Not Sick Chapter 31
Summer's End
"Why are we up here, Tsunade?"
The Hokage ignored her teammate and paced on the roof of her tower, one of her hands balled into a fist. The other stayed loose, clutching a sheet of plain-looking paper. A weak breeze brushed the letter, and Tsunade glanced at it. Then, her eyes wandered to Jiraiya.
"I needed some air," she said briskly. She held the letter up. "It's not every day I have to make so many of these decisions."
Jiraiya shrugged. "Sensei probably had far more."
The Hokage scoffed. "He was in the middle of a war half the time. It's hardly fair." That one managed a chuckle from Jiraiya. Tsunade sighed, looking back to the paper.
It had arrived innocuously, though its delivery had been unconventional; a knife-sharp paper airplane, tapping on a window behind Tsunade's head in defiance of gravity. Tsunade's apprentice had stiffened. Jiraiya had opened the window and let it in despite Sakura's aborted protest, and the airplane had laid itself out flat on the Hokage's desk.
"That's-" Sakura had said, eyes wide.
"Konan," Jiraiya had confirmed with a blunt word, and a glance at Tsunade.
"Shishou! Be careful! She might blow up the whole building!" Sakura had shouted. "She-!" At that point, Jiraiya had ushered Sakura out, thrusting the Rinnegan into her hands despite her nearly panicked exclamations. He'd shut the door firmly, and then it had just been him, Tsunade, and the paper.
Now, there were two Sannin on the roof of the Hokage's Tower, and a confused medic with pink hair doing her best to hide the fact she was carrying the most powerful eye in the world in a small glass jar.
Tsunade read the letter for the second time.
'Hokage of the Hidden Leaf,' it said in scrawling print.
'Naruto Uzumaki and the beast he holds destroyed Amegakure. I'm sure sensei told you as such when he returned.'
Jiraiya had; Tsunade hadn't been there to see it herself, but the accounts of Amegakure, smashed and burned and melted, had been vivid enough to give her a clear mental picture of the extraordinary violence Naruto and the leader of the Akatsuki had wreaked on the rain-drenched city.
'Nagato sent away the people of Amegakure before your shinobi arrived,' the letter continued, and Tsunade frowned slightly, as she had the first time, at the use of Pain's real name. Seeing it there on the paper brought to mind that day in the rain thirty and some years ago, when those three children had stared hopefully at her in that cold cave. The thought that one of those little boys with dripping hair and pale skin had become a monster like Pain was disquieting.
'Now, their home is destroyed beyond repair, but they are not. I am sending this letter as a petition. As the steward of Amegakure's people, I cannot allow them to live in disgrace within this ruined country as prey for whatever shinobi may cross its borders. I would respectfully request that you and I meet, so that we may work together to find a new home for my people.'
'They number some eighteen thousand, of which less than two thousand are trained as shinobi. I do not believe I can keep them as one group; it is inevitable that this number will be decreasing with time. Nevertheless, I am hopeful that the majority of them will follow me to a new home. The rest, I will escort where I can.'
Tsunade stared at the letter for a moment. It ended there, quite abruptly. Almost rudely. She looked back up at Jiraiya, who had stood as still as a rock even as she paced.
"It's insane," the Hokage said, her voice as cold as the day. Jiraiya shrugged.
"A little," he responded casually. He looked past Tsunade, towards the horizon. "Asking the guys who blew up your village for shelter is pretty unusual, I'll admit."
"It's more than unusual, Jiraiya," Tsunade bit out. She refused to break eye contact with him, eventually forcing his attention back to her. "She's asking me to take in thousands of refugees. Well," she amended. "To ask the Daimyo to take in thousands of refugees. A number of which would be shinobi! It's insane."
"You're so quick to say that," Jiraiya said with a frowning. "But all those thousands exist thanks to one of our own. It would be pretty cruel to just turn them away."
"That's life!" Tsunade said, pacing faster. "That's how it's always been." She looked briefly out to the village, her village. It may have been a sluggish day, but Konoha managed a hint of vibrant life anyway. "Where would we put them? How would we ferret out those who are traitors waiting to happen, and those who could be loyal?"
"You're being quite pragmatic," Jiraiya responded, walking forward and keeping eye contact with her. "Very admirable in a shinobi."
His tone was light and anything but mocking, but Tsunade still narrowed her eyes. She refused to give ground, until Jiraiya was practically nose to nose with her. "What do you mean?"
"Being an admirable shinobi hasn't really gotten us anywhere lately," the sage said with a loose smile. He lifted his arm and spread his single hand, palm wide. "I think you should at least consider it."
"Why?" the Hokage asked. "Just because she was your student? She's changed, Jiraiya."
"It's not that. It's because I don't think anything is going to change unless someone does something stupid," Jiraiya said with a half-grin. "So the least we could do is start here, and do a kindness to some mostly innocent people."
Tsunade blinked, watching her teammate. She cocked her head.
"That's… moronic," she said. After a moment, her eyes slipped past her teammate. To the cliff behind him, and the faces upon it.
Hashirama Senju stoically stared out over Konoha. The monument had always been vaguely distasteful to Tsunade, simply because of his face. The carving utterly failed to capture the amazing dynamism her grandfather had retained in life; the way his whole face lit up when he smiled. He'd worn that expression whenever he'd seen her, in the foggy memories she had of him before he'd died.
Her grandfather, the man who had founded the village through an alliance with his clan's greatest enemy.
The Hokage stared at her predecessor's solemn stone face for nearly ten seconds, and eventually, Jiraiya followed her gaze.
"You see what I mean?" he said calmly. "The First Hokage helped end a period of terrible bloodshed, and he did it by embracing former enemies. If he could do that…"
"And then Madara stabbed him in the back," Tsunade reminded him, but she could feel her resolve slipping, and an edge of doubt creeping in.
