A/N: Here comes another chapter, and things are heating up, but not in that way…
Nothing to warn for this chapter. And this chapter has been edited by Ashimodo. Big hands to the man.
Chapter 28: Searching
Sakura looked at the clock on her desk and sighed. It was getting late, and all she had done since getting back to her apartment was stare at the blank page of her report. It would have been easier if it were a mission report, even for a complicated mission like the one they'd just had, because everything would have been objective and factual. This report was also supposed to be factual, but it fundamentally wasn't, not for her, because this was her report on Sasuke to Tsunade-shishou.
Quite frankly, she was shocked by the decision to put Sasuke on probation. She had her worries about him, but none severe enough that she thought merited putting him under scrutiny. Shizune-san, the ever patient Shizune-san, said that not everybody knew Sasuke like she did and so they were reasonably concern when he - arguably one of the stronger shinobi walking the village - showed some sign of instability.
Sakura wanted to know who that 'someone' was, so she could give him or her a piece of her mind, but that wouldn't make any difference. The worst case scenario would be she was put under probation as well, so Sakura kept her lips sealed. It felt wrong to spy on someone so close to her, but she was told to just report what she'd observed during the mission and that she didn't need to pry into his private life, so she accepted.
They were assigned for a mission together with Team Kurenai. A spy was spotted secretly contacting courtiers in the Fire's court. The Fire Daimyo was understandably unhappy about the situation. The man was suspected of treason and the daimyo wanted him captured and interrogated. Team Kurenai was perfect for this since they had Kiba, Shino, and Hinata: the nose, the ears, and the eyes. The spy didn't have a chance of getting away. Sakura and Sasuke were also assigned to the mission as backups in case they needed medical support or an extra striker.
And the mission did get a little tricky when they discovered that the spy was in fact a shinobi from the former Sound. Sakura could see why he'd managed to contact people right under the daimyo's nose and retreated so effortlessly. That was also when Sasuke seemed to come to life. He and the spy had a fierce speed competition, in which the rest of the team couldn't keep up. They tracked the two down ten minutes later and found them in a patch of torn up forest. Sasuke's clothes was torn open at places but he was barely injured. The same could not be said about the spy who hang listless by the collar of his shirt. Hinata had to pry the guy out of Sasuke's hands so Sakura could look him over, and Kurenai-sensei could put him under genjutsu for further interrogation. He was roughed up pretty badly in Sakura's medical opinion. It was probably the only option considering his level of skill. But another part of her questioned whether Sasuke had gone a little too far.
They took the prisoner to the closest base to begin some basic interrogation. Kurenai led the session but the rest of the team were to observe as well. Their duty were to guard their commander in case the ally of the spy decided to break him out or if he himself tried to break out. Sakura was to assist if any medical need arose.
Sakura had been under Kurenai's genjutsu before, and she knew the woman could come up with pretty scary stuff to break her opponents. However, the ninja managed to resist her for a long time. He barely moved or twitched as she went through a series of standard interrogation genjutsu to assess the enemy's weakness.
Then suddenly the genjutsu broke. Kurenai blinked in surprised. They were all surprised. His hands were tied behind his back, so it should have been impossible for him to break out of it without assistance.
Kiba was going to say something, but Kurenai-sensei shot her hand out to silence him. Her gaze was still locked on the spy as she began another series of genjutsu. Then he broke out of it again. By then, he was sweating hard and obviously in some level of distress.
"I see," she muttered, then turned to Hinata. "Could you prevent him from doing it again?"
Sakura didn't know when Hinata began using her Byakugan, probably since the first time he broke the genjutsu without using his hands. She walked towards him and began pushing on several chakra points on his body before retreating. She gave Kurenai a nod and the session began anew.
This time, the man cried out after three genjutsu, each one more powerful than the last. It was so intense that everyone in the room forgot to breathe. Kurenai went for the fourth and the ninja began sobbing uncontrollably.
"Identify yourself," she said, still not breaking the jutsu. He gave them his name and his affiliation. He was a former Sound ninja currently working as a spy for hire in Rice Country. He would steal any information about anything for anyone.
