Chapter 11 – How Aniki Decides

Tic. Tic.

The sound of the bamboo suikenketsu permeated the room. It was outside the sliding doors, clattering steadily against the stone in the garden as the water from the fountain filled it and left it. Inside, Hyuga Hinata sat shivering under the blanket of her futon, which was drawn up over her head.

It was happening again. Her eyes hurt. There were no mirrors in the room to see her image in, but if there were, she would how the nerves of the four extra pathways in her eyes stood out starkly from her skin. It had started happening years ago, when she had been kidnapped by Kumo nin. It happened every once in a while, and when it happened like this she hated it.

Tic. Tic.

Hinata hugged her knees. There was no one else inside the room with her. Otou-san was with Kou-san and Tokuma-san, having tea and discussing clan matters. Hakumi was with Hanabi-chan, teaching her baby sister how to write her first letters.

Tic. Tic.

She was in a cell with stone walls. The floor was cold against her bare feet, and the metals bars clinked as they drew shut. Outside, there were two guards, playing shogi on top of the wooden table. The sounds of clinking shogi peices were the only noises. She wanted water.

Her throat felt like sand, but her stuttering voice didn't allow her to ask them for something to drink. Every time she opened her mouth, all that came out was huffs of weak breath. The guards didn't look her way; they were engrossed in their game. One of them passed some money to the other. She'd lost to Neji nii-san. She'd lost to these two. Otou-san would hate her when he found out what they'd done to the clan. The clan was ruined now, and it was because of her. It was because she was foolish, not like Neji nii-san.

Tic. Tic.

Inside her room, Hinata clutched tightly at her blankets and tried to ignore the images. Pale sweat ran down her face and slid over the veins around her eyes. She didn't know how long it was until the door to her room slid open.

The Hyuga branch member stood up from her kneeling position by the sliding door, and walked over to the lump under the blankets. "Hinata-sama, it is already noon. You have missed breakfast, and you will miss your match with Neji. Many are excited to see your skill, Hinata-sama."

Hinata shook visibly under the blankets. "I don't-I don't feel well. I can't leave my bed today."

The woman frowned, but made no move to lift the blankets that the girl had wrapped over herself. "I will inform Hiashi-sama that you are ill. We will send a medic."

Hinata heard a shuffle of cloth and the smooth movement of the sliding door closing as she left. Just leave me alone. She whimpered silently. I don't want to see anyone. I don't want to move. I don't want to be thirsty. Otou-san will hate me, more than he already does.

The anbu Wolf walked down the halls of the Hokage's building. His footsteps were purposely loud in the silent, empty corridor as he stopped in front of the council's meeting room and rapped sharply on the door. He was exactly seven kilometers from his assigned position, but he had a proposal to make.

The door opened slowly, and the masked anbu who had pulled it open went back to her hiding place. Inside was a room with a circular table, beyond which was a large pane of window that allowed the three council members to look over the village in its entirety. Danzo sat on the far side, with Hiruzen's teammates on either side of him. He steepled his fingers and indicated for the anbu captain to approach.

Kakashi went forward and stood before the table. Danzo-sama usually expected his subordinates to kneel, but that was an outdated tradition that he wouldn't take part in.

"Operative Hound," Koharu acknowledged in a dry tone. "Why are you here? You have been given your mission already."

"I wanted to point out something that you might have forgotten," Kakashi replied plainly. "My team will perform the mission without me, I have left seniority to Tenzo-kun." Tenzo had spluttered, but he would do it properly.

Danzo frowned at the casual address. "What is it?" He asked.

"It's the boy," Kakashi told him, knowing immediately that Danzo would understand whom he meant. "Some might think to target him in this situation, and his anbu guards have been reassigned. I request permission to bring him to headquarters until the coup is over." There were other reasons, of course. But those weren't the types of things he would say in front of these three. Those were the types of things that could potentially be used against him, and he couldn't risk that.

The three council members frowned and thought over his proposal.

"He is right," Homura spoke up. "The boy is a prime target, and we can't afford to lose him to enemy hands. They say that the head of the Uchiha was once able to control that with his own doujutsu."

Danzo exchanged a long look, before turning back to Kakashi. "Fine. Take that as your mission. But as soon as you finish, return to your post. Tenzo is a candidate for captain, it is true, but leaving everything to him at his point would not be recommended."

Kakashi nodded, and shifted away.

"That," Fukurou stated, "makes no sense. Something like that isn't possible, it's beyond the realms of fuuinjutsu." She sat cross-legged in front of them, and the noon sun glared into the clearing by the river.

"It's possible," Itachi told her quietly. "Don't you remember those rumors about Danzo-sama?"

"Rumors are just that," she seemed unconvinced. "What you've told me is insane from any rational point of view. There are lots of easier ways to explain why your brother has the Sharingan, you know."

