Chapter Thirty-Five
"Look into my eyes and you'll find the origins of murder."

Crimson stained cold steel when my blooded hands touched the sink in Naruto's bathroom. The color had a calming effect on me, satisfying even; it was a silent witness of accomplishment, it was evidence of victory. I let the cold water run over my hands to wash off the body fluid that once belonged to the informant, who I now knew to be named Zetsu. I dried my hands on a red towel, as to not leave any stains behind, and picked up the body bag I had stored the pretender in before leaving Naruto's room and slamming the door shut. I casually walked towards 'The Cage', or 'Nick' as the idiots (mainly Naruto, Kiba and Suigetsu) called it as a reference to one Nicholas Cage, an actor with a ton of crappy movies but a huge cult following.

I dropped the body against the wall outside and entered the room after checking my pockets for the evidence I had secured.

"What took you so lo- what the fuck are you doing!?" Naruto yelled when I strode into the interrogation room and made a beeline for the restricted girl, starting to cut away the bindings. She was even more naked than when we encountered her in the throne room, and her back was covered in bloody cuts where Tsunade had used her 'leverage' to make her talk. She whimpered when she heard me come closer, expecting more torture, but she froze when I undid her bindings. I was halted by Minato's powerful hand grabbing my shoulder.

"Explain yourself, Uchiha."

I simply smirked and ignored him, turning to Naruto. "Sorry for the mess in your room. Oh, and you're not getting anywhere with this girl and what you're trying to get from her. Neji is dead. She knows nothing."

Naruto seemed relieved, but my eyes were almost magically drawn to Minato's piercing azure gaze before I could fully read his shifting emotions. "Dead? What the fuck are you talking about?" The master demanded with the solemn authority he had.

I sighed and told them to wait for one second, rushing back out of the room and picking up the body bag that I stored outside the door. "This guy is why." I tossed the back in the center of the room and zipped it open. "His name is - or rather, was - Zetsu. He's a Shapeshifter, working for Madara. His job was to infiltrate HQ and exterminate all of us, constantly taking the appearance of the last person he offed to not raise suspicion."

Expecting the barrage of questions, I explained to the people in the room what the man named Zetsu had told me: how he had killed and buried Neji a week ago, taking his appearance and using the Black Rose's raid on the vampire lair as the perfect opportunity to carry out his real orders. How he had used the chaos to slip out of the prison, and how he had explained it as fitting that an Uchiha should be the one to first turn his back on his family. I opened my mouth to say how he had wanted it to be Itachi because he had already took the life of his family before, but decided to keep that piece of info to myself.

"And how, in the name of everything that's sacred, are you expecting me to trust you?" Minato's thundering voice filled the room. "You of all people should know how to handle interrogations on your own, and I dare not desecrate Jiraiya's memory by insinuating he instructed you to kill your source!"

Despite the master's genuine anger and his intimidating presence, I smirked and took my lighter from my pocket. "You'll trust me because of this," I said trying to hide my complacent tone as I tossed the smoking tool to the blond. He caught it with bewilderment and looked at me for an explanation, but I shook my head and nodded at the still partially restrained Hyuuga girl. "Release her first."

Minato was silent for a second, but I could see that aside from common sense, curiosity now also took hold of him. "Naruto, release her. Tsunade, patch her up and dress her." Naruto walked over to Hinata and released her, but when Tsunade tried to escort her out of The Cage, she clung to Naruto and buried her head in his shirt. I shot a questioning look from one blond to the other, but my best friend seemed just as confused as I was and Minato just slightly shook his head. "Take care of her, both of you. Uchiha, my office." he ordered before turning away and walking out of the room with me in his wake.

The two-minute walk was silent, but the curiosity that radiated off of the master gave me an increasing feeling of accomplishment I hadn't felt since Jiraiya personally praised the admirable marksman abilities of my fourteen-year old self. Minato sat down in his chair and slammed the lighter on his desk in between us. "Explain this, and fast. My patience is running out, and I hate being outsmarted by a baby-faced brat like yourself."

Still keeping my mouth shut, I picked up the lighter decorated with the Black Rose crest I had Tenten engrave into the bodywork. "When Naruto got annoyed with my habit of carrying around what he called 'useless junk' the other day, I had an idea. I talked with the guys from Tech and transformed this thing here into a pocket recorder. They removed the fuel tank and replaced it with all kinds of technology that saves, sends out and delete audio depending on what you do with it." I demonstrated how it worked and explained how I had relit the cigar I had stolen earlier, even though I clearly knew it was one of those high-quality ones that always keeps smouldering.

"So trying to light it actually starts a secret recording?"

I nodded and picked it up again. "It stops recording when you push the button disguised as the Black Rose crest and automatically uploads a copy to the central server of our intel department."

Minato smiled with amazement and amusement. "And what happens when someone else tries to light it and finds out?"

"That's the amazing part," I said, unable to repress a smirk of my own. "I practiced my fire magic to appear that the lighter is working for me, but barely as though it's almost out of gas. What do you do when your lighter is close to dying?"

"You shake it to-" he fell silent. "...No way."

