Chapter 26: A Viper in the Grass.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, STUPID. At this rate I would get myself killed before I made Chünin. One would think that with the amount of field experience I had and everything team eight had gone through, I'd be able to spot a simple henge.

Well think again.

Not only was I stupid, oh no the problem did not end there; because on the other side of the transformation jutsu happened to be one of the most dangerous rogue shinobi the world had produced. Fucking Orochimaru. Kami must have been on an extremely merciful mood if they let me live through that.

I only noticed when the Sanin wanted me to notice. When there was nobody around and he could let his real voice and personality shine through. When he was certain that there would be no one listening, when he could personally deliver the message he had come to give me.

When Orochimaru deserted Konoha, the only information we had been given had been just that. Orochimaru was a traitor to the Hat, he left, he was our sworn enemy from that day forward and so on. It was his decision. We were never told why he had left. We were told he was dangerous and our enemy and that was the end of it. So when the Orochimaru came to me, not with a kunai to my eyes, but with Intel, I was more than just taken aback.

"You have no Idea how much trouble I had to go through to get you alone, child." Said the smooth voice of the Sanin behind Kirito's face." Jiraiya sure knows how to make himself a nuisance."

I made sure not to lose him from sight as the body of what I'd thought to be a child made its way to the low table standing to the side of the room. He poured us both tea.

"But since we probably have very little until my team mate comes barging through the door, I'll try to make this as brief as possible."

Orochimaru handed me one of the cups he had been holding and sat before me with posture so graceful and refined it might have been that of a member of the royal family.

"The story I'm about to tell you might sound like a twisted plot of mine to turn you against the Hokage, but although my word means nothing to you, I can swear to you that every bit of it is true." The child before me took a sip of his tea and handed me a piece of paper I never noticed he had been holding. "But he thought you might be still in need of some more concrete proof that that is not my intention. I am merely the messenger."

I took the piece of paper and unfolded it, uncaring of what may lay inside. Looking back, I should have been more careful, taken my time to check for traps or poison, maybe even prepared myself for what was to come. But if I was to be completely honest, nothing could have prepared me for what was written there.

In his always neat, elegant, beautiful handwriting, Itachi had written to me:

Orochimaru-san is an ally, he will give you his own account of the story, and someday, hopefully soon, I will give you mine and apologize as I should. I can only entrust this information to you, my best friend, my last real ally. Please do not die until we meet again. And do not forget who you are, Akane.

Itachi.

It was short, to the point, and just like him. It made me angry. I was livid, and I didn't understand. Why now? After all this time. I had worried, and fretted for his life for years. He had made me wait so long to even tell me he was alive, that he was hopefully well. I'd missed him so much.

I swallowed the knot in my throat and willed my tears not to fall; and then looked up at Orochimaru.

"Tell me."

And tell me he did.

And my hate for Sarutobi Hiruzen and his council grew.

Orochimaru had been, apart from one of Konoha's Legendary Sannin, a member of the research and development division. In fact, he had been the head of the department, with a drive and a love for knowledge that inspired his peers. It all went well until councilman Shimura, with the approval of the Hokage, recruited him for some 'hands on' research. It was a matter of extreme secrecy and should he be discovered, he would have to disappear. Orochimaru's interest had been caught to say the least and he agreed to work for Danzo. Since his knowledge of Jutsu lay in their theory and what he knew of anatomy came from scrolls his team mate Tsunade had written, his work was purely about proposing theories in hypothetical cases presented to him by his superiors.

When he found out not only that his theories for the replication of wood release were being tested on children, but also that his notes on ocular blood limit transplants were being used to Shimura's benefit, he grabbed those children who had survived experimentation and left Konoha. He set up labs in his hideouts to try and stabilize those children he could and built a facility to keep contained those he couldn't.

He later learned that he had been accused of human experimentation, and that the lab he had taken the children from, had been used as 'evidence' to frame him. He suspected that his notes on ocular transplants had had something to do with the Uchiha Massacre as well, since the bodies had been buried and not burnt like was the Uchiha custom.

"According to a letter my brother left me before he commited suicide, said he had presented an alternative plan to the Massacre, and that depending on the Council's answer and how deeply imbedded in the Hokage were Danzo's calws, it might succeed. But we all know how that ended." I spat out bitterly.

One day, one day I'd kill them all.

"Do you still have this letter with you?" I nodded and unsealed the worn out parchment from a storage seal inked to the inside of my forearm.

He read it over and over, and with hard eyes and a chill in his voice that sent shivers down my spine, he answered:

"Who else knows about this?"

I drank the last of my tea and put the cup down with a sigh.

"Just you and me, Orochimaru-san."

He looked rather surprised.

"You told a rogue-nin, accused of human experimentation whom you have just met, basing your trust on a note that could easily have been forged?"

I smiled.

"I might not have the Sharingan, Orochimaru-san, but my eyes are still extremely sharp."

The smile he gave me was a sarcastic one, I wasn't so sure I liked.

