Disclaimer: The characters are the property of Masashi Kishimoto and the Naruto franchise

Author's Note: Thank you again to Rosebunse and Hot's and Clogs, for being the Jiminy Cricket's peering over my shoulder and reining in my...er...destructive impulses? Hahaha, Neji is lucky! And thank you to yume18 for leaving another lovely review. The mystery of Danzo shall continue. ;) It's so good to hear how people are responding to this story. It's odd because as the writer I know exactly where everything is going and nothing surprises me, so it really is fascinating hearing how a reader predicted where the story might go! To be honest, Neji's role in this took me completely by surprise. He's actually become a bit more important since the story has gone on that I thought he would. On another note, thank you to those who have followed and favourited this story since the last chapter. I hope you enjoy this installment! Best, Zen

Two quarantine guards were patrolling the edge of the town, on their beat, walking with easy, swinging strides, occasionally glancing over their shoulders into the dark. There were knives strapped to their back, bows slung across their chests, and flares and whistles at their belts.

One guard froze and drew the knife from his back. "Halt! Who goes there?"

Leaves rustled and a man stepped out into the road. Two ninjas followed him, linked to him by a rope looping around their waists. Their eyes were covered in bandages and they carried a stretcher bearing their fourth team member between them.

"Konoha jounin, Hatake Kakashi, returning from a mission," came the reply. "I was expected yesterday. Sorry I'm late, but they really do need to move those plague pits somewhere easier for people to see. I nearly fell in again."

"What's that?" the guard said sharply, pointing at the woman on the stretcher with his knife. "We don't want any more sickness here. If it's the Plague - "

"She's injured, as are the other two. Accidents on the mission." Kakashi held up the pass Tsunade had given him before leaving. "Let us through. We're on Hokage's orders."

The guards squinted at the pass. After exchanging a look and whispers about Hokage favouritism, one of the guards lowered his knife and the other quickly followed. "You can go through," he said, somewhat reluctantly. He shot a green flare into the air to alert the men at the gates.

Kakashi breathed a sigh of relief. The ANBU struck by the flying sword had been treated in Ageha on the way back, but the wound had reopened and he wanted to get all three seen by a Konoha medic-nin as soon as possible.

It was late night but the lights were still on at the hospital. Once Kakashi had left the ANBU with a medic-nin he trusted and recognised, he made his way to the reception.

"I need to see the Hokage," he said to the woman sleeping at the desk. She flicked her finger up and indicated Tsunade's office on the fifth floor, before slumping over her papers again. Kakashi tried snapping his fingers by her ears, but the receptionist didn't stir. She was already fast asleep. "Thank you."

Strange times, plaguetime, Kakashi thought dryly, as he climbed the flights of stairs. Even Tsunade was doing her job properly, even staying up all night to do it. The medic-nin parted before him as he went along the corridors and didn't say a word. He had thought they would react more to seeing a ninja outside of his hazard gear, but perhaps in the ten days he had been absent from Konoha things had changed yet again.

He was about to knock when he heard voices from inside the office and the door opened.

Shizune's eyes turned upwards in a smile. She called over her shoulder, "Tsunade-sama, Kakashi-san's come back from his mission."

Shizune held the door open for him and closed it behind her as she left. Tsunade was sitting at her desk, warming her hands around a steaming cup of tea. Judging by the column of cups teetering to the side of her desk, it was her twentieth or thirtieth cup of a day. There was a wall of paperwork around her desk. Scans, diagrams and proposals were spilling out of her in-tray. Disposable face mask samples were bursting out of the top drawer of her desk. At that moment, Tsunade had her elbows propped up on a pair of medical reviews and seemed to be annotating a map.

Tsunade looked up at the sound of the door closing. "You took your time coming back, Kakashi. Your ninken arrived two days ago."

Kakashi raised a lazy hand. "Hatake Kakashi, reporting back from his mission. Apologies for being slower than a four-legged animal, but I was looking after three wounded ninjas."

