Kakashi crossed his arms over his chest. "Even if some of us see a different picture."
A knock on the door interrupted their conversation. Kakashi moved to open it and pink hair floated into Naruto's vision soon after. Sakura stood dressed in her medic's uniform. She looked frazzled as she ran one hand through her hair to flatten it into submission. Her other hand held a second uniform.
Kakashi looked just as confused as Naruto. "I thought you were on probation."
Sakura met his question with a grim twist of her lips. "Itachi lives up to his reputation. He's struck a deal with the Elders, if you can believe that."
"Don't tell me," Naruto began incredulously, his ramen completely unforgotten.
Sakura nodded. "I get to heal him instead of the other medics every time he answers one of Ibiki's questions."
The revelation made Naruto stand abruptly in disbelief. His chair fell back with a loud clatter in the silence of the room.
"So you've seen him again?"
"He wants to see you, Naruto." Sakura's emerald gaze was filled with a startling intensity when it landed on his. "Itachi. He asked to see you."
"But I can't –"
She threw the uniform at Naruto. Kakashi put two and two together faster than the boy and shook his head disapprovingly but said nothing. He doubted Itachi was truthfully answering the questions of Ibiki's interrogations; the Uchiha was more deceptively intelligent to manipulate the odds in his favor. Perhaps that was why they finally decided to bring in a Yamanaka. He wondered who had possibly agreed to the terms because, as far as Kakashi's training was aware, no criminal as notorious as Uchiha Itachi would be given even a sliver of leverage. To be given a choice of medic was unheard of. Impossible.
But then, Kakashi had known from the moment they had begun to warm up to Itachi that there was a larger piece missing from the Konoha puzzle.
"Sometimes I get an assistant from the interrogation medics." Sakura's voice was low and her speech was quick. She threw a picture at Naruto. "You're going to be Masami. Tomorrow at nine, you need to head to the jailhouse transformed into her and bring a clone of yours back to the apartment so ANBU don't realize where you've gone. The ANBU don't watch me when I heal him, so it gives us exactly ten minutes with Itachi alone. Do you understand, Naruto?"
Naruto looked to Kakashi as if silently asking his sensei for advice on the illegal activity he was about to commit. The silver-haired man shrugged noncommittally.
"If it's any consolation at all," he offered, "the plan sounds like it'll work. They only ever sense for chakra traces unfamiliar to Konoha. And if you get caught, they'll probably just stop allowing Itachi to be healed or send you to another village until he's dead."
"Thanks," replied Naruto dryly. "Exactly what I needed to hear. Not going to knock some sense into us, sensei?"
"Would it work? You seem like you've already made up your mind about where you stand with your Uchihas."
He was right, thought Naruto. There was no changing his opinion of Uchiha Itachi. There was no altering the importance he put in his survival and the link he had to Sasuke. He flashed Sakura an uneasy grin.
"Let's go break the law."
Equal parts dread and excitement kept him awake and antsy through the following day, eagerly awaiting the nine o'clock rendezvous. Kakashi had sauntered through his door at eight to his surprise, asking with a wink if Naruto would like to have some ramen with him. Naruto smiled broadly at him and, uniform tucked away inside of a bag, followed his sensei to his favorite dining spot.
After slurping down two bowls, a quick detour into Ichiraku's co-bathroom had a Naruto clone leave with Kakashi and a newly-transformed Masami walk away minutes after their departure.
The disguised Naruto hurried to the Hokage Tower where Sakura was waiting patiently. She smiled warmly at him and led the way to the basement level of the tower where the prison awaited. Two ANBU guards nodded her and Naruto through the iron gates of the prison, already falling into a routine with Itachi's medics, and another three escorted them to the bolted door deep within the prison hallways.
Naruto gulped instinctively as the guards began to unbolt the door. His throat was already constricting from the stale air so deep underground. The door slowly opened to reveal Itachi's prone figure half-engulfed in darkness.
"Ah," Sakura clucked softly under her breath. She handed Naruto a small bag. "Masami-chan, would you give me five minutes? I've forgotten my main supply bag in Tsunade-sama's office. Get started while I go grab it please? We don't have time to waste."
