A/N: Why does ffnet keep telling me that MY email is the one with the issue? I don't get emails anymore! It's ridiculous! I have a gmail, nothing special, and i've already whitelisted all the addresses but they still keep giving me popups saying that they were blocked by MY provider like. dude. no you weren't. you guys have messed something up on YOUR end, clearly, otherwise this wouldn't keep happeneing!
i need to hunt down my favorite authors and beg them to crosspost to AO3 so i stop missing updates this is so painful.
As always tho, thanks for reading and hope you enjoy!
Home.
He casts his gaze across the damaged gates, the crumbled rock that even now genin are working to clear, exhaustion lining every face.
For a flickering instant, a dozen earth jutsu cross his mind-
The bittersweet crash of reality.
Home, but not home any longer.
Not one he's welcome in.
His partner, he knows, will read his moment of hesitation as a violent one.
"You wanna actually confirm any of the rumors, and you can't go killing brats here," he laughs lightly, nudging him with a sharp elbow.
Acting is so easy, when everyone else does all the work for you.
Itachi makes certain to sigh, uncoiling tension in his shoulders with the deliberate focus of a predator on the hunt.
The chunin guarding the gates are clearly ANBU in disguise, but they weren't his team. He snares them into an illusion with effortless grace, and walks through unopposed.
They won't even realize he held them, likely. There's not any Uchiha left to train with, to learn how to detect their more subtle genjutsu, and both are far too young to have worked with anyone other than Itachi himself, in that short stint in ANBU.
The Uchiha clan jutsu will die with him.
Itachi doesn't flinch away from the truth, anymore, but it still hurts. So many of their clan genjutsu are never written to any scroll, but instead taught directly, by trapping those who awoke their sharingan in one and walking them through how to reverse engineer it.
In the kind of cover he now has to maintain, Itachi will never be able to teach Sasuke those more subtle techniques. Anything less than his most powerful genjutsu will be read as signs of weakness or lingering affection and-
Those other jutsu, then, will die with him.
There's no one else who can teach them.
Even Kakashi-senpai was never allowed to learn, because they were clan techniques. Not for outsiders, sharingan or no sharingan.
Itachi is the last bastion of their clan's history. Everything they used only their perfect memory to keep, everything they used only their eyes to pass on-
Itachi's death, truly, will be the death of the clan.
The bloodline will continue, with Sasuke, but-
The history. The clan techniques. The clan secrets, and rituals.
The stories. The games. The memories. The language.
None of them can be taught, without the sharingan, and Sasuke hadn't awoken his until everyone else was already dead.
Any clan he builds in the wake of Itachi's death, truly, even if it keeps the name, it won't be the Uchiha clan of before.
Itachi can only hope it will be better.
Wishes, perhaps, that not everything had to die.
But he's long since learned that men like Danzo won't be satisfied with anything less than their utter destruction.
Since the moment the man first realized the true power of Uchiha genjutsu, Itachi thinks, Danzo has feared them. Shisui's mangekyou manifestation was simply the last kunai to send the whole pile tumbling. Letting him know that most of their clan secrets weren't written down, but instead passed down from teacher to student upon awakening the kekkei genkai was a mistake.
There's no way for Sasuke to learn anything, and his every move is so carefully watched, by both Akatsuki and Danzo's spies whenever he gets close to Konoha…
He'll never be able to teach his brother any of their more delicate arts. Their secrets, both harmful and harmless.
A true destruction of everything the Uchiha have built across hundreds of years.
All for one man's fear.
Ah.
There's the fury.
Kisame barks a laugh as killing intent edges his ki, and Itachi fights off a sigh.
Emotions are so distant, now. It takes so much more effort than it used to, to get angry. But having felt the truth of simmering rage, Kisame does no more than tease as Itachi turns to his favorite dango shop.
It's been… so long.
He would cry, maybe, if he were less… hollow.
More genin, carelessly knocking people aside as they carry burdens of supplies, clearly for repairs and rebuilding. A glance, and they take a wide berth around him and his partner without quite realizing why.
