"I do not hate Orochimaru for trying to take my eyes. That much I expected from him. I am insulted because he thought he would succeed, wretched worm that he is."
– Fragment of discussion between Itachi Uchiha and Unknown, encoded using Special Cipher #35. The rest of the conversation could not be recovered from the spy's remains.
-O-
"Why did you want to meet so late?" Sasuke asked.
Ino patted the space on the bench beside her. It was dark in the park, but the rain had dried and Sasuke was warm enough despite the hour. He sat.
"There's nobody else around, and no-one will come for a good while," Ino said softly. "Besides, I've posted lookouts."
Sasuke stared at her. "Since when do you have lookouts? Do you mean Shikamaru and Choji?"
Ino chuckled. "No, they're not my team-mates."
That was new and, if Sasuke was honest with himself, somewhat worrying. He didn't have time to consider it too deeply because Ino wasn't done talking.
"I'm going to explain some things to you. I wanted to do it this evening because it will give you a chance to think it over before tomorrow. If you're acting too disturbed around Kakashi, he'll pry your secrets out of you," Ino explained, matter-of-fact. "All those questions you had about Itachi? Now's the time to ask them, because once you hear the rest of what I have to say, you'll be a little preoccupied."
Sasuke had been waiting for this conversation for a while. Even the dark hints about other goings-on weren't enough to distract him from the thoughts that had seared their way into his brain.
"Why did he do it?" The question had kept Sasuke up at night for so many years. He was almost afraid of finding out the answer.
Ino sighed. "I know of at least a dozen times Itachi was asked that question, by different people and in different situations. He's given several different answers, and I don't know if any of them are true. I'll list them off, together with my own thoughts."
Sasuke swallowed the lump in his throat and gestured for her to continue.
"As far as his new allies are concerned, Itachi killed the Uchiha clan because he wanted to test his strength, and only another Sharingan could give him the challenge he craved. But," Ino raised a hand to forestall Sasuke's interruption, "a missing-nin called Kisame learned more from him. Itachi spoke about fighting an Uchiha who dedicated his entire life to killing him."
"That matches what he told me," Sasuke said. The words still echoed, almost a decade old but no less damning for it. Spend the sweat of your brow, crawl in the dirt and cut deals in the shadows. Bleed so that you may grow strong. One day we will meet again, Uchiha against Uchiha.
Ino's voice dragged him back to the present. "He claimed to have created an avenger. But he also called himself the 'heir of Madara', and the whole story might have been an elaborate lie to cover up his real motivations. I doubt this is what truly moved him; Itachi is jealous with his secrets, and wouldn't offer them up so freely. Even to an ally, or even to a friend."
Ino looked over at Sasuke, but he ignored her, staring straight ahead.
"On three occasions, Itachi told operatives sent by the Leaf that he killed the Uchiha clan because they were planning a coup against the village. He has also sometimes claimed it was on the orders of either the Third Hokage, or councilman Danzo Shimura. Danzo runs an organisation of ninja and non-ninja called Root, whose existence is an S-rank secret, but Itachi would have known about them due to his work in ANBU." Ino patted Sasuke on the shoulder. "The Uchiha could never have succeeded with a coup, and would have known that, so I think this one is also unlikely."
"What's the next story?" Sasuke asked dully. Even the thrill of an S-rank secret that he really wasn't supposed to know failed to distract him.
"Itachi told Orochimaru that he killed his relatives to unlock a further secret of the Sharingan. There's an element of truth to this, as there is in all good lies. I believe Itachi already had the secret before the massacre happened. But I also think this is the closest story to the truth."
"So my family was killed for one of four reasons: Itachi thought they would challenge him, Itachi wanted me to challenge him, the whole clan wanted to betray the village, or he thought it would give him more power." Sasuke's head was swimming. He felt sick. Whatever the truth was, it brought him no satisfaction, no release.
"I can't tell you what's true, or how to feel. I can only pass on what I've learned."
"Where did all this information come from?" Sasuke asked, exhausted in a way that promised a sleepless night. "It's so detailed."
