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

Author's Note: And we're back at last! Firstly, thank you so much to KARASU25, Hot's and Clogs, Rosebunse and silverwolf310 for your lovely and encouraging reviews. I'm in two minds now - I said that you guys were my conscience, now I see you baying for Danzo's blood. What's Danzo ever done (hahaha, far too much to be given a quiet death)? Secondly, a huge thank you to anybody who has favourited or followed this story since last time. I hope I can write something worthy of your interest! This chapter was quite difficult to write and quite long, but we're gathering the pieces together for the last few chapters. I hope you enjoy this latest installment. Do let me know what you think! Best, Zen

There was one place Kakashi wanted to visit before leaving for the Conference.

The Hyuuga estate had once covered a very large area of land. It came from the old times when almost every member of Konoha was either in a clan or alleged to serve one, but as Konoha developed and the town grew and shops began to line the streets, land became a luxury that was difficult to keep. The Hyuuga sold portions of their estate to the council and the strange result was that pockets of Hyuuga land was scattered throughout Konoha, isolated from the grounds of the main house, like islands from a shore.

The old gatehouse was on one such far flung patch of land. It had once been the house marking the boundary of the Hyuuga estate. Now it was surrounded by higgledy-piggledy lanes near the edge of a residential district and sandwiched between two shiny new houses – rather like a grouchy, liver-spotted grandmother sitting between two teenage girls.

The wooden door had been varnished, the moss raked off the tiles on the roof and there were muddy footprints going to and from the door. A letterbox had been hammered onto the front and painted a garish orange and black. Kakashi wondered if this was Naruto's idea of daring people not to take notice. It seemed like a challenge.

He breathed out, waited for the steam to clear from the inside of his visor and rang the bell.

A voice called down from above. "Kakashi-sensei!"

Naruto waved from a window on the second floor, but before Kakashi could wave back the boy disappeared. Seconds later, he was replaced by a little girl, who could barely see over the sill. She was aiming a slingshot down towards the gate. She caught sight of Kakashi watching and put a finger to her mouth in a shushing gesture. Kakashi raised an eyebrow.

The gate unlocked. Naruto stuck out his head. "You finally decided to show up! Come on in, come see the Den. It's the best place to be in Kono – Ow!" Naruto whirled around, rubbing the back of his neck and glowering up at the second floor window. "Whoever that was, I am going to get you for that! Just you see! No one throws a pine cone at Uzumaki Naruto and gets away with it!"

"If it helps, it was a little girl," Kakashi said, watching Naruto grind his teeth.

"One of the twins? Fine. I'll just get them back with the old Chewing Gum trick later."

"Naruto." At the sound of his name, the boy looked over his shoulder. Kakashi sighed. "I couldn't bring Sasuke back this time."

The smile faded from Naruto's face. He stared, his mouth opened and closed, for a second too stunned for words, and then he breathed, "That bastard caught the Plague and died on us, didn't he?"

"No! Don't worry. Not at all. He was very much alive and well."

"You found him then?"

"We found him alright." Kakashi remembered Sasuke lying bound and bleeding in wires on a road, eyes glowing, a sword dropped across his neck, and wild laughter echoed in his ears. "But he escaped. I'm sorry, Naruto."

Kakashi regretted not sending Pakkun with the news to Naruto, but at the same time, he felt that this was right. This was how things should be. Naruto was his student and what kind of teacher would he be if he needed a dog to break all the bad news, if he couldn't admit a failure to his own student's face?

Naruto had every right to be angry with him and Kakashi waited for the shouting, the accusations, the disappointment, but they didn't come.

"Come on, Kakashi-sensei! It was totally obvious you were going to fail when it was just you and some ANBU goons going after him."

"Just me and some ANBU goons?" repeated Kakashi incredulously. "Totally obvious?"

"The next time you go on a mission, sensei, me and Sakura will go with you, and then we'll find him and bring him back no problem!" Naruto stood with his hands on his hips and grinned. "We'll probably have to break every bone in his body to do it. He'll probably be kicking and screaming all the way as well, but he'd get over that eventually."

