Puppets and Puppeteers

"Train me."

"No."

Sasuke burned with indignation at his brother's refusal. "But why?!" he shouted, nearly knocking over the mug of tea. "There's a lot more you can teach me than Kakashi-sensei. I don't even know how the hell he got his Sharingan but it sure as hell isn't his own. Train me!" Itachi paced the living room and went over to a cabinet. His little brother had harassed him ever since he got out of the hospital, and even now the ANBU captain wasn't getting any peace. It was bad enough back when they demoted his apprentice, but this was much worse. He cursed inwardly when he couldn't find his migraine medicine.

"Because I will not let your pathetic little vendetta distract you from growing stronger."

The answer stopped the genin cold. "Even if I train you for a solid year your strength will not be enough to even scratch a fraction of Uzumaki's potential," Itachi said. "You should drop this silly little excuse for a rivalry and just face facts. He's just stronger than you are. And in the future, he'll possibly even surpass me." Sasuke shuffled in his seat, feeling very much like the twelve year old he was.

"I still don't see what makes him so special."

"You won't understand."

"Then try me."

Itachi took a deep breath and took a seat in front of the couch. "Naruto is different from us all in that he had to grow up in adversity," the older Uchiha said. "From day one the whole world was against him and treated him like he'd never be worth anything. Every single step he took, every single bit of progress he gained, he had to fight tooth and nail to keep. Still he not only survived, he thrived. His growth is nothing short of phenomenal and even if I had not come along, he would have probably turned out the same way."

"If that's true then why did you ever let him go?"

Now it was Itachi's turn to be silent. "Well?" Sasuke challenged. "Why did you?"

"That has nothing to do with anything."

"Oniisan!"

"Leave now Sasuke. Go to your Kakashi-sensei. Perhaps he may yet surprise you."

The younger Uchiha left whispering oaths that would have given Mikoto reason to scrub his mouth out with soap for a whole month. Itachi took the tea set and left it in the sink, saying "doesn't anybody use the door anymore?" Tenzou grinned from his perch in the fire escape.

"Where's the fun in that Uchiha-teicho?" he replied. "We're ninja. We never use the door." Itachi didn't even bother to set the tea set again, muttering something about "bastard freeloaders and stupid doors."

"Say, you didn't assign Naruto a recon mission did you?"

"What?"

"From your reaction I guess this is news to you too."

Itachi took the scroll proffered to him and swept some things away from the kitchen table. The boy had been gone for a week now, his former mentor had assumed he was on a training sabbatical of a sort since he had to retake the chuunin exams. The document detailed directly observed movement patterns and second-hand information from the ANBU sources, some dating as far back as two weeks ago. Naruto had been a busy little bee hadn't he?

"Your orders?"

"He's just gathering info right?"

"That's about it sir. But he hasn't reported in at all."

"Give him some time," the ANBU captain mouthed. "He probably wants to check his facts first. You know how anally retentive the brat can be sometimes." Tenzou looked doubtful. "I dunno cap'n. This still stinks. Naruto always reports in. No matter how inane it's for." Point. The boy once reported in on an errand to get the Uchiha matriarch a dozen eggs and a half kilo of brown sugar. So what was the brat working on then?

"Watch his back for now," Itachi said. "It's probably an Eyes Only detail Sandaime-sama assigned him. We can at least trust his judgement. For now look for the kind of patterns he may be looking at. He's on a search and record mission, that much is certain. If we can determine the kind of questions he's asking, maybe we can get an idea of what kind of info he's looking for."

Tenzou saluted. "Yes sir. Mission classification?" The captain thought for a moment.

"Call it a high C-class. We can't afford to waste resources at a time like this."

"Affirmative." But Tenzou didn't leave yet.

"Yes?"

"I caught the last part of the conversation. Why did you let the boy go on his own?"

Itachi shook his head in disbelief before he plopped down on his easy chair, massaging the bridge of his nose upon impact. "The boy has too much potential to be relegated to a single regimen of training alone," the Uchiha explained. "He will need to discover his own strengths if he will want to continue to grow." The other ANBU chuckled as hia superior officer glared.

