"Curiosity is not a sin... but we should exercise caution with our curiosity... yes indeed." - Albus Dumbledore
It was a week or two before Shikako and Sasuke had any time to pop Mikoto's trunk open. Between training with Kakashi, with the Sensor Squad, Shikako's posting with the Intelligence Department, and Sasuke's continued posting with Border Patrol, they were both being kept extremely busy.
"Hey." Sasuke greeted as he opened the door a little bit wider so Shikako could enter. "Where'd you get all that?" He asked, glancing at the numerous books in her arms.
"I wrote them, it's everything I have on sealing." she explained somewhat proudly. "Jiraiya even proofread this one." She laid them out on the kitchen table and tapped one that looked like it had colored sticky notes sticking out of it.
Sasuke frowned in confusion. "When did that happen?" He asked, walking into his bedroom and dragging the wooden box out into the kitchen.
"You were learning Chidori with Kakashi-sensei." She replied as she helped him lift it onto a chair.
Sasuke nodded and Shikako got to work studying the seal locking the trunk. "Tea?" He offered.
"Please." Shikako confirmed, flipping through the notebook and comparing the lock seal to various examples . "Well, whoever did this used Uzumaki-style sealing."
Sasuke looked back at her eyebrow raised. "Wait, what?" He placed the full pot on the stove and turned it to the appropriate setting.
"Come here." She pointed to a picture of a seal in the notebook. "That is literally a textbook example of a Uzumaki-style spiral seal. They're for being extremely strong, stable, and rare, primarily due….well, due to the Uzumaki clan having been destroyed and the survivors scattered and hunted during the Second Great Shinobi War. We took in most of them because they were our Allies during the First and Second Wars."
"And now there's only Naruto, do you think he knows?" Sasuke finished.
"Probably not. I mean, it's not exactly classified information, any book on the First and Second Wars or on the Senju Clan is going to have information on it. Naruto just isn't the type to read history books on his spare time. Anyway, do you see the similarity between the one on your mom's and the one in here?"
"Yeah."
"Uzumaki spiral sealing."
"So my mom knew one and they were close enough for them to draw her a lock seal. Because she wasn't a seal master." He concluded.
She studied it for a few more minutes. " Where's the chakra sink. This has to be powered by something- No. You're kidding, no way. That's too easy." she muttered in awe before simply ripping it off. "That was a dummy seal, it didn't take chakra from anywhere. It was just a massive, dangerous looking bluff." She sighed and stuck the seal into her notebook. "And here I was, trying not to trip a minefield like an amature."
Sasuke carefully decided not to mention how glad he was that it wasn't a mine considering how close the two were versus how casually Shikako ripped it off.
"Well, you ready for this?" Shikako asked, catching his attention carefully and bringing it back to the present. "You okay."
He shook himself like a dog ridding itself of water. "Only one way to find out, right?" Sasuke reached out and shoved the lid up and back, fast enough to prevent himself from hesitating.
Close to half of the box was filled to the top with a collection of notebooks small enough to fit into a pocket, the other side housed a large set of seemingly random but carefully stacked items.
"So where do you want to start?" Shikako asked looking at him expectantly, having stacked up her own notebooks and placed them to the side.
"I think-" Sasuke started cautiously before he was interrupted by the timer beeping it's announcement that the tea was done. Sasuke started at the sound and got up to pour it. "I think we should just lay everything out and figure out what everything is. We can start to go through it after that in more detail."
She nodded and began to methodically lay out the contents of the trunk on the table, Sasuke handed her one of the cups and started flipping through the meticulously stacked notebooks. "We can leave leave these in here." He commented. "They're all journals, I'll start reading them later tonight."
"She certainly seems to have been the nostalgic type or at the very least she liked keeping good records," Shikako confirmed, holding up a heavy notebook and a collection of envelopes. "Photo album, and these letters are dated from a year before the Third Shinobi War." Shikako opened one carefully and began to read, her eyes darting along the page. When she flipped to the second page of the letter, she got about a third of the way down before her eyes widened like saucers. "Sasuke, I don't think you should read these." she advised carefully, struggling to keep her voice even.
"Why? What are they about?" He asked apprehensively as he set aside an additional set of notebooks that he'd determined to be notes on advanced genjutsu.
"Well, " Shikako said, grinning mischievously as she fought to keep herself from giggling and not succeeding completely, "Apparently your mom had a boyfriend before your dad." She explained, eyes glued to the page. "Yeah, for the sake of your own sanity, don't read these."
Sasuke went from being apprehensive, to confused, to outright horror in less than three seconds as it dawned on him and he realized both what was in the contents of the letters and that sometimes perhaps ignorance truly was bliss.
"If it helps," Shikako gasped, fighting for air as she succumbed to the giggling and continued reading. "She was an excellent writer."
Naturally, that didn't reassure Sasuke in the least. "That doesn't help at all!" He protested, looking as though he was going to be sick. And because Shikako gained nothing but enjoyment out of tormenting him, or so he thought by this point as he wallowed in horror, she simply had to make it even worse.
"Seriously Sasuke, can I borrow these for while?" She cackled madly, moving on to the next page with glee.
It took him a second for that to register. "Why?" He asked, perplexed. Then the memory of what he had read out of stupefying boredom during his enforced isolation after Orochimaru's first attempt at his body came back to him and he blushed wildly "SHIKAKO!" He exclaimed, his face red as a tomato as he was assaulted by an extremely unwanted image and another set of that feeling in his stomach that made him feel like he had swallowed one of Jiraiya's toads. Speaking of whom- . "What the hell, 'Kako?! What the fuck did that Pervy Sage do to your head?!" He yelled.
