I was hellbent on updating this yesterday in celebration of Sasuke's birthday, but the words just kept flowing so it's a day late. Happy belated birthday, Sasuke, you goon. There's hope yet for our favorite sad boi of team 7, and he may even have one of his wishes come true. Or both.

Thanks again to the amazing Nap~Tyme for brainstorming with me and being a generally awesome beta! Check out her story "Mona Lisa!"

He was having a heart attack.

That was the only way to describe the pain ripping through his chest that caused him to convulse as he walked home. His heart surely was peeling back to show the ventricles and veins, and blood must have been splurting forth toward the other parts of his body to drown him. Or there was a hole there, and any passerby could see the open, festering, oozing wound as he traveled home on legs he could no longer feel.

It was the only explanation.

Naruto had never felt this kind of pain before. Not when Pervy Sage died. Not when Sasuke deserted. Not when he had never felt any love or kindness from any human being. This was different.

This was the slow painful ripping of each limb on his body.

This was someone slicing every bit of happiness away from him while he was forced to watch it swirl away from him into a darkness he couldn't reach.

And now he would have to share that with Hinata.

As he stumbled into his home, gripping onto the doorknob like the last lifeline tethering him to the world, a vague thought of 'How did I get here?' entered his mind. As though protecting himself, his mind had entered a dream state, and nothing in front of him felt real. He tried to hang onto the doorframe but stumbled forward and tripped on a stair, hitting the ground hard and splaying out in the foyer.

"Hinata…" Even speaking felt like sandpaper against his throat, so he laid on the floor hoping someone, anyone, could hear him because he couldn't conjure the strength to stand.

Hinata recognized the sharp crack of a body hitting the floor. Abandoning the boiling pot on the stove, she ran into the next room to find her husband crumpled to the floor. His body boiled over with a red chakra that seemed to cradle him, a thick bubble that threatened to overtake his whole body.

"Your chakra…" Her words caught in her throat and she immediately knelt down next to him as she felt panic rise in her chest. She recognized that. Naruto was losing control as a rage she hadn't seen in so long claimed him. But why?

"What happened? What's wrong?" She carefully shifted him forward to lean against her to better observe him where he collapsed like a rag doll in her arms.

She searched his eyes, worry searing through her own, but he couldn't speak. No, he wanted to scream. Run. He tried to turn his head away to hide the truth that he was sure was oozing through every pore. How could he destroy her world? It was best if she lived out these last minutes in complete ignorance, with the blissful belief her family was still intact. He couldn't be the catalyst in destroying her.

"Naruto," Hinata repeated, shaking him. "What happened? Is it the village? What do you need?"

"Boruto." The name shot out of him like a kunai through the heart, sharp and gleaming in the sun.

Instantly her grip on him tightened. "What about Boruto?"

"He...he…" Say it.

Don't say it.

Just a little longer. Make her wait a little longer.

You're all okay, a little longer.

"NARUTO."

"He's gone."

"Gone?" Hinata's face screwed up now, her eyebrows pinched together in the way he hated because it meant something disturbed inside of her. "What do you mean 'gone'?"

Don't say it.

Say it.

Don't say it.

"He's dead. He's fucking DEAD."

His head crashed back to the floor with a loud thunk as Hinata's grip slipped and suddenly she was sliding backwards as though in an effort to get away from Naruto's words.

"Wh...What are you saying…"

"He's dead." Each world felt like another shot to his heart, but now that the truth was out he couldn't stop. "He's been dead, Hinata! He's been gone for so fucking long and I couldn't save him-"

He looked up to watch a blank sheet fall over Hinata's face; her eyes widened, unseeing, and her mouth hung open in a tiny 'o'. What was she thinking? He tried to reach up to touch her face, to hold any part of her, but she didn't respond to his touch.

"What," she whimpered.

"I'm sorry," he choked out. "I'm sorry-"

But Hinata couldn't hear anything but static now. It just wasn't possible. She just saw him. Sure, it was, what, two days before? He was going with Sasuke, wasn't he? That's what he said? Time frames wouldn't connect in her mind though, and the only thing she could see was her lemon colored boy smiling sunshine at her. It couldn't be possible that she wouldn't see that smile again. There just wasn't a world in which he didn't exist.

