Help Wanted
Chapter Twenty-five — Au Courant
Dedicated to Bayes
"It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts."
— Arthur Conan Doyle
Time ticked relentlessly by as the fifteen minutes Itachi had said he needed to himself, progressed to thirty.
It was almost an hour before Konan gathered her scattered wits together and made her way down the hall. She headed towards the room where Itachi kept all old records, antiques, books and such that he had recovered from the fire. The fire that Obito had set to the Uchiha Manor after he slaughtered its residents, many years ago.
She halted before the double doors, inlaid, with pearl handles.
A film of sweat broke out over her body.
She had tried Hidan's mobile number at least a dozen times since Itachi slammed this very door in her face. And on each try she had been unsuccessful at getting through. It wasn't a good sign. He could've already dropped Tenten off somewhere and very well be on his way back. The Uchiha was not going to want to hear that.
"Itachi," she murmured, softly, then tapped lightly on the panels, and pushed open the door.
She hovered indecisively before stumbling unceremoniously into the room. A room that immediately chilled her by its severity. Konan did not know what she had expected, what kind of reaction she had thought Itachi might reveal but certainly, she was not prepared for the disdain that lurked in the depths of his black eyes as he turned in her direction.
Her desire for escape—which had been growing within her ever since she told him the truth—reached tremendous proportions.
She wanted to seek the freedom she would find outside the bounds of this bleakly furnished room. The smell of rain tinged with smoke lingered faintly beneath the furnisher polish and scented air freshener. Intangible remnants from the fire. A small reminder of the events of that horrible night.
None of the luxury and opulence that could be found elsewhere in the house was present here. Instead, the floors were starkly polished wood, strewn with skin rugs, while the walls were lined with shelves containing hundreds of drab-covered tomes and souvenirs that had obviously rarely seen the light of day.
The desk was oak, and strewn with papers, while the two chairs before and behind it were brown leather and merely conventional. They were obviously recovered from Fugaku's old office. But even while Konan abstractedly noticed these things her whole attention was focused on the man who was staring at her with cold intensity.
Tension netted her.
To anyone else it would seem as if there was no expression in his eyes. None in his face, either. But she knew that in his heart fury burned. Implacable, unforgiving. Deadly.
She said nothing. Her expression too, was shuttered—tight when she crept into the room.
The silence literally screamed.
She wished he would say something. She knew she was not being overly sensitive in imagining that she was being mentally examined now, like an insect under a microscope.
"You're still here?" the inflection in his voice was faintly curious, yet chillingly polite, and she suppressed a slight shiver of apprehension.
"You said we needed to talk," she reminded him. "Indeed there are still things I need to elaborate on," she added with deliberate significance.
"Is that so?" he asked, slowly, continuing to regard her intently.
For some reason she began to find it difficult to articulate. "Y-yes," she managed, tremulously. "A-about the girl."
It was all so terribly anti-climatic, Konan thought, desperately. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined feeling so completely inadequate. She didn't know quite why Itachi should regard her so contemptuously when all she was doing—all she has ever done—was look out for him. Cater to his best interest. But most significant of all was the realization that this man before her was a stranger.
It has been so long since she saw him hint at having even an ounce of fondness towards a woman besides herself, that it felt a little surreal he fancies himself to be in love with Tenten.
"It was for your good, you know," she finally said in a rush, cutting straight to the chase.
One eyebrow arched in silent query.
Konan drew a deep breath, and then released it slowly. "By withholding specific information about the girl," she began, tight-lipped, "I believed myself to be doing right by you."
"Do right by me or yourself?" Itachi countered with cold clarity. His complete incomprehension on that score was as palpable as the fact that he had been deeply hurt and offended by her actions. "You didn't stop to think about the repercussions. I destroyed someone today, Konan. Someone I've come to care—"
"I get it Itachi," she cut in jaggedly.
She found herself squirming. Convince herself as she might, Konan was honestly not ready to hear him say it out loud. She was not ready to hear him say that Tenten had accomplished in a few weeks what she couldn't after so many years—his love.
He raked at her in condemnation. "How could you do that?"
The flash of genuine pain and bewilderment she recognized in his eyes made her shrivel on the inside. But she managed to keep her own eyes enigmatic. "Her records identified her as two different persons; an Uchiha and a Hatake. I had to be certain which one she truly was before I said anything to—"
"—except that you didn't," he interposed tautly. "You conveniently forgot to tell me that there was also a possibility that she could've been Kakashi's offspring." Catching a tight rein on his temper he clasped his hands before him on the desk and asked with a deceptive kind of calm, "Why?"
