Chapter 30: Breaking Broken News
"You've been doing really well," Sakura complimented as she took out her apartment key.
Naruto really was excelling at his training. Kakashi joined them on the second day, and they fell into the old pace of things without a hiccup. Much to her entertainment, both Naruto and Kakashi were astounded by her weight-training regimen and they both left her alone during meditation.
Naruto beamed. "It's all thanks to you and Kakashi! Are those more blueberries?"
They had arrived at her doorstep to find an innocuous package of blueberries patiently awaiting their owner. She had forgotten that today was Wednesday; it took a great deal of self-control not to reach inside of the basket to fish out the letter she was expecting.
"It sure is," Sakura said with a ravenous lick of her lips. They looked especially tasty after a long day of training.
Naruto made a kissy face and teased, "Are they from your boyfriend?"
Sakura reached out and tugged on his cheeks. "Sorry to disappoint you, Na-ru-to, but I'm a single woman who can get herself nice things."
"What do you mean you don't have a boyfriend?" he pouted, "I thought you and Sasuke were dating. And, I heard you speaking all sweet and soft to him in my hospital room!"
Her blood ran like cold tap water in her veins.
"I was talking to myself, Naruto. I need to take a shower, so I'll see you later!"
She scooped up the blueberries, entered her apartment, and locked the door behind her before he had time to protest. That was a close call—she could not rely on his lack of diligence forever.
Immediately, Sakura dipped her hand into the basket and pulled out the letter she had hoped to receive.
Itachi delivered.
Sakura,
You don't need to thank me for anything—it was the least I could do. I'm glad that Naruto is doing well. And yes, I can afford the lifetime supply of blueberries. Working for the Akatsuki has few perqs, but I do make a great deal of money. We have a ruthless accountant who scrapes as much money as he can out of every job we take, which makes for a nice paycheck at the end of each mission. It's almost a shame that I'll never retire.
Life with the Akatsuki has been fine. Nothing remarkable about it. I keep to myself for the most-part, unless I'm keeping the others in line. Kisame's not that bad, though. He's smarter than he seems, has a good sense of humor, and has a warrior's lust for battle. He was there when I received your first letter and I suspect that it might have influenced his behavior in Konoha.
I'm sure that Sasuke will be back soon. You have information he wants; my brother does not rest when there's something he wants and does not have. Thank you for the warning, though. I've made personal preparations accordingly. In all frankness, I will do my best to make sure that he never finds me. I hope he finds a peace of mind, but his truth has nothing to do with the rest of the world. And, so long as his life is not at risk, the rest of the world takes priority.
I hope that your transition back into regular life has been moving forward as well as it can. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help. Nightmares and thought disturbances can be relentless. I'm sorry—I will never forgive myself for what you've gone through. I only hope that time will help.
Selfishly, I'm glad that you miss me. However, I confess: I also selfishly wish that Fate had not relegated us to a life of missing. Fortunately, the confines of wishes are enough to contain my selfishness, as my life offers few concessions for whimsy. I only hope that people like you, my little brother, and Naruto live better lives because of it.
I'll write more letters as long as you'll have them, Sakura.
I still miss you.
I
P.S. The four aberrations are what their name says and nothing more.
As frustrated as she was by Itachi's mystique, it did not matter. Any frustration with him, any blame that crept in from the corners of her nightmares, and any misgivings melted away as reality knocked into her chest with the force of a wrecking ball.
"I-I—." At first, she sputtered.
But then, her tongue finally gathered the fortitude to spit it out.
"I love him."
She had been so hell-bent on outwardly covering it up that she had convinced herself on the inside, too. Everything was just hypothetical or friendly regard.
Sakura knew that the past few months had been a cornucopia of creative lying in all directions, but never for a moment did she pause to think that she might have been deceiving herself. All of her fables for Sasuke, cover-ups for Naruto, workarounds for Tsunade, and distortions for Itachi were weak and inconsequential. The greatest, most convincing lies Sakura had contrived were the ones that she had kept telling herself.
"Fuck."
She set down the letter.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck!"
This made everything much more complicated—which was a tremendous feat considering how complicated her circumstances already were. How could she even consider dating Sasuke when she was in love with his brother? She could do it to make him happy—which already provided the relationship with a hazardous basis—but it would only pave the way to a disastrous aftermath. Moreover, now that her heart had ambushed her with the truth, how could she continue her life while pretending that it went unmarked by such a wonderful person? How could she go on pretending that he was not one of her most trusted allies?—that she did not love him?
Still, Sakura knew that plenty of people survived similar situations: they loved people they could not have, so they moved on with their lives. In fact, they probably cursed the confusion and unfairness of it all just as she was right in this moment. But, Sakura was disinclined to settle. She was assertive and a go-getter—remaining complicit to her own unwanted fate felt so wrong to her.
