"...Hey."
Before Hinata could soften the anxiety binding her tongue enough to try fitting words past it, Naruto shuddered, pulled himself together, and spoke up first.
He even smiled.
He looked terrible. Peeked up at her from under too-long half-blond fringe, skin sallow, eyes bloodshot, lips chapped. She couldn't see his hands, but she could picture the fingers seizing, thumb nails scraping nervously into chafed fingertips.
He was nervous, and embarrassed, and sorry, and reading all of that in the slope of his shoulders and reddening of his ears made her own sensitivities secondary, relatively-meaningless enough that they were suddenly manageable. She breathed a little deeper, which was hard, with her diaphragm crushed as it was by the her ever-growing belly, and smiled sweetly back.
Her smile made him even more broken. "I'm so sorry about... about not seeing you, last time," Naruto said, eyes skittering sideways, watching the security guard looming behind him, the door to the little visitation cubicle he was locked in, the floor, back to her. There was bulletproof glass between them.
"I'm glad I'm seeing you n-now," she said.
"How is everyone?" he asked, and the question came out sounding more like himself, made him straighten his back, lift his chin, pull back his shoulders a little. "Do you - have you seen - do you know if Sasuke is okay? I heard them talking about - about Shisui - " and the sadness filled up his eyes.
Hinata hesitated, not sure if she should tell him. The truth, that Sakura had called her twice, with exactly the same anguish and the same questions, wouldn't be very good for Naruto to hear when he couldn't do anything about it. Her tongue started getting all stiff again.
"Nevermind, I'm being stupid," Naruto mumbled, before she could decide what to say or start to say it. "I should be asking about you. How are you? How's Baby-chan? Are you feeling okay? Are you eating lots? Are you sleeping? I know I've messed everything up and stress is bad so that's why I decided to see you even though I didn't want to 'cause I really don't want you to be stressed and if you came all the way here again I promised to myself I would make myself talk to you and ask you to please not be stressed 'cause - damnit, agh, that's not - I said everything all wrong - I want to see you, it's just - "
If he bit his lip any harder, it would bleed.
"It's just, didn't want you to see me," he finished clumsily, face to the floor.
"I miss you," he whispered, while all she could do was stare at the top of his head, at his clumpy, in-need-of-a-wash bangs hiding shadowed eyes, and try to swallow enough of her heart back down her throat to tell him words that would make him look up again. "I miss you so much, Hina."
"Ev..v..veryone is o-okay," she tried, taking quick small breaths to catch air to make words. "The h-house is... so-so empty, without y-you. Y-your parents are always in meetings. The se-security team m...makes up j-jobs to d-do. I've been cooking for them." She smiled as much as she could, hoping to win a glance up.
She did.
"Every...one at the ice rink has been m-meeting too," she said. "Th-they talk ab..bout how to de-defend y-you. Lee-san is dedicating his new r-r-routine to you - "
Naruto looked shocked. "What?!"
"It's very dramatic." It was getting easier to smile.
"Please tell me he's not going to skate about me all dressed in green," Naruto moaned. "And sparkly - and - and spandex..."
"He never skates in anything else..." Hinata said honestly.
"BUSHY BROWS WHY," cried Naruto, loud enough to earn a sharp glance from his uniformed watcher. He sobered up immediately. "And how about you?" he asked, pressing up closer to the glass, back determinedly to the sneering officer. "Are you really okay, Hime?"
Was she? Seeing him, seeing animation fit his face back into familiar lines she loved so well - "Yes," she said, very clearly, "Yes, Naruto-kun, I am okay. Baby-chan is - is driving me c-crazy. Sh-sh-she k-kicks me all night long - makes me p-pee twenty times a day - " she blushed, hid her mouth behind her hands over that particular detail popping out; wasn't even sure she'd ever said the word 'pee' before - but Naruto looked delighted.
"Really?" He gushed. He was as close as he could get to the glass now, palms flat against it. "Did that website tell you what fruit she's supposed to be this week? Is she a honeydew melon yet?"
"P-pineapple," said Hinata, grinning. The first time she showed Naruto the site she used to read about what was expected in a pregnancy each week, Baby-chan had been the size of a turnip. Or so it said. Baby-chan was a very wiggly pineapple.