Ino waited a moment before answering. "This knowledge that I gained, I don't know the source. I have my suspicions, but for now that's all they are. But there are events unfolding that spell the doom of a continent, and Itachi is key to many of them. My theory – and it's only a theory – is that this isn't the first attempt to fix things, and my future memories are gathered from several different futures."
That sounded just like Itachi, to bring the same ruin to the world that he visited on his family. Sasuke supposed there were more questions raised by Ino's statement, but right now he couldn't bring himself to care.
"How did he manage to kill the entire Uchiha clan by himself?" Sasuke had activated the Sharingan just over a month ago, and was still a novice in its use. When he imagined an entire clan equipped with such a powerful tool… a single chunin should never have managed to defeat them all, no matter how skilled.
Ino grew stiff at his side. "Before I answer that, I need you to tell me something. And be honest. If killing Naruto, or Sakura, or me, or Kakashi, would give you the strength needed to kill Itachi, would you?"
"Never." The word was out before Sasuke had even thought about it. His voice deepened in anger. "Why would you ask something like that? What sort of person do you take me for?"
"There is a more advanced form of the Sharingan, called the Mangekyou Sharingan. It appears in very few Uchiha, and only if they have… let's say lost… someone close to them, in a violent fashion. Itachi has this special power, probably since the death of Shisui Uchiha."
"Shisui died a few days before Itachi killed my family," Sasuke said slowly. The pieces fit. "And that's why you think he was lying to Orochimaru. Unless… what if he thought there was another layer to the Sharingan, one that required even more violence and loss to trigger?"
Ino nodded. "That seems plausible. There's no way to know, though, at least for the moment."
"The Mangekyou Sharingan is so horrible I don't have words for it," Sasuke muttered.
"What other questions do you want to ask?" Ino prompted him after an eternity of silence.
Sasuke roused himself from his dark imaginings. "What has Itachi done since leaving Konohagakure, and how did he stay ahead of any pursuit?"
"There is an organisation called Akatsuki. There are several S-rank members who all fled from or betrayed their ninja villages, as well as rank-and-file mercenaries. The S-rank leadership all wear black cloaks with red clouds.
"Itachi joined them shortly after fleeing the village. Even so, he would have been killed by now – the Akatsuki carry out frequent missions for cash, giving opportunities for Leaf ninja to assassinate him – but the leaders always travel in pairs. Itachi travels with Kisame Hoshigaki, one of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist, and an S-rank threat in his own right."
Akatsuki was the same organisation that was after Naruto, and they were so dangerous that Lord Jiraiya didn't trust Konohagakure's safety measures any more. Sasuke felt like throwing up as he realised the scale of the task ahead of him. "So killing Itachi also means finding him when he's away from the rest of these Akatsuki, and either killing or distracting his partner."
"At least Orochimaru's no longer a member," Ino said, patting him on the knee. "It could be worse. He and Itachi are more likely to fight than to work together."
That really was good news. If he were facing both of Konohagakure's legendary traitors, Sasuke might as well start by digging his own grave.
"Who else is in Akatsuki that I need to worry about?" Sasuke asked.
"I have files and notes. You'll get a chance to analyse it all in detail, but the main one to watch for is the supreme leader. He goes by Pain."
And finally, the most important question. "What are his weaknesses?"
"Itachi has mastered every aspect of the ninja arts. Whatever's going on inside his head, it's not made him any less deadly. But there is one point in your favour – time. The Mangekyou Sharingan makes you blind, and the more you use it, the faster the process happens," Ino said. "Itachi's eyesight is already poor and it gets worse every year."
It was a punch to the gut and a lifting of the weight on Sasuke's shoulders, all at once.
"He's going blind?" he asked.
Ino nodded. "In another few years the process will be complete. Don't be complacent, though. Even without his eyesight and without his Sharingan, Itachi Uchiha is an S-rank threat and a juggernaut on the battlefield."
"Still," and Sasuke paused for a moment to consider the implications, "he must know that he's racing against the clock. Which means he's going to be twice as dangerous."
