AN: Hey everyone. So sorry for the delay between the last chapter and this one. Various real life situations pooped up that I had to deal with. But now I should have ample (or more at least) time to write, so hopefully there won't be such a delay with chapter fifteen. Let's hope anyway.

I'd also really like to extend a heartfelt thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed the story so far. I really appreciate it. It means so much to me, so thanks I guess.

F.Y.I. -This chapter references back to chapter's Four, Five, and Thirteen. Chapter numbering wise.

And with that, Enjoy.

The Lessons a Hokage Needs to Know

Chapter Ten- An Avenger's Recollections

Sasuke felt his eyes widen as an inhuman claw stopped inches from his face. He felt the hot liquid fire that was the red chakra encasing Naruto licking at his face as he pressed his back even more firmly into the bark of the tree that he was pinned against. He almost imagined that he could feel the malicious intent of that frightening mass of power as it was absorbed back into Naruto's body.

Sasuke watched as Naruto collapsed from the effort of expending that great amount of power and a voice in the back of his mind couldn't help but wonder what kind of damage that amount power would wreak on the body and mind.

'Nothing good.' Whispered the voice before he viciously clamped down on the emotions he was experiencing.

'This is not the time.' He tried to reassure himself as he watched his former teammate slipping closer to unconsciousness.

Sasuke watched on, feeling petrified as Naruto shouted at him to leave before collapsing bonelessly onto the leaf littered forest floor. He stared impassively at the prone figure for a second, wrestling with his basic instincts of kill or be killed before shaking his head.

'Leave? But where to?' The voice in the back of his head wondered. He clamped down on that thought immediately too.

Squinting because of the massive pain in his arms and face, Sasuke took one more look at the prone figure before him before turning sharply on his heels and fleeing away from the scene. Leaving a very obvious, very bloody trail in his wake.

Hours later Sasuke collapsed from pure exhaustion. He felt his head swim as his legs involuntarily gave out beneath him. Maybe he passed out. He would never know, but the next thing he remembered was breathing in the musty scent of decaying vegetation. He tried to get his mind to focus but couldn't latch onto any one thought in particular.

He lay there on the ground a minute with his eyes closed, trying to center himself so that he could piece together the sequence of events for the day. He had been following the trail of the Akatsuki, had run into Naruto and then…and then…

Unbidden, an image of the thing that Naruto had transformed into flashed before his eyes. His body gave an involuntary shudder. Logically he had known for years that Naruto had had the spirit of the Nine-tailed fox sealed inside of him. But to actually come face to face with that monstrous power…

Sasuke faintly heard the snap and crackle of twigs to the side of him and suddenly the memory of the rest of the events of the day clicked violently into place. Naruto had let him go and subsequently collapsed; he had run even further into the forest, and now…almost automatically, honed instincts were sending alarm bells into Sasuke's brain, telling him that at the moment he was in real, supreme danger and was there were urging him to do something about it. In reaction to his instincts he made an effort and finally managed to slide one of his eyes partially open. He regretted the action almost immediately, his eye-lids felt like they were made of lead, and his brain felt like it was being squeezed with a juicer.

After what seemed like an eternity he finally registered what he was looking at. A hazy orange glow was hanging over the tree line, slightly obscuring the landscape, erasing the distinctive edge that the world usually had.

'Haze'… he pondered in his mind. Then both eyes snapped open and almost before his mind had caught up to his body's intentions, he forced himself to move, though not without feeling twinges of extreme pain spread throughout his muscles at the sudden movements he was making.

He managed to slowly get to his knees and finally looked over the tree-tops to see that the world around him was literally engulfed in fire. All around him the forest was burning and he was boxed in with no way to get out.

Sasuke crawled over to the nearest tree and used the rough bark as leverage to haul himself unsteadily to his feet. As soon as he was upright and had looked very cautiously around he started formulating plans in his head about the best way to get out of the path of the destructive inferno.

The Uchiha had only taken two shaky steps forward before vertigo decided to force him down onto his knees again. As the world spun around him, Sasuke lost control of his stomache and violently expelled its contents onto the forest floor.

And while the Sharingan wielder was hunched, prostrate on all fours with his nose, eyes, and ears filling with the sight and smell and sound of charred wood, and gasping for breath with an acrid after taste in his mouth, Sasuke Uchiha heard the faint sound of footsteps approaching from somewhere in the forest. His body tensed and he tried to make the effort to grab something to use for a weapon but found to his horror that his body was no longer obeying the orders that his mind was sending it.

