Posted: March 15, 2013
Last Updated: March 16, 2013
Chapter WC: 7,485
Story WC: 96,833

Worth Dying For

Chapter 14
Verity

-7:00 AM, June 16, 312 TE-

-Underground Compound-

I sat with my back pressed up against the double doors, breathing in and out slowly. For a long time there had been nothing but silence from the short corridor my teammates were trapped in. I knew they were still there because there was no way for them to get out without me—not to mention that opening that door was louder than a tailed beast's growling stomach—which meant that they must have been conferring via hand signs. They were doubtlessly deciding what to do with me.

My head was still throbbing, but it had mostly subsided and with it the last of the haze lifted from my mind. It had been hard to even tell that it was there until it left. Suddenly, I could think clearly and actually rationalize without falling into abrupt fits of rage or fear. I would probably need to see a medic-nin after all this, I thought grudgingly. As much as I hated hospitals, I hated the thought of not being in control of my own mind even more.

That was if I went back to Leaf, of course, but…

Now that I could think clearly, the idea of running away from Leaf was decidedly less appealing. I was a Jinchuuriki, and an immortal one to boot. Every hunter-nin in the country—and possibly from every one of our allies too—would be sent after me. I had no illusions about how long I could hide under those circumstances. I could probably go to Akihito for help, but… Even though I knew little about court politics, I did know that the relationship between the daimyo and the Hokage was tenuous at best. They coexisted, but they were also two powerful entities that controlled the same territory. If the Hokage demanded that I be handed over, there was little chance the daimyo would refuse.

A long, heavy sigh swept up and out of my chest. My head hung until it was nearly parallel to the ground. How the hell did I always manage to get into the most fucked up, asinine situations?

And what the fuck was I doing sitting on the floor anyway? I blinked as the thought hit me, and for a moment could do little more than continue to stare at the cement below me. Then, without any warning or forethought, I scrambled to my feet. What was I doing? Sitting around, moping, acting all emotional—none of these things described me in the slightest. When the hell did I start taking shit lying down?

I didn't let myself think any further. I bared my teeth in a ferocious, determined grin and then slammed the doors open. My teammates, who had been sitting in a circle near the garage door, jumped up instantly.

"Alright, enough is enough," I said gruffly. I folded my arms across my chest and glared at all three of them. "I'm sick of this shit already and it hasn't even gotten started, so let's just get this straightened out before it turns in to a cry fest. Good? Good. First things first—the day I was born, the Nine Tailed Fox was sealed into me. I am a human prison for the beast, keeping it at bay and yadda yadda. Two: because the Fourth Hokage used the Death God to seal it into me there were unforeseen effects. Specifically that I have ridiculous regeneration that lets me bounce back from anything that would otherwise kill me. I didn't realize that included having my fucking head blown off until today though. And that apparently also releases the Kyuubi and whatnot.

"Which, by the way, I had no control over. So I'm not gonna apologize for trying to kill you, and you won't apologize for trying to kill me because it wasn't me. Now we're going to get Hatake-sensei up, get the hell out of this place, and go back home. Got it?"

I stared at my teammates, daring them to refute my words. Yamanaka's mouth was hanging open as she stared at me, dumbfounded. Aburame was considering me silently behind his dark glasses. And Uchiha? Well, he was smirking.

"Oi! Did I say something funny?" I snapped. "Cause if you think I'm not telling the truth—"

"It is good to see that it's actually you this time," Uchiha interjected smoothly.

I blinked at that. "Huh?"

"You were acting differently before."

"Yeah, well, I was in shock or something," I said while waving a hand around. I was actually pretty sure that I hadn't been, since I'd learned the symptoms of shock and none of them fit what I'd been experiencing at all—but I wasn't about to explain that to him. I didn't even want to think of it myself, because that would mean questioning exactly why I'd been acting so out of character.

Uchiha hummed noncommittally. "So, the Kyuubi…"

I jutted my chin out stubbornly. "Yeah, the Kyuubi. Most of the villagers know, but there's technically some kind of law preventing anyone from saying anything. Hokage's orders. They don't know about how I can heal though, so don't say a word about it until we get to the Hokage or I'll skin you alive—and he probably will too. I hear Uchiha pelts fetch a good price on the market these days," I said snarkily.

Instead of throwing me a glare like he normally would, Uchiha snorted. "We have been living under the same roof for two months now and you haven't breathed a word about any of this. Shouldn't we have known, as your team?" he asked in a flippant tone.