I smirked at the man in the chair and placed the lighter on the table again. "When people get a hold of a mechanical tool, they check if it's working. That's basic human psychology. No matter who you are, when you get a lighter, you check if it's working and if it doesn't, you shake it to squeeze out the last of the fuel. There's a motion sensor inside that when shaken vigorously, it wipes the memory."

"Okay, I have to admit, that's fucking brilliant."

"Thanks for the compliment," I replied with a twinge of arrogance in my voice before taking a seat and smirking at the spitting image of Naruto looking at me with the look I would have attributed to a teenager seeing his favorite rock star. "Intel should be processing an audio sample of my interrogation of the man named Zetsu as we speak, and I'm sure you will find all your answers in there, Master."

Not two minutes later, Shikaku hastily knocked on the Master's door and didn't even wait for permission to enter. "Uh, Master? We just received an audio file and-" he gulped and looked from Minato's annoyed and curious gaze to my smug smirk, stuttering to find the words to describe what he just heard. "...You gotta hear this."

Minato got up and strode after the other assassin, his long coat fluttering behind him, leaving me alone in his room with a curt nod that meant I was dismissed. I sighed, tried and failed to repress another grin, and finally got up to go to my room. I already knew what the Master would hear on the mysterious recording, the entire process of interrogating Zetsu still fresh in my head. With the memories replaying in my head, I subconsciously grabbed the lighter from Minato's desk and made my way to Intel nonetheless, because I could already hear someone knocking on my door ten minutes from now requesting my presence to commentate on the recording.

I moved through the halls of HQ on auto pilot. These hallways had been witness of many of my nightmare-induced insomnia episodes, and therefore held no secrets to me anymore. In the eleven years that I had spent my life here, the maze of nearly identical corridors that made up our sanctuary had slowly unraveled themselves to the point that I didn't even need to think to reach my destination.

Yet not once in every nightmare that plagued me during my childhood had I experienced such horrors that were unfolding themselves under the nose of the most powerful organization on the planet. Under our noses.

I decided to repress that thought for now, as I arrived at Intel where Minato, Shikaku, Shikamaru, Tsunade, Kurenai and Naruto were all huddled around the center console operated by the younger Nara. It was weird to hear my own voice, usually so calm and stoic, sounding so malicious and sadistic, as if I took pleasure in torturing the informant. Which, in all reality, I did - he had stolen my friend's identity and almost murdered the entirety of the Black Rose one by one.

"...In a position to ask questions. Where is he?"

Zetsu's perfect imitation of Naruto's laugh sounded a little muffled, and more maniacal than I could remember. I braced myself for the deathly screech that followed when I pressed the cigar in his gunshot wound. The rest didn't and jumped. It was followed by silent whimpering, barely even audible. I recalled how I had raised the gun to shoot him in between his eyes, proved by the sound of a gun being primed to fire, then the 'shwing' of a blade being grabbed from somewhere.

"Y-you- you're... g-good, Sasu- Sasuke..."

"Where. Is. Naruto?"

The man coughed again, took a few deep breaths and said "Fine, you win. Naruto Uzumaki is probably interrogating the poor Hyuuga girl right now about how she helped her cousin escape your prisons. She will have no idea what actually happened and your master will explain her ignorance as toughness, unfortunately pushing her too far over the edge and killing her."

"Who are you working for," I heard myself press further.

"My boy, as an descendant of the infamous Uchiha bloodline, you should already have figured it out by now." His smugness still made me want to kill him on the spot. I clenched my fists and had to actively stop myself from punching someone. "After all, the one pulling the strings from the shadows you claim to love... Is one of your own blood."

"Madara," I scoffed, followed by another agonizing scream that made Kurenai look at me with fear in her eyes. I purposefully didn't look back at her. "Listen. Here's how it's gonna go: you're gonna be a good little boy and tell me everything about who you are and what the fuck you're doing here. And don't rush, you won't bleed out for at least a few hours." Rustles of someone pulling up a chair echoed throughout the room, its occupants dead silent. On the recording, Zetsu whimpered in pain and slightly wheezed while talking.

"My name... Is Zetsu. I-I'm a Shapeshifter, capable of ta-taking on... th-the appearance of anyone I... Anyone I choose. Th-the Master-" He was interrupted by a sharp slapping sound, that I recalled being a slap in his face. My recorded voice sneered at him not to honor the vile worm Madara was with the title of Master. "M-Mada-ra... found my abilities... i-intriguing, and he- he hired me to act out th-this plan of his... I was sent to hire- the two Hyuugas, and-" he took a few moments to properly catch his breath before continuing. "The Hyuugas were to kill the Vampire Emperor, but I was supposed to take the male's place. So I shadowed them. I drove them apart with a forged contract set up by the- by Madara. I changed my appearance to his. Then I killed him."

"How long ago?"

"A week."

"A week!?" Naruto roared. Minato just frowned.

"Madara... He's toying with us. We're doing exactly what he wants us to. Shikaku, cut it. I've heard enough."