A small part of Kakashi wanted to believe him, the part that didn't want to tell him that push came to shove Naruto would probably be as unable to break Sasuke's legs and fingers as Kakashi had been.

"Right, Kakashi-sensei, are you going to come in the house or not?"

Was that it? Was Naruto going to let him off the hook so easily? Had Kakashi really been so easily forgiven for his failure?

Kakashi smiled. "It had better not be like the conditions of your old flat.

In the window by the door somebody had put up a list of rules. They asked for hands to be washed with soap when coming in from outside, for shoes to be stacked neatly in the racks, for children not to use training kunai outside of their practice times and that umbrellas be left to dry in the stand. That was almost certainly Neji's piece of work. Naruto would never have thought of it, although the rules were probably just as much for Naruto's good as they were for the children.

At that moment the children were having a half an hour break from Zero Chakra lessons and Sakura was in the kitchen, with her head in her arms and her visor off, taking a nap.

Since Neji had suggested getting the children started on suppressing subconscious chakra use as early as possible, Sakura had been coming over from the hospital whenever she had time to spare. The children probably had years to go before they were at any danger of their latent infections becoming active, but Sakura had sat in on Shizune's adult classes and she had seen the adult ninjas struggling. She agreed that it was a good idea.

Unfortunately, since she was also supposed to be testing different antibiotic combinations, checking for the development of resistant RAMK populations, looking after her own patients, handling the relatives of the deceased, running errands for Tsunade, backing up Shizune, keeping an eye on the mental welfare of the other apprentices and doing hundreds of other jobs from the endless list that needed doing at the hospital, Sakura was beginning to feel extraordinarily tired. Napping whenever she could was the only way to cope.

Naruto bent under the hanging cloth in the doorway, saw Sakura sleeping and crept towards the table with a mischievous grin.

Sakura murmured, "We can't have run out of isoniazid already. The mice must have eaten it."

She made a comfortable bubbling noise into the crook of her elbow, before all of a sudden the table was shaking. Naruto was drumming the table with his hands. "Sakura-chan! Kakashi-sensei's come back from the mission!"

Her head shot up. She looked around guiltily, before remembering that she wasn't at the hospital and her supervisor wasn't going to tell her off. She narrowed her eyes at her assailant. "Naruto! Did you really have to shout in my ear?"

"Good to see you, Sakura," Kakashi said, stepping in quickly before the two started bickering. "It looks as though Tsunade's been keeping you busy."

"She has, but Naruto's been keeping me even busier." She cracked a weary smile. "Welcome back, sensei. How was the mission?"

It took much less time than he thought to fill Naruto and Sakura on what had happened. They sat around the table. Sakura got him a glass of tea. Kakashi drew in a deep breath. He told them how he came to hear about a doctor, who had reported to a local authority about an attack by a rogue ninja, and since then had begun practising his trade again. He described the days they had tracked Sasuke along the roads, the days where he steeled himself for the worst every time they turned over a dead body. Kakashi knew why he was going into such detail. He was trying to impress upon Naruto and Sakura the effort he had taken looking for Sasuke and how serious and dedicated he had been in his task, but the details dried up when Kakashi came to the part where they found him.

"So, what happened?" Naruto prompted, when Kakashi stopped to search for the right words.

"Well, I asked him to come back. He refused, violently, and ran away," Kakashi summarised briskly. "Then we came back."

Sakura and Naruto exchanged a look. They weren't convinced. Of course they weren't, but just as Naruto opened his mouth to begin another round of questions, Sakura elbowed him and pointed at the door. There was a boy with glasses peering nervously into the room.

Naruto beckoned and the boy came over to the table. "What's up, Jo?"

"Nagira's getting everybody ready for class in the big room. He asked me to fetch Sakura-san," Jo replied after a hesitation, eyeing Kakashi curiously.

"Oh, it's already time!" Sakura gasped, looking at the clock mounted on the wall. She left the kitchen at a run with Jo, mouthing 'sorry' and 'goodbye' over her shoulder as she rushed away. The opposite side of the coin to sleep deprivation was that she was always in a hurry.

