A/N: I'm sorry. I'm late with everything, I'm well aware. I had exams last week, and other shit to deal with, and it completely threw me off my schedule. Getting back ON my schedule proved almost impossible. Still, I wrote for 7 hours straight today, so here's this chapter. Once I get home from work, I'll finish Tangency 9.
I can't be bothered to explain anything about this chap. I haven't even responded to recent reviews...fml. All I'm going to say is that Moegi had a crush on Naruto back in her youth until it became clear what Naruto's preferences were. We learned that in chapter two. Well, here we get an idea of how she knew.
19. Confrontations
He happened to be out last night when the sirens went off. A few Chuunin had rushed by, clearly on their way to the scene of whatever had put that loud blaring sound on the city's speakers for the first time in seventeen years. He was in a coffee shop across from the hospital. Consequently, he'd seen the huge blur zip up the road to crash right through the automatic glass sliding doors.
But he'd known Naruto was in the village before he'd seen him crash through the hospital entrance. He was always aware of when Naruto was off the mountain.
He'd watched him from across the street. Naruto was holding some kid, then arguing with Kakashi and Iruka, then being led off down a corridor. He'd still been right there in the coffee shop when he saw Naruto appear at an upper story window of the hospital later, apparently looking down at the village. And he was sitting in his seat still (the shop served coffee, donuts, and light meals 24/7) when Naruto, the kid, Kakashi and Iruka left the hospital the following morning in a city-issued sedan. Paying his bill, he'd gotten up and followed them at a safe distance.
And so he was standing right outside the apartment building they'd entered when they all came out again an hour later.
Sasuke almost had to jog to keep up. After the brief silence following Kabuto's name, Naruto, Kakashi, and Iruka had sprung into action. They went back and forth on the best way to approach Kabuto as they quickly exited the apartment, and took the stairs.
"He'll have to be interrogated immediately, no time to bring him up on formal charges before the council-"
"The moment he sees us, he'll know something's up-"
"We can't alert him to the fact that he's caught-"
"I say give me five minutes with him-"
"Naruto?"
All four of them turned around at hearing Naruto's name. They were outside the building, heading for the sedan they'd come in. The man who'd said Naruto's name was big, surely Naruto's height, and brawny. His hair was quite as spiky as Naruto's was, a rich brown lightly dusted with gray. There was a huge white animal sitting next to him. The man's cheeks sported identical red tattoos.
Naruto had been frowning when he turned around, but now his eyes slowly widened in recognition. "Kiba?Is it…you're Kiba."
"Guilty," the man smiled. "I smelled you. Saw you go in the hospital, come back out." His eyes flicked to Sasuke, raked up and down swiftly, then went back to Naruto. "I don't often smell you in the village for this long. Usually you're here and gone again in under an hour. It's…been a long time."
An understatement. Naruto's throat worked. His eyes drank in the sight of this phantom from his past. "Yes. It has."
Kiba kept his distance; he didn't know Naruto's story, or why he'd stayed away from the city for so long, but the man smelled the way animals did when they'd been caught in a steel trap for too long. Wild, incoherent, and ready to savage the first thing that came near them. Naruto stank of fear, pain, and instability. Above all, he smelled of mistrust. So Kiba hung back, kept his hands visible, and his eyes steady. Naruto turned away, already overloaded with too much stimuli. Kiba directed his question to Kakashi and Iruka. "What's going on?"
Sasuke had watched the entire exchange. There had been something in the way this Kiba person and Naruto looked at each other, something he couldn't identify. All he knew was that it left an uncomfortable feeling in his stomach. While Kakashi explained to Kiba that he didn't have time to explain, Naruto got in the passenger seat up front. Sasuke got in the back. "Was he a friend?" he asked Naruto.
Naruto ignored him.
The ride back to the hospital was filled with a grim silence. Kiba decided to tag along. Sasuke turned in his seat to see the man actually riding his animal. The thing galloped along in the sedan's wake like a horse.
Once at the hospital, he was left to march behind Naruto, Kakashi and Iruka as they strode purposefully down the hall. Kiba and his animal walked at his side. Sasuke didn't like the animal, whatever it was; it had disturbingly pink eyes that never seemed to blink.
"Iruka," Kakashi said over his shoulder. "Find Ino and tell her to report to the Hokage's hospital room."
Iruka peeled off from their group.
All of them had their chakra severely masked. Kakashi turned to Naruto when they were outside the Hokage's door and whispered, "Perhaps I should interrogate him?"
Naruto shouldered past him and Kiba both, and barged right into the room unannounced.
-oOo-
Kabuto was standing at one of the machines hooked up to the Hokage's chest, monitoring the printed read-out it released from one end. He looked up with a mild expression at the intrusion. "I'm sorry, but this room is off-"
That was all. His face didn't go through a transformation of recognition or anything so demonstrative. He simply stopped mid-sentence and stared at Naruto. His eyes went to where Sasuke stood nervously, swept him from head to toe, then went back to Naruto. Kakashi and Kiba were completely ignored; they weren't the biggest threat in the room.
Sasuke took in details. The Hokage's wizened, wrinkled body. The drawn shades. The cell phone on the nightstand. The cell phone was blinking. He saw when Kabuto looked at him, saw the way Kabuto stiffened ever so slightly at seeing that he was still alive.
"I don't believe you and I know each other," Kabuto said to Naruto. His tone was tranquil. He carefully set the print-out aside, freeing his hands.
Actually, Naruto did remember Kabuto. He recalled a much younger version of him helping Team 7 through the Chuunin exams. Naruto was in no mood for either a monologue, or a pretense at pleasantries; Kabuto knew damn well who he was and it was obvious to everyone in the room.
Seeing that the jig was up, and well-aware of the outcome of a fight between himself and the Vessel, Kabuto smiled ruefully. Then he vanished in a small explosion of smoke.
Or he tried to. Naruto, chakra now in play, had gone in, rounded the bed, and snatched Kabuto as the man was in the process of disappearing in that smoke. This was all done so fast that it just seemed as if one second Naruto was standing with the others, and the next he was on the other side of the hospital bed. He held Kabuto by the throat, fingers digging in on either side of his windpipe. The burns and charred skin he suffered from reaching through Kabuto's jutsu sizzled as his chakra reversed the damage. Kabuto gagged, feet dangling off the floor.
Leaning down into his reddening face, Naruto hissed, "Here's how this is going to go down."
-oOo-
Kakashi had to curb his shock. Kabuto was extremely skilled. Extremely. Not anyone could have neutralized a vanishing jutsu in the midst of its execution, but if Kabuto wasn't even attempting to defend himself…
He quickly turned to Sasuke and Kiba. "We should leave Naruto to this."
"But I want to see what happens," Sasuke protested.
Kakashi shunted him out the door. "Trust me, you don't."
There was a grisly ripping sound, followed by a crack and the strangled sound of Kabuto's scream. Sasuke craned his head to see, but Kakashi was shutting the door. His face looked set, if a bit pale.
There were many similar sounds and screams that followed in the next several minutes, all interspersed with speech too garbled to be understood from outside the room.
Kakashi waited with his arms crossed. Kiba seemed unperturbed. Sasuke stood tensely. He tried to imagine what was going on. Flinched at every ominous crack of bone, or wet rip of flesh. The scene from last night, when Kisame had been killing people in his drive to capture him, played over and over in his mind.
