"It's perfect…" Temari breathed, brushing her fingertips over the delicate carvings. She bit her lip, and carefully lifted the metal piece off of the display case.

It really was exactly what she'd had in mind. The individual pieces would modify his sword, so he'd think of her often when he used it. And dragons were a sign of humility (so Haru), power, and best of all, fertility (because it just wasn't a good present if it didn't hint at more, ahem, "private activities".

A glint in the metal caught her attention to someone moving behind her, and she whipped around angrily and pinned her attempted assailant against the wall.

"Who the hell- Haru?"

No. Not Haru. But he looked like Haru.

He also looked like someone else she'd seen recently, though Temari couldn't place him for her life.

No one important, then.

Temari briefly flicked down his torso and determined that while dangerously stupid, the man appeared to be unarmed, and was raising his arms in surrender.

"I'm sorry, I thought you were someone else."

With that, she turned around and snapped up her intended purchases, smiling to herself as she nestled them in her hands.

Temari turned back to the man, noting that he still appeared somewhat shell-shocked. He evidently had thought he'd been too stealthy to notice, but she was pretty sure he'd been following her for a while. She saw him in the crowd of people a few days ago, and hadn't thought much of it. After a few days, she noticed that she kept catching glimpses of him, through blurry reflections on shop windows and glints of metal, but he hadn't been stupid enough to get close until now. He must have been better than he acted, for her to only see him once or twice before.

He really did look like Haru, though. Same beautiful, inky black hair and pale skin, slight build, and dignified features.

"Stop following me. Next time I catch you, you won't like it. And I hate cleaning blood off my fan."

He appeared distracted, and Temari grinned ferociously.

"Have a nice day, chump."

Tsunade let out a feral growl and punched her desk, shattering it utterly. In the corner of her office, Sakura let out a tiny squeak and dove behind the nearest potted plant.

Tsunade didn't even notice.

'This is bad. This is very, very bad.'

Jiraiya wouldn't normally have reported this early, and whenever he did so it was bad news.

Tsunade really should have known better than to hope he'd finally stumbled upon some semblance of responsibility and relative competence.

The newest reports from his informants stated that Kisame of the Akatsuki was wandering around Mist, alone.

Normally, she'd love to just pretend that maybe one of those ill-dressed bastards kicked the bucket, but she knew better. And if Itachi wasn't with Kisame, he was probably exactly where she didn't want him.

Jiraiya already stated that he was taking particular precautions for Naruto's safety, so she at least had that end somewhat accounted for. Jiraiya was a lout, and a pervert, but he wouldn't let Naruto get captured. In the unlikely event that the Akatsuki managed to immobilize or kill Jiraiya, one of his toads was to snap Naruto up in his mouth and bring him directly back to Tsunade.

So it was likely that Sasuke wasn't dead, and was in some pretty extreme danger.

Tsunade felt a migraine coming on.

She still didn't know what to do with the information Sakura had given her a few months ago, either.

The implication appeared to be that Danzo and the Council had taken some action that her sensei abhorred, which she could certainly sympathize with. Those three had obviously lived long past their actual usefulness, and seemed to spend most of their time in collusion with each other, pushing issues and laws that seemed to be based more on bigotry and the social issues of half a century ago, rather than facts or current political climate.

She'd managed to nip almost all of their nastier ideas in the bud, through clever politicking and forcing the committees to actually research and provide documentation for their results and proposals.

That had cleared up a disgusting amount of resistance, actually. The ignorance of the council on certain matters was astounding. By forcing everyone to actually understand the issue being voted upon, most of the bills she would have vetoed were taken care of far before they would have ever hit her desk.

The amount of venom he had for the Council during those later notes hinted that whatever they did was disgusting to the point of treason. Her poor sensei never really did have the temperament to deal with situations like that.

He always believed in the best in everyone. He let Orochimaru go after all of those experiments came to light, and let him continue to operate for fifteen years or so without ever making a real effort to bring him in.

And she was very sure that he'd let Danzo continue his covert operations units. The official order had been to disband them, but with the reports she was receiving and the fact that Danzo had always had his eyes on higher ambitions… she doubted that he'd made anything more than a token effort to please Sarutobi.

