Naruto AU, timeskip scenes part the third
All done with timeskip scenes! Soon - ACTUAL AU.
So, the final scene has been jossed to hell, but you know what - if someone wanted us to know that Kakashi had the mangekyou sharingan before the timeskip, maybe someone should have showed him with it, Kishimoto. Anyway, AU is now even more AU, oh no, whatever, I have a great plan for Tobidara stuff and gods willing I will even make it that far. XD
Content notes: Awkward talks about the massacre (not between Itachi and Sasuke of course because hahaha what is emotional intelligence), slight discussion of torture/interrogation, public bathing, oh Obito no.
Haku and Sasuke
Haku had only visited Sasuke's apartment once or twice before, but she had no difficulty in finding it again; she was curious about Sasuke's reason for asking her to meet him there, rather than at Ichiraku or Naruto's apartment or a training field. When she knocked at the door, she expected Sasuke to answer, but it was Sasuke's older brother Itachi who opened it. Haku didn't allow a hint of her surprise show on her face. "Good morning, Itachi-san," she said. "Is Sasuke here?"
If Itachi was surprised to see her, he didn't let it show, either. "Yes, he's still here," he said. "Did the two of you have plans?"
"Yeah, we're training," Sasuke said, from somewhere out of Haku's line of vision.
Itachi stepped back from the door and turned his head. "I thought that we were going to train together today," he said. "I took the day off..."
"It's a different kind," Sasuke said as he appeared at the door, edging his way past Itachi. "We can train later. Come on, Haku."
"Perhaps after you're done, you can both come back here for snacks," Itachi suggested.
"That would be -"
"Yeah, maybe," Sasuke said, and he took off down the stairs, forcing Haku to follow with only a quick wave in farewell to Itachi.
At first Sasuke set a pace too swift for conversation as they headed for one of their usual training grounds, but he took an abrupt wrong turn a couple of blocks away from the apartment and slowed down enough that Haku could say, "That seemed a little harsh."
Sasuke didn't answer.
"Where are we going?"
"You'll see."
After a few minutes, Sasuke took another turn, and the pair of them ended up in front of a closed and locked gate, where banners with the same fanlike symbol that was on most of Sasuke's shirts hung limp and faded. Sasuke was staring at the gates with an unreadable expression; Haku was about to ask what this place was when Sasuke said abruptly, "It's okay to go in, but we have to go over the wall," and he jumped up to the top of the gates.
Haku swallowed her questions and followed him, not without a little nervousness; her reputation in the village wasn't so assured that she could afford to get caught breaking any rules. No traps or alarms activated at her entrance, however, and Sasuke led her down empty, narrow streets until they reached a large house that must have been quite elegant when inhabited, but now appeared only weatherbeaten and a little dilapidated. Sasuke hesitated a moment before pushing open the door and starting to go inside.
"Wait," said Haku. "Are you certain that it's all right?"
"Yes," Sasuke said, "it's my house." He vanished inside.
At that point Haku was ready to say something very cutting to Sasuke about how even the best shinobi could be too mysterious for their own good, especially when it came to their friends, but that would require being close enough for Sasuke to hear her. She sighed, entered the house, and found Sasuke at the overgrown garden in its center. He was staring into a small, algae-covered pond that might once have held koi; she stood beside him, crossed her arms, and said, "Would you like to tell me what we're doing here instead of training?"
Sasuke glared at the pond in silence for a minute. "This used to be my home," he said at last. "All the Uchiha lived in this compound, but this was where my family lived, me and my mother and father - and Itachi."
Haku waited for him to keep talking. She'd gotten a lot of practice at that.
"Itachi killed them five years ago," Sasuke said. "All of them. Someone helped him, I don't know who, but he was the one - he killed my parents. Everyone but me. And I don't know why!" He took a deep breath, his fists clenched. "I've been trying to figure it out with Naruto - and Sakura, now - but it's been more complicated than I thought. That's why I let Orochimaru - why I didn't turn him in at first. And why I'm telling you, if you'll help."
"I see," Haku said, her mind swiftly sorting through what little she had previously heard about Itachi and fitting it in with Sasuke's revelation. It certainly explained why Naruto had given up explaining with "it's just kind of complicated."
"You don't have to," Sasuke said, though his expression suggested otherwise. "I know what you're thinking - 'oh, there's no way he did it,' 'he must have had a reason,' 'the Hokage wouldn't let him stay if he did it' - that's what everyone says, they all -"
"I'll help you."
"- thinking he's so nice and perfect, if they don't - what?"
"I'll help you," Haku said. Sasuke usually slid out of or recoiled from any gestures of affection, but she took his hand anyway. "Sasuke - I barely know your brother, and you're someone who saved my life, even when I thought I didn't want to be saved. Of course I'm going to help you, as much as I can."
Sasuke stared at her, looking too shocked even to pull his hand away. "Really?"
"Yes." She squeezed his hand once, then released it. "I don't know if I can do very much, since there are still people who don't trust me, but whatever I can do to help, I will."
Sasuke was still staring; then - he didn't smile, but a light came into his face that Haku hadn't seen in it since Naruto had left. "Thanks," he said. He looked around and added, "We should probably go now, before - in case someone gets suspicious. But thanks."
"Of course," Haku said, and she let Sasuke lead the way to their usual training ground.
Anko and Itachi II
Anko knew it had been a bad mission the moment Itachi walked through her door; his face was too still, and she could smell it on him - fresh blood, old blood, death, someone else's fear. "I'll get some tea started," she said.
"I killed my family."
"Okay, maybe something stronger than tea."
"This isn't a joking matter," Itachi said, and the rawness in his voice was enough to stop her before she reached the cupboard with the good tea and the expensive sake.
Instead she sat back down on the couch and waved him over to sit with her. He did, but he was sitting as stiff and upright as a puppet getting yanked around by a puppet master, and it irritated her so much that she sprawled out with one leg across his knees and the other stretched out behind his back just to be contrary. "All right, go ahead and talk," she said. "Nothing to worry about, I had Tassa check for bugs earlier and the place is clean. Relatively. Eh, you know what I mean."
"You seem to be taking this very calmly, Anko-san." Itachi's voice was calm on the surface, anything but beneath, with a terrible edge.