"How…" She managed another whimper. "When…"

The dreaded questions. How could he explain? "A few…" he tried. "A few weeks…"

"Weeks? No. Naruto, we just saw him!" A rush of relief coursed through her; he couldn't be dead. Something must have happened to her husband to make him think this way, but that was an easier fix, much easier than the permanence of death. Her shoulders shook slightly as she exhaled a light laugh. "He's alive! What are you talking about?"

"That night… In the forest…" He sputtered his words. "Before his surgery… Itachi Uchiha.."

"You're not making any sense." She rushed back to him and pulled his head up closer to him until he was laying half in her lap. "Did something happen to you before you got home?"

How could she not understand?! He shook his head vigorously, his thoughts escaping him again. "No, no! Listen." Why can't I think? "He's not Boruto." FOCUS. "Something happened. Something. Wrong. He's not Boruto. He's. Brother. Sasuke. Sasuke's brother! Itachi."

"Naruto." Her voice was low in his ear. "Itachi's been dead for years. Let's take you to the hospital, I think something is wrong. Here, let me help you-"

As she tried to grip his body to lift him, he twisted away from her and crashed to the floor again. "NO. HE IS GONE. He's Itachi. Something happened. Don't know… don't know. Sarada too. Something. White Zetsu. Sasuke didn't tell me."

Something about the level of his voice, his desperation, caused Hinata to stop again. "I need you to try to talk normally," she whispered. "You're scaring me. I don't understand-"

"Something happened that night and Itachi Uchiha is now in his body! Nobody told me and now something happened to Sarada too! Something has infiltrated the village and I don't know where to fucking start!" He found the strength to lift himself on all fours as his eyes flashed yellow. All at once the realization came crashing onto him again like a wave that sucked him under back into his pain. Why did Sasuke wait? Even if he wasn't the reason Boruto was gone, the wasted time surely ticked away at any hope-

"Y-you needed to know. But I promise I'm going to try everything I can to fix this. I'm so sorry I failed you-"

"How did you find out… You said something about Sasuke…" Her voice was tight like if she moved too quickly or showed too much emotion she would crack and the tears behind her eyes would engulf her until she drowned.

Don't move, Hinata. Don't move. If you don't move it's not real.

"Sasuke knew. Boruto… He was targeted. Before… Before all of this." He launched into the story the best he could with a shaky voice, recanting the details of what he found out from Sasuke and Itachi: Anbu, Akatsuki, White Zetsu, sending Sarada and Mitsuki to retrieve more information on the reanimation jutsu they found and how they didn't return. All the details swirled dizzyingly around their heads until he ended full-circle with Sasuke's betrayal. "...He didn't tell me. And now Sarada is gone too. And something may be here."

Hinata's muscles steeled against his words.

"Hinata? Hinata. Hinata."

Did she believe him now? Was he too harsh in trying to get her to understand? Should he have been more gentler in distributing the information that would forever change their worlds, spoon feeding it instead of mashing it into her all at once?

"Hinata, I'm sorry. Please say something! I'm here..."

"My baby."

It was all she could say. Her exterior cracked and all at once the fury she fought to hold back exploded into the foyer.

Naruto lunged, catching his wife as she crashed forward to the floor in the same manner he did only minutes before. They both were now engulfed in red, their limbs tangled on the floor, with her head sunk into his chest as she let out a guttural cry. As a child she had always wished for the day she could press up against him and use him as a salve to heal the burns the world imposed upon her, but this wasn't what she had in mind: the day they lost one of the two most important things to them and she had to use him as an anchor lest she'd drift to sea. She always wanted it to be the two of them against the world, but not at the risk of losing it all.

Naruto gripped her harder and felt his ears explode around another of her screams.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, please forgive me..." The apologies kept pouring from his mouth as though it was his fault their child wasn't there. As the Hokage and leader of their family, wasn't he supposed to be able to fix anything? Could he even continue on like this if the pain never let up?

"Daddy?"

A tiny voice shocked Naruto and Hinata back to themselves. Their heads snapped up toward the top of the stairs where Himawari stood, small and vulnerable, staring down at her parents on the floor.

"What's wrong?"

Be strong. Naruto reached up with one arm while Hinata scrambled to sit up though tears continued to streak down her cheeks. "Come here," he demanded gruffly. If they were to ever make it through, they needed to be a wall. Hima took the stairs two at a time and slid into her father's arms. The light touch of his daughter cooled him, and his body began to decompress, his chakra stabilizing.