The records from orphanages, and Academy graduating classes provided enough cause for her to be wary. Children were being adopted by people who didn't exist, and re-integrating into the system later, graduating the Academy and somehow never passing into a team. They found work with the Genin Corps, or in the hospital or bureaucracy. Some of them even made it into ANBU eventually, though with what training the records never stated.

And some of the adopted children just never reappeared, as far as the public records were concerned. They lived at fictional addresses and had fictional jobs.

Danzo was very good at covering his tracks, but when Tsunade pulled all the records together and looked at them carefully, they told a very concerning story.

A story that may have included some of her most trusted ANBU, in fact.

So when the general dates of the missing notes fell around the Uchiha massacre, Tsunade was most concerned.

Were they all dead?

Or, was it possible that Danzo had found them an obstacle in some way?

Maybe the police force had been asking too many questions about Root, or he just wasn't a fan of how much power they had over the village in general.

It was also possible that the official story was accurate. Itachi could have just snapped under the intense amount of pressure from his family and slaughtered them en masse.

But then, why did he leave Sasuke?

It beggared disbelief.

And genius or not, was it even physically possible for someone his age to slaughter the whole clan in the time period allotted?

There should have been ANBU patrols, or the regular police force patrols. The Uchiha clan wasn't entirely secluded, after all, someone should have noticed something before everyone died.

This all stunk of a cover-up of some sort. But she didn't have all the pieces.

Tsunade groaned, and rubbed her thumbs against her temples.

"I need a drink." She groaned, and Sakura obediently fled the office in search of sake.

Sasuke had to admit, Mist was an… interesting place, for lack of a better word.

When they'd arrived, the guards had been utterly relentless, and pawed through all their goods like his stalkers back in Konoha had gone through his pencilcase.

Even now, a week later, they were still under heavy suspicion.

It wasn't surprising, really. Mist was long known for being very isolationist in nature. Sifu had said that it was generally an indicator of being rife with internal and systematic problems, as a more stable country would be interested in trade and other external relationships.

Mist had obviously been in a bad way until pretty recently. The only reason that he and Sifu had been allowed in was that they were masquerading as merchants, which Mist direly needed. Mist didn't appear to have a healthy economic infrastructure at this point in time. Everything was worn and ragged, from the houses to the people. Food was somewhat scarce, and basic goods were hard to come by.

If they were pretending to be anyone else, he didn't doubt they'd be shown out the door. Violently.

Interestingly enough, Mist seemed to have changed hands recently, that being part of the reason the Hokage had sent them to investigate. She wanted to know who the leader was, and what they were like.

The fact that the new Mizukage was making the effort to encourage trade (although with a rather large amount of paranoia) was telling. They were trying to revive their village and make it a viable Hidden Village again.

It was in an even worse shape than Sand had been in, although that may have been debatable since their invasion. It had been a shock, to say the least, when they'd heard that Sand had been attacked and Gaara had been kidnapped. It was barely even a week after they'd left, so it had taken another week or two for them to hear about it. By then, Gaara had been supposedly killed and revived (probably propaganda, but it had impressed the right types of people and made him a bit of a cult figure), and there hadn't been anything that they could do.

Sifu had taken the time to write a letter to Gaara, expressing their sympathies about the incident and their relief that he was now alive and well. Gaara had been very appreciative, evidently not everyone had the sense and manners to be like Sifu.

But now that they were in Mist, it was much harder to get their letters. Sifu had to travel out to a border village to send and receive mail, as everywhere else appeared to be on lockdown.

So while Sifu was gone, Sasuke was left to tend their goods and gather information. It wasn't that Sifu didn't trust him to leave and enter the Hidden Village, but Sifu was still better at pretending to be a hapless civilian. Sasuke, luckily, was given a pass for being a bit surly because of his age group, but it certainly didn't make him any friends with gate guards. Evidently, that "aloof" thing Sifu said he had only worked on girls.

And Naruto, somehow. Sasuke didn't really feel like thinking about that.

Sifu said it was good that girls found his recalcitrance charming, though, unless Sasuke planned on having children by splitting himself into two, like "a grumpy worm".

He still wasn't sure if that was a compliment or an insult.

Sasuke sat down at a ramen stall, even though they always reminded him of Team Seven and Konoha. Naruto had always insisted on eating there, and without major resistance he would always drag them to Ichiraku for any meal he could.