"He did," Jiraiya affirmed. "I don't doubt, Tsunade, that if you let all those people in, some of them would betray the Leaf. But the rest would simply make the village stronger." He put his hand on her shoulder, and Tsunade raised an eyebrow. "All I'm saying is you should consider it."
Tsunade considered breaking off the hand Jiraiya had laid on her shoulder, before realizing that if she did that one of the village's best ninja would be out of hands. That would be a terrible shame. So instead, she sighed. Jiraiya pulled back, looking subtly relieved.
"Alright," the Hokage said with an air of finality. "I'll consider it." Her brow furrowed. "I suppose we'll have to set up a meeting. How will we manage that?"
Jiraiya produced a brush from somewhere behind him, along with an inkwell. He tossed the latter into the air, wetting the brush, and then shoved it away with a flourish.
"Showoff," the Hokage muttered, unimpressed. Jiraiya scoffed, gesturing for her to hold up the paper. Tsunade did, practically shoving it into the sage's face. Jiraiya slashed with the brush, and then shoved it away as well, uncaring of the damp ink.
Tsunade turned the paper around, reading what Jiraiya had roughly scrawled on the back.
'SURE'
"Very official," she muttered. "Now what?"
The other Sannin shrugged. "If I know Konan…" He made a flicking motion with his hand, and Tsunade obliged, tossing the paper into the wind. It floated for a moment, before suddenly folding of its own volition back into a paper airplane. The sudden plane hung there for a second, as if considering, and then flung itself away, flitting through the sky like a small white bird.
Tsunade and Jiraiya watched it go.
"That really is an impressive jutsu," the Hokage remarked.
"Nothing less from my student," Jiraiya said with mixed pride.
"Why here, though?" the Hokage asked, turning to leave the roof. "Of all the villages to send a letter like that to, why Konoha?"
"Nagato said something to Naruto before he died," Jiraiya muttered, following her. "Konan was loyal to him, and to the ideal he was upholding. And Nagato passed that to Naruto."
He sighed. "I think she's following that."
Tsunade's mouth pressed into a line.
"Well, let's hope he doesn't disappoint her."
When Orochimaru picks Obito up off the floor, the Uchiha squirms a little. He's regained some of his composure, and his danger senses are screaming at him. He's a rat trapped in a maze, and there's a very big snake hunting him.
But it's far too late. The jaws are already clamping around him. All he can do now is writhe and scream.
They met the next day, with the sun barely in the sky and faint traces of their breath puffing in the morning air. Both of them barely wanted to be there, but there was something drawing them forward nonetheless.
Naruto rose early, indulging in a moment's communion with nature, his eyes flashing gold as he figured out just where she might be. He was pushed by only a single vague threat from Jiraiya and a nearly silent whispered apology echoing through his head. It was the loudest it had been since his last words with Nagato, and though it was almost impossible to perceive it was still too much for him to bear.
Hinata rose slightly earlier, her Byakugan pulsing for a moment. She needed to reassure herself that he was still him.
Normally, there's nothing harder to find than a shinobi that's looking for you. It's a bit different when both want to be found.
Tentative words that warmed the cold air.
"I'm sorry."
Hinata almost flinched away from them; Naruto felt as if they burned his lips as they came out. But there was such a dreadful curiosity filling him, welling up inside of him, so unlike the hate brought by the Kyuubi or the despair by Amegakure rain, that they were pushed out of him regardless. It seemed rude, but he couldn't stop himself. It wasn't like he had anything better to say.
Hinata didn't seem to either. She fidgeted, a blush coming to her cheeks, inspired by the cold. They'd found each other at a small park: barely more than a meadow and sparse trees, away from the clusters of dense buildings that dominated Konoha. There was a dead silence here, even in the grass and trees. The occasional cold breeze didn't seem to rustle them.
"You said that. Right before you died." He fidgeted.
"But I never knew what you were apologizing for."
Hinata blinked. "For dying."
She said it quickly, and then snapped her mouth shut, looking horrified at the notion. Her whole body radiated distress, fear, and Naruto nearly hung his head. But he refused to look away even as his fingers beat a nervous pattern against each other. She wasn't done.
"For p-putting you in that position." She looked down, before meeting his eyes again. "It wasn't fair."
That small stutter. He marveled at that. She couldn't really be that selfless. That would be insane.
"But I'm the reason you died," he muttered, finally looking away. At that, she stiffened. The fear drained away, replaced by something angrier. "You can't apologize for that."
"How can you say something like that?" Hinata demanded. "Even when I…! Right before…!"
'And if you throw that away, if you give up just because we're gone, or tell yourself that you're the reason we died…I will not forgive you!'
"Yeah." Naruto found himself agreeing. The grass seemed to whisper he was being an idiot, and he ignored it. "I know. But I can't just-"
"You can," Hinata pressed, actually taking a step forward. Naruto's head jerked up, and she seemed to remember herself. What she was. Her voice grew lower, but she captured his eyes with her own and spoke quickly, as if fearing her words would stop at any moment. "You have to. You can't just live apologizing to everyone. I couldn't…" she bit her lip. "I couldn't bear it!"
"I made a mistake."
"A terrible mistake!" Hinata agreed. "But so did Sasuke, running away from the village, hurting you so awfully, and now, he's back. He isn't living in- in fear of what he did. I saw him again yesterday; he was wearing his headband, even with the s-slash through it. He's your friend, Naruto, you must have talked to him."
Naruto tried to look away. Hinata's eyes wouldn't let him. "He told me not to run away."
"He came and apologized to me," Hinata said. "To Neji and I. For everything his actions had caused; for being kidnapped in the first place. He told us he had a lot of apologies to make. Did he give you one?"
Naruto nodded.
"Then that's all you need." Hinata's voice died, and an awkward silence rushed in. They both knew that if they let it lie too long, it would suffocate the both of them. Eventually, Naruto mustered up the courage to break it, a half-smile slipping onto his face.
"Maybe," he said, "we should both apologize."
