Chapter 68 - Chapter 68

It was cold. Colder than the desert should have been, except for at night. Then again, Naruto felt that if he were sleeping in the desert it would be inside of a tent and a bedroll, which he most certainly didn't feel as though he had.

Sitting up from off of his back, he blearily opened his eyes and took in his surroundings. He quickly deduced that yes, he was not in the desert.

"Where the hell-?" Naruto asked to no one in particular. There wasn't anyone around him that could answer the question. He was inside of a cell with steel bars, his hands barred inside of manacles that kept his arms stiffly together, hands uncomfortably pressed onto the opposite forearm. A chain attached to one of his ankles went through a small hole in the wall for...whatever reason, "-Am I?"

He had been stripped of his gear, and wasn't even wearing his own clothes any longer. That was probably just as well, because he likely would have smelled horrendous if he had been, but everything else was alarming.

The last thing he remembered was using one of his bigger ash ninjutsu to trigger an explosion guaranteed to blow Kisame to pieces. Apparently he didn't account for wind spread during the sandstorm, or just how reactive that black fire would wind up being on his ash once it ignited.

Whoops.

If nothing else, he at least had all of his fingers and toes. That was something to take solace in, 'Well, things could be worse, I guess,' Naruto thought to himself, gauging the distance of the chain by kicking his leg forward as far as it would allow him to, 'I don't know how right now, but I'm sure they could be much worse.'

As in, he could be captured by Akatsuki, worse.

'Oh no,' Naruto thought to himself, his skin paling at the mere thought. It was a very real possibility.

He could have been captured and stashed away so that others could have him somewhere secure while the others got together to extract the Kyuubi from him. He had heard something about there being a need to seal the Nine-Tails last. If such a thing was the truth, it was fortunate for him, but he was still on borrowed time.

In any case, Naruto was definitely a prisoner. If not, his settings certainly had all the familiar indicators of a prison. No windows. Dim lights. Hard, stone floors. Bars on the door. Such a thing was a new experience for him, and not one that was entirely welcome.

Either way, it was time to start escaping. All he had to do was… he didn't know. Naruto's first thought was to try and pull up some of that inhuman chakra of the Kyuubi's to make a few good-sized holes in his place of captivity, but he couldn't establish any contact. Something was disrupting their connection, and it wasn't the Kyuubi itself.

If the Kyuubi felt like holding out on Naruto, it would have told him to fuck off first and then shut everything off. It wouldn't have just done it, simply because its ego needed to get in the last word on those sorts of things.

After minutes of pondering his options and musing over his potential fate, the sound of a metal door in the distance and grouped footsteps let him know that people had just entered his cell block. Naruto sat up and waited nervously to catch his first view of his jailors.

Eventually they stopped in front of his cell, several ninjas wearing red uniforms and brown flak jackets. Seemingly leading them was a lithe young woman with short black hair and pupil-less pink eyes. Her upper-body uniform was much like theirs, red with a brown flak jacket, except she was missing her right sleeve entirely, and her left one was fairly baggy. She wore a red skirt over mesh tights, and a pair of black gloves.

The most prominent thing Naruto noticed however, say squarely on their foreheads.

Iwagakure headbands.

"Oh thank Kami!" Naruto exclaimed with a sigh of relief, much to the confusion of his captors. He had been fearing the worst after realizing that he had been caught by someone. Now things weren't quite as bad. They were still downright awful, but one had to look for the silver-lining in certain situations, "At least it isn't Akatsuki."

They were still pretty bad people to be caught by, but for some reason he felt better about this than the alternative he had been dreading.

None of them knew quite what to say about that, but the kunoichi leading them took it upon herself to initiate contact with the foreign shinobi, "You must be some kind of badass. Nobody thought you'd even be awake anytime soon after how you were when the border teams found you," The young woman said, "But I guess a jinchuuriki is made of tougher stuff. Not that it matters."

"I guess," Naruto said, trying to see what he could feel of his chakra but finding nothing. He had trouble controlling his own, let alone tapping into his big red-orange tenant's within him, "Uh, so could you let me go now Miss… err... I don't know your name."

"It's Kurotsuchi," She told him, setting her hands on her hips, "And we can't do that. Finding you and your comrade at Kaze no Kuni's border is kind of the biggest break our village has had in years," She said before chuckling a bit, thinking of something else, "Or so Old Man Tsuchikage says. He's over the moon about this whole thing."

"I didn't think you would, but asking doesn't hurt," Naruto admitted, wincing at his failed attempt at what some would venture to call diplomacy. His recently reawakened brain quickly caught up with the conversation though, that he was not the only one Iwa had scooped up, "Wait, comrade? Who?" He asked as he hopped off of his cot, putting some of the Iwa shinobi on guard.

Kurotsuchi was not one of them, as Naruto was shackled, manacled, and behind bars. There wasn't really anything he could do to them, "Uchiha Sasuke," Naruto's face must have looked quite a sight, because Kurotsuchi reacted as though it was, smirking as she did, "We were the same way when we scooped you all up at the same time."

Sasuke was there too? Well that was certainly a cold slap in the groin. And it changed things. He couldn't just break things and run away. He had to make sure Sasuke was alright and get him out too. No man left behind.

…Or, Sasuke could come and get him if he managed to break out. Hopefully Sasuke gave enough of a damn to try and look for him too before heading for the hills. Probably not, but it was nice to think that he might have. Keep hope alive.

Kurotsuchi began listing things off on her fingers, "A live Uchiha, a dead one, and the jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi, who just so happens to be Namikaze Minato's son, all in one day. I thought the old man was about to break down and have a coronary when he got the news."

"Right," Naruto said, suddenly feeling as though things were much graver than he had previously anticipated, "How do you know the last thing? I just found out like a year or so ago, I only told a few people myself, and the ones who told me in the first place weren't really excited to do it."

"Please," The jounin-level kunoichi said, "Grandpa knew who you were from years ago in the chunin exams. You being the Yellow Flash's kid is like the worst kept secret in the Elemental Nations."

"Second-worst," Naruto grumbled, miffed that an old man from hundreds of miles away managed to figure out his heritage years before he'd managed to pull it out of Jiraiya and Tsunade himself, "Well thanks for the chat. You might wanna move back, because I'm about to blow this ramen stand," He concluded before digging deep to force the Kyuubi's chakra forward. He had really been trying that time, and yet he got nothing in return, no matter how hard he struggled, "Okay, seriously, what the fuck?"

One of the other Iwa shinobi laughed out loud at Naruto's confusion over his complete lack of trump card to play, "You don't want to keep doing that."

Naruto frowned and fixed his jailors with a squinty-eyed glare as he walked up close to the bars of his cell, "And why wouldn't I?"

Kurotsuchi merely reached through the bars and pulled up Naruto's shirt for him to look down at. There, front and center, plain for a seal-adept ninja like Naruto to make out as clear as day, a Five Elements Seal, sitting right over the Eight Trigrams Seal on his skin.

That certainly explained a lot. No wonder he couldn't feel the Kyuubi, and no wonder his chakra control felt like complete garbage. He could barely gather enough to stick to anything.

"And that one's just for your biju," Kurotsuchi said with a grin, "There are different ones in different places on you for your own chakra. You might break something if you keep trying that."

Naruto looked up from his belly with a look of pure annoyance on his face, "You guys totally suck," He said. While he could remove the seal himself, he needed at least one hand free to do it, both of which were currently lashed to his arms to prevent him from so much as making a hand-seal, "This doesn't change anything. I'm still gonna get out of this you know."

"I'm sure you think so," Kurotsuchi told him, skepticism clearly evident in her pink eyes, "But you've got no biju, no jutsu, no hands, and you're chained to a wall. I like our chances of keeping you more than I like the chances of you getting away," This did nothing to take the fight out of Naruto's expression, "But grandpa would turn all of us to dust if we gave you any kind of opening, so you and you," She gestured to two Iwa shinobi that had followed her in, "Make sure there's someone watching him at all times. He seems like the type that won't be good and sit still."

"Oh, you know me so well," Naruto rebutted before being tripped and pulled back to the wall of his cell by his leg, "Ow! Bitch."

By the time he sat back up, Kurotsuchi and most of her entourage were gone, leaving Naruto stuck with two unidentified Iwa ninjas, one keeping an eye on him and the other watching for someone else to come down the hall just in case.

Naruto got himself comfortable against the wall and simply sat there, staring out of the bars of his cell. Now he had to figure out just what he was going to do before these people did whatever it was they were going to do with him.