"Because I'd rather not build up your hope only to tear it back down should the test have revealed that Tenten was in fact Obito and Rin's child," she stated repressively.
He met her gaze with a mixture of hopeless anger. "You had no problem crushing it from the very beginning."
"To prevent a plant from flowering one must first stop the seed from germinating," Konan offered. Put like that it sounded so laconic; bitter almost.
On the contrary, her concern was sincere. It was better to have slain his feelings for the girl in its earlier stages than later on. After it evolved beyond the flesh and ingrained itself within one's soul, love was near impossible to get rid of. Painful too.
Itachi's face clenched.
He was even angrier than she had anticipated. Without warning, he thrust back his chair and sprang upright like he hadn't previously been ill.
She shifted uncomfortably, and he straightened, moving with the lazy indolent grace which had always reminded her of the smooth feline elegance of a cat, but no mild domestic animal, this. A truly formidable male animal he was, and a dangerous one, she perceived. It was there in his bearing—a ruthlessness clearly evident, forbidding and faintly cruel.
"Sit down," he instructed gruffly, indicating the chair opposite the one he had previously occupied.
Konan hesitated. She had no desire to sit down if he was going to stand. She felt at enough of a disadvantage as it was without increasing her discomfort. But finally she did as he asked, and waited for him to make the next move.
Out of the corner of her eye, she watched him pace over to the tall windows. He stood there for a moment, leaning against the frame, regarding the view almost dispassionately.
This particular room had a magnificent view of the sunset—the horizon deepening to purple as the sun sank out of sight. But the man seemed indifferent to his surroundings, even while he fitted into them.
"It's dangerous to keep her around," she spoke up, linking her fingers in her lap.
"What gave you that idea?" Itachi challenged, without skipping a beat.
"Her presence could lure Obito right back to you," she elaborated. "You are after all, unfinished business."
Itachi stilled for a moment in his restive passage around the room and shot her a look that revealed nothing. "He is unfinished business," he corrected. Then his lashes dropped low, his features freezing. "If he gets within a mile of this place I'll kill him."
Her smile was wholly cynical. "You're not a killer Itachi."
That was where she was wrong. He was after all, an ex member of the force. He has taken lives before. "You don't know what I am."
"I know what you aren't."
He regarded her silently for several seconds until the silence between them drew out and seem to become a tangible entity.
She bit her lip.
He was still, every muscle tensed with anger, and she caught her breath in fear of what form his retaliation might take. But then his dark eyes had the icy glitter of stars, and she knew his temper was under wraps again. Or at least she hopes.
"If something happens to Tenten, I swear—" he ground out. "—you'll be the first to know exactly what I am or am not," he threatened ominously.
"If something happens to her it'll be no one's fault but your own," she informed him stiltedly, and saw his faint grimace. "I didn't kick her out, Itachi. You did."
His jaw line squared in pure outrage at that unbelievably tactless reminder. It may have been petty but it was the truth.
"Because of your negligence to tell me the full truth," he expostulated angrily, his eyes smouldering like the heart of a fire.
Konan waited several second before responding soberly. "We've already established why I did that."
"Your reasoning isn't exactly a reflection of the Konan I know."
She stared at him painfully, colour flooding her cheeks and receding again. All that went unsaid in that remark filled her with intense discomfiture.
There was derision in his voice, and a mocking expression in his eyes. He was amusing himself with her, she thought sickly. Making fun of her impulse to protect him from hurt—from Tenten. He was making fun of her affections, which meant that he was aware of them.
Nerves twisted her stomach into a painful knot.
Itachi didn't have to say it, she read him better than an opened book. He was under the impression that everything she had done was an act of jealousy. And, from the smug tilt of his lips she could tell he had a flashback to the time she kissed him. It wasn't for the sake of relishing the memory though. He sought it to justify his belief that her actions were envy-induced.
"I must be going," Konan began, getting unsteadily to her feet. It was both a blessing and a curse to be able to discern what Itachi was thinking some times.
He lifted his shoulders indolently. "Don't be so sensitive," he murmured.
Her nails dug into the palms of her hands. She felt stripped bare—of her clothes, of her skin and mortal bones, until all that was left was her soul. Exposed. "I really must be going," she said unevenly.
"We're not done here," he said, coolly and clearly. "I'd like a few things clarified. In addition, Tenten has still not been returned to me," he drawled with controlled impatience.