Then, like Sasuke had the day before, he sank to one knee, averting his eyes.
"Hinata," he said. "I'm sorry for going to Amegakure. And for letting you die. I shouldn't… I should have thought things through."
Hinata almost frowned, but after a moment, she smiled. Just a little. "I don't regret it, Naruto. I'm sorry, but I have nothing to be sorry for."
Naruto couldn't resist it. He laughed, the trace of a dry chuckle. "Well, I guess that's good enough."
The silence that came after that was a bit more comfortable than before. The grass whispered again, and distantly, someone banged their window open. Konoha was waking up.
"You saved me, you know."
Hinata perked up the slightest bit, her hands meeting behind her back and her head tilting slightly. "What do you mean?"
"I, uh…" Naruto resisted the urge to rub the back of his head. "After you died… after everyone died… I kinda went a little crazy." Instead of rubbing his head, he subconsciously rubbed his stomach. "I undid the seal. Let the Kyuubi out." Hinata's eyes widened, horrified. "After that, things got… weird."
"You-?" she began to ask, almost too quietly for Naruto to hear.
"It ended up okay," he said. "The seal's back. Better than ever. Sasuke pulled me out. And then…"
He paused.
His parents. The thought rolled across his mind like a tidal wave slicked with oil, and for just a moment Naruto was nauseous.
"The Yondaime and…" he started to say, before trailing off. "My…" He took a deep breath. "The Yondaime appeared. He'd left a bit of his chakra in the seal, along with his… wife's. They helped reseal the Kyuubi, and then talked to me afterwards."
Did that feel right? 'The Yondaime?' 'My dad' sounded insane, let alone 'and my mom.' He could barely wrap his head around it. For now, Naruto resolved that the Fourth Hokage made more sense as the face on the mountain than as his father. He was going to have to see how he felt about that.
And talk to Jiraiya in more detail. There was no way the man didn't know.
"I was crazy," Naruto said, shaking his head as the moment of indecision passed. "I didn't want to… go back. And they talked a lot, but they were really having trouble getting through to me. But then…"
"I saved you?" Hinata almost sounded scared. Naruto hadn't told anyone else what had happened inside the shattered seal. He could tell she somehow knew it. There was something more than horror growing in her eyes as she realized the gravity of what he was saying.
"Yeah." His mouth was dry. It must have been the cold. "I remembered the first time we met Pain. When you kept me from giving myself up. You said, uh…"
He grinned, trying to bring the slightest bit of levity, any bit of relief from the suddenly overbearing atmosphere. "Well, you started off by yelling 'Bullshit,' and that definitely got my attention." Hinata blushed, but there was a smile amidst the redness, and Naruto felt brave enough to continue at the sight of it. "You said something like 'No matter how much pain you've been in, you always got back up and always kept going.'" He paused, his mouth twitching. "And-"
"'Don't stop now.'" Hinata finished the moment of remembrance for him. "I remember."
"Yeah." It was just a word to fill the space. "Well, when I was at my… lowest, I guess. I remembered that. It helped me pull myself together. Without that, I don't know…" He faltered, unable to say what he was thinking.
'I might not be here today.'
"Thank you," he finished.
"I… you're welcome," Hinata said. They both fidgeted for a moment. Eventually, she spoke up again.
"I…" There was a lock in her voice, but after a second of struggling she cleared it. "I wasn't… joking, you know. Or anything like…" She trailed off, and Naruto watched her curiously.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"When I, uh…" Hinata gripped her arm tightly. "What I mean, is, that, well, when I, died." She stopped for a second, really comprehending the word. "It made me really… think about some things." Naruto's brow creased as Hinata went on. "Do you remember, that talk we had in the hospital?"
The Uzumaki rocked back, his eyes slightly widening. "Oh." The word slipped out of him without reservation, an abrupt exclamation. "That… you…" He struggled to find a word that wouldn't make him look like an idiot. "Right."
He didn't do so well.
"I just…" Hinata clasped her hands together to keep herself from wringing them. "I don't know. Not really."
"I don't either!" Naruto said, almost incredulous. "I don't know how to, uh, really…"
"So we're both just…" Hinata said softly.
"But, um…" Naruto was sweating. That was strange, considering how cold it was. "Just cause I don't know about, uh…" He searched for the word. "Anything, really," he eventually decided, "doesn't mean I don't want, to, maybe…"
"Find out?" The both of them were almost glowing red.
"You said that you loved me," Naruto managed. The words were both piteous and affirming at the same time. "And… I think you really do. Even if I don't really know what to… do with that."
"I…" Hinata looked like she was desperately trying to stay afloat in rough waters. But she pressed forward anyway. "I… really admire you, so…"
"Well, I really admire you too, you know," Naruto croaked. He'd faced down the Kyuubi. Destroyed a god. Brought back Sasuke. This was definitely more difficult than any of those. "And you've kinda… saved my life a couple times."
"I'd like to… spend more time with you?" Hinata said. It sounded like she were asking herself. She nodded, her voice rising in pitch. "Yeah. That would be… nice."
"I think so. Too," Naruto said, resisting the urge to dig deep into the ground.
"Maybe, we could, um…" Hinata looked about the same. "Go for a walk?"
"Or get something to-?" Naruto started to say, before Jiraiya's ernest advice smacked him upside the head.
'Take it slow. And for god's sake don't let her see you eat.'
"A walk sounds nice," he decided. Hinata beamed nervously, and Naruto cautiously smiled. He felt something lift off his shoulders. "Like, right now, or…"
The Hyuuga fidgeted. "Maybe not today," she said. "I have to discuss something with my father. And Neji. They insisted on meeting at noon. B-But maybe… later?"
"Sometime tomorrow?" Naruto suggested. His heart felt like it was trying to burst itself against his ribs.
"Sure," Hinata said, her cheeks glowing with a glad pink. "Now, I have to get, well, back."
Naruto had a stroke of brilliance.