"What about your classes?" pressed Naruto, falling from enchanted to worried. "Are you keeping up okay? Did you pass the trig final - " A chime rang in the visitation room. "Oh," Naruto said, voice low and scraped hollow again. "That's... that means five minutes. Five minutes til I have to go. I..."
Hinata looked up at him, at the hand he had pressed to the glass, at the shadows greedily reclaiming the brightness in his eyes. Her throat squeezed tight; she became very afraid that she would cry. Her hands knotted in her lap. She untangled them, braced the left against the narrow countertop beneath the glass barrier, placed the right on the glass, carefully lined up with the cold outline of Naruto's left palm.
"I'll see you again soon," she said, grateful that her voice only shook a little. She met his eyes. "I'll come visit you again, and, and y-you'll, you'll be here again, right? On the other side of the glass?"
"I - Hina-hime - "
"P-p-p-p-" It wouldn't come out. The word wouldn't come out. Angry tears welled, tears she'd been pushing back since she registered for the visitation and tried not to feel the way everyone looked at her, obviously very pregnant, obviously very young, signing in to visit a boy in prison, and felt every scrap of pity-scorn-judgment anyway. "P...p...pr-"
"I'll be here," said Naruto, rushed, anxious, anguished. "I - I'll - if I can - "
Something fierce and hot and unstoppable swooped through Hinata, right through her gut, blazing up into fire in her cheeks, in her eyes, and dripping warmth all the way to her toes.
"Promise."
Wide blue eyes caught on hers. Pale, chapped lips told a small, true smile. "I promise, Hinata."
"G-g-good," she said, a little huffily. "Y-you n-need to l-listen. To your l-lawyer. Y-your p-parents. Be careful - "
"Okay," he said, looking defeated, looking relieved. "Okay, Hinata-chan, I promise. I'll listen."
"Don't give up," she begged. Her eyes spilled: hot-then-cold down her cheeks.
"Hey, I promised, right?"
Another chime.
"That means one minute," whispered Naruto. "Hina-chan, I... I don't want to talk to my - my parents," he confessed. "Not... like this. Can it - can it just be you?"
There was so much she wanted to make him understand, but - "Yes," she said, simply.
Relief. Another smile. Small voice. "Thanks. Thanks, Hime."
His hand was alone on the glass: without thinking, she'd pulled hers away to wipe her tears. She put it back. A couple centimeters higher up, this time, to make their fingertips match. "Don't give up," she whispered, again. Don't you dare.
"I won't. ...Hinata?"
She focused on his eyes again, tried to smile.
"There's something - I - I thought of a name," he said. "I want to tell you - for Baby-chan, just, if you still want it - "
A buzzer sounded, flat and final and too loud to talk past, and the man guarding Naruto's visitation cube unlocked the door and stepped through. Naruto was already standing, flinching away; his wrists were cuffed. He leaned very close to her, whispered a name the glass, then - maybe unsure she'd heard it, yelled it, with a big besotted grin. Twisted and turned out of the guard's reach, going where the officer wanted him to go but not letting himself be touched. Was through the door on the opposite side of the cell. A last, too-quick glance back. Grinning, wicked and wild, the never-keep-me-down grin she'd fallen for so hard she still felt winded. "See you, Hime!" he called. "Love you!"
Love you.
Love you, Naruto.
For long moments of trying to breathe more and cry less, Hinata huddled on the stool before the glass of the empty visitation box. She dried her face, shut away her fears, gathered in the brightness of that final smile, and nested it carefully in the small strong bundle of hope in the center of her chest. Somehow, it was still there, unfrayed, even with the sharp edges of despair always rubbing against it.
Maybe she was a fool, believing in Naruto as much as she did. Believing that he was going to make it out okay. That he would make everything else okay.
That was okay. She would be a fool. She why Naruto survived. Why he was who he was. He hoped. Fought hard, played hard, hoped most. Failed low, hoped higher. She had borrowed a bit of that hope from him, when she decided to save Baby-chan. She borrowed more to keep herself going through school, to stand up to her father, to reach out to deepen her friendship with Sakura, to slowly, slowly open wide the layers of defensive camouflage around her heart - to be with him, to be with his family, to love him, to show that love to him - and it just grew. Like she had a muscle for hope that also worked for courage and it stretched and strained and tore and healed and suddenly she was lifting and pushing and heaving up weights she'd once thought more significant than she was - and she could. She had. She was. She would.
