Ch: 19 Unraveled

Sakura

Sakura found herself semi-awake in a dark room, blinking her eyes through tear-soaked lashes. Wetness trailed from her cheeks to her ears and wintry spots stained the pillow behind her neck.

Another nightmare?

Her first thought was the poison. It was awful, like it was designed by a deranged scientist to torment people with their darkest fears instead of simply kill them like they were supposed to. And Sakura decided not to think about what it meant that apparently one of her deepest fears centered around Sasuke finding out her secret.

Sakura brought a hand up to wipe her eyes. But instead of wiping away the wetness on her cheeks like she expected to, she paused when she felt something powdery coating her fingertips. It had a scent that was sickenly dry and sweetly metallic, yet it had the vile pungence of something all too familiar. Blood.

She tried to get out of bed to turn on the lights, but she felt something keeping her still, almost forcing her head to remain attached to the pillow.

The pillow behind her head.

The bed that she didn't remember putting herself into.

The confusion set in first. Sakura brought her hands up to her neck, this time ignoring the stench of her dried blood, ignoring the stench that had filled the room. Her hands made out a splint attached to her body from the neck up, holding her chin tucked into her chest. Her trembling fingers found cotton pads, which she realized were wrapped many times over in tight bandages around her throat.

A warm moistness began to collect underneath the bandages.

"Last night was real," Sakura breathed.

It wasn't just a figment of her imagination, a hallucination from the poison. Itachi left her, Sasuke knew her secret, and now he was going to kill her —

"Sakura?"

A knock quaked from outside her door, accelerating her beating heart into overdrive. The room spun, despair and dread swirling like a storm at sea. She brought a glowing hand upwards to her neck, where the blow of Sasuke's kunai had impaled her throat.

Somehow, she was still alive. But whether or not that was a good thing, she wasn't sure.

Naruto

Oi vey, Naruto thought. This must've been a taste of what Kakashi dealt with between himself and Sasuke as kids. Being the mediator of Team 7 sucked ass no matter how you sliced the cake. "Sasuke, just—"

"Calm down?" Sasuke replied with his trademark venomous tone. "I saw Sakura speaking to him. She's either working with my brother as the enemy, in which case I will kill her, or she failed to signal to us that he was around, in which case I will never forgive her."

It didn't look good. Even though Sasuke hadn't overheard anything between Sakura and Itachi, he had a right to be concerned. But knowing her, she had a reason. She always did. Naruto began to protest. "But—"

"Naruto, she's been acting suspicious since the first day of our mission. Do you agree?"

"Well, yes, but not exactly—"

"I have never seen a simple mission executed so poorly. She's supposed to be a jounin, yet she's acting like she hasn't had a day of training in her life. Is she just stupid, or are all jounin in Konoha this pathetic?" Sasuke spat.

"Sasuke, I get that you're upset, but man, are you even listening to yourself? Just think, okay? Sakura almost died last night and—how could she possibly be working with Akatsuki? That's just insane."

"Something feels off," his raven-haired friend persisted. "You of all people couldn't have not noticed it."

Naruto wanted to say that yeah, Sakura was acting weird, and she had been ever since the day she got back from being taken by Akatsuki. But that was personal information, and Baa-chan made it clear to Naruto that he would keep his mouth zipped until Sakura was ready to tell Sasuke about it herself.

"Sakura's not the same girl you knew when you left Konoha," Naruto said quietly. "And she's the opposite of stupid."

How could Sasuke even say that? Save for recently, Sakura was the most analytical kunoichi Naruto knew, and she'd only gotten smarter hanging out with Shikamaru. And sure, she was making careless mistakes, but how could Sasuke ever think that was because Sakura was working with the enemy?

"Isn't Akatsuki's whole mission to capture me, because of the Kyuubi? C'mon, Sasuke, this is Sakura we're talking about. How could she do that to this face?" Naruto pointed to himself, trying to lighten the mood.

Sasuke didn't budge. "This isn't a joke, Naruto. The only reason why I agreed to stick around was because you said you would hear me out. I know what I saw, alright?"

"I know," Naruto sighed. "I just don't want you to make the same mistakes as, well… uh, back then— we were younger."

Sasuke visibly stiffened at the mention of the time he almost killed Naruto.

"I'm just glad it was me that time, and not someone else. I can forgive you. But Sakura? She's been through enough, ya know?" Naruto knew that time was a bit of a sensitive subject, but the resemblance to their current situation was just uncanny. "Just… let me talk to her first," he continued, a little more empathetically. "Hear her out. Give her a chance to explain."

Sasuke only glared back, incredulous. "You know what, Naruto? Do what you want. I'm out of here."

As his friend disappeared, Naruto looked back to the house behind him, at a loss of what to do. It seemed hopeless. But ever the optimistic one, he thought of one thing — at least Sasuke was willing to talk now, and at least he wasn't actively trying to stab Sakura while she slept inside.

That was progress, wasn't it?

Naruto shook his head.

Even if it was, would it be enough?

Tsunade

"What the hell is this report, Danzo?" Tsunade said, slamming her palm into her desk. "You should have let me read this before circulating it to the council."

"Calm yourself, Princess Tsunade. I only did what was inevitable, seeing that this is exactly what you asked for. It's DNA evidence collected by Iwa—"

"Alleged DNA evidence."

