Apologies for an extremely late chapter; I've been binge-reading Hermione-centric fics and telling myself that I do not need yet another work-in-progress.
On another note: As much as I appreciate and am flattered by the instant defense of my work when we get the occasional visitor who came to this story from the shounen canon and expected it stay true to the laws and tropes of that genre, please rest assured that I've been writing female-character-centric fanfiction of male-dominated original works for the better part of a decade. They're not hurting my feelings or discouraging me (delays at this time of year are due in part to it being the season of gardens and outdoor work, which infringes on my writing time), so don't let them spoil your enjoyment of the story by turning it into an argument. Unless you enjoy that sort of thing, in which case keep it to lit-crit and please don't turn it into something personal.
And can't forget to mention the lovely people who keep surprising me with fanworks of a fanwork: Grievance, Mordacious Moratorium, and sgcassidy.
Kill Your Heroes
-Chapter Fifty-Five-
Sugkunegousin (Part I)
Focus. Control. Discipline. Those were the pillars upon which his person was built—and the chains that he'd bound by all his life.
It was only in this moment, which the rational part of his mind recognized as an altered state of consciousness brought on by extreme chakra exhaustion, that Itachi felt those chains slip loose enough to contemplate the things that the everyday Itachi could not. Would not.
Like the resigned feeling of an older brother knowing that his younger brother was probably going to do something stupid again; he knew every enabler had moments when their willful self-deception faltered. It was in those moments that women left abusive husbands, relatives confronted addicts about their problems, and people involved in nasty business tried to get out of it. It would not last—whenever the visceral response to whatever had jolted them from their usual habits had faded, people went back to what they were accustomed to, whether it was for the best or not.
Tomorrow, when he did not feel so light-headed and strangely giddy, he knew he would believe in Sasuke again. But today, as a very snide cat dug his claws into his stomach even as it acidly remarked that their target had snatched Sasuke's teammates out of the rain and they ought to follow his example, he knew his brother's emotional development had stopped on that long-ago night. Sasuke was as short-sighted and as unable to marry consequence to cause as a child; his only comfort on that front was that he'd seen a brief flash of white among the rubble and his brother's shoulder had been bare of Orochimaru's brand when he'd collapsed.
The snake had been too canny to attempt to fight Itachi in his brother's battered body—when it became clear that the battle was one that Sasuke wouldn't win, Orochimaru had abandoned him without fanfare. He didn't know if Sakura had noticed, though her snide companion probably had.
Sakura…
With his head resting against her shoulder and her mask—and its eerie, too-pleased-for-words smile—concealing her face, his view consisted mostly of the line of her throat where it emerged from the high collar of her body armor. But he could feel her warmth, which was welcome against his own chilled and clammy skin, and he wondered if the tightness of her grip was indicative of an inner battle to not shove him off the eagle and have done with the whole Uchiha family.
She wouldn't. He knew that, with the same kind of confidence that most people reserved for things like the position of the constellations and the rising of the sun. It might make her deeply, violently unhappy, but Haruno Sakura had a very rare kind of discipline—and it seemed that the present Hokage was either careless or perhaps more cruelly canny than most people gave her credit for, testing this shinobi as she was. If Sakura succeeded in this mission, which by all rights she should never have been assigned considering exactly how compromised she was when it came to his little brother, Tsunade-sama would be able to send her out into the world without fear that her personal feelings would ever supersede her Hokage's orders and her situational analysis.
There was a strange sort of possessive pride in that thought; somehow he was glad to have been her proving ground. Glad to have had the chance to work with Sakura and regretful that this angry professionalism was the note on which their partnership would dissolve. Perhaps, he thought muzzily, he had starved himself for companionship for too long, because there was a powerful regret coursing through him at the thought that this would be the end of…
The end of many things, which should no longer have mattered at this eleventh hour. And just like he would believe in his brother tomorrow, perhaps he would not miss the chance to be just Itachi. He would not miss Sakura's quick wit or quick temper; he would not miss teasing her and watching as she scrambled to regain her composure even as her ears flushed pinker than her hair. And he would absolutely not regret the loss of the strange, heady sense of connection that seemed to make his own body a stranger.