"You'll have to bother the Third Hokage about that one—they're his rules, not mine."

"Didn't we have a right to know?" Yamanaka asked breathlessly. Her lips were thin and tight, like she was physically holding back what she wanted to say, and she was staring at me through narrowed eyes.

I stared right on back at her. "Oh, sorry for not spilling my deepest darkest secrets to people I only started to get to know a few months ago. Should we sit around a campfire at night swapping stories? We're a team—but that doesn't mean you have the right to know anything about me. As for what happened today… Well, I had no idea that it could even happen. The Fourth Hokage died without fully understanding the seal or even explaining it to anyone, so I've been kind of figuring things out as I go. I still don't really know much about how my healing works."

Yamanaka nearly blurted something out, but swallowed it at the last second. Instead she slowly said, "Can I see it? The seal, I mean."

I was not expecting that. "I—what?" I knew that Yamanaka had started studying seals, so I guessed that a Jinchuuriki's seal would probably be something like a holy grail to her, but her abrupt change in attitude left me floundering.

"Yes, I am curious about it as well," Aburame finally spoke up. I still couldn't tell what he was thinking, but at the moment that was the last thing on my mind.

"Hold on, hold on—did I miss something?" I demanded. "What happened to the whole 'Holy shit you're a demon!' part?"

Uchiha frowned. "I thought you said you were the prison, not the demon?"

"Well—yeah. But people don't usually just accept that! Or even believe it for that matter," I said incredulously. "It's generally a little bit difficult to get past the whole demon part."

"You do not normally care about the opinions of others," Aburame pointed out.

"Yeah, but…" I shook my head wordlessly. How the hell was it that this day just kept on getting weirder and weirder? Surely there had to be a limit eventually! At this point I didn't think even the Third Hokage bursting through the doors, stark naked and tap-dancing, would surprise me.

"It's over," Uchiha said with surprising firmness. I expected that he'd be the one to push back the most and demand more answers, but he actually seemed the most eager to dismiss the situation, which sent warning bells off in my head. He said that this whole thing had started when he and I had left to 'explore'. Was there something he was leaving out?

I reluctantly put my suspicions aside for now. Instead I focused my attention on Hatake-sensei, who was still lying unconscious by the large door. Kneeling beside him—and noticing how my teammates kept their distance despite their so-called words of acceptance—I checked his pulse. It was beating like rabbit on speed and he was pale and clammy.

"Alright, whatever," I said to my teammates. "Are you all ready to go now? Hatake-sensei has gotten a hell of a lot worse since I last remember seeing him. Could be an infection or maybe even poison…"

Yamanaka snorted. "I think we're even worse off than last night," she muttered, "but it's not like we have a choice anymore."

"We have wasted too much time already," Uchiha agreed.

We didn't talk any further. I opened the large garage doors and we fell back into the formation we'd been in last night, with Uchiha and me carrying Hatake-sensei between us. Yamanaka was mumbling furiously as we approached the huge transport seal in the middle of the Cavern, clearly fascinated. She spent a few seconds circling and looking over as much of it as she could before Uchiha finally rolled his eyes and yanked her into the array.

It took a small portion of my chakra to activate the seal again. The walls swirled around us, fading away into green trees and rays of sunlight, and then we were off, using the sun as a guide to tell us which direction Hidden Leaf Village was in. My heart was stuck in my throat and my eyes kept involuntarily darting around. I could leave now, if I wanted to. We were only about a day's travel away from Leaf, maybe two if we kept up our current pace. My teammates could easily take Hatake-sensei from here. I was in the best shape out of anyone right now and I had the most stamina regardless of that. I could run and they wouldn't be able to catch me. If I had a good head start I might be able to hide well enough to escape the hunter-nin…

But I didn't want to run. That was the biggest issue. I would rather stare down the Hokage and every ANBU in Leaf before willingly leaving my home. In my entire life I had never taken so much as a step back when someone tried to shove me down, and I had no intention of starting now.

"Fuck it," I muttered under my breath. If they wanted to try and imprison me then they could, but I wasn't going down without a fight. All I had to do was talk to the Hokage and prove to him that I was worth too much to be considered a liability. Jinchuuriki were supposed to be ultimate weapons, right? Perhaps if I could convince him that I could be a weapon…

I would deal with it once we got home, I thought resolutely. Until then it was just a matter of putting one foot in front of the other, and hoping we didn't drop Hatake-sensei and split his head open. If we did, I was pretty sure he'd find a way to come back as a ghost and gleefully torment us for the rest of our lives.

