Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, 'sighs' but man, oh man if I did…heh, just kidding, he's all Sasuke's.
The twinkle of early morning sunlight shone off the black barrel of a gun. It lay amongst the wreckage of a fight which had ended only hours before, still clutched in the hands of the dead man who'd wielded it with ill-effect. He'd been cut; the man had; in the few places where bullets had not gouged into his flesh and torn it away. His belly had been cut open, his innards and intestines slowly dribbling out of the slice in his stomach to pool on the trash littered pavement. Ironically it was the only thing still moving on that part of the street, well, besides the crows. Seventeen figures lay there, in the gathering light, each laying as they had fallen, their heads askew, their mouths and eyes gaping in horror to no one. At least, those who still had heads. One or two of the dead men had been decapitated; others had been cut open as had the first. Still others were beaten, their faces so mangled their features were no longer recognizable. And this had most likely taken place before they had died.
It was a gruesome scene, but one that Sasuke Uchiha had become unfortunately familiar with over the years.
He had grown up in the street gang game. His father, Fugaku Uchiha had been the boss of a clan whose founder had had more pride than brains. The Uchiha gang had been well established and widespread, in the early days of Fugaku. He'd taken a wife, a slender woman with dark hair and delicate features, Mikoto Uchiha. She had given him two strong boys, the second coming nearly eight years after their firstborn: Itachi had come into the world. That had been Sasuke, the second, the next, the other Uchiha. Fugaku had taken so much pride in his oldest son that he hadn't seen the darkness which festered in the young man's soul. His reality had shattered after Itachi's thirteenth birthday.
No one had seen it coming; no one suspected. Sasuke had been at school, his first year and his teachers already told his parents that he was an incredibly smart young man. He'd been waiting for his mother to pick him up like she always did. He sat on the steps and waited, politely declining offers of a ride from teachers and the principal of the school who even offered to wait with Sasuke until his mother came. But the boy had stood firm in his refusals. His mother would come, they hadn't forgotten him.
He'd fallen asleep on the steps of the school. That's where the policemen had found him, huddles in a sad little bundle, shivering with cold hours after dark.
Sasuke had been taken to the hospital. It was there that he was told.
His parents were dead, killed by his older brother.
He'd tried finding Itachi, but the man had fled once he'd finished his grisly task. Sasuke Uchiha had never given up, but there had been a point when he could no longer see the point of chasing after ghosts. So he had determined to establish an organization that his father would've been proud of.
And so Sasuke had planned and strategized and worked; cow-towing to the likes of Orochimaru until the insane man had gotten wise to the Uchiha's plots. Orochimaru had called Sasuke into his inner chamber one day. He'd claimed that he needed Sasuke to oversee the newest shipment of 'donated' organs. Only the raven had walked out of there that day. Soon after Sasuke had established his own institution to replace Orochimaru's; and thus Hebi was born. But Sasuke never forgot his brother; he always kept an ear out for any information, no matter how vague, about a man with long black hair from Konoha. He had the feeling that he would find Itachi someday and when that fatal hour arrived, the raven planned to be ready.
The man sat, staring out the back-left window of the limousine and at the carnage outside, his face an impassive mask. That was typical though; the Uchiha never showed anyone what turmoil was bubbling up inside of him. Not even his lieutenants knew what plans were locking within the confines of Sasuke's incomprehensible mind.
"Oi, Sasuke," The man smiled, his filed teeth gleaming evilly in the car's gloomy interior. He was as tall and lithe as the Uchiha himself, although his hair was white blond and hung in limp strands around the man's face and neck. Suigetsu Hōzuki, one of Sasuke's elite three, a marvel with weapons, his specialty though were 'big ones'. Sasuke didn't like the man, although he doubted that Suigetsu had noticed any of the particular frostiness that crept into his bosses tone when he would give the gunman orders. Suigetsu was just dense like that, and very difficult to control; which was one reason why Sasuke had elevated him to his current position. The man was dangerous and annoyingly willful. But he was good; Sasuke had to give him that. If there was one thing in the world Suigetsu knew how to do, it was making things die, pesky things, and he liked to go after the things that were hard to kill.
"This is Akastuki's handiwork don't' you think? It looks like something they'd do."
