Chapter 20: Master at Deception
In the hidden villages, children are trained to be killing machines. However, they must not forget that battles are won not only through strength, but by intelligence. Shinobis must now about the art of gathering information, the art strategy, the art of lying to the enemy, the art of running away from desperate situations, and especially young shinobis must master the art of deception.
I lived in the Hidden Village of the Leaf for most of my life. I had friends, a kind sensei, a girlfriend, and even adoptive parents that really loved me. Nobody ever suspected I was a spy.
Yakushi Kabuto
There was one building in the Leaf that symbolized the center of power in the village. The building was divided into two divisions: the upper floors belonged to the Strategy Division where the decisions of the highest level were made and strategies that ensured the survival of the village were decided. The Hokage usually worked and even lived there. The lower floors were reserved for the Intelligence Division headquarters which ran all the way to underground. The Intelligence Division by far occupied a larger space than the Strategy Division due to the numerous prisoners, spies and traitors that were kept there. Confessions were extracted, one way or the other on those floors. Most importantly, the decisions about how to execute the directives mandated from the Strategy Division were made also there, unless otherwise directed.
The Intelligence Division second commander Akarui had just finished his shift. He sighed. Torturing Sound prisoners was a complete waste of time. Orochimaru never told his subordinates anything, and he wasn't even interested in exchanging them for Leaf prisoners.
As he was just leaving the building using the entrance of the Intelligence Division; the guards at the entrance were just checking his identity card, when he saw his boss entering the building.
"Hey" said Morino Ibiki, captain of the Intelligence Division, specialized on Torture and Interrogation, cleaning his nose with a handkerchief" Anything new happened today? I have been sick at home today."
"Eh?" Akarui said. Ibiki had been sick? "I saw you inside just an hour ago!"
Ibiki looked at him, blinking.
"No way... I just arrived here... IT'S A SOUND SPY!"
Akarui cursed while he returned inside, closely followed by Ibiki. He barked some orders to the guards that were protecting the entrance. Immediately a dozen guards gathered and started following Akarui and Ibiki, hunting for the future dead body that had dared to enter the place where they took good care of spies. More guards were posted at the entrance, as to not allow confusion that could allow other spies to enter.
Akarui, always shadowed by Ibiki checked room after room, in some of them torture sessions or other forms of interrogation were being carried out at that very moment.
Finally they reached a room with what appeared to be a young woman, her contorted face covered by disheveled hair, tied up and slouching on a chair. It was, hard to count the number of teeth scattered across the floor. "Morino Ibiki" was looking at the newcomers with a surprised expression and his fist bloodied.
"What are you doing here?" asked the fake Morino Ibiki, as if he had any right to be there. Akarui felt anger when he saw the imposter inside the Intelligence Division, which he venerated.
"Get him!" Akarui yelled. Immediately the guards grabbed the surprised imposter, who uselessly tried to struggle.
"Akarui! I'm getting your head after this!" yelled the imposter.
" Don't lie! I know you are a fake! Who sent you?"
"The fuck? I'm the real one!"
"It's true" The second Morino Ibiki confessed from the door. "I'm the fake." Fourteen pair of eyes turned to the door as Morino Ibiki disappeared and only a young boy remained. "I'm Uchiha Sasuke. I'm sorry for bothering you, Ibiki-san, but I have a request."
The real Morino Ibiki broke loose of the guards holding him and loomed threateningly over Sasuke.
"Pig!" He growled before his kunai slit the captive girl's throat wide. "Breaking into the Intelligence Division? I could kill you right now, and for the whole world you would have just disappeared!"
"Aa. I'd hardly call it breaking in. I just told your man here a little lie, and he showed me the way. Not one guard bothered to check my identification or if I was using Henge no jutsu." said Sasuke with a calm smile "Besides, in half an hour I'm having an A-level mission, and five people know I'm inside this building, including Uzumaki Naruto, who is really close to the Hokage. So I'm confident I'll live to see tomorrow."