I wanted to say something to dispel the aggravating silence that was smothering our small group, but nothing came to mind. No one else bothered to break up the heavy atmosphere either, so we wound up traveling that way for hours. It got so tense that when Aburame suddenly spoke up that afternoon, the rest of us jumped in our skins.

"There is a squad of Leaf-nin two miles north of us," Aburame said. "They are heading directly for our position and will arrive in approximately four minutes."

We quickly stopped. "They must be the reinforcements Hatake-sensei sent for," Yamanaka said, relief evident in her voice.

"And you're sure they're Leaf-nin?" I asked urgently.

Aburame nodded. I had no idea how his bugs could tell someone's village of origin, but I trusted him enough not to question it further. True to his word, a few minutes later five shinobi dropped from the trees. They were three Chuunin and two Jounin from the look of it, and all of them were sporting Leaf headbands.

One of the Jounin took one look at our state and our unconscious teacher and immediately began firing off rapid orders into a headset communicator. I couldn't help but grin; we must be quite a sight. All of us looked as though we'd been chewed up by a giant summon and then spat back out. I was still shirtless and nearly pantsless, having lost the storage scroll that contained my other clothes sometime during the Kyuubi's fighting, and my teammates hadn't had the chance to change either. I don't think it even crossed our minds to straighten up our appearance—we were all far too keen to get back home and away from the crazy little pocket of hell we'd stumbled into.

Ultimately one of the Chuunin stayed behind to wait for a medic-nin team while the rest of the shinobi continued on to whatever mission they'd been sent on, presumably something to do with the Mist-nin we'd ran into. The Chuunin must have been a medic-nin herself, because she immediately started looking over Hatake-sensei and changing his bandages.

"You did a pretty good job of stabilizing him," she said. "One of you has field medicine training, I take it?"

"I do," I affirmed. Well, I was in-training, but there was no reason to explain that to some woman I'd probably never see again.

She looked up at me in surprise, then frowned and looked away. "The bandages are too loose and they should have been changed hours ago. His fever also should have been dealt with or at least—"

"I thought you just said he did a good job," Yamanaka snapped. She placed her hands on her hips and glared down at the Chuunin.

"Yes, however—"

"Sensei was stabilized to the best of our ability," Aburame said softly as he stepped up next to Yamanaka.

To my utter shock, Uchiha moved to Yamanaka's other side so that the three of them were standing between me and the Chuunin. "Isn't your job just to guard us while we wait for the actual medics?" he sneered.

I don't think my jaw could have dropped any lower. Again I felt like I'd completely missed something—why the hell were my teammates not acting like they were supposed to after finding out that one among them was a demon? And especially after I tried to kill them! Maybe I really did die, I thought dizzily, and this was all some sort of fucked up dream.

The Chuunin had a pinched look on her face. She looked back down at Hatake-sensei and returned to changing his bandages without a word.

I took a few steps back and ran a hand through my hair raggedly. When my teammates joined me I narrowed my eyes at Yamanaka and whispered, "What the hell was that?!"

Yamanaka glared right back at me, any traces of the terrified girl she'd been this morning completely gone. "You're a jackass," she whispered harshly, poking me hard in the chest, "and you're a jackass who lied to us and tried to kill us, even if you didn't have control over it. But that's a team matter. I'm not about to stand by as some bimbo insults a member of my team."

"You do not know her, therefore there is no reason for her to judge you, regardless of what she may have heard," Uchiha said matter-of-factly.

I stared incredulously at the three of them. "You're all a bunch of freaks," I huffed at last. Faster than I could dodge, Yamanaka's hand flashed out and hit the side of my head. "Ow! Sheesh, I was just joking!"

Uchiha snorted and turned away. He was rubbing his temple as he did so, as though to shield his expression, but all of us could see the faint smile on his face.

o-O-o

-7:00 PM, June 16, 312 TE-

-Hidden Leaf Village, Tower District-

The Hokage Tower loomed menacingly over us, its large, open windows staring down accusingly like the eyes of an angry giant. I swallowed thickly and quickly turned my gaze forward as we entered the building. My teammates filed in behind me and we were swiftly led upstairs by one of the Jounin who had met us at the village gates.