"Not sharp enough to notice that some words are spelled in katakana and not in hiragana or kanji," He continued to smile as he re-read the letter. "and that the first characters of each word spell something quite interesting…"

I snatched the parchment from his hands and read the note Shisui had left me for the first time since I'd sealed it within the security of my own arm.

Orochimaru was right. It was, in fact very interesting, because as he had told me, the characters read something I could never have anticipated:

Kotoamatsukami.

…

We agreed to keep in touch through one of his lesser snake summons, which would remain with me in the shape of a tattoo around my wrist. He warned me, though that contact should be minimal for the sake of secrecy and only to be done in case of being in possession of information the other could consider relevant. Orochimaru was to enter an organization to keep with his 'rogue s-ranked nin' façade and to try and obtain as much information as he could. Then, with a bow, we parted ways.

My head was swarming with all the new information Orochimaru-san had provided me with. Almost every gap in the knowledge I had about the situation had been filled and with how fast my mind was working, I could feel the oncoming migraine I would get.

I felt cheated, betrayed, I was raging with a fury I'd never felt and a need to burn, burn, BURN Konohagakure to the ground I could barely contain. My killing intent was leaking, I knew that. I didn't care.

They had done what they did to Orochimaru.

They had killed Shisui.

They had forced Itachi to kill his entire family.

They had made Uchiha Akane disappear.

No.

I was still there, and I would kill them all.

My chakra must have spiked, because in what felt like no time, Sensei was there, so were Jiraiya and the rest of the team. Sensei was saying something I couldn't hear, but his face looked worried, and somehow more detailed than usual. I noticed he had more expression liner and wrinkles than I'd thought, and that there were a few grey hairs poking out from in between the mess of brown hair on his head.

"…gan, Sumiko."

My hearing was starting to come back to me, and as I shook Sensei's hands from my shoulders, I moved to take off the contact lenses. They were being more of a nuisance than ever.

"What?" I bit back, annoyed that I even had to wear the damned things.

Sensei looked taken aback by my rudeness, but I couldn't bring myself to care.

"Your Sharingan," said Kosuke. "You awakened it, Pup."

That made me stop short. It couldn't be, I wasn't supposed to be able to awaken the Sharingan. I took a hand mirror that Taka handed me, and when I brought it up to my face, I couldn't stop the gasp that slipped past my lips. As everyone had already seen, my irises were no longer black, but scarlet. What everyone had failed to mention, was that there were two tomoe on my left eye instead of one. What had happened? Had something gon wrong?

I looked up at Sensei once more and couldn't contain the silent tears that started escaping me. I didn't want to cry, but it was all too much. How was I going to fix this? How could I make it alright without hurting my loved ones? How could I tell Sasuke that his brother had killed his parents under orders? How could I ever face anyone with how weak I was?

I was overwhelmed; I was sad, angry and tired. I wanted to go home and sleep and then plan my revenge, because there was no way these people would get away with anything. They would all die, either by my hand or by my design.

I managed to bring my breathing under control and after a few minutes of just crying in silence, I went numb. I needed to think clearly, calmly and right in the middle of a mission was no time to panic. Even if the target for our mission wasn't out to hunt me, but to warn me.

What followed was something that resembled an interrogation in more ways than one. Jiraiya-san sure was persistent, and I was tempted to just out and tell him everything If it would make him stop annoying me. I was in no mood to be annoyed; I swore I'd bite someone's head off at any given moment.

On top of that, I didn't seem to be able to make my eyes shift back to their original color, and it was starting to worry me. It had occurred to me that not awakening my döjitsu when Shisui died or when Itachi attacked me might have meant that I wouldn't awaken it at all. But to think they would, at different stages of development and that I wouldn't be able to make them shift back, never crossed my mind.

Would it drain my chakra dry? Would it have side effects?

I did not know.

What I did know, though, was that there was no concealing my Identity anymore. And now more than ever, there was a target painted on my back.

I would have to ask Kakashi for help as well.

In a way, I was glad I couldn't make my eyes go back to their original form. It denied my superiors the chance to rob me of my identity, my history, my blood once again. Uchiha Akane could not, would not be hidden from the world any longer. I could be myself again.

Hotaka was not as thrilled. He was fussing over me as if I'd been fatally wounded, and beside him, Takahiro tried to calm the boy's nerves to no avail. Sensei had a deep set frown on his face and was staring into the tatami mat as if it had given him a code impossible to decipher.

Jiraiya-san, not content with his interrogation, started searching the toom. For what? I did not know. But he continued to go through every single object and piece of furniture he could get his hands on. He did not find what he was looking for, I didn't expect him to. Orochimaru-san would not let himself be caught, not even by his former teammate.

I still did not know if I could trust Jiraiya. I knew that even if I trusted them with my life, I would not put them in a situation where they would have to choose between the village and a friend. I felt no guilt in putting anybody else through that. I would have to be careful either way, because there was no way back from the path I'd chosen for myself. It was all or nothing, and I refused to be left with nothing.