☆Kyuubi Of The Akatsuki☆

Justice

- 3rd POV -

Deidara stepped on the perpetrator's foot, plain and simple. Then, everyone stared at him for disrupting the peaceful white noise of a child's cries. Instead of kicking the bully, Deidara crouched down, his foot still pinning the bully in his spot.

"Go tell your parents I'm robbing their house tonight," Deidara pats his head, "and that there's nothing that'll stop me from taking all your toys."

The stupid threat functioned as planned, sending the bully sprinting away with his group, and giving Deidara a strict time limit to save Naruto. The thrill of having limited time would guide him towards bad decisions, but the consequences of his recklessness were exactly what the village deserved.

- Sasuke POV -

 I went to Naruto's cell, knowing how likely it was for the visit to hurt me. He lounged on the ground with his back against the wall, like a limp pillow, or a dead marionette. Sighing, I reminded myself not to suggest he's a puppet for the Akatsuki. Chains bound his every limb. Naruto pretended to hear me rather than sense me, and he glanced up at me.

"I want to ask you questions," I mutter, staring through the bars between us. When he closes his eyes, I take it as an indication to begin my questions. "Why are you helping Madara?" No reply. "Why did you want to kill Danzo?" Silence again. "Why--"

"Can you only ask unnecessary questions?" Naruto interrupted. Lazily, he slid his hands into each other.

My breath huffed out of my nose. "I'm trying to see why you're going to horrible people for comfort."

I remembered how I once imagined his laugh the first time I hallucinated about him. In reality, his laugh sounded staggeringly worse. Each contorted inflection of it, how the volume cuts my ears instead of soothing them, froze me.

"Because they hate Konoha," he answered and his neck tilted, patronizing me like a child. "Is this your attempt to save me Sasuke?" he mused and I responded with silence. "You can't."

"I don't want to anymore---I know I can't!" I lost the will to look at him, bending my gaze to my knees. "I just want to understand you."

"You know everything Sasuke."

"No, I don't."

"You do. I've spilled my soul to village and I know you heard what I had to say!" Naruto flicked his ankle, and launched his sandal directly at the seal restricting him. 

Both of us placed our lives in the hands of murderers, yet he looked so much happier than me.

"I'm trapped, Naruto."

"Very ironic," he muttered, shaking his chains.

"In contracts and memories." I was thankful that Naruto chose to say nothing. "I'm in R.O.O.T and nobody will ever rescue me from it. How can I---How do I?--"

"You kill them Sasuke. You're a shinobi," he hissed, gouging the question from my mind, How can I be free like you?  "But if you're scared, you can let me go, and I'll kill Danzo for you."

"I can't do that," I blurted, the cowardice in me having its say before my courage.

Naruto exhaled deeply, imagining the puff of his breath swimming above his face. "Then tell Tsunade she should have saved me. And tell Kakashi 'I'm glad he tried, but he should have saved me too'. And please tell Hinata that I'm sorry I couldn't keep my composure when I was around her.  Tell Lee that I appreciate him too. Please tell them that before I die, Sasuke."

"I'll save you," I whispered, "from this, and then you'll help me get out of R.O.O.T. "

"You don't need to," Naruto insisted, and I heard a rise in his voice, he sounded familiar. "I told you I didn't need to be saved. Someone else is coming to help me. You," he flopped his hand to point at me, "will meet me at the Konoha gates tonight."