NINETEEN

One.

Sakura breathes in slowly, then breathes out. She keeps her eyes closed, her hands on her crossed legs, as she begins to count her breaths.

Two.

She tries to clear her mind, to empty her head of all thoughts. She's normally good at that, at making her brain be quiet, but she's finding it difficult this time. Her head is swirling with worries and anxieties and fears. They won't leave her alone.

Three.

She can feel the steady beat of her heart in her chest. She attempts to focus on it, to allow it to center her, but instead of calming her, this has the opposite effect. She becomes unsettlingly aware of her own heartbeat—how fragile it feels, how easy it would be for it to stop or skip a beat.

She's been very aware of her own heartbeat lately. Ever since the four Sound ninjas attacked her at the hospital. She remembers the feeling of the cold floor against her cheek, the taste of blood in her mouth. She remembers the stutter of her heart against her ribs, knowing with utter certainty that she was about to die.

She feels it now in her chest. The memory causes her heartbeat to stutter. Her breath catches.

Four.

It scares her—how easily that beat could stop. Her life is unbelievably fragile, and she's aware of this in a way she wasn't before. It terrifies her. She can't stop thinking it, feeling it. Her hands shake against her knees.

And she can't stop thinking about Sasuke, either. About how fragile he looked. He has always been so strong to her, and now suddenly he is breakable. So, so breakable, and she can do nothing to help him. Nothing to protect him.

She can't do anything. She's always being saved.

Five.

She takes another breath—inhaling slowly, exhaling at the same pace. She tries, again, to empty her mind. To focus her thoughts. She ignores the slight twinge of her wounds, concentrating on her breaths.

She doesn't think about Sasuke. She tries not to think about Sasuke.

Six—

A knock comes at her door, breaking her from her calm the moment she finally manages to find it. Her eyes open as her father peeks his head in, and she feels a sharp spike of annoyance at the interruption.

"Sweetheart, your—" Her father frowns when his gaze lands on her, his sentence dropping off. "What are you doing on the floor?"

"I was meditating." She tries to tamp down her irritation, but some of it still bleeds through to her voice. "It helps speed up the healing process."

Her father gets a pinched look on his face at a reminder of her injuries. Sakura would feel more guilty about bringing it up, if she wasn't so sick and tired of all the hovering her parents had been doing since it happened.

It's not like this is the first time I nearly died.

"What is it?" she asks, still not moving from her position on the floor. "Does Mom want something?"

Her father shakes his head. "No, your friend Naruto is here. He's looking for you."

Sakura blinks in surprise. "Naruto? He's here?"

"Did you want me to send him in?"

Sakura nods. "Please," she says, as she feels her anxiety ratchet up. Why is Naruto here? Has something happened with Sasuke?

Her father ducks out of the doorway. He has a displeased, almost wary expression on his face. It's the same expression he and her mother wore when she invited Naruto over for dinner—the same expression most of the villagers wear. As if Naruto is some type of nuke, and no one ever wants to get too close for fear of it going off.

Sakura doesn't understand it. She tried to ask her mother about it, but all she got was a vague non-answer.

Sakura rises to her feet. She winces as the movement jostles her injuries, pressing a hand against her bruised ribs. A second later, the door is flung open, nearly hitting the opposite wall, and Naruto enters.

"Sakura-chan!" he yells. When his gaze finds her, some of his exuberance fades, replaced by concern. "Hey. Are you okay?"

She waves the question off, giving him a smile. "I'm okay. I'm still a bit sore, is all. What are you doing here?"

Naruto flounces past her. He throws himself onto her bed, making himself completely at home, as if he's been in her room a hundred times instead of just once. "Sasuke is awake," he declares.

Sakura feels her heart stutter in her chest. Her eyes widen. "What? When?"

"Not too long ago. Kakashi-sensei and Pervy Sage came to the hospital with Itachi. Then they kicked me out, which was totally not cool, but Sasuke's awake now. Or at least, he's out of whatever freaky vision-thing he was stuck in."

