Parent Trap

and here's the next chapter! i swear it's got to be the fastest i've ever updated, or even written a chapter. and it advances the plot, a lot. and i mean, a lot. hope you enjoy!

Warnings: Girltime, Jose Cuervo, diabolical plots, blossoming romances, tiny bit of jealousy, and all around confusion.


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Parent Trap: Chapter 11
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June claimed her bag from the carousel, slinging it over her shoulder tiredly. It was a short flight from Konoha to Suna, comparatively she supposed, but it was late at night, and her mind had been spinning ever since her meeting with Itachi earlier that day. She was weary, in mind, body, and spirit, and it didn’t help her nerves any that she was set to meet Gaara and the Suna mafia tomorrow.

“June.”

She looked up, surprised because she hadn’t realized she walked as far as she apparently had. Sakura stood before her, dressed in her pajamas and a long coat, smiling, looking just as tired as June felt and probably looked herself.

“Sakura,” she said, walking forward and hugging her friend. “Thanks for picking me up. I didn’t want to call attention to myself being in town.”

“Hm,” Sakura replied, stepping back from the hug but keeping a hold of June’s arms. “I can imagine. Can I just say I don’t like what you’ve obviously come here to do?”

June smiled, and they moved to exit the airport. “You aren’t saying anything I haven’t said to myself for the past three hours or so. But I’m hoping to get out of this relatively unscathed.”

Sakura linked her arm with hers, squeezing it tightly for a moment. “And how do you hope to do that?”

“I think I have some collateral that will come in handy.”

Sakura laughed. “I suppose you mean Naruto.”

June jerked in surprise. “How did you know?”

She saw Sakura frown. “I’ve… known for a while. I have to tell you, though, I was so spitting mad at him when you broke up. He should have told you.”

Ignoring the fact that Sakura had known and hadn’t told her, June reached up and patted Sakura’s arm. “No, Naruto is entitled to his secrets. But he’s told me now, and that’s what matters, I guess.”

“And you’re all right with it?” They had reached Sakura’s car, and she broke away to open the trunk for June’s bag. June put it in and shut the trunk door, standing there with her hand upon it for a moment, thinking, before moving to the passenger side and giving Sakura a resigned smile over the roof of the car.

“I have no right not to be, I suppose. And I was quite shocked when he told me. But I guess I’ve had enough time to get over it. Besides, anything that makes Naruto happy makes me happy, too.”

Sakura smiled at her and opened the car door. “That’a girl. Now, let’s get some sleep.”

~*~

Sleep had not done a thing for June’s nerves. As she stood outside the giant building that housed the legitimate and illegitimate business ventures of the Suna mafia, June felt the strongest urge to sedate herself, which would mean a quick trip to the hospital since she didn’t carry pills or syringes on her person. But she was reasonable enough to know that this shouldn’t be put off. Gaara would probably refuse her request on principle is she showed up late.

June took a deep breath and walked into the lavish lobby, surprised by the professional luxury that surrounded her. It was almost like a hotel lobby, with a bar, seating area, elevators and plants, and smiling receptionist at the concierge desk.

“Fujimiya-san,” the receptionist said, rising and bowing slightly in her direction.

“Ah, yes,” she replied nervously, bowing in return and trying not to fidget. She had prepared against that by putting her long hair up in a tight bun and wearing jeans and a slim graphic tee, reducing the things upon her person that she could tug at and fiddle with. Of course, that left the problem of what do to with her hands in her nervousness, and it set her teeth on edge.

“Your arrival is expected. Please take the elevator to the top floor.”

“Of course, thank you.” June bowed again and walked toward the elevator, the shiny gold doors sliding silently open before she’d quite gotten there. She stepped in and looked at the panel of buttons to her right, hesitantly pressing the very top button. The doors slid silently closed, and the car moved smoothly up the building. It was almost eerily quiet, no accompanying chime as the car reached each floor.

After what seemed a long ride – and yet too short for June’s nerves – the car came to a smooth stop and the doors opened to reveal a high end penthouse decked out in dark brown leather furniture and gold lamps. The dark brown curtains were drawn, and two people occupied the space. They had stood when the elevator doors opened, and now they were facing June and waiting for her to step off.