"Another time—" she asserted, finding it difficult to maintain a sense of reality in all his indifference towards her but blatant concern over a woman he had known only for a few short weeks. "—I'll answer all your questions then."
His eyes flickered at this. But then he crossed the room again, dominating it with his sheer size and presence, his every movement inherently graceful.
"You came here to talk, so talk. Have you been able to make contact with Hidan?"
Someone once said that no news was better than bad news so with that in mind Konan kept quiet. She allowed her gaze to wander idly over the bookshelves that ran floor to ceiling along an entire wall.
Family records, she marveled.
Uchiha Fugaku used to be obsessed with documenting every single accomplishment, event, transaction and the likes that had to do with the clan and its individuals. The old man had hoped to have his autobiography published but his untimely death severed that dream.
It wasn't completely severed, Konan thought to herself. There was enough material within the binds of these books to create a series of novels from all their lives. She recalled Itachi complaining about his lack of privacy during their teen years. Apparently his father even went as far as to have the receipts from their purchases extracted from their credit cards. Everything was copied and filed away.
Itachi's disgruntlement was understandable. There were certain things a teenage boy would be uncomfortable adding to the household's shopping list and hence would have to get it himself. But as it turned out, even doing so was in vain.
"Sit down." He suddenly said, innate authority in every measured syllable.
Konan was stung out of thought.
She gave an awkward face-saving shrug. "Surely you don't expect Tenten to come back at your request. You tossed her out so quickly it felt like Thursday and you were trying to catch the garbage truck."
"I still maintain that you're the reason for that," Itachi delivered with murderous cool. He glanced over to one of the bookshelves, selected a book and tossed it lightly to her. "I don't suppose it's odd that the surname Tenten uses is neither Uchiha nor Hatake," he said, changing the subject.
His companion blinked.
"However, what I found odd was that there were a number of payments made from Obito's bank account to a Z. Momochi." Speculation threaded his voice as he settled in his chair once more. "Momochi is the last name Tenten claims as her own. She told me it was given to her when she was adopted."
"What are you saying?" Konan asked, annoyed at the falter in her voice. "Do you suppose Obito had been sending money to the family to take care of her? I mean it would make some amount of sense." She tried to reason.
Rin's blood ran through Tenten's vein after all, and she clearly have had some kind of relation with the man. Had he been her guardian from afar? A silent provider?
Itachi frowned, "That couldn't have been the case. When Sasuke met her she was homeless."
"It could've been a case of negligence and greed on her foster family's part," she volunteered. "A lot of foster parents are only interested in the—"
"—that's not it," his shrug was slight and almost undetectable. "Take a look at all those bank statements. The dates to be more specific," he instructed.
Itachi watched her skim through the fragile pages of the dusty, old book. Every once in a while she would pause to cough or sneeze.
"The payments started long after Sasuke met Tenten. She was eight then. She had to have been at least fourteen when the transactions were made," he pointed out.
She looked over the dates and nodded. "You're right. If Obito was aware of Tenten's whereabouts back then surely he would've informed Rin. I mean, she was still alive when Sasuke went on that field trip—terribly ill, but alive," Konan murmured.
Then she noted the sum of money being transferred across the accounts and went white as parchment.
Thousands of dollars. Enough to feed and clothed several households for several years.
"Umm, Itachi…?" her voice trailed away as the realization dawned.
"Hn?"
"By any chance does Z. Momochi go by the name Zabuza?" Her eyes had gone enormous, her entire body numb with incredulity.
Something like recognition flashed in Itachi's eyes before he wordlessly reached across the table for a tattered, old leather legal pad folder and flipped it opened.
It once belonged to Obito.
Itachi had come across a long list of names back then—scrawled across its pages. A listing of the man's dealers, he surmised. He was almost certain that was where he saw the name Zabuza before.
His hands fumbled through the pages.
The need to know drove his finger on down the page. When he found the name he looked back at Konan, his eyes narrowed. "Yeah. What of it?"
"He was a notorious drug Lord and leader of the Yakuza gang."
He elevated a cool, slanting dark brow. "Is that so?" He looked hugely unimpressed by that reveal. "Well there's certainly no surprise there," he said with a grim edge. "Obito wasn't exactly known to associate with anyone but delinquents."
Konan lips compressed into a thin line that hinted at her being in deep thought. "Now that you've brought this to my attention the blanks have been filled in."
He switched on a lamp that stood on his desk and the mellow glow banished the shadows which had begun to creep into the room. "What do you mean?"
