Chapter 14

"You've gotten much better." Harry's smile turned smug at the praise from his blonde son. "Right?" "Yes, much better. You might even be low chuunin in taijutsu, a little better in ninjutsu." Sasuke added. They were all in the training ground behind the house. It was one of the few occasions the old Team Seven could be together on their off days. Kakashi sat at the porch reading his smut, Severus was next to him reading a potions text with a mug of butterbeer he found the inspiration to make recently.

"You've lost great favor with some of the shinobi." Kakashi began. Severus turned a page silently. "I have reason to believe you're not as safe as you should be in this village." Severus peeked up at the silver-haired man from the top of his book. "Oh?" "Their dislike itself is not the source of my concern, it's the voices that are stoking their ire. I have no solid evidence," Kakashi lowered his book to stare straight into dark eyes. "but I think you should take some measures to ensure your safety." Snape's mouth thinned. "And Hari?" Kakashi went back to his book, unconcerned. "He's far too important to lose."

Meanwhile, the young men helped Hari to his feet after their sparring session. "Not bad, for a civilian." Sai commented, perched on a tree branch close by. He had been diligently working on a painting, happily capturing the mock fight onto paper. Hari had encouraged him to do the things he liked, like drawing, instead of following him around every waking hour. He was trying, and steadily growing to enjoy it more than he ever did before. "No one asked for your opinion." Sasuke said pleasantly. Sai's smile mirrored his own. "Good, I doubt you'd comprehend my advice as is, let alone lower myself to take council with you." Sasuke grit his teeth and his smile gained a sharp edge. "My, my. You seem to be of the opinion you're superior to me. Perhaps I should open your eyes to truths you mournfully lack." He took slow measured steps towards the root agent, violence dominating his thoughts.

Hari sweat dropped. "Sasuke-kun, Sai-kun, I don't believe any of this is necessary. Why don't we go inside to cool off?" Glaring balefully, Sasuke stalked into the house. "I'll be right behind you." Naruto called out to the group following behind Sasuke. Sai gave him an odd look. Naruto met it without flinching knowing some tell gave him away to the shinobi. Without any word, Sai left him to his devices. Naruto took out a scroll he received earlier in the day.

'Below is a summoning seal that will be valid for a week from the moment you received this message. Make sure you are certain of your actions henceforth; there will be no turning back from this.'

Right under the message there was a symbol consisting of kanji within three concentric circles. He could remember teaching Itachi how to make it. He thought about when he could activate it and decided he would do so within four days. He still had eight days off, and four days would be enough to complete what he intended to do. 'I guess I should prepare another seal to summon me back.' Sticking the scroll back into his deepest pocket, he made his way into the house.

~Scene Change~

Hari woke up with a start. Gasping for breath, he tore the covers from himself and left his room. A ball of soft light guided his way. In no time at all he reached his destination. He thought to knock, but thought better of it. After making quick work of the spells on the door, he let himself in silently. He took a long look at the lump on the bed, which moved slightly in sleep. Getting closer, he soon could see Severus' face. He fondly moved a piece of hair from his face, sighing in relief and contentment. Assured of his safety, he left the room as quietly as he came. Once the door was closed and re-warded, he laughed at himself. "Don't be silly. It was just a dream." He went back to his room in a better mood, yet sleep evaded him that night.

~Scene Change~

"Uzumaki Naruto. You are very bold indeed to show yourself here." Pain stated from behind his desk. Naruto stepped forward to the leader of Akatsuki. "Not at all. Knowing what I know, facing you is no problem at all." "How did you find this place? Better yet, how did you get in, and why isn't anyone appearing to deal with you?" Naruto sat across the man, impressing him with how composed he was. "We are currently in a barrier seal of my own design that not only keeps others out while manipulating them to think nothing is out of the ordinary, but prevents the deliberate molding of chakra within it. As you understand, unless you can physically restrain me you have no choice but to hear me out." "And you think you can hold this over me? I don't need chakra to deal with a green jounin such as yourself." Naruto tensed slightly but forced himself to relax. "Don't you want to know what I have to say?" "Not before you answer all my previous questions, and tell me how you know of me." "How I got here is of no consequence." "Oh? So there's a spy within my ranks." Ignoring the comment, the blonde continued. "My own spy network is competent enough to know about your little organization and its goals." He leaned forward slightly. "Now, are you interested in my reason for being here?"