"What happened?" Hima asked, her own eyes wide with fear as she looked between her parents' tear stricken faces.

Naruto took one of her hands and pressed it shakily against his lips while Hinata reached up to wrap her arm around the girl. "You're safe, okay?" he began like he was trying to convince more of himself than her and forced her blue eyes to look into his.

"You're scaring me," she whispered. "And you're squeezing my hand too tight."

He eased his grip but didn't want to drop her hand completely, feeling like she would float away too if he let go. "Is that better?" he whispered.

She nodded. "Did something happen?" she asked again. "Where's Boruto?"

Of course she wasn't stupid. She could sense it. Her parents on the floor, making sounds she had never heard before. One family member missing. The youngest Uzumaki was far from clueless.

Naruto took another shaky breath. "S-something happened to Boruto," he announced and his voice cracked upon saying his son's name.

"What…?"

"Hima...Boruto's...Boruto's not coming home."

Himawari tilted her head against her father's words, not quite understanding at first. She looked to her mother whimpering against her and back to her father whose own body shook. For her whole life, her parents had been invincible, impenetrable, a duo force of sold steel against the rest of the world. This was a part of them she had never experienced. And if they were this wounded and vulnerable, something big must have happened to causse it.

"What do you mean he's not coming home… Is he…hurt?"

Naruto choked. "He got hurt real bad."

Hima felt her own body shrink down. "Is he…" She knew people got hurt; she had heard stories. It was why she didn't have grandparents, or why some of her friends didn't even have parents. The life of a ninja wasn't one to be taken lightly, and she knew it was common for people to get so hurt that they never returned home.

"Is he dead?"

"Come here. You're safe." Those words wrapped her up again along with her father's arms and her face was suddenly resting on her father's chest, clearly racking with sobs he fought to suppress, while her mother hugged her from behind. She was cocooned in the middle of her shaking parents and from above she heard another cry escape her mom.

No. She wasn't stupid. She knew what that meant. It was a moment of disbelief, of wonder of what that meant. What it would feel like. If he wasn't coming home, how would it feel to not have him hug her when she returned home from her first day at the academy? Could she bottle it up from memory to dole out in rations when she needed it most? What about his laugh like sunshine that lit up the whole room? His smile that somehow took up almost his whole face? She wanted to see him one more time; if he wasn't coming home, she had to have one lasting memory to last a lifetime. It was just what she deserved.

"Where is he, Daddy?" Her voice was muffled in Naruto's chest.

Silence.

"I don't know, honey."

"You gotta bring him home."

Another shaky breath, heart pounding hard in her ear.

"I would if I could."

"You're the Hokage. You can do anything."

Hot tears dripping on her face.

"I would if I could."

The Uchiha brothers didn't move for a few minutes after Naruto stormed away from them. Both felt they deserved the mess around him. Sasuke in his blood with the remains of a zetsu impersonating his daughter next to him on the floor. Itachi, dazed, pressed into the doorframe, feeling like he had failed yet again as a shinobi.

"Sakura."

The name came out thick in Sasuke's mouth. Finally he pushed himself up onto his feet; he had wallowed enough. Now he needed to tell his wife and conjure a game plan. Losing his daughter couldn't break him. He wouldn't allow it to to do to him what it did to Naruto, and furthermore he had already lost his family once so what was one-

"What will you say?"

Itachi cut off his thoughts and he was instantly thankful.

"The truth."

Itachi opened his mouth to ask another question but it vanished from his lips when a pink shadow suddenly appeared at the door.

"Sakura."

His brother's wife stood motionless at the door, mouth agape, as she took in the scene in front of her: her husband covered in blood and wobbling on his feet, a pale child slunk into the corner like he wanted to disappear into the wall, and a creature she recognized rotting on the floor.

"What the fuck happened here?"

She immediately rushed to Sasuke and grabbed his face. "Oh my god, what happened to you?" she asked as she wiped blood from his lips where it only smeared further onto his face.

"I'm okay-"

"Is that a zetsu?!"

"Yes-"

"Boruto." Sakura then turned to the child in the corner and rushed over to assess him. "Were you attacked? Oh my god, just after you got out of the hospital. I told you it wasn't a good idea to let him train like this, he's still recovering, and now look what happened-"

"I'm okay," he stated calmly like his brother.