"Anything you'd like to share?"

"For a minute there I thought you guys had a lovers' spat or something—ow!" The clang of the kunai's ring end impacting on the other ANBU's head resounded through the room. The other ANBU opened his mouth to protest, but was silenced by Itachi's blank stare.

Tenzou muttered an apology and picked up the kunai, handing it back to the owner. "I should have had you demoted back to genin," the Uchiha muttered, taking back his weapon. "Crazy little shit."

"So?"

"So what?"

"Why did you?"

Itachi sighed, and eased himself into the chair some more. "There's a limit to what even I can teach him, Tenzou. I just don't want to be there when I run out of things for him to learn." The other man shook his head, making his way back out the window.

"I'm surprised at you captain."

"Why's that?"

"Here I thought you were a cold-hearted bastard who spends too much time thinking of work," the ANBU climbed out the window to the fire escape. "Maybe there's hope for you yet, sir." With that, Tenzou dropped out of the tenth floor and into the dark alleys below.

xxx

A pair of blue eyes gazed upon the sleeping village of the Leaf. It was a full moon, a clear night for reconnaissance duty. Well, it would be if he was actually on recon duty. Like many people set in their ways for a long time, Uzumaki Naruto found himself unable to break free from a lot of his old habits, among them running fifteen laps around the village without being detected by the shinobi populace. It was a stealth exercise used mostly by the Tactical Teams squad of the ANBU corps, something which kept their edge even within the hallowed walls of the great ninja settlement.

ANBU was not the elite squad of Konoha because they slacked off.

He was actually surprised to find many other ninja of his age level training in this hour. Rock Lee, the so-called dead last of his days in the academy, was executing several complicated taijutsu moves in Team Gai's training center. The boy had been so impressive that the blond had actually stopped to look, noting with some grudging respect that the boy knew his martial arts.

Naruto ran into another training area a few minutes later, one with a perfectly symmetrical crater seemingly carved with chakra and what looks like the remains of a fierce weapon battle. Other training areas revealed similar states of wear that evening as well: kunai lodged in practice dummies, trees half obliterated, chakra burns on grassy clearings.

The blond ninja zipped through the rooftops, switching off the conscious part of his mind and ran with just his training in his mind. Naruto hadn't been expecting much to happen that night, so to say that he was a little bit disconcerted by the high amounts of killing intent fired a few hundred meters from his position was a bit of an understatement. Quickly before his mind could process the information, the former ANBU flickered away in the direction of the large mass of chakra, noting with some comfort that it had started to dissipate as quickly as it had materialized.

What he found seconds later wasn't entirely unexpected. Suna's jinchuuriki was breathing heavily, traces of minor chakra burns adorning the tips of his fingers and odd parts of his skin. Oddly enough it appears that his gourd of sand had temporarily broken apart into fragments, scattered lightly against the shattered and bloody roofing tiles of Sabaku no Gaara's perch. "Gaara-san," Naruto intoned. "Who did you kill?" The redhead looked his way and laughed darkly.

"No one important," Gaara replied. "Just a useless meat sack stupid enough to challenge my existence." The blond used every bit of his training to restrain himself from drawing weapons. A conflict wasn't necessary, the tactical part of his mind said. The other boy had probably acted in self defense, though one would doubt the sanity with which Gaara's opponent decided to gamble an attack where no one would be able to aid him. Naruto bent down and picked up a broken piece of metal and flicked it with his right hand. The perfect timbre of the vibrating metal told him the thing was a piece of a weapon, possibly a Sound manufactured one.

"Kinuta Dosu?"

"I care not for the names of those who become mother's food."

It appears initial assessments were correct, Naruto mused to himself. Sabaku no Gaara is a creature of madness. Though the redhead's face was impassive, the lack of sanity was clearly reflected in his bloodshot eyes. Naruto called on his somewhat remedial understanding of human nature and didn't have to think hard to realize the Suna genin was a virtual psychopath. "I wonder," the other boy said, knocking the blond from his short reverie. "How would your blood feel in my hands?"

