By: Sasha
Two – Interviewing and Finding the Overlap
Disclaimer: Don't own the characters except for the original ones. Only own the plot. Don't sue.
A/N: If people are going to add me to their update lists, at least review. I write for you readers... and because I like to write. That said, REVIEW. OKAY... fixed some more stuff in here. Honestly, I'm so embarrassed. I am glad that the reviewers who pointed my mistakes out weren't judgmental or flamers. Thanks for that. Hopefully I haven't screwed up the story by fixing all the mistakes. Review people, it might make the third chapter come out faster. Oh yeah, for those who'd like to beta this story, please visit my info page and email me with "beta" as the subject. Thanks!
Sakura woke up to an empty house, mildly surprised that her parents were still not home, but she shrugged. They were adults and adults could do as they pleased, so her twelve-year old psyche tried to reason. She heard knocking on the front door and yawned, quickly running a hand through her sleep-mussed hair before sticking her head out the window to sneak a peek. If the person was not worth opening the door for, she'd simply ignore the knocks and go take a shower. But she couldn't. Waiting at the door, rather impatiently, was Rock Lee.
"Sakura-san? Are you awake? Have I woken you? I'm sorry if I disturbed your sleep," he apologized to the door.
With a long sigh, she got out of bed and quickly washed her face and brushed her teeth before opening the door to stare skeptically at the older boy, hand lifted in a motion to knock on the door for the hundredth time.
"Good morning!" he greeted. Sakura smiled softly.
"What brings you here?" she asked, "at this time," adding that belatedly.
He laughed. "Sorry it it's early. I just wanted to see if you got home alright. I went to the hospital this morning and the nurse told me that you and Naruto got Kakashi to sign you out of the hospital. You left your roses," he said, pulling the bouquet out from behind his back.
Sakura's eyes widened. She hadn't meant to be so rude, but she wanted to be out of the hospital so badly that she didn't even stop to pick up his nice gesture of friendship. She took it from him.
"I'm so sorry. I wanted to get out of the hospital so badly. I wanted to be home, in my own bed and Naruto and I were okay so we didn't think that we would need to stay so we tried to sneak out," she hurriedly explained. Lee lifted a hand in a motion for her to say no more.
"It's okay. I don't like being in the hospital either. I've spent enough time in there for this life and the next one," he said, remembering the weeks he stayed in the hospital after the chuunin exam.
"I'd invite you to come in, but my parents aren't home," she said apologetically. He shook his head.
"That's alright. I wouldn't want to impose on you. I just wanted to know if you got home safely. I have training with Gai-sensei in half an hour, so I should get going. I really do hope you're feeling better," he said.
Sakura's smile reached her eyes this time. "Thanks for your concern. I'm doing a lot better. I told you before, I just needed some rest. I'm fine now. See you later," she said, watching him wave as he slowly jogged backwards to see her wave back.
She wondered if she should go back to sleep, but decided against it when she realized that it was nearly eleven in the morning. She had work to do and people to see if she wanted to solve her self-proclaimed mystery. Sakura locked the front door and climbed the stairs to her room to get dressed. She needed to see Shikamaru for some answers.
"You know, you're awfully quiet this morning," Shikamaru said to Ino. She sighed at his comment, rolling tired eyes before looking away.
"What's wrong?" he asked, eyeing her warily. He'd known Yamanaka Ino long enough and she was by no means a quiet girl, even if she was amongst strangers. He was no stranger, so her lack of seeking out conversation had left him a little more than stunned.
"Chouji's dead and you couldn't bring Sasuke-kun back," she muttered.
Shikamaru hadn't found the time to grieve over the death of his friend and teammate, but he knew that Ino's lack of speech wasn't only about Chouji. He knew her feelings for the death of their teammate was mainly camaraderie and nothing more, so he knew that her sadness was mostly because of Sasuke.
Not this again, he thought, resting his head on the palm of one hand. Aside from knowing that she had an affinity to strike up random conversation, she also had an inexplicably odd fascination with the lone Uchiha. He never figured out why, but maybe also because he didn't really care.
