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The Long Run	By : Sasunarufan13 Category: Naruto > Yaoi - Male/Male > Naruto/Sasuke Views: 1940 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto nor make profit of it. Kishimoto owns it.

Chapter List
- 20
- 21
- 22
Author's note: My apologies if the chapter feels somewhat off. Thanks to my promotor not having been honest with me during the time I could actually still have changed something, I failed my thesis with just one mark and I'm currently not really in a pleasant mindset. I had half of this chapter written before I found out my results, so if the latter half feels off, I apologise. I didn't want to leave you hanging, however, so I finished it just now.
Warnings: Nothing in particular, I think.
I hope you'll like this!
Chapter 21
"You found him like this?" Father asked; the first one to break the heavy silence.
"Yeah, just like this," Kiba confirmed; his shoulders tense. "His walking cane is a bit further, between the grass. I don't know how long he's been here, but it can't have been longer than a couple of hours at most."
Father lowered himself down onto his haunches, studying the ground around Danzo. "It doesn't appear that a struggle happened here. No signs of other shoeprints."
"So what? He slipped and fell?" Kisame said, somewhat incredulously. "Why was he even here? Clearly he wasn't part of a scouting team."
"That's a very good question," Father said thoughtfully; his eyes narrowed. "I would assume someone lured him out, but there are no signs that he fought with someone here."
"Someone could have lured him outside and hit him from a distance," Itachi suggested, studying Danzo's body with clinical distance. "Although that of course begs the question: how did this person manage to lure him out? He barely left the compound."
"Plus if that's the case, how are we going to figure out from where he'd been hit?" Sasuke questioned and gestured at the expanse of trees surrounding them. "We're rather short of a forensic team."
Naruto snorted quietly. "And here I thought the compound had it all. What a disappointment," he droned.
Father ignored his comment. "I need to discuss this with the rest of the Council." He rose up again, back to looking grim. "I prefer it if word about this doesn't come out yet. Not until we know for certain that someone else wasn't involved. Kiba-san, are you and your team still planning on continuing with your task or do you want to postpone it?"
Kiba looked at his group. His sister shrugged stiffly, but didn't appear particularly bothered. Yua took a deep breath and briskly rubbed over her face.
"I'm fine," she stated and her voice sounded at least firm enough to be believable. "I was just … taken by surprise, but we can go handle the traps. I'm good."
"If you're sure," Kiba said and after sharing another look with father, the group left them behind, disappearing into the woods.
"What do you think is more likely, father?" Itachi murmured, while Kisame bent down and pushed a knife through Danzo's head. "That he tripped and caused his own death or that someone else is behind this?"
"The problem is," Kisame said before father could open his mouth, "if someone else is behind this, then we're going to have one hell of a time trying to find the suspect. It's not like Danzo was that popular."
"Especially not after the shit he pulled," Itachi said darkly, throwing a quick look at Naruto.
Naruto stood there, staring at Danzo with a neutral look on his face. He didn't look particularly happy, but he didn't look sorrowful either and Sasuke couldn't blame him for that. As far as he was concerned, Danzo's death was good riddance. This way he couldn't try to concoct another plan to get Naruto killed.
"I need to talk with the Council first," Father reiterated and gestured for them to follow him. "Perhaps one of them knows something more. It could be that Danzo told one of them why he would be leaving the walls last night."
"And if they don't know anything?" Sasuke asked.
Truthfully he didn't see father being successful in asking the Council. Not because the other members would be difficult or likely to withhold information, but even within the Council itself Danzo had never been a popular figure. To be quite frank, Sasuke very much doubted there would be even one person in the compound mourning his death. They might be shocked because he was dead, but actually mourning him? He didn't see that happening.
"Then we'll keep our guard up for a little while, see if this is part of something bigger," Father replied and paused right before they would turn around the corner. "And if this isn't part of something bigger, if Danzo died by simply tripping, well … I can't exactly say he will be missed terribly."
"Did you manage to find evidence whether he was the one who sent me to that town on purpose?" Naruto asked abruptly; his fingers barely twitching around Sasuke's.
