Disclaimer: I own nothing, make no money from anything, and am writing this purely for personal enjoyment

Chapter 14: Testing one's mettle sometimes means watching it shatter

Itachi had thought touring the village would be a welcome respite from the mind crushing analysis of the sharingan that was Orochimaru's payment in the deal. Instead, it had turned out to be a close run thing. He had to admit that the problem with the analysis was boredom and frustration, rather than pain. Nothing, apparently, was more successful at stripping the emotional connection to an event than examining it in every excruciating detail, over and over again. And touring the village was turning out to be just as boring and frustrating.

The obstructive stupidity of the average Konoha civilian reached levels unimaginable to Itachi prior to this point. Perfectly competent people had suddenly becoming unable to make the simplest of decisions. Then those decisions were being passed all the way up to him without someone pointing out how ridiculous it all was. He glared at Kakashi, who was leaning against the far wall pretending not to smirk. Just for that, he regretted not turning the ninja over to Orochimaru for questioning about how, exactly, the man had awakened his mangekyou. Or doing it himself - walking up and asking point blank which best friend he'd managed to kill, and how. Appropriate small talk was for people without a team of ANBU at their back, after all.

"Tazuna-san, would you mind giving me a brief – brief – summary of the problem?"

"I've been working as a site manager since the invasion. I'm from Wave, but I'm one of the best in the business."

Itachi took note of the unmistakable signs of alcohol addiction, but said nothing. He knew the native Konoha personnel were overwhelmed, and the building did seem to be getting done.

"And now this idiot wants me to tear it all down, for no good reason whatsoever!"

Itachi raised an eyebrow at the official to get his opinion on 'no good reason whatsoever'. He didn't want to seem prejudiced against the refugees, but he wasn't going to leave an unsafe structure as a tag-trap in the middle of his village.

"The law is quite clear, Hokage-sama. A building essential to the security of the village may not be worked on by anyone without the necessary security clearance, and that security clearance requires the individual be a native of Konoha. The building will have to be torn down and the designs altered before construction can resume with a properly certified crew."

"It's an apartment block, for crying in a bucket. Not a super-secret ninja base," said the Wave refugee. Itachi looked at the plans and then at the building. It was, indeed, just an apartment block. An apartment block intended for civilians, at that.

"It still qualifies as a secure building," said the official firmly.

"What type of buildings don't qualify, in that event?" asked Itachi. "I'm fairly sure residential properties are not part of our official list."

The official half-bowed, and assumed a lecturing tone. "As you say, Hokage-sama, residential properties do not qualify as essential to the security of the village in the usual course of events. However, this is not the usual course of events. The honoured Hokage-sama will no doubt recall the edict that at all rebuilding after the disaster be defined as being a war preparation, and thus be immune from the usual taxations and legislations. And all buildings that are part of the war effort, naturally, need to be certified as fully secure."

Itachi's eyes pricked on the edge of activating his tsukuyomi. This was wilful obstruction at its most smug, and there was nothing he could do to punish it. As a missing-nin it hadn't mattered to him whether it was legal or illegal resistance, and he hadn't realised how much of an advantage he'd lost when he'd rejoined the ranks of the lawful.

"Hokage-sama! An emergency communication has arrived."

Itachi could not to ask for details in the middle of an open street, but whatever it was was certain to be more important than this petty squabble. "As you can see, I'm afraid I don't have time to deal with this matter at this moment. However, I cannot see that the structure will need to be torn down, so Tazuna-san may continue as normal. The council will release a clarification to the edict, specifying exactly which regulations the rebuilding effort will be subject to at the next meeting."

"But Hokage-sama—"

"You are free to express your reservations at that meeting. Now, you will have to excuse me."

Itachi used shushin to avoid being further detained. He was handed the scroll as soon as he stepped within warded walls. No wonder the messenger had been so disturbed – it bore the seals of the Kage of Rain and Sand.