Hatake-sensei was recovering in the hospital now, having been taken there as soon as the team of medics arrived. My team and I had been looked over as well, getting most of our major injuries taken care of in the forest. We'd then been carried the rest of the way to Leaf and, even though I'd vehemently protested it, I had to admit that shinobi who'd carried us moved a hell of a lot faster than we could. Any other injuries we had were going to have to wait until after our debriefing with the Hokage.

The Third Hokage was in his primary office with two old men and some old lady when we arrived. The three advisors all stared directly at me with cold, rigid faces like they were a damn inquisition. They stood off to the side of the Hokage's desk, leaving my team to line up before them, backs rigid and hands clasped behind us. My heart was pounding rapidly and my mouth had gone dry again. When the door shut behind us it clicked with the finality of a cell door or a pair of manacles. Even the chakra suppressors on my wrists seemed to be holding me down now, rather than helping me.

Any chance I'd had to run was long gone.

"Team Kakashi," the Third Hokage greeted us solemnly.

I flinched. He already knew what had happened, I thought desperately, before ruthlessly squashing my rising panic. Of course he didn't know. There was no way for him to possibly know. Unless one of my teammates had sent word ahead somehow…

The Hokage had said something else but I hadn't heard it, and now everyone was staring expectantly at me. I felt my usual defenses come surging up, making every muscle in my body pull taut and my teeth grind together. In short, halting sentences I began to explain what had happened on our mission, from seeing a shinobi enter the town we'd been watching up through our fight with the Mist-nin. When I got to the part where we started running back to the Leaf I hesitated.

My teammates were staring at me and I was sure everyone could hear the thudding of my heart—even the guards outside could probably hear that. But there was no turning back now. I would convince the Hokage—and apparently his fucking advisors too; wouldn't that be fun—that I was an asset to Leaf. There was no other way this could go.

"We camped about 30 miles south of Leaf," Uchiha said. "Naruto bandaged Kakashi-sensei while we set up camp. He continued to watch over him while Shino, Ino, and I set up watch rotations. We saw no further sign of the Mist missing-nin nor the Mist hunter-nin. At approximately 0600 this morning we broke camp, erased the signs of our presence, and continued back to Leaf. At approximately 1300 we were found by the Leaf team who had been sent after us. One Chuunin, name unknown, stayed behind with us to ensure that Kakashi-sensei was stabilized. Twenty minutes later the medic team found us and escorted us back to Leaf."

I very, very carefully did not stare open-mouthed at Uchiha. I also very carefully didn't stare at my other teammates when they kept their mouths shut and didn't contradict Uchiha's statements, even though I was pretty sure that this had been some kind of spur of the moment decision on Uchiha's part. Technically, this was treason. One of the first rules we learned in the Academy was that we had to tell everything to the shinobi debriefing us, regardless of how trivial we thought it was. This wasn't trivial. If I was anyone else I would probably be arrested and executed for attempted murder.

Self-preservation somehow managed to keep my expression blank and stop me from twitching. It also stopped me from saying anything else when the Hokage asked us a few more questions about the mission, knowing that my voice would crack if I tried to speak.

There was no suspicion on the faces of the elders or the Hokage. Granted, they displayed absolutely no emotion at all. Except… The third elder—a tall, imposing man with thick jowls and a cross-shaped scar on his chin—had been staring directly at me the entire time. I could tell he was wearing the same stony, unreadable expression as the others, despite part of his head and the right half of his face being wrapped up in bandages, much like Yamanaka. There was a slight gap over where his eye would be, but I could see nothing through it but a deep, dark blackness that seemed to seep out from behind the cloth and slowly engulf the room. It spread and spread until there was nothing left but the man, still staring at me, only now his gaze had a physical weight to it that settled behind my eyes up against my brain.

With a jerk, I realized that the Hokage's office really had faded away. I spun around, but there was only that impenetrable, impossible darkness surrounding us. As I whipped back to the elder he stepped forward and the walking stick he'd been leaning on vanished as well.

"Your teammates are quite convincing," he said, "But I can feel the stench of the Kyuubi surrounding you."

"Where are we?" I demanded, even though it felt as though the breath had been stolen from my lungs. "What the fuck did you do?"

The man chuckled. "To answer the questions you did not think to ask, I am Shimura Danzo, retired ANBU commander. You are currently inside a special genjutsu of mine that will allow us to speak unhindered."

