What exactly was the nature of this plan? That is exactly where my story gets interesting. My plan and Sasuke’s plan differ a little bit in that in the end of his plan he kills his brother and in my plan someone else, probably someone part of the ANBU Torture and Interrogation Force, does it for him. Also, importantly, in my plan Sasuke moves on with his life and in his plan he clings to the same tired goal of revenge he has for over half of his life. But, I’ll get around to explaining that part later. First, I have to catch you up on what has happened over the past month and a half.
Six weeks ago Sasuke turned on Orochimaru. Two weeks later gathered intelligence that he had put together a team and was heading after his brother. At this point, of course, Baa-chan thought it would be a good idea to finally send out a squad to recapture Itachi. It took us a week and a half to find him and a week to actually capture him without killing him then another week to return home with him. So, the mission took three weeks total and Itachi was back in Konoha almost five weeks after Sasuke had turned on Orochimaru. We were each given a week to rest.
Half way through that week – or two days ago, Thursday morning at 2:30 in the AM – was doing exactly as I was told. I was resting. In fact, I was sound asleep in my bed and very thing was normal. In the morning I had planned to get up early, have a good breakfast, do some light training and go meet Sakura and Ino for lunch. But, that did not ever get to happen because instead something very odd and unexpected happened to me.
Instead, I woke up – like I said round about 2:30 AM – to see a very good looking girl with dark hair and dark eyes which were framed in red horn-rimed glasses standing over me saying something to someone else who was in the room. I only woke up because she was holding some strange smelling cloth over my face and sticking a needle in my arm.
“This is way too easy. Are you sure he’s the right one?” she said. “I mean he’s built nice and pretty like he works out and all. But, I think a shinobi would wake up if someone broke into his house? Right? He didn’t even twitch. Come look at the way he is drooling, too. Man, I’ve never seen anything like it.”
I tried to sit up. But, my body would not move.
“Good morning,” the girl smiled as she noticed that my eyes were open.
“Yeah, that’s him,” the boy that was with her responded. He was standing by my dresser. My body would not move and I could not focus my eyes. But, I knew that he was holding the picture I have of Sakura and Sasuke and Kakashi-sensei and I back when we were Team 7. The drawl of his dark voice was familiar. “He’s a little… unconventional. You kept this all this time, Usuratonkachi?”
The girl was still smiling, “Goodnight.”
The next time I opened my eyes my head was throbbing and my mouth was completely dry and tasted bitter like I had been drugged which, of course, I had been. The sky was dark but his outline against it was clear. The wind blew through venomously through his hair. I knew from the lights in the distance that we were in the mountains.
I struggled convulsively and found that my ankles and wrists were bound and my thighs were bound to my shins and they were all tied together somehow. Something about the rope was suppressing my chakra. I glanced around and noticed that we were in a meadow on the edge of two bits of woods. Evidently, Sasuke and his crew had made camp here. It was closing in on evening. From the looks of things I had been passed out all day.
I looked up at him again. He didn’t say anything. He just kind of looked at me. I stopped struggling and broke the silence for him.
“Stop trying to look like a badass, Sasuke! ’the fuck’s the matter with you, tebayo?!”
I panted. I was still dizzy. Its times like this that make me wish I had paid more attention in school during all those classes we had about what to do when you’ve been captured. I racked my mind for ideas of how to escape. I couldn’t use and jutsu because of the strange nature of this rope and even if I did get myself free of it I would be fighting four on one, minus the advantage of drawing on Kyuubi’s chakra because of the damn eye techniques which Sasuke had learned.
Someone answered for me, “His problem is he’s a prick.”
I looked over at the “someone” who had said that and he was smiling at me like feral cat, complete with a sharp row of teeth. When Sasuke looked over at him he stopped smiling and turned away.
“Just tryin’ to lighten the mood,” he complained as he slunk off.
I hoped that this wasn’t part of Sasuke’s twisted retribution complex. I hope he wasn’t using the same line of logic he with his older brother: you kill our parents, I’ll kill you and we’ll be even. If that were the case then he would be turning me in to the Atasuki because I had been one of the ones who had turned his brother in to the authorities in Konoha.
But, I worried for nothing because that was not the case. Although, what Sasuke did have to say to me could, arguably, be considered just as strange. When the other boy was gone, Sasuke turned to me and said something very startling. I guess it was his oddball way of explaining himself to me. But, it just made me more confused.
He said, “I need your help.”
I breathed a silent sigh of relief. If he needed my help, he probably wasn’t going to kill me right away. That bought me some time. But, first, if I was going to do anything I had to get him to untie me. So, my only real option for escape was winning him over and slipping away.
“So,” I kind of stopped struggling completely – I had been fidgeting with my hands – for a moment and looked up at him. I asked, “In order to ask me a favor you kidnap me, tebayo? That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.”