Though Naruto was really looking through him, the guard that had set himself up to watch Naruto took offense at the Konoha chunin seemingly staring him down, "What are you looking at?" He demanded of the prisoner.

Naruto let out a sigh in response, "…Not much," This was going to be a long imprisonment. Nothing good could come of this, for him or anyone else, even the ones that had captured him.

How long had he been there already?

XxX

(Hi no Kuni – Konohagakure no Sato – Memorial Stone)

Five days.

It had been five days since the horribly ill-fated ending to the mission to retrieve Nii Yugito.

Shikamaru, Neji, and Killer B had managed to reach the borders of Hi no Kuni in under a day's time, Shikamaru showing more hustle in that period of time than anyone would have previously thought possible. Neji had managed to meet a patrol team and get a messenger hawk to send back word to the village, but they weren't able to get back into Kaze no Kuni afterward, as Suna had wasted no time getting their own borders locked down.

No foreigners were allowed in. Period. They would have had to fight a full-scale battle against at least an entire platoon to go against it, a full, fresh platoon this time, with only the two of them, and no jinchuuriki deterrent. Killer B had to get Yugito to safety to make sure she wasn't permanently hurt.

One day after that, Shikamaru, Neji, and Killer B had returned with an emaciated and still weakened Yugito. The mission had been accomplished, but Konoha had lost something vital in return. In any other situation, such a length of time would have led to Uzumaki Naruto being declared M.I.A., but the political fallout this would cause if Konoha's sole jinchuuriki was nowhere to be found would do nothing more than invite the wolves to the gates.

Kicking them when they were down was something the rest of the ninja world seemed to love to do, and any opportunity to do so was always welcomed.

So Konoha did not declare Naruto or Sasuke anything yet. Only those closest to either boy and those who went on the mission were told that they were even missing. That included their jounin-sensei from their old genin teams and their most frequent teammates from said genin teams.

Shikamaru had been man enough to tell her himself, by himself, just what he knew of what had happened to their beloved blond teammate. To his surprise, she hadn't snapped at him, or even shown any significant outward emotion after being told that her new boyfriend was basically dead.

As a matter of fact, she just seemed to turn off.

Asuma and Shikamaru managed to find her on this day, as it hadn't been hard to find out where she'd gotten to. Where she'd wound up was one of Hatake Kakashi's frequent haunts, and he'd seen her when he'd passed by as he would do several times throughout the day sometimes.

The Memorial Stone.

Both of them stood nearby, behind her, not hiding their presences in the slightest. On the contrary, they wanted her to notice them. To say something to them. They didn't care what it was, if she screamed, if she cried, as long as she said something.

"Ino," Asuma said, not even getting the girl to flinch, let alone turn around, "...You haven't said anything in days. We're worried."

She was grateful that she could count the only people in Konoha who knew about this at the moment on two hands, fewer of whom ever took it upon themselves to make her a constant part of their lives. Just having Shikamaru and Asuma know about it had been arduous enough. They hardly ever left her alone.

"There isn't really anything to say," Ino said, never taking her eyes off of the Hero's Monument, as if she were daring it to somehow form Naruto's name somewhere on it, "Other than, he's not dead. But Kaze no Kuni's borders are off-limits to all foreign shinobi."

Of course, that hadn't stopped Konoha from sending in ANBU anyway. After making it to the brand new ruins that used to be Sora-ku, they too could find no trace of Naruto or Sasuke. The black fire had burned everything that touched it pitch black.

They had shut down border travel under the story that an entire city had been destroyed because of the Konoha ninjas they had allowed to work within their territory... which wasn't far from the truth, but was definitely them taking advantage of the situation. Had the razing of Sora-ku never happened in the first place, they still would have tried to kill off the winner of the battle with Akatsuki. Sora-ku going up in flames just gave them a decent enough excuse that no one other than Konoha could really call them on it.

Since they hadn't attacked any of the jinchuuriki, they had only prepared to attack Shikamaru and Neji, it wasn't something that would send the two villages, or Kumo, to war. Conspiracy-wise, it was as if they had been caught walking up to a VIP with the knife behind their back without ever pulling it out to use it. Everyone involved and even those watching knew exactly what it had been for.

"They're covering their asses," Shikamaru said, walking up closer to her. He didn't put an arm over her, as he figured she would have resented any physical comforting, but he kept close enough to let her know that he was there, "Now that they couldn't kill us before we got away, they're putting their word against ours, and since no outside group can get there to gather any proof it's all just in the air. I know what happened. Neji does too. But we don't have any physical evidence. And even if we did, who would even be on our side?"

Shikamaru and Neji had caused more casualties to the Suna ninjas attacking them than any of them had caused to anyone else. They hadn't even hurt anyone on the Yugito retrieval team.

Even if it had come to anything in the first place, it seemed as if many of the villages boasting ninja within their ranks had been waiting for Konoha to fall on their faces.

Kiri felt gratitude for their intervention in expelling Otogakure from the islands within their influence, yes, but they were all the way on the other side of the Elemental Nations separated in addition by the ocean. While Kumo should have as well, the Raikage was a hard man. Just because his younger brother was grateful that they had helped him get Yugito back, it wasn't enough to color his opinion on how he saw Konoha as the top rivals for his village's power and influence.

"Do you think they have either of them?" Asuma asked Shikamaru, having been the only person he could speak to who had actually been there, "Could they have gotten away with Naruto or Sasuke? If they did they might be holding on to them."

Shikamaru shook his head without needing to take a moment to think. He had replayed the events of that day repeatedly ever since it had happened, "Not a chance. They couldn't have gotten anywhere close to either of them before the blast. Especially Naruto, given who he was fighting and how they wound up going at it."

Who he was fighting was Hoshigaki Kisame according to the report. Asuma considered this as he thought about what could have happened, "Akatsuki then?"

"No," Shikamaru refuted, "Neji didn't see a trace of anyone after the explosion happened."

"He's not dead," Ino finally cut in, tired of the conversation between her friend and her sensei over Naruto's possible demise.

"Either way, we've got to find him," "Whether it's to bring him back, or... for confirmation."

Once again, they were inferring that Naruto might have been dead.

Ino sighed in exasperation instead of reacting with any kind of explosive response the way they would have expected.

"I can't explain it, but I know he's not gone," She tried to clarify, "Naruto was the first person I ever did telepathy with. For some reason it's always been really strong with him, even stronger than with my dad. I can always kind of feel him, you know?" Not enough to contact him from such a distance, not even with the help of a machine. Not enough to find his locale either, but it was constantly there in her mind if she tried to focus on it, "I still can, it's just... really hazy. If he really was dead, I wouldn't be able to feel him at all anymore. At least, that's what I think."

XxX

Tsunade stood outside of the Hokage's office as he conferred with his two main confidants Utatane Koharu and Mitokado Homura. With her, Jiraiya waited for the doors to unlock and open, allowing them entrance. Jiraiya stood calmly against a wall, arms crossed over his chest and eyes closed.

If only. Tsunade wished she could be that calm about everything. Even then, she stood tapping her foot constantly, so much so that Jiraiya believed that if he opened his eyes to look he'd find that she had worn a divot into the hardwood underneath them.

Tired of the silence, Tsunade broke it, her brown eyes shooting over to Jiraiya to try and make some sort of relevant conversation before the two of them went in, "Do you know who-?"

"I'm working on it," Jiraiya answered succinctly, not even allowing her to finish her question. And that was that. Even though she normally pushed harder, she knew when it was a bad time, and this was definitely it.

They didn't share another word again, at least until the door had opened. Jiraiya got up off of the wall and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Tsunade as their sensei's old teammates walked out of his office, sparing the two a nod before walking past, their business in that building concluded.

Jiraiya's and Tsunade's had not yet begun.

Heading inside, for the second time that day the doors closed and locked shut. The only people privy to the conversation at-hand were those within the room, both seen and unseen. After all, the door hadn't closed itself.

Neither chose to take a seat. Both stood in front of their leader, no jokes, though Tsunade did wrinkle her nose at the scent of smoke billowing from Hiruzen and his pipe. It hung around the entire room, and he had everything closed up tight, probably for longer than the duration of his last meeting. It was enough to make someone choke on it.

"Smoking like a chimney again, sensei?" Tsunade said, wishing she could crack a door or a window to get some fresh air in.

"Let's just say it gives me peace of mind, my dear, which I desperately need right now," Hiruzen said, not taking his eyes off of the documents that had been presented during his meeting with his advisory council, "For once, I believe my old friends and I are entirely on the same page when it comes to how to respond to this situation."