"Well, let's not waste time then. Time is life and life is a luxury these days." Tsunade leaned back in the chair and regarded him over the edge of her cup. "What happened, Kakashi? Pakkun said you tried to get Uchiha Sasuke to cooperate. Your mission was to capture him and bring him back, whether he wanted to cooperate with us or not. Let me get this straight - You found Sasuke in less than a week and you had him within your grasp?"

He couldn't help a wry smile. "Netted like a wild duck."

Tsunade fixed Kakashi with a fierce, weary glare. "And now he's vanished like he never existed?"

Kakashi had had plenty of time on his return journey to imagine how this conversation with Tsunade would go. He had hoped sending Pakkun ahead would help smooth things over a little, but apparently not. "In short, yes."

"Excuse me? Kakashi, I don't think you quite understand what you've done. Because of your kindness, your lenience, your sentimentality, you have condemned tens of ninjas to death who might not have died if you had just gagged and bound Uchiha Sasuke and brought him back by force!"

"I know, and I apologise for my conduct on this mission." Kakashi put his arms to his sides and bowed low at the waist, closing his eye. "I am sorry. I regret my actions."

Kakashi kept his head down and waited. Tsunade was silent. The clock on the wall ticked. He could hear the shouts from tents below, cries from the floor above, and the squeak of trolley wheels from somewhere in the wards. A dog barked. It boomed. Probably a mastiff.

Eventually, there was a creak as Tsunade settled back into her chair. "Stop it, Kakashi. I can't tell if you're being serious or making fun of me, and either way I don't like it. I'll accept the apology, but next time, when I send out a squad to look for Uchiha Sasuke, I'm going to think twice before sending you."

Kakashi straightened and massaged the back of his neck. At that moment, there was a knock on the door and Shizune reappeared, holding a tray with two cups. "I thought you could do with some drinks."

She set down one in front of Tsunade and the other she handed to Kakashi, then left as quickly as she had come. Kakashi wondered how Sakura was coping with the medic-nin's work. They all seemed so busy these days.

Tsunade picked up her cup and scowled. "Orange juice? Is she trying to get me off caffeine now that she thinks she's got me off alcohol?" She looked ready to pour it onto the dying plant behind her, but, seeming to have a change of heart, downed it instead. She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. "What would I give for a little warm shot of sake!"

"At least you have people looking out for your best interests." Kakashi leaned against a tower of folders next to Tsunade's desk. "How has Naruto been? The last I heard he was setting up some kind of orphan play group."

Tsunade's eyes slid to the file at the top of her in-tray, its reports written painstakingly in Naruto's crabby handwriting, and felt a stab of pride. The Konoha Tigers had been doing their job remarkably well.

Thanks to the Hyuugas, they now had a base of sorts. After spending two days cleaning the old gatehouse, taking down cobwebs and chasing out the colonies of mice that had taken residence in the walls, Naruto had insisted on having a grand opening and Tsunade had gone to see the Tigers' Den herself. Naruto had dragged her around a playground he and his friends had made at the back of the house, shown her the dormitories, and introduced her to a bunch of children who absolutely refused to do as Naruto told them.

The next thing Tsunade knew, Naruto had managed to poach Sakura for a whole day from the hospital to get the infected children started on Zero Chakra lessons. There was something about that boy. Whenever he got it in mind to do something, it was near impossible to stop him, and he seemed to pick up people around him like a rolling snowball collected snow. Tsunade couldn't decide whether he was either dangerously charismatic or incredibly irritating, although Naruto probably thought 'charisma' was an exotic dance move.

"He's sticking his head into other people's business, as per usual," Tsunade said, trying not to sound worried. "The Sixth Repentance have been causing problems and he's taking that personally. You know what happens when Naruto begins to take things personally."