"Collected from their fallen shinobi no less," Danzo finished, not at all affected by her interruption.

As Danzo spoke, Tsunade pictured one thousand ways she could end that disdainful expression he always wore when he spoke to her. Hadn't the insufferable thorn in her side lived long enough? Why couldn't he just move onto the afterlife and become someone else's problem? Danzo was just a stinking old raisin.

"The Uchiha boy is a dangerous criminal, you see?" he continued. "He is responsible for missing shinobi—our missing shinobi, no less—and you've just authorized him to run off with your apprentice, along with our village's greatest asset. My, my, I wonder how you'll be written into the history books—"

"Shut up," Tsunade said, summoning all the determination she could muster to veil the threat of violence she'd unleash at any given moment. She grabbed the so-called report off her desk, crushing the paper with her fingers until it resembled the trash she knew it was. "I want to know from which of your second-rate underground labs you managed to test DNA and chakra samples stolen from our shinobi records."

"None, I assure you," Danzo replied, too utterly and infuriatingly casual for the weight of his allegations against Sasuke. "These were handed to me by my own source in Iwa, who will remain undisclosed. Unless you want to publicly question Iwa's honor? The situation is delicate, you understand."

In this moment, Danzo bothered Tsunade more than she ever thought possible, with his ugly wrinkles and exceptionally punchable face. She'd told him the thing that would prove Danzo's claim was DNA evidence linking the crimes together. If she were to defend Sasuke publicly against Iwa's claims, it would start a war. She knew he was working on something behind the scenes. He usually was. But this? What did he have to gain?

She watched as Danzo leisurely made his way to the tossed paper ball, faking his limp and overemphasizing the lean into his cane. He picked the crumpled paper and unraveled it, smirking behind his bandages.

"This report is from your lab," Danzo said, placing the flattened note back on Tsunade's desk.

She looked over to her assistant. "Shizune! Is it true?"

Tsuande inwardly cursed at the regret visible on Shizune's face.

"Yes ma'am. We ran two tests; both DNA profiling and chakra signature comparison. It's a three-way verification match between the dagger found in Konoha, the sample presented by Danzo on behalf of Iwa, as well as our internal database of Sasuke's DNA."

Damn it, Tsunade thought.

If this was true, Sasuke now had a target on his back — tens of shinobi from different countries perished from these attacks in the last few months. The other countries wouldn't be able to let it go if they found out Leaf was now housing him. Even worse, Sakura and Naruto were still in Iwa. If they knew it was Sasuke, there was no telling what would happen.

"Nobody speaks of this," Tsunade decided. "I will look into this first, and I want Naruto and Sakura back in the village before we act. Do nothing until my command. Do you hear me?"

"Oh Princess Tsunade…"

The drawl in Danzo's voice was a little too arrogant for her liking, and it shifted something in the air as if it brought a chill to the room that she couldn't shake. She narrowed her eyes.

"What, Danzo?" she replied in a low voice, over-enunciating the syllables with clenched teeth so as to be able to get through the conversation without losing the rest of her patience. "What did you do?"

"Nothing treasonous," Danzo assured, taking a bow. "It simply warms my heart to know that the First's sweet, young granddaughter leads with such optimism." He began to make his way towards the door and Tsunade felt her impatience reach its limit.

"Don't you walk away from me, old man," she snarled. "Get back here!"

Danzo turned his neck to make cold, dead-on eye contact. "A lesson every leader learns with age—a lesson you will learn—is that in our world, there is no such thing as a secret."

Unknown

Last night, He witnessed it all. It was only a coincidence that His investigation would link to this whirlwind of interrelated discoveries:

That His special poison was indeed repurposed for Team 7 the night He witnessed their ambush in Fire Country;

That whoever was going after Team 7 only wanted to take Sasuke;

That it was Danzo pulling the strings.

That fossil of a man certainly was bold. But did Danzo think he could make a play on little Sasuke-kun's life and ambush Team 7 with His poison, all while evading discovery?

And to add another layer of complication to this revelation, there appeared to be a delectable twist with little Sakura-chan's psychological trauma. It seemed the infamous Uchiha had figurative claws buried so deep in little Sakura's psyche that she thought she had elected to join Akatsuki and capture the Jinchuriki herself.

He smirked. The kunoichi had gone absolutely mad.

He'd expect nothing less from Itachi Uchiha.

Last night, He witnessed little Sakura, disciple to the Hokage, chatting with Master Itachi on the balcony so casually like long-time friends. The little medic even went so far as to have concern for the deteriorating Uchiha's pathetic, self-inflicted medical state…

And, it certainly was entertaining to see how upset little Sasuke-kun became when he found the pink-headed kunoichi fraternizing with his older brother. He wanted to kill her, it seemed. But did he really have it in himself to do it, even if he was convinced he knew the whole truth about her working for Akatsuki? And even more importantly — would her death awaken the rare mangekyou sharingan within him?

What a time to be alive, with this turn of events bringing a host of blossoming possibilities for next generation ninjutsu. He shuddered with delight at the thought that He might be able to witness something like this in His lifetime.

Kill Sakura and awaken your Mangekyou, Sasuke.

The key was to let these events unfold with no interruption, for now. It was best to get back to His client work in the meantime. And so it was decided. He would wait to see the answer to His question:

If Little Sakura manages to survive this lethal wound, what will Sasuke do?

To be continued...