Without saying anything else on the matter, his eyes turned and met Jiraiya's. It seemed to be just what he had been expecting or waiting for, as Jiraiya didn't waste a moment in stepping forward, meeting the Hokage's gaze firmly.

"What do you need me to do?"

He didn't need to hear what it was for. He was well aware already of what he would be expected to even the score for. Jiraiya would do and had done anything he needed to for Konoha. On this occasion, doing something for Konoha, and doing something for his godson intersected. One would have needed to reanimate the kage of old to stop him from taking action now.

Hiruzen didn't mince words explaining what didn't need to be said. Jiraiya needed him to get to the point, so that he could get out there and get things done, "You have full autonomy on this Jiraiya. Whatever move you decide to make, you have my full support," From this point forward, Jiraiya was simply an extension of Hiruzen's will, "You have the pick of who you want to take. Just keep me updated on your progress."

Jiraiya had been given permission to pin his ears back and go at the target, the moment he found it. He was off the leash.

"Fine," Jiraiya said before looking to a specific corner of the room where at first glance there was nothing, "Tenzo, are you in?"

No response.

"One knock for no, two for yes."

Again, no response at first until Hiruzen rolled his eyes. His ANBU were dedicated to the jobs they were supposed to have, he could say that much, "Tenzo, Jiraiya knows that you're here already. Feel free to answer."

*KNOCK KNOCK*

"Good man," Jiraiya said with a grin, "That's one then."

Tsunade stood off to the side, fighting with herself. She told herself she would never fight for Konoha again after losing all of her loved ones, but here another one was at risk of being lost anyway. What was the point of keeping herself out of Konoha's affairs if she had loved ones that got themselves involved anyway? Even Shizune took up work at the hospital and did missions out in the field.

"You're going to need a medic. A good one," She said, keeping from biting her lip before continuing, "If you ask Shizune, I'm sure she'll agree to go."

Jiraiya nodded, more than willing to accept Shizune along as well. Having a medic made a ton of sense in this case, "Alright, that makes two," It wasn't difficult to see that Tsunade was uneasy about this, "Look, Shizune will be fine. I'm not going to have her fight or put her in any direct danger."

"It's not her," Tsunade admitted. She knew Jiraiya wouldn't put Shizune in harm's way to begin with. And if anyone could fix themselves after being badly injured, it would be Shizune anyway.

Now knowing what the trouble was about, Jiraiya rested a hand on Tsunade's shoulder in an effort to try and reassure her, "I wouldn't worry about the kid one bit," He told her, "Even if he wasn't as tough as nails to begin with, Minato's seal is a bit tougher to play around with than anyone would think before they saw it. Trust me."

XxX

(Two Days Later – Tsuchi no Kuni – Iwagakure no Sato)

Floating in the air, an extremely short old man with a bulbous nose and a grey beard and mustache stared through the window in an observation as a team of his medics and scientists were at work inside of a surgical room. His grey hair was set in a topknot with a yellow ribbon and the robes draped over his frame were a rich green and yellow with a thick red collar. On top of his head was the standard white hat worn by only four other individuals in the Elemental Nations.

This was the Sandaime Tsuchikage, known by his epithet as the Great Fence Sitter, known by name as Onoki.

He felt the presence coming to report to him before they even made it inside, "Any news, Kitsuchi?" He said, just as the door opened.

Was it wrong that he loved doing that? It never got old, always serving to freak the weaker and less experienced shinobi out in regards to the limits of their kage's ability.

This was not one of those inexperienced shinobi however. It was an older one. A brawny individual wearing the standard Iwagakure outfit with a bandanna serving as his forehead protector. He had the weathered, worn, and tanned skin of a person that had spent much time hard at work had a bulbous nose, not unlike the old man's own. A family resemblance more than likely.

Kitsuchi seemed more amused about his leader's anticipation of his presence than anything else, "About the exams or about our other 'guests'?" The snark was definitely inherited. His granddaughter was much the same.

Onoki rolled his eyes. Only the first stage had concluded in the Chunin Exams by now. It wasn't even worth talking about yet, "Feh. The only time I need to hear anything about these exams is when I hear how many of each village make it to the final stage. Until then, hearing how all of the genin are doing is just lip service," There were more important things afoot, "Now, can you open the seal safely?"

Now this was a sore point. Kitsuchi scratched his head underneath his bandanna, not knowing quite how to say this to the Tsuchikage. Whatever the people in Konoha had put on that Uzumaki kid, it was more complex than what they'd put on Han or Roshi, the two previous jinchuuriki that had been within Iwa's possession.

Yes, Roshi had been wandering in an effort to train his abilities with the Yonbi, but Han of the Gobi had been stationed in the village. Now both had been taken and they had no jinchuurki. That was an asset they needed replaced. Fortunately, another one had been dropped right in their lap.

All Kitsuchi could do was let Onoki know what was going on, "The containment team has never seen anything like it. They took one look and backed off," That had been days ago, "Now the kid's awake. He's been quiet, but I get a feeling that he'll be a pain once he gets desperate, so for now we've cut off any contact he could have with the Kyuubi."

If Naruto wound up being a fighter when they went to get him once again, Onoki had no doubt that as weakened as he was he would be easy to subdue, "I see."

"They're coming up with a way to approach it before we go on to restrain him like the other one," Kitsuchi continued, standing next to Onoki to look in on what was happening in surgery, his curiosity unconsciously guiding his attention to it, "At this point, we're not sure what might happen if we start tinkering around with it. I wouldn't put it past the Yondaime Hokage to put something in as a failsafe in case something like this ever happened."

"For once, I guess Suna did something that actually works for us," Onoki commented with a snort, "Those fools probably planned on killing him instead of trying to take the Kyuubi for themselves."

Iwagakure patrol around the border had seen the Sunagakure forces amassed around Sora-ku, and kept a close eye even as the city went up in flames and was blown to hell. It was not a group designated to capture anything. There were far too many of them for that to have been their aim.

Then again, perhaps they figured extracting and resealing a biju of the Kyuubi's power was beyond them. Sunagakure's sealing techniques weren't particularly advanced. Most of the ones they knew were fairly basic and required seal tags and/or rituals more often than not. A prime example was the barbaric method they had used on the current holder of Shukaku.

...Sealing a biju inside of an unborn baby. What a disastrous idea. It was a miracle that even he survived. The mother birthing him had absolutely no chance.

Kitsuchi's voice broke the leader of Iwa from his musings, "So this is Uchiha Itachi. I still can't believe it," He said, getting a glimpse of the face of the body that the medics and scientists were working on, "The younger brother killed the older one. I would have never seen it ending like that."

People were terrified at the thought of ever running across the man that ended the entirety of his own clan, a clan known for having frighteningly strong shinobi. Itachi had been the man credited with doing it.

Humor flitted across Onoki's face at what Kitsuchi's words implied, "The older one was a walking corpse," He told the senior jounin, "The autopsy revealed some things. Itachi was sick with something that should have killed him ages ago. The medics are analyzing just what the hell kept him going for as long as he did. It doesn't make any sense to them at all."

With the severity of the illness ravaging his body, a battle like the one that had been waged in Sora-ku had been the absolute last place for Itachi to be. He had no place fighting a jinchuuriki, or the powerhouse that his brother had been steadily growing into.

Well his foolish intentions, whatever they might have been, were Iwagakure's gain. In so many ways.

Reaching underneath the collar of his robes, Onoki pulled out a beautiful green jewel attached to a sturdy cord around his neck. The famed necklace of the Shodai Hokage, taken right off of the battered, bloodied body of Uzumaki Naruto.

A smug grin spread across Onoki's face as his fingers brushed over the treasure. He rather enjoyed that particular trophy. A calling card to the paradigm shift that obtaining both the Sharingan and the Kyuubi meant for his village and the balance of power in the Elemental Nations.

XxX

Naruto wished that his enemy had been confident enough to inform him of what they were going to do to him. Unfortunately, he'd gotten no gloating explanations of his upcoming fate, no matter how good he was or how long he sat and waited.

Would it be torture? Or were they just trying to figure out a way to get past his seal and take the Kyuubi from him first? Probably the latter. It was what anyone else in need of a replacement would have done in the same situation, and both of Iwa's had been gone for some time now.

'They'll probably still torture me first though,' Naruto thought to himself aloud, oddly wishing for once that he was connected enough to the Kyuubi for it to respond. He'd thought loudly enough for it to normally shoot back at him with some snide comment by now.