"I don't care if the Hokage is your fucking mother" said Ibiki after the briefest pause, a pause that let Sasuke know that he had won. "I could still arrest you here. I have the authority..."
"This place is supposed to be the best guarded place in the whole Leaf besides the Hokage's building, and I needed just fifteen minutes of planning to get in." said Sasuke looking around, apparently not concerned at all "I guess the Hokage would love to know how effective the security you have here is. A lot of Sound prisoners are still alive and kept here. If I were one of Orochimaru's spies I could have freed at least ten of them without anybody noticing."
There was a pause as Sasuke smiled confidently. Ibiki looked carefully at Sasuke. He didn't understand what this little punk wanted, but he could deal with a thousand little brats like this one any time.
"Everybody out!" Ibiki ordered, and after everybody left, he pushed the dead girl who fell with a thump, and gave the chair to Sasuke" Well, let's hear your last wish before you suffer a sad accident or before I make you confess that it was actually you who killed the Third."
"I want to make a request" Sasuke said refusing the chair and bowing down. "I want to learn a genjutsu for interrogation."
"Are you stupid? You are risking your life just for asking me that? You could have asked from your sensei to teach you such an easy genjutsu."
"I could," said Sasuke with a grimace "but I want to interrogate my target without that target remembering any of the questions or the answers. Using normal genjutsu the target would remember them. I need a special genjutsu, and I figured out you would be the best specialist in the whole Leaf at it."
"You are risking your life just for that?"
"I have my reasons" said Sasuke with a dark frown.
Ibiki glared at Sasuke.
"The target... Is it a girl?"
"Sorry, but I'm not planning on using rape for this interrogation." explained Sasuke calmly.
"I wasn't talking about that." Ibiki said coldly "I have seen this pattern many times. People think their partners are cheating on them, and the fools think that using genjutsu to find out the truth is a good idea."
"Isn't it? It sounds as a good idea to me."
Ibiki regarded Sasuke coldly.
"I have a huge profile about you in my desk, Uchiha. It basically says that you are a potential danger to the Leaf because you are more interested in your revenge that in being a tool for the Village as we all must be. It mentions that you are gifted in taijutsu and ninjutsu, but that you are not interested in genjutsu because it's useless against your brother. It doesn't say you are a fucking idiot. I'll have to update the profile."
Sasuke raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything else.
"Do you actually know what the basis in a relation is?" Ibiki continued.
"Not screwing around?" asked Sasuke without a speck of humor.
"Trust. If you don't trust your partner, it doesn't really matter if you put a spy 24-7 on your partner, or if you use genjutsu on that person every day. Your relationship is doomed."
"I didn't come here for counseling. I want to learn genjutsu so I can get rid of all the suspicions I have." said Sasuke, that was truly growing tired of speaking.
"That's the whole fucking point. Look, if it wasn't because you are the only one left in the Leaf that has the Sharingan, you would already be a permanent resident here and would spend the rest of your days being my personal toy. One hour ago you were just another name to spy. Right now if you ever make a mistake, I'll be very happy to torture you personally because you royally piss me off. However this time I'm saying this for your own good. Don't use the genjutsu. If you use it, it will mean that you don't trust your partner. You will be raping her thoughts. It may sound good, but the temptation is too strong. Then it won't matter if she cheated on you or not. It will be over. Your relationship will deteriorate until you can't hold it together."
"I already have Kakashi to give my boring lectures. I don't need anybody else" Sasuke commented calmly, who had already understood the reason Ibiki was so angry. He had used that genjutsu on somebody, and that relationship had gone to hell."
"Fuck you! Get out of here before I lock you up and throw away the key."
"If you try to arrest me you would eventually need to report to the Hokage, our common superior" said Sasuke, and his voice was suspiciously soft "As a matter of fact, even if you don't arrest me, as a concerned citizen I'd go to confess my act to the Hokage. The seriousness of the fact that I could so easily enter one the most heavily guarded places in the whole Leaf must be reported. Isn't it? Well, I guess I won't be able to tell anybody anything if you teach me that special genjutsu because I'd be very busy."