He skimmed it with growing disbelief: …on behalf of the Hidden Village of Sand…request your accounting… of recent violations by Konoha of its treaty obligations… and unlawful murder of Sand ninja within Konohagakure…

This was too big for him. He was going to have to get reinforcements – of both types. He tossed it to Kakashi. "Read that and summon Shikaku-san and the rest of the advisors. I'll be with you in a few minutes."

"Hokage-sama."

As quickly as he could, Itachi pulled himself into the sealed inner chamber and cast Tsukyomi on himself.

"Have you been following, Orochimaru-sama?"

"The letter? Yes. Very amusing."

Itachi did not find it in the least amusing, and did not appreciate it being trivialised like that. They had blamed Konoha for being invaded! "Do you wish to take control of this meeting, Orochimaru-sama?"

"Oh no. You'll all just spend entirely too much time being indignant, and then finally decide to do nothing at all. You can handle it."

"You aren't indignant? How can Rain believe that... that farce that we were the ones murdering Sand ninja?"

"Of course Rain doesn't believe it. Which is somewhat ironic, considering it is fairly accurate."

Itachi double-blinked. "Excuse me?"

"I did lure Sand in with fake orders and then killed as many as I could. Their Kage died a little earlier than they were aware of at the time, which I imagine is the 'proof' that Sand is claiming to have of our wrongdoing. Of course, they mistake their own importance in the whole matter. They think they were the actual targets of the plot, rather than just some convenient extras. It's actually kind of cute, if you think about it."

Itachi hissed under his breath.

"Calm yourself, Itachi-chan. You should know better than anyone that the truth doesn't matter at all. The story is what matters, and it's a bad story. They can't successfully attack our reputation with something that weak. And physically, I doubt they have enough forces to attack an outpost, let alone a major village. Rain just wants to needle us with this. It's just a pity that it will take time away from our plans to activate the mangekyo in Sasuke."

"What?"

"Well, it seems pretty clear that an Uchiha does not actually need to kill their best friend to activate it. We can use an illusion to achieve the same goal, so I don't see any point in delaying the experiment."

Itachi's heart leapt into his throat. "Our agreement specified you would not do any harm to my brother."

"Activating the mangekyou in him is hardly harm, Itachi-chan. In fact, I would class it as help. We want to do the activation and transfer as soon as possible, of course, to minimise the degradation to both pairs of eyes."

Itachi scrambled for some reason to dissuade Orochimaru from even thinking about it. "The transplants don't always take—"

"Just because the Uchiha eschewed modern medicine does not mean the rest of us have to live in the lost ages. I had Kabuto take samples weeks ago and we're all perfectly compatible. And are you seriously trying to tell me that you had this whole plan set out to force Sasuke-chan into getting the eyes the old-fashioned way, and still didn't know whether it would leave him blind?"

"That's…" Itachi shook his head and tried another approach – the insanity of the plan, rather than the insanity of the idea. "An illusion won't work for the same reasons killing a stranger or watching the natural death of a loved one doesn't work. The evolution needs both an emotional connection and the perception of responsibility. An illusion can't supply that."

"For someone who has been praised as a master of illusion, you're certainly sounding like a complete amateur. One doesn't present the death in the illusion. One creates a scenario which tempts your target into poor behaviour. That behaviour plays out in the death of the victim in question. You let the illusion run long enough so that they have a nice, touching scene of your target cradling the body of their beloved, knowing they could have saved them if they just hadn't done whatever-it-was. Then, with a little orchestration, you bring them out of it without realising it was an illusion. They wake up in a hospital or the like, still believing they'd gotten someone killed, and after a little while, their eyes evolve."

Itachi was almost swayed. It all sounded so reasonable. But then, Orochimaru often did. Having the eyes would make Sasuke a target for Madara, and Sasuke wasn't ready. "No. And our agreement states that any major change in strategy must be agreed by both parties. This counts."

"We'll see. Now you need run along and be indignant about Sand."