"Who do you work for?" she asked. He said he didn't know. He was given the mission by a friend who acted as the intermediary. Kurenai pressed for the name, but the man resisted. Sakura knew he would be going through a much deeper interrogation for that.
"Who else are you working with on this mission?" His reply was that he wasn't working with anyone. This was a high-class mission. They needed to run a tight ship, so he was in it alone. Kurenai-sensei broke the genjutsu after that, and the ninja flopped forward. He was unconscious almost immediately. With what they'd gotten so far, Sakura knew he would be handed over to Ibiki-san later. She didn't want to think what kind of fate awaited the man.
They rested at the base that night, so they could travel at full speed once day broke. The chuunin took turns guarding the prisoner just in case there was someone looking for him. It was late that night when Sakura came down for her shift and found Sasuke sitting in front of the man with his Sharingan glaring into the prisoner's eyes.
She didn't know a lot about Sharingan, there wasn't much information aside from the basics in Konoha's library, so she didn't know what he was doing. She just knew it wasn't sanctioned. She quickly walked over and covered up the prisoner's eyes with her hand. Sasuke blinked once before looking up at her. Anger was cleared on his face. Sakura didn't back down, especially since the spy promptly fell unconscious.
"What do you think you were doing?" she hissed. "If Kurenai-sensei finds out-"
"I didn't hurt the prisoner," he said defensively as he got up. He was blinking rapidly because of the tension around his eyes. He must have been using his Sharingan for quite some time.
Sakura's lips thinned. "I can't believe you're this stupid," she snarled. "You're already under probation, and you have to go ahead and do something like that. You're just begging to get a session with Ibiki-san."
Sasuke wouldn't say anything. He didn't look at her, but the press of his lips told her of his defiance. She waited for him to say something, to justify his action, but he didn't. The look on his face was like he was daring her to go ahead and tell on him. Sakura couldn't believe him. Did he really think she was going to do that without listening to his reason first? Didn't he think he could confide in her at all?
Was she really that bad of a friend?
She let her head hung. "You know what, Sasuke-kun," she began. "Since you came back, I don't feel like you're here at all." When he was gone, his letters made her feel connected to him, but that connection was completely lost with the Sasuke that was in front of her, alive and breathing. It was as if they were two completely different people and Sakura couldn't reconcile them. She didn't know how.
"Tell me what you're thinking," she said. "Tell me what you were doing with the prisoner." When she looked up, she thought she saw guilt in his eyes, but it soon went away and his eyes were distant again, although softer than they were before.
"I was looking through his memories," he said.
Sakura blinked. "You can do that?" she asked.
"A bit," he said. "It would have been better if he wasn't fighting, but I needed him conscious so it couldn't be helped."
Again, he was quiet, the very reason he worried everyone and got himself a probation. Sakura couldn't help seeing the irony in it all. Back then, Sasuke's quietness was the reason girls thought he was so cool. Now it might be his downfall. "What were you looking for?" she asked. She knew that he might not divulge, but she needed to give him a chance.
A flash of emotions passed over his feature. It came and went so quickly she couldn't characterize it, but the word he spoke and way he said it told her everything she needed to know. "Naruto."
One look at his face and Sakura wanted desperately to hug him. Sasuke looked so lost and so hurt. She knew he wouldn't welcome the gesture, so she reached for his arms and squeezed them instead. "Was he there in any of the memories?" she asked gently.
"Not recently. But they were teammates once," Sasuke said with a hint of resentment. "I found a memory of them going on missions together. He was the one who taught this guy the handless jutsu."
Sakura blinked. "Handless jutsu?" she muttered. "Is that even possible?"
"You've seen it," replied Sasuke.
Yes, she had seen it. Come to think of it, it was typical of Naruto to do the impossible, wasn't it? "I guess he's the still the number one unpredictable ninja, ne?" she said with a small smile. But Sasuke didn't return her smile. If anything, he looked downright depressed, and Sakura was worried. "Sasuke-kun, what's wrong?"
He didn't reply, not right away. It took him a few seconds to gather his thoughts before he began, "Do you think we are wrong to try to get him back?"
What?
"These people, they respect his power," Sasuke said slowly as if dreading to talk. "They made him happy."
