Note: Dear readers – thank you for sticking around. I offer no apologies for real life distractions, but I do apologize for any stylistic unevenness and plot inconsistencies.
Time/chronology will be a little wonky in this one, too (internally and relative to the previous installment, "Interlude"), but it should be easy to pick up on. If not, leave a comment and let me know. FYI: Iwa's connections with the Akatsuki are canon. :D There are also a ton of lovely Hyuuga techniques that I'm afraid Tokuma won't be able to do, as he's 1) not part of the Main branch and 2) not a genius, a.k.a. Neji. :[
Warning: Some unpleasant commentary on the ANBU here.
Shot 5. They had been on the verge of completing a mission. Now they were going to capture a rogue ninja, rescue the enemy, and plant a spy among a cadre of S-class missing-nin.
Sasori adjusted the wide brim of the hat so that the shade fell over Hiruko's eyes. The early evening glare didn't hurt him, but it limited Sasori's vision – a design flaw in the outer puppet that he would correct, once this annoying interruption of his activities reached its end.
His gaze climbed the blunt, inelegant ridges of a mountain shoulder curving to the north of Iwa. At this distance, the village had all the visual interest of a boulder in a dried-up riverbed. Nothing moved as far as the eye could see; Sasori could well imagine that the torpid country had bored all other life forms to death or, at the very least, into exile. His breath rasped softly through apertures cut in lacquered wood and metal. He was alone.
When the ten members of the Akatsuki began to track down the bijuu, Orochimaru had become increasingly reclusive. He appeared when summoned to meetings, but Sasori traveled alone more often than not, resenting Orochimaru for conducting independent work while he suspended his own for Akatsuki objectives.
Five days ago, Konan had contacted Sasori at the southern border of Earth Country to address this subject.
The woman expressed no surprise on finding him alone. Then again, she hadn't so much as raised an eyebrow when Kakuzu mentioned off-hand at one of their general debriefings that he had killed his latest partner. Again. (Sasori had contemplated doing likewise with his for a long time now.) All she told Kakuzu was to borrow Kisame's.
"Before you go after the vessel of the Five Tails," said Konan, "there is someone you need to collect from Iwa by the name of Deidara."
Sasori's irritation manifested in a series of soft clicks – mechanisms in Hiruko that loosened the vertebrae along his retracted tail. "What is he?"
"Explosives expert. One of Iwa's youngest and brightest. He will be fifteen at most." Konan's stare flickered past Sasori for an instant, focusing on something beyond his line of vision. The moment ended. Sleet-grey eyes snapped back to his face – or rather, the puppet Hiruko's. "You have a question, Sasori?"
He hated that the woman could read his reaction through a mask of wood and steel that confounded everyone else who saw it. "Am I to bring him to Ame alive?"
Konan's voice grew icier and even more reserved, if that was possible. "You are to capture the Five Tails with Deidara. As working partners."
The purpose of the additional assignment was so obvious that it had, in fact, escaped Sasori. So Orochimaru would finally reap the fruit of his incompetence, and even Pein apparently had his limits. Allowing a prisoner to orchestrate an escape from one of Ame's strongest holding cells by signaling to Konoha ANBU with old forehead protectors was the last straw.
Aloud, Sasori snapped, "I have no use for an explosives expert."
Konan tilted her head slightly. "Deidara has some… artistic inclinations."
"Irrelevant." He expected quite little by way of aesthetic taste of anyone who worked with materials as fleeting and imprecise as bombs. "He will only get in the way." That struck Sasori as infinitely worse than Orochimaru's absence.
Konan ignored his response as an adult might feign deafness to a toddler's complaint. "Deidara is currently in Iwa. We expect you both to return with the jinchuuriki by the end of the month. Move quickly. Neither of your targets is expected to stay in his last known location for much longer."
She didn't even glance down at her abdomen, from which the tip of Hiruko's tail had suddenly sprouted.
"Childish, Sasori," Konan said softly, before scattering in a cloud of several thousand paper butterflies. A handful cut past Hiruko's vertebrae as they flew. When Sasori withdrew the tail for inspection, he saw that they had left scratches on the metal.
Four days of travel confirmed what he had always suspected: Earth Country was insipid, uninspiring, and wretchedly inert.
Sasori came from a land that assaulted the senses with constant motion. Wind beat on vast, shifting seas, and each grain of sand glittered a different hue under the varying light – ash-grey at dawn, gold-white by noontime, haughty blue-black at nightfall. These sights had an illusory permanence, even as everything continually changed. In one of the longest battles of the Third Shinobi World War, Sasori had shed so much blood that the dunes turned red with it. By the third day after the battle, the desert had cleaned all traces of the fight. A thousand broken bodies had disappeared under a layer of white-hot sand only slightly redder than before.
He despised the country of Iwagakure more and more as he compared it to the memory of his own. Iwa itself reeked of functionality without grace. It had all the appearance of a crude set of tools produced by the earliest living man. Occasionally, one's gaze encountered an intriguing use of negative space between the facades of two stone towers, but these happened more or less by accidents of nature.
As Sasori watched, a cloud of brilliant fire bloomed from one side of Iwagakure's fortifications. Heat and light radiated out from the burst. The dry, hot air coursing through the gaps in Hiruko's joints reminded Sasori briefly of Wind Country. Seconds later, the tremor reached the ground at his feet.
He saw it as the smoke column cleared: an enormous winged creature hovering over the hidden village. A giant gull with dun-colored plumage about to terrorize an anthill.
A second explosion, greater than the first, blasted the rest of Iwa's southern façade to dust.
Deidara, was it? Perhaps he would prove tolerable.
At certain intervals of the day, the hallway that led to the Hokage's office was choked with people hurrying in both directions – aides clutching armfuls of missives to and from Cryptanalysis, a staggering variety of animal summons who popped in and out of existence milliseconds away from creating disastrous traffic pile-ups, and individuals arriving or departing on special appointments. The latter group left the premises stony-faced and grim, returning with forbidden scrolls or highly sensitive materials, though they were just as likely to reappear with takeout containers and caffeinated beverages.
The crack of dawn, however, fell outside of usual office hours. Apart from the most important messages and visitors, the Hokage's office remained closed until seven a.m. Itachi expected no company with the exception of the usual guards on duty and, when he saw who else had arrived, wished futilely that reality had followed expectation.
A sharp, familiar voice hailed him from the other stairway at the end of the hall. "Did you get lost on the way to the Torture and Interrogation chamber?"
Until this encounter en route to the Hokage's office, Itachi had never seen the other shinobi out of ANBU gear. For veterans in the ANBU divisions, though, the masks ultimately concealed very little. This man had far too many tells: an unusually heavy stride, a practice of curling and relaxing the fingers of his left hand… most likely a kenjutsu user who gripped his weapon too tightly, leading to tendonitis. Hayate would have corrected that, had he still been in ANBU when this one entered the ranks.
As one of Itachi's regular escorts to chakra-sealing sessions with Hyuuga and Aburame, the horse-masked ANBU had enjoyed sparking the ground near Itachi's feet with minor bursts of chakra, hoping to see Itachi flinch or skip comically ahead of his escort. Nor had it seemed to bother the man when his chakra actually hit Itachi.
