another Chance

#51

Konoha hospital -
Itachi turned his head in the direction of the sound accurately facing the person who just entered the ward and asked "Sakura chan?" He sounded calm but Sakura who just entered the ward seemed surprised as she asked " how did you know it was me Itachi san?" Itachi flashed her a smile as he replied softly " I heard you just now but I was merely guessing it", Sakura walked closer to his bed as she said " oh so that's it, well today I am here for your routine check up,how are you feeling today Itachi San? Any discomfort?" She asked as she checked his pulse and temperature, Itachi shook his head and they continued on with the routine questions and after the inspection was over they talked a bit as usual, it was the same topic as Always, "did he come back? What was his reaction?" Itachi asked Sakura, she didn't had to guess to know who Itachi was talking about and she answered "he came back last evening but he didn't react much as if he knew already, afterwards I asked Naruto, he told me that he already knew as his shadow clones had always been keeping an eye on the whole hospital" hearing this Itachi's expression tightened slightly not expecting sasuke to go to such lengths to keep an eye on him 'has he always been this alert and suspicious? not really this was not the case before he had always been alert but to this extent is just a recent thing.... He started acting strange few months ago after team 7 successfully brought him back from orochimaru's lair.... What exactly am I missing here? Why did he change drastically? To the point that he's suffering from depression and paranoia and that day.... Maybe it's not just that, he also seems to be experiencing hallucinations and nightmare....' seeing Itachi sinking deep into his own thoughts Sakura sighed with a worried expression and bid her farewell leaving Itachi alone to get him some food as he was still recuperating and hadn't eaten since yesterday, Itachi heard her sigh and her foot steps as she left, he 'looked' in her general direction for a few seconds before turning his head away, his world right now only consisted of darkness, as far as he could 'see' it was all dark and some occasional flickers of chakra that he could feel, it made him very uncomfortable, it was a very painful feeling but his face remained stoic as if he couldn't feel anything.....
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Hokage's office
Sasuke entered the room followed by his team and looked at all the familiar faces present in the room, by the serious atmosphere and absence of Naruto from the room he was sure they had verified his Intel and were very serious at the moment and if he was not wrong, right now yamato the temporary leader of team seven was training Naruto in training ground 7 to distract him from the meeting, he smirked as he sat down and said "your expressions tell that you have verified the Intel.... curious to know why or how I know all this?" he said in a leisurely manner not even extending any word of meaningless greetings and polite words getting straight to the point, lady Tsunade 'tsked' and said "so? Are you going to satisfy our curiousity?" As she crossed her arms in front of her bust, Sasuke lazily leaned back as he replied "I don't know....would I now?....how about you satisfy me first?", his attitude ticked Tsunade off but she managed to get her anger under control at the cost of the poor working desk that ended up miserably as she slammed her first on it in an attempt to keep her anger from flaring, although they didn't necessarily require this uchiha's help about these matters but if they could get such accurate Intel about their enemies without wasting too much of resources and man power with minimal of damages then why not? Why should she make things difficult for herself and her village? Plus it was thanks to this brat she could get rid of danzo and shut those old hags up who always gave her headaches and were nothing more than trouble, so she took a deep breath and replied "we can agree to your conditions but we'll interfere if it concerns the village's safety ", hearing her agreement sasuke looked at her and then replied after a short moment of silence "..... I was his favourite vessel after all so I know way more than just that....." Sasuke tossed the blame to orochimaru again without the slightest hesitation and continued "....we are not the only uchihas alive", the moment this sentence left his mouth it stunned everyone present in the room including the trio in his team "what?" Tsunade asked in surprised, sasuke didn't bother to repeat his sentence and continued seemingly carelessly with a gentle smile "....aniki wishes to protect this village which means that that uchiha needs to be dealt with, he's going to start the 4th great ninja war.... wouldn't that mean this village also get involved...." as he finished his sentence his smile disappeared and his expressions turned cold again as if thought of something really unpleasant his voice also became cold and his seal started becoming restless as he continued with a frown " I can't let something like that happen....we can't let them collect all the tailed beasts....this can't happen" as he said the last words the people present in the room felt that all this all just too much to digest.... although he had a point when he said that they couldn't let the tailed beast be separated from their jinchuriki and fall into the hands of Akatsuki but what's this about the 4th great ninja war? What is he going on about? And what does he mean by 'not the only uchihas alive? ' were there more of them....but how did they escape from that genocide.....it can't be that Itachi let them escape....so how? All this was just too much to digest all at once and they still needed to verify what was the truth....