"I have ears, you idiot," Anko said, because the day she was scared of some teenager's voice would be the day she took up rice farming. "People have been gossiping for over five years about whether there really was a missing-nin who could take out the entire Uchiha clan without breaking a sweat, and the general consensus? No." She kneed him in the back, but gently. "Trust me, if that was gonna be a deal-breaker, I'd never have invited you over for tea in the first place."
"Then why would you - why wouldn't that be -"
"Talking to Orochimaru's ex-apprentice, here." Fuck, she couldn't stand watching him slump like that; she wrapped her legs around him and scooted close enough to tilt his head up, turn it around, and lean her forehead against his. "I know a little about doing shit you know you'll regret. At least you're here, taking care of your brother, being loyal to the village - unless you're not, in which case you know I'll fucking kill you, right?"
"I'm definitely not betraying the village," said Itachi, without even the hint of a smile. He did turn to lean against her a little, though, so she counted that as half a point for her awesome on-the-fly therapy skills.
"Just checking," she said. "Now. You wanna talk about it?"
He closed his eyes and didn't answer for a while; she was just thinking about dumping him on the floor and getting a snack when he said, very quietly, "I didn't have a choice. They would have killed Sasuke."
"Whoa. Whoa. I feel like there's something you maybe haven't mentioned about your family, like that they were secretly Jashinists or -"
"No, not the clan - not directly." He took a deep breath, still not opening his eyes, so she wrapped her arms around his shoulders. "The council. ANBU."
She waited, because this still explained exactly shit.
"The clan was going to rebel," he said. "The Hokage wanted to negotiate, but if that didn't work, the entire clan was to be executed. Everyone. I had to choose, the clan or the village, and Sasuke - he didn't know anything, he was too young. I couldn't - I had help, of a kind, but I was the one who chose. I killed them all. I had to, to protect Sasuke."
"Okay," Anko said. "Okay, I get it." Fuck, that sure cleared up a lot. She could smell Danzo all over that brilliant idea. No wonder Sasuke had always been such a jumpy little brat around Itachi.
"My parents didn't even try to fight me," and his voice cracked, of course it would crack because he was barely eighteen and five years ago he'd been thirteen, and one day when the time was right there were going to be some really fucking sorry council members getting acquainted with a few of Anko's special pets. Right now she had to settle for keeping herself wrapped around her stupid, horrible boyfriend, stroking his back and making useless "ssh" noises at him even though he wasn't actually crying. He was so the type who'd think he didn't deserve to cry. Idiot.
"Don't tell Sasuke," he said at last. "Please. He didn't know what the clan was planning, and he loved our family - please don't tell him."
Anko stopped patting his back. "Well, that sounds like a recipe for getting poison in your rice balls."
"It doesn't matter. Just - please don't tell him anything that I've said."
She could still feel the tenseness in his shoulders, stiff and defensive. "Sure, sure," she said. "I won't say a word, it's your funeral. You ready for some tea yet?"
She never asked him what his mission had been that day. Some things even she didn't want to know.
Haku and Ino
Haku opened the door to the flower shop and was greeted with the scent of lilies, thick and sweet; then the sight of Ino, her pale hair shining as she wove the white flowers into a wreath, until she looked up and waved at Haku. "Haku-san, come on in!" she said cheerfully. "It's been way too long - hey, can you give me a hand with these? We got this huge order and Mom had to go help some of her old genin team on a mission and Dad's totally busy with some classified stuff, I'm like, dying here all by myself..."
"Of course, I would be happy to help."
They worked together for a while in silence before Ino said, "So, Dad said you asked him about getting work as a shinobi - is that for real?"
"Yes. I've been thinking that since my arm has been better for a while now, I'd like to take the chuunin exams and become a proper Konoha ninja..." Haku trimmed the stem of a lily and caught the excess length before it fell, then handed it to Ino. "Is there a problem?"
"No, no way! You're like, really strong - it's a total waste for you to be stuck in a ramen stand all day. It's just..." Ino hesitated. "Dad said you were going to try for a position with T&I if you made chuunin, and that - it doesn't really seem to suit you, Haku-san."
"Ah, really?" Haku said. She picked up a bare frame for another wreath and began to weave greenery among the wires, the leaves cool and pliable in her hands.
"I - I'm not saying anything against my dad," said Ino, fussing with the lilies. "But like - okay, he told me about you helping already with those people from Sound, not the classified details or anything, just that you talked with them. And that's really nice, but it's - it's not always like that, you know? Dad doesn't have to do the physical stuff because of our clan techniques, but I know what they have to do there sometimes. So - it just doesn't seem like it'd be a good job for you."
"I see."
Neither of them spoke for another few minutes as the wreaths took shape.
"I'd like to make it different," Haku said, and Ino's hands stilled. "There are worse places to be interrogated than Konoha, but still, I think that it's more effective, to use ways that aren't - to talk to people, and get them to trust you, and to trust them, too. Perhaps it's a little naive of me, but that's what I would like to do, if I can. If I could help at all..."
"Oh," Ino said. "Well..." She smiled suddenly, wide and bright. "Then you should go for it, Haku-san, and don't hesitate! If it's you, I think you can definitely change things."
Haku couldn't answer for a moment, bowing her head over the wreath she was working on; then with some effort she looked up and smiled back at Ino. "Thank you," she said. "I'll do my best."
Sasuke and Itachi III
"Let's go to the public baths together."
Sasuke didn't even bother looking up from the letter he was reading. "We have a shower." The apartment's shower was tiny and prone to running out of hot water at inopportune moments, but it worked well enough that Sasuke had never felt the need to go to the public bathhouse unless Naruto was dragging him along to peek or something. Which hadn't been a problem for almost two years.
"I think that it would be a nice family bonding experience," Itachi said.
"Did you get that out of those books Anko gave you?" Sasuke would have sworn a bloody and painful vengeance on Anko for loaning Itachi all those self-help books, except that he was pretty sure she regretted it as much as he did.
"It will be pleasant and relaxing," said Itachi, which wasn't exactly an answer. "We haven't bathed together in a long time, after all..."
"So what?"
"Let's go to the baths."
Somehow, despite Sasuke's determination otherwise, he ended up at the bathhouse with Itachi and an armful of towels and soap. "This is stupid," he said, just to make sure Itachi didn't get the wrong idea. Itachi ignored him to pay the entrance fee, and Sasuke resigned himself to an evening of embarrassment.