Kisame asks if he's too much of a princess to handle some dirt on his clothes, voice still bright with laughter, and Itachi hums, letting him fill the sound with whatever emotion he'd like.
The dust in the air is irritating his lungs.
He's dealt with worse, but it would undermine everything he's here to accomplish if Danzo's spies were to catch him choking up blood because some kid knocked a bag of sawdust into his ribs.
Itachi is so tired.
Even if it's giving Danzo everything he wants, at least when Itachi's dead he can rest.
He walks into the booth silently, catching the eyes of everyone who looks up, and they leave.
He does so enjoy the habit of checking who walks into a building. It makes eye contact so easy. He grabs the dango someone leaves behind, moving up to the counter and taking a seat directly by the waitress.
Sweet.
He relies far more heavily than he'll ever admit on his ANBU torture resistance training, as he takes the first bite off the stick, and so deeply wants to sag in pleasure.
It tastes the same as he remembers. The lady working the counter is new, but the recipe is unchanged, and she hands over a plate shortly, eyes slightly unfocused.
When Kisame tries to take one, Itachi stabs a kunai through his wrist.
Even Sasuke doesn't get his dango unless he's crying, not that his foolish brother ever appreciated the gift.
Kisame is most certainly not going to have any.
The man whines, pulling the blade out and threatening him with it, begging, dramatically insisting that he should at least have the lady get him his own plate.
Itachi glances at him, weaves him into an illusion where every stick of dango he tries to eat becomes a kunai stabbing him through the throat, and to his credit it only takes Kisame four sticks before the Mizu shinobi manages to snap himself out of it.
He leaves to go buy a snack from somewhere else, offering some meaningless jape at Itachi's back.
Finally.
Peace, quiet, and dango.
It's good to be home again.
"The reports on the Nara forest, Danzo-sama."
Danzo grabs the papers, dismissing the agent immediately. His absolute best unit when it comes to gathering information from within the village, Danzo had to recall him away from a high-value assignment for this.
After two failures to retrieve the information, he didn't have a choice.
They clearly haven't captured all the traitors, if even simple reports like this are so difficult to find, now, when it is clearly so critical that things be where they're supposed to be.
No matter.
He'll make time to properly hunt them down later. Hiruzen's lax security will not be permitted to stand any longer, and no spies will last long once he's fixed everything.
The report starts properly, a shinobi's mission summary but-
That can't be right.
Danzo stands again, setting down the report with careful motions.
He can hardly convince his agents of the necessity of emotional rejection if he himself so outwardly shows his own, but it takes every ounce of training he's ever had to suppress the furious need to throw it.
He calls the agent back in, once he's certain he's managed control.
"Danzo-sama."
"What is this." Danzo taps the report pointedly, every motion calculated, refusing to show the effort it takes to remain so.
"The report submitted regarding the fight that took place in the Nara forest, Danzo-sama."
"Is it now."
Hesitation.
Danzo makes a note of it. That will have to be corrected, later. Perhaps this one has spent too long away from headquarters.
"Was it a prelude report, Danzo-sama? That is my failure. I did not read it in full before I brought it to you."
"It is useless, is what it is. What good does it do me to know the list of everything damaged or destroyed in the flames, and the estimates of what it will cost the village short and long term?"
Hesitation, again. Clearly, this one has become defective.
"Is that not what you needed, Danzo-sama? The Nara provide many medical herbs for Konoha, so the destructi-"
"If I wanted to know the economic impact of the fire, I have a dozen reports that could tell me such, none of which would require your own specialized skillset. I sent you to find out how it got burned in the first place. Where is that report, agent?"
Silence.
"I asked you a question."
"I… do not know, Danzo-sama."
Forget retraining, maybe he should just put this one down-
But no, that's the anger speaking. "Then you had best find out, hadn't you?"
A bow. "Yes, Danzo-sama."
