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

Chapter 19

Consciousness came back to him slowly. His mind was foggy and his limbs were too heavy to move. There were several questions on his mind, but the loudest was, 'What the hell happened to me?' As if posing the question was enough to open the floodgates, everything came rushing back. Sasuke couldn't stop the way his entire body tensed when he remembered what had happened to his brother. The Yondaime had done something to him. Sasuke was sure of it.

Suddenly, some overhead lights flickered on and managed to disorient him despite his eyes being closed. Slowly cracking an eye open, Sasuke tried to determine where he was- an empty room with blank walls and a few dried blood stains on the floors. This wasn't the prison. He'd seen it more than enough times in the past to know the difference. He had to be within T&I. There was nowhere else in the village that was equipped at holding shinobi.

The metal gurney that he was strapped to shouldn't have been difficult to break away from, but his noticeably low chakra reserves gave him pause. His normally strong chakra moved sluggishly through his body, like a slow trickle of thick honey. Was this from the Mokuton user? (Since when did Konoha have a Mokuton user? Wasn't the Shodaime the only one?)

The deafening silence was broken by the sound of a door opening. He couldn't see who it was, nor could he sense their chakra, but the mystery was broken when they stepped into his line of sight. "Hi, Sasuke-kun," Ino greeted him with a small smile.

Sasuke wasn't sure how to respond to the girl. She gave him an apologetic look before reaching out towards his chest with a glowing hand. His entire body tensed, but Sasuke made no moves to pull away or fight her off. "I'm sorry that I'm not as good at this as Forehead, but I'm decent enough," she said as her hands glowed green and her chakra vegan probing through his system.

There were still a few pressing questions on his mind, but the most pertinent one was, "Where's my brother?"

Ino paused for a second before replying, "Safe." Sasuke glared at her in frustration. "You can see him soon, Sasuke-kun. You were already cleared from treason, but Ibiki-san wants to hold you until the Hokage officially signs off on the report."

While the idea of him being placed under suspicion for treason had been initially troubling, all his concerns flew out the window once thoughts of the Yondaime entered his mind. The Hokage. Some of his memories were blurry or missing finer details but Sasuke could still remember seeing the Yondaime with his brother. Itachi had suddenly started coughing up blood after the Yondaime had interfered. Whatever that man had done to his brother would nothing compared to what Sasuke would do once he got out of here.

"Hey," Ino pulled his attention away from his inner rage. "You don't need to worry about Naruko. I already spoke to her for you."

Naruko? What about her? What did she have to do with this?

Ino must have misinterpreted his confusion because she explained, "I was the one that did your interrogation. I know that you sent her away to keep her safe. She's pretty pissed off at you for that, but I thought it was sweet.

"It's weird. I don't think I've ever understood you as well as I do right now, Sasuke-kun. I thought I did when we were younger, but I was just seeing what I wanted to see. You're way more complex than I thought. Naruko has her work cut out for her," Ino joked with a smirk after ceasing her medical examination.

Sasuke wanted to shout at her for invading his mind and privacy. He wanted to tell her to shut up. He wanted to loudly and vehemently argue that she didn't know anything about him. But mostly, he wanted her to stop talking about pointless things and tell him where his brother was!

"I think you'll make a great father one day, Sasuke-kun," Ino whispered conspiratorially to him with a wink.

Sasuke's building irritation almost had him screaming at her, but the sound of the heavy, metal door swinging open once again stopped him. Whoever it was that had entered behind him didn't speak, but Ino was nodding to them in acknowledgment anyways. Eventually the door swung closed and Ino smiled brightly at him.