Naruto held his gaze against green eyes glowing with bloodlust. His hand faltered towards his equipment pouch, but he knew that to survive a full battle against the sand user, he must call upon his own dark powers. This boy is interesting, the demon fox growled from the back of the blond's mind. There is madness there, that much is clear. His mind is fragile, but given enough training even he might have the power to challenge even you, meat sack. A dark laugh from within the blond's mind.

Then again, perhaps not. An amusing thought nonetheless.

"Attack and you give me reason to retaliate," mouthed the blond, enunciating his words so they carried through the evening breeze. "You will not last against me, Sabaku no Gaara." A pair of green eyes flickered toward's the former ANBU, and Naruto was almost positive he saw a flare of yellow there.

"Whether you admit it or not, Uzumaki Naruto," the Sand genin said "we two are very much the same. The one thing different about you is that you allow these pitiful creatures to control your power." Gaara's face erupted into a rictus snarl. "The audacity of them!" he raged. Naruto would later ask himself why he even found reason to reply.

"I am no one's puppet, Sabaku no Gaara."

"You say that now, but how much of it do you truly believe?" Naruto stepped backwards involuntarily, setting himself in an attack stance. Even then the demonic chakra of the nine tailed fox begged for release. The other genin would not last fifteen minutes, high levels of killing intent or no. To the blond's surprise, a very familiar chakra pattern pulsed from the other boy. One from a similar source as his own.

A demon host? Another dark laugh. I'm impressed. Perhaps this boy would prove more of a challenge to us.

The Leaf ninja slapped on his mental shields, shutting out the demon lord's words. A battle between two jinchuuriki at this place would destroy half the residential area. Too many civilian casualties, as such not a tactically viable option. Naruto broke off that train of thought when the other demon holder erupted in maniacal laughter.

"See how they hold you in a leash!" Gaara accused. "You would restrain yourself from possibly the greatest battle of your pathetic existence for what? The continued survival of these people?! What are they to you?!"

A four year old boy in the back corner of an orphanage living room. None of the other children would come near him, and the adults only had disdain for his presence.

"Would they really shed a tear if you were to die?"

The back alleys of Konoha, October the tenth. The beatings grew worse this time of the year. His wounds would always heal, quicker than normal a normal person's would. His mind would always remember the pain, and his body would echo this useless defensive posture at every dangerous situation during the first year of training.

"Would you live for them?"

He was a demon host. This was a bit of information given him when he ascended the ranks of ANBU as one of its youngest agents in nearly a decade. Within a few years and more training, he would have more than enough skill to make lieutenant, and in another three, captain. Before the tears ran dry he cried himself to sleep, piling accusations upon his person that somehow he was still responsible for the sins of the demon lord within him.

"Would you die for them?!" Gaara was almost screaming now. "These filth aren't worth protecting! They aren't worth letting live! They aren't worth anything! This is a world ruled by the strong. A world where the weak deserve nothing better than death. People like us exist to wipe them off this plane of existence, to make sure everything besides ourselves is destroyed. Death is our calling. It is all that matters. It is all that should matter."

Naruto was not blind to the presence of chakra laden sand depositing itself nearly at his feet. Some of Gaara's words had stuck home yes, but silly little psychobabble like that wasn't enough to distract him from the task at hand. Little by little, the redhead had hoped to turn the other boy's attention away from this now useless gambit, and with little effort crush Uzumaki's very body with youki infused grains of sand.

A burst of chakra from the former ANBU blew away the slowly creeping granules, and while the tiny grains had only bought the Kyuubi host a fraction of a second, it was more than enough. Sabaku no Gaara was startled to find the solid impact of a fist slamming into the left side of his face, propelling him backwards a good ten feet before he managed to load his feet with chakra and keep him from slipping off the edge of the ruined rooftop. Naruto held the punch's stance, saying "you attempted to capture me with your sand. Kinuta probably gambled on his sound jutsus being faster than the grains, but failed to estimate exactly how fast your sand truly is."