"I did," Father answered; his face becoming unreadable. He turned around and continued walking to the gates. "I'd planned to confront him about it today. Clearly that is no longer necessary."
"No, clearly," Sasuke muttered.
He supposed Danzo himself had made it a lot easier for all of them to deal with his betrayal. One part in Sasuke was happy with that, glad that Danzo would no longer have the opportunity to try to get Naruto killed again. Another part of him felt cheated. With Danzo dead now, he would never have to own up to what he had done. He had got the easy way out.
Then again, he refused to turn around to look, with Danzo no longer around, at least Naruto would be safe from his ministrations. Naruto's safety was more important to him than seeing Danzo get punished for what he had tried to do. There was a sense of poetry present even: Danzo had taken Tobi's life even if that had happened indirectly and now he had paid for it with his own, whether that had been accidental or not.
Sasuke could live with that.
"What do you think happened?" Naruto hopped onto the counter, watching Sasuke crack a second egg into the pan.
They had around two hours before they would have to go out and start on their assignments, but neither of them had been in the mood to try to catch some sleep, so they had unanimously decided to have an early breakfast.
Somehow Sasuke had ended up commandeering the stove with Naruto overseeing the preparations. Perhaps it was for the best. Sasuke still wasn't entirely certain whether Naruto actually ate breakfast if he wasn't with him.
"Father was high up in the police hierarchy, so he knows what he's talking about when he said he found no traces of a fight," Sasuke said, discarding the empty egg shells and reaching for a third one. "I don't know why Danzo would decide to go outside the walls last night when he barely left the compound to begin with, but honestly? I can't say I'm feeling sorry for him. Fucker got what he deserved."
"Unless what Itachi said is true and someone did hit him from a distance," Naruto commented. "It wouldn't have been difficult to bring the old bag out of balance with a good throw."
"If that's the case, well, the enemy of my enemy is my friend like they say," Sasuke said and shrugged. "I doubt he's going to be missed."
Naruto snorted. "I, at least, am not going to miss him."
Sasuke didn't think anyone would miss him. Danzo hadn't exactly made himself Mister Popular in the time they had spent together at the compound.
"What are you going to do today?" Naruto asked, sliding off the counter when it became clear the scrambled eggs were ready. He grabbed two plates and divided the eggs between them while Sasuke took the whistling kettle from the stove.
"Got guard duty until this afternoon," Sasuke replied, pouring tea in two cups.
They sat down at the table with their steaming mugs and plates. Naruto's neighbour above them was waking up as well, judging by the noise of shuffling footsteps.
"Lucky you," Naruto muttered sourly and poked his scrambled eggs.
Ah, right. "She still not letting you do anything, huh?" Sasuke said knowingly.
Tsunade had been as quick as a fox to let father know that under no circumstances was Naruto allowed to participate in anything that would require him to move his leg too much. That meant, essentially, that Naruto was basically housebound at this point with not much to do when all other chores that required no real walking already filled in by other people. Naruto had seemed relatively okay with that the day before yesterday, settled on the couch until Sasuke had come back to the apartment that evening, but yesterday he had already started to complain that he was feeling bored.
He had apparently tried to persuade Tsunade into being less strict and let him do something. To the surprise of exactly nobody – not even Naruto's, because he knew her just as well as the rest knew her by now – she had utterly refused, reiterating the fact that he needed to rest his leg for a full week.
"No, she's not," Naruto muttered and scowled down at this plate as if the eggs themselves had offended him greatly. "Not even taking up a guard shift and no offense, but it's not like that's strenuous work."
"You wouldn't be able to sit," Sasuke pointed out. One could hardly look over the walls when seated on a chair after all.
"No, but I would be able to lean against the wall and that's not moving my leg either, so what's the big deal?" Naruto huffed. "I'm going to bug her for as long as it goddamn takes."
"Or you could just wait until the week is over," Sasuke suggested, but already knew it would be fruitless. "You only have four more days to go after today."
"Or people could just fucking listen to me when I say I feel fine," Naruto smiled dangerously. "That would work too, you know."
"Be good," Sasuke admonished him. "She's just looking out for you. The last thing we want, is for you to tear your wound open again."