"You're in the wrong f – ing building, Uchiha." The man's low whisper was like a shout in the quiet hallway. "Whoever argued in favor of reinstating you must suffer from delusions."
Rather than react to the taunt, Itachi stared straight ahead as he walked. The two of them drew even at the doors.
"… But maybe it's for the greater good. Without another Uchiha shadowing his every step in Konoha, baby Sasuke might not turn out to be a filthy traitor like the rest of his pathetic clan… or a complete f – up like his older brother. Of course," the ANBU added with a quiet laugh, "he might not turn out to be anything but a forgettable little tragedy floating face down on the Naka Riv –"
A loud bang caused him to snap to attention, pale-faced and wide-eyed. Senju Tsunade had flung open the doors, her unnatural strength causing them to slam against the wall. They swung weakly on the rebound.
"You know what's a tragedy?" she snarled. Itachi and the other shinobi were of average height, but Tsunade's presence made her loom as tall as the Hokage Monument. "The smallest turd that came out of an asshole twenty-five years ago who's standing in front of me right now. You're a shinobi?"
The man in question gulped before the onslaught.
"Feels like just yesterday when a young lady asked for advice on how to stop you from wetting the bed at night. Oh, wait! It was yesterday." Tsunade drew herself up, voice snapping with ire. "So, is it your self-appointed duty this morning to stare stupidly back at me instead of getting the hell out of the way, or do you have actual business to discuss with the Hokage?"
The man mumbled something about requesting a review of his dossier for promotion. Tsunade's harsh laugh drowned out the halfhearted explanation. "That was rhetorical." Her furious eyes latched onto Itachi. He had sidestepped out of the line of fire the instant she appeared at the door, but there was no avoiding Tsunade's wrath entirely. "When the Hokage has finished with you, Itachi, keep your appointment at the hospital, if you please."
She swept out of the office with no danger of physical contact, both males having flattened themselves against the wall.
The Hokage's voice floated through the door. "Enter."
Itachi caught a glimpse of deeply furrowed brows as he dropped to one knee before the large desk. The Hokage's aides were nowhere to be seen.
"Itachi, I'll speak to you in a moment," said the Sandaime. "You –" The other shinobi raised his head. "Out."
The man's expression didn't change, though a flush crept up his neck.
"Before you go," said the Hokage icily – the ANBU spun on his heel so fast that a lesser man would have lost his balance – "I may be getting on in years, but if my mental health is a genuine source of concern for you, I strongly suggest dedicating yourself full-time to making further inquiries… and leaving your current job to one who is less preoccupied."
The man broke. "Hokage-sama, I assure you, I never intended…" He ran out of words before his brain caught up and told him to grovel wordlessly.
There were two camps of thought in the ANBU. The greatest fear of many ANBU members was the impossibility of leaving the ANBU even if they successfully handed in a resignation notice. The other half of the ANBU considered a premature dismissal by the Hokage the worst humiliation they could ever face. It was clear to which group this one belonged.
"Our profession carries a high risk of early death," the Hokage resumed. The shinobi's pleas withered into silence. "It is hardly necessary for you to deliberately tempt fate. Fortunately, this time, Tsunade was present to save you from the consequences of such foolishness."
He gave the man another moment to absorb the significance of those words. For an instant, his gaze slid to Itachi. Only then did Itachi remember to relax his control on his chakra. It had been three years since he'd had chakra to consciously suppress. In the effort to contain his visceral reaction to the shinobi's threat against Sasuke, he had committed the rookie mistake of overcompensating and completely muffling his chakra signature, the meaning of which the Hokage had accurately interpreted.
"You may go. Now. Close the doors behind you… if, that is, Tsunade hasn't broken them," the Sandaime clarified in a mutter, but the shinobi must have been halfway across the village by then.
Light from the floor-length windows bled through part of the paper in the Hokage's hand. Based on the arrangement of the characters, little more than opaque blobs from Itachi's vantage point, it was the final page of a Level 6 classified report.
The Hokage pinched the bridge of his nose, lowering the paper. "Why is it," he said slowly, "that of the four reports submitted on the Iwa Incident, yours alone mentioned insubordination? Specifically, your insubordination?"
Ah. That was his report.
"Because I knew you would summon me for an explanation."
The Sandaime folded his hands on the desk. His fingers were long, the knuckles bony and laced with scar tissue. Liver spots trickled over the backs of his hands. Dark eye bags sagged over gaunt cheeks. The office of Hokage had raked harsh grooves over his leathery face.
Sarutobi Hiruzen was sixty-eight. The average ANBU operative died wearing the mask between the ages of nineteen and twenty-two. By ANBU reckoning, the Sandaime was far past the standard expiration date. The last forty-six years were his on loan only, and at that moment, he looked quite cognizant of that fact.
"What is the explanation, Itachi? Your version echoes most of the details in the others. Your four-man cell, under Inuzuka Hana, had been assigned to investigate rumors that the Tsuchikage had secretly renewed the mercenary contracts between Iwagakure and the Akatsuki since the Third War. As a stalling measure, the squad replaced the original documents with ones that specified a different meeting-ground for the next stage of negotiations with the Akatsuki reps. You fully supported Hana's decision to help Iwa hunter-nin bring down the rogue ninja who had been agitating for the use of powerful clay explosives within the village limits of Iwa, saving the lives of numerous individuals who may have since completed negotiations with the Akatsuki to sabotage the operations of other hidden villages, including Konoha.
"Upon subsequently encountering a principal member of the Akatsuki, the squad acted on its own discretion by manipulating the rogue shinobi from Iwa into assisting in the investigation of the Akatsuki organization." The Hokage's lips thinned. His face had lost its earlier weariness; he spoke in a measured, deliberate way, like a surgeon might wield the fine blade of a scalpel.
"In my experience," he went on, "the degree of uncertainty in the information contained in a report is reflected in the fluctuation of detail. In mission reports written separately by members of a squad, it naturally varies at different sections. Yet all four of these reports contain an even amount of detail throughout, and the fluctuation in detail between reports is virtually the same. Shall I go on?" The Hokage's tone had become decidedly biting now.
Level 6 ANBU reports were written on an individual basis for a reason. Each member of a cell experienced a mission in a slightly different way, even if – through some incredible constellation of events – all of them had remained in each other's company for the entire duration of the assignment. Varying perspectives resulted in different emphases or weight given to each section of the mission narrative. One report might also contradict a corresponding write-up of the same mission on a minor fact; this, counterintuitive though it seemed, gave credence to the parts that did agree.
Obviously, the charge of insubordination did not count as a "minor fact."
Otherwise, the close agreement between the four reports on Iwa implied either collaborative writing or a tacit understanding among the cell members to keep parts of the mission off the official record – or, more precisely, away from the eyes of the only four people in the village permitted to access Level 6 Classified materials: the Hokage and his three most trusted councilors, Mitokado Homura, Utatane Koharu, and Shimura Danzou.
The Hokage thumbed through the sheaf of papers on the desk, letting the corners flutter back down. "I ask this once." Old he might be, but the Sandaime's glare more than equaled Tsunade's in menace. "Is any part of the reports true?"
"All of the content of the reports is true," Itachi said. "The lies are in the omissions…"
They'd had half a second to enjoy the completion of their mission before the tower next door to the Tsuchikage's exploded into furious activity. And also literally exploded.