"No," she countered. "They are not like us-"
"No, they aren't, because they knew everything but didn't turn him away."
She felt her chest tighten.
"They don't call him nasty names. They don't ignore him. He's not nothing to them," Sasuke said as he closed his eyes. "They welcome him."
She shook her head. No, that couldn't be right. They were Sound ninja. They didn't value teamwork or friendship. They were all about power. "It's not him that they like, Sasuke. It's the Nine-tails. You couldn't possibly think Naruto can be happy because of that."
"But we know for a fact that he wasn't happy in Konoha because of the Nine-tails," Sasuke countered her rather forcefully. He was hard to read, but she could tell that he was hurt and confused, and quite understandably so. Sakura didn't know what he saw, but seeing the possibility that Naruto might have been happier without them... she couldn't accept that the possibility might even exist. Looking at Sasuke, she knew she only felt a part of his pain. He looked frustrated… and heartbroken.
Realization struck her then that maybe that was what it was. She hadn't thought of it that way, not since Sasuke had first denied that he had any feelings for Naruto. But they were thirteen back then. How could they understand what they felt? Crush could be mistaken for love, and friendship for rivalry. And Sasuke was a persistent and dedicated person, so she just thought it typical of him that he would chase after his best friend with the same persistence and dedication he had given to everything in his life. But this, his reaction to rejection and dismissal, was not something she had seen in Sasuke before, and she was certain not something a friend would show from knowing that his friend had quite possibly forgotten all about him.
But she knew she shouldn't assume. This was Sasuke. He had always been different. She touched him gently on his arm and asked, "Are you alright? You don't look well."
Sasuke didn't reply at first. His hands were clenched with the tension and his lips pressed tight. He was like a coiled snake ready to strike. For a second she was afraid he was going to burst, but then he said, "Why does it hurt?"
She frowned. "What hurts?"
He hissed back, "Everything."
Sakura felt like her heart was breaking with him. As frightful as he was in that moment, she could see a lost little boy, confused by his feelings and uncertain how to deal with them. She could see why he completely incinerated training ground after training ground. Gaara was right. Sasuke didn't know how to deal with emotions aside from channeling them through aggression. That was how he was trained from a young age, and so that was how he was.
Sakura cursed the entirety of shinobi existence inside her head before giving her friend a gentle smile, aiming to calm him down. "What made you feel that, Sasuke-kun?" she asked.
"When I saw Naruto smile at that guy in the memory. I honestly wanted to punch his face."
Sakura giggled - a rather inappropriate reaction, she thought. Sasuke looked at her, puzzled, but she waved it off. "Have you felt it before? Were there any other situations that made you feel this way?" she continued with her line of questioning.
He was quiet for a moment again, like he was considering what to tell her. Finally, he said, "When I woke up in Suna and realized that Naruto was gone...when he refused to let me look at his injuries... when he didn't want to look at me..."
They were all about Naruto, and Sakura wasn't surprised in the slightest. For Sasuke, though, it was probably a shock. "Have you thought of why that might be the case?"
She could see Sasuke clutching the fabric underneath his hands. His knuckles were nearly white. She knew this was going to be hard. She needed to pry into places in his head and his heart that she wasn't entirely sure he fully acknowledged. His answer, as expected, was, "I don't know."
Sakura was glad he admitted that out loud to her. Acceptance was the first important step, after all. "What if it was one of your admirers suddenly dismissing you, do you think it would feel the same way?" Sasuke scowled at her like she just uttered the most ridiculous statement in the known history of mankind. Sakura smiled at him. Of course not. Sasuke would probably be happy that the person left him alone for a change. "What I want to say is, if the person isn't important to you, you wouldn't have felt the pain," she said. "You want him to acknowledge you, don't you?"
Sasuke was quiet for while. He was in his own head for a time before he tentatively nodded. It was kind of ironic, really. Back in the Academy, Naruto always talked about beating Sasuke. It was Naruto that craved the acknowledgement. Now the world had turned upside down, and Sasuke was the one running after Naruto, wanting his recognition more than anything else.
