Kido was getting impatient.
He had succeeded in sending a Sasuke doppelgänger out into the world to be seen as much as possible. But the star of the show, Sasuke himself, had not appeared in the village.
Why is he not coming back?
There was no way the real Sasuke was unaware of the current situation. He had to have heard about it somewhere.
Kido did not like Sasuke’s lack of response. It stank of the notion that Sasuke was taking no notice of what Kido was trying to do.
But in his impatience, Kido struck upon a single excellent idea. If he played this card, not only was there a fairly high probability that Sasuke would return, but the situation would become even more favorable in terms of Kido’s plan.
“So play the next card,” Kido said, in his office. Magire and several other high-level ninja were also there. All wore Anbu masks.
“This woman,” he said, waving his hand lightly. A moment later, a single kunai plunged into the wall, coming to rest on a single photograph. “Take her. A classmate of Sasuke’s, Haruno Sakura. Once news she is missing reaches Sasuke’s ears, he will come back to the village.”
“And then we’ll take the next step and kill her?” another ninja said. “The impact on him would be greater that way.”
“No, we won’t kill her,” Kido said. A thin smile spreading across his face, he continued. “Not right away.”
✦ ✦ ✦
At first, it was rough going for Sakura and Ino on their rounds of the village.
To begin with, Nakano Shrine was on the outskirts, in a place where there weren’t too many houses. On top of that, the period immediately after the Great War itself was a stumbling block. It had already been more than two years since the end of the war. People’s memories were fading.
It took three days of asking around near the shrine before they heard anything useful from anyone.
“The Anbu? Oh, I saw them!” the anyone in question—Rock Lee—told them. “There were about three of them, I guess!”
“When was that?” Sakura asked.
“It was a little over two years ago,” Lee replied. “I sometimes come to this area on my runs. That’s actually why I’m here today. After all, normally, there aren’t very many people around here, you see? Which is why I remember seeing the Anbu that day. Although, well, you’ll see the Anbu popping up anywhere, depending what sort of mission they’re on. I didn’t think it was particularly suspicious.”
Sakura and Ino glanced at each other and nodded.
“What are you investigating? If you’d like, I could be your superpower?!” Lee said, but Sakura and Ino gently dodged this.
“Mm-hmm, if something comes up, we’ll call you.” Like Naruto, Lee had a tendency to just charge in. Sakura thought he wasn’t particularly suited to the evidence-gathering sort of work she and Ino were doing.
In the evening, they met with Sai and reported the results of the day’s investigations. On her way home, Sakura’s feet were light. They had gotten results that day, however modest.
If they circled in on Kido bit by bit, they could help Sasuke. That thought renewed Sakura’s determination.
“I told you to let go!”
The sudden angry roar stopped her in her tracks. It had come from a side street near her house.
She peered into the alley. It was already night, but the street lamps penetrated the dark, however faintly, so the road ahead of her wasn’t pitch black.
Several men were pressing another man down onto the ground. The men doing the pressing all wore Anbu masks.
“Look! Let me go!”
“Quiet! You’re suspected of terrorism!”
“I’m telling you, it wasn’t me!”
Of the quarrelling voices, the one coming from the man on the ground was familiar to Sakura.
“Sasuke?!” she cried out.
“Sakura!” The man on the ground lifted his face.
It was indeed Sasuke.
“Tell them. I came back to the village and suddenly they attacked me. They’re saying I killed some terrorists or something.”
Please let him go. Sakura swallowed the words before they had a chance to leave her mouth.
“Wait. Are you really Sasuke?” she asked, in all seriousness. She’d been thinking and working all this time on the idea of the fake Sasuke. She was bound to become paranoid.
“And now you’re asking me stuff like that.” He let out a short sigh. “Did you forget your old classmate’s face? Look at me,” he said, briefly, and let the silence speak.
Reflexively, she returned his gaze, and in that moment, her vision blurred and smeared.
Genjutsu!
She couldn’t stay on her feet. But the genjutsu wasn’t that strong. She quickly quelled the disturbance in her chakra and regained her steady posture.
And then she felt a presence behind her.
Before she could turn around, she felt a stinging sensation on the back of her neck.
She felt some kind of drug being injected into her veins. The strength left her knees, and she collapsed facedown on the ground.