As per ANBU protocol, they scattered. Itachi left via the nearest window, springing off from the ledge and running vertically down the rough outer wall. He leapt from the side of the tower to the top of an adjacent spire. Thirty meters away on the leeward side of the damaged tower, he could still feel the heat radiating outward from the site of the detonation. Another explosion tore through the south-facing fortifications connected to the tower. Debris cascaded down the sloping exterior wall. An ashy, sulphuric stench hit his nose; part of Iwa's towers had been constructed from volcanic rock.
They had tripped no alarms – Muta's kikai had deftly handled the chakra-triggered fuinjutsu on the original document – but in hostile territory, one always felt extraordinarily guilty for the slightest disturbance.
A black speck no larger than a fingernail zipped past Itachi's line of sight. Muta's kikai bug alit on Itachi's fingertips. The insect hummed, the vibrations transmitted through its exoskeleton serving as a crude version of one of the ciphers used by Konoha ANBU.
Rogue Iwa nin – White Eyes north by east – Colony southwest – enemy hunters north by west –
The insect did not bother giving the location of the squad leader, as Hana had just appeared over his right shoulder. Chakra kept her balanced at a near-impossible angle on the slanted top of the spire, partially screened, like Itachi, by the dust cloud from the blast.
Given the chaos unfolding below, Hana forwent the silent hand signals in favor of simply speaking aloud.
"One of the Tsuchikage's pupil is taking advantage of his master's absence to create disruption. This is all his work."
The Byakugan had the advantage here, but the murky vision of Itachi's Sharingan slowed everything to a crawl: Iwa jounin who had been little more than a blur of red and umber moved through the air as if it had thickened into gel. Their target circled around in a wide arc as if to taunt his pursuers. The rogue shinobi's chakra signature was stamped all over the winged creature on which he had perched, though Tokuma alone out of their four-man cell could say for certain if it had its own chakra circulatory system.
"Any sign of the Iwa ANBU?"
Itachi shook his head. They had previously eluded three ANBU to enter the tower. How had the rest remained virtually undetected by kikai, ninken, Sharingan, and Byakugan?
Fresh screams and shouting rose to their ears as a smaller bomb went off in the northeastern octant of the village. Itachi watched as houses collapsed, red-gold tongues of fire flaring among the crumbling basalt.
"That's the residential district, isn't it?" he heard Hana observe tonelessly to the shadow that had flickered into being beside her – fleet-footed Shosa, the fastest of the Haimaru brothers. Normally, he wore a doggy grin that betrayed how little importance he placed on the mission compared to the joy of the chase, but on this occasion, he loped up to his mistress's side without his usual levity.
Hana waved Itachi closer to hear Shosa's report.
"It's as you say. Lots of human dens ahead." Shosa panted to catch his breath.
"Civilians?" Hana asked.
Shosa's tail wagged anxiously, conveying much more than his still-developing grasp of ANBU shorthand could. "Who knows? But if that man goes bang a few more times, he'll kill or injure hundreds of mothers and their pups. No ninken here to sniff them out from the rubble."
Hana surveyed the wreckage. "Our would-be missing-nin over there probably doesn't consider it much of a loss."
Iwa and Konoha could be said to be on friendly terms in the same way that a spider wasp could be said to be on friendly terms with a spider. The battles of the Kikyou Pass and the Kannabi Bridge during the Third Secret War had cast a long shadow: to this day, asking a Konoha nin if he really came from Iwa was equivalent to calling him a parasitic scum of the earth.
But instead of the shared history between the rival hidden villages, Itachi thought of another street full of fleeing children and mothers torn between saving their homes and confronting the masked ANBU who had descended upon them.
Of heavy wooden beams that sent showers of burning sparks into the air as they split apart from the heat.
Of another night of slaughter, that first rush of wind that his kunai sliced through in a single, smooth motion until his brain caught up, saw the snarl frozen forever on his uncle's face as the man fell to the ground, his blood seeping into the dirt.
Suddenly, Itachi knew what Hana had left unasked.
"I'm with you, captain," he said. Precious fractions of a second had already slipped by. In the distance, clouds of smoke and shattered rock shot up as high as thirty meters into the air, erupting one after another. The ground shuddered belatedly in the aftermath. "Make the call."
Herding the rogue shinobi out of the residential district proved quite simple; a calculated use of henge and genjutsu, combined with the Iwa ninja who remained ignorant of the Konoha ANBU's presence, successfully shifted pursuit beyond the village walls.
The fleeing Iwa nin didn't act as if escape ranked as a priority. He could have taken advantage of the uneven landscape and jutting rock formations, but he didn't seem concerned at all about losing his pursuers, which spoke volumes about his confidence and intentions. A ninja with forethought would be luring them to a more preferred location, but either way, he seemed to be leading the chase north, moving into territory outside of Konoha intelligence.
Since Hana's team had decided to approach at an angle, they had options that the Iwa hunting party did not.
Hana gave the first orders to Muta. Start taking some of the Iwa chakra with your kikai insects. They'll need it to mask our chakra signals. Muta's Insect Jamming Technique had become standard precaution ever since the disastrous second part of their first and, thus far, last mission to Amegakure. Tokuma, flank left and run interference on the two Iwa cells. Once you slow them down, Itachi will hold them in his genjutsu.
Meanwhile, Hana would knock the rogue Iwa nin and his monstrous winged transport out of the sky.
Muta's kikai fanned out until they were a pale grey screen traveling several meters before them. Each kikai insect had taken so little of the hunter-nin chakra that none of the eight Iwa jounin and chuunin involved noticed the slight dip in their reserves; all their attention focused on the blond target who taunted them from above. Muta hung back, keeping the pursuit in view but avoiding detection.
Tokuma and Itachi drew even with the Iwa nin at roughly the same time. The kikai screen coalesced into a denser cloud around the Hyuuga. The misdirection lasted for as long as Tokuma required to land an immobilizing blow on the shinobi closest to him and kick the next-closest into a jounin.
About that time, the other Iwa cell began to take notice.
Iwa ninja used a different signaling system, but the cells broke formation and reformed so seamlessly that some communication must have transpired. They were preparing to confront the attackers.
Too late.
Itachi had joined the Iwa nin as soon as Tokuma had taken out the jounin leader of the slower cell. The jounin who had met Itachi's eyes when he deliberately crashed into his side now turned on his own comrades. The neatly reorganized cells fell apart under the unexpected betrayal.
This time, the frantic signals were easy to interpret: Sensei, what are you doing?
Shit! Team leader's been compromised!
Genjutsu?
At least the chuunin caught on fast.
Itachi dispelled both genjutsu – the one on the Iwa jounin and the basic henge that disguised Itachi as one of their own. The Iwa nin recoiled as the jounin dropped where he stood, rendered unconscious at the severing of Itachi's control.
Itachi raised his hand almost lazily so that their shuriken glanced off the kunai in his hand. Exploding tags had never been very aerodynamic; they created excessive drag on the projectiles that Itachi knocked aside before they could detonate. Had Hana asked it of either of them, Itachi or Tokuma alone could have taken out these Iwa nin before they finished blinking.