Danzo waves him away sharply. After so much failure in acquiring what should be a basic report, at this point he'd likely have better luck asking Shikaku himself. He hates talking to that man. A brilliant commander, when they're fighting.
Too smart to tolerate any other time.
How he hates having to deal with fools like that because they're too useful in emergencies. How disrespectful, that the man is only capable of being serious in emergencies, and treats everything else like one of his shogi games.
At this point though, two of his best agents and one of his average ones being unable to get the information means that there is a cover-up. So if he doesn't go himself, who knows what the perpetrators may get away with.
Shikaku slumps over his shogi board, biting back a groan as he catches sight of Shimura Danzo entering the lounge.
As jonin commander in the wake of an invasion, he may need to be available at all times, but surely Danzo could wait until he was off his break.
That can't be asking too much.
His son looks up with too-sharp eyes, reflecting a question, but Danzo's already spotted them. No point leaving, and if he sends Shikamaru away that's basically supporting the old man's interruption of valuable down time.
Not that he doesn't know what this is about.
What a mess.
He hasn't even met the kid himself, just seen him from a distance and read the reports. He may have told Sandaime-sama all those years ago that the Haruno bloodline was more trouble than it might be worth, but even he never expected this much of it. Nothing for it now, though.
He makes another move on the board, aggressively pretending not to notice the company.
Danzo can wait til they're done or be rude enough to interrupt, but Shikaku's not going to encourage the man's delusions of power by preemptively stopping the game for him.
His son doesn't hesitate, manages to almost hide the curiosity, too, turning the tilt of his head into an exaggerated yawn with impressive fluidity.
Likely, that doesn't fool the councilman, but even for a chunin, it's an impressive recovery.
When Shikamaru finally realizes he's already lost, the kid takes one look at him and keeps his mouth shut, playing it through to the end.
Hmm. Danzo must want to speak privately then, and knows Shikaku won't leave the board without a good reason.
Which means he doesn't have a good reason.
Good to know he can still get stuff by the warhawk, then. If the man had got his hands on the uncensored report, he'd have had at least enough proof to make accusations and demand a meeting, if not a flat out psych eval.
Bastard wouldn't hesitate, either.
His own smugness doesn't so much as flicker in his eyes as he makes the finishing play.
He'll have to get 'maru something nice, he knows the kid hates to play out games already lost.
Hmm, maybe he could just bring the kid with him? Danzo will hate it, but it'll satisfy 'maru, and he was involved so Danzo can't actually complain at his presence…
Shikaku nods at his son as the boy formally concedes. "Good fight. We can go over the mistakes later, if you haven't already caught them, but for now I think the Councilman would like to discuss that report you made of the fight in the forest."
The shock in Shimura's eyes is quite satisfying. Clearly the man didn't even consider having genin reports reviewed.
What better place for dangerous reports than in the least-secured place imaginable?
Well, honestly, literally anywhere else. But it's not like he cared about hiding it from enemies. He'd honestly pity the fool who tries to manipulate that kid, with everything he's heard from Inoichi.
Hiding them from Danzo though, well.
That's a different matter all together.
One of the chunin clansmen slips out of the room, likely to make sure it doesn't disappear later, and his son groans with appropriate dramatics as he stands.
Good lad.
Danzo sneers in distaste at the blatant show of laziness, but manages to politely ask for their time in a room anyway.
Shikaku generously obliges.
Not two steps away from the table, however, a panicked shinobi bursts into the lounge. "Uchiha Itachi's been spotted in the West Market district!"
Having been watching the Councilman rather carefully, taking pleasure at the man's discomfort, Shikaku catches him pale just slightly, lone eye cutting to the window.
Well now.
For a man nearly as emotive as a rock, that is an interesting reaction.
"Sasuke was injured fighting in the forest, do you think he's come to check up on that?" he offers to the panting man, carefully watching Danzo out of his peripheral vision.
Hmm…. he's not quite sure how to read the way the man twitches, but it is another interesting data point.