"A genjutsu, Naruto."

"Whatever! The point is, he's out of it now. Kakashi-sensei says he's gonna be okay."

Sakura's heart is beating loudly in her chest. She's flooded with a burst of feelings. The abundance of her relief makes her feel momentarily weightless, like she could jump off the ground and fly if she wanted. It feels like a gigantic, pressing weight has been lifted from her shoulders.

He's okay, she thinks, feeling the smile pulling at her lips. Sasuke-kun's okay.

"That's wonderful!" Sakura says. "How is he? Did you talk to him?"

Naruto shakes his head. "No, he's asleep again. Kakashi-sensei said they had to sedate him."

"Oh," Sakura says quietly. She feels some of her happiness fade at the words—at the troubled expression on her teammate's face. "But… Kakashi-sensei said he was okay, right?"

Naruto's face pinches slightly, his blue eyes cloudy as he stares up at her ceiling. Sakura feels her smile pulling into a frown.

"Naruto? He is okay, right?"

"I don't know," Naruto admits. "I trust what Kakashi-sensei says, but…" The blonde trails off, shaking his head. "Ugh, I don't know. I just wish I knew what exactly happened. Or better, I wish I could talk to that bastard myself! Give him a piece of my mind!"

Sakura frowns. Itachi Uchiha is still just a name to her, but she also has a desire to seek him out. To put a face to the name that hurt Sasuke-kun so badly, so that she is able to hate him properly.

"What happened to him after?" she asks. "Itachi?"

"I don't know. I guess they'll probably lock him up? Kakashi-sensei wouldn't answer any of my questions, he just kept telling me to stay away from him."

Sakura narrows her eyes when she sees the look on his face. She sighs. "You're not going to listen to him, are you?"

Naruto sits up suddenly, glaring at her from the bed. "Of course not! No one is telling me a single damn thing. I was the one they were coming after. I deserve some answers!"

She pauses when she hears that, as the question she's had for a while now resurfaces. She asked Kakashi-sensei about it after it happened, but his answer had never completely satisfied her. There had been too many holes, too many things that still failed to make sense.

"Why was he after you, Naruto?"

Naruto freezes, an expression like a startled deer passing over his face. "I—um—that's—uh—"

Sakura gives him a sharp look, halting his stuttering. "I'm not stupid, Naruto. There's something else going on here, right? Kakashi-sensei said that Sasuke-kun's brother went after you to get to Sasuke-kun. But I was already in the village, so I was a much closer target. Instead, Itachi chose to go outside the village. That doesn't make sense if his only goal was just to hurt Sasuke-kun."

Naruto avoids her eyes. He's a horrible liar even when he's not actively speaking.

"Itachi was after you specifically," Sakura says. "Why, Naruto?"

Naruto tries the avoiding-eyes tactic for a few more seconds before realizing that Sakura's going to make him actually respond. He sighs. "Look, I can't tell you, Sakura-chan, okay? It's not because I don't want to! But it's an S-Rank secret, and I'm not supposed to tell anyone!"

Sakura's mind is whirling with questions. An S-Rank secret? One that Naruto can't tell her about? What could it possibly be, and how does Itachi Uchiha connect? She doesn't understand why, but it's becoming clear to her now that there's way more to this than she knows. Naruto and Kakashi are keeping secrets from her, and perhaps Sasuke as well.

She frowns at him, trying to organize her thoughts. "Does this have anything to do with how the rest of the village treats you?"

Naruto flinches slightly. He lowers his gaze. "Yeah. Yeah, it's about that."

Sakura looks at him, at his downtrodden expression. She wants to say something to make him feel better, but she doesn't know what to say because she doesn't know what it's about. Why do the adults in the village treat Naruto like scum? Why do her own parents look so uncomfortable when she mentions his name?