Sakura continued to probe his eyes while her fingers ran over his body as she searched for any wounds like her husband had.

"Why was it here?!"

Itachi raised his gaze past Sakura to watch Sasuke blink silently.

"Sasuke?" Sakura turned back to him. "Sasuke? Oh my god, sit down, you're going to pass out!" She rushed back to him to guide him onto the couch. "What happened here?! Was this from the zetsu?"

Sasuke thought it would be easier. He knew to keep his emotions aside, but when it came to his child- his flesh and blood, the only thing that mattered in his world, the one thing he fought to protect for so many years- he couldn't treat it like any other mission. He couldn't push his emotions down for his daughter no matter what he was trained to do. Emotions made people second guess; they'd act without thinking and make a dire mistake in the field. But somehow this type of love was different and pushed him to do better, and it needed to stay at the forefront of his mind, driving him forward to find her and see this out no matter what.

But that same painful love, hard in his chest, made it difficult to speak to his wife.

"Sasuke." His own brother's smooth voice was the one who brought him back to the surface.

"I'm sorry. Sakura. Please forgive me."

"What are you talking about…?" She placed her hands on either side of his face again to steady him but he shook her away.

"The zetsu," he sputtered. "It was Sarada."

Instantly Sakura was transported back to the war. The distrust. The insidious infiltration. How many countless people died from the white zetsus? How many people had their chakra stolen, their bodies copied?

"Where is our daughter?" Her voice was sharp. She knew what this meant.

"She was on a mission…" Sasuke choked. "For Naruto… to Orochimaru's… for intel. She never came back."

Immediately Sakura jumped up. "Are you saying that Orochimaru is behind this? Does he have her?!"

He shook his head vigorously. "No. I mean I don't know. We're going soon. Now. We're going now." His thoughts were jumbled and once again he couldn't think straight. "We don't know where she is but we're trying to figure it out. I'll do it. I promise. Something big is going on and we're after it, we're so close."

"Something happened to Sarada."

Sasuke looked up at his wife, his strong fearsome wife, who was standing in front of him now with her eyes narrowed in determination. "Let's go, Sasuke. If something happened to her we don't have any time to waste! Boruto, you're coming with us."

But Sasuke still struggled to gather his thoughts as the pain dragged him back under the current. Boruto.

"It's my fault this happened."

"What?" Sakura asked. She turned from heading to the door to see Sasuke hanging his head in his hands. She didn't recognize her husband. This was out of character for him- this was not at all the cold, hardened Sasuke she knew. Not the Sasuke who stayed from the village in a decade-long mission in order to protect his family, the one who was always quick to act and never backed down.

"You can't tell yourself that," she tried. "We have time. We have to try."

"We need to get Kakashi before we leave," he said, a distance to his voice.

"Wait, why do we need Kakashi?" she asked.

"I messed up, Sakura. I messed up so bad." If only I wasn't so selfish.

"Sasuke, you are not making any sense…" she said slowly. He was scaring her. "Boruto, what happened with the zetsu-"

"This isn't Boruto!" The words snarled out of his mouth before he could stop them.

Sakura's eyes slid over to Itachi, who wouldn't meet her eyes, and back to her raving husband. "I think you're a little delusional right now. Let's just take a second, let me take a look-"

"He is not Boruto! He is Itachi."

Sakura's eyes widened because clearly her husband was having a full on psychotic break brought on by the loss of their daughter, and the more time she stood here stoking it the more precious time she was losing that she could be using to look for- "Itachi is dead, Sasuke," she hissed low. "You know this."

"He's right." Itachi stepped forward from the wall for the first time. "I am Itachi."

Sakura shook her head. Her eyes glazed over the blonde haired boy she had known since he was born but saw no distinct differences in him. "How do I know you're not a zetsu?" she growled, and reached down into her pocket for a kunai.

Sasuke's hand immediately shot out to grip her wrist. "Don't touch him," he growled. She pried her arm away from his with a surprised hiss. Sasuke would never-

"How do I know you're not a zetsu?" she cried. That would make the most sense, why Sasuke was acting like this: this was all a diversion to keep her from retrieving her daughter. She suddenly felt stupid for ever falling into this trap and gripped her weapon tighter.

"No, no, Sakura, please hear us out!" Itachi came rushing out before she had a chance to strike. "We're not lying to you! I know that this seems a little impossible right now, but I know you've seen weirder so just please listen." Activating his sharingan, he stepped right in front of her and reached down to grab the kunai from her hand.