It wasn't too bad at first, when they were just stripping and putting their stuff in lockers, but by the time they settled down to clean up before getting in the bath, the muttering had started.
"Aren't those the -"
"- younger one helped Orochimaru - yes, that Orochimaru, the one who -"
"- one of those ANBU types, you know what they -"
Sasuke scrubbed furiously at a perfectly clean patch of skin on his left leg. He'd known this was a terrible idea, but no, Itachi still had to go and drag him out in public so they could both get stared at and whispered about like they were freaks. That was really how Sasuke had wanted to spend the evening, when he could have just stayed home and showered and been re-reading the latest letters from Naruto and Sakura by now. Stupid Itachi and his stupid, completely hopeless attempts to act like the two of them could ever be a normal family again. He would have been better off leaving with Orochimaru than staying to live through this.
"I heard he was the one who killed -"
"- ran around with that kid, the demon -"
"I can't believe they have the guts to -"
"Sasuke? Do you want any help washing your back?"
Interrupted in his seething, Sasuke blinked and looked over at Itachi. "What?"
"Do you want me to wash your back?" Itachi said.
Sasuke stared at him and felt his face get hotter and hotter, sensing the eyes of everyone else in the room fixed directly on the two of them. Finally he managed to say, "No! I can do it myself, I'm not five anymore."
"I know," said Itachi, and he went back to washing his hair. A moment later he said thoughtfully, "It's too bad, you were cute when you were little. You always wanted me to play with you..."
"I was never -!" Sasuke stopped himself just in time, and thought longingly about how if he killed Itachi now, it would probably be considered self-defense from death by humiliation and no one in the bathhouse would argue otherwise. He settled for muttering, "Anyway, you were always too busy."
"I know," Itachi said again, and mercifully he didn't say anything else until they had rinsed off and actually gotten in the bath, settling into a corner away from most of the other bathers - maybe Itachi had noticed the whispering for once. Sasuke had sunk into the hot water as deeply as he could, hoping that no one would pay any attention to him, when against Sasuke's unspoken wishes Itachi said, "I'm sorry."
"What for?"
"For being so busy. Even as a genin, it seemed like I was always busy."
"Pulling weeds?" It was the first genin mission that came to Sasuke's mind; his arms were still sore from helping someone with their garden earlier that day. Weed-pulling apparently used a completely different set of muscles than most shinobi exercises.
"Among other things," Itachi said, with a trace of a smile. "I didn't mind those kind of missions, though. They were so different from the war..."
"The Third Shinobi War?" Sasuke said, trying to remember the dates he'd learned and doing some quick calculations. "You weren't old enough to fight in that."
Itachi didn't answer at once; he leaned back against the edge of the bath and looked at the wall mural for a minute, but not as if he were really seeing it. "It was a hard war, especially at the end," he said. "If you were able to hold a weapon, you could fight... It wouldn't happen that way now."
"But - you would have been -" Sasuke couldn't complete the thought, at least not out loud, but Itachi didn't seem to have heard him. He was still looking through the wall mural, and Sasuke watched him with a strange, heavy feeling in his stomach.
He'd never thought much about the Third Shinobi War beyond what he learned at the academy, reasons and dates and battles. It had been over before he was born, and people didn't talk about it much; its end had been overshadowed by the Kyuubi's attack and the death of the Fourth Hokage. He had never realized that Itachi had fought in it. Other people he knew must have fought in it, too - his parents would have fought, and Shisui, and Anko and Kakashi and Gai and whoever Naruto's parents had been and Jiraiya and even Orochimaru before he'd turned traitor.
What does your brother love above all else?
How could Itachi love a village that would put him on a battlefield when he was four years old? Maybe Sasuke had gotten it wrong somehow, or something had happened in the war that had made Itachi think it was perfectly normal to kill most of his family and then act like nothing was wrong...
"It's still a shame that I was so busy, though," Itachi said, breaking Sasuke's chain of thought before he could follow it any further. "I would have liked to spend more time with you when you were still cute."
"Shut up."
Sasuke and Hinata
"Um - excuse me, S-Sasuke-kun?"
Sasuke looked up from the scroll on genjutsu that he was reading and saw a vaguely familiar girl standing in front of him; she had short, dark hair and pale Hyuuga eyes, and he was sure she'd been in his class at the Academy. What was her name again? Right... "Hinata?"
"Oh, y-you remembered me," she said, her cheeks turning pink. "I didn't think you would..."
With some dismay, Sasuke saw that she had a letter in one hand. Between that and the blush - damn. Another one. Since his latest growth spurt, they'd been worse than all the other people normally staring at him. "What do you want?" he said.
"Um, I-I was just wondering if - if it's not too much trouble - could you please send this letter to N-N-Naruto-kun?"
Sasuke blinked. That was a change. "Why don't you send it yourself?"
"I would, but - but he's traveling, so I don't know how." Hinata looked down, and her fingers tightened on the envelope in her hand, creasing it slightly. "I thought - since you're his best friend, you'd know where he was s-so you could write him, and it - um - it wouldn't further compromise the security of his location..."
The last bit sounded like something she'd memorized in school, but it was good thinking; Sasuke found himself approving.
"A-anyway, could you please send it," she said, "if - if you don't mind, and it isn't too much trouble..." She suddenly bit her lip and looked up, directly into Sasuke's eyes. "No, I mean - even if it's troublesome, please send him this letter! I want to encourage him while he's training, no matter what! So - um - w-would you please..." Her voice trailed off into nothing as she stared at the ground again, her face completely red.
Sasuke reached out and took the letter out of her hand before she tensed up so much that the envelope tore. "I'll send it," he said. He wasn't sure if Naruto would remember who Hinata was or not, but Naruto wouldn't care; he would just take it as a sign that he was finally getting popular.
Hinata gave Sasuke a brief, brilliant smile, and then fled so swiftly that she nearly knocked the scroll out of his hands.
Weird girl, he thought, and went back to studying.