She did, trying her best to hide any hesitation or fear on her part, because everyone knew that while Gaara wanted people to fear him, he never wanted to see it in people he expected better of. And somehow, though she was at a loss as to how, he’d come to expect better of Fujimiya June.

As she walked in, the two people came to meet her. One was a man, his face drawn down in a frown, though not unkind, and the other was a woman, her eyes shining with amusement as she took a drink from her glass of what June could only assume was a strong liquor from the dark brown color.

Temari and Kankuro, Gaara’s elder siblings.

“Welcome, Fujimiya-chan,” a deep voice said from the darkness of the hall, followed quickly by Gaara entering the living room. A violent fear gripped June and caused her to pause only slightly before bowing in Gaara’s direction.

“Gaara-san, thank you for seeing me on such short notice.” She stayed bowed until she heard a small grunt of acknowledgment. Then she righted herself and waited for whatever was coming next.

“Please, come have a seat, Fujimiya-san,” Kankuro offered, his hand extended toward the furniture. June nodded and walked forward, selecting one of the large leather chairs so that she wouldn’t have to sit next to any of them on the couch.

“Would you like something to drink, Fujimiya-san? It’ll settle your nerves, I’m sure,” Temari offered, her ice clinking in the glass as she seated herself on the couch and crossed her legs, clearly trying to show them off, as she wore such a short skirt. If she was trying to intimidate June with her sex appeal, she had another thing coming since June’s attention was focused solely on the man who held her in the palm of his hand at the moment.

“Fujimiya-chan is here on business, Temari, not a social visit. Be quiet.” Temari didn’t say anything to Gaara, just smiled and took another drink. Kankuro poured himself a drink and joined his sister on the couch while Gaara took the other chair across from June. “Now, what is your business?”

June almost forgot what exactly she’d come for as those pale green eyes stared mercilessly at her. The face was devoid of emotion, pale, which made the blood red tattoo on his forehead all the more prominent despite the wisps of blood red hair that tried to obscure it. No one was really quite sure why the man had that particular tattoo, though if she remembered to ask Naruto later, she would. If anyone knew beside Gaara himself, she thought it might be Naruto.

When she realized she was staring, she cleared her throat and straightened her back.

“I believe one of my patients is being… I don’t know exactly. Test results were faked and dangerous medication was prescribed, medication which I believe caused most of the patient’s complaints. I’ve got some evidence, I’ve even got a suspect, but I have no motive.” Gaara and his siblings merely stared at her as she tried to form her request. “I need answers, quickly, which is why I came to you. I want whatever information you can dig up on Yakushi Kabuto, a doctor at Konoha Hospital – any connections, a criminal record, whatever can get me from my wild theory to a solid conviction.”

The three siblings were quiet for a moment before Temari uncrossed her legs and crossed them again the other way, sighing as she did so. “A background check isn’t the hardest thing we’ve ever had to do, you know. In fact, you could just use a private investigator.”

“That would take too-”

“Long, yes, we heard you want this fast. But I don’t buy that that’s the only reason you came to us. Look, not for nothing, but we know what you think about us, and you’re not the only one. So I’d like to know why you’re so desperate for our help.”

Gaara didn’t say anything to that, a clear indication he was of his sister’s mind. The three of them stared at June intently, and she fought the urge to squirm in her seat.

“I think,” Temari continued, “that your patient is high profile, that you want this done quickly and quietly in such a way that brings no one trouble but you if you’re wrong. How about that?”

June looked at her hands clenched in her lap, nodding once in affirmation.

“Who’s the patient?” Gaara asked quietly.

June’s head shot up. “That information is confidential.”

Gaara stared evenly at her, his arms crossed in front of his chest. “If we were to take this job, the connection between this Kabuto and your patient would more than likely prove the best impetus for motive, if that’s what you want.”

June’s mouth tightened in displeasure, but he had a point. She narrowed her eyes at him. “This does not leave this room,” she warned, slightly gratified when Gaara nodded his head once after a moment of thought. “Uchiha Itachi.”