Itachi found himself forcibly pushed out of the mindscape. He wanted to go back to get assurances out of Orochimaru that he would not be doing anything to his brother, but he was conscious of the fact that he was already keeping people waiting. And Itachi wasn't anywhere near as convinced as Orochimaru that this declaration by Rain and Sand was nothing to worry about. On his way, he scrawled a reminder to submit a motion to modify the edict about constructing buildings, a reminder to find out whether the official was a traitor or simply incompetent, and a reminder to track down a proper assistant. Itachi was starting to think that he had made a mistake in believing himself capable of running this whole thing.

"What do you want, dobe?" asked Sasuke, not even bothering to look at Naruto.

Naruto was too excited to complain about Sasuke being Sasuke. "I think I know where Danzo is, and it's right here in Konoha."

"So? What do I care about him killing some over the hill has-been?"

Naruto quivered at the insult to the Sandaime, but he knew that Sasuke was just trying to get a raise out of him. Besides, this was important. "Danzo is your best chance at finding out what really happened in the Uchiha massacre."

Sasuke went absolutely still and Naruto knew he had him.

"Again, so?" Sasuke asked, but the nonchalance was sloppy. "He isn't going to just answer our questions for us. If you hand him over they'll disappear him or execute him before anyone gets a chance to ask him any questions at all."

"Yeah, and probably throw me into the cell right next to him for knowing more the village than they do. Of course I'm not going to just hand him over. Are we ninja or aren't we? We sneak into his super-secret safe house and spy on him ourselves."

That was the point in Naruto's plans where some boring person usually told him he was insane, but whatever insults he had for Sasuke, 'boring' wasn't one of them.

"How sure are you that he's really there?"

"I'm sure it used to be one of his bases. I'm sure that it's showing signs of activity now. The rest we'll have to find out when we get in. Whatever it is, it's going to be worth finding out."

Naruto would like to think they hadn't just rushed in there like idiots. He'd like to think they slipped in invisibly like the awesome ninja that they were. Except they hadn't. Oh, they'd started off well. They'd scouted until they were sure there were only two major chakra sources present. They'd detected and avoided all the early warning alarms through a combination of Sasuke's alertness and Naruto's experiences with traps. Everything was going well until something startled Sasuke and he threw a fireball at it. Which turned out to be a serious mistake, since not only did it not solve the problem, it triggered a whole bunch of very noisy alarms. Which panicked the not-in-any-way-empty lab, because it was soon apparent that the two sources they'd detected were just the guards for a whole bunch of civilian-level scientists. Naruto would have been perfectly happy letting them get on with their lives and pretending the whole infiltration never happened, but unfortunately none of them were willing to believe him. The scientists shouted and ran around and tried to defend themselves in useless but time-consuming ways.

Then one threw some powder in his face.

Naruto started sneezing even as he jumped back out of range. It was somewhat of an amateurish distraction to use against a trained ninja, but sometimes the best of ninjas could fall to the stupidest tactics if they were unexpected enough. But there was no follow-up, and Naruto's eyes shortly stopped watering. Naruto tried to spot an awesomely clever way to get out of this, and discover all they needed to know, and be the hero by saving Sasuke. But the need for awesomeness began to mute. Attack was the thing he needed to concern about. Attack, attack again, and attach some more. A small part of him reminded him that there was someone close by he didn't want killed, but the larger part of him was furious and getting more furious as time passed.

Then unimaginable soul wrenching pain, tearing apart every element from him and replacing it with the care of a toddler trying to stack bricks. The underground laboratory shrunk to a fraction of its former size, and Naruto roared as his head hit the ceiling and his tails lashed painfully into walls. He would not be trapped like this. He struck at the ceiling, again and again, until at last it gave way and he could see the sky. He leapt out, ignoring the little gnats and their high pitched noises. Once on solid ground he whipped one way, and then another, trying to determine the threat. Pointy things and water and fire hit him, and it only took him a second to realise it was coming from the little gnats. He tried to flick them away from him to stop the stings, but they slipped out of his reach. One small blue and white fire-producing thing was particularly persistent, and it distracted him so long that he didn't notice the dozens of mask-wearing gnats until he was surrounded. A memory made him chuff in discontent, and he was gathering himself to simply flee at top speed when he was caught in a swirling red. He knew that it should have infuriated him, but the rage swirling within him slipped out of reach. He started to calm, instead, and could feel himself falling asleep. No! this was wrong. He wasn't tired, he had to… he had to…