Kakashi, Itachi, and Sasuke
Even the scent of the leaf-mould was perfect: faint, dank, not overpowering, the slightest hint of a sharp vinegar smell to it that you didn't get in the forests around Konoha. Kakashi had to admire the thoroughness of it, at least until the rock hit him in the side of the head - damn! Blind spot! - and he went sprawling with his face buried in the ground and the thick scent of the leaf-mould mingling with stone dust.
Hands grabbed and threw him, and he crashed into another boulder, blinded and coughing. He sat up, blinking dust out of his good eye, and saw Rin beside him, but not - "Obito?"
"Rin... Kakashi... Are you all right?"
He scrambled towards Obito's weak voice with arms and legs that were too short, damn damn damn, and it didn't matter, he was too late, half of Obito's face was bloody and the other half...
But even as he tried to move the rock that was crushing his best friend, the Kusa forest faded into familiar grass, trees, the memorial stone, and Uchiha Itachi's attempt at a concerned face. "How was it?" Itachi asked.
"Good. Very good," Kakashi said, strategically choosing to lean against one of the posts near the memorial stone before his knees decided that they were still back in Kusagakure territory and gave out. "Excellent detail. Obito's hair was a little shorter than that, though. And his face was a bit rounder." He didn't mention that Obito had looked a little too much like Uchiha Shisui, because he had gotten used to being alive most of the time, even if it meant putting up with the last two Uchiha in the village on a daily basis.
"I apologize," said Itachi. "My memories of Obito aren't very clear."
Kakashi waved the apology off. "It was still good." He paused, squinted out of Obito's eye, and said, "Not good enough, I guess. Any change?"
"I'm afraid not." Itachi shrugged. "Perhaps the genjutsu wasn't strong enough, or ended too soon. I'm not sure what's going wrong."
At least he had enough tact not to openly suggest that the problem was in Obito's eye, but that wasn't saying much. "Well, maybe what we need to do is move to the next level. If ordinary genjutsu won't do the job..."
"Tsukuyomi," Itachi said. "I'm not sure that would be wise, Kakashi-san. From my reading, it can cause severe mental damage that would be difficult for most medics to treat. If Tsunade-sama had remained in the village, perhaps, but at present -"
"I wasn't aware that you'd come out here to baby-sit me," Kakashi said, and took just a little bit of satisfaction in the way Itachi's emotionless mask slipped for a moment to show his irritation. "I'll live through it, I promise. Or is it - how's your eyesight been lately, Itachi?"
That definitely got under Itachi's skin; he frowned and said, "My right eye is unaffected. The left has begun to lose focus at forty meters, but the first-level sharingan is enough to compensate for now."
"Good, good, then you can waste another few meters on me," Kakashi said, forcing a smile and stepping away from the post. "Unless you have a better idea?"
"Very well," said Itachi, after a long pause, and the tomoe of his sharingan expanded into the mangekyou's blades.
The world inverted into black and grey and streaked reddish-orange, the trees of Kusa outlined in sketchy white. Kakashi could see out of his left eye this time, but there was a terrible grinding pain in it as it pulled at what little chakra he had left; all of his exposed skin was burning, scraped raw from the fighting. Rin was kneeling by Obito, holding his hand, but the rocks around them were shifting with the enemy's jutsu and Kakashi reached for her to pull her out.
Rin hesitated. "Obito..."
"It's all right - go!"
Kakashi grabbed her hand and yanked her through the narrowing gap in the rocks even as she reached back for Obito, screaming his name. She collapsed against Kakashi and he reached for Obito but the stones were crashing together over Obito's bloody, smiling face and he had to jump away and beneath it all a deep voice - Itachi's voice, his own voice, there was no difference in the black and red world - was whispering this is your fault, if you hadn't abandoned him you could have saved him, you killed him -
The landscape warped, redrew itself, and he was standing above Rin and Obito on shaky legs again, pulling Rin out again, watching the ground swallow his best friend again as that voice whispered in the depths of his mind.
Warp. Redraw. Fail. Your fault.
Warp. Redraw. Fail. Obito...
Warp. Redraw. Fail. Lower than trash.
Warp. Redraw. Reach for Rin and yank her out of the rocks and Obito's white smile smeared with grey blood shattered into green and blue and black.
"-kashi! Hey! Kakashi, what's wrong?"
Kakashi blinked and squinted, forcing Obito's eye shut; the world was too vivid and yet washed out at the same time, each detail bright and clear but difficult to put together. That certainly hadn't been Itachi's frantic voice, however, and the red-eyed face staring at him wasn't Itachi's, either. He managed to croak, "Sasuke?"
"Are you all right?" Sasuke said.
Kakashi felt like he'd fought the entire Third Shinobi War again several times over, which was about as far from all right as you could get. It was worse than physical exhaustion; even his soul, or whatever he had that passed for one, ached as if Obito were still dying in front of him.
Fortunately Sasuke didn't wait for him to answer, but immediately turned on Itachi, whose eyes had already darkened back to the usual black. "What the hell did you do to him?" Sasuke demanded.
"It was - I'll go get a medic," said Itachi. "Kakashi-san, don't try to move -" There was a laugh, Kakashi didn't think he could move if he tried. "- and Sasuke, please stay with him, I'll be right back."
He vanished, and Kakashi let himself collapse against the post at his back (when had he backed up that far?) and slide down to sit in the grass; his limbs felt about as solid and dependable as flowing water. Damn. Not that he was going to admit it, but maybe this one time he should have listened to Itachi.
Sasuke crouched in front of him, his sharingan still on. "What happened?" he said. "Are you hurt?"
"No," Kakashi said, which wasn't technically a lie. "Just tired." Even talking was an effort.
"What was he trying to do? Was it because of your sharingan?"
"Yes," said Kakashi, and realized it had been exactly the wrong thing to say when Sasuke's expression went from his normal scowl to murderous. "Not like that! It was training. Training! That's all."
Sasuke didn't look convinced. "If he tries to do anything to you again, I'll -"
"He's not trying to kill me, I swear. It was just training." Well, that was something Kakashi really needed, his student trying to become his bodyguard. He found the energy for a sigh and opened Obito's eye. "Speaking of which - any difference?"
Sasuke shook his head.
"Damn," Kakashi said, and passed out.
Naruto, characters, etc. © Kishimoto who is my worst favorite EXCEPT FOR ITACHI, OBVIOUSLY.
