Blinded by Fear

Silence

"That's her," a woman whispered to her friend as they both moved to the other side of the street. "That's the girl Lady Tsunade was telling everyone about." They peered upward with their heads lowered toward a black haired girl walking down the streets with several shinobi surrounding her like body guards. Although the women tried to be discrete, as the girl walked passed them she could feel their eyes burning holes into her, but she remained unfazed, and her eyes never strayed from the direction she was heading, all the while thinking how different everything looked in Konoha.

"What do you mean she's not talking!?" Lady Tsunade shouted, slamming her fist on the desk before her.

"She hasn't made a peep since we found her," came a confident voice from the line of three ninja standing in front of her, "It's like she doesn't even see us when we talk to her." The blonde shrugged, feeling discouraged that she couldn't perform her mind transfer jutsu on the girl and do some digging. She couldn't understand why, but every time she had attempted any of the intelligence gathering techniques her clan had taught her, it seemed like a waste of chakra. She was instantly thrown back into her own head.

"So you can't get her to speak? Are you sure she's even alive!?" Tsunade snarled sarcastically, flipping her short blonde hair behind her ear as she sat back in her chair.

"She's alive, she's just not talking," The largest of the three said, shrugging as well. Choji, like his teammates, was exhausted and hungry from the long mission they had been on. He wanted his meeting with the Hokage to be over so he could get something to eat.

Tsunade was quiet for a moment, then she looked toward the middle of the group at a young man with his hair tied back in a ponytail who seemed just as disinterested in the conversation that was occurring as their captive had been with the three of them earlier. "Well, Shikamaru? You didn't get any information from her?"

"What, you think she wanted to talk to ME of all people?" Shikamaru said, obviously annoyed. "Like Ino said, she hasn't even acknowledged our existence, let alone talked to us." He knew that part of that was true. The girl they had found hadn't talked to them, but Shikamaru had managed to get her to smile slightly at some hateful comment he'd made toward Ino while they were headed back to the leaf village. So, she hadn't totally ignored them.

Tsunade stood and walked toward the window of her office, looking over the village she protected. She then changed her focus to the team's reflection in the glass, "Team ten, I am officially declaring this mission a failure!"

Sudden protest bursted from the mouths of the other two teammates while Shikamaru shouted, "We brought her back to the village! What else do you want!?"

"I want answers!" Tsunade shouted, turning suddenly and advancing toward them, her voice scratching, "Right now, we don't even know if that's the right girl out there!"

"Yes, we do!" Ino interrupted, "It has to be her. She is everything you said. Black hair, pale skin, hanging around some loser from the akatsuki..." Ino tried to think of other evidence to settle their case, but Tsunade shook her head.

"Just because she LOOKS like the girl I described, doesn't mean it's her. It's been years since she's been in the village! We have no idea what Sakaria could look like now, and you three think that because you stumbled upon a pale girl with black hair and akatsuki affiliation, it has to be her. Go out and get answers... and for God's sake don't let her leave the village. You three are to watch her every move. Got it?" She waited for the team to nod, albeit defeatedly, and then shouted, "Dismissed!" Before they walked out of the door, leaving Tsunade to sift through the small file that had been built on the mysterious Uchiha survivor. Inside, a small Polaroid was paper clipped to a description paper. The Hokage studied the Uchiha children depicted on it, contemplating how the boy shown holding his little sister and patting his younger brother on his head with a proud smile could feel so drawn to kill the rest of his family.