As he moved silently through the sleeping village, Sasuke rolled his shoulders, trying to relieve the tension that was drawing the muscles up so tightly his head had begun to ache. After several minutes, he stopped and concentrated on his breathing, calming himself, letting the tension bleed away. When he started moving again, the tension immediately began to tighten along his shoulders once more. Cursing, Sasuke stopped and spun around, staring back the way he had come. In that moment he realized it wasn't what was awaiting him that was making him tense, it was what he'd left behind. In the back of his mind, he'd been waiting since he stepped out of the apartment to hear Kakashi hurrying after him, calling him back.
Frowning, Sasuke looked around for the ANBU that were tailing him. When one of the masked ninjas stepped out of the shadows, Sasuke locked his gaze on the man. "You would know if we were being followed wouldn't you?"
"Yes," the masked man stated bluntly.
Reaching out with his chakra, Sasuke searched for Kakashi's chakra signature. Finding it far enough back that he was certain the older man was still at their apartment, Sasuke frowned. Feeling disappointment well up in his chest, Sasuke scowled and turned forward once more. Hearing a quiet movement behind himself, Sasuke glanced back over his shoulder in time to see the ANBU melt back into the shadows. He started to continue to the Hokage's mansion, but stopped again, looking back at the shadows that concealed the ANBU.
"Will you let me know if Kakashi starts following me?"
Without waiting for a reply, Sasuke turned back forward and started off in the direction of the mansion again. With each step he took, Sasuke found himself hoping for the sudden appearance of Kakashi's chakra behind him. As much as he resented the idea of Kakashi protecting him, and as much as he wanted to prove to Kakashi and himself that he wasn't completely useless, Sasuke knew that the confrontation awaiting him was going to be difficult and dangerous. Even though he wanted to go in alone, Sasuke knew that having back-up would certainly make the outcome of the late night encounter much more likely to be positive. Or, he felt that it would at least make it less likely that he'd wind up getting himself killed.
Stumbling to a stop, Sasuke frowned, trying to figure out what it was that had turned his thoughts so dark, and made him so reluctant to do what he had to do. Unable to come up with an answer, Sasuke forced himself to start walking again. As he moved through the silent village, Sasuke turned his thoughts to his past, and then to the truths he's learned too late. Anger began to bubble up inside of him, burning away the nervousness that had plagued him from the moment he'd stepped out of the apartment. That old familiar anger was a comfort to Sasuke, and he made the last of his trek wrapped in the dark cloud of his indignant anger. When he arrived at his destination, the ANBU that stood outside of the room tensed. Sasuke couldn't see their faces, but he could feel the intensity of their gazes as they watched him. Sasuke knew they could sense the difference in his attitude, and the potential for danger that cloaked him.
Stopping at the door, Sasuke looked from one masked face to the next, daring them to say or do anything to stop him. When none made a move to intercept him, Sasuke smirked and opened the door, stepping into the room. Glancing around, Sasuke took in the familiar scene. There were ANBU in each corner of the room. A simple wooden chair was set in the center of the room, and a masked ninja stood behind the chair, looking back at him. He knew even with the mask who the man was. He recognized his voice from the Chuunin Exams three years before. Sitting not far from the chair were the two elders of the village, watching Sasuke intently as if he were some interesting specimen under a microscope. Being looked at in that way made Sasuke's anger flare and he stalked stiffly across the room, standing a few feet from the uncomfortable chair that was waiting for him.
"You're late Uchiha! What took you so long?"
"I had trouble with Kakashi, Lady Koharu," Sasuke replied quietly.
"What kind of trouble?" the old woman asked, eyes narrowed to suspicious slits.
"Did you actually think he wouldn't notice me going out late at night and staying out most of the night? You know how I look after one of these visits, and since I live with him, there's no way for me to hide it from him. He's had a lot of questions."
"And what answers have you given him?" asked the other elder.
"Does is matter, Lord Homura?"
"You've told him even after we ordered you to not tell him anything."
It wasn't a question, and Sasuke saw no point in denying the accusation. "Yes, I told him."
"And is he here?"
"No, he stayed back at the apartment."