With that, the Master turned on his heels and walked out of the room, and while six pairs of eyes followed his long coat fluttering behind him, he emitted a tranquilizing calmth that felt inappropriate given the circumstances. His peaceful smile didn't help to settle the confucion either. Shikaku hastily stopped the audio playback and turned to look at Minato again, desperately searching for an explanation or a statement or anything to thwart his insecurity.

But nothing from the Master. He slammed the door shut behind him and his footsteps echoed through the desolate halls, only barely drowning out the constant low buzz of the equipment. Naruto was the first to get up, grab my shoulder and pull me out of the room with him with ease. He practically threw me at the wall as soon as the door slammed shut, and out of instinct I dodged where I anticipated his punch to land. He didn't move an inch, though, doing nothing but making me look like a fool. I looked at him, surprised about his inconsistent bursts of aggression. "The fuck is your deal?"

Then, in the barely lit hallways, a ray of light reflected on a teardrop in his eyes, twinkling with the brightness that I used to recognize in Sakura's eyes. I immediately warmed up and walked over to embrace Naruto. Gladly returning it, he sighed deeply, taking his sweet time to regain control over his emotions.

"The demon is fucking with me."

I snorted. "In other news, the embodiment of evil is fucking with a young man's head. Back to you, Tom," I mocked the serious, deep voice of pre-nuke news anchors. It was enough to crack a smile on the blond's face. I smiled back and patted him on his shoulder a few times. "But seriously, what's up?"

"He's using a completely different strategy to get through to me. It's-" he paused and punched the wall, cracking the stone. "He's constantly being friendly and lending me power and support when I'm in a tough spot. It's as if he wants me to be alive and strong and in control, as if he's come to terms with his imprisonment."

"And you're not buying it?"

"When Dad was interrogating Hinata, I wanted to fucking tear him to shreds," Naruto admitted with a gray face. I blinked, but deep down I knew that this was nothing new for him. "And god forbid, I would have. I was halfway through the glass until something stopped me. Something inside me."

"What did it say?"

"He strongly advised me to sit tight and keep it together for a little longer. Something would happen very soon that would end my misery."

The next part I could guess: not too long after the demon's intervention, I barged in and stopped the torture interrogation of the Hyuuga girl to put the next chain of events in motion. The demon used this as leverage to testify for his credibility, and no amount of training could prepare an ordinary human being for emotional conflict of that scale. For something that claimed to hate humans as much as it hated everything else on the planet, it sure knew how psychology worked. And frankly, it scared the everloving shit out of me.

"Please tell me you're not buying it," I pleaded, almost intentionally letting a hint of desperation seep through my voice. My heart pounded with fear in the next moment of silence. To my relief, Naruto flashed a sarcastic smile that I recognized from when I looked in the mirror.

"Of course not. It's just making me want to punch holes in stone walls. Nothing I can't handle." The cynical comment was so true it almost hurt. He took a deep breath, straightened his shirt and stretched. "Anyway, I'm actually kinda curious what Dad figured out."

But upon reaching the Master's office, there was no response to Naruto's repeated knocks and yells. He even tried to bash the door in, but as was usual for a guy like Minato, it was protected with a magical barrier that repelled any force. I tried my best to stifle my laughter as the protection barrier flung my best friend through the hallway and against the wall. Still smirking mockingly, I offered him my hand, which he took with a grunt that held a middle between annoyance and pain (which, I was pretty sure, was the same thing for Naruto). He tied the lace of his combat boots again, wiggled his toes around for a comfortable fit and turned to me to say something when Kiba interrupted us.

"Hey, your brother's back. He seems pretty shaken up, he doesn't wanna talk to anyone. Not even Minato."

I looked to Naruto, whose body language read that that answered his unspoken question, before following Kiba to the main hall. Minato was still trying to extract information from my brother - my brother who looked like a heartbroken teenager being comforted by an understanding, wise parent. Itachi sat on a chair staring at his feet, unresponsive to any inquiry, his piercing red eyes obstructed by locks of his obsidian hair. I swore I heard a low growl coming from somewhere over my left shoulder, where I knew Naruto was; a fleeting smile flashed across my face as I imagined the blond as a six-foot watch dog smelling malicious intent. The next instant, however, I felt bad for making fun of the major inner turmoil he was putting up with that probably caused him to growl in the first place. After all, Itachi was the closest thing to an older brother Naruto ever had and the demon knew this.

Naruto, Kiba and I watched Minato's fruitless attempt to get Itachi to talk in silence for a minute or two, during which the latter seemed oblivious to our presence in the first place. Finally, the Master stood up with a desperate sigh and walked off, undoubtedly to get coffee (it was a Black Rose family tradition, apparently). As if we had talked about it beforehand, I took his place in front of Itachi. I rested my legs on the table in between us, made myself comfortable and just looked at him, hoping that my expression wouldn't give away how worried I was.

For the first time in about ten minutes, Itachi moved. He slowly looked up at me. I flinched a little when his eyes suddenly lit up - not with happiness, relief or even anger, but desperation. Unknowingly, I bit my lip and braced for the worst. "Sasuke," he croaked, his voice just as ghastly and broken as his expression. "We found her."

[Author's Note]

The plot thickens...
-V