Who Am I?

Chapter 6: 36 Hours

Waking up with an email from Ino, Sai was quickly up from his nap in the small meeting room he'd been given temporarily and in her office, a coffee in each hand. If she was going to be helping him, then he might as well be polite. Setting it down on her desk with a small thanks from the blonde, he took a sip of his own before taking a seat in one of the chairs.

"What were you able to find on the members I listed?" Sai asked.

"Not much, but I have a few things. First, we have Zetsu. He was arrested a few times for running a grow-op at his workplace–he's a certified botanist–and charged multiple times. He seemed to be able to get off each time thanks to his defence lawyer, though. It seems like that defence lawyer was none other than–"

"Danzo Shimura," Sai finished for her.

"Yeah. The guy's a snake. I can't stand him. He's the worst to have to deal with. I've only dealt with him on a couple of cases, thankfully smaller ones, but he was always the worst to deal with. At least other defence lawyers I can respect as people–they're lawyers, they have a job to do, after all–but not him. He's like a bug I want to crush under my boot." The vitriol in her tone was permeable in the room; even Sai could feel the hatred practically radiating off her.

"What about the others?" He'd given a few other names.

"Okay, so this one is interesting. Orochimaru was a lawyer for a few of them, and he's another lawyer we deal with a lot at this office. It seems like he dealt with a few of Zetsu's cases, but they weren't going well until Danzo took over. It was like Orochimaru just quit in the middle of the case, fired his client, and moved on. I can't see any reason that they would. A few of the other names you gave me all came up clean. We have Yahiko Yamakichi, who's been MIA for years–no one has been able to find him, but there's never been a missing person report filed for him. Hagi Yamakichi, Koton Yamakichi, and Hana Yamakichi also went missing around twenty-five years ago or so. That's his younger sister, father, and his mother. They were never found, and again–no missing person reports were ever filed. It's like they just completely disappeared off the grid. But that's not all," Ino continued as she dug through a few more files, pulling out a couple of other things.

"I dug up another file that if you so much as breathe the fact that I looked into it, I will kill you. There was a supposed sighting of Koton in a small neighbourhood right here in Konoha. I looked into the dates, and there was one case that popped up around that date that had me wondering." She pulled out a newspaper clipping. The headline read TWO DEAD IN HOUSE FIRE–YOUNG BOY SURVIVES. Reading through the rest of the article, there were no names–stated to be left out to protect the identity of the young survivor–but Ino knew enough to know about the incident. Anyone in the precinct knew who that young boy was because most of it lined up perfectly.

"This is the fire that killed Fugaku and Mikoto Uchiha. Their son who survived was Sasuke Uchiha–yes, the same Detective Uchiha was assigned to the Akasuna case. And on top of that, their missing son, Itachi Uchiha–it's essentially the same story as the rest of them. They disappeared without a trace, never to be found again. No records, nothing. The difference with him was that the officers filed a missing person report, but otherwise, no family ever filed one since there were no living relatives to even search for him. Well, no living relatives that could, anyway. There are a few follow-up articles, but... If this case is related, I think you might want to talk to him directly. That, or I can try to talk to Sakura; she might be able to get more out of him than you will. He's... not the most friendly to strangers." And that was putting it mildly.

Sai was intrigued by the depth of information that she'd managed to provide. All of this, all in half a day? He had more to work with than was expected. The only problem was that none of it could seem to be linked to Idate Shimura. None whatsoever. All of it was conjecture related to other portions of the case that he was still working on exploring. He chewed his lip, staring at the files.