Not Sick Chapter 2
Unforeseen Consequences
Sakura Haruno was starting to get frustrated.
So was the rest of the tracking team, for that matter, but for Sakura, the frustration was especially acute, and rather personal.
Sasuke was so close. Naruto (or at least one of his clones) had seen him only thirty or so minutes ago, heading towards one of the old Uchiha complexes that dotted the Land of Fire from the days of the clan wars. But when the tracking team had set off in that direction, they'd been waylaid.
By an idiot. A man in a bizarre orange mask who acted even more moronically than Naruto had in his early genin days. How could a fool like this be a member of Akatsuki?
Sakura shot forward again, and the man put up his hands, cringing in fear. Despite this, she still passed straight through him, not a whisper of a sensation touching her. She disengaged as soon as her strike failed, flipping away, but the masked man made no move to follow her.
That defense, she supposed, was why. True intangibility was the kind of thing most ninja would dream of having. This Akatsuki was like a bunshin that could hit back.
In fact, she would have thought he was some sort of genjutsu but for two things: Hinata said he had a stable chakra system, and she'd seen the kick he'd dealt Naruto. That attack had almost emptied a nearby stream when it sent Naruto flying into the water. Thank goodness that the strange Akatsuki seemed content to simply prance around and use silly jutsu, or the fight may have gotten serious fast.
"Silly blossom! Tobi is a good boy! Silly girls shouldn't hit good boys!"
Oh god, his voice. It was so sickeningly sweet, and annoying. And yet… there was an undercurrent of something in it that she couldn't identify, but made her very uncomfortable nonetheless. He was clearly enjoying himself, but she heard something more than that in his childlike tone.
Something dark.
Sakura was pulled out of her brief musings by the sound of her sensei's voice. Kakashi sometimes astounded her. In the three years since Team 7 had fragmented, each of its members had changed so much. Naruto had grown up: not just becoming taller, but also maturing into a tactical fighter with fearsome reserves and several especially deadly jutsu. Sakura herself had learned so much under Tsunade, finally becoming the kind of ninja she could respect.
And Sasuke… when she had last seen him last, he had improved immensely, in every way. She had hardly recognized him.
Not all changes were for the better, she supposed.
But while Naruto was taller and Sasuke was colder (though, as a distant part of Sakura's mind noted, he was also much more handsome) and Sakura was now an accomplished medic-nin with a deadly punch, Kakashi hadn't changed in any very noticeable ways. Not physically at least. He still walked around with his eye half closed and his shoulder in a borderline disrespectful slump, he still read inappropriate books in public, and he still was always late.
Kakashi hadn't changed. All he'd done was grow smarter, and deadlier.
"Sakura, get back. Protect Shino. He's going to use the Mushidama. If we can trap this guy, even his intangibility won't save him." Kakashi's voice was strong, like it always was, but Sakura heard the doubt in it. No doubt he, like her, was questioning how you could trap a man who could apparently walk through anything.
Sakura leapt down from the trees and approached Shino, but as she did Hinata, who had been standing vigil by the silent Aburame and keeping an eye on the enemy with her Byakugan, suddenly stiffened.
"Kakashi-sensei, there is another chakra approaching. It's… very strange." Her voice was steady, but she sounded puzzled.
Kakashi frowned under his mask. Sakura only managed to notice because she'd known the man for about four years: the cloth was very good at concealing Kakashi's usually already well-controlled facial expressions. "What do you mean, strange?" he said.
Hinata hesitated, before speaking with the ghost of a stutter. "It's m-moving through the ground towards our position. Very fast. It's almost here. And it…" she paused, her brow furrowing and the veins of her Byakugan straining for a moment. "It's odd. It's as if it is two people in one, the chakra is just so contrasting. Like black and white," she finished, sounding frustrated that she couldn't express easily what her doujutsu had spotted.
Kakashi nodded, but before he could issue any orders, something oozed from the bark next to the masked man, sliding out of it like some sort of tumor emerging from the skin of the tree. It looked like an enormous flytrap, the mouth closed over whatever was hidden inside.
Tobi turned to it without surprise and said, as if he was discussing the weather, "How'd it go?"
The flytrap opened, and Sakura saw that there was a man inside. And that he was just as odd as Tobi himself. His skin was two toned, split right down the middle of his face: half was a pale white and the other a deep black. If this was what Hinata had seen coming, then she had described his chakra perfectly.
'Like black and white' indeed.
"It's over." The plant man spoke.
Sakura whispered, more for her benefit that anyone around her. "What the hell is that?"
Kakashi, standing in front of her, muttered back. "He was on the list of Akatsuki members from Kabuto. Zetsu."
She didn't have to strain to hear Naruto behind her. "We just keep on running into distractions!" With Sasuke so close, his patience had finally begun to fray.
"Over?" Tobi turned to the black/white man beside him. "That was quick. Sasuke really has improved, if he was able to defeat Itachi with such speed." His voice had changed. It was still high pitched, but was now quite rational.
This plant man had been watching Sasuke and Itachi fight? How… creepy. Sakura noticed that, in the wake of Tobi's question, the strange man halfway out of the tree looked rather uncomfortable. Or at least the white side of his face did. The black half was smiling, though the way it only pulled up half of the man's mouth made it look far more like a grimace.
"Sasuke did not win." Who had that been? Also-
'What?'
Naruto stopped railing for a second, his face freezing. "What?" He spoke in a soft voice- one that quickly vanished. "What!?" He shouted, the very words laced with killing intent. "What the hell do you mean he 'didn't win'!? We didn't come all this way for- for him to-" He stopped, suddenly looking afraid to say anything more.
Sakura couldn't believe it. For Sasuke to… to die, when they were so close. It wasn't fair. She felt tears in her eyes, but she didn't bother trying to wipe them away. They'd just be followed by more.