Ino placed an arm around Sasuke's shoulders. "I have a question for you as well."
"Don't you have all the answers already?"
She shook her head. "This is something you've never wanted to speak about before."
And just like that, Sasuke knew what she was going to ask. Red eyes in the shadows, a flock of crows morphing into a man, even the dogs were torn limb from limb. "The massacre. You want to know what he did to me."
Ino nodded, her pale eyes boring into his darker ones. "I might be able to help you overcome some of the trauma. And there are things about Itachi I could learn, that make him easier to track."
The first part was of no interest to Sasuke, but the second–
"I won't talk about it today. I've learned too much for one evening. But one day you'll get your answers." The words were freeing. Apart from an abortive attempt with a therapist when Sasuke was a child, he hadn't spoken about the massacre. Ever.
An owl hooted nearby, jarring Sasuke from his ever-darkening thoughts. "You mentioned lookouts?" he asked, hoping to break the silence.
"I mentioned Root earlier, right? Councilman Danzo has been secretly expanding the organisation and using them to cement his grip on the political landscape of Konohagakure. I may have subverted that extra division using some foreknowledge about code words and the like." Ino grinned. "There's only a dozen of them in the village right now, and they're fairly busy with other work. But I was able to put two of them on lookout duty for a few hours."
A chill ran down Sasuke's spine as he was abruptly reminded how dangerous Ino could be. Tenten had beaten her handily, in front of an audience, earlier that day. But the Yamanaka had never been physical powerhouses, had they? He was sharing a bench with a woman who controlled her own private militia. Ino casually doled out secrets that men had killed and died for.
He was glad that they were on the same side.
-O-
"So what's the plan?" Naruto asked the next morning. They were at their usual meeting place in one of Konohagakure's forested training grounds; as usual, Kakashi was late.
Sasuke shrugged. There were bags under his eyes and tangles in his hair. "What do you want to do?"
"I don't really know. Sakura, what about you?" Naruto asked. There was a smudge of dirt on his cheek, although how he'd managed to get his face dirty while walking around Konohagakure was a mystery to Sasuke.
"We're taking a break from training today, because of the tournament yesterday. I need a chance to recover. And we can't exactly complete a mission in a single day, so let's just relax," Sakura said.
Any sort of physical labour would be a punishment from the deepest pits of hell in Sasuke's current state. A day of rest was perfect.
"Why don't we track down Lee as well?" Naruto suggested.
Visions of an exhausting chase followed by youthful exercise flashed through Sasuke's tired brain. He knew something needed to be done, and fast. "Why don't we head up to the hot springs? We could all use a hot soak, I think."
"That sounds boring!" Naruto complained.
Sakura, meanwhile, flushed red before as she put two and two together. Sasuke pretended not to notice the way she looked over at him.
"Let's do it," she said, eyeing him hungrily. "You mean for us to use one of those mixed baths, right, Sasuke?"
Naruto shifted gears just as fast as he glanced at Sakura. "What are we waiting for?"
Despite his perverted teammates' preferences, the actual bath was so steamy that Sasuke was in no danger of losing his innocence. It would have been funny if he weren't so tired.
"This is nice," he said as the hot water melted away the tension in his back.
Apart from Team Seven, there was an old man with bushy hair and scars all down his front – Sasuke immediately knew him for a ninja, most likely retired – and two middle-aged women chatting about a new type of tea import that was taking the teahouses by storm. Sasuke supposed most folks would still be at work or school. He sank deeper into the water, until it reached his chin, and drifted there in the stillness just before sleep.
A wavelet splashed over his mouth and nose and he spluttered back to wakefulness again.
"Oops," Naruto said, giggling from where he'd just flopped into the pool.
"Remind me again why I'm supposed to be sad you're leaving?" Sasuke complained, but his heart wasn't in it.
Sakura slid into position behind him and grabbed his head, dunking him underwater before he had a chance to react. When he came up, hair plastered to his skull and water streaming off his face, she waved a finger at him. "Be nice, Sasuke."
