CHAPTER VII

SOSEI

Sosei's black porcelain owl mask and hooded cloak blocked the wave of rainwater that had begun to pour down from the dim night sky. He darted through the underbrush, tracking his target as best as he could with his Sharingan. He had considered it a miracle that he had been able to catch up with Tsuigeki and also understood that he was running headlong into a trap. A trap, he surmised, had to lead directly to Yashagoro. A trap that he was eager to spring.

"You just don't quit, do you?" Tsuigeki's voice carried over the rain. Instead of getting drawn into the sound of his voice, Sosei focused on the sound of the rain. The Uchiha took in a deep breath and expelled a fireball deep into the forest. The light of the flame illuminated the trees and Sosei saw Tsuigeki.

He darted towards the hooded figure and drew his sword. A kunai came to Tsuigeki's hand and he blocked the blade. Sosei imagined a smirk under the blank white mask.

"Persistent bastard…" Tsuigeki muttered.

Sosei sparked his sword with lightning and swung down, cutting through the knife and sending Tsuigeki to the ground. He saw Tsuigeki's mouth move but focused on the sound of the rain, instead of what he knew was one of his genjutsu clicks. This time, Sosei smirked underneath his mask and he imagined that Tsuigeki's face had fallen.

The Chidori sparked in his hand, chirping loud enough to echo through the forest. The lightning trail caught pieces of tree and sliced through the falling rain as Sosei descended towards Tsuigeki. His Sharingan guided his hand as he aimed for Tsuigeki's heart.

Something hit Sosei so hard that it launched him far off of his trajectory and through the trunk of a tree, splitting it down the middle as he tumbled to the ground. Sosei's mouth gaped open as he gasped for air but nothing came in. He felt pieces of wood lodged in his ribs and his back as well as the warmth of his own blood dripping down his legs. The Uchiha rolled over and crawled from in between the split tree onto the forest floor. The rain cooled his hot flesh and he felt himself being able to breathe, despite the pain.

Wheezing, Sosei could only see through blurry eyes two pairs of feet in front of him. One belonged to Tsuigeki while the other belonged to a person Sosei didn't know. They had long black hair tied into a ponytail and the same cloak that Tsuigeki wore. The figure turned around and looked at Sosei's downed body and the Uchiha let out a silent gasp when he saw a pair of Sharingan staring back at him.

His mind flashed back to the destroyed laboratory that he and his father had traveled to in order to save Takuma. He remembered how every vessel containing a Sharingan had been broken and the eyes within stolen. He remembered Yashagoro had forced his father's hand and made him lose his composure. How if Yashagoro was somehow a reincarnation of Orochimaru, he possessed his lust and thirst for power and the key to that power lay in the Sharingan. And Yashagoro had stolen the Sharingan from the laboratory.

Prideful anger festered in Sosei's heart and he slowly pushed himself to his feet. The Chidori flashed in his hand and he staggered forward. Yashagoro turned to him, Sharingan eyes glowing behind the mask. Generating as much chakra as he could, Sosei charged forward, yelling.

Yashagoro disappeared and reappeared behind him, nearly too fast for Sosei's Sharingan to register his movement. Before Sosei could turn and strike with his Chidori, he felt the bones in his right arm crack. The Uchiha's eyes widened, looking down to see that Yashagoro had kicked his arm so quick and precise that it had snapped it instantly. Through the holes in Yashagoro's mask, Sosei could see and feel the cold aura of the Sharingan staring at him. Something about the appearance of the eyes seemed off though. They looked as if they were-

BLACK.

Sosei felt the cool sensation of rain falling on his face and heard through a muffled filter the sound of voices talking around him. His eyes slowly flickered open, and blurry shapes came into focus. For a brief moment, he thought his father was hovering over him with a concerned look on his face but the visage was far younger and less hardened. And Sosei didn't remember his father knowing any healing jutsu. Blinking, Sosei came to a slow realization and he felt tears well up in his eyes.

"Kichiro…" he mouthed, the word straining against the dryness in his throat, leaving his mouth in silence. His little brother's Sharingan eyes shifted to him. The sclera were reddened as if he had been crying. Sosei's fingers twitched and he gulped. He felt his body giving out again. He had to say something else but only one word came to his mind. "Takuma…"

He heard Kichiro whisper, "Don't talk," before he passed out again.

Floating in between consciousness and death, Sosei dreamt of his life in Konoha with his family, maintaining the peace with his team and spending time with Kichiro, Hikari and Takuma. It was his life, albeit one twisted by his hopes and dreams rather than the reality that would await him when he awoke. The image burned in front of him in a blue flame that morphed into Yashagoro's pupils. All Sosei heard was the man's cackle, so loud and disturbing that Sosei could only cover his ears and yell to keep the sound out of his brain.

Sosei rose up out of his bed, wide-eyed and panting. He heard the sound of his heart monitor rapidly beeping before finally settling down as he took in his surroundings. It was night outside now and his room's dim light source came from the streets outside. Sosei activated his Sharingan and looked around the dark room, settling on a symbol that rest on the wall in front of him. It was the Konoha leaf. He frowned and started to get out of bed.