"I could walk you back?" he said. Hinata blinked.
"You mean-?"
"Yeah," Naruto said. "I could walk you back to the Hyuuga compound. We could just… chat."
'Not talk about death,' he thought. 'I'm tired of death.'
"That would be… perfect," Hinata said with a tremor in her voice. "Then… let's go."
They turned, and slowly made their way out of the park with uncertain steps. Naruto fell into pace beside Hinata, his ears picking up the faint hint of her breathing evening out. With the park behind them, the conversation seemed to fall from their heels as well. There was a jitter in Naruto's system, a slight twitch in his shoulder, but he felt inexplicably better. He hoped Hinata felt the same way.
There was an urge worming up from the tip of his fingers into his arm, slipping into his shoulder, across his neck, towards his mouth. It didn't seem to care about his brain, which was frantically protesting. Apparently, Naruto's brain wasn't as powerful as his instincts.
"Hey, Hinata?" he said with an impressively steady voice. She turned just slightly towards him, her hair subtly swinging with the motion.
"Yes?"
"Can I hold your hand?"
Obito's veins are full of poison. It's cold. It's so incredibly cold that everything seems to fade away, and the only thing left is the blood pumping through his body, desperately fighting against the ice that's desperately trying to replace them.
He tries to escape. Tries to open the hole in reality behind his right eye. It's saved him so many times before, but now, it refuses to be his salvation. The hole opens, wavers, and Obito feels something tear. The rip in space collapses before it's fully formed, and the man in the snake's jaws whips his head back and forth, smashing dents in the freezing steel table he's strapped to. His temple starts bleeding; the sensation of warm blood running down his face is an unbearable relief.
"It's too goddamn cold."
Izumo turned towards Kotetsu with a frown. "The weather hasn't improved for days. Why complain about it now?"
"Because we weren't out here on those days," Kotetsu pointed out, sniffing. His bandage slipped a little with the motion, and he wasted a second adjusting it.
"It's not that bad," Izumo said, looking back towards the street and leaning back in his chair. "Just a bit chilly." They were posted at the gates of Konoha once more, for the first time in nearly a month. It was a familiar place and a familiar feeling, but today there was hardly any traffic in and out of the village. The only thing making its way past their station was a harsh breeze.
"I guess," Kotetsu said, almost sulking. "I still don't like it."
"I'm well aware."
They lapsed into a comfortable silence, with little to say and not much to see. Eventually, Izumo blew a stream of air out between his pursed lips.
"I still think it was too quick," he said. Kotetsu scowled at him.
"You're still on that?" he replied, his tone indicating he was well aware of a rehashed argument.
It had been a week since Sasuke Uchiha had returned to the village, and that fact had refused to leave Izumo's mind for the duration.
"I'm not one to tell the Hokage what to do," he started to say.
"Then don't," Kotetsu cut in. His partner ignored him.
"But she was far too quick to accept him," Izumo continued. "He was a rogue for over three years. Him returning so abruptly, and being accepted back into our ranks-"
"Okay, first off, it's the Hokage," Kotetsu said with a frown. "She knows what's good for the village, and I trust her decision. Secondly, some shit went down before he came back. You know just as well as I."
"Yes, but-"
"Hey!" Kotetsu raised a finger. "Something happened with him and his team. Something weird. He was back in the village, staying in the hospital, for just a bit, and then two and some weeks later he, Naruto Uzumaki, and a bunch of other younger ninja left and came back from somewhere. And they were all real quiet about it. I don't know what went down, and I know you don't either, but it must have been some real shit if it managed to get someone like Uzumaki to shut up for a bit."
"You don't have to tell me this," Izumo said, a little frustrated. "I know. Just because whatever happened is classified-"
"So why are you worrying?" Kotetsu said with a grin. "It's above our pay grade. Just accept it; when someone like the Hokage trusts a guy who went to Orochimaru and then came back, I'm not going to assume she's an idiot. I'm going to assume she has a damn good reason, and the rest of the Uchiha's team too. They're all loyal; they'd beat the stuffing out of him if he hadn't walked back in with the best of intentions."
Izumo looked ready to continue the argument, but then he blinked, suddenly straightening up. "Hey," he said quietly, and it was all Kotetsu needed to hear. The bandaged man turned his head slightly, spotting what had sparked Izumo's seriousness in his peripheral vision.
There was a group of four coming towards the gates of Konoha. They traveled in a loose diamond formation, a simple tactic for muting the effects of an ambush. Kotetsu could catch flickers of motion moving through the dark canopy behind and around them; border patrols had clearly detected and shadowed them, but left the group in relative peace.
That meant they were likely here on official business.
There was one women and three men in the group. All of them wore tan flack jackets and red undersuits, covering one of their arms with a loose sleeve. The woman in the front was the shortest at just over a meter and a half, with striking pinkish-gold eyes and a muscular figure. The rest of her companions were taller than her, masses of rocky muscle and chiseled features.
On all of their heads rested a hitai-ate with a peculiar design etched onto it; two blocky, hill-like shapes, the smaller one partially eclipsing the larger.
Shinobi from the Land of Earth and Iwagakure. Even without the forehead protectors, they would have been instantly betrayed by the way they walked: like predators aware they were surrounded by larger, more dangerous animals.
"Trouble?" Kotetsu asked as they drew closer. Izumo shook his head.
"Just keep your eyes open," he subvocalized, and then the leader of the group, the short woman with striking eyes, was smiling cheerfully at them. It reminded Kotetsu of a tiger's grin.
"Hey!" she said as her compatriots shifted, failing to conceal their slight mirth at her tone. "We have some business with the Hokage." Her eyes slipped between Izumo and Kotetsu. "Mind if we come in?"
Izumo narrowed his eyes just slightly, nodding at one of the blurs in the trees. It resolved itself into an ANBU with a boar's mask, painted with bloody red tusks.