Kakashi watched her go and decided that maybe now was the right time to leave. He pushed back his chair. At the sound, Naruto glanced up. "Wait, Kakashi-sensei, you're going already?"

"Sorry, Naruto, but, I'm leaving Konoha this evening. There are things I need to do."

"What? Why didn't you say so earlier? Where are you going?" Naruto asked, following him to the door. "You just got back from the mission."

"Tsunade wants me with her at the Gokage Conference," Kakashi told him as he pulled on his boots. "It's going to be a long trip. I'm thinking I should get a book to read. Apparently Icha Icha Dynamite's supposed to be fun?"

"Kakashi-sensei," Naruto shouted, grabbing his shoulder as Kakashi stepped out into the street. "You're being weird. You came to apologise about not bringing Sasuke back, but that's not everything, is it? You said that Sasuke was alright, and that he ran away, but there's something up with him, isn't there?"

A pale blue bank of clouds drifted on the horizon. The spring rains were on their way. They looked distant, about perhaps two days away. Kakashi wouldn't have to worry about them when he went to visit the memorial later. He jammed his hands into the pockets of his cloak.

"Naruto, if I told you that Sasuke wants to see everything that means anything to you destroyed, what would you say?"

Naruto blinked. "Did he say that?"

"In so many words."

"Great. Then I say somebody's driving him crazy so that they can use him, like the curse seal did, except worse," Naruto replied simply. He looked at Kakashi in alarm. "Is that what's up with him? I mean, he was always a bit off his rocker but – "

Somebody shouted Naruto's name from down the road. Pedalling an old bicycle, its steel frame muddy and scratched, was Ichiraku Teuchi. He was hunched over the handlebars. The wheels squeaked. Tied to the back of the bicycle was a huge metal case almost as large as the man himself.

Teuchi pushed the bicycle to a stop in front of the Tigers' Den and wiped the sweat from his face with a handkerchief.

"Morning, Naruto-kun! I brought the usual," he tapped the steel canister on the back of the bicycle and begun to unload it. He dipped his head in Kakashi's direction, greeted him cheerily then picked up the canister using both hands. "I'll take these through to the kitchen."

Naruto shook himself out of his reverie. "Wait – I'll help - "

"Bah! Don't worry. You just finish what you were saying with your sensei." Teuchi winked at Kakashi. He dragged the steel canister up the gatehouse door and went inside.

Kakashi lifted his eyebrows. "Are you having food for the children delivered from Ichiraku Ramen?"

"Neji got paranoid about having people from the volunteer canteen," Naruto explained, folding his arms and looking troubled. "He thinks every civilian is out to poison the kids. I tell him, he needs to chill, but he's also kind of got a point. Anyway, Ichiraku Ramen isn't getting that many customers, so Tsunade-bacchan's got the council to pay him to bring us lunch."

"Well, what do you know? You really are doing your bit to shore up the small business economy." Kakashi slapped Naruto's shoulder, thinking back to the day he had taken Naruto to Ichiraku's for lunch. "Alright, Naruto. Tell Sakura to go to sleep at some point. You keep out of trouble."

"Me keep out of trouble? Sensei, you're the one going to a Conference. You keep out of trouble." Naruto huffed. "Besides, it's not as though I go looking for trouble. Oh, and keep Tsunade-bacchan out of trouble too!"

"Difficult, but I'll try."

"And, sensei, don't worry about Sasuke," Naruto said earnestly. "Once he's back, between the three of us, we'll sort out him out. We'll screw his head back on straight. Believe it!"

Kakashi walked away from the Tigers' Den. When he had walked around two hundred paces, he looked back over his shoulder to check if Naruto was still watching. He wasn't. He had gone back inside the gatehouse. Kakashi turned into a side alley.

Naruto hadn't noticed, but Kakashi certainly had. A man had been watching Naruto and Kakashi in front of the gatehouse from down the road. When he noticed that Kakashi had seen him, the man had indicated the alley with a jut of his chin and disappeared.

