Disclaimer: If we owned Naruto, Itachi would still be evil and Sasuke would be black and blue from having sense kicked into him.

AN: Thank you all so much for your continued support for this story! When we first started writing it we never could have IMAGINED how it would have taken off. Every time we see another review, we are filled with glee. We are coming to the end of the story now, with only a few more chapters left to go. We really hope you continue to enjoy it.

18 Years Ago
Uchiha Compound

Mikoto curled her fingers around a mug of tea to ease the chill of early morning air as she stood outside the house, facing the practice field. The steady, rhythmic thud of heavy blows striking still wood was as familiar and soothing as the tea in her hands. He really was talented. Unlike his father, she understood how much work Itachi had put into perfecting his movements. Itachi practiced perfection. He didn't bother to make a move unless it was optimal and efficient, and once he had struck that balance he practiced it with deliberate movements over and over until that perfection became instinctive. Yes, he was brilliant. That brilliance allowed him to find the perfect move with relative ease. But it was Itachi's relentless pursuit of perfection that Fugaku was seeing the results of now.

And it was that relentless pursuit which concerned her. Perfection in a child was too much to ask for, but Itachi asked it of himself. To take him out of training before he had a chance to learn that there was more to life than being a shinobi, and more to being a shinobi than perfection would not only continue to isolate him from his peers but would strain him until he snapped.

Itachi had a connection of sorts with his older cousin, Shisui, but he needed bonds outside the clan to sustain his active mind. He needed the challenge of teammates. Bluntly, Itachi needed friends and the bonds that came with fighting death together. While she was certain that her son would always have a unique perspective when it came to people, he would have no chance to learn how to relate to others if they put him on a genin unit now. He was so much younger than anyone he could be paired with and that would lead to resentment until it festered, dividing the unit beyond repair. Then he would simply be moved to somewhere his talents were more 'useful' and she would watch her son disappear under the strain of it all with nothing to help him balance.

Fugaku insisted that he was just trying to bring Itachi the challenge that he needed to improve, but she wondered just how much of that was true and how much of it was the elders blinding him with tales of the prestige the 'Uchiha prodigy' could bring the clan. As much as she loved the man, he was surprisingly short sighted in some vital areas of his life. Still, right now Fugaku wasn't the problem she had to pick apart: Itachi was. She hadn't expected him to be pleased that he would be required to attend the academy until his twelfth birthday but this obstinate silence and tactic avoidance of her would end.

And if Itachi thought she was unaware of his eavesdropping on her conversation with Fugaku, well, he was still learning. And a mother's instinct had no equal in the world of shinobi, regardless to what her husband's opinion on the matter was. That Itachi had chosen to wait to react in any matter until Fugaku had told him the change of plans spoke well for her son, but there was an oversight she had every intention of pointing out to her stubborn perfectionist.

With Fugaku at the Hokage Tower she had the time. Very few even in this compound felt brave enough to face the hard frost and early morning hours just yet. They would have as much privacy as they ever had. Setting her tea down, Mikoto maneuvered to her feet and joined Itachi in the small practice ground next to the house.

He stopped as soon as he heard her approach and took a polite stance, eyes dark and unreadable in the pale light.

"Itachi."

"Oka-san."

Yes, her son was mostly certainly learning. Nodding at him, she studied the practice ground and the precise placement of kunai. Thoughtfully, she reached over and lifted a kunai, rolling the familiar weight between her thumb and forefinger.

"Your father wishes you to graduate the academy this month in the hopes that you will make the chunin exam in eight months. By now, you are aware that I oppose this decision."

"Yes, Oka-san."

Setting the kunai down, she folded her hands in front of her, polite posture matching his.

"You do not agree with my decision." She did not make it a question and he did not respond. Nodding her approval, she swept one hand between them. "Tell me what you would gain if I had agreed with your father."

Back straight, eyes meeting hers, he did. Quietly but with great thought, he outlined his plan to rise quickly in the ranks. In three years he put himself in ANBU, in another year he made captain. Five years was all her son wanted to become one of the most powerful shinobi in the village.

She did not doubt that he would manage it, if she gave him this chance.