Her brain still worked and she could still reason, and logic told her to she had everything to fear. She wasn't ready for this baby. She had no reason to believe she could be a decent mother. Naruto was accused of murder and assault and prosecutors were seeking evidence to charge him with conspiracy and terrorism as well; his best option would mostly likely to make a plea deal in exchange for a more lenient sentence - life in prison, maybe, instead of the final judgment she couldn't allow herself to think about long enough to name. She was not-quite sixteen years old, had no job, no degrees, lived only off the generosity of Naruto's family, and they had no reason to keep her or her child - now more than ever. What could she possibly be hoping for? A lifetime of loving a boy she would see grow into man, then grow old, then, then lose forever - only through the glass of a visitation cell, a handful of watched minutes at a time? A lifetime of unskilled labor, probably multiple jobs at once, to provide food and shelter for a child she wouldn't be present enough to shower in the love and acceptance she was determined to give? The alternative of remaining always and completely dependent on the charity of others - be it Neji, Naruto's family, or her own father? She could not be physically dependent and emotionally independent at the same time. Neither could her daughter. And Hinata knew, knew in a way that planted her feet and tugged her chin up and pulled her spine straight, that if she failed in everything else, in three things she absolutely could not, would not fail: love, defend, make free. For her daughter. And then - then, if she had anything left, for herself.
She knew this, but the secret warmth in her soul never seemed to hear. Or care. It grew. It grew and grew and grew, warmer and stronger and brighter, and finally, finally, she could return a bit - just a bit - of what she'd borrowed.
Okay. Ready. And Hinata checked herself back out of the holding area, collected her purse with nose high and shoulders straight, rode the bus home.
.
UiTiU
.
Sasuke saw nine missed calls from Sakura, and for once, he wasn't annoyed. He texted her Itachi's address, and asked her if she could come.
She came.
She paused to look at him as he held the door for her, at the rolled-up cuffs Itachi's too-long trousers, the packet of tissues in his free hand, whatever she saw in a face he couldn't really feel; hesitated between one step and the next, came carefully close - very close - fit her arms around him, giving him plenty of time to twist back into his own private space.
He didn't, and then she was pressed all the way against him, her grip around his ribs making it hard to breathe.
He found that he didn't mind, much. He looked down at the top of her head, at the caught snowflakes melting under his breath, tried to think of something to say, felt his stupid nose start to run again before he could, so pulled out of her arms to turn away and make use of his tissues instead. When he turned back she was staring at him again, and his other hand was still holding the door open so all the cold air was coming in, and he didn't know what her stare meant anyway so he nudged her to the side so he could close it.
"I'm taking that grunt as a hello," she told him, moving away just until their distance was less awkward. An alien bit of his brain decided that she should have hugged him again instead. "Hello back. Are you sick?"
"Just a cold." At least she hadn't assumed he'd been crying. Which he hadn't been. Did Sakura know he could cry? Probably not.
Naruto did.
"Sucks," she said sympathetically, and pulled off her boots, steadying herself with one hand against his arm as she did, then lined them up neatly. Looked up at him patiently. Looked down the length of the corridor they were standing in. Looked at him again.
Oh. "Kitchen," he grunted, leading the way. "Itachi's sleeping."
"How is he?" the question was so soft and sad, it made his throat ache. He led her through the tiny sitting area to the separate, but equally tiny kitchenette. Pulled out a chair for her at the little table, took the only other chair for himself, looked at her, stood up again immediately. Set about boiling water and getting out mugs for tea.
"Sasuke?"
She was still waiting for him to tell her about Itachi. "Fine." It was a lie. Itachi was not fine. All Itachi had done, for four days, was watch the news. And sleep. And take really long showers. Sometimes Sasuke pretended he couldn't wait any longer to take a piss, just as an excuse to break the lock and make sure his brother hadn't managed to drown standing up. "They're making him take leave."
"I bet he hates that."
At least they can't shoot him and claim it's an accident. "...Yeah."
The electric kettle shut off; he filled the mugs. Passed one to Sakura. Passed her the sugar bowl, too, in case she was one of those twisted people who asked for tea and meant hot sugar water.
Itachi was one of those people.
Sasuke couldn't fit his restlessness in a chair; he cupped both hands around his mug and leaned back against the counter, breathing in peppermint steam. It made his nose run again.