For their benefit, however, he revealed himself in a large black cloak embroidered with red clouds lined in white. The Iwa nin stopped dead before the sight of a tall, cruelly smiling man whose odd, blue-tinted appearance alone would have stopped them in their tracks, never mind the enormous sword leaned against his shoulder or the shark-like teeth bared in a grin.
"Who the f – are you?" shouted one of the chuunin.
"Calm down," ordered a young kunoichi. She hadn't taken her eyes off Itachi, which was a normally good but, in this case, utterly misguided precaution to take.
"But didn't you see – Kurotsuchi, he took out –"
"Quiet."
The kunoichi glared up at Itachi's rendition of the missing-nin of Kirigakure called Kisame, whose name he had learned since encountering the man in River Country.
"Akatsuki," spat Kurotsuchi. Evidently, she had recognized the cloak. "You dare turn on Iwa, after Tsuchikage-sama gave you information on the jinchuuriki?" Kunai bristled between her fingers.
"Do you intend to attack me on behalf of your village, foolish little girl?" Itachi-as-Kisame smiled broadly at her uncertainty. Regarding her from behind the illusion, Itachi felt a sad resignation. He would have preferred opponents to know when they were outclassed. "Where are all the ANBU? The famed hunters of Iwagakure? You would need at least a battalion to come within arm's length of me."
Kurotsuchi's eyes narrowed to slits. But while she managed to hold her tongue, her fellow chuunin looked deeply disturbed.
"F – ing Han – it's all his fault –"
"Shut up," ordered the kunoichi. Her voice shook slightly.
"Screw you!" yelled the Iwa nin who had first spoken. "If it hadn't been for that damned jinchuuriki, we wouldn't be stuck dealing with this shit by ourselves."
"He's right," burst out another. "We're just chuunin! This is way out of our league."
Watching them argue it out in front of him, Itachi had to agree.
Not surprisingly, it sounded as though Iwa's forces had a contentious relationship with its own jinchuuriki; some rumors had even placed two Tailed Beasts within Earth Country borders. So Iwa ANBU had been largely tied up in a matter related to Han, as the chuunin had referred to the bijuu vessel. Had Han instigated the event on his own, or had that also resulted from Akatsuki meddling? After all, they had a confirmed interest in jinchuuriki.
A massive explosion went off behind Itachi. He took advantage of the distraction to plausibly allow the young chuunin to escape, while assessing the situation.
Tokuma had gone ahead to join Hana. Blackened clay shards continued to fall from the sky, hardened by the heat of the blast. The monstrous bird was no more.
A scything whirl of tooth and claw broke apart in midair – Hana and the Haimaru brothers separating at the end of the Spinning Fang technique, closing in on a flash of blond and dark blue.
The rogue ninja formed a seal with his hands. The clay fragments around him burst apart. Each of them did as much damage as an exploding tag; detonated together, they became painful, even blinding. The kikai bugs that had come too close in the aftermath of the explosion died before they hit the ground.
"What do you want with Deidara?" demanded a voice behind Itachi. "Don't bother trying to turn around – I've sealed you in."
Itachi had no intention of doing so. "Quicklime, is it?" That had been a combination of fire, earth, and water-based ninjutsu. "Impressive." He recognized talent when he saw it. The wisest course of action would be to kill the kunoichi before she turned up on Konoha's doorstep one day at the head of an enemy invasion.
Kurotsuchi scoffed. "I don't need your approval!" she snarled. "Just answer the question!"
"Where have your teammates gone? Surely your show of backbone must have shamed them into staying around."
"They're not my regular team. Anyway, you have other concerns right now!"
"I hope you don't flatter yourself into thinking you're one of them." Although she had quite helpfully divulged new pieces of information.
He dispelled the water clone, leaving the chuunin staring in shock at the hardening remnants of her trap. Kurotsuchi face-planted in the dirt a second later, knocked out cold by a blow to the head.
Still thirty meters from the ground, Tokuma was having trouble with the explosives that the rogue ninja, Deidara, flung in his direction even as he tackled Hana and her three snarling ninken. On previous occasions, Itachi had seen a Hyuuga protect himself effectively with the Kaiten, but that was a technique forbidden to Branch House members. The explosives that Deidara had begun to throw detonated on physical contact. As they grew in size and blast radius, Tokuma either avoided them by a hair's-breadth or executed a Body Replacement, which moved him farther away from Deidara.
A clay creature the size of one of Hana's ninken pelted for Tokuma, blazing past the flying formation of Muta's kikai insects without slowing down. The Hyuuga had no way to avoid it without giving up on reaching Deidara entirely.
Itachi leapt into the air. He seized Tokuma's forearm when it came within reach and used it to fling the Hyuuga sideways out of the trajectory of Deidara's short-range bomb. Just as he might alter the direction of a kunai by striking it with another, Itachi used the reaction force from Tokuma to push himself away from the bomb.
The Iwa nin glanced down at them and formed the detonation-seal. Hardened clay fragments ricocheted outward from the blast, rebounding off Itachi's arm guards. His ears rang slightly from the roar of the explosion.
In the short lull, an unfamiliar male voice could be heard:
"Your damn mutts are getting annoying!"
That jaunty tone of voice didn't entirely hide Deidara's growing worry. He had reason to feel concerned: Tokuma had regrouped, moving swiftly on the ground to intercept Deidara. Muta's kikai insects swarmed around one of Deidara's hands, while one of Hana's ninken – Chusa, the heavier-set Haimaru brothers – had clamped his jaws around Deidara's other wrist and hung there like dead weight.
Hana slashed through the strap of a pouch that hung at Deidara's hip. Freed, the parcel hurtled to the earth faster than its owner, whose clothing provided air resistance to slow his fall.
Some long-range fighters turned out to be decent close-quarter combatants, but merely decent did not hold up against Hana, who favored mid- to close-range combat, let alone a combination of her and an ANBU-level Hyuuga.
Deidara snarled as the next slash of the kunai tore through the inner tendon of his left elbow. Hana drop-kicked him down the last five meters to Tokuma, whose open-palmed hit landed on the Iwa nin's ribcage with deceptive gentleness. Itachi knew from the odd spar with a Hyuuga, back in his first genin days, that the force of a jyuuken blow felt closer to slamming into a spear of quartz than the light tap on the side that it appeared.
Gasping, the Iwa nin twisted around to avoid Tokuma's other hand. He used the momentum to drive a kunai into the ninken gripping his wrist. The kunai tip raked along Chusa's side just before the dog managed to de-summon himself in a puff of smoke.
Freed from the ninken's grip, Deidara disappeared in a Body Replacement jutsu. A huge shadow blocked the dying sunlight. It was so prodigiously large that at first, it appeared as though a cloud had suddenly drifted close.
The new clay creature had a wingspan thirty feet across from tip to tip. Its long, slender neck resembled that of a swan's, except that the bird's head ended in a snake's gaping maw.
Deidara's voice rang out from above. "I don't know who the hell you are, but clearly all of you need to learn how to take a hint, yeah?"
The bird-serpent completely hid him from view, but since he had done the favor of speaking, Itachi concluded from the direction of the voice that the Iwa nin stood close to the shoulder of the creature's right wing.
"Consider yourselves lucky that my art is the last thing you'll ever see," crowed Deidara.