The masked man seemed to ponder the news for a moment. "I'll admit, I did not expect that," he said. Then, "Nevertheless…" He made a dramatic show of sorrow, bringing his arm up to his single eyehole, his head shaking as if he was shedding invisible tears behind the mask. "Oh, little Sasuke! To die so young, with so pathetic a life lived, alone in a bunker with nothing but your murderer to keep you company!"
Naruto ground his teeth, his hands clenching as Tobi wailed. "Such a tragic life! Such an epic tale of vengeance, brought to such an abrupt and ignominious-!"
"And he is not dead." The plant man spoke once more, and Sakura's tears stopped. Tobi's theatrics did as well, like a snapped rubber band, and he spun to face the flytrap.
"What?" Sakura shivered involuntarily. The man had changed. The high-pitched voice was gone: a deep baritone had replaced it, and every word he spoke was filled with weighted menace. "What do you mean, 'he's not dead'?"
Sakura and Naruto sighed in relief almost simultaneously.
"Sasuke Uchiha is not dead." The flytrap seemed to have regained its courage. "He engaged Itachi Uchiha, and was defeated by his Tsukuyomi. Then, Itachi claimed his eyes."
Tobi sat still for a moment, absorbing this information, his head cocked to the side at an odd angle. Even behind the mask, he looked puzzled.
"Hey!" Naruto called up again, the menace gone from his voice, leaving behind only seriousness. "Aloe-guy! What do you mean, 'claimed his eyes'?"
Zetsu twitched at the name and turned to the assembled Konoha shinobi, before glancing back at Tobi, who took no notice of them. He apparently took this as permission to answer the question. "Itachi took Sasuke's eyes." He said, looking to the masked man out of the corner of his eyes for approval the whole time. "Plucked them out of his head, like grapes." Another voice spoke up, also coming from Zetsu, but this one was as unlike the one before it as Tobi's own voice had been.
Sakura gasped, Hinata covered her mouth in shock, Kiba's dropped open, Kakashi's eye's widened, Yamato let out a full-body flinch, Sai slowly blinked, and Shino didn't do much of anything. Only another Aburame would have noticed the furrowed brow behind his glasses.
Naruto just looked horrified. And then, furious. "Where is he!?" he screamed. "Where is that bastard!? I'll kill him!"
Zetsu didn't answer. Instead, he looked to Tobi for direction once more. The masked man was muttering to himself, shaking his head as if rattling around the thoughts within.
"I really didn't expect this… I thought he meant to die in that battle. That he would actually go to these lengths… I can't let him go. He can't leave here. With those eyes, he could become a problem, quickly. I couldn't control him, I'll need to… yes, it's the only way." Spinning, he turned to Zetsu. "Where is Itachi Uchiha now?" he asked, unwittingly allowing Naruto's question to be answered.
"Last I saw, he was leaving the compound. He had Sasuke with him." The other voice again.
"Keep an eye on him. Make sure he doesn't get too far away from here. I'm going back to Amegakure. Itachi requires special consideration."
"Understood." Suddenly, the other voice spoke up. "Oh, do we have to? Itachi always creeps me out. That blank stare- Shut up." And with that brief and confusing argument resolved, the plant man sunk back into the tree, vanishing from sight.
Tobi turned to look and the arrayed Konoha ninjas, and though Sakura couldn't see behind his mask, she knew that he was frowning. "It seems I'll have to move up my plans a little. A pity: I was looking forward to telling Sasuke all about the Leaf Village's true past, but now…" He shrugged, a helpless movement. "Without his eyes, he's useless to me."
Naruto trembled. "Don't talk about Sasuke like that. He's not some thing. He's a person, you can't just use him," he snarled.
Tobi ignored him.
"Well, I'll see you all soon. Don't worry; I'll be back, with someone you'll all be interested to meet. And," he glanced meaningfully at the Kyūbi Jinchūriki, "he is especially interested in meeting you, Naruto."
One of Tobi's hands came up.
"Ja ne."
And with that final dismissal, he swept his arm down, encompassing his whole body in a fluid motion. Whatever the hand covered vanished, and before long it was the only thing left, before it disappeared as well, as if sucked into an invisible hole.
Team Kakashi and Team 8 were left staring at the empty tree branch. Kiba summed up their mood in a single sentence.
"What the hell just happened?"
Kakashi glanced at him, and his words broke the rest of the search party out of their shock.
"We just got some very valuable information. Itachi Uchiha is relatively close by, near an old Uchiha bunker, and he has Sasuke with him." He turned to the only other girl besides Sakura in the group. "Hinata, can you locate the bunker?"
She nodded, looking determined. "Yes. It's…" She paused, the veins of her Byakugan slowly pulsing as it scanned around her. "There is a large complex about seven kilometers that way," she said, pointing to the north, past the tree that Tobi had been occupying seconds ago.
Kakashi nodded. "That's got to be it. Everyone, get going, double time."
With that, the search party took off once more, leaping into the trees and rushing north.
"Uh, Kakashi-sensei." Naruto's voice had none of its usual bravado. In fact, it was full of uncertainty.
"Yes, Naruto?"
"Who do you think wants to meet me so bad?"
Ninety years ago, the Uchiha clan was one of the most prosperous in the world. With their numbers and the power of the Sharingan, they dominated the land in the time when there was little order in the ninja way of life beyond familial association. Their power allowed them the best contracts, the finest land, and a reputation that sent them plenty of clients.
Their only rival was the Senju clan, which was singularly known for its members incredible life force and raw strength, as well as impressive charisma. If the Uchiha were the scalpel of the ninja world, sharpened by decades of war and personal hardship, then the Senju were the hammer, shattering any obstruction in their way.