Now she had to ask the question. "What do you want him to see you as, Sasuke?" Again, Sasuke looked at her like he could not comprehend what she said. She clarified, "Acknowledgement has a lot of shade to it, right? He can acknowledge you as an enemy, as a peer, or as a friend. I wanted you to acknowledge me as a potential girlfriend once, you know. That was why I always went moon-eyed at you." Sakura smiled at the memory. Her attraction to him was really innocent and naïve back then, but they were too grown up for that now.
She knew whatever Sasuke felt for Naruto would have gone beyond what she had felt for him. It would have been more difficult to put in a neatly labeled box. But at least she wanted him to think about it instead of turning a blind eye and denying its existence like he was so fond of doing three years ago.
"You don't have to answer me right now," she told him after a long silence, "but the next time you meet Naruto, you need to know this. If you don't, you might end up hurting him again." She could feel her friend stiffen at her words. It was painful for her, too, to be the only one that seemed to understand but unable to do anything about it. And like how she dealt with everything that was painful in her life, Sakura smiled. "And you can always talk to me. I'm here."
Sasuke still seemed unsure, but he nodded. He was an intellectual person, and Sakura knew he would need time to think this over, to scrutinize every memory, every feeling before coming to a conclusion. Sasuke had endured a lot in his childhood. Accepting his emotions would be difficult. She wondered if it was the same for Naruto, or if it would be worse for him.
She sent Sasuke to bed and took her shift after that. She knew she was faced with an impossible decision. She should tell Tsunade-shishou the reason behind Sasuke's outbursts, but she knew that would put a mark on Sasuke as having a potential liability. He would never be assigned to any mission involving Naruto even with his Sharingan, and that would devastate him. If she didn't tell and he was assigned to a mission involving Naruto, she honestly couldn't tell what might happen.
Sakura let her head fell to the desk with a thud. She wanted to do what was best, but in this situation it seemed that nothing good could come out of it. Still, a small part of her prayed that it would. For her friends' happiness, she prayed to the gods that it would.
/***/
Naruto knew they should probably sleep on it before starting their session, but he knew they would just lose sleep unnecessarily. As soon as the messenger broached the subject, he could feel the tension and restlessness in his teammates. The proposition was risky to say the least, so he couldn't say yes or no on his team's behalf. They needed to talk this one out, so Naruto told the messenger to meet them again in three days, the time period that should be enough to let everything sink in.
As soon as the messenger left, they rearranged the seats so that they were sitting in a circle, as was customary of the Scums when they needed to talk. Naruto sat facing Saya with Juugo on one side and Karin and Suigetsu on the other. It was unfair for two of his teammates to squeeze, he supposed, but he needed Saya, especially when his thoughts were all over the place like this.
He took a deep breath and, as he usually did, went with his gut. "You guys know I don't want to be involved in politics," he began. "I want to say no, but I know that's going to be a bad idea. We'll need them if we want to find the Akatsuki."
"Do we need to be involved in the politics?" asked Suigetsu. "I mean, can't we just take this like other jobs? Get in, get out like we usually do?"
"It's not going to be that simple," said Karin. "This general is staging a full-on rebellion against his daimyo. If he loses, we'll be in trouble with the daimyo for treason. He can behead us."
"Then we just need to win, right?" said Suigetsu. Karin looked like she wanted to slap him but refrained from doing so because Saya was pinning her with a stare.
"I don't think there is any prison me and Suigetsu can't break if we want to," said Juugo. Suigetsu smirked.
"It's not the problem with breaking out," Karin said. "I'm sure between the five of us no prison could keep us in, but then we'd be hunted. We already have Leaf and Akatsuki to worry about. I don't think making more enemies is a good idea."
"And if we are too showy, then the daimyo would most definitely involve the Five Countries," added Saya. "If we are going to take this mission, we need to know what we're doing."
"As in?" Suigetsu asked.
"We need to know we can get out and remain neutral to whoever takes control of Rice Country afterwards," Saya said.
"Sheesh, that's just not possible, is it?" replied Suigetsu. "In this kind of conflict, you have to take a side. Anyone who switches between the two is going to get killed."
"True," said Saya. She frowned in deep concentration.
"What about you, Saya?" Naruto asked. She blinked at him as if she just woke up from a dream. "You were from Rice Country. Which side do you favour personally?"