"You were busy getting your ass beat and had to have a girl come save you. Of course it makes sense that you couldn't bring Sasuke-kun back," she muttered to him, resentment dripping in her words.
If he hadn't been such a lazy bag of bones, he would have turned on her and told her that she should have tried to bring him back working with three guys who had other 'important' things on their agendas. Lee went for Sakura and so did Naruto. That left Kiba, and Kiba only went because he nothing better to do and so that he could make some money. Of course, her comment about needing to be saved by a girl ticked him off. He didn't ask Temari to help him; he didn't even know she was coming. Besides, he wasn't one to complain if anyone was going to help him when he had next to no chakra left. His situation was be helped or die. He chose to be helped.
"I didn't ask for Temari to help me," he shot back, belatedly.
Ino scoffed. "Yeah, I know. Although, she didn't just help you, she still saved your lazy ass," Ino retorted.
Shikamaru was getting annoyed. Honestly, he wanted to just tell her that there was a reason he was made chuunin and why she wasn't. Therefore, she didn't have a say in the decisions that he made and maybe he was self-serving, but he didn't want to die at the hands of an enemy that worked for Orochimaru. Who knew what the insane ex-Sannin would do to his body afterwards?
"I don't need to sit here and listen to you ridicule me. I'm a higher rank than you. I didn't want to rub that in your face, but let's see you try to bring Uchiha Sasuke back working with a team of people who mean well but want to do their own thing. You're awfully selfish," he said calmly.
"How am I being selfish?" she asked, anger tightening her voice.
"I haven't even had the time to tell Chouji's parents that their son is dead. Do you honestly think that Sasuke is the most important thing on my mind? He's on the list, but I was responsible for Chouji and Neji. They're gone, don't you realize that? Instead of trying to make me feel bad about not being able to bring Sasuke back, why don't you try breaking the news to their parents? Save me that stress so then I can go look for your precious Sasuke," he said sarcastically.
"I know you have a lot to do, but I did care about Chouji. He was my friend too, you know?" she shot back defensively.
"Right. That's why you're mad," Shikamaru said, then turned on his heel and left Ino with her mouth gaping open.
"What a tiresome girl," he muttered, rounding the corner of a department store in the heart of the village. Some metres away, he could see Sakura talking to herself about something. He didn't want to involve himself and she seemed so absorbed that he decided to keep walking. Greeting her would probably get troublesome so he avoided it and kept walking.
Sakura was trying to think of ways to ask Shikamaru about his plans. She didn't want to sound like she was blaming him, because she really wasn't. She just wanted to know how he planned to bring Sasuke back and maybe, some part of that plan failed and that's why the team couldn't bring her teammate back. Stopping to check her watch, she noticed Shikamaru across the street, hands in his pockets and walking leisurely with a bit of a scowl on his face.
"Good morning, Shikamaru!" she called, motioning for him to come over to her side of the street. The chuunin looked up, lifting a hand in greeting and crossed the street to her.
"How are you feeling?" he asked.
"Better. I think I should start charging people for asking me that. I'm sure I'd make a lot of money," she commented. "Anyway, I was wondering if I could ask you some questions about the mission," she said, nervously twisting her fingers. She hoped that she wasn't subconsciously offending him.
"You too?" he asked. Shikamaru sighed. As long as the girls of Sasuke's secret fanclub were around (Sakura and Ino had to be co-presidents), he knew he would get flak for not being about to bring back their prince.
"Me too, what?" she asked, confused.
"Are you going to accuse me for failing to bring back Uchiha? If you are, I'm out of here. I've had enough of it from Ino. She probably won't talk to me for a week," he said.
Sakura shook her head. "No, I don't blame anyone for this. See, I'm trying to figure something out and I want to get as much information as possible. I'll treat you to lunch. Let me explain what I'm planning to do," she pleaded.
Shikamaru nodded, secretly relieved that he wasn't going to have another angry fan-girl hanging off of him because he was the leader of the mission that happened to fail. Half the young teen girls in Konoha had various degrees of crushes on Sasuke. He was certain that he wouldn't be able to handle them if he could barely tolerate Ino's accusations.