...Naruto woke up gasping in a hospital bed. All his memories were distorted and illogical, and for an instant, he tried to tell himself it had just been a nightmare. But it wasn't. He'd become the monster Mizuki had accused him of being. He'd become a monster in front of Sasuke. What would they do with him now? They couldn't- They wouldn't-

Naruto forced himself to breathe deeply. He was in a hospital bed with Sasuke-teme pretending to be sleeping in the next bed over. He was not a prison cell. He must not allow his imagination to make things worse for him than they really were. Reality would probably be bad enough without needing any assistance.

"Naruto! What do you think you were doing, training alone with Sasuke-kun!" said Sakura, bursting into the room with Chouji and Shikamaru trailing after her.

"They weren't actually training," said Shikamaru, sounding long suffering.

"But Sasuke-kun said they were. They were training in wood skills when they came across a hole over what turned out to be a rebel base."

"Yes, and the investigators all pretended to believe him because investigating it any futher would have been too troublesome."

"Then what were they doing?"

Naruto laughed nervously and rubbed the back of his head. This wasn't at all the argument he'd been expecting to have.

"Don't give me that! I want to know what you think you were doing!"

"They were going after Danzo."

"Don't be ridiculous. That's absurd. They wouldn't have done that."

"Would you shut up?" said Sasuke, giving up on pretending to be asleep. "It's over now. It doesn't matter why we were there."

"But Sasuke-kun-"

Shikamaru interrupted this time. "Naruto, I thought I should warn you that the gossips in the village are going wild. I mean, most of it is against Danzo, for being the idiot to create that trigger stuff, but you know people. Half of them are acting like they didn't already know you were the jinchuuriki for the nine-tails, and would be able to take the form at some point."

Naruto felt like some sort of barrier jutsu had been erected between him and the rest of the room. "The trigger stuff?"

"Oh, yeah," said Chouji. "You've been unconscious. Danzo created some sort of powder that would make you lose control when you were exposed to it. That's what made you go all giant fox. But you don't have to worry. The Hokage has announced they'll have a vaccine or something for you in the next couple of days. It'll only be a little while in hospital, and then you'll be back training with us again."

"You want to continue training with me?"

"Sure. As long as you don't drag us off to any brain-dead quests to defeat missin-nin."

Naruto's mouth opened and closed a few times. "But... but you know, now. What I really am. That I'm really dangerous."

Chouji shrugged. "We're ninja. We're aiming to become really dangerous ourselves."

"Get over yourself, Naruto," said Sakura-chan. "It's going to take more than just having a demon inside of you to make you special or something."

Naruto was too amazed at her acceptance to be upset at being shot down. He turned to Sasuke, who ignored him until Sakura gave him a sharp nudge. Sasuke crossed his arms and looked away. "Yeah, well, I'm not letting you get ahead of me. I don't care about your super-secret powers. You'll never match up to me. Especially now that I have the Sharingan."

"Oh, does Sasuke have an activated Sharingan? He's been mentioning it every five minutes, but maybe everyone needs to be told a few more times to be sure."

Sasuke grunted indignantly. Naruto would normally have been full of questions, but at that point he had more personal things to worry about. "And you, Shikamaru?"

"I figured it out ages ago. The adults weren't really subtle about it. It's never bothered me."

Naruto collapsed back to stare at the ceiling with a long sigh. All that worry and all that hiding, and none of his friends minded. It was a pity that they hadn't gotten anything on that Danzo bastard, but still? This was the best hospital stay ever.

Note:

With 100% of the vote (thanks gamemonger56) in favour of finishing slower rather than summarising the ending, I'll be updating this fic intermittently - I hope you still find it enjoyable