Ready to tear out her hair in frustration, she marched into the bathroom, turned the water up to scalding temperatures, and tore off her clothes as if they were the culprits of her exasperation. Even if a shower would do nothing to ease her woes, at least she would not smell so bad in the throes of her angst.
The next day, Sakura sent out her reply.
Itachi,
You're right about the nightmares and thought disturbances. I've had terrors every night since returning home; I'm just relieved when they don't wake me up in a cold sweat. It's getting easier to push away the intrusions while I'm awake, but I wonder if the nightmares will last forever. It's fair enough, though. After all, there's no rest for the wicked.
My wishes are selfish, too. You see, I selfishly wish that you would indulge your selfish wishes every now and then. That's selfish enough, right? Well, there's more. I also wish it were not an old friend who loved me—I wish it were you. And, worst of all, I wish that my wishes weren't at such tremendous odds with the good of the world.
You've done a lifetime of good things. Selfishly, I wish that you'd do the selfish thing for once.
But, don't misunderstand this as a petition to change the path you're on—I know you can't, and it makes me respect you even more. I just wish that there was a way to have the best of both worlds.
S
P.S. S is for "selfish."
P.P.S. Explaining something as "nothing" is not an explanation.
Six days later, Sakura came home from training to find Sasuke lounging on the wall next to her apartment door. Even though she knew that he would come home eventually, she was hardly prepared for his arrival and nearly dropped her key in surprise.
"You're home." Her heart throbbed with unwelcome tension. Nothing could adequately prepare her for their overdue conversation.
He smirked at her. "Just like I said I'd be."
She recalled that she had tucked the letters from his brother into a drawer before leaving that morning, enjoyed a nanosecond of mental relief, and ushered him inside.
"The kitchen cleaned up better than I thought it might," Sasuke jeered in reference to her mental breakdown. He was blissfully unaware that today would be his turn to melt mentally like butter in a hot pan.
Sakura cleared her throat without even noticing his sarcasm.
"So, uh, how was your trip? Or whatever it was."
He shrugged. "It didn't go as planned, but I learned a thing or two that I hadn't expected. So, it was worth the time."
She forced a smile. "Well, I'm glad to see that you're home safely."
Despite the fake smile, she really was happy that he had made it back unharmed—especially with his propensity for risk-seeking. She wondered if he would be glad, though, once their conversation was over.
They both sat down at the kitchen table and Sasuke made himself comfortable.
"So… Are you ready to tell me about your time with my brother?" he asked.
A question with such a simple face was strung to such a cruel puppeteer.
Sakura inhaled deeply, furrowed her brow, and nodded.
"I'm ready, Sasuke. Are you?"
"Anything you tell me can't be worse than what I've already gone through."
"You're right—it won't be worse than what you've already gone through. It'll just reshape it in ways you never expected." Her jaw clenched, but she forced herself to continue speaking. "You've been incredibly supportive through this whole ordeal, but you haven't asked me why Danzo's out for my blood. Do you know why?" she asked. It tasted very peculiar to use the word "supportive" to describe Sasuke, but it was true—he had been pillar of support since her most recent return to Konoha.
He shook his head.
"Danzo wants me dead because I know something he doesn't want people to know. Do you know who told me the information I'm wanted dead for?"
"...my brother." Sasuke was always smart—well, smart enough, anyway.
Sakura nodded affirmatively. "Yes. Your brother told—or rather showed—me the truth about your clan, but initially sealed up my ability to pass along the information to you. I'm sure you remember me barfing up blood and feathers on your chest, right? Something that gross is hard to forget. Just as I broke through his seal, he broke free from his own bindings. I'm not entirely sure what happened to you after that, but I became Itachi's hostage. He realized that I' broke free from his seal and decided that he would need to monitor me until the end of time so that I couldn't spill his secret."
Sasuke stared sturdily at her. "What did he show you?" His calm façade did not fool her.
With a deep breath, Sakura tried desperately to find her serene river. When she opened her eyes, there was only Sasuke and his angry, heliotrope aura.
"Danzo ordered him to kill your clan. And, when he did, Itachi begged to spare you."
Sasuke's face contorted with horror.
"Itachi is the reason you're still alive."
He stood from his seat, his chakra soaring with ruthless rancor. "That's impossible!"
Sakura countered evenly, "If it's impossible, then why does Danzo want me dead?"
"That doesn't make any damn sense," Sasuke spat.
She shook her head. "I know it doesn't make sense when people have told you otherwise for the past two decades. But, think about it. Think past all of your anger for a minute. Itachi did kill your family, but not in the way that he's shown you over and over again inside of the tsukuyomi."