Crossposted from Dreamwidth - read the original post here: http://brief-transit.dreamwidth.org/195679.html .
So, the final scene has been jossed to hell, but you know what - if someone wanted us to know that Kakashi had the mangekyou sharingan before the timeskip, maybe someone should have showed him with it, Kishimoto. Anyway, AU is now even more AU, oh no, whatever, I have a great plan for Tobidara stuff and gods willing I will even make it that far. XD
Content notes: Awkward talks about the massacre (not between Itachi and Sasuke of course because hahaha what is emotional intelligence), slight discussion of torture/interrogation, public bathing, oh Obito no.
Haku and Sasuke
Haku had only visited Sasuke's apartment once or twice before, but she had no difficulty in finding it again; she was curious about Sasuke's reason for asking her to meet him there, rather than at Ichiraku or Naruto's apartment or a training field. When she knocked at the door, she expected Sasuke to answer, but it was Sasuke's older brother Itachi who opened it. Haku didn't allow a hint of her surprise show on her face. "Good morning, Itachi-san," she said. "Is Sasuke here?"
If Itachi was surprised to see her, he didn't let it show, either. "Yes, he's still here," he said. "Did the two of you have plans?"
"Yeah, we're training," Sasuke said, from somewhere out of Haku's line of vision.
Itachi stepped back from the door and turned his head. "I thought that we were going to train together today," he said. "I took the day off..."
"It's a different kind," Sasuke said as he appeared at the door, edging his way past Itachi. "We can train later. Come on, Haku."
"Perhaps after you're done, you can both come back here for snacks," Itachi suggested.
"That would be -"
"Yeah, maybe," Sasuke said, and he took off down the stairs, forcing Haku to follow with only a quick wave in farewell to Itachi.
At first Sasuke set a pace too swift for conversation as they headed for one of their usual training grounds, but he took an abrupt wrong turn a couple of blocks away from the apartment and slowed down enough that Haku could say, "That seemed a little harsh."
Sasuke didn't answer.
"Where are we going?"
"You'll see."
After a few minutes, Sasuke took another turn, and the pair of them ended up in front of a closed and locked gate, where banners with the same fanlike symbol that was on most of Sasuke's shirts hung limp and faded. Sasuke was staring at the gates with an unreadable expression; Haku was about to ask what this place was when Sasuke said abruptly, "It's okay to go in, but we have to go over the wall," and he jumped up to the top of the gates.
Haku swallowed her questions and followed him, not without a little nervousness; her reputation in the village wasn't so assured that she could afford to get caught breaking any rules. No traps or alarms activated at her entrance, however, and Sasuke led her down empty, narrow streets until they reached a large house that must have been quite elegant when inhabited, but now appeared only weatherbeaten and a little dilapidated. Sasuke hesitated a moment before pushing open the door and starting to go inside.
"Wait," said Haku. "Are you certain that it's all right?"
"Yes," Sasuke said, "it's my house." He vanished inside.
At that point Haku was ready to say something very cutting to Sasuke about how even the best shinobi could be too mysterious for their own good, especially when it came to their friends, but that would require being close enough for Sasuke to hear her. She sighed, entered the house, and found Sasuke at the overgrown garden in its center. He was staring into a small, algae-covered pond that might once have held koi; she stood beside him, crossed her arms, and said, "Would you like to tell me what we're doing here instead of training?"
Sasuke glared at the pond in silence for a minute. "This used to be my home," he said at last. "All the Uchiha lived in this compound, but this was where my family lived, me and my mother and father - and Itachi."
Haku waited for him to keep talking. She'd gotten a lot of practice at that.
"Itachi killed them five years ago," Sasuke said. "All of them. Someone helped him, I don't know who, but he was the one - he killed my parents. Everyone but me. And I don't know why!" He took a deep breath, his fists clenched. "I've been trying to figure it out with Naruto - and Sakura, now - but it's been more complicated than I thought. That's why I let Orochimaru - why I didn't turn him in at first. And why I'm telling you, if you'll help."
"I see," Haku said, her mind swiftly sorting through what little she had previously heard about Itachi and fitting it in with Sasuke's revelation. It certainly explained why Naruto had given up explaining with "it's just kind of complicated."
"You don't have to," Sasuke said, though his expression suggested otherwise. "I know what you're thinking - 'oh, there's no way he did it,' 'he must have had a reason,' 'the Hokage wouldn't let him stay if he did it' - that's what everyone says, they all -"
"I'll help you."
"- thinking he's so nice and perfect, if they don't - what?"
"I'll help you," Haku said. Sasuke usually slid out of or recoiled from any gestures of affection, but she took his hand anyway. "Sasuke - I barely know your brother, and you're someone who saved my life, even when I thought I didn't want to be saved. Of course I'm going to help you, as much as I can."
Sasuke stared at her, looking too shocked even to pull his hand away. "Really?"
"Yes." She squeezed his hand once, then released it. "I don't know if I can do very much, since there are still people who don't trust me, but whatever I can do to help, I will."
Sasuke was still staring; then - he didn't smile, but a light came into his face that Haku hadn't seen in it since Naruto had left. "Thanks," he said. He looked around and added, "We should probably go now, before - in case someone gets suspicious. But thanks."
"Of course," Haku said, and she let Sasuke lead the way to their usual training ground.
Anko and Itachi II
Anko knew it had been a bad mission the moment Itachi walked through her door; his face was too still, and she could smell it on him - fresh blood, old blood, death, someone else's fear. "I'll get some tea started," she said.
"I killed my family."
"Okay, maybe something stronger than tea."
"This isn't a joking matter," Itachi said, and the rawness in his voice was enough to stop her before she reached the cupboard with the good tea and the expensive sake.
Instead she sat back down on the couch and waved him over to sit with her. He did, but he was sitting as stiff and upright as a puppet getting yanked around by a puppet master, and it irritated her so much that she sprawled out with one leg across his knees and the other stretched out behind his back just to be contrary. "All right, go ahead and talk," she said. "Nothing to worry about, I had Tassa check for bugs earlier and the place is clean. Relatively. Eh, you know what I mean."
"You seem to be taking this very calmly, Anko-san." Itachi's voice was calm on the surface, anything but beneath, with a terrible edge.