"Will you... are you staying here for now?" For good? Have you been kicked out? Or have you run away? he heard, but she didn't ask those things out loud. The ache in his throat was back; he shrugged.
"For now. Did they get Naruto out yet?"
"You don't - no, they haven't."
"What's taking them so long? It's not like Namikaze hasn't got the connections -"
"They're treating him as a suspected terrorist, Sasuke. Charged as an adult and - and held without bail and -"
Just-boiled tea sloshed as Sasuke slammed his mug down, searing. "That's stupid," he snapped. "A six-year-old could look at the timeline and recognize a set-up. What's Namikaze wasting time for? He can't afford a lawyer or what? I trusted him to take care of -" he cut himself off, cursing, and turned his back to her, yanking on the faucet to run cold water over his scalded skin.
He waited for the rebuke, but when Sakura spoke, she sounded as angry and drained as he did.
"I know what you mean. I mean, that's their job, to protect him - if they can't protect him - "
No one can protect him, Sasuke's own words mocked him, from a conversation that felt like it had happened in someone else's life, though it had been him and Sakura worrying about Naruto, and he'd been feeling lost and angry, just like he was now.
"Do you think... do you think someone else...?"
Did Sakura know about the Fox? Sasuke wasn't sure. Would the Fox rescue Naruto?
"I don't know," he whispered.
Could the Fox rescue Naruto?
And from whom? From us, he thought, hands coming up to cover his face, soaking his collar in ice water. From the Uchiha. My family.
"I need to go." Do I change my clothes? To what? They'll take them away anyway - does Itachi have any empty bottles -
Sakura looked up from her place at the Itachi's tiny table, the glint in her eyes the exact opposite of the calm, comforting picture she made, one hand curled delicately around a cup of tea. "Go where?" she asked sweetly. "To do something monumentally stupid?"
He was going to get himself arrested and hopefully jailed in the same cell as Naruto. Probably by committing an act of terrorism. He decided not to answer Sakura's question.
"ITACHI!"
"Dammit, Sakura -"
"ITACHI! SASUKE'S GOING TO DO SOM - MMMPHHH - do that again and I'll bite it off, try me - ITACHI - "
Before Sasuke could get out the door Itachi was in front of it, shirtless, hair loose, dried drool on his cheek, but eyes harder and sharper than Sasuke had seen since Itachi fell into his lap and gasped that Shisui was dead. Sasuke took one look at the set of his brother's jaw and retreated back against the sink, nursing his burned and bitten hand, hissing at Sakura and unsure if he wanted to kill her - or, seeing Itachi's lips quirk up, just the tiniest bit, at the sight of his suffering sibling - kiss her.
"Oh," said Sakura, staring at Itachi's chest, her entire face tinging red. This did not help Sasuke's dilemma at all. "I'm sorry I woke you," she said, voice a little choked. "I thought you were probably already listening."
"Clever girl," said Itachi fondly. "It was time I woke anyway. I should have been listening. Now, Otouto, what was it Sakura wanted me to prevent you from doing?"
Sasuke realized the noise he was hearing was his teeth grinding, and tried very hard to relax his facial muscles enough to look blasé instead.
"I don't know, I just guessed," Sakura admitted. "But it was right after I told him that it looks like Naruto will still be in jail for a - a long time - and his eyes did that thing and he said he had to go -"
My eyes did 'that thing'? What thing?!
"-You know how he and Naruto are always following each other into the stupidest kinds of trouble - I was - I thought maybe -"
"Shut up, Sakura."
The look Itachi gave him made him want to go stand in a corner and think about being a better boy. "Was she wrong?"
"No," said Sasuke, in between a few more murmured swears. It wasn't like Itachi would believe him if he made up something else. And the cowardly half of him was wretched enough to feel relieved - relieved that someone would stop him from putting himself in harm's way to help his best friend.
Naruto had never had anyone to stop him. Or maybe no one could.
"Naruto needs your help, Otouto," Itachi said, and Sasuke's eyes snapped up to his in surprise, fear and exhilaration shooting cold through his gut.
"What do you mean - " Sakura was saying, half-rising, looking all stressed again -
"They've scheduled the arraignment," Itachi said. "You need to be there. You're the only witness apart from Namikaze-san and Uzumaki-san who knows Naruto was in the hospital for surgery, and was never admitted to in-patient psychiatry. Naruto's enemies have worked thoroughly, but it seems they are not aware of - or perhaps have overlooked - your visit to the hospital. With Senju-sama and her assistant incapacitated, only Naruto's parents are expected to be called as witnesses, and much has been done to discredit them already."
