Chapter 15.
Tsunade returns
"I forgot how manipulative you were." Sasuke didn't bother to hide the contempt laced in his voice.
Kakashi raised a brow as if to say 'go on'.
Sasuke and Naruto were in the Hokage's office. It was still dark out, and it seemed like Kakashi had never bothered going home. There was a blanket laid out on the couch behind them. The current hokage had been working when they came in. His papers jammed in folders, and pens scattered across his desk.
"It took me a bit, but you've been stringing me along ever since i got back to the village."
Kakashi sits at his desk, and Naruto and Sasuke stood in front of him. Sasuke's fists were clenched so tight in his pockets he could feel his fingernails cutting into his skin.
"Me? Manipulate the great Sasuke Uchiha?" Kakashi yawned and leaned back in his chair until it creaked. "I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about."
Naruto looked ready to jump in front of someone should the wrong thing be said, but the look on his face said he was unsure of who exactly needed protection from who.
Kakashi and Sasuke had always regarded one another respectfully. Even during his time as a deserter. On most things they always agreed, and so it was an oddity even to Sasuke, to square off against his Sensei.
"When i returned and i spoke to you for the first time, you sent Ino Yamanaka after me." Kakashi started to drum his fingertips against the top of his desk, feigning disinterest.
"To what end?"
"You wanted Ino to tell me that Naruto had left the hospital. Funny you didn't mention you already knew exactly where he was during our conversation. But i think the reason you didn't tell me was, because you didn't want me to know it was by your hand i was being led. That's why you didn't tell me where Naruto was yourself, right? You wanted me to realize he was at Sakura's apartment on my own. You wanted me to decide to stay there with him. You knew i never would have entertained the thought of staying there, if had been your wishes i was following."
Sasuke refused to fall back in line as a leaf shinobi. The only reason Sasuke had not burned the place to the ground had been his connection to team 7, and at the moment that connection was wavering. Sasuke hadn't made the effort to return for any benefit to the village, it was only for her.
Kakashi doesn't react to anything he's said. Sasuke forged on, and finds the more he speaks the angrier he gets. Mostly at himself for not having paid attention. Konoha had wrapped him right back up exactly where he had been all those years ago. It was becoming to comfortable. To easy. Sasuke was liking being back here to much. Sasuke had allowed himself to forget what the village really was. What the village had allowed to happen to him as a child, and what it had allowed to happen to her...
"The apartment. Training with Naruto." Naruto froze up behind him, at having been brought into what was likely about to turn into a fight. "Sending me for clearance at the hospital? How many times do i have to tell you i won't be one of your little minions? I'm not going to be used by this village ever again, regardless of who the Hokage is. I've been under your thumb this entire time, I hadn't even realized how much until now. Every decision i've made since coming back has been by your manipulation."
Kakashi clicked his tongue indifferently. "So, maybe i meddled a bit."
"A bit?!"
Naruto placed a hand on his shoulder and Sasuke shirked it off.
"I see now that you've been stalling. We could have gone after Sasori anytime couldn't we? You have the intel. You have a plan. You've drawn this all out to keep me in this damn village for as long as you possibly could haven't you?" Sasuke grounds out.
"I don't care how old you kids get. I'll always do what i think is best for you. Even if you can't see that for yourself." Kakashi said as if that made the liberties he had taken with Sasuke's life decisions, allright.
Sasuke absently grabbed the air at his hip. No sword. That's right he had to leave it with Shikamaru again. Not that it mattered, his hands were every bit as lethal as a sword, maybe even more so. Then the thought of Shikamaru leads Sasuke to think of Ino again. Of course.
"And you!" Sasuke whirled around to throw some of the blame, on Naruto. "It looks like you've picked up Kakashi's meddling traits."
Naruto tried to feign innocence, but he cracked when Sasuke supplied, "Ino?" He almost missed how Naruto's barely there smirk.
That was why Naruto had been pushing so hard for Sasuke to ask out the Yamanaka girl. He was hoping to manipulate Sasuke into having one more reason to stay in the village. He'd almost fallen for it all to. Sasuke had already silently vowed to himself to purchase Sakura's apartment. He begrudgingly had begun to rely on Naruto's company. He had even to his own disgust, briefly thought about taking Ino out to pump her for information on Sakura but still.
An uneasy look passed between Kakashi and Naruto, and Sasuke knows they'd likely been plotting behind his back before he even set foot in the village. It struck Sasuke then that this hadn't solely been about retaining him as an asset for the village. Kakashi has more than enough shinobi on his payroll.
"Are you serious?" Sasuke pinches the bridge at his nose. "This again? I thought you all gave up on bringing me back, or whatever." Naruto had mentiones him staying permanently but Sasuke had thought it a halfhearted.