Now the man in jounin red was sitting on a bench, pretending to watch the green waters of a fountain fall into its basin, as he waited for Kakashi to arrive.

Kakashi spoke first. "It's unusual to see you without bodyguards, Danzo."

"They haven't been of much use of late," Danzo sniffed. "Chakra-less civilians. All useless, but the other Konoha elders kept their strong, young, susceptible ninja bodyguards and caught the Plague off them. Now, here I am – the other elders are dead and I am all that's left of Konoha's old guard."

"I saw you outside the Tigers' Den gates when I came out of the house," Kakashi said, putting his hands in his pockets and looking down at the man on the bench. "I'm curious. What were you doing there?"

"Observing. I'm within my rights to do so. The idea of our Jinchuuriki setting up a ninja children shelter fascinated me. As a Konoha citizen, I also have an interest in its future." Danzo met Kakashi's cool gaze, "Our children are the future, wouldn't you agree?"

"Only if you are of the opinion that the elderly are the past. I like to think that everyone is the present."

"But to preserve Konoha, our hopes rest with the children," Danzo persisted as though he hadn't heard Kakashi's objection. "Granted, perhaps not those that the Jinchuuriki boy is protecting."

"What do you mean?"

"Those children are all latently infected and future Plague sources. For the sake of Konoha, the logical solution would be to put them all down, every man the instant he is diagnosed as latent. Euthanise them, en masse, humanely of course," Danzo added when Kakashi narrowed his eyes. "As it is, the Hokage is soft."

"She may be soft, but Tsunade is the one going to the Hihoutou Conference and not you," said Kakashi coldly, disgusted. He was sharply aware that he was wasting time, but Danzo had been waiting to speak to him.

Why? Why would Danzo have seen Kakashi and waited for him a bench?

Was there something wrong? Was there something different? The skin visible beneath Danzo's visor was grey and unhealthy looking. Sakura had the same look and it was almost certainly lack of sleep. Or was it worse? Was it something more? The way Danzo held himself seemed almost fragile, like his bones were too soft to support his frame.

Chakra exhaustion, that's what it looked like. Not complete chakra exhaustion, but certainly some aspect of chakra depletion. If Danzo hadn't been advocating the slaughter of all latents minutes earlier, Kakashi might have felt a slight tinge of sympathy. Sympathy for Shimura Danzo! This meeting by the fountain was beginning to feel increasingly surreal.

"Why did you want to speak to me?" Kakashi asked, the noise of the fountain flowing in his ears. "What were you really doing around the Tigers' Den?"

"I would like you to deliver a warning to the Hokage for me. Tell her to keep her spies out of my house," Danzo hissed, spitting out the words from his throat like insects. He folded his hands in his lap. "If Tsunade is so insecure with her position as Hokage that she thinks she is justified in this blatant act of intimidation, then I suggest she consider stepping down as soon as she returns from the Conference. I am more than willing to take the burden of the title from her shoulders - "

"I've got it." Kakashi snapped his fingers and pointed at Danzo's right arm. "I've worked out what's different."

"Excuse me?"

"That right arm of yours was always hidden up a large sleeve or a sling. This is the first time I've seen it in a normal sleeve and acting like a real arm. Just a thought, take no notice. Now, where were we? Oh yes, Tsunade stepping down – "

Danzo, however, was staring at his right arm, as though stunned that the limb was even there. The one eye was wide. Those shoulders stooped with age, but still broad, began to tremble and Kakashi drew back. Closing his right hand into a fist, Danzo stood from the bench, breathing heavily.

"I shall take my leave," he said. "I have urgent business to attend to."

Kakashi was about to point out that he wasn't the one who had been sitting around on a bench waiting to talk, but with Danzo eyeing his right arm as though it was bubbling up with blisters or some other kind of gross deformity, it seemed best to close the conversation. "By all means," Kakashi said, "I've got things to do."

Danzo dipped his head one more time. "I look forward to hearing the Conference results, Hatake Kakashi."

Danzo walked away, looking strangely lopsided, perhaps because he was stretching his right arm as far away from his body as possible.

