Chapter Text
Sasuke was good at sneaking for a boy his age, but nowhere near good enough to hide from ANBU. Itachi left his brother stashed two streets away and skulked into Naruto’s apartment, dodging the traps once more. He made a mental note to teach the boy better trapping skills. He seemed to have a talent for them.
Itachi ensured that Naruto would stay asleep for several hours with the prick of a senbon. Normally, he would not hit a child with such a powerful sedative, but he’d seen how fast the boy healed while watching him the day before. The sedative would not kill him. It was worth the risk of light respiratory distress to ensure that the loud child did not wake up to break their cover.
Itachi briefly considered changing Naruto into some of the darker civilian clothes he’d bought, but decided against it. The boy would be mostly hidden under his cloak, and it would probably be somewhat upsetting for him to wake up both in a different location and a different outfit than he’d fallen asleep in.
His ANBU captain had done that once, when he was being trained. The man’s dogs had simply dragged Itachi out of his house and left him in the woods, and for some unknown reason Hound had dressed Itachi in frilly pajamas.
That had been a very strange night.
Shaking himself out of his thoughts, Itachi grabbed the boy - too light for his age, he noted with distaste - and concealed him under the traveling cloak he wore. Then he ghosted out of Naruto’s apartment and back to his brother.
Sasuke walked calmly by Itachi’s side as they moved through darkened streets to their destination - a section of wall that Itachi happened to know included an intentional gap in guards. It was useful for ANBU to be able to move in and out of the city undetected, after all.
Itachi continued to be perturbed by how light the boy on his back was. Sasuke, a fairly similar height, weighed easily ten pounds more. Naruto must have hardly any muscle at all, which Itachi supposed explained some of his struggles at school. His clumsiness also made much more sense. If Naruto regularly went hungry, his coordination would absolutely be affected.
Finally, they reached the section of wall Itachi had been looking for. He was preparing to jump when Sasuke darted away from his side to press his hand against a pink-haired child’s mouth.
Sakura sniffled and wiped her nose. She was in a quiet corner she’d discovered by accident several weeks before, running from the same bullies who’d targeted her today.
It was dark here, the streetlights blown out some unknown amount of time ago. In most of the city, a little girl like her alone at night got concerned Uchiha police or shinobi guards asking questions like “Why are you all alone at night?” or “Where are your parents?”
Sakura didn’t like when people asked where her parents were. Most of the time, the answer was “On another trip.” Civilians didn’t understand that she was a shinobi , and a big girl , and she could take care of herself just fine! Even the adult shinobi still treated her like a baby, never mind that she was an Academy student!
But they never believed her when she said that.
Nobody ever believed Sakura when she talked about her dreams of being a shinobi. Nobody ever took it seriously.
Any other day, Sakura would have been too distracted by her angst. On this night, however, her thoughts were focused on how much she wanted to be a shinobi. Her senses were alert as she practiced the observational skills Iruka-sensei had taught them were critical to a ninja’s survival.
Therefore, Sakura just so happened to glance up at exactly the right time to make eye contact with Sasuke.
Wait.
What was Sasuke doing out here alone? The only other kid Sakura ever saw alone at night was Naruto, because the villagers all seemed to hate him for some reason. She’d never figured out why, and Naruto was really, really good at not answering questions when he didn’t want to.
Sakura had used some of the tricks he pulled to get out of a few uncomfortable conversations herself. They worked just as well on the adults, it turned out.
She opened her mouth to call Sasuke’s name, only to quite suddenly find him in her space, hand pressed to her lips. A harsh “Shhhh!” floated to her ears.
Sakura nodded. Sasuke stepped back, obviously feeling weird about getting so close to a Girl. She wasn’t feeling so great herself. She’d just noticed the bigger boy behind Sasuke, eyes hidden in his cloak and body looking strangely hunched, like the picture she’d seen in one of her storybooks about a man who lived in a bell-tower.
Then her eyes, adjusting to the dark, caught a flash of orange.
Naruto .
What was Sasuke doing in the middle of the night, with a strange boy carrying her classmate?
Asking the question in her best whisper didn’t get her any answers besides Sasuke’s typical “Hn.” The older boy called Sasuke’s name, and that was when Sakura realized several things at once.
First, that was Sasuke’s brother. She knew that voice, having memorized the sound of it to use in her fantasies of Sasuke saying she was the coolest, smartest girl he knew.
Second, Sasuke didn’t like Naruto. At all. He had no reason to be out with him, unless something was happening.
Third, Sasuke was wearing a cloak too - a traveling cloak. They were leaving Konoha. With Naruto.
Finally, and most importantly, they had no reason to leave like this, with Naruto, who was much too quiet to be awake, unless they were leaving . For good.
Sakura didn’t think of herself as an especially brave person. She hated getting yelled at, she hated being in trouble, and just about the only thing she’d stood up for was her dream of being a shinobi, not that it was working out super well lately.