Rinnegan eyes bore into his own. "Go on." So Naruto started. "Humans are such a resilient race. Do you think your plan would truly work?" The question caused the self-proclaimed god's eyes to narrow. "You question the weight of suffering." "I question the fickleness of emotion and human nature." Naruto countered. "Sure, we would unite to fend off a common enemy, but what happens after? After so much death people will recover and move on. Then, greed would claw to fill the void left behind, the seed of hate would be planted once more, anger will take root from the desire to protect themselves from the hate. Love breeds hatred; you of all people knows that. We'll be back to square one and where will you be?"

Pein fisted his hands. "My attack is not a one-time strike. Someone, whether to safeguard something or with selfish intentions, will wield this weapon again, then someone else again, then again, and again. A never-ending cycle that will unite them all. The world will know pain." Naruto smiled bitterly. "You're naïve." Before the older man could snap at him he continued. "Pain can unite us, yes. But it can also drive us apart. Say the next person to wield the bijuu is the leader of a nation with allies behind them. At the very least, the world will be divided in half and each side would tear the other apart attempting to remove a perceived threat. The victims will remember not a world rallying against a common foe, but another human being who has made themselves an enemy. And, as you said, it will create a never-ending cycle, again, and again, and again."

The silence in the room was palpable for a moment. Naruto could see the stubbornness written in the other man's posture. No words could convince him. So, he changed tactics. Despite his best efforts excitement rose within him, eager to see Pein's reaction to the truths he held. "Who do you think hides behind that orange mask?" The change of topic could have given Pein whiplash with how sudden it was. "I believe you already know." "Do I?" his grin was taunting. Once again, Pein grit his teeth at the infuriating brat. "Uchiha Madara." "Bullshit." Naruto concluded before the name could fully leave Pein's lips. "Madara is already dead. The man you met years ago and paved this path for you, he's not Madara."

Pain wanted to argue, he did. Something in him, however, told him the boy was right. For years it has niggled at him. "Who is he then?" "An Uchiha. Uchiha Obito." And so Naruto told him the tale of Obito and how he got to this point. Once the tale was told, he intended to reveal a lot more. "Now you know Obito's story I'm sure you can draw some conclusions to your own." Another silence settled, Pein's ignorance driving it. Naruto decided to enlighten him. "Just like Madara preyed on Obito's vulnerability, he takes advantage of yours even after his body has long turned to dust, through his puppet. How convenient it was that a strange man in a mask showed up when your hope of victory in the war that spawned you was all but lost. Claiming to be a legend, he was able to carry you to victory and even now is able to hold together this little group you lead. Isn't it too much of a coincidence that he came so soon after Yahiko died."

The chair clattered loudly when it hit the floor, the gesture behind it more than the noise forcing Naruto to stop talking. A hand fisted his jacked in a white-knuckled grip. Pein's face loomed over him twisted in hatred and alarm. "You know too much." The words were as quiet as a breath, though in the silence it was as if he had shouted. Naruto forced himself to meet the man's eyes fearlessly. No longer was he a man in a child's body, scrambling to catch up to the standards of his experience. He was now as powerful, if not more so, as he was back then. He would not be cowed.

"I'm sure you have already realized these things for yourself. You are being used to bring about a war decades in the making. You are not creating peace, your only purpose it to bring senseless suffering. There are other ways to achieve your goals." "I should end you here." Pein said then pushed the teen away. "Leave." Naruto stood, his eyes not leaving the other man's. "I'm not saying this to open old wounds. What you're planning is wrong, it will end in suffering." He placed a scroll on the table. "Once you're ready to face this truth, and are willing to hear an alternative plan, pour chakra into the scroll." With that, Naruto retrieved another scroll. He used the little magic he had to produce a small fire and burned the scroll. Chakra rushed into his system as the barrier crumpled and he shunshinned out. The door burst open to admit Konan. "What happened?" the urgency in her voice was something he rarely experienced from her. A spike of his chakra caused the door to shut once more. "We have a lot to discuss, Konan."

~Scene Change~

It was a clear sunny day in Konoha. Severus had been to the heart of the village to take care of his finances when the unexpected occurred. It happened so fast he didn't have the time to react. His senses were too slow to warn him of the danger. There was only screaming from somewhere behind him. He turned just in time for the cart, heavy with its load, to come plowing at him in full force. He tried to move to the side but it was too late. He only had a moment to realize his chakra wasn't responding to his commands. It was far too late to raise a shield or apparate. The cart crashed into him. It dragged him under itself, its massive weight seemed to break every bone in his body even as it tore at his skin and muscles. It was all but a moment, and once it passed, all he could hear was the sound of his heartbeat fading. 'This is it, then.'