Temari and Kankuro both inhaled sharply, their eyes swinging from June to their brother. Gaara was staring at her, but she felt he was seeing something else entirely.

“So, Uchiha Itachi, you believe, is being targeted somehow. If we found out this information, the Uchiha would owe us a favor,” Gaara finally said, his face still blank, but a taint of satisfaction in his voice. June was shaken to her core at the sound.

“No!” she yelled, horror at the thought of Itachi owing anything to Gaara causing her to step over the implied boundaries of respect.

“What?” Gaara asked icily.

June tried to slow her heartbeat, swallowing the fear back down her throat. “No,” she said quietly. “Anything owed will be paid by me alone.” Silence met her declaration, and then Temari cleared her throat.

“Gaara?” she asked quietly.

“Fine. We’ll take the job. Temari, Kankuro, get to it. Fujimiya-chan says she needs the information quickly.”

“Yes,” they said together, leaving June and Gaara alone in the living room. They said nothing for almost ten minutes before June couldn’t take it any longer.

“Thank you, Gaara-san, for accepting my request.” He said nothing so she continued, “How… much will be enough to-”

“How is Naruto, Fujimiya-chan?” he asked suddenly, cutting off June mid-question.

“Naruto?” she asked stupidly, wondering what he had to do with what they were currently discussing. “Uh, he’s, he’s fine, and so is Ayame-chan. They seem to be settling in nicely. Naruto is reconnecting with a lot of his schoolmates that he hasn’t seen since graduation.”

“Is he happy?”

“I…” June trailed off, not exactly sure she could answer the question. She wasn’t exactly the person who could best judge Naruto’s happiness, not after the way she blew it all those years ago. It wasn’t exactly her fault, she knew that now, but still.

“I suppose he’s content,” she said, thinking about his job, friends, and family that keep him smiling. But something was gnawing at the back of her mind that couldn’t make her say anything more positive than that. It had been doing so since that night at the restaurant, when they’d run into Itachi and his little brother, Sasuke. Naruto’s odd interest in the man, and the way Sasuke had run away from the table, and how Naruto had made her dance with Itachi to go after him, or so she assumed.

“I guess he could be… happier,” she amended.

Gaara nodded, as if he’d thought as much before asking his question. He uncrossed his arms and stood from the chair. June stood hurriedly as well. “Then as payment for our services, you will make him happy.”

June didn’t quite comprehend what he said at first, and then she blurted, “What?!”

“You will make him happy. You will make sure he finds his happiness, and when he finds it, you will protect his happiness. That is the price for your favor. Do you accept?”

June was at a loss for words. Naruto would be furious if he ever found out about this. And she didn’t think she had it in her to even pull off what Gaara was asking, but she wasn’t quite sure that Gaara didn’t already realize that. But if she didn’t accept, what would happen to…

“Yes,” she said quietly. No matter what Naruto said or did if he found out, she still had to do this. For… Itachi.

“Good. We will have your information within the next twenty-four hours. We will call you.” He turned and she followed him to the elevator. It opened just as quietly as before, and he surprisingly took her hand and handed her into the car. “Have a good day Fujimiya-chan.”

“I… yes, thank you. You, too, Gaara-san.” She bowed and stayed bowed until the elevator doors closed and the car began to descend. Her hands were shaking. She didn’t really know what she’d just gotten herself into, but she could only pray that she’d done the right thing.

~*~

Sakura met her at the door with a shot glass of tequila. She took it and downed it without a second thought, wincing as it burned a path down her throat and what felt like her stomach lining.

“Well, you’re still alive,” Sakura said as June stepped around her into living room, setting the shot glass down on the coffee table that was generously strewn with shot glasses, limes, and tiny shakers of salt. She turned and raised an eyebrow at her friend. Sakura shrugged. “I thought you might need it.”

Did she ever. She reached down for another shot glass, tipping that one back with a lot less difficulty than the last. She ignored the salt and lime. Sakura stepped around the table and sank to the floor, pulling a lime to her and slicing it with the small knife she’d had in her hand that June hadn’t noticed.

At the motion of her head, June sank down on the other side of the table, facing Sakura. She reached up and let down her hair, the long, heavy strands falling down her back and around her shoulders, pooling around her on the floor.

