Let's start this from the beginning

Kabasawa Mines

IX

Itachi hadn't been idle while his students played bodyguards. However, where their jobs had been relatively easy, consisting of following a little girl around and observing a camp respectively, his part required him to cover a much larger area.

That only made sense, of course, as he didn't simply watch a single person or even a group but rather their client's mansion as well as the nearby town, the bordering forest around it, and the nearby mining facilities.

Needless to say, there was way too much running and not nearly enough sleep involved.

Itachi could handle it, though. At the end of the day, this was nothing compared to many of the ANBU missions he had been part of, and while it had been years since he was part of that organisation, the rest of his life outside of it had hardly been any easier.

His crows took a lot off his shoulders, too. With them spying on the area from above, he had a system in place that could quickly alert him to his targets' locations even if he himself was far away. Once he had found their hideout, it had been easy to have them keep an eye on them, making this a lot less stressful than it would have been otherwise. The only reason Itachi bothered to keep such a close eye on the area at all when he already had such an effective system in place was one particular member of the group he was targeting:

Two of the missing-nins were easy enough to assess and even recognize. For the woman, all it took was a quick look through his bingo book, allowing him to quickly identify her as a former kunoichi of Sunagakure's Taiyō Clan. A Chūnin who left her village not long after achieving that rank with no notable abilities to speak of and, in fact, an evaluation that put her as below average in every field – including her own clan techniques.

The second was a little bit more of a mystery, but according to what his summons had overheard, he was a former shinobi from Iwagakure named Gouzen. A Chūnin, too. He wasn't in the bingo book, which meant he was either thought to be dead, had only recently deserted his village, or that Iwa didn't want his betrayal to be known. Considering his low rank, however, that last possibility was rather unlikely. Furthermore, Itachi had sent one of his more intelligent summons, one who could actually speak, to check the man out, and it reported that his chakra reserves and general demeanour were nothing worth mentioning. Consequently, Itachi judged him to be no threat but took some precautionary measures anyway to guarantee nothing would happen to his students just in case he was wrong.

Were it only these two, Itachi wouldn't have anything to worry about. He would, in fact, have been very satisfied with the situation because they were well-suited to serve as his team's first opponents – strong enough to be a challenge but not to the point where they were an actual threat. Itachi had every confidence that his students would be able to take them in a fight, and even if they weren't for some reason, it would be easy enough for him to intervene in order to protect them against such weak enemies.

Unfortunately, there was one more enemy to consider. One that he couldn't just brush off like that.

The name of the leader of the group of missing-nins was Hikan, a former Jōnin from Sunagakure with a bounty of a bit over 700.000 ryō. For comparison, the amount of money Konoha had been given to have a team take care of the giant boars was 220.000 ryō which by itself was already more than twice as much as a regular C-Rank mission was worth. 700.000 ryō was an amount of money that was usually paid for important A-Rank missions, making it clear just how much Hikan's former village wanted him dead.

Itachi was confident that he would be able to take the man on in a fight, but that wasn't the problem at hand. No, what bothered him was the man's cautious nature described in the bingo book.

And it was this very cautious nature that likely explained how Hikan continued to escape the watchful eyes of Itachi's crows.

It wasn't even that the man was aware that he was being watched and consequently tried to escape their sight. Itachi was sure he would have long since fled the scene if that was the case. Rather, he was constantly on the move and changing his cover. While Gouzen and Yuwaku mostly stayed at their hideout in the woods Itachi had discovered a few days ago, Hikan had been there only once in all the time Itachi had observed the group. The rest of the time, he stayed in the town, constantly using different appearances to adopt another identity and switching to different guesthouses at least once a day.

It was this trait that made his crows lose sight of him all the time. After all, there was no way to know if Hikan used the transformation technique while inside a building, meaning they wouldn't even notice him when he left it some time later.

The only thing they could do was to keep an eye on every single guesthouse in the town, followed by then watching every single person that booked a room that day.

