Chapter 10:
Fugaku sighed as he stood to confront Kakashi. He still had no idea where Itachi was, if he had managed to get out of the house—Fugaku told himself firmly that of course he must have, just because the alternative was too much to think about—and Kakashi would only get in the way of any efforts of his to find him.
"Well, what do you think I meant by it?" Fugaku retorted, meeting Kakashi's accusing stare with an icy one of his own.
"You want him dead, why don't you just admit it!" Kakashi shouted, surprising Fugaku with his vehemence. "You already tried to get rid of him once after you found out you were stuck with him!"
Fugaku could hear a few gasps from the gathered crowd and realized that not only were many of the non-Uchiha around listening to Kakashi, but that many of his own people seemed to be as well. "This is no time to discuss my private affairs!" Fugaku snapped, in an effort to end the conversation before things could get any worse.
"Why not?" Kakashi replied, and Fugaku was sure there was a mocking smirk under that mask of his. "Too many witnesses?"
"Of course not!" Fugaku said, trying to defend himself, but he could tell by the murmurings in the crowd that it was too late to repair the damage. "Kakashi, we don't have time for this!"
"Fugaku-dono," one of the police officers interrupted, cautiously approaching. "I'm afraid you'll have to come with us."
"But what are you going to do about this?" Fugaku demanded, because he was the leader of the Uchiha clan and he was not going to lose control of the situation.
"We'll begin searching for Itachi immediately," the officer said. "If we don't find him we'll have to open a police investigation. If you please, Fugaku-dono?"
Fugaku sighed in frustration but stalked proudly after the officers back to the building he had just left. This was going to be a new experience, he mused absently. The police had just better find Itachi, though, or he would have their figurative heads when he got out of custody.
The police officers took the most direct route to headquarters, of course. This was partially to get there as quickly as possibly, but partially because it was clear they hadn't liked having to arrest Fugaku and were trying to be nice about it by not letting the whole village know. Of course, considering how many people had been attracted to the fire and subsequently seen the little scene between him and Kakashi, everyone in Konoha would probably have heard everything after a few hours, with varying degrees of accuracy, of course.
He got one of the better cells, fortunately. If this had happened under any other circumstances he would have told them off for showing favoritism to a prisoner, but he was too busy thinking of other things to really care. At least it was relatively quiet.
Itachi barely knew his way around the village, so he couldn't possibly have gotten very far unless he had been carried off. That was a worrying thought indeed—if someone tried to sieze Itachi, Fugaku wasn't at all sure that the boy would even attempt to resist. The first child of the Uchiha clan ruler would be quite a prize to anyone wanting to acquire that bloodline, but Fugaku wasn't sure enough people actually knew about Itachi's existence to warrant a kidnapping.
Of course, there was one individual who knew of Itachi's existence, knew his current location, and had sufficient motivation to attempt to retrieve him. Fugaku had frankly given little thought to Itachi's former master other than fervently detesting him (or her, he reminded himself). Now he regretted this oversight, as he had nothing to go on as to where to begin searching for his son.
Still, there was yet a small chance that Itachi could have just been frightened off, and that the search party would find him. There was no point in Fugaku rushing blindly into things; he would wait a bit and see what else he could learn about the situation.
...
Kakashi paced restlessly up and down across his living room rug, wondering what was going on in police headquarters at that very moment. He had been a bit surprised that they had questioned Fugaku at all, let alone put him under arrest.
After that, they had summoned Kakashi to tell them everything he knew. He understood the necessity of getting all the facts straight before accusing a 'valued member of the community' (however little he agreed with that statement) of such a serious crime, but spending four hours being interrogated over an episode that had only lasted fifteen minutes or twenty at the most was really a bit much.
"Stop that," Rin said after a few minutes of sitting on the couch and waiting for him to talk to her. "You're going to bother the neighbours," she added pragmatically, as he turned to her, seemingly having forgotten she was there since she arrived. "What's wrong?"
Kakashi shrugged, then continued pacing. "I don't know...I just wish I hadn't let Itachi go back with him that time."
"You did say he went willingly," Rin pointed out.