"Please. Just listen."

A wave of recognition fell over Sakura's face as she beheld Boruto's sudden red eyes. "What are you?" Her voice wavered slightly.

"Just listen. Put the kunai down and we'll tell you."

"Okay I give up." She plopped down next to Sasuke and held her head in her hands in the same way as her husband. "Tell me everything because nothing that is happening right now makes any fucking sense."

Itachi had spun the story of how he randomly appeared, their descent into the Akatsuki, how Sarada and Mitsuki both believed it was the Anbu, Kakashi and Yamato's involvement, Sasuke's discovery and their promise to keep it a secret, finding the reanimation jutsu, their trip to Orochimaru and Sarada's apparent trip as well, and ended with Naruto finding out the truth minutes before she arrived. It was dizzying.

Sakura had been a very good listener, only nodding along and grimacing only when he said they promised not to tell Naruto and when Sarada was hellbent on staying in the "Anbu."

"She's like her father," she had said at the end. "She's headstrong and nothing you can do can deter her from what she wants. But she also has the will to live like her father, and I know she'll fight hard. So you two go get Kakashi and Yamato, and I'll get Naruto. We have to be back to Orochimaru's tonight."

She had slipped out the door almost immediately after ending her sentence and didn't look back as she began her descent toward the Uzumaki home. That's where she found herself now, heading toward her best friends' home, and knew she was most likely going to walk into a landmine. But it really was no matter. She had to reach into herself and pull herself up from the dark waters that threatened to pull her under, to rise above the anxiety of losing her daughter in order to find her. She wanted to break down and freeze with the thought that Sarada could be hurt, but that would do no one any good.

A thought suddenly gripped her. How did she get here? Her husband was the guilty one, the one who could barely wade through his emotions while she headed this excursion. Their roles had suddenly switched. Wouldn't he have been the one to tell her years ago as children that she needed to be logical and push her emotions aside to finish their mission? For Sasuke to be this immobilized, he must have been riding his guilt hard.

It was up to her now.

"Naruto-"

She pushed open the door to the Uzumaki home and her eyes were instantly pulled down. Before her in the doorway, Naruto, Hinata, and Himawari were curled up together as an impenetrable wall and she instantly knew her suspicions were correct.

Both parents looked up from coddling Himawari to them, and Sakura could see even from where she was standing the roads the tears burned on their cheeks. Between them Himawari whimpered softly. Sakura dropped to her knees and pulled them close to her as Naruto choked out her name.

"Hey, hey, I know," she whispered softly into his ear. "But we have to go."

"Go?" Hinata sniffed.

"We're going to Orochimaru's," she said softly, "to find Sarada and Mitsuki."

"Sakura, I'm so sorry." Even in her own pain Hinata was still thinking about her friend and her loss. Sakura tilted her head, then reached out to place a hand on her cheek and drew Hinata's face close to her's.

"We're going to find out what happened, okay?" she promised. "Don't lose hope. Something is going on here, and I don't know what, but we're going to figure it out. But we have to go if we're ever going to find this."

She looked back at Naruto next and recognized his expression as the same one etched onto Sasuke's face.

"I know," she replied to his expression. "I know Sasuke didn't tell you. I know you're mad-"

"Mad? You think I'm just mad?" he scoffed.

Sakura kept going. "What he did was wrong. I get that. And you should be mad. But you know deep down that harboring this does nothing for anyone."

"He could be here. And now look what happened to Sarada-"

"Don't talk like that," she snapped. "You've never been one to be put off by things like this. Nothing has ever stopped you. Are you going to wallow over your son when there's work to be done to avenge him? The longer you wait, the worse this can get."

"Tell your husband that," he hissed.

"This isn't the Naruto I know. The village is still here. You still have a wife and a daughter and they need you. I need you." She stood up. "You told Sasuke and...Itachi to get Kakashi and Yamato. Don't forget your original mission now."

Naruto just stared at her, unblinking.

"Use this pain to make you stronger. I know you and Sasuke never thought you'd get here; I know that having and losing a family is what makes this worse right now. But if you sit here we'll get nowhere, and you know that I'm right."

Her eyes bore into her teammate's and for a moment it was like it was only the two of them again, a team on their own while Sasuke evaded them. They had always been a force. "Let's go," he finally said.