At the end of the first day of observation, Itachi recognized that leaving Hikan to his crows wasn't an option and thus took over himself. He could detect the chakra Hikan used for a transformation technique, and even if he didn't, his Sharingan could see through every disguise the man might create. Regular disguises were a bit more tricky, but as long as he kept a close eye on him, even that wasn't enough to slip away from him.

As he had to be subtle and remain unnoticed himself, Itachi still occasionally lost his target for short periods of time, but that had thankfully yet to become a problem. He usually found him again in a matter of minutes.

However, even this short amount of time could become dangerous. If Itachi lost him and Hikan decided to move against Akihito and, as a result, his team, it would certainly prove lethal.

It was because of this that Itachi was glad for his foresight to involve the ANBU in this. With them keeping an eye on things from the background as well, things were much safer. Not to the point where Itachi would let Hikan walk around unsupervised, mind you, but safer nonetheless.

Anyway, it was because of this that Itachi was present when Hikan, in an uncharacteristic change of his routine, left the town one week after the boar attack, heading straight for the nearby mines.

Coincidently, it was at the same time that his crows notified him that the other two missing-nins had left their hideout as well.

It has begun, then.

So, after telling his crows to notify the hiding ANBU team as well, Itachi had a decision to make his move. While he had no definite proof, he had a pretty good idea of what Hikan was aiming to do, and Itachi couldn't allow him to succeed. However, the question was whether he should go to stop him himself or leave that to a clone…

It took him less than a second to come to a decision, and with that, he quickly formed the hand seals necessary for a crow clone before rushing after Hikan while his clone ran back towards the mansion.

As much as he would prefer to go back himself, this was the right course of action. Hikan was the greatest threat anyway, so with him away, the situation at the mansion should be easy enough to handle. Right now, it was much more important to thwart the plot in front of him. It wouldn't be wrong to call it a matter of national security, even.

Thus, Itachi followed after Hikan while making sure to stay just outside his target's awareness, wanting to make sure that his suspicions were indeed correct before confronting him. Also, even though he was confident that he was stronger than his opponent, there was no reason not to approach the situation a bit more cautiously considering his current state; not only had Itachi used a much larger amount of chakra than necessary a to create a clone that followed Shino and Kiba in order to protect them as good as possible, but he also just created another one just now which also needed a notable amount of chakra to proceed with the next step of the plan he and Akihito had agreed upon when Itachi agreed for his team to take care of this problem.

So, while he wasn't exactly running out of it any time soon, his reserves were lower than he would have preferred before fighting another Jōnin – them being weaker than him notwithstanding. That meant caution was the name of the game right now.

It was only when they were getting closer and closer to the end of the forest with nothing but the mines ahead of them that Itachi decided this was proof enough of his target's ultimate objective and moved to act.

A single hand sign signalled the murder of crows that was still flying above them to act, and a moment later, they struck.

They didn't fly straight towards Hikan but instead briefly accelerated their speed to overtake Itachi and Hikan both before plunging down in a curve to approach their target from ahead.

To his credit, Hikan didn't panic, and neither did he hesitate for even just a second. The moment he noticed the crows, he stopped in his tracks and jumped down from the tree branch he had just landed on, clearly wanting to get closer to the element most of his Jutsu were likely based upon. The fact that he was already flying through hand seals while still in mid-air reinforced this suspicion even further.

Unfortunately for him, his actions played exactly into Itachi's hands.

During the short period where he was in free fall, his movements were as restricted as they could be without him being outright tied up, and due to the commotion Itachi's crows were causing, Hikan was not only distracted but also unable to hear the sound of the weapons Itachi had thrown at him from behind flying towards his back.

He was still a Jōnin, however. One didn't rise to this rank without developing a sixth sense for such things. Consequently, Hikan managed to simultaneously shoot mud out of his mouth to stop the crows from reaching him while also throwing a look over his shoulder in time to adjust his body in a manner that allowed him to either avoid the kunai and shuriken coming his way outright or use the sword that was strapped on his back as a shield to block them.

