Itachi paced furiously, his brow furrowed in concern. "I suspected that Orochimaru might be planning something, but the scale of his operation was bigger than I thought."
"I've been so blind, Itachi, I've been working with Juugo for weeks! How did I miss what his chakra felt like?"
"Have you seen him in a rage?"
"No, but-"
"That's probably why. The chakra blade was volatile, completely unique. I doubt anyone could have recognized it," He glanced over at Sakura, who still sat on the floor, her head cradled in her hands.
"We're going to have to kill Juugo," he continued, his quiet footsteps echoing through the room.
Her head snapped up, and he was almost dissuaded by the anguish in her eyes. "Itachi, there has to be another way-"
"If you have any ideas, I'm all ears." He stopped pacing, taking a moment to survey the documents spread out in front of him on the large wooden reading table.
"I can't find another solution. If we stop the source of the berserker blades and eliminate any that Orochimaru has stored, we can head off his plans before he even gets close to my father and Naruto."
"If he has your father's sharingan, Orochimaru won't need the blades." Her eyes lit up, the fear in them shone through her concern for Juugo.
"That doesn't mean that he's going to try and use my father's body to release the Kyuubi. It's more likely that he'll attack Naruto first. It'll both release the Nine-Tails and injure the host so badly that the beast can't be resealed back into him. Even with a sharingan on his side, Naruto's too strong to ignore."
Something dark flashed through Sakura's expression; Itachi didn't have to ask to know that she was remembering the scale of Naruto's injuries.
"You think that Orochimaru might try to make himself the new host?" She whispered, biting her lip with worry.
"Yeah. You said that he needs a new body every decade or so, but with the chakra and healing capabilities of the Nine-Tails he could prolong his life indefinitely."
"Itachi, we have to do something!" She ran her hands through her hair in frustration, clearly fighting to keep her composure. He felt a pang of worry; she was already running on fumes from the events of the past month.
"We should start with Juugo-"
"Juugo is innocent, it's not his fault that the mutagen-"
"And it's not our fault that my father is insane, but the hard choices have to be made now. If we wait any longer and count on anyone else we could be dead before we have the chance to stop Orochimaru."
"Let me brainstorm another way. I won't kill him unless it's the absolute last resort."
"Okay," he said grudgingly, quietly doubtful that there was another solution. He was suddenly reminded of his ANBU training, sometimes ruthlessness was necessary.
"Sacrifice the few to save the many; this fact is crucial for the health of the hidden villages. If you hesitate too long, your enemy will take advantage of your weakness. Empathy has no place here."
Sakura had closed her eyes again, and he knew that she was thinking hard. He wanted to assure her that they could help Konoha without spilling blood, but they would both know that it was a lie. Itachi was always looking for another solution; killing was never his preferred course of action.
But he felt like his back was against a wall.
After the events of Konohamaru's death, he knew that she understood what had to be done. Come on, Sakura, think. If you can find a way to get around it, I'll help, but-
He was startled out of his thoughts as Sakura suddenly started to cough, trying in vain to hide that she was in pain. "Haruno?"
"I'm fine," she said weakly, avoiding his inquisitive gaze.
He knelt in front of her, gently raising her chin up to get a better look at her. The skin of her neck was faintly tinged with pink, and he felt a bolt of rage shoot through him. She'd carefully kept her hair over her neck, hiding the irritation of her skin.
"You're not fine. You healed yourself. What happened?" His tone left no room for negotiation.
She sighed, exhaustion written plainly on her face. "Kabuto."
"And what, exactly, did Kabuto do?" He felt his tone become steely, and he closed his eyes, searching for calm.
"He cornered me down in the lab, he started asking questions about Sasuke's statue, and why Sasuke can talk. And then he-" She cut off, her hesitation written all over her face.
"Sakura-"
"-I didn't want to tell you because I knew that you'd be furious-"
"What did he do to you?!" Itachi demanded, starting to pace again. He wasn't used to the anxiety that flooded through his system; he was too worried to think rationally. Give me one reason that I shouldn't go down there and kill him right now-
"He tried to force the sharingan to activate," she whispered, clearly unnerved by his explosive reaction, "He said he was testing a theory. I'm fine, really. He just bruised me."
Itachi's face, which normally held a neutral expression, was pale with anger. He didn't say anything, trying to calm the riot of emotions that he was feeling. Rage, surprise, and fear swirled through him; he wasn't able to prize them apart.
