Mama, Hinata prayed. Mama, I feel you.
She wondered if what she was feeling was real, then shut her doubts away. Whether it was real or not, she needed it. Mirai needed it.
Mirai slept on her chest. Sunset seeped through half-drawn window shades, lit the floor in narrow bands that didn't reach the bed. On the bed, Mirai and Hinata glowed with light from a less visible star. Light so thick and warm it wrapped round them both over and over and Hinata knew: knew it was Mama's arms.
I know better now, Mama. She knew about: growing a little body. Can't control it, only—survive. Support. Wanting and dreading. Counting kicks. Multiplying hopes, matching fears. The phoenix fire of birth.
The way your heart explodes a whole new universe and that entire universe is all just one thing. I love you, she whispered, again and again and again and again. Sometimes giggling, sometimes weeping. She said it over and over because the words she needed—she didn't know them. Somewhere between mine and hope and everything.
Maybe.
Or just...I love you (love you love you love you love you—)
They were so warm, circled in a lightyear of love-light, and nothing could touch them. She whispered thanks, made-in-her-bones-gratitude, but her heart—her heart kept leaping out, out into the dark, pleading.
Help him, she asked, please, please, Mama, help him— I don't want him to be alone—
She was tired, but she couldn't sleep. She'd slept a lot earlier, entrusting Mirai to Sasuke, returned to her by a beaming Rin. Rin loved Mirai so much that Hinata suddenly loved Rin, but then Rin made a doctor come.
She made it as safe as possible. Dr. Shizune was very kind. Gentle. Considerate. Careful. But she had—she had to make sure Hinata wouldn't get an infection. Wouldn't need stitches. Wouldn't bleed to death.
Hinata fought the memories as hard as she could. They haunted each touch. She didn't win. Dr. Shizune's examination ended, and Hinata cried for Mirai until they brought her back—Kakashi held her, and she was wide awake, and had completed her first poop, and squinted up her whole face to protest the whole world with a wail that Hinata knew meant she understood.
They'd made it. They'd made it, both of them, and now, real or not, they were not alone. They were in their own little fortress of invisible light.
Naruto, too, Mama, Hinata begged with her heart. Mirai sighed in her sleep. Love cradled closer, like a promise, like light.
.
ToHoT
.
Minato found footprints. Not many, and not whole prints—scuffled impressions of the front left of a boot. Naruto's boot, which he'd carefully removed the price tags from before giving because price tags that big made Naruto really uncomfortable—really cool boots, each tread a tiny, stylized skull.
Smeared onto concrete in blood on a day like this, those little skulls really didn't seem cool anymore.
At least there was a good chance it wasn't Naruto's blood. That corpse he'd just found had plenty of its own. It wasn't mutilated, like Hidan—like the one the Fox caught. Which meant—which meant—
Find him, he thought, forcing back thoughts and fears and half-digested protein bar. That would only make him slow and vulnerable and useless. Naruto. Find Naruto. Find Naruto. Find Naruto.
As if the miracle-plus-aftermath of the past five months never happened.
But it did. It did. He would go the way the footprints went, prints he knew because he found Naruto.
Find him again, Minato, he yelled into the suppressed chaos and panic that filled the places reasonable, helpful thoughts were supposed to fill. You found him once, you'll find him agian,
and again,
and again—
As long as it takes.
.
odMbo
.
"You sent Akatsuki to protect Sasuke. Protect."
Fugaku frowned at his son. It was a surprise, a good surprise, that Itachi had approached him. It was not a surprise that his son's understanding and motives were skewed.
Years of frustration poked at the forceful barrier of calm in his mind, and the words he'd said many times—too many times, too many useless times—slipped over his tongue even as he thought: no. No, we do not need this fight again.
"Do not concern yourself with Sasuke."
Before, there would have been blankness. Terrifying blankness, a head bowed in affected acceptance, hatred twisting like venomous eels under the surface of Itachi's black irises.
This time, Itachi's face twisted.
"I don't have time for this," Itachi said. Quiet, controlled, no hidden anger—it was right there, in the set of his mouth, in the way it voiced those words. "Tell me what you told your assassins."