"That doesn't mean anything," Kakashi replied, "not with someone like that. He could have known what Fugaku was planning to do, and I doubt it would have made any difference. I just wished I could have guessed, or done something!"
"Why don't you visit Sasuke in the hospital?" Rin suggested, getting up as the coffeemaker in the kitchen dinged sharply. "He's awake now, and he wants to know what's going on. You're his teacher, you should go."
"And tell him his brother's probably dead, his father's going to be tried on suspicion of murder, and it's my fault?" Kakashi shook his head as he accepted a cup of coffee. "No thanks."
"I don't blame you," Rin said with a small sigh. "But he needs someone."
"Maybe later then," Kakashi replied. "But not now."
"Stop blaming yourself," Rin whispered gently. She had to reach up to pat him on the shoulder, and Kakashi was surprised by how small she was. "Anyone else would have thought the same thing, you know, that he was just a bit flighty. It's not your fault."
Kakashi tried to smile a little, even though he knew it wouldn't show behind the mask. "Thank you."
"You're welcome," Rin said, going back to her strict hospital demeanour. "Obito's back at police headquarters—probably going through the same thing you just did—but he said he would try to visit later. Now promise you'll eat something and get some sleep tonight."
When Rin was like that, Kakashi knew that he would get no peace until he obeyed, so he nodded at all her instructions until she was out the door, then closed it and leaned back against it wearily.
The coffee was cold by the time he remembered to drink it.
...
By the time night fell, Fugaku was beginning to get rather frustrated. He did understand that he was a prisoner, but he had hoped they would at least tell him something! However much they were to be commended on their adherence to police protocol, he was Itachi's father and he wanted to know what had happened as much as they did—although of course the police didn't really believe him when he said so.
He was sure that the search party must have returned by now, as he thought he had felt a group of shinobi shunshin in upstairs. If they had found Itachi, Fugaku would have been immediately released, so he now had to presume the worst.
How Fugaku was supposed to find his son while locked in jail was a rather troubling question. He had no weapons, obviously, and even if he had, he had been off of active shinobi duty for long enough that he would be hard pressed against the younger ninjas currently in the building. He could feel at least a couple of dozen chakra signatures resonating from the upper stories, enough that he doubted he could get out even with the element of surprise.
Still, he could wait.
Luckily, he didn't have to wait long. Roughly half of the chakra signatures soon disappeared, probably with the sunset and the beginning of regular patrols through the city. The number that were left were mostly in the upper-most story, which was the lounge, so they were most likely not in a very observant frame of mind. Also, his chakra signature was familiar enough to most of them that if he could just get out of the cell, he could probably get most of the way out before they remembered that he wasn't on their side at the moment.
One of the benefits of being off of active duty, he realized, was that no one had bothered to make sure his chakra was blocked off before locking him up. This made it a simple enough matter to produce a katon hot enough to melt the lock and then kick the door open before it could cool.
As he was doing this, he realized that breaking jail would only serve to make him look even more guilty, but he was in too much of a hurry to find his son to care.
Hot droplets of metal splattered across the wall, and Fugaku had to duck to avoid being burned. Quickly monitoring the other occupants of the building, he concluded that no one had noticed the disturbance and ran towards the stairs heading up.
Opening the door, he immediately had to change his deduction as he dodged a taijutsu strike from one of his officers. He hated fighting his own men, but he had no choice at the moment. This particular officer was a little to overconfident fighting the former ninja head of the police department, but he had given a little too much thought to the 'former' and not enough to the 'ninja' part of the equation.
When the chuunin lay unconscious at his feet, Fugaku took the opportunity to borrow his belt of kunai and shuriken in case he had to fight anyone else before he got to the armory. He had never been a projectile fighter.
Once he had a pair of swords strapped across his back, he felt much better, even as he turned to face several other officers who had gathered blocking the door to the armory. He was getting back into the swing of things now, and they would do to work out his anger on until he found whoever had taken Itachi.
Then there was the matter of how he was to find his son. He had next to nothing to go on—'a cave' could hardly be called a decisive clue. However, he had an idea that might prove to be very interesting...and Fugaku had a few scores to settle after this mess, anyway.
