luvs2smooch: Hey there. I decided to try something different, so it starts from Kakashi's POV, then switches to Naruto's haflway. Try not to get disoriented.

The Free and the Hated

There!

There, ahead! The Hokage Towers! Finally…

I leaped about from one building to another, making as much haste as possible on my improvised route. The report must be made, I thought, the report must be made…Nothing else mattered at that point. The Hokage had to know, no matter anything else…

I landed on a staircase halfway up the building with a light thud, my feet scuffing on the roughly paved surface. I whipped about and dashed up the stairs, three at a time, desperate…She must know…

Wait! The door! Back there…I nearly missed it. I pivoted on a heel. Gripped the knob with unintentional strain, futilely attempting to compose myself. My heart still pounded heavily against my ribcage, and my temples were throbbing…I cursed myself. Loosened my grip on the knob and realized my hands were still shaking. Tentatively, cursively, I eased open the door. Closed my eyes. Inhaled deeply. Then slowly opened them again.

"Hokage-sama." I narrowly managed to keep the crack out of my voice and the excitement out of my tone. In front of me lay a wide, ovular, sparsely furnished room. A chair, a plant, against the rounded walls, and then an archaic desk of wood in the center of the end opposite of me. Behind it, Tsunade. She leaned forward on clenched palms, her blonde hair spilling onto the messily stacked papers adorning the desk. Beside her, Shizune, young and pretty. An oddly dressed pig was draped across her arms.

But all I consciously noticed was Tsunade's eyes. They were boring holes through my head, and I realized that I had been standing there, just standing, for the better part of a minute. I mentally shook myself and cleared my throat.

Five minutes later, she knew everything I did. And it showed. Her eyes now stared down, straight through the ground, intense, wide. Shizune, at a loss for words, had dropped the pig and was leaning heavily against the pale walls. No one spoke. The silence was painful in its intensity. It had to end. So I said the only thing I could think of.

"Do you think it was a Mist ninja?"

Tsunade seemed to snap out of some nameless trance and jerked her eyes up to meet mine. They narrowed.

"What?" She spoke deliberatley, with an unspoken anger, as though the news had added years of stress to her system. Which it probably had.

"You will be informed as deemed necessary, detective."

She said this as though I was out of line, shaking her head at me. I stood for a moment longer, head cocked, rather confused, before she waved a hand at me. I knew the gesture well enough, but to see it from someone I so respected was…odd. Quite odd. An anger welled up just below my throat, and I stood stock still a moment longer before vanishing from the spot with a crack and a plume of smoke.

Night. It had grown very late. Lights everywhere had been vanquished by a humid night. People were slowly retiring to their homes, and I was no exception.

The evening found me in my shabbily tiled bathroom. I frowned into the dirty, small mirror, and a familiar (albeit unmasked) face frowned back at me. What an unproductive day. All the investigation had turned up was bad news that didn't lead us anywhere anyways. The Hokage had her panties in a knot about it. The only other tidbit we found was the water source, which I was fairly sure of already. Even Joe was a bit more of a stickler. I shook my head at myself. Pathetic.

I dragged myself to the mattress on my floor, stepping easily over the varicolored garbage that littered it, accumulated from too many late nights. The sheets were scattered and thick and greasy, and as I hauled them over my tired form, all I could feel was an emptiness, a sort of hollow depression. We hadn't accomplished much, there was still so much uncertain, and I had a sneaking suspicion that something was out of place…

oo00oo

"Well? Naruto?" A voice, behind me, feminine and curious, slowly shifting in volume as it grew closer, then farther, then closer again. Invisible to most.

"I'm wondering as well." Another voice, deeper, darker, more resentful. Ahead of me. It changed volume too, but in the opposite trend as the first, quieter, then louder, then quieter again.

I pondered the obvious question for a moment, and shot a nervous glance in each direction. The tree branches surrounding us were soaked with my personal red bleach, and I wondered how my teammates were able to place their leaps between them so accurately with only pure intuition. Without what lay hidden within me.

An answer for the unspoken question arrived soon enough, and after a debate as to whether I should halt or continue (continuing won), I spoke, lightly, quickly, adrenaline still pumping through my system:

"You get the same answer I gave our little victim. I didn't know." Surprise, I thought. A sharp intake of breath from both of them, and I knew I was right. Sakura nearly stopped, too, but I spoke again:

"In all honesty, I just thought it would make him nervous. The last thing he--let alone the entirety of his village--wanted is any more association of any kind with that long-tongued bastard. I figured that, at the very least, he would name the true informer in defense of his villages' reputation."

"And?" Sakura seemed a little confused.

"He did. Which complicates things. It means that Orochimaru is still after Konoha…"

"But...again?" Sakura again. Confused.

I shrugged.

"Why did he attack Konoha in the first place? He hates our guts, he dealt a blow, and now he wants to do it again."

Silence. The branches we leaped from shook with our presence, and the apprehension was thick enough to cut.

"We are… going towards Konoha…aren't we?" Sasuke finally spoke, his voice shaking, and I wondered what he had to be nervous about. Other than the possibility of another cataclysmic attack on our village in the near-future, I mean. Other than the obvious.

Then I realized something. They were following me. For the first time in years. I smiled. They seemed truely shaken.

Rather resentfully, however, I responded: "No. No, right now, it's safest to just go in circles for a while. They found us, we don't know how, and someone might still know where we are, or where we're going. We need to shake them--if they're there--before we return."

Technically, though, we didn't. If Orochimaru really did have his thumb (or, more aptly, tongue) in this pie, then whoever had attacked was aware of Konoha's location. Those who attacked were also fairly amateur, so it was likely safe to assume that anyone following us now would either be similar work to us, or easily disposed of by even the gate keepers. Other that the unprofessional sense that came with leading an enemy of any sort home, it really just came down to pride.

And to the ifs. Way too many ifs in this equation.

Because what if those who attacked were meant to be weak, so as to lower our guard? What if they had recovered from their façade of weakness, and were stalking us now, hyped up and more powerful than ever? Or, what if it was meant to distract us, to bring us away from the village, for some sort of capture? Or for another attack on the village itself? I had taken down Gaara, so maybe now the ringleader saw me as a bigger problem.

Or maye I was just paranoid.

But why throw caution into the wind?

The wind never seemed to like me anyways, I thought, as we continued, silent as death, along our false path through the woods in the dead of night. It was meant only to deceive, but I couldn't shake the feeling that we were deceiving ourselves...

luvs2smooch: Yay! Finished a chappy!