"My elite guardsmen accepted an assignment to find and shield Sasuke. Why you seek to obstruct this, of all things, I cannot fathom."
"Akatsuki, Father. You hired Akatsuki. You presume to command the loyalty of mercinaries whose agenda does not match your own—"
"And what do you know of Akatsuki's agenda, son?"
The pallor of Itachi's face reflected flourescent lights, its small shadows harrowed and haunted. "More than you," he said.
Fugaku set his jaw, seeking calm. Calm. He did not want the fear sucking oxygen from the steady burn of his anger.
"I will always concern myself with Sasuke," Itachi said quietly. "With or without more information, I will go. Do not send me blind. Please."
I do not want to lose my son again, Fugaku thought. I do know want to lose my sons.
He tapped a password into his phone, two more passwords into the Akatsuki's preferred encrypted messaging app. Felt his fingers tighten reflexively, making it difficult for Itachi to accept it even as he offered it.
"You have five minutes."
The relief on Itachi's face made his son look young again.
"Thank you. Father."
Fugaku turned away, uncertain beneath the weight of the tempest unfurling within him.
Some storms should not be held back.
"Itachi," he called, when his phone was back in his pocket, and his child was reaching for the door, suddenly a man. A better man than his father. It took some time to let his mouth soften enough to speak. "You are a good brother."
Itachi looked back at him, a child again.
The door closed. No righteous anger remained to warm the pit in Fugaku's chest. No tempest. There was weakness, and fear, and he was cold.
Be safe, child, he asked. Of whom, about which child—he could not answer, so he pretended he'd never asked.
.
ViTiV
.
Kushina followed her silent-stepping doll-shadow-guide all the way to Danzo's office, leaving four unconscious guards behind. Sai had warned of each one in advance, then stood back, uncaring, not helping, as she took them out. Hog-tied them with clothesline and zip-ties. Once they were bound, he would produce a syringe from somewhere within his scant black uniform (he must be cold, so so cold, and so accustomed to being cold—) and inject right into the joint of the neck.
"You're not killing them, are you?" she'd demanded, reaching out to stop him. The second time. The first time, it happened so fast, his moves so economical and precise, that she didn't see what he'd done until after he'd done it. And even then, she hadn't been sure. She'd watched far more carefully, the next time.
"Do you fear death?" he asked instead of answering. Punk. Dangerous, creepy, gutsy little punk.
"Yep," she'd said. "Don't wanna die. Don't intend to."
He did the head-tilt. "I did not do anything to you," he said. Doubtfully, like she might be too stupid to have noticed if he had.
"And you won't," she instructed. "But I pretty purposefully knocked those guys out without killing them. You should try it sometime."
"Do you want to fight them again?"
"No. That's why I tied—you know what, we don't have time. Next?"
He started forward obligingly, but had one more inflectionless comment to add.
"If you don't want to fight them, and you don't want to kill them, you could perhaps cut their hamstrings. They will not stay tied up, of course."
Of course.
The last two guards were in well-lit corridors, posted near a bullet-proof door. Sai opened it once they were done, muscles roping thin arms.
He led her into Danzo's office. Where Danzo waited.
"You have completed your task well," the Nasty-King-of-Creeps-aka-Shimura-Danzo commended. Her little guide stood very straight. "Return to your post."
And so creepy-gutsy-do-you-want-me Sai, having led her successfully into the mouth of the trap, abandoned her to it.
"Little Kushina," Danzo said. He looked like he might feel happy. The thought of Shimura Danzo experiencing any emotion approaching happiness sent a mega-sized chill up her spine. "Mito's disgusting little secret. The harm you have done to honorable Hashirama's city echoes the dishonor of your existence."
Kushina cocked an eyebrow at him. "Know about that, do you? Clever you. Any other juicy secrets you feel like monologuing on?"
"Yes, your lack of respect fits you," he said coldly. "Tell me, bastard child, whose secrets you came to thieve?"
Kushina helped herself to a chair, after brushing imaginary dust from it with extra disdain. "I mean, there aren't many I couldn't use, one way or another. But I do have a specific target in mind today."
Danzo peered at her with his one eye, far too keen for one so vile. "The Fox, perhaps? It is too late for your little Naruto, you know. The little monster has returned to its master."