Naruto stared back at her with round eyes. His heart began hammering in his chest and he opened his mouth to protest but he caught the words behind Sakura's eyes. Itachi. He asked to see you. He closed his mouth and nodded his head, entering the dark chamber alone. The ANBU stayed by the door, disinterested.
Naruto looked to the Uchiha and felt a familiar wave of guilt wash over him. It was obvious Itachi was in pain. He was flat on his back, arms straight at his sides, one leg bent at the knee but the other extended with the ankle bone of its swollen foot flat against the concrete flooring as best as it could be with the shackles around his ankles. His pants were sliced cleanly in some areas and open like curtain flaps to reveal the marred porcelain just beneath. One of his arms was swollen and obviously useless.
"Itachi."
The man's eyes did not move from the ceiling. Naruto walked closer to him, his footsteps echoing – click, click – off the concrete walls from his nurse shoes.
"Itachi, it's me." He paused. Itachi's body stiffened. "It's Naruto."
He could tell Itachi was debating with himself inwardly – talk to Naruto, or shun him because of what he had done. He weighed his options in the silence. Naruto let him patiently despite mentally ticking down the seconds.
"Naruto," he finally whispered hoarsely.
Naruto knelt by him and picked his arm up gingerly. He cringed when Itachi winced. "I'm sorry. Sakura left us alone for a bit. I can't heal you like she can."
Itachi attempted a shrug that resulted in agony. Naruto flicked through the medical bag at his side and procured a roll of bandages; he would have to heal Itachi traditionally as they spoke and hoped Sakura came back with enough time to spare proper care. He licked his lips, unsure of where to start. There was no picking up conversation after the betrayal.
"Had you honestly never realized it was me in the forest?" he asked tentatively. "That it was us, and that you were in Konoha?"
His eyes watched Itachi closely as he attempted to suppress the swelling. The man nodded. Up, down his head went, ever-so-slightly.
"I know you couldn't have picked up our chakra signatures, but . . . you never even got suspicious?"
"I trusted you."
Naruto sucked in a breath, his stomach tossing and turning, his chest tightening.
"Honestly," Itachi continued, and every word was churned out with a surprising steadiness, "I did my best to gather what information I could about our surroundings, about you, and about Yur- . . . Sakura. Everything matched your cover stories. There was no reason to be suspicious. You played Sho from Little Fields convincingly. It was a tactical error on my part to trust you."
Naruto bit his lip and lowered his head. I trusted you. An apology bubbled from his throat and nestled at his lips, the guilt pushing it forward and forward. There was little time.
"I'm sorry," he finally said before he dove straight into a ramble. His hands were shaking. "Oh God, Itachi, I'm so, so sorry. I didn't know it was you when we met, and you were so nice to me, but once I realized, I was trying to use you to get to Sasuke. But then – but Itachi, you're not you, you know? You're not that crazy criminal you were when we first met three years ago and that Sasuke is hell-bent on killing and it was just nice to be around you and so confusing . . ."
His shaking fingers swiped a wad of cotton over a wound on Itachi's collarbone. It soaked with blood in an instant and sagged in his hand.
"Itachi, please. I don't . . . I don't want to know the details. I don't want to know what mission you're on, or why you're on it, or anything about your life. But I want to know something because you just felt so genuine when we talked that I know there's something behind all of this. Please, I just want to know," and he gulped, blurring eyesight suddenly overlapping several images of Itachi's gruesomely mottled arm, "do you really care about Sasuke?"
He did not expect an answer quickly. He understood that Itachi was the calculating type. The silent thinker. He weighed all of his options before he said something or before he acted (and that, Naruto could not help but think, was one of the major differences between the success of Uchiha Itachi and Uchiha Sasuke). Even as Naruto was piling cotton balls soaked in his life liquid, Itachi did not open his mouth. Naruto's eyes trailed to Itachi's face and the same indecipherable expression he had seen in their last days together eased the tension of Itachi's jaw.