So eating ramen was a slightly bittersweet experience, but Sasuke couldn't stomach eating yakitori every day. Eating in a public place was part of information-gathering, along with frequenting markets and other social places. Sasuke would really have preferred cooking for himself, honestly, but hanging out in a hotel room alone didn't get him any information.

"One beef ramen, please."

The chef acknowledged the order and Sasuke glanced around the area, and made brief eye contact with a group of civilians his age. A few of the girls blushed, and the boys looked somewhat curious. Not surprising, since visitors were pretty rare here. He wouldn't even have to work to get information from them at all.

He gave a friendly half-smile and turned back to the chef, knowing that one of the teenagers would take the bait and approach him, out of curiosity if nothing else. He was shiny and new, and trapped people always had so many questions about the world outside.

It didn't take any time at all, really, for a pretty brown-haired girl to approach him cautiously to the side, and tap on his shoulder gently.

"Are you new here?"

He resisted the urge to let his victory show in his expression, and settled for a shy smile instead.

"Yeah, my uncle and I are merchants, we just got here not too long ago."

She brightened visibly, and tugged on his shirt sleeve. "Would you like to sit with us, then?"

He nodded, and let her pull him back to their table by his shirt. He was always surprised about how much of his work that other people would do for him if he smiled and asked nicely.

Sasuke still didn't like it, of course.

Sifu had only been gone for a day, but Sasuke had already gleaned much from spending time with the small group of teenagers that had accosted him in the ramen stall.

Evidently, their new leader was named Terumi Mei, and she was doing some major house cleaning. The teenagers hadn't said that much, of course, but it was obvious to anyone who knew what to look for. Suddenly, people who'd always held certain posts were replaced, and everything from the previous administration was being altered. The school curriculum, obviously, had to be altered (having your graduates participate in death matches was apparently something of a bummer, and limited their shinobi resources), and everything was being marketed as being more accessible to the general populous.

Interestingly enough, those weren't the only noteworthy things he'd gotten hints of.

First of all, the shinobi coming and going seemed to be very concerned with some missions going on outside Mist.

That was strange, since they'd been put on lockdown and hadn't been noted taking any outside missions temporarily.

The second thing that caught Sasuke's attention were the rumors surrounding the previous Mizukage. The locals seemed to believe that the fourth Mizukage, Yagura, was being controlled or manipulated by someone. No one knew who it was, or any more than that, but that the rumor existed in the first place was worth noting. Anyone strong and capable enough to be named a Kage wouldn't be easy to manipulate, and most people would tend to assume that whatever their Kage did was by their initiative alone. That was part of the idea of putting their strongest shinobi in charge, obviously.

But no one was offering any explanations as to their reasonings, and asking would have attracted unwanted attention from Mist authorities. They were already paranoid, he didn't need to be giving them anything to worry about. He and Sifu would have to come back here again, after all. Maybe after a few visits the Mist shinobi would dismiss them as a security concern, but that wasn't the case now.

Sasuke leaned back onto his comfortable hotel bed and stretched out like one of his summons, arching his back and closing his eyes in satisfaction.

Sifu should be back any minute with their letters, and Sasuke could tell his Shishou all the information he spent all day slaving to get. Of course, they weren't anywhere near done, and the Hokage would probably like more information than "They're doing spring cleaning, and their Jounin are twitchy, gossipy twits," but still, it was a pretty good day.

After a few minutes, he heard a key scratching in the hotel door, and a moment later Sifu came in with a few packages and letters.

"Hello, Haru-kun!"

Sasuke sat up slowly and meandered over to Sifu, who handed him a few letters and a package.

"What's this?" Sasuke wiggled the package at Sifu, who cocked an eyebrow and smiled.

"A package from Lady Temari, I believe. Are you going to open it, or wave it in my face all day?"

Sasuke sat down on the bed and placed the package to his side, electing to open the letters first. Hopefully Temari had thought to explain why she was sending him a package before he opened it. He didn't really want to find out that it wasn't from her and was some sort of explosive device or gaseous poison inside. The letter was at least signed in her handwriting (the Sharingan was so very helpful for these situations), and therefore likely actually sent from her.

Now that she wasn't constantly in his face and trying to either take his innocence or beat him senseless, she seemed rather sweet. Her letter was nice, actually. She talked about training and her brothers, and was evidently trying to develop a new jutsu to be used in conjunction with her fan. He obviously couldn't help her, being that any insight on his part would be suspicious since he was supposedly just a civilian. A civilian with extensive swordsmanship training, but still a civilian.

