family affair

sixteen:

like a trained viper

Sasuke was 13 when the first ANBU recruiter showed up at his foster mother's door. He was an unmasked gentleman in a 3-piece suit and an expensive-looking laptop. They gathered in the living room as he explained the types of things that would be expected of Sasuke, should he sign up: accelerated high school courses, summer camps away with the organization, skill-building, and job training. Completely free of cost.

Sasuke never saw that man again. He began the summer program that year, which ended up being a laundry list of gymnastics courses, fitness evaluations, wilderness-preparedness lessons, and team sports. Sasuke thought it was all a big joke, but he liked going away for the summer and not having to deal with his foster family.

He was invited back for the next summer when he was 14. That's when he met Sakura, who explained to him that when she had taken her first summer program in Osaka, she snuck and saw that the trainers were secretly grading them on their performances. "We're here because we passed," she said.

"Passed what?"

She shrugged. "Something."

By the time he was 15, summer camp became an international boarding school. He received the offer via email. All tuition paid. He met Naruto there when they were assigned as roommates. The classes were hard and seemed incredibly specific. They learned multiple languages and studied foreign policy with intense focus. To graduate, they had to play a sport. Combat was the recommended sport that matched Saduke's specific credentials, his high school counselor had explained to him one day.

And so he took combat. Naruto was there too. Naruto was good at fighting: quick and light on his feet, it was like there were several of him at once. Sasuke, to his credit, learned he had more strength and precision than Naruto, his pounces almost landing perfectly on the spot he intended.

He'd had fun at boarding school, all things considered. At 17, he and Naruto were graduating at the top of their class. They were called into an office after the ceremony and were alarmed to see a person wearing a dragon mask and all-black silks from head to toe. Their voice was an unknowable combination of raspy and soft, electronic and natural, deep and high-pitched.

The dragon congratulated them on their accomplishments and the journey––the years of summer camps and boarding school––they had been on. Finally, the dragon told them about what they had been preparing for: ANBU

When they said yes almost immediately, Dragon gave them their masks, already prepared and made just for them. They would leave at midnight to go to Shikoku, where they would train intensely for 6 and a half months.

They graduated training quickly, Sasuke rising to prodigal status without much as breaking a sweat. They were assigned a team where Sasuke re-met Sakura, now Pig, and a team lead, Kakashi, or Dog, who enjoyed handling rookies. They were assigned their first mission, a hard one, as assistant intelligence to the outstanding Orochimaru case. No one expected their team to be the one to crack it wide open and send Orochimaru straight to prison:

In just under a year, the team of ragdoll teenagers had become legendary.

-:-

When Sasuke arrived at Sakura's studio apartment, there were deep-set bags under his eyes. He knocked with hasty, heavy-handed movements, using a code they had made up while Dog was alive: a few quick jabbing motions with two long pauses in the middle. His knuckles burned when he was done, and Sakura opened the door like a fire had lit underneath it.

She looked relatively relaxed, wearing workout gear with her hair tied back from her face. She had a sheen of sweat across her brow and was holding a bottle of water. The alarm that settled across her gaze was new: a consequence of Sasuke's knocking. "What's up, Crow?"

Still, there was a note of tension between them that could not be readily dismissed. She was still wounded about how poorly their last meeting had gone––multiple of them, in fact, had ended with one of them embarrassed, admonished, or suspicious. After Ox's brash passivity in the face of Naruto's coma, Sakura had been somewhat harder to reach. Ox was her mentor after all, but Naruto was her teammate. Their best friend. And she could not even visit him in the hospital, let alone seek justice. To Sakura, Naruto's coma was ANBU's fault just as much as it was the Hyugas.

Sasuke staggered into the apartment, sitting at her mess of a desk, and shaking his head to clear his thoughts. It did not work. And he didn't know quite where to start. "I just drove six hours to get here."

"No way," Sakura said, hesitation in her voice. She did not sit, just wavered beside Sasuke's sitting position, taking him in. "Where the fuck were you?"