"You're certain of that?" asked Lady Koharu.
Sasuke felt himself smirking at the old woman, his hands clenching into fists at his sides. "Well no, since I'm not there to witness whether or not he actually is, I can't say for sure he's still there. I do know that he didn't follow me, and I checked for his chakra signature more than once as I came here. He didn't leave the apartment. Of course, that doesn't mean he didn't leave the apartment after I left. Anyway, I thought I was staying with Kakashi so that he could keep an eye on me, not the other way around."
"Watch your mouth, boy!" snapped Lady Koharu.
"I'm just telling the truth."
"Just sit down and let's get started. We'll worry about what to do about your disobedience afterwords."
"No."
"What did you say?"
"I said 'no'," Sasuke replied softly, voice holding the slightest waver from his anger. "That's what I came here for. This is over. I'm not going to submit to torture any more. If there were anything hidden in my mind for you to know, you'd have found it by now. I'm through."
The elders sat, clearly stunned at Sasuke's defiance, their eyes gone wide. Lady Koharu recovered first and pushed to her feet, advancing on Sasuke, pointing a finger at him. "Now you listen to me, boy!"
"No," Sasuke growled, "I'm through listening to you. I've done everything you've asked me to do since I came back, wanting to make right everything I did wrong. I went so far as to let you torture me, believing it was for the good of the village. I ignored how horrible it made me feel, and I lied to Kakashi repeatedly, picking fights with him to keep from having to tell him about all of this, and for what? For the chance to come back here again and again and let you continue to torture me for absolutely nothing? Madara didn't block any of my memories, everything he told me and showed me you know about.
"I don't claim to understand how things like this work, but even I am smart enough to realize that if there was anything to be found, you'd have found it by now. I don't know why he'd go to all the trouble to tell me the truth, only to then go and block part of it from my memory. It would defeat the purpose of telling me to begin with. He didn't know I was going to leave, so he didn't block of part of my memory to keep me from coming back here and telling you everything he told me. I didn't even know I was leaving until it happened. There's nothing there! Nothing! I've given you everything I have, and now this is going to stop!"
Silence filled the room. Sasuke couldn't even hear anyone breathing. As the silence stretched on, Sasuke's anger began to fade. Turning, Sasuke walked across the room meaning to leave, but coming up short when one of the ANBU stepped out of the shadows and stood between himself and the door. Sasuke scowled up at the man, then turned around to glare at the elders. "What? You're going to put me in a cell somewhere since I won't let you torture me anymore? Fine, do it, but I won't change my mind. Your days of playing with my mind are over."
"Clearly it was a mistake letting you stay with your former sensei," Lord Homura finally said quietly, settling back in his chair and looking gravely at Sasuke. "I don't believe that the man is a bad influence on you, but I think letting you out of our sight was a mistake. The ANBU watched you when you left the apartment, but we had no way of knowing what you were doing while you were in the apartment. So, now that you've proved yourself to still be the problem you were when you left the village, we'll correct that mistake and put you somewhere that you can't cause trouble and can be watched closely."
Sasuke opened his mouth to snap a reply, his anger beginning to boil inside of him again, but before he could utter a single syllable, chakra flowed around him, closing in and constricting him until he couldn't move, couldn't speak. Growing more angry at this treatment and unable to voice his opinion on the subject, Sasuke activated his Sharingan. Darkness closed around him before he had a chance to so much as glance in the direction of the elders and Sasuke cursed in his mind as he felt the blindfold tied tightly at the back of his head. Unwilling to give up the fight and beginning to grow nervous about what was going to be done to him, Sasuke tried to break the hold of the chakra with his own. He heard someone nearby grunt as the chakra binding him began to weaken. Just before he could break free of the hold there was a sharp pain at the back of his head and everything faded away.
Consciousness returned sluggishly and with great, throbbing pain. Sasuke groaned quietly and lifted a hand, pressing it against his forehead as he tried to remember what had happened to him. His last clear memory was fighting with Kakashi. Everything after the fight was a blur, only snippets of the time between then and the the time he woke coming through clearly. The fragments were so disjointed however that Sasuke couldn't make sense of them. After a few minutes, Sasuke carefully pushed himself to a sitting position, immediately leaning forward, letting his head hang between his knees as the aching in his head intensified and nausea rolled through him. Groaning, Sasuke recognized the pain as typical reaction to one of his 'questioning' sessions.
