Contrition [Itachi Uchiha x Reader]

#22: Consolation

"Mayor Shimura, Obito Uchiha is here to see you."

Danzō acknowledged his secretary with a nod. "Send him in."

A dark haired man with scars on his face appeared at the door a minute later. "You look terrible," commented the newcomer, taking his seat opposite the Shimura. "Still no sign of them?"

He received a sharp glare in response. "Tell me you have something."

The Uchiha simply shrugged. "The police know nothing. Speaking of which, any news about your little puppy?"

"Sai? He wasn't at the bottom of the river, so he must be alive."

Obito chuckled darkly. "You're as ruthless as always."

"I simply can't fathom how they managed to pull this off," Danzō continued. "It seems to me like your nephew has some powerful friends. Are you sure you had nothing to do with this?"

A smirk made its way onto the young man's face. "Are you doubting my loyalty, Danzō?"

"I just find it strange that Itachi Uchiha managed to up and vanish like that. All I know is that he couldn't have done this alone."

"Who's saying he did?" Obito leaned forward on his elbows. "And you're forgetting about his friend who likes playing detective."

Danzō clicked his tongue. "None of this would have happened if you had just killed him when I asked you to."

Obito rose to his feet. "Maybe. I suppose I have a soft corner for family. Oh well..."

"You better hope to God he doesn't remember, Uchiha," the old man murmured. "Because if he does... You're skating on thin ice as it is."

"I would worry about myself if I were you, Mister Mayor." With a wave of his hand, Obito Uchiha disappeared out the door.

*

"Are you... one of them?" Itachi asked in a hushed whisper, to which [Name] rolled her eyes. The two made their way deeper into the base in search of a quiet place to have a conversation.

"No, Itachi. I'm not."

"Then what are we doing here?" he asked, looking around. "Sooner or later you're going to have to tell me what happened. I feel bad enough as it is knowing that I wasn't of any help today, but not knowing how I even got here is just making everything worse."

"I can't really be of service to you considering how I was unconscious for the most part too. But I should probably tell you that I spoke to your father's old partner. He's the one who told me about everything. I figured Danzō would try to make a move either at your trial or before it, so I told the one person I could trust. Despite how Hinata seems, she's pretty tough. Not to mention smart. She told me about her cousin and how he and his friends had a run-in with Danzō a couple years back. Some drug cartel business- the lesser you know, the better. Anyway, they've been waiting to get back at him so they thought this was the perfect opportunity. On that day, they were following us from the time we left the station. To be honest, I don't know what we would have done if Sai hadn't set the ball rolling. You would probably be in prison right now. Or dead. Although, now that I think about it, it would have been better than hiding from Konoha's finest on one hand, and a very pissed off politician on the other."

"What happened to Danzō's men?" Itachi couldn't help but be skeptical.

"They left them by the bridge, unconscious. But we couldn't leave Sai. He saw too much. Plus, I think Neji just wanted to toy with Danzō a little more. Either way, he's someone else's problem now."

He massaged his temples. "And what's going to happen to us? We obviously can't stay here for long."

"That's the thing, we can't stay in Konoha. If the cops or Danzō's people so much as hear about us being here, we could end up in the middle of something messy." She studied her surroundings before saying, "Messier."

Itachi nodded absentmindedly. "I'm sorry, [Name]," he confessed after a while. "If it weren't for me, you wouldn't be in this predicament."

[Name] scoffed. "You're right. I would probably be grading papers and worrying about my tax returns. So I must thank you. This has been...interesting."

"It's not over yet," Tenten not-so-subtlely joined the conversation. "I just spoke to Neji and we managed to find you a place to stay in Yugakure. The place is a tourist destination, so you should be fine. The possibility of running into someone you know is slim."

"Y-Yugakure?" [Name] asked, feeling her heart sink.

"Yeah, why?"

Itachi noticed [Name]'s troubled expression and made a mental note to ask her about it later. "Nothing! That's great news. Thank you."

"But there is one problem though. The guy whose house you'll be staying in, he's a little...orthodox. It took us a great deal of effort to get him to open his home to you. And even though it's just for a little while, you can't seem suspicious to anyone there. We obviously didn't tell him about your fugitive situation , so you're going to have to act like a normal couple. Think you can do that?"

"I'm sorry... couple?"

"Tenten, what did you tell him?"

She responded with a twisted smile. "Have fun on your honeymoon."