"Your chakra levels are down, you didn't use up that much healing bruises."
She shifted uncomfortably. "Okay, so maybe there was some internal bleeding that I had to take care of, but the ribs were easy to heal-"
"What?!"
"Itachi, please. I'm okay. He actually just solved one of our problems."
"Problems?" He wasn't expecting her to change the subject, and it stopped him in his tracks. "What are you talking about?"
"There's something that I didn't tell you. It's about Sasuke."
He glanced at her, unsure of what she was referring to. When did she start keeping secrets from me?
She saw the look in his eyes and hurriedly continued. "When I talked to Tsunade-sama-"
She cut off as he put up his hand to stop her. Her eyes narrowed as the sharingan flooded over his dark eyes and she realized what he was doing. I don't want to be overheard. That should do it. I don't know why I didn't think of it earlier.
Closing his eyes briefly, he checked the genjutsu that he'd placed over the room. Satisfied that it was safe to continue, he nodded at Sakura. Her eyes widened and her chakra spiked as she tested the illusion.
A bright blush quickly spread over her cheeks and she laughed softly when she realized what anyone else outside the room was hearing. "Well, that will definitely keep anyone away from us. Don't you think that's a little overkill though?"
He smirked, crouching down in front of her. "No, it's quite accurate actually."
"I'm not that loud!"
"Yes, you are. Continue."
She shook her head at him, her blush deepening. "Fine. A reanimation jutsu requires enough vital chakra that the body can start to work again. You need a life for a life, basically. Tsunade-sama and I talked about it in the Shikkotsu forest. I didn't tell you about it because I was afraid that you would volunteer to die for Sasuke."
He was slightly taken aback, but not offended. She was right; it was something that he might have done. "You're right about that. So, you're looking for alternatives."
"Yes. Now that we know that Juugo is the source of the chakra that almost freed the Kyuubi, we can throw a tangle into Orochimaru's operations."
"Ah, Kabuto. You want to use him to provide the chakra that reanimates Sasuke."
"Yes." Her eyes were flinty, and he felt a sudden rush of affection for her. I'm glad that I'm on her good side.
"Would you have picked him if he hadn't attacked you?" He asked softly, sure of the answer. She wasn't the kind of person who would sacrifice anyone if she could help it, hence the secrecy around the forbidden jutsu.
She sighed, running her hand through her hair. "Honestly, I would have considered him anyway. He takes pleasure in experimenting on the test subjects here. Pain intrigues him, it's like he feeds off of it. I hate that we don't have another choice, but we need Sasuke back."
"Then the choice is made. He makes the most sense."
"Without Kabuto, Orochimaru has to start over with his research," she muttered, lacing her fingers together, "He's the one who runs the tests and keeps the facility up and running."
"He's the lodestone then. Take him away and Orochimaru will be so busy trying to replace him that his other plans will have to be placed on hold." Itachi commented, crossing his arms.
"Yes. Especially if a large and fiery explosion wipes out the entire archive of lab test results," Sakura said pointedly, raising an eyebrow suggestively.
"You want me to provoke Deidara." He couldn't help the doubt that colored his tone; he wasn't overly fond of the idea.
"Any kind of distraction would work, I can do it if you don't want to-" She added hurriedly; she was a master at translating his facial expressions after spending months with him at the hideout.
He sighed, shaking his head. I can use the mangekyou to protect me from the explosion. It should be me.
"I can do it. When do you want to make our move?"
"We'll just have to time it right. Let me sow some doubt, and then we can take the hideout down with us. Maybe two weeks, that should be enough."
"Ah. You want to make it look like Kabuto left willingly."
"Yeah. Unless you have another idea?"
"Not one that keeps him alive for more than an hour." He said darkly, his eyes clouded with anger. "And what about your plans to take the Akatsuki down from the inside, can we accelerate that?"
She sighed, clearly torn. "We don't have enough time. Our priority has to be Orochimaru, but when he's gone I doubt there will be an Akatsuki at all. If I had a year I could use my chakra to start degrading their chakra streams from within their bodies, but that will take time that we don't have."
"That's true." He sat down next to her, tapping her nose gently with his finger. "Once we get back to Konoha we can delegate the members to ANBU. Their resources will get the job done fairly quickly."
"Yeah..."
"As I told you before, the sharingan can't read minds." He said wryly, intrigued by the mask of deep concentration that had settled over her features.