"Can you escort them to the tower?" Izumo asked.
'Don't let them see anything they shouldn't,' was the obvious intent, and everyone there knew it.
The ANBU silently nodded, and Izumo turned back to the woman. "It's your lucky day," he said humorlessly.
Her grin just widened, and with a slight bow, she and the rest of the Iwa-nin made their way into Konoha, the ANBU close behind.
"Well," Kotetsu said as the group gained some distance. "That can't be good."
"Are you sure of this, Orochimaru-sama?"
Voices. Obito hasn't heard those in a while. Or he thinks he hasn't. Maybe it was only ten minutes ago that he was being referred to as a gift. He can't tell anymore.
Protect Konoha. That had been a voice too. He couldn't have resisted it if he wanted to. Why would he? Protecting Konoha was as simple as breathing. Obito Uchiha lived to protect Konoha; he always had. Protecting his friends, protecting-
Rin.
Someone had to take him out of here. Take him out of this cold hell. Where was his arm? Maybe it was the cold. He couldn't feel his right arm. No. It wasn't the cold. His arm was gone. It must have been for the Mokuton material; it was the only explanation. Why was his leg still there? Why take the arm and not the leg? It didn't make sense, none of this made sense-
"We will take the eye. It's much simpler that way." There's that hissing again, like the rasp of two glass panes against one another. The snake. Orochimaru.
He was going to take his eye? Like he'd taken his arm?
"A year isn't long, Orochimaru-sama. If your Fushi Tensei will only take that long to-"
"Perhaps. But this will make me much comfortable. We cannot take chances here. He's too valuable."
There's a clinking sound, and Obito blinks. The motion is quick, controlled. This is his last chance. He can feel it in his bones. The poison's fallen out of his blood; it's pooling on the table around him, dripping over the sides. In a moment, the snake will hear it, and then Obito Uchiha will be done. There's no time to run; his chakra is sluggish, thin. The Kamui would be too slow. There's only one way out, one way to protect Konoha.
His hand shoots to the side; he can feel it, the tool of his escape. It's thin, bright, and sharp. Like a beacon of light in the murky grey blizzard that is the world.
It is a gleaming, freshly sanitized pair of scissors.
Obito raises them high, and then stabs directly downward with strength that can shatter stone. The scissors will pierce straight through his eye, destroying the Sharingan, and into his brain. Orochimaru will have neither his Mangekyo or his mind. Konoha will be one step closer to safety.
His arm locks painfully, quickly enough that his elbow bone fractures. The scissors stop less than a centimeter from his eye, filling his murky vision. Something is squeezing Obito's heart, like a wrathful hand, and the pain of it radiates out through his body, freezing everything. He can't even breath.
He can't do it. Why can't he do it?
Something strikes his hand away, and the scissors skitter across the floor. Gone. A snake pins his arm to the table, and two shapes form over him. Yellow slit eyes peer down into his own, and Obito snarls. The snake on his hand is pumping more poison into him; the world's growing greyer and greyer by the moment.
A curse seal, one of the shapes remarks. The words echo through Obito's head; it feels like a ringing emptiness, or a cavern with a dark, placid lake. The words sink into the opaque water and are gone.
How fortunate, says the other one.
A curse seal.
There's a hand reaching down, closer and closer to his eye. He can't see anything else.
A curse seal over his heart.
Who put a curse seal over his heart?
Obito barely notices Orochimaru rip out his eye. There isn't any pain. One moment, the world exists, and the next it's torn away. He's left inside his head, sinking into the lake in his mind. The water swallows him, filling his lungs and pouring into the holes in his head where his eyes should be.
A curse seal to keep me from killing myself, Obito thinks as the water consumes him.
Who.
Then, even the lake vanishes, and nothing but the cold remains.
"We're going to have to call a Summit."
The weather may not have improved, but Tsunade's mood had. She was pacing in front of her desk, her hands clasped behind her back. Her advisors watched her like alert hawks; Homura and Koharu were seated, their wrinkled faces creased in thought, while Jiraiya remained standing, occasionally scratching his chin.
"Obviously," Koharu said, his scratchy voice hiding any trepidation he felt at the notion. "The destruction of a minor village is no minor matter."
"As well as the fate of the Akatsuki," Homura followed up with a frown. Her eyes were scrunched close in thought. "And the problem of the Bijuu."
Tsunade nodded, while Jiraiya just looked intrigued. "Problem?" he asked. The councillors looked to the Hokage before twisting around to face Jiraiya.
"We have no idea where they are," Homura finally croaked, and Jiraiya's eyes lit up in realization. "What the Akatsuki did with them. The captured beasts certainly were not in Amegakure. If not there, where?"
"And worse, we don't know how many the Akatsuki have retrieved for sure," Koharu cut in. "The Ichibi, yes, certainly. There were reports the Sanbi was captured by them as well. But the rest? If the other villages jinchuuriki have fallen prey to the Akatsuki, they've kept quiet about it. We need to call a summit and restore any potential imbalance, or else…" He closed his eyes.
"That would be bad," Jiraiya flatly agreed.
"And as for Amegakure's ninja-" Tsunade started to say.
"I still-" Koharu began. Tsunade shut him down with a sharp look.
"I'm well aware," she said, "of your misgivings. We will discuss them in more detail later. For now, we cannot turn away this boon for fear of the consequences." The aged man grumbled, and Tsunade pinched her nose. "Where would they go, if we don't take this opportunity?" she continued. "To other villages? Become rogue ninja? They have a religious-" she raised her hand at an interjection made by Homura, "yes a religious devotion to the former Akatsuki member Konan. Where she goes, they follow. If she wants to go where Naruto is, they'll-"
"It would be safer to kill them all," Homura said with a bit of venom. "And you cannot deny it. It is what Konoha's shadow would do, when the Hokage was too uncertain to make the right decision." Tsunade's lip twisted, and Homura frowned. "Just because you don't believe Danzo can be trusted, do not think his voice was without merit."