Ibiki took two steps forward. He finally understood why the Uchiha brat had done all that show of entering undetected in the Intelligence Division. It was actually to make him teach the damn genjutsu, whether he wanted it or not.
"You... you dare to try to blackmail me, pig?" His hands were moving toward Sasuke's neck.
Sasuke looked back squarely at Ibiki. Then he fell down on his knees lowering his head almost touching the ground.
"Please, Ibiki-san, grant me this request, and I will owe you a favor. The Uchiha clan never forgets favors."
Ibiki was totally unprepared for that reaction. It was at that moment that he understood that Sasuke's action was not spontaneous, but actually prepared beforehand. First a threat, a threat so clear that it caused fear in the opponent. Next humiliating himself. Finally offering a good deal, so the opponent, with the pride safe, accepted the deal. That was an advanced interrogation technique. Interesting kid! ...
Oh shit!
Ibiki laughed violently, while Sasuke didn't even move.
"That's funny, Uchiha. I remember now that according to a report I read, your brother used the same tactic on your father almost before the Uchiha massacre."
Sasuke had a jolt, and he quickly stood up, his face with an expression of fury. Ibiki understood that Sasuke hadn't even noticed he had use the same trick as his brother. Funny, or tragic, the blood was always red.
"I don't have time to teach you, anyway. I have a lot of things more important to do."
"My request is just for today, Ibiki-san" said Sasuke that was desperately trying to regain his self-control. "I'm confident I'll be able to learn it in one day" His smile turned into a self confident smirk.
"HA! We are speaking about advanced genjutsu here. You will need at least a month to learn it. Don't think you will be able to use your famous Sharingan. It's genjutsu we are talking about. Your Sharingan can't learn it." Most people wouldn't notice, but he was the captain of the Intelligence Division, specialized on Torture and Interrogation techniques. He had played thousand of tricks on his victims. Obviously he was noticing the trick the pig was using on him: The pig was baiting him, saying that he could do what he evidently couldn't, so that he would show the genjutsu.
"I'll just do my best" said simply Sasuke with an arrogant smile so full of himself, that Ibiki mentally decided that the plan had worked.
"Fine, you got my attention" Ibiki finally said. Well, it would be fun to see the brother of Uchiha Itachi.
Sasuke who knew that didn't have any options bowed respectfully. He could not live for one more day with the fear of not even knowing if Sakura had lied to him or not. The treason of Itachi had hurt. He didn't want to be harmed again. He didn't know if he could survive the pain again. He had to find out the truth immediately.
Morino Ibiki had read all the reports about the interest of Orochimaru in Sasuke. He hadn't understood Orochimaru. Weren't there any other geniuses in the Leaf? Every year there were one or two geniuses that graduated and there were plenty of powerful bloodlines in the Leaf Village. Why was he so interested in Sasuke? Personally, he preferred the Hyuga bloodline, with his perfect defense and his devastating gentle fist technique than the Uchiha Bloodline.
Now he understood. In barely two hours Uchiha Sasuke had learned to use the hypnosis perfectly when a normal person would need three months. Two months if the person was really talented. A genius like him, head of the Intelligence Division, had needed one month and three weeks.
The pig was the same as the snake Orochimaru. No barrier put by humans would ever stop any of them. Both of them would tear out any obstacles in the way of their dreams.
Still, he only had to say something and the pig would have a fit: Uchiha Itachi had learned the same technique in five minutes, back when he was in the Leaf. There was one wall even the pig could not ever surpass: The difference in skill with Itachi. It was actually a sad tragedy. No matter how hard the pig trained, there was no way he could ever beat Itachi. The former successor of the Uchiha family was a true genius, a fighter with breath-taking ability and battle instinct.
"Are you fucking done yet?"
"I'm done, Ibiki-sensei" answered Sasuke bowing respectfully, and who was keeping a secret from the disfigured bastard in front of him. He hadn't told him that using the Sharingan, he could see the flow of chakra, and he would distinguish if the person was truly hypnotized or not. "Thank you very much for your kindness and help."
