To say Itachi Uchiha created a huge maelstrom of surprise and joy in Anbu, when he returned, would be an understatement. Short of rolling out the red carpet and bowing to him practically everyone in Anbu was shocked and elated to see him return. After a few hours of jumping through hoops, like proving to Ibiki that he hadn't gone rogue, he was deemed ready to return. The athmosphere in the building was a little lighter and happier just by his presence alone. It looked like Naruto was being kicked back down to the number two spot again, but he was fine with that.

It took some of the pressure off him and now it looked like they would get some answers. Itachi was in Kakashi's office, giving a full report about all that happened and where he had been. Naruto was peering over at them from across the way, he could see Kakashi's eye narrow and widen frequently, which probably meant that Itachi had one hell of a story to tell. Sakura came over and buried her head on his shoulder.

"You smell like blood," he sniffed, "and cherries. That's... an odd mix." She groaned into his ear.

"I just got out of surgery, more Zetsu attacks. We seriously need to hire more medics now that Tsunade is gone. Oh and I tried out a new shampoo, cherry-scented, what do you think?"

"Eh, it's not bad actually but you know me Sakura, you could wear a skunk for a scarf and I'd still think you smell great."

"You're an idiot."

"I'm your idiot."

The Zetsu attacks weren't a good sign though. Aside from the fact that they were probably the most hilariously incompetent mercenary group that Naruto had ever seen, he felt bad for whoever hired them, they were larger than originally expected. For every member of Anbu they had, they were outnumbered three-to-one. Luckily their attacks were nowhere near on the scale of the Bijuu Dama. Speaking of which...

"When did you learn to disarm a Bijuu Dama." He asked her.

"I didn't." She confessed.

"But you-"

"I'm going to be honest here, we were under pressure and I just pulled out what looked to be the most important part." Stunned silence engulfed them.

"You could've killed us and nearly everyone else but didn't based on a hunch you had."

"Well when you say it like that it sounds bad, but yeah pretty much." Naruto couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of it all, he had jumped from one moving truck to another, interrogated one of the soldiers who was killed by his own man and then Sakura nearly levelled half the city.

"Looks like Itachi is finally done in there. Speaking of which, that's why I came to you."

"Not for my charm, my wit, my devilishly handsome face?"

"Well those too but mainly for this." She handed him a syringe, similar to the one she used on him a while back. "I heard Itachi was exposed to some Rinnegan as well, so make sure he gets that."

"What are you doing later?" He asked her.

"Sleeping, eating ice-cream."

"Ice-cream?"

"It's my coping mechanism for stress."

"I thought I was your coping mechanism." He said, thoroughly offended.

"Oh Naruto you are, but there are some things not even you can do and ice-cream covers all of them."

She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek to heal his wounded look and left him there. Was he now seriously competing with frozen milk and cream for Sakura's attention, what did it have that he didn't? It wouldn't talk back to her, probably tasted and smelled better than he did, provided her with energy while he would always drain her of patience and vitality. Was he that bad that ice-cream had more appealing factors than him? But let's see how ice-cream coped under intense heat, then he would be all that Sakura had.

He chuckled evilly to himself. "Something funny?" Itachi asked.

"Oh Itachi, uh no. I think I'm going a bit insane to be honest with you."

"I wouldn't hold it against you. Things have been pretty strange the past few weeks. I'm... sorry about what happened to your parents, they were good people."

"Yeah, they were."

"So what's going on with Anbu at the moment?"

"Wait, before we get into all of that, you need to take this. It's a cure Sakura and Tsunade came up with for the Rinnegan poison, I heard you got hit with some of it."

"That's okay, it's more or less out of my system now."

"Don't take any chances, we need you at full possible fitness so it's better to be safe than sorry." Naruto said, handing him the syringe. "Take it and go to the med bay, you'll be drowsy and sleep for a few hours but you'll feel much better afterwards. Then we'll talk... about eveything. I'm guessing you didn't tell Kakashi all that happened with you."

"Judging from your tone, you also didn't tell him about something, something you found?"

"I have a feeling that between us, we might be able to figure all of this shit out. Get some rest Itachi, you're gonna need it."

A low whistle caught Kisame's attention, who whistled at the giant man with sharp teeth and a laughably oversized sword? Apparently Sasuke Uchiha did. Kisame resisted the urge to rub his eyes in disbelief, he looked around, nobody was around not even Might Guy.

Was Sasuke either that stupid or that overconfident to fight him alone? Surely not, Kisame remembered... oh wait, Itachi was the humble one and Sasuke was the arrogant dick. A smile crept across Kisame's features, this was going to be fun.