"It's been already two days, I doubt any wound tearing is going to happen at this point," Naruto muttered petulantly.
"Don't test your luck," Sasuke said dryly. "Especially not with Tsunade. She actually might kick your arse this time and then you'll be apartment-bound for a while longer."
"She'll have to catch me first," Naruto snorted.
"I mean it, be good."
"I'm a goddamn angel at this point."
Sasuke concealed a sigh. He could only hope that Naruto wouldn't annoy Tsunade too much. He might have 'charmed' her somewhat, but even her patience wasn't unlimited.
His guard shift was rather uneventful. He shared the shift with a couple of people he didn't know that well, so he spent the hours up on top of the walls in silence, while the others talked amongst themselves. Unsurprisingly their main topic turned out to be Yua's scream and whether she really had been that startled by a group of zombies as the rumour went. They didn't bother Sasuke about it, which he appreciated. He had no interest in gossiping and father had made it clear that he wanted to keep Danzo's death quiet for a little while longer, at least until they were relatively certain of what had happened.
Sasuke doubted they could keep it quiet for longer than a week maximum, because even with how unpopular Danzo had been, people would take notice of his absence eventually.
Two hours into the shift they had to send a group outside to deal with some straggling zombies which refused to leave, most likely attracted by the scream. As long as a big herd wouldn't form, they should be okay, but Sasuke kept a sharp eye on their surroundings. They would have to be on their guard for at least a couple of days longer to ensure that Yua screaming hadn't attracted a whole mass of them.
He was replaced by Anko in the late afternoon and after sharing a nod with her, he went down the scaffold, deciding to stop at his house first before he would return to Naruto's apartment. He needed to take a change of clothes with him just in case he ended up spending the night at Naruto's place again.
"We need the blueprints," Father was saying when Sasuke opened the door.
"Weren't you in charge of them back when the compound was built?" That was Hiashi and his presence at his home had Sasuke raising an eyebrow.
Father normally reserved his meetings with the Council members for their official meeting room. Sasuke couldn't even remember ever having seen any of the members here before.
"Yes, but clearly someone went behind my back," Father said annoyed.
Behind his back? Furrowing his eyebrows, Sasuke knocked on the doorjamb of the living room, spotting father sitting in the armchair with Hiashi and Yoshino sitting on the couch. Chiyo wasn't present, but Itachi was. His older brother was carrying a frown of his own; his arms crossed.
"What's going on here?" Sasuke asked, glancing at everyone gathered.
"The shift went well?" Itachi asked softly, relaxing only a fraction when Sasuke nodded.
"Just a couple of stragglers that needed to be done away with, but that's all," Sasuke replied. "What's this about the blueprints?"
"Chiyo informed us that Danzo apparently regularly went outside the walls for a walk during the night," Yoshino said; the look on her face clear about what she thought of that. "Which is probably why he was outside last night."
So nobody had lured him out? Had his death been an accident after all? He had already been rather old, so a simple tumble leading to a nasty fall would have done him in. But regularly going outside? How regularly had this been and how come none of the guards had ever mentioned that? Even as a member of the Council there was no way guards would open the gate simply because Danzo had wanted a walk outside. Especially not at night.
"How regularly did he go outside then?" Sasuke questioned warily. He had had guard shifts during the night, but he had never seen Danzo showing up in order to go outside the gates. Had it been mere coincidence that Danzo had never shown up during Sasuke's guard shifts?
"At least four times a week, if not more," Hiashi replied; his lips thin. "Chiyo herself only knew of a couple of times but she had suspicions that he went out more, because she often heard him leave his apartment during the night."
"Why didn't she mention this sooner?" Sasuke asked annoyed. Someone regularly leaving the compound, especially someone belonging to the Council, should have been mentioned earlier than today! Certainly after the whole shitfest with Orochimaru and Kabuto!
"Frankly, I think she was hoping he would encounter zombies," Yoshino said dryly. "She didn't seem that torn up about his death."
"I know we're not supposed to talk ill of the dead, but well, I can't blame her for hoping that," Hiashi muttered and rubbed his forehead.
For just a few seconds dark amusement flickered across father's face.
"But why did the