"Kumozuhongocho."

Sakura blinked at him. "Why?"

Sasuke didn't know how to break it to her, so he simply said: "I went to see Itachi."

There was a strained beat. Sakura looked uncomfortable as she whispered: "Who?"

"My brother. Itachi."

Sasuke stared at her until she sprung into action, crossing the room and walking into the small kitchen to run the dishwasher. She then turned on the washing machine, the dryer, and the bathroom sink, trying to make as much noise as possible. "Ok, yeah. I just wanted to make sure," she said, as she flipped a box fan out from a corner and turned the knob to make it go. As she neared a ridiculous amount of background noise, Sasuke grabbed her arm to stop her.

"Let's just go for a drive, Haruno," he said. Her eyes were wide and frantic. He could not even imagine what sort of thoughts were racing through her mind as she cast a frantic look toward where his hand was grabbing her. "I'll explain everything."

Twenty minutes later they were driving fast through the dark countryside, every curve in the road a mere guess because there was no light. The moon was new, and so there was no guide given from the sky, either. Sakura gnawed on her bottom lip until she got the courage to say, "What the fuck is going on with you, Sasuke?"

It was a fair question. Information rattled around Sasuke's brain like it was trying to find a way out; he just didn't know what order to say things. Instead, he tightened his hands on the wheel, saying very carefully: "I need you to...look into some things."

"Oh no," Sakura said boisterously, her hands flying up like she was surrendering. She was shaking her head, strands of pink hair falling from her ponytail. "You are not getting off that easily. You need to tell me what's going on right. fucking. now."

Since Haruno Sakura, also known as Pig, also known as agent 5261367, was one of his closest companions on this Earth, he told her everything. Finding the Byakugan file and leaving it. The scratched yen that Itachi left at the Akatsuki bust. The houseboat. The Hyugas. The Uchihas. ANBU. The massacre. The massacre. The massacre.

When he was done explaining, Sakura's eyes were wide as saucers. She was speechless for several long moments, so Sasuke filled the silence. "I also asked my brother if the Akatsuki has formal allegiances with Orochimaru, and he denied it. He agreed that Orochimaru had been a member years ago, but they severed ties after he got into trafficking. Well before the massacre and before Itachi. So it means Suigetsu was lying or just didn't know any better who he was working for."

Sasuke thought about the Hyuga theatre and the white-haired man who had threatened Hinata. Everything was convalescing into one big fucking problem. Sasuke didn't know who to trust. Hinata was a whole other issue, and he took notice of the strange way his chest tightened when he thought of her being involved in all of this. She was the keeper of the Byakugan file, after all. She was a part of the Hyugas––whom Sasuke had formally wanted to eradicate.

Now he didn't know what he wanted. He didn't know if they were even to blame.

"Alright," Sakura said. She took a deep breath, looking deep in thought. Her hands were clutching the sides of the car as Sasuke guided the vehicle along yet another curve in the road. "Alright. Do you trust Itachi?"

"Of course not," Sasuke grunted and pressed his foot on the gas. The car shot forward in the darkness.

"Do you trust ANBU?"

There was a pause, then he shook his head. "No, there's been too many inconsistencies. The fact that they placed me with the Hyugas alone is a red flag," he cursed. "I've been so fucking stupid."

This was hard to admit and it was met with silence, which made the feeling worse. Sasuke recalled the meal of fried rice and fish he had shared with his brother at the helm of his houseboat, looking out to the setting sun. The sky had darkened quickly and steadily. Itachi was telling him about his years with Akatsuki, saying "No, we're not fans of Orochimaru and his work. I would call us anarchists...not traffickers," his face took on a disgusted hue against the sun. There was a slew of open and empty beers between them. "We're not good people, but we're no Orochimaru."

So, back to ANBU and Suigetsu and the Hyugas. Back to the massacre. Back to the file. On and on it went.