She took the rage she wanted to spew and crushed it between her mollars. Skewered him with determination-fired-through-the-eye.
"I'm going to bring down the Uchiha."
He looked her over in thoughtful silence, and if she had to put a name to the judgment he settled on—she'd say approval.
It made her scalp itch.
"So impudent," he said. Softly, consideringly. "So crude. So bold. The work I have given decades to—and you seek to take my victory as your own. Had you not survived my assassination attempts, I would consider you too stupid to justify the problems rippling from your existence.
"And yet, we have this one goal in common. Perhaps you could be of use, for a little while longer..."
"Do you still believe," she asked, sort of morbidly fascinated, "that you are 'saving' Konoha?"
He smiled. "I do not need to believe, girl. I do. I do what no other can do."
"Steal children?"
He turned the sleeve of his crippled arm. Just a little. Just enough for her to see the tip of the silencer on the gun hidden there. Just enough for it to point unerringly at her chest.
She kept on looking him in his creepy beetle-eye. "You make children disappear," she said, her own personal hell-fires burning the words.
"Not all children can or will be saved," he said. Serene in the poison he breathed. "Every beautiful thing has a terribly ugly cost. Most are too foolish to move beyond the moral distractions of cost to see clearly the limited absolute value of each human life. There is a fascinating sentimentality placed on the relative shortness of a life—as if having been born later makes one somehow more precious. As if every child is wanted, cared for, loved. Truly fascinating, the deceptions our sentiments make one prone to. In reality, there always children who are not missed."
"Children are precious."
"Objectively, yes," he agreed. The gun was still pointed at her chest. "Moldability, adaptability, potential—these are objective strengths of young humans." He looked so thoughtful, so reasonable. "Truly something to be protected. To be used. To be used effectively, the oversight of experience, of one whose greater worth has been proved through survival, must be applied.
"Survival is an objective measure of worth," he said, shifting the gun a little higher.
Kushina stared down the barrel, determined to keep living even if that bullet went right through her head. (She'd make a damn fine ghost, if her skull was blasted into too many pieces to break his with—)
"I offer a deal," he said, that scummy approval of his smearing itself all over her skin again. "I'll give you Uchiha Madara. Remove him from this game, and you will continue to play within it."
Kushina laughed. The scratchy kind that hurt her throat.
"Is that what you think I do? Play assassin?"
"Do you have some other name for it, perhaps? Something more piously framed, lest it offend your sensibilities?"
"Oh, I have another name for assassin," she said coldly. She stared hate into his eye. "Murderer."
"Ah. And how does it feel, to be the mother of a murderer?"
"I wouldn't know," she said. Was careful not to look at the flicker of too-much shadow emerging from the wall behind him. Made sure her own shifting registered as a threat. "I am the mother of a soldier." In a war he didn't choose and never, ever, ever deserved..
"Call it what you like," he said, amused. "I do not abuse the illusion that giving a different name changes objective value."
Kushina narrowed her eyes at him. "Recruit me or kill me, that what this is?"
"You came to me, my dear. Recruit you—to follow me? An-allowably amusing-impossiblity. I will consider a temporary alliance, for our mutual benefit. After which our mutual contest for survival will naturally continue."
Kushina looked hard. Read the story of his face, the crippled soul in the eye, the maggoty hole where a heart would be. Swallowed cold fear and burning fury.
The shadow behind Danzo flowed closer, closer.
Chose.
"Do what you want with Konoha," she said, resigned. Tension bled from her face. She reached out slowly, obviously, until he could easily accept her proferred hand. "I want Madara."
He watched her. Cradled the arm with the gun like he'd remembered to keep it crippled again. She wanted blood, and that pleased him.
"How fitting," he mused. "That you—well. Hashirama haunts him, you see. Or shall I say—he haunts Hashirama?"
"Can't resist the cryptic crap, huh?" she asked—but she knew. She knew. Why thank you, Shimura-san. She took his hand—
—kicked the desk up, hard, bracing back with all her weight as it smashed, trapped the firing gun against his chest. From behind, the shadow descended.
