Yay, chapter update! Thank you all for sticking with me, we still have a long way to go before any romance starts or before we start digging more into Naruto's past, so I hope you will continue to be as patient with me as you have been until now. Thank you again!
"You don't look like Naruto." Kankuro smirks at me from his spot under the photo of the family we had taken a year back and hung over the living room fire place, like a tacky rich family would. I glare at him from afar and lead them further into the kitchen where I proceed to take out a pitcher of Tanaka's iced tea and serve them each a glass. Despite de dire situation we were in I could not just brush manners aside afterall.
Temari, who seemed to understand about etiquette, sat down on the bar and took a small sip from her glass, her lips pursing slightly, which I knew wasn't because of the taste. Tanaka makes the best iced tea. She was probably as queasy as I was about the whole situation. "You guys don't look like Gaara either." I mention casually as I place the pitcher back into the fridge. Kankuro growls under his breath and Temari giggles dryly. "We get that a lot," she smiles politely, her back still as stiff as a board, either from habit or from stress of the current situation, I could not say. She was as hard to read as Itachi was sometimes.
"Gaara, as you could probably tell, is our bab-younger brother. My mother died shortly after giving birth to him, so you could say he was always my father's most treasured offspring. He was always kept under tight protection, never far from our family," Kankuro sunk his head slightly, his eyes giving off a small hint of sadness at Temari's words. "He was never allowed out of our sight until recently, when he insisted on becoming more independent. He was allowed to go to school, he was allowed to have a friend." She bit her lips softly, holding back the tears her glazed eyes were fighting to release. "I know you know who we are," Kankuro put his hand on Temari's shoulder, giving her a break before she broke down, her hands pale as she held unto the counter tightly. "We don't care about our families' disputes, please, Gaara is just a kid."
I laugh dryly, making them both glare at me angrily. "So what? You come over, put on this little show, to try to convince me you have nothing to do with Naruto's disappearence?" Temari's eyes widen, her mouth hanging open as she held unto Kankuro's arm as if he was her last life line. "Wha-what do you mean Naruto's missing?"
"I mean what I mean. Naruto. Missing. Since today. Just a few hours ago."
"Is that why you left school?"
"Why else would I leave?"
"You tend to cut classes on a whim," Kankuro mumbles under his breath, "It is of little importance," Temari interjects before I have a chance to answer back, "I apologize, we were lead to believe...no matter, the problem seems to have gotten a lot worse than we would have thought. We came here in hopes of finding our brother, and now we are even more lost than before." Temari burrows her brows and stares at the glass in front of her.
"You mean to tell me, that you guys, Suna, is not involved?"
"Why would we be interested in a stupid blond kid?"
"He's not stupid!" I punch the fridge door and stare furiously at Kankuro, his dark eyes avoiding me instantly. Temari held her hands up in defense. "I'm sorry to say that our organization does not meddle in child trafficking. We aren't that evil." If they are playing dumb or sincerely have no clue about what I am talking about, I still cannot tell. Temari is hard to read and Kankuro seems to be the type to say anything just because he has a tongue that wills it so, much like Suigetsu. However, at the moment, they could be useful.
"You guys have connections with the South District and all the shady parts of the North District. Move your people and see if anyone can find out anything." Temari smirks at me, scoffing slightly "I already did, why do you think we are here?"
"Obviously your intel is wrong."
"Yes, we realize that," Temari frowns and turns to Kankuro who shrugs his shoulders at her, "we were lead to you under the orders of our father. His advisor, his trusted advisor, told us that the Uchihas were to blame. Yet here we are finding out that the Uchihas are not only not responsable, but also victims." I look down at my phone, noticing how 30 minutes have gone by without any of us doing anything useful towards finding the lost children.
"Are you really here to find your brother or to prevent me from finding mine?" I ask them directly. Temari once again holds Kankuro by the arm as he tries to lunge forward and grab me, his eyes red with fury. "Then let's go. I have someone who can help."
Kakashi looks at Gaara's photo with a slight curve in his eyes, his face hidden under the gas mask he was wearing. He had been, apparently, in the process of painting his living room for what you could say was the third time in the last 2 years. He tends to get finicky about lighting and ambiance when left alone for too long, and he has been alone for a very long time. "Naruto has a broad spectrum of taste."
"What is that supposed to mean?" Kankuro bites instantly and again Temari has to hold his arm gently to remind him to keep his cool. Kakashi merely chuckles softly, his voice a bit distortioned as it echoes through the mask. "Give a few minutes to get myself some more adequate clothing, and I'll be on my way, and no," he looks over at me and smiles with his only visible eye, "I would prefer you didn't tag along. I work better alone." He shuts the door before I could even begin to complain.