"Alright," Sakura said again. She took her hands from the door handles and began to crack her knuckles, deep in thought. Then, she turned to Sasuke, her green eyes steely, even in the dark. "Well, Sasuke, you know I've got your back no matter what. Just tell me what I can find for you and I'll do it. You're right...this situation is oddly messy, I've never heard of anything like this at ANBU. My suggestion would be to talk to the Hyugas about what they know. Like...what even happened between them and Suna when Baki was murdered? And maybe...maybe one of them knows why Hizashi had visited the Uchiha Compound that day. Is there anyone you're close enough to you can talk to?"

Again, Hinata flashed through his mind like a match struck in the dark. Her open face and gentle smile seemed to invite him, and her eyes were honest and thoughtful. Sasuke nodded, "Yeah. I should be able to find someone."

Sakura hummed as if she knew already who he had in mind, but did not say anything else. "Great. You should start there. I looked into Orochimaru more since we last spoke, by the way, so perhaps that will be helpful?"

Already Sasuke had forgotten that after their last meeting, he had asked Sakura to create a file on Orochimaru so that he might begin to verify the theory that he was working with the Akatsuki. They hadn't met since––too much had happened. That question seemed like it had been posed decades ago. "What did you find?"

"Not much," Sakura chewed her lip again. "He hasn't been active. He's in solitary confinement at Ma no Sabaku. That place is impenetrable."

"Ma no Sabaku," Sasuke repeated. "The demon desert. There's no way he's communicating with anyone from Akatsuki from there. They're too urban––"

"They wouldn't have the reach," Sakura said frankly, nodding. "Demon Dessert is the highest-security prison around. There's no Akatsuki on file there, I checked. Three times."

Sasuke ran through everything he knew about the penitentiary in the desert as he eased his foot off the gas and slowed the car considerably. Ma no Sabaku. It was an appropriate place for the likes of Orochimaru, but only someone close by could orchestrate an alliance with him. Sasuke had his own ideas, but they would require some background information from a certain Hyuga.

"This ANBU thing, though..." Sakura's voice cut through the silence, surprising Sasuke out of his own mental tirade. Sasuke glanced at her as his car pulled to an intersection: they were getting closer to her apartment. Her face was pinched with worry, a deep 'v' forming between her brows. This information had truly scared and perplexed her. "I'm going to look into it. If I find anything, I'll meet you, okay? Don't come here again until you absolutely have to. Continue the mission as normal."

"Of course," Sasuke agreed easily. His car stalled at the light even as it turned green. For a moment, he rested his hand on her worried ones, stopping her fidgeting. "Don't do anything dangerous, Haruno. I'm serious. This is my problem."

"I know that," she huffed and swatted him away like he was a fly. "But you're my teammate. My family. This is our mission, so we need to figure it out together."

"Hm," Sasuke agreed. He crossed the intersection and they continued the rest of the ride in silence. What had gone unsaid was what they had understood since the days of Dog: Their loyalties lay with each other first and ANBU second.

ANBU could not have anticipated that.

-:-

The Estate was large enough to jog around. A few miles wide, a few miles long. It would have been the perfect place for the sport if Hinata was into jogging.

But she was not, no matter how much she tried to convince herself. Pumping her legs and contending with her heartbeat were never things she would come to enjoy. The sweat, even in cold winter, was no help to her. She wiped the back of her hand across her brow, paused with her hands on both knees, and sucked a sob back into her chest. Her lungs vibrated with agony.

Fuck, she thought. The day had been long, the night longer. Dinner with Gaara ended with her mouth closed, lips pressed into a fine line, expression flattened to nothing. He told her not to speak out of turn during the Boys Club meeting in a couple of weeks. She could have ruined everything.

At least his touch had not been affronting and violent. For that, she could be grateful.

She continued to rest. She was at the back gardens, where bubbling fountains stood frozen and grey against the barren landscape. Wearing only running leggings, a tight compression top, and a snug hoodie, she could still feel the burn of the breeze as it nipped her skin. She imagined the flesh of her face pink and raw and aching, her eyes dry as she attempted crying. No water came. She had frozen it all out. She only jogged when she felt like she needed to hurt herself: a distraction from all the grief her body carried.