The hand in Kushina's death-grip slackened, slumped sickenly toward her; its arm was shredded by the bullet he meant for her. The shadow-named-Sai leapt free of his master's back, and Danzo toppled, jaw hanging, eye wide and rolling, spine cut through at the neck. Kushina let go of the hand just in time to avoid finishing its amputation.
Had her taser out, got her back to the wall, eyes shifting from Sai to the door and back.
"I said I would help you," said Sai, almost-helpless, mostly blank. He'd already checked the corpse. Stabbed it a few extra times. For insurance, or—just to make that eye stop rolling, maybe.
The way he was watching her—she had to hold that gaze. So she just listened. Listened really hard for more betrayal. This was Danzo's personal sphere of influence she was blowing up, after all.
"I am not weak," said Sai, and did that—that thing he probably thought was smiling.
"Okay," she said. "Okay, Sai."
When standing there with all her senses on screaming hyper-alert really didn't seem to be accomplishing anything, she made her breath fall even. Let her muscles ease loose. Made her brain give back the prioritized list of probable highly-incriminating-document hiding spots she'd created while chatting with Danzo.
"You gonna stab me if I go after those secrets?"
"No," her guide said, almost-confused. "Why would I want to kill you?"
Why did you kill the man who most likely raised you? Danzo deserved it. He really really did. But this kid...in Kushina's long history with messed-up kids, she doubted she'd met one this far up the "yeah that's really screwed up" charts.
Not even Gaara (maybe Naruto).
"Just not sure you'd have any reason not to," she said. "But I'd really rather you didn't. And even if you do, I want to thank you first. For not letting him—" she conscientiously avoided looking at what had become of Danzo—" get me."
He accepted this in silence, and she began her search. After a bit of him watching her tap walls and floorboards and wrestle with the "decorative" fake potted tree apparently for fun, he went to the desk and expertly keyed open three secret safes built into the walls. This involved cutting off Danzo's mostly-blown off arm and using the fingers to get past finger-print scanners, but she tried not to watch that part.
She kept waiting for someone to come. And someone did, eventually. Another child-sized shadow, wearing sunglasses in the dark, short hair making tight coiled curls that reminded her of Naruto's friend Shino. This new shadow shifted uncomfortably around her, stared for a long moment at Danzo's corpse. Kicked it once, recoiled like he'd kicked himself. Exchanged some kind of rapid-fire sign-language with Sai, fingers trembling, then set about helping him open a fourth compartment they'd been struggling with.
Kushina went back to stuffing her backpack with secrets. Not that she was going to take the time to look, but somewhere on these CDs, mini-disks, SDHC memory cards, flash-drives, freaking floppy disks had to be something she could use. There weren't many paper files, and those she stopped to rifle through; taking pictures of some, stashing what she thought she could carry into her quickly-filling bag.
It would work. It had to work. So long as she didn't somehow leave what was most important behind.
When she couldn't think of anywhere else to look, when her silent companions stopped offering handfuls of digital memory devices, she looked at them, shrugged, and headed for the door.
They came out after her, flanked her.
She smelled gasoline. Uneasiness seeped in sweat down her spine.
As they neared the exit that would take them into a more shared Gates thoroughfare, three other not-grown shadows joined them. Like Sai and the maybe-Aburame, they had packs of their own. Something passed between them, in silence and hand-signals, and then Sai said: "We will need to run."
The child who'd kicked Danzo's corpse held up a fire-starter.
"Stop!—" cried Kushina, and wanted to recoil when five very pale, very blank faces tilted to hers. "We need this place for evidence," she said.
The one with the fire-starter clicked it on—jammed the little switch, so it couldn't click off.
"I believe the purpose of your pack is to carry evidence," Sai said.
"There's more, and Danzo's body—" they didn't move much, but something about four out of five stances turned hostile, and her mouth snapped shut. She pulled in breath through her nose. Definitely gasoline. "We're beneath the city," she pleaded. "Look, this could get really out of control, so many people could be hurt—"
"The other blast doors are sealed," said one of the children. Male or female? She couldn't tell. Hair as pale as their face. "The structural integrity of this compound is designed to withstand multiple explosions. Oxygen will run out. The fire will die. Any damage will be contained within."