"Now I will tell you what you would have lost."

She saw his brows tuck together before they smoothed out.

"What are we, Itachi?" She let her eyes scan the grounds. "What does this represent?"

"The clan."

"Do we have weaknesses?"

"Yes."

She nodded and closed her eyes. When she opened them, the world was sharingan bright. Her son's small shoulders tightened but he did not flinch and she let it fade again.

"Our eyes represent our perfection," the saying was one the elders liked to parry to the children and she used it now. "How do we have weaknesses?"

"Our eyes are simply a tool." Itachi responded immediately. "If we rely too heavily on any one tool, then we create a weakness in ourselves. By creating weaknesses, we begin to rely on our strength and then we fail."

She nodded. "Yes."

Itachi just watched her, but she could see the way he was trying to work through her words, to find her point. She knew later, he would review the conversation and realize that by asking him the questions, she had forced him to listen, to pay attention to what she wished to say. It wouldn't be long before he began to mimic this particularly interrogation tactic and she looked forward to seeing how he used it.

Right now he would not care for bonds or the strength of teammates. That lesson would come later. Now she had to help him understand what he would lose if he followed his father's plan.

"You are advanced far past your year mates. You have shown a great talent for our way of life and you are exceptional in everything you put your mind to learning." She folded her hands together again. "But you are only one member of this clan, Itachi; one person who represents us as a whole. You have understood the concept that takes other shinobi years to master – we create and destroy our own weaknesses by our will and how we define ourselves. If one cannot admit to the possibility of weakness then you cannot defend against it."

"Yes, Oka-san."

There was a curious note now, so she answered his unspoken question. "You have seen every opportunity to learn and to perfect yourself as a shinobi except for one."

His body stilled and dark eyes locked onto her face with an intensity that had been missing up till this point. She was careful to keep her face stern.

"Oka-san?"

"The academy is not just a place to learn books and to study tactics. It is an opportunity you will never have again: to study your fellow shinobi without suspicion."

Those dark eyes narrowed as he considered that so she continued. "To this point you have merely studied them as classmates, weighing your strengths against your own. Did you learn how to use your sharingan in one day, Itachi?"

"No."

"You are surrounded by all the children of the clans, who are also learning their strengths and weaknesses. Many of them will simply cover up what they lack, but the opportunity to watch them overcome their obstacles, to see how each individual clan strengthens its members is before you."

After all, the sharingan was useless unless you had the strength to bend the techniques you learned to your will.

Her son's dark eyes gleamed as he watched her face, looking for any sign of appeasement for her refusal to allow him to advance. She would see the wheels turning in his mind, the tightening of his mouth telling her more about his thoughts than even his eyes.

Then he bowed, stiff and proper. "Thank you, Ka-chan."

Mikoto immediately noticed his return to the more informal and familiar address, and she had to fight down the surge of triumph she felt from the sound. She had won her son back. He would watch, and learn, and in doing so he would come to respect the other clans, would be forced to interact with the other children, and would begin to form the bonds that would be so necessary to keep him human. Keeping her face stern, she returned the bow. "Make their strengths yours, Itachi."

The corners of his mouth pulled up and for a moment, excitement glittered in his eyes.

"I will."

X

Present Day
Fire Country

They were well into Konoha's forest when Itachi turned to catch her gaze. The expression in his eyes sent a shot of adrenaline through her blood. The sudden predatory gleam told her what he was going to say before he opened his mouth.

"It appears we will have company soon."

Company. Sakura extended her senses, but she couldn't pick up anything. She frowned, he would have only brought it to her attention for one reason, but it didn't hurt to confirm her suspicion. "Enemy?"

"They are attempting to cloak their chakra. It is possible that they are one of our units." His eyes stayed locked on her. "But their chakra is not familiar."

So. There was a group of unknown shinobi heading in their direction, in Konoha's territory. Enemy shinobi found in another village's territory was a killing offense in and of itself, but for them to be on an intersecting path… "Ambush?"

"It appears so."

Her brows tucked together as she thought that over. They needed to report to Konoha as quickly as possible but it wouldn't due to leave 'company' feeling unwelcome. "Have you felt any of our teams?"