However, Sasuke never gave up without a supreme fight, so against everything his body was telling him he once again struggled, and, after moment of overwhelming pain, managed to get his muscles to respond and got his knees again. Sasuke just stayed there in the position he had managed to climb into. His breath was coming even more rapidly and raggedly then before, and rivulets of sweat were running down his forehead, stinging his eyes and making his vision even more cloudy than it had been.

Once again, Sasuke crawled over to a tree and slowly, agonizingly slowly, or so it seemed to his speed trained mind, began digging his fingernails into the bark, visibly leaving impressions in the tree as he miraculously got to his feet. And once again he only managed two or three feeble steps away from the steady post before he found himself inevitably crashing back down to the ground.

After all the exertion that he had forced upon his body ,Sasuke could only just lay there, bleeding and broken, in the burning twilight, turned over onto his back helplessly, staring forlornly into the smoky canopy with dawning realization after all his useless and pointless attempts to save himself.

"I'm going to die." He choked out quietly and got a lungful of ash for his trouble.

'Well it's only justice. You've pushed yourself too far.' Said the voice that had always lingered in the back of his mind, and for the first time in years he didn't even attempt to silence it.

As his liquid black eyes slid shut again, he could only hope and pray that the approaching person would make his demise as simple and painless as possible.

The last things he heard before surrendering his consciousness completely were the heavy thud as somebody jumped from one of the trees to land by his turned head and the sharp inhalation of breath that was classically associated with uttermost surprise.

Coming back into wakefulness was an experience that Sasuke hadn't been anticipating doing again, so when his eyes gradually opened and he found himself looking up into a dark, clear starry sky he passed through a moment of disorientation before going on to feel nothing short of heart stopping surprise because:

One, he was still alive so far as he could tell,which, given how long he must have been at the mercy of the person who had found him, meant that either the person didn't know who he was. 'Unlikely.' He dismissed this thought immediately. Or that the person didn't want to kill him for some strange reason. 'I'll just have to hope that it's the latter one.'

The second reason he was surprised was because he wasn't feeling any pain. And given how much abuse he had just put his body through, this thought was even more incredible than finding out that he was still alive had been.

Deciding that he had had enough of trying to work out this puzzle on the cold, hard ground, Sasuke discreetly started twitching various body parts and started slowly testing the muscles to see if he could move them and found to his delight that they were once again responding to the commands that his brain was sending them.

'Good. Alright then. Let's just see who…' He thought as he made to sit up. Just as he raised his hand to give himself leverage he found it pressed roughly back into the ground and a shadow blanketed his newly healed eyes.

"Don't you dare move Sasuke Uchiha." hissed a voice close to his ear and Sasuke froze up as the person moved into his line of vision. The Godaime Hokage, and current Slug sannin, Tsunade. Sasuke remained frozen, looking at the unexpected visitor, hoping with everything in him that he did not somehow incur her famous, quick-tempered wrath.

"Someone really did a number on you." Sasuke thought he heard Tsunade mutter as the woman once again gathered green chakra around her hand and started probing and poking his limbs.

"So who did this to you?" The blonde asked her unwitting patient as she continued her methodical ministrations.

Sasuke just turned his head to the side, making his refusal to answer her question very clear. The less he said in this situation the better. He was completely at her mercy after all.

"Well?!" She asked again. This time with an edge to her voice and an extra hard jab to his exposed stomache to help him come up with the answer.

"Naruto." He said quietly after another moment or two of repeated jabs and silences.

The Godaime's head shot up in complete surprise. She blinked owlishly at the trussed up Uchiha.

"Naruto? Naruto Uzumaki? And he let you go?" She asked in a speculative whisper.

Sasuke nodded his head as much as he was able from his position of being tied up on the ground. Tsunade's golden eyes widened and she shook her head and snorted.

"Well I never expected that." She knelt back down beside the boy's stomache and resumed her healing work.

"You had better tell me what happened." She ordered in a voice that would have made the mountains rush to obey her command.

And given that he was completely at her mercy Sasuke decided to err on the side of caution, and so he unfolded his tale, and watched in partial amusement as one of the most powerful women in the world's eye's and face got wider and more astounded the more he said.

"And that's how I got here." He concluded about half an hour later.

Tsunade stood back up and stretched the kinks out of her body when he was done with his tale.

"Incredible." She said after a moment of consideration.

Sasuke would have shrugged but the ropes binding his arms prevented much movement.