It was unnerving—he had escaped the teenage phase where it seemed the male brain was a slave to the body's biology and was aroused by the act of existing and had felt no particular regret over that—but also strangely enticing. Glancing up at Sakura again from beneath half-shuttered eyelids, he gave in for a moment to weakness: he allowed himself to imagine some impossible reality where there were no deadlines and no brothers and no wars, where they both openly served the village and their meetings weren't on the order of the Hokage. Where the pleasure and laughter in her eyes wasn't tempered by the limitations of reality—wasn't hemmed in by her unwillingness to forgive or forget. Where she could look at him, free of all their history, and find him a person worth keeping company with. A person desirable to keep company with.
Despite how cold he felt, how out of place in his own body, like his soul was only lightly tethered to his flesh, it didn't stop the heat that invaded his groin, unfamiliar instincts and impulses reverberating through him. Heart thudding harder than it had anywhere outside a battlefield, he for a moment understood what made this loss of control appealing to other people.
It took the dig of claws into his belly to bring him back to himself, where he found judgmental eyes peering up at him. Seeing that he had his attention, the cat sneered at him, exposing the sharpness of his teeth. "Do not," he said in a low, rumbling voice that wouldn't carry, "distract my human."
[Kill Your Heroes]
Both of her parents were at home when Sakura returned from her debriefing. She was feeling vexed and worn and old and by habit she'd slipped into the house like she was entering enemy territory, because homes were supposed to be sanctuaries and that was asking for it. So it was in silence that she followed the trail of voices to the kitchen, peering through the gap in the noren as her mother laughed at her father, the harsh brackets around her mouth relaxing in her mirth.
A feeling of isolation seeped into the already depressing morass of her emotions; it wasn't just Itachi, because she'd already resigned herself to knowing that was a secret between her and Tsunade-sama, but all the rest. If either of her parents met with violence in the course of their duties, something had gone badly wrong; she entered into every mission with the expectation of it. Her mother raised and trained hawks for a living—she hunted criminals who'd been judged worthy of Hatake Kakashi's time and effort. Her time and effort as well, she acknowledged very quietly deep inside herself, feeling very strange at the thought of being worth that kind of consideration.
Not that she felt that her killcount made her somehow better than her parents—made her special in the way some jounin thought that it made them special. It mostly made them assholes, but she couldn't deny that there was something—some unspoken understanding—that you could only find with people who also knew what it was to risk their lives every time they stepped outside the gates and who knew better than to hesitate when it came to human life.
That wasn't to imply they were some sort of cohesive caste; not all jounin were made equal and all jounin were also people. They formed their own cliques—and Kakashi-senpai was happiest being a strange loner outlier, so she hadn't inherited a group of friends upon becoming his partner. Months at a stretch outside the village limited her chances at changing that, so she had only a handful of people in the world that were precious to her.
Her parents might no longer stand at the top of that short list, something ingrained notions of filial piety and family loyalty and cultural values gave her very complex feelings about, but that didn't mean they no longer had a place on it. She was old enough now to recognize that her parents were people too, with their own dreams and ambitions; she was reasonably certain nowadays that she was a product of obligation rather than an actual desire for a child. Sakura had never asked for obvious reasons. She tried not to judge them for that—even now, there was an expectation of marriage and children, in that order.
That didn't mean she wasn't loved; it was just love as it existed in real life, imperfect and limited and requiring effort. So while the noren might have felt as heavy as iron, she still slipped it aside and stepped into the kitchen, where she greeted her parents with a smile.
[Kill Your Heroes]
There was enough restlessness and tension in the room to have her clenching her teeth to keep from fidgeting. Given that this was a gathering of jounin, they'd clustered along the walls with their partners, leaving the center of the room empty except for Tsunade-sama and her aide. Katō-san looked nervous and even the pig at her feet looked somber. Crossing her arms beneath her over-generous bust, she cleared her throat and the silence in the room deepened. When the door behind them slid open, it was like the sound rasped across raw nerves and the silence became profound when Jiyiaya-sama slipped inside.
"If you look around this room," she began in a low, serious voice, "you'll see the closest thing that Konohagakure has to hunter-nin. As a unit, each partnership in this room marries excellent tracking skills with top-tier combat abilities." Sakura tracked her gaze as it swept over the well-represented Aburame, Inuzuka, Nekoda, and Hyūga clans. She'd noticed clan markings for a few of the avian-associated clans as well; the bulk of the rest were like Kakashi-senpai—infamous and from small, well-regarded families. There was one notable exception to this: a quiet and well-ordered contingent to one side of the room that flanked an inscrutable Danzō-san. "Your success rates are unmatched; you are resourceful and flexible and dogged," Tsunade-sama told them. "And you are our best chance of making this work."