Seeing Sasuke's face, Kakashi tried to behave as Iruka would. "I'm afraid what Naruto is doing is necessary. Are you all right?"
Sasuke nodded. Kiba had also been staring at the boy. He didn't know anything about what was going on, but Naruto's scent was all over the kid. Marked territory. Naruto's claim was clear. Something in Kiba shriveled in disappointment, but he continued to study Sasuke. Kid smelled of determination, fear, and confusion. A pup, really. No experience, no hardness to him whatsoever except that rock-solid determination. What was he determined about? Why was Naruto in the process of ripping the Hokage's advisor apart? And why were they all okay with it? "Yo. Kid."
Sasuke glanced at him.
"What's going on here?"
Before Sasuke could answer, Iruka strode up with Ino in tow.
"What the hell?" Ino demanded. "I've been trying to see Hokage-sama since she's been admitted, and now all of a sudden Kabuto is going to allow it?" Her head snapped toward the room when a last scream, long and protracted, seemed to shiver along everyone's nerves. "My god, what-"
The Hokage's door creaked open.
Ino's hand flew to her mouth at the bloody, gory state Naruto was in. None of the blood was his own, a fact that was immediately noticeable, but he positively dripped. Ino rushed into the room behind him. Kakashi, Iruka, Kiba and Sasuke stared at Naruto.
"He tried to hold back, but in the end he squealed like the pig he was," Naruto scoffed. It was clear by his disgusted expression that he would never have squealed, no matter the severity of the provocation.
"You know where Itachi is?" Sasuke said once he'd swallowed his gorge. Naruto was rank.
"No. Got coordinates." He relayed them.
Kakashi frowned. "Sounds like Wind Country, or thereabouts. I'd have to make sure."
"I can do that," Sasuke said. "I just need a computer." He was eager to help, despite his arm and many bandages.
Iruka watched him commandeer the computer at the nurses station down the hall, then turned to Kakashi. "Now what? We head to Suna and attack? This is Akatsuki."
Kiba had been following the conversation as best he could. "If you guys are mounting an offensive against Akatsuki, I want in."
Kakashi rubbed his chin. Iruka studied the tiled floor in thought. Kiba waited. Sasuke hurried back over. "It's Wind Country," he confirmed, "About sixty miles north of Suna itself."
"Still, if the location is anywhere in Wind Country at all, the Kazekage will have to be notified, right?" Kiba asked.
Kakashi nodded. "I'll handle that. Naruto? Are we doing this?"
Naruto had been listening, but was not particularly present. Too much was going on. The way Sasuke all but bounced around, eyes gleaming and wild, the surreptitious looks Kiba kept sneaking his way, how much he'd enjoyed interrogating Kabuto. Too much happening. He wanted to be home, to shut out everything that had gone on since arriving in the city last night. Maybe if he did, and he went to sleep, when he woke up Sasuke would be curled beside him in bed and everything would be the way it was before. He looked down at his shaking hands. They were completely coated with blood, all the way to his elbows. His nails were caked with gore.
"Naruto?" Iruka's gentle voice brought him out of his thoughts.
The sooner this was taken care of, the sooner he could go back to his mountain. He looked up, took a deep breath. Met their eyes. "We're doing this. Kiba can come. Contact the Kazekage if you must, but I do this my way. No one gets in my way. No one questions me. No one tries to stop me." He looked around at the serious nods, before settling on Sasuke. "And as for you, the only reason your ass is coming along is because I need you where I can see you. But you do not interfere at all. Is that understood?"
Sasuke had no illusions about his combat skills. He nodded quickly. "Perfectly."
Naruto grunted in satisfaction.
"But I want you to know that I'm not useless," Sasuke went on. "I can help."
"How?" Kiba wanted to know.
"I can do anything with a computer," Sasuke said. "I'm not a ninja, but there's no one who can best me in tech skills, not even my bro."
The men were all from an older generation. They looked at each other. Kakashi left the matter for Naruto to decide. Naruto stared at Sasuke for several long seconds, remembering how easily he'd gotten through the barricade. "We'll see," he said.
Naruto said he needed to go home and clean up. Kakashi said he'd contact the Kazekage and fill Kiba in while Naruto was gone. Iruka was left to procure transportation. "We meet back here in ninety minutes," Naruto said, "on the off chance that Ino is able to have the Hokage lucid. After that, we go. Clear?"
They all agreed. Sasuke yelped when Naruto turned to him abruptly and lifted him. "What are you doing?" Sasuke cried.
"You're too slow to keep up," was all Naruto said.
-oOo-
The trip through the city and on to the mountain was a windy blur. Sasuke clung tightly to Naruto with the arm that wasn't bandaged. He relished the contact and buried his face in Naruto's neck, despite the dried blood. "I really appreciate you doing this," he said. "And I'm sorry I said what I said before. I swear it won't happen again."
Naruto didn't answer. When they arrived home, the computer was still screaming in the closet; Naruto had never reset the alarm. He put Sasuke down and did so now. He then went to his bathroom and locked the door. A moment later, the shower could be heard.
Sasuke located his own computer where it sat charging and packed it into his bag. He added his cell phone, dead as it was, and then dug out a flash he always kept in his bag. He went to Naruto's computer while the man still showered, and set about downloading upgrades and a few software programs he knew Naruto's Soundwave Pro had and his Spectrum didn't. After, he did a quick, awkward wash up in the kitchen sink, mopping up splotches of Kabuto's blood and his own as best he could. He used his one working arm to get dressed again in the clothes Iruka had lent him. Thankfully he only had a short arm cast, so he was able to move his right arm around and more or less use the four fingers of that hand to help himself, but a few times he ended up bumping the arm and that hurt.
He was ready and waiting with his bag over his torso when Naruto came out his bedroom dressed. He carried no weapons that Sasuke could see. He looked the way he did on any given day, in fact. T-shirt stretched across his chest, cargo pants, combat boots. He nodded when Naruto asked him if he was ready. Naruto carried him again on the return trip down the mountain. This time he didn't try to speak; Naruto was really mad at him. He still planned on making it up to him, just as soon as Itachi was home safe and sound.
At the hospital, they all made their way into the Hokage's new room. "The other one was too disgusting for me to work in," Ino snapped when asked about the switch. "And Jounin are all over that room, securing the scene. They asked who did it and I said I didn't know. I'm sure that will come back to bite me in the ass."
Kakashi said he'd place a call to ANBU on her behalf. Iruka stepped forward. "How is she?"
Ino took her time answering, chakra-covered hand placed above her mentor's heart. There were several other medics in the room, all taking orders from her, it seemed. "That asshole really did a number on her," she hissed after a moment. "My guess is he'd been administering…something…to steadily weaken her over a number of years. She's so frail now…I don't know. I don't know if I can pull her back. Whatever he was giving her had to be insidious to a point where not even Tsunade-sama could detect it. She's the best in her field, no question, but this…what he did…" They could all see her blinking back tears. "I don't know. It doesn't look good."
The last hope Naruto had that this would be taken off his hands died a quiet death. He nodded in resignation. "That's it then." He turned to the others. "We're going."
The vehicle Iruka had parked behind the hospital was a big black Hurricane(1). Kakashi got in behind the wheel. Naruto sat in the passenger's seat. Iruka climbed into the second row of seats. Sasuke shared the last row of seats with a few packs of supplies. Naruto, Iruka, Kakashi and Sasuke all twisted to look behind themselves as Kiba opened the back doors and allowed his animal to climb into the cargo space. This put the thing's huge face right near Sasuke's. Kiba slammed the rear door then got in beside Iruka. The animal breathed hotly on Sasuke's face, tongue lolling, pink eyes staring.