Damn Five Elements Seal. If he only had his hands free…

Right now the powers-that-be were probably getting together a list of things they wanted to get out of him. Either that, or they were already torturing Sasuke and saving him for if they couldn't break him.

Damn, he needed to find a way out before they started working on him. Now that he was awake, it was only a matter of time.

And were they really smoking his cigarettes in front of him? Assholes.

"So, you got any favorites for the chunin exams this time around?" One of them said, "I don't really see any teams out there that are setting the world on fire. Not from any of the records I've seen anyway?"

"I don't know. You can count on more of ours making it to the finals this time though," The other commented in return, "I don't care what anybody says about the exams being impartial. That whole home village advantage is real. I had to take my first one in Suna. Imagine that."

"Hah! You poor bastard. Or, more like lucky since you actually survived it."

Naruto froze from where he was sitting and took a whiff of the air as the two guards chatted and laughed. As they talked, they were indeed smoking. He knew without a shadow of a doubt because they kept filtering the smoke his way, just to be rude about it.

Naruto knew that particular scent from anywhere. The fact that they kept blowing it into his cell intentionally didn't help either.

Wait.

They were smoking his cigarettes in front of him.

They couldn't have gone far to get them, and he kept them with his gear. Putting two and two together, that meant his gear might have possibly been much closer than he would have expected it to be. Either that, or they had split up and taken his gear for themselves, cigarettes included, which pissed him off.

Either way, these two had given him his opening to escape. Therefore, it was time to try and make a run for it. Anyone could make a fool-proof escape plan that would free you from a stronghold in a military village without knowing the first thing about it, right? If Shikamaru could do it, so could he, damn it.

Naruto suddenly stood up as if he were hit with a bolt of lightning, catching the attention of his guards, "I have to pee," He said lamely.

It managed to get the attention of his guards for all of five seconds before they realized that they didn't see why such a thing was their problem. He was well within aiming range of the toilet in the cell, "So pee."

"I can't!" Naruto said, turning around to show that his hands were still bound there. With a pronounced distasteful frown, he sighed and walked a few steps before the chain held him from getting anywhere near the bars of his cell, "…One of you has to unzip me."

The response was unanimous between his two guards, "No fucking way," They both deadpanned in-stereo. For some reason these two guards really reminded Naruto of Izumo and Kotetsu, the two chunin gate guards from Konoha. It was uncanny.

"Come on!" Naruto jumped in place frantically, "I had to do it since I first woke up, and it's been two days since then, so it's been building! I'm gonna have to go one way or another really soon, and you guys are stuck here for an entire shift. So have fun smelling pee for your whole shift."

The guards cringed, because he had a point. Naruto also hadn't really had any water to drink in quite a while, so it would be almost pure waste. If they made him go to the bathroom on himself it would absolutely reek, probably throughout the entire prison block. Reluctantly, they released the controls on his security chain to allow him close enough to the bars for one of them to unzip his pants.

There wasn't anything he could do, even if one of them reached through the bars to help him out. Against what they figured, Naruto simply stood obediently and smiled in gratitude once it was complete. They then had to bear witness to the awkward sight of Naruto trying to hop and shake himself loose, so to speak, "Kid, really?"

"I don't have free hands, and nobody's touching that!" Naruto snapped in response as he continued to try and jostle himself free of the zipper opening with jumping and pelvic movements, "Aha! There!" He crowed in triumph, before the sound of water hitting water and Naruto's sighs of relief echoed through the cell.

Neither of the Iwa guards felt particularly comfortable at the moment, especially once the sound of water continued on for longer than ninety seconds. Once again, it had been built up for days. After he finished, Naruto turned over his shoulder sheepishly, "Uh… could one of you zip me back up?"

"Hell no!"

"Okay, cool. Have fun looking at my balls for the next-."

"ALRIGHT!"

Grinning, Naruto jogged back over and stood calmly as his pants were zipped back up by his disgruntled guards. He got a plume of cigarette smoke in his face for his troubles. Okay, he deserved that. It was what he had counted on actually.

Because they were smoking his cigarettes, and they let him get within smoke inhalation range.

Why was he not chained to the wall again? Oh, wait, he was. Right on.

"Hey, can I get one of those?" Naruto asked, gesturing his head toward the cigarettes they were smoking. He had been granted enough liberties in their opinion. Once again, all he got was a gigantic breath of smoke blown into his face for his troubles. Smoke that he inhaled through his nose and held in his throat.

The amount of chakra he had access to might have been positively miniscule even by a genin's standards, and his control might have been shot to hell, but he didn't need much of either since he already knew what he was doing. Not from that range.

Applying whatever chakra he could to the smoke, Naruto exhaled it, mixing it with the rest of the stagnant, pungent cigarette air. Air that the Iwa guards were breathing in. And once they did, they had basically given Naruto the keys right then and there.

They slowly started to cough more and more from smoking less and less, until a slow look of realization began to appear on their faces. Naruto remained completely unaffected throughout, until both of them couldn't breathe at all and fell out right in front of his cell.

After they dropped, Naruto stepped on the shackle around his ankle and stomped on it with his other foot, shattering it. For the last two hours while he had been sitting he had managed to sneak the chain up behind his back, wedged between the place where one of his hands was placed flat against the opposite arm. It had been a more precarious task than usual to cut through the chain with slow application of wind chakra, but it had worked, even if had run the risk of him cutting through his own arm.

With that done, Naruto slowly extended a Chakra Chain from the underside of his wrist, making sure not to ruin it with his devastated chakra control. Slowly but surely, he managed to reach the last jailor that he had seen the keys on after they had entered the cell block and fish them off.

Then came the arduously boring task of trial and error that came with figuring out which key on the chain opened the shackles on his arms. When he heard the telltale click of freedom and the iron bonds clanging to the floor, Naruto let out a positive whoop and rushed to the door to unlock it.

He stopped long enough to look down at the two guards that had smoked his cigarettes in front of him, "Thanks. You let me pee before I left," It had been a nice gesture that they didn't need to do as guards of a prisoner. Which was why Naruto didn't kill them, instead merely choking them unconscious with the thick, tar-heavy smoke.

That being done, Naruto had to find his gear, if it was still around. He doubted the tattered remains of his clothes could be retrieved, which was just as well as they were useless. He was better off in the brown standard prisoner's garb he'd been outfitted with in his unconsciousness.

Newly freed, Naruto immediately tried to pry the Five Elements Seal off of his belly with the technique's counterpart, but his own chakra was too out of sorts to allow him enough control to find the balance to execute it. Naruto felt all over his own body, as though that would tip him off as to where the other seals retarding his own chakra were located, but they were nowhere he could see.

"Whatever," Naruto eventually reasoned to himself. Escaping was the most important thing, and he didn't need the power to blow up a city block. Actually, the temptation to resort to that would probably wind up being more of a hindrance than a help in an escape scenario.

It was during his attempt to leave that Naruto discovered something alarming. On both sides of his prison block there was a sizeable station for guards to change clothes, rest, keep an eye on their particular zones, and otherwise just rest.

That actually made logical sense, to space the guard lounges out between the prison blocks. That way, if someone got free they had to go through a room full of guards just to get anywhere else. Of course this prison, unlike Konoha's, more than likely wasn't situated in the middle of an active volcano with only one way in and out. So having multiple choke points and ways to box any of their captives in between was the best option they had.

With a huff, Naruto leaned his back against the nearest wall, out of the path of the doorway, bumping his head against the solid wall. That wasn't brick. He'd hit his head on enough hard materials to know what certain ones felt like.

"Now what?" A good question.

He would always affirm that he had done the right thing in breaking out at the first opportunity. There was no telling how long he would have been kept there before they finally figured out how to get the Kyuubi out of him, or what would happen to Sasuke while he sat on his ass, if the worst hadn't happened already.

With what he'd picked up about the guard rotation, he had two and a half hours at best to make a move before replacements came, and he had none of his chakra as a cheat button for problem-solving, or the Kyuubi as a sounding board.

He might have just blown an opportunity to escape with the lightest security that he was probably ever going to get. If he didn't get out and they recaptured him...

Naruto's face twisted in thought before he stood back up and walked over to where the two fallen guards lay. Stooping down to check them over, he took their weapons so that he at least had something on his person to use. While relieving them of their supplies, Naruto realized that one of them was more or less his size.

…

Would something that simple really work?

…

Fuck it. Why not? It wasn't like he had a better idea. At least it was a start.

