Chapter 3

It was raining. Sasuke entered her room drenched and she trugded wearily toward her right to the connecting bathroom. Both rooms had no windows, but winds easily entered and passed through the hidden tunnels and cavities inside Hokage Mountain, and she shivered as she removed the muddy clothes and felt the cold draft hit her naked body.

"Twelve more to go," she muttered queitly to herself, referring to the number of mission folders left on the desk across her bed. The shower's water temperature was unsurprisingly low, and her teeth began chattering more fiercely underneath the spray. A water heater was never installed, Tsunade had told her from the beginning. At that time she thought she didn't care, but during days like today, some hot water would've been nice to keep her warm.

The secret rooms had been intended to be a safe dwelling in case of emergencies. The project had been brought up and implemented sometime during Sandaime's second term but funds were low therefore it was never finished. Out of fifty planned rooms, only a handful had been started on, one of which she was currently occupying. At that time it had only been a few months after Yondaime's death, and also battles against other nations and their shinobi villages were a lot more frequent. The project had been scrapped in favor of funding the soldiers that went to battle as well as infrastructure and governmental organizations among other things. When treaties had been signed and some semblance of peace had been attained, the few people who had known of its existence graduallyforgot about it.

Surveying her surroundings as she stepped back into the bedroom, Sasuke was glad that at least there was a working bathroom. In this room, the floor was flat and even and covered with smooth wooden planks. The walls, too, were straight and coated with a shade of green paint that was neither too light nor too dark. The ceiling, though, was left untouched. It was rocky, curved unevenly in places, and was around ten feet high. Several light bulbs hung from it.

All in all, the place was comfortable, despite how vastly different it was from her house in the Uchiha district. She had a sturdy bed with two pillows and a comforter instead of a cot and a thin blanket. She had a large desk where she kept files in and made reports on. There was a cabinet and drawers for her clothes, a large wooden chest for her weapons, a shelf for her books and scrolls, an old but comfortable couch. There was also a small kitchen with a sink and an outdated gas stove, some cupboards, and a small table with two chairs. It was more than what she would have had had she decided to run about everywhere to find her brother and exact revenge. If Tsunade hadn't approached her that day four years ago she would have been lost and alone and consumed by a hatred that would inevitablyy destroy her.

Orochimaru had seemed to be offering everything she wanted and would want back then, and she had been very near to accepting his plans for her. And right at that moment, when her desperation to escape from her powerlessness had been at full force, she had been given the truth. Itachi had made a great sacrifice. For the village, he chose to betray his blood and abandoned his future in the process. He had killed the people he loved, was forced to leave his home and was branded a traitor by the people he had been protecting.

The night of the Uchiha clan's massacre was still fresh in her mind. All the blood, the dead bodies, and Itachi's cold red eyes. If she hadn't been so gripped by terror and the feeling of that powerful betrayal, maybe she would've seen a great sadness in her brother's eyes. The brother she'd known was kind, and to him their family had been important. The price he paid was enormous, and Sasuke could not fathom his loyalty and inner strength as much as she admired him more for it.

Through the last several years she had wondered how much greater Itachi's grief was compared to her own. There were many sleepless nights for her when she imagined how alone he was out there in places unknown to her. She wondered, too, if he was still thinking of her with tender and fierce love or if he turned to hatred for her ignorance and weakness.

A tear slipped down her cheek as she towelled her hair to dry, but she didn't notice. All she was aware of was the gaping hole in her chest. The longing for Itachi's presence and the desire to comfort him with her own couldn't be remedied anytime soon as he was surely much too far away. But maybe, Tsunade was free to soothe her growing emotional wound.

Tsunade was the constant pillar in her life. Their unexpected connection brought her a comfort she thought she'd never ever experience again. It was nice to have some semblance of a family. At first she had refused to acknowledge that Tsunade was anything more than a figure of authority that took care of her out of duty and pity. But if it ever began like that, there was more to their relationship now than she'd ever had with anyone outside her family.

Hurriedly she dressed in her black trousers and long sleeved shirt, braided her waist-long hair, pulled on her boots and gloves, and finally donned a hooded cloak and the featureless black mask. Without surveying herself in the mirror, she walked out into the maze of passageways, down to the secret tunnel underground, and out into one of the storage rooms in the rarely-visited basement of the Tower. She took the stairs two at a time, as usual ignoring the elevator. Upon arriving at the sixth and final floor, she eagerly but calmly turned left down the hallway towards the Hokage's office.

Tsunade was not there.

Instead, Shizune was by the village leader's desk, tidying up papers and sake bottles. The Hokage's secretary-slash-aide eyed her sternly, suspicion and dislike marking her features slightly. "Tsunade-sama is at the hospital for a surgery and won't be back for a few hours. She left this for you."

A blue folder was extracted from the top of a pile on the desk and handed to her. Tonton began sniffing at her boots as she surveyed the contents through the small, round eyeholes of her mask. Sasuke had a soft spot for the pig, especially after she helped nurse him back to health when he got sick and started sticking to her whenever she was around. But her light mood was ruined. Not for the first time the opportunity for Tsunade and herself to see each other was interupted by some untimely occurence. "The matter needs urgent attention," Shizune continued. Sasuke frowned deeply. "By Hokage-sama's orders this mission will take priority over the rest and you must leave by the end of the hour."

It was another assassination mission and the clients were three wealthy merchants that wanted to get rid of a competitor and the hired groups of shinobi that disrupted their businesses. They were paying an extravagant amount of money for the completion of this mission.

This wasn't the first time she'd been sent for such reasoning. It was money that Konoha desperately needed, but the urgency was not entirely because of the village's immediate monetary concerns. One of the hired groups wore dark cloaks with red cloud patterns. The description matched those of the Akatsuki, the organization Itachi was linked to.

Sasuke sucked in a deep breath. The possibility of reuniting with her brother suddenly presented itself. For a moment it felt as if she couldn't breath enough air to fill her lungs. Shizune rattled on about the need for caution and how the funds could help the hospital with hiring more people and improving research and facilities, not knowing that Kuro was no longer listening.

Her heart pounded loud in her ears. The rhythm urging her on to quickly head out of the room, leaving Shizune in the midst of her one-sided conversation. Finally, she thought. It was a solid clue. There was an actual sighting, unlike previous several other times when she followed a trail based only on vague rumors.

While sprinting down the stairs, Sasuke felt as if she was in a dream. The darkness that tinged her mood began to dissolve away as the light of hope burned brighter within her.

Short, but a progress nonetheless. Did you miss me? I am resolved to update the other female Sasuke fics in my profile. Just give me time, please.