"Then get out of here! I don't want to see your mug around here. And I'm going with you. I don't want you walking alone this building. Kami-sama knows what you would do."
Sasuke lighted a cigarette and walked confidently through the huge corridors, straight to the exit. Ibiki followed him.
"How do you know the way to the exit? Have you stolen the blueprints of the whole building?"
"I just memorized the way from before." answered Sasuke. Ibiki decided that the pig was too dangerous. Memorizing the way in the maze that was the underground building in just one moment while he followed his stupid XO who had been randomly from room to room and from corridor to corridor was nothing sort of impressive.
In that moment one adjacent door opened and one huge bearded man got out of one huge room, while cleaning the flesh that had stuck to his teeth. The man looked at Sasuke and showed an expression of pleasure. Ibiki looked with keen interest at Sasuke. He didn't appear disturbed for Shiichi, a sadist even for Intelligence Division's standards, not even for the butchery inside of the room
"I don't think that one is going to confess anything again" Sasuke commented, pointing to one "person" in the middle of the room tied on a chair. There were other four people also tied, and with various expressions of terror or shock watching the carnage.
"The trick is terrorizing the others to speak. As long as Shiichi is around, those spies will fight for the right to confess everything they know."
"What a waste" Sasuke said serenely "I knew that guy. He's Akado Yoroi. I fought against him in the preliminaries of my first chuunin exam. He's the person I first used Lion Rendan against."
"He wasn't useful anymore. We had extracted all the information he had already. The others spies have been captured more recently." explained Ibiki. He looked squarely at Sasuke "You are a cold one. I have had rookies turning traitors just for watching something like this."
"I came here mentally prepared. I believe to pay a visit here should be mandatory for recently academy graduates. A good wake up for idealistic dreams of my team-mates would have saved me a lot of headaches."
"Are you interested in joining the Intelligence Division?" asked suddenly Ibiki.
"No."
"It's a pity. You would really be good at this. The way you tricked your way here proves that you are a master at deception." Ibiki said, and blinked when Sasuke's smile turned wild.
"You are wrong. The true Master at Deception is my brother Itachi. He perfectly hid his lies until he showed his true face" Sasuke sighed, still with that smile "Do you want to know what pisses me off the most in my brother? Almost more than the actual massacre was the treason, the betrayal of trust."
"After all, it's not that you married her by your own free will and you already know she is not pregnant" Kakashi was saying.
"I really loved my brother, I really did..." continued saying Sasuke.
Sakura leaned on the chair, letting Sasuke brush her hair.
"... And I always thought he also loved me. He was my brother, damn it!"
Sakura smiled and hugged Sasuke although even raising her arms was an unbearably effort. He held her for a long time, even if for both of them was too short. Then he put her under a tree. She managed to sit, leaning against the trunk of the tree. He sat down, leaning against the same tree.
"... I would have done anything for him. I mean it, anything..."
"...please accept this" Sasuke said, gently taking her hand and putting a ring in her finger. She smiled and blushed .As in cue, a small wind went through the window. It was like a painting: Sasuke like a knight in black, kneeling in front of Sakura with the wind blowing her hair.
"And there is something I really want to know. I really need to know. When did Itachi plan the massacre? Was it just a spur of the moment, or maybe it had been planned for years?"
"Sasuke-kun, do you want to train together?" asked a young girl.
Sasuke raised his eyes. It was a classmate. What was her name? Sakura! That was it! Weird name. Damn his back luck! Just the day after he read about the Original Uchiha Massacre, first day he returned to school after that man had killed his clan and a person with the same name as the Sakura of the Original Uchiha Massacre started bothering him.
"No." He said. That would be the first time she bothered him, but not the last.
One golden rule of interrogators is that you have to stare at the eyes when the other's self control breaks up, because at that moment you can see what's hidden. Ibiki was staring into Sasuke's eyes which were fierce and furious, the look emanating from them tortured.
"Well," said Sasuke finally calming down as their reached the door. Ibiki was really curious why he had lost temporarily lost control like that "I'm off. Thanks for the help."