He was about to say something cutting when he realised that she was very close. While the water was too murky to see past his own navel, Sakura had things that sat higher up on her body. He tore his eyes away and stared at a point past her shoulder, but he couldn't wipe the memory from his mind. His face burned.
"Careful, Sakura, you'll get us kicked out," Naruto whispered. The two middle-aged ladies were staring already, although the old fellow had his head resting on the poolside and was snoring. Naruto blanched when he spotted him. That was curious – Sasuke wondered how Naruto knew someone so elderly.
Sasuke tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention. "Are you alright?" he mouthed, barely audible over the faint sounds of water.
"Let's go somewhere else," Naruto said at a normal volume, jerking his head at the sleeping man. "And there's no point playing cute and sneaking around next to one of the Sannin. We might as well be loud."
"This is as much of a surprise for me as it is for you," the man – Lord Jiraiya – said without opening his eyes. His voice was deep and strong. "I know what you're thinking, but I'm not following you, kid. If I were you would never have seen me."
So that was what a legendary ninja looked like. Sasuke stared, entirely uncaring of whether he was being rude. There was muscle hidden under Jiraiya's scars, although wrinkled skin and thick chest hair covered much of it. For a man who must be close to eighty years old, he was remarkably youthful; Sasuke would have put him at about fifty years of age.
Jiraiya's nose was bigger and wartier than the picture in the Academy textbook, but other than that there was a striking resemblance. Then he yawned and somehow his features settled into an entirely new pattern. Every part of his face looked the same, but the overall impression was of a completely different old man. It was unsettling and Sasuke shivered as he climbed out of the pool. His teammates followed suit.
-O-
Naruto was still getting dried and dressed while Sasuke waited outside the hot springs, sitting on a wooden bench under a willow tree. Sakura wandered over, her hair damp and fluffy. There wasn't quite space on the small bench for both of them, so she perched on an armrest, biting her lip.
As Sakura fussed with her headband, settling it in place, Sasuke ran a hand over his face. "Clearly you have something you want to tell me. You might as well spit it out," he said, letting a trace of the exhaustion he felt seep into his voice.
"I know it's hard losing a teammate, even just as a temporary measure, but you need to take better care of yourself," Sakura whispered, leaning in close. "You look like you've hardly slept!"
"Yesterday brought up some memories," Sasuke said, treading around the truth. He felt ashamed of using his past trauma as an excuse, even if in this case it was technically accurate.
"Before Naruto comes, there's something I wanted to suggest," Sakura said after an awkward pause. "We should buy him a small gift each, something for him to take along on his journey. It can be a surprise for him, tomorrow morning before he goes."
Sasuke appreciated the change of subject. There were a few issues with Sakura's plan, though. "Apart from food and ninja stuff, what does Naruto even like?"
"You're the fifteen-year-old boy, not me," Sakura said. "I was hoping you'd come up with your own gift."
"Well." Sasuke quashed the first thought that came to mind, and then the second one as well, before he hit on something workable. "What about a good book? He might be bored a lot, and a novel will keep him busy. Cooking books would be cruel, since Naruto can't whip out a pot and follow a recipe while he's travelling, but I'm sure there's books about ninja."
"That's a great idea," Sakura said enthusiastically.
Naruto walked out of the baths, hair tousled but almost dry already, and Sasuke was briefly jealous of his shorter haircut. "What's a great idea?"
"Sasuke was just telling me where he wanted to go next," Sakura blurted. She threw an apologetic look at Sasuke as he frowned.
He had approximately five seconds to come up with something, and wracked his brain frantically. An idea popped into his head just as Naruto started eyeing him suspiciously. "Why don't we have a picnic on top of the Hokage mountain?"
"That is a good suggestion," Naruto said. "That nice bakery with the sweet buns is nearby, we can go there to pick up lunch!"
Sasuke trailed behind the other two as they chattered about different types of pastries. The weather was nice – clear blue skies, unlike yesterday's rain – and occasionally a passing civilian would smile or wave at him. After the tournament and ceremony, he was enjoying a minor burst of celebrity. Although 'enjoying' was the wrong word; Sasuke preferred 'tolerating'.