They walked into the Ichiraku, unconsciously on Sakura's part as she had been so accustomed to eating there because of Naruto. They had Ayame take their orders and were seated at a table in the far back of the restaurant so they could talk.
"What is this plan of yours?" he asked.
"I think something's wrong here," she started, "we are all aware that Sasuke went to Orochimaru for help. Naruto said that whatever that bastard did to Sasuke made him into this monster and there's something fishy in that story. I'm pretty sure the reason why you guys couldn't bring him back was because of the mission, but whatever held you guys back was probably out of control. I wanted to know, for myself, what really went on. It's not really to prove anything, it's just that, if I know what went wrong, then I can probably accept whatever Naruto told me. Until then, I'm going to have to be skeptical about the details," she explained.
"Really. So what you're saying is that once you find out the flaw, you want to try the mission again?" he asked.
Sakura paused. If they did try the mission again, it would be doubly as hard because they didn't have a lead as to where Sasuke ended up going. Even their alliance with the Country of Wind wouldn't really help because anybody there would probably kill Sasuke on the spot. He was probably declared a missing-nin the day Shikamaru and the boys came home.
"No. I want to find the flaw, but it's to bring me some peace of mind. I don't think we could find Sasuke even if we had every ANBU member helping us. It's not economical and Tsunade-sama would forbid it because we don't have any leads to where he might have ended up. It would be like looking for a needle in a haystack, but what I want to try and do is figure out what part Orochimaru had to do in this ordeal. You're smart, so I was wondering if you could help me with this. I think if we worked together, we'd be able to figure out the things that the higher-ups refuse to tell us," Sakura said.
Shikamaru nodded. He always knew Sakura was smart, but to take on a task like this would require a lot of work. His strange obligation to help her get over the ordeal seemed to sway him into helping her, so he nodded in agreement.
"I don't know how much help I can be, but I'll try. Just keep Sasuke's fan-girls away from me. I think they're out for blood," he said, extremely bothered by the thought.
"Deal," she said just as Ayame brought out their ramen bowls.
"I've been trying to put things together for a while now, ever since Naruto left the village with Jiraiya-sama. When he was gone, he said that Itachi was after him and then Sasuke left because he heard news of his brother. I don't know how much Itachi has to do with this," she said, pulling a pen out of her pocket and grabbing a napkin to draw on.
She wrote everyone involved with the story so far. In the centre of the paper were three names: Naruto, Sasuke, and Orochimaru. A line from Sasuke was joined to Orochimaru and then Sakura wrote Itachi's name and connected him to Naruto.
"This is basically what I had before Sasuke went missing. When Naruto came back, he told me that Itachi was after him. I don't really think Itachi is connected to Orochimaru at all seeing as how he showed up well after the chuunin exam crisis," she explained. She tapped her pen against the table.
"I don't know where to go from here," she said, pointing to the messy diagram she had drawn.
Shikamaru nodded. "Why don't you start another one for the mission to bring Sasuke back and then we can see if things start to overlap?" he suggested.
"Good idea," Sakura said, grabbing another napkin from the dispenser. Again, Sasuke's name was connected to Orochimaru.
"This time, it's because Sasuke went to Orochimaru for help," she said.
"The other time was because Orochimaru bit Sasuke and gave him the curse marks on his shoulder," Shikamaru said, trying to piece both instances together.
"Do you think whatever Orochimaru did to Sasuke that first time they met caused him to seek his revenge, no matter the cost?" Sakura asked. It might have made sense then. If Orochimaru had the ability to draw Sasuke to him after inflicting the curse marks, then the bite was meant to spur some other occurrence in the future.
"You knew why Orochimaru bit him, right?" Shikamaru asked.
Sakura nodded. "Yeah. Naruto and I found out that Orochimaru came to the chuunin exam disguised as a hokage to kidnap Sasuke so that," she stopped, realizing how the story was coming together.
"Orochimaru wanted Sasuke's body to prolong his own life through the forbidden jutsus. I thought Sandaime immobilized that bastard," Sakura thought out loud.
