Sasuke's eyes snapped opened. The sharingan activated not a minute afterward. He also released it almost as fast. It hurt. Chakra exhaustion. It was a state he was familiar enough with to recognize immediately.
He had failed to kill his brother. Again. And again his brother had spared him. He would have cursed or slammed his fist against something like one of his teammates, but he rarely did such things, and certainly not in a public place like a hospital.
"But I dun wanna eat vegetables…"
Sasuke blinked, then turned his head slowly to stare at the orange blob off to his right. He blinked again and the image focused into Naruto slumped over in one of those rickety hospital chairs, absolutely sound asleep and apparently dreaming about fighting off vegetables.
Sasuke almost smirked at it. Naruto always talked in his sleep. Ever since they were little. It was an interesting way to occasionally get information out of him. Sometime he let slip things in his sleep that he would never admit to awake. His fear of vegetables, however, was a well known fact. Sakura had enlisted Sasuke in her quest to force Naruto into two servings a day. It was sort of entertaining coming up with new ways to trick Naruto into eating them. Some of their plans had been quite elaborate. And Naruto always took it as a challenge.
"Wake up, dobe."
Naruto snorted, tried to roll over in his chair and ended up rolling off of it onto the floor. There was a dull thunk. "Sasuke-teme?" a muffled voice replied.
"Get up here, dobe and tell me what the hell happened."
Naruto's yellow mop of hair popped up over the side of Sasuke's hospital bed. "You're awake."
Sasuke forewent the sarcastic reply. "What happened? Where's Itachi?"
Naruto flinched and Sasuke scowled at him. "Um, not here," he finally replied.
"Where?"
Naruto scowled and looked away. "Dunno. ANBU guys chased him beyond the village walls. Lost him after that." He turned back to stare at Sasuke. "You okay?"
Sasuke ignored him. "I remember ANBU finally arriving."
"They said you were both pretty worn out by then," Naruto winced. "And the outside of the house is really torn up. House ain't too bad though, mostly just the grass and stuff outside."
Like he cared about the stupid house.
Naruto shrugged. "The ANBU guys ganged up on him, but he didn't stick around or anything. Took off running once they showed up."
Sasuke closed his eyes. His fists were clenched and he still had to struggle to keep in the impulse to break something. "He got what he came for," Sasuke hissed.
"Huh?"
Sasuke slowly opened his eyes just enough so that he could see Naruto. The other young man was standing alongside Sasuke's bed, his hands fisted over the bed sheets at the edge. Sasuke closed his eyes again. "He was in my father's study." Naruto had been helping him clean enough that he ought to know what his father's study looked like, how much was in that one room.
"Do you know what he was looking for?"
"No," Sasuke replied. Now he had a whole new collection of fresh memories for that house. The image of Itachi rifling carelessly through his father's things, completely unconcerned with the history of that place or Sasuke standing in the doorway. The sight of new kunai buried deep into the walls. The burn mark down the hall that Sasuke made. The burn mark in the foyer that Itachi made. The sight of Itachi standing in the street under the moonlight once again. "But I know where he was looking. Which part of the study." Sasuke unclenched his fists and started to push himself up. Something was wrong with his right arm, but not enough to stop him. The wave of dizziness and sharp pain in his chest was more difficult to ignore.
"Stop being stupid, teme," Naruto growled out. "Tell me where and I'll go look."
Sasuke shook his head slowly. "I know-"
"And you can tell me where and me and Kakashi-sensei will go look."
Sasuke blinked and turned to stare at him. "Kakashi?"
Naruto smiled that stupid smile he always did. "Yep! He's just outside the room. Sakura'll be right back and she can check you over and make sure you ain't broken any more and Kakashi-sensei and I can go check while she's doing that cause I've been in there before and Kakashi-sensei's good at figuring out stuff and by the time Sakura's done will be back and tell ya what we found, hm?"
Sasuke stared at him for a moment, trying to picture Naruto combing through his father's things. There was something not right about that. There ought to be something not right about that. But it was Naruto, and he did not belong anywhere but that had never stopped him before. Naruto knew how important this was. He would not mess this up. That was not his ninja way, after all.
"Alright," Sasuke replied, and after quickly explaining to Naruto roughly where Itachi had been looking, he laid back down and closed his eyes.