What he didn't notice until it was too late were the wires attached to the projectiles.

"Katon: Ryūka no Jutsu!" (Fire Release: Dragon Fire Technique)

Before Hikan had the chance to do anything about it, he was immobilized, and barely a second later, just when his feet touched the ground, the flames of Itachi's technique, guided by his wires, hit him, exploding in a blaze of fire.

Itachi's eyes remained on the spot where the fire was still burning, his Sharingan searching for even the slightest of details.

Then he suddenly drew another kunai with an attached explosion tag and threw it at a seemingly random spot on the ground about two dozen metres away from him.

The paper bomb went off the second the weapon touched the ground.

This time, Itachi didn't have to search for his opponent as he jumped out of the dust cloud a moment later, none the worse to wear aside from some meaningless scratches here and there.

"Impressive," he praised the man as he landed in front of him, sword drawn and his face twisted in a scowl. "Using the flames of my own technique as cover to disappear underground using one-handed hand seals and trying to escape while I am distracted was a clever strategy. However, I'm afraid I can't allow you to leave just yet."

Hikan wasn't a particularly intimidating person; he was tall and lean with a forgettable face and short brown hair and wore regular shinobi attire, including a grey flak jacket. All in all, there was nothing outstanding to him, his most notable feature being his sword. Consequently, when his scowl deepened, it did little to faze Itachi.

"Can I take from your presence here that your team never left the area in the first place?"

Itachi merely tilted his head in agreement while thinking about how to best approach this fight from this point forward. He would prefer to end this with a Genjutsu as that was the easiest way to capture the missing-nin, but against a Jōnin, anything short of one cast through direct eye contact would be foolish. With Hikan being smart enough to avoid that, however, and considering Itachi's currently relatively low chakra reserves, Taijutsu was the only realistic option he had available to him. Not necessarily a problem, of course, but an annoyance for sure.

"I knew you would become a problem the moment you arrived," Hikan scoffed. "Gouzen and Yuwaku are already taken care of, I assume?"

He was clearly fishing for information, but Itachi saw no reason to conceal this detail. "They are."

"That's just wonderful. Not that it is much of a surprise, mind you. Their abilities were always rather subpar."

"And yet you were working with them."

"There's a tool for every task just like there is a task for every tool. They just so happened to fit for this one."

Itachi hesitated for a moment, carefully thinking about what his next words should be. Then, "In that case, does your presence here mean you were the right tool to enforce Sunagakure's interests in this area?"

It was only a hunch, a theory without any evidence or proof based on otherwise unrelated and unimportant things, but judging from the slight widening of Hikan's eyes, Itachi had hit the nail right on the head.

That wasn't what mattered right now, though. He or maybe the ANBU could interrogate the man at length later. For now, he had to focus on actually capturing him first, and the moment of surprise at his comment gave him the perfect opportunity to launch an attack.

Itachi closed the distance between them in an instant, and the fight would have ended then and there were it not for the pair of hands that shot out of the ground and tried to grab him by his ankles.

He managed to avoid them, but that short delay was all it took for Hikan to get a grip on himself and attack as well, swinging his sword in a small and efficient arc towards his neck.

Itachi took a single step back to dodge the slash, then a second and a third when spikes burst out of the ground beneath his feet, and ultimately a big leap to avoid being sucked underneath when the earth all around him transformed into a swamp while simultaneously throwing several kunai with attached explosion tags to both cut off Hikan's escape attempt and force what he assumed to be the man's clone out of the ground.

Not waiting for the resulting dust cloud to dissipate, he rushed forward again the very moment his feet touched the ground.

A second later, he found himself ducking beneath a sword slash while throwing his fist towards Hikan's ribs only to have his arm redirected by a kick from his opponent's clone and a second sword aimed at his neck.

Pulling his head in, he felt a breeze as the vertical cut missed him by a hair. Not letting that deter him, Itachi then continued by shifting his weight forward and moving into a handstand to throw a kick against the first figure's arm to redirect the sword that otherwise would have sliced him in half.