Night was fast approaching.
He felt a chill of foreboding tearing through him. And a pluck of guilt.
He had a bad feeling about having kicked out Tenten without knowing exactly what Obito's deal was with her. Something did not set well with him about their connection. The poor girl had looked horrified at the mere mention of his name. Then there were the nightmares. Itachi could never forget her nightmares. They always kept him awake.
Konan wet her lips with her tongue. "It's possible that Obito discovered Tenten through his dealings with Zabuza."
"That much I gather," his voice almost failed him because with every word she spoke Tenten's nightmares were beginning to explain themselves. "Ever since the day Sasuke brought up the girl from his field trip who had Rin's necklace Obito must've figured Tenten hadn't died in the car crash—" Then he slotted in tightly, "—back when Rin went to fetch her in Suna."
"Well, now we know what happened to her after the accident. She became a homeless wanderer until she somehow got tangled up with Momochi," Konan imparted, regarding him in open dismay. "It makes you wonder what use Yakuza had for a small girl like that. Perhaps they used her as a vessel for transporting drugs. Does she have any surgical scars?"
Like clips from an old movie, memories from his encounter with the brunette's bare body shaded through his mind. Then quite suddenly Itachi smote his fist into the palm of his hand. "No she doesn't but she has that symbol carved into her hip," he said huskily.
Konan's cheek lost some colour, "You mean…?"
"Yes." For an instant she saw a flash of stark, bitter pain in his narrowed gaze before he screened it. "It's now safe to assume that he didn't exactly play the role of a doting fairy godfather to her."
"Well, considering who her biological father is," she supplied gravely, in all fairneas.
It was no secret. Obito despised Kakashi. Tenten being a part of Rin probably wasn't enough to distract from the fact that she was fathered by the enemy.
Itachi let his shoulders relax back into the chair, and lifted his cup. Despite the liberating ease with which he was conversing with Konan, at the same time he was aware of the swell of foreboding still rising within him. A peculiar sensation of fear, like a trickle of electricity rippled through him, just below the level of his skin.
He couldn't dispel the bleak edge that had overtaken his mood.
Danger and tragedy was amidst.
He didn't know how he could be so sure, yet he was. It was a truth as implacable as a law of the universe. Inescapable. And, just as relentless as that truth, came the second wave of disquiet, harder and more jolting than the first.
He had been the one to throw the bait in the lion's den.
Konan ran her hand down one of the pages and lifted her head to Itachi. She gave him a curious, veiled look. "I don't know if you know this, but Zabuza was found dead at his home seven years ago. Guess what the detectives found etched—"
"—into his skin," Itachi fielded ruefully. "Obito's signature mark."
The man was predictable.
She nodded. "It's not his mark Itachi; rather, it's every Uchiha's."
He glowered at her again, an impatient gleam in the depths of his dark eyes. "What do you mean?"
"It's an old Uchiha family crest," she said succinctly, deliberately pausing to ascertain from Itachi's expression, whether further elaboration was necessary.
She didn't have to wait long.
"Spare me the history lecture," he was hard and arrogant again, his approachability dissolving.
His raw, dismissive words lay there between them, plunging them into a sudden, thunderous silence.
"I'm curious," he said after a long while, without any expression at all.
"About?"
"Where was Kakashi in all of this?" he snapped. "Was he not made aware of Tenten's existence after Rin's unsuccessful expedition to Suna?"
"I thought you might ask that." A slender hand casually closed round the half-filled cup sitting on the edge of his desk and extended it to him. "You might want to finish your coffee for this, Itachi."
Didn't she smell the alcohol? He wondered. The bottle of Mangekyo was sitting in open view. Couldn't she tell that it wasn't black coffee? Evidently, not.
"What aren't you telling me?" he reached out and accepted the cup. "No more secrets. Tell me everything."
Itachi tossed back the rest of his drink in a burning surge. He could feel his anger stab like the fiery heat of the liquor in his throat. Then, forcing himself to lessen his grip on the mug, he inhaled deeply. Anger was unnecessary. What was done was already done. All he could do was look ahead and hope she would be there.
Konan produced a brown folder from the handbag she had settled next to her on the ground and slid it across to him. "Sasori delivered these, prior to my coming here."
Itachi sent the folder a winging glance. His brow must've been tight with tension because he rubbed it with his fingers. Still, his silence was encouraging.
Her soft mouth hardened. "Do you recall me saying I couldn't find any records of Tenten Momochi in Konoha?"