In that moment, Naruto knew Itachi would not confirm anything, but in that same moment, he understood there was no need. The truth was in Itachi's silence. It was in the way Itachi's eyebrows softened, in the way he closed his eyes in what seemed like emotional agony, in the way his lips twisted in uncertainty. Naruto's heart did not race. He had suspected it from the second Itachi mentioned Taichi. Had known it from the first story of TaichiSasuke. It had simply been confirmed. He curled his fingers into a tight fist momentarily before easing a wad of towels under Itachi's head as a pillow. He knew Sakura would be back at any moment.
"A few days ago, I made a promise to you, Itachi." The Uchiha finally turned his sightless eyes to stare at him. "I promised I wouldn't let anyone stop you if you wanted to leave. I don't know how. I don't know when. But I know I will. That's my ninja way." He stood up and his knees ached. "I know you'll never forgive me for landing you back in Konoha. I'll never even forgive myself for the mistakes I made that put you here. But you just have to tell me, Itachi. Do you want to leave?"
Itachi did not silence in calculation.
"Yes."
Naruto flashed him a humorless grin.
"Then you're leaving."
Sakura returned with a new bag of medical supplies and a five minute time extension, but Naruto sat helplessly and silently by her side until she was done healing what she could. He felt as if he had exhausted all of his words for the day. There was no continuing the conversation after his promise, and Itachi did not say a word despite Sakura's pushing. They left the cell moments later, a new tension weighing on his shoulders and with a verbal promise that he would see Itachi again.
Itachi was not breaking.
Ibiki expected as much. The Elders had reached an inane deal about answering questions in exchange for the Haruno girl but Ibiki knew criminals better. He knew the Uchiha was twisting his answers to prolong his survival. Staring down his crooked nose at the Uchiha who sat stoically and bordering consciousness, he remembered what Tsunade had told him when the Elders had their backs turned. Try every interrogation method in the book.
Torture, essentially.
So he cracked his knuckles and decided he would shift to a new tactic. A psychological one. Perhaps, perhaps he could break Itachi.
It was the middle of the night when Naruto was jerked rudely from his sleep by the creak of his door. He lifted his head wearily and blinked his eyes in an attempt to gather his bearings. ANBU were grabbing him – gentler than before, he vaguely noticed – and lifting him from the bed.
After stumbling over his own feet for several moments, he managed to stand by himself and walk, ANBU on either side but not holding him as they ushered him from his house in just his pajamas. Naruto knew better than to protest. Tsunade had warned him they might come to take him at any time as long as he was a suspect in the ongoing investigation.
The walk was long and silent, deep into the derelict parts of Konoha that grew more and more deserted. Buildings that should have been torn down years ago, wilted trees, crumbling walls; Naruto had rarely been to the area for as long as he lived in Konoha and he felt the goose bumps rise on the back of his neck. They were joined by six more ANBU who – Naruto squinted through the darkness to see – led (dragged) Itachi by his bound hands. Another six ANBU scouted the area by air for any unwanted passersby.
"Where are we going?" he finally asked. His heart flipped. Was he about to watch Itachi's execution? He was left to make up his own conclusions when no one answered him.
Ibiki joined them.
He stepped, quite dramatically, out of the shadows of a lit streetlight as they rounded a corner. Not even the crows were cawing. Naruto suspected it was around three in the morning; he could remember the times he attempted to train in such silence. It was the first time in two days he had felt the refreshing chill of the night air since he had gone to see Itachi with Sakura.
When they continued walking – in silence, silence, silence – Naruto soon began to realize where they were going. His eyes widened. He shook his head. He dug his heels into the dirt floor but the ANBU dragged him along.
"Why . . .?" he choked out as they rounded another abandoned corner and the Uchiha Compound became very evident in the distance. Itachi tried to turn around to face him, sensing his distress, but one of his captors pushed his head roughly from the back to keep him staring forward.
"A reminder," Ibiki spoke up.
Itachi stumbled suddenly in his walking, face jerking to stare at where he had heard Ibiki's voice. He fell to his knees as the ANBU pulling on his hands did not stop, eventually pulling his arms too far from his body. They dragged him for several seconds before Itachi managed to stagger to his feet again.
Ibiki continued, "Of the person you decided to protect, Uzumaki Naruto."
