Living a Lie

Chapter Nineteen - Worrying

An unnatural breeze started moving the hangers in my closet late one night. I was jolted from my reading at the sound of the metal clothes hangers bouncing off of each other behind the closed doors of my closet.

I dog-eared my page, placed the book down on the desk beside me and silently padded over to the double doors. Glancing around and quickly checking to make sure no one was near my room, I opened the doors.

Receiving a message via wind jutsu is always strange; you can feel the soft stirring of air around your face, but there is no sound. Once the message is relayed, sounding like the sender is right there whispering into your ear even though no one else can hear it, the wind stops completely, and the air is still again.

I crouched on the floor of my closet, listening intently as the wind relayed Tsunade-shishou's message. She said that Naruto has been sneaking out of the village, or at least trying to, in hopes that he might find me and bring me back. Though ANBU had found him within hours each time (I wondered exactly how many times he'd run off), Tsunade was a little worried about Naruto finding out more than he should if he were to successfully sneak away. After all, he wasn't the 13 year old goof-ball we all remembered him being. He was nearly at jounin level, and as such fully capable of stealth if he put his mind to it.

I frowned at this thought as Tsunade whispered a soft farewell and the wind ceased. Things were going to get a lot harder if Naruto got too involved. I hated to think that I might be assigned to help Itachi and Kisame track down and capture my best friend.

"Hidan told me he saw you wearing that underwear he bought for you, Pinky," Kisame said with his usual predatory grin.

I stopped dead in the path. Kisame and Itachi, noticing that I wasn't beside them anymore, stopped and turned to look at me. Was that a smirk on Itachi's face?

Truth be told, I had worn the underwear that Hidan got me for Christmas, but only because they were the only pair that weren't in the laundry!

"Screw you, Fish-face. Both of you wipe those smirks off your ugly faces before I wipe them off for you," I threatened, and to my great pleasure, they both sobered up pretty quickly. I returned to my spot between the two of them and said, "I believe the terminology for this situation would be 'you've been whipped'."

Kisame kept his mouth shut, and Itachi, silent as ever, avoided eye contact. Point proven? I'd say so.

We were headed towards Iwa, where rumors of the six tails were running rampant. Pain had ordered me to team up with Itachi and Kisame while Deidara was recovering. He had attempted to perform a sneak attack on the aforementioned jinchuuriki (what Deidara's version of a 'sneak attack' was would be anyone's guess), and ended up severely injured. He was lucky that Tobi knew this random time/space ninjutsu that basically teleported him wherever he wanted in a matter of seconds. I wasn't able to heal him completely, but I got the worst of the injuries taken care of. Plus, Pain said not wasting all of my chakra on his extensive injuries should serve as a lesson to him, in the hopes that he wouldn't be so reckless in the future.

Silly Leader. Reckless is Deidara's middle name. And his last name. And his first. "Deidara" is only his nickname, which was given to him by his parents in the hopes that he would grow up to be a little less reckless.

All three of us stopped at the same time. A tiny flare of familiar chakra had jolted me from my musings. My guess was Itachi and Fish-Face had sensed it as well, judging by the way their shoulders tensed and all earlier traces of amusement were tucked away for later. Now their eyes glinted with the battle-hardened stoicism all shinobi developed if they lived long enough.

Me? I was frozen in shock. That flash of chakra was painfully familiar; I'd recognize it anywhere.

Sasuke.

"We need to leave," Itachi stated blandly, but I didn't miss the way his shoulders tensed more than normal.

"What, you don't want to kick your brother's ass again?" Kisame chuckled.

I blinked at the totally blasé tone Kisame used. I had heard about those brief fights from Naruto, and I knew they were never pretty. And now that I'd given Itachi half a chance, I could see that he wasn't exactly the battle-hungry type everyone made him out to be.

"Not today. I'd rather get this mission over with without having to waste any of Sakura's chakra," Itachi replied, voice calm and collected (what's new?).

He caught my quizzical gaze. "My eyes," he offered as explanation. "That, and I'm sure Sasuke's strong enough to at least leave a few scratches."

Kisame snickered. I frowned.

"Let's go, then. To the trees?" I suggested.

I collapsed onto the couch in the living room. "Good grief, I didn't know that ritual lasted so long!" I whined.

"It's a pain in the ass, but at least it's over for now," Hidan said tiredly, flopping down onto one of the recliners and covering his eyes with one of his arms. I could tell he was especially tired because he only swore once; and it was a relatively mild cuss word, too.

My stomach growled, and before I could even think about standing up to go fix a sandwich, Kakuzu was handing me a tuna sandwich, cut diagonally, just the way I liked it.

I smiled in thanks, taking the proffered food, and settled tiredly into the couch, while Kakuzu took one of the other recliners and relaxed into the soft cushions.

Deidara limped into the room holding two sandwiches in one hand and a glass of water in the other. He sat down to my left and sighed wearily. "Those sealing rituals sure take a long time, un."

"Mmhmm," I mumbled in assent, munching happily on my sandwich. I was so exhausted that I barely registered Itachi sitting on my other side with his own sandwich and a cup of tea. I also hardly noticed Kisame come in and sit at my feet, resting his head on the small space of cushion between Itachi's and my knees.

I looked around after I finished my sandwich and found the others in various stages of exhaustion all around the room. Tobi was lying down on the floor, fiddling with the remote and flicking from channel to channel.

"Pick a damn channel and stay with it, Tobi," Kisame grumbled. Tobi stopped his finger millimeters from the button and left it there. I chuckled sleepily.

While everyone was either asleep or watching the television, I sat still and reflected on what I'd learned. Tsunade-shishou would like to hear about how the Akatsuki extract the bijuu from the hosts. It could be a valuable playing piece in bringing down this organization.

This got me thinking about what it would be like to watch Naruto, suspended in midair, suffer through three days of the painful extraction ceremony. He would be helpless to stop it, just like the others before him.

Watching that boy (he couldn't have been more than eighteen), with his pain-filled honey-brown eyes, screaming in pain… It was the worst thing I'd seen in a long, long time. I forced myself to keep from replacing the black hair with blond, the brown eyes with blue, and the pale white skin with sun-tanned bronze.

I had to close my eyes really hard to keep the tears from coming to the surface. If I cried in front of these guys, they'd know something was up. They would suspect me of not being exactly who I had them believe I was.

I felt a decidedly male arm wrap around my shoulders in a sideways hug. Crap.

"The first time is the worst," I heard Itachi say softly. "It was for all of us."

That made me open my eyes to see his expression. His face was turned away from mine, facing the television. His expression was passive and nonchalant, as per usual; but his eyes, when they flicked in my direction, were the softer, compassionate eyes of the real Itachi. The eyes that he hid from everyone so he could stay detached.

I smiled. "Thanks."

I leaned my head back on his shoulder and closed my eyes, allowing myself to be lulled into a well-deserved sleep.