The shinobi, a chunin, panics. "I-I don't know sir, I just- um I realized I left my wallet behind when I was on lunch break, and I saw him when I went back in for it and-"
Clearly, that's too much for Shimura's patience. "That's useless, boy, where is he?"
"R-right! Um, Matchaya Dango!"
Ah, that's near Inoichi's place.
He saw Itachi there a lot, as a kid.
Interesting, that he'd come back to the village and revisit an old childhood haunt.
Well. If it gets him out of an annoying conversation with Danzo, he'll take it.
"I'll check it out," Shikaku offers, lengthening his stride to slip down the hall before anyone can protest.
He volunteers for little enough work that he's pretty sure they wouldn't even if he gave them a moment.
He flexes his chakra, a sharp signal that sends one of the lounging jonin out the window to call any available hands of rank.
An echo to his footsteps.
He glances down, and Shikamaru stares up at him with an even gaze.
Troublesome.
"You'll go no further than the flower shop. I couldn't keep up with him when he was your age, and I sure as fuck can't now, so stay back. Be careful if you decide to use any of the clan techniques, reports say he never deactivates his Sharingan these days, and we proved in the past that he can see even our most well-concealed jutsu when it's active. He probably won't go for you with us right in front of him, but I'd prefer if you didn't take the risk. He's unpredictable and dangerous."
Thankfully, his son doesn't question the instructions.
Well.
At least now that he's learned to actually explain why he gives them, anyway. Poor Inoichi, Shikaku really doesn't envy him his daughter's stubbornness.
At least Shikaku knows that as long as he has explanations, Shikamaru will always do what he says, or offer his own explanations back about why his father is wrong.
They can be some fascinating conversations, really, he and his son may both be considered geniuses by the rest of Konoha, but they rarely think in similar fashions.
Sometimes he wonders if it isn't the label of genius itself that causes the problem, isolating and elevating people in a way that makes it hard for them to connect with others… Kakashi, after all, was all set to die young before Obito did it for him, and Itachi…
Well.
His own clan learned long ago that being lazy was the only way to protect themselves from being exploited, but geniuses from outside their clan…
Maybe it's Konoha's treatment of geniuses, that causes them to all burn out so young, to madness like Itachi and Orochimaru and to death like Minato and to hollow husks of men who should have died, like Kakashi.
Though, the latter's been getting better, lately.
Hmm…
Shikamaru's footsteps fade away as Shikaku passes the flowershop, his son's chakra tangling with his own.
Shikaku grimaces, but doesn't shake it off as he steps into the dango shop.
His eyes skip over the two chatting idly at the bar, looking for their nukenin, when he realizes-
Eyes snapping back, he catches Itachi's gaze, can't even consider whatever illusion he's being dragged into, because-
Was that Sakura-chan?
"Well that was useless," Natsu grumbles, kicking a stray rock, fingers interlaced beneath his high tail.
It skitters awkwardly, echoes trailing its movement.
Natsu's pretty sure seeing vibrations like this is more useful for actual dragons.
For him, it's just a budding headache, rippling colors and heat trails.
Ugh but he swears it didn't last this long before, when he was a kid.
Cursing magic, and Acnologia, and magic again, and Grimoire Heart for being exam-crashing losers and magic one more time for good measure, Natsu squints his eyes against the rippling colors in the air, and decides to find something to snack on before he goes to report his utter failure to Sasuke.
Ino's got nothing, and apparently she was basically grounded before the invasion and now her dad's not letting her go too far because he's been worried, or something, which doesn't make sense because apparently the guy is so busy he hasn't even been home but Ino still refused to help which means they're back to square one, it's been two days and Naruto still isn't back-
The enticing scent of fresh dango crosses his path, laced with ashes and firesmoke.
"I thought dango was a sweet," he muses, turning to follow the smell, and feels Sakura-chan perk up, Sakuni a silent but weighty presence.
"Mitarashi dango is made with soy sauce and cooked over fire, yeah, but it's still sweet! It's mom's favorite type, though I always liked hanabi dango best!"