"Akamaru looks different," Naruto said. "His fur's not so shaggy. And his eyes-"
Kiba laughed. "That's not Akamaru. He went down in the line of duty, oh, 'bout ten years ago now. This here's one of his sons. I call him Red Bull."
"What is he?" Sasuke asked.
Kiba draped an arm over the back of his seat as he turned to address Sasuke. "A dog, what else?"
"That's a dog?"
"A ninja hound. Bigger, stronger breed of dog," Kiba chuckled.
Sasuke eyed the sleek yet muscular body of Red Bull, until Kakashi got his attention. "Sasuke."
"Huh?"
"This is a government vehicle, so it has a tracker. We can't get going until it's disabled. Any chance you could help with that? Normally such a procedure is done through ANBU headquarters, but since this is black ops…"
Happy to have something to do, Sasuke reached for his bag immediately. "On it." He'd seen the license plate number as he was getting in the truck. He spent all of a minute on his computer, asked Kakashi to pop the Hurricane's hood, then got out. He reached into the mass of machinery (he needed to stand on the front grill to reach) and ripped out the small tracker his hacking had told him was located near the left side. "Done."
Kakashi smiled beneath his mask. "You'll be useful yet."
-oOo-
For a wonder, they left the village by way of Naruto's mountain. They went through the barricade, up the winding road, past the clearing and Naruto's house, and down the backside of the mountain. Kakashi had said there was no way to leave the village in a truck without being detected. Naruto had suggested they leave by way of the forest. He could guide them out of the forest to a point three miles east of the city walls. This was the route they took. Once out of the forests surrounding Konoha, they hit the highway.
Kiba turned in his seat again, and looked at Sasuke, who was busily installing the data he'd downloaded onto his Spectrum. "Traditionally, ninja conduct all missions on foot," he said out of the blue. "But seeing as this is a time-sensitive one, we're using wheels. Suna's a three day trek from Konoha. With wheels, we'll probably make it in less than a day. Have you been on many missions?"
Sasuke spoke without taking his eyes off the screen. "I'm not ninja."
"Oh. Kakashi briefed me on the sitch, but he didn't tell me much about you except to say that we were rescuing your brother. Seeing as Naruto is personally involved, and we're doing all this without the council's say-so, I figured you and your brother were high-ranking officials or ambassadors."
The question hung in the air. Sasuke was well aware of the keen interest Kiba seemed to have in him; Itachi had raised him after all. Sasuke was accustomed to steering clear of anyone who showed too much interest. He just wished he knew why Kiba was interested. "We're neither," he said, evasive by habit. Then, because they were going to be stuck in the truck together for the next several hours, he said, "How do you know Naruto?"
Kiba smiled. His nose fed him Naruto's scent, which had just sharpened at hearing the subject matter. The smell was heavy with unease; Kiba opted for discretion. "Eh, we're old friends."
Sasuke got no more, and turned back to his laptop. Kiba rode the rest of the way in silence.
Madara stood in The Chamber, the tiled room used to interrogate Itachi. He had one elbow cupped in his palm, the other hand up to his face. He tapped his lips with one finger, staring at where Nagato and Orochimaru were working to keep Itachi alive.
Nagato armed sweat from his brow, then turned to Madara. "Boss, it's no use. The damage is too great. If you'd told me he was to be kept alive, I would have transfused him long before now-"
"And if I'd known Kisame would take this long to bring that boy I would have told you to transfuse him," Madara snapped. "Is the transfusion you're giving him now not working?"
"He's too far gone," Nagato said. "I don't have to remind you that I was never a medic nin. Neither is Orochimaru. Maybe if we called in Kabuto…?"
"Kabuto has not answered the last three messages I've sent him," Madara muttered. "And there's no telling when Kisame will be here with the brat since he can't be bothered to call in with a status report or answer messages either. When next I see him, I will eat his liver before his very eyes, mark my words."
Orochimaru straightened up and shook his salt-and-pepper hair out of his eyes. At close to eighty, he was still a surprisingly vital man who looked no ore than half his age, if that. "Nagato is right. Itachi won't last much longer. Hours, if that. If you'd let me use some of my-"
"None of your experiments," Madara said.
After a small silence, Nagato brought up what they were all thinking. "I think Kisame failed. Someone must have interrogated him, gotten the info about Kabuto, and taken him out as well. I think we should consider the fact that we're-"
He stopped and looked behind him. Orochimaru and Madara also turned to where the machine hooked to Itachi began beeping more rapidly. "What's happening?" Madara asked.
Staring at the tiny screen, Nagato shook his head. "I don't know. His heart just settled into a more stable rhythm. Like he was shot with adrenaline." He bent to Itachi unconscious form, inspecting him.
Madara's eyes narrowed. "He can hear us," he breathed. "He heard what you said and responded to that."
Orochimaru was monitoring the improved vitals closely, but he said, "What are you saying? That he knows something about Kisame and Kabuto? How can he?"
"That," Madara crooned as he drifted closer, "I do not know. But this is the man who's evaded me for seventeen years. I'm still suspicious of the manner in which he was caught, and how easily he came."
"So are you saying that he played us?" Nagato asked in disbelief.
"I'm saying he's Uchiha," Madara answered. "And far too cunning. I think we need to interrogate him again, Nagato. And this time, I will ask the questions. While we work, contact Hidan and Kakuzu and have them stand by to await orders. I may need to send them in to clean up any mess Kisame has made, and find out what's happened to Kabuto."
Itachi had indeed heard everything. Whoever they'd sent after his bro hadn't checked in. Which meant the watchdog he'd left his bro with had come through. He knew Sasuke well. He'd known the kid would go back to the apartment eventually, despite being told never to come back. Kid was a rebel that way. And Sasuke loved him too much to simply stay away indefinitely. Kid had to have gotten the message as well, which meant he'd wised up to the fact that big brother had dropped a clue last time they'd seen each other. Clue had been found, and Kabuto was no more. No sirree. Gone, baby, gone. A piece of justice that was long overdue.
He might be dying, and in so much pain that his brain no longer registered it as pain, but just then Itachi would have smiled if he were capable of it. He heard Madara talking about more interrogation. He highly doubted his ability to resist whatever was coming in his condition. Most likely he'd be dead shortly after it began. But that's okay. My bro's coming for me and bringing reinforcements. Gotta love that kid! I only need to hold on long enough for Sasuke to get here. And if I know that boy, he'll come on the run. Pain in the ass that he is, he comes through for me. Every fucking time. Just need to hold on till then.
He felt Nagato, Madara, and Orochimaru hovering over him and braced himself as best he could.
Kakashi was indeed flooring the accelerator. They had no official paperwork detailing their mission, so they were unable to drive straight through River Country. They had to detour, and likewise forgo the direct route that would have taken them to Suna.
Once they were in Wind Country, the landscape changed drastically. Sasuke had been here once in his youth, but Itachi had declared it too hot. Even now, with fall firmly on them, the sun bounced up from the desert scrub beyond their stretch of black top hard enough to hurt the eyes. Cacti dotted the horizon. In the distance, the high walls surrounding Sunagakure dwindled until they were gone completely.