A smile broke out on Sakura's face. "Let's go."

"You're coming back, right?" Himawari's hand shot out to grasp her father's jacket as he stood and she stared up at him with fear clouding her eyes.

"Of course he is," Sakura soothed and bent down to her level to pat her hair back in the way Sarada used to like when she was young. "But we need you here to be strong for us. You're just as important in this." She poked the girl in the chest. "...But we can't do it unless you're strong."

Hima's lip quivered but she nodded her head anyway. "O-okay, I can do that," she squeaked.

"Good girl," Naruto whispered.

"Change of plans." Itachi and Sasuke burst into Kakashi's apartment as he poured himself some tea.

"Change of what?" he asked, placing his cup gingerly on the table to give his student and subordinate all of his attention. Then he looked up to see Sasuke's face.

"What…"

"Naruto knows. He knows everything." Sasuke flung himself down at the table in front of Kakashi. "He knows about Boruto, and I completely fucked up, and if I didn't then Sarada would still be here-"

"Whoa, whoa, slow down," he demanded. "What about Sarada?"

"Sarada left to go to Orochimaru's," Itachi explained and sat down beside his brother. "She never came back but a white zetsu was impersonating her. Something happened and I think it has to do with the Akatsuki. Whoever is behind it is finally coming out of the shadows."

Kakashi sucked in a breath. "So that's where she was going when she said she couldn't train with me… Let me call for Yamato."

He summoned his ninken and within moments they were out in search for their missing piece. They only had to wait a few minutes before he came sailing through the door. "What did this bastard do this time?" he asked sourly as he sauntered over to the table, hands jammed in his pockets. "I heard something about Orochimaru?"

"Sarada and Mitsuki went out to Orochimaru's for intel on the reanimation jutsu we found, but neither returned. However, a white zetsu was in her place, so something clearly happened. We need to try to find them if there's a chance they're alive."

Yamato's eyes narrowed. "How did you know she was a zetsu?" he asked.

"Naruto…" Itachi rubbed his head nervously. "He. Uh. He figured it out, and now he knows everything…."

"Wait...everything?"

Itachi nodded, feeling small again. "He was less than thrilled that we weren't upfront about it."

"Is that why you look like shit?" Kakashi asked, nodding toward Sasuke who was glaring down at the table, his face still smeared with blood.

"Shut up," he hissed.

"Sakura knows now too- she went to get Naruto. We're heading to Orochimaru's and we need you to come with us since you know all of this as well."

Kakashi let out a low whistle. "Wonderful, we get Naruto's wrath too," he said bitingly.

"Actually...we were coming to get you before all of this happened." Itachi placed a hand to his head, the last few hours coming back to him. The original plan seemed so long ago, and compared to Sarada it felt secondary now. "I was on my way to you two when I came across the zetsu and Naruto; we found pictures of others in the compound, of others along with me, and we're starting to think I was specifically brought back."

"Ah, great. More to discuss with The Snake," Yamato deadpanned as he stood. "I swear to the gods, whoever inspired him into doing research and science, I'm going to kill them."

"They're probably already dead," Kakashi replied.

"Then I'll kill them again if he hasn't already reanimated them again of course."

"I really don't think Orochimaru is behind this," Itachi admitted. "I think his research is just being used."

"Do you really think they just randomly went missing when they happened to visit him?" The wood style user laughed darkly. "You can't be that daft, Itachi. This man used to literally kidnap children. "

As Itachi opened his mouth to argue back, two figures appeared at the door. The group turned their heads to see Sakura standing beside Naruto with her hands behind her back, and Naruto glowering down at the four men at the table.

"Naruto-"

"Don't even try to apologize, Kakashi, I can't listen to you right now." The seventh Hokage effectively cut off the sixth's words and they died in the air between them. "Any of you. I am disgusted with all of you for keeping something like this from me- I mean how could you, this is bigger than-" His mouth snapped shut as he realized he was losing control again and he took a deep breath to steady himself. He glanced over at Sakura without moving his head and she nodded encouragingly back for him to keep speaking. "I have Shikamaru and a shadow clone back at my office, so if you're coming to Orochimaru's with us let's go now. We're wasting time."

Kakashi and the Uchiha brothers stood silently at his words and no one else spoke another word as the six of them retreated one by one out of Kakashi's apartment and out of the village.

"Oh good, you're awake."