"Alright Uchiha. I have to take you back with me. And you don't get a choice in the matter."

And before Sasuke could even blink or contemplate what was going on, Tsunade had plunged a needle full of a fast acting sleep inducer into his leg.

And so, annoyingly, for the third time in one day the world dimmed and then disappeared altogether. But not before he had managed to get out a sleepy, haze induced thank you to the woman who had taken him hostage and consequently saved his life.

This time coming into consciousness wasn't as traumatic as the last time had been. He had been expecting to wake up again after all. What he hadn't expected was the location of his waking up. Sasuke looked up at the featureless brown ceiling that had been his first sight, then, after taking a moment to clear his head and centering himself (though still confident that anyone who might be observing him would think he was still asleep), used his peripheral vision to glance discreetly around his uncertain surroundings. His almost closed eyes met the same sight wherever they looked. All around him were dull stone walls of the same type that the ceiling was made out of, and no visible entries or exits anywhere. Wherever Tsunade had placed him, it had no windows, doors, or ventilation shafts of any kind, and the only light was a dim bulb burning above him and weakly shedding its light about the room. On the upside, he also didn't see anybody else in the, well, Sasuke mentally frowned, cell, was really the only way to describe the place he was currently situated in.

'So, if this is a cell, then…' Sasuke experimentally tried to prop himself up from the lumpy mat that he was lying on and found that he wasn't restrained in any way. 'Probably think that I can't escape.' Sasuke's eyes narrowed at the thought. 'That will be their fatal mistake.'

After examining that thought for awhile, Sasuke slowly shook himself out of his uncharacteristic daze, repositioned himself on the cold sleeping mat, and started stretching his tense muscles out, trying to work out days of abuse and toil from his limbs.

Just as he had finished aligning and exercising his calloused hands, his keen hearing picked up the sound of feet quickly marching down a stone corridor. Sasuke quickly lay back down and closed his eyes until they were mere slits. Perfect. For all intents and purposes, he was asleep and had been this entire time.

He watched blearily as a section of the wall in front of him seamlessly melted out of the apparently creaseless wall and hit one of the other walls loud enough wake up every inhabitant that had ever occupied this chamber.

Sasuke maintained his sleeping act as the door was subsequently reclosed and secured behind his visitor. He closed his eyes as said person stepped noisily over to where he was spread out.

He evened his breathing and went limp, maintaining the perfect illusion of deep and undisturbed sleep. Which was probably the only thing that saved him from irreversible spinal damage as he was unceremoniously hauled up by his torn shirt front and slammed roughly against the wall behind him.

Sasuke opened his black eyes and found himself literally face to face with the burning golden eyes of a very sleep deprived Hokage. Tsunade's manicured nails clenched harder around the bunch of clothing that she had latched onto. She dropped the pale shinobi after making sure that she had his full attention.

"Stop shitting around Uchiha." She spat at Sasuke. "Do you take me for an idiot? Your tricks won't work. We have you under three-hundred and sixty degree surveillance with twenty four hour monitoring, and the room is designed so that only one person can come and go, if you can even find the door of course, that happens to change location every two hours." The Godaime said nonchalantly as she knelt and started scrimmaging around in the case that she had brought inside the room with her.

Sasuke looked at the woman in front of him and decided not to fight the fact that he would probably have to get used to the kind of behavior that she was currently displaying.

And he did. Everyday, at different intervals (though he couldn't be quite sure as he had no clock and no sense of time this deep beneath the Earth) the Hokage, in various levels of either sleep deprivation, drunkenness, or pure dishevelment, would walk through a different wall, drop off food and drink, check on his health a bit, (she did tend to slam him into walls a lot) then walk right back out again, with out telling him anything.

And between all these visits Sasuke would sit for hours trying to puzzle out where the cameras stationed in the room might be, and barring that he would stretch and mediate, or run his hands along the walls trying to find the exits to the room, manually and with the Sharingan. It actually got to be a vey dreary existence after awhile, one he was sure would drive him to complete insanity before long.

This was the scene that Tsunade walked in on exactly four weeks to the day after the Uchiha heir had been placed into the cell. She set down her carry case and looked at the pale man sympathetically.

"Going a little stir crazy?" She asked the obviously bored man rhetorically.

Sasuke looked up from the wall he was leaning against and nodded morosely. It had gotten to the point where he didn't even try to hide his thoughts anymore. He was just that isolated and bored.