"Itachi, promise me that you won't threaten Kabuto." She looked at him very directly, and he sighed.
"I can't promise that," His brow furrowed and his eyes narrowed, "Kabuto had the guts to make an attempt on your life, which concerns me. He had to know that you'd tell me, and if he isn't wary of me then we've got a problem."
"I know that you don't mean that to be offensive, Itachi, but I'd appreciate it if you didn't speak as though I'm some sort of damsel in distress." The warning edge to her voice rang clearly through the room, and he sighed and laced his fingers with hers.
She let him, although her shoulders were stiff with tension and her eyes hadn't lost their hard edge.
That came out wrong.
"I'm sorry, you're right. I…feel guilty that I wasn't there to help you, that's all."
"Itachi, I was just caught off guard. If he ever tries anything like that again I will do everything I can to kill him. Now will you please promise me?" She scooted over, putting herself directly in front of him so that he couldn't avoid looking at her.
"Alright, I promise."
"Good. And promise that you won't get upset at what I'm about to say." She murmured, finally looking away.
He didn't like where this was headed. "Sakura-"
"Sasuke needs a sharingan," she blurted out, scrambling to her feet and planting her hands on her hips, "And I need your permission before I do anything that can guarantee that."
Itachi's eyes widened and he raised his gaze to meet hers. "Give him mine."
"No, wait-"
"Sakura. The eyes are his; I basically stole them in the first place-"
"Itachi, stop! Listen to me for a second!"
He didn't say anything more, just raised his eyebrow in a silent question.
She took a deep breath, crossing her arms across her chest. "If you give Sasuke his eyes back, you'll be blind. And they might not work properly if they are removed and then re-implanted in the original body. We'd go from having two sharingans to none."
"You think that he'll go blind if he gets the same sharingan back and continues to use it."
"I have no idea, that's the problem. We can't take that chance. So, with your permission, I want to give him yours."
"I'd give mine up without hesitation, but they're useless, you saw that right away when we first met."
"They're not useless, Itachi."
"Ah, I see. You want to give Sasuke a chance to awaken the eternal mangekyou."
"It might not work, but if you think that it's worth a shot I'll do the transplant myself." She ran a hand through her bright hair, worriedly looking at him over her shoulder as she began to pace.
"Yes." He said immediately, a flash of hope running through him. But it was immediately dashed as rational thought replaced it. "But my eyes are gone."
"No. They aren't," She said quietly, biting her lip. "Tsunade-sama didn't get rid of them, in case Sasuke's didn't work."
He was speechless. A myriad of emotions coursed through him, most of which bordered on the incredulous. He quickly clued into her unspoken statement. He felt his jaw clench. Over my dead body.
"You are not going to Konoha alone."
"I have to. I can use a coded message to ask Kakashi-sensei to meet me; it's the only way-"
"No. There's no way, it's too dangerous."
"Uchiha, you need to trust me!" Her voice rose, and her tone was turning shrill with frustration. "There are three reasons why! Hear me out!"
She only calls me Uchiha when she's mad. Hm.
He felt the corner of his mouth tick up; she was usually thoroughly entertaining when she worked herself up.
She held up one finger, clearly a few seconds away from shaking it at him in exasperation.
"First, I already have a code with Naruto and Kakashi-sensei; I don't even need to enter the village to communicate with them."
"How will you do that?"
Sakura turned and walked over to the large oak reading table. She reached into her discarded pack and pulled out two small silver bells. They jingled quietly as she returned to Itachi's side, holding them up so that they sparkled in the light of the reading lamps.
"When I was a genin, Kakashi-sensei first tested our squad by challenging us to work together and steal these bells. He'd hang them on his belt and give us a time limit." She sighed, her eyes suddenly far away as she recalled the memories.
"When Sasuke left the team and Naruto left the village with Jiraya-sama, Kakashi-sensei gave me the bells as a gift. Over the last few years we would run the exercise for fun when we had the time. If I hang them on the bridge to the west of the outer training grounds they'll know to meet me there."
Itachi reached out, drawing the bells into his palm. They tinkled quietly, and he ran his thumb over the small scratches that covered the dull metal. "You're sure that you're the only ones who know the message?"
She nodded enthusiastically, pointing to the string that held them together. "Yeah. Kakashi-sensei will know it's me if I tie a strand of my hair to them. His dogs can track me to a safe place where we can meet without being overheard."