In time, these two mighty clans, long competitors, would unite under the banners of the most powerful leaders they had seen in generations: Hashirama Senju, possessor of the indomitable Mokuton, and Madara Uchiha, bearer of the invincible Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan. From this unity, Konohagakure no Sato, the Village Hidden in the Leaves, would be born.
But while Konoha still stood today, the Senju and the Uchiha had all but vanished. The Senju had been reduced to one; the Uchiha to three.
However, while the Senju left no lasting memento of their power and influence, having always been on the move and most comfortable within the vast, untamed forests of what had come to be known as Hi no Kun, the Uchiha had left enormous memoirs of their prowess scattered across the land, sprawling settlements and massive monuments erected in honor of themselves and their lifestyle.
Case in point was the stone town set in the middle of the northern county of Fire Country. When it had been occupied, it had commanded the primary trade routes between Fire and Stone, and given the Uchiha economic domination of the region. Its name had been lost to time, records burned or scattered in the founding of the Hidden Villages and the massacre of the clan nearly a decade ago, but its looming stone architecture, imposing facades, and monochrome color scheme marked it clearly of the Uchiha style.
Now, eight Konoha ninja, a tracking team sent to retrieve one of their lost comrades at any cost, set out for the small town at top speed. Little did they know, however, that the once empty settlement was now occupied.
Not by the Uchiha, of course; they were all but gone. Instead, it was occupied by four rather eccentric individuals.
A tall man with bright hair in an ill-fitted cloak, birds flitting around him, with warm orange eyes.
A short girl with shockingly crimson hair, and pupil-less eyes that were just as red.
A scrawny boy with pale hair and sharp teeth, dressed in a formfitting purple uniform and carrying a sword. An enormous butcher's cleaver of a sword that was almost as tall as him.
And finally, and perhaps the strangest: a giant of a man, perhaps seven feet tall, dressed in a fine cloak, black with red clouds, with small, bloodshot eyes, teeth that made the boy with pale hair's look positively blunt, and blue skin. He carried something wrapped entirely in bandages. Something that occasionally growled when he swung it.
Which he did rather frequently, because he was fighting the boy in purple while the redhead looked on helplessly and the tall man with orange hair ignored them both. The swords (for a sword was what the blue man carried in his hand, no matter how lumpy or bandaged it looked) clanged off each other and their owners dodged, neither landing definitive blows.
The tall man's name was Juugo. He had no last name. He had lost it, a long time ago.
The pale haired boy's name was Suigetsu Hozuki, and he was a smartass. Incidentally, he was also entirely composed of living, chakra-conducting water.
The redhead's name was Karin Uzumaki, and although she didn't know it, she was Naruto Uzumaki's distant cousin.
Together with Sasuke Uchiha, they made up Team Hebi, a group formed for the sole purpose of taking down Itachi Uchiha.
The man with blue skin was not part of Team Hebi. He was part of a much more dangerous organization; the Jinchūriki-hunting Red Dawn. The Akatsuki.
His name was Kisame Hoshigaki, and he was an enormously skilled and dangerous missing-nin formerly of the famed Seven Swordsman of Kirigakure, the Village Hidden in the Mist.
He had come to this town with another member of the Akatsuki. His partner.
Itachi Uchiha.
Now, Kisame was waiting for him to come back.
Karin Uzumaki was starting to get worried. She had been on this roof for over twenty minutes now, and she still couldn't sense Sasuke. With nothing to do but watch Suigetsu be an idiot as he fought the enormous blue missing-nin, she had begun to bite her nails as she ran through all the things that could have gone wrong in her mind.
Sasuke was strong, but his brother was Itachi "The Genocide" Uchiha, and he had made a name for himself hunting shinobi as strong as Sasuke for a living. And that had been after he'd massacred his entire family singlehandedly.
Maybe Sasuke had been too overconfident going into the fight? Maybe Itachi had killed him? Maybe it was all her fault for not insisting on going with him? Maybe-
"Karin." A rumbling voice broke through her worries, and she looked up into Juugo's intense orange eyes, brimming with life. "Calm down."
Juugo himself seemed to have taken his own advice very well: he sat stock still, a serene look on his face, as birds flitted around him and alit upon his shoulders. "You are worrying for nothing," he said with a small smile. "Sasuke can handle himself. He will be fine."
He spoke with such certainty that Karin couldn't help but smile back. Of course Sasuke would be fine. He had beaten Orochimaru, after all; he could beat his older brother.
As this hopeful thought made its way into her mind, she registered two chakras on the outskirts of her senses.
One of them was Sasuke's. A little beaten, but strong, not depleted very much at all, and bright in her mind's eye. Though it had a strange, agitated thrum about it.
Karin's face lit up, and Juugo saw it, giving her another smile of his own. His faith had been vindicated.
And yet… Karin felt another presence with Sasuke. One very similar to his, but far, far colder. Cold, and weary. And the other chakra was very, very close to his. Almost like-
Itachi Uchiha leapt onto the roof, landing next to Kisame Hoshigaki as the blue giant batted a fatigued Suigetsu back once more with his enormous wrapped blade. He had his younger brother slung over his shoulder like a wet sack, but he handled him with the kind of care that something like that would never be given.
Karin's heart leapt into her throat. Sasuke was alive; she could feel him. But why, then, was Itachi alive as well? And carrying his brother, of all things? This wasn't right.
Juugo frowned, and rose to his feet behind her, the birds taking flight as he did. They whirled away in a blur of feathers and chirps, and Juugo's frown deepened.
Suigetsu, panting, his chakra depleted by the enormous sword (Samehada, Suigetsu had called it) that Kisame had hefted like it weighed nothing, narrowed his eyes as he stared at the newly arrived Akatsuki member.