Forget Tsunade's spies. It was unlikely this had anything to do with Tsunade. She didn't know about his arm. Could it perhaps be one of Orochimaru's followers getting into Danzo's house? That was beginning to look likely. Perhaps a file or two had been kept on the modifications he had ordered on his arm and the follower had read it. Orochimaru had always been a meticulous researcher.

No. What disturbed Danzo the most was that he himself had been oblivious to the change Kakashi had noticed – that at some point since the hazard gear had been distributed by the council, Danzo had stopped wearing the arm braces on his right arm.

Danzo sat at his desk in silence. He searched through his memories. No, he couldn't remember the moment at all. He couldn't even remember when he had last touched his right arm, even though he must have done the evening before, if not that very morning.

After a search through his house, Danzo was forced to another unsettling conclusion.

The person who was getting into his house had stolen his arm braces.

"Sir," said the guard, looking into his room. "Is there anything wrong?"

"No," Danzo snapped. "Nothing at all."

Kakashi opened his eye and the first thing he saw was a page covered in words, too close to his face to be read, but it seemed to be some kind of balcony scene. Then the ox cart went over a bump in the road, the book fell off his face and Tsunade was scowling at him from the other side of the cart.

"Good, you're awake. Put that filthy book away."

"I object to calling it filthy. It's quality literature."

"Jiraiya sends me copies as soon as his babies get published. Believe me. I know what's quality literature and what isn't."

Kakashi squashed the book into the depths of his robe pocket. He glanced out of the window. They had been travelling through night. Whilst he had been sleeping, the sun had risen and the landscape had changed. The pine forests were thinning out. The land was flattening and the road sloped down a scrubby hill towards a gleaming streak of water – a large lake.

"Is that the island?" Kakashi asked, spotting a black smudge in the centre of the lake.

Tsunade nodded. "It is. Apparently there's a tradition in Lightning lore of bad news coming from that island. That's why they call it Hihoutou – the Island of Ill Tidings. It's one of the Raikage's ways of screwing diplomacy and saying he's got a bone to pick with us."

"Why couldn't we have gone to a nice neutral country like Iron?"

"No point when the Raikage has no intention of being neutral," Tsunade replied dryly as the shoreline drew nearer. "Anyway, a Conference on an island called Hihoutou is a cheap intimidation trick. I'm not falling for it."

"A cheap chair still holds up a person as good as a pricey one."

Tsunade took out an envelope and pulled out a sheet of paper. "Remember these names and background details before we go in," she said firmly. "It's always good to know thy enemy."

Kakashi wondered if she was only making him do this because she couldn't be bothered to do it herself, but kept that thought quiet. As he ran through the list of Kages and their attendants, noting that he himself had been listed as TBC at the time Tsunade had replied to the Raikage's summons, the ox cart wound down the hill and ground to a stop on a pebble beach.

News had been sent in ahead from border control. When they stepped down from the cart, a ferry was waiting to take them across to the island.

The island had looked like a thunderhead from a distance. Up close it didn't change much. Hihoutou was a black rock shaped like an anvil, bristling with pines, with an old stone house at its top. There were boats moored in a line to the pier at its base. A Kumo ninja, dressed in a strange shapeless coat that seamlessly encased his head, shoulders and chest like a tent, took them up a winding staircase to the stone house, where the Conference was to begin before the lunch.

"Just out of interest, what was the bad news that came from this island before?" Kakashi asked Tsunade, as they signed in at the conference register. "It wasn't a death, was it?"

"Not a death."

Kakashi sighed. "Multiple deaths. Great. Fantastic. Brilliant place for a Conference. I can see this going so well for us."

"Okay, on the count of three." Kabuto was looking at the screen beside him, his face glowing blue white in its glow. He had one hand on a seal. "Three, two, one – "

He pressed his thumb down into the ink and closed his eyes. A buzzing hum filled the room, followed by a flash of violet light. Sasuke hissed with discomfort from the table behind him. Then, Kabuto withdrew his thumb from the seal and it was all over. The light died away. The three giant moths perched on the desk by Kabuto's hands.