Oxygen will run out. Factual, toneless, in a thin, high voice. Kushina's fists clenched.
"There are people here," she whispered. They'd passed two of them—guards she'd incapacitated and hobbled with zip-ties, only for Sai to inject them with whatever it was he jabbed in their necks. She was sure she'd seen one breathing, and she'd been so relieved—
"We'll burn them away, and they'll never touch us again," said the fourth of the shadow-children. Her voice was not flat. She held the hand of the fifth child, all of their knuckles stretched white.
"Are there—any other children?" Kushina pleaded. "Anyone who—even if they fought us—"
Fives sets of eyes flickered, met, stared forward again. Sai spoke. "They are gone."
"I don't want to do this," Kushina whispered. "Not like this. I'll help you catch the people who hurt you, make sure they get punished—"
Something set, hard and horrible, in the third child's almost-blank face. Kushina's stomach flipped, horror pouring out in another plea to stop—his arm telescoped back, the fire-starter flew free.
Three children were already slipping around the door; he disappeared after them. Sai didn't move. Looked at her, eyes big and black and blank.
Fire exploded behind them. "Come on," gritted Kushina. Gripped the small, cold hand that slipped into hers. Whipped them both around the closing edge of the door.
Half a second through and small hands had it slammed shut behind them. There was a hiss of air as it sealed.
"Well," said Kushina. Five blank faces blinked up at her. She reeled: pity, horror, guilt, hate. Turned and spat that last one at the door.
Her spittle sizzled. "Burn in hell," she said, by way of paying final respects. Set her shoulders straight beneath the secrets they bore. Turned to five human ones, gazing up at her like deadly brainwashed puppies.
Well then.
"You guys hungry?"
.
YiViY
.
Behind the Gates, Sasuke wasn't Sasuke. There was no space to be scared, weak, young, lost, dependent—not down here. So he wasn't.
He scared himself sometimes, the way he fit into the dark. He'd never been in the fights that left bodies in tunnels they'd only be recovered from if someone else wanted to use that space and didn't want to deal with the smell. Cage fights were different. They felt life-or-death, were meant to feel that way—but they weren't, not really. Dead fighters didn't make money. Managers didn't like it when their investments ended in a body-bag.
Outside of the cage, war raged. An old war, quiet, tired. Vicious. Fought with cruel human creativity and raw animal instinct. Up above, it was about power and influence and public perception and control—but down here, down here it was don't touch mine, and I'm taking yours.
Naruto hated it. Naruto was supposed to take and take and take, had the training and the skill and the back-up to be pretty near untouchable, had motivation, justification, reason—everything, everything but whatever it was that made most humans capable of looking at other humans and seeing life less valid than their own.
Sasuke did not have this struggle. Other people rarely felt real to him. (When he was little, he cried whenever a character on his mother's TV dramas cried, and she'd kissed him for it—.) People felt like obstacles. He'd never killed; he knew he could.
If Naruto didn't kill, he'd die. Die behind the Gates he'd fought so hard to escape.
And maybe it wasn't that Sasuke wasn't Sasuke down here. Maybe it was the opposite. Because something woke in him, when he dodged a trap or set one; when he ran the passages fast and sure so no one could ever catch him. He wanted to fight. Wanted to know who would win and who would die. Wanted the illusion of a billion volts of raw current threading his veins, no-fear-no-hesitation just freedom and lightning and—
Whatwasthat whatwas—
Shooting. Someone was shooting. He was at least two corridors away, but sound echoed strangely in these tunnels, and the dry pops of gunfire pounded his ears long after their origin sound had stopped.
Naruto. 'S got to be Naruto. Need— running into a fight you didn't start was a deeply stupid idea—need to breathe. Doubly so behind the Gates, exponentially so when guns/ Naruto/Akatsuki were involved. Need to think.
So he wasn't going to run. He was going to come in strategically, with enough of a handle on the situation to let Naruto recognize him before reflexively killing him, and at a moment when whomever Naruto was fighting wouldn't take the opening to get rid of one or both of them.
If he's—HE'S ALIVE NARUTO IS ALWAYS—
"Well this is convenient."