There was a wonderful aroma of fresh-baked bread around the bakery in question, and Sasuke surprised himself by buying a big selection of bread rolls and sweets. It made for an uncomfortable package to haul up the side of the Hokage mountain, too bulky to stick in a backpack. In the end Sasuke resigned himself to letting it bump against his leg with every step.
The view at the top was worth the climb.
Konohagakure from above was a lazy giant of a town, sprawling amongst groves of massive trees that had been raised by the first Hokage. Red brick roofs sometimes sat level with the greatest of the trees, and sometimes hid in their shade. The foliage, along with some of the smaller training grounds that fell within the village proper, broke up the lived-in areas and lent Konohagakure an untamed look. Sasuke knew that from as close as two miles away, the entire village would seem to be just another part of the vast forest that stretched halfway to the capital of Fire Country. The Village Hidden In The Leaves came by its name honestly.
"It's so pretty," Sakura said. "And it gets even better in the autumn."
"Yeah," Naruto said quietly. He wouldn't be there to see it this year, Sasuke remembered.
Before the awkwardness had time to settle over them, Sasuke tried to cheer him up. "There's so many sights out there. You've seen Konohagakure in autumn before, right? Here's a chance to get something to compare it to."
"I don't even know where I'm going yet, or what Jiraiya normally does when he's travelling. It might just be old people stuff." Naruto stretched out on the grass. "But I'll worry about that later. For now, let's pretend we're just here to relax after a stressful month and nothing else is going on."
"Sounds good to me," Sasuke agreed. "So, let's change the subject. Who did you like the most out of the other contestants?"
"Definitely Temari. She's the first ninja from another village that's shown me any respect. And she said she'd make sure I got a cool nickname in Sand," Sakura said.
"Lee, for me. He's a bit full-on, but apart from a better sense of humour he's a great companion on mission. Strong, brave, and willing to take risks if he has to." Naruto laughed. "Of course, after a few days on the road he almost drove me crazy, but nobody's perfect."
Sasuke frowned. "I think I'll have to go with Tenten. She really ought to have won our match, and that's without any bloodlines or whatever-the-fuck was going on with Gaara. Her skill, and the training it implies, is honestly breathtaking."
He turned and glared at Naruto as he caught a faint crunching sound; he'd had his eye on one of the pastries in particular. Naruto smiled sheepishly around a mouthful of crumbs and wordlessly offered Sasuke and Sakura the rest of the bag. The food was delightful and they lay there, watching the clouds drift by and eating their way through the selection of treats.
Sasuke almost drifted off to sleep a few times, but occasional bursts of laughter from his teammates kept him awake. It was a nice atmosphere; with Naruto's endless energy, there was no need for Sasuke to respond to everything, but both Naruto and Sakura left him openings to join in the conversation if he wanted. After so much time together, they'd settled into a comfortable rhythm that fit like an old coat.
They joked about their last mission together, about Kakashi's reading habits, about the exams and the tournament, stories from the Academy and hopes and dreams for the future. Sasuke kept his heavier thoughts to himself, so as to not spoil the mood. His own plans were bloody and short. The sky was darkening now, and the sun hurled orange-and-red streamers out from the horizon. The town below was cast in bronze by the light.
Naruto stared out across Konohagakure, wistful. "Today's been great, but that just makes what comes next feel even worse, you know?"
"It's the only home any of us have ever known," Sasuke said. "But that doesn't mean we need to stay here forever."
He was surprised to find that he meant it.
"I should probably go – I haven't packed yet and tomorrow morning will be bad enough even if I sleep well," Naruto said. He took off down the side of the cliff, and Sasuke sat and watched the sunset for a few minutes. Sakura was beside him but he still felt lonely.
Without Naruto, the small meadow was just too quiet, and Sakura's lingering affections towards him were a physical wall between them. Sasuke couldn't so much as pat her on the back without risking her reading too much into it. And she couldn't offer him a hug for much the same reason. And guilt and anger at the whole situation – the awkwardness that had been staved off by having Naruto around, the loss of someone who had sometime, somehow become Sasuke's closest friend – made for a heady cocktail of emotions.