"I have ears, you idiot," Anko said, because the day she was scared of some teenager's voice would be the day she took up rice farming. "People have been gossiping for over five years about whether there really was a missing-nin who could take out the entire Uchiha clan without breaking a sweat, and the general consensus? No." She kneed him in the back, but gently. "Trust me, if that was gonna be a deal-breaker, I'd never have invited you over for tea in the first place."
"Then why would you - why wouldn't that be -"
"Talking to Orochimaru's ex-apprentice, here." Fuck, she couldn't stand watching him slump like that; she wrapped her legs around him and scooted close enough to tilt his head up, turn it around, and lean her forehead against his. "I know a little about doing shit you know you'll regret. At least you're here, taking care of your brother, being loyal to the village - unless you're not, in which case you know I'll fucking kill you, right?"
"I'm definitely not betraying the village," said Itachi, without even the hint of a smile. He did turn to lean against her a little, though, so she counted that as half a point for her awesome on-the-fly therapy skills.
"Just checking," she said. "Now. You wanna talk about it?"
He closed his eyes and didn't answer for a while; she was just thinking about dumping him on the floor and getting a snack when he said, very quietly, "I didn't have a choice. They would have killed Sasuke."
"Whoa. Whoa. I feel like there's something you maybe haven't mentioned about your family, like that they were secretly Jashinists or -"
"No, not the clan - not directly." He took a deep breath, still not opening his eyes, so she wrapped her arms around his shoulders. "The council. ANBU."
She waited, because this still explained exactly shit.
"The clan was going to rebel," he said. "The Hokage wanted to negotiate, but if that didn't work, the entire clan was to be executed. Everyone. I had to choose, the clan or the village, and Sasuke - he didn't know anything, he was too young. I couldn't - I had help, of a kind, but I was the one who chose. I killed them all. I had to, to protect Sasuke."
"Okay," Anko said. "Okay, I get it." Fuck, that sure cleared up a lot. She could smell Danzo all over that brilliant idea. No wonder Sasuke had always been such a jumpy little brat around Itachi.
"My parents didn't even try to fight me," and his voice cracked, of course it would crack because he was barely eighteen and five years ago he'd been thirteen, and one day when the time was right there were going to be some really fucking sorry council members getting acquainted with a few of Anko's special pets. Right now she had to settle for keeping herself wrapped around her stupid, horrible boyfriend, stroking his back and making useless "ssh" noises at him even though he wasn't actually crying. He was so the type who'd think he didn't deserve to cry. Idiot.
"Don't tell Sasuke," he said at last. "Please. He didn't know what the clan was planning, and he loved our family - please don't tell him."
Anko stopped patting his back. "Well, that sounds like a recipe for getting poison in your rice balls."
"It doesn't matter. Just - please don't tell him anything that I've said."
She could still feel the tenseness in his shoulders, stiff and defensive. "Sure, sure," she said. "I won't say a word, it's your funeral. You ready for some tea yet?"
She never asked him what his mission had been that day. Some things even she didn't want to know.
Haku and Ino
Haku opened the door to the flower shop and was greeted with the scent of lilies, thick and sweet; then the sight of Ino, her pale hair shining as she wove the white flowers into a wreath, until she looked up and waved at Haku. "Haku-san, come on in!" she said cheerfully. "It's been way too long - hey, can you give me a hand with these? We got this huge order and Mom had to go help some of her old genin team on a mission and Dad's totally busy with some classified stuff, I'm like, dying here all by myself..."
"Of course, I would be happy to help."
They worked together for a while in silence before Ino said, "So, Dad said you asked him about getting work as a shinobi - is that for real?"
"Yes. I've been thinking that since my arm has been better for a while now, I'd like to take the chuunin exams and become a proper Konoha ninja..." Haku trimmed the stem of a lily and caught the excess length before it fell, then handed it to Ino. "Is there a problem?"
"No, no way! You're like, really strong - it's a total waste for you to be stuck in a ramen stand all day. It's just..." Ino hesitated. "Dad said you were going to try for a position with T&I if you made chuunin, and that - it doesn't really seem to suit you, Haku-san."
"Ah, really?" Haku said. She picked up a bare frame for another wreath and began to weave greenery among the wires, the leaves cool and pliable in her hands.
"I - I'm not saying anything against my dad," said Ino, fussing with the lilies. "But like - okay, he told me about you helping already with those people from Sound, not the classified details or anything, just that you talked with them. And that's really nice, but it's - it's not always like that, you know? Dad doesn't have to do the physical stuff because of our clan techniques, but I know what they have to do there sometimes. So - it just doesn't seem like it'd be a good job for you."
"I see."
Neither of them spoke for another few minutes as the wreaths took shape.
"I'd like to make it different," Haku said, and Ino's hands stilled. "There are worse places to be interrogated than Konoha, but still, I think that it's more effective, to use ways that aren't - to talk to people, and get them to trust you, and to trust them, too. Perhaps it's a little naive of me, but that's what I would like to do, if I can. If I could help at all..."
"Oh," Ino said. "Well..." She smiled suddenly, wide and bright. "Then you should go for it, Haku-san, and don't hesitate! If it's you, I think you can definitely change things."
Haku couldn't answer for a moment, bowing her head over the wreath she was working on; then with some effort she looked up and smiled back at Ino. "Thank you," she said. "I'll do my best."
Sasuke and Itachi III
"Let's go to the public baths together."
Sasuke didn't even bother looking up from the letter he was reading. "We have a shower." The apartment's shower was tiny and prone to running out of hot water at inopportune moments, but it worked well enough that Sasuke had never felt the need to go to the public bathhouse unless Naruto was dragging him along to peek or something. Which hadn't been a problem for almost two years.
"I think that it would be a nice family bonding experience," Itachi said.
"Did you get that out of those books Anko gave you?" Sasuke would have sworn a bloody and painful vengeance on Anko for loaning Itachi all those self-help books, except that he was pretty sure she regretted it as much as he did.
"It will be pleasant and relaxing," said Itachi, which wasn't exactly an answer. "We haven't bathed together in a long time, after all..."
"So what?"
"Let's go to the baths."
Somehow, despite Sasuke's determination otherwise, he ended up at the bathhouse with Itachi and an armful of towels and soap. "This is stupid," he said, just to make sure Itachi didn't get the wrong idea. Itachi ignored him to pay the entrance fee, and Sasuke resigned himself to an evening of embarrassment.