"No."

"How many?"

"Seven."

She lifted a brow and let the edges of her mouth curl. "Only seven?"

Itachi didn't physically react so much as a twitch, but a strange, predatory light flared in his eyes at her words. "If my count is correct."

Sakura snorted. "Right. So, then, shall we engage? Seeing as they've come out so far to meet some Konoha shinobi… I'd hate to disappoint. It would be at least courteous to see what they want."

The edge of one mouth tilted, just a little. Adrenaline curled through her veins as she reached for her gloves. It took only a moment to tug the snug leather over her fingers but she was very aware of how he watched every movement she made as she snapped Velcro and flexed her fingers before she looked back up to see what he wanted to do.

The shot of heat through her stomach had nothing to do with the approaching enemy and everything to do with the way his eyes were still on her hands. She could vividly remember him whispering his appreciation of her hands, the way he'd lifted her fingers to his lips… When his eyes finally lifted back to hers, he dragged them over her body before lifting them so she could see that they were already sharingan bright.

"Yes," he murmured, "it would be such a shame to be… impolite."

Sakura swallowed. It took a moment longer than it should have to make sure her voice wouldn't squeak, a moment that Itachi committed to memory and caused his eyes to flare brighter. "Well, what are we waiting for, then? I assume you want to take point?"

Itachi's face lit in a sudden sharp expression of predatory glee, all without moving a muscle. "We will intercept them. You will take point. Scatter them with your strength, and then pick up the ones closest to you. I will take care of the perimeter."

Sakura's eyes lit with sudden appreciative anticipation. He trusted her with this. His faith in her abilities was… exhilarating. She gave a sharp nod. "Yes, Captain!"

Itachi's eyes were also alight with anticipation. He nodded and immediately took to the trees, charting them on an intercept course.

Adrenaline was thick and sharpened her senses in a familiar, welcomed way. Scatter them with her strength… years of experience with such a maneuver with her own team had taught her that the best way to do that was to shatter the ground straight up and out. It not only provided enough debris to guard her in that single heartbeat where she was vulnerable, but also gave a sharingan user the biggest advantage in moving through the debris without being seen.

Sasuke could easily take out one or two shinobi in those scattered, frantic moments. Naruto usually acted to protect her back as she lunged for the nearest shinobi so she would have to be careful not to lose someone in the debris. But if Itachi moved as fast as she thought he would to wipe out the perimeter behind her…

Still, no reason to be careless.

Itachi paused suddenly and moved his hands in a series of signals. Nodding her understanding, she slid in front of him and settled against the trunk of a tree to wait. Itachi disappeared behind her, his chakra signature disappearing completely. Pulling her chakra in tightly, she waited for the first sign of the enemy shinobi.

The first spark of chakra had her narrowing her eyes. Gazing in the direction Itachi had indicated they would be arriving, she quickly counted seven signatures. Seven. That meant she needed to drop in after the third. While Itachi could handle four shinobi on his own, she wasn't willing to leave that many at her back as she transitioned from her attack.

It would be a matter of timing.

She reflexively clenched her hand in preparation. The foliage was thick and they were both well hidden, but she could see through the cracks in the leaves. She'd subtly extended her senses so that she had a sense of the layout—the slight dip in the forest floor to the north, the closely packed groups of pine to the east were both factors to take into account – and then one—they were rushing along the ground, arms spread behind them, faces masked. Running in an overlapping pattern—two—masked, chakra suppressed but highly armed, she caught a glimpse of a naginata—three—

And Sakura jumped down, gathering and releasing her chakra with precision. They were expecting trouble, so they spotted her a second before she made contact with the ground. The shinobi closest to her had already pulled out a handful of senbon when she exploded the earth out from under his feet. She registered the symbol on his forehead protector automatically: Cloud.

She didn't give him time to adjust his trajectory. While expelling the chakra from her right hand to cause the most damage while shooting debris into the air, she yanked a kunai out of her leg holster with her left. Flinging it straight ahead, she rolled herself after it, following the path of the falling debris that stung against her skin. The Cloud-nin was dead before he knew she had moved. One.

