Another chapter bites the dust! Thanks to everyone who's reviewed, but don't stop letting me know what you think! Do you like it? Do you want more fluff or to dive deeper into the plot? Some more feedback please!
How many of you heard about what happened in France? Of course you all would know. I find the whole thing sickening. And sad. My prayers to all the lives lost and their families.
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto
April 24th, 2032, Wish lounge, San Francisco, Time- 9:27
After being one and a half hours late, Sakura sighed exasperatedly at her friends' arrival at the bar. You'd think being FBI officers they'd actually have a valid sense of time at least.
"Did we say 8? I would have sworn I told Arisa to tell you to come at 10!" Ino said, laughing as she leaned against Deidara's shoulder. Apparently they had decided to give dating a try after meeting at Tenten's party. If her past record was anything to go by, it wouldn't last long anyway.
Sakura glared at her blonde friend, who were giggling away at her expression, before turning to Arisa, who said, "Does it really matter if you were here an hour or two early? You didn't have anything better to do anyway. And it's not like you'd have been any help in the office either- the trail's gone cold. Frustrating, but it's almost like the case is stale."
Before Sakura could react to that Tenten interrupted by shoving two drinks into their hands. "This is a non professional get together! Leave all that stuff about work till tomorrow!"
Sakura surveyed the group. Ino and Deidara had been the last to arrive, with Arisa, Neji, Tenten and Lee coming in before that. Now, Neji talked quietly to Itachi while Ino was draped over her date, kissing him intensely between rounds of alcohol, and she was left watching in amusement as Lee challenged Tenten to a contest of drinking ability. It wasn't going well seeing as Lee seemed to have zero alcohol tolerance, and Tenten wasn't any better off. Arisa was trying to stop the two from rustling up a cacophony.
Someone from behind her said, "Hey Ugly."
She whirled around to see a familiar black haired, sickly pale man. "Excuse me?"
She realised that he was the one who Sasuke- Erm, Naruto, called 'Sai'.
"I said hello. I believe that is supposedly appropriate conduct in this kind of situation." the other man said with a falsely empty smile.
"I'm talking about the other name you added at the end of that." she said, gritting her teeth and cracking her knuckles.
Sai gulped and said, "U-um, I meant Hello! I'm Sai from the Uchiha corporation! You're the one who's gotten Sasuke so depressed today, right?"
This was news to Sakura. She didn't consider the brooding, sly, deceitful Sasuke Uchiha to be capable of being affected by a trivial matter such as herself.
"I have a name, and it's most certainly not 'Ugly'" her voice dripped with sarcasm, "Sakura will do fine."
The other man smiled genuinely and said, "Well, Sakura it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."
"Are you here alone?" Sakura asked.
"No, actually Naruto had to-"
"Heeyy Sakura!" they were interrupted by Ino, who latched herself onto Sakura's shoulder and hummed wiggling her eyebrows, "Who's this hunk?"
Sakura resisted the urge to laugh at her friend's drunk state.
"Ino, this is-"
"I'm Sai-" he answered.
"-another idiot from the Uchiha corporation." Sakura finished.
"-friend to the man your friend is dating" Sai added.
A small pause preceded a loud exclamation of, "I was not dating him!", while Sai said, "I am not 'another idiot'!"
"Sakura! You were dating him all along and you never bothered to ask me for advice? After all the effort I put into setting you guys up?" Ino chided.
Sakura never got a chance to clear her name, as she was interrupted by Neji, who said, "We have to go now."
"What? But we only just got here!" Ino complained.
As Sakura dragged her away to where the others were gathering, Ino whipped out a piece of paper and wrote her number, adding a footnote of call me and shoving the paper in Sai's hand.
"I thought you were dating Deidara?" Sakura asked after they were out of earshot.
"Nobody said I was exclusive." Ino said with a seductive wink, as she flipped her hair and turned back to blow a kiss at Sai.
"We have a lead." Neji said once they were assembled in the living room of the Hyuga Mansion.