Natsu skips forward, already picturing a stick of flaming dumplings, sticky sweet sauce and sparkling flames-
He bursts into the building, quickly scanning-
A man at the bar turns to look at him, tricolor dango stick still in his mouth, but-
"It's not on fire?"
Natsu doesn't whine.
He doesn't. He moves closer, edging around the guy with the weird hat to get a better look at the plate, but-
"None of it's on fire?"
"Why would it be on fire?" Sakura-chan asks, but no, he was promised flaming dango and that's what he's going to get!
Natsu marches up to the counter, waving at the lady. "Oi, I want some flaming dango!"
She doesn't look at him, doesn't even twitch, and he braces his hands on the bar, debating-
"Why light it on fire?"
"Huh?"
He turns, squinting at the weird guy and his boring dango. There's something funny about the guy's face, but the colors are still rippling all over the place and smudging everything together so bad he can't tell where the stupid hat ends and the face begins, so he rolls his eyes and looks away.
"Obviously it tastes better on fire, duh. Why's she ignoring me."
"Who can say?" the man muses, and Natsu turns to squint suspiciously at him.
Sakura-chan's disapproval rings loudly in the back of his mind.
Natsu groans.
"Ugh, right, I forgot, I can't eat it anyway…"
"Hm?"
Natsu sighs. "...pushed too hard in that fight, and now our body's all messed up. So 'm not allowed to do anything until we're better, which means I can't eat the flaming dango. Ugh. This sucks. It sounded so good too…"
A long pause, and a clink as the man sets down his now-empty stick and picks up another. "What does fire taste like, then?"
The lady sets down a plate of dango covered in sticky brown sauce, still not acknowledging him.
They smell like fire, though they clearly aren't burning.
Sulking, Natsu picks up a stick and tries one.
He refuses to admit that it's kind of tasty, just on principal.
"All sorts of things, really," he muses as he chews, ignoring Sakura's shriek of offense and the strange guy's own aura of doom. He's pretty sure wearing hats inside is rude too so it's not like that guy has any room to talk. "Natural fire can taste loads of different ways, depending on what material you burn to make it! My favorite fire wood is… uh… actually I don't know its name, but it's this one kind of thorny bush that used to grow in the forest around Igneel's clearing! Fire from that wood has like… I dunno. It tastes kinda spicy, and warm, and like home! Oak is kinda boring, it's like. If you made hot chocolate, but then you poured in milk. And more milk. And even more milk, until it was basically warm milk with just the tiniest hint of chocolate flavor. Like. Boring, y'know? Willow fire is cool though, not cool as in cool, but it tastes really interesting! Each lick of flame tends to have a slightly different flavor, I always figured that's because willows taste a little bit like the rivers they live next to, so their fire carries all those eddies in them! It can be pretty fun, but sometimes the fire tastes really nasty, especially if the river hasn't been treated right. Obviously cooking fires tend to taste at least a little bit like whatever you cook in them, and since they usually use coals as the fuel they also tend to taste a bit spicy too. People fires are the best though. I always wondered, when I saw Sasuke use that one fire jutsu, what his flames tasted like, but I never had a chance to eat them... You can tell a lot about a person just by what their fire tastes like! This one guy, Bora, he was an absolute scum and his fire was all sticky and slimy and gross, honestly he's lucky I didn't puke it all back over him it was so bad! …actually, technically I kinda did didn't I, since I just turned it into a dragon's breath spell… or was it even the same? Obviously it looked different, but it was the same magic so did I change it…?" Natsu trails off, chewing his third stick of dango as he tries to recall.
Does his magical core act as a special stomach for the fire he eats? Or is the taste all in his head and he's just absorbing the latent magic of the flames?
Hmmm…
No way that's too much thinking, he'll make a note later and ask Levy or something.
Levy'll know. Or know how to figure it out. He's not dealing with that headache, not at all!
"A fascinating technique," the man muses, once again turned to face him, and Natsu scowls, shoving two sticks of dango in his mouth at once while he glares right back.