Her biggest problem was that the other three shinobi were very aware of her location. Surging forward with chakra enhanced feet, she flung a second, tagged kunai into the foliage just as she caught a flicker out of the corner of her eye. The resulting explosion bought her precious seconds to dodge the barrage of kunai and slam her foot down; disrupting the earth under the feet of the only shinobi she could see, forcing him to pause in his seals. Pushing more chakra into her feet, she raced forward and took him out with another kunai. Two.

There were two more in front of her, and she could sense Itachi moving behind her, taking care of the three. Chunks of earth were still falling all around her, and she'd set off a domino effect with those pines—jumping up, she used the height to avoid a rolling tree and scan for the two missing shinobi.

The attack came from above, and Sakura barely had the time to work a substitution jutsu before an electrically charged chigiriki connected with her head. The metal chain hit the log with a loud crack, the electricity causing a small explosion.

But what goes up must go down, and the Cloud-nin couldn't just stay in the air forever. He landed, crouched on a tree limb just long enough for Sakura to make her move.

Clinging to the tree branches with chakra, she raced straight at the enemy. The sound of crackling of electricity had the sliding to the bottom of the thick branch she had landed on, but she never slowed. The chigiriki was a dangerous weapon, but it was slow. Out of the corner of her eye she caught a flicker that told her the fourth shinobi was trying to box her in.

Attaching another tag to a kunai, she released her hold on the branch and flung it straight at the ball and chain as she fell, snapping her fingers through the body flicker she managed to dodge out of the blast area. Landing on her feet, she immediately rolled into a defensive position.

The whistling of kunai had her rolling again and when she came up, she found herself dodging a fast combination of kicks and punches. Flowing through the movements, she blocked and waited for the opening she needed to end the fight. Cursing at the now familiar crack of lightening and hiss of metal, she slapped her hand to the ground, shaking the cloud-nin off balance just as he threw.

The sudden motion of the earth forced him to compensate his weight onto his heels, giving her a few seconds to scan for the fourth shinobi. Setting her teeth, she lunged forward and pushed her opponent into the defensive as she hit him with her own taijutsu combinations. He bared his teeth at her and she pushed chakra into every hit she landed.

There.

Ducking under a punch, she rotated her weight and put the full force of her punch into the shinobi's chest. The familiar sensation of bone and muscle caving and exploding under her fist was the only confirmation she needed that he was dead. Spinning on her heel, she crouched down in a defensive position, ignoring the sticky heat that now clung to her cheeks and arms – instead she scanned the immediate area to locate the fourth and final Cloud-nin.

Out of the corner of her eye, two smoking corpses and a large smear of blood caught her attention briefly before she met a pair of burning, sharingan eyes. The expression behind his eyes burned through her like hot metal. She met that wild, intense gaze with her own and suddenly couldn't work up any moisture in her mouth. Adrenaline, triumph and sudden arousal were making her head spin and she couldn't look away.

X

It had been a whim, a desire to watch her rise to yet another challenge that had struck him while planning out the battle with the incoming enemy. He had sparred with her, had seen the results of her battles but had never watched her kill. The sudden desire to see had been one he had had no reason to deny. And the reward of that bright, brilliant understanding that had flashed through her eyes followed closely by the determined set of her mouth had filled him with an anticipation he had been loath to see disappointed.

Her timing as she fell to the earth had been perfect. The controlled, graceful fall that had erupted into the upheaval of earth and trees had lit a hunger deep in gut that had only increased as he watched the way she reacted before she had even completed the first strike to the earth; the way she had read the enemies movements and responded. Then he had been forced to turn his attention to the three shinobi who had turned to strike at her back.

The fight had taken very little out of him. While he was certain that the masked shinobi had been well trained, he wasn't in a particular mood to draw the fight out and had reacted swiftly. He had turned away from what was left of the enemy shinobi in time to catch Sakura's fourth opponent attempting to get behind her while she searched for his partner.

While Itachi had no doubt that she was smart enough to keep tabs on both of the remaining shinobi… he had plans for the last one that she was unaware of. It had taken a heartbeat to move in front of the shinobi, to grab him by the throat and ensnare the shinobi with his sharingan, easily taking control of his mind. Slamming him up against the tree and leaving him deep within the genjutsu, he turned to watch Sakura finish her fight.