This followed by exclamations of 'what' and 'who', and even Ino had sobered herself enough to think rationally in the situation. As rational as Ino can get, that is.
"He was incredibly vague as to how he figured out, but Jiraya has given us a solid suspect, and confirmed our suspicions of human experimentation. He isolated a compound in Yuki's blood akin to the toxin found in Yuan Lan's postmortem report." Neji explained, detailing the event's of his phone call to the rest of his team.
"He's not given us any proof though." Hinata argued.
" The toxin is associated with the experimentation he's referring to, and the scientist he's accused is a Professor Orochimaru, who apparently has a connection with Mr Kabuto Yakushi from the Sahara group. And Yuki and Yuan aren't the only children- apparently there are more. For some reason he seems unwilling to give us more details about the experimentation- but he says we should be able to find confirmation of these facts now that we know where to look."
"Human experimentation- this is sick. And where does the Sahara group, a real estate company, get off involving itself in this crap?" Choji asked between mouthfuls of hotdog.
"I looked into the Sahara group details. This isn't the first time kids have disappeared from those orphanages- the Sahara group sponsored orphanages are a perfect place to pluck up children from- nobody there really cares about a few kids gone here or there. At least, nobody who can help cares enough to try. It's been going on for at least twenty five years." Arisa said.
That's right. Arisa used to be in one of those orphanages too.
"If we decide to believe Jiraya, then we have to find solid proof that Kabuto and Orochimaru are connected." Sakura said.
"Shikamaru, draw up whatever intel you can get on Mr. Kabuto Yakushi and Orochimaru. There ought to be something connecting them there." Neji said.
"We can use the old report to get an arrest warrant to detain and interrogate Kabuto." Kiba said, cracking his knuckles at the idea.
"Umm...actually." Hinata interrupted. They all looked at her.
Small and meek, she said, "I don't think that report will be valid anymore."
"Why not?" Ino asked.
Knowing what she was about to say, Sakura finished for her. "It turns out that the person introduced to us as 'Naruto Uzumaki' was actually 'Sasuke Uchiha' and vice versa. So when I had those reports signed by Naruto when the person eyewitness to those papers was Mr Uchiha nullifies the report and all related warrants. I guess we'll have to wait till the reports are redrawn to make that kind of move legally."
The surprise on their faces was evident.
"What the hell? Who freaking does that? We're the FBI! You don't screw around with the FBI!" Kiba shouted, standing up.
Nobody was particularly happy with that, and it only served to delay their investigation.
"But we still need to find out what experiments they're doing? If they're holding more children, we need to know where, and have them saved , while their captors are persecuted!" Choji said, no longer stuffed with food.
"Not to mention, we should figure out their funding sources. That kind of operation- if it's anything like what you said Jiraya described- would need money. Are we still supposing that the Sahara Group is responsible? Or do we put the Uchiha Corporation back under suspicion? we need to interrogate Sasuke Uchiha at the very least." Shikamaru said.
"We can't wait for the reports to be redrawn to interrogate Kabuto either. For all we know, they could know we're onto them by that time. It seems we're at a standstill." Neji said with an annoyed frown.
Everyone was quiet for a while, letting the implications of their new lead fully settle in. It was quite obvious that the only real way to find out more as of now was to interrogate Kabuto. But seeing as they had already searched his building and come up blank, the chances of them getting another warrant so quickly were low.
"I don't see why we still can't interrogate Kabuto." Arisa finally said slyly. The mischievous glint in her eyes spoke volumes about how much the more cautious among them would oppose her idea.
She received several suspiciously wary looks as Kiba dumbly asked, "What do you mean?"
"Just because we don't have a warrant, doesn't mean we can't interrogate Kabuto. It just means that we can't do it as the FBI." Arisa said, a smile curling on her lips.
"What are you suggesting?" Neji asked.
Sakura smiled too, catching on to the idea. "We hand in our identification and do this the old fashioned way."