"Hn."
"That's because when it came to legalities she went by another name—"
Itachi's eyes rested on her like weights.
"—Kaoru Mochida," her voice was a thread.
"I don't understand."
"Look at the files," Konan urged. "They're her high school and medical records."
He opened the folder and deftly extracted the sheaf of papers it contained. "These are only dated as far back as seven years ago," he declared after very long and careful scrutiny. "It's as if she didn't exist before that."
She tilted her blue head to one side and stared at him. "In some sense, I guess she didn't."
"Hn," he muttered distractedly.
Despite having only started school at age fourteen, Tenten's transcript was impressive, he noted in awe. She particularly excelled in language and literature from the looks of things an aspired to be a writer.
Maybe it's true what they say; pain and suffering gave birth to some of the most gifted individuals. As a way of coping they channelled negativity into creative streams.
Kaoru Mochida, Itachi digressed. It was a pretty name.
"Quite interestingly enough, Tenten came back on the grid the same year Momochi was murdered." Konan's eyes briefly slipped away from him. "I'm well aware that Obito is the bad guy here but—"
His faint indrawn hiss of disapproval was more visible than audible. "Hn?"
She swallowed, a hard knot in her throat, and looked back at him, straight in the eye. "—he has obviously been looking out for the girl. We shouldn't rule out the possibility of Tenten being a rebel on the run. I mean, if we take her upbringing prior to your cousin into account, it's not too much of a stretch."
"Take a look at her medical records, Konan. She has been treated for burns, bruises and a few broken bones," his harsh voice cut through her recrimination of Tenten. "Don't tell me you think they were either self inflicted or mere injuries from co curricular activities? She was being abused."
"Read with your eyes and not your heart, Itachi," she told him with a measure of cynicism.
His brows drew together. "What's that suppose to mean?"
She gave a barely derisive snort. "I'm sure you know.
Silence simmered like a cauldron on the boil.
Even as he immersed himself in the files before him to avoid making a retort, his face looked broken, ravaged.
He really was in love with this girl. The knowledge scraped at her heart. On one hand she was relieved he wasn't as emotionally challenged as the world believed, but on the other—
Well, frankly his love for Tenten confused her. Possessiveness and protectiveness, she understood. But love made no sense. They hardly knew each other.
Konan regarded him quietly for a moment before determination lent her eyes a sparkle. "Tenten has more than a couple detentions on her records for fighting at school."
Itachi shrugged negligibly. "So?"
"That could easily explain her many trips to the hospital," she sounded dubious even to herself. "You know what they say—" she incised without the slightest bit of hesitation, "—you can take the man out of the slum but you can't take the slum out of the man."
"If you're implying that Tenten was ungrateful or didn't see the value in what Obito tried to give her, then there are records to prove you wrong," Itachi argued with more emotional than she had ever seen him. Then without warning he gruffly thrust a few sheets of paper in her direction. "Her academic reports are all near perfect. Except for the first year and that can be pardoned given the circumstances."
"I'm only trying to look at things from a number of perspectives," she confided warily.
He lifted his hands and spread them in an almost aggressive silencing motion. "You claim you're so keen on details but I've come to realize that you see only what you want to see." He muttered heavily, his lean, strong hands clenching into fists and then slowly unclenching again as if he was willing himself into greater calm.
"What?" she breathed thickly.
"The scuffles you mentioned were all during her first year. And if you had read the account of each fight, you've known that they all started because she was being teased or bullied by another student—"
"That's only Tenten's side of the story," Konan cut in matter-of-factly. "The other parties' accounts of the altercations are placed on their records."
"—Naturally anyone would be bound to retaliate," he conceded in a dark, roughened undertone. "I imagine she might've been a little slower than the others, at first."
He had already worked it all out, Konan registered.
"No doubt she was ridiculed for it." he ground out between clenched white teeth. "No wonder she had so many sessions with the school's guidance counselor," he scowled, scanning another sheet of paper. "How did Sasori come by all of this?"
All of this was private information.
"He's Sasori," Konan said. "That fact is self-explanatory really."
The redhead was always the man to get his hands dirty when push came to shove.
Quite suddenly Itachi went sort of sickly grey in front of her, a sheen of perspiration on his skin. He set the papers down and settled sombre dark eyes on her. "Her high school counselor was Kakashi Hatake?" he prompted on a rising note of incredulity.