"But... I was going to put a stop to that," Sasuke croaked, wincing at the rough sound of his voice.
Sasuke sat quietly, clearing his mind until the pain and nausea passed. When he felt more like himself, Sasuke sat up slowly, wincing again at the stabbing pain he felt at the back of his head. Lifting his hand, he gingerly explored the area that hurt with his fingertips, finding a large lump there. Frowning, Sasuke grumbled, "What the hell happened? Did I--"
Eyes opened at last, Sasuke stopped talking abruptly as he found himself staring across a small room at a wall he didn't recognize. Jumping to his feet and ignoring the pain in the back of his head, Sasuke spun around to take in the dimly lit room he was sitting in. The walls were stone and it was smaller than the bedroom of Kakashi's old apartment, seeming just large enough of the cot he'd been sitting on. There was a pot sitting in the back corner of the tiny room and Sasuke grunted in disgust as he figured out what that pot was for. Turning the other direction he found himself staring at a stone door with bars set close together at the top. Moving across the room to the door in a few quick steps, Sasuke wasn't surprised to find there was no handle on the door. Lifting his hands, he wrapped them around the bars and pulled himself up onto his toes to peer out the door. He saw torches flickering in an even more dimly lit hallway. He saw no other doors, and no one standing in the dim light of the hall.
"Hey," Sasuke yelled. "Anyone out there? What's going on, where am I?"
When no answer came, Sasuke hissed in irritation and dropped back down to stand flat-footed in front of the door. Taking a deep breath, Sasuke reached out with his chakra, meaning to search for other chakra signatures, but the walls around him seemed to disperse his chakra, shattering it into bits too small to work with. Frowning, Sasuke concentrated, building his chakra, then pushed it out again, only to have the stone walls once more block his attempts to look for someone else. Sasuke stood in the small room, growling in irritation briefly, then closed his eyes, concentrating on his chakra one more time. Drawing a deep breath, Sasuke shoved half of his chakra out into a clone. He wasn't surprised when the clone vanished just as quickly as it appeared. Cursing in frustration, Sasuke moved back over to the tiny cot and sat down on the edge, pressing a hand to the painful lump at the back of his head.
"This isn't good," he muttered. "I've got to find a way to get out of here before those old murderers succeed in finishing off the Uchiha clan."
The pain in the back of his head continued to throb, making Sasuke's vision double, then blur. Closing his eyes, Sasuke slid back on the bed and laid over on his side, feeling the darkness of unconsciousness well up around him again. His last thought before the pain chased consciousness away was for Kakashi. "Shit! I hope they don't go after Kakashi. I'm sorry Kakash..."
AN: First off, I'm sorry I took so long on this chapter. After I finished that last chapter I started struggling. Then I had several deadlines sneak up on me all at the same time. Gotta love it when you forget important things. I got through those and came back to Absolution only to find that I was not only still struggling, the story had gone completely cold in my head. I'd lost interest. I've been fighting it ever since. I wrote a little here and there over the last 3 weeks, hoping I'd get going again eventually. I started writing longhand a couple of nights ago... that's my end, my last ditch effort yo break a block. I wrote some, but I was still very unclear what the problem was. Finally, last night I realized what the problem was. I had the next chapter started in my head, and I realized that in order for the next chapter to happen the way I had it planned, this chapter had to happen in a way that just wasn't plausible. So, I let go of the idea in my head and the story flowed. Between last night and this morning I managed to not only finish this chapter, but jotted about 2 pages of notes for the next 3 chapters! So, I expect my updates will be semi-regular from now on. (I say semi because I have another piece that I'm working on. A late birthday present for a friend. It only has 2 chapters to go, but I do need to work on that one too.)
Thank you so much for your patience, and I hope this chapter was worth the wait! I guarantee the next 2 chapters are going to be rather exciting. ;) This will help make up for the long delay I hope!