XxX

(Hi no Kuni – Konohagakure no Sato – Hokage Monument)

Ino had been keeping track of Jiraiya's location all day, ever since she had first been able to pinpoint him, waiting for a moment to talk to him. She would have barged in on him while he'd been outside of the Hokage's office days ago, but that was too much of a Naruto move for her to try and ever hope she could get away with.

He wasn't a very difficult ninja to find at least not for a sensor. He wasn't necessarily hiding and he had very particular chakra.

Even if he hadn't been in such an obvious location, there wouldn't have been any way he could have hidden from her within the confines of Konoha's walls. She would have made damn sure that she would have sensed him out, one way or another.

She made no effort to conceal herself upon her approach. She'd waited long enough to speak to him. When she finally trudged up the mountain to find Jiraiya standing near the observation point overlooking all of the village he had been in the midst of a conversation with Team 7's old sensei, Hatake Kakashi.

Both jounin noticed the blonde girl standing off to the side, waiting for the two of them to finish up their business so that she could have her turn. She was patient, but the look on her face showed that she would not be brushed off or ignored.

She was more respectful than her boyfriend at least, even if it wasn't by much.

"I'll talk to you soon Jiraiya-sama," Kakashi said, patting him on the back before walking away, "I just want you to know that I'm ready to help you with that thing we talked about, anytime. My strength is yours."

Jiraiya nodded and smiled at Kakashi for a moment as the copy ninja departed in a Shunshin, leaving the sannin with the next in line to head up the Yamanaka Clan.

Even though it wasn't the time for it, Jiraiya couldn't fight his nature, and he couldn't help but give the girl a once-over, 'Hm. The kid's got good taste I see,' He thought before opening his mouth to say something, "Is there something you need from me?"

As Jiraiya towered above her, Ino noted just how tall and wide he was, especially in comparison to her. It was then that Ino realized that even though Naruto so often referred to Jiraiya familiarly, many times with a significant degree of disrespect, this man was still one of the finest shinobi to ever come out of Konoha.

He was a living legend if there ever was one, and she was just a chunin.

What she was coming to ask him, what right did she really have to? She was nothing to him. Just his godson's girlfriend at best, and a young pair tits and ass at worst. How did she really expect this to go for her? She would likely be sent home with her tail between her legs like the teenager that she was.

'No!' Ino thought, trying to quell those rebellious whispers, 'If it was me in Naruto's place, he'd grab Jiraiya-sama and try to drag him by his arm if he thought it would help him find me.'

Even if she had no real connection to Jiraiya, she had to try.

Taking a deep breath for courage, Ino stood as tall as she could to indicate how serious she was about everything she planned to say, "Jiraiya-sama, I know you're going to go and get him," She said calmly, "I don't know how you know where he is, or if you do at all. But I know if nothing else, you're going to look. I want to go with you when you do."

Jiraiya's eyes lingered on Ino for half a second longer before he turned his back to go on about his business, "Go home, girl."

Ino's heart sank before a fire welled up inside of her chest at the abrupt dismissal, "Is it because I'm a woman?"

The white-haired connoisseur of the fairer gender let out a bitter bark of laughter. As if he were that sexist. Not a chance, "It's because you're invested too much for me to bring you on a mission this delicate."

Ino clenched her fists and fought off the urge to use Mind-Body Disturbance to hold him in place, instead keeping with her words, "And you're not?" The outburst got Jiraiya to freeze in his tracks before he could move any farther, "Don't give me that! You're his godfather!" This was personal for Jiraiya to a degree. It had to be, so she didn't want such a copout of an excuse from him, "I can help you find him! If we're close, anywhere near him at all, I can point him out! I can sense Naruto better than anything in the world!"

She got him to turn back, which was a small victory for her, at least until he opened his mouth, "And what if you never sense him at all? What if he's dead?"

Spoken like a man that had seen too much of it already in his many years in battle.

"He's not-!" Ino's heated response was shut down when Jiraiya moved faster than she had ever expected him to, grabbing onto her shoulders in the tightest grip she had ever felt, so much so that it was almost painful. He was not going to lend an ear to a lovestruck girl who wanted to tag along on something that would be as dangerous as it was. Chunin or not.

"What. If. He's. Dead?" Jiraiya repeated, emphasizing the last word powerfully enough to take her breath away.

"..." Ino regained her confidence as quickly as she could, gulping down the lump that formed in her throat at the thought she had been outright rejecting all week long, "...If he's... dead... at least I won't be sitting at home waiting on the news with bated breath like some damsel. I'll be doing something. I'll be the very first to know."

Jiraiya let her go roughly, causing Ino to stumble back until she caught herself. The two of them stood staring at one another in silence. One thinking things over, the other waiting on the pending verdict.

"I wasn't going to take anyone as low-ranked as you. I was going to take nothing but jounin at the very least. Hand-picked, the best I could find that were available to me," Jiraiya said, waiting long enough for what he said to sink in, why he was saying these things to her now. Ino's eyes lit up and she prepared to bow and thank him, but he quickly cut her off, "If you slow me down, if you hold us back, if you are a liability in way, shape, or form for a single minute, I'll knock you out, tie you to a toad, and send you back home kicking and screaming border-to-border. You listen to every word I say, when I say it. You don't question a single fucking approach I take. Am I understood?"

"Yes sir," She whispered, staring into Jiraiya's eyes without flinching in the slightest, "You and the Guardians took Naruto from me last time for three years. If you think I'm going to let anyone else, or anything else take him from me now without a fight, after I just got him for real-," The thought made her shake her head, swishing her ponytail as she moved, "-If the Shinigami himself had been the one to take Naruto, I would be trying to rip open its stomach and drag him back out."

Jiraiya raised an eyebrow at her heated reply. He shook his head in the negative, much to Ino's confusion, "You're mistaking something here," He said, "This isn't just going to be some search. Whether we can, or whether we can't... whether the rest of the world sees it as one or not, this was an act of war."

The 'W' word.

Ino valued her ability to notice things that others overlooked, and when it came to the subject of war there were two schools of reaction. Older shinobi tended to stay away from bringing it up altogether, because they had all lived through it at least once. Enough said. Younger shinobi rarely said the word themselves because the current generation hadn't experienced one for themselves. Ino couldn't even imagine one, honestly.

To hear Jiraiya say it, Ino would have been lying if she didn't admit that it left her feeling uneasy.

Jiraiya continued to explain, "There are two objectives. The first is to get Naruto and Sasuke back, to keep the jinchuuriki of the nine tails and the Sharingan out of the hands of the enemy, whoever it might be. The other objective, which will be carried out regardless of whether or not we get them both back in one piece, will be to retaliate against whomever it was that took them."

Those words were spoken like a man who knew full well what such an action was more than likely to bring. A man who had lived through two other separate consequences of such a thing before. This wasn't Jiraiya; ero-sensei, eccentric pervert of a teacher, and loving godfather. This was Jiraiya; sannin, veteran shinobi of over forty years, and one of the baddest men to ever wear the leaf insignia on his headband.

He had seen and done it all, and knew the telltale signs firsthand.

A chill went down Ino's spine, "Retaliate?" She knew he was more or less telling her that this meant war, but to have a hand in starting it herself?

"Honestly, Danzo was always better at this sort of thing," Jiraiya said before giving Ino a sheepish grin that slowly turned more sinister, "…But I'm not bad at it myself. If we're lucky and we're good – very, very good – whoever we wind up hitting won't even be able to prove it was us. But even if they can't, it wouldn't stop them from knowing better and coming at us again anyway."

That didn't make Ino feel any better, but what had to be done had to be done. If others elsewhere found out that Naruto was gone, that would have been all the excuse certain other parties would need to take a shot at Konoha anyway.

So with that in mind, why not be the side to strike first?

XxX

(Tsuchi no Kuni – Iwagakure no Sato)

Sasuke's stay within the tender mercies of the Iwagakure prison system had been markedly less pleasant than Naruto's could have claimed his happened to be, mostly because unlike Naruto, Sasuke hadn't been unconscious throughout most of it. He had woken up by the time they'd gotten to the village. So also unlike Naruto, they actually got around to interrogating him.

That had been fun… if you liked being painfully prodded with sharp metal instruments and being forced to break mind-altering, will-breaking genjutsu the hard way every other hour.

But they asked him nothing about Konoha's secrets. Village security, soft points, weaknesses, state information. No, their focus had been on something more particular in this instance.

Instead Iwagakure's interrogators tried to plug him for information on the Sharingan, because they had two perfectly good eyes sitting and waiting for them inside of a corpse formerly known as Uchiha Itachi.