"I can't believe you'd eat his fucking lies like that!"
Sakura reached out, grabbed Sasuke's hands with her own, and squeezed without restraint. He tried to pull back with a reflexive wince, but she would not release her grip. If he did not stay grounded, she had no doubt that a tide of rage from which he might never resurface would swallow him whole.
"You're fucking lying to me!"
"Sasuke Uchiha, I have been your teammate for almost 10 years now and, whether you like it or not, I've been your friend the whole way. When I thought you'd died, I looked to finish off your revenge. Even now, I'd die for you if I saw that you were about to suffer a fatal blow.
"We've told each other a lot of bullshit over the years and played a lot of bullshit games, but this is not one of them. The truth is that your brother isn't the villain he's worked so hard to make you believe he is. The truth is that Danzo is the person responsible for the massacre of your clan."
For a moment, they stood there with locked gazes and electricity crackling in the air between them. Sasuke seemed steadier, but it might have been the eye of his storm.
"I have two questions, then," Sasuke requested with an edge to his voice.
"You can ask as many questions as you want, Sasuke. I can't promise to have all of the answers, but I can promise to answer with the truth as I know it."
His eyes studied her suspiciously. "Why would he tell you the truth?"
Sakura paused. That was an excellent question, and one to which she had no definitive answer. Still, she would do her best.
"I honestly don't know why. But, I think it had something to do with what I said—and my persistence."
"What did you say to him?"
She drew in a deep breath. "Well, I said a lot of things about wanting to kill him and wanting to experience the tsukuyomi, but I think it had to do with the day that you and I were racing each other. While you two were battling, he sent a clone to trap me in a powerful genjutsu. I thought for sure that I was dead, but he questioned me and let me go instead."
Sasuke waited for her to continue. She sighed and obliged him.
"I told him that if it wasn't for him, I might've lived a happy life—that what he'd done led you astray. When you fell from grace, you brought everyone who loved you down, too. Itachi was the reason you fell and, by the way of the ripple effect and how I'd felt for those long five years, he'd ruined my chance at happiness."
There was a moment of silence as Sasuke's hard face softened; his tense hands slackened within her palms. Sensing that he was past his urge to rampage, she let his arms fall back to his sides. With tristfulness tracing his gaze, Sakura realized the vulnerability she had revealed with her own words. As much as she wanted to hide away, she stood stolid—Sakura would be strong during her friend's time of darkness.
"My other question… How did he treat you while you were his prisoner?" Sakura was relieved at his tonal neutrality, but surmised that much more hinged on her next answer than his demeanor readily revealed.
Sakura pursed her lips to hide her smile at the thoughts of her time with Itachi. "He treated me more like an honored guest than a hostage. My breaking through his seal had almost killed me with internal bleeding, but he healed me enough that I survived. He made sure that I had plenty of good food. He… he even talked to me like a normal person."
Sasuke raised a quizzical eyebrow. "Forgive my skepticism, but all of that is really hard to believe. Do you have any proof?"
She thought about his words for a moment. Sakura could hardly blame him for his doubt, but he was not making her Sisyphean task any easier. She could show Sasuke the letters, but they were too personal and he would probably claim forgery. However, after thinking back to her conversations with Itachi, she knew how to absolve herself of all doubt.
"I know something about him that no living person should know."
His face remained dubious. "Humor me."
"Itachi was in a forced engagement with a fiancée assigned to him by your parents."
Sasuke's face fell into a state of mute terror.
"And he killed her during the massacre."
He dropped back into his seat looking like a person who could bear the force of gravity no more. As concerned as she was by his crash, she held back because of the faraway look in his eyes—he was thinking. Sasuke was genuinely considering her claims.
Despite wanting to ask him a million questions, Sakura wrapped her tongue in self-restraint. She knew that his brain was brewing with unimaginable turmoil and that even the slightest disruption might send him off course. He would emerge from his mind when he was ready.
Finally, Sasuke croaked, "He was crying."
Over many minutes, Sakura waited with patience she had not known herself to have.
"He cried the whole time he killed our family." Sasuke lifted his eyes to meet her gaze. "My brother cried over our family."
She looked at him plaintively—the flow of repressed memories must have felt like a tsunami to him. As she watched his face turn more grief-stricken, she could stop herself no longer: Sakura stood from her seat, crouched down slightly, and enveloped him in her arms. Only then did she realize her friend's faint trembling. Still, no matter how much he quivered in her embrace, she knew that he would not cry—at least not in front of her.
"Does Itachi know that I know?"
Sakura pulled away, returned to her seat, and nodded. "I vowed that I'd tell you the truth one day and he didn't doubt my intentions."
He swallowed. "I need to speak to my brother."