"You can prove that the KPD is lying! Maybe enough to start unravelling the rest— " Sakura exclaimed, hope brightening her face. Sasuke looked away quickly.
"You need to lie low," Itachi said grimly. "Stay credible. They'll call on you when they need you. Namikaze-san already spoke to me about having you called forward as a witness. Loathe as I am to see you enduring cross-examination, if you want to help Naruto, that is how you will do it best. Any further delinquency by anyone associated with Naruto - on his behalf or otherwise - will be used to hurt him."
"But you always said he had - he had to stay away from the KPD," Sasuke said, and it was difficult to get the words past the tightness of his jaw. "You refused to leave him alone, last time he was arrested. They disciplined you for it and you didn't care. Because something worse than being jailed could happen to him. That they'd - they'd make it look like he did it to himself or, or - he's alone in there - Shisui—"
"I know," said Itachi, and then he was right there, one arm wrapped around Sasuke, its muscles taut, skin cool against Sasuke's flushed neck. "I know, Sasuke. I think that's why they tried to get Shisui and I out of the way."
"Then what does it matter, if every freaking person he knows goes and blows stuff the fuck up?! Why hold a trial if they're just gonna kill him anyway - "
Sakura made a little inverted shriek, both hands flying to cover her mouth, horror babbling out in frantic words anyway. "They can't - they CAN'T, right, right? They're the police, they're the law, they have to follow the law - they can't just - and everyone, EVERYONE is watching - he's - Naruto is so famous now - "
"You're both right," said Itachi. His voice stayed cool, but somehow the gravity of the entire room seemed to shift, settle towards him, like it would be impossible to do anything but believe everything he said. "If they wanted Naruto dead right now, they would have killed him when he resisted arrest. They have enough footage of violent noncompliance that no one could have contested it. Not successfully. I don't think Naruto is safe, but I do think they want him alive - for now, anyway. I believe he is safe - relatively safe - until the arraignment. Perhaps until trial, which may give us as long as another year."
Newly-burned skin on the back of his hand stretched, and Sasuke forced his fingers out of fists. "Tell me, tell me, aniki," he pleaded. "Tell me why they want him. What they want."
"Please," Sakura whispered.
Itachi sighed, tightened his arm until Sasuke could feel the rise of his chest with his next breath. "Revenge," he said. "A chance to regain power they believe to be inherently theirs, wrongfully stolen. Vindication. A chance to see those they deem enemies thoroughly, maybe permanently, destroyed."
"Namikaze?" asked Sasuke. And frowned, because the Uchiha had been after Naruto long before anyone knew his connection to Minato. No, that was wrong. They'd targeted Naruto first, when they took him, when they implanted the fibrillator. Had the known all along? But then -
"Namikaze's extreme success and popularity has long been a thorn in the ambitions of Uchiha clan," Itachi agreed. "But the first blows to their power - which, two decades ago, was reaching a level of dominance even the Senju and the Hyuuga were hard-pressed to meet - were delivered by Kyuubi."
"The Nine-tails killed everyone, though," Sakura said, looking like she was unsure if this was something she could talk about or not. "Not just the Uchiha. Anyone with lots of money or influence became a target, right? That's what the articles say."
Itachi didn't answer, and as the seconds ticked away his silence, Sasuke's suspicions grew. "You know something. Something about the Kyuubi and us. The Uchiha."
"I know a lot of things I don't feel safe telling you," Itachi said. "…Maybe that's a mistake I need to stop making."
Sasuke looked at Sakura, saw the same hope and anxiety narrowing her eyes that twisted up his stomach. They both turned to stare at Itachi.
Itachi sighed. "Perhaps it's time. First, I will dress. Stay, and I will share at least some of what I know - or have guessed - when I return." With a look of deadly warning that had Sasuke sitting obediently in the second kitchen chair, Itachi swept from the room.
"Are you mad?" Sakura asked, big eyes forlorn, when Itachi was far enough down the hall not to hear them.
It was a stupid question. Anger was one of Sasuke's top three emotions. But... "Not at you."
"Sasuke," she said. "We're making a plan. No one was able to reach you, so I'm telling you about it now."