"Listen I understand you spend a lot of time brushing and taking care of them but if I wanted to see a real set of shark teeth, I would've gone to an aquarium."

Kisame sighed. Alright maybe not as fun as he thought, especially if Sasuke was going to keep making stupid-

"Oh now I've made you sad. Don't worry Kisame by the end of the day I promise you, you'll be sleeping with the fishes."

"Were you always this annoying or did you have to work at it?" Kisame asked, as he unsheathed Samehada.

"I don't know, is your sword compensating for something?" Sasuke said with a smirk and took out Kusanagi.

Kisame roared and took a huge swing with his sword, Sasuke stupidly tried to block it and nearly lost an arm for his efforts. The weight alone of Samehada was enough for Sasuke's knees to buckle, combine that with a powerful swing and Sasuke's sword would have been chopped in half, along with Sasuke. Sasuke had to hand it to Orochimaru, he may have been a creep with a fetish for snakes and Uchiha, but he knew how to build a sturdy sword.

Sasuke ended up on the ground from Kisame's first strike and rolled to the side to avoid the killing blow. Sasuke kicked his shin as hard as he could but couldn't get the giant to stumble. Sasuke's natural agility and speed managed to create some space between them and he took a second to reevaluate his opponent.

"If only your fighting skill was as good as your jokes, though come to think of it maybe it is."

"Yeah I'm starting to think I'm not so good at this joke-telling business either. I think I'll stick to what I'm good at, like killing Akatsuki members."

Kisame grinned, this kid's cockiness knew no bounds. He nearly got killed by one strike and had the audacity to make light of the situation. A low pop behind Kisame had him look down in surprise, he was bleeding. Two more pops, he was bleeding heavily. He looked over at Sasuke, who also had a look of disbelief on his face. Another pop forced Kisame to his knees.

"Sorry but this was simply taking too long and the tension between you two was becoming unbearable." Tenten called out, as she emerged from the shadows holding a silenced assault rifle. Shot in the back, that would be how he'd go out.

"Couldn't beat me fair and square so you shoot me in the back. Coward."

"Yeah, yeah whatever. Now keep smiling you son of a bitch." She said as she coldly finished him with a headshot. Sasuke could only watch on in shock as Tenten singlehandedly finished off the Akatsuki.

Coming back to reality, he told her. "I had it under control you know."

"No you didn't. You ended up flat on your ass and made stupid jokes."

"I was luring him into a false sense of security." He said weakly.

She raised an eyebrow at him. "And then what were you going to do? Insult him for what he was wearing, threaten to harpoon him, crush him with that huge ego you've got, bravado him to death?"

He laughed, partly because of her comments but mostly because it was done, they were free. "You know what it doesn't matter anymore. It's over, we did it. We're free to move on."

"We're free, that's a hell of an assumption to make Sasuke. In case you forgot, I have an incredibly successful business to return to and manage."

Sasuke could see the future he had envisioned with her crumble in front of him. This was the moment where he would have to swallow all of his pride and lay his cards on the table.

"You could go back to that business of yours, selling weapons to scumbags and such. You could sit behind that desk all day, alone in your store of weapons until you eventually lose your mind and start talking to them, if that hasn't happened already." An embarrassed blush from Tenten confirmed his suspicion.

"Or you could come with me. Have you ever stepped foot outside Konoha before? There's a whole world out there to explore and see and I could think of no one else I'd rather see it with."

"Sasuke-" She began.

"I'll keep training you as we travel. You too could one day become as good as me at making jokes and wisecracks."

"In all the time I've known you Sasuke, I've never seen you smile or banter as much as you did in the past ten minutes. What is going on with you?"

"I'm happy Tenten." He said earnestly. "I really am, the time we spent together over the past few weeks changed me for the better. One can only remain stoic and detatched for so long and our time together... opened me up, so to speak. I've learned a lot about you, your likes and dislikes, that you talk to your weapons apparently. But there's a lot more I'd like to know, if you'd let me."

She thought about it. She honestly couldn't see the Sasuke that came into her store asking for a Chidori and promptly shutting down all attempts she made at conversation, saying everything that the Sasuke in front of her just said. Could she really leave everything behind? Well when she said everything it sounded like she had a lot of things holding her here. In reality, her apartment was swarming with Anbu, Lee got out of hospital and resigned in a very polite and calm manner. She did feel bad about everything that had happened with him and made sure to pay all of his hospital bills and give him a very large severance package. Guy was getting older and planning to retire soon and as sad as it was, now that the Akatsuki were gone, so was her biggest customer.