The bird-serpent opened its jaws impossibly wide. A dozen clay swallows burst from its mouth. They tucked in their wings – or rather, the wings withdrew and split up into eight appendages – as they descended. By the time the birds had fallen even six meters, the transformation from swallow to arachnid was complete, and what had begun as a steep dive had become a free fall.
One of the spiders clicked its mandibles in anticipation as it rushed ever closer to Itachi's face.
Itachi smiled slightly as he completed the last seal of the Goukakyuu.
The fireball burnt the spider to a crisp and went on to smash into the wing of the bird-serpent directly in its path. A hollow groan issued from the bird-serpent as its pinions crumbled. Dust and chunks of clay showered onto the landscape. Still, the bird-serpent struggled along. It listed to its right side, though it had simultaneously begun to shrink, with some of the clay emerging from its uneven stub to form a temporary wing.
Deidara glared through the hole in his sculpture. "You think you can use a low-level technique like that to bring me down to your level? Try ag –"
The Iwa nin lapsed into silence, realizing that an enemy shinobi had appeared where he'd had a clear view of the horizon before. Now, possibly for the first time in his life, Deidara was staring down the slowly spinning tomoe of the Sharingan.
Hana brought it to an end by flipping onto the bird-serpent's broad back. One sharp punch to the temple knocked Deidara out cold.
Tokuma met them on the ground. He glanced at the Iwa nin slung over Hana's shoulder. "How did you finally get within arm's length of him?"
Hana dumped Deidara onto the ground. Unconscious, the shinobi who had eluded two Iwa cells and taken the better part of the evening to catch had become little more than dead weight. "Distraction. Itachi apparently invited him to a staring contest."
"Well, who could say no to that pretty face?" Tokuma sneered.
Itachi's eyebrows rose. "I didn't know you felt that way."
The Hyuuga stopped short of making a rude hand gesture. "You only wish, Uchiha."
Muta's arrival put an end to the banter. His insects hovered in a loose formation around him. Itachi had spent enough time with kikai bugs to detect agitation in the higher-pitched humming. "Unidentified shinobi approaching six-hundred meters east of us. He's wearing the Akatsuki uniform - red clouds on black." From that distance, he would have noticed the fight but not the exact number of ninja involved.
"Just the one?" asked Hana, though her ninken had already raced out of sight to conduct recon. Muta nodded, adding that he had done a general sweep within the same radius.
Shosa appeared in a puff of smoke to report. "Doesn't smell human. Oil polish, old blood, and rotting meat, if that."
If any of the Tsuchikage's staff had noticed a non-human anomaly, it should have made it onto record.
"My kikai bugs concur," said Muta after consulting the insects. The kikai bugs were impervious to genjutsu, so their word was usually the last on the matter. "Wood and steel construction, organic and synthetic fibers, hair from multiple humans."
Taken together, the two reports from their non-human companions only confused the picture.
Hana's fingers blurred as they formed the hand seals for a wind-based ninjutsu. The damaged bird-serpent had been freefalling from the darkening sky; thanks to the chakra-guided air current that Hana sent its way, it collapsed several meters to the right of the ANBU team and the unconscious Deidara instead of forcing them all to move aside. The landing kicked up a cloud of clay dust.
A thin rind of red sun lingered on the horizon. In a few minutes, it would be nightfall. The early moonrise cast a milky pall on the surroundings.
"What is the Akatsuki even doing near the village?" asked Tokuma. "They're not meeting the Iwa elders until next month."
"Maybe they think a jinchuuriki lives in Iwa," Muta suggested, although he sounded skeptical.
Hana shook her head. "We would have heard or discovered something to that effect by now, if that were the case. But perhaps the Akatsuki believe otherwise."
The Akatsuki were hunting down the vessels of the Tailed Beasts; that much had been confirmed in the last two or three missions. Itachi had even begun to think that Konoha's next step should be to reach out to the jinchuuriki instead of attempting to chase after the Akatsuki directly: Wait near the jinchuuriki, and the Akatsuki came to you. But based on what the Iwa chuunin had obligingly shared with Itachi, the Iwa ANBU were so distant from the village that they could not respond to Deidara's antics in a timely fashion, and most of them had been tied down by trouble with the jinchuuriki. Therefore, the jinchuuriki must also be a fair distance from the village. Any competent organization seeking the jinchuuriki should have already discovered he was not in Iwa and set off in the right direction.
"It's possible that the explosions caught his attention," said Itachi dryly.
A pause ensued.
"No, too obvious," said Tokuma.
"Of course."
"It doesn't explain why he's in the area to begin with. My point still stands."
"So, we can debate until he enters kunai-throwing distance," said Hana slowly as she tightened the ties of her mask, "or we can go and find out what our visitor from the Akatsuki wants."
And that was why Hana was captain. Itachi suppressed a smirk and listened as she directed the squad on how they would approach the stranger. In short order, Hana laid out what she expected of Tokuma and Muta based on their assigned roles, though allowing for plenty of initiative. It contrasted sharply from a past when she had either depended too heavily on one member of the squad or over-explained their tasks.
Hana had changed, but so had all of them. Once, Itachi had tried to take up all the responsibilities of his old ANBU rank before, but by their fourth mission together, he had learned to rely more on the Inuzuka's judgment. He found that he didn't miss the pressure of captaincy or the necessity of directing others.
One of the beneficial effects of not being captain, and being led by a captain who respected the lieutenant's advice, was the chance to step back from overt command. It had certainly led to more amiable relations with the other members of the squad. Tokuma was the only one of the three who continued to call Itachi "Uchiha"; even then, it was as if he needed to remind himself that Itachi happened to be persona non grata.
However, Hana had other ideas.
"Itachi, you're taking point on this."
He looked up.
"The Akatsuki know that one of the Uchiha is on Konoha's ANBU rosters," continued Hana at the same pitch. She wasn't shouting, but with the Hyuuga's ability to read micro-expressions – even minute eye movements – and the kikai bugs' sensitivity to vibrations, lowering her voice would have been a futile effort. "It doesn't seem as though he's one of the Akatsuki members whom we've already encountered, so he shouldn't hold any personal grudges against you. He might just be … curious as to why anyone of your family continues to serve the village at all."
Itachi flipped a kunai into his hand. The sharp, blackened steel glinted in the ashen moonlight. The silhouette of Iwagakure glowed reddish-orange in the distance, a village still reeling from the damage done by Deidara's bombs. His eyes moved on to the silhouettes of his teammates, Tokuma and Muta. Both men returned the stare from behind their masks. "Curious enough to share more about his purpose."
"That's the hope." Hana glanced at the two other members of the squad as well. "As far as the Akatsuki know, Uchiha Itachi has been biding his time in the ANBU." Her gaze returned to Itachi. "Whatever the rest of us say or do to that shinobi, you need to gain his confidence. Convince him, if only for a few minutes, that you've been reconsidering your allegiance."
A flick of Itachi's fingers sent the kunai flying at Tokuma's temple. It thudded home in a wet spray of blood, brain, and shattered porcelain. The Hyuuga's corpse toppled to its knees and lay still.
Muta's kikai bugs surged forward, frenetic with rage. Itachi cleared them out with three fireballs in quick succession. His lips chapped in the dry heat, but that was nothing to the half-colony of insects that the flames had destroyed. Charred carapaces littered the rocky ground. Momentarily blinded by the fire, Muta didn't see the second kunai leave Itachi's hand and bury itself in the hollow of his throat.