Kisame snorted, and took his eyes off Suigetsu, turning to his partner. It was a deliberate insult, but Suigetsu let it slide- he knew, just as well as Karin did, that it would be a very bad idea to continue fighting the other swordsman now.
"Well? How'd it go?" the blue man asked. His raspy voice, as always, held more than a hint of amusement.
Itachi looked back blankly, then without any inflection, spoke. "It's over."
Kisame's grin widened, revealing more of his intimidating triangular teeth. "You actually went through with it, Itachi? I didn't think you had the nerve…" He shrugged; the size of his shoulders made the motion look rather exaggerated. "Shows what I know, I guess."
While Kisame spoke, and Karin had been watching Sasuke, Suigetsu had been analyzing the new arrival. And he noticed something disconcerting.
"Karin," he said, his mouth twisted into a frown. "Look. His hand."
Karin looked, and gasped. Blood, thick and almost black, covered Itachi's right hand, spilling into his palm and between his fingers. But Sasuke didn't look hurt at all. His clothes weren't even damaged, though his cloak was missing.
Where had that blood come from?
"What did you do to him?" There was a growl behind her, and Karin turned. She found Juugo there, rigid, gray marks glacially spreading down his face. He was clearly struggling for control.
"Juugo," she said, her voice full of authority (though Suigetsu would just call it bossy). "Calm down. Sasuke's fine. I can feel his chakra. He's perfectly healthy. Just a little… disrupted." She turned back to Itachi. "What, he didn't put up enough of a fight for you?"
He stared at her blankly for a moment. It disturbed her. There was nothing on his face, or in his eyes. He may as well have been a statue. "You are a sensor-nin, then. You wouldn't happen to be a healer as well, would you?" He spoke with as much emotion as his face showed: none.
Karin was instantly suspicious. "I am a medic-nin, yes. But I'm not going to heal you." And she wouldn't: she could do Sasuke that much.
Itachi waved her off with the hand that wasn't occupied with carrying Sasuke. "Not for me," he said.
He moved forward with a slight limp, and Karin tensed. Juugo stepped forward beside her as Suigetsu went to the side, forming a rough triangle around the approaching missing-nin, but Itachi didn't slow at all. With little ceremony, he lay Sasuke down in front of Karin, and she barely held in a gasp.
Sasuke's face wasn't as pristine as the rest of his body. There was an enormous bruise on his cheek, swollen and purple, with small burns speckled over it. Blood, thick and red as the stuff on Itachi's hands, had run over both his cheeks and down his chin, drying and leaving a crusty trail. Both trails of blood originated from Sasuke's closed eyes.
Sasuke's eyelids were sunk in, becoming dimples in his face. It was all too obvious that there was nothing behind them.
"Not for me." Itachi repeated, staring at Karin. He hadn't backed away, not an inch, and his eyes seemed to fill her vision.
"For him."
Naruto Uzumaki, dobe, Dead Last, the genin who'd taken and failed the graduation test three times, who still couldn't produce a proper bunshin, and who had commonly regarded as the most hopeless student Konoha had seen since Obito Uchiha, ran ahead of the group.
The symbolism escaped him. It likely would have in most situations, but today in particular was a bad day to ask Naruto to pick up on nuance. For the first time in months, Sasuke Uchiha was within his reach again, and he was going to be damned if he let the bastard get away again.
He had a promise to keep, after all.
So while the rest of the Konoha shinobi, even Sakura, trailed behind, traveling safely in a group at a speed low enough allowing them to stop and engage if they were caught in an ambush, Naruto pushed ahead, leaping off of branches at ludicrous speeds, pushing himself to go even faster.
He had to find Sasuke. And to do that, he had to find Itachi.
Itachi. Naruto didn't know how he felt about that.
The older Uchiha hadn't come into Naruto's life until near the end of his time with Team Seven, but he had left a lasting impression; the Jinchūriki would never forget those cold, flat red eyes.
Itachi had taken on an invincible aspect in Naruto's mind. He'd only met him in the flesh once, right before Sasuke had left Konoha, and that meeting had done a lot to shape his view of Sasuke's brother.
The guy had stopped the Chidori, a one hit kill assassination technique, with his bare hand. One hand to deflect a jutsu that Naruto sometimes still had vague nightmares about: ripping through his shoulder, the muscle giving way like wet paper, the stink of burning blood and the chirping of a thousand birds.
The Kyuubi had healed him, but the memory stayed.
And even before Itachi had done that, he had brought down Kakashi-sensei with a single jutsu. Naruto had only learned this later, but it had cemented how far ahead of him the elder Uchiha was.
Naruto had never managed to even land a hit on Itachi. The one time he thought it had, it had turned out to merely be an illusion, a weak doppelganger. That kind of thing didn't count.
He'd seen the man, or at least a clone of him, less than an hour ago, and he hadn't even come close to him. He'd been trapped in a genjutsu before he'd even realized Itachi had made any hand signs.
As he tore through the trees, Naruto swore that today would be the day he managed to hurt the elder Uchiha. Today would be the day that he took Sasuke back to village, willing or not, even if he had to break every bone in his friend's body to do it.
When he burst from the forest and found himself before a small town of stone buildings, and enormous pyramid-like bunker rising behind them, he knew he'd have the chance soon.
The roof of the one of the structures, a small townhouse by the looks of it, was occupied. Six figures. All but one in cloaks. Three with unusual hair, and three with black.
All but two standing. One, without a cloak, laid facing upward on the roof, the green glow of healing chakra evident even from a distance over his face. Another, this one with bright red hair, kneeling over him, the source of the chakra.
Before the red head, a figure, tall and proud, his black-with-red-clouds cloak unruffled, staring down with a complete lack of expression.
