Another creative mood! Amazing! I almost never have this type of mood…
And here I was thinking I was feeling sick of this story, and all of a sudden I am having a burst of creative ideas… shocking.
But good.
I think…
SSS
Sakura waited, trying to figure out how to tell them about her mission gone wrong, her head screaming in pain at the amount of deep thinking she had been doing, and the dehydration she was recovering from. She froze, her head cocking to one side as she thought she heard foot steps along the tiled floor of the hospital. Then, she heard Naruto's excited shout, and saw a yellow and black blur run into the room and throw its self at her. She gave a weak laugh, but could not keep the pretence of happiness for long, even if her heart was jumping for joy, and she was mentally relieved to see the rest of the team fill into the room as well.
She gave a small smile to her team mates, and met Shizune's gaze with a nod of thanks. The dark haired medic returned the smile, and then left, leaving them alone, and shutting the door behind her.
Green eyes meet amber coloured ones, and Tsunade gave her a nod in greeting as well, before getting to business. "You said you wanted to talk to me. Mission report."
"Yes." Sakura gave a sharp nod, disregarding her pounding head, and spoke quickly. "The whole mission was a set up. Uchiha Itachi was behind it, and the reason behind his actions… I don't quite know, but it had something to do with Sasuke. But what I found out is even worse than that, and more important."
Naruto was clenching his fists, and glaring a hole through the bed sheets on the hospital bed. Kakashi looked slightly surprised, his lone eye wide, while Tsunade gave an unsurprised nod, before speaking.
"Uchiha Sasuke has joined the Akatsuki and is partners with Uchiha Itachi." Her voice was blunt, but instead of the gasp of horror that she was expecting, all she got was an impatient nod of the head and a flick of the hand to get pink hair out of the way of an emerald gaze.
"Yes, I'm not shocked by that-"
"How can you say that Sakura-chan!" Naruto shouted, looking at his team mate with betrayal in his eyes. "You know Sasuke better than that, he hates Itachi! You can not believe that he would actually-"
"I know Naruto," Sakura's voice was hard, "More than what you do of Sasuke's hatred towards Itachi. I had to interfere in one of their fights, and witnessed it first hand, so stop acting like I don't."
Naruto stared at her, his baby blue eyes looking at her first with disbelief, then with hurt and betrayal, as he walked out of the room slamming the door. Sakura gave a tired sigh, before looking back to Tsunade, who had watched dumbfound as her student had snapped at her team mate, and almost brother. It was better for Naruto to not be in the room for the news that she was going to break to them.
She regretted being so cruel to Naruto, but it was the only way to make him leave, and to distract him from his curiosity. Her actions would stop him from coming back, and from hearing the information she had to tell them. He could only deal with so much at once, and it looked like he had his brain full with the idea that Sasuke had joined the Akatsuki.
"It is better that Naruto is not here for this." She murmured, looking at her shishou with a weary look. "Do you know the real reason and the truth behind the Uchiha massacre?"
Tsunade straightened up, and gave a long hard look at the pink haired woman, before sending Yamato and Sai out, letting Kakashi and Shikamaru stay, thinking that it would be better for them to be privy to this knowledge. As advisors and highly thought of shinobi, not to mention intelligent, Tsunade could use some extra help.
Sai was a member of ROOT, Danzo's branch of shinobi, and although they trusted Sai, he would not be able to stop himself from telling Danzo, because of the various jutsu he had on him. Sai would have chosen to leave anyway; he had bonds with his team, and did not want to betray them. Yamato had enough responsibility to deal with, let alone what ever other knowledge Sakura was going to tell them.
Tsunade then nodded for Sakura to continue.
"Well, the massacre was an order, given to Uchiha Itachi by the elder council of Konoha. The Third had no idea of the order until after the complete destruction of the Uchiha clan."
"Why-" Kakashi began, until he thought back to the unrest during the time of the massacre. There had always been rumours around that time, and the village had become very hostile towards the clan after the Kyuubi attack, almost ostracising them. He had to admit, it made sense. "The Uchiha clan… they were always very ambitious."
"They wanted to over throw the Hokage and take over, causing civil war in the doing so and planned it with all of their members. I know that the reason, or spark for their unrest and unhappiness with their position in life came from an Uchiha thought to be long dead. Uchiha Madara. Or actually, I think that is what caused it."
"Uchiha Madara is dead. He was killed by the First Hokage." Shikamaru spoke up, looking at the seemingly deranged pink haired kunoichi with his undivided attention and interest. "How do you know that he is alive-?"
"Let me finish." Sakura held her hand up. "Itachi told me of the massacre, and the order himself, in the time that I was kept captive-"
"Why did he keep yo-?" Kakashi began before Sakura almost lost her temper.