We were alone now. He made this sort of “pfft” sound and rolled his eyes. The response was strange yet familiar. It was as comforting as it was disquieting and I wasn’t entirely sure why. His long bangs hung down and framed his face. He was wearing the same mask he always has – frowning seriously, sneering instead of smiling, his eyes narrow screaming with childish, stubborn disobedience and conceit.
He cut right to the chase without any of those, ‘My apologies for running away from home and trying to kill you for the past two years – sorry I broke your heart. More importantly sorry I broke Sakura’s heart’ or ‘I’m sorry for kidnapping you from your home, drugging you for what has probably been close to 16 hours and carrying you deep into the wilderness of the fire country’ formalities.
“Itachi is in the Hidden Leaf and I–”
“I’m sorry,” I would have crossed my arms stubbornly if they weren’t bound. “I don’t remember the last time I peed. So, I’m having trouble listening to anything you’re saying because I’m concentrating on holding it in.”
“We need to get something settled first.”
“And you know what else,” I interrupted again. These weren’t any usual knots like I was used to. The more I wriggled the tighter they got and there was this knot on my lower back that was connected somehow connected both to where my wrists were tied and to where my calves where tied to my thighs. The more I struggled the more it made me sit up straight and the harder it made it for me to breathe. It was killing me, “where the in the hell did you find the time to get so good at hojōjutsu*? I always knew you were a closet pervert, Sasuke.”
He squatted down in front of me, straddling my legs, grabbing my shirt with one hand and the other drawing his chokutō**. His face was so close that I could smell his breath. That wasn’t so bad, though, he was chewing some sort of fruit gum. The look in his eyes, however, was not so fantastic to have turned on me. It was unwavering and unnerving. The intent to kill came off him in hot waves but, it filled me with a cold feeling.
“Even when you just wake up you’re noisy,” there was a tone in his voice which I had never heard before. He was, for some reason, desperate. “Would you shut the fuck up for just one instant and listen to me? Can you do that for me, Naruto? Is it possible for you to do that?”
“Only if you,” I looked him square in the eye and called his bluff. He wasn’t about to hurt me, I thought, especially if he needed me to get him back into Konoha so desperately as to do something as rash as kidnap me, who he must know Baa-chan is keeping a special eye on because of the movements of the Akatsuki, “listen to me when I tell you that I’m hungry and I got to pee and my body is sore from this damn bondage you put me in you pervert-teme.”
He backed off, “You’re in pain because you’re wiggling and making them worse, you idiot. If you really wanted to escape you would relax.” He turned aside and rummaged through a bag, “Do you want some trail mix? Will that shut you up?”
“That is a distinct possibility.”
He sat down next to me and took off his wrist guards then put his hands on me to adjust the way I was sitting so I would be more comfortable. He wrapped his one arm around me and slipped his hand between my skin and my shirt and the one particularly painful knot on my lower back. I tried not to sigh or let out some sort of groan because of how good that felt, what a relief it was, because how awkward that would potentially make things. The way he was acting was bewildering. The last few times we’d seen one another he had tried to kill me and was almost successful. Now it seemed like he was trying, in his own peculiar way, to be my friend.
A wind rustled the leaves through the trees as he gathered his patience and a handful of trail mix to offer me, “Eat. And don’t speak with your mouth full or I swear I will call Suigetsu over here to do something to hurt you. He’s very creative and I can’t guarantee that you’ll escape with all of your limbs.”
“Okay,” this was getting weirder by the moment. I willingly ate out of his hand as he spoke to me in a gentle, quiet voice he used to use sometimes to tell me that he was making a special effort not to hit me. I ate around the raisins in the trail mix even though I knew that would annoy the hell out of him.
“So, I need you to get me back into Konoha.”
When I heard that I was a little taken aback. I started to forget escape and found myself prepared to believe whatever truth or lies he was willing to feed to me, just as long as it gave me a chance, just as long as it give me the freedom to be alone with him. Maybe, just maybe, then I could help him. I could show him that what is real is not what is in the past but what is in the present.
“How?”
“Shut up and listen. I have a plan,” I licked his hand by mistake when I was trying to get at a cracker. It was salty and I wasn’t sure if it was because of the food he was giving me or if that was just the way the palm of his hand tastes. He didn’t seem to notice and if he did he didn’t seem to mind, “It goes like this. I’ll explain it to you fully so you don’t have to ask any stupid questions. In order to accomplish my goal I need to infiltrate the village, gather intelligence about where Itachi is being held, wait until the day of his execution – I assume they’re going to execute him,” I nodded in agreement, “create some sort of diversion, get in there and kill him myself.”