I swallowed thickly; genjutsu had always been a weakness of mine, something I was abysmal at detecting or breaking. Whipping out a kunai, I went to stab myself through the hand to physically break the technique, but the blade merely went straight through my flesh, with no blood or pain. I dropped the kunai in shock and it disappeared before it could touch the nonexistent floor.

"Your physical body is not here, only your mind," Shimura said.

"Yeah, and whaddaya want?"

"The truth, that is all," he said. He sounded completely relaxed and amicable, but his statement about being a former ANBU commander kept ringing through my head. "The Kyuubi was released during your mission. Why?"

"It— it wasn't—"

"I do not take kindly to liars." Now Shimura's voice was cold and flat, like the edge of a blade slashing between us, and I automatically flinched.

"I'm not lying!" I snapped. "What, do you think I go around letting demons out for shits and giggles? That's not what happened! I just…"

Shimura folded his arms behind his back. "Then it is connected to your regeneration."

I choked. Loudly. "That's—! H-how…?" I shook my head. "Never mind; fucking ANBU, I should have expected. You lot are like freaking cockroaches, always under every floorboard." I remembered too late just who I was cursing at, but couldn't quite manage to care through my ire. Besides, the Hokage and Hatake-sensei were the only people who had earned my respect. Anyone else could go suck a doorknob, so long as they didn't bother me.

"You are not nearly as careful as you believe," he noted. "We have been watching you for quite some time. Most of your life. We…manage our assets well."

"I thought you said you were retired," I grumbled.

"No shinobi is ever truly retired. You would do well to remember that."

I stared at him for a long minute, struggling valiantly against the defeated feeling that was creeping up from my chest. "Yes, it's to do with my regeneration," I said defiantly. "Apparently even that is not without its downsides. But everything is completely under control, as you can see."

"The seal was disrupted and the Kyuubi began to take control before you could force it back," Shimura guessed.

My eyes narrowed; that was far too close to the truth for comfort. But if my teammates weren't going to speak up about it, then my lips were going to be as tightly sealed as a shrine maiden's legs. "Yeah, pretty much. But, like I said, it's under control. We got out just fine."

"But it could have been worse. What would you have done if you had turned on your teammates?"

"That—" I swallowed convulsively. "That wouldn't happen."

"But it could. The Kyuubi is a mindless beast of rage and bloodlust. Sarutobi might be willing to let you play the part of a normal shinobi, but we both know that you are not, and will never be. You have an untapped power at your fingertips, and if you do not learn to control it then it will control you."

"Are you saying that you think I can control the Kyuubi?" I asked, confused.

"It is merely chakra, and all chakra can be directed." The tone of Shimura's voice dropped suddenly from relaxed conversation to frigid ice as he said, "Let me put it this way: I have dedicated my life and soul to protecting Leaf. If you are a liability to this village, then you will be taken out and put someplace where you are not a danger to its people. Save me the trouble and stop yourself from becoming a danger in the first place."

"I would never turn on Leaf!" I said vehemently. "I've dedicated my life to protecting it too! I am a shinobi, not—not a demon —"

"But the Kyuubi is."

"That's…" The fuck could I say to that? The truth in his words rung loud and clear over any protests my mind could come up with. "I can control the Kyuubi. I will."

"If it were that simple we would not be having this conversation," Shimura chuckled.

"Then what the fuck do you want from me?!"

"You are denser than I expected. We shall have to remedy that," he mused. I opened my mouth to give another scathing comment, but he held up his hand and the air left my lungs again—only this time he was the cause and I glared at him while spluttering and coughing.

"I am giving you an offer," he said. "I will help you learn to control the Kyuubi. When you are up to my standards I will trust you to protect your burden on your own. But I warn you now—I am extremely exacting in my standards. You would much prefer the softness of your current sensei to my methods."

I hesitated for a long moment, my mind a roiling mess. The impulsive, panicky half of me wanted to immediately jump forward and accept. I was suddenly, out of the blue, being offered training from an ANBU commander, retired or otherwise, and also a quick way out the dilemma I'd been sure I would have to fight my way, tooth and nail, to be free of. The other half of me was circling around my mind with bared teeth, searching carefully for the trap that I knew existed behind his 'generous' offer.

"And what would you get out it?" I asked warily.

Shimura raised his visible eyebrow. "I thought I already told you. I will not allow a fox to roam freely amongst my flock. In my eyes, you have two options: leashing or death. Or worse than death, in your case."