Sakura sighed heavily—it seemed that gravity's force really was stronger than usual today. After a moment, she shook her head in gentle dissent.
"It's probably better that you don't. He's done everything he could to spur you to greatness, but I don't think he'll give up his espionage in the Akatsuki so easily. He loves you more than Konoha, but you're alive and well—so I'm sure he'll continue his secret service."
Sasuke looked flustered. "But he's the only family I have left. He's my brother, and… he's the last chance at family that I have."
She frowned. "I know he is, Sasuke. I wish I could do something to make this easier, but this is what he wants. He still loves you and has done everything to ensure your safety and success. But, he's worked so hard to get to where he is. Do you really want to mess that up by hunting him down and creating a scene?"
He grimaced and remained silent for a moment. Sakura knew that Sasuke was unaccustomed to setting aside his own wants, but a greater good was at stake here; he might be able to connect with his brother someday, but now was not that time.
"I'll wait for now, but I won't wait forever," Sasuke warned, "For now, we should focus our attention on someone who's lived unpunished for far too long."
"Danzo."
His face darkened. "He was already on my kill list, but now he's been promoted to top priority. He'll suffer for what he did to you, and he'll suffer even more for what he did to my family. The death of my clan will not go unavenged."
"I know the perfect time for you to make your move," Sakura revealed.
This had his attention.
"Danzo's coming back to Konoha in three weeks."
"He's mine."
She nodded, but added, "I don't think anyone would disagree with that considering the circumstances. But, he's a village elder—he's not going to roll over and die. And, unlike your brother, we have no idea what types of tricks he might have up his sleeve."
"Tricks are just that: tricks. My sharingan will see through them all."
Sakura forced her eyes to stay focused on him rather than rolling in disbelief.
"Yes, I trust your sharingan prowess. But, he's called a meeting with me when he returns to Konoha—and I can't help but to see it as a golden opportunity."
He clearly did not get her point.
She sighed. "Why don't we attack him together? Neither of us wants him to live and we have a better chance of succeeding if we face him as a team."
"I want the kill. We can work together, but the final blow's mine."
"As long as he dies, I don't care who does it," she growled, "I'm just sick of smelling every bite of food before I eat it."
Sasuke smirked sadistically now. "I'm glad we're in agreement. I never imagined that I'd take revenge with my partner by my side."
Sakura jolted in her seat. They needed to have this conversation, but she had hoped to save it for a more tactful time.
"Actually, Sasuke…" She coughed. "While I think putting on a show for now is a good idea, I think we should just stay teammates."
He yawned, totally unfazed by her rejection. "We can talk about that some other time—there are more important things to worry about. I'm going to stay here until we've disposed of Danzo."
"Ummm… No, you're not." Sakura stared at him incredulously. She wondered if Orochimaru's experiments had given him brain damage.
Sasuke stared right back. "Well, you said you were sick of sniffing your food. Doesn't that mean that Danzo still poses a risk to your safety?"
His question was legitimate, but no safety concern provided sufficient reason for him to couch surf at her place for the next three weeks.
"Yes, he does. And he will until the moment he dies. However, I can handle myself and I certainly don't need a 24-7 babysitter," she retorted.
He shrugged. "Suit yourself. Just don't go missing again."
"I won't." She stood from her seat. "I need to shower and sleep, so why don't you visit Naruto or something? I'm sure he'd love to see you."
Sasuke stood from his seat and cracked his neck. "I have a night of heavy contemplation ahead of me and his loud mouth would only interrupt that."
Any tension she felt at his typically grating demeanor evaporated at his subtle reminder: Sakura had given him a lot about which to think. While he framed the duration of his thinking over the course of a night, she knew that he would probably wonder about the things that she had told him for the rest of his life.
"Yeah, that's understandable. Why don't you join us all for training tomorrow, instead? I'm sure that Naruto and Kakashi would be happy if you joined."
He looked at her with an expression that she could not quite identify. "I'll be there." He paused. "Thank you, Sakura. Thanks for everything."
Sakura was not sure what he meant, but she had no time to request clarification—he was out the door the moment he finished his sentence. Instead, he left her with uneasy echoes of the past. After all, the last time he had thanked her, he left her unconscious on a stone bench with a perpetual quest to bring him home. Sakura hoped that he would not force her and Naruto back onto old paths so soon.
She shook the anxiety from her head and grabbed the things she needed. She scribbled down a concise note, placed it on her windowsill, and jumped into the shower. By the time she was dried and dressed, the note was gone.
Sakura wondered what Itachi would look like as he read her words.
He knows.
Authoress's Note:
Yikes! I apologize for taking so long to get this up.
I hope it was worth the wait. Thanks for reading and reviewing!
Have a lovely evening,
A