By the looks of things, Sakura was struggling with something similar. She stood abruptly and informed him she had unspecified things to do.
Sasuke watched the sunset a little longer, until he remembered about Naruto's present. He leapt to his feet. There had to be at least one shop that sold books and was open in the evenings, right?
On the way to the shopping district, Sasuke stopped off at the Hokage Tower to file some paperwork. It took a bare ten minutes to fill out the form and hand it to a secretary. Despite the late hour, there was still a steady stream of ninja entering and leaving the building, some wearing the distinctive masks and jackets of ANBU.
There were exactly two shops that Sasuke visited regularly, and neither sold books, so he wandered down a couple of empty streets before he found a shop that had what he needed. It wasn't a bookshop per se, but amongst the cluttered shelves was an overflowing bookcase. Sasuke flicked through half a dozen books before he found one that looked suitable; he hoped Naruto would enjoy it. It was about ninja, at least.
-O-
The gates into Konohagakure were open from dawn to dusk. As Sasuke watched with the rest of Team Seven – bar one member – a pair of chunin hauled them wide apart, the hinges creaking the whole time. A solitary farmer with a cart full of parsnips was waiting on the other side. Clearly a regular visitor, he nodded at the guards once and then prodded his donkey to get it moving. Sasuke wondered who needed parsnips at such an ungodly hour, then put it out of his mind.
"Where's Kakashi?" Sasuke asked.
Sakura frowned. "Kakashi said his goodbyes already."
"Yeah, he let himself into my flat this morning while I was brushing my teeth. Apparently he's got a meeting with the Hokage later," Naruto said. "But how did you know about that, Sakura? Are you stalking me?"
"I just know a little bit about how he thinks," she said, pulling a face at the thought of stalking Naruto.
Sasuke decided not to point out that he'd once caught Sakura snooping around the Uchiha district at night. She'd claimed to be looking for a lost cat, but he hadn't believed her.
"You have one minute until we're leaving!" Lord Jiraiya shouted, interrupting them.
Unless Sasuke was very mistaken, Naruto's eyes were a touch wet. He nudged Sakura with his foot before the whole affair devolved into tears and snot.
"Oh, right! We wanted to get you something for when you're travelling," Sakura said. She held out a small present, carefully wrapped in yellow paper and tied off with a red ribbon.
Naruto smiled softly as he accepted it. He tore the wrapping paper off with no regard for decorum whatsoever and Sakura had to stifle a wince as he revealed a small wooden box filled with tea leaves. The lid opened after a brief struggle with the catch and Naruto sniffed at it before his face lit up. "This is the good stuff! Thanks, Sakura. I'll think of you whenever I make some."
"It can be a little taste of home," Sakura explained. She threw her arms around him and pulled him into a tight hug. "Be careful, alright? I'm gonna miss you."
"I'll miss you too, both of you," Naruto said, holding her tight for a moment longer before letting go.
"Here," Sasuke said as he thrust out the book he'd picked. "I didn't realise we were supposed to wrap our presents."
It was a slim paperback, easy to stuff into an already-full bag or slip into a pocket. The Tale of the Gutsy Ninja, the title on the cover screamed in bold orange letters.
"Thanks," Naruto said, blinking much faster than normal. He hugged Sasuke as well, and while it was still an uncomfortable feeling, Sasuke found it less unpleasant than he expected.
"Daylight's wasting," Jiraiya said.
Naruto smiled at them both again, then started walking out the gate. "Keep your hair on, old man, I'm coming already! Just cause you need to take a nap at noon..."
As Naruto's bickering faded out of earshot, Sasuke frowned. A tiny part of him wanted to go with them – no, that wasn't quite right. A tiny part of him wanted to swap places. Lord Jiraiya had learned and invented dozens of new ninja techniques. He was an S-rank threat and rumour had it that he'd toppled the government of Grass in a single afternoon. While drunk at a brothel.