“Hold up,” I was confused. I knit my eyebrows together. “You aren’t making any sense. We both know he is going to be executed. So, what’s the problem with just letting somebody else do it?”
“I want to do it,” his eyes kind of shifted aside. “They won’t do it right.”
“Sasuke, seriously, since when is there a right way of killing someone? If he’s dead he’s dead. Isn’t he?”
He looked down at his hand, “Would you eat the God damn raisins already, Naruto?”
I ate the raisins but, only because I had something else I needed to clear up, beyond how exceedingly strangeness of his demeanor. I shrugged. I was pretty sure that he wasn’t going to kill me unless I was unfriendly towards him or started an argument.
So, I murmured, “So, what’d you want me to do about it?”
“That’s what I was trying to get to. Of course, even you must realize that if I just walk back into the village and turn myself over I’ll probably be arrested—”
“Right, right and if you’re locked up you won’t be able to kill Itachi because you won’t be able to move or gather information. What does this have to do with me?”
“You can help me not get arrested.” I did not like the sound of that. “Don’t look at me like that, Usuratonkachi. It’s perfectly legal if that’s what you’re worried about.”
I wasn’t sure if I should be relieved or bothered by that. I still didn’t like the sound of this whole thing, “I’m pretty sure that if you went to Baa-chan and told her you were sorry you’d get off easy. She’s loud and pushy – especially when it comes to bets. But, she’s also pretty understanding.”
“I’m telling you I don’t want anybody getting in my way,” he frowned and shook his head and shifted so he was sitting next to me facing the sky instead of kneeling next to me holding me up. He removed his hand from between the knot and the sore spot in my back. I suppose now that he’d gotten me to start listening he didn’t feel like babying me anymore. “Besides I’d planned for this when I left in case I needed to return to in a situation like this.” Of course he did, I thought. He’s a maniac. “There is a loop-hole I can get through. A set of laws we can invoke which were never over-turned from back in the days before the shinobi of the different countries had united themselves in the Hidden Villages, when the different bloodlines were still struggling against one another for superiority.”
“Uh-huh,” I commented just to make sure that he knew that I was still listening.
“The law wasn’t written by ninja, it was written by the confederation of lords in the Land of Fire to make our culture seem more humane. It states that if one shinobi is about to kill another he can offer to allow him to live in exchange for his complete loyalty. In other words, if the victorious shinobi finds himself in a situation where he is going to die the defeated shinobi must lay down his life to protect him. But, the defeated shinobi, after entering into this contract, gains political asylum in the country of the victorious shinobi’s alliance.”
“So, you want me to ‘capture’ you,” I supposed it was kind of sweet that back then he had thought to count on me if a situation like this came up, “so that your slate is wiped clean and you won’t have to deal with being punished for running away.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re saying you’ll actually keep up your part of the bargain in this whole thing?” I scrutinized him as well as I could without turning my head towards him. He was still looking up at the sky with this far away look on his face. His hands were resting gently on his knees.
“I will,” he nodded slowly.
“You’re sure? I don’t know if I can believe you.”
“Yes,” he looked at me with his dark eyes like I was being stupid, which I was not.
“You’re completely 100% ‘never-running-away from home again’ sure?”
“Yes, I’m fucking sure, Naurto,” he snarled.
“No,” I wasn’t convinced. I wanted to believe him. But, at the same time I felt sort of like being stubborn. He’d made me chase him for over two years after all, “I want you to promise that you aren’t going to run away again.”
“That’s implied in the agreement, Naruto.”
“No,” I insisted, “make that a separate promise.”
“God damn it,” he snapped. “I knew this was a stupid idea. I thought maybe that you were still enough of a fool to believe in me. Guess not. And on top of that it looks like you just want to play games. I was trying so hard to be nice to you, too,” he stood then, in one fluid motion, stretched his back with his hands above his head and drew his chokutō. “I’ve got a Plan B, you know.”
“Plan B?” When he turned around his Sharingan were out and his killing intent bore down on me so heavily that I could hardly breathe. Over the past few years he has developed some temper. I’ve never seen anything like it, “What’s plan B?”
“Kill everyone who gets in my way,” he whistled and the guy with the teeth and the girl with the glasses and some other boy who was very big and had orange hair appeared. He knelt down in front of me again, this time pressing the tip of his blade into the bottom of my jaw. I only felt myself bleeding for a second before I started to go numb, “Starting with you. Then I’ll summon some big-ass snakes and systematically crush every building and person in Konoha until I find him.”
“Even,” I just had to ask, “the hospital?”
“I think I’ll start with the hospital.”
“Sweet,” the kid with the teeth grinned wide. “We’ve gotten to Plan B already?”
The girl next to him kind of gave him a dirty look then crooned to me, “Oh, you got Sasuke-kun mad. What’d you do to get him so angry? You know he has a short fuse don’t you, idiot?” The big guy next to her with the orange hair just looked kind of upset.