Itachi wouldn't admit it, but it was a good plan. However, he was concerned that the bells would be obvious to an ANBU operative. "And what if the bells are spotted by someone else?"
She smirked, rolling her eyes at his question. "The bells are going to be tied underneath the bridge. Kakashi-sensei can hear far better than anyone else I know. He'll know that they're there within hours."
He sighed, running his thumb over her knuckles. "Okay, fine. What are the other two reasons?"
"Well, there's a mushroom that grows just outside of Konoha in the forest that can stop Orochimaru's necrosis from progressing so quickly."
"You want to slow it so that he doesn't need to rush and get himself a new host?"
"Exactly! The longer he can stay in his current body, the more time we have to figure out a way to stop him."
"Fine, that's sound. The third reason?"
"If I can talk to Kakashi-sensei and Naruto, they will be able to talk to Tsunade-sama and tell her everything that she needs to know. They already are working to stop your father from doing anything within the village, but they need to know that Raiton is probably how Orochimaru plans to get in."
"You mentioned getting his daughter to safety."
"Yeah. We have to time it right, but I can use Lady Katsuyu to transport her out. There's only one thing that I'm unsure about."
"Hm?"
"If Orochimaru was planning to take over Konoha using force the whole time, what's the point of using your father to create so much discord? Fugaku is too irrational, too easily angered too actually unseat Tsunade-sama, right? I don't really understand his reasoning, do you?"
Itachi gave a small laugh, but there was no mirth in the sound. "I have no idea. But, there's no way that we can fight a war on two fronts. Let our allies take care of the issues in Konoha."
She sighed, letting her head fall back onto the bookshelf behind her. "I know. I just feel so discombobulated. We missed so much that was right under our noses for months, I'm worried that I'm missing something else."
"We'll figure it out."
She turned her head to look him in the eye, and then she hesitated. "I think it's a really dumb idea to go today, given that Kabuto is suspicious of me. But, I don't want to give Orochimaru any more time to scheme."
Itachi appraised her for a moment, taking in the dark circles under her eyes and the muted look in her eyes. She was exhausted, her chakra was running lower than usual, and the stress of their mission was wearing on her.
"If you want to leave today, I'll cover for you. But, I'm not letting you go until I give you some of my chakra." He said quietly, absentmindedly tucking her hair behind her ear. Her eyes widened, and she shook her head.
"Itachi-"
"I'm sending Sasuke with you. You need my chakra to avoid the side-effects of the sharingan."
Her expression softened, and she smiled. "But who's going to keep you company?"
He smirked, climbing smoothly to his feet. He extended a hand to help her up, using more force than necessary, and letting out a quiet chuckle as she tumbled up and into his arms. "I'll be fine. I'm more concerned about you."
The blush that coloured her cheeks was immensely satisfying. She hopped up onto the reading table, watching him with knowing eyes. "I'm okay. Seeing Naruto and Kakashi-sensei will be good. I'm looking forward to their reunion with Sasuke."
Itachi stepped forward and placed his hands on the table, effectively boxing her in. "Just promise me that you'll be careful."
Her arms wrapped around his shoulders, and he buried his face in her hair.
"I will," she breathed, relaxing into his arms, "I'll be back as soon as I can."
He drew back to kiss her soundly, still faintly aware of the genjutsu he'd placed on the room.
Poor Sasuke. He's not going to be happy with me when we leave. If we don't stop now, I won't need the genjutsu to muffle our…conversation.
He broke the kiss with some regret, aware that she was working against the clock. She raised an eyebrow at him, apparently confused. "Uh, Itachi?"
"As much as I'd like to continue, you should get going." He said quietly, tapping her affectionately on the forehead. "I'll give you enough chakra to store Sasuke for a few days."
"Oh, right."
"Ready?"
"Yes." She whispered, her face still tilted up towards his. Even propped up on the desk, he was still taller than her. Without any hesitation, he pressed his forehead to hers and allowed his chakra to flow outwards.
Sasuke hopped impatiently on the spot outside the door. He still had enough of his chakra to pierce through the genjutsu that Itachi had placed over the library and the hallway outside, but he was still irritated. Sakura had taken off so quickly that he'd been concerned that Orochimaru was hot on her heels.
I'm always the last to know anything, he thought angrily, his feathers puffing out around him. He was tired of being stuck in a crow, tired of being the third wheel, and very tired of not being able to do much to help.