"Well, I never," Kabuto murmured, staring at the image that had appeared on the screen. He adjusted his glasses. "That's what I call a result. How are you feeling, Sasuke-kun?"

He was staring wide-eyed at the ceiling, stunned by the flash of light. If Sasuke were more eloquent, he might have said that every limb felt like it was made of basalt; that his head swam and made walking in a straight line as difficult as standing on a fast-sailing ship; that his mouth was dry and bitter bile seemed to be permanently at the back of his throat; that the moment the purple light had flashed down from the seal above him, it had felt as though ten thousand white hot needles had been driven into his muscles.

As it was, Sasuke, had always preferred to say as little as possible. He clenched his teeth. "Does it matter?"

"Can you sit up? Avoid your hips, if you can. I know they're still sore," Kabuto noted, turning in his chair back to his screen. "I would have harvested the stem cells from the blood, but that would have taken time we just don't have. Don't you agree?"

Sasuke pushed himself up on the table. Kabuto had been extracting bone marrow from Sasuke's pelvis the night before, collecting stem cells from the iliac crest, and although he didn't need stitches, the pain still lingered.

"What did you just do to me?" Sasuke asked, looking at the screen over Kabuto's shoulder.

"I just took a picture of your chakra system," Kabuto told him gleefully, tapping away at the keyboard. "It works on a similar principle to the X-ray. Chakra is coloured to the trained eye. Different chakras have different wavelengths. All I do is fire chakra energy from the seal on the ceiling at the same wavelength as your chakra, so that it is absorbed by your chakra coils. Where it isn't absorbed, the energy passes through your body to the seal on the table, and here we have it - A negative image of your chakra system."

Kabuto tilted the screen so that Sasuke could see. "This is your chakra system, Sasuke-kun."

"And?" Sasuke wasn't unimpressed, but he wasn't going to show that to Kabuto.

Kabuto flicked through the notes on the desk and presented Sasuke with another image. "This is a picture of the standard chakra system, as found in the most recent medic-nin textbook. Now, let's compare the two images." He held up the sheet of paper against the screen then pointed with his pencil. "Your chakra system has a number of embellishments the standard doesn't have - coils of your chakra system have been wrapped around your lymph nodes. It's a never before seen linkage between the chakra and immune systems. I can only wonder how much surgery that would have taken for Orochimaru to engineer."

"Is there anything else that needs to be done today?" Sasuke cut in, before Kabuto could drift off on a tangent about Orochimaru's unparalleled practical skills.

"I was thinking of taking a sample of alveolar tissue, but we'll leave that for another time." Kabuto pencilled it onto a list of things to do with an earnest nod. "You still seem a little off from yesterday's anaesthetic. I wouldn't want to put you under and have you never come back. Our benefactor would be most displeased. Today, we'll stick to chakra-imaging. How about I infect you with a sample of RAMK and we record live how your chakra system responds to the pathogen introduction?"

"Do as you like," Sasuke replied. He was busy trying to remember how numb he had been under the general anaesthetic and half-wishing that the feeling would return. Then he wouldn't be so tempted to roast the moths on the table as crisp as wafers or put a knife to the smile on Kabuto's face. "So long as there are results."

Kabuto paused. He stopped writing notes into the workbook and took off his glasses. "You really want this revenge of yours, don't you?"

Sasuke said nothing. Kabuto spoke and his tone was mocking, "I hear that Madara has promised you a perfect revenge. Let me tell you this, Sasuke-kun – in my experience, there is no such thing."

The moths' antennae quivered as Sasuke's eyes glowed red. "What would you know about it?"

"Anybody who has studied will tell you the same. You start calling things perfect, you start looking for ideals, and ideals are just impossible dreams of what can never be. Perfection, infinity, beauty, god - all ideals and they only exist in the realms of theory. They are unachievable in practice. What is the point of an unachievable revenge? It's just an endless chase in the dark," Kabuto mused. He flicked a switch. The dark room lit up. "Although perhaps that meaningless chase itself is what you live for."