“So, how did it go?” Sakura asked as she set the knife aside before sprinkling her hand with salt and picking up a glass. Her raised eyebrow in June’s direction prompted her to do the same, and they licked the salt before knocking the shots back, following it with lime slices before throwing them somewhere off to the side.

“He decided to help me.” They salted their hands again and picked up two more shots. They quickly went the way of their firsts, as did the bitten lime wedges.

“Hm, and what did you ask?” June scowled at her, and Sakura rolled her eyes. “I’m your friend, here, June. What if you end up dead or something? Someone has to know what you were into.”

“Thanks so much for that, Sakura. I feel so safe and secure already, and your testimony only enhances the experience.” They went for round three.

“Seriously, June. You know you can trust me.” Sakura looked at her earnestly, and she sighed.

“Fine. I think someone is trying to kill, or at least do bad things to, one of my patients. So I asked for a little information.”

“Oh, shit,” Sakura whispered, her eyes wide. June smirked and reached for round four.

“That’s kind of how I felt about it, yes.”

“And what did Gaara ask in return?” June scowled.

Round five. And six.

And seven.

June was starting to feel really good, so her anger was slowly replaced by the real confusion that she felt. “He told me to find Naruto’s happiness and then to protect it.”

Sakura’s eyes were slightly unfocused. “Why would he ask for that?”

“I have no fucking clue,” June snapped, slamming her shot glass down harder than she meant then let her head rest against the cool wood of the table. “I don’t know what he meant by it. How am I supposed to find his happiness?”

“Maybe Gaara is just trying to get you to make Naruto start dating again. I mean, it’s been awhile since he and Gaara broke up, and I don’t think he’s been with anyone since. I mean, maybe he’s been laid, but he hasn’t had anyone steady.”

June groaned into the table. “I just think he’s trying to make me suffer. Have the woman that left him find him someone else.”

“Well, it’s not like you’re still in love with him or anything. That would probably be harder on you.”

June didn’t say anything. The pattern on her jeans was actually kind of fascinating.

“June? Oh, my God! You’re not still in love with Naruto, are you?!”

June let out a shuddering breath and lifted her head, resting her cheek against her hand. “No, I don’t think I am. I mean, it’s kind of hard to tell, since I’ve loved him so long, but I don’t feel like I am whenever we see each other now.”

Sakura nodded with all the wisdom of the truly wasted. “Well, that’s good, since he’s more into guys right now.”

“What do you mean right now?”

“Hm, he’s bi. You know, swings from girls to guys and back again. But I swear, since that one time in college, Naruto’s been a lot hotter for guys than girls.”

“What time in college?” June asked, remembering last night when Sakura had admitted to knowing about Naruto for some time.

Sakura giggled and reached for a lime wedge. “You remember that weekend that you had to study for a test, and we all went out dancing without you?”

June scowled. “I was pre-med. There were a lot of weekends like that.”

“Oh, well, this one was special. It was the weekend after you had broken up with that basketball player. Naruto was really happy that you’d ditched the jock that he wanted to go dancing in celebration. You told him to go have fun in your stead.”

June did vaguely remember something like that happening. The tequila was making already old memories fuzzier.

“Naruto met someone there, a guy someone, and while I wasn’t close enough to actually see what they were doing, I do know that had I walked over I would have gotten an eyeful.”

“Oh, my God!” June cried, her face flaming at the image that Sakura had implanted in her head.

“Yeah, so that’s why I said it’s good you don’t love him that much anymore. Of course, it might also be because you’ve met someone.”

“What? No,” June said quickly, reaching for the bottle of tequila to refill all the empty shot glasses, suddenly needing a drink more than when she first got back.

“No, no, it makes sense!” Sakura said enthusiastically. “You don’t have to be, you know, in love with him, or whatever. You’ve just met someone who has taken a hold of your subconscious interest or something.”

June frowned. Unfortunately, that made sense. She reached for another shot.

“So have you met someone?”

“I don’t-”

“Maybe it’s the patient your trying to save!” June spilled her shot over the table top. “Oh, my God, it totally makes sense! You’re risking so much for this patient! It’s got to be him!”