Kakashi had the A/C blasting, but even so the Hurricane felt warm inside. Red Bull was panting. Sasuke was told by Iruka to hand out water from one of the bags on the seat beside him. Kiba asked for two and poured the second one into a dog bowl he produced from his pack. Red Bull lapped this up noisily.
"Kazekage's meeting us at the coordinates," Kakashi announced when they'd left a gas station. Night had completely fallen. They'd left Konoha around eleven that morning and had driven for the better part of eight hours. "It'll be another nine or ten hours before we get to the meeting point. I suggest you guys get some rest."
Iruka had been doing just that. He woke now and took over the wheel, while Kakashi stretched out next to Kiba. Sasuke closed his laptop and sprawled on the back-most seat.
-oOo-
Naruto continued to stare out the passenger window at the passing landscape. Just then he felt that the scenario was an apt metaphor for his life up to this point; he was sitting still, yet hurtling along at better than 100/mph towards a major confrontation. So to had he existed in a bubble of stillness on the mountain with Sasuke, while all around them events had been careening toward this night and whatever outcome lay ahead.
He was so afraid of what 'after' would hold. What would become of him once these events were safely in the past? He was in a truck, surrounded by faces of his youth. His other life was all around him, and even he could see the place meant for him. He saw how his old life simply waited for him to step into it. At the same time, he felt like a crucial part of him was still on the mountain, still living in a sort of waking dream that consisted of one routine day after another. It was hard to believe that any of this was happening, yet couldn't deny it. Everything was just too real. He desperately wanted to shut himself away from the vivid sights, sounds, and smells, even while a part of him capered in mad glee at something to do at last. Something significant. Something important. Something worthwhile. His mind and heart were caught somewhere in the middle in a vise of doubt and confusion.
Kiba. Naruto could safely say that the reason his old life presented itself as a possibility at all was because of Kiba. He hadn't seen him since going to the mountain. Not since before Danzo, when he was fifteen. And the last time he'd seen him…
Naruto dozed.
-oOo-
He was walking through the forest, on his way to meet his team. They had a simple training mission today. He stopped, turned, then rolled his eyes. "Dude, stop stalking me."
Kiba rounded a tree with Akamaru. He was grinning. "Then give me an answer already."
Naruto groaned, throwing his head back in mock exasperation. "Kiba, c'mon. I told you I'm not ready."
"But you're interested," Kiba said. He was standing close to Naruto now, and leaned in to sniff his throat quickly. "And I'm interested. So why wait?"
Naruto didn't have an answer. It was true that he'd recently become aware of his sexuality, just as he'd begun noticing the way Kiba always seemed to be around. "I need some time."
Kiba smiled again, displaying his fang. Naruto found himself wondering what it would be like to taste it. "Don't take too long, Uzumaki," he'd said. "Or I'll be coming for you."
Alarmed, Naruto had tried to laugh. "But you'll wait, right? Until I'm ready?"
"'Course." Kiba tapped his arm with a light punch. "I'd wait forever for you."
Kiba had hopped on Akamaru and bounded away. Naruto, smiling in the aftermath, had gone on to meet his team…and Madara.
They all came awake at feeling the truck roll to a stop. "Time is it?" Kiba yawned. "Are we there?"
Iruka surveyed the sandy horizon. They were surrounded by desert for as far as the eye could see. "Ten to three in the morning. And according to the navigation system, we're here."
Red Bull stepped on Sasuke as he jumped from the cargo area to Kiba's side. Kiba got out. Sasuke managed not to holler in fright. He gathered his bag and got out too, as did Kakashi, Iruka and Naruto. They stood looking around.
What appeared to be a sandy hill some hundreds yards off to their right dissolved to reveal a man clad in dark colors. Sasuke watched in fascination as the sand gathered itself into the large gourd on the man's back. "Sabaku no Gaara," he whispered in awe. He'd read about him in a book Itachi had brought him once, one that spoke of all Kages, past and present. "No way!"
Naruto and Gaara seemed to know each other; Gaara inclined his head in greeting to everyone present, but walked directly up to Naruto, paused as he stared at him, then gravely held out his hand. "Brother."
The muscles in Naruto's jaw clenched tightly. His eyes seemed to hold a shine of moisture for a moment, but that jaw clenched harder, then he blinked, and then the appearance of moisture vanished. He looked at the hand, looked and looked, until he finally took it. There was a tense moment where it seemed as if Gaara would pursue an embrace, but Naruto released his hand and stepped back. The moment passed.
Naruto realized they were all waiting for him, as leader of this expedition, to speak. He had trouble bringing his mind out of the past, but finally managed to clear his throat. "According to Kabuto, Madara's headquarters is at this location, but we're miles from anything."
Gaara nodded. "I like to believe I'd know if Akatsuki was squatting in my backyard. I've no doubt that Sasori has enabled their escape from detection."
Iruka looked around. "Underground?"
"Yes," Gaara said. "Come with me."
He led them a few hundred yards away from the truck and held out a hand. The sand covering one spot blew away of its own accord. A steel circle about four feet across was revealed. Red Bull leaned down to sniff. He let out a tiny growl.
"I suppose I could get through that if I had to," Naruto said. "But I'd just as soon not alert them to our presence."
"Wouldn't they know we're here already?" Iruka asked.
"No." Gaara shook his head. "I've been here for several hours. No scouts posted, and no sensors or cameras that I could detect in the sand. I would know, since I've spent those hours slowly replacing the natural sand with my own."
"For how far?" Naruto asked.
"Eight-mile perimeter." Gaara seemed not to notice the shock this statement caused.
"Can you feel the whole structure through your sand?" Kakashi asked.
Gaara nodded again. "We're looking at something that's several stories."
"No help for it," Naruto sighed. "I'll have to smash my way through, but if they don't even have sensors and cameras, that must mean they think this place in impregnable."
The hatch hummed at that moment. A light on it blinked green, then the entire thing rose slowly and silently upward, revealing light and glass. The men all jumped back. Some drew weapons. Naruto didn't.
"Guys?"
As one, the men swung their heads to regard Sasuke, who'd bee sitting on the sand behind them. They noted his laptop.
"I traced a Wi-Fi feed to their computer system," Sasuke said. "I'm in. There are cameras all through the place except for three rooms. I can't see my brother anyplace, so he has to be in one of those rooms. I can monitor you guys from my laptop and open any doors you need as you go. Incidentally, no one knows the hatch is open, since I killed the alarm. You guys still have surprise on your side. Who's getting my brother?"
There were a few seconds of dazed silence. Then Kiba pulled a shirt out of the pack on his back. "I am." He took a long whiff of the shirt, then held it down to Red Bull, who also sniffed.
Sasuke recognized his brother's shirt. "Where'd you get that?"
"Once Kakashi filled me in, I went back to your place and took it from his closet," Kiba said. "I'll find him, Sasuke. Don't worry."
Sasuke had been doing precisely that at hearing that Kiba was slated to find Itachi. He didn't know Kiba. He'd been hoping Naruto would be the one to get his brother, but admitted that it made more sense for Naruto to go after Akatsuki directly. Naruto confirmed this when he beckoned them all into a huddle.
"Kiba, you're to find Itachi and get out. Nothing else. Find him, get him to the truck, and get the hell out of here with Sasuke. Kakashi, Gaara, Iruka, and I will take on Akatsuki, and hopefully finish them."
"What if my brother's in bad shape?" Sasuke asked. "Where can he get medical treatment?"
This was met with silence. "It's an four-hour drive from here to Suna itself," Gaara said. "Two if you're really pushing it."