He then pushed himself into the air, twisting his body to let the sword that had nearly decapitated him earlier pass harmlessly by as the second figure yanked its weapon up after him whilst using his momentum to land a kick to the head of its bearer.

The head immediately exploded into chunks of rock, and the rest of the body followed shortly afterwards.

Thanks to his Sharingan, there had never been any doubt about which one of them was the clone and which wasn't.

Rather than staying upright, Itachi let himself fall into a crouch to dodge the slash that greeted him when he came back down before immediately following that up by trying to sweep Hikan's legs away. The man stepped to the side to dodge, but that gave Itachi enough time to straighten up, putting them on equal footing once more.

Drawing a kunai, he blocked another sword slash to his head and then another to his waist while continuing to push forward, trying to close the distance between them as much as possible to make Hikan's sword more of a hindrance than a boon, but his opponent obviously expected that. It was, after all, a well-known tactic against sword users, so he would obviously have a way to deal with it.

However, that was exactly what Itachi wanted, and it was when Hikan tried to counter this tactic that he struck.

Letting his sword fall to the ground, Hikan tried to surprise him by suddenly pushing forward instead of falling further back, consequently reducing the distance between them to almost nothing.

Itachi allowed his opponent to slap the kunai out of his hand to lure him into a false sense of security while using his other hand to stop the knee that was about to plunge into his stomach, knowing that it would be suspicious if he allowed Hikan to succeed with both his objectives.

Following that, in what must appear like a somewhat desperate counter, he threw a punch toward Hikan's face which Itachi allowed the man to stop by letting him grab his wrist.

Theoretically, this was a terrible position to be in. With basically no room to move, disarmed, and caught in a tight grip that stopped him from moving around freely, there should be no easy way for Itachi to avoid being stabbed by the kunai Hikan had just summoned into his free hand. Even if he used his own free hand, the one with which he had blocked his opponent's knee just a moment ago, the best he could hope for was to redirect the weapon and thus limit the damage he would receive.

Practically, on the other hand, things were a bit different.

This was proven half a moment later when Hikan gasped in pain and involuntarily let go of Itachi's wrist whilst his own hand hung limp in the air.

The reason for that was the chakra scalpel surrounding Itachi's now-free hand that had cut through the nerves and muscles of Hikan's wrist.

Hikan was too experienced to let the pain stun him, but with his movements no longer restricted, Itachi managed to avoid the kunai without any trouble. Not stopping there, Itachi then used their direct proximity to do the same he had done to Hikan's wrist to his upper arm, rendering the entire limb useless.

Now it was his opponent's turn to desperately lash out while trying to fall back, but that attempt was easily foiled when Itachi grabbed his wrist.

With them standing too close to use kicks, his one arm held in a tight grip to restrict his movements, and his other one useless hanging to his side, there was nothing Hikan could do when Itachi jerked his head up with his free hand to look him straight in the face.

The moment their eyes met, Hikan found himself in an illusionary world and tormented with the sensation of having metallic spikes driven through his body.

"Well then," Itachi said, keeping his expression and voice deliberately cold, "why don't we have a little talk?"

Neishin was quite content with how things had played out. Yes, the fact that it wasn't Sudou who came to their 'aid' but a team led by Itachi Uchiha had been unexpected, but ultimately, it had turned out for the best. He had even been able to use the unexpected situation to his advantage and advance his plan even further!

Yes, in the end, things didn't just go according to plan but actually even better than that.

It wasn't that he had any grudge against Hirate Akihito. He had served the noble as adviser and master of the treasury for many years just like he had served the man's father many years before that, and he had been treated fairly by him during all that time. As eccentric as Akihito might be, no one could claim he didn't take good care of the people that worked under him.

That was also the reason Neishin didn't plan to kill him. It would be much more practical to do so and then use his daughter and rule through her, but he respected the man and his family too much to do so. Instead, he would simply force his compliance by threatening his daughter – he had, after all, no way to know that he would never really hurt the young girl. This was still cruel in a way, of course, but Neishin considered it the by far more generous approach.