She could see the Estate from this distance and watched groundworkers uncoil old Christmas lights from forgotten trees behind the pool. She remained with her hands on her knees, breathing gratefully for the chance to pause. As she rested she squinted, her eyes catching a figure emerge from one of the back doors, his path a straight one moving towards her.

Within a few minutes, ones that stretched along the silence of the Estate and the bordering trees that stated the property's end, Uchiha Sasuke was standing in front of her. He looked in a similar state: disheveled, exhausted, confused. It was strange seeing those emotions show on his face so clearly. Sure, Hinata had seen those feelings sneak out, but the Uchiha was typically quick to conceal them. If it wasn't for her own keen gaze, she might not have seen them at all.

Tonight was different.

He lifted a tired eyebrow at her stance, then offered a hand. Hinata took it and straightened up, pain shooting through her hips. He didn't let go until she had righted herself completely, grimacing softly. The night around them was a silent bubble, dimly lit by lanterns her mother had generously placed with inspired and design-oriented care. She had been the hand that made the Estate beautiful. All of her touches were maintained, but could never be replicated in the exact same way, though people tried. At every turn, especially in the gardens, Hinata felt as if she was being guided by a ghost.

"You okay?" He asked.

Hinata pretended to dust herself off, suddenly feeling self-conscious about her sweat and disheveled state. She brushed her hair back from her face, but she could not fake it. "No," she said honestly. "I'm not. A-are you?"

Sasuke chuckled and it was a sound that surprised her, a deep baritone of a laugh that seemed false. "Not at all, Hyuga. Listen," he said.

Hinata looked at him expectantly. His face was sharp under the glow of the lanterns, and she could tell he was clenching his jaw. His body was tense and he was holding tight. There was indeed something wrong, and Hinata felt the overwhelming urge to take it from him. Whatever was the hurting thing, she wanted to take it for herself.

The emotion of that thought alarmed her, but she didn't have time to prepare. Sasuke was saying, "I need you to tell me about something. Can you tell me about Gaara?"

Hinata stiffened, remembering the dinner, remembering the hand on her thigh. Her discomfort was obvious, her eyes fluttering away from him, "Y-you already know about Gaara..."

Sasuke shook his head and some of the tension began to leave his body. "No," he said. "I need to know about your relationship with him. It's important."

-:-

Hinata led him to the shrine.

It was tucked in a far corner of the Estate, near the lines of trees that separated the property from forest. There was a small red structure built around it, to keep it safe from weather. Inside was a 3-foot-tall mahogany altar, which Hinata knelt beside, not worried about getting her knees wet.

She was grateful when Sasuke kneeled beside her to show his respect. His body was warm beside hers, and he didn't seem to mind when she nestled closer, their shoulders touching. Before them, tall glass candles twitched inside their homes, unmoved by the wind. A gold-framed photo of Aoki Hyuga sat in the middle, bordered by fresh oranges, letters, and a dozen more candles. Hinata reached out and lit a red stick of incense. She put it into the ornate golden holder beside her mother's urn. The urn was a fantastic ceramic oblong structure, with swirls of gold and purple glaze surrounding its round bottom. It sat in front of Aoki's photo.

Aoki looked serene in her picture. She was sitting in her garden, the sun a beacon behind her head. And she was smiling. Beaming so hard that smile lines appeared around her eyes, but she didn't seem to care. Her deep hair curled around her shoulders like wings. Her face was heart-shaped and blemish-free, its gentle features lifting into an inviting expression: joy.

"You look like her," Sasuke said quietly, his voice a soft murmur. He was looking at the photograph, a small smile lifting the corners of his mouth. "I never see pictures of her inside of the Estate."

"There's a reason for that," Hinata said quietly. Then, she launched into story.

-:-

Hinata was barely a teenager when she discovered her mother's body.