"The moment that man lied to his Hokage," Tsunade said with a dark look, "was the moment he lost his right to influence the future of the village." She closed his eyes. "I'll speak with him; I'm not so angry that I think he'll have no wisdom. Trust me on that. But Danzo has no place in this meeting."
"Very well," Koharu said calmly, laying a hand on his old teammate's arm. Homura sank back in her chair with a deep breath. "In that case, we must focus on gathering the Kage, and learning the location of the missing Bijuu."
"Damn, that sounds serious." A laconic voice drifted through the door, and a moment later it opened soundlessly. As the room's occupants turned, Kakashi Hatake shuffled in, a mild smile on his face and his hands shoved in his pockets. Oddly enough, his hitai-ate was pulled up, though his left eye stayed closed. Jiraiya tilted his head for a second, sure he'd seen something peculiar in the man's gait, but dismissed it after a moment.
Kakashi couldn't be frightened. What was there to be frightened of?
"Were you listening in?" Tsunade asked. It was only half a question. Kakashi shrugged.
"I just happened to be wandering by," he said guilelessly. "I was lost, honestly. I've been very tired lately thanks to some strange dreams." Tsunade quirked an eyebrow as her advisors shared a quizzical glance.
"Hatake," Koharu said with a quirked lip. "We don't have time to analyze your dreams for you."
"Ah, but I think you'd like these ones," Kakashi said. "They're always about the same thing, you see." He opened his left eye, and the Sharingan shone out. "And they're always through this eyes' double."
The room went silent.
"Excuse me?" Tsunade asked.
"I've been seeing what Obito's been seeing," Kakashi said, and he almost flinched as he said the man's name. "He's been captured by Orochimaru. Imprisoned. His eye stolen. The black Zetsu abandoned him." He took a breath. "And he's also the solution to the problem. Who better to lead you to the Bijuu then the true leader of the Akatsuki?"
"Paired eyes," Jiraiya said under his breath, and then, a bit louder. "How long?"
"Oh, nearly a week." Kakashi shrugged. "I looked him in the eye in Amegakure and something… clicked. Like one of your books, Jiraiya." Jiraiya almost laughed at the joke. "Some connection that wasn't there before… no, it was always there. It came back." Tsunade frowned as Kakashi continued, his voice light. "I've practically been in a coma from chakra exhaustion. Too much time looking through another eye, you know." He tried to make it sound like a joke. No one laughed.
Jiraiya blinked. "Wait a second," he said, before slapping himself in the forehead. "I'm an idiot."
"So you finally noticed," Tsunade said. Jiraiya grinned, clutching his chest dramatically.
"So cruel, hime," he said, shaking his head. "We don't need Obito." Kakashi stiffened. "We can get the very same information from Konan. She was nominally the Akatsuki's second in command; there's no way she wouldn't know where they were keeping the Bijuu."
Homura and Koharu hmmd in agreement, and Tsunade smiled a little. "You're right, of course. Better yet, that gives us something to bargain with. If she doesn't reveal that information, we won't be helping her people."
Jiraiya's eyes narrowed, but there was still a little mirth in them. "Fair enough."
"I'm still going to bring him back," Kakashi said in a cold voice. "Now that I know he's alive…"
'I'm not going to leave him,' went unsaid, but Jiraiya nodded anyway.
"Of course," he said, and Kakashi closed his left eye, letting the menacing red fade away. "We can't have Orochimaru holding onto someone like Obito. Who knows what he'd pull out of his head."
"I would like to know, for one," Homura said, "how such a promising young man became such a menace to the village after his apparent death."
"Yes," Tsunade said. "We have many questions, and the Bijuu is only one among them." Her voice gained that steel edge of command. "Kakashi Hatake, thank you for bringing your information to us. I hereby charge you to with the retrieval of Obito Uchiha, so that he may be returned to the village if possible."
"Thank you, Hokage-sama," Kakashi said. Then, he cocked his head. "Hmm. Someone's coming. A couple someones, actually."
The door slipped open again, and a masked face peeked in; an ANBU with a boar's mask. "Ambassadors, Hokage-sama," the man said, and every man and woman in the room perked up, invisibly checking themselves. Jiraiya moved away from the wall, his hair bristling, and Kakashi took his hands out of his pockets, slipping his hitai-ate back over his eye. "From the Land of Stone."
"Thank you," Tsunade said, straightening up and casually lifting her hat from the corner of her desk, where she kept it most of the time. She slipped into her chair and settled the hat on her head, leaving only her lips clear, and suddenly seemed several times more the Hokage she was. She folded her hands together, presenting the image of a musing woman. "Show them in, then."
The ANBU bowed and stepped inside, opening the door fully as he did so. He moved to the side, and four shinobi in tan flack jackets and an arm covered by a red sleeve slipped past him, carefully entering the room.
"Wow," the woman leading them said, her pink-gold eyes deceptively light. They wandered past Tsunade, to the village sprawling behind her. "Nice view."
"Hmm," Homura rattled as she shifted in her chair, her eyes squinting. "Kurotsuchi Kamizuru. How unexpected."
The young woman turned to the older one with a smile, but then seemed to remember where she was. "Hokage-sama," she said, looking to Tsunade, who hardly acknowledged her. Kurotsuchi dipped into a shallow bow. "Thank you for seeing me."
"Of course," Tsunade said politely. "It would be rude to turn away the granddaughter of the Tsuchikage, after all."
"What's brought you all the way out here, I wonder?" Jiraiya said, and Kurotsuchi turned towards him, noting with a slight widening of her eyes his missing arm. "I take it Onoki hasn't croaked, yet."
"He's still leading the village," Kurotsuchi smiled disarmingly. Jiraiya's face didn't shift from its cheerful insincerity. The other shinobi in the Iwagakure party weren't focused on him, though. They were staring at Kakashi, who stood in the other corner of the room, looking half asleep, his eyes lidded. Nevertheless, the most muscular of the Iwa-nin, a man with a thick beard who looked like he could break the Hatake in half with one hand, seemed like he was trying to enter a staring contest with him.