Her theories were plausible, though, and admittedly brilliant. The idea was that while she was riding in the air on her fan, it was difficult to use other wind jutsus. It would either cut through the wind propelling her fan or would be dispelled entirely. Obviously, coming crashing down to the ground wasn't a desired outcome, but neither was hanging out in the air, defenseless.

Her idea involved propelling her fan with smaller winds, coming around her fan from the sides, bottom, and top, that would leave her able to fly, even while diverting one or more of the individual currents to attack or defend. It was going to require absolutely insane levels of chakra control, but she seemed confident that she could manage it.

It was very impressive, really. Sasuke hadn't ever invented a new jutsu. He felt rather inadequate in comparison, if he was being honest. Though being able to actually breathe fire was a pretty good consolation prize.

She did happen to mention her present, too, along with something else that he found slightly disconcerting.

"She wanted to thank me for the present I sent her?" Sasuke shot Sifu a wary look.

Sifu smiled somewhat sheepishly and shrugged. "I took the liberty of sending her a present for you, a hair decoration that would be suitable for her work."

"And what does it look like, so that if I am forced to describe my thought process or see it later?"

"Ah. It is a fan, with an engraved desert flower upon it."

Sasuke sat, and considered that for a moment. "So a fan like her fan, with a desert flower? That was very thoughtful of me."

Sifu giggled, and Sasuke rolled his eyes while smirking. "Sifu, next time, just let me know? If I'm going to be sending a woman gifts, I'd like to at least know what they are, if I can't be trusted to pick them out in the first place."

With that, he moved over to the package from Temari. She said that she got him something to thank him for his gift, so it probably wasn't going to try to kill him.

He carefully opened the package, and was somewhat baffled.

"Sifu, what are these?"

His Shishou leaned over, and let out a long breath of air.

"That… is a very nice gift."

Sasuke glared at him a little, trying to force him to elaborate.

"This is a tsuba- a guard for your sword, a fuchi- which is the collar to connect the blade to the hilt, a kashira- a back plate for the hilt, and a set of menuki, which are decorations to put under the wrappings for your sword. They identify the sword and their owner."

Sifu gingerly picked up one of the menuki and let out a low whistle. "And she picked out dragons as a decoration. Your girlfriend is a very good judge of character, her insight is nothing short of spectacular."

Sasuke looked down at his gifts again with renewed interest. So she'd not only noted his sword, but thought enough of him to send him a modification for it. It was very sweet, and in a way he could appreciate. The girls in Konoha had tried to give him sweets and scarves and other strange things that he never wanted in the slightest. He didn't have any interest in non-utilitarian things.

So, while personalizing his sword wasn't exactly useful, it was certainly a step in the right direction.

"Where can I take them to have them put on?"

Sifu placed the menuki he'd been holding into the case, and stood silently thinking for a few moments.

"It is possible that Mist would have a craftsman able to take care of it, but it would be best if we waited until we went to another nation, I think. Mist is unlikely to have a skilled enough craftsman to do the job to my specifications. Altering your sword is not worth jeopardizing its quality."

Sasuke had to admit that was a valid point. He traced his finger over the curling dragon menuki, and closed the case.

"Well, I suppose it's just as well. We will only be here for a few more weeks at most, yes?"

Sifu nodded, and sat back down on his bed to read his own letters.

Sasuke picked up the letter from Temari again, as he had set it down earlier after reaching the part about his present.

'I know it sounds weird to mention, but I keep seeing a man around Suna that looks like you. I thought it was you behind me the other day, but when I turned around I realized it wasn't. He has the same hair and eye color and everything, though he has his hair really long and girly for some reason. So maybe he doesn't really look like you, but he looks like he's related to you. Do you have any family in Suna, then? I thought it was probably just a coincidence, but he didn't look familiar to me at all. In any case, if you don't come back soon, I may have to dump you and date him instead.'

'I'm just joking. Kind of.'

Sasuke felt his brow furrowing and stomach clenching. He looked up to talk to Sifu, but his mouth tasted like ashes.

As if sensing his distress, Sifu glanced up and over at him with some concern. Sasuke felt his mouth moving, and the words fell out before he could catch them.

"My brother is looking for me."

Sifu didn't look shocked, only sad.

"I know."