"You don't really have an A-mission waiting for you, do you?"
"No, there isn't. There is not even a soul that knows I'm here." Ibiki understood that Sasuke didn't appreciate his life very much.
"I was with Itachi on one of his last ANBU missions" Ibiki suddenly said. Giving away information for free was against his beliefs. However this case interested him.
"If you are going to tell me how strong Itachi was, don't bother. I have been hearing that for years" warned Sasuke, his expression again turning dark.
"He was more than strong. We had a small skirmish, and he killed single two jounins missin-nins in seconds. However when I looked at him after the carnage... I thought he looked really sad."
"Aa" Sasuke said, wondering if he had the face of someone that was actually interested in other people's mental traumas.
"Your eyes remind me of him now" Ibiki stated.
There was a silence after those words.
"Do you want to know the reason I have started to smoke?" said Sasuke smashing the cigarette on his palm with hate "It's because I have to smoke one cigarette every time I kill people, or where people I know die."
"I don't get it."
"I killed the Four Sound and it scared me the fact that I killed human beings. Last month there was a mission where Team 7 had to infiltrate one military camp. I slit the throats of ten guards and it didn't even bother me." Sasuke sighed "So every time I kill people or people I care die, I smoke, which is bad for my health. It's my way of not being like Itachi. It's my way of caring about people I kill" He took the smashed cigarette and showed it to Ibiki "This is for those guards and the others twenty three people we killed."
"You will never be like Itachi, because he is too strong." Pause "He is far stronger than you."
Sasuke gave Ibiki and blank stare. He wordlessly shrugged as he left.
Ibiki decided to look on the information about Sakura. How that girl made Sasuke stay in the Leaf was something he couldn't fathom. Sakura, Sakura, the name reminded him of something. That name appeared in the Uchiha folder. Wasn't Sakura the name of the woman that had killed the creator of the Uchiha clan and then killed her son during the Uchiha rebellion against the Hyugas? No. She had killed only herself and her husband, right? No... Damn! He'd have to read the files again.
Sasuke was walking to the Uchiha district desperately slow, wondering what was going to happen. He was watching each step he was making that put him closer to Sakura.
It made a lot of sense to check if Sakura was lying to him or not, wasn't it? He was a shinobi. She was a shinobi. Itachi was a shinobi. He had to make sure. Itachi had lied to him. He had killed his whole clan. Now there were some signals that seemed to indicate that he was being cheated on. It made a lot of sense to check if Sakura was lying to him or not, wasn't it?
If his father had truly acted as the head of his clan and had investigated the obvious hints Itachi was giving, the whole FUCKING clan would be alive. He had to make sure. It made a lot of sense to check if Sakura was lying to him or not, wasn't it?
Shit!
"Sasuke! Let's fight again! I feel I'm on a row and I want our destinies to meet again as we clash in a fight of titans!"
Sasuke counted until twenty and raised his eyes. Rock Lee was there, adopting another of his typical battle poses in the middle of the street.
Sasuke kept walking past him. This time he didn't have time at all for Lee's ridiculous antics.
"Sasuke! Don't run away! Are we afraid of proving your strength to yourself?"
Sasuke exhaled the longest sigh and moved to position. Sakura was going to get angry if he didn't...
Sasuke's mood darkened considerably.
"Is your time to issue the challenge! What are we going to do?" yelled Lee.
"What about simple fists fighting?" asked Sasuke smiling softly after a long pause. A smile that Lee thought was really creepy "No fancy taijutsu moves, no low or high kicks, no incredible techniques, just straight on pure fists. Fair enough?"
"Hai! If I don't beat you I'll go again to Huki Mountain and back!" yelled Lee kicking at high speed the air.
Sasuke didn't react as Lee ran at him. Lee moved fast. His punch went deep in his gut, and as he staggered, Lee hit again in the face. Blood poured from Sasuke's nose, and dirtied Lee's bandages. Sasuke was pushed against the wall, with no place to back away. He still didn't react, not even as Lee kept on striking him without pause or rest for a interminable energy.