Sasuke wondered how different Naruto would be when he came back.
-O-
"You wanted to see me?" Sasuke asked, kneeling before the Hokage in his private office. It was an unfamiliar position for him, but he suspected he knew what the meeting was about. Making a good first impression was critical.
The Hokage was holding a piece of paper that Sasuke recognised. "Yesterday, you applied to join Konohagakure's ANBU forces."
"Yes, sir."
"How much do you know about ANBU?" the Hokage asked.
Sasuke shrugged, then regretted it. He was trying to look professional, after all. "ANBU is the Hokage's personal bodyguard. Regular chunin and jounin are allowed to choose their own missions and teams, and as long as they meet certain quotas they have a lot of freedom. However, ANBU answers directly to the Hokage and acts as his eyes and ears. And, on occasion, his knife."
The Hokage nodded. "Broadly correct, in terms of duties. However, the pay is better and the danger is less if you don't sign up. So, apart from patriotism, why do so many ninja join?"
That stopped Sasuke up short. "I don't know."
"The biggest draw for new ANBU recruits – other than a chance to directly serve the village – is the training they receive directly from the Hokage. There's a reason that most of the Leaf's jounin were ANBU once upon a time," the Hokage said. "Don't misunderstand me; the organisation is large enough that I cannot spend much one-on-one time with each member, but outside of cutting deals with individual ninja who know something you want to learn, ANBU is the fastest way to improve your skills. You would also have access to some of the hoarded knowledge of the Hokage's office. Jutsu, training regimes, physical enhancements, seals, weapons… there is much that is not permitted into general circulation, for security reasons."
"I didn't know that," Sasuke said, thinking fast. More instruction from the Hokage, together with all those juicy secret techniques, could propel him to new heights in a few short years. It had worked for Itachi, after all. His stint as ANBU captain had brought a lot of pride to the Uchiha, as well as new skills.
The Hokage stared past Sasuke, at the village below. His skin was paper-thin and veins protruded from his wrists; Sasuke knew he was old, but at that moment every one of those years sat on him like a physical weight. "The reason I am explaining this is not to encourage you to join. I know our sessions have come to an end, but I enjoyed them a lot. Teaching someone with the skill and intelligence you displayed was a pleasure, and I would like to continue in the same vein. So before you join ANBU, perhaps we can come to an alternate arrangement."
Sasuke wasn't foolish enough to think this was a spur of the moment plan. The Hokage had likely been angling for a specific outcome since before he'd offered to train Sasuke for the tournament. All that remained to be seen was whether he wanted to accept.
"My grandson, Asuma, has no interest in learning from me. My great-grandson is too young for what I have to teach. Had he a few years more, or I a few less, we would not be in this position, but alas. The world is not overly kind, and does not care for the whims of men. And so, if I want to pass on anything to my family, it must be via a proxy. Someone young enough to want to learn, skilled enough to keep up, and," the Hokage met Sasuke's eyes, "with a bloodline that means decades of experience can be compressed into months. In short: I am looking for an apprentice, and I want that apprentice to be you."
"And you want me to then teach your great-grandson Konohamaru in a few years time, and pass on your knowledge?"
"Yes. You would need to agree to that in advance. I don't ask this of you lightly, but I'm running out of options, and I will see my family protected. There isn't much of it left." The Hokage wrung his hands and for a moment Sasuke wondered if the man had lowered his guard, if Sasuke was seeing what the ruler of the village looked like when the walls came tumbling down.
But there were obvious holes in the plan. Sasuke paced back and forth as he thought. "What if your skills are a bad fit for me, or Konohamaru refuses to learn what I have to teach?"
The Hokage spread his hands. "If the agreement falls through, and you are not at fault, it will not be held against you."
"I have to think about this," Sasuke said. There were too many moving parts, and too much had happened already in the last few days. He needed a week's sleep to get the fog out of his head.
"Take a few minutes to decide, by all means, but I need an answer tonight," the Hokage said. "There are things moving that I cannot speak of, but must address soon."