The same lethal quickness he had seen in each other their spars was easy to follow. The chakra she put behind her hits was deliberate and efficient. She cut through the shinobi's defenses easily before putting the full force of her punch into his chest cavity. Blood and bone exploded outward and back, leaving behind messy corpse. She didn't seem to notice or care, spinning around and sliding directly into a defensive stance as she scanned the immediate area for the final cloud-nin.

And now she was watching him, standing over decimated chest cavity of her former enemy. Her eyes reflected the same triumph, the same rush that came with killing… the same burning heat. And the rest of her… lowering his eyes he scanned her panting form, taking in the lack of injuries, the way her chest rose and fell and the blood that speckled her torso, arms and cheeks.

The blood that dripped from the leather of her right glove.

Slowly, he lifted his eyes back to her hot gaze. Putting a little more chakra into the genjutsu to ensure that the last nin would remain… occupied, he slowly let his hand fall away from his throat. Deliberately, he stalked towards her, eyes drinking in every shift of muscle, the way her breath caught just so in her throat.

The edge of his mouth curled just a little as he reached her. Slowly, eyes never leaving hers, he dragged his forefinger down the line of her cheek, smearing the blood splatter. She shivered at his touch, eyes going dark. Sliding his palm down to cradle her jaw, he curled his over arm over her hip, up her spine to tangle in her hair. Watching the line of her throat as she swallowed, he met her eyes with his once more before leaning in and taking her mouth with his.

She reacted instantly, surging up against him, her leg hooking behind his knee. Fisting his hand into her hair, he tilted her head back and intensified the kiss. She made a noise in the back of her throat that sent heat curling down his spine. Tangling both fists into his hair, she jerked his head back. Following the motion, she pulled back just enough for him to catch the heat of her gaze before she leaned back in.

And bit his bottom lip hard enough to sting. Itachi's senses flared white-hot. He moved.

His hand fit under her shirt at the small of her back, pressing flesh against flesh, the scratchy leather of his gloves contrasting with the heated warmth of his calloused fingertips. He was pressing her close, so tightly her breasts were pressed nearly flat against his chest. He assaulted her mouth with his tongue, teeth, and lips, and she gave back as good as she got, moaning when he hit a spot on the roof of her mouth just right.

He pulled back for just a moment and she sucked in a lungful of air and then his mouth returned, teeth sinking into her bottom lip as the hand wandering along her back slid down her spine and across the curve of her butt and then dug into her thigh. While his other hand stroked down the curve of her ear and down her neck to fist his hand around her braid, forcing her head back to bare her throat, he lifted her up by the thigh, forcing her leg high around his hip and shoved her back up against a tree.

Sakura barely registered the bark scraping against her back; she was so focused on the heat pressed between her legs, his hand sliding over her thigh, the scraping, suckling pressure of his hot mouth on her neck. She responded to him with equal hunger, arching her head to allow him access while attacking the sensitive skin under his ear, scraping her hands down his back and wishing to kami she'd had time to take off her gloves, even as her hands sought the edge of his shirt and slid across the smooth skin of his back.

His back muscles rippled under her touch and his breath hissed across the damp skin of her neck. Tightening her thigh around his hip, she pulled him closer – the heat of him burned every inch they touched – and turned her head to scrape her teeth along his jaw, flicking her tongue along the bone. He dug his fingers into her butt, arching his hips into hers. The hand that had been in her hair was snaking up her hip, gliding across her ribs and she gasped, arching as his fingers closed around…

Sudden motion caught the corner of her eye and jerked her head around. The shinobi was falling forward, hand moving to his pouch and she reacted. Digging her fingers into Itachi's back, she levered herself up and yanked the senbon out of his arm pouch with her right hand. As she flicked her wrist back Itachi's harsh, guttural voice snapped out a single word.

"Alive."

She almost slipped off him with the effort to alter the trajectory of the needles but Itachi shifted his hold on her butt and held her easily. The cloud-nin, still dazed and panting from the genjutsu was easily pinned to the tree.