"What sort of plan?"
"Gaara-sama initiated it," she told him solemnly. "It's Plan Z, I guess. If the adults don't save Naruto, we will. Hopefully while saving them too."
Sasuke wondered, like many times before, how accurately Sakura perceived reality.
"Should I tell you about it not?"
Sasuke worked to smooth the edge of scorn that would have her shutting him out off of his voice. "Tell me."
She gave him a long look under arched brows, then huffed. "Fine, but judge a little less. At least until you've heard everything. First, you need to know that Naruto's parents have a pretty desperate plan of their own. Hinata overheard some things by accident, and they concerned her enough that she overheard more things on purpose. She hid Naruto's phone in the room where they meet and listened in on her own. Can you believe Hina-chan was so sneaky?" Sakura's tone bordered astonished awe. "She's a closet badass. So she told Neji, and he decided to tell us. They - Naruto's mom and dad and their assistants and bodyguards and Kaka-sensei and maybe even some hired people - are making plans to take over the court room and free Naruto by force, if it looks like the verdict will be bad."
"They - " Sasuke started to speak, found only blank space where he expected words and opinions to already be formed, shut his mouth. Images rose instead, of a court room that looked just like the ones in the TV dramas his mom liked to cry along to, people in long black prosecutor's robes being beaten around the head with a chair by Naruto's mom - wild red hair flying everywhere - while Kakashi and Obito laid about with hay-makers, fighting back-to-back, and Rin-san spirited an open-mouthed Naruto past guards held off by Namikaze's double guns - ridiculous he scoffed at his own brain, and shook his head violently.
"Yeah," Sakura agreed grimly. "Even if they get Naruto out, they can't all get out. Anyone who did manage to run would be a hunted fugitive. I don't think they plan to go into hiding. From what Hinata said, they're trying to figure out how to cause just enough chaos to have someone they're working with retrieve Naruto and - and somehow get him out of Konoha, then out of Hi no Kuni - he'll be in hiding for life, they'll go to prison, everything - everything will be destroyed…"
Yes. She was right. Everything would be destroyed.
But Naruto would be alive.
"Still, I understand why they'd do it," whispered Sakura, big eyes deep with echoes of the fears Sasuke wasn't even brave enough to acknowledge out loud.
"What's our plan?" asked Sasuke. Then stiffened, cutting off the answer she'd opened her mouth to give, hearing Itachi's footsteps in the hall.
"All right," Itachi said, looking much better - to Sasuke, at least, Sakura looked disappointed- than he had when he'd left. He'd washed his face and pulled his hair back neatly and was appropriately dressed. "I've decided what I'm willing to tell." He settled into the spot he'd scared Sasuke out of, and leaned back against the counter, arms over his chest, long fingers of one hand tapping against the opposite elbow.
"I will start from what was, to me, the beginning. My first assignment, upon being cleared for field work, was to catch the Fox. It was an impossible task, given as a punishment, not a reward, and everyone knew it. I knew my chances of completing the assignment successfully were infinitesimally small, but set out to complete this task anyway. I chose, as my first target - or lead, depending potential capitulation - a character known in the crime world, and to the KPD, as the Gatekeeper. Naruto."
Sakura sat up very straight, listening very, very hard. Naruto had always avoided telling her about his past. Sasuke refused to tell her anything Naruto wouldn't. He'd also made sure to hint at how much more he knew than she, in some petty need to prove his superior knowledge, and now he felt rather guilty about it.
"'The Gates' usually refers to the system of underground passages claimed and defended by certain organized crime units - alternate, mostly secret routes with access to much of Konohagakure, some extending far beyond city limits. It also sometimes refers to any illegal activity made possible by the existence of these passages. The KPD has never successfully blocked, monitored, or controlled the underground passageways, in spite of billions of yen being devoted to doing just that; our efforts became least effective when the Gatekeeper began operating." Itachi sighed. Pinched the bridge of his nose. Seemed unhappy about admitting what came next. "I told you that the Gatekeeper was Naruto. He was - the Gatekeeper was a child. Only a child. He'd been working for some time - my most modest estimate is two years - before officers began to take note of him, to notice the pattern. This was the pattern: any time an infiltration or bust went south, the kid was there. Any time we seemed close to confirming the existence of a passage we hadn't mapped, of connecting and understanding the Gates, the Gatekeeper would find us first. Catch us. Tiny kid, smaller than Sasuke. Recognizable. Scarred face and dark hair. We couldn't seem to get a mole or a plainclothes in anywhere. Doesn't matter who we planted. He always figured it out. Set off some sort of silent signal. Then things would go bad, for us. Tunnels collapsing, walls appearing where there hadn't been any before, ambushes waiting, gang safe houses suddenly and completely cleared out, anyone we were looking for - thought we had a deal with - gone. Just gone. And he still won't tell me how he did it."