The unspoken thought in everyone's mind was whether or not Itachi would be in a condition to wait that long for treatment.
Iruka spoke up quietly. "Strategy?"
"Like I said," Naruto repeated. "You, Kakashi, Gaara and I will head in, and take Akatsuki. Kiba locates and extracts Itachi. I can't don chakra mode now or they'll know we're coming, even with the steel. We stay masked until we're engaged. Since Sasuke has eyes in that place, we'll give him an earpiece. Sasuke you give us a heads up and guide us."
Sasuke took the earpiece Kakashi handed him. "Got it." They performed a quick sound check to make sure there were no glitches.
The five men headed for the shaft. Kakashi pulled up short. "Who's guarding Sasuke against anyone who makes it past us? We don't know how many ninja outside of Akatsuki are in there."
Naruto barely glanced back. "Leave Red Bull."
Sasuke tried not to feel hurt at the seeming disregard Naruto had for his safety. How mad was he?
"No way," Kiba protested. "A ninja doesn't walk into battle without his tools."
"You'll have more stealth without him," Naruto said. He peered into the shaft, worked his shoulders, and flexed his hands. "I'm going in. We take no prisoners, show no mercy." He dropped into the shaft, then wriggled off it and out of sight. Kakashi and Iruka followed suit.
Kiba stood indecisively a moment, then swore. "Go on, boy."
Red Bull loped over to the Hurricane and sat beside Sasuke, who was propped against one of the wheels, computer on his lap.
They were in a corridor. For the moment, they crept along single file, eyes sharp and wary.
"I'm counting six people, guys," Sasuke's voice whispered through their earpieces. "If there are nine like you said, three are missing."
They came to a T junction. Naruto held up a fist.
"Two of the empty rooms are on the left. One is on the right. The six Akatsuki are also to the right."
Kiba went left. Naruto and the rest went right.
-oOo-
Sasuke shivered as a gust of wind, surprisingly cool given the daytime heat of the desert, swept over him. Red Bull inched closer, staring at the laptop's screen. Sasuke wondered if the dog understood what he was seeing.
He was scared. Not when discovering that his brother had left him a clue, or when Kabuto had met his end, or even on the long drive over here. Somehow, it had been easy to ignore where this was all leading. But now he was outside Akatsuki's base of operations. Akatsuki. The big bad boogeyman Itachi had spent years warning him about. Akatsuki was the driving force in their lives, the axis on which their lives spun. Sasuke had an oddly inflated terror of them that co-existed with a certain belief that they just weren't real. This was before he'd fallen into Kisame's clutches, but even now, with a broken arm, and sitting outside their headquarters, it was just all so unreal. How could anything so horrible possibly be real? The things Itachi had told of their parents' last moments had always been so over the top…a part of Sasuke had never quite believed it, even while he'd adhered to his brother's training.
But now he knew. Kisame had killed people right in front of him. Torn them apart. Torn him apart, or almost. Not only that, but Naruto had done worse to Kabuto. He'd overheard Kakashi and Iruka talking, how the bones found in the Hokage's hospital room had been splintered, ground to powder. How the man's innards had been splashed on just about every surface. And Sasuke had heard for himself the noises of Naruto's interrogation. These things were real, this level of violence and hurt actually existed in the world. And despite their quiet approach, and the apparent serenity of the scene, he was sitting outside the one place where such violence and pain were likely to be unleashed in similar amounts. And he and his brother were caught in the middle.
He didn't want to die. He didn't want Itachi to die. Shivering, he huddled over the laptop, eyes stinging as he tried to concentrate.
Kiba halted halfway down the left corridor; Itachi's scent wasn't this way. It was back the other way, down the corridor Naruto had taken. However, this was Akatsuki they were dealing with. They could have spread Itachi's scent around, or done any number of misleading things…even if they weren't expecting a rescue. Though everything in him was telling him to turn around, and though common sense said to follow his nose, Kiba followed protocol and made sure.
There wasn't much at the end of his corridor but another T junction, a short one this time. The two rooms were at either end. Both were locked by a keypad and retinal scanner. Sasuke needed several long minutes during which Kiba chafed before the doors slid open.
First room was a bedroom. Going by the Uchiha fan in prominence, it was probably Madara's. Second room turned out to open into a series of other rooms. Looked like some sort of extended private lab. Whatever, Itachi wasn't there. Kiba jogged back down the original corridor, heading in Naruto's direction.
-oOo-
"Anything?" Naruto whispered. He looked around at the empty space he and the others were in. Halls and doors surrounded them.
"The six members seem to be down a level. Hang on…okay, I've got some rooms. There's an elevator shaft to your left."
Naruto and crew turned left, and found a kitchen.
"Sorry, my left. Your right. Once you get down there, four of the members are in one room. Two are in another room about a hundred yards west of the other four."
Naruto would be happy when he could release his chakra and sense these bastards for himself. His blood hummed for violence, eager for the need to stop restraining himself. "I'll take the four," he hissed to his team. "Find those other two."
"What about the missing three?" Gaara whispered back.
"One thing at a time," Naruto said. "Go with what we know. I'm sure the other three will make themselves known-"
Kiba pulled up. "Hey."
They looked at him expectantly.
"Nothing yet, but I smell Itachi near here."
-oOo-
Naruto left with his crew, while Kiba turned in a slow circle. The many doors and halls branching off from this one room were too numerous to search, and Itachi's smell was everywhere, very strong. Closing his eyes, Kiba concentrated chakra to his nose.
There.
On his immediate right was a door. It was shut. "Sasuke, which is the third room that has no cameras?"
The answer came back that it was behind the door he was staring at. Which he'd basically already known.
"Is my brother in there?"
"I think so. But I smell other people in there with him…probably safe to say I just found the missing three." He was no coward, but he looked behind himself to where Naruto and the others had disappeared. No backup. Shit. "Okay," he said. He faced the door once more, and moved forward. "Here I go."
The others had heard via their earpieces. "Kiba, stand down," Naruto commanded. "If three of Akatsuki are in there, wait till I can back you up."
"Are you crazy?" Kiba hissed. His adrenaline was pumping, giving him that fight or flight zing, and tightening his skin in preparation. "We're lucky this entire place is crafted of this steel or they'd have sensed us by now, but our luck can only hold for so long! Anyone can come out that door at any second. I'm going in. My job is to get the brother and get out, and the guy could be near death for all we know."
Sasuke, watching the screen feverishly with Red Bull and listening to all this via his own link, nodded frantically. Please, please, please, let my brother be okay. Please, oh please.
"Kiba, dammit!"
Naruto's anger went unnoticed. Kiba walked up to the door and rested the fingertips of one hand against the cool metal. He considered drawing a weapon, but his best weapon was sitting by the fucking truck. He felt naked without Red Bull. Was naked. Damn and blast. "Sasuke…open the door."
"Can't find a lock to it. I think it's open. Kiba…be careful."
"What do you know about Kisame and Kabuto?" Madara asked for the thousandth time. "Tell me, or when I get your brother I'll make sure he suffers twice as long as you did." He twisted the chemically-coated blade sharply in Itachi's side.
Itachi shuddered, but no longer cried out. He had just enough strength to clench his jaws shut, and so they remained. His eyes were flat orbs of defiance.
"Boss, he's had it," Nagato sighed. "Look at him. He's a breath away from death. He doesn't know anything, or I would have seen it in his mind."