And just like that, the final phase of his plan that he had been carrying out for nearly a decade now had finally begun.

There were three crucial steps that needed to be taken right now, and that was what he had hired the group of missing-nins for. As much as he would have preferred to let his own men carry them out, that was far too risky. They might be loyal to him or at least willing to switch to his side for the right price, but at the end of the day, they might still falter when it came to certain tasks such as these.

First, he had one of his mercenaries go get Akihito's daughter, Nezu. With her in his hands, the noble would have no other choice but to do whatever he told him to. Why none of his men could do this should be obvious; kidnapping a little girl was not something just anyone could bring themselves to do, especially when the girl in question was not only the daughter of a man they had no ill will against but also someone they actually knew well and, in some cases, were even fond of.

Second, he had another of the mercenaries go take care of Mikata. The captain of the guards needed to be taken out of the picture if Neishin wanted to take over, after all, and while he respected the other man for his dedication to his duties, their relationship was nothing more than professional. He wouldn't lose any sleep over his death.

That fool had made this part laughable easy for him, too. Due to Mikata's insistence about solving the 'mystery' of the boar attack himself, he was currently far away from the mansion and any possible eyewitnesses. Neishin could simply arrange for him and his most trusted men to be killed out there in the wilderness and no one would ever suspect him.

And finally, the last one of the missing-nins would go and cause some, well, accidents in the mines. The narrative he was trying to sell was that they were slowly but surely drying up and that Akihito had ordered ever more extensive mining operations, so such accidents would be expected and only reinforce his story even further. Furthermore, it would be easy to use the resulting deaths to weaken Akihito's popularity in the town, taking away the man's support there as well.

Once these three things were taken care of, Neishin would have all the pieces he needed to fulfil his plan – just as had been promised by his backers.

It was with these joyous thoughts that he and six of his men walked into Akihito's office to put him under house arrest.

"Neishin? What is going on? Why are you-"

"Please do not be alarmed, Akihito-dono," he interrupted him, knowing full well that his words would do little to calm the man considering the soldiers that had followed him into the room were in the process of subduing the one guard that had been in the room with him before he could even draw his weapon. "By my honour, I promise no harm will come to you as long as you cooperate."

Akihito was backing away as far as he could until he stood with his back to the wall, only his big oak desk standing between him and the seven intruders. "Cooperate with you? Neishin, what in the name of all that's good is going on here?!"

He gave the man a swallow bow, honest grief in his eyes when he looked up again. "I'm afraid this is what people generally call a coup d'etat, Akihito-dono. My deepest apologies, but I am taking control now."

"You can't possibly-"

"As you will see soon enough, I very much can do this, yes."

It was at that moment that two more figures entered the room.

"Nezu!" Akihito exclaimed as he tried to jump forward only to be stopped by two spear tips pointed at his chest. "Sweetie, are you okay?"

Considering the girl had a piece of cloth over her mouth, she couldn't reply, and the missing-nin's hand on her shoulder stopped her from running towards her father as well, but her tear-stained face said everything that needed to be said.

"Neishin!" Akihito yelled, his earlier fear forgotten now that his daughter was involved. "How dare you treat my daughter like this?"

He couldn't say he blamed him for reacting like that. He himself was less than pleased by this development. "Yuwaku," he addressed the kunoichi reproachfully, "was it truly necessary to gag her? She's a child. Don't tell me she was too much for you to handle normally."

The way her face twisted in displeasure was more than enough to express what exactly she thought of his opinion, although there was something off about it that Neishin couldn't put his finger on. It was almost as if the expression was, well… less elegant than what he was used from her. Say about her what you want, but she was indeed a very beautiful woman that managed to make even the ugliest of expressions look good.

However, he had no time to think about this further before she replied.

"I could take care of her just fine," she said with a disdainful scoff. "You said not to hurt her, though, so I thought it better to gag her. Her endless screaming really makes you want to punch her lights out, y'know."