In her careful considerations about everything, she hadn't noticed that Sasuke had closed the distance between them. He took her face in his hands which were surprisingly soft.

"You're thinking too much Tenten." Of course she was thinking too much, this was a major life decision. It required a lot of contemplation and, wait what was he doing?

Sasuke lowered his head and kissed her, so gentle that she wondered if he had kissed her at all. She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him towards her, he was surprised by this but it fuelled his excitement. She opened her mouth for him and he let his tongue sneak in slowly, soon their passion threatened to overwhelm them and if not for Kisame's corpse snapping him back to his senses, Sasuke was sure he would have taken her right then and there.

"Come on, we deserve better than this." He said taking her hand in his, it seemed to fit perfectly with hers.

"Where are we going?" She asked him, voice uneven.

"I made reservations, I knew we'd feel like celebrating." His voice was gleeful as he pulled her along and it was hard not to join in with his merriment.

"The files on Danzo's computer told me about when the Bijuu Dama would arrive, so I left an anonymous tip with Kakashi. Your team did a good job at stopping that I hear, and finally I recovered enough to return to Anbu." Itachi finished telling his story.

"So you did eliminate Danzo?" Naruto asked. Itachi's face was neutral but inside he was struggling with what to tell Naruto. He wanted to protect Sasuke and Tenten but at the same time he needed to tell Naruto enough to convince him.

"No, but I may have let slip info that would turn some people on Danzo."

"Who?" Naruto asked firmly.

"Listen Naruto, I've told you more than I told Kakashi. He thinks I found the intel inside the Akatsuki base along with the bit about Danzo being on their side. The 'who' involved is not important, they got the job done and if I perceived them to be a threat, you know I would've stopped them."

"How do we know your telling the truth about Danzo?" Naruto asked.

"Why would I lie about something like that?"

"Humour me, you want to hear what I've got to say, then I need to be sure about everything you're telling me."

"Hm, well Kakashi said he'd send a team to their base and see if anything's left. I doubt there will be, they're smart enough not to leave a trail behind."

"Alright, I'll take your word for it. Last question, what happened to Sasuke?"

"Honestly, I don't know. I haven't seen him since I left the Akatsuki. If he's smart he's probably left Konoha after hearing about Pain's attack, knowing that you'd eventually hunt him down."

"We found his shirt in an apartment next to Deidara's body, which was blown to pieces, safe to say I'm not the only one hunting him. Maybe someone else will get the honor of taking him down." Itachi was saddened by Naruto's words, it seemed like only yesterday when his brother was in steady competition with the blonde, trying to outdo the Hokage's son.

"I have told you everything, more than I gave Kakashi, it's your turn Naruto."

"You're up to speed with Nagato, Yahiko and Konan?" Itachi nodded. "Nagato told my Dad about Amegakure, but before he died, he maintained that he had nothing to do with it. Nagato killed him before he had a chance to explain himself, so I decided to look into it more. When I checked the file, there were pages missing, now maybe this T person tried to cover their tracks by tampering with the file. So maybe if we cross reference all the people with the letter 't' at the start of their name and who were in the file room during-"

Itachi held up his hand to stop Naruto from continuing. "I have a better idea. Where is Konan being held?"

"Oh, uh right here in our holding cells. She's the only Akatsuki member we've managed to catch alive. Why you've got something?"

"Just a few theories, I'd like to run them by her first. She'll talk to me, and if nothing come ups, we'll do your idea instead. I don't think I have to tell you this but keep all we've just discussed to yourself, we don't know who to trust around here."

Naruto nodded. "Good luck Itachi."

Itachi didn't want luck, in fact he wanted to be completely wrong about the theory that was beginning to manifest and grow within his mind. He barely remembered the early days of Minato as Hokage but when the topic of Amegakure came up, he distinctly remembered the Hokage handing it off to someone else. Time to see if Konan could shed some light on the situation and judging by how their last meeting went, with her in tears and him nearly dying from poison, it was going to be one uncomfortable meeting.

The gray walls of her cell were beginning to drive her insane. She had asked for more paper but was denied, the one sheet she did have was used over and over again. Her origami only distracted her for so long before she was reminded of what her life had been reduced to. Waiting for her punishment was beginning to wear on her nerves, she knew that her only options were life and cooperate or death and stay silent. She had absolutely nothing to gain by cooperating and there wasn't a person alive who could convince her otherwise.