Naruto shook his head and closed his eyes, feeling a push from the ANBU on the square of his back. He stood surrounded by the true definition of ninja. Dangerous. Silent. Stealthy. They stayed in the shadows of the night and did their dirty work. The group had finally come to the entrance of the Uchiha compound and Naruto shot a fleeting glance at Itachi, wondering if by some sixth (fifth?) sense he understood what he was facing.
Itachi did more than understand.
He stiffened, pulling at the chains that bound his hands so that the ANBU in front of him stumbled. They pulled right back, forcing him past the gates of the compound, forcing him into It, into the Battleground, the Cemetery, the Crime Scene.
"You can't –"
It was not the ANBU who silenced him, but Itachi.
"Naruto," was all Itachi whispered from in front of him as they continued to walk further and further.
The group was suddenly halted, the hostages jerked to a stop. The ANBU that had been leading Itachi turned around and removed his glove, tossing it to the floor before, like the fiery hawk painted onto his porcelain mask, he clawed at the back of Itachi's neck and forced him to his knees. Naruto jerked in protest. Further, further, the ANBU drove his hand forward until the dirt of the floor brushed against Itachi's lips.
"Can you smell that?" Hawk sneered. "That blood you spilled eight years ago? It's still there, isn't it?"
Itachi stared stoically into the darkness.
Hawk jerked Itachi's head to the side, crick!, the nose of the man beneath his talons leaving a neat line in the dirt. "Can you smell the blood of your uncle? Your aunt? Can you see them now? Dear Auntie Uchiha, sliced in two on her way home with a basket of sweets. I bet she was going to visit you. Give little Sasuke a handful of those sweets. But you chopped her arm off, didn't you? Sliced her smiling head clean from her neck –"
"He does not like sweets," Itachi mumbled into the earth.
"What was that, Uchiha?"
Silence.
Hawk jammed his face into the dirt.
"And the children, you sick fuck? The infants you slaughtered in their hospital beds? The women who died begging for the lives of their sons and daughters? Uchiha tots brought to their knees and murdered senseless before they were even old enough to enter the Academy?"
Without enough of Itachi's hair to pull on, Hawk slid his leg out further in front of him to brace himself as his other hand jerked Itachi's head up by his chin. The Uchiha's sightless eyes stared ahead in determination.
"Do you know what you're staring at now?"
Silence.
"Answer me!"
Silence.
Hawk wrenched his neck violently. "That's your house, Uchiha. Can you smell it? That awful stench of your parents' decaying body, your mother's home cooking and her blood –"
Hawk was suddenly soaring through the air, his feet kicking up dust where they scraped against the ground as they were lifted unexpectedly just before he was slammed onto his back. The schhhhhhk! of his sword being unsheathed was by his ear and there was something cool pressing against his neck. When the dust cleared, Uchiha Itachi was standing with a mask of indifference far stonier than the porcelain mask the ANBU wore, pressing Hawk's blade against his own neck. Naruto held his breath. The world around them seemed to stand still.
Hawk sneered and lifted his neck against the blade but it was obvious in his expression that Itachi's split-second take-down had rattled him. "Go on, then," he coaxed. "Kill me. Spill my blood here, like you spilled your own kin's blood."
The sword fell to the ground in a lifeless thud. Itachi did not struggle against the dozens of hands that were pushing him back to the ground, gagging him, immobilizing him, tying him down tighter like some sort of dangerous animal. A blind, bound criminal had managed to take one of their own down in a glaring reveal of how powerful he could be and they would not allow it to happen again.
Naruto turned to face Ibiki's mask of indifference, trying to comprehend why, why, why they would bring him here, what they were trying to do (break him, break him, snap him like a twig). Itachi was stilled, his face in the dirt but his backside propped up on his knees. Twelve ANBU surrounded him.
Ibiki turned to face Naruto.
"The man who wiped out this ghost village," he growled, "who murdered his own family with his own hands is the man you have been harboring for a month." He turned around and snapped with obvious sarcasm, "Congratulations."
Naruto managed to catch a final glimpse of Itachi before he was turned around.
He needed to get him out of there.