"You would kill a Leaf-nin, just like that?" I was pretty damn sure the Hokage wouldn't allow that, no matter what this old bastard said.

As though he could read my mind, Shimura replied, "Do you think Sarutobi would not agree with me, if he thought you would turn on his village? You may be the bearer of a powerful weapon, but it is a double-edged sword, a rabid dog—as likely to turn on its master as it is to kill its enemies. Even Leaf is not so kind as to let that dog walk free."

"Are you calling me a dog, you son of bitch?" I asked, pretending to be affronted while in actuality I was running through all the options I had.

Ultimately, it was about as simple as Shimura said. I could reject his offer and possibly convince the Hokage that I was still safe, but I might still be dragged away in the dead of night by those who thought of me only as a threat. Or I could agree to his training and actually find a way to keep the Kyuubi under control—assuming that it was even possible—but I would be under the thumb of an obviously ruthless man who could easily take advantage of me to further his own agenda.

A long walking stick appeared out of nowhere and knocked me over the head with enough force to make me see stars. "Son of a bitch," I repeated with a choking gasp, and the stick hit me again. I nearly fell to my knees this time, but regained my balance at the last moment. When my skull stopped reverberating I glared at Shimura while rubbing my now aching head.

"You have your options. I will give you two days to think on your answer," Shimura said.

I nodded slowly. That was a little better than I was expecting, to be honest. Before I could say anything else I suddenly found myself standing back in the Hokage's office, still staring at Shimura's face. The Hokage continued whatever he'd been saying and no one else so much as blinked, as though no one had seen any hint of our conversation. A shiver ran down my spine, but I showed no outward signs of my surprise and agitation.

The debriefing finished at a rapid pace after that. We were instructed to write up and hand in our full, detailed reports by the next day and then were set free. As we the left the room and the elders returned to whatever discussion they'd been previously having, I could feel Shimura's gaze on my back, following me out.

o-O-o

-9:00 PM, June 16, 312 TE-

-Team Kakashi's Apartment-

There was a persistent streak of grime on the edge of the kitchen counter. Sasuke scrubbed at it with a hand cloth in tight, clockwise circular motions. When at last it disappeared he continued along the counter. One, two, three, four, five strokes. Then counter-clockwise—one, two, three, four, five strokes. Next the kitchen table. Sasuke pulled out the chair, then pushed it back in. He repeated the motion twice more before setting the chair to the side, spraying some cleaner onto the tabletop, and scrubbing away. It wasn't clean enough yet. He could see small ramen stains, nearly branded onto its surface.

His throat was burning. Sasuke swallowed several times, but it was still dry as sandpaper. One, two, three, four, five. He stared at the grains of wood as he scrubbed. One, two, three, four, five. Don't think, just clean. Those were ramen stains, not bloodstains. One, two, three, four, five.

A sound from the living room made Sasuke jump. He stilled and closed his eyes for a brief moment. He tapped on the table—once, twice, thrice. He did the same with his other hand. He picked the cloth back up and scrubbed at the table, making it scrape several inches across the floor. Swallowing again he pulled the table back into place before continuing.

The Fangirl and the Mute were sitting in the living room, sorting through and cleaning their equipment. Naruto had retreated into his bedroom the moment they had gotten back to the apartment and hadn't resurfaced in the hour since then. Sasuke tapped on the table again. It didn't help. He repeated the motion two more times with each hand. Still not clean enough. It was still speckled with blood—red and dripping, slowly spilling over the edges and dribbling onto the floor.

Sasuke shook his head vehemently and the gory image disappeared. His hands still looked red though. Covered in Naruto's blood. Covered in his teammate's blood. He could still picture with perfect clarity the expression on Naruto's face—surprised and confused, with a hint of betrayal. "Why?" his face seemed to say. "Why are you exactly like Itachi?"

Sasuke bit down hard on the inside of his cheek and immediately tasted blood as it flooded his mouth. He hesitated for a moment, fighting against his involuntary instincts, before finally giving in and biting his other cheek as well—not hard enough to bleed, but enough to get the same feeling and equal them out. But the flavor in his mouth just brought back the memory of that heavy, metallic, almost sweet smell that had saturated the air of the underground compound. In turn images of his parents lying in pools of blood, blank faces staring up, flashed before his eyes. The grotesque scene was overlaid with one of Naruto, lying on the floor in the same position for all of two seconds before that red chakra exploded out of his body.