"I did too. I guess we underestimated him. But we need to figure out what he did to Sasuke. If Orochimaru can't perform jutsus anymore, how would he have turned Sasuke into the monster Naruto described him to be?" Shikamaru asked.
"That's what nobody knows. Maybe whatever he inflicted on Sasuke the first time had some kind of timed release and maybe this was Orochimaru's original plan. I don't know what we can do with this kind of information. I doubt Tsunade-sama would listen to me if I approached her," Saskura said.
"She'd listen to Naruto," Shikamaru pointed out.
Sakura's green eyes brightened. Shikamaru was right. Naruto was a soft-spot for Tsunade and Sakura hated to do it, but she needed to exploit that close bond between the two blondes. Of course, it wasn't really for selfish reasons. She wasn't the only one who wanted Sasuke back.
"I guess that leaves me to ask Naruto for this favour," Sakura said softly.
"Let me know how that goes. I've got a meeting to get to so I'll see you around sometime," he said, getting up to leave.
"Thanks for the lunch," he added, slouching a little as he walked away.
It was afternoon and Sakura was sure that Naruto would be practicing his moves where Team seven normally trained. She didn't want to butter him up and entice him into helping her. She decided she would ask him if he could do it and deal with whatever decision he made. Although, Inner Sakura told her slyly that Naruto would say yes, even if it sounded like a stupid idea. She tried to ignore her inner self's highly inflated ego.
Sure enough, a bright orange jumpsuit could be seen whizzing back and forth, attacking the padded wooden dummies arranged in a large circle.
"Naruto," she called.
The blur of orange cloth and bright, blonde hair stopped.
"Sakura-chan, what brings you here?" he asked, quickly wiping the sweat of his face with his sleeve.
She didn't force a smile. "Shikamaru and I realized something and we need your help. I'll tell you everything, and then you can decide to go through with it or not. Whatever your decision is, I'll understand," she started off.
"Okay. I'll do it," he said.
Sakura blinked. "But I didn't even tell you what we came up with. At least let me explain," she said. Somehow, it seemed too easy for him to say yes so suddenly.
He conceded, taking a seat in the middle of the ring of training dummies. "Go for it," he said, motioning for her to take a seat as well. Sakura sat down and prepared herself.
"We think that Orochimaru had a bigger part in this whole thing and that Sasuke is gone because of what that bastard did to our teammate," she explained.
Naruto laughed a little. "Well of course. Orochimaru was the one who sealed Sasuke in that stupid can. Even I knew that," he said, lying back in the warm grass.
"That's not exactly what we came up with. See, we were thinking that maybe this thing started even before you left with Jiraiya-sama," she proceeded.
Naruto tucked his arms under his head. "What does Ero-sennin have to do with this?" he asked, obviously not understanding what she was trying to explain.
"Nothing. What I'm getting at is that, what if when Orochimaru bit Sasuke, he left some sort of time release thing along with the curse marks to bring Sasuke to him at a later time? I mean, I know how badly Sasuke wants to find his brother, but would he really, really sink that low and give over his own body to that maniac? It just doesn't really make sense," she said, coming to her point. Naruto blinked slowly, absorbing what Sakura said with increasing interest.
"What are you planning to do?" he asked. Sakura leaned closer, hoping that she finally caught his attention.
"Instead of finding Sasuke, we find Orochimaru. He can't possibly be strong enough to defeat a whole team of ANBU, you, Shikamaru, Chouji, Lee, Kiba, and Neji. The only problem is, we can't appeal to Tsunade-sama because she won't listen to us," she said, pointing to herself, "but Shikamaru said that she would listen to you," she concluded.
"How are we going to find Orochimaru? He'll probably be even harder to find than Sasuke," Naruto said, his eyes squinting against the sun.
"Well, I threw that last part in, but I mean, all we really need to get across is the fact that maybe Orochimaru planned this from the start. You know that he wanted to take control of Sasuke's body, and doing it this way is perfect because it looks like Sasuke came to him. I don't believe that. I think that he forced Sasuke to come because of those curse marks on his shoulder. That's all we need Tsunade-sama to think about. From there, I don't really know what to do, but maybe she can pull some strings and instead of sending hunter-nins after Sasuke, only send them after Orochimaru," she said.