"Don't be impertinent, Suigetsu!" The redhead seated next to Sasuke adjusted her glasses, glaring daggers at the man who'd just spoken. "Sasuke-kun can make up his own mind about what happened. It could've been the gang that started up recently in Sand; um…Shukaku…or…"
Sasuke mentally rolled his eyes. Karin was becoming more and more vocal around him. It was beginning to become a bother. She was pretty enough, the raven supposed, and if he'd really cared about women at all, she might've stood half-a chance at getting some from him. But he didn't, so she didn't.
Aside from the inane chatter which she constantly provided whenever she was present, she was somewhat efficient and surprisingly deadly with the small Gluck she kept hidden under her skirt. The woman also processed the uncanny ability to sense when someone was telling the truth or not. Sasuke had found that skill particularity helpful when meeting with some of his more…unreadable guests.
"The Shukaku gang does not operate within the boundaries of Konoha." A third voice cut in calmly and was silent once more.
"You tell her, Juugo." The skinny young gunman rolled his eyes dramatically and turned to look out the window.
Whatever pithy retort Karin had shot back at Suigetsu, Sasuke filtered out; keeping his gaze roving over the carnage so near to hand.
Out of his three lieutenants, Juugo grated on Sasuke's nerves the least. It was probably because the large man with orange hair hardy ever spoke. The other two were content to squabble until they wore out their vocal cords. It didn't mean that Juugo was any less dangerous than Karin or Suigetsu; on the contrary. He was one of Sasuke's three for a very good reason. The big man enjoyed a good fight, but he always gave his opponents the opportunity to back off and save their own pathetic lives. Because when Juugo got going, nothing survived.
And to that end, Sasuke agreed with Juugo, and with Suigetsu for that matter. This was not Shukaku's doing, but Akatsuki's.
The raven had seen brutality and violence all his life, but nothing could've prepared him for the cruelty that Akatsuki dished out on a regular basis; with little bias.
The group had been formed decades before Sasuke's punny little 'Hebi' ever came into existence. In fact, the man whom the young Uchiha had killed, Orochimaru, had once belonged to the foreign born gang. Although originally, Akatsuki had been content to stay in their origin base province of Rain; recently they had come to Konoha, egger to expand their territory and willing to take it by any means necessary. This latest slaughter was a testament to that.
Sasuke felt his stomach clench. Those had been 17 of his best men; and they had been literally torn apart like rag dolls.
He looked at the nearest body. Well, the closest body that still had a face. The glanced over the stale features, it's mouth frozen in eternal agony; it's eyes vacant and staring into the sky as if the corpse could actually see through the Thermosphere and up into Heaven.
There would be families to inform, the raven thought idly. At least, the one's here who actually had families.
Police would be here soon and it would not do for Sasuke Uchiha, Boss Hebi to be seen so close to the scene of a mass killing, especially one this gruesome.
"Drive."
The limousine pulled onto the main road and moved down the as yet, deserted road.
The raven was not worried about what the civilians would tell whatever cops were dispatched to the site. For if the one or two who came here weren't drunk, or about a mile high, they would be tired; overworked and very much underpaid. And it wasn't as if a formal investigation would be launched. This entire incident, the wreckage, the guns, the bodies, would all be swept quickly under the rug or buried so deeply in reports that no one would know what happened for years to come. Sasuke had paid Konoha's police commissioner Danzo enough to ensure that this unfortunate incident never became public knowledge.
His lieutenants were still talking, which consisted of Suigetsu opening his pointy-toothed maw to impart some divinely inspired wisdom and Karin calmly and factually stating why is was she disagreed with the man's logic.
Sasuke snorted. Yeah...right.
He thought back to the reports he'd read; the information his spies had gleaned. He gathered every piece of hear-say that had fallen into his widely cast information net about Akatsuki.
They'd originally based in Rain until about a year ago; when suddenly they'd gotten militant. Apparently dominating a single province wasn't enough for them. They'd moved into Sand about six months before and tried to bump off the Boss of Shukaku, a red-headed man by the name of Gaara. The operation hadn't gone well and from what Ssauke understood; the Akatsuki had been run out of Sand soon after.
They were a strange group, as far as he could tell from what little information Sasuke had managed to get on the inner workings of Akatsuki. The structure of their hierarchy for instance; if it one believed the stories, was incredibly unique. The group was directed by one man, sort of. As far as Sasuke could tell, Pain was the instigator and the brains behind the organization, the other nine Bosses' were used simply as a means of control to the general populace, and rival gangs, generally through terror or brute force. They did not hire plebs or mercs, nor did they stoop to manual labor: hijacking shipments, rubbing out the competition…that was more their style.
