Ohhh…I thought I'd never update…

And here I am…ehehehe. Luckily for you, just chapters 28/29/30 to write and the story's over. So, even given my other things to write and my awful lack of time, by the end of the year, everything will be over (chuckles)

Dedicated to: Sasina – because her reviews was so…well, special. It really made me feel good and to AB Firestar – 8 reviews in a sole day, wow! (bows) Arigatou Gozaimasu!

(Bear with me, I'm studying Japanese for my Uni exam…)

Yumi

Chapter 25: One new question

It was funny actually how things were organized in the Akatsuki hideout.

After Sasori's protests were silenced by the evidence that, even if he blamed it on every freaking person in the world, the fact a Squad of Konoha's Ninjas was coming closer and closer to them, the preparations for the counterattack started.

If they could be called preparations, obviously.

The "how-to-send-back-to-hell-those-stupid-assholes-from-the-Leaf" training, in fact, merely consisted in deciding who was to pick up that uncomfortable task and waste a bit of his supreme powers to get rid of three insignificant mosquitoes.

Hinata couldn't help but feel a bit irritated about that attitude. In the end, it was her village and, even if she was now a traitor – and she had to actually repeat it to herself a thousand of times every day to firmly grasp that reality – she still had some sort of…respect towards the place that brought her up.

Anyway, after a few days of yells and various insults and air so thick and drenched in tension you could feel electricity run through it, the matter was simply dismissed with a seraphic "Uchiha wanted her, so Uchiha has to deal with her problems".

Fair enough, she had thought, at least she didn't have to hear Sasori anymore. Hopefully.

On the other hand, Uchiha Itachi didn't have much of a reaction to the news. Truth to be told, he didn't react at all, as usual.
The former Hyuuga heiress supposed that, in the end, it didn't make any difference to him if he spent his day staring out of a window, or completing missions or effortlessly crushing three Shinobi, so why should he bother?

He didn't bother when he wiped out his own clan in a sole night, so there was no way in Hell he should do it for such a trivial thing.

'I bet he didn't even flinch when he knew Sasuke-kun betrayed the village as well…'

But…did he really know it? Of course he did. Uchiha Itachi was a bit like those cheap fortune-tellers on TV, he always knew everything about everyone – and probably it was also due to the fact that, apart from the sporadic missions and training, he didn't have much to do in the hideout, since the occasional chores were carried out by Deidara and, recently, by herself as well.

If it depended on the (majority) of male components around there, they would be sailing and drowning in dust and trash.

In any case, even if Itachi knew about his brother's betrayal, was he aware…of the consequences?

Or better, had he been informed on the ending of the story?

He probably didn't. No one did, as far as she remembered, the whole thing had been kept totally secret and just a bunch of people in Konoha had been allowed to be part of that.

She had been one of those, mostly because she had heard the whole matter from her dear Naruto, just a few months before he got murdered. Maybe his death could even be related to this now that she thought about it but…it was the past, no use to dwell into it.

And no need to go and bother Itachi about that, either. Even if…

'Even if nothing!'

But she felt curious. Even if she had heard many and many times that "curiosity killed the cat", she couldn't help but wonder and soon her mind got filled with so many questions she felt as if it could explode any minute.

A simple, unconscious musing had caused such a riot within her soul.

Why did he spare Sasuke?

Does he really know what happened after his betrayal?

Did he even think about that?

So many question marks and she not even a single answer to them to be read beyond his eyes, or in his rare words or his aloof attitude.

Hinata wanted to ask him

Hinata needed to ask him.

But how? She couldn't just pop there and go like "Itachi, why did you kill everyone except for Sasuke? Oh, and by the way, do you know that after he left to join Orochimaru…"

He would have killed her on the spot and he would probably be even right in doing so.

She needed the calm and rational approach. She needed to work her way into his mood and his aloofness. She had quite learned how to in these past months.

That's why, on a dark and rainy night, she slipped once again into his rooms.