Then there was a knock on the door, followed by a soft creak as it opened.

"S-Soso…" The voice was different. Older and a fair bit more mature than Sosei remembered but he recognized it immediately and turned around. Standing in his room was Kichiro, tall and muscled underneath his short-sleeved shirt and Hikari, growing into a beautiful young girl despite the fact that her face was twisted and wet with tears. Sosei felt the tight anger in his chest loosen as his little sister ran over and hugged him.

Sosei pulled her close and enjoyed her embrace before resting his eyes on Kichiro. Hikari backed away slowly and looked from Sosei to Kichiro. Sosei ground his teeth.

"Why?"

Kichiro raised an eyebrow. "Why?" he repeated.

Sosei pointed around the room and then outside. "Why did you bring me back here?" His voice raised a little although he tried to maintain his cool, at least for Hikari's sake.

"You were going to die," Kichiro said, an odd absence of emotion in his voice. "I had to bring you back so someone could heal you."

"You were healing me. Before I passed out again, I saw you. Don't lie to me." Sosei thought to stand but shifting his weight to his legs caused more pain than he wanted to bear. Instead, he got back in his bed and stared out of the window, remembering Tsuigeki barely escaping and that mysterious figure with the odd-colored sclera and Sharingan. The only path he had to Yashagoro. "I was so close to finding him and you've thrown me off the trail. Why the hell did you bring me back here?"

"Because those were his orders." Another familiar voice, warm yet stern. The tall, blonde Naruto strode into the room with a light smile on his face. Sosei read it as confidence. "Nice to see you're awake, Sosei. It's been a while." The Uchiha nodded in agreement, never shifting his eyes away from his little brother. There was a certain look on his face that Sosei had trouble registering. It was sad, but angry as well. Something told Sosei that Kichiro had issues with him being back in Konoha as well but he had the sneaking suspicion that it wasn't the same reason he had.

Sosei sighed and laid back in his bed. With the Hokage in the room and his legs feeling weak, there was no way he was going to attempt to break his way out. "Just tell me what the hell you want," he said softly and gruffly.

Naruto chuckled softly and shook his head, before he folded his arms. "Some things don't change." Sosei detected those words as a reference to his father but ignored it. Naruto continued. "I understand that for the last five years, you've been tracking down Yashagoro and his group. Konoha intelligence has been doing the same and covering more ground, however I'm sure your knowledge of the underground workings will do well in combination with our own information."

"No," Sosei said flatly. Naruto's facial expression changed only slightly, his casual smile drooping to a flat line. He looked at Hikari and Kichiro.

"Could you two give Sosei and I a little privacy?" he asked. It was a polite order and Kichiro obeyed. Hikari followed after him, turning back to look at Sosei with wide, green eyes before the door closed behind her. Sosei heard Naruto sigh as he stepped closer to his bed. "I know it hasn't been hard for you since...you left. Takuma's death affected everyone in the village. And I know you feel that Yashagoro is responsible…"

Only partly. Sosei thought darkly.

"But in order for us to find him and find out what it is he's been planning for all of these years, we need to work together."

Sosei raised his eyes to meet the Hokage's. "I was doing fine on my own. I was close and I had a lead before you threw me completely off his trail."

"Your wounds said otherwise," Naruto retorted. "I'll be straight with you. When you left Konoha, it was fully within my right as Hokage have you added as a criminal in the Bingo Book and send squad after squad of ANBU Black Ops to kill you. Instead, I understood why you felt you had to go. But you leaving has caused much more damage to those you love than anything Yashagoro has done."

Instinct and anger activated Sosei's Sharingan as he glared at the Hokage. What he was doing now may as well have been a threat to the commander-in-chief of the most powerful shinobi city on the planet but he was past caring. "What about what your friend has done to my family?" he spat. "Sasuke abandoned Takuma to die and left Kichiro in the hands of a child molester. You think I'd stay here living within any proximity of a man who only cares about family so long as they fit his perceived version of who they should be?" He turned his gaze away from Naruto. His body was shaking and the heart monitor was noisily echoing through the now silent room. "I didn't want to come back here. I wanted to find and kill Yashagoro and if I died in the process, so be it. At least Takuma would have been avenged."

The Hokage seemed to take this in for a brief moment and Sosei wondered if his burst of emotion had shocked him. Finally, Naruto nodded. "I figured it was something like that." He turned away and walked towards the door. "I won't force you to work with us, but I'll have you know that time is really precious here." He left the door cracked, letting a bit of light crawl towards Sosei's bed.

Sosei sighed and he leaned back on his pillows, mind racing before it suddenly paused. Aori. Where was Aori? He turned towards the door and thought to yell for Naruto to return but by now, he was sure that the man was well outside of earshot. The Uchiha clenched his jaw and closed his eyes. He could only hope that she was safe in Kiri.

Exhaustion eventually won out over his worry and Sosei found himself sleeping again. When he opened his eyes, the sun was shining through the blinds. The Uchiha raised a hand to block the rays from his eyes.

"You're awake again," Kichiro said. Sosei turned to see his younger brother reading a medical book next to his bed. His onyx eyes looked up to meet Sosei, again a mixture of sadness and anger.