Konan raised her head as the door opened, was it time for her revolting meal that the guards had surely spat in already? No, in strolled the spectre of a person who should be long dead. They held an uncomfortable stare as Itachi sat down opposite her and told the guard to leave. She had to say for a supposed corpse, he looked as delectable as the day he first joined the Akatsuki.

"I knew I would lose my mind sitting in this cell for so long."

"How so?" Itachi asked with an amused grin.

"I'm seeing spirits of people who should be dead, next I suspect Nagato will join me and tell me how we suceeded in our mission. Oh well, it shall keep me entertained I suppose."

"If that does happen please do tell us, because I'm afraid I'm as real as that flower you just made Konan." He pointed to her origami and she cocked her head. "Alright poor example."

"That's a shame, there are some people I would've liked to see again before I go."

Itachi ignored the implication there. "Are they treating you well?

Konan laughed at this. "Itachi Uchiha, always the gentleman. Aside from the death threats, terrible food containing saliva or urine and the monotony of rearranging the one thing I own on this planet, then yes they are treating me well."

"You kill a bad king, the people will throw a feast in your name and crown you a hero. You kill a good king, they will declare you an outcast, slander your name and take everything that made life worth living."

"I already lost those things, there's... nothing left to take. This paper flower is all I've got."

"You've still got your good looks." Itachi said, trying to make light of her impossibly grim situation. In actuality, she was a shadow of her former self. Her skin was snow white, her cheeks were hollow and her hair had lost that shine it always seemed to have.

Sighing Konan decided not to drag this out. "Why are you here Itachi? Haven't you done enough already, I thought gloating was beneath you but go on and get it over with. Tell me how you won and I lost, how you sucessfully manipulated and expertly exploited my affections for you and how seeing me like this brings you great joy."

Itachi's eyes narrowed. "I never... I never intended to... Look I came to help you. I believe that your rage at Minato was wrongly placed, does the name T mean anything to you?" He could tell by her reaction that it did. The Akatsuki members said Konan was unreadable but after spending time with her, he began to pick up on some things. Subtle facial expressions and changes in her posture said more than words could.

"No, I never-"

"I believe this person made contact with you, I believe they then leaked information on the Akatsuki to Hanzo and then gave you a target: The Fourth Hokage, to further their own agenda. The problem is a lot changed after Minato's death and I have no clue where to start looking, if you help me I will do everything in my power to help you."

"Why the hell would I help you of all people?"

Itachi stood. "Because I am literally the only person alive who cares about what happens to you. Nagato gave everyone in the Akatsuki cyanide, except you. Do you really think Yahiko wanted you to spend your life rotting in a cell? No, he wanted you to live, and make Amegakure a better place."

Konan rose and swiftly slapped him across the face, amber eyes full of rage. "Don't even speak his name! You couldn't compare to him, never could. You were a bed-warmer, a pretty face with a nice behind to keep me company and sated in a group of psychopaths and murderers. The thing is though I respect them more than you because at least they weren't living a lie."

Itachi smiled sadly. "If all of this chaos and death was in Yahiko's name, then no, I never could compare."

Konan sneered. "You want to talk death, let's talk about you killing your best friend. You thought you could read me so well because we were intimate but that's a two-way street Itachi, don't think I didn't see the silent tears that begged to be shed. So tell me, looking back at how things turned out, was it worth it?"

His features took on a menacing and dark look, the room seemed to go cold and she wondered if she had finally pushed away the last person alive she held any form of affection for.

"No, it wasn't worth it. We both lost people we care about and I am sorry about Yahiko and Nagato, truly I am. But if you want to make sure that any of what the Akatsuki set out to do succeeded, then please, help me."

She had never once heard Itachi Uchiha beg, thought he was too independant to ask for help. Was it possible that they were being led along this whole time? It didn't really matter, she had nothing to lose at this point and wanted to see how this all turned out.

"The man with the mask, he came and told us that the Hokage was behind it all, that we'd need new members to expand and get vengeance. Tobi, his name was Tobi."

Itachi stopped and looked at her for a moment before stroking her cheek. "I never intended to manipulate or hurt you. As time went on and I got deeper into the Akatsuki, unwanted feelings began to spring up until they surfaced. I am sorry I hurt you, it wasn't supposed to end like that, I'm not really sure how these things usually should. I'll do what I can to help you and if this helps us catch the man responsible for Yahiko's death, you'll be the first to know. Until then, just... stay safe."

He gave her a nod and looked like he was considering more but with a sad smile decided against it. And for the second time Itachi Uchiha walked away from her, leaving Konan in tears.