If the Hokage had meant to give Sasuke time to think, he would have made the offer earlier. There was a reason for the pressure Sasuke was under, although he couldn't think of what might be achieved. The Hokage wouldn't want an unwilling apprentice, or to scare off a strong candidate. What might be forcing his hand?
Then again, the Hokage had spent decades outmanoeuvring entire countries when it came to scheming and politics. Whatever was going on, it would take Sasuke more than five minutes to get to the bottom of it.
All he had to go on, right now, was the offer on the table. There were ninjutsu that only the Third Hokage, sometimes called the God of Shinobi, knew. And not just ninjutsu; seasoned jounin told stories of forbidden techniques that the Hokage of Konohagakure could call upon in times of need, pacts made with gods and demons, suicide techniques that would bring back the dead, space-time techniques to warp the nature of reality itself. Hiruzen Sarutobi had fought in the two bloody wars and come out the other side without even a scratch. It was entirely possible that he alone was the reason Itachi had fled Konohagakure on that fateful night instead of killing until the village was knee-deep in blood.
"Alright," Sasuke said, and again, "alright."
"I take it you've made up your mind."
"I have."
"What's your answer?"
"Yes," Sasuke said, and let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. "So do I sign a contract or something?"
"You will be placed under my direct command. You will work hard to learn from me. Konohamaru will receive instruction from you, effective immediately, so that you can build a teaching relationship. In exchange, I will pass on as much of my accumulated knowledge as I can, before my demise." The Hokage held out a separate sheet of paper, with his signature already placed at the bottom. "Those are the key points of the agreement. The draft document is ready."
After he'd picked up a pen, Sasuke didn't bother reading the fine print. If he couldn't trust the Hokage, who could he trust? He signed on the dotted line with a flourish.
"Excellent. Wait outside the Hokage Residence and I will be along shortly. Dismissed."
Sasuke nodded, bowed, and headed outside. It was a short walk to the Hokage Residence and soon he was waiting impatiently, foot tapping against the floor. A scant hour had passed since Naruto left the village, and already things were changing. And it seemed that for a Hokage, 'shortly' had a very different meaning.
Half an hour later, the Sandaime joined him. "I will keep this morning's session brief. My schedule is busy, but of the many things I wish to teach you, some require more supervision than others."
"Is this the bit where I have homework?" Sasuke asked, half-smiling.
The Hokage laughed. "That's one way to look at it. You've learned the first step towards a mastery of wind, yes? And likewise for fire?"
Sasuke nodded. "I'm further along with fire, though. I learned it when I was young, and practiced a great deal over the last few years."
"Then we will focus on fire and," the Hokage pulled out a pair of scrolls, "earth, for the moment. I expect you to read both of these by tomorrow. You will ask any questions you have, and then we will spend half an hour practicing together. From that point onward, you can train this in your own time. We cannot dawdle."
Sasuke took the scrolls. "Is that all I'm doing today?" he asked, trying to keep the disappointment from his face. It was a heavy workload, but nothing he couldn't have gotten from Kakashi.
"You don't have a staff with you. Are you still interested in learning bojutsu?"
"Yes – I haven't replaced the staff that was damaged during the Chunin Tournament yet," Sasuke said.
"Then I expect you will find the rest of this morning to be very instructive. Well, I'm not as young and spry as I once was, so you won't be learning the more physical ninja arts from me directly," Sarutobi said. "I wish you luck, though."
He leapt away, towards the Hokage Tower, and left Sasuke standing in the courtyard, confused. That confusion morphed to anger as a length of wood bounced off the back of his head. He snatched it out of the air and turned to see who his attacker was.
A heavyset orangutan with huge cheeks was sitting in the dirt and staring back at him, impassive. It held a staff in its hands and, as he watched, it poked at the dirt with the end. Sasuke held his own staff in his hands and wondered whether he was supposed to attack it.
At last it hauled itself to its feet and whipped its staff through a crisp set of blows and parries. "What are you waiting for?" it asked, voice deep and mellow.
"You know, I've been asking myself that for the longest time, and I really don't have an answer," Sasuke said, and struck.