The genjutsu didn't help his already sour mood, it was just obnoxious. Sasuke was very uncomfortable to know that the sounds that he was hearing weren't realistic. That's just damn annoying. It's bad enough that they're always sneaking off to-.
He snapped to attention when the door opened, and they finally exited the room. He was about to ask them what the hell they were doing when he caught the excited expression on Sakura's face.
"What?"
"Sasuke, we're going back to Konoha." Sakura said quietly, crouching down so that he could hop up to her shoulder. "We need to talk to Kakashi-sensei and Naruto."
Although he didn't react outwardly, Sasuke felt a spike of excitement. He hadn't seen them in so long; it was finally going to be the long-awaited reunion of team seven that he'd been hoping towards for years.
"When are we leaving?"
"In a few hours," Itachi said, striding down the hallway ahead of them, "I gave Sakura some of my chakra so that you can travel less conspicuously."
"I'll tell you everything when we're safely on our way." Sakura said, opening her palm to show him a set of bells that he knew all too well. "Remember these?"
"I haven't seen those in a long time." He said, trying hard to contain his excitement.
I'm going home.
Tsunade took a deep, calming breath. She glanced at Kakashi, who was watching the unconscious form of Fugaku with an unreadable look in his visible eye.
"Kakashi, you can leave if you don't want to be here." She said smoothly, sliding her hands into medical gloves and flicking her long pigtails over her shoulder. "I'm perfectly capable of doing this without your help, although it is appreciated."
"Hokage-sama, I want to be here." His tone was cheerful, but Tsunade knew him well enough to sense the undercurrent of anger beneath his words. "I promised Sakura that I would do anything I could to help you."
Tsunade smirked, fully aware of the hidden meaning of his words. "Good. When I'm done I need you to get a message to Gaara. His troops are being pulled back to Suna, but I could use some of them here if he can spare them."
"That won't be a problem." Kakashi walked over to the examination table and turned on the lamp. The bright, fluorescent light suddenly leeched all of the colour from Fugaku's skin; from where Tsunade was standing he looked like a corpse.
Gathering her chakra, Tsunade settled herself into a comfortable position at Fugaku's head. She allowed the energy to bloom out of her hands, creating a blue nimbus around him. Taking a deep breath, she pushed into his chakra streams. Immediately, she felt her brow furrowing as she took stock of the damage.
I've been healing his eyes for years, how on earth is there so much damage that I couldn't see?
Probing gently, she almost gasped aloud as she started to try to isolate the poison from his cells. There's something about that chakra that's fighting me.
She decided to start small, concentrating and then siphoning a small measure of the poison out of his heart muscles. She worked her way around his vital organs, slowly gaining ground as she traveled up his spine. Tsunade was so focused on her work that she missed Kakashi's raised eyebrow as she pulled a measure of poison from his body. The black liquid was viscous, oily, and resisted her attempts to pull it cleanly from Fugaku's skin.
She discarded it in a medical waste container beside her, again, and again, and again.
Hours passed, and Kakashi watched as the light of the sun travelled around the room through the tightly drawn curtains.
Finally, after six hours, Tsunade drew her hands back and shakily wiped the back of her hand across her forehead. She gratefully accepted the glass of water that Kakashi handed her and drained it in one long gulp. She stretched, trying to work the tension out of her muscles.
"So, I hope that bucket is a good sign." Kakashi murmured, gesturing at the poison sitting on the bedside table.
Tsunade nodded, glancing down at Fugaku with worry written clearly all over her features. She knew that she had only managed to finish the least important work. Next, she had to try and remove the poison from his brain and chakra streams.
"It's going to get messy. If I collapse, for any reason, get Shizune. She'll know what to do," she said determinedly, re-assuming her position at the head of the table, "We have to be at the council meeting tonight. Too much is at stake, we can't waste any more time."
"Understood."
Tsunade concentrated once more, diving back into Fugaku's chakra streams. The closer she got to his chakra junctions, the more difficulty she had. The foreign chakra in his body was mixed with a substance that she had never seen before.
But it was oddly familiar.
It almost reminds me of the remnants of Naruto's wound. His chakra function is still slightly dampened around the area of the seal, I wonder if there's something in the tea that acts like broken glass, making minuscule cuts to his chakra streams as he uses large amounts to power the sharingan.
Wait-no. There's no way. It's so dangerous.
She'd finally entered his brain.