"It appears so." Sosei sat up in the hospital bed and stared at the wall. He cut his eyes to Kichiro and saw his brother still staring back at him. "What are you staring at?"

"You. You look like shit."

Sosei chuckled. "Someone's gained a colorful little vocabulary."

"That's what five years as a shinobi will get you," Kichiro replied with a hint of gruff sarcasm. Sosei almost wanted to grin. His brother was a tough guy now.

"Well, you've gotten bigger. Almost didn't recognize you." It was a partial truth. Sosei just didn't want to admit that he had thought their father had come to save him. It was laughable.

Kichiro nodded absently and then sighed softly. "I didn't want to bring you back. I didn't want to come and find you at all." Sosei raised an eyebrow at his brother's words.

"What do you mean?" he asked. Kichiro frowned and looked up at him. There was a spark of anger in his eyes that took Sosei by surprise.

"You abandoned me and Hikari. When we needed you and your support the most, you left. I lost two of my brothers in the same week, Sosei. And after you said what you said at Takuma's grave, Mom and Dad weren't the same. They didn't talk to each other and when they did, it was always an argument. Dad would leave for weeks on missions or go to the Spot just to get out of the house. Eventually, they just decided to split apart."

Sosei gulped at the news and sighed softly. "Kichiro, I…"

"What? You're sorry? You have no idea what you leaving did to our family. Hikari needed you, brother. I needed you." Sosei fumbled in his mind with words to say only to come up with nothing at all. His attempt to apologize had been shot down and he felt anything else he'd try to say would be as well. The Uchiha let the silence sit for a while until Kichiro spoke again. "But when I did find you, I was relieved. Because it meant that you were alive and Dad was wrong about you."

Sosei frowned. "What do you mean?" Kichiro shook his head.

"He convinced the Hokage that you had a part to play in the attack on Kiri so we were sent to bring you back home for questioning, only to encounter the people who were really responsible," he said. There seemed to be something that he was holding back and despite his attempts to hide his emotions, Sosei could read his little brother plainly.

"You believed that too, didn't you?" he asked.

"Only a little," Kichiro admitted. "There was an attack on a small village outside of Konoha and one of the victims said that the lead attacker had eyes like mine."

"The Sharingan." Sosei nodded to himself. In his rage at the time, he had thought that the person was Yashagoro but in retrospect, he hadn't felt the same cold chakra he usually did from the man. Besides, if Yashagoro had acquired the Sharingan, he wouldn't have missed the opportunity to taunt Sosei with that fact. "Whoever that person is, they're the ones that left me impaled on a tree, bleeding in the woods." There was something about their Sharingan eyes as well. The odd-colored sclera had seemed decayed, but Sosei couldn't put a finger on why that was.

"I fought someone with the Sharingan in the forest before we found you," Kichiro said. Sosei looked over at his brother and saw him staring at the ground. His shoulders were shaking as if he were trying to keep himself from crying. "I managed to cut a bit of their hair from one of my attacks and when I looked at it, it was jet black." Sosei immediately thought that the information confirmed it was Yashagoro but the way Kichiro looked up at him now, he knew he was wrong.

"What are you saying?"

Kichiro wiped his eyes. "When I looked over it with my Sharingan, the color of the chakra signature in the hair…" he paused and shook his head. "It...it matched Takuma's."

The room seemed to freeze and Sosei's breath was caught in his throat. He wanted to say something, to laugh off Kichiro's words as crazy suspicion but something about them rung oddly true to his ears. Then his mind flashed back to the color of the person's sclera. Black and decayed. Sosei's eyes widened. He had heard of a long-since forbidden jutsu from the Fourth Shinobi World War that had brought back the dead to wage war against the living. He stared at Kichiro.

"But how? We watched Takuma's body get burned on the pyre. If what you're saying is true, whoever brought Takuma back would have needed to have a significant part of his DNA to bring him back and there was nothing left of him except ashes," Sosei said.

"I don't know. But I do know what I saw. I'll never forget the color of Takuma's chakra. It was him." Sosei didn't bother to debate Kichiro. His younger brother had spent more time with Takuma than he had. But something, besides the fact that one of his brothers was possibly an undead puppet just wasn't sitting right to him.

There was only one person on the planet that he knew was evil enough to even attempt to perform the ritual necessary to bring back Takuma and Sosei knew that the only reason Takuma could've been brought back was simply to torture them. This undead though was much taller and stronger than Takuma had been when he died. For a brief moment, Sosei thought that perhaps, another Uchiha had been dug up and brought back but he and his family were the only ones on the planet with any viable DNA still remaining, the others being either dead and buried or spirits that evaporated into the next life.

Sosei raised his eyes to the ceiling and sighed softly. There had to be someone that could help them but at this point, it was too sensitive a topic to bring into the open. Perhaps, if he cooperated with the Hokage, he could find the answers he sought and then he and Kichiro could discover whether the undead shinobi was Takuma after all.

The Uchiha looked to his younger brother and dipped his head. "Let someone know that I want to see the Hokage," he said. "I've made my decision."