Kakashi half opened his right eye, and the room grew just a bit colder. The bearded man blinked, his leg twitching. Kurotsuchi's smile cracked a little, and Koharu clucked disapprovingly.
'I could kill you all in a minute,' Kakashi's half-opened eye said, filling the room with icy vapor. 'I've done it before, and I may do it again.'
"Jonin-Hatake," Tsunade snapped, and Kakashi's gaze shifted to her. "Leave the room, please."
"Of course, Hokage-sama," Kakashi said pleasantly, and ambled out. The bearded Iwa-nin blew out a breath, a bead of sweat losing itself in his facial hair. Kurotsuchi turned back to Tsunade, her pleasant smile reasserting itself.
"Hmm," she said. "He's just as frightening as they say."
"Please forgive him," Tsunade said, though it wasn't a request by any means. She tilted her head up a bit, meeting Kurotsuchi's pink-gold eyes with her own amber ones. "He's had a rough day."
"I could tell," the Tsuchikage's granddaughter said with masked uncertainty. "At any rate…" She reached into one of her pouches, withdrawing a small scrolled bound in red ribbon. "I have a message from my grandfather."
"Oh?" Tsunade said. Kurotsuchi walked forward, depositing the scroll in the Hokage's waiting hand. The Sannin slipped the ribbon off without hesitation, not breaking eye contact. "And the contents?"
"Well, in sum," Kurotsuchi said, rubbing the back of her head. "He wants to call a Kage Summit."
Tsunade blinked, and Kurotsuchi's smile grew just a bit wider. "Yeah, pretty crazy, huh?"
Jiraiya snorted, shaking his head. "I'm jealous," he said with a chuckle, and some of the Iwa-nin glanced at him. "Dramatic irony is never that easy."
"Pardon?" one of the foreign ninja asked politely, and Jiraiya waved him off.
"This very meeting. All these bigshots and my humble self, Jiraiya the One-Armed Sage of the Mountains and Seas," he said, pointing at Tsunade and the councilors, and then to himself. "We had just decided to declare a Summit of our own." He laughed. "And then Onoki goes and one-ups us. I'll admit I didn't see that coming." The Toad Sage looked to Kurotsuchi. "Your grandfather usually waits for others to act."
"He did," Kurotsuchi said pleasantly. "He's only calling the Summit since your village destroyed Amegakure, after all."
Homura coughed, and Tsunade seized back control of the conversation. "Yes. We had just decided that Konoha ought to bring together the Kage to explain its actions," she said forcefully, and Kurotsuchi inclined her head.
"I'm sure," she said. She didn't seem to be lying.
"As well as the destruction of the Akatsuki," Tsunade continued, and a little spark appeared in Kurotsuchi's oddly colored eyes.
"Completely? Interesting," she said. "My grandfather was not aware of that."
"It's just as well you tell him, then," Tsunade said. "I will be doing so personally soon enough." She still hadn't looked at the actual letter. "Tell Onoki I got his message, then. When and where is the Summit to be held?"
"The Land of Iron, of course," Kurotsuchi said. "Three days from now, around noon. The scroll holds the details."
"Of course," Tsunade said. "In that case, you're excused." She tipped the hat back down, hiding the rest of her face. "Give your grandfather my regards."
Kurotsuchi inclined her head respectfully one last time, and the shadow of an ANBU came to the door, ready to escort them out. She turned along with her guards (for that's what they were) and made her way to the room's exit. Before she could leave, Jiraiya cupped his chin and made a curious sound.
"I wonder," he said, and the Iwa-nin stopped. "How is it that you all found out Amegakure had been destroyed?"
Kurotsuchi glanced at her companions, and they shrugged. One of them, a tall man with a scar like a crescent moon around his eye, spoke up. "Rogue ninja and wandering civilians have been moving over our border for two days," he said in a gravely voice. "The village has been containing them; they certainly haven't been causing trouble, but it's no good sense to let them wander free. Plenty of them are happy to give information for food and shelter." His eye narrowed, just slightly, the scar crumpling around it. "They say a demon destroyed Amegakure and murdered their god. And that their Angel betrayed them. They're an unusually religious group, the shinobi more so than the rest."
"Hmm," Jiraiya said. He grinned. "Sounds about right." The Iwa-nin frowned. "Thanks," the Toad Sage said, and with a final confused look Kurotsuchi and her compatriots departed.
The counselors waited till their footsteps had faded and the door closed before they spoke again.
"Damn," Homura muttered.
"We've lost the initiative," Koharu followed up. Tsunade shrugged.
"It'll be in our best interest to be honest," she said. "Even if someone declared the Summit before us, it won't matter so long as we don't attempt deception."
"An unusual thing for a shinobi to say," Koharu noted, and Tsunade laughed.
"Am I wrong?" she said with a flash of teeth, flipping her hat off and settling it back on the desk. "One of our ninja disobeyed implicit orders and leveled a minor village, destroying a major threat to the Nations in the process. That's what happened, after all, and it's not exactly something the other Kage will have a problem with." She sobered. "The location of the Bijuu is a much more pressing concern. We need to contact Konan as soon as possible, to assess their whereabouts. Until we do that, they'll be nothing of import to say."
"Agreed," Homura said. Koharu nodded, along with Jiraiya.
"I'll send a toad," he said, his mirth departed along with the Stone's ambassadors. "That will be fastest."
"Do that," Tsunade said. "And get Kakashi back in here. I wasn't done talking to him." The counselors rose from their chairs, and the meeting quietly dissolved.