"Fuck," Sakura hissed, dropping her head onto his shoulder, still keeping one eye on the cloud-nin.

"If only," she thought she heard him mutter, his hand easing off her breast as he arched into her one more time before gripping her hips and supporting her as he stepped back.

Unwilling to take her eyes off the cloud-nin completely, she took several deep, gulping breaths in an attempt to calm her overheated system. It didn't help that her lip still stung from his bite and her neck and chest felt cold. Tilting her head, she peaked up at Itachi from the corner of her eye.

And felt surge of adrenaline from something completely different. His face had gone carefully; completely blank, but there was something about the angle of his jaw, the slight narrowing of his eyes and the whirl of the sharingan that spoke of a temper she hadn't seen from him before.

And then he glided over to the enemy and her mouth ran dry.

He came to stand directly in front of the cloud-nin, blocking her view of the enemy and of his face. "You," he said in a particularly dangerous monotone, "are going to tell me exactly what I want to know."

"Go to hell, you –"

And then the screaming began. Loud, high pitched, terrified screaming. Itachi wasn't even touching him—Sakura slowly maneuvered her way away from the tree to better see the absolute horror etched on his face.

Sakura found herself watching the cloud-nin with a mednin's eye. She didn't know what hell Itachi had created for the shinobi, but it appeared to be working fast. At least for her. She wanted to say that he was dragged into the Magen: Narakumi no Jutsu, but she had seen both Kakashi and Sasuke perform it and had never seen results like this. There had only been the quietest of rumors inside the tower that Itachi was used as an assassin and interrogator, but this…

Most genjutsu used simply used the chakra in the victim's nervous system to create illusions, but for all intents and purposes the sharingan had always been able to take those illusions on step further. The particular whirling motion of their tomoe allowed an Uchiha not only the ability to directly affect the nervous system, but drill directly into the victim's brain waves. For someone like Itachi who had a very refined control of his sharingan, that ability would be extremely effective.

She could feel the sharp, deadly precision of Itachi's chakra as he shoved it into the cloud-nin's system and watched as blood dripped from the enemy's nose and ears. The rapid beating of the pulse in his neck, the way he was clawing at his own chest and the bursting of a vein in his left eye confirmed that he wouldn't live through the genjutsu.

Forty seconds. Forty seconds and the blood had drained from the cloud-nin's face and lips, before he simply fell over. If she had to guess, she would say his heart had given out on him. The pain would have been terrible, but she wasn't certain that what he'd seen hadn't been worse.

Itachi turned around, his face impassive but his eyes still swirling sharingan. There was a certain controlled energy in his movement that put Sakura on edge. She didn't dare take her eyes off his face for a moment, not even to flicker back to the corpse. He was completely still, but every movement he made radiated deadly intent.

It was moments like this when Sakura was reminded that he was very, very dangerous.

"Konoha is under attack," he said calmly. "Cloud and Sound are targeting the clans. How fast can you run?"

The lingering heat, frustration and curiosity about the death of the cloud-nin disappeared under a surge of adrenaline. Her system jolted to hyper aware and she met his sharingan eyes without flinching.

"Fast enough."

X

So troublesome. Bad enough that the village was under attack, and the acrid smell of smoke was stinging his eyes and parching his mouth. Bad enough that a forth of the village had been decimated beyond the hope of simple repair, bad enough that they were targeting the clans, which would just made them more of a pain to deal with and lead to enough paperwork to last for months. Shikamaru suppressed a groan. No. On top of all that, he had to go and handle two shinobi who thought it was a good idea to betray their village.

Filthy traitors.

What was worse than that was that they had to be captured alive. He and Itachi had traced the leaks back to Danzo and ROOT, but the Council would never move on 'such an established member of the community' without the kind of hard evidence a confession would provide. No, the spies had to be taken alive and caught in the act, with witnesses.

This was why he was skulking through trees on the far end of the fighting with a couple of genin under his command instead of fighting with his teammates. So bothersome. At least the genin were moving quietly. Shikamaru held up his hand in the signal for them to stop and motioned for them to begin to fan out. They complied; Shikamaru carefully crept to where his information said the spies would be, a patch in the forest like any other, with trees and grass, and a friendly log to hide behind. Actually, that was a nice little rise over there; it might be a good place to try cloud watching if he didn't want to be found at his regular spot.