He briefly considered arguing with her before deciding against it. It would be useless anyway, and this was indeed better than having to listen to the girl's screams. At least Yuwaku had done as she was told and not actually injured her.

"You won't get away with this!" Akihito said through clenched teeth. "There are over one hundred guards in the mansion alone. You can't possibly hope to overwhelm them all, even with the help of mercenaries."

"Well, right now, there are only about forty guards present," he gently corrected his former superior. "The rest rode out with Mikata, remember? Our admirable captain took his men to recover the corpses left behind by the boar attack, find eventual survivors, and possibly even kill the boars themselves, leaving less than half of his men behind. Although calling them 'his' men is a bit of a stretch, of course, considering a bit more than half of them actually answer to me."

To be more precise, twenty-eight of the forty men left behind were on his payroll. Mikata had taken the rest of the men Neishin had bribed with him, meaning they would be lost soon enough when Gouzen killed the captain and all the soldiers with him.

"You may have the advantage right now, but as soon as Mikata returns, he will-"

"He will do nothing. I arranged for him and the men with him to be killed. They will never return. And even if they would, they might find that they don't have as much as an advantage as you might think, Akihito-dono." A small, smug smile crept onto his lips. "You see, all these guests we currently house, the supposed relatives of the victims we buried last week, are actually mercenaries as well. No ninja, of course. That would have been way too expansive. But mercenaries all the same."

He could see in Akihito's eyes the moment the realization set in, almost making him laugh out loud. "The boar attack… don't tell me that was your doing as well?"

Now, Neishin wasn't an idiot. Telling Akihito all the details of his plan would be nothing less than stupid. However, boasting at least a little bit should be alright, shouldn't it? After all, he had spent many years working towards this very moment. He should be allowed to enjoy his success.

"But of course it was! Just like pretty much every bandit attack and any other incident that plagued our trade routes for the last few years, I arranged for this as well. There's no better way to make you look incompetent than arranging for mishaps during the delivery of our goods, is there?"

Doing that had actually been a bit like a walk on a tightrope:

On one hand, he needed to cause enough problems to leave no doubt about Akihito's incompetence when he ultimately deposed him and took his place at the top, but on the other hand, he couldn't cause too many problems lest Konoha or maybe even the daimyo decided to replace him with someone more capable. Neishin was quite proud of himself to have pulled that off so successfully.

"But why would you do all that?!"

He softly shook his head. "As much as I would love to explain my reasons to you, there's really no time for that. My men are taking control of the mansion as we speak, and I have many other matters to attend to. A transition of power requires a lot of work, after all." He bowed once more, intending to express his respect for the other man one last time. "Now, if you would please follow my men back to your rooms, I would be most thankful. Just do as you're told and I promise that neither you nor your daughter will be harmed."

It visibly frustrated Akihito to be unable to do anything about his situation, and Neishin felt honest pity for the man. It must be hard to admit one's own loss. Unfortunately for the noble, however, he had no other choice but to do just that.

"I think this is quite enough proof, don't you agree, Akihito-dono?"

Neishin had barely enough time to be surprised at the sound of another voice speaking up before everything around him began to spin.

A moment later, not only the six men accompanying him but the female missing-nin and Nezu as well vanished in thin air while two new figures he recognized immediately appeared on both sides of Akihito.

"You despicable worm! I always knew you were a slimy piece of shit, but even I would never have expected for you to fall so low!"

Itachi watched as Mikata, the captain of the guards, took a step forward as if to strike the other man before he got a grip and limited himself to that exclamation.

"Mikata?" Neishin muttered disbelievingly. "What are you doing here?" It was then that he realized that he couldn't move. "And what is going on with my body? Where are my men? And-"

"You're still under the effect of my Genjutsu," Itachi spoke up before Mikata had the chance to. "We hoped to find out more details about your plans, but as you clearly intended to leave it at that, switching to merely speaking with you like this while keeping you immobilized seemed to be a more sensible approach."