They just wanted to know all they could about them before sticking them into a volunteer shinobi's head to try and get the most out of them. Maybe with enough info they could even reverse-engineer it in some bastardized version of it?

Either way, Sasuke wasn't talking. With Itachi's death, by Sasuke's view, the secrets of his kekkei genkai were the last thing he had to connect him to his clan.

This was the only reason he was still alive, and the only reason he still had his own eyes inside of his sockets. They didn't want to waste a single pair of Sharingan. If Itachi's screwed up on them, they didn't want Sasuke's to be worn or damaged in any way. They wanted them transplanted fresh, believing that it would net them better results that way.

At the very least, he was grateful for that much.

If his chakra weren't completely encumbered due to the debilitating series of seals placed on his body, he would have been more than willing to show them how grateful he was with a scathing genjutsu.

…If he weren't blindfolded as well.

"Fucking stupid Iwa-," Sasuke muttered to himself, sorely wishing he could scratch an itch on a suspect part of his body, which only added to his existing irritability, "-With their fucking learning from things... covering my eyes. Damned Third Great Ninja War."

"Why are you talking to yourself? And why are you blindfolded?"

Sasuke's head jolted up with a start. He would have recognized that voice anywhere, and he never figured that he would ever be grateful to hear it. He would definitely never admit to being glad to hear from Naruto, even under pain of torture. He had more dignity than that.

"Get me down from here, jackass," Sasuke demanded immediately, calming down moments later when he heard Naruto trying to undo the shackles around his arms, "How did you even get out?"

Naruto managed to free one of Sasuke's arms and yanked the blindfold off of his head, startling Sasuke with the bright lights permeating his containment cell on all sides, "They kind of gift-wrapped it for me."

Really? Wonderful. They gave the guy with the monster in his belly enough wiggle room to break out of prison. Because that made so much sense.

"…I've been hanging here for a full day," Sasuke said, more disappointed at the quality of their jailors more than the fact that Naruto had managed to break out before he himself had found a way to, "You just broke out twenty minutes ago."

"Hey give me some credit. It's not like they teleported us in here," Naruto said with a grin, "They carried us the whole way."

Sasuke nodded in agreement before going wide-eyed and pointing behind Naruto suddenly. When Naruto turned to deal with whatever Sasuke had seen behind him, Sasuke grabbed his head and twisted hard enough to break his neck.

Strange. Killing someone as annoying as Naruto wasn't as gratifying as Sasuke thought it would have been. Maybe because he knew it wasn't Naruto.

...Thank God for that.

"'I accidentally snapped Naruto's neck because I thought he was an imposter."

Something like that would have been hard to explain later after he got back to Konoha. It was a moot point however, because he had been 100% right in his course of action.

"You obviously weren't watching when they brought us here," Sasuke said, looking down at the corpse that had been masquerading as Naruto, "That idiot was worse off than I was. There's no way he remembers the layout of this prison. Even if he paid attention to things like that, which he doesn't, he wasn't even awake to see it in the first place."

Sasuke had no doubt in his mind that if Naruto had managed to get free, the entire facility would have been on alert for a full twenty minutes before Naruto eventually reached him, guards hot on his heels and bodies lining the hallways.

At his feet, the fake Naruto began to change forms, not like a regular failed Henge, but shifting shape. It transformed into a nude, human-like being with a white body, plant-like spikes on its shoulders, and a startling visage with a flytrap sort of mouth.

"What the hell?" Sasuke whispered to himself, trying to analyze what he was seeing.

Whatever that thing had been, it had turned into a perfect copy of Uzumaki Naruto. Sasuke couldn't find a single physical flaw on it. He only went off of what it had said. Its words had incriminated it.

Upon finding him, Naruto would have done one of two things. He either would have bragged immediately about how he'd gotten out, or he would have asked Sasuke what happened to him, or them collectively, which led to the second reason.

Naruto more than likely would have hounded him about what happened to them, because he hadn't been awake for any of it. By the time Sasuke woke up, they were being dragged through Iwagakure, and Naruto had been completely unresponsive.

He had gotten off far easier than Naruto looked to have, which confused him more than anything else because of just what he had been doing, or more accurately who he had been fighting, before he blacked out.

(Flashback – Five Days Ago)

What an odd-sized explosion.

Sasuke didn't know how or why Sora-ku blew itself to kingdom come. Knowing how or why wouldn't have kept it from happening, or him from being in the middle of it. He would never understand how he survived, but he thanked his lucky stars that he had.

The first thing the vengeful young Uchiha felt was blinding, searing pain. The next thing he felt was all of his outer extremities; fingers, toes, arms, legs. All of which put him at ease, even as he picked himself up off of the hard ground.

A nasty set of coughs pierced the air, and Sasuke pinned his ears back like an attack dog. Nothing was finished yet.

Vision blurry, Sasuke stumbled to his feet, only to see Itachi up as well, Susanoo fully formed around him, the flames of Amaterasu flickering on parts of it. He had survived the horrible explosion that had blown them both sky-high.

Of course he did. Sasuke didn't even know why he was surprised. Because death meant failure, and Uchiha Itachi never failed. Really, it was more of a miracle that Sasuke survived, not that Itachi did.

Just with Susanoo's presence on their new battleground alone, Itachi seemed to be mocking Sasuke.

And just like that, the pain didn't matter anymore. It didn't matter that the Amaterasu flames covered parts of his body.

Sasuke was enraged, and with that rage he blocked out the burning sensation tearing at his body and formed another Chidori in his hand, "I told you Itachi! I'm still standing!"

Defiantly he charged Itachi down, not caring one bit how he would respond with the giant chakra samurai surrounding him. If he could pierce it he could pierce it. If he couldn't, it didn't matter. He had come this far, and he was going to see this through.

One of them was going to die today, even if it had to be Sasuke. At least it would over with and settled.

If this was it, it was going to be it. Sasuke yelled at the top of his lungs, lightning covering his left hand as he resolved to hurl himself at his older brother, "Chidori (One Thousand Birds)!"

There was plenty of space between them on that lonely precipice. Plenty of time for Itachi to mount a counterattack, something, anything to try and stop his younger sibling.

But Sasuke would give him no such opportunity. Whatever he tried wouldn't work. Anything Itachi came up with would not stop him from testing Susanoo's durability with his own two hands.

*SQUELCH!*

And just like that, it was over.

At first he couldn't believe it. It had been too simple.

There had been no sweeping attack from Itachi's Susanoo to keep him from getting close. No genjutsu fooling him into thinking he actually made contact. No almighty defense move to keep the Chidori from penetrating.

There hadn't even been a Susanoo to block him.

Susanoo vanished before Sasuke could even try to rip through it, and his hand was presented with the prime target that was Itachi. A target that Sasuke could not and did not pass up.

It ended with his hand buried right through Itachi's chest. He had been run straight through.

The look of utter shock on Sasuke's face eclipsed the prepared resignation to his fate that manifested on Itachi's. As Sasuke's Sharingan faded from chakra depletion, he didn't feel as if he were on fire any longer. The Amaterasu flames were gone, which was impossible because they still remained littering random areas of the precipice from their fiery landing.

Instead, the warmest thing on Sasuke at that moment was Itachi's blood and innards, covering his arm up to the forearm.

He didn't understand.

"Why-?" Sasuke started to say, his lips trembling to get the rest of his words out, but none would come. This was not how he saw this moment going. In his mind, it was so much more fulfilling. In his mind, it tied up everything that he needed tied up in his life.

Itachi begging for his forgiveness, forgiveness that Sasuke would never grant him as he struck him down mercilessly.

Itachi lashing out in anger, raging against Sasuke even after all hope for his victory was lost, until Sasuke finally ended his craven brother's life once and for all.

Itachi and Sasuke killing one another, ending their bloodline forever, far away from home, away from the eyes of anyone who would shed a tear.

These were all the ways that Sasuke saw their mighty battle ending. Not with Itachi grabbing onto the arm buried into his chest with a smile, even as blood streamed freely past his lips, sinking to his knees, his head still held high to look at Sasuke face-to-face.

'I'm sorry Sasuke…' Itachi mouthed silently. It was all Sasuke could make out with his Sharingan inactive from fatigue, even as his brother continued to murmur his last words breathlessly.

His body fell back, sliding off of Sasuke's hand, leaving it stained a deep red, dripping freely onto the ground. Itachi didn't move again.