Naruto let out a cry of pure fury as he launched off the tree, shooting forward like a bullet, a Rasengan already formed in his hand. In his anger, he didn't even realize that there hadn't been a clone to help him shape it. He'd managed it by himself.
"Itachi!" It really was astounding how much rage could be shoved into a name.
Itachi head snapped up as Naruto shot over the redhead's shoulder. Her hair whipped around with the speed of his passage, her eyes widening behind her glasses. The Uchiha unflinchingly met Naruto's gaze, his Sharingan lazily rotating.
Naruto pushed the Rasengan forward, hoping to grind the man's face off. Itachi, with practiced grace, stepped easily to the side and let it pass him by. Naruto, snarling, continued forward, and Itachi's arm came up, clotheslining him. The Uchiha swept down and slammed the blond into the roof, pinning his throat under his arm, pressed horizontally.
For a moment there was silence. The Uzumaki squirmed under Itachi, while everyone else, even Kisame, stared at him in complete shock. Except Itachi, of course. He just gazed into his sudden captive's eyes, almost as if the boy hadn't just tried to murder him. There was something that could almost be called a smile on his face, if you knew where to look.
"Naruto Uzumaki. How nice to see you."
As Naruto lay on the ground, pinned beneath Itachi while Kisame and Team Hebi watched in a mix of astonishment and confusion, the rest of the Konoha tracking team arrived.
They sprang onto the roof, arraying behind their most experienced members, Kakashi Hatake and Yamato (or Tenzo, as some people called him).
Needless to say, all of them were just as stunned as those already present.
Kakashi Hatake was starting to get worried.
Not because he believed that this wouldn't be the day that Sasuke Uchiha was finally brought back to Konoha, because he knew without a doubt that his team would do it or die trying. And Yamato and Team 8 would keep that, at least, from happening.
Kakashi wasn't even starting to get worried because it appeared Naruto had gotten himself in trouble again, and was currently pinned beneath Itachi Uchiha while three unknown shinobi watched, Kisame Hoshigaki grinned, and Sasuke lay on the roof, unconscious to the world around him.
Kakashi was beginning to worry because, although he knew that this situation was already spiraling out of control, he had a gut feeling that it was about to get much, much worse.
Because not five minutes ago a strange man with a stranger teleportation jutsu (who Kakashi could have sworn on his life had a Sharingan of all things in his right eye) had run off, telling his apparent subordinate that he'd be back with someone who dearly wanted to meet Naruto and who was apparently brought in because Itachi had done something to alert him to… what? The Uchiha's unstable nature?
Akatsuki was an organization entirely made up of missing-nin, monsters, and madmen. Something so mundane as Itachi snapping (again) would not have been such a transgression for the mask-wearing Tobi.
So, Kakashi worried about what Itachi had done, why taking Sasuke's eyes had been such an issue (aside from the obvious), and who the new arrival would be.
Though there was, of course, at least some concern for Naruto. The man who had murdered the entire Uchiha clan was rather uncomfortably close to his face, after all.
"Naruto! You idiot!" Ah. That would be Sakura. She always did hide her affection behind harsh words, at least when it came to Naruto.
Kakashi stepped forward. "Let him go, Itachi." Itachi looked up, and Kakashi averted eye contact, staring somewhere over the Uchiha's shoulder. One Tsukuyomi was enough for a lifetime.
"Copy-Nin Kakashi. How fortunate that you are here." Was Itachi… smiling?
"Let him go." Kakashi resolved that he would immediately forget that he had seen that. The memory of Itachi Uchiha smiling would be far too disturbing. He was glad he hadn't pulled his headband up yet. He didn't want to see that with his Sharingan.
The man gave the Uchiha equivalent of a shrug and leaned back slightly, taking his weight off of Naruto's throat. Naruto promptly scrambled backwards, towards the Konoha ninja, wheezing as he did so. Itachi slowly rose to his feet. Too slowly, Kakashi noted. He must have been injured, though his face certainly wasn't showing it.
Everyone but Kisame watched the man carefully.
"Don't worry, Kakashi. I'm not here to fight. I have what I came for." Kakashi caught a glimpse of something in Itachi's eyes: his vision was involuntarily drawn to the man's face by the incongruity of such a statement. Whatever it was, it defied categorization.
It wasn't malice, or hate, or even fear; it wasn't the cold indifference that Itachi had reeked of every other time he and Kakashi had met. It was almost wistful, and Kakashi had no idea what it was doing in the eyes of a mass murderer.
Naruto recovered his breath and heaved himself to his feet. "Yeah. We heard," he hissed. His fists were clenched, trembling. "Give them back."
Itachi cocked his head at the Uzumaki. "How could you possibly know what I'm talking about? You only just arrived, and Sasuke certainly is in no condition to inform you. And I doubt-" and with this he swept his hand over the three unknown ninja, standing in vague formation around Sasuke, "that any of his teammates have told you."
"There were more Akatsuki members, in the forest. Two. A man who looked more like a plant. Zetsu, I think he's called. And another one, in a mask, who I didn't know. He called himself Tobi." Kakashi carefully watched Itachi as he said this. Whoever those people had been, they'd clearly been planning something to do with the elder Uchiha.
Itachi didn't stiffen. He was already too still for that. Nevertheless, something in in his face froze. "Ah. They must have been keeping an eye on me. What did they say?"
Kakashi wouldn't have answered that question, but Sakura did.
She was stuttering. She could see Sasuke, he was right there… but his brother was in the way. And with him there, Sasuke might as well have been a hundred miles away. "He said-" she stammered, "he said that you t-took … that you took Sasuke's eyes."
Itachi looked unpleasantly surprised. He gave her a small frown. Sakura continued.
