Between the Lines
"Sakura, I have a simple B-rank mission for you. I need some archiving done."
The kunoichi tilted her head, eyebrows drawing down as she regarded her mentor. "But Lady Tsunade, why is archiving a B-ranked mission?"
Tsunade smiled at her apprentice, always so perceptive. "Because it's in my library."
Satisfied with that answer, Sakura agreed to the assignment. She had a studious mind so archiving appealed to her anyway, and Lady Tsunade couldn't send just anyone into her library. It had to be someone that she trusted implicitly, and Sakura felt honoured that it was her.
The feeling quickly dissipated once she stepped inside. It was bedlam. The scrolls were scattered everywhere, and there were more on the floor than there were on the shelves. How was she supposed to sort all of this?!
"Have fun," Tsunade sang, shutting the door behind her apprentice. Sakura could hear her cackling as she retreated down the hall. 'Hag,' she thought bitterly.
However, Sakura set to her task as meticulously as possible, scanning through the scrolls, numbering them and categorising them by clans, jutsus, medicines, into endless genres and cross-referencing them when necessary. The days were long, but she was learning so much about the village, even some of the other villages, that she began to appreciate the mission once again. It really wasn't so bad once she had her system in place, though she was still going to give Lady Tsunade a piece of her mind once she was finished.
It was on the fourth day that she picked up a scroll featuring a familiar red and white fan. She made a note that it was clan-related before opening it to see if it required any cross-references.
As her eyes scanned the document, Sakura felt bile rising to the back of her throat. The scroll detailed the Uchiha massacre. She knew she shouldn't read on- she had the information she needed to file it and yet, she couldn't tear her eyes away.
When she reached the end, tears stinging her eyes as she thought of the pain that Sasuke had endured, something didn't sit quite right with Sakura. She read through the document again and suddenly, she felt her stomach drop. Shaking her head, she started again. She had to be imagining it.
No. It was right there, between the lines. The document was cleverly written- she knew most people would have missed it. However, it wasn't only Sakura's intellect that had helped her to find it, but her relationship with Sasuke too.
Reading between the lines, Sakura realised that Itachi Uchiha had not acted alone the night he had murdered his clan. An unknown person- though if she understood correctly, it was a third Uchiha- had helped. What was more, Itachi had acted on the orders of the village. The council had ordered the destruction of one of Konoha's most prominent clans. All of that pain that Sasuke had endured…
The tears fell freely from Sakura's eyes. Itachi Uchiha, murderer of his clan, member of Akatsuki, who had tried to kill her sensei and his own brother, had only become a traitor because he had followed the orders of his superiors. He had taken on the hatred of the village that he had put himself through hell to protect.
Sakura read the scroll through again, trying to memorise it before filing it away. Then she stood, ready to leave the library, forming the resolve to leave the village. She had to find Sasuke. He had to know before it was too late…