"I will not underestimate you, Sabaku no Gaara," Naruto said, dropping into an open stance. "You'd best do the same with me."

The other boy ran a thumb against the sore part of his cheek, feeling the bruise that began to form there. He licked the inside of his mouth and was surprised to find a coppery metallic taste there. "I am…bleeding?" he asked, almost in disbelief. Gaara's expression showed no change, but his eyes appeared to have gone feral. "You have made me taste my own blood, Uzumaki Naruto," the Sand ninja seethed. "Soon I will drown you in yours." A massive wave of chakra erupted from the pair, and soon the two were right in the center of a massive sand storm.

xxxx

"Interesting," the man in the shadows said. "So you say the Hyuuga have knowledge of the Uchiha plot?"

The ANBU from ROOT nodded. "It isn't clear how much the clan knows as of yet, Danzou-sama," the shinobi said. "Our spies have been having difficulty obtaining any information—"

"Of course the idiots would find difficulty obtaining information from the Hyuuga," The one-eyed ninja snapped irritably. "Those pale-eyed xenophobes are some of the most paranoid people in the village, the amazing part being that they managed to be more so than even the Uchiha. What matters at this point is how accurate the information we have even is. Well? Is it accurate?" The other man muttered a whispered apology.

"While we have no knowledge of any other details, we believe the information we have now is correct."

"Good enough. And what of operation Sword Breaker?"

"The proctors have advised against releasing him this early," another ANBU quipped. "They believe Sword Breaker deserves at least another year in training before he can be good enough to suit our purposes for him. I apologize Danzou-sama, but it was unexpected that the brat would grow this strong in just the short amount of time Itachi would train him." Danzou scratched the beginnings of a goatee with a scarred hand.

"Perhaps we had underestimated him, even after all that," he murmured. "Not a major loss in tactical gains to be sure, but something to think about nonetheless." A moment of silence passed before the elderly warrior spoke again. "In any case, we should watch the coming events. One of these days we may find our opening, and much earlier than expected as well."

"Hai, Danzou-sama."

"For the strength of Konoha, sir."

And the ANBU flickered away. Danzou stood, turning his attention on the burning lamps decorating his office. "If ever the demon brat does happen to manage to be more than a nuisance," he said, seemingly addressing no one "Konoha will need your help in, ah, making sure he no longer is." A pair of cloaked individuals materialized in the back of the room.

"Even without a 'by-your-leave,' we will take care of the pesky nine tails," the first person said in a decidedly Water Country drawl. "What makes you think you even have the power to stop us?" Danzou laughed.

"I have no intention of stopping you."

"Then what is it you want?" said the other one.

The elderly ninja turned, his eyes full of mirth. "I intend to let the demon brat do it for me." The Water Country shinobi's partner laughed. "I'd like to see you attempt to make this so-called Living Weapon yours, Danzou-san," the other man said. "He would fall before our group, demon chakra or no demon chakra. And can you really believe that he would follow orders from you?" Danzou grinned.

"Is that a challenge?"

"You mean to actually do it?" the Water Country ninja snorted. "You're crazy old man. But you sure got big cajones, if a bit lacking in brains."

Danzou made his way at his desk once more, steepling his fingers in the shadows of the flickering lamplight. "I not only intend to make him follow my orders," the leader of ROOT said, "but I will also gain his undying loyalty to me and my cause." The two cloaked ninja just shook their heads.

"I still say you're crazy old man," Water Country said. "But I'm beginning to think you're my kind of crazy."

xxxx

A/N: Yes! An update! Sorry it took me so long, but then school did sort of catch up to me and kick my ass. Needless to say that by the time you guys read this I'd be halfway past the quarter of the next chapter. Hopefully I'll manage to finish it at a much sooner date.

The politics arc is taking longer than expected. The Main Matches will undoubtedly contain some clan warfare, though I doubt if I'll have the Uchiha participate directly in the Sand-Sound invasion.

The bigger question being, if Itachi never became missing nin, who the hell is Kisame's partner?(",)