"Tell me what you did see again." Madara withdrew the blade and dipped it in the chemical solution once more.
Nagato resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "A game. Hide-and-seek. His brother finding stupid items. Nothing at all to do with Kisame or Kabuto."
Orochimaru lounged against the equipment they'd disconnected from Itachi some hours ago, bored with Madara's continued obsession. So the Uchiha had thwarted his chances at getting the last Vessel, so what? This vendetta against his own clan, down to torturing a man who was more dead than alive, spoke of insanity. Shaking his head, he turned for the door. He needed a break from this room, and the stench of Itachi's blood. Consequently, he was the only one who saw the head of brown hair poking around the door.
So incongruous was this sight that the only thing that registered was how the face below the hair didn't belong to an Akatsuki member. Infiltration was impossible, hence an attack never occurred to the Sannin. At seeing the tattooed face, the name Inuzuka flitted across his mind, but Orochimaru merely blinked. "Who the hell are you?" was all he said.
-oOo-
Kiba froze when he found himself addressed. He recognized the man, but that wasn't why he froze. He froze because when Orochimaru spoke, the other two vertical men in the room turned toward the door, and one of them was wearing Mangekyo Sharingan, and so had to be Madara. He was so far beyond screwed it wasn't funny.
"Madara, Orochimaru, and a redhead," he reported rapidly through his link. He charged in. "Itachi looks critical. Kiba out." He heard his name yelled through the link, at the same time that fighting with Naruto, Gaara and the others also came through. He heard Sasuke yammering questions, and then the redhead held a hand out to him, and he went soaring through the air, right towards the redhead. Kiba had time to think, Fuck.
Kiba's link must have fallen out of his ear, Sasuke thought. He heard all sorts of sounds from it, but Kiba didn't respond when he screamed for him. He wanted to know if Itachi was okay. He had all sorts of mental images from that word 'critical'. He heard Tsuuga! roared through the link, then that was it. Red Bull barked loudly, over and over.
No one else was responding either, but that was probably because the fight had begun at last. The ground beneath them shuddered and quaked; It heaved upward slowly: It groaned.
Red Bull quieted down with a whine. Sasuke stared in dismay at the screen. There was nothing but snow on it now. The cameras were all gone, and the com units were only giving back static.
When Naruto let loose his chakra at last, the shockwave blew out every light in the underground structure, and every electrical circuit. The darkness was lit now only with his chakra, Kakashi's lightning, and what few sparks emanated from the clashing of blades between Iruka and whoever his opponent was.
There was a collective thought, shared by those with Naruto, that a monster had truly been sleeping on the Hokage mountain. As hesitant and socially inept as Naruto was around people, and as dedicated as he was to his privacy, there was just no getting around the fact that the man was nothing but undiluted rage and violence. Twenty-some-odd years spent telling himself otherwise did not change that. Solitude did not change that. Naruto was the same creature Danzo had created; he'd just grown a thin mask over the truth to hide it.
Iruka saw, though. He saw, and understood. And then he turned to defend himself once more.
-oOo-
Naruto, on all fours, ran at a blond man, ran right through the explosion the man threw at him, and healed himself as he went for the man's throat. He turned for the next attack, and found himself facing a bonfire directed at him from some kind of puppet. His own fire swept around wildly, but it was a diversion. With chakra mode, he was able to sense the man inside the main puppet and ran toward it.
They didn't need to look for the other two members who'd been in a room west of their location; they came running. One held a huge scythe, the other had his lower face veiled. Both leaped into the fray immediately, and were met with one green-eyed redhead who had them crushed in a heap of sand in a single smooth gesture of his hand. And when the scythe-wielding one broke free, and the veiled one surprised him by blasting the sand apart, Gaara widened his stance and got serious.
Madara did not bother to get involved with the intruder. For one, Nagato had the situation covered. For another, his headquarters erupted in a cacophony of hellish sound. The lights all went out. The whole place shook as if Hell really had opened up beneath them. He pushed the door to The Chamber open and looked out, unable to believe a full-scale attack was under way. "Go," he told Orochimaru. "Find out what the hell is going on down there."
The Sannin disappeared through the door, and Madara turned to where Nagato was about to finish off the intruder. "Stop." He went over to where the man lay sprawled. "An Inuzuka," Madara drawled. He squatted down, and took hold of a fistful of the bushy hair. "Tell me, who else is here?"
The answer came from the door behind Madara and Nagato, or more accurately, through the door. Orochimaru's body crashed through the door and hit the operating table holding Itachi. The tabled rolled until it hit a wall. Orochimaru's body thumped to the floor. It was headless.
Madara and Nagato stared at this sight before their attention was brought to the door once more. A large, blond man stood in it. Orochimaru's head dangled from his hand by its long dark hair. It swung idly to and fro, but both Akatsuki were firmly fixated by the feral smile on the blond's blood-streaked face.
They new that smile. They knew the boy this man had once been.
To Naruto, Madara appeared to be ageless. His black hair was long and lustrous, and his eyes were quite as red as the blood on his hands. His fair skin was unlined, and his body was as lean and lithe as Naruto remembered it. Instead of this timeless beauty intimidating him, it made him grin harder. He could honestly say that his life had started going downhill from the moment he'd laid eyes on Madara, all those years ago.
Dropping Orochimaru's head, he lifted his hand palm up, and beckoned for Madara to come and get it.
Sasuke rocked back and forth where he sat, knees drawn up. He had no idea what was going on, but the sounds groaning up from the sand hadn't stopped. If anything, they'd increased. He didn't know who was still alive, or if anyone was. The open shaft seemed to mock him from where it glowed some distance away. Gnawing on one thumbnail, he continued to rock and stare at it.
"I gotta do it," he muttered to Red Bull. "Gotta go in there and get him myself. Been thirty minutes since the electricity blew. Gotta do it. Okay, I'm doing it. Okay. Okay."
He finally uncurled himself from his rocking fetal position and stood nervously. Red Bull stood at his side. The dog's head was almost eye-level. For once, Sasuke felt comforted by his size. He looked at the long, sharp teeth and tried to let this soothe him further, but the cold fact of it was that he was going into Akatsuki's hideout. He had a gimp hand, a dog, and a single kunai. Molding his chakra and holding it ready, he went for the shaft at a run; the sooner he was in, the sooner he'd be out.
-oOo-
He remembered the layout, and hung a right at the T junction. He saw blood, guts, and worse in that central room, the one that was a hub for all the other doors and corridors. He heard fighting and yelling farther off in the place, but ignored it. He turned left, towards the door Kiba had gone through.
A fight had taken place here. There was a headless body was spread out on the floor. The head was actually right by Sasuke's foot once he'd let the door fall shut behind him. Red Bull gave a short howl and went to the fallen body of Kiba where it lay in one corner. Sasuke, after bearing down against the urge to vomit, had eyes only for the table against the far wall. His brother was on it.
"Itachi!" he screamed.
-oOo-
There were many sounds. The pain had sent him over the edge, he knew. Madara's interrogation probably would have had more effect if he'd been well enough to feel a normal amount of pain. With one foot in the grave, he was barely able to stay conscious. Even so, the pain had been intense. It sapped what little he had left.