And yet.
Naruto was annoying, sure, but he was also her classmate. He was loud and obnoxious and absolutely desperate for anyone to pay attention to him. But he was also nice. One day, when she’d forgotten her lunch, Naruto had shared half of his rice ball with her. He only ever had one, but he’d still split it in half without even thinking.
He wasn’t awake. If he’d wanted to go with them, he would be awake. And with that, the decision was made.
“You can’t take him.”
Her voice surprised her, when it came out. It was clear and strong. She’d somehow expected it to shake the way it usually did when talking to someone scary.
The boy - Itachi, she was sure of it now - turned to her.
“What are you talking about.” It wasn’t a question.
“Naruto. You can’t take him. If you wanna leave the village, I know I can’t stop you, ‘cause Sasuke talks all the time about how strong you are, but you can’t take Naruto. He’s my friend.”
Sasuke’s face did that thing it did when he didn’t like what someone was saying, where his eye twitched a little bit and his mouth got a little more frowny than usual. Meanwhile, Itachi turned to look at her and Sakura froze as she saw red in the corner of her eye. She very, very carefully did not look at him.
Well, this was an unexpected complication. Itachi had most definitely not expected one of Sasuke’s classmates - one of his fangirls, no less - to not only catch them on their way out of Konoha, but also to correctly deduce their purpose.
Worse than that, she had seen Naruto. Even if he knocked her out, she would have valuable information that the village could use to track them. Itachi was counting on the Uchiha’s reticence to cause a significant delay in connecting him with Naruto’s disappearance. If this girl’s knowledge got to village leadership, their previously smooth escape would rapidly become much more challenging.
Itachi’s mind spun. The easiest way to solve this problem would of course be to kill the girl. It would be a matter of moments to send a senbon into a nerve cluster and seal the body into one of the little red scrolls he’d secreted away in a hidden pocket. But Itachi had made a real effort to shield Sasuke from the realities of his life, and murdering a classmate in cold blood in front of him would detract from that.
Another similarly easy option would be to send Sasuke on and kill the girl out of his sight. Alas, for as innocent as his brother was, he would likely see through that ruse and be even more angry with Itachi for lying to him.
He could use Shisui’s eye to erase her memories, but the thought of using it so soon after his cousin’s death burned, and it felt wrong to spend that gift on something so small.
But he could not let the girl’s memories get to village leadership. They simply could not afford it.
TIme was ticking down. Itachi’s well-trained internal clock warned him that they had only minutes until the guards would pass this area, and the sight of him accompanied by three children would surely be notable enough to investigate and report. Itachi preferred not to kill anyone on the way out - it would leave too visible of a trail.
Very well, then. If he offered the girl a choice, perhaps Sasuke would forgive him.
“I truly wish you had not deduced our companion’s identity. As it stands, we are short on time, and we cannot afford for you to share what you have seen, willingly or unwillingly. You must choose. Will I kill you, or will I take you with us?”
Sakura didn’t understand all of the words Itachi had said, but she got the point. She wasn’t supposed to see Naruto. She knew from Ino that even if she promised to tell nobody, her memories could still be taken. Itachi didn’t care about her life at all. She got the feeling that Sasuke was the only reason he’d even bothered to offer a choice.
And what a choice it was. Die, or leave Konoha - probably forever. She couldn’t imagine that anyone leaving secretly in the middle of the night planned to ever come back.
Really, though, she knew what she’d choose. Even ignoring the fact that she really didn’t want to die, Naruto was her friend. He’d probably be scared when he woke up, and she could help him feel better. Sasuke definitely wouldn’t. He might be the coolest boy ever, but he wasn’t very nice. And he never talked, except to be mean to Naruto.
(In the back of her mind, Sakura remembered that just this morning she’d thought that Naruto was the most annoying boy in the world. She dismissed that thought as soon as it formed. Naruto might be annoying, but he didn’t deserve to be kidnapped for it.)
“I’ll come with you.” Her heart squeezed, and this time her voice was very shaky.
Itachi’s voice was cold. “If you attempt to interfere in our escape in any way, I will kill you. If you attempt to escape from me, I will kill you. If you attempt to signal anyone, at any time, that you are with us unwillingly, I will kill you. Do you understand?”
Sasuke, off to her side, shifted. He didn’t seem very happy with his brother talking like that, but he also didn’t say anything to stop it. But Sakura’s mind was made up.
“I’m coming with you. Naruto needs a friend.”
“Very well, then.” Sakura felt herself fading, and remembered as she fell unconscious that high-level shinobi didn’t need to catch your eyes to knock you out.
Oops.
Itachi gathered up the girl in one arm. At Sasuke’s look, he shifted the jinchuriki to the other arm and let his brother climb up on his back. He leapt up and over the wall, heading into the forests surrounding Konoha moments before the guard rounded the wall. Casting a gentle genjutsu, he put Sasuke to sleep as well as he ran through the night.