Because Naruto never forgets, Sasuke didn't say. Didn't interrupt. If he talked, Itachi might stop talking. I don't know how he did the other things. But he sees things in people - not just - not just the way they look. And he never forgets.
Like how he never forgot Namikaze.
Itachi huffed, more outward annoyance than Sasuke was used to him showing, and smiled and small, exasperated smile. "For a while we even toyed with a theory that there were many kids, all trained to look and act alike, stationed all over the city, because the Gatekeeper was everywhere. A small, scarred, clone army. Now I guess - I guess that he guessed. He learned to think like us. Anticipate us. Naruto is intuitive, and a very talented strategist… and he certainly didn't work alone. But whatever he did, however he did it, he was effective."
He would have been better off alone, thought Sasuke bitterly. Don't think I'm going to forget about the part where you talk about the Fox, Aniki.
"Obviously, being repeatedly thwarted by a small child, while having to answer to government overseers for the millions of yen funding the various projects to control the Gates or render them unusable yielding nothing, made the Gatekeeper a prime, and hated, target. As I worked to gather and compile everything everyone at the KPD knew or had heard about this Gatekeeper, I was horrified to discover how deep this animosity ran: there were unofficial rewards, large ones, for anyone who could kill Naruto. Kill a child. Capture was secondary, even discouraged; it would look very bad if anyone learned that the KPD had imprisoned and harshly interrogated a little kid, and the Gatekeeper was regarded as too dangerous to treat in any other way. It was for the best, general sentiment agreed, if it merely disappeared - one more small body, collected from a certain area of Konoha, would draw tragically little attention.
Sakura looked horrified. Sasuke wondered when he'd stopped being surprised that people who were supposed to protect children very often did the opposite. Wondered if he had ever believed and trusted like that.
"What most disturbed me was that even good men and women, those I respected and emulated, seemed to agree," Itachi said, words going flat, an old, old anger pinching at the corners of his eyes. "I became obsessed with finding out why. Why people of integrity seemed to have, in the instance of one obviously threatened and manipulated child, none at all. The scars. Because of the scars."
Sasuke remembered being eleven. Remembered Itachi getting home from work, often in the middle of the night, and coming immediately to check on Sasuke. Remembered waking up to find Itachi sat on his floor, asleep, back against the bed, head leaned back on the mattress. Remembered Father rebuking Itachi. Calling him obsessed, deviant. Commanding him to worry less about Sasuke and more about fulfilling the expectations of his career and also to try being normal for a change.
As if Father thought Itachi could live in a world where a kid not much different from his own brother could be hunted, condemned to die for the marks on his face, and be okay with it.
Father never did understand Itachi. He just stopped telling Sasuke to be like him.
"The connection to the Nine-tails was obvious - that was one of two reasons I chose to go after the Gatekeeper first, in my quest to find the Fox - as was my next step: to discover why, beyond the obvious fear of an at-large mass-murderer, those scars elicited so strong a reaction. I had met the Gatekeeper, you see, and had a very different goal: to repay a debt." His eyes met Sasuke's, for a moment, and the blurred memories echoed the pain of too much cut skin (being jerked along dirty narrow passages, riding up to street level in a service elevator, emerging onto rain-slicked streets, vision fading in and out as Naruto staggered along, the only thing keeping Sasuke up) made him shiver. "I wanted to find Naruto. I hoped I could… protect him. Somehow. To have a chance of doing so, I had to understand why my colleagues wanted him dead. I found it - or most of it. This is the connection between Naruto, the Fox, and the Uchiha: the last is responsible for the first."
No no, please don't go cryptic on me now, stupid Itachi, Sasuke prayed. They were so close to actually learning something -
"The Fox was raised by the Uchiha."
We—what? Made what?