He'd hung on. He could all but feel his brother drawing closer and closer, and he kept telling himself that he would see the kid's face again before he blew this scene. He'd held to that thought, kept Sasuke's face firmly in the forefront of his mind. The harder Madara twisted that knife, and the worse whatever chemical was on it burned, the harder he held to Sasuke's image. He was pretty much gone when all the sounds started. They reached him dimly. He was almost dead, he knew. A relieving numbness had settled over his limbs, as if parts of him were already dying. So when the image of Sasuke he had in his mind suddenly said his name, he thought that was it. He was finally dead.
But the image called him again. It was louder. And contrary to the mental picture he had of him, this Sasuke's face was bandaged. His eyes were frantic instead of serene. Slowly, very slowly, feeling returned, and with it the otherworldly pain that his mind had successfully tuned out. He could feel his brother's hands on his shoulders. One of them had a hard cast on it. The sounds from elsewhere were all around them now, and Sasuke screamed-
-oOo-
"Itachi, please! ITACHI!"
"…Bro…"
Sasuke wilted with relief so intense he almost passed out. "Oh, thank God. Itachi, I'm here. Can you hear me?"
His brother was beautiful, Itachi decided. The most beautiful thing in the world. "You…came."
"Of course I came. Oh God, Itachi…" Sasuke's eyes roved over the many rough stitches, the open wounds, the blood.
Itachi blinked, and seemed to become more alert. His eyes left Sasuke's face as the room shuddered hard. There was a roar, a scream of 'No!' right outside the door. Itachi's eyes went back to Sasuke. "And you brought the cavalry. That supernova of chakra even I can feel would be Naruto?"
Sasuke nodded. "I'm getting you out of here." He dropped a quick kiss to his brother's gray cheek, then moved to begin pushing the table. Itachi stopped him.
"Sasuke, I'm…done."
"No, don't say that-"
"I'm proud of you…never been prouder. But you need to go. If Madara isn't dead, and he sees you-"
Sasuke leaned into his brother's face. "I'm getting. You. Out of here."
Itachi managed a weak smile. Sasuke ran to the head of the table and began pushing. A whine behind him had him turning in fright, but it was only Red Bull. He had Kiba's shirt clamped in his jaws, and was dragging the big man.
Naruto and Madara were locked in battle right outside the door.
Sasuke recognized Madara at once from Itachi's many descriptions. The man was beautiful, Sasuke thought. But then Madara saw him too, and lunged for him. Sasuke never forgot what he saw next.
Naruto seemed to be on fire. His skin glowed brightly in the dark, bright enough to light the entire space they were in. He dragged Madara back by the hair. Madara turned, eyes blazing, and then...it was as if reality ceased to exist; holes to nowhere opened up. Madara tried to disappear through these holes, only to be thwarted by Naruto, who dragged at him unmercifully. Sometimes parts of their bodies disappeared through the holes. By the time Sasuke realized that Naruto and Madara were fighting in two dimensions, this one and wherever the holes led to, Itachi was urging him weakly to run, to just fucking run.
But he couldn't. He was mesmerized. There was fire, black fire, everywhere. Extra arms grew off Naruto's back, countering the many jutsu Madara seemed to throw without pause. Lightning sizzled from ceiling to floor, stitching the room with madness, and finally Itachi gathered enough strength to yell, "Dammit Sasuke, MOVE YOUR FUCKING ASS!"
Sasuke moved.
-oOo-
It wasn't easy. Navigating around the attacks and jutsu, nearly had him tipping the table over. Sasuke was in a perfect ecstasy of fear, eyes on. He ran down the corridor that would take him to the T junction, only to have some blue-haired woman land in his path. He didn't stop, didn't slow down, but took his good hand and let fly the biggest, hottest katon he'd ever executed. He didn't know if she was dead or what, but he zipped through the flames, eyes shut, and hung a hard left to the shorter corridor that would lead him to the shaft. Red Bull ran at his heels, dragging Kiba.
He couldn't get the bed up the shaft.
His scream of frustration was cut short when he felt a cold shiver enter his back, followed by a burning sensation. Red Bull was barking, snarling. Sasuke turned, found the blue-haired woman standing with a bloody kunai in her hand, and realized he'd been stabbed.
Itachi saw it happen. He'd seen the bitch sneaking up on his brother, but his voice was gone. Hell, he could barely think anymore, but he was still aware of his surroundings. His brother turned, and even now the kid was prepped to go down fighting. Sasuke released a lightning jutsu he must have picked up recently, but the bitch was good. The dog, biggest thing Itachi had ever seen, leapt to his brother's defense, and between it and Sasuke, the bitch retreated a step. But only a step. She regrouped quickly, and Sasuke was slowing down. That stab wound was bleeding hard.
Assessing himself, Itachi thought that if he managed by some miracle to find a shred of chakra, the use of it would end him immediately. And despite his assertion to Sasuke that he was done for, he didn't want to die. Certainly not with his valiant brother going down before his eyes. He strained weakly, trying to move his hand.
-oOo-
Kiba groaned. Red Bull's distant barking and growling brought him round, and he rolled over. He was hurt, but still capable. His hand went immediately to his weapon's pouch, only to find that it had fallen off at some point. "Bull," he yelled.
Red Bull responded to the shortened version of his name and retreated at once. Sasuke flew into the shaft as the woman threw him. He fell partially onto the table holding his brother, before falling to the floor. Through the table's legs, he saw a glowing Kiba leap from all fours, claws and fangs extended, at the blue-haired woman. "Shikyaku no Jutsu!" Kiba bellowed.
"…Sasuke? You good, man?" Itachi's voice was a barely audible croak. "Talk to me, bro."
Sasuke used the table to pull himself up so he could see Itachi's face. "I'm here." He flinched at hearing a protracted scream; Kiba was in the process of savaging the woman with Red Bull's help. Sasuke swallowed, then turned to look up the shaft. It stopped at about eye level. "I think I have to carry you."
"Maybe the other guy can…Sasuke, you're hurt."
Sasuke ignored him. He could feel a worrisome draining sensation, but ignored that too. Besides, Kiba was busy. He chewed his lip, leery of moving his brother when it was clear how badly Itachi was injured.
In the end, it was awful. For both of them. Itachi passed out somewhere between the third and fifth tries of Sasuke to get him into that shaft. Something pulled horribly in Sasuke's back, and blood leaked steadily from his wound. His head swam, and his arm throbbed, but he got Itachi onto the shaft. Just as he was contemplating how he was going to get them both up to ground level, Kiba hopped into the shaft and slung Itachi onto his back. He was up and gone a moment later. Red Bull waited with Sasuke until Kiba came back and got them both.
-oOo-
Topside, Sasuke saw his brother laid out in the Hurricane, in the last row of seats. Lurching now, and dizzy, Sasuke bent and scooped up his laptop, and nearly screamed. Something in his side grated unbearably. He remembered being thrown by the woman, and wondered if something inside him was broken. Probably. Kiba hopped up behind the wheel, as Red Bull plunked down in the passenger seat. Sasuke crawled into the middle row of seats to be near Itachi.
The engine revved. Kiba threw the truck in drive and was taking his foot off the brake when Sasuke yelled for him to stop.
Naruto exploded out of the shaft. He had Iruka's body under one arm, and Kakashi slung over the other shoulder. Gaara jumped out behind him, then turned and slammed his hands on the ground.
The desert for miles around went through a slow-motion upheaval as Gaara used the eight miles of sand he'd replaced to form a massive version of Sabaku Taisou. The ground settled several feet as everything in that eight mile radius was completely crushed. Naruto landed at the truck and shoved Kakashi and Iruka inside. He ran around to the front and pushed Red Bull aside. "Go!" he yelled at Kiba. "Gaara will catch up after he finishes here." He turned to Sasuke.