“What makes you think it’s a guy?”

“Oh.” Sakura seemed to deflate and reached for another shot. They had dispensed with the salt and limes a few rounds ago.

“It might be a guy.”

Sakura slammed her glass down on the table. “I knew it! Who is he? Dish, dish.”

June blushed. “No. I’m not drunk enough to give you any such ammunition.”

Sakura sniffed. “Fine, I’ll just ask Naruto. I’m sure he knows and would be happy to tell me.”

“Fuck you,” June hissed as she glared at Sakura, the other woman’s cheeks as pink as her hair from the alcohol. Sakura clicked her tongue and fiddled with a salt shaker, waiting for June to cave. She sighed. “His name is Uchiha Itachi.”

“Shit,” Sakura whispered again. “He’s like super hot,” she continued dreamily. “Oh, my God, you’re dating Uchiha Itachi.”

“I am NOT dating Uchiha Itachi!”

“Well, you certainly will be when you save his life.”

“Oh, my God, Sakura, you’re going to drive me insane!”

“That’s because you’re sexually frustrated, which I’m sure Uchiha Itachi can help you w-”

“Sakura!” Sakura was laughing hysterically, and June was seconds from lunging over the table to strangle her when her cellphone rang. It was probably Naruto, and so she felt it was fine to just let it ring, but Sakura’s continuing laughter gave her the idea that she should get Naruto on her side before Sakura did end up calling him for more information, which, drunk or not, Sakura would certainly remember to do tomorrow. She reached for her phone.

“Hello?”

“Fujimiya-sensei?”

June’s breath caught in her throat at the deep voice that seemed to flow out of the earpiece and surround her entire being. Sakura must have seen the look on her face, whatever it was, because she suddenly stopped laughing.

“U-Uchiha-san, t-to what do I owe this pleasure?” she asked, mortified that she couldn’t keep from stuttering.

“You told me that I could call you no matter the time of day, Fujimiya-sensei.”

June looked over at the digital clock on Sakura’s DVD player, silently cursing when the numbers swam in her vision. “I-Is something wrong, Uchiha-san?” She remembered saying as much, but only if there was a problem.

“Not exactly, Fujimiya-sensei.” She heard him sigh at the end of the line. “I am hosting a party this weekend at Uchiha Estates for Orochimaru, and I would like to extend an invitation to you. I would have done so in person, but I have been told that you are out of town at the moment, and I wanted to give you plenty of time beforehand.”

“Oh.” June was sure her cheeks were heating, and she was grateful that Itachi couldn’t have asked her this in person for that very reason. “W-Well, I’m very flattered, Uchiha-san, b-but I don’t think I’ll be able to, to-”

“If it helps in receiving a favorable reply, Naruto is being invited, and I’m sure he will accept.” June was pretty drunk, so she couldn’t be sure, but she thought she heard a bit of anger in Itachi’s voice as he said it. She didn’t know why the anger made her nervous, but she tried to diffuse it all the same.

“I’m not exactly sure how Naruto’s engagements influence mine in any way, Uchiha-san.”

“What’s going on, June? Tell me!” Sakura was hissing across from her, an unholy light in her eyes.

“Then I’m to assume you won’t be attending the party?”

“N-No! Um, I mean, I, I would love to attend, Uchiha-san.”

“Excellent, Fujimiya-sensei.” June could hear something like satisfaction in his voice, and her cheeks blushed deeper. “Deidara will send the information to your office. Goodnight, Fujimiya-sensei.”

“Yes, thank you. Goodnight, Uchiha-san.” She disconnected the call and the phone dropped from her hand as she tried to get her pickled brain to wrap around what just happened. She suddenly noticed how quiet Sakura was and moved her head to look at her from the corner of her eye. “What?”

A slow smile spread across Sakura’s lips. “You think he’s gorgeous, you want to date him, you want to kiss him, love him, and-”

June threw a lime at her to shut her up. Then she reached for the bottle of tequila and drank straight from it.

~*~

There was a constant ringing in June’s head, and it just made the throbbing pain that much worse. The next time Sakura set her down to drink all night, they were going to drink something that wouldn’t make her want to kill herself in the morning.

