Sasuke and Naruto krept through the Hokage tower. It was so different than from what Sasuke remembered. A few weeks ago, the tower was thrumming with activity. Genin teams running back and forth. Civilians coming into place mission orders. The academy students running from class, but now it was practically a ghost town.
The lighting was cut low, as much of the electrical lines had still yet to be replaced. And with so few people, there was no point keeping the area as well lit or heated as usual.
There was a handful of chunin manning the mission desk, and even less civilians trickling in. None of the civilians could afford missions, to busy trying to recover from the economic slump following the attack. The rich civilians, who made up most of their clientele, didn't dare come in these conditions.
Naruto shushed him, eyes flickering to the figure of the third Hokage as he left the room. He didn't seem to notice the chunin looking at him curiously as he drifted towards the library.
Right where they needed to go.
Drat.
Sasuke could take a hint, and after that conversation with Haruhi-sensei, and then the most recent meeting with the history club this morning, he knew he had to take action.
There are things going on in Konoha that he had no idea about. And what better way to find out than in the library? Naruto told him about stealing the scroll where he learned shadow clones from, and how he passed a scroll with the Uchiha crest on it.
Something told Sasuke he would find answers there.
They sneaked through the halls, the place made all the more darker due to no windows. It was a security measure so enemies couldn't enter through them. Even if there had been windows, it wouldn't have done much to brighten the place up-it was overcast.
The portraits of past hokages and jounin made it all the more eerie. He felt like they were judging him and Naruto, like their eyes were following them down the hallway. Especially the Second.
"What are you guys doing?"
They jumped so high they stuck to the ceiling.
Sasuke looked down. He saw a girl that looked familiar. Hay colored hair with flyaway strands, a white lab coat a bit too big for her, and coke bottled glasses that vaguely reminded him of Haruhi-sensei. She graduated the year before them. Shiho?
"Hello, Shiho."
She gasped.
"Oh! You remembered my name!" She seemed flattered. Good. Ahead of them, the Third walked into the library.
"Shiho, would you walk with us to the library? It's been awhile since we last saw you at the academy. We could catch up."
"What a great idea! I was just heading there myself to get more encrypting books!"
Naruto breathed a sigh of relief, muttering a quick 'good save' to Sasuke from the corner of his mouth.
They walked slowly down the hall, and even Shiho seemed to pick up on the tense atmosphere, her talking going from loud and excited to almost a whisper. She ducked her head down.
When they entered the library Sasuke covertly activated his sharingan, looking at the place in the back of the library, hidden by bookshelves and walls, where the chakra was warped. It was hardly anything, and if Naruto hadn't given him the exact location to look, he never would have noticed.
"Ah, children! So good to see you here!"
Sasuke turned to see the third. He had ink on his sleeves. Tobacco ash fell onto his robes, and his hat was askew. His eyes were...distant. Like he was seeing somewhere else.
"It's good to see you as well, Lord Third!" Shiho greeted.
"Old man!" Naruto cried. He ran up and gave the third a hug.
He seemed... confused.
Sasuke's pulse jumped. Something was very wrong with the Third Hokage.
"Oh, Mikoto, who's your friend?" The Third asked genially.
Mikoto!? Why on earth did the Third refer to him by his mother's name? Sasuke did look very much like his mom, but that didn't explain why!
"Lord third,"Sasuke began cautiously, "You know him. That's Naruto Uzumaki."
He blinked.
"Oh, it's you, Kushina Uzumaki! I was beginning to wonder when you'd come talk to me! It's great to see you and Mikoto are still such good friends!" He rubbed Naruto's hair.
Naruto was now looking at the third with big eyes. He slowly backed away until he bumped into a shocked Shiho.
"Old man? Don't you remember me?"
The Third smiled blandly. His hat sloped a little further.
"Minato, of course!"
Sasuke froze.
Oh.
He and Shiho exchanged horrified glances. The Third was renowned for his intelligence and quick wit. It's what earned his the position of Hokage, beside his connections to the senju. The fact that someone so well read and brilliant as the Third to the point of being nicknamed the professor could lose his memory like this was nothing short of terrifying.
Naruto seemed to realize it too. He started to shake. Shiho put her coat around him.
"You guys go ahead, get what you need to. I'll talk to the third." She said gently. Sasuke felt affection for Shiho well up inside him. That was an incredibly kind thing she just did, even though she suspected them of foul play, since they came here without permission, obviously sneaking around. Respect.
Sasuke led Naruto away while Shiho talked to the Third, and led him back to his office.