"Genjutsu…?" For the first time since Itachi's team had arrived at the mansion, Neishin's face distorted into an ugly scowl, but even that couldn't hide the budding panic he was obviously feeling. "I don't know what you're still doing here, but if you know what's good for you, you will let me go this instant! My men-"

"Your men are being detained and taken to the cells as we speak," Mikata interrupted with a dark chuckle. "I suspect they're not putting up much resistance either."

Neishin looked even more panicked at that, and hopelessly confused too, but no one bothered to explain the situation to him.

The truth was that at this very moment, every single resident of the mansion was caught in Itachi's Genjutsu. It wasn't a very powerful one, nothing that even a regular Chūnin couldn't break out from, but for civilians, that was more than enough. The technique in question was similar to the Temple of Nirvana Technique that he knew had been used in the previous timeline to put a stadium full of people to sleep during the invasion of Konoha. However, rather than using feathers falling from the sky as a medium, Itachi used his crows to amplify and carry the technique over great distances.

Thanks to that, the captain's men, which Itachi had deliberately left alone, didn't encounter any resistance as they moved through the mansion and arrested Neishin's underlings.

As to why the captain and his men were here in the first place, well, Itachi had sent a clone to his camp in the forest to warn him. Thanks to the letter Akihito had provided him with, the man had actually believed him and immediately returned to the mansion with most of his men, leaving only a skeleton troop and a double to deceive any potential spy Neishin might send out after him. It would, after all, have been annoying if the traitor realized that something was wrong before they could snap the trap shut around him.

Sneaking the guards in question back into the property had been somewhat troublesome, but that too had ultimately been no big problem thanks to his Genjutsu making them all but invisible to the people guarding the gate.

"I recommend not to expect your hired missing-nins to be of much help to you either," Itachi spoke up just when Neishin opened his mouth. "My team is taking care of them as we speak, so they won't be in any position to come to your rescue even if they were inclined to do so to begin with."

The desperation on his face was growing by the second, and no matter how hard he tried to hide it behind an angry scowl, he was fooling no one.

"Why, Neishin?" Akihito said, his voice grave. "Why would you betray me like this? Have I not always been fair to you? Have I ever mistreated you?"

The immobilized man let out a shaky laugh. "This has nothing to do with you at all. Not everything revolves around you, you know. This is merely business, no hard feelings involved."

"Business? What kind of business is this supposed to be?!"

Neishin didn't reply, and if he could, Itachi thought he would probably already have turned his head to look away by now. As that wasn't an option, he instead settled for simply closing his eyes while remaining mute.

Akihito didn't take that well.

"When Itachi-san told me a week ago that he suspected you of being a traitor, I didn't want to believe it," he said, his voice tight and his hands clenched into fists. "Even when he explained his reason to me and the truth became more and more apparent, I wanted to believe in you. I wanted to believe that there would be a good explanation for all of this.

"When he explained that it would take someone with great insight in our logistics to arrange for so many ambushes on our caravans and incidents on the streets, I wanted to believe that it were mere coincidences.

"When he told me of the suspicious circumstances on the scene of the boar attack and the report his students gave him about the survivors camping nearby with all our goods while talking about some secret 'boss' they were working for, I wanted to believe that it was someone else.

"When I found out that the people we buried were actually clones created by shinobi rather than real people, I hoped that they were the real culprits, and when Itachi-san showed me the letters you had hidden, I wished against reason that they were just trying to set you up, but-"

"Wait, my letters? Where did you find them?"

Itachi felt pity for his client; Akihito was clearly hit hard by the betrayal of someone he had trusted all his life, but rather than feeling bad about it, Neishin only bothered to react to his words when the letters were mentioned.

"I suggest the next time you try to keep it a secret that you own a second house in the town under a different name, you chose someone else than your aide to carry your documents back and forth to you."