"You are all aware of the terrorist organization that calls itself Akatsuki. You are aware of its agenda, which is the same tired one that you see every month. Destabilization of the current world order, so that they can replace it with their own. The difference is that Akatsuki has Kage-level operatives to carry out their mission, which is to collect the bijū."
There was a shifting in the room at that; it wasn't any secret that when Akatsuki had successfully collected the one-tail the long-simmering argument about whether parting out the bijū had been the right choice had once again become a current topic. The necessity of peace had been understood—was still understood—but the cost of it was resented. It was just bad luck that the most-resented decision of the revered First Hokage had come back to haunt them in the time of his granddaughter.
"Negotiations have begun for something unprecedented—a summit in which all the Kage from the five great nations will meet and discuss how this threat ought to be handled. It is going about as well as you might expect," she commented sardonically, which earned her a few dry chuckles from around the room. "And while we debate about where we will be seated and how many guards we can bring and whether or not we'll wear our fucking hats, Akatsuki is taking advantage of our inability to cooperate and unwillingness to exchange information. It has come to the point that even the successful elimination of their public operatives is unlikely to completely halt their plans. But we know who they are and what they're capable of and if we can't agree on the table settings, I know that I'd prefer to have their heads on platters."
Her mouth twisted briefly into what was almost a snarl before flattening back into a grim line. "I know what I'm asking of you. Even preparation and strike teams formed to precisely combat your target's abilities won't be proof against enemies like these. This will be the last thing I ask of some of you. You—many of you—have rendered great service to this village in the dark and in secret; I won't ask you to die in it.
"I can't offer you the kind of money an outsider would have to pay to earn your service—to buy your skills and your blade and your death—and I won't insult you by thinking that you'd hesitate because of that. You were called because you won't flinch, even if I send you against Kage-killers and S-class criminals. With their deaths, you can buy your own immortality, if that's what you're chasing; with their deaths, you can purchase the security of this village, if that's what you serve. This is the order of your Kage. Will you receive it?"
Sakura heard an echo from a lifetime ago, when Naruto had stood before an unprepossessing stone in a grassy field and declared that his name would go down on it; she remembered Sasori and remembered even more vividly the cost of bringing him low. She'd read that the brain had a clearer recall for pleasure than pain—especially women's brains, as a coping mechanism for menstruation and childbirth—but she had a very clear and colorful recollection of the kind of pain that was real and present and not going away anytime soon. Death in battle wasn't always sudden and quick and was only glorious in the eyes of the severely deluded or in the imaginations of the far-removed; worse still was the possibility of being maimed or crippled and left with the choice of a life defined by a single ill-fated battle or escaping it on your blade or someone else's.
So it was not empty bravado or naivety or even blind obedience that made her bow—to her Kage, to the order, to the prospect and promise of pain.
It was necessity. It was an acknowledgement of responsibility. It was also resignation—somewhere, someday she was going to die—and love—because Kakashi-senpai would be going and if he was going, she was going, because heroes might have to die alone, but soldiers lived and died together.
The choice didn't kill the quivering, gibbering thing in her chest that Did Not Want that kind of catastrophic damage being done to her body again; no matter the miracles that medical ninjutsu might be able to work on her flesh, the injuries were phantoms that clung to her soul. They made her wary and they made her vicious, but she promised herself as Tsunade-sama started calling out the names of the captains of each squad that they would not make her run.
She wasn't surprised that Kakashi-senpai was singled out as a captain and despite her inner panic, she was slightly reassured when she saw their roster and their target. Witch and Hound would be joined by Sai, Aburame Shino, Hyūga Neji, and an unfamiliar member of Root whose name appeared on the list as Kama. Their target was Deidara, an S-rank missing-nin from Iwagakure. Another team was assigned to his partner, on whom they had little information.
From Itachi she knew Deidara's bio without having to glance at the packet. He was a young, flashy sociopath who'd confused "artist" and "terrorist." He was susceptible to genjutsu and relied on chakra-embedded explosives to compensate for less than S-rank hand-to-hand and weapons skills. The greatest obstacle to overcome would be his mobility, which she familiar with from their previous encounter; as for his combat abilities, though he could theoretically mold his clay into any number of shapes, in reality he was just as limited as a shinobi shaping elemental chakra.