Crystals. The chakra was everywhere, shimmering with energy. Enclosing nerves and ensnaring entire swaths of the cerebellum. Fugaku's brain couldn't withstand the onslaught, it was no wonder that he was already half insane. A forbidden jutsu, it has to be.
Tsunade felt her heartbeat increase as she surveyed the damage before her. She knew immediately what she was looking at, and that knowledge sent a flood of cold dread through her.
Orochimaru. You sick bastard.
Fugaku's chakra streams were thoroughly saturated with alien chakra. It had crystallized into sharp, leeching protrusions that were corrupting the chakra flow and soaking into every inch of Fugaku's body. She would have recognized the look of this parasitic jutsu anywhere.
"Kakashi, we have a big problem." She said quietly, not opening her eyes. She couldn't afford to lose track of her progress. "The chakra that he's been absorbing is Orochimaru's."
"That's not good," Kakashi agreed, raising one eyebrow with curiosity, "What's the endgame?"
"Orochimaru is slowly taking over Fugaku's body, one cell at a time. He's planning to transfer his consciousness into Fugaku." She replied darkly, still trying to navigate around Fugaku's damaged cerebrum. "Fugaku's running out of time. He's been absorbing Orochimaru's chakra for eighteen years."
"In what way?"
"The tea. Orochimaru's managed to crystallize his own chakra."
"That sounds dangerous."
"Oh you have no idea. But it's genius."
"How so?"
Not for the first time, Tsunade wished that she could see Kakashi's real facial expression underneath his mask.
"Orochimaru's jutsu works extremely slowly, taking over the host over the course of years, sometimes decades. By the time he's ready to transfer his consciousness to the new host, the body is breaking down from the inside. He turns the host's chakra against itself, using his own chakra to power the system. That's why he usually picks children; he can raise them into the kind of host that he needs, prolonging his ability to use it." She shuddered, thoroughly disgusted by her former teammate.
"If the body is turning against its own cells, that's what causes the necrosis?"
"Yes. The jutsu is critically flawed. But the fact that he's targeted Fugaku is bad. He's found a way to get himself a mangekyou sharingan without a fight."
"I have a hard time believing that Fugaku would willingly turn himself over."
"Like the curse marks, and my understanding is rudimentary, the affected shinobi is drawn back to Orochimaru's chakra. It's like a beacon that they can't ignore. Within a few weeks, I suspect that Fugaku was meant to turn up missing."
"Moths to a flame, huh? So, can you do anything to stop it?"
She sighed, her face still lit up by the pulsing blue light of her chakra. "Yes, but not much. I can use my chakra to degrade the concentration of Orochimaru's essence in his blood, but the damage to his body is too far along."
"How much time does he have?"
"Maybe a month. His left brain function is down at twenty four percent, so it won't be long before he can't resist the pull of the jutsu."
"So we have less than a month to kill Orochimaru." Kakashi said solemnly, all traces of apathy gone from his expression.
"Yes. If Orochimaru gets his hands on a mangekyou we're going to be in bad shape."
"And what's the plan with Naruto? Why would he attack him?"
"I don't know, Kakashi. That worries me." She opened her eyes briefly, just long enough to give him a meaningful look. "I'll do what I can and we'll tell Fugaku what's happening when he wakes up."
"Do you think that he'll continue to cooperate?"
She sighed again, and the sound was filled with regret. "He doesn't have a choice."
Sakura was almost flying though the trees. The feeling of the wind whipping though her hair filled her with excitement. She was going home, and Sasuke was coming with her. She was nearly giddy with anticipation; she couldn't wait for their reunion with Naruto.
Sasuke was also thrilled, that much she could tell. His chakra nearly buzzed with energy behind her seal, and she bit back the urge to chuckle. Stopping on a high branch, she gave him a little nudge with her chakra, and he bloomed out of her forehead. She had a clone waiting for him by the time he had fully emerged, signing quickly as he appeared out of his hiding spot.
"There you go!" She chirped, gesturing at the waiting vessel. Sasuke didn't hesitate to open his temporary eyes and stretch out his shoulders. She waited impatiently, nearly bouncing on the spot as he became re accustomed to being in a human body.
"What?"
"Nothing, I'm just looking forward to seeing Naruto and Kakashi-sensei." She said quickly, her grin still plastered firmly on her face. "Aren't you?"
"Hm."
In this case, they both knew that his non-committal answer was a bluff. He turned on his heel and darted into the trees, she followed close behind.