He tried to think of anything else. It didn't work. And the table still was not clean enough. It would never be clean enough. He really was just like Itachi—he had killed a teammate. Someone who trusted him, at least in some sense. He was a traitor, in all the ways that mattered. He had killed Naruto and released the Kyuubi, nearly getting his other teammates killed as well.

But the worst part was that no one had said anything. No one had yelled or thrown around accusations. Naruto hadn't demanded justice, Ino and Shino hadn't given him disgusted looks. No one had said anything. Naruto even apologized! Like it was his fault! Was he trying to torment Sasuke, to drive him insane with guilt? It was the only explanation Sasuke could think of. They must have all gotten together without him noticing and plotted to punish him like this.

Only they hadn't. He knew, logically, that they could not have. They had been together for every moment of the last dozen or so hours. There was no time for them to conspire. There was only them and the oppressing silence.

And Naruto still had not come out of his room—had not said a word to the others yet either. It looked like he might, when they first got back to Leaf. He had looked at them, confusion in his gaze, and seemed a second away from speaking. But then they'd been surrounded by shinobi and quickly whisked off to the Hokage Tower, and on the way back from the meeting Naruto had been completely wrapped up in his own thoughts. He almost tripped twice, which as unheard of for any shinobi let alone Naruto, who was known amongst their team as having remarkable situational awareness.

Sasuke thought he knew the reason for Naruto's preoccupation. He had seen the way the crippled elder stared at him through the entire meeting. It had been a piercing look, and a predatory one. It was the same look Itachi had given him that night, as he stood over the bodies of their parents and assessed exactly how he could use Sasuke. It was a look that raised Sasuke's hackles and made him grind his teeth. And it clearly meant something to Naruto too, based on how he had responded. It had been enough to put the day's events out of the blond's mind—something that was completely impossible for Sasuke.

He definitely did not trust that elder. No one with so many similarities to Itachi could be good. He did not trust the other advisors, either, or even the Hokage when it came down to it. They just stared on at them with hard, uncaring faces. They created men like Itachi, intentionally or otherwise. A small, carefully hidden corner of Sasuke's mind blamed them for the death of his clan. He blamed them even more so for the treatment of the villagers, who either revered or were suspicious of him. That corner grew now as he thought of Naruto and the Kyuubi, and it blamed the elders all the more.

"You are agitated."

Shino was standing at the doorway. Sasuke looked up, but said nothing.

"He has every reason to be," Ino said defensively from over Shino's shoulder. "We all are after—after Naruto…"

"It is not his fault," Sasuke said firmly. He wanted to add, it's mine, but the words, along with his breath, were lodged in his throat.

Ino looked torn, but did not disagree. Before the conversation could go any further—or before Sasuke could throw them out of the kitchen, which was more likely—a knock sounded at the front door. Their heads all swiveled in the direction of the sound and for the length of a heartbeat there was silence. Then Ino's shoulder slumped with relief and she hurried to the door.

Shino and Sasuke stepped into the living room just in time to see a tall man with long, blond hair close the door behind him.

"Dad!" Ino greeted as she threw her arms around him.

He looked her up and down without saying a word. When Ino began to fidget nervously, his gaze moved up to Sasuke—who immediately felt himself go tense. The man had the same pupil-less green eyes as his daughter, but on him they looked completely different. Ino's eyes were always bright and warm, like shallow pools of water. On her father they seemed to be deep pits that swallowed everything around him, slowly peeling back the layers until Sasuke felt naked before him.

A shiver ran down his spine and it took all of Sasuke's self-control not to let it show. He could almost feel killing intent in that gaze. And even if it wasn't killing intent, there was certainly no friendliness in his eyes.

When the man finally returned his attention to Ino, Sasuke slumped like a puppet whose strings had been cut. He swiftly retreated back into the safety of the kitchen, having no desire to feel like a kikaichū under a microscope again. He resumed his fervent cleaning and successfully managed to block out the sounds of conversation, at least until the yelling started.

"I'm fine!" Ino was insisting.

"Seeing a field medic-nin is not the same as visiting the hospital," her father said firmly.

"The medic-nin already took care of it. He said I just have to change the bandage once every eight hours—"

"Do you want to take the chance of losing vision in your left eye?"

"Dad, it's not that big of a deal!" Ino protested. "Really, it was a shallow cut; it didn't damage my eye at all."