It wasn't too bad at first, when they were just stripping and putting their stuff in lockers, but by the time they settled down to clean up before getting in the bath, the muttering had started.
"Aren't those the -"
"- younger one helped Orochimaru - yes, that Orochimaru, the one who -"
"- one of those ANBU types, you know what they -"
Sasuke scrubbed furiously at a perfectly clean patch of skin on his left leg. He'd known this was a terrible idea, but no, Itachi still had to go and drag him out in public so they could both get stared at and whispered about like they were freaks. That was really how Sasuke had wanted to spend the evening, when he could have just stayed home and showered and been re-reading the latest letters from Naruto and Sakura by now. Stupid Itachi and his stupid, completely hopeless attempts to act like the two of them could ever be a normal family again. He would have been better off leaving with Orochimaru than staying to live through this.
"I heard he was the one who killed -"
"- ran around with that kid, the demon -"
"I can't believe they have the guts to -"
"Sasuke? Do you want any help washing your back?"
Interrupted in his seething, Sasuke blinked and looked over at Itachi. "What?"
"Do you want me to wash your back?" Itachi said.
Sasuke stared at him and felt his face get hotter and hotter, sensing the eyes of everyone else in the room fixed directly on the two of them. Finally he managed to say, "No! I can do it myself, I'm not five anymore."
"I know," said Itachi, and he went back to washing his hair. A moment later he said thoughtfully, "It's too bad, you were cute when you were little. You always wanted me to play with you..."
"I was never -!" Sasuke stopped himself just in time, and thought longingly about how if he killed Itachi now, it would probably be considered self-defense from death by humiliation and no one in the bathhouse would argue otherwise. He settled for muttering, "Anyway, you were always too busy."
"I know," Itachi said again, and mercifully he didn't say anything else until they had rinsed off and actually gotten in the bath, settling into a corner away from most of the other bathers - maybe Itachi had noticed the whispering for once. Sasuke had sunk into the hot water as deeply as he could, hoping that no one would pay any attention to him, when against Sasuke's unspoken wishes Itachi said, "I'm sorry."
"What for?"
"For being so busy. Even as a genin, it seemed like I was always busy."
"Pulling weeds?" It was the first genin mission that came to Sasuke's mind; his arms were still sore from helping someone with their garden earlier that day. Weed-pulling apparently used a completely different set of muscles than most shinobi exercises.
"Among other things," Itachi said, with a trace of a smile. "I didn't mind those kind of missions, though. They were so different from the war..."
"The Third Shinobi War?" Sasuke said, trying to remember the dates he'd learned and doing some quick calculations. "You weren't old enough to fight in that."
Itachi didn't answer at once; he leaned back against the edge of the bath and looked at the wall mural for a minute, but not as if he were really seeing it. "It was a hard war, especially at the end," he said. "If you were able to hold a weapon, you could fight... It wouldn't happen that way now."
"But - you would have been -" Sasuke couldn't complete the thought, at least not out loud, but Itachi didn't seem to have heard him. He was still looking through the wall mural, and Sasuke watched him with a strange, heavy feeling in his stomach.
He'd never thought much about the Third Shinobi War beyond what he learned at the academy, reasons and dates and battles. It had been over before he was born, and people didn't talk about it much; its end had been overshadowed by the Kyuubi's attack and the death of the Fourth Hokage. He had never realized that Itachi had fought in it. Other people he knew must have fought in it, too - his parents would have fought, and Shisui, and Anko and Kakashi and Gai and whoever Naruto's parents had been and Jiraiya and even Orochimaru before he'd turned traitor.
What does your brother love above all else?
How could Itachi love a village that would put him on a battlefield when he was four years old? Maybe Sasuke had gotten it wrong somehow, or something had happened in the war that had made Itachi think it was perfectly normal to kill most of his family and then act like nothing was wrong...
"It's still a shame that I was so busy, though," Itachi said, breaking Sasuke's chain of thought before he could follow it any further. "I would have liked to spend more time with you when you were still cute."
"Shut up."
Sasuke and Hinata
"Um - excuse me, S-Sasuke-kun?"
Sasuke looked up from the scroll on genjutsu that he was reading and saw a vaguely familiar girl standing in front of him; she had short, dark hair and pale Hyuuga eyes, and he was sure she'd been in his class at the Academy. What was her name again? Right... "Hinata?"
"Oh, y-you remembered me," she said, her cheeks turning pink. "I didn't think you would..."
With some dismay, Sasuke saw that she had a letter in one hand. Between that and the blush - damn. Another one. Since his latest growth spurt, they'd been worse than all the other people normally staring at him. "What do you want?" he said.
"Um, I-I was just wondering if - if it's not too much trouble - could you please send this letter to N-N-Naruto-kun?"
Sasuke blinked. That was a change. "Why don't you send it yourself?"
"I would, but - but he's traveling, so I don't know how." Hinata looked down, and her fingers tightened on the envelope in her hand, creasing it slightly. "I thought - since you're his best friend, you'd know where he was s-so you could write him, and it - um - it wouldn't further compromise the security of his location..."
The last bit sounded like something she'd memorized in school, but it was good thinking; Sasuke found himself approving.
"A-anyway, could you please send it," she said, "if - if you don't mind, and it isn't too much trouble..." She suddenly bit her lip and looked up, directly into Sasuke's eyes. "No, I mean - even if it's troublesome, please send him this letter! I want to encourage him while he's training, no matter what! So - um - w-would you please..." Her voice trailed off into nothing as she stared at the ground again, her face completely red.
Sasuke reached out and took the letter out of her hand before she tensed up so much that the envelope tore. "I'll send it," he said. He wasn't sure if Naruto would remember who Hinata was or not, but Naruto wouldn't care; he would just take it as a sign that he was finally getting popular.
Hinata gave Sasuke a brief, brilliant smile, and then fled so swiftly that she nearly knocked the scroll out of his hands.
Weird girl, he thought, and went back to studying.
Kakashi, Itachi, and Sasuke
Even the scent of the leaf-mould was perfect: faint, dank, not overpowering, the slightest hint of a sharp vinegar smell to it that you didn't get in the forests around Konoha. Kakashi had to admire the thoroughness of it, at least until the rock hit him in the side of the head - damn! Blind spot! - and he went sprawling with his face buried in the ground and the thick scent of the leaf-mould mingling with stone dust.