Finally Lee backed away a few seconds to see if Sasuke was planning something. Sasuke was staring into space, while his legs quivering, like refusing to keep on supporting Sasuke. Lee nodded and ran at him at maximum speed, set on ending that fight at that moment.
At the last possible second Sasuke diverted the blow and punched Lee in the face using Lee's own momentum.
Sasuke took a few steps forward, looking at Lee's direction and he said
"I love you."
Lee that was going to go forward again froze in confusion, and didn't have time to block Sasuke's three fast punches.
"I really love you." Sasuke said, looking at Lee's face. "Did you lie to me from the beginning?"
Lee was trying to understand what was going on, but that was a hard thing to do under Sasuke's onslaught of precise strikes. Lee tried to block them, but Sasuke seemed to know his movements before he even thought about them.
"Did you really love me? Every time you told me you loved me, was it always a lie?" He repeated. Lee thought that Sasuke looked like he wanted to cry. Another of Sasuke's precise punches, and Lee felt his back painfully connecting with a tree.
"Are you telling me that everything, every single thing we have built together...? Are you telling me that everything was just a lie!" Sasuke concentrated the chakra in his hand and dashed ahead.
Lee saw the fist moving toward but didn't have the time or the energy to react, and closed the eyes as the fist got closer.
Lee heard the sound of the impact but didn't feel anything. He opened to eyes to see Sasuke's trembling fist on him, almost touching his head. The trunk of the tree he had been leaning on was broken. Finally Sasuke moved away.
"You lost. If this were a real fight, you'd be dead." Sasuke put his trembling arms behind him, and smiled widely "Nice challenge. This is the first time I have use this technique, saying totally stupid sentences to distract your enemy. See you around."
Sasuke hurried up, still trying to hide his trembling arms when somebody else intercepted his way, somebody that apparently liked the white a lot, considering his clothes.
"What do you want, Hyuga?" He said.
Hyuga Neji just glared at him. Sasuke doubted that he wanted to avenge Lee, since it wasn't the first time he had just stared while he beat Lee up. Besides anybody would be happy of seeing Lee beaten up.
He had seen that fight against the Hyuga family almost a year ago, but it was very unlikely that Hyuga Neji from the branch family would get into a fight for the Main family unless under a direct order.
Sasuke walked past him. He didn't have time for whatever he wanted.
"Please! Take care of her!" yelled Neji.
Sasuke turned around, but Neji was already walking away.
As far as he knew, Neji and Sakura had barely exchanged greetings. It could be that Neji had a secret crush on her, but he very much doubted it. It didn't made sense to say that a year after their wedding. So, if that "her" wasn't Sakura, who was it? Or was it really Sakura? Shit! Too confusing.
Well, it didn't really matter. He had another mystery to solve, and if he had been lied to, then he was leaving the Leaf FOREVER.
Lowering his eyes, Sasuke kept walking, and finally entered the Uchiha district.
He was so distracted that he didn't hear the noises until he raised the eyes.
The bloodbath in the Intelligence Division hadn't made him want to scream terror at all.
The vision in front of him did
XO: Executive Officer. It's a military term.
Thank you again to Allison, my betatester, for all her kind help
Well, did you like the chapter? It ended in a cliffhanger. I'm pure evil ;) What do you think that could make Sasuke cry in terror?
Did you like the part where Sasuke was talking about Itachi, but actually thinking about Sakura? And what about the part that Sasuke tells Lee "I love you" actually talking to Sakura? It's disturbing, especially to poor Lee.
This chapter is really dark, but Naruto is a tale about children that are raised to be killing machines, or more especifically, emotionless tools for the Village. This story is going to be DARK, I'm warning you.
More comments about the Original Uchiha Tragedy, (the story is called the Uchiha Tragedy, anyway), some comments about the mysterious Uchiha Itachi, and an original comment about a reason to smoke. All to please my reviewers and readers.
I am planning on writing some original Naru-Hina, that is, if they survive till the end. Don't forget that I will not be shy on killing any of the main characters.