"Does the fact that I didn't turn to them not support what I say?"

Sasuke watched them tiredly. It was going nowhere, Fukurou was questioning relentlessly after hearing that he was from a future, and Itachi-nii was too patient with her.

"…beside, where would his younger self have gone?" She went on. "Haven't you been through your mandatory basic medic lessons? Chakra cannot exist without a physical form, that's why even the bijuu are known to materialize when they are let free."

"He's still there," Sasuke spoke up. Fine, if Itachi wouldn't kill her, then he would do what his brother wanted. Just this once. "My younger self still hangs on. He comes out whenever the situation is familiar enough to for him to grasp onto, although it hasn't happened since the coup started. I doubt it'll happen again. Unlike me, he has no memory of the time he spends suppressed."

They were silent. Fukurou was watching him, and she seemed almost convinced by the level of intelligence that looked comically out of place on his seven-year-old face. She seemed to be going through a mental list of inaccuracies to point out, but the last few hours had exhausted the list, and Itachi had patiently addressed them all. Instead, she sat back and gave them both calculating looks. "Why?" She asked. "Why would you use a seal like that to travel back?"

"To stop the coup," Sasuke lied evenly. "Or at least to help save some of our clan members." It was as reasonable an excuse as any, and Fukurou wasn't nearly as clever as Itachi-nii.

"So we lost, did we?"

"Yes." That wasn't a complete lie.

The clearing was silent again. Sasuke didn't miss how his brother was sitting slightly in front of him, as if prepared to prevent a fight between him and Fukurou. That alone made him reel in his anger. Aniki was losing his trust in him. The idea was frightening.

Finally, Fukurou stood up. "Well, it's been hours. The hold will last one day before the fighting begins, and you'll have to be ready with your decision by then. I'll have to go back and join when it starts, I didn't sign up to become a missing-nin because of this."

"Who will you be fighting for?" Itachi asked her, as if he didn't already know.

"The clan, of course. I can't return to anbu, they're on orders to detain any Uchiha they see. I'll return in the night after it's over. It's safer to sleep outside of the village," she informed him. "So, what will you do? Make up your mind. Will you come back and choose a side? Taichou says you're a side all by yourself. Will you prove him right?"

Itachi stood and leaned back against the tree, and Sasuke looked up at him curiously. What would aniki say, now that everything had changed?

"I originally planned to see Sandaime-sama," his brother sighed. "He would have known what to do."

"Sandaime-sama has been missing for many hours," she replied dryly. "We still haven't found his body, but feel free to assume the worst."

"I know," Itachi said. "We are safe as long as his position remained ambiguous. If he is officially found dead, someone else will fill the position of Hokage. That someone will be Danzo. I cannot let that happen; I must find a new Hokage."

No. Danzo couldn't become Hokage. Sasuke gritted his teeth to stay silent, but he couldn't let that happen. The person who'd once ruined aniki couldn't become Hokage. He'd gladly search out Orochimaru and drag him to the position by his scaly ears rather than let something like that occur. But what else could they do? On one side was the decrepit council with their ancient ideologies as to how the village should be run, and on the other were the militant Uchiha. Between them was Itachi-nii, and now the decision he made would be the one to change history.

"Unfortunately, Sandaime-sama did not declare any official nominees," Fukurou said. "And his two sane students have vowed never to go near the position. I think one of them has vowed never to go near Konoha at all, actually."

"I'll find her," Itachi said earnestly. "Senju Tsunade. Sasuke says she became the Godaime Hokage of the future. And at this time, the entire village will support her for her Senju name. She is from one of the greatest clans in history, and I will bring her back."

Sasuke nodded at his brother's words. That was fine; he had nothing against the Slug Princess. He'd never met her, but Orochimaru had talked about her before, many times. As a young girl, she'd been a prodigal figure, with her iryouninjutsu that rivaled her father's and approached her grandfather's at the age of seven. She'd been engaged to the younger Sarutobi heir in an effort to relate the two clans, but the young slug princess had gone her own way and left the rest of the village heads in their tangle of politics. 'Jiraiya-baka' had fallen for her, hard. With the way he talked about her, Sasuke suspected that Orochimaru had fallen quite hard too, although he preferred not to think of that.

Orochimaru had kept tabs on her, because he'd once wanted her to join him and he'd never let go of those hopes. She was strong, he'd said. She embodied a great power long forgotten, and now it was buried within her and he believed that he could draw it out if she just came to him. Orochimaru was like that; he was single-minded. Sasuke had gone to him for the one reason of power, but he'd stayed with the snake sannin for many reasons.

"I'll help you, nii-san," Sasuke said, standing up. "It won't be hard to find Tsunade. Just ask around for the Legendary Sucker. We should have her trail within a day or two." He didn't know exactly how the village had managed to convince the slug sannin to return, but it was their best choice.