"Words, words, words," Sasuke sighed. "You've never gone beyond them."

"Having said that, there is one kind of revenge that is, perhaps, as close to perfect as a scientist like myself would admit."

"And what would that be?"

"The last revenge in a cycle of revenges," Kabuto said, replacing the glasses on his nose. "It means a revenge that creates no more avengers."

The screen beeped and Kabuto hurriedly bent over the keyboard to finish annotating the chakra system image. "I could try to kill everybody, absolutely everybody, and leave no survivors who'd come after me. For that revenge to be complete, everyone must die – the whole world, if you want to be thorough. It's impossible." Kabuto looked thoughtful. "On the other hand, I could narrow the focus of my vengeance to killing just one man, and crush him to the ground. Crush everything about him. Push him down so hard that everyone will acknowledge that his death was justified, and no one will come after me."

"That sounds just like you, Kabuto," Sasuke snorted. "A coward's revenge."

Kabuto pursed his lips. "Hands in the dark, Sasuke-kun - The people who want to kill you, the people who want to save you, the trail of regret a path of revenge leaves behind. How much regret do you have following you, Sasuke-kun?"

"I regret nothing!" Sasuke snapped, sliding off the table and going to the door. "I'll be preparing a sample in the main laboratory. Come when you remember how to shut up and do the job you've been paid to do."

"Oh, I will," said Kabuto, smiling. The moths rose to beat about his shoulders. "I've been paid very well after all."

The Raikage rose to his feet, a man mountain moving with the slow gravity of plate tectonics. "So, Hokage, what have you to say about the situation?"

"As a medic, quite a lot. As Hokage, there's not much I can do except apologise."

"Apologise?" the Raikage exclaimed. "I have the dead piling in the streets and you think a simple apology is going to bring them back to life? This Plague spread from Konoha. A rogue ex-Konoha ninja created it, and all the knowledge he needed to make this disease he learnt at some point in Konoha. I think we need something more than an apology."

It was opening everybody had expected and nobody stepped in to stop him. The Tsuchikage was whispering with his attendant, who was a renowned biochemist from his country, and the Mizukage was fanning herself with the agenda. The Kazekage met Kakashi's eye. Although the Kazekage's face was entirely masked by a cloth visor, leaving only two film-covered holes to see through, it was clear that he was finding the Raikage's opening ranting dull and perhaps even a little bit sad.

Every Kage was worn and tired and knew that there was little point in anger. It was obvious that Konoha would have to pay, somehow or other, and Tsunade wasn't going to argue with them.

Tsunade agreed that Konoha bear responsibility for the Plague and that compensation would be given, just as Kakashi expected. The Raikage had pinned up a map similar to the one Tsunade had been looking at in her office and illustrated the distinctive pattern of spread, a spidery web moving outwards from Konoha, and she had no intention of saying otherwise.

She suggested that they compensate with research, made open to all the nations. The Land of Fire, with Tsunade as the Hokage, was currently the leader amongst the nations in medical research. They also had access to Orochimaru's original files on the modified bacteria.

"We would also like access to the original files, if possible," the Mizukage said, after a discussion with her companion – her nation's leading physician.

"On the condition that they are burned, along with all copies made of the files, within a year," Kakashi whispered to Tsunade. "Keep those files and they've got the means to make more strains for biowarfare at some point in the future."

Tsunade repeated what Kakashi said, adding they would be destroyed in Konoha as well. The Mizukage pursed her lips and nodded in acceptance. The Raikage and Tsuchikage did not seem satisfied. They would no doubt return to the issue of compensation at the end of the conference.

The agenda turned to the different Plague measures carried out by the different nations. They discussed the efficiencies of each nation's hazard gear each nation had created. The Land of Wind's visors had good filtration systems, having put to good use their experience gained from desert travel.

They talked about antibiotic trials and treatments and the growing problem of resistant RAMK strains. Isoniazid was failing in the Land of Lightning. Iwa had seen some initial success with a newly trialled antibiotic, but given the number of patients who died because of the toxicity of the antibiotic itself it didn't seem like a solution.