Sakura sighs, accepting her lack of answers. For now, anyway. "So what are you going to do, then?"

"Get answers," Naruto declares, with a determined set to his jaw. "If Kakashi-sensei and Pervy Sage don't want to tell me anything, then I'll have to go straight to the source."

Sakura nods. Once again, she feels the beat of her own heart against her ribs, rapid and fragile.

"I'll come with you," she says.

Itachi doesn't acknowledge her when she enters the interrogation room. Tsunade slides into the chair across from him, and he still doesn't look up.

"Uchiha-san," she greets him. "I hope you find you find your accommodations to be to your liking."

He doesn't respond. His hands are clasped in front of him, cuffs tight around his wrists. A chain connects the cuffs to the center of the table, allowing him little room for movement. The light glow of the seals engraved on the metal signify that the cuffs are active, prohibiting the flow of his chakra.

His hair shadows his face, falling from its tie. She wonders if it bothers him that he can't fix it.

"You're a former shinobi of Konoha," she says, giving a pointed look to his slashed hitai-ate. "And a former member of ANBU, so you already know the procedure for these types of situations."

Itachi doesn't react. Tsunade's jaw clenches.

"I assume you don't need me to remind you of your rights," she tells him coldly. "Of the fact that you have none."

Itachi finally raises his head to look at her. His expression is blank.

"I'm a traitor to Konoha," he says. "Standard procedure regarding traitors is to eliminate them. The fact that I've been taken to an interrogation room instead of an execution block can only mean that you plan to extract intel from me."

Tsunade's expression doesn't shift. "Konohagakure doesn't perform executions anymore."

"Not publicly."

Tsunade's mouth thins. She clasps her hands in front of her, a mimicry of Itachi's current position.

"We know that your group the Akatsuki is after the Tailed Beasts," she says. "What we don't know is why." She pauses, then asks in an icy voice, "I assume it was you that fed them the information that Naruto was the jinchuuriki?"

"You assume right," Itachi replies.

His voice gives nothing away. He admits to his treason unflinchingly, unapologetically. Tsunade feels her hands tighten.

"And your organization's goal? Care to shed any light on that subject? Its other members, their abilities?"

Tsunade doesn't expect him to spill any of the information he holds, so she is entirely unsurprised when he doesn't answer her. He raises his chin, his eyes still infuriatingly blank.

"Your questions are pointless. I will not betray the Akatsuki."

Tsunade raises an eyebrow. "Really? Forgive me if I don't take you for the loyal type."

She gives another pointed look toward his headband when she says this—the slashed line bisecting the symbol evidence of his betrayal. Something flashes in Itachi's eyes, the slightest hint of an emotion, but it's gone before she can pin it down.

Still, she saw it. For the briefest moment, Itachi Uchiha reacted.

"You know how this works, Uchiha," she tells him. "Me coming in here and asking you is just a courtesy. If you refuse to cooperate willing, then you will do so unwillingly. If you won't talk to me, then you can deal with Torture and Interrogation. And they won't be nearly as considerate as I'm being right now."

She thinks she sees Itachi's jaw tense slightly, but she isn't sure. She knows Itachi was ANBU—that he was trained to resist mental interrogation. But he's still only a teenager, and given enough time, Tsunade doesn't doubt that Ibiki will succeed in prying information out of him.

Itachi doesn't reply. Tsunade finds herself searching for something to get him to react, something that will shake that unbreakable coldness.

"Kakashi is under the impression that you let yourself be captured and brought back here," she says. "Is this true?"

"Kakashi-san can assume whatever he likes," the boy replies—because that's what he is, a boy, he's not even old enough to drink, fucking hell— "It doesn't matter to me."

Still reeling from the sudden reminder of how young the Akatsuki member in front of her is, Tsunade takes careful note of the fact that he never denied the words. The use of an honorific also catches her off guard—it strikes her as strange that he should be so polite.