Itachi met Hana's wide-eyed shock with a small, cold smile that she could not see. "Convincing?" The Inuzuka could smell the singed hair and coppery blood for herself.
"Very," said Hana in a low voice.
"It should be. It's real." Itachi watched realization dawn on her face, and then took a long, measured breath, braced for the inevitable agony in his left eye socket, and threw Hana deep into the Tsukiyomi.
Sasori watched with a mixture of amusement and irritation as one of the ANBU made short work of the rest of his squad. Amusement, because he'd encountered his share of Iwa ANBU over the years (though not even that could liven up a long journey through Earth Country). One of the Tsuchikage's favorite ploys was to dispose of particularly troublesome individuals outside of the village and blame it on the Akatsuki. He suspected that the sole surviving ANBU had just carried out a similar mission.
Sasori's annoyance stemmed from the fact that Deidara had probably fallen under that category. This ANBU did not seem the kind to favor explosives, and the artistry was lacking – though what could Sasori have expected?
The ANBU's last target dropped limply to the ground before Sasori spoke.
"Efficient," he pronounced. "But no finesse."
The masked shinobi tilted his head, as if he had the luxury of taking Sasori's measure. "What is it to the Akatsuki?" He had a smooth, quiet voice. He stood there calmly, without any tension in his posture.
"With your Tsuchikage's propensity to blame the Akatsuki for his assassinations, your lack of style reflects badly on us."
"I don't serve the Tsuchikage." The ANBU pulled out one of the ties behind his head and took off the mask, revealing a face of startling symmetry and familiarity. Sasori had seen ninja with those canted eyebrows, the deep tear troughs, the same cheekbones in Orochimaru's experimental ward. Most of all, he recognized the crimson irises and the three tomoe within them – the bloodline limit of the disgraced Uchiha that his partner so coveted. All five of the great Shinobi Countries knew what had befallen that clan. The leaf insignia on his forehead protector was unmarred.
Sasori studied him and the fallen ANBU, most likely all from Konoha.
"Some of my colleagues did mention that a Sharingan-user had run into them in Ame as well as River Country." Sasori removed the wide hat that sat low over Hiruko's brow. It would only get in the way if Sasori wanted Hiruko to fire senbon. "What business does Konoha have here?"
"For some time now, Konoha has considered Akatsuki business its business."
"Unfortunate," said Sasori. Hiruko's retracted tail loosened from under the folds of the long cloak. "For you."
Sasori had meant to pierce through the shinobi's hand with the sharp tip of Hiruko's tail. The iron vertebrae rattled feebly, as if the screws had suddenly come loose. Metal screeched and ground splinters out of the wooden attachments with a sickening noise. Sasori stopped before chips began to fly out of the joints.
"One of my squad members may have disabled the mechanisms of your… armor. Please excuse the inconvenience." The Uchiha spoke evenly, but he did not bother hiding the malice in his red eyes. "You seem angry."
"Do I?" said Sasori. He was seething.
"It wasn't my intention to upset you," the Uchiha continued, stepping over the body of one of his former companions. "In fact, I was hoping for the opportunity to contact your organization." He spirited a kunai out of his holster. "I would like to join the Akatsuki."
"We already have a shinobi from Konoha," sneered Sasori. "One of the famed Sannin. Or are you unaware that he keeps the eyes, blood, and flesh of your clan members in little vats so that he can dissect them and absorb their talents?"
The other shinobi didn't bat an eyelid. "If the Akatsuki is content with his performance, that is, of course, your prerogative."
The little taunt gave Sasori pause. "You led the squad that broke into Ame."
Again, the Uchiha said nothing to contradict Sasori's conclusion.
"We are uninterested in your offer." Sasori unlocked the gears in Hiruko's jaw, which turned with reassuring smoothness. So the sabotage hadn't reached the more complex mechanisms inside the puppet.
"Members of your organization generally work in pairs," said the Uchiha. "Where has yours gone?"
He grunted abruptly. Fifty senbon had sprouted from his neck like a grotesque collar.
Sasori watched in satisfaction as the Uchiha began to foam at the mouth from the poison. Blood dribbled from the corners of his mouth. Already, the shinobi's arms were stiffening. Normally, affairs like these bored Sasori, but the Uchiha had struck a nerve. Thanks to him, Sasori needed to carve out more time to repair the iron tail instead of working on the new additions he had planned.
"A prosaic explosives expert from Iwagakure would have a higher chance of acceptance into the Akatsuki than the likes of you. There is no country in the world that will take in an Uchiha."
"Not even an Uchiha with the Mangekyou Sharingan?"
Dark flames bloomed from the hat in Hiruko's fingers. Sasori cast it away just before the fire spread to the rest of the puppet. He hadn't felt such a suffocating heat since modifying his body into puppet form, nor seen a fire that literally burned black. A few meters away, the bare rock continued to blaze long after the hat had turned to ash.
"Interesting," said Sasori, somewhat more truthfully. He noticed that a drop of blood had beaded in the corner of the Uchiha's right eye. "How long will that fire last?"
"Does it matter?" The Uchiha appeared bored. "If you are unwilling to give more information on the Akatsuki, then I have no further use for you."
Sasori's eyes narrowed at the breathtaking arrogance. "All of the members of the Akatsuki joined on invitation."
The Uchiha tossed something clad in dark cloth and of relative heft at Sasori's feet. Sasori didn't flinch, but glanced in distaste at the youthful face partially obscured by strands of loose blond hair.
"Is this what the Akatsuki invited?" The Uchiha asked.
Sasori turned the body over with a light kick. "I have no use for corpses." Not at this time, in any case. Organic materials rotted too quickly, requiring special treatment before usage.
He compared Deidara to the Uchiha. Both were young – the ANBU sounded much younger than Sasori's actual years, but close to the Iwa nin in age. Yet the Uchiha had an air of contained assurance that the Iwa nin, an explosives expert, certainly did not possess. He promised to be an intriguing sparring partner, though Sasori deferred that to a later occasion; who knew how troublesome the Five Tails might prove.
"Why seek the Akatsuki?"
"To test my strength." The Uchiha stalked closer, cat-footed, until he and Hiruko, Sasori's outer puppet, stood eye to eye. "The rest of the shinobi world is stagnant and weak, Konoha most of all. You, on the other hand, are rounding up the jinchuuriki. Whatever end that may serve, it suits me better than continuing service to a senile old man who dotes upon the vessel of the Nine Tails."
Sasori laughed quietly. "And you intend to be the one to capture that particular vessel?"
"When the time comes."
"You don't expect to wander freely back to your village and acquire it, do you?"
"Why not?" The Uchiha tilted his head, an inscrutable expression on his features. "I have the Hokage's trust, even if the village elders harbor misgivings. I could even tell them exactly what I am telling you – that I will become a double agent, spying on your organization for them while I am doing the reverse."
"And who's to say that you aren't telling the Hokage the truth?"
The kunai appeared between the Uchiha's fingers between one breath and the next. "Are you ignorant as to what has happened to my clan? I am despised, reviled… condemned for actions that coincided with the official policy. Any shinobi who sincerely devotes himself to such a village is a fool."