She nodded in affirmative and watched him pour a swig of Mangekyo into his mug with a great deal less than his usual dexterity. "Now does it make sense why Obito had Tenten's name changed?"
"I suppose," Itachi said, evidently getting his brain back into gear. "You mean to tell me that for five years, she went to this man for counseling and did not know that he was her father?"
"Nor did he. Kaoru is actually Tenten's middle name, if her birth certificate is anything to go by. It's the same on her forged death certificate as well."
"She's not an orphan after all," a small smile slashed his stubborn mouth.
A strange kind of fascinated relief was emanating from him in perceptible waves. Konan could feel it.
"My guess is that, had Tenten gone by the name Uchiha or Hatake, Kakashi might've figured something. Obito wouldn't risk that happening. Her adoption was never made official so dropping Momochi from her name wouldn't have been a problem."
Itachi folded his arms and focused on her with grave dark eyes, his tension palpable. "And you knew all this for how long?"
"I already told you, I got the results from the DNA test this morning. It's actually by chance that I came by all this information on Tenten." She informed him gently. "I had asked Sasori to locate Kakashi and do a little digging. How do you think we came by his DNA?"
He mumbled something indecipherable.
"While he was out on reconnaissance—"
Code for breaking and entering the man's place of residence.
"—he came across a picture of Tenten in Kakashi's office drawer. Sasori thought it warranted further investigation so he decided to probe some more." She casually leaned back in her chair and finished smoothly, "It was all by chance."
Itachi was silent for a moment, seemingly digesting everything.
"It has been eight hours since they left, Hidan should be back by now." Konan found herself pointing out uncomfortably.
"Call him," he said, looking at her from above the rim of his mug.
She pulled his telephone towards her.
"Do you mind if I use your landline? He's not taking my calls," she said and with faintly shaking fingers dialed Hidan's digits, then waited with scant patience for him to answer. "Maybe if he sees your number, he'll pick up."
"He had better," Itachi growled with furious impatience and growing frustration.
After a seemingly interminable length of time the call seem to pitch through. An Incredulous silence hummed on Konan's side of the line.
Then he heard her bark an ill-manned greeting. "Where the hell are you? Itachi needs you to return now, and you had better have Tenten with you." She added with supreme cool.
He poured another liberal amount of Mangekyo into his cup and slowly drank it down, grimacing at the way Konan's face suddenly tighten and pale.
"How the hell did you come by this number?" she demanded, pale purplish shadows forming beneath her eyes. "Where's Hidan?"
"What is it?" Itachi queried.
She was so tense her muscles must literally ache, he mused—not amused. She was speaking into the phone, but somehow her voice sounded to him as though it was coming from the other end of a long dark tunnel.
Then suddenly she looked down dazedly at the receiver and thrust it violently back on the cradle.
Itachi thought that her horror and pallor gave him a fair enough indication that Hidan had already dropped Tenten off and all hope of atonement was lost. But with a handful of words, spoken without her usual utmost calm and cool, she had plunged him into shock as well. Or rather, had plunged shock into him. It settled like pointed shards of ice in his stomach.
The mug dropped right out of his hand and fell soundlessly to the carpet. But it smashed noisily when he stood on it in his sudden surging jolt unto his feet. "If that was a joke, it's a lousy one," he breathed raggedly.
"I don't joke Uchiha," she heard herself say unevenly.
He gazed at her as if she had taken flight without wings before his eyes. "Say that again."
"I don't know why or how or what's going on Itachi—" she spluttered in horror as if the words had jumbled fiercely in her brain. "—but I'm positive that was Obito on the other end of the line," her breath snarled up in her throat.
Emotion sliced through Itachi. Shock and dismay were uppermost. But beneath both, another emotion stabbed. And there was no hope of subduing it.
Fear.
The how didn't matter, neither did the why or when. None of small details mattered—as crucial as they were to understand what was going on. All that mattered at the moment was that Obito had somehow made contact with Hidan and Tenten. And that could only mean trouble for them.
A/N: I know. I know. Where the fuck have I been all this time? Why did the update take forever? Because I suck that's why. I know this chapter was pure conversation, but I hope you found it enlightening, even just the tiniest bit. If not, then I've completely failed. I must apologize for the lack of ItaTen though :( It's there in subtext if you squint lol ;) She wants to be a writer...his dad's autobiography is unfinished...hint hint ;) There are loads more...just in subtext xD
Thank you so much for the previous birthday wishes and the lovely reviews. And as always I'm glad you took the time out to read. Feedback is always appreciated :)