They had attacked Shikamaru, urged Neji to consider suicide by chakra exhaustion, poisoned the Plague orphans and, in his brief stint as a Marksman, were responsible for the terrible circumstances of the first marked house Naruto had visited. Tsunade couldn't say that she was too surprised.

"The Sixth Repentance, eh?" Kakashi raised an eyebrow. "Naruto doesn't pick his enemies lightly. On that note, has there been any breakthrough since I was away?"

"One interesting suggestion has been raised." Tsunade slid out a file from underneath the map and handed it to Kakashi. Kakashi took it with interest. He flicked open the cover. Inside were pages of chemical spectra and analyses. When he looked back at Tsunade, her eyes were gleaming. "There is a possibility that somebody very high-ranking in the Repentance, possibly even the leader, is an ex-ANBU officer."

"That is interesting," Kakashi agreed, flicking through the file again. "What's the reasoning?"

"You want the boring details? It's nearly two in the morning," Tsunade muttered irritably, but she steepled her fingers together and leaned forward across the table. "The pharmacology department analysed the chemical composition of the konseigan to work out the ingredients and, when they found out what they were, I asked the Keepers to investigate their recent sales. The poison is being manufactured in bulk, so we expected large orders of the respective ingredients. The Keepers found no such orders in the past three months. Of the five ingredients of konseigan, however, all five were bulk ordered by ANBU within the past year."

"I think I see where this is going," Kakashi cut in carefully, taking a gulp from the cup of water Shizune had left him. "Even though the ANBU have been disbanded, an ex-ANBU officer might have known about those orders, known where they were stored, and might have been able to gain access to the ANBU chemical laboratories to make the konseigan. Have you talked to Danzo about this?"

Tsunade pulled a face as though she had just been made to suck on an especially sour lemon. "He insists that he oversaw the destruction of the ANBU chemical stores himself and refuses to let the Keepers investigate them."

Kakashi tried not to look amused. "Another irritatingly uncooperative ninja. There must be something going round in the air."

"He told me to remember my role as Hokage and focus on how I was going to represent Land of Fire ninja interests against the other Kages at the Conference this weekend. The cheek of it! Danzo telling me how to do my job?" Tsunade seemed to swell with indignation as she crumpled the cup in her hand and tossed it into the bin, where it joined ten or so other cups. "That cup just then? Let's imagine that that was a little bit of Danzo. Any bit you like. Preferably a bit that dangles."

Kakashi pricked his ears. "A Gokage Conference this weekend?"

"The Raikage demanded it. He says that he wants to open talks to coordinate international responses." Tsunade tapped the map with a pencil. "It's obvious what he's really after. He wants to blame Konoha for the Plague, throw a massive tantrum and squeeze us for compensation. I don't know if he's been in talks with the Tsuchikage or the Mizukage, but the Mizukage seems to be looking to do the same. At least the Kazekage says that he'll support us."

The map was covered with pencilled in dates and coloured markers - Plague incidences, where, when and how many in the initial outbreak - and there was a very clear pattern in the stickers radiating out from Konoha.

"Sounds as though it's going to be tricky," Kakashi commented, eyeing the map. "What are you going to do?"

"Well, I was hoping that, as compensation I would be able to offer a vaccine, or demonstrate some research with the potential for a cure, but," Tsunade lifted her eyebrows and looked at Kakashi, "you let your old student escape."

"I see," said Kakashi weakly. Tsunade continued to tap her pencil on the map in the awkward silence that followed, watching Kakashi trying not to shuffle his feet like a schoolboy under her scrutiny. He broke the silence. "Did Pakkun mention what Sasuke proposed to do?"

"No, but I can guess that he's out to cause more trouble," Tsunade muttered, sounding grim. "Pakkun said something about the boy being completely uninfected by the disease. Was that true or did I hear your dog wrong? I was half-asleep."

Somebody seemed to be cleaning the room above them. At odd intervals they heard the bucket drop onto the floor, followed in between by the slow scraping of a mop. Kakashi told Tsunade in brief what Sasuke had said and what they had discovered when they caught him. She yawned as she listened, but Kakashi knew that he had her attention.