Well, Kisame would need a new partner, now that Hidan worked with Kakuzu. And if the Leader disagreed, the Uchiha could subsequently be disposed of, the ability to cast eternally burning black fire notwithstanding. Though improbable, Hidan or Kisame might have hard feelings about the Ame incident, but things like that were usually settled quickly: one of them would attempt to kill the Uchiha. If he failed, hands would be dusted off and shoulders shrugged; better luck next time.
"If you are so eager to test your strength against the jinchuuriki," said Sasori, "you can take the place of this useless Iwa nin for the time being and serve as my auxiliary to bring in the Five Tails, although I should hardly require your contribution."
"Certainly," came the reply; the tone implied both polite acceptance of the invitation and a mocking jab at Sasori's battlefield prowess.
The Uchiha had brought up a detail about the fall of his clan that led Sasori down a new train of thought. "You were the clan heir?"
"Itachi," said the ANBU, by way of belated introduction.
"Sasori."
"Sasori of the Red Sand," Itachi recalled aloud. "An S-class criminal and missing-nin, formerly of Suna." A faint respect underlay his words. Good; Sasori could wait to kill him for his earlier impertinence.
"And you would be the only shinobi in the Bingo Book without the status of missing-nin."
Itachi drew a ghost line across the leaf on his forehead protector with the tip of the kunai. It didn't leave a scratch.
Sasori recognized the gesture. He had done it repeatedly, in the days leading up to his defection from Suna. All ninja who became missing-nin experienced that hesitation, toying with the insignia that had defined their entire lives until that moment. Some hesitated out of fear of the unknown that would follow; others, to prolong the pleasure of discarding worthless loyalties.
"Not for long," said Itachi, putting away the kunai.
They stood under a watchful moon that stained the sky a dark, carmine shade. In that surreal landscape, all other colors faded to ghostly hues. Hana looked wan and unsettled in the unnatural light. She took a deep breath and faced Itachi.
"What's the meaning of this?"
He stepped away, walking around her. For now, Hana's expectations defined the illusory world around them, and so Iwagakure could be seen from afar, albeit in nightmarish hues. The famous mountain range of Earth Country curled over the horizon.
"The Akatsuki shinobi was too near for me to explain. Here, I have all the time I need." Itachi watched as his captain turned over a shuriken in her hands. Despite its disconcerting appearance, the Tsukiyomi had as much realism as Itachi permitted it; Hana would feel, smell, and taste all that she expected to, until Itachi changed the parameters of the illusion.
Hana looked up. "Tell me, then."
"You had the idea of bringing the man to Konoha for questioning. In the long run, it would be more useful to have someone inside the organization sending intel back to the village. You ordered me to convince him that I sincerely intended betrayal, and I have done that. Tokuma has been under genjutsu ever since the last time he looked me in the eye. He is merely unconscious, while the rest of you saw him die of a kunai by my hand. Muta wouldn't have fallen for the genjutsu, thanks to his kikai bugs. I had to use ninjutsu to incapacitate his insects before putting him under." Hundreds of the kikai bugs had genuinely perished, but their individual lives were held cheaply compared to that of the hive queen, who could replenish their numbers in a short period.
"A double-genjutsu, one of similar kind on both Tokuma and Muta… another for myself and the Akatsuki?"
Itachi nodded. "You needed to react in a plausible manner."
Hana took care not to tread on Tokuma's body as she paced – or thought she did. She had expected a corpse; thus, a corpse of the Hyuuga had appeared inside the illusion. "And you'll be a double agent?"
"Who else could do it?" Itachi asked flatly.
"Who, indeed, after the show you put on?" Hana retorted. "But given the kind of security measures that we found in Ame, don't expect to be able to send messages using animal summons. Everything you say aloud must be assumed to be overheard. You still need to send messages with your ninneko, but for the actual news ...I have a better idea. We'll use shadow clones."
Itachi understood at once. Once dismissed, a shadow clone's memory merged with that of the jutsu user. If the shinobi in question created a shadow clone and dismissed it, his shadow clone elsewhere would experience the temporary reduction in his chakra reserves but also share the new memories from the other shadow clone. Likewise, if that second shadow clone created another clone and dismissed itself, those memories would reach the user. Unlike the case of ordinary, illusory clones, there was no known limit to the distance of separation between a shadow clone and its original, the user of the technique.
"I see."
"Then there's the issue of whether or not you can handle it for an extended time." Hana crossed her arms. "I asked Tsunade about your condition from the last checkup." It was the captain's prerogative – no such thing as patient confidentiality existed in the Konoha ANBU. "According to her, you have the chakra reserves of an average genin. You use your chakra very efficiently, but can you maintain a shadow clone while executing the occasional…" She gestured at his eyes. "… forbidden Sharingan technique? Perhaps the Akatsuki will ask you for demonstrations. After all, you don't get into the ANBU either without a screening and probationary period."
Itachi found it unlikely that he would use the Tsukiyomi or the Amaterasu continuously. "It will be fine."
Hana rolled her eyes. "Right. At any rate, arrangements must be made. Chakra transmission hasn't been fully tested with ninken, as they're incapable of making shadow clones on their own. Maybe Tsunade will have some insight in that area…"
It was a quality unique to the Tsukiyomi and many higher level genjutsu that the people subjected to the techniques became more open to expressing their immediate reactions. The normally taciturn Inuzuka was thinking aloud. Itachi permitted himself a slight smile.
"My shadow clone will rejoin the squad once the area is secure. The Iwa nin's still alive if you want him for questioning."
Deidara was unlikely to know much about Akatsuki machinations, but he had been the Tsuchikage's protégé. Itachi counted on Sasori's selective attention to detail. The man was notorious for the poisons that coated his weapons; most of his opponents ended up like the young Iwa nin presently sprawled insensate on the ground, except that they inevitably died in excruciating, poison-induced paralysis within two to three days. He wouldn't examine Deidara's vital signs too closely.
"Considerate of you." They both knew that Itachi had killed the last Iwa nin they'd caught for interrogation. Hana turned on her heel to face him. "You know, it would be a pleasant change for you to just do as you're told for once." Though her tone remained light, Itachi felt the sting in the remark. Hana had respected his position as acting lieutenant, far beyond what he could expect or deserve, but even she wasn't beyond resentment. He had the sinking feeling that pursuing this subject would lead to a discussion for which neither of them was prepared just yet.
"If you prefer to follow the original plan to capture the Akatsuki, I can revive Tokuma and apologize to Muta, and we'll see it done. You are the captain. Call me insubordinate, but the choice is yours." Until he had to concede it, Itachi didn't know how much giving up the choice had bothered him. He was neither on a solo mission nor the leader of the squad. That said, all he could do now was wait.
Hana snorted. "Uchiha Itachi, insubordinate? The village elders would die of shock. So, what can you do to people whom you've trapped here? Anything you want?" She spread her arms, glancing briefly at the red sky as she took a step back. "What did you do to that Akatsuki shinobi when we were on the River assignment?"