The limousine pulled to a stop in front of a massive stone architecture. The large structure, which encompassed an entire city block and sported three stories, was made entirely out of obsidian. The rock's black abysmal surface gleamed in the brilliant light of midday.
The club, for that was the buildings designated function, was named 'sound'. Not a particularly original name, for a place where noise and…other things could be found in abundance, if one knew whom to ask. It served as a front for Sasuke's more…illegitimate business affairs. But as far as it concerned the Uchiha, the club was quite popular amongst the rank and file of Konoha and the entire province of Leaf for that matter. It was a good cover and so Sasuke did his best to maintain it; thusly the club had flourished. The brunette never admitted it, but it was always nice to receive the extra funds that Sound generated for Hebi.
"Get out." The raven looked at no one as he spoke, keeping his gaze trained out the window.
Suigetsu sighed dramatically, his smile rueful. "I guess he means us, eh, Juugo?"
The trip moved to exit the car. Just before Karin had emerged from the car's leather interior, Sasuke called her back.
"Not you Karin."
The woman glanced back over her shoulder at the man who sat waiting inside the car: her boss. She gulped, wishing for all she was worth that she could run away. But the man's tone had brooked no refusal. Karin felt the blood drain from her face, but she shut the door and settled into the seat across from the brunette.
"Drive."
The car began to accelerate, leaving two men standing on the sidewalk and staring after it.
At length, the white-haired gunman snorted. "Che, leaving us behind without any explanation; that's so like Sasuke: annoying."
"Karin will be fine." Juugo commented, watching Suigetsu's body stiffen and then relax as the man laughed nonchalantly.
"Like I care what happens to that black hearted witch. I just don't like getting left out of the loop, that's all." The man turned and began to trudge towards the club's beckoning entrance. "Come on Juugo, there are plenty of chicks in here worth a good screw. Let's go."
Juugo watched as the distant form of the limousine turned a corner far down the street and disappear, bearing both his comrade and his master away; before he turned and joined the mercenary inside the club.
Karin was worried. Sasuke could tell. She would pull at a strand of her vivid red hair before realizing what she was doing, glance at him to make sure that he hadn't seen and when she saw that his eyes were still trained on the scenery outside, had placed her hands on her lap to ponder in silence…until she'd worked herself into a fuss once more and began to fidget with her hair. Sasuke had of course, been ignoring the woman on purpose, and in his own way, enjoying the discomfort of his subordinate as he watched her in his peripheral vision.
He knew that Karin knew why she was here and that knowledge worried her, or rather, she thought that she did. There were only two options really. And the redhead was probably wondering whether Sasuke had asked her to stay in order to ask her some more questions…or to kill her.
Sasuke wasn't going to kill her, at least, not for now. The redhead, as annoying as she sometimes was, was also a valuable tool.
But that didn't mean he would tell her that. Heaven forbid that he deprive himself of the little amusement he got in life. Toying with this woman and those like her, gave the Uchiha suitable diversion and God knew that precious little in this world could actually stir a response from the ebony haired gang boss. A man who felt no loss; who felt no remorse and saw only statistics. He was not a man to be ill prepared for any situation. But somewhere along the way, he had forgotten how to feel.
The silence stretched for another few minutes before Karin could take it no longer.
"Sasuke-kun…" Her voice was rushed and quiet. "I d-didn't mean to fail you, in fact, I'm going to make sure that such a thing never happens again."
"So am I…"
Karin froze in her seat, the blood turning to ice water in her veins.
Sasuke's eyes moved from the window at last, fixing his subordinate within the confines of his penetrating gaze.
He let the comment linger in the air for a moment, watching the redhead's eyes grow wide at the innuendo before he said. "Tell me every detail you can remember about this…Kyuubi."