"If you did intend to be captured, then the only logical reasoning I can come up with for you doing such a thing would be because you wanted to wake up your brother. This suggests you care for him. Interesting, considering all your other actions seem to suggest otherwise."

There. She spots it again. A flicker of emotion in his eyes, clearly a reaction to her words. A reaction to Sasuke.

But once again, it disappears. Gone too fast for her to read.

"I don't care what happens to Sasuke. He doesn't interest me."

"But you left him alive the night of the massacre," she points out—it's something she's been wondering about ever since she read the file on the event. "Seems like a strange thing to do if you truly care nothing for him."

He left his little brother alive that night, after all. And two weeks ago, he left him alive again. Surely that suggests some type of attachment?

"I left him alive because I wanted a worthy opponent," Itachi says. "As he is now, he is worthless to me. But he has potential. I did not spare him out of kindness, I did it for my own benefit."

It strikes Tsunade as odd that he is saying so much—that he is being so open about her questions. Then she cottons on to what he's doing—that he's been leading this conversation from the moment he opened his mouth, every freely-given word creating a smoke-screen of honesty.

Itachi hasn't actually given her any information at all. Everything he has told her is nothing she doesn't already know. He's talking, yes, but he hasn't actually answered anything. He's only made it seem to her that he has.

Tsunade narrows her eyes when she realizes this. Genius, she reminds herself. Be careful.

"After the massacre, Sasuke told the Sandaime that you claimed to have killed your clan as a way to measure your own abilities. Was it really for so simple a reason? Their lives were really so meaningless to you?"

"What they meant to me is irrelevant," Itachi responds. "Their deaths were necessary to test my strength. That is all."

The look in his eyes reminds her of the corpses she's seen on the battlefield—no light and no emotion. She's never seen it on a living person.

How much of your own soul must you kill, she wonders, to look so utterly dead?

The message he's trying to communicate is clear. I killed them to see if I could. There is no deeper meaning. Stop looking for one.

And yet, something about the explanation bothers her. It feels too simple, too contrived. Something about it feels wrong.

I left him alive because I wanted a worthy opponent. No. That answer has a million holes. There's something else going on here, and Tsunade gets the sudden feeling that she's skating the outskirts of something big. Something dangerous.

(You're playing a dangerous game, Danzo had told her.)

The silence lengthens, and neither of them speaks. Finally, Itachi drops his gaze to table in front of him, asking, "How is Sasuke?"

"I thought you didn't care?"

Itachi's clasped fingers tighten slightly. He doesn't respond.

Tsunade slides back her chair, standing up. "I'll tell you what," she says. "I'll leave you here to think about your options. When I come back, depending on what you decide, maybe I'll let you know how your brother is doing."

She walks to the door, opening it up. She glances back at him before she exits; he still hasn't raised his head.

"You can cooperate willingly, or you can be forced to. The choice is yours."

She exits the room, the heavy door clicking shut behind her. She sighs, bringing a hand up to pinch the bridge of her nose. That conversation gave her just what she expected—nothing. It seems she would have to do this the hard way.

Tsunade frowns, thinking about the last few words they exchanged. For a moment, he seemed almost concerned. But then why—

"Ow! Naruto!"

Tsunade straightens the moment she hears the sharp hiss, coming just to her left. Her eyes narrow.

"That was my foot, you moron!"

"Well, don't stop in the middle of the hallway then—"

Tsunade turns the corner of the hallway, her hands on her hips and her face set in a fierce scowl. The two genin freeze the moment they see her, falling silent as they stare at her with wide eyes.

"Oh shit," Naruto says.

"I hate you," Sakura sighs.

Naruto makes an indignant face, turning to look at his partner-in-crime, but Tsunade cuts him off before he can speak, causing his head to snap right back around to her.

"What the hell do the two of you think you're doing!?"