Cracking one eye open, she immediately shut it when the light pierced it like a sharp knife cutting through her occipital lobe. Rolling over and burying her head in her pillow, she tried to ignore the ringing until it finally registered that it was her cellphone.

A strange train of thought passed through her mind, remembering the phone call from Itachi last night, followed by the reason she had even been in Suna and Gaara’s promise that he would call her with the information. Gasping, she shot up in bed, blinded by the light and her stomach and head both roiling like they wanted to mutiny from the rest of her body.

She reached frantically for her phone and brought it to her ear. “Yes, hello?” she croaked.

“Fujimiya-san, I was beginning to think you were in trouble.”

“Ah, yes, I’m sorry, Temari-san.” She looked over at her bedside table to see what time it was. The clock told her it was late afternoon. “I’m sorry,” she said again, running a hand over her face. “I, ah, assume you have my information.”

“Yes, we do. And it was a particularly delicious challenge.” Temari sounded extremely pleased with herself. Then she cleared her throat. “What we found, though, is rather troubling, even for us. Please return to the penthouse, Fujimiya-san. This isn’t something we can discuss over the phone.”

Dread filled June, her many aches and pains taking a backseat to the black fear that started to engulf her. “Of course, I’ll be there very soon.” The call disconnected, and June sat stunned for a moment before she jumped out of bed and frantically flew about the room, rushing into the bathroom to wash her face and brush her teeth, growling in irritation that her hair looked a mess, but she had no time to mess with it.

She quickly threw on the clothes from yesterday, only just acknowledging Sakura as the woman stumbled out of her bedroom at all the noise. She ignored Sakura’s questions about what was going on, searching the kitchen cabinets for pain killers so she could at least be functional during the meeting.

“June, what the hell is going on?” Sakura demanded, her arms crossed over her chest and her eyes glaring, or trying to without letting so much sunlight into her pupils.

June put down the glass of water she’d used to wash down the pills and took a deep breath. “Sakura, I need to borrow your car.”

She made a sound as if to complain, but a look from June quieted her. Sakura strode over to the bar and picked up her keys, tossing them to June. “Well, be careful, Juniper.”

“Yeah,” she said and ran out of the door. The trip went by in a blur, and she honestly couldn’t say whether she’d broken any traffic laws on the way there. She just knew that sooner than she had expected, she was standing before the large building in downtown Suna once again, her heart hammering in her chest much harder than it had been yesterday.

She pulled open the door and headed straight for the elevators, ignoring the receptionist who didn’t even get up from her seat, probably already informed of her immediate arrival and ordered not to impede her progress. The doors seemed to open more quickly than yesterday, and she was almost zooming to the top floor. She barely registered the change.

When the doors opened, she rushed out, turning her head this way and that looking for Gaara and his siblings. They stood from the furniture and motioned her over, their faces grim.

“What’s wrong? What did you find out?” Kankuro took her elbow and sat her gently in the same chair from yesterday, handing her a cup of coffee that she almost refused except for the desperate need for some kind of boost after a night of drinking.

Gaara sat across from her, leaning back in his chair and crossing his legs, his fingers steepled near his mouth. June sipped the hot coffee and waited for him to speak.

“Yakushi Kabuto is indeed a doctor, a surgeon, and works legitimately for Konoha Hospital,” he said calmly.

“And that’s about the only thing that’s legit about him,” Temari added. “His record is clean, but only because he’s never been caught. He’s on someone’s payroll, and that someone pays big money for Kabuto to do a lot of unspeakable things.”

“Who does he work for?”

Temari shot a look at Gaara before continuing. “He works for Orochimaru.”

June thought that name sounded familiar, but she couldn’t exactly place it. “I’m sorry, I don’t-”

“His company was recently bought out by Uchiha & Sannin, Inc. In compensation, he was given a seat on the board of directors. And despite his aggressive moves to buy out other companies and resist being bought out himself, he gave in almost too easily to Uchiha Itachi and Sannin Jiraiya.”

Business was not one of the things she’d studied in school, but she thought she understood that a buyout shouldn’t ever be termed ‘too easy.’