"Hmph." Kakashi sighed with his head between both palms, and his elbows on his desk. "Figured us all out then?"
"Oh, i think i have, you traitors."
"That's kind of funny coming from you. We won't ever give up, on you Sasuke. Especially now." Especially now that Sakura's dead, is what Sasuke thinks Kakashi wanted to say. "You are an integral part of our team, and we would never betray you."
"You'd never betray me, is that right?" Naruto facepalmed at Sasuke's question.
Naruto has been uncharacteristically quiet during most of the exchange. The tension in the air palpable, like the thickness of air before lightning strikes. Kakashi still doesn't yet know that his 2 disciples have discovered a huge lie on his part. One Sasuke certainly considered a betrayal.
"No, of course not."
"How interesting because we went to the graveyard just now. We saw."
What exactly? Sasuke was having doubts. Sakura was - Alive? Dead? Ghost? Resurrected?
"I was wondering why you both decided to visit so late. I wish you hadn't gone."
From moment to moment Sasuke couldn't keep up with his own thoughts about Sakura. So many conclusions, and assumptions he had come to. He was positive then he wasn't. He was confused and that was the only absolute he had.
Sasuke knew he had to tread very carefully, and choose his words wisely. Kakashi was clearly not doling out information haphazardly. He wouldn't be able to come out and ask what he really wanted to, he needed to see what Kakashi knew.
"It was an omission on my part not a betrayal. I didn't see any reason to burden the two of you with this situation. Like i said earlier i will always do what i think is best for you."
"Is that all you have to, fucking, say to me?" Sasuke spat now no longer caring if Shikamaru decided to to burst in. Sasuke knew he'd been listening at the door the entire time. "There's more than that."
"There had to be alot of good reasons, you didn't tell us, right Sensei?" Naruto commented dutifully. "If you can't tell us every-
"God shut up you, idiot!" Sasuke barked. It's the first time he had lashed out at Naruto since he'd come back. He ignored the hurt expression on the blondes face.
"You really are alot chattier now." Kakashi tells Sasuke dryly.
"I don't care what the reasons were. Tell me what the hell is going on. What did you do? What do you know? Where is Sakura?"
Kakashi narrowed his eyes at Sasuke. "What is it you think is going on here? You saw the empty grave right?"
"Stop deflecting my questions with your own."
"I don't know where her body is." Kakashi admitted. "The anbu squad i assigned thinks someone with a grudge against either me or the village made off with her in the middle of the night. We never even knew the village had been breached, until she was already gone."
"So you're saying someone took her corpse? Out of the coffin?" Sasuke clarified and started to decipher whether he believed everything Kakashi has said.
Kakashi exchanged a less than subtle glance with Naruto.
"Did you have some other explanation for the empty grave?"
"Sasuke, what you said before when-"
"Later." He growled not wanting Kakashi to be privy to what he'd said.
Naruto's face is taut with concern.
"What did he say, Naruto?"
"Shut up."
"Tell me what Sasuke said. That's an order."
"Shut up!"
"Naruto. I forbid you to disobey a direct order."
"Don't say a wor-"
"He said 'she's alive'." Naruto mumbled refusing to meet anyone's eye.
Kakashi's eye twitched so quickly Sasuke wondered if he hadn't imagined it. Kakashi seemed at war with himself, and his chair spun around and away from them both.
Sasuke moved to accost his mutinous friend, but the door to the office banged open before he could wrap a hand around his throat. Kakashi spun back around.
Shikamaru Nara hadn't been the only person listening at the door. The 5th Hokage flanks his right side. Tsunade Senju is an amazon of a woman practically dwarfing Shikamaru , and her pigtails don't fit her domineering personality at all. Sasuke had only ever encountered her as a genin, but by his own estimation she was every bit a brute now as she was then.
Shikamaru looked like he'd rather be taking a nap, or one of his coveted smoke breaks but he followed along as the former Hokage swept into the room.
Sasuke expected some kind of reaction from Naruto. After all he had been waiting for her to show up, to heal him, and- that liar. Another betrayal.
Indeed, Naruto had picked up Kakashi's worst quality. Omission. Naruto hadn't distinctly lied to Sasuke, but then again Sasuke hadn't been asking Naruto everyday if Tsunade had made it to the village yet. He had expected Naruto or Kakashi to tell him when she finally made her way back. He had expected them to trust him with that. Guilt is written all over Naruto's face, but he isn't surprised in the least that the 5th Hokage just waltzed in. He had known Tsunade was here. How long? How long had she been here? Was she trying to heal the fox in Naruto already?
This newest revelation has thrown Sasuke off kilter. Maybe he would have denied it, before Tsunade was involved but now there isn't any point. Naruto has thrown Sasuke's confession out for them all to hear. It may as well be addressed.