Just what did this mean for Konoha? The Hokage was going senile, the village wasn't nearly recovered from the attack, the division between the civilians and ninja got wider with each passing moment, and the Village Elders were seconds away from a coup.
And who would be Hokage after the Third?
They stopped in the corner. Naruto was still trembling.
"C'mon Naruto, I'm sorry this is happening, but I can't do this without you." Sasuke whispered. He was still supporting Naruto.
"The old man doesn't remember me." He whispered, stunned.
Sasuke flinched. He couldn't even imagine what that was like. He knew the third was pretty much the first person to treat Naruto like a person, and actually care for him. For the Third to slip through his fingers like that must have been awful.
"Why?"
"Well, He is old, Naruto. And that Hat gets heavy after a while."
Naruto inhaled shakily.
"R-right. Right. Okay, lets get what we came her for."
Naruto breathed deeply, and disarmed the traps. Sasuke dispelled genjutsu, and Naruto used the chakra the third gave to him during the hug to unlock the heavy iron door. It swung open.
They entered and closed it behind them. Sasuke lit a small flame in the palm of his hand using a modified fireball jutsu, and grabbed Naruto's hand with his other. Together they walked down the narrow passageway. The small reach of his hand fire only went a few feet, and rows upon rows of scrolls disappeared up and above them. The entire area smells of mildew and minerals. There were preservation seals on the shelves-some of the metal, other carved out of the stone. Sasuke though he heard water dripping down as if in some cave.
They read the outside of the scrolls until they came to the U's.
"Hey Naruto."
Sasuke almost jumped at the sound of his own voice. It seemed to echo across countless bookshelves. So many of them. Just what was Konoha hiding?
"Wanna see if there's anything on the Uzumaki too?"
Naruto blinked, then nodded.
They scanned the rows with Sasuke's firelight, and found a scroll with the swirl emblem on it.
"Whirlpool?" Naruto mumbled. He still sounded shaky, but better than before.
"It says Uzumaki. Grab it."
Naruto pocketed it and they kept looking.
When they finally found the scroll, with the Uchiha crest on it, Sasuke's breathe caught in his throat.
It looked so innocuous. It was just sitting there, slightly wrinkled, and rolled up.
Sasuke took the scroll.
"Lets go. We can read them somewhere else."
They quickly left, their feet thudding on the stone ground, and breathes coming out in puffs of silvery clouds in front of their faces as they darted down the narrow passages.
When they got to the iron door, they shoved it open and closed it behind them. Naruto reactivated the traps, and Sasuke lifted his checks on the genjutsu.
They stepped back, and it was almost like they were never there.
Sasuke and Naruto tiptoed through the eerily empty library and tried not to flinch as the rumbling thunder rattled some of the dusty cobwebed light fixtures. Looks like nobody had the time to clean. They didn't stop, although Naruto slowed down significantly when he saw the third at the mission desk, being tended to by the female village elder, the one with the purple hair up in chopsticks. She was helping him fill out papers. The finally made it out and jumped to a secluded area-the top of the hokage mountain.
Sasuke pulled the scroll with the Uchiha markings on it, took a deep breath, exchanged glances with Naruto, and opened it.
And then he couldn't breathe.
On the Authority of the Council of Elders and the Third Hokage, we hereby order the execution of the Uchiha Clan on grounds of Treason, for the planning of a Coup d'état and general mismanagement. This extermination will be carried out by Itachi Uchiha, and the aftermath handled by Special Ops. Konoha's branches must be pruned in order for us to flourish. The Will of Fire burns on.
-Koharu Utatane, Danzō Shimura, Homura Mitokado,Sarutobi Hiruzen.
"...Sasuke?" Naruto whispered. He had been reading over his shoulder. He had seen it too. Four sentences. Maybe half a paper, if that, which spelled doom for his clan. This tiny scrap was all it took and hundreds were dead.
Sasuke hates. He is suddenly glad that the Third is suffering in his old age, that Haruhi sensei mocked the village elders, that Utatane has to sit and watch as the man she loves fades away before her helpless eyes!
"Sasuke, your scaring me."
Sasuke was trembling, his sharingan activated, swirling as he burned the tiny slip of paper into his memory. Everything he had know was flipped onto its head.
He knew something was wrong...but he never could have expected this.
Just everything about this paper was fucked up beyond all belief.
Itachi was ordered to do this…?! But what did that even mean for them? Was he ordered to torture Sasuke? Why was Sasuke even alive? Why was he spared then if the entire clan was ordered to be executed? Why did Itachi spare him only to almost destroy Sasuke's sanity?