"Did you… I mean… is Sasuke really…"
Itachi reached into the sleeve of his cloak and pulled from within a small jar, filled with yellowish liquid. Two small orbs floated within, floating up and down near the bottom of the small container.
Sakura's voice died, nothing but a muffled choke sound emerging from her.
"Bastard." Naruto anger was finally boiling over again. His pupils had become vertical, though his eyes remained their natural blue color. "Bastard!" He broke into a sprint, headed straight for Itachi. The Uchiha gave him not a lick of recognition, acting as if the furious Jinchūriki did not even exist, let alone charging headlong at him.
"Naruto!" Kakashi's voice didn't slow Naruto in the slightest. He continued forward, picking up speed, and brought his fist back. He spun, bringing his fist around with a blow that sounded like displaced air even from tens of feet away.
Itachi's hand came up, effortlessly catching the punch. There was a sudden clap as it did.
Itachi didn't budge. He stared at Naruto from behind his hand. There was a hint of reproach in his eyes.
"As I said: I'm not here to fight." With those words, he spun, flinging Naruto back at the Konoha shinobi.
Naruto landed on his feet next to Sakura, who began walking forward at almost the same moment. She paused, looking back at him, her expression torn. Naruto looked up, finding her green eyes looking into his, though they nervously jittered, as if trying to look at something behind Sakura. Which they were. Sasuke was back there.
Naruto understood. With a grim smile, he gave a small nod. Sakura nodded back and kept walking, striding past Team Hebi towards Sasuke's prone body. She bent over it and began talking to the girl healing him.
Kakashi most of this the barest attention he could spare. Instead, he asked Itachi a question that had been gnawing at his mind since the masked man had left.
"Tobi said that he expected you to die in your battle with Sasuke. I don't know why, since you clearly outmatched him. Before he left, he said two things. Firstly, that he'd have to 'deal with you.'"
Itachi shrugged. He'd clearly expected that.
Kakashi went on. "Secondly, that he was going to Amegakure to get someone. Someone, I can only think, who is meant to 'deal with you', and who he said dearly wanted to meet Naruto."
For the first time in his life, Kakashi Hatake saw real emotion of Itachi Uchiha's face. The fact that the emotion was a mixture of shock and undeniable fear would have been extremely gratifying in any other situation, but now it only filled him with the queasy feeling. It was the same feeling he'd had in Wave Country, the feeling he'd felt at Kannabi Bridge, the feeling he'd had on October 10th, sixteen years ago.
The feeling that people were about to die, and that there was nothing he could do to stop it.
"You should all leave. Now," Itachi Uchiha said, turning to Kisame as he did so, tossing him the yellow jar he held. Sasuke's eyes bobbed within. "Kisame. Go. Get out of here. If I survive, return. If not…" Itachi gave a real shrug, moving his shoulders and everything. "It was good to have you as a partner." Kisame nodded, and took off, speeding out of the town and disappearing into the forest.
'What the hell?'
"Hey, what's going on? I wasn't done with-" Suigetsu stepped forward. He'd spent the last few minutes gulping down water, frantically restoring his chakra, and he finally felt enough bravado to stand up to Sasuke's brother.
That bravado vanished as soon as the man turned and looked him in the eyes. His eyes, red and spinning, were far more intimidating than Sasuke's had ever been. They looked as though they'd been painted onto Itachi's face. While the eyes transfixed Suigetsu, Itachi spoke to the rest of the group.
"Someone is coming, soon. Tobi will return with him in several minutes. If any of you are still here, he will kill you. And if Naruto is still here, he will take him. I will draw him off, but you all must get out of here now if you want to have a chance of escape. Take Sasuke and go."
Everyone stood, stunned, staring at Itachi. Finally, Shino of all people spoke up. "Who is coming?"
Itachi stared at him. "The leader of Akatsuki. Or at least, the figurehead. He is more powerful than you can possibly imagine. You all must leave now, or everything will be lost."
'I am God.' Itachi hadn't ever seen Pain in action, but he doubted the man made many empty statements. And now, after his intensive use of Tsukuyomi on Sasuke, not to mention the shadow clones, the Amaterasu, and the injury Sasuke's chidori had inflicted on him… he was hardly in any shape to be fighting a deity.
"The leader of the Akatsuki is coming here? Now?" That was Naruto again.
"Yes. Coming for you, Naruto. Leave, now." Itachi was beginning to sound frustrated.
"And why the hell should we trust you, bastard?! Give Sasuke his eyes back instead of handing them off to that freaky fish guy, and maybe-!"
"Naruto." Itachi's voice, once containing infinite patience, now was terse, his face stern. "You said to me that you were more of a brother to Sasuke than I ever was."
Itachi sighed. "And you were right."
Naruto shut up, his face stricken.
"You have supported him, pushed him to better himself, made him stronger," Itachi continued. "All I have done is given him a lifetime of hatred, ruined his mind, and taken his eyes."
His features hardened. "You have to get him out of here. If you do not, everything I have done, everything you have done, and everything he has done will have been for nothing. We will both be dead, and Sasuke will have it far worse."
There was a moment of silence as Itachi stared at Naruto, everyone stared at Itachi, and Team Hebi wondered what the hell it had wandered into.
The silence was disrupted by a bizarre noise. It sounded like a generator heating up, or water running over stones. But it was neither of those things. It was wrong, the kind of noise never meant to be produced in the natural world: high pitched and low, thrumming and monotone. Everyone on the roof stared to the south, towards the edge of the building closest to the forest.
There, a small hole in reality opened, a pinprick into an unknown darkness floating in the air. There was a rush of displaced wind, and a figure swirled out of the hole, landing on its feet with no hint of unease.