Tsunade glided passed Naruto, and Sasuke fixing the latter with an icy cold stare. She hopped up on Kakashi's desk like she still owned the place.
"Was it you? Did you do it?" The vein in her temple bulged a bit as Sasuke matched her gaze. She ignored the question outright.
"It's been awhile. You look like hell, Uchiha." Tsunade told him. Then she pivoted to Kakashi to ask, "What the hell is he doing back in my village?"
"Now, Tsunade-"
"I thought we talked about this already?"
"He's here because of what happened to Sak-" Kakashi fumbled with each word.
"No."
"No?" Kakashi's brow scrunched. "Sasuke came back in order to aven-"
Tsunade is determined to cut off every sentence he came up with it seemed. She was artful in undermining his authority, if Sasuke wasn't already so dangerously close to blowing something up maybe he would have appreciated her skill more.
"When i gave you the Hokage title, i told you specifically what would happen to him should he be foolish enough to come back here." Tsunade dragged her eyes over Sasuke briefly looking for what he didn't know. "His chakra isn't even suppressed?!" She jumped up from the desk and whirled around at Kakashi.
Perhaps Sasuke had gotten all worked up for no reason Tsunade Senju seemed ready to beat Kakashi into a pulp.
"Granny Tsunade, please may i speak?"
"Not now Naruto. I'm about to reeducate the 6th Hokage." She drove her fist down on the desk and it splintered beneath, leaving a gaping hole in the wood. Kakashi tensed.
Kakashi could easily dismiss Sasuke or even Naruto when they are in sour moods, but doing so to Tsunade Senju didn't seem to be an option to him.
"Sasuke isn't a threat to the village, if we thought that even for a second that he was he wouldn't be here, okay?"
Tsunade pursed her lips, but she seemed to be listening to Naruto as she freed her hand from the ruined desk.
"He wants to help us. He doesn't care about the village, i'd have figured out by now if he was plotting anything against it. Kakashi ordered me to stay with him as frequently as possible. From what i've seem he wants to help us end Sasori. If he wasn't set on it, he wouldn't have stayed this long." Naruto sighed deep, in how to express his thoughts. "Sure he's still in charge of the sound village, and has a whole list of personal issues, but he doesn't mean us any harm. Who even knows maybe in time he could help us with other stuff, missions, and- maybe he'll even want to stay here permanently." Sasuke scoffed. Naruto rolled his eyes. "Give him a chance, Granny, please."
"I don't buy it. The only reason you came back was to avenge your teammate? You never gave a damn about Sakura. She pined after you for years. I'm just supposed to believe that you cared all of a sudden after she winds up dead?"
"I always cared," Sasuke challenged. "about Sakura."
Tsunade seemed unconvinced.
"What do you think of this Shikamaru?" Tsunade asked.
"Don't drag me into this. I don't have a thing to do with whatever goes on between team 7. That's not my place." He shrugged his shoulders.
"Precisely why i want your unbiased opinion." Sasuke disagreed with the unbiased part.
Shikamaru seemed to think about it. Opened his mouth then closed it. Then finally decided.
"He should be in jail."
Tsunade smirked.
"Why don't we all just sit down, we'll have a nice little chat, and air out all the grievances." Kakashi remarked allthough he probably knew it was pointless trying to mediate this fiasco.
Sasuke just wanted a straight answer. He was sick of listening to all the other crap.
"Was it you?" Sasuke asked deceptively calm at Tsunade, then then same at Kakashi. "Or was it you?!"
"What exactly are you accusing the Hokages of, Sasuke?" Shikamaru drawled in a bored tone that just pissed him off more.
Sasuke had Shikamaru pinned against the wall in the same manner he had been accosted at the hospital, in the blink of an eye. Everyone else stood frozen.
"Sasuke!" Naruto warned.
"Exactly why he should have chakra suppressors on."
"Or be in jail!" Shikamaru huffed out against Sasuke's hold. There went any chance Sasuke had of ever getting the Nara heir to change his mind about him.
"Someone in this room, brought her back. It was either Kakashi or it was her. Maybe both of them together, but most likely her." Sasuke said darkly into Shikamaru's back.
"I didn't like you at all before, but now i just think you're insane."
Sasuke shoved his shoulder until he heard a pop, and Shikamaru held back a scream but his face distorted with the pain. "And i want to know right now who it was, and where Sakura is."
Kakashi has abandoned his normal mild mannered attitude and entered his Hokage mode. His jaw was tight, and his fists clenched. Tsunade looked ready to spring. Naruto was entirely unsure of what to do, of who he would jump in front of now.