Mitsuki immediately thought he was underwater as he came to but recognized the muffled and garbled voice as Sarada's.

His eyes opened to Sarada's shadow sitting up against a dirt wall, a pen and notebook in her hand. He tried to sit up to follow her voice but groaned against a sharp pain in his side and laid back down.

"What happened?" he hissed.

Sarada snapped her notebook shut. "You know just as much as I do," she stated matter-of-factly. "We were attacked but I don't know where they took us."

Clutching his side, Mitsuki pulled himself across the floor toward Sarada and propped himself up the best he could beside her. "I don't sense anyone's chakra," he announced.

"Neither do I but I think we're in some sort of cave."

"We have to get out of here."

Mitstuki tried to sit up further and placed his hands over his side. A green glow appeared at the site as he healed the wound, then rubbed the leftover dried blood. "Are you hurt?" he asked when he was finished.

She shook her head and stood. "I've been waiting for you to wake up. Come on."

She pulled him up and the two teammates shakily walked along the cool walls of the cave, both listening intently for any signs of life or the outside. After a few minutes of blindly following, Sarada spoke up. "So we messed up." Her confession punctuated the damp air and echoed against the walls.

"Mhm." Mitsuki's tone was matter-of-fact, never the one to overthink or spend too much time brooding on what they already knew. "Whoever we've been working for tricked us. We have to get back to Lord Seventh before something happens to the village- Hey, I think I see light!"

Up ahead a sliver of gold beckoned them and grew larger as they followed it. After a few minutes they could see shadows of trees as their eyes adjusted to the light that finally materialized the greenery outside. "We're still in the Land of Fire," Mitsuki breathed as his synapses fired recognition at the mouth of the cave. He knew exactly where they were- it wasn't far from Orochimaru's hideout, and though some of the surroundings didn't look exactly as he remembered, he still felt a ping of familiarity.

They walked along, both feeling out for any changes in chakra, but neither sensed anything except the chirping of birds overhead. A thought suddenly dawned on Mitsuki as they headed back toward the trees. "Wait, if we're close to my parent's, maybe we should go there. We may be able to get some kind of reinforcements to help us."

"Shouldn't we just go straight back?"

"No, they stole our intel, and I don't want to abandon the mission. I think my parent could really help us."

Sarada sighed. "All right, take us there." She followed Mitsuki as he wove through the trees, and she kept her sharingan activated to capture any movement throughout the trees. Both teens were on edge, and Mitsuki sped up the last 500 meters to the hideout, knowing that any second they'd be back where they started and he could-

"Stop." His feet skid in the dirt as he stopped in front of an empty grove. This was it. He knew this was supposed to be it. He had been to this hideout multiple times, knowing exactly where the large rock construct would be sunk into the ground, but instead all he saw was dirt and twigs. Even the trees around it were smaller than before, letting in more sun than the usual shade that covered the hideout.

"This is supposed to be it."

Sarada looked around but didn't recognize anything that could signify anyone had been there. "Are you sure? Because isn't it an actual structure…?"

"I know this is it." Usually a composed person, even he could feel the panic rising throughout his body that was a warning that something was wrong. He couldn't pinpoint it but something was skewed; it was like looking into his reflection in a broken mirror, the shards distorting his proportions. Something was off- he knew the coordinates, he knew he had been there- but it wasn't the same place. All logic said it couldn't be the same place...

A hand came to rest on his shoulder. "Maybe you're still disoriented, Mitsuki."

"This is it. I know what home is." Without realizing it his voice was rising in volume.

"Hey, shhh, let's just keep walking," she suggested calmly. "Or maybe we can just go back to the village instead."

Mitsuki shrugged her hand off and started walking around the dirt floor as though any second the stone structure would rise up from the elements. Something wasn't right and he was going to get to the bottom of it before things- even though he couldn't pinpoint what those things were- got worse.

Suddenly ahead, between the trees, a branch snapped on the forest floor. Both teenagers' heads rose to the sound. They slunk backwards as the leaves began to rustle in a calculated way they had been trained to recognize: the sound of humans.

Was it their captors?

"Really, Itachi, that's what you miss about the village?" a familiar voice hissed out.

Instantly Mitsuki breathed the air he was holding in and his whole body retracted. Orochimaru. The voice ahead was Orochimaru. Thank the heavens! They could just get to him and explain to him what happened and in return he could explain where the hell his hideout disappeared to-

Sarada followed Mitsuki closely as he shot through the trees toward his parent's voice.