Two shinobi perched on telephone wires like oversized crows, dark against Konoha's grey skies. They watched the Iwa-nin leave the Hokage's Tower with keen black eyes, picking out small details and memorizing them with instinctive ease. The leader of the band of foreigners felt a prickle along the back of her neck, and turned to face them; her pink-gold eyes played over the two shapes for a moment, before she quirked her lips and went on her way.
"Hn," Sasuke Uchiha said, sinking lower into his crouch. The wire thrummed under him; he could feel the electricity moving through it in his bones, and something about the sensation was vaguely pleasing. "From the Land of Earth."
He remembered the last time he'd watched foreign ninja wander through the village. Right before the Chūnin Exams; a simpler time. For a moment he recalled the raw shock, and thrill, that meeting Gaara had been. The last Sasuke had heard of him, he'd become Kage of Suna; it was a disconcerting thought, to know someone he'd nearly killed with Kakashi's Chidori had become the leader of a Hidden Village.
"Meeting with the Hokage," his companion said. Itachi Uchiha was not crouched as low as Sasuke was; the wound in his side would not let him. Instead, he stood uncomfortably, his hands loosely hanging. "They must have discovered Amegakure's fate."
"Fleeing shinobi?" Sasuke asked rhetorically, glancing at his brother. The sight still filled him with a sense of disbelief.
"No doubt," Itachi said with just the faintest hint of dry amusement. "I imagine they'll have many tales to bring of Naruto Uzumaki. Few of them flattering."
Sasuke snorted, looking away, and for a minute or so there was nothing but the chirp of distant, groggy birds and the subtle sound of swaying wires.
"They told me to forgive you, you know," he eventually said, and Itachi shifted. Sasuke's brother didn't look at him, and after a couple seconds, the younger brother continued. "Or to attempt to."
Itachi made a noise like a stonewall shifting. "And what did you tell them?"
"That they didn't understand what you'd done to me," Sasuke said, with just a hint of venom. "And that I wasn't sure I could do it." Some of the hardness in his face fell away. "But I couldn't send them away without promising I'd at least try."
"I'd never ask that of you, Sasuke," Itachi said.
"I know," Sasuke responded, standing up out of his crouch and stretching a bit. "And I'm still not sure if I can." Something in his arm popped. "But both mother and father said something interesting."
"Oh?"
"Yes," Sasuke said, staring at the sleet-grey sky. "Mom said we were her sons, and that we should get along." Itachi audibly blinked, a slight, genuine smile slipping across his lips. It was the first one Sasuke had seen in a long time. "And father said that we had to stand together, as the last of the Uchiha." Sasuke snorted. "'A power unlike this world has anymore.'" The brothers let that phrase sink in, savoring the cold breeze rippling the telephone lines.
"He would not be incorrect," Itachi mused. "We possess some of the last Sharingan in the world… and if Madara was not the Akatsuki's leader, the only Eternal Mangekyo."
"True." Sasuke realized he was watching his brother with Itachi's eyes… and Itachi him with his. The notion didn't make him as queasy as he imagined it should, but he certainly had a moment of uncertainty. If Itachi had made any mistake in his gamble, if Sasuke had not listened, if the Hokage had not cooperated, they'd both be blind.
Itachi must have known it too. But Sasuke couldn't place himself in his brother's position. Or perhaps he simply didn't want to.
"I'm not going to forgive you," he said, and Itachi's had dipped in recognition. "Not now." Sasuke frowned. "But that doesn't change the fact you're still my brother."
"Thank you, Sasuke," Itachi said. "That's all I could have asked for."
They remained like that, lost in their own thoughts, for almost a minute.
"What will you do now?" Sasuke eventually asked.
"Technically, I must remain a missing-ninja," Itachi said, and Sasuke quirked an eyebrow. "I undertook actions during my time in the Akatsuki that would make me an out and out criminal in the other Nations." He shrugged. "At the time, I did not plan to survive our battle. Unfortunate, but circumstances change."
"You would have just let me take revenge?" Sasuke asked quietly. He wasn't sure how he felt about that. Itachi nodded.
"Yes," he said. "But I realized that would be selfish. We would be better served working together than with you left in the dark."
"Hmm." Sasuke made an uncommitted sound. "So you'll be leaving the village?"
"Unlike you, I won't be officially reinstated," Itachi confirmed. He smiled. "It's no burden; though I do find it ironic this will be my mark of loyalty." The elder Uchiha tapped his slashed hitai-ate.
"Itachi," Sasuke said slowly. "You know this… my decision isn't fully for the village."
His brother nodded. "Of course," he said ruefully. "But Naruto is the village; your team is as well. And I doubt they'll be leaving anytime soon."
"I suppose," Sasuke said. "Where will you go?"
"I'm not sure yet," Itachi said. "Where the Hokage need me, I suppose. I only report to her now. I imagine I'll bring Kisame with me as well. The two of us have worked as a team for years now; it would hardly do to separate."
"Black ops, then," Sasuke said, trying out the words. It was just like old times. Itachi confirmed with a small noise in his throat. "Interesting."
"I hope you don't mind."
"I don't." Sasuke looked around the village. "There's a lot I have to re-learn, anyway. And it's not like you being gone will be much of a difference."
The words were a bit barbed, but Itachi didn't seem to care. "Unfortunately true."
They sunk back into silence. This time, it was a tad more comfortable.
"I was surprised you found me here," Sasuke said. Itachi turned to look at him. "I didn't understand why you'd come."
"I wanted to talk," Itachi said honestly. "Even if just for a moment." He sighed. "I've missed it."
"Hn." Sasuke turned, walking along the telephone line. Itachi moved alongside him, though his line was branching off. "In that case… I didn't mind it."
"Nor I," Itachi said with a soft smile that nonetheless showed teeth, and then the Uchiha went their separate ways.
AN: Better late than never.
It would both be easier and less cruel to just type "And They Lived Happily Ever After," wouldn't it? I guess I'm just a jerk like that.
I hope you all enjoyed the chapter. Hopefully, the next one will be finished faster.
Serendipity, out.