Itachi gave him a slight smile, "interesting, I may start to regret that decision. But I know that she will be in Fire Country, the political tension will be too high if she leaves, unless she heads to Wind."

"She won't," Sasuke said dryly. "The sake there is too weak." Orochimaru had told him many things about his teammate.

"Then we will head to the nearest post town and find the information market," Itachi decided. "There, Fukurou-san. I have decided on what I will do. I will tell you all I have overheard about the coup, please give the information to Hound-taichou. Meet us this evening by the western side of Suikazura, fifty kilometers southeast of here. We don't have money to buy to room and we can't afford being recognized, so we'll stay outside during the night."

Fukurou gave him a searching look. "You're a foolish idealist," she muttered. "A foolish idealist in the worst way possible." But she nodded anyway and turned to head back to the village.

"Was that so hard?" Ino asked as they skipped down the empty streets. "I told you you'd be fine. Have a little more trust, Forehead."

Sakura nodded, allowing a hesitant smile to pull at her lips. Something inside her was still warning, yelling at her to stay on guard. But Ino had been right, they had slipped out of the Uchiha clan compounds without being seen by a single person. It had been safe after all, and Ino might have saved her life by doing that. She reached over to squeeze the other girl's hand in a sign of accepting friendship. "Thanks, Ino. For saving me."

"No problem, Forehead," Ino flipped her cropped hair behind her shoulder. "Gosh, you act like its such a big deal. This is what friends are supposed to do, you know. You must have been a real loner."

Sakura blushed slightly and lowered her head, but she knew that it was true. That was ok. She had Ino, now. Ino was liked by everybody, and for good reason.

"Now walk faster," the other girl pulled at her hand. "We're going to take a shortcut through the western civilian district because I don't want to run into any anbu shinobi. They're the really creepy ones with the masks, and you don't want to go anywhere near them. Otou-san says that almost every mission they get sent on requires them to kill someone."

Sakura nodded, allowing Ino to lead her off the path from the market area. The sun was high at noon, and it had taken hours for them to carefully, slowly, escape the compound. She was hungry, and was trying to keep down the growl of her stomach. Ino had told her that they were going to her house, and that she would meet two new friends that Ino had known since she was a little girl.

The apartments to either side of them were strangely silent, and the streets were clear. Now and then they would see someone come out to hesitantly check their mail, or to put out the trash in the back. Other than that, it seemed that everyone was remaining indoors; news of the coup spread quickly even among the civilians. But the day was bright and beside her Ino didn't quite care so neither would she.

"Hey, you think Sasuke-kun is back there, in the clan?" Ino wondered. "He's really cute, it would be a pity if they threw him in jail when this is over."

Sakura frowned. "He's pretty, but he's not very nice, Ino." Before she could continue, the image of the daisy sprung up in her mind. Not the image of her handing it to him and him rejecting it. She saw the daisy peering out of his left pocket. She didn't know what to think of it.

"Yeah, well not many people are, you just have to change them yourself," Ino winked. "Hmm, this trip is going to take longer than I thought. I don't know my way around Konoha that well, I'll have to ask otou-san for a map later on …"

She found the heavy tension slowly lifting as Ino chattered on about her otou-san, and the flower-shop, and the symbolic difference between Hydrangeas and Carnations. She'd quickly learned that Ino could talk about absolutely anything when she put her mind to it. The high-pitched tone was calmingly familiar in the strange situation she'd been thrown in.

She'd never expected a coup to be like this. The word coup brought up images of blood and murder, but this strange calm was somehow worse, as if things were climbing to their peak before they actually happened, so that they would fall with more impact.

They walked down the lone streets, and it was quiet enough that the loud patter of footsteps behind them was startlingly loud. Sakura turned around quickly with held breath, expecting the worst.

But the sight of a familiar orange jumpsuit simply made her groan.

"Oi!" The boy called, running up towards them. Behind him, the door of his second-story apartment was flung open. "Sakura-chan! Ino-chan!" He skidded to a stop right in front of them.

"What do you want, Naruto?" Sakura huffed. The last thing she needed to see while being this jittery was the blond idiot.

"I was bored, and I looked out the window and saw you, Sakura-chan!" He exclaimed. "This is so cool, no one ever comes this way!" His hands were in excited fists.

"We were taking a detour," Ino said dryly. "We'll be going on our way, now." She turned on her heel, not willing to spend too much time around the boy all the adults told her to stay away from. "Let's go, Sakura," she pulled at the other girl's hand.

"Aww, come on! I've been so bored since Sasuke left, and his nii-san told me to stay inside. But if you're out here, then it's ok, right?" Naruto chirped. "Is the academy open again? Is the coup-thing over?"