She didn't move much, but Naruto had long learned to read her. Her face was neutral but not the careful neutral she used when facing with an unpleasant situation. She probably had a mixed feeling about this and, unlike Naruto, she was going by what her head told her. "Whether the daimyo or the general wins, everything else will still be the same," she said. "The peasants will ultimately be the ones to suffer the consequence."
Naruto sighed. That put a whole new perspective to the thing that Naruto had to mull over. He honestly would prefer a hundred mundane missions over this if not for the prospect of having access to an information network. He didn't want the destruction of a country on his conscience. "If we lend a hand to one side, what's the chance of that side winning?" he asked.
"How involved are you talking about?" Saya asked.
"Say we're committed, what's the chance?"
"Close to certainty," she said. "The power of a jinchuuriki would end the conflict quickly, and you in particular are really stubborn."
"Then why are we so worried about this?" exclaimed Suigetsu.
Naruto groaned. "Because I don't want to decide the outcome of a conflict I have no interest in. I don't know this place. How do I know what's best?"
"No one knows, Naruto," said Saya. "Each of us only knows what we want."
Naruto knew Saya was right. If he asked a million people what they wanted, he would get a million answers and none of them exactly the same. In most missions, he had only one wish to grant, that of his employer, and that was easy enough to do. But in a complicated mission like this, his employer might not be the best person to grant a wish to.
Naruto knew the outcome he wanted. He also knew Saya would probably try to strangle him in his sleep for even asking this of her, "If I tell you what I want, can you figure out how to make it happen?"
Saya narrowed her eyes accusingly at him but nodded nonetheless. He knew he was being unreasonable, but Naruto didn't know what else to want. If they were going to lose sleep, he'd rather have something good come out of it.
/***/
Kakashi wasn't directly involved with capturing the spy from the former Sound, so he was actually quite surprised that Ibiki notified him that the prisoner was broken. Nothing else was communicated other than that Ibiki wanted Kakashi to come to the headquarters of the Intelligence and Interrogation Department at his earliest convenience.
So Kakashi went right after he received the message and was shown to the underground level, the torture chambers, where Ibiki was observing one of his team interrogating the spy in the adjacent room. "There you are," said the man with a smile that still occasionally terrified the Copy Ninja. "I thought it might take you a couple of days to show up, considering Hokage-sama has kept you rather busy lately."
"I'm free right now," said Kakashi as he observed the interrogation that went on. This was a nice one. They didn't use any torturing device or genjutsu since the man had been cooperating so far. But the man was still shaken somewhat if his occasional flinches were anything to go by. "How's he doing?" Kakashi asked.
"Very well, I'd say," replied Ibiki. "He's a pawn, doesn't know a lot, but we got some pretty good idea what's going on in Rice Country from him. Hokage-sama will be getting a report shortly after this, but that's not what I call you here for." Then Ibiki handed Kakashi three sheets of paper. "You might want to see this," he said.
Kakashi took the thin report out of his hand and quickly skimmed through the first page, then the second, and the third. "How many Sound shinobi have you been interrogating?"
"Quite a few," said Ibiki with his usual smile. "After Orochimaru's death, Sound became fractured. A lot of Sound ninja have gone rogue like the guy we got here, but some of them use the opportunity to gain power of their own. The claim that they killed Orochimaru seemed to be a ruse that only worked with people outside of Otogakure, since people who were there on that day already saw his body and know who killed him. But only a group of people had witnessed the act."
"The Scums," muttered Kakashi as he read the name on the paper.
"Yes," Ibiki said. "Your ex-student is said to be the leader of the group."
Kakashi looked at Ibiki then. "And he killed Orochimaru," he read it off the page.
"That's the claim," said Ibiki, "but Tenzou couldn't find anything to back it up. Orochimaru's body hasn't been found yet. Otogakure was a battlefield in its own right. The same goes for every Sound base Tenzou has investigated so far. The Sound Daimyo has no shinobi power to back him up at the moment, so it's going to be a free-for-all buffet for a while." Ibiki sighed. "I was hoping it wasn't going to spread to the nearby Rice Country, but if Sound shinobi are already there, chances are the country was going to destabilize sooner rather than later."