Tsunade pinched the bridge of her nose. "Of all the people in the world to be immune to the Plague, of course, it would be Uchiha Sasuke."

"You don't sound surprised."

"I'm not surprised at all. It must be something Orochimaru did. Body modification and enhancement was his speciality and he was always a clever, calculating snake of a bastard." Tsunade looked down at the map showing the Plague spread. She tightened her hands into fists. "Orochimaru must have prepared Sasuke in case the strains really were used for war, so that after he transferred his soul into Sasuke's body, Orochimaru would be able to live in the resulting Plague without being killed by the disease he created. I should have realised he would never have made these weapon strains of MK without ensuring his own safety."

Kakashi suppressed a shudder of disgust. "And I joked about Sasuke being Orochimaru's lab-rat."

"Sasuke says he's going to sell himself to one of the other countries." Tsunade continued, chuckling mirthlessly. "What does he think he is? A princess giving herself up for a political marriage?"

It was difficult to know what Sasuke would do next. The way he had disappeared in the forest suggested that he had had help, but who was helping him? Kakashi had a strong suspicion that the Akatsuki leader himself had spirited him away, but it was also possible that he had been found by a spy from another nation and already brokered a deal with them. In which case, come the Gokage Conference in the weekend, one of the nations would have a very hefty trump card up their sleeves.

"This Gokage Conference, where is it going to be?" Kakashi asked, after Tsunade stopped calling Sasuke various names beginning with S, the most kindly of which was 'shameless'.

Tsunade pointed at the map, where a small island had been circled just within the border of the Land of Lightning. "Hihoutou. I'll be setting off tomorrow evening and, I promise you this, I'm going to sleep the whole journey. I haven't slept since Monday. Oh," she jabbed her pencil at him, "and don't get too comfortable, Kakashi. You'll be coming with me, because I'm leaving Shizune in charge of the hospital, and I refuse to explain our situation with Uchiha Sasuke by myself."

The brackets hammered into the walls of the cave system were new. It wasn't one of Orochimaru's old hideouts, but with the dry walls of yellow rock, the low ceilings and the winding passageways with their uneven footing, as though the ways had been carved by the burrowing action of a giant snake, it might as well have been. All it lacked was the distinctive combined smell of dead animal and disinfectant.

He had been doing stretches before breakfast and the air chilled the sweat on his skin. Sasuke didn't bother with a torch. The chakra ran to his eyes and he let the sharingan guide him through the dark. It didn't take him long to find the room the masked man had told him to report to.

There was light shining out from the crack under the door. No doubt Madara's 'colleague', whoever he might be, was already inside. Sasuke didn't bother to knock. If knocking was a sign of respect for somebody's privacy or authority, then Sasuke wasn't going to give this person the satisfaction of either.

He shoved the door open with a bang and froze in the doorway.

A man looked up and remarked dryly, "You never were one to knock, were you?"

It was a laboratory as well equipped as Orochimaru's had ever been, perhaps even better. Shelves of glassware, incubators, centrifuges, boxes of pipette tips, jars of bovine serum albumen and blood, horse blood most likely, but you could never be sure, and row upon row of books had been set into the cave walls above the laboratory benches. Sasuke felt a breeze. Somehow the room had ventilation, as well as running water. It even had ceiling lighting filling the room with a harsh white glow. There were barrels of concentrated alcohol for sterilisation and a selection of microscopes. Their lens towers had barely a smudge of grease on them. Uchiha Madara had prepared this laboratory well (although he had probably stolen or threatened artisans for everything).

Sasuke looked down at the mild-looking man sitting at the workbench. His lip curled. "You."

"Oh? What did I ever do to you to deserve that kind of reaction?" Kabuto smiled. He took off his glasses and wiped them on the front of his coat. "Good morning, Sasuke-kun. Have how you been?"