Shikako fought down the laughter, which was replaced by the hiccups. She carefully folded and put the letter back into the envelope before exchanging it with the teacup as she shook with mirth. "There, there, Sasuke." She said, patting him on the shoulder. "It's ok, we'll keep you safe from the smut."
"I want enough alcohol to drown myself." He complained miserably as he slumped down and repeatedly banged his head against the top of the table. "I hope you're proud of yourself, "Kako. There's not enough soap in the world to clean that out of my ears." he moaned piteously, said ears red like the fan on the back of his shirt.
Shikako sighed, her hiccups finally under control. "Ah, on that pleasant note, let's move on." She suggested, removing a Konohagakure forehead plate attached to a maroon bandanna from the trunk.
"Can we please." Sasuke begged, hauling himself out of his own little pit of despair and unwanted information to join her in continuing to sort out his mother's things. He removed a set of horror novels, apparently autographed by the author, before removing a kimono and a scroll to reveal a long sleeve made of linen, whose contents stretched along the back of the meter long trunk.
"Hey Sasuke?" Shikako asked, opening the photo album. " Does he look familiar to you?" She pointed to a silver haired man towering benignly over a squad of genin containing an amused boy with earrings and a bow slung on his back, an exasperated looking dark-haired girl, and a girl with striking red hair who was flashing the victory sign at the camera and beaming like she'd just had the world handed to her.
"He looks like Kakashi." Sasuke commented as he removed the sleeve from the trunk.
She nodded, "Yeah, that's what I thought." She agreed distractedly. "Is that a sword sleeve?" She asked, looking at what was in her friend's hands. "Did she practice kenjutsu?'
"Not that I know of, and she taught me almost everything I knew." Sasuke paused. "Him and dad were usually busy with work a lot. So mom taught me my Uchiha taijutsu forms and shuriken techniques ... as well as a lot of other stuff." He peeled the cloth down over the riveted maple handle scales and tsuba of the katana and then the wakizashi before removing them from the bag entirely, which he laid carefully on the table along with the shorter of the two swords before unsheathing the longer. "I guess she did." He pointed at the well oiled but scratched flat and spine of the blade. "It certainly didn't get this from ceremonial use, and it's sharp as hell." He confirmed, lightly testing the edge with the top of his fingernail.
"Isn't one of the Special Jounin you patrol with known for kenjutsu?" Shikako asked, curiously, flipping through the photo album.
Sasuke nodded. "Gekko Hayate." He confirmed, placing the katana on the table so he could do a similar examination on the wakizashi. "You think I should ask him to teach me how to use these?"
"Well I wouldn't use those exact ones, they're family heirlooms at this point and it'd suck if they broke on a mission. But I certainly am. Lessons on how to use the Raijin no Ken are sorta long over-due. You could probably get a copy of them made, though. I'm sure Tenten knows someone who could do it. Who's this?" She asked, pointing to a picture of Mikoto, now in her mid teens and a seven year old in a dark blue jacket edged with orange.
Sasuke barely gave the picture a glance. "Oh, that's Obito, he was mom's favorite cousin. Died during the Third War trying to blow up a bridge in Kusa or something." Sasuke put the swords back in the sleeve and went to sit by Shikako.
They spent a few minutes looking over the photo album before Shikako spoke up again. "There's nine of them." She said quietly, leaning into Sasuke and rocking her head back on his shoulder to study the ceiling.
"Nine of who?" Sasuke asked, looking at another picture of the redheaded girl, the Kakashi lookalike and his mother, who was leaning against the boy with the bow and earrings. They looked about sixteen.
"The Akatsuki. The group Itachi and Kisame belong to." She could feel Sasuke go rigid as a two-by-four. "There's nine of them. All are S-class. All are just as insane or more so. Orochimaru used to be a member, that's how Jiraiya-sama found out about them." She continued, the words falling out of her mouth like water out of a spring. "Sasori of the Red Sand used to be his partner, and there was another seen hanging out at bounty offices. I told Fu from Taki, and Gaara knows too." She tilted her head to looked at him. "Gaara gave me Sasori's folder. I gave it to Tsunade-sama, don't tell anyone though."
Sasuke's expression was a mix of frozen rage and horror. "Nine of them?" He stated in shock before shaking his head. "Well now I know why you're so worried. We have to kill nine S-class psychopaths. And that's not even counting Orochimaru."
Shikako nodded and rocked her head back its former position on his shoulder. "Yeah." She continued to study the subtle pattern on the ceiling formed by the plaster. "Yeah." she breathed quietly as Sasuke tightened his arm around her shoulders, both caught up in imagining the nightmare they'd be walking face-first into three years later.
"We'll get through it." Sasuke said eventually. "We're the Lucky Sevens." He turned a page in the album.
AN: Sorry this chapter took so long, I got stumped several times midway through it trying to figure out how to proceed.
So, the trunk finally got opened, Sasuke got traumatized (always amusing, so long as it doesn't result in actual bat-shit craziness) and a good, logical reason for him to take up kenjutsu that has nothing to do with Orochimaru. He also knows the full set of facts about the Akatsuki (however limited it is, score one for military intelligence), and he got some new reading material about genjutsu and his mom's life (the journals, not the filthy letters she wrote to not-Fugaku during and shortly before the Third War). Also Shikako got some of the weight off her shoulders, or at least now it's easier now that she has told someone about it. By the way, the Kakashi lookalike is in fact the White Fang himself Sakumo Hatake and his genin team: Uchiha Mikoto, Uzumaki Kushina, and Hibiki Hayato (aka the kid with the archery equipment and earrings and not-fugaku in a few years).
Also, I hope that I am continuing to get their characters right, especially Shikako, as no one has told me otherwise in the reviews. Please continue to review by the way! I hope you enjoyed it!