"Sasuke-kun?" Sakura frowned. She stood still, "wait, Ino. He's just seen Sasuke-kun. That means that Sasuke-kun wasn't involved in the coup, right? So shouldn't we-"

"Not at the expense of wasting time with him," Ino said, shooting Naruto a peeved look.

Naruto frowned, "why not? Did you parents tell you to stay away from me too?"

Ino declined to answer, instead pulling more fervently at Sakura's hand.

Sakura stilled, thinking. Sasuke-kun was an Uchiha, and he had told Naruto to stay inside. But why? This was far from the site of the Uchiha patrol, and the civilians only stayed indoors because they were scared… No, Sasuke's nii-san had told him to stay inside. "Naruto, where did they go? Where did Sasuke-kun and his nii-san go?"

"To see Sandaime-jiji," Naruto replied matter-of-factly. He burst into a grin now that she wasn't ignoring him.

"Well that's pointless," Ino huffed. "This morning, I heard otou-san tell oka-san that the Hokage has been missing for hours. He says that the intelligence division is working with interrogation to survey the guards, but nothing turned up. So Sasuke-kun isn't getting anywhere with that."

A sense of foreboding was rising up inside her, and Sakura couldn't tell exactly what caused it. Maybe it was silence of the street, or the quick flash of wind in the distance that signaled someone's arrival, a shinobi's arrival. Maybe it was the fact that Naruto was grinning so widely and Ino was frowning deeply enough to make even her pretty face look disagreeable, and how they seemed to be in a completely different world from her. Because neither of them noted the dread hanging in the air over Konoha, and maybe that was because they were normal children and she wasn't.

But there was something there, and the feeling had followed her ever since she'd left her house.

Revenge is happening.

The man's words stayed with her. They didn't leave, and the feeling they brought with them multiplied at the sound of a shunshin behind them. Sakura turned quickly, and this time she didn't groan. Beside her, Ino and Naruto both quieted when they saw the new figure's arrival.

It was an Uchiha, a tall kunoichi with spinning red eyes and curled hair that fell past her shoulders. She wore her Konoha forehead protector proudly across her forehead, but strands of her dark hair hung over the leaf symbol, hiding it. She didn't carry any weapons with her but her eyes were enough to set them shivering.

"Uzumaki Naruto, is it?" She asked quietly.

Sakura turned to Naruto, watching as a brief flash of fear came into his eyes before he clenched his fists and glared. "Yeah, that's me! What of it?"

She sensed the danger more acutely than he did. Maybe the sense was built into her, but she'd always noticed these things.

B-baka Naruto. Run!

She wished he would run, because she couldn't and being second rank in the academy wasn't going to help at all. Her sharp mind only served to heighten her sense of fear.

The street was empty, after all. No one would see them here, even if they shouted. And Ino had said they were looking for shinobi children…

The Uchiha's Sharingan spun once again, and she looked deeply into Naruto's blue eyes. Within seconds, the boy's hands unclenched and he fell to the ground with a soft thud. The Uchiha woman was there, lifting him up over her shoulder while Sakura backed away on shaking legs. Beside her, Ino stepped forward in all her stupid bravery. Because they all disliked him, but right now he was just a seven-year-old boy against the people otou-san had told her to beware of.

"Hey! Let him go, he didn't do anything!" She yelled. Her cropped blond hair fell around her face, and her hands slowly locked into a seal.

The woman looked down at her seal, and her eyes widened in recognition. "Shintenshin? You must be the daughter of the head of Intelligence."

Sakura couldn't move. No, Ino, don't be stupid. Get away, you can't do anything against a shinobi. She said you're important. It's not good to be important!

"So what if I am?" Ino hissed. "You can't kidnap children. You'll get prison time for that." Her small fingers managed to form the complete seal, and she opened her mouth to say the words, probably for less than the twentieth time.

But the Uchiha shinobi was faster. Before Sakura could blink, Ino was gone in a blond flash, and her small form was held under the Uchiha woman's arm.

For one second, their eyes met. Uchiha Naori looked at Sakura. Then there was a shunshin, and she was gone.

Sakura didn't know how long she stood there in that empty street, eyes fixed on the place Ino had been standing, and a little to the right where Naruto had been jumping up and down with excitement. She only knew that the sun's position in the sky was different, and the apartment door that Naruto had left open in his haste was swinging back and forth with its leftover momentum.

After long minutes – hours? – there was someone behind her. She glanced back with dread, and her insides sunk when she saw a white clay mask. An anbu. Otou-san says almost every mission they get sent on requires them to kill someone. Even in her drained state, she mustered the courage to look at him guardedly. Pure survival instinct took over as she backed away on newly steady feet.

But he wasn't looking at her. He was looking across the street, at were Naruto's apartment door was swinging with less and less vigor. Then he looked back at her, and the haunted expression on her face.

"Where is he?" He muttered. "Where is sensei's son?"