There's a lull, and Natsu squints suspiciously when he finds it feeling expectant. "What, d'ya think I'm gonna light on fire if you keep glaring at me?" he retorts, glaring harder.
He'd like to make that guy light on fire, but. Ugh.
Operation don't-make-Sakura-chan-worse is lame.
"Are you immune to genjutsu?" The man asks, delicately picking up another stick of dango.
What a princess.
"Uh… no? I mean, I'm decent at breaking them, but I'm not immune. What, you tryna put me in one, huh? You one of those stupid strict parent types who thinks it's okay to just stick kids in illusions cause we talk with our mouths full or somethin'?"
"Something like that," the man offers, clearly just agreeing to make him stop asking.
Natsu sticks out his tongue, and then stuffs three dango in his mouth at once just to be petty as he answers, "Yeah, uhuh, an I'm th'h'kage. Yur s'picious."
The man scowls, tilting his stupid hat back, a slight creak in the background that Natsu distantly processes, and-
Natsu chokes as he struggles around swallowing his mouth full of sticky dough. He leans forward and pokes the guy's nose as he recovers. "Didja know that when your face wrinkles like that, when you scowl? It looks exactly like Sasuke's. Is that why you're wearing the stupid hat? So people don't think you're his psycho brother or something?"
The hand that closes around his wrist is firm, unshakable as a rock.
He didn't even see the man move.
Sakura-chan's dramatic groaning chokes off into sudden terror, and from this close, Natsu's unstable draconic eyes finally catch why the guy's face looks so weird.
This close, he can see the faint eddies of chakra swirling through the man's eyes the same way as Sasuke's back in the hospital, even as they turn away to look behind him.
Sharingan.
"Oh fuck-!" Natsu twists off his seat and leans in, grimacing at the strain to his wrist as he brings his elbow down on actual-psycho-brother's arm. The guy's grip breaks, eyes snapping back to Natsu as he flails, turning his forward fall to the side so he doesn't land directly into the guy's chest like one of Lucy's dramatic books.
He'd never live it down.
He's pretty sure something in his shoulder pops when he hits the ground and rolls to his feet, but that's fine, he's had worse. He snaps his eyes back up, looking, but-
The guy hasn't moved.
What was his name again?
Natsu straightens and scratches at his head, watching the guy just sit there, but… he can't remember.
Did Sasuke even say his name? Natsu only remembers him as 'psycho brother', so maybe not?
…should he ask?
Natsu considers, for a moment, but.
Nah. He doesn't care. Psycho's as good a name as any.
"Something must be very wrong with your eyes," Psycho muses, and Natsu shrugs.
Ow.
Definitely knocked something there.
"Yeah, sucks to suck, doesn't it? Why're you here? Don't you have like, psycho shit to be doing? You're some sort of criminal, right?"
He gets a very distinct feeling of Sakura-chan clubbing him on the head, and he definitely hears her calling him six kinds of idiot, but Natsu knows two things.
One, Psycho's got some kind of partner guarding the door, who smells wet in a way Natsu really does not feel confident dealing with without hurting Sakura-chan worse.
And two, Psycho left Sasuke alive and alone on purpose. Which probably makes him better than the creepy snake guy.
Maybe.
If Natsu can point them at each other, instead of him.
…worth a shot.
He's not given a chance to speak.
"My business here is none of your concern. It's a shame you've resisted the genjutsu. I would have preferred not to kill anyone until our objective was completed."
Psycho stands, echoes and ripples and magic-in-the-air-
Fast!
Natsu lands on his ass, less a successful dodge and more an erratic flail that somehow managed to get him out of the way of shearing wind. It tears the wall of the building apart, splinters raining down.
He hasn't seen jutsu change direction mid-cast like that since he came here. Some people have been faster than him, but-
These people have never had the same control over their jutsu that he has over his magic.
He and Psycho stare at each other in expectant silence.