"I don't know how well this will go, but I'll tell her. I want to find that idiot and make him change back to his stupid, mean, self so that I can kick his ass," he said determinedly.
The winds changed direction and Sakura lifted a hand to shield her eyes from the glare of the sun.
"You know, I was wondering if there was maybe more to what happened between you and Sasuke on the cliff. Tell me what you remember, like how he acted, what he said, if you don't mind," she said. Naruto's eyes narrowed for a moment, more in concentration than in annoyance.
"Things started out okay. He called me a dumbass like he always does, so I didn't think that much changed at first. Maybe just the way he looked. He had those strange black curse marks under one eye and that same eye was yellow, like Orochimaru's. I think that maybe our chase prevented a full transformation," he began.
"But everything I thought of at first changed. He laughed, just like Orochimaru and then he said that his connection to us was merely child's play. Then I hit him because he told us all to go home. I was so mad because he didn't care about all the people who came to help bring him back home. I mean, none of us even cared what he looked like because we all thought bringing him back would be easy after we defeated Kimimaro and those other freaks," Naruto said, adding a sigh at the end.
Sakura tried to picture what Naruto had seen on the cliff. It chilled her to the bones to think about Sasuke as the next body Orochimaru would take over.
"He didn't do anything for a long time, just stared at me like I was worthless. I yelled at him, told him that Orochimaru only wanted to use his body but he said that sticking around Konoha wouldn't make him any stronger. Then I threatened him. What else could I do?" he asked.
"Nothing. There was nothing you could do. Don't you think it's strange how all of a sudden Sasuke-kun just wants to get stronger? I mean, he's had years to do that and he did a pretty good job so far, but I guess seeing his brother for the first time in years changed his ambition. Is there more?" Sakura asked. Naruto nodded, pushing stray hair out of his face.
"He picked me up and then he punched me so hard. He got so strong and I don't know how far I went flying, but I ended up over the cliff and into the water. I thought I would drown there because my whole body ached so badly. I managed to surface and dragged myself to shore. He jumped down the cliff and I jumped up to meet him, then he kicked me," pointing to the still swollen area under his eye.
"I did Kage Bunshin no Jutsu and my clones grabbed on to each other so we wouldn't fly too far and then I kicked him. He got back up so fast, Sakura-chan. It was like I hadn't even touched him yet. He came at me so fast and punched me. I went over the cliff again, but this time I grabbed on to a ledge and pulled myself back up. He jumped down to meet me and then I saw it. His eyes were red and I didn't know what he was planning to do. Before I knew it, he had taken me into that strange reality," Naruto explained.
Sakura placed her hand on top of his. "You can stop here if you want. I know Kakashi-sensei didn't want to talk about his experience so you don't have to if you can't," she soothed. Naruto shook his head.
"There really isn't anything to say. He just said that we were all useless to him and that even after he killed his brother, he wouldn't return. He said he owed Orochimaru and then he vanished. I guess I fainted because wherever he took me, it felt like so much pressure was pushing me down. It already hurt to breathe because he hit me in the chest, but that place, it was like he took me to hell and left me to die," Naruto said, his voice wavering towards the end.
"I never did thank you properly," she said quietly.
Naruto looked at her, puzzled. "For what? I failed," he said.
"For trying," she concluded softly, wrapping an arm around his shoulders.
Chapter three preview: Tsunade listens to Naruto's theory. A three month slump passes slowly and the Hokage decides it's time to declare Uchiha Sasuke missing.
A/N: So do you think it's Sakura x Lee, Sakura x Shikamaru, Sakura x Naruto? I'm not telling, though I'm sure it probably won't be. The romance won't kick in until much later. I need to build up suspicion between people and then romance will jump in unexpectedly. I know my theories of Orochimaru's involvement might be iffy, but I swear, I'll get to it in the next chapter.
re-edited: June 19th, 2004