"In the early days of Konoha's rise from insignificant village to a center of influence in Hi no Kuni, there was little true law; those with money bought mercenary 'security personnel' to protect their interests. The Uchiha did the same, and were successful, particularly once they gained nearly full control of the nascent police force. To establish their dominance, they went a step further: they chose a child, a smart, strong, desperate child, and turned him into an assassin."
"Kyuubi?" whispered Sakura.
"Kyuubi," affirmed Itachi.
"…Seems like that backfired," Sasuke said, the bitterness biting off his words expressing more than he wanted to. He hated his family. Hated being Uchiha. And loved them. Would never be anything else. Don't you dare judge me, not you, you bastard, Naruto had said, last time he'd punched Sasuke in the face.
"It did," said Itachi, gone grim again. "They got their elite assassin. The best in the business. Where they failed was in assuring his loyalty. From what I was able to piece together, they were able to use him as they wished for some years; when he turned on them - I have not been able to determine why; perhaps he simply waited until he felt ready - they were utterly unprepared, and his handlers became the first bodies to be found with cut cheeks. And until last week's attacks, the last known victims of the Kyuubi were also Uchiha… which is another reason I doubt that the Nine-tails were, in fact, behind those attacks. But I digress. You asked, Sasuke, what the Uchiha want with Naruto. I suspect the answer is tangled up with what Kyuubi wants with Naruto."
"He did to Naruto what the Uchiha did to him, didn't he?" said Sakura. Her eyes were huge. "I don't think it worked…"
"So many Uchiha fear," confirmed Itachi. "You can imagine, now, why they feared him so much as a child. Why they wanted him dead. They feared who he could become."
"And now?" whispered Sasuke. He was so cold inside, he had to fight not to shiver. "Why do they want him alive now?"
"Now, he is the linchpin," said Itachi, and there was an edge to his voice that made Sasuke want to panic, because it sounded helpless. "The point of commonality of all of their largest problems. He is the son of Namikaze Minato and Uzumaki Kushina, the two unconventional, and uncontrollable, masterminds of a social revolution that toppled the power structures the Uchiha used to maintain dominance - and went on to prove that Konoha could function, could thrive, outside of the rules the previous elite relied upon. Until Naruto disappeared, they were wildly successful. Now Naruto is back. And he is a Nine-tails," he said, mouth twisting down, "a living legacy to our family's most costly mistake. Raised up, perhaps, to continue the Fox's revenge. He is also a mystery: one the public cannot be allowed to solve. Because almost no one knows, still, why Namikaze Naruto disappeared. Who was behind it. Because Naruto hasn't talked. But he can. As long as he lives, he can."
"I know." Sasuke hardly recognized his own voice. The darkness in it chilled him further. Itachi closed his eyes, pained.
"Please - please, don't advertise that, little brother," he begged. "You are tangled in this tragedy too deeply already."
"I get it, I get it now," Sakura said. She sounded as hollow as she looked, even with her eyes lit up with the canny intelligence Sasuke sometimes feared. "Naruto is dangerous to the Uchiha because he's actually proof of some of their crimes, and has very close ties to their biggest rivals, both - both in front of the whole world - cause his parents - and, um, in the 'underground'," she said. "But it goes both ways, doesn't it? Just like he could ruin everything for them, if they use him right, he can win everything, can't they? That's why they're keeping him alive. They're turning everyone against him. Even - even against his family. I've heard some of the stuff people are saying. So they turn Naruto into a murderer, drag it out through a whole legal process while making his parents look like they don't care that he's a murderer, they'd risk letting Naruto kill people just to keep him with them, which almost makes them accomplices. People will feel betrayed. By their heroes. That turns everyone against all of Naruto's known allies. And then… and then if the F-fox…" she stumbled over the name, and Sasuke wondered, again, how much of this information was new to her, and how she was taking it all in and turning it all over in her big fast brain without vibrating to pieces before his eyes. "If the Fox comes for him…cause no one well can... well Naruto is just bait, isn't he? He's bait. Naruto is bait." And she started to cry.
"Clever girl," Itachi said again, very softly, and Sasuke knew Sakura was right - she was right - and everything else was wrong. His family, his life, his closest friend locked up - a piece of the rope being twisted, primed to hang everything he fought for, everyone he loved - and all Sasuke could do was reach across the table, and hold Sakura's shaking hands with his own death-cold ones, and let her cry.
.
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A/N: review? Please? *puppy eyes*