Natsu wants to ask, but bites his tongue, good hand bracing against the wall. He composes a mental apology to Sakura-chan, reaching for that wellspring of magic, and deeper still, for Igneel himself, in the hopes that maybe-
A crash, breaking their impromptu sort-of staring contest.
Natsu catches sight of crackling electricity, and bites his tongue hard enough to choke on the blood.
If he doesn't have to fight then he shouldn't risk hurting Sakura-chan.
His fingers curl against the wall his hand is still braced against, and Natsu distinctly feels claws pierce the wood.
Fuck.
"You better not lose, Kakashi-san!" he barks, before throwing himself out the hole caused by that wind jutsu, ignoring the sharp edges as they bite his hand.
A jet of water just barely misses him as he lands and rolls, and there's so much blood in his mouth Natsu could drown in it. He spits, turning the corner to get away from the fight.
He goes a little further, not quite out of earshot if he focuses, teeth grinding.
This can't stand. Sakura-chan's smart, and.
And she has Sakuni.
If Igneel put himself in Natsu's body to help prevent him from becoming a dragon or something. Then since Sakura-chan already has Sakuni, surely if they trained, if Igneel taught her or something, they could-
Natsu can't fight here. Not if he doesn't want to permanently damage Sakura-chan's body or even kill her.
He'd probably be fine. He'd probably just go back to his own body.
He can't-
His fist sinks into a wall.
If he fights, he'll probably kill her, and definitely hurt her.
But running-
Natsu's head thunks into cool stone.
He'll have to talk to Igneel. To Sakuni.
To Sakura-chan and Kakashi too. If he's going to keep being stuck here, then he needs to be strong enough to fight the way he's used to. Learning ninja techniques, learning to use their thick chakra, when this was just a temporary thing, when they were just taking D-rank missions, that was fine. Fun, even.
But. That snake guy, and Sasuke's Psycho brother, and everything else. If they're fighting stronger people, Natsu can't waste time playing around with types of magic he's never really used before.
He needs his power.
In full.
He spins, back pressed to the wall, and sinks to the ground.
The sooner he convinces Igneel, the sooner he can get started training Sakura's body properly.
He spits the blood from his mouth again, awkwardly wiping his face, and brings his hands together.
Blood smearing his cheeks and his hand and one shoulder still dislocated, Natsu dives into the mindscape.
He's not running from any more fights.
Sasuke curses idiots the world over as he hunts down his errant teammate.
What part of meet up for lunch at Ichiraku's did the moron not understand?
Probably all of it, if Sasuke's honest, he really shouldn't be surprised. He's not sure either of his teammates know how to listen to basic instructions, unless those instructions are "do whatever you want".
Still.
Sasuke's ribs hurt, any attempt to jog sending starbursts of pain through his torso, leaving him to meander through the village at a walk if he wants to remain upright.
The teammate who can actually run without risking another trip to the hospital should not be the one missing meetings and running off.
He's checked everywhere he could think of, except Ino's stupid flower shop.
He can't imagine the two of them talking for this long, but stranger things have happened where his team is concerned, and Sasuke bites back a grimace as the shop comes into sight, picking up the pace as his Sharingan whorls into activation.
It's the only reason he catches sight of the pink hair down an alley a block away, slumped against the wall.
Sasuke's knees collide with the ground next to his teammate before he even realizes he'd run.
He can't breathe ̶ ̶i̶t̶'̶s̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶p̶a̶i̶n̶ ̶o̶n̶l̶y̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶p̶a̶i̶n̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶f̶e̶a̶r̶ ̶n̶e̶v̶e̶r̶ ̶f̶e̶a̶r̶ ̶- as he reaches out, hand steady even as his lungs choke on half-formed breaths.
A pulse.
Sasuke relaxes against his will, slumping forward, heads colliding.
Natsu's hands drop to his sides, and from that awkward angle Sasuke watches, Sharingan eyes focused, as his teammate blearily looks up at him.
"Sasuke?"
"What happened."
Sasuke doesn't move, foreheads pressed together, doesn't acknowledge his still-pounding heart.