Karin went weak with relief, sagging against the plush leather seat. Of course he wasn't going to kill her; she was the only one left who had witnessed the attack. She hadn't gotten the opportunity to tell him this morning. Whatever it was that had attacked the group had totaled her car as well. So Karin had been forced to make her way, on foot, to the club which had been a good fifteen miles in the pouring rain. So when she had finally gotten to Sasuke's office it had been about four in the morning and just when she had gotten out that she'd been attacked by someone named Kyuubi who had red eyes; Suigetsu had burst in and yelled to both of them about the Akatsuki attack. And anyway, her photographic memory was one of the reason's Sasuke had chosen to keep her on after Orochimaru's death a year ago. She had a knack for noticing details, even the most insignificant thing; she would see it and never forget. Suigetsu called her the human elephant much to her chagrin.
He was waiting; still staring at her, waiting for the information she had. The woman gulped and closed her eyes, trying to remember the events of the previous night.
She'd gotten the wind knocked out of her and her head had taken a nasty blow when she'd been flung against the wall, so what she did remember was a little blurry, but still viable.
"He was taller than me." She said resolutely. "Although no taller than you."
The Uchiha said nothing and Karin realized that she would have to be more specific than that to satisfy this man. "5' 9'', maybe 5'10" if he was having a good day."
Sasuke nodded and Karin closed her eyes, allowing more details to rise to the surface.
"Yes, it was a 'he'. I got a good look at his hand while he had me pinned up against the wall and I felt calluses over the surface of his entire palm. It most definitely belonged to a man."
"He was…" Her mind flashed back to the previous night. The wind driven torrents of rain which poured down from the sky; the feeling of cold as numbness began to creep along her fingers; Kyuubi pinning her against the brick's unyielding surface. His eyes came closer in the dark as the man had leaned in close to laugh. That was when she'd glimpsed it, through the harrowing darkness she'd seen a color.
"He has blond hair." She said at last. Blond hair and red eyes; a strange combination, one that she was sure they'd be able to find in no time and put a stop to this man's shenanigans. She nodded in satisfaction, but there had been something else. The scent had been muted by the rain, but as close as Kyuubi had been to her face, it was impossible not to smell something.
"What?" Sasuke asked, his placid expression remained fixed. However, what intrigue he wasn't showing on his face was very present on the inside. The raven could tell that Karin had thought of one more detail and he had the strange feeling that this one last piece of information was the key.
It had been so faint; the redhead thought. It had played on the edges of her senses; so vague and yet so tantalizingly familiar.
"A smell…" Karin frowned and rubbed her forehead as if that could conjured the answer held within her memory. "It was on his clothing or his breath, maybe both. In any case, it was a scent that clung to him. He was around the source very often."
"What?" Sasuke repeated simply; his expression unchanging, but his tone demanding.
Karin strained for a few more seconds, a small eternity to the struggling redhead, before to heaved a large sigh. She glanced at her Boss from under thick eyelashes, her gaze apologetic.
"I'm sorry Sasuke-kun, but I just cannot remember exactly what that smell was."
"I see."
The redhead blanched and said quickly, "But I'm certain that I'll remember it soon. I just need to get some sleep, that's all."
Sasuke made no indication that he had heard her. He settled back in his seat, his black gaze fastened back out the window. "For now, tell me everything that happened that night. I want to knew every detail."
"R-right!" Karin stammered before launching into as complete a narrative as she could manage; which both parties knew would take some time.
The sun was high in the sky by the time Sasuke was satisfied that he'd gotten every relavent and useful piece of information out of the redhead.
The raven signaled his driver and the when the car had pulled to a stop next to the curb in front of 'Sound' a very relived Karin made a hasty exit. It wasn't until the door slammed behind her that she realized the Uchiha hadn't followed.
"Sasuke-kun?" The redhead asked. "What are you doing? Where are you going?"
From the inside of the car, Sasuke waved the driver on, watching with a slight twinge of satisfaction as Karin's stunned face disappear as the limousine raced away.
"Lunch," He'd spent enough time with crazy people for one day. He was going to find someplace where he could eat in peace away from the company of such annoyances as this.
Author's note: I know that Sasuke's background story isn't as extensive as Naruto's, but I figured that the Uchiha would be more analytical about his past than touchy-feely like the blond. I don't want Sasuke to start off so emotional. I want to stay true to the personality he has in the Anime and Manga. But have no fear; our dear raven will start showing some emotion once Naruto starts digging under that stoic Uchiha façade. But who knows how long that will take 'grins evilly'.
Oh, and please review, your comments are my life's-blood. Thank you Kitk12 for your comment, I try to make the scene as descriptive as possible; paints a better mental picture that way.