Aoki was like a swan––her limbs long and pale, all sprawled out across the deep forest green of her bathroom tile. Her nails were red as they always were, her fingers long, reaching, an arm extended as if she were asking someone to help her up from where she had fallen. Around her, bottles of little yellow pills glinted in the light.

When Hinata dropped to her knees and began to scream, she hadn't known she was doing it. Her voice was guttural, terrified, and entirely foreign to her. Someone yanked her body away, she couldn't for the life of her remember who, and shut the door to the bathroom. She remembered sitting bone-straight as her father carried her mother's body out of the Estate, driving her himself to the hospital––emergency vehicles were forbidden from being called there. His face, at that moment, looked like tsunami.

Hizashi stayed behind, his hands gripped and fisted at his sides. He watched the children as Hiashi waited, for what seemed like centuries, at the hospital. Hanabi had to be given dinner, and Neji and Hinata to be consoled. Hinata remembered the hard pats on the back Hizashi had given her as he walked behind the couch, his grief glaringly obvious like midday sun on an open terrace: you could close your eyes and still see it.

His grief was not shocking to Hinata, who malaised on the couch in her dark bedroom, awaiting her parents' return. At that time, she was so sure that her mother would return healthy and alive, that she concerned herself with other questions the event had presented. Their importance seemed just as loud as the pills on her mother's bathroom floor.

Hizashi's hands shook as he made Hanabi finger sandwiches and gave her boxes of apple juice. Hinata had been seven years old and mostly still mute when she first saw her mother embrace him, this not-father, in the garden during a rain storm. It was a few months after her kidnapping, and the loudness of the weather rattled her little body out of bed, in search of her mother for comfort. But she wasn't in her room, and her father was away on business.

She ran to the kitchen, where she pressed her face against the plane of the window and watched them kiss: her mother and her uncle, tears streaming down the woman's face and mixing with the rain. Hizashi wrapped his arm around Aoki's quaking back and led her away, towards the pool room that housed their summer supplies.

Hinata instead found safely in Neji's room, though she did not tell him what she'd seen––her words were few and far in between at this stage of life, and besides, she could close her eyes and convince herself of dreams.

It would be two full years before Hinata would stumble upon such an embrace like this again. At nine, with her brain maturing, and her words coming stuttered but full out of her mouth, she had had to be taught more fear than she already knew. Hizashi grabbed her upper arm until it was red, and told her to tell no one.

Aoki, red in the face and half-dressed, had sheets pulled to her naked chest, and did not move. She barely said anything in fact, just turned her head in silence, and watched her lover shake Hinata until she was reduced to tears, blubbering, her words failing her entirely for the first time in months.

"I-I-I-I'm––" she was confused. She just wanted to speak to her mother, about what she couldn't remember––it didn't seem important anymore. Hizashi was grabbing her, his free hand holding a towel around his waist. His fury was palpable, his fear overwhelming. "I-I'm...I'm...s-so s-sorry. Mom––"

But Hizashi was already tossing her out of the bedroom. "Tell no one," he growled and shut the door. His hand had left a mark. Hinata could hear her mother sobbing beyond the door. Then, the yelling began.

"The affair lasted for years," Hinata explained to Sasuke after she had unfolded the story from the dark corners of her mind. "Maybe even longer than I ever k-knew. It was...it was explosive, dangerous. Y-years ago, Neji even told me that Hizashi had tried to leave the Hyugas for my mother and find clemency elsewhere."

Sasuke shifted beside her, his gaze simultaneously sharp and compassionate. He hadn't even asked what this had to do with Gaara, but instead followed along, not once interrupting. "Clemency?" He repeated his tone with a hint of disbelief inside of it. "When? With Who?"

Hinata turned her head to look at him with clear eyes. She had a peculiar look on her face like she was surprised that this was even a question he could be asking. "Around the first time I s-saw them, I think, when I was seven or eight. Neji admitted this to me recently...when Hiazashi went to prison. I thought maybe...you knew but of course, you w-were quite young, too."