Instinct had Sasuke turning before his still-ringing ears registered that someone was speaking, but all he saw was shadow. Very tall shadow.
"'Catch the mini-fox', they said. 'And deal with the original' they said. 'Oi, Kisame, babysit the baby Uchiha while you're at it,' got tacked on there for fun, but hey, who's going to get employee of the month? Hoshigaki Kisame, that's who. I'll pop round to see if the Zombie Bros have botched things as badly as it sounds like they have, finish up mini-fox 'cause it sounds like they haven't, and be right back here to protect your ass. Sit tight."
Sasuke stepped into the center of the corridor, between Naruto and Hoshigaki Kisame. Knew how stupid he was being. Shifted the knife in his hand.
"No."
"Haha. Okay, kid." And the man stepped forward like he was going to walk right through him.
"I'll fight you."
"Sure you will, and kudos for not peeing your pants and all, but a) I don't waste time and b) that doesn't mesh with the 'protect the baby Uchiha' thing all that well—'baby' being you, in case you're feeling too big and bad to figure it out. Come on, kid, out of the way. Lots of baddies running around, you're gonna get blasted in the crossfire, please have the modicum of intelligence required to figure this out."
Be alive, Naruto, be alive, be alive—"No."
"Stupid AND stubborn. Aren't you a blessing? Ah well—"
Sasuke dodged the dart flicked at him. Rolled, came up just short of grabbing range but hopefully too close for easy clubbing distance. One head-blow from the metal bat slung casually over Hoshigaki's shoulder would take him out, easy. And that was all the thinking he had time to do, because the kick he launched off the wall to aim at the hand holding the bat was blocked and then he was landing, blocking, blocking, shifting just out from under the weight of each massive blow and into answering attacks with electricity shrieking through him and oh this guy was good. So fast, probably as fast as Sasuke but he wasn't taking him seriously yet and when he did Sasuke was screwed but right now he felt his face stretching. Teeth bared—grinning? Naruto—but no time to think, just block-blow-balance and he was pretty sure his opponent was laughing. Let him laugh. As long as he was underestimating Sasuke, he wasn't bashing up Naruto. He caught a fist, let its momentum push him back, kept going. Breathed in. The bat was on the floor; the assassin was grinning at him, looking genuinely pleased. Breathed out. Rushed. Used the wall again, but spun, making his kick come from a hopefully-surprise angle; punching this guy did about as much damage as punching a wall, meaning only Sasuke seemed to feel it, and he could barely feel his arms from attempting it (and all that blocking—block—). The kick landed, and its victim...chortled. Sasuke landed on his hands, vaulted back to his feet. Again. Took the knife from his teeth. Launched forward again, the flat of the blade scraping along the wall, good, he's watching—. He was in the air, his heel screaming into Hoshigaki's chin. He saw himself connecting—his opponent dropping—coming down with him, landing heavy on his chest, sweeping in with the knife—
He didn't connect. Huge hands wrapped around his right ankle, his left heel. He twisted, vision blurring, twisting—twisting— the hands on his legs hoisted high. His head wasn't slamming into the ground. There was a booted shin in front of his face: helpless, furious, he stabbed it.
Aim higher, he thought. Jerked the knife out. Femoral artery—
"And Father couldn't understand my objections to his choice of bodyguards," cut dead-pan through Hoshigaki's insufferable chuckling and Sasuke's furious hissing, and Sasuke's blade was clicked back into its handle and shoved guiltily up his coat sleeve before his brain was done registering who was speaking.
"Itachi!" cried Hoshigaki, and dropped Sasuke, sounding delighted.
"If he landed on his knife—"
"Oh? He had a knife?" And rough hands were hauling him up, brushing him off. The man winked at him. Gave him a pat on the head, then a pat on the back that sent him staggering into his brother.
Should've gone for the femoral artery, Sasuke thought, with great regret.
"See? I did good! No blood, guts all on the inside, ten fingers and judging by how it feels to be on the end of them I'm willing to bet all ten toes are in there too!"
