Don't Stare at the Sun or You'll Go Blind

Chapter 12

Just as he was about to chase after the man, another explosion followed by distant, animalistic shrieks caused the crowd to panic and scatter worse than a disturbed anthill. Sasuke felt and heard when Ikeda-san was shoved into his side during her attempts to escape. With a silent curse, he picked the old woman up bridal style before carefully leaping out of the crowd.

"Thank you," Ikeda-san kept repeating as Sasuke gently set her down on a calmer backstreet, but he was far more focused on where that man had disappeared to.

"Do you need help getting to the emergency shelter?" Sasuke asked, even though he would rather not be caught up in helping with civilian evacuation.

"Yes. Please," Ikeda-san didn't hesitate to say, her bony hands gripping even tighter on his arm.

Sasuke held back a frown, his eyes quickly glancing around. When he spotted what he assumed to be a genin judging by the still shiny and spotless headband on his forehead, he called out to the boy. The boy paused mid-step, his long, blue scarf trailing after him. Sasuke helped the shaky Ikeda-san over to the boy almost dumping her vice grip onto the boy's arms. "Hey!" the boy shouted in objection, but Sasuke glared at him.

"You're a genin. Genin help with civilian evacuation during an emergency," Sasuke pointed out, his sharingan spinning lazily.

The boy stared directly up at his eyes in consideration before recognition filled his gaze and he grinned, "Sure thing, Sasuke-nii-chan."

Momentarily distracted from his search for the Akatsuki member, Sasuke shot Konohamaru a weird look. The younger boy didn't seem to pick up on it, however, and kept on talking, "Naruko-nee-chan talks about you a lot."

Sasuke didn't have time to examine the boy's words and the newfound awe shining in his dark eyes. "Hn," Sasuke grunted before leaping onto a nearby roof to try to pick up on that Akatsuki member's trail. It hadn't been the orange-haired leader that he remembered from Kakuzu's memories, and it left Sasuke mildly concerned that there were other Akatsuki members that he didn't know about.

As his eyes quickly glanced around, he took stock of the situation. He could see several, large beasts all rampaging through the village, hurling themselves through buildings and causing chunks of concrete to fall to the streets below. Before he could make a move towards the destruction, however, he spotted the red and pink blur that was Sakura land a heavy punch to an overgrown centipede and push the beast back. Determining that Sakura wouldn't need any help, Sasuke headed in the direction that he'd seen the Akatsuki member take.

As he leapt from roof to roof, Sasuke got a closer look at the numerous shinobi attacking the village. Surprisingly, there was a lack of black and red cloaked shinobi fighting Konoha's forces. Instead, most of the intruders were wearing headbands that he couldn't identify. What village had a music note as their symbol?

Although the number of intruders to face and dispatch was plentiful, Sasuke avoided and ignored the majority of them. He had spared a few seconds to launch some kunai or shuriken to save an unknown Konoha shinobi from being slain from behind, but he hadn't bothered to stick around. Truthfully, he should be doing the most that he can to eliminate all enemies. But Sasuke had different priorities. Idly, he could hear Itachi's voice in the back of his head warning him not to do anything reckless.

Unfortunately, finding any Akatsuki member in the village was like finding a needle in a haystack. Just as a frustrated noise was leaving his mouth, Sasuke felt a familiar, rancid chakra signature brush against his awareness. Legs jerking to a stop, Sasuke felt his blood boil as his chakra roiled and caused some stray lightning to shoot from his fingertips.

Sasuke was sure that Itachi would consider hunting down Orochimaru in the middle of an invasion to be his vengeance taking priority. Furthermore, he was sure that his brother would consider it foolish based on the way that Orochimaru's chakra was rhythmically pulsing out the Konoha shinobi code for "here". Sasuke couldn't think of a more obvious trap.