Tsunade smirked at him, a dangerous glint in her eyes. "Well I've got some good news then kid."

She handed him a wrapped sandwich (peanut butter and jelly again)and a thermos of water before sitting against one of the walls across from him and watching him tear reluctantly into the unappetizing meal.

Sasuke looked up at the woman after gagging on the first couple of bites. It unnerved him when the Hokage turned her eyes on him like that. Sasuke made his way through the sandwich and had finished off half of the water before his patience, already stretched to the breaking point over the last month, snapped completely.

"Well?" He said harshly. "Are you just going to sit there and watch me eat, or are you going to tell me this good news?!"

Tsunade raised an eyebrow, but otherwise didn't give any other reaction to his outburst. When she spoke to the man again her voice was calm and collected.

"I just thought that I would give you a chance to finish lunch first." She said coolly. "However, if you really want to know then I guess I should tell you." Tsunade paused and looked at Sasuke again, her brow furrowed and with a questioning glint to her amber orbs.

Sasuke shifted uncomfortably against the cold stone wall and finished off the rest of the water in his flask just to avoid thinking about that look. However, a sudden heavy sigh coming from that side of the room caught his attention. He looked up to see Tsunade giving him a thorough search with her eyes.

"What to do with you Sasuke Uchiha?" She questioned so softly that Sasuke's ears almost didn't catch the whispered question at all.

Tsunade stood up suddenly and patted herself down. She didn't look in Sasuke's direction as she voiced her next question.

"Do you know how much trouble it is having you still alive?"

Sasuke choked on his water. He hadn't been expecting that question at all. Tsunade ignored his reaction and started to collect her things.

When she was at the exit she looked back at the prone man.

"I'm to have a meeting with all the other Hokage's. In two week's time." She explained to the gasping man. "You will be accompanying me on the journey. We'll let them sort this out."

Sasuke made no other reaction than to lower his head but inside (deep, deep inside) he was trembling like a scared deer. Tsunade's decision was tantamount to throwing him to the wolves without a stick. He stayed the way he was long after Tsunade's muffled footsteps had faded into the distance behind him.

The next week or two were an absolute blur to Sasuke. Tsunade had him sedated, shackled and under guard the entire trip that they had to take to the meeting that the Hokage's were having. He could vaguely recall a bumpy and uncomfortable ride in a wagon over torn up dirt roads and a blur of green and blue whenever his fuzzy mind caught a glimpse of the outside scenery, but for the most part the whole, embarrassing, trip was spent looking at the insides of his eyelids or listening to a revolving repetition of silent arguments in his mind.

"Alright you, get up!"

Sasuke vaguely felt himself being roughly hauled to his feet and thrown to the ground, but hard as he tried he couldn't seem to find the strength to open his eyes and look at the foul person who had dained to handle his so roughly.

"What's wrong with im' eh?" Said a rough country voice before someone lobbed a swift kick at his side. There was a nasty cracking sound in the air followed by Sasuke letting out all the air that was in his lungs in pain. Sasuke moaned unconsciously and the group of people surrounding him laughed cruelly.

"Aw look. We hurt him. Little crybaby. Huh." Said one of his watchers in an unsympathetic voice. Sasuke was once again hauled to his feet and suddenly hands were around his arms. There was another crack as two of the men twisted his left arm behind his back.

"Whoops." Said a third voice with in a low, mocking tone. "Guess we broke the little baby's arm." And he was drooped to the hard ground where he hit his head against the hard floor. He felt blood start to trickle slowly down his face.

Again the group of men broke into laughter.

Sasuke let out another low groan and wished that he could open his eyes. He struggled to leave his subconscious, but found himself unable to do so. It seemed that he would have to content himself with wishing for the men's death as they had their way with him.

"Ahh look, I think he's trying to say something." Said a fourth voice. Calloused hands grabbed him back up for a third time and to Sasuke's internal alarm he suddenly felt two hands around his neck, squeezing ever tighter as the crowd surrounding the pair started cheering and taunting his strangler on.

Sasuke gathered up all the will power that he had left and thought he managed to choke out the equivalent of something along the lines of stop and I'll kill you. His mangled words had the effect of angering his abusers even more. His head collided with a wall with a sickening splat sound.

"What was that?" breathed the man who was restraining him with his alcohol laced breath. "What was the little baby saying? Gonna kill us huh?" The man said tauntingly. Someone came up from the side of the group and slapped him hard across the cheek.