“Wait a second,” I protested. I tried to back off but I just ended up falling over. Me and my big mouth, I have no idea how to quit when I’m ahead. I should have just given in without teasing him. I laughed like I do when I’m very nervous, “Ha, ha. I think I like the first plan better, Sasuke.”
He stood over me with one hand on his hip and his head cocked to one side holding his blade to my throat, “Oh. But, I thought you couldn’t trust me. Do you trust me now all of a sudden?”
“Maybe,” I grated. Maybe, I thought, I should have concentrated more energy on escaping earlier instead of trusting that he would just let me free.
“Maybe?” He tapped my cheek lightly with the side of his blade. “I don’t think I like maybe,” he turned to his companions. “Maybe isn’t good enough, is it?” I couldn’t hear what they were saying but, when he turned back to me he shook his head sadly, “Nope, dobe, maybe just doesn’t cut it,” I couldn’t feel the blade as he traced it down my nose and over my lips.
“Why don’t you say, ‘I trust you and I’ll help you in any way you need to accomplish your goal’? Go ahead.”
“I trust you…” I suppressed what I felt as the sudden compelling need to draw on Kyuubi, in the back of my head he was urging me to use him.
“…and?”
“…and,” I panted. “I’ll help you in any way you need to accomplish your goal.”
“Hn… yeah? Is that so?” He trailed his blade over my neck. The only way I knew he hadn’t slit my throat was the fact that I could still breathe***. “And just why’s it that you feel that way?”
“Because,” I growled up at him, “I’m your best friend, you crazy bastard.”
His eyes narrowed, “Good answer, Naruto.”
He stabbed his blade down. I winced. It landed into the soft grass very close to my face. I felt an open wound on my cheek, as soon as he let go of the weapon. When I opened my eyes again could I feel his hands on me. He was loosening my bonds. His little cohorts were laughing but, his face was totally blank. There wasn’t even the usual smirk showing on it. I wobbled when he pulled me to my feet and my heart was beating too painfully fast to haul out and punch the bastard in the face like I should have.
“Naruto and I are going to start heading towards Konoha. At sunrise we’re going to start fighting so I can claim the protection of that law. That is going to cause distraction. So, Suigetsu, if you want to leave the country I suggest you do so immediately if you don’t want any trouble. Juugo, you should come with us. The medical facilities in the Hidden Leaf are excellent and I know a girl there who might be able to help you. And… Karin, do whatever you want… just don’t follow me.”
The girl looked very upset. Sasuke turned around and started back towards Konoha before he could see that she was holding back angry tears. That bastard’s always been a heartbreaker. She ran off in the opposite direction and the Suigetsu guy did too before I could say anything to either of them. So, I started off after Sasuke. The guy with the orange hair followed after.
We ran in silence for about fifteen minutes before I felt the need to vent at someone. I turned to the guy and when Sasuke was out of earshot I said, “Sasuke’s such a bastard, tebayo. I don’t think anyone taught him how to say ‘please’ or ‘thank you’ ever. And what’s up with the little snot’s lack of honorifics for anyone outside of his family?”
“I like him,” the kid replied.
For such a big guy he had a very quiet way about him, like he hadn’t been around people much but he liked them. I decided I liked him. But, I was still grumpy for the way Sasuke was acting.
“I don’t see how anyone could like him,” I lied. I changed the subject, “So, your name is Juugo?”
He nodded silently and kept running.
“Hey, Sasuke!” I called ahead, “I’m not talking to you until you apologize to me, tebayo.”
He didn’t give a response even though I was sure he heard me.
“You hear me, Sasuke?” I called again.
There was still no response.
“Answer me, damn it. I know you can hear me,” I shouted.
There was a slight pause before he called back, in a voice which sounded about 100 paces distant, “Shut up, Naruto.”
From that point on none of us spoke until Sasuke stopped around sunup and said, “We’ll start here.”
For some reason, Juugo allowed himself to be knocked out cold before we started fighting. And Sasuke didn’t speak again until almost two and a half hours later when he tiredly caught the last of my weary punches and panted, “Stop.” And we both fell to the ground together.
* Hojōjutsu is the Japanese martial art of restraining and submitting a person using cord or rope. In particularly skillful practitioners it can be combined with taijutsu and used to restrain an opponent while they are attempting to fight back. Naruto is implying that because Sasuke practices this he must also be interested in shibari or an offshoot of the art which is used in BDSM circles.
** A chokutō is a single edged sword like the one which Sasuke uses.
*** Sasuke uses an electrical elemental combination with his weapon which numbs the opponent, possibly paralyzing them.
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Chapter notes: There may be spoilers for Shippuuden.