Sasuke could only stare down at what was left of his older brother. The man he hated, who even in death left more questions than he'd answered. One more prevalent than any other at that given moment, even as Sasuke's vision went dark from exhaustion and injuries.

"Why didn't you dodge?"

(End Flashback)

Even thinking about it then caused Sasuke's hands to shake uncontrollably. He had to grab onto them just to make them stop, "Damn it, Itachi," This wasn't how it was supposed to go after it was over. His brother wasn't supposed to remain a phantom, superimposed over Sasuke's life even after death, "Just go away…"

Sasuke had plenty of time to think about that battle, and how it ended. Itachi had been weakened by the massive explosion that threw them from Sora-ku, but he'd had Susanoo, which explained how he remained alive and in one piece.

It didn't explain anything about how the same could be said for Sasuke though, which was one of the many things about the fight that left him befuddled over the outcome when he had the time to think about them. So many things happened that shouldn't have made sense, more than did make sense actually.

'Tch, get your priorities straight!' Sasuke thought angrily to himself. Itachi was apparently going to get him killed, one way or another, 'Get out of here and do what you need to do first. Let Itachi keep drive you out of your mind after you're not about to be tortured and killed.'

Sasuke calmed himself down, but still could have used a quick, dirty means of anger management. Fortunately, that outlet made itself readily available to him when an Iwagakure ninja stepped into his isolated room. He wore the standard Iwa uniform and a facemask covering the lower half of his face, Kakashi-style.

Whether he was one of Sasuke's would-be tormentors, or he was just there to check on him, he picked the wrong time and definitely the wrong person to look in on.

A vicious grin on the face of the young man with the poorest disposition in the world was the first thing the poor Iwa-nin saw, his eyes going wide at the sight of Sasuke already being free with a corpse at his feet. If he had his way, there was about to be one more to join it, "Whoa, wait-."

Sasuke most certainly did not wait. He had almost a week of pent-up wrath to work out, and breaking some weird plant-man's neck with one twist wasn't enough to do it.

The Iwa ninja had his hands up to protect himself, but Sasuke attacked at his side instead of coming at him head on so that he didn't accidentally close the door. With his chakra out of whack and his Sharingan temporarily out of commission, Sasuke had to rely on taijutsu for the time being until he could figure out just what his limits were.

Every time the Iwa ninja seemed to block one of Sasuke's punches, he did so by brushing them past, using his hands on the back of Sasuke's arms. Whenever he did, it felt as though there were some force trying to make his hands stick to Sasuke. He didn't know what it was at first, but he didn't like it, keeping him from throwing any kicks lest he get one of his legs taken.

Still, even with the ferocity that fueled his onslaught, Sasuke had still been tormented on and off for five days. He was tired, and his arms had been shackled in a very uncomfortable position whenever he wasn't taken down to be tortured. He was tired. His muscles were tight and sluggish.

His opponent was loose, significantly healthier, and when Sasuke gave him an opening, he jumped all over it, moving behind Sasuke and locking him in tight full-nelson, dragging Sasuke to the floor with it and holding him in place. He couldn't believe it. Even as worn out as he was, Sasuke couldn't image any no-name taking him down like that. As much as he wiggled and fought, he couldn't get himself loose in the slightest.

He hadn't found himself in a grip so tight since the last time he'd fought...

'Wait a minute,' Sasuke thought to himself instead of struggling to free himself from a grip that seemed like some unholy combination of super-glue and vice grips, 'He fights just like-,' "-Dobe?"

"You done yet?" The Iwa ninja said in Naruto's voice. Sasuke had almost been fooled once by a Naruto lookalike, but this one seemed much more legitimate for several reasons, "'Cuz I kind of need you awake. I'm not sure I could get away with dragging you outta here."

The disguised Naruto let Sasuke go and allowed him to get a good look. Naruto... looked just different enough that Sasuke had looked past his features at first. His hair was still spiky and in the same pattern as always, but it was jet black and covered by a full Iwagakure bandanna. His eyes were still blue, but they were angled differently, nothing like the way they were normally shaped at all. The facemask was an obvious attempt to cover the birthmarks on his face.

"You transformed into an Iwa ninja?" Sasuke said in disbelief. That crappy disguise actually got him that far? Peace really did make people soft, "And how exactly did this even work?"

Naruto's eyes closed in the form of a grin, apparently eager to explain his incredible plan, "Okay, check it out. My chakra is sealed up so tight right now, shitty prison sensors can't tell that it's me. Once they know a breakout happens, they're gonna be looking for the complex Henges, so I figured, why go there? Keep it simple."

So simple that no one would look for it. Most transformations had a flaw that let people who knew of the person that was being used as the model point out the fake. Naruto didn't transform into any of his guards. He just stole their clothes and changed his features enough to not look like himself.

On a whim, Sasuke took a peek outside of the slightly cracked door to his containment cell, catching sight of five downed Iwa shinobi laying around the hallway. From how they were all positioned, not a single one of them saw it coming. So now they had to run, with no idea of how to get out, or where they would wind up once they made it outside.

"You're an idiot," It was the only thing he could think of to say. Strangely enough, it also summed up everything Sasuke had been thinking as well.

Naruto ignored him and threw a second Iwagakure uniform at Sasuke's face. The latter cringed at the thought of wearing another village's standard gear for its shinobi, but it was better than the prison garb he'd been bleeding and sweating in for days.

"It's not stupid if it works, and right now it's working," Naruto argued in return before curling his lip and continuing, "I'm sure you've got a way better escape plan though."

Sasuke... did not. But he would never admit that he wasn't completely in control of his own situation, especially now that he was free.

"I'm sure it'll come back to you later," Naruto jibed, getting a low growl out of Sasuke until Naruto noticed the other body in the room and that it wasn't quite human, "Holy shit, what's that?"

"Plant-man," Sasuke stated bluntly with a shrug. He was still miffed, "I don't know. I don't care either."

Good old Sasuke. Eye on the prize; whatever the prize was this time around.

"Don't you think we should... I dunno, do something with it?"

"Sure. Stay here and dissect it to figure out what it is. Don't worry, I'll wait."

"Oi... kiss my ass."

This wasn't the time for an argument. Sasuke finished getting dressed and grabbed Naruto by the shoulders, giving him one good shake to make sure he had his attention. He needed to make sure Naruto absorbed what he had to say, "Naruto. Listen to me as hard as you fucking can. They've got Itachi."

Naruto stared at him in something of a trance before blinking and breaking it, "...Sweet. Let's go home then," Let Akatsuki be Iwa's problem. Maybe it would sidetrack them away from the two of them for a while. At least long enough to get the heck out of Tsuchi no Kuni.

"We can't," Sasuke insisted, "He's not a prisoner. He's dead, and they plan on using his eyes."

Kakashi-style. Naruto had never seen Kakashi fight, but what he'd heard didn't sit easy with him when he thought of a village that had a distaste for Konoha possessing such a power, "And that's... bad. Yeah. Wow. That's really bad. Fuck. So we can't leave Iwa until we find wherever they're keeping your dead brother."

"Or just his eyes," The dark-haired chunin specified, "We're not making this difficult. If we find the rest of him, I'm setting whatever's left on fire."

"Whoa! You're gonna-. Sasuke that's-," Naruto stopped himself before he could really get started. As distasteful as it was, Sasuke's course of action made sense. Apparently, Kiri's hunter-nin squads operated in that way with everyone. Konoha's ANBU definitely did within their own ranks, "Ugh. You've got a really messed up family. I hope my clan wasn't into any dark shit when they were around."

"So are you in?" Sasuke asked, as though it were even a question. It wasn't. They had to find Itachi's body before they left. The Sharingan wasn't anything to play around with or leave in anyone's hands. Even so, he had to throw the sound of a challenge onto it, "Or do you not think you can do it?"

It was worded as a challenge, but with the both of them knowing what they did about the situation, it was more for show than anything else. There was no question here. They had to try and get the eyes before someone took them and used them against the village.

At that, Naruto let out an honest laugh in the face of his chief rival, despite their situation, "I have a Five Elements Seal and who knows what else on me, and put down two of their guys with a fuck-mothering cigarette that I wasn't even smoking. Don't you tell me what I can't do!"

Just what he wanted to hear, "Well then I guess we have a mission."

Naruto waited for Sasuke to finish changing before both of them headed out, with only a few minutes left to find the way out before an alarm was raised. Their disguises, for the little good they would do them in a pinch, would be worthless after that point. Even after they managed to leave, they would still have to find their way around Iwa and get to what they were after.