"Why are you here, Kabuto?" Sasuke snapped. "Since when did you work for Uchiha Madara? What has he promised you?"

"Look at these facilities," Kabuto gestured at the laboratory. "Everything I could wish for to carry out my research. He really is the most fantastic patron. Our interests happened to collide, that is all. We both want a cure for the Plague, so here we are. Uchiha Madara provides me with the means and the resources, and I apply my skills. It's what tends to happen when faced by a common enemy. Everybody joins hands and unites for the sake of the general good, but not to worry, Sasuke-kun, Konoha will never have the cure."

"Like you ever cared for the general good," Sasuke snarled, closing in on him. "Out with it. What's the price? Because if he promised you my eyes – "

"I would be lying if I said I wasn't interested in the sharingan – the proteins involved in iris pigment change, the mechanisms behind the tomoe formation, I'd be spoilt for choice – but on this occasion, you can rest easy, Sasuke-kun. I have not been paid with your eyes," Kabuto replied soothingly, but he allowed Sasuke a glimpse of a scalpel tucked up his sleeve. Sasuke raised an eyebrow. Kabuto smile only grew wider. "And I'd rather you didn't ask me any more of these kinds of questions. We're on a rather tight schedule."

Sasuke was suddenly aware of a velvety beating of wings by his ears. Three large moths the size of pigeons was hovering at his shoulders. Their feathery antennae tickled his neck. Their wings dropped silvery scales like dandruff, but what particularly drew Sasuke's eyes were the long, curling proboscises tucked neatly under their heads. They gleamed. Like metal. And they looked sharp.

"Our benefactor has allowed me to take certain measures if I were to find you uncooperative. Dogs can be trained to scent chemical and chakra changes in the human body, but there are few animals more sensitive to smell than moths. These moths have been bred to respond to sudden changes in adrenaline levels combined with a fluctuation in chakra." Kabuto suddenly pulled a white capsule from his pocket and crushed it between his fingers. The moths fluttered towards him as though drawn by an invisible thread and settled on his shoulder and knees. "Do you understand what that means, Sasuke-kun?"

Sasuke knew when men who thought they were more intelligent than he was wanted to gloat. It was a waste of breath giving them any indication that you couldn't care less. He said nothing.

"It means if you try to use your chakra with hostile intent, these moths will know, and they will help me keep you in line." Kabuto took hold of one of the moths and extended its proboscis like a tape measure. The moth's proboscis became a slim, tube-shaped blade around the length of a kunai. "After all, we can't have you putting me under a genjutsu or trying to burn me to ashes."

Sasuke eyed the moths with a feeling of intense disgust. He thought about the satisfaction he would get from setting their wings on fire and the moths' antennae quivered. "What will you do with me?"

"Study your physiology and immune system to find out the exact modifications Orochimaru performed that make you immune to the Plague. Of course, it would make things much easier for us if you remembered the details of the procedure yourself,"Kabuto added, looking at Sasuke hopefully.

There had been too many procedures to count and, for a large part of them, Sasuke had been unconscious. A couple had been to enhance his speed and muscle memory, a few to prevent his growth being stunted by the minimal diet Orochimaru had provided, alongside the several making him immune to poisons. Orochimaru only revealed that enhancement after Sasuke had been fed a meal laced with arsenic and he had been sick afterwards anyway, out of instinct.

He shook his head and Kabuto looked momentarily disappointed, but only for a moment.

"Now, I know Orochimaru taught you the basics of pathology and bacteria handling, if only to ingrain it into your muscle memory."Kabuto stroked the wings of the two moths perched on his knees. "I have samples of the RAMK that I'll need to use. Given the highly infectious nature of the Plague, I don't want to handle them so much. I was thinking of leaving that to you. You can help me, can't you, Sasuke-kun?"