Itachi had carried out an inspection of the entire mansion as soon as he and Hinata had arrived, but back then, he hadn't found anything suspicious. Certainly nothing incriminating as letters speaking of betrayal. In the end, it had been thanks to Hinata that he found this trail. She had taken her 'failure' during their arrival here to heart and consequently tried her hardest to stay vigil, resulting in her using her Byakugan regularly to check the area for anything suspicious, and it was during these checks that she found out about the suspicious behaviour of Neishin's aide. After all, sneaking in and out of Neishin's room in the middle of the night, three nights in a row, was no normal behaviour.

After that, it wasn't hard for Itachi to follow after him and find Neishin's secret house and the letters and documents within, and while there was nothing that outright proved his traitorous actions, Itachi was more than capable of reading between the lines.

Neishin, apparently seeing no other choice, visibly closed off. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Evidentially having enough, the captain stepped forward to threateningly loom over him. "Oh, so you don't want to admit it? Fine. We have ways to make you talk."

"I will tell you nothing!"

"We will see about that."

Itachi very much doubted the man would truly be able to endure a serious interrogation. Not that it mattered anyway. The Yamanaka Clan had much more efficient ways to find out the truth, and there was no way Neishin could defend himself against them.

Until then, however…

A crow came flying through the open window, landing on his shoulder and presenting him with a small note in his beak.

"What is it, Itachi-san? Did something happen?"

It was Akihito who addressed him, clearly looking for an excuse to avoid looking at Neishin.

"It seems my suspicion was correct. The leader of the group of missing-nins tried to set up a number of explosions to cause the collapse of several mine shafts. He has been beaten and captured before he had the chance to go through with that, of course."

Akihito's shoulders slacked. "That's one good news, at least. And what about the other two?"

"I have a clone with my students who observe Mikata-san's men in the forest, so judging from the fact that it didn't dissolve yet, we can assume everything went well on that front. My other student is watching your daughter and has the support of two ANBU, so the fight over there should already be over as well."

"That's good," he replied, the relief on his face plain for everyone to see. "Very good indeed."

Itachi nodded, but his mind was elsewhere. After all, the note had said more than what he told Akihito, and it was the other pieces of information he had kept to himself that bothered him. Until now, he had assumed Neishin acted out of self-interest. That he wanted to remove Akihito and take his place by taking the role of guardian of his daughter.

He had concluded that Neishin's plan was to paint Akihito as a well-meaning but incompetent fool who had mismanaged the mines and its trade with Konoha. By causing problems for the caravans, he made it look like Akihito couldn't protect his own goods, and by causing accidents in the mines and making it look like they were drying up, he made it look like Akihito's mismanagement had almost resulted in them being shut down entirely.

By asking Itachi to deliver a message about it to the Hokage, he had also made himself look like the only reasonable person present. A logical successor once Akihito was dismissed, so to say.

Until he got the crow's message, he had assumed Neishin's goal behind that was to carry out an inspection of the mines that showed that it wasn't running dry at all as soon as he was in power, claiming the reason for why it looked like that was – again – because of Akihito's incompetence.

Following that, he would rebuild the mines and stop his own attacks on the caravans to make himself look competent, resulting in him reaping all the profit the position brought with it.

All the money he had hidden on other accounts under a different name could easily be explained as the profit he had made by selling the goods that had supposedly been stolen on the black market, too.

With this new information he just got, on the other hand…

What exactly is Suna's role in all of this?

"I think we have heard enough from him," Mikata said with a dismissing scoff as he turned away from Neishin. "Let's throw him in a cell."

The eyes of the man in question became wide. "You can't do that! You fools, you have no idea who-"

Itachi interrupted him. "One of the very first things I taught my students was to always accurately judge their own abilities against their opponent's before they engage in battle. To only engage when they know they stand a chance." He raised one arm. "You were clearly never taught this lesson. Your mistake was to continue with your plotting even after my team arrived. If you were wise, you would have put an immediate stop to all your plans the second I stepped foot onto this property."

Then, before the other man could reply, Itachi made a single hand seal to put him to sleep.

Next, let's go and see how Shino, Hinata, and Kiba are doing.

It was time to finally finish this mission.