"What? Is that really so bad?" A second unfamiliar voice responded. "Hang on, someone is coming-"

Mitsuki emerged from the trees first, bursting forth toward the safety of his parent, but his words retreated back down his throat as the people he heard came into view.

Orochimaru's lips pulled back in a sharp smile as Mitsuki and Sarada sputtered to a stop in front of them. Though Mitsuki immediately recognized him, he too was off like their surroundings. He looked different, older almost, and had never seen him in that outfit: a black robe with red clouds.

"Can we help you children?" Orochimaru purred, taking in the sudden uncertainty of the strangers. His eyes glanced over their bodies before coming to a rest on their headbands. "Ah, speak of the devil. You're Leaf shinobi."

"Yeah, obviously…" Mitsuki started to say but stopped when he too saw his headband gleaming on his forehead. Leaf. With a slash through it.

"What is going on?" he blurted. "Why do you have that headband? We need to talk to you-"

"Do I know you, child?" Orochimaru raised an eyebrow at him then glanced at Sarada, giving her a once over. As his black eyes glazed over her body, they widened as they locked onto her red ones.

"Oh, Itachi, I think you missed one."

Mitsuki's eyes flickered over to his parent's companion for the first time and his initial thought was Sasuke before the differences started to emerge. Though he looked like Sarada's dad, he definitely wasn't. This man was probably not much older than them, with longer hair in a ponytail, and fine lines that ran the course of his face. He, too, was staring back at them in shock, with a certain recognition to his features that was absent on Orochimaru's own face.

"Mitsuki." His name fell out of the Sasuke look-alike's mouth before he turned to Sarada. "Sarada dattebasa."

"Back already?" Orochimaru stood in front of his visitors in the hall of his hideout, hands clasped in front of him. "Oh, to what do I owe a visit from Lord Six and Seven this time as well? And your wife, Sasuke? Well if it's a family affair where is your daughter?"

"That's what we're here to ask you," Sasuke growled. "We understand that she and Mitsuki came to you this morning."

"Yes. Did you get the note I sent back with them?"

"What note?" Naruto asked. He was instantly impatient; he didn't have time for Orochimaru's games anymore. "They never made it home! Did they leave here?"

This time Orochimaru's surprise was genuine. "I saw both of them out, but I didn't sense any chakra disturbances after they left. But, I might also add, it's none of my business what happens out there if it's not in my immediate vicinity. I don't pay attention so much to the Leaf's happenings, so I wasn't exactly attuning to anything either."

"They came for anything on your research on the reanimation jutsu," Naruto reminded him. "What did you give them? We think they were targeted and might have gotten into the wrong hands."

He glanced up at Sasuke then down to Itachi. "I'm not sure how much I'm allowed to say, exactly…"

"I'm the Hokage- !"

"He knows," Itachi admitted. "Just tell him."

His eyebrows fluttered upwards but he didn't ask any questions. "They were definitely working for someone else," he admitted, "and whoever wanted this is doing work on reanimating people. They are using your children for information, but I can't tell you about why or what their ultimate plan is. I didn't give the children anything though. Though it's not my business what they plan to do with their time within the village or organizations they join, I don't want to see them fall into the wrong hands, even though from the sounds of it they already have."

"Did you feel any chakra from here before that?" Sasuke asked. "We need to know anything you might have noticed yesterday."

Itachi didn't hear any of Orochimaru's response as his eyes suddenly burned red hot and his vision went black. It was like he was suddenly sucked into a vacuum and even his ears couldn't hear anything around him except the whoosh of his own blood circulating through his body. Crumpling forward, he couldn't even tell where he was at as a pain seared through his brain, a sudden violation he had never felt before. He tried to let out a scream but didn't even know if he was making any sound. Everyone around him disappeared as he was engulfed in a fire that he was sure was searing him alive, an internal amaterasu that consumed every cell. It was instantaneous, the thought that burst through his brain with the pain, and as it branded its impression into his memory, all the pain left his body as soon as it entered him.

When he opened his eyes, he was laying on the ground, freezing sweat dripping off him, while his group gathered around his body. "I know!" he screamed. "I know where to find them!"

Blow out your candles and make a wish, Sasuke, because your daughter and student are your presents this year.