He's grateful that his voice comes out steady.
Natsu groans. "You didn't tell me how fast your psycho brother is. That's the sort of thing you're supposed to warn people about!"
At first, the words don't make sense, as Sasuke stares into jade green eyes from an inch away. Alive, alive, alive.
Because they're alive, the words don't make sense.
Until they do.
For how tightly his chest seizes, Sasuke's heart may well have stopped beating altogether.
"Itachi's here?"
Sasuke can barely process the choked hitch to his words even as he sits back, looking over Natsu again-
"Is that that guy's name? I couldn't remember. Didn't even get to punch him in the face, had to get out of there when Kakashi-sensei showed up…"
Sasuke moves without thought, training taking over as he fights to control his breathing. He pops Natsu's dislocated shoulder back in place, dragging his eyes from unseeing distance and turning to scan the streets.
Natsu's not the type to run.
Itachi-
Doesn't let anyone escape.
Sasuke can't-
Kakashi-sensei is-
Sasuke's breaths come quick, each one a thousand tiny shocks of lighting through his lungs as his ribs heave with his rapid pants.
The Academy's control exercises flicker through his mind, unstable, distorted, every blink bleeding their memory into that night-
Every breath a lance of pain, a thin, fragile tether to here and now.
Kakashi-sensei-
Sasuke has to-
He can't-
That man can't take anyone else from him-
Natsu's hand, wrapping around his arm, hauling him to his feet.
Sasuke follows. Fights to remember his control exercises.
Natsu's hand is warm.
He can't lose anyone else-
He can't panic-
Breathe.
Breathe.
Pain, as a focus. Like in genjutsu training. Pain is here, pain is now. The sun is out.
The smell of blood-
"This is a terrible idea. Erza would kill me. The old master would kill me. I'm smarter than this." Natsu grumbles a litany of a dozen names of people who would kill him, even as he leads Sasuke-
To the sound of fighting-?
They turn the corner.
Itachi's taller, is his first, nonsensical thought.
He freezes, breath and body, Natsu's bloody hand a heavy anchor on his arm, his only tether to sanity as- as-
"Don't see Kakashi-sensei…"
Natsu's right. Sensei is-
Sasuke chokes on his next breath, held too long, eyes wide as he scans for any glimpse of silver-
Freezes, as his Sharingan eyes catch his ̶b̶r̶o̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ stumbling inelegantly away from one of Gai-sensei's lightning-fast punches-
There-!
Grey hair just barely peeking out through a shattered wall, and Sasuke tears off, ignoring the adult voices that cry out to him, Natsu's hand sliding away without resistance.
He can't lose anyone else- Itachi couldn't- he has to make sure-
He can't-
For the second time, he slams to his knees beside a teammate, and for the second time, he finds a pulse.
Unlike Natsu, though, sensei isn't awake. And he's bleeding.
Badly.
With the warmth of Natsu at his back, Sasuke tears off his shirt and uses it to put pressure on the gaping wound on Kakashi's side.
Focus-
Focus on what he can do-
Every breath a lace of fire through his chest. Did he dislodge one of his ribs when he ran?
Natsu's guarding his back.
That man-
Every breath burns.
Rage and fear and fury boil, but pain is an anchor.
He can't fight like this.
Focus on what he can do.
Sensei's still alive.
Natsu survived too.
Even if that man is here, he hasn't taken anything else.
Natsu's warmth is at his back. Sensei is here, under his hands.
Naruto is far, far away.
His people are safe. Focus on that. Let-
Let the others-
"We've overstayed our welcome. The jinchurikki is not in the village."
"Shit, really? We came all this fuckin' way for nothing?"
Jinchurikki.
Jinchurikki.
Jin. chu. ri. kki.
The word pounds, a drumbeat in time with Sasuke's heart, his hands falling away, bloody, from his teacher's side.
That man-
That murderer-
"Sasuke-!"
He charges out with a scream.
Itachi's after Naruto.