Hands grabbed and threw him, and he crashed into another boulder, blinded and coughing. He sat up, blinking dust out of his good eye, and saw Rin beside him, but not - "Obito?"
"Rin... Kakashi... Are you all right?"
He scrambled towards Obito's weak voice with arms and legs that were too short, damn damn damn, and it didn't matter, he was too late, half of Obito's face was bloody and the other half...
But even as he tried to move the rock that was crushing his best friend, the Kusa forest faded into familiar grass, trees, the memorial stone, and Uchiha Itachi's attempt at a concerned face. "How was it?" Itachi asked.
"Good. Very good," Kakashi said, strategically choosing to lean against one of the posts near the memorial stone before his knees decided that they were still back in Kusagakure territory and gave out. "Excellent detail. Obito's hair was a little shorter than that, though. And his face was a bit rounder." He didn't mention that Obito had looked a little too much like Uchiha Shisui, because he had gotten used to being alive most of the time, even if it meant putting up with the last two Uchiha in the village on a daily basis.
"I apologize," said Itachi. "My memories of Obito aren't very clear."
Kakashi waved the apology off. "It was still good." He paused, squinted out of Obito's eye, and said, "Not good enough, I guess. Any change?"
"I'm afraid not." Itachi shrugged. "Perhaps the genjutsu wasn't strong enough, or ended too soon. I'm not sure what's going wrong."
At least he had enough tact not to openly suggest that the problem was in Obito's eye, but that wasn't saying much. "Well, maybe what we need to do is move to the next level. If ordinary genjutsu won't do the job..."
"Tsukuyomi," Itachi said. "I'm not sure that would be wise, Kakashi-san. From my reading, it can cause severe mental damage that would be difficult for most medics to treat. If Tsunade-sama had remained in the village, perhaps, but at present -"
"I wasn't aware that you'd come out here to baby-sit me," Kakashi said, and took just a little bit of satisfaction in the way Itachi's emotionless mask slipped for a moment to show his irritation. "I'll live through it, I promise. Or is it - how's your eyesight been lately, Itachi?"
That definitely got under Itachi's skin; he frowned and said, "My right eye is unaffected. The left has begun to lose focus at forty meters, but the first-level sharingan is enough to compensate for now."
"Good, good, then you can waste another few meters on me," Kakashi said, forcing a smile and stepping away from the post. "Unless you have a better idea?"
"Very well," said Itachi, after a long pause, and the tomoe of his sharingan expanded into the mangekyou's blades.
The world inverted into black and grey and streaked reddish-orange, the trees of Kusa outlined in sketchy white. Kakashi could see out of his left eye this time, but there was a terrible grinding pain in it as it pulled at what little chakra he had left; all of his exposed skin was burning, scraped raw from the fighting. Rin was kneeling by Obito, holding his hand, but the rocks around them were shifting with the enemy's jutsu and Kakashi reached for her to pull her out.
Rin hesitated. "Obito..."
"It's all right - go!"
Kakashi grabbed her hand and yanked her through the narrowing gap in the rocks even as she reached back for Obito, screaming his name. She collapsed against Kakashi and he reached for Obito but the stones were crashing together over Obito's bloody, smiling face and he had to jump away and beneath it all a deep voice - Itachi's voice, his own voice, there was no difference in the black and red world - was whispering this is your fault, if you hadn't abandoned him you could have saved him, you killed him -
The landscape warped, redrew itself, and he was standing above Rin and Obito on shaky legs again, pulling Rin out again, watching the ground swallow his best friend again as that voice whispered in the depths of his mind.
Warp. Redraw. Fail. Your fault.
Warp. Redraw. Fail. Obito...
Warp. Redraw. Fail. Lower than trash.
Warp. Redraw. Reach for Rin and yank her out of the rocks and Obito's white smile smeared with grey blood shattered into green and blue and black.
"-kashi! Hey! Kakashi, what's wrong?"
Kakashi blinked and squinted, forcing Obito's eye shut; the world was too vivid and yet washed out at the same time, each detail bright and clear but difficult to put together. That certainly hadn't been Itachi's frantic voice, however, and the red-eyed face staring at him wasn't Itachi's, either. He managed to croak, "Sasuke?"
"Are you all right?" Sasuke said.
Kakashi felt like he'd fought the entire Third Shinobi War again several times over, which was about as far from all right as you could get. It was worse than physical exhaustion; even his soul, or whatever he had that passed for one, ached as if Obito were still dying in front of him.
Fortunately Sasuke didn't wait for him to answer, but immediately turned on Itachi, whose eyes had already darkened back to the usual black. "What the hell did you do to him?" Sasuke demanded.
"It was - I'll go get a medic," said Itachi. "Kakashi-san, don't try to move -" There was a laugh, Kakashi didn't think he could move if he tried. "- and Sasuke, please stay with him, I'll be right back."
He vanished, and Kakashi let himself collapse against the post at his back (when had he backed up that far?) and slide down to sit in the grass; his limbs felt about as solid and dependable as flowing water. Damn. Not that he was going to admit it, but maybe this one time he should have listened to Itachi.
Sasuke crouched in front of him, his sharingan still on. "What happened?" he said. "Are you hurt?"
"No," Kakashi said, which wasn't technically a lie. "Just tired." Even talking was an effort.
"What was he trying to do? Was it because of your sharingan?"
"Yes," said Kakashi, and realized it had been exactly the wrong thing to say when Sasuke's expression went from his normal scowl to murderous. "Not like that! It was training. Training! That's all."
Sasuke didn't look convinced. "If he tries to do anything to you again, I'll -"
"He's not trying to kill me, I swear. It was just training." Well, that was something Kakashi really needed, his student trying to become his bodyguard. He found the energy for a sigh and opened Obito's eye. "Speaking of which - any difference?"
Sasuke shook his head.
"Damn," Kakashi said, and passed out.
Naruto, characters, etc. © Kishimoto who is my worst favorite EXCEPT FOR ITACHI, OBVIOUSLY.
Crossposted from Dreamwidth - read the original post here: http://brief-transit.dreamwidth.org/195679.html .