"Why would I have known?" His voice changed, dipped below warmth, and made dispassionate. Hinata watched the memory move across his face, his jaw tightening over bone.

"Hizashi sought protection from the Uchihas. He took Neji with him that day and knelt in front of your father. Neji...Neji told me that Hizashi thought because of the Tiger, the Uchiha would be more willing to accept them. But obviously, the Uchiha rejected them. I supposed there would h-have been punishment or the Uchiha's would've done something, but no one knows about it except N-Neji and I...and I thought...you might've too. After all, after they left..."

Sasuke seemed to sink into the dirt before her mother's shrine, "The Uchiha massacre."

-:-

Sasuke's entire world tilted dangerously to the left, but he stayed rooted to the ground like a true agent would, his focus a hazy and definite thing, fixed on the flickering candle in front of Aoki's alter.

So it wasn't the Hyugas. It wasn't the Hyugas who had killed his family-it would have been challenging, impossible even for Hyuga Hizashi to ask for clemency the same night he enacted violence onto the very same clan he sought protection from.

Itachi might have been right, after all.

His brain went blurry with the new information. He felt a sudden pain in his chest. What a childish thing to think, that was! He had held on to this childhood notion, this immature estimation, so long that he had convinced himself of its reality. What even was reality anymore? If what Hinata said was true, it meant that this whole mission...this entire placement was in vain, and he was after the wrong people.

His hand clawed the raw dirt. He watched another hand cover it, patting gently, and pulled it out. Hinata held it meagerly, her face shaded with concern, "A-are you alright? You went away for a moment."

Sasuke let her take his hand, its warmth spreading up his arm before he took it back and shook his head. He could not process this right now. He needed to stay on task. His voice rang out cold and detached when he said, "Why are you telling me this? I asked about Gaara."

Red rushed to her cheeks. Hinata jumped away, her hands spirling to her sides like she were a startled bird. When hurt and confusion crossed her features, Sasuke could not even feel guilty, too engulfed by his own memories, unfurling like a film behind his eyes.

Yes, Hizashi had been alone, except for his child. And yes, hours had passed between Hizashi's departure and the gunshots, not minutes. Almost 14 entire hours. And no, Sasuke had not seen one Hyuga eye or one face of a gunman, only masked figures whose agility was that of a trained viper, not the bulky smooth confidence of a clan member such as the Hyugas.

"Fuck," Sasuke muttered quietly to himself, unheard by Hinata who was slowly, hesitantly continuing her story about Gaara. Sasuke heard it through strained ears, his memories, his beliefs, and reality convulsing into one loud sound that banged against his frontal lobe.

Hinata watched him silently, her words halting suddenly. Slowly, as if approaching a wounded animal, she draped a hand on his shoulder. "S-Sasuke...you look...ill."

"I'm fine," Sasuke barked, bruskly. He wanted to tell her just to go inside, but he felt frozen in place, the cold of the night seeping into his bones. "You can keep telling your story."

"No," Hinata shook her head. She put a hand on his forehead, which he hadn't realized was warm and slick with sweat. "I'm seriously worried about you. I can tell it later. Let me...let me get you to bed?"

"I'm fine."

"You're not fine," Sasuke felt Hinata grab both of his hands in hers, her warmth overwhelming him. They were eye level, and for once, Hinata did not look away. For the first time in his life, Uchiha Sasuke felt like a deer in headlights. He felt undone, exhausted, and terribly confused.

"Please," Hinata whispered, the candles of Aoki's altar casting her in an angelic golden glow. Her eyes were sincere and worried. Her fingers rubbed his knuckles. "Sasuke, let me help you. It's okay to need help, sometimes."

He watched her stand. She grabbed his hands and pulled him up. They walked together into the Estate. Sasuke walked in a daze and thought about how he was grateful, somehow. Grateful he wouldn't have to kill her.

AN. PLEASE this chapter was so hard to write. i was in the trenches!