"Look Uchiha i don't know what you think is going on but-"
"Orochimaru. He was your teammate?"
"Yes."
"Then you must have learned some of his jutsu?"
Tsunade pursed her lips like she's tasted something sour. "I never learned the jutsu i think you're referring to. That snake was sick, and i knew to keep my distance unlike you." She sneered at him.
Tsunade put her hands on her hips, sternly but not in a motherly way. "She's dead kid, okay? I saw the body, and examined it myself. Sakura is dead. Nobody brought her back, no one has the capability or the knowledge of how to resurrect a person anymore. Some creep did this to screw with Kakashi or maybe with me."
"Whatever you felt for her. Sakura isn't coming back. Get over it."
Sasuke is shocked by the cavalier way in which she had said it. Hadn't she had more feeling for Sakura's life than that? Her star pupil was dead, and she hadn't even bothered to attend the funeral. What kind of a monster could disregard their feelings in such a way?
The irony soon isn't lost on Sasuke. Sasuke had been that precise brand of callous once. It was easier to feel nothing. To tell yourself you didn't care about people that were dead and alive. Feeling was painful. Sasuke could see the mask on Tsunade's face fall just the slightest in the way she pushed some hair behind her ear. For all her talk and bravery she was hurting to.
"Everyone always said you were such a prodigy. Yet here you are letting your emotions cloud your judgment, like a scared little genin. It's pathetic."
Sasuke let Shikamaru fall to the floor, and he moved to take hold of the woman instead. Deciding to motivate some truth out of her by means of force. In an instant she's gone. The spot she just occupied is empty. She wasn't a Sannin for nothing.
Then there's a sharp prick in at the back of his neck. It brings him to his knees. A tiny needle has lodged itself into his spine. Sasuke can't move, he is suddenly at the mercy of the 5th Hokage. She was right emotions had clouded his judgment. He hadn't been using his sharingan, if he had she never would have gotten the drop on him.
"Kakashi. You need to get this one under control. Or there will be suppressors and jail in his future very soon." Tsunade said from somewhere behind Sasuke.
"I vote jail. Now." Shikamaru supplied rubbing his aching apendage soothingly. "Don't give him another chance."
"Naruto, is there anything else i should know?" Tsunade circled Sasuke like a lion to a gazelle.
Naruto looked like maybe he didn't want to answer. If it hadn't been the Hokage maybe he wouldn't have. Even so Sasuke can't seem to be mad at him for having put the village before him. Sasuke vaguely recalled a time when he would have sacrificed anything for Konoha.
"He hasn't been sleeping. I think it might be starting to effect him. He probably just needs some sleep. A few nights ago he had a nightmare, but he insisted he saw Sakura as a ghost or- i should have done more i just brushed it off." Naruto says no more.
"Not sleeping, huh? That could make anyone crazy. Well we can fix that easily enough."
No. What if he stopped being able to see Sakura? But Sasuke can't speak along with being unable to move.
There was a pulse of heat at his neck traveling quickly upwards. It was familiar and inviting but he doesn't want to sleep. He wanted to rage, and to scream, and to break things. He wanted to stay awake and get to the bottom of things. Nothing made sense. Sasuke fought hard but like a wave sleep rushed over him again, and again. Eventually he gave in. His anger slipped away, and his eyes shut. The floor rushed up to meet him, and he vaguely heard someone's shoe squeak as they stepped over his body.
Sasuke hasn't had deep sleep in awhile and he forgot the peacefulness of it. It's like floating through clouds. Easy like breathing.
Author's note/ Hello darlings! Welcome back. Sorry it's been out of my normal update schedule. School is back in session, and i've been busy. Okay well with school but also binging a couple fanfics. Anyone in the Sasusaku fandom, do yourself a favor, read Covenant. Wow. Starryo_o. I love that there is such a broad range of material out there, and ... also i read Bloodywar2411 - Intertwined. It's an edx roy from full metal fic and goodness is it worth the length. This chapter was difficult to write, i knew from the start where i wanted to take theis story overall. Never the less writing Sasuke's sanity slowly decline is hard to do, he's one of my favorite characters. Idk if anyone cares to hear this kind of behind the scenes stuff but before my beta got ahold of it, this chapter included Kakashi and Tsunade having a secret relationship. Alas we decided to streamline the story, because a Kakashi Tsunade plot thread would take this story way over the word count i'm aiming at. I promise some happier moments in the next update or 2. This chapter served to clear up some loose threads, and further the plot. I have been asked several times when we might get some more backstory on Sasuke and Sakura, tonight i may upload the next chapter. The next chapter is in the form of a dream, and it's the last memory Sasuke has of seeing her. Additionally my song of choice for this Fort minor- where'd you go. Sorry this was like the longest author's note ever!