At the same time, Itachi's hands were flying over him, touching, pressing, counting. "Are you bleeding? Do you feel sharp pain anywhere? Have you hit your head—"
Sasuke shoved him away. "Nothing's wrong. Not with me. Aniki—Na—" he shot a look over his shoulder at the looming, entirely-too-happy giant he'd been fighting, lowered his voice to barely a whisper—"Naruto—"
"He's not there," Itachi said, not at all helpful. But he was still talking, watching Hoshigaki now, face was smooth and dangerous. "Hidan and Kakuzu are dead. I passed both bodies on my way here. Sasori is critically wounded. Deidara has disappeared."
If Hoshigaki was at all upset over the reported murders of his teammates, he didn't show it.
"Yeah, I guessed they'd fucked up," he said happily. "Mini-fox got 'em, huh? Kid's a menace!" and he laughed like he'd said something funny. "Hey, so, shall we ditch junior? Make this the second date?"
Sasuke's mouth did something strange where it tried to make a word but his brain supplied no word to make. No one noticed because Itachi was saying: "No. And that would require the historical reality of a first date."
"Oof, cold!" cried Hoshigaki, looking not in the least bit chilled by Itachi's death glare. "Well I thought it was the best first non-date ever. But if you want to take that as a challenge—"
"Kisame," said Itachi, and his voice actually had inflection—cracked open just enough to show he was tired, and the way he said that name was like—like—"you have dead teammates, injured and missing teammates, and while I certainly have no qualms with certain of your contract terms remaining unfulfilled—I am not convinced that you feel the same."
"Unfulfilled? Who's unfulfilled?" asked Kisame, starting out wounded and ending on a leer. "You're here for your kid brother—yeah I knew he was yours, that's why I volunteered to babysit, by the way—so obviously he's gonna be protected. And you said the fox kid's gone, and he killed four of our guys so who am I to take him on alone? I'd ask you along hunting him because honestly? Great date, but something tells me that wouldn't earn me too many points and I gotta earn that second date, so. Yeah. Where d'you wanna go next? I'll cover your back."
Had Sasuke's knife even gone through that boot? He really hoped it had. Hoped the thug was bleeding out down there. He looked really closely, hoping to see red pooling up over the rim of the boot.
No such luck. The artery, he mourned. Why didn't I go for the artery?
Itachi was already walking. So was Sasuke, his brother's crab-claw fingers clamped to one wrist. "Naruto," he said, "We need —"
"No," hissed Itachi. And then, as Sasuke gathered courage to start a fight he couldn't win, turned just enough to catch Sasuke's eyes with his own. "Naruto's family is looking for and after him. I am looking after mine."
There was nothing else to say. Not for Sasuke and Itachi. Hoshi-freaking-gaki Kisame had plenty to say.
And Itachi didn't seem to mind.
Fine. Itachi wanted to allow the quality of the very air he breathed to sink to unprecedented levels-let him. Sasuke could wait. As Itachi tested the waters of wanton stupidity for the first(?) time, Sasuke would save himself and his best friend and get the hell gone.
.
VvUvV
.
Getting his pack out of the aquaduct pipes he'd hidden it in was painful enough to kill the semi-hopeful idea of hiding in them himself. No one was following him right now, and his head was still bleeding, which was one of those problems that spirals really fast into something that can't fixed.
First he had to hide. Ribs made the pipes a no-go, so off he went, shuffling towards Plan A.
Plan A was—UnHome. The place he grew up in. Trained in. Lived in. Akatsuki-wouldn't-get-him in.
Fought almost-free from.
It took a long time. How long? Shouldn't be this long. He had to lean on the wall—and that left marks, sometimes, rusty Naruto-was-here smudges, should be avoided. Here I am, come kill me, his tracks scrawled out behind him. He'd got through and re-set one Gate. Should slow 'em down. Two more—fuck. Ow. Blink until he could see again, push off the wall, fill up with oxygen, keep going. Two more Gates, and—and he could rest. A little rest.
One Akatsuki. One, and this was what was left of him, and he hadn't come down here with big grand dreams of surviving but this? He could do better than this.
Had to.
They wanted the Fox. Not gonna get him.Now that felt true, cheered him up, made his lips curl. He could take at least one more with him.
The one coming now.
