Sasori heard the explosion before he saw it. He slowed his car, pulling over to the side of the road and called Baki.
"That was the manse." Came Baki's voice over the phone.
"How many?" Sasori asked.
"None, it was a setup.
"So a three-man team at the most, do we know who?" Sasori wanted confirmation.
"Oto." Baki's voice came over the phone.
"I'll meet you at the gate." Sasori hung up his phone and pulled back onto the road.
He saw the destruction as he got closer, it was more contained to the village office and municipal buildings than the civilian sector. His family manse was on fire, but mostly intact. Baki was walking toward his vehicle as he threw it in park and got out.
"We have two men. I knew you would wish to interrogate them yourself." Baki led the way to the back of a tall windowless building by the gates.
Sasori saw both of the men stiffen in their seats at the sight of him. A small smile curved his lips. He would be lying if he said he didn't enjoy this part.
"Blind fold the one on the right and bring me my bag," Sasori told Baki who had already anticipated his needs, placed a bag next to Sasori on the table.
The men were tied down to separate chairs. Baki blindfolded the one on the right and pulled his chair away from his friends'.
Sasori pulled his bag open and pulled out a syringe and a small vial of neon green fluid. He inserted the syringe and drew the green until it was full, tapping out the bubbles and pressing on the plunger he knelt beside the man in front of him. Sasori was relaxed, careless even as he looked at the man.
"This doesn't have to be painful. I have other things I want to be doing right now. I just want to know, why did Orochimaru send you to blow up my village?" Sasori asked him calmly.
"I'm not going to fucking tell you shit you little bitch." The Oto man yelled in Sasori's face.
Sasori smiled, he loved it when they yelled, when they thrashed, thinking they still had some thread of control. He would strip him of such a vain assumption, crush his meager hope of a quick and painless death.
"Very well." Sasori stood up, grabbed the man by the hair and shoved the needle ruthlessly into his neck, pressing the plunger down hard inflicting as much pain as possible.
The man slumped in his seat. Baki came and untied his restraints familiar with Sasori's interrogation procedures. Lifting the man on the nearby table he arranged his arms and legs to lay straight and stepped back.
"It's a pity," Sasori spoke conversationally. "This could have been so much easier. We are past that now of course. The beauty of the drug I shot into you is that your mind remains clear. You will know and understand all that I do to you. You will feel everything, every little prick, every cut, every incision, but you won't be able to move. You won't even be able to scream."
Sasori leaned over the man's head and smiled a wicked smile. "Shall we begin?"
One small tear slipped from the man's eye as he stared blankly up at Sasori. "Excellent."
Sasori unrolled his scalpels onto the tray beside him. He cut the man's shirt away from his chest laying it bare to his gaze. "Baki, the coolers please."
Picking up the closest scalpel, Sasori cut a 12-inch vertical incision in the man's chest. With two quick flicks of his wrist two more incisions along the top of his chest and two along the bottom. Blood spilled from the openings onto the table, over the lip and splashed onto the floor.
Tears streamed from the man's face.
"Smoker I see. That is a nasty habit, it can kill you, did you know?" Sasori pulled his severed lung from the man's chest and threw it on the floor.
"Useless." Sasori murmured as he cut out the other lung and tossed it next to its partner.
"Not a drinker I see, very good, something salvageable." He cut the liver and kidneys from the cavity and placed them gently into the cooler Baki had provided for this purpose.
Sasori tisked as his fingers slipped around the man's still beating heart.
"You're doing very well, I must say, most would have died from the shock and blood loss by now, but not to worry you will suffocate soon, no lungs." Sasori smiled again.
Reaching up into the chest cavity, blood soaking into his shirt, he grasped the heart. Contrary to what most people think the heart is rather slippery and without the other organs and tissue holding it in place it tends to shrink up closer to the collar bone. Sasori made quick work of it though and pulled it still beating from the man's remaining chest.