The young kunoichi shrinks under the harsh words, already looking deeply chastised. Naruto, on the other hand, puffs up indignantly. "Going to talk to Itachi," he says. "What does it look like, Obaasan?"

Next to him, Sakura makes a strangled noise. Tsunade feels her eyebrow twitch.

"Show some respect, brat! And like hell you are!"

The nerve of this child—and the stupidity—continues to shock her. The Akatsuki are after him. Is he really so foolish as to try and place himself alone in a room with one of its members? Itachi may be chained down, but that doesn't mean Naruto should walk himself out in front of him like a gift basket.

"I don't want either of you anywhere near here, understand?"

Naruto grits his teeth. His eyes spark. "No one is telling me anything!" he yells. "Not about Sasuke, and not about why these damn Akatsuki guys are after me! I deserve answers, and if you aren't going to give them to me—"

"Did it ever occur to you," Tsunade snaps, "that we don't know either?" Naruto falls silent in surprise, and Tsunade continues, "We don't know what they want with you! We don't what their goal is! That's what we are trying to figure out, so why don't you let us do our jobs instead of interfering left and right!"

The two of them are silent. Naruto looks slightly uncomfortable now.

"You really don't know what they want with me?" he asks.

"No," she admits. "I don't."

Both of them are quiet, shifting their feet slightly. Sakura bows her head, muttering an apology under her breath.

Tsunade sighs. She steps toward them, spinning the two of them around and pushing them forward the way they came. "Come on, you two brats. Get out of here."

Kisame expected that Madara wouldn't be happy that Itachi was captured. He hadn't expected him to order him killed.

"Killed?" Kisame repeats. "Is that not a bit extreme?"

The two of them are alone in one of the Akatsuki hideouts. Madara is wearing a mask to conceal his face, though there is really no point, since Kisame is the only one present. Itachi has been in Konoha's hands for a couple days now, but Kisame isn't too worried. It's Itachi, after all.

"He holds vital information about the Akatsuki and its members," Madara tells him. "We can't afford any of that to get out. Eliminating him is the only option."

"Itachi isn't the type of man to spill our secrets," Kisame points out. "And he isn't aware of your endgame, anyway."

"That doesn't matter," Madara says. "The intel he holds is still too valuable. The risk he presents to us is too great, especially if he chooses to ally with the Leaf."

Kisame's mouth turns down in a confused frown at these words, wondering why his partner would ever ally with Konoha. Kisame suspects that Itachi secretly cares about that little brother of his, but he's loyal to their organization. He can't see why Madara thinks Itachi would betray them for the village he left behind.

"He's become a threat to our organization," the masked man says. "You need to take him out."

Kisame considers this for a moment. Disregarding whether or not he was capable of killing someone as strong as his partner… did he want to?

"Sorry," Kisame says lightly. "But I think I'll take a pass."

Madara straightens in surprise. Kisame thinks he sees his eye narrow behind the mask. "Pardon?"

Kisame thinks about that young kid he first met on the end of the dock—no older than fourteen, but with blood already dripping from his hands. There had been no trust between them—not then—but he had felt a kinship with him the moment they had spoken.

He thinks of standing at the boy's back, Samaheda level with his shoulder, warning him to be wary. Warning him to tread carefully. Now, Kisame thinks about the order he has been given, and he feels strangely reluctant.

He would have done it, four years ago. But something has changed since then, and the thought of slicing through his partner with his sword no longer brings with it the same relish that it once did.

"I won't kill him," Kisame tells him. "I won't stop anyone else from trying to do it, but I won't do it myself."

The Uchiha gazes at him with a sharp red eye. "Is this loyalty you're displaying, Kisame? It is quite unlike you."

"Not really," he says. "I simply value my own life. I don't fancy fighting against Itachi-san."

"I believe you'll change your mind about that."

Kisame narrows his eyes. "Do you? What makes you so certain?"

"Because I know how much you hate liars," Madara responds. "And Itachi Uchiha is the biggest one of them all."