"I don't know! I tried asking him, but he did not tell me, and he obviously thought that I would end up dead or something. But that's not the point!" Sakura growled angrily. "I found out about that, and then that I was almost like bait for Sasuke. Or rather a type of spurring object to make Sasuke get angry and attack Itachi. Itachi wants- wanted Sasuke to kill him, and was waiting for Sasuke to become strong enough to kill him, and then be able to kill someone else. He never told me who, I guessed that it was the council, but I realise now that I was wrong. I intervened when Sasuke was about to kill Itachi-"
"Why?" Tsunade's golden eyes bore into Sakura. "Why would you try to save him?"
"I don't know…" Sakura murmured, knowing quite well that she had fallen for the attractive dark haired Uchiha. But she could not let anyone know that. "I guess it was because of what he had told me…"
"I told you your compassion would kill you Sakura." Kakashi shook his head at his former student, a mixed feeling of pride and anger bubbling up against his will at her compassion, as he disagreed with her actions. What she had done was foolish, and put her in more danger than every before.
"Yes. I thought that they would as well." She closed her eyes, mentally tired. The sharingan flashbacks were haunting her every thought, and it was getting harder to keep them back at the back of her mind. She felt sorry for Kakashi and Sasuke, and understood a bit more why they were like they were like. So cold and full of negative feeling. Well, Sasuke was outwardly at least. Kakashi was only better at hiding it. But she knew it.
Thinking back on her story, Sakura turned her mind to the moment when she intervened, and what she had said to Itachi. Editing a bit, she continued her narrative.
"But I lived. I told Itachi to tell Sasuke the truth, and although Itachi was opposed at first, and was angry with me for mentioning it, he gave in, and decided that I was right after I talked to him about it away from Sasuke. He had a chance to kill me when I was talking to him, and he was angry enough to, but he didn't. He agreed with me, and then went back to talk to Sasuke." Sakura opened her eyes and looked to Tsunade.
"I left them to it, and after hearing the beginning of the conversation, I felt that they would not try to kill each other, so I went back to the path where the retrieval team found me. I waited there for a short time, but as I went to leave, Akatsuki turned up. The blond one with the explosive clay showed up, along with his partner in the orange mask." She began to shiver at the memory, and was unable to help the tears that came to her eyes at the thought of the orange masked man. The images... they haunted her, no matter how hard she tried to hold them back, even with her inner doing her best to restrain them.
Kakashi saw the look on her face, the haunted eyes, and the tight lines around her face, new to her since the mission. He moved closer, and rested his hand on her shoulder, her pain making his chest tighten. It seemed that no matter what he did, and how he tried to protect them, the ones close to him always seemed to be the worst hurt. He had tried to shelter the pink haired kunoichi since she was gennin, Sakura reminding him so much of the medic who had been on his old team, Rin, but Sakura was as stubborn as him, and had a way of pulling though things, and learning from them and becoming stronger.
But he did not think that this was something that could be fought through that easy.
"I fought them, and managed to knock out the blond one. But as soon as I did that, the masked one changed and became… terrifying." Sakura gave a shudder. "His chakra became more malicious, and he changed, becoming more dangerous, and dropping the act of a childish fool… He had the sharingan as well. I didn't stand a chance."
"Uchiha Madara." Tsunade said out loud, looking at her student grimly.
"Yes." Her tear filled eyes looked to her shishou, honest and pained. "He had the sharingan, and had a type of ancient power about him. He used the Mangekyo on me, and I am pretty sure that Itachi can not do the same things that Madara can." She gave a bitter laugh, before looking away, trying to hide her pain and weakness. She thought of Kakashi and Itachi and Sasuke, and how they had lived through what they did. She could not compare to them. She was pale in comparison to their strength. Uchiha Madara frightened her, and she wished desperately that she would never have to fight against him again or even set eyes on him again.
Shikamaru went very pale, and then gave a small sound, almost like a cough, or like he was choking. "The Kyuubi attack, sixteen years ago… didn't it say in the reports that it was thought that a member of the Uchiha clan was controlling it, as it had sharingan eyes and the sharingan is thought to be the only thing able to control the demon…"
"It would take a lot of power to control the nine tailed demon." Kakashi commented thoughtfully, as they all took in the option that the Uchiha forbearer was alive.
Everyone in the room paled, the fear in the air overwhelming, even Kakashi feeling afraid at the thought of the ancient evil, before Tsunade walked out, almost sprinting towards the tower where Jiraiya was waiting.
He had to know.