Sasori closed his eyes and reveled in the last two beats pulsing against his fingers, the warmth of the life's blood dripping down his arm and falling from his elbow as he held the heart up for the man to see before he died.
"Beautiful." Sasori murmured opening his eyes. He placed the heart into the cooler and closed the lid.
Baki had a wet towel in his hand and wiped the blood from the cooler handing it off to a waiting Suna resident to put in one of the many waiting vans.
"Should I wait for that one?" Baki asks Sasori tilting his head to the other man, still blindfolded.
"No, he will serve as a messenger. I am going to send him back to Orochimaru, with a warning." Sasori wiped his hands on a towel, throwing it on top of the corpse on the table before making his way to the other man.
Sasori removed the blindfold, turned the man's chair so he could see his "friend" and pulled a yellow vial from his bag and another syringe.
"That wasn't an interrogation!" The man screamed.
Sasori ignored him, humming as he removed the air bubbles from the syringe.
The man began to cry and plead. Sasori stepped back, Baki immediately stepped forward smashing his fist into the man's face. He didn't make a sound when Sasori stabbed him in the neck and pushed down the plunger.
"This is a poison of my own design. This is the antidote." Sasori tucked the smaller violet vial into the man's shirt pocket. If you take it before the fourth day, you will die. If you take it after the fourth day, you will die. You have four days to get this message to Orochimaru. Do you understand?" Sasori paused and waited for the man to answer.
"Yes." The man said.
"Tell Orochimaru, I am coming for him. Tell him, I will burn Oto to the ground, there will be nothing left. I know what he stole from me. I know he doesn't know how to use it. If he tries, he will unleash death upon the world, not just Konoha. Tell him. It is a global killer in the hands of an amateur." Sasori looked down at the man.
"Do you understand?" He asked him again.
The man nodded.
"Release him into the dessert, give him two days of water and one day of food, strip him before he leaves, but he keeps the antidote, is that clear?" Sasori told Baki.
"Yes, Sir." Baki bowed.
"Good, I need to see to the rest of the dead before they are no longer harvestable." Sasori left the building and headed to the manse.
Sakura sat on the couch in between Sasuke and Itachi watching the news. There had been several bombings in Suna, the village was engulfed in flames.
"It seems most of the damage is isolated to the government buildings here in Suna." The newscaster reported.
"No telling who is responsible as the village's private police are not commenting. No one has been allowed in since the incident and it doesn't look like that will change anytime soon, we are standing by." The camera zoomed out to show several vans leaving the heavily guarded gates of Suna, all black, all unmarked.
"This just in," The news caster's face took up most of the screen again," All fires are now under the control of the Suna fire department and the death count is assumed around 100 to 150 people so far." The newscaster pressed their earpiece into their ear.
"I've just been told that Akasuna no Dokuhebi, the clan head of the Akasuna family has perished in the bombing of the manse. Akasuna no Sasori is on sight but refuses to comment."
Sakura gasped audibly. Itachi put his hand on her shoulder rubbing it gently.
"Do we know who is responsible for the bombing Uncle?" Itachi turns to Madara who is on the other couch watching the news with them.
"Oto, Orochimaru." Madara doesn't look at his nephew his eyes focused on the TV screen.
"It appears he was focused on the government buildings and the manse." Obito comments.
"And one of the hospitals." Sakura surprises everyone when she speaks up.
"She's right," Shisui says, as he pauses the TV.
"See there in the background, they are pulling sealed boxes out of the basement there." He stands and points out the boxes and the men he is referring to.
Madara throws his head back and snorts with unhinged laughter.
"Akasuna, you sly dog!" Madara grins maniacally at the TV.
"Body parts," Madara says after he stops laughing.
"Sasori is harvesting body parts. For the black market." Madara looks at Sakura who pales.
"No." She whispers.
"We might be arms dealers but he deals in human body parts love, that's who your boyfriend is," Madara tells her cruelly.
"Enough." Fugaku interrupts anything Sakura could have responded with.