"Whatever you say, Sasuke," she muttered, turning her attention back to the trees whizzing past. Her speed was good; she could be back to the outskirts of Konoha within five hours.
"So what were you two talking about in the library?" Sasuke asked, obviously unable to dampen his curiosity any longer.
She was caught off guard by his sudden question. "Oh, right. Sorry about that, I was freaking out."
"For a change."
"Do you want me to tell you or not?"
He didn't reply, she assumed that he was placated for now. She took a few seconds to gather her thoughts. "Okay, so it turns out that your father isn't the one behind everything that's happening in Konoha."
"It's Orochimaru."
"Yeah. Itachi told me that it all started eighteen years ago, when your uncle died on a mission."
"I remember. My father changed after that, apparently."
"Itachi told me that he used to be strict, but kind. Do you agree with that?"
"Yeah. But it was so long ago that I can't remember anything other than what he's like now." Sasuke's words were tinged with bitterness, Sakura didn't blame him one bit.
"So, it all started there. Orochimaru must have a spy in your father's house, that's the only thing that I don't have figured out," she mused, "Do you know who it could be?"
"The steward for the estate." Sasuke said immediately. "He showed up one day and has been there ever since. It was probably around the same time. He's always poking his nose into our personal business."
"I'll tell Kakashi-sensei that, then. So, it turns out that the blade that almost killed Naruto is made with Juugo's chakra."
"The curse-mark guy?"
"That's the one. It almost forced the Nine-tails out of his body."
Sasuke whistled quietly, clearly impressed. "So Orochimaru wants the Nine-tails. No surprise there."
"Sasuke, there's more. Your father has Shisui's sharingan, and if Orochimaru gets your father's body-"
"He can control the Nine-Tails, I get it. But why bother going to all that trouble to attack Naruto?"
Sakura pursed her lips, trying to remember the strange events of the mission. "He needed to get Naruto out of the village and away from the protection of the Hokage? If the blade didn't work, then he would have tried something else later, I guess. The old bastard was still pretending to be dead, after all."
"And the Third's death. What was the point of that?"
Sakura almost made a sarcastic remark, but then she remembered that he'd been dead for six months. Oh, he wasn't alive to hear all of this the first time around. I forgot.
The thought filled her with guilt.
"Orochimaru said that he'd agreed on a carte blanche for the debt with your father. He could have asked for anything, but he chose to wait. It makes sense, if one of his plans fell through then your father would still be indebted to him."
"He is still in that position. Given everything that we know now, I don't know that it was wise of me to reveal myself to my father." Sasuke said carefully, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye.
"Why?" She said quietly, feeling as though she'd been stung by his words.
"He might find some advantage to use against us."
She felt a flash of hurt, suddenly finding it very difficult to look at him. I know he doesn't mean it like that, but wow. Does he regret saving my life?
An uncomfortable silence fell between them. Sakura kept up the punishing pace, trying to ignore the pinprick of tears behind her eyes.
Hours later, they stopped a mile from Konoha's territory.
"This is probably a good place to meet them, right?" Sakura asked, surveying the forest around them. "There's a cave over there that's pretty well hidden. Naruto knows about it so they shouldn't have any trouble tracking me there."
"Hm." Sasuke's response made her roll her eyes. He obviously wasn't in the mood to talk.
Closing her eyes, Sakura concentrated her chakra and tapped one of the bells. It shone faintly with a green light for a moment, and then faded back to dull metal. She then dragged her hands though her hair until she was able to grab a loose strand. She then tied it to the bells, ensuring that her scent was all over them.
"Okay, I'm going to place the bells. Stay here." She said, already running towards the bridge where Kakashi had left Itachi's headband. I don't want anyone to spot Sasuke. I still don't know what would happen if the clone was destroyed. That's not a chance I'm willing to take.
She was too far away to hear Sasuke's quiet grumble of protest.
Sakura could feel her shoulders tensing up as she got closer to Konoha. She kept her eyes peeled for any shinobi, her chakra shooting outwards as she moved. She'd purposefully left her Akatsuki cloak at the hideout; it was comforting to abandon the heavy garment.
She dropped the bells off without incident, ringing them once to signal their location, and then darting away. It shouldn't take more than a few hours before they find them, she thought smugly.
Sasuke was waiting impatiently in the cave, his pacing footsteps echoed into the forest. "Took you long enough. What now?"
"Now we wait." Sakura replied.
