Memories

Land of Iron

Chapter 2

'You again? Can't I ever get a peaceful night's rest?'

'Well, I'm not sleeping, either.'

'That's your own choice!' I scowled at the dark-haired boy sat in front of me. 'Go to sleep and leave me alone!'

'No. I have matters to discuss with you.'

'Oh, look at you, sounding so professional all of a sudden,' I mocked him. He glared at me. 'Okay, fine, what's up?'

'It's serious,' he said. When I nodded in understanding, he continued, 'Who, in particular, was behind the Uchiha massacre?'

'I don't know. I just heard it was the Elders.'

'Are you an idiot?' he scoffed. 'Don't you have Itachi's memories?'

'Oh yeah!' I exclaimed, remembering. He rolled his eyes. 'See? Good thing you came back – otherwise I probably would've forgotten for a long time. But why are you so curious? I thought we were just burying the whole matter – '

'I deserve to know, don't I?' It wasn't really a question. I silently agreed with him.

'Alright,' I said, delving into a series of memories that were not my own. I briefly saw Sasuke as a little kid, the Uchiha compound, a bunch of others walking around in similar shirts, the Hokage's office... and a guy I'd seen a few times, but hadn't really ever talked to.

Danzo.

He was confusing enough, saying a bunch of things about Root and Hiruzen and Uchiha. He openly mocked the Third Hokage, calling him weak. I was surprised to see Kakashi's familiar silver hair, too – what was he doing with Danzo? And then, through Itachi's eyes and ears, I heard Danzo give the ultimatum: kill or be killed.

It seemed that things were a lot more complicated than I'd previously assumed.

'Okay,' I said, returning to Sasuke, who was still sitting there like he had all the time in the world. He raised his eyebrows. 'You remember the Elders, right? There are three of them.'

'Yes.'

'Well, it's not all of them – in particular, it's the guy named Danzo, who always has his eye covered up. From what I saw, he and the Third Hokage disagreed a lot, including the matter of how to deal with the Uchiha coup. He took the hard route and asked Itachi to carry out the massacre.'

Sasuke's eyes narrowed and his fists clenched. 'So it's that guy's fault?'

'Looks like it,' I said grimly. 'Before you get too excited about it, though, let's find out the story behind this guy. With the entire shinobi world on our side, it shouldn't be terribly hard to get rid of him.'

'He'll pay for what he did to my family,' said Sasuke, eyes burning with determination. I raised an eyebrow at him.

'Calm down, Ducky. I told you, we have to figure out who he is first before we can attack. Don't assume you're more powerful than him just because – '

'I have the Sharingan! He's an old geezer – he can't be that – '

'You sound just like Naruto,' I told him bluntly, and he immediately shut up, looking terribly displeased. I smiled in amusement. 'Think before you act, silly. We'll get to the bottom of this.'