"Sasuke, Itachi, take Sakura to the other room," Fugaku ordered giving Madara an unprecedented glare and challenge.
Madara shrugs, he doesn't care.
Sakura sits on the end of the couch that Itachi leads her to, her shoulders hunched in on themselves, her hands are shaking.
"Drugs, sure, weapons, bribing politicians, okay, I was prepared for that kind of stuff but...human...body...parts…. I don't, I can't." She slumps over, her head in her hands.
Itachi sits down beside her and takes her into his arms. She rests her head against his chest listening to the beat of his heart as she tries to steady her breathing.
Sasuke is on her other side petting her hair and massaging her shoulder.
Shisui walks in with a tea tray 30 minutes later to find them much in the same position. He set the tray down, pours the tea and holds the cup to Sakura's lips.
Her hand comes up to the cup steadying it and she takes a sip. She nodded her thanks to Shisui and he sits back on his heels in front of her.
She looks around, her boys, all of them surrounding her, comforting her. She flashes them a weak smile. "I'm okay."
Shisui gets up and sits in the chair across from her. Sasuke doesn't move away but leans back against the couch.
Itachi doesn't move, if anything his hold on her tightens and she sighs into his chest, tea in hand. A small shiver runs through her body and she laughs.
"What is it Sakura?" Itachi asked her quietly, softly.
"He told me he loved me today." She broke down and cried.
Itachi took the cup of tea from her hands and handed it off to Shisui who already had his hand out to take it. Sasuke left the room and came back with some tissue for her to wipe her eyes and blow her nose with.
Itachi pet her hair and let her sob into his chest as he rocked her back and forth.
"This is what we have been trying to shield you from," Itachi whispered to her.
"There is dark Sakura and then there is our world. Some parts of our world are darker than others." Itachi continued to whisper to her.
"Drugs, weapons, information, bribes, they are all dangerous and illegal, but there are different levels of illegal Sakura." His hands had moved to her back rubbing gently along her spine to release the tension he felt there.
"Stop Itachi. Don't coddle me. I am not a child." She looked up at him pushing the hair back from her face.
Her eyes were puffy from crying and red, her cheeks were stained from her tears and pink, but her eyes burned green with...determination.
Itachi could see it in her eyes and it worried him.
"If it was Orochimaru who bombed Suna, he intentionally started a war Sakura," Itachi told her.
"Sasori, by his reputation alone, I know he will not sit back and let it unfold, he will take his retribution, he will take Oto." Itachi continued.
"You will be in danger." Shisui picked up the conversation.
"He will come for her, but he doesn't have the manpower that we do. The Uchiha are plentiful and in multiple positions of power in Konoha, it is best if she stays here with us." Shisui said to Itachi.
"He knows we will protect her," Sasuke said what everyone already knew.
"I'm not going to sit here and wait for him to come get me after he is done, what if he doesn't make it, what if he dies?" Sakura looked from one Uchiha to another.
Itachi sighed, "As loathe as I am to admit it, Sasori won't die. He'll probably go into Oto single handed and decimate the place. He will be back before you know it."
"He's, that good?" Sakura didn't want to ask but she also had to know at the same time.
No, Sasori wasn't the man she thought he was but she realized she hadn't asked him either, if she had...he might have told her. He had tried to tell her, no specifics, but she was reasonable...he had tried to tell her.
Sakura pulled out her phone.
Text message: From Sakura: I saw the news, the Uchiha told me what you are doing. Are you going to Oto for your revenge?
She put her phone in her pocket and picked up her tea, resting back against Itachi again for support.
Her phone beeped.
Text message: From Sasori: Yes, don't worry. I know what I'm doing. Stay with the Uchiha I will come get you soon, Two days maybe three. I love you.
Text message: From Sakura: I love you too.
"Can I stay here for the next few days?" Sakura started to cry again.
"Of course." Itachi said pulling her to him again, hugging her and petting her while she cried into his chest, again.