Kabuto had always grated on Sasuke's nerves. It was his mild manners and polite smile. The way he cleaned up after Orochimaru's experiments, washing all the scalpels and test tubes in the sink with neat rubber gloves like they were teacups and saucers; the way he only dimly registered as a threat to his senses despite everything Sasuke knew about him. Kabuto blended into the background. He was a grey man, a nobody, a non-entity, as indistinctive as a ghost and Sasuke didn't like fighting ghosts.

"Any move on your part to deliberately infect me with RAMK, and our benefactor will know about it," Kabuto said, returning to pouring jelly into the petri dishes in front of him. "And then your revenge will be over. Wouldn't that be a shame?"

"You talk a lot for someone on a tight schedule," Sasuke cut in. He closed the laboratory door with a snap. Surveying the room one more time, he added, "And I remember more than just the basics of pathology."

"Well, that is gratifying to hear." Kabuto turned in his chair and indicated the other side of the room. Two doors were set into the wall. They both looked heavy and the small window in the right hand door was misted over on the inside. "The room on the left is where most of the supplies are stored. The room on the right is a freezer, but you need not worry about that. Now, shall we fill in the paperwork before we start? I need a signature saying that I have your informed consent. I know you never signed anything like this before, but, our benefactor insists on doing things to as high an ethical standard as possible."

"Why would Madara care?"

Kabuto frowned and peered at Sasuke contemplatively. "Now should I interpret that as being uncooperative to my research effort, or not?"

The moths on Kabuto's shoulders fluttered their wings. Sasuke breathed in, suppressed the urge to burn them to cinders and took the pen that Kabuto offered.

The cheek of the woman! Danzo thought, as he swam back to consciousness from the depths of sleep. How dare she suggest an ex-ANBU could be responsible for that cult of vicious madmen? The ANBU officers existed for the peace and security of Konoha. It couldn't have been more drilled into them than had Danzo taken a real drill, opened the officers' heads and shoved the written instructions inside their skulls.

Not only that, Tsunade had dared to question his rigour in destroying the contents of the ANBU warehouses. Nobody understood the risks of dangerous substances going unsupervised more than he did! Who else could foresee the deadly potential of every possible weapon that could be created from that storehouse? When the ANBU had disbanded due to the danger presented by the Plague, Danzo had overseen the destruction of their storage spaces himself. He had trusted no other man to do it.

And now the Raikage had called a Gokage Conference and that insufferable woman would be attending as Hokage, completely unfit for international politics in an emergency situation and so bound to make a mess of diplomacy that Danzo's teeth ached at the thought of the fallout. Plaguetime was comparable to wartime. By all rights, it should be him attending that conference.

"Sir."

He opened his eye in disbelief. One of his civilian bodyguards had entered his room, looking anxiously at him from the door. Danzo demanded, "What do you want?"

"You told me to check on you when the morning star first appeared," the man said earnestly, "sir."

Danzo stared at him, wondering if the man had been drinking. "I said no such thing, you fool."

"But you did, sir," the man continued. "You told me ten minutes ago. You said, 'The morning star will be out soon, wake me up then'. It was you, sir. Plain as day. You were in the garden for hours before that too."

Danzo faltered and his eye fell to the book on his bedside table. When he had set it down before going to sleep, the front cover had been facing up. Now the bookmark was three centimetres askew and the book had been turned over.

"Fool," he spat at the guard, "you've been had by a genjutsu! And whilst you were chasing some phantom, look! Someone has been in my room!"

He could feel it everywhere – the lingering trace of a shadow of somebody other than himself. It stuck to the book on his bedside table and muddied the air. God damn it, how were they getting in? There were booby traps, pitfalls, poisoned nails on the roof, and yet they were navigating everything through without even breaking a sweat. Somebody was mocking him. Somebody had poisoned his fish and turned over his book just to show they had been there. It was as though they were going especially out of their way to prove to Danzo they existed.

God damn it all, why did Danzo feel so exhausted?

Thanks for reading!

Next time: The Gokage Conference gets under way