"That'll fix the baby. You know toddlers, you just have to be firm and discipline them when they get outta hand." Each word was punctuated by another blow to his body. His legs, his torso, his arms, his face. All were punched, kicked, slapped and hit.

Sasuke felt his anger growing. Suddenly at the last punch it was like something in him finally snapped and he felt the fuzziness flooding from his body as somewhere from inside him his repressed chakra exploded and started to purge whatever he had been given out of his system.

With the restoration of his chakra he suddenly found himself able to think and see. He suddenly snapped his eyes open without warning and found himself looking into the pox-marked face of a ninja from one of the other five nations. The man took a hasty step back with Sasuke's startling awakening.

"So it really is him..."One of the men said cautiously from the back. Sasuke quickly turned his head around and glared in that direction, curiosity over the sudden change in the room stealing through him, and as one the group on that side of the room took hasty and fright filled steps back.

"His eyes, look at his eyes!" Said one of the them hysterically. "Red like blood. Just like blood."

"Shut up!" The taller ninja next to him elbowed the man, effectively leaving the room completely silent.

'Ah, so that's the reason for the change in the room,' Sasuke thought, satisfied. It was gratifying to be able to have that kind of power, strike that kind of fear through people, even when half defenseless and beat up.

"Alright boys, break it up." All head's twisted around to the where the low, musical voice had originated from. The assembled men found themselves looking at the serious face of a rather sinister looking Tsunade.

"Shit." All the ninja scattered faster than Sasuke had ever seen a room clear. Suddenly the two Konoha residents were the only two human bodies left. Tsunade looked faintly amused at the others behavior, though she quickly stowed the look when she approached the fallen Uchiha.

"They were the welcoming party." Tsunade said without preamble as she knelt down in front of the bloody man and started assessing his wounds for the second time in as many months.

"Enjoy the ride?" She asked the silent man as she produced some medical wrapping from her pack and started to bandage up his bleeding forehead.

Sasuke grunted as Tsunade finished her work and tightened the medicinal cloth one last time to make sure the bandage was putting enough pressure on the cut to stop the bleeding.

"Your meeting with the Hokage's is tomorrow morning." Tsunade informed the silent man.

Sasuke looked up from the floor for the first time since the older kunoichi had entered the cell that he was being kept in.

"Tomorrow?" He asked in a voice raspy from disuse.

Tsunade nodded her head as she stood back up.

"Yes. I suggest you get some rest before then. Someone will come in the morning to escort you to the meeting" And the slug sannin walked out of the room without a backward glance, leaving an apprehensive man behind her.

The next day Sasuke found himself cuffed and being escorted down to where the world's leaders were currently meeting. As he walked (stumbled because of the restraints around his ankles) down the unobtrusive hallways he could practically feel the hostility that was being directed his way. The glares were bad, the mutterings were worse. And the fact that his guard was not looking, let alone talking to him was setting his nerves on end. This situation was everything a shinobi feared and heard horror stories about in the academy.

Soon enough he found himself roughly shoved through a door and staring five Hokage's, new and old, in the face.

What commenced in that room over the next five hours (it would later be said) was one of the most ambitious political meetings to ever occur in the history of the hidden villages. To Sasuke however, it was a lesson in how many ways that you can think up to torture and kill a person. How he emerged from that room still alive, with all limbs intact, and a brand new mission that not only included letting him roam free, but also undercover, he could only later attribute to Tsunade's political skills. On days when he was more placid he would thank his lucky birth sign that the other four Hokage's seemed to be so scared of Tsunade's anger (and famous building destroying techniques) that they seemed to listen to her, even in her apparent drunken stupor.

Which, Sasuke reflected as he looked at Naruto, was exactly how he had found himself in this situation. After being released he had wandered the countries and wandering it looking for evidence of the various jinchuuriki's that the major hidden villages had produced, before accidentally running into and subsequently hooking up with one of the bands of roaming thieves after being asked, (more like forcefully instructed), to by the Hokage after the situation had first come to his attention and then hers. The last thing he had expected in all that was to run into any of his former …associates… was probably the correct word to say here.

So as Sasuke looked at an enraged Naruto and dodged his recklessly furious attacks he felt nothing short of extreme shock and chagrin.

I know this chapter probably wasn't the chapter that everyone was hoping to read, but there is a reason I put it in here. Don't worry, everything picks up again in the next chapter, though I make no promises as to when it will actually be up. Till then I hope everyone enjoys their summer vacations. KG.

Oh, and I leave you with these in case your interested. Ciao.

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