~Scene Change~

Hari was called in to identify the body. Now, as he looked down at his friend's corpse, something cold settled into his spine. His thoughts were painfully clear. "This was not an accident." He whispered to himself. To him, it was more a factual statement than an effort to come to terms with his death. Severus was a shinobi; any shinobi worth his kunai would notice a large cart barreling toward them. No, this was not an accident. His eyes became hard and gained a purple sheen to them. He nodded to the doctor in the room with him and left with purposeful steps.

The funeral came and went, yet his eyes were still dry. He was still so cold. He doesn't even remember most of the prior week. Perhaps he was still in shock, he hardly cared. His sons were there for him of course, so was Kakashi and Sai in his own way. He couldn't bring himself to be there for them though. He only had one goal. Try as he might he couldn't remember what it was. So he continued to be still even as the world kept moving. He would catch up soon. He just has to do…something, first.

~Scene Change~

His kunai batted away the incoming shuriken. Spinning on his heel he kicked another ninja in the jaw, ignoring the sound of shattering bone with practiced ease. Reversing his grip on the kunai, he plunged the weapon in an enemy's guts. Seeing another making hand signs he recognized to be that of a B-rank earth technique, he pushed the body away with his foot then threw the kunai at the man who was too slow to finish his hand signs. Sasuke looked around himself, overlooking the massive number of corpses surrounding him. Naruto was a bit away from himself. His eyes widened a bit when he saw another foe sneaking up behind the blonde who was occupied with three others. Drawing a shuriken from his pouch he threw it with deadly precision. It buried itself into his cranium and he dropped to the floor with no further sounds.

Naruto made short work of his own opponents. He noticed the blonde was grinning slightly, sharpened canines making his visage that much more frightening. Sasuke never understood why Naruto liked battle so much, it frightened him how he would blossom in the heat of a fight for his life and take pleasure in taking someone else's life. Once he realized the enemy was no more that little spark of life in his eyes dimmed once more and he adopted his default facial expression, that of apathy.

Naruto turned to Sasuke with a small nod of thanks. He noticed the other teen hastily cover up the fear in his eyes with a grin. It made his chest tighten. Over the years, as his mind started to forget the finer details of a life of war and his subconscious began to crave the high he got from overdosing on adrenalin, he became more vicious when dealing with his enemies. Oh, he knew he was becoming something of a monster in other people's eyes; ruthless and unforgiving. Their opinion didn't matter as much as much as his family's. Sasuke was the one who saw him the most in the field so he saw the darker side of him more than the others. Sasuke started to fear him. He knew Sasuke loved him, just not that part of him. It broke something in him but he ignored it, hoping that Sasuke would accept him eventually. There is no way he would bend over backward to appease anyone, the most he could do was make their acceptance worth something.

He approached his brother to hand their mission objective to him. "You can hand that to our client." Sasuke took the scroll with some measure of curiosity. "Why don't you hand it over yourself?" "You're more approachable." "Ah." With that they hopped onto the trees and took the shortest route to Snow Country. Naruto was glad they only needed to make one trip there and back. The mission was sent through messengers to Konoha. Their client asked the Hokage to send shinobi to retrieve a stolen scroll which they were sure was taken to a small settlement close to Konoha and bring it back to Snow Country. The trip will take two weeks even with their speed. His thoughts drifted back home, where he left Hari. The man was a husk of who he used to be, leading his life in the month since Severus' death with no motivation or happiness. He could see it through his façade of normalcy. He just hoped his grief wouldn't lead him to making stupid decisions.

~Scene Change~

Hari stared into the swirling depths of the finished potion, a potion he'd been working on for five days without rest. It was a pale transparent purple in color, but once he added a piece of hair into it, it became colorless, odorless, and tasteless, with no texture. Like a cauldron of nothing. He smiled.