SSS
"I swear the younger one is even more arrogant than Itachi, yeah." Deidara flicked his kunai at the post, watching disinterested as it flew to the dead centre. A few moments later another kunai joined the first, and Tobi watched the target shudder with the force behind it, his head tilted with confusion.
"How so? Tobi does not see how the younger one is worse than the older? Itachi-san is very strong, and he acts like it, but the younger one is too… only not as strong, Tobi thinks." The orange masked man looked at the blond haired man with curiosity, hopping from one foot to the other in his excitement and earnestness of his answer.
"Well, the brat is just that. A brat. He thinks he is above everyone else, and that he can just waltz in here with his brother and take Kisame's spot on the Akatsuki, yeah." Deidara frowned, a little put off at the loss of his drinking and gambling buddy. They used to often go into towns and gamble, under a genjutsu of course, and drink together, picking up girls and messing around. They also played cards some nights. Nobody would go with him now.
"Oh. Tobi gets it; Deidara is missing Kisame, and is angry that Sasuke-san has taken Kisame's spot. Tobi is sorry for Deidara to have lost such a good friend." Tobi dodged a clump of clay that exploded where he had been previously standing.
"Why you little brat! I do not miss Kisame! We are S-class shinobi! Hell, we don't even care if our own mothers were killed!"
"Tobi thinks that Deidara is in denial, Kisame told Tobi about this sort of thing, although it was about Leader-sama being in love with a girl, but Tobi thinks that the point is the same…"
"YOU LITTLE-!"
Deidara ran after Tobi, the small orange masked man dodging flying kunai and exploding clay with ease, before a form appeared through a tree and spoke, the white side of Zetsu speaking calmly.
"Tobi-san, Leader-sama wants to talk to you."
"You had better hurry up, he says that it is important." The black side added, looking merry at the chaos that was set to happen.
Tobi gave a joyful wave to Deidara, who was still fuming and shouting curses and making obscene gestures at the orange masked man, as the bane of his existence loudly thanking Zetsu, before disappearing in a swirl of smoke.
The orange mask hid the gleeful sadistic expression behind it, brightness covering darkness.
SSS
The orange masked man appeared in the gloom of the meeting room, his presence making the room seem even darker than it had before, even with the bright colours he brought with him. Uchiha Madara dropped the Tobi act as soon as he entered the room, pulling the mask off with a sigh, and relaxing into the chair behind the desk with smooth arrogance.
He ignored the 'Leader' of the Akatsuki, and the two Uchiha brothers who were also in the room. Instead, he went to the messenger hawk sitting on the perch near the curtained window. It obediently stuck out is legs, and waited, as nimble, elegant fingers unhooked the message attached to the bird, and red eyes read it. Madara gave a satisfied smirk, and folded the message into small a small piece of paper, before turning and finally paying attention to the 'leader' of the Akatsuki.
"Soon." He said, his crimson eyes flashing. "Soon."
Writing fast with the brush, Madara wrote back to his informant, and sent the message with his orders back with the hawk. His smirk widened, as he looked at the marking on the bird's carrying compartment with glee. He still could not believe how foolish the old man was. He wondered again what the old man actually though that he would give Konoha over to the old man. He snorted at the thought, and felt smug at his plans, and their eventual unwinding.
Soon he would have Konoha bowing at his feet, like it was meant to, all those years ago when the First interfered.
Sasuke, Itachi and Pein watched as the man replaced his mask, and the malevolent face and cruel smirk was covered. His voice was muffled as he ordered Pein to give the order, and prepare them for the battle.
If all went to plan for Madara, he would have the Leaf village and the Kyuubi in his clutches by the end of the week.
If all went to plan for Itachi, Madara would be dead, and the Leaf village saved, Sasuke back in the village where he was meant to be.
The only thing he did not have planned was what would happen to himself.
SSS
A messenger hawk landed at the window, tapping its beak against the window. The man opened the message, a spiteful smile covering his face as he thought of the future, his future. He walked the length of the room, the anticipation building inside him, as the image of him in a white and red cloak with a matching hat filled his mind.
He paced in his room, waiting for his ROOT members to return from their posts. He had an order to give them, several actually, but first things first…
It was time.
SSS
Okay, so now everyone is thinking, OMG, Danzo is a greedy old man.
I agree with you. He is old, and he, like all humans or most anyway, is greedy. But as you will find out later, he does actually want the best for the Leaf Village, and is willing to do a lot of things to 'help' it become better.
And Sakura is having her meltdown moment and her old fear of being weak and rejected is returning, with a vengeance. But you will find this all out later, in more detail, but I am just explaining some things so you don't go, 'ok, that was a random change in behaviour…?'
Oh, and Itachi does actually have a plan!
Review people, the wonderful button is just under the story. Show your appreciation!