Inching forward, he slipped into the familiar weight of the shadows. Even without chakra, they slid against his skin like cold sunlight and he used them to move even closer, balancing his weight on the balls of his feet, waiting.

"… followed."

That single word told him two things: that he was close enough to listen in and that they were meeting Kabuto. He had only heard Orochimaru's mad mednin once, but it was enough to remember him.

"No. Too much attention is on Danzo and the attack."

Interesting. He'd assumed that they were reporting back to Sound, but with Danzo's oversight. Were they working independently? That was distinctly… less useful. Maybe they could just kill them after all. His mind already exploring the many different ways dead bodies could be used as evidence to just get rid of that troublesome old man; Shikamaru began discreetly feeling the shadows in the area.

A third voice spoke. Just as he suspected. "Does this mean that we finally get to leave the cursed village, Kabuto-sama? Is our job finally done?"

He didn't anticipate too much resistance from Ichimaru Michi or Ichimaru Mai. Kabuto would be the problem. He grimaced. Kabuto was not someone he could take lightly. He needed to take his genin team into consideration. A single mistake in holding anyone could be costly. If he attacked, his timing would have to be perfect. He mentally sighed. For now, he would watch and listen.

"It will be time very soon. I need your cooperation just a little longer."

"But you promised," Mai said, her tone hurt. "It wasn't my fault that Haruno bitch interfered with our experiment!"

"In a few hours it will hardly matter," Michi said. "Konoha will be overrun. You'll have all the access to clan corpses you could want. We're not fighters, Kabuto-sama. We've done our part."

"Konoha will not be defeated in one attack. Your position within the council, and at the hospital, will be more valuable than ever in the days ahead. What is the new information that you have for me?"

Shikamaru had heard enough. He extended his control to the shadows in the glen and made a grab for Kabuto, signaling the genin to begin the attack.

Kabuto sensed him a half second before his shadows reached him and jumped away from his spies. Shikamaru left the Ichimaru siblings to the genin and lunged after him, determined to bring him down. Kabuto saw him coming and reacted.

Shikamaru had to dodge a fast barrage of poisoned needles and let his shadows do the tracking as he darted into the high branches of the nearby trees, using their cover and shadows to disappear for a single moment before skidding silently down the smooth bark straight at Kabuto. Before he had even started to move, Kabuto disappeared with a poof. The hiss of senbon had him rolling behind another tree.

A clone.

Frowning, he sighed and turned back to check on his genin team. They had managed to tie both Mai and Michi together and little Hotoka was holding them at kunai point while the other two were acting as lookouts from a safe distance.

Well, he hadn't really expected to catch Kabuto anyway. He was over ninety-eight percent sure that they'd been meeting with a clone to begin with. This trap hadn't been for him. Dealing with Orochimaru's right hand man would have required a little more strategy. Troublesome. And while Shikamaru would have loved to take the opportunity to put Kabuto out of commission, his escape left them with certain… options.

Ichimaru Mai was shrieking, loudly protesting her innocence and calling for representation. Her brother's glasses had slid down his nose and he was glaring at the world. Hotoka looked more and more irritated each passing second, and Shikamaru gave him the nod he had apparently been waiting for, and he knocked them both out. Now that they had the two, they couldn't risk a suicide.

Shikamaru stepped forward and painstakingly sent a little of his chakra into their system; he had just enough knowledge of the human body to ensure that they would be unconscious until someone removed the chakra block.

"Let's get them back to the tower. We've got a guard set up on the under level to relieve you. Then you three will report back to the rest of the genin and guard the Academy kids like nothing had happened, understood?"

The genin nodded and moved into formation. Shikamaru took out the scroll which would transfer the lot of them to the predetermined spot in the tower. He'd escort them to make sure the hand-off took place before returning to the fight he could still hear if he concentrated. It was vital that the Ichimarus be kept well-guarded and secret, but the sooner he could get back to kicking Sound and Cloud out of Konoha, the happier he would be.

Thank you for reading! Please comment!