Kakashi sighed. All these politics were giving him a headache. "We're going to get dragged into this soon, aren't we?" Kakashi muttered. "The Rice Daimyo uses our service quite exclusively."
"If he had the wit about him, he should be recruiting decent Sound shinobi like this guy," Ibiki said as he pointed his thumb towards the interrogation room, "but from what I've heard, that isn't going to happen, is it?"
Kakashi shook his head. "The Daimyo refused Orochimaru before. He's not going to go back on his word now."
Ibiki exhaled loudly before saying, "As Nara Shikaku would say-"
"-troublesome," Kakashi finished the sentence for him. He could feel the oncoming of a migraine. "We have Akatsuki and Naruto to worry about and now this. Speaking of Naruto, what's his status with Sound right now?"
"Missing since Orochimaru's death," said Ibiki. "They are looking for him, too, for various reasons it seems. He made a lot of friends and foes there." Kakashi wasn't surprise. Naruto was the type to break rather than bend. He was bound to cross someone big in Oto. "For a loudmouth knucklehead, he's managed to keep a low-profile so far, but it might not be for long."
"How come?" said Kakashi.
Ibiki pointed to the spy again. "That guy claims that the network he was in was the most sophisticated one Sound has. They come the closest to ever pinpointing Naruto's location."
That definitely got Kakashi interested. "And does he know?"
Ibiki shook his head. "No, they aren't really on a big hunt for him, so the information is scattered. The only one who probably knows is the ringleader. Getting that guy is going to be tricky, because even the people in his network don't necessarily know what he's up to or where he is."
"Knowing the name would help," said Kakashi.
Ibiki sighed. He clearly didn't think it was a good use of time. Besides, there was no proof that they were any better than the network Leaf already had or that they really knew Naruto's location, but he told Kakashi anyway, "Noboru of Rice Country."
/***/
End of Chapter 28
A/N: Just to be clear, Rice Country and the Land of Sound are not the same place in this story, as sometimes they are made to be. They are neighbor countries instead. So, yes, when I talk about Rice, I'm basically making shit up.
christinetjorel Your wish is my command. Here's another chapter. :)
kamui5 Naruto's definitely up to something, isn't he?
Wind Strengthens Fire Likey, likey?
TacitcalDubstep Hope you like this one :)
Reign Of Sorrow Oh, I don't know if I have that skill. If I can consistently keep the readers then you can begin get jelly. (Because I'm jelly of many authors because of that, too.)
nekomode Oh, Sasuke is definitely right, in some sense. But there's always a question of how much should we stick with the regret of the past. I think Konoha's hypocrisy is our hypocrisy actually. I mean, we expects soldiers, policemen, and first responders to go out there and confront violence, and then come back be able to cope with whatever happened to them. And when they can't do that, obviously, they get penalized for that. But that's just a part of our problematic relationship with violence, and thinking about it makes my head hurt.
I'd really like to hand you the 'Karin Team' badge. (Anyone else?) The opinion on Yu-chan is really divided in the Scums, Karin being on the side of 'She Was The Crazy Bitch'. We'll get to what other people think later. The point you made about the poison being oil-based is really interesting. I've never thought of it that way. And thanks for letting me know about your schedule. I kind of expect that actually. I hope you get well soon, and good luck. *Good guy pose*
davycrockett100 Thanks!
guest *Pat on the shoulder* Now, now, everything will be all right (I hope). I'd love to write more about Jiraiya, actually, but it's probably going to be in flashbacks. It would have been great if we get to know more about him, wouldn't it? And, yes, definitely more jiraiya-sasuke drinking stories.
RavenPainter Oh, how I want to just lock them together until they snog, but I have a suspicion that they might just sit it out. They have such bad cases of denial. (But Sasuke is getting progressively more accepting, if I may say). And I don't think you can be a 'great' ninja without sustaining some damage. I was actually disappointed (but not by much) that we didn't get to know more about Jiraiya in the canon (although I'm kind of glad that we don't have to see another replay of a tragic backstory where everyone dies). I hope you enjoy this chapter!
korohoshi Hohoho, and he hasn't fallen that hard yet.