When Tsunade started talking about the Hellhound Program to detect the latently infected and the Zero Chakra courses, however, she was met with a grim, almost resentful, silence. None of the ninja villages liked the idea of training ninjas to stop using chakra.

"It may be worth finding more individuals infected with the original MK," suggested the Kazekage, breaking the weighty silence. "Both Uchiha Itachi and Kaguya Kimimaro must have encountered the disease somewhere in their travels. If we find a sample of milder strain it would be possible to make a vaccine. Isn't that so, Hokage?"

"It would certainly be possible," Tsunade agreed with a nod. "On a related note, I would like to discuss a recent Konoha discovery. We found a young man immune to the Plague."

There was a sharp intake of breath and murmur of interest from the Kages and their companions. The Tsuchikage leaned forward in his seat. "Who is he? Have you got him in protection?"

"Unfortunately, we haven't. My colleague will explain after I have spoken," Tsunade said smoothly, her eyes sliding sideways to rest on Kakashi.

Kakashi started in his chair at the sound of his name. He mouthed, "I will?"

"The young man is a rogue Konoha ninja by name of Uchiha Sasuke." Tsunade noted that the Kazekage looked up with interest. "Hatake Kakashi, my colleague here, was recently sent on a mission to bring him back to Konoha. Unfortunately, he failed, but it is through him that we have this information on Sasuke."

As all eyes fell on him, Tsunade raised an eyebrow, as though to say, That's your cue to talk.

Kakashi rose from his seat. He began to describe the events of the mission, for what felt like the hundredth time. As he did, he watched the Kage's faces carefully, waiting for a reaction. He got to the point where Sasuke said he would sell himself to any country willing to have him. None of the Kages reacted any differently to how he expected. There was no way of telling if one of them was already protecting Sasuke within their borders.

He sat down and Tsunade immediately began speaking. "Sasuke seems to think he can sell himself to any one of you in exchange for what he wants. Now, I understand that as the source of the Plague the Land of Fire is in no position to make demands, but this is one I beg of you." She folded her hands on the table. "As we have already established, Konoha is currently the world leader in medical ninjutsu. I would like to ask that you trust Konoha to carry out the appropriate research to find a cure. I want you all to swear that if Sasuke appears at your borders, offering himself for research, that you do not take him in, but capture him and deliver him to Konoha."

The Tsuchikage shifted uneasily in his seat and grunted. "I can make no such promise, with the lives of my people at stake."

"Neither can I," the Mizukage agreed.

"I have no problems with making such a promise," said the Kazekage, crossing his arms. "The whole of the ninja world is in danger from disappearing. We must come to our senses and set aside our national interests. It is obvious that the medical facilities in Konoha are second to none. I can think of no place in a better position to find a cure and find it quickly. I will willingly admit it – in the time it would take for Suna to amass the materials necessary for research, my people would die out."

"Well spoken," said a voice with quiet amusement.

"Yes, very well spoken, thank you, Kazekage," Tsunade said, lowering her head thankfully, before she realised that the dry, teasing voice had come down from the rafters and looked up with a gasp.

Sitting on the wooden beams, staring down at the conference below with one glowing red eye, was a man in a mask and a cloak patterned with clouds.

The Kages leapt up from their seats as one. "Akatsuki!" the Kazekage cried. Sand snaked out from the gourd on his back.

The masked man held up his hands. "Please be seated. There's no need to stand on ceremony on my behalf."

"How did you get in here?" the Raikage demanded.

"Does it matter?" the masked man said lightly. "I'm not here to cause any harm. If I don't have any hostile intentions, then I'm not a security threat. I'm just here to talk and make you all an offer."

The Tsuchikage thrust a finger up at the man in the rafters. "Why would you think we'd be interested in anything a criminal like you has to say?"

The man in the mask laughed.

"Well, gathering from what I heard, you're all desperate for a cure and I," he leaned forward from the shadow of the beam, one eye gleaming, "I have Uchiha Sasuke."

Thank you for reading!