Calling it a mission was a good method of compartmentalizing just how screwed the two of them really were. A mission. And no one else was in charge. No Kakashi. No Asuma. No Neji or Shikamaru. No one to patch them up. Just them. Every call they made would be on them, and there was no safety net. No other teammate to rely on for a bailout if they blew it. No one else even knew that they were there.

Naruto hissed a whisper Sasuke's way as the two of them cleaned up the hallway before setting off, "Is this what they call 'full autonomy'?"

Omake: 'Til Death Do Us What? (4)

It was a rather odd time to take visitors, especially one of the nature that Hinata wound up receiving on this given day. But lo and behold, she found herself entertaining company in her room within the sizable mansion that members of the Hyuuga Clan called home.

Hinata took a calm sip of the tea that she had prepared as a refreshment for herself and her guest, "Mmm," She said after tasting the drink, "Ino, you have good taste in teas," She worked with plants on a regular basis. Her expertise must have been in more than just flowers and poison-producing flora.

Ino just nodded and remained silent, trying to formulate exactly what she wanted to say. She had come with a purpose, and hadn't gone to Sakura first about it because she was certain her pink-haired friend would laugh for a full thirty minutes before deciding to assist or decline.

Fortunately, she had read enough romance novels to know how this sort of thing was supposed to go, and it was time to get to it, "Alright, I don't like you, and you don't like me-."

Hinata regarded Ino with a puzzled expression on her soft features, "Ano... I like you," She told her, furrowing her brow in worry, "...Y-You don't like me?" It was a rather startling revelation to have sprung on her so suddenly.

Feuding over Naruto aside, Hinata had respected Ino's abilities as a kunoichi. And when they weren't waging a tooth and nail shadow war over the object of their mutual affection, she did see Ino as a friend. Other than over Naruto-related things, they hadn't ever had an issue with one another, minor or major.

"Oh. Well, yeah, I do. I was just trying to go for dramatic to try and set the stage here," Ino admitted, scratching at her cheek sheepishly before a fire came to her eyes and she rose up from the low table where she had been sitting and having tea with Hinata, "Because this is important! Some floozy's trying to drag my man back to her village and marry him, amazon-style!"

Hinata's pale lavender eyes went wide, "Naruto-kun broke up with you?"

"No."

"I'm afraid I don't understand. How is some other girl going to take him away then?"

"Because he's too much of a softie to kick her tight little ass out of the gates."

Also, more accurately, because using brute force in such a manner would cause an international incident. But Ino wasn't particularly concerned with world affairs when some warrior princess type wanted to make off with her favorite jinchuuriki,

Sitting back down, arms crossed in a huff, Ino grumped about, "Well she sure as hell can't have him. I haven't even had a piece of him yet," Her mood stewing, she had hardly known what she had said until she noticed Hinata's face go beet red. Oh God, what she must have been thinking, "W-What? I'm not that kind of girl, you know. If I'm not ready, I'm not ready!"

"It's... okay," Hinata insisted, calming herself only with the help of a deep breathing exercise. It wasn't as if the same thoughts didn't cross her mind a minimum of three times a day, so she would never be able to hold such a thing against Ino, "So why me?"

"You're the only person I could think of that would be just as pissed as I am if they were in my shoes," Ino declared bluntly, "I was hoping for some empathy here. So... soul sisters? Huh?" Ino offered with a tiny grin, "How about it?"

Hinata sent her a flat stare in response as she refilled her cup, "You do know that by helping you, I'm hurting myself," She said, her delicate voice lifting across the room, "I have faith that Naruto-kun can handle this himself."

Ino dropped her head forward onto the table with a thud, causing the tea set to jingle from the impact, "I do too, it's just that his way will take forever!" She moaned through the wood of the table, "His way is to find someone good enough to beat her to take on his spot as her official fiance, but they have to be thick enough to not figure out the consequence of winning, or just not care about it."

"I can see how this would be inconvenient for you and put a strain on your relationship," Hinata said, speaking like a dignitary sitting at the meeting table, "My condolences for the difficulties it will cause."

Ino didn't need to lift her head in order to see the Stepford smile Hinata was giving her in response. It was all over her light, sugary-sweet voice. Damn their rivalry for putting steel in that girl's spine.

It wasn't as if Ino had expected anything less though. She hadn't just shown up with nothing in mind to make this happen. She had prepared accordingly to tip the scales in her favor.

Lifting herself off of the table with a sigh, the purple-clad Yamanaka reached into her blouse and pulled out a folded up note that she placed on the table, "I thought you would say that, and I am prepared to offer you anything off of this list," She slowly slid the note over to Hinata, fully confident that her bribe would work.

Raising an eyebrow, Hinata took the note and opened it to examine the contents. Each thing she read on the list just so happened to be something she had interest in, varying from moderate to extreme. Some of them were things she'd had running through her own head every so often. It was as if Ino had been reading her mind when she had been writing this list.

...Right. She could do that in certain situations. Sometimes when you looked at Ino it was easy to forget that she was a rather gifted user of her clan's famed techniques, including telepathy and various mind-based abilities.

Even with realizing that, Hinata wasn't even angry about it. Not with what had just been dropped right into her lap. So now it was just a matter of negotiation. Fortunately she was the firstborn daughter of a noble family. Even if her father hadn't ever thought she'd had the talent for it, she knew how to.

Schooling her reaction to the... enjoyable things she so happened to be reading over, Hinata needed clarification, "I can have anything on this list in exchange for helping you?"

"Anything," Ino confirmed with a smirk, "One time only. Name it and you've got it," It was in the bag. There was no way Hinata could resist a few of the things she'd put on that list.

"Even the-."

"Even that, if you really want," Ino said before holding up a finger to halt any further supposition on the matter, "But you've got to wait until we've had our first time. And you've got to tell me way in advance so I can set it up first. It's not something I can just get together on a day's notice. It might take some convincing."

Not much though. Naruto was loyal, as was evident by how he was trying to handle the whole Shizuka situation himself before any damage was done to his relationship with Ino. Still, if Naruto anything like Jiraiya, anything at all, if Ino brought up that with a girl like Hinata involved, and told him that it had to happen and he wouldn't get in trouble for it, he would gleefully take part as many times as he needed to.

On Hinata's side of things, this was a very appealing offer. Help kick out someone that would be trying to leave with the apple of Hinata's eye to begin with in order to get a named favor from Ino, most on the list involving Naruto in some way, shape, or form.

There was one thing better than one favor though. Multiple favors, "Three."

Ino narrowed her eyes. This wasn't supposed to be a negotiation, "One."

Hinata didn't budge, nor did she show any exasperation at butting heads about it, "Three," A twitch, which meant that she would wear on Ino the longer this went on. Ino came to her with this, which meant that she was really counting on Hinata's help.

"Two, and that's it."

"Three, or I'm not helping," Hinata smoothly insisted, causing Ino to bite her lip at losing control of the situation. Hinata wasn't backing down and she would get everything she wanted out of this negotiation. The key was her next move, making Ino think that she was giving her a little rope, "You can choose one of the rewards that I get for me."

Ino, for all of her time spent in shopping settings purchasing this and that, was not a haggler or a negotiator. She wasn't the type that bartered to get something she wanted that was out of her price range. She would just come up with what she needed to pay the full cost, even if it took more than what she had originally been willing to part with when she'd set out on her excursion.

When there was something that she really wanted, a lot of the time she just wasn't willing to leave the store without it.

Eventually, she gave in with a sigh, "Goddamn it. I wish you were still shy enough to pass out whenever Naruto comes up in things like this," She extended her hand, which Hinata took, sealing the agreement with a shake, "Deal."

Hinata smiled beautifully, taking hold of the note and folding it back up for her own safekeeping, "If he were sitting here, I probably still would have."

Ongoing Stats (Out of 5)

Iwagakure

Kurotsuchi

Ninjutsu: 5

Taijutsu: 3.5

Genjutsu: 3

Intelligence: 3.5

Strength: 2.5

Speed: 4

Stamina: 3.5

Hand-Seals: 3.5

Total Score: 28

Kitsuchi

Ninjutsu: 4.5

Taijutsu: 3.5

Genjutsu: 2.5

Intelligence: 4

Strength: 3.5

Speed: 3.5

Stamina: 4

Hand-Seals: 3

Total Score: 28.5

Onoki

Ninjutsu: 5

Taijutsu: 4

Genjutsu: 4

Intelligence: 5

Strength: 5

Speed: 4.5

Stamina: 3

Hand-Seals: 3.5

Total Score: 34