"We're going. Now," her father said, and that seemed to be the end of the conversation because he swiftly left. With a heavy sigh, Ino followed.

There was only a moment of silence before Shino, still standing in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room, turned to Sasuke. "I believe it would be best for me to return to my clan compound for the evening," he said. "I would like to verify that Naruto's chakra had no ill effects on my colony."

Sasuke tensed. "Are you—?"

"I will say nothing about the events that transpired," Shino said. "I agree that it would do more harm than good." He stared silently at Sasuke for a minute longer, then turned and left.

A heavy silence settled over the apartment. Sasuke closed his eyes and reveled in it. No more words, no more thoughts, no more need to react to other people. It was just him, alone at last.

He carefully rinsed out the hand cloth he had been using and hung it up to dry. He smoothed it out twice before forcing his hands to still and drop back to his sides. He was getting better at forcing down the compulsions, but they still tended to get the better of him when he was emotional. It was true that he could just repress the emotions…but that would make him like Itachi. And that was unacceptable. Any weakness was better than being like Itachi, and any weakness could still be overcome with enough effort.

Sasuke spent a few minutes correcting the placement of the chairs at the table before deciding it felt right. He walked down the hall toward his bedroom—and then stopped, right outside Naruto's room. There were no sounds coming from inside, even though Sasuke knew that his teammate was in there with his tiger. He stared at the wood of the door. It felt like an icy hand had forced itself down his throat and was now squeezing his heart. The guilt welled up again, and the ice began to spread to the rest of his body. Sasuke tore his gaze away and strode the remainder of the way to his own door.

Once the door was locked securely behind him, Sasuke stood in the middle of his bedroom. It was sparsely decorated and perfectly clean, as could only be expected from an Uchiha. He took great pride in making sure that there was not so much as a kunai out of place at all times. Even the small desk he had was kept completely clear.

Sasuke pulled a storage scroll out of his leg pouch and set it on the desk. For several minutes he did nothing more than stare at it. It looked so innocent now. Just paper and ink. The hand in his chest squeezed harder.

Slowly, almost hesitantly, Sasuke reached out, unsealed the scroll, and activated it with a deliberate pulse of chakra. The ink flared to life and wormed across the paper like it had a life of its own. Then, in a flash, the black chakra weapon from the compound appeared. Sasuke licked his lips and continued to stare at it, hand hovering a few inches away, half expecting it to lash out at him. It looked so innocent too. He would think it was a worthless hunk of metal had he not seen—felt, heard, smelled—the damage it could do firsthand.

It still smelled like blood, but that might have been Sasuke's imagination. Or it might have been the blood staining his skin.

Sasuke picked up the chakra weapon, marveling once more at how perfectly it fit in his hand. It made kunai feel clumsy and brittle. Even the swords he was learning to use in class felt unwieldy in comparison. The stench of blood was stronger now. Sasuke's nostrils flared and the expression on Naruto's face as he died returned, clearer than ever. It was burned into Sasuke's memory, never to fade, no matter how much time passed. It was a part of him now, as much as his own limbs were.

As he stared down at the chakra weapon, red bled into Sasuke's eyes. He didn't need a mirror to know how they'd changed, the black tomoe stretching out to join his pupils like a pinwheel. His hated eyes, activated that atrocious night so many years ago while standing before the bodies of his parents. His hated eyes that he refused to acknowledge, refused to bend to.

His hated eyes that had changed last night.

They burned now. They ate at his chakra like hungry little demons that hissed and spat and snarled in the back of his mind. They weren't just eyes—they were curses. The memory of Naruto burned like a physical thing, reminding Sasuke of his failure.

Itachi, his mind whispered. Itachi, Itachi, Itachi.

Sasuke gripped the handle tighter. He didn't need these eyes to stop Itachi. He had exactly what he needed now, and it was something Itachi had never seen before. The element of surprise was what made exceptional shinobi. And Sasuke would shove the element of surprise in Itachi's face and pull the trigger.

o-O-o

A/N: Well Team Kakashi just managed to completely shock me too. I started this chapter with every intention of having Naruto tell the Third the full truth, but his teammates completely refused. Same with Danzo—he wasn't supposed to reveal his hand for another couple chapters yet.

Many thanks to everyone who offered to help edit WDF; I really appreciate it! Next chapter should be up in a week =]

-SR

If all the world hated you and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved of you and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends.

-Charlotte Bronte