~Scene Change~

"Ah, Kakashi-chan. I'm glad you came." Hari kissed the tall man's masked cheek. Kakashi gave him the famous eye-smile before sitting across from him. "You called me here Hari-kun, I could never refuse. So then, what is this meeting about?" he asked. Hari just called the waitress over. "It's been some time since we spent time together Kakashi. Since it's your day off I hoped I'd take you out to lunch." Once the waitress got to their table they both ordered soup dumplings to start. Kakashi raised his eyebrow. "You said it was important." Hari nodded. "Yes, it's important." He leaned forward with a mischievous glint in his eye. "You're back into ANBU are you not?" The silverette scratched his cheek. "You know I can't discuss my work." "You're with the Hokage's protection unit, aren't you?" The man frowned. "Have you been rooting around in my mind?" Hari blinked at the question before shaking his head dismissively. "If course not. It's not hard to guess a man of your caliber would be given such an important task."

Kakashi leaned back to observe Hari. His skin was paler than usual with eyes more dulled than usual. "Are you okay?" The puzzled stare he got made him sigh. "Where is Sai?" "I left him at the shop." The man smiled in excitement. "He's manning the store again today and displaying his portraits. People are buying them by the dozens. I'm sure he would have lots of money soon enough, enough to buy that flat he has always wanted. It's good for him, to see himself making a different anywhere other than his job and gaining a bit of independence."

Kakashi wasn't fooled by the happy visage. Now he knew Sai wasn't around he could ask what he wanted to. "You know who did it, don't you?" "Huh?" "You know who killed Severus." Hari shook his head then smiled sympathetically at Kakashi, making him freeze. "Kakashi-chan, what happened was an accident. There's no point in pointing fingers." "You're kidding me." Kakashi muttered, disbelief being replaced by anger. Hari's smile turned somber. "I know you think someone did it, but it was just an accident. It could have happened to anyone. I don't want to drag out all of our suffering by starting an investigation." "And let the culprits get away?" Kakashi hissed in outrage, keeping his voice low to not alarm the other patrons.

The bearer shook his head. "Kakashi, please drop it. We came here to have a nice meal. I don't want to spoil it for both of us." Kakashi calmed himself down. The waitress came back with their food. He let Hari start another conversation, but he didn't stop observing him.

"That was really good, I'm stuffed!" Hari exclaimed once they left the restaurant. Kakashi was walking him back to the house. It had started getting dark. "I wish Naruto and Sasuke were here so we could go out as a family again. It'd be so nice." Kakashi grimaced. He could see what Hari was doing. He was pretending as if everything was back to normal, like nothing ever went wrong. Like he was still happy and content, like his life wasn't turned upside down. Kakashi grit his teeth in frustration.

"Stop it." Hari froze at the tone of Kakashi's voice. "Just stop pretending." "Huh?" Hari gave him a puzzled smile, which made Kakashi even angrier. "What are you talking about? Everything is fine." The silverette grabbed his shoulders roughly. "You can't possibly believe that you are fine. Don't pretend everything's okay. You're allowed to be sad, watching you force a smile…it hurts! Please stop it!"

Hari's eyes were now wide. "Kakashi…I…I…Nothing's…everything is fine." "No it's not. Severus is dead, has been for over a month. You can't tell me you don't miss him." Hari looked into Kakashi's eyes to see the pain and concern on his face. His eyes started to tear up. "I miss him. I miss him so much. But I need to be strong. For him. I need to be happy for him." "But you're not. You're suffering, and you're angry at those responsible." "It was an accident, Kakashi." "Are you sure?" "Yes." "You're in denial, Hari." "It could have happened to anyone." "Not Severus." "Please stop. No one can be that cruel. It hurts." "Not everyone is a saint. Someone wanted Severus dead and you need to accept that to move on. Don't you want to know who did it and be at peace?"

Hari screamed. "Stop it!" A surge of magic blew Kakashi off his feet and away from Hari to land painfully a distance from him. Hari didn't seem to notice, now sobbing with tears running down his face. "Just stop it! It was a mistake. No one could possibly want to take my Sev from me. How could anyone be so cruel? It can't be. It was an accident. It was an accident." Kakashi picked himself up to walk back to the bawling bearer. He felt bad for bringing it up now. He collected Hari into his arms. "Shhh." "It was an accident. It was an accident." He repeated. Kakashi rubbed his back, not liking what he said next. "Yes, it was an accident. Calm down." "Please don't say such things, Kakashi. Don't imply such horrible things." "Of course."

A/N: Waaa! Oh Hari! What will you do now? Denial is a powerful force. What will happen next? Why does Hari seem so off? And will Sasuke accept Naruto as he is? What will Pein do with the information confirmed to him? Oh, BTW I have little idea about the details of Pein's plans or Madara, so I was going off of memory and the pieces I gathered from other fics. R&R please.