"Well, he seems trustworthy." Kankuro rolls his eyes. "That's Kakashi Hatake." Temari mentions, making Kankuro´s dark eyes widen with shock. "THE Kakashi Hatake? You are kidding me? What is he doing in such a run down house like that?" They both turn to look at me, probably expecting me to explain how I knew him to begin with.
Kakashi used to be our best agent of the Security Department. Intel, protection, escorting, he was able to do anything flawlessly and without complain. It wasn't until my father asked too much of him that he quit, taking up a job as an instructor. The things he lost while he worked for my father were irreplaceable, however, he held no ill will towards Itachi or me, much less Naruto. I had considered him like family at this point.
I don't tell them anything though. Family matters are always private.
Jugo pulls up behind Itachi's car that we drove here, making Temari and Kankuro´s chauffeur, who had followed behind us despite having been dismissed, instantly climb out of his car and stand guard. Temari sends him a small smile and turns to me again as Suigetsu makes his way to us. "Care to explain this to me? I said we would be in touch and we leave you for an hour and you are already doing things without telling us!" Suigetsu is visibly angry, though this anger is very different from the usual tantrums he throws. It's genuine. "Three."
"Excuse me?"
"You left me for three hours."
"Oh-my-god Sasuke! Can you be anymore frustrating?! Jugo! Jugo, get over here and punch this dick in the face before I do. God, get me away from him for like a second I am about to lose my shit!" he storms off towards Jugo's truck again, rubbing his temples as he goes. "You aren't going to like what we found out." Jugo speaks slowly, eyeing the Suna siblings warily before continuing, "I guess you already know that their younger brother is also involved."
A younger brother you failed to tell us about when you were digging into the Suna family. I bite back my words before I confessed to spying on Suna in front of them. Temari clutches her fan against her chest tightly, almost shakily. "Has it spread out so quickly?" she almost whispers and this time it was Kankuro holding her arms gently. Jugo shakes his head slowly. "It's not that the news is spreading..." he sends me a side glance but I nod. At this point, with the young red head also in danger, I couldn't hide potentially vital information from them. "Let's go back to my house, we can speak there. Jugo, please tell Kakashi what you know before meeting us back there. Don't be long." Suigetsu angrily stomps over to Jugo's side, refusing still to talk to me. I will have to make sure there are enough water bottles at home to calm him down.
"I didn't know Gaara had siblings...much less that he was a son of Suna." I finally admit to them as we sit in the living room waiting for Jugo to arrive. It had only been a few minutes since we got back but already the wait was suffocating. It felt like every minute we wasted was a year off of my life, and I was sure the Suna siblings were feeling the same, despite their attempts at keeping their composure. Temari as growing paler and paler by the minute, while Kankuro was become more aggresive towards the smallest of remark or expression. "We didn't know he was coming over to the Uchiha household either until recently. He had made Baki promise not to tell us, knowing that he would be forbidden from coming back if we knew who you were."
"He's a pretty smart kid if he knew right away who my family is in relation to your...group." Kankuro smiles thinly, a small shadow of pride flashing through his eyes as he puffed his chest out a little more. "He is smart, excessively smart." I understood well that pride one gets over their siblings, even if I was always so quick to hide it. "If we had known..." Temari trembles a little.
"Would it have changed anything? Suna isn't the one holding the kids hostage, and neither is my enterprise. At this point we are free to assume that it is the doing of a third party that might have something against us both." She nods slowly, feebly.
"Gaara was only just getting better after..." Temari trails off as Kankuro reaches out and squeezes her hand. "I'm sorry. Naruto has been a good friend to my brother. He was always happier when he would spend time with him. Regardless of who his family turned out to be, I am grateful that they met each other. It's just...this whole situation...I can't..." she buries her face into Kankuro's shoulder, his hands rubbing her back softly as he looks away from both of us.
I wish I was a girl too, so that I could openly cry and hide my head in Itachi's chest. But I am an Uchiha, an heir of a lineage of men that have always been known for being stoic and controlling their emotions. I can only allow my legs to tremble inconspicuously under the coffee table.
Jugo walks in after noting the absence of the usual old butler that would greet him at the door at the sound of his old car pulling up the driveway, raising an eyebrow at me but having enough sense of privacy to not make note of it in front of the other teens. Suigetsu, who was still angrily mumbling under his breath, didn't take notice of it and walked himself to the kitchen for what I can only guess is in search for water.