He was tall and slender, with long bright orange hair, most of which was pushed up in a ponytail behind his head, leaving the rest to fall to his right. An Akatsuki cloak with an unusually high collar sat loosely upon him, rumpled as if he'd worn it to bed. His face was studded with bizarre piercings, black rods embedded in his chin, cheeks, and forehead. A strip of metal passed through the bridge of his nose, connecting the two rods on his cheek.
He wore a hitai-ate, the symbol of Rain upon it scratched out.
But strangest of all were his eyes. They were bright purple, with no iris to speak of. Instead, the pupil sat amidst a series of concentric rings, four in total.
'Too late.'
Itachi sighed.
Karin, on the other hand, frowned. The man's chakra was completely bizarre. It was if he didn't have any of his own. Instead, the rods embedded in his face (and, she could feel, throughout his body) seemed to be pumping it into him. But the chakra coming from those rods…
She shivered. The chakra was ice cold, and thick. Thick like molten concrete, pulsing through the system of the person in front of her like slag through wide pipes. It was the most terrifying thing she'd ever felt.
No one else in the group was a sensor of course, but Juugo, Suigetsu, and Sai all noticed her reaction. Sai didn't know what to make of it, but both the other members of Team Hebi did, and they immediately put themselves in a more defensive position around Sasuke.
Sasuke chose that moment to wake up.
The first thing he noticed was that it was dark.
Very dark. Indescribably dark. The kind of darkness that all people feared, the kind of darkness that refused to be penetrated, that surrounded you, bound you, clothed your senses in panic and robbed you of your reason.
Sasuke was an Uchiha, so he didn't do any of that. Instead, he was, as most people would put it, mildly perturbed. And curious. Why couldn't he see?
Oh. Right. Itachi had ripped his eyes out.
It seemed like he should have felt more strongly about that.
He opened his eyes. Or tried to. Maybe they were already open. He wouldn't have noticed the difference.
He couldn't see. But he could hear. First, a rush of displaced air, and a sudden squealing noise.
He heard muttering above him. One of the voices was unmistakably Karin. The other one sounded very familiar, but he couldn't quite place it. It was stirring up old memories.
Was that… Sakura?
"Sakura?" His voice sounded old, unfamiliar. What was wrong with him? Everything seemed so… detached.
There was a moment of silence, and then…
"Sasuke!"
Yep, definitely Sakura.
He felt someone wrap their arms around him, lifting him off the roof, and he chose not to resist. The way he was being squeezed, he was sure it would be pointless anyway.
"Sakura," Sasuke said, his voice muffled. "What did you do to me?"
He felt her pull back, and he didn't need to see to know she was blushing. "I didn't do anything. Karin's been looking after you. She gave you something to dull the pain."
Ah. That would be why the place where his eyes should have been didn't feel like it was on fire. And why the notion of Itachi stealing his eyes only seemed mildly worrisome. He was on some kind of painkiller. Or painkiller jutsu. Did Karin have anything like that? He'd never asked her. He'd just known that she had been a healer that even Orochimaru didn't fully understand, and so he'd recruited her.
"Karin." He didn't turn his head: he had no idea where she was in this darkness. "Do you have any kind of painkilling jutsu?"
He heard her to his right, and did his best to look in her direction. She sounded confused. "Ah, yes Sasuke, I do. But I've already used it on you. Are you-"
"No. I'm fine. More than fine actually. Kinda dark though. Where are we?"
She answered him, now sounding even more confused than before. He distantly supposed that she was surprised by his dull reaction. "You're outside the compound, Sasuke. Back in the town. Your brother took you to us."
By us, she meant Team Hebi. Sasuke knew that. The fact that his brother had taken him here briefly struck him as something he should be concerned about, before floating away.
"Alright." He lay back down, closing his eyes (though this, of course, did nothing). With Hebi here, he'd be fine.
"Sasuke." It was Sakura's voice again. He ignored it. He had left her behind. He didn't have to worry about her anymore.
"Sasuke, we have to go." She sounded scared.
"Go?" He murmured, already about to drift off to sleep. "Go where?"
"We have to get out of here, Sasuke. Someone's here."
"Who?"
He heard a deep baritone, directly in front of his face. Someone was bending over him, very close to his face.
"Me."
There was a brief bang, a shuffling sound, and a yell that Sasuke knew all too well. A yell that only a certain blond idiot could belt out.
"Sasuke!"
Then, someone had picked him up, and he was flying through the air.
Sasuke wondered who the man with a deep voice had been. He hadn't been familiar with it.
He landed on something, the person carrying him laying him down quickly and comfortably. The bark beneath him told him he was up a tree.
"Sasuke." That voice… that voice he knew. That was-
"Itachi," he spoke back, unable to summon up any real emotion behind the name. He wished he could. He truly wanted the man in front of him to know how much he hated him.
He could almost feel the raised eyebrows. "You're drugged. This for the best, I suppose, but…" The voice trailed off, before picking up again, as strong as before. "Sasuke, if I do not survive this, it is unlikely you will either. Nevertheless… know that no matter what happens today, I have always loved you, and that I… I am so sorry for what I have done."
Sasuke laughed. It wasn't a cruel sound: he wasn't cognizant enough for that, but it cut Itachi deeper than the older Uchiha ever had been before. "That's funny, Itachi," he said. "That's the funniest thing I've ever heard. I never knew you could be so funny."
Sasuke laughed again, and it was the laugh of an idiot, or someone who'd just hit their head. It was exceedingly stupid sounding, especially coming from the stoic Uchiha. The worst part that was that it was completely lacking in malice. By all indications, Sasuke found the idea of Itachi loving him in any way, shape or form to be the most hilarious thing in the world.
Sasuke didn't know how glad he should have been that he could barely understand himself at that moment.