The answer was obvious to both of them. Torture was a fact of Konoha's policy and presumably the policy of all the hidden villages. The former interrogatees of Konoha's own Torture and Interrogation commander regressed to a childlike, hysterical state whenever Morino Ibiki so much as strode past the peephole of their prison cells. All ANBU operatives received training in psychological warfare, learning the basic principles around which to improvise interrogation techniques. Candidates for the ANBU corps proved their ability to prioritize the mission at all costs by passing a simulated, seventy-two hour interrogation session without divulging the meaningless, coded message they had been fed beforehand. Candidates for full captain rank in the ANBU also passed an interrogation session, but as the interrogator. Prior to the Kyuubi's attack on Konoha, that had involved torturing a foreign ninja to death. By Itachi's day, it amounted to torturing an unfamiliar ANBU candidate to the breaking point.
None of the four ninja for whom Itachi ran the interrogation passed the ANBU examinations.
Had he been kind to keep them out of the black ops? Or had he reveled in that sick power over life and death that only existed in the candidate's mind? That part of the captain's trial had come so naturally to him.
He'd known an overwhelming relief when the pale-haired shinobi of the Akatsuki, Hidan, had thrown his head back and laughed through the pain. Accompanying the relief had been an icy, impersonal resolve to break that shinobi for Konoha, for the sake of the mission… somehow these goals had narrowed to the impossible attempt to torture a masochistic madman into submission.
He didn't want to revisit it for Hana, and the lull had already stretched far too long. Hana had lowered her arms. She observed him uneasily.
"I don't understand what it is that you want to hear," Itachi said at last.
"I want to know that I don't make decisions on your sufferance." The words sounded forced from Hana's throat. "I may only be an acting captain, and you may have held the full rank – you may even deserve to have it right now, if not for politics –"
"I'm not proud of it," Itachi snapped, even more irked when Hana stared, breaking off mid-sentence. Plenty of people made the mistake of thinking he didn't have a temper because he rarely showed it, but he'd actually hoped that Hana would not be one of them. "I didn't want it; I worked for it because it seemed necessary at the time. I told you as much. If by my 'sufferance' you mean that you need to be able to coerce me into obeying your orders in order to feel secure about your leadership, then you don't understand the concept of respect – or the respect that I, Tokuma, or Muta hold for you. It has nothing to do with full, acting, or former captaincy. If someday, you apply for full rank, I sincerely hope you fail. No decent person has ever survived as an ANBU captain."
The tense silence lasted until Hana sighed, coming closer. "You'll report on a weekly basis at the bare minimum. This needs to be set up with the Hokage and his councilors when we return." She shook her head slowly. "You don't make life easy for yourself."
"If you were in my place, would you let the opportunity pass by?"
Hana held his gaze for a moment before smirking. "That's precisely why I trust you." The smile faded from her eyes. "Because even if I didn't, Konoha has more leverage on you than anyone else: Uchiha Sasuke."
Itachi was getting rather tired of the way people used his brother's safety to bait him. "You talk about sufferance, but you should look to the elders who run the village before you feel threatened by the little that I do."
Scorn flashed in Hana's eyes. "Oh, I'm idealistic, I know, but I'm not completely naïve."
"I don't trust the Hokage's council," said Itachi bluntly. It occurred to him that he'd spoken more plainly and candidly to Hana in the last ten minutes within this illusory world of the Tsukiyomi than he had to anyone else for the last ten years.
"We can work out the details of the reports later." Hana hadn't missed Itachi's phrasing – the Hokage's council, not the Hokage himself. "When you end the genjutsu, I will be out cold."
It would simplify matters. "We could still take him," said Itachi.
"Unless you're reconsidering, don't bother mentioning it again." He noticed a curious thing about the Inuzuka: she spoke lightly when she intended to wound, but hardened her voice when the smile in her eyes revealed the opposite emotion. "When you're ready, Itachi," Hana said, raising her chin.
Itachi prepared to dispel the genjutsu.
"Don't be so hard on the position," added Hana, just before he brought them out of the Tsukiyomi. "Even if you think no decent person has ever survived as an ANBU captain, I know an ANBU captain who survived to become a decent person."
He swallowed. "Thank you," he said, very quietly.
A fleeting grin, just before the world dissolved. "I was talking about Kakashi, by the way."
Feeling a familiar ache begin to throb behind his forehead, Sarutobi massaged his temple with his fingers. "Which of my councilors do you suspect, Itachi? It may surprise you, but I do trust them and hold them in high regard. I've worked with them for more years than you have been alive. Their highest concern is the safety of this village."
"But under whose leadership?"
Sarutobi sat up, narrowing his eyes at the young shinobi standing before the desk. "You are leveling a very serious and, up to the present, unfounded accusation." Saying that in a polite tone did not make it any less inflammatory.
"I apologize for overstepping, Hokage-sama."
Sarutobi steepled his fingers. "I don't believe you do anything thoughtlessly. Why did you point this out to me?"
"I would like to request that the matter of my shadow clones and undercover work in the Akatsuki remain only between you and my squad."
It seemed that Itachi was going to make a habit of uttering incredible statements in the mildest of voices.
"With your captain's permission, you all turned in standard reports but reserved exactly four copies, the ones that would arrive at my desk, which invited questions. All this, because you believe someone with the clearance to read these reports might not believe that my best interests and the village's best interests are one and the same." Sarutobi's voice grew increasingly acerbic. "You request that this situation of your own making remain between us and that of your other three teammates. Is this an accurate summary?"
"Yes, Hokage-sama."
Sarutobi stood, letting the folds of the Hokage robes fall around him.
"Ever since I stopped sending an auxiliary ANBU squad on your missions, we both know that you could flee Konoha as a missing-nin if you wanted, seal or no seal." The chakra sigil on Itachi's back, invisible unless activated, worked instantaneously and with excruciating force, but it had an extremely limited range.
Unbeknownst to the Uchiha and the other three ANBU in his semi-regular squad, Sarutobi had seriously considered reassigning them to different groups. Each time he summoned them for debriefing, first as a team and then individually, he had delayed taking that step.
There were reasons why ANBU operatives were not meant to work in the same configuration for too many missions. The bonds of camaraderie that worked so well for chuunin and jounin cells only complicated assignments in the ANBU. What if one day, an ANBU cell needed to deploy against one of their own? In dire situations, a fellow squad member on that mission might be assigned the task of assassinating the suspected ANBU operative, and then another ANBU unit would be brought in to clean up the rest of the squad that had gone on that mission. Danzou's recommended protocol left a bitter taste in one's mouth, but the draconian measure had a cruel logic.
The order would go over especially poorly with the Inuzuka - Hana was much too direct in nature to manipulate people into doing what they needed to accomplish. What she did seemed to come intuitively: somehow, she made the individual members want to perform well together, most of the resentment they could have directed at her had apparently dispersed amongst themselves, and the chief downside to all of this was that the four of them had become exponentially harder to reshuffle into other ANBU teams.
Itachi had put Sarutobi in the position of either trusting him absolutely or putting him to death, but putting him to death would naturally spread the news of what Itachi had done, and on that single point, Sarutobi agreed – it was best to keep the infiltration of the Akatsuki under wraps. If there were traitors or secret dealings between his trusted associates and the Akatsuki organization, their exceptional knowledge would betray them.
"I have only one more question for you at present," Sarutobi said.
The Uchiha waited placidly. But of course he would – if he intended to abandon Konoha, he'd already be long gone.
"Are you the shadow clone or the original?"