“How, how long has Uchiha & Sannin, Inc. been trying to buy out Orochimaru?”

“It’s a fairly recent endeavor, from what we’ve found. But Jiraiya has been trying for years. After partnering with Uchiha Fugaku, he finally had the power to take Orochimaru on.”

June put her hand to her head, massaging the sharp pain that was forming behind her eyes. “So let me get this straight. Kabuto is Orochimaru’s employee. Orochimaru just recently allowed, from the sounds of it, his company to be bought out, and Kabuto just so happens to be the doctor that has been forging documents and prescriptions for Uchiha Itachi, the man who just easily bought out Orochimaru’s company.”

“Yes,” Temari said.

“And how long ago did Jiraiya partner with Uchiha?”

“About five years ago.”

June’s head was spinning with this information. She didn’t exactly know what was going on, the full story, but she could at least glean that Orochimaru and Kabuto had planned what was currently happening with Itachi.

“But I still don’t see how that explains Itachi showing up at the hospital in the first place.” Kabuto may have been chemically inducing the loss of sight, but he had to have induced the first loss somehow for Itachi to have no trace of an actual disease now.

“We took the liberty to look into that. It would make sense that the only medical records you would see were the ones pertaining to the situation now. As it turns out, his first trip to the hospital five years ago was after he was run off the road and suffered major injuries when the car crashed,” Temari informed her, looking at a sheet of paper that June assumed was a print out of information on Itachi’s hospital visit, a visit that should have been in his record regardless of time elapsed. But it hadn’t been.

“He was rerouted to Konoha Hospital and admitted to the ER. The attending surgeon that night was-”

“Yakushi Kabuto,” June whispered in dawning horror, interrupting Kankuro. He nodded.

“Yes. And the man who ran the Uchiha off the road was never caught, probably dead. The car was traced back to a chop shop that had just recently been shut down by the police, thanks to an anonymous tip.”

“This particular chop shop was one of mine,” Gaara added. “I tracked down the mole and had him taken care of, but with this recent information, I looked into it again. I pulled his background information and found that he was the son of a certain woman that had been known to socialize with a wealthy man that financially supported Orochimaru. After I disposed of him, both the mother and the wealthy man disappeared.”

June didn’t know why she wasn’t shaking like a leaf from this information, because she wanted to. Badly.

“We think that whatever you say Kabuto is doing to Uchiha started that night in the ER, and the whole thing had been planned from the beginning by Orochimaru,” Kankuro said calmly.

“Probably because they thought they could use Uchiha to get his father’s company. When Fugaku retired, it became that much easier. After Uchiha was incapacitated by whatever, control of the company would more than likely revolve to the younger brother and, maybe, jointly with Jiraiya. Orochimaru must have known with Uchiha Itachi out of the way, the company would be easier to seize,” Temari supplied.

June was trying to assimilate all this information with what she knew, when something finally came to her. Her eyes flew to Gaara across from her.

“Kabuto knows that I know he faked the tests.”

“What?” Gaara asked coldly.

“Well, I think he knows. The day I realized they were fake, I tried to find Tsunade to let her know, but Kabuto was there and I couldn’t say anything. And then she told him that I had taken over Itachi’s case, and he, I don’t know, glared at me, knowingly, I would say. I had the reports with me, and he saw them under my arm, even if he couldn’t exactly see what they were.”

“So their plan to incapacitate Uchiha has been found out, as far as they expect,” Gaara said, his voice thoughtful. “Now his only option may be to kill Uchiha outright. Orochimaru sits on the board now, so he might have an easier time taking control.”

“But he’d be the first suspect, wouldn’t he? His company was just taken over and Itachi winds up dead?” June asked, a nice panic starting to build within her.

“True,” Gaara admitted. “But Kabuto can fake new records to show a debilitating disease, and he could probably make it look like it, too. And everyone who knew otherwise would be easily disposed of.” June’s eyes were wide with fright by now. “And you, good doctor, I’m sure would be the first one on Orochimaru’s list.”

TBC


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uh oh! looks like itachi's in some deep shit. what the hell is june gonna do? dun dun dun!

lol. thanks for reading!