Bracing between the walls to go up them hurt so hard he had to stop breathing at all or he'd breathe too hard, too loud. He was up. Shoved-rolled onto the gap between false wall and ceiling—he couldn't fit in the passageway between the wall and the raw rock behind it, like he used to, but he could balance on top of it. He eased the cop's gun from beneath his coat, steadied it between gritty cement and shaking hands.
Now if his scarf would sop up just a bit more blood—stop it from dripping down, they wouldn't see it unless they shone light on it, but anyone paying half attention could smell it—had to go first. Shoot first.
The footsteps coming his way were wrong. Trying to be quiet, but heel-toe—who made that mistake? And hurrying and hesitant and familiar.
No.
No.
He let Namikaze Minato walk right past him. Felt too much all at once, everything coiling up in the cracking pain of pressure on broken ribs. He was so angry. And so hurt. And so scared.
And Dad was going to get himself killed.
He should call out first, but his throat had turned into a fist with words squeezed to mush inside. So he just dropped. Dad whirled, hand pulling something from his pocket, and there he was.
Standing. Bleeding. This cannot be good, he thought, Dad's eyes blowing wide, and tried to talk but it didn't work and then he remembered he was holding (pointing) the gun and stuffed it under his coat.
"Naruto," said Dad, in a way that made his name hurt like his ribs hurt. He was closing the distance between them, looking so fucking relieved and even more afraid, and still calling his name.
"This way," said Naruto, not much (never enough) and it came out mangled. Get him where they can't get him. Two more Gates— twisted out of reach of the arms that wanted to hold him. Anger cleared his head a little, and he was moving faster than he had before. Couldn't breathe deep enough to match it though. Made it two hundred steps before the wall was holding him instead.
"Naruto," said Dad. Right there. Right here. Going UnHome. With me. Was he crying? He took off a glove, smeared sticky heat from his eye. Fingers came away red. "Naruto, let me help."
The second Gate was close. He had to keep it together long enough to get through that. And one more. "Okay," he whispered. Closing his eyes made it easier not to flinch when hands touched him. Touched above his face, feather-light, trying to find the source of the blood. There was a curse, quiet and vehement, and it was the first thing Dad had done that made sense. Then fingers were digging under the straps of Naruto's backpack, easing it off his shoulders, and Naruto started to protest but—it helped. It helped with his ribs, and it should help him move a little faster.
Needed to go faster.
"Thanks," he said. Tried to say. Didn't hear it pass his lips.
"Drink this," Dad said, and Naruto did. The water helped too. Dad started to lift his arm up, maybe to pull it over his shoulders, and the shriek of Naruto's ribs almost came out his mouth.
He opened his eyes and got out of arm's reach again. Didn't want to see Dad's face.
"I'm good," he said, after enough heartbeats to be sure something else wasn't going to come out instead. "You?"
He didn't wait for an answer. Felt Dad pause. Follow, catch up, stay too close. Dad was a little loud—made it hard to listen. But they'd passed the first Gate, and there—there was the second.
Naruto shook off the way everything bent and tilted, forced focus into his fingers as he worked through the passcodes that would give him a few seconds to disengage the traps. Got through those, too, and then he was in, Dad stepping through behind him, and half-a-heartbeat left to close the door.
One more.
When they reached it, Dad was holding him. Fingers a vice around his elbow, and it took a moment to un-lean, get his head balanced on his neck again, and his heart was beating too fast and making more blood bubble down his face.
Please, Fox, he whispered, with all the stupid hope he'd stuff over his dread every time he came through this door, please, if...please, if you come. Please, don't hurt him.
He opened the door.
Dark. Quiet. Empty. He choked. It was the relief billowing up that got him, and he kept choking until he got the door closed, and then he looked at Dad, a pale floating face with broken eyes in the darkness.
They were—for a little while, they were safe.
"Dad," he said. Hands were on him again. Helping him. Holding him up. One hand. The other was—fumbling for something, turning it on—a flashlight—
Naruto's corner lit up just as he stumbled into it. Collapsed, vision already gone, pain swallowing him up and if he let it—he'd stop feeling it.
For a little while.
"This is where I was," he said, trying to remember why that was important, and then he went with the dark.
.
.
.