There was a beat of silence. He heard a sigh. "Sleep well, little brother." Then something hit Sasuke in the back of the head, and he heard no more.
"Was that Sasuke laughing?" was Naruto's first question when Itachi returned. He couldn't believe it; he had never managed to get the bastard to laugh, and Itachi had done it in less than a minute.
Itachi didn't move for a moment. "No." He responded after a short silence. "It must have been your imagination."
Naruto shook his head. What had he been thinking? This guy had no sense of humor. No way he could get Sasuke to laugh.
"Oh, okay." Frowning, Naruto turned to the new arrivals: the man in the mask, and the weirdo with purple eyes. "So, who are these guys anyway?"
Itachi didn't answer. Tobi, however, did.
"There's no need to concern yourself with that, Naruto. I am nobody. However, my friend here…" And Naruto swore that he could hear the smile, cruel and cold, that formed behind the swirling mask. "He is very special."
With that, he turned to the over-pierced man. "Pain. Capture the Nine-Tails." Then, sounding very put upon, "And Sasuke too, if you can manage it. Don't let Itachi leave here alive."
The man nodded, and Tobi turned back to the group, all of whom had taken staggered positions across the rooftop. "I'll be leaving now," he said, with an audible chuckle. "I interrupted something back in Amegakure, and I promised Pain I'd take care of it. So, Naruto-" A whirlpool of chakra formed around his visible eye, drawing him into it.
"-see you soon."
And with that final goodbye, the masked man was gone, and Team Kakashi, Team 8, Team Hebi, and Itachi Uchiha were left to face the strange man across the rooftop.
There was a stretch of silence as the purple-eyed man faced everyone, and in that empty moment a great many decisions were made.
Naruto, of course, decided that this was just one more challenge, and that not even the apparent leader of Akatsuki would stop him from taking Sasuke back to the Hidden Leaf. He would sacrifice himself if that were what it took to save his friends.
Sakura swore that she wouldn't allow anyone to die, not here, not when they were so close to the goal. It would be a cruel joke to make it this far, only to lose Naruto as well as Sasuke.
Sai decided that taking out the leader of Akatsuki would benefit the Leaf immensely. And distantly, that he would cut out his own heart before letting any of his new friends get hurt.
Kakashi decided, once more, that none of his comrades would die today.
Yamato decided, once more, that his taichou would be breathing when he dragged him away from this battle.
Kiba decided that he would finally prove that, while he may not be as strong as Naruto anymore, he was still more than enough to take a clown with awful fashion sense like this; particularly with his team here.
Hinata made a similar decision to Naruto's: she would prove to herself, and to him, that she was a kunoichi worth her hitai-ate, and that she would never go back on her word.
Shino decided, somewhat fatalistically, that no matter what happened next, he would make this man remember him.
Karin decided that no matter what, Sasuke would not be taken by this man. If that meant working with the Konoha shinobi, or even Itachi, so be it. And if it meant fleeing while they occupied the enemy, the same.
Juugo made the same decision, though his thought process contained more words along the lines of "grind" and "crush". His curse was already spreading over his face, and he was twitching with the urge to throw himself forward. The last few minutes had been very stressful for him.
Suigetsu… was of two minds. One part of him screamed for him to survive the fight no matter what, and if that meant abandoning Hebi and making a run for it, fuck 'em. The other part, nurtured over the past few weeks, determined that no freaky eyed bastard was going to hurt Sasuke or Karin.
Juugo, though, could take care of himself. Suigetsu was pretty sure the big guy couldn't die anyway.
After some struggle, the second decision won.
Itachi, for the first time in many, many years, went with his first instinct. Itachi Uchiha decided that he would protect his younger brother, or die trying.
Even if his brother found the idea of him loving him a joke, Pain would not take Sasuke.
About eighty miles away, a redhead frowned. Itachi Uchiha was smiling, a teeth baring grimace that was more like an animal snarling than anything else, but was a smile nonetheless.
Nagato Uzumaki decided that, smiling Uchiha or not, he would not back down with peace so close to his grasp. For the downtrodden of the ninja world, for his parents, and for Yahiko, and for the dream he and his friends had fought, bled, and died for, he would never turn his back on what needed to be done. Peace would be achieved.
No matter the cost.
AN: Frankly...
This chapter was a bitch to write. And initially, it came out rather... dull. It's definitely not as good as the first one, though I'll tell you this: chapter three is pretty cool. I had to drop a lot of stuff for the sake of pacing, and it still ended up pretty chunky. Poor Suigetsu, relegated to a bit role. That seems to happen a lot to him and Kiba.
Oh, and also: without the exemplary beta-ing of Ekusukallybaa, this chapter would be far less palatable then it is. Everyone give him a round of applause.
If you're observant, you may notice something strange about the Pain that Tobi brings to Itachi. Don't worry: it is on purpose. Hell, I expect a couple of you to figure out exactly what it means. There are a couple clues. At any rate, the meeting between him and Tobi in Amegakure will be covered in a later chapter. Motivations, concerns, and desperate plan shall all become clear.
Another thing: if you are super smart like Ekusukallybaa and noticed the fact that Nagato is rather far away, which should interfere with his control in regards to his Paths... well, you're right. You get a cookie. Don't worry: I'll explain exactly how this affects the oncoming fight in a later chapter.
Fun Fact: You can cry without eyes (The reason I researched this should become obvious eventually). Tear ducts are a separate thingamabob, apparently. Which brings up a question: where does the blood from Mangekyō Sharingan use come from? It's pretty clear it represents some sort of damage being done directly to the eyeball. So, does it just kinda… leak out of the eye, and spill over? Gross.
Anyway, hope you enjoyed this chapter. Leave a review if you did. Or if you didn't.
Till next time. Serendipity, out.