Sasuke thought for moment that all was forgiven. There was relief in the blue eyes at seeing him safe, but then the eyes went to Itachi, and Sasuke was forgotten.
Naruto climbed from his seat, over the others, and put a hand on Itachi's chest. He frowned. Sasuke watched him. "My brother's hurt, but he's okay," Sasuke quavered. "He's going to be okay."
"He'll be dead soon," Naruto said.
"No, he-"
Naruto looked out the windows. The sky was still dark. The whole attack had taken little more than an hour. "Kiba…"
"Going as fast as this thing can," Kiba snapped.
Kakashi sat up with a groan. He saw Iruka and put a hand to the younger Jounin's throat. He sighed at feeling a pulse, then turned and found Sasuke and Itachi. "Akatsuki?" he asked Naruto.
"Dead. Madara got away," Naruto muttered. He still had a hand on Itachi's chest. "Itachi's not going to make it, Kakashi. His life force is weakening as I speak-"
"No," Sasuke moaned.
This seemed to recall his presence to both men. "Are you hurt?" Kakashi asked him. He reached for Sasuke's arm.
A cloud of sand blew heavily onto the racing Hurricane just then, tilting it onto two wheels, and causing Kiba to swerve and curse. Something thumped the roof hard enough to dent it. While they were all looking up, Gaara appeared and yanked the passenger door open. They were on the move again a second later.
Injuries were assessed quickly. Naruto, still glowing, didn't move his hand from Itachi's chest. While Kakashi set about performing a limited form of first-aid to Sasuke's stab wound, Naruto shook his head grimly. "He's fading. My chakra's only prolonging the inevitable."
"But we're going to Suna," Sasuke sobbed. "There's a hospital, right? Doctors? Kiba's flooring this thing, we'll be there soon-"
Gaara used the hem of his tunic to stem a leaking gash on his head. "I don't think anyone in my village has the skill to deal with the extent of his injuries, Sasuke. I'm sorry."
Sasuke lost it. It was too much. After everything, after finally rescuing his brother and miraculously surviving the encounter with Akatsuki, they were all just going to let Itachi die?
"MY BROTHER'S GOING TO LIVE, DO YOU HEAR ME?" he screamed at the top of his lungs. "I'M NOT GIVING UP ON HIM JUST BECAUSE HE'S HURT! YOU FIND ME SOMEBODY WHO CAN HELP HIM, YOU HEAR ME? HELP HIM! HELP HIM! HELP-"
Naruto swung his other arm to backhand the hysterical little shit, but Kakashi blocked the blow. It was he who spoke to Sasuke in an effort to calm the boy down.
"Sasuke, we've done everything in our power to help him, down to undertaking this mission in the first place, but facts are facts. No one can help your brother. Not unless it's the Hokage, and she's ill herself."
"Wh-wha-what about Ino, then?" Sasuke pleaded.
"Konoha is too far away, and Ino, while good, can't perform miracles."
"There has to be someone, somewhere, who can save him." Sasuke broke down and covered his streaming eyes with his cast. "Somebody, please. Someone has to save him."
Naruto grit his teeth. "The only one I know of who could possibly do so is Sakura. And she's been gone for decades. No one knows where she-"
Sasuke shut up at once, shuddering as he swallowed his grief by sheer force of will. "I can find her."
Kakashi was sympathetic. "Sasuke, I know you mean well, but if the most skilled hunter-nin at Danzo's disposal couldn't find her-"
"They're not me." Sasuke dived for his laptop and threw it open. "I can find anyone. Gimme her info."
"Even if you managed to find her, there's no telling where she is. She could be on the other side of the globe," Gaara pointed out.
"Give me her fucking info!" Sasuke screeched.
Kakashi rattled off all the information they had, down to the letter Sakura had sent Ino. Sasuke's fingers rattled rapidly over his keyboard; images and data flickered just as fast on the screen.
"Sasuke," Naruto said in pity.
"Shut up."
Naruto's lips thinned. When this was over, he would take pleasure in giving the boy a few choice blows. On the heels of that thought came his bruised and battered love, still strong for Sasuke. It put a lump in his throat, and ice in his belly. "No one's found her in over twenty years, Sasuke, she'll hardly be found by the likes of you. I know your skills with the computer are formidable but-"
"Got her."
"What?" Naruto, Kakashi, and Kiba yelled.
Sasuke flipped his screen and showed them all a grainy photo of a pink-haired woman leaving a grocery store. "Is this her?"
Kakashi was stunned. "Yes. No one's seen her since she was your age, but I believe that's her."
"Rain Country, just past the border of Wind Country…which isn't too far from where we are now," Sasuke said. He was still typing quickly, and spoke absently. He was completely focused on the screen. "Living under the name Nakamura Chie. Kiba, I'm shooting the coordinates to the Hurricane's navigational system."
"Got 'em," Kiba called. He glanced at the in-dash screen, and changed course. He soon had the truck at its maximum speed again. The vehicle began to shudder as the speedometer needle remained in the red.
There were some seconds of silence. "How?" was all Kakashi said. It was all he could say.
"Located the record of the courier nin who signed into Konoha in order to deliver the letter to Ino," Sasuke said. "Traced it to the courier nin himself, and the record at his headquarters of where he received the letter. His report says he received it in Grass Country, from an unidentified woman. I don't know where your hunter nin lost the trail. There are dates attached to the mail records. Grass Country employs digital security means at its gates. I scanned the records of all the people who went in and out of Grass Country that week, and found only four who were female. The rest were merchant men or boys. Three of the women checked out. One had bogus data. There's a single picture of her crossing the border into Rain Country. I logged her height from that picture, and approximate age in a search program and had all of Rain Countries inhabitants filtered through. There were a few matches, but they had families. Came across the grocery store shot. Accessed archives of the store's vid files, and found her frequenting the place. Parking lot cam shows her arriving and leaving on foot, always coming in from the east, and heading in the same direction. All the residences east of that store have people that don't match her description. Hijacked a satellite feed to use thermal imaging of all the land east of that store and came up with this." He turned the screen again.
None of them could claim the faintest understanding of either what Sasuke had just said, or what he was showing them. Gaara said, "What's that?"
Sasuke pointed to the reddish blotch on the screen. "That's evidence of someone living where there's supposedly only forest and wild animals. Someone out there has internet, and the service is listed under the name Nakamura Chie. I looked up the name in relation to Rain Country and found seven matches. Only one had pink hair. Same lady from the grocery store vid. How close are we?"
Kiba looked at the dashboard clock. "At this speed? Two, maybe three hours."
Naruto, struck with dumb admiration for Sasuke, cleared his throat. "Punch it, Kiba. She's Itachi's only shot."
Sasuke finally looked up from his laptop. "Will he make it?"
"I don't know." Naruto turned to look at Itachi's pale face. It was partially covered by his hair. "He's certainly hanging on longer than I expected him to."
Closing the laptop, Sasuke set it aside, and climbed into the back seat with his brother. He gently lifted Itachi's head so that it rested in his lap. He combed the hair away from his face, and leaned down to kiss his brow. "I'm not going to let you die," he whispered.
The Hurricane screamed along, leaving a high plume of dust and sand in its wake, as it raced against time.
(1) Hurricane: A vehicle produced by Suna that's identical to a Suburban.