XXII: Discovery

"Earth Style: Dark Swamp Jutsu!" Jiraiya called out.

Through his Sharingan Itachi watched the ground churn and liquify, swallowing a large boulder in a clearing that the pair of Leaf shinobi had stopped in.

"I see," Itachi said, a statement that undersold the level of detail with which he had memorized the hand signs and motions of the jutsu that the Toad Sage had just showed him for the first time ever.

"It's a mid-range jutsu that's good for immobilizing a variety of targets," Jiraiya explained. "I've used it on groups of enemies, large summons, even an entire fortress once. It all depends on the amount of chakra you use and your skill level."

Itachi nodded, processing this information as quickly as his Sharingan had memorized the technique itself. "Thank you, Master Jiraiya, once I develop my Earth Style I think this will be a fine addition to my arsenal."

"Good," Jiraiya said before turning away with a satisfied grin. "I'm telling you, the Sharingan makes this too easy! It almost isn't worth the effort!"

"What do you mean by that?" Itachi asked.

"What?" Jiraiya responded, clearly not expecting to have actually answer such a question. "Oh, well," he paused, putting his hand to his chin as he collected his thoughts. "I suppose that on a personal level, there's no satisfaction in teaching a student who instantly understands. There's no challenge to it."

"I see," Itachi commented.

"And I suppose that on a higher level," the Toad Sage continued, having not heard Itachi, "power that is gained too easily leads to arrogance."

Itachi was once again surprised by Jiraiya's perceptiveness, and the Sanin's ability to hide the extent of the his wisdom in his day to day life. The Toad Sage was right of course, and his theory explained much of what the Uchiha Clan had become. Itachi himself often forgot that, gifted as he was.

"Thank you," Itachi said.

"Oh, your welcome," Jiraiya replied, not realizing what it was that Itachi was thanking him for.

But the Uchiha Clan Head felt no need to put that into any further words, so he returned to the real reason that the pair were out here. "Shall we move on to the next location?"

"We shall," Jiraiya answered. The pair then started to make their way to the next probable safe house location.

Sasuke stood with the ringing the last bell. Gathering his things as if it were just a normal day, he was forgetting the plans he had made with Naruto.

"Hey, Sasuke," the blonde whispered at him, seemingly in an attempt to be subtle or stealthy. Considering his excited giggles and the fact that he was doing this in the middle of the classroom, he wasn't succeeding in that.

"What?" the Uchiha asked, annoyed.

"You don't remember what we talked about earlier?" Naruto returned.

Sasuke took a moment to search his memory, finding his earlier conversation with Naruto on finding ways to prank Sai. "Yes, I do, but let's not do it here," Sasuke said, trying to engender a level of secrecy to their meeting that Naruto was not providing. He grabbed his things and walked out of the classroom, leaving his friend to follow him.

He took them to a stairwell on the far side of the building, away from the main entrance ways that most of the students and staff were using.

"So what did you find?" Sasuke asked.

Naruto glanced over his shoulders conspiratorially, despite the fact that he and Sasuke were clearly alone. "This," he said, pulling a book out from his backpack.

At first Sasuke assumed that it just one of the several textbooks that every student had, but with a quick glance he realized that wasn't the case. He took it from Naruto's hands to give it a closer look.

"This is hand drawn," he said, flipping it in his hands to look at the front and back covers. "Where did you get this from?"

"I stole it from Sai's locker, this was the only thing in there that didn't come from the academy," Naruto answered.

"It must really mean something to him then," Sasuke commented, giving the book another once over. "There are two boys, one on each cover," he noticed.

Naruto pointed at one of the pictures. "That one looks like Sai," he said. Looking at the illustration of the dark-haired boy, Sasuke noticed the resemblance as well.

The young Uchiha flipped the book back to its other cover. "This must be his brother," he realized, looking at a picture of a white-haired boy.

"How do you figure that?" Naruto asked. "They look nothing like each other."

Sasuke flipped through the pages, seeing the two boy across them only for the paper to turn blank before they could reach each other. "Because if I could draw like this, I would make something like this for Itachi," he answered. "We have to return this to Sai."

"What, and waste the effort I put into getting this?!" Naruto exclaimed.

Sasuke eyed his friend sternly. "It's nothing compared to the effort Sai put into making this. Besides, I know that if I was working on gift like this for Itachi and it suddenly went missing, I would feel so bad."

Naruto's posture softened after hearing the young Uchiha's words. "OK, you win. We can return it to him tomorrow."

Itachi studied a abandoned cabin through his Sharingan, hoping in vain that he would see something that the three previous attempts had failed to unearth. He let out a sigh as he finally gave up.

"Don't feel so bad," Jiraiya told him, holding one of the Fourth Hokage's signature kunai in his hand. "At least we're crossing out possibilities, and we know our method has some merit."

"This is the sixth location we've scouted and he have a 50-50 hit rate for actually finding safe houses at them," Itachi commented. "Assuming the other teams are getting similar results, that's almost ten sites discovered, yet we've neither seen or heard evidence of a confrontation between powerful shinobi."

"I'm not surprised," Jiraiya said. "Mianato was a meticulous planner, he likely had dozens of locations set up. We're looking for a needle in a haystack and we're doing it by hand."

Itachi nodded in agreement with the Toad Sage's analogy, silently acknowledging the difficulty of the task. Still, he had to appreciate that the issue was one of grunt and guess work, rather than a careful balance of clan and village interests to prevent a civil war. At least so far as he could foresee.

Any further contemplation on his task was halted the soft pitter patter of something approaching Itachi and Jiraiya. The Uchiha looked over his shoulder to see Pakkun running up to them.

"i see you guys were able to find another safe house," the ninja hound commented as he came to a stop.

"Yes, but we still haven't found the evidence we need," Itachi replied.

"Then you'll like what i've got to say," Pakkun responded. "Mikoto and I have found something, and we think everyone needs to see it. The rest of the pack is regrouping and informing Kakashi."

"What did you find?" Itachi asked.

"Lady Mikoto found a ruined building at one of our locations," Pakkun explained. "We think that it may be the evidence we've been looking for, but we don't want to draw any conclusions until we've gathered everyone else."

Jiraiya placed his hand on Itachi's shoulder. "Looks like we've got our needle," he said. "Lead the way," he added to Pakkun.

The ninja hound nodded before turning around. Itachi and Jiraiya followed him as he started to run.

Itachi could feel he was on the precipice of something. Something meaningful, something monumental. It was just a matter of getting there.