"Jugo is one of my best friends," a slight blush creeps into his face as I start talking but he controls it well enough, "he lives in the South District and knows a few people that, at times, tell us useful bits of information." Temari looks up at him with red brimmed eyes, her nose a bit red from the small breakdown she had. "Do you know something about our brother?"
"I'm sorry to say it is not anything especific..." he sends me a small side glance, "I can't tell you who my source of information is for obvious reasons, but I'm afraid that this was never against Suna." Kankuro leans forward, his knees almost hitting the edge of the coffee table, as if his distance from Jugo was making him incapable of hearing well.
"Gaara was at the wrong place at the wrong time...they only wanted Naruto." Temari whimpers inmediately, "so...if he wasn't necessary...if he wasn't the target...did they..."
"No, no," Jugo quickly cut in before Temari shook herself into a nervous breakdown, "I don't know how, but they know who he is. They wouldn't dare touch a hair on his head knowing he is Lord Rasa's son." She seemed to breathe easier, but she didn't relax, not yet. "We went through such lenghts to keep him outside of all this...to keep him safe...how could anyone have found out?" she spoke almost to herself.
I feel a cold hand on my shoulder before I realize that Suigetsu had come back and was standing behind me silently. His touch stopped the trembling that began with Jugo's words. Again, my stomach was trying to empty it's contents into my mouth, but it was already empty from before, only being able to make me nauseous. "...so, who took Naruto?" Jugo looks almost sad. "I wasn't able to get that part out of him. He scurried away when he saw a couple of Suna members look at us for too long."
"Tell me the name, I'm sure I can find him," Kankuro almost growls, but Jugo isn't easily intimidated. "I wouldn't betray his trust, however I did tell Kakashi everything I know and where to find him again." Regardless of who I was, what my family had, I was still just a 17 year old spoiled rich kid that couldn't do shit without getting my chest shot full of holes. I didn't have the years of experience that Kakashi had, or the spread influence that the Suna Teens held. I could only sit and listen and wait for everyone else to do their part. The feeling of helplessness that crept within my chest slowly spread out, until even my fingertips seemed to tingle with an urge to move.
"Even if Gaara wasn't the original target, he is still with Naruto, wherever they are. Finding them both is still our priority," Suigetsu pauses, giving his serious tone a dramatic spin which I know he wasn't doing on purpose but didn't make it any less annoying. "Let's focus back on that, and even more so now that we know we aren't blindly going against each other, which was obviously their intention by having us waste our time on each other." Kankuro and Temari paled even more and they looked at each other quickly. They stood up at the same time, almost in sync as they made their way to the front door hastily. "Give me your number, we'll head back first and let you know what we find out." I quickly stumble after them, almost shouting my number as they sped towards their car. "I'll send the footmen to patrol all the shady buildings down in the South District in the mean time."
"In groups."
"We'll cover more ground that way."
"And if they don't report back, well,"
"We'll know where to double check." They talk as if they were a pair of twins attached by the waist, but I couldn't tell if they were reaffirming me or themselves of their plan.
"Sasuke," Jugo calls from behind after a few endless seconds where I watched the Suna Teens' car leave my driveway. "So, who are they?"
"Deidara had been talking about being part of a group for a long time, but they weren't ever really a threat, never did anything, I assumed it was another of those small gangs that would never make it out of the District...I still don't know where they are hiding Naruto at the moment, but they are Akatsuki."
"Was it wrong to no tell them that?" I look over at Suigetsu, who held an unopened bottle in his hands, water droplets falling into the ground as the warmish air condensed against its cold surface. "They didn't tell us everything either, we'll have to wait and see if they do contact us..."
"I hate playing the waiting game...how can we be sure Naruto is even okay." I throw him an angry scowl that shuts him up instantly. No, we didn't know if they were alright, but we couldn't do much else. We had no power. We are just kids.
Itachi walks into the living room with two coffees and a bag of donuts from a local coffee shop, settling them down unto the center table and almost sighing as he looks at me. "You probably haven't been able to eat either. Sugar might not be healthy but its the fastest source of energy we can probably keep down." I continue to stare up at the picture over the fireplace. At Naruto's cerulean eyes and bright smile that stands out against mine and Itachi's mask like expressions. Was he truly happy here? Did I do everything I could to make his time with us memorable? Could he hold unto our memories right now? Would thinking of us help make all this tolerable? How scared he must be, pretending to be strong so that Gaara wouldn't panic or cry or worry. Smiling despite everything, just to give his friend hope. It was something he would do.
"Sasuke," Itachi insists after minutes of silence. And then my heart suddenly sank into the lowest part of my gut. "I think it's time you know what happened to Naruto."