Battlefield conditions curbed his creativity and with the Kazekage's record of his battle with the blond, as well as Kakashi-senpai's own experience, they had a reasonable idea of what they might expect from their opponent.
"Given his personality and his skillset, I wouldn't be surprised if he has some suicide-jutsu tucked away," senpai told the people who'd assembled in one of the sound-proofed conference rooms in the Hokage's tower. "His type aren't usually satisfied with going out quietly."
"Then we deal with him before it becomes an issue," was Neji's calm pronouncement. While his Gentle Fist technique was badly matched against an enemy who could take the battle to the air, the concussive shockwaves and shrapnel of an explosion could be turned aside by a well-timed rotation and his kekkei genkai would be able to pick out the chakra-triggers of hidden explosives. If they could manage to ground Deidara, he would be immensely useful offensively; otherwise he was a powerful defensive asset.
Shino, whose expression was particularly inscrutable behind his glasses and deep hood, might very well be able to sabotage Deidara's explosives as he didn't use mechanical triggers; an opponent who commanded the sky was no issue with a swarm at his disposal. While Sai couldn't disarm bombs, though he could provide cannon fodder for them, he could also maintain distance combat or even close that distance for his comrades—though having manipulated his constructs before, Sakura could attest that if any of them wanted to attempt mounted combat, they'd be best served practicing during the hunt. A leisurely glide atop an eagle was one thing, keeping to its back as it banked sharply was another.
She'd have to master it, though; Itachi had mentioned that Deidara had been recruited against his will and that he owed his loss to the Sharingan.
If she'd been made to do anything against her will, let alone been conscripted into an organization like Ataksuki, she'd have moved heaven and earth to find some way to undermine that control. Her skillset heavily favored genjutsu, close-distance combat, and guerilla tactics. If Deidara had honed his senses with overthrowing the Tsukiyomi in mind, she couldn't rely on her own illusions and she refused to be the weakest link in the chain.
No one except Sai had ever worked with Kama before; in that peculiarly bland way that Sai had possessed before they'd broken him, the kunoichi outlined her abilities and combat strengths in the same way that a particularly knowledgeable but unenthusiastic salesclerk might extol the virtues of a new piece of gear.
Unusually dark-skinned, with a complexion of burnished copper, the kunoichi's lower lip was painted—perhaps tattooed?—black and a thick line dropped from it to neatly bisect her chin. In the heavy, blocky style of kakuji, a yojijukugo marched its four characters around her neck in a shackle: jaku niku kyō shoku, over and over and over again. The weak are meat; the strong eat. The same kanji reappeared on the back of her knuckles. Long black bars like exclamation points stretched up her forearms before terminating at the elbow.
The kunoichi was primarily an archer and her wind-natured chakra made her arrows capable of piercing through stone and steel and body armor; she could also produce far less effective and shorter ranged wind-blade constructs using her sickles.
While Sakura was reassured by both the size and the skills of the group, she was also aware that Tsunade-sama was making a very dangerous gamble—if the worst should happen and none of the squads survive their mission, the results would be catastrophic for the village. Which was why no other village was willing to bear the risk this of this hunt alone; even Suna had not attempted a retaliation of this scale after the assault on their Kage.
Not only did their number represent a not-insignificant portion of her active duty jounin, the high risk/high reward missions they specialized in were the most profitable for the village. Even if they weren't being paid for this mission, removing them from the roster for the duration represented a potentially staggering amount of lost income. Security details and such were the foundation upon which their reputation was based, but the often long-term commissions weren't as highly paid as one might initially think if you considered the man hours involved. Konohagakure had too many restrictions in place for assassination and other black-ops work to be their major source of income—for that, you had to look at villages like Kiri.
If they stumbled, if they failed, it wouldn't just be their failure—it would be the village which would be left to bear the cost of their absence as they swept inexorably toward war.
They could not fail. A suspended moment of perfect understanding spun itself between the occupants of the room and as she met the eyes of each of her squadmates in turn, she knew that she wasn't alone in her resolve to do what would need done to have this mission succeed.
Operation Headhunter had begun.