Even with this new knowledge that Itachi, only 13-his age in fact-was pressured by the higher ups, didn't wash the blood off his hands.
It.
Did.
Not.
Absolve.
Him.
He stabbed his family in the back for Konoha, who hated them, discriminated against them, and who orchestrated their downfall ever since the village was a thing, if Kasumi's history lessons were anything to go by. Which they were. He could have warned his family, as least spared the babies and civilians, but he mercylessly wiped them all out.
No. Itachi was not forgiven. Hurt like that does not go away.
(his brother spared him, did that mean he cared?)
The fact that they compared the genocide of an entire family to fucking pruning, of all things! And how they used the word extermination. Haruhi-sensei said that was one of the words they used during one of these 'genocides' in her world, called the Holocaust. In order to make the deaths of many seem less important, like squashing cockroaches instead of murdering people. Like it was a good thing. It was too much.
Sasuke ran.
"Sasuke-wait!"
But Naruto couldn't keep up with him. He could hear Naruto's cries as he ran through the undergrowth, branches whipping into his face, breathing staggered and shallow.
What was to stop the village from killing him too? To keep him a complacent little robot, spewing the Will of Fire wherever he went? Burning others to the ground?
A bolt of pure terror ran through him and he tripped and fell to the ground, shivering.
What about Haruhi-sensei?
She kept it toned down, but she was still the most outspoken person Sasuke knew, even topping Naruto, in all of his former obliviousness. She was used to a world where she could speak her mind.
His eyes darted around searching for masked figures coming to take him away to some cell in T&I. Just like how it was with Orochimaru.
It takes him longer than it should, but he realizes he is at the Uchiha compound.
He curls up and whimpers, and he wants to hate himself for being so weak, just like how Itachi said, pathetic, but he knows better now.
He is allowed to cry. He is allowed to be sad. Those things are not wrong. Those things do not make him weak.
Sasuke knows this now, along with so many other things.
Like how Itachi is a liar, and although his words echo in his head, Sasuke knows they are wrong.
He twitches when he hears footsteps and heavy breathing, before looking up, otherwise immaculate vision blurred by tears.
It was Haruhi-sensei.
Her hair was in a row of braids she called cornrows, the ends spilling over her shoulders. Her clothes were rumpled from running, and sweat dripped from her brow. Her eyes were filled with worry, the amber sparkling in the fading sunlight behind her glasses.
"Oh, Sasuke, come here…"
She staggered over to him and fell to her knees, covering his body with hers and hugging him. She turned, pulling him into her lap, and Sasuke, for the first time in years, felt safe.
She said nothing as she let him cry, and he was grateful for that. He felt her breath hitch as she read the crumpled letter detailing the truth behind the massacre, and she held him closer.
He finally calmed down enough for her to get his attention. She was holding up a kunai from his pocket, close to his face.
"Look at your eyes." She whispered.
He didn't want to, but he finally emerged, bringing his face from the crook of her neck and looked into the reflective metal.
His eyes had red stars in them.
He watches as they swirl into his regular black. He remembers at that moment, of Itachi telling his to kill his best friend to unlock the same power as him, and feels a sharp stab of relief and vindication. He didn't and he still got the eyes. Itachi was wrong, wrong.
Haruhi-sensei put the kunai away, and rocked him gently in her lap, to the point where Sasuke made no noise when Kakashi-sensei arrived minutes later, and read the same letter they had read.
Sasuke tensed up. What would Kakashi-sensei do? Would he turn Sasuke in for taking the scroll, would he-
A hand, too large and callused to be Haruhi-sensei's, runs through his hair.
He feels Kakashi sit next to them, folding the letter and tucking it deeply into his pockets, where Haruhi used to be, and he hugs them both.
"It'll be alright. I'll make sure of it." Kakashi-sensei promises. His voice is deep and gravelly, but soaked in sincerity.
He feels Haruhi-sensei grit her jaw, nodding along, and despite all the lies, the betrayal, the manipulation, he can't help but believe them.
This is a game changer of unimaginable proportions. Literally two thirds of the original plot was driven by Sasuke and his quest for revenge. Kakashi's faith in konoha was already wavering, what with trying to kill the woman he loves and his students, but it has officially reached a breaking point.
Literally anything can happen; it's a toss up from now on.
And also, Happy 50's chapter! WOW guys, we really made it here! When I started this story, I never could have though I'd make it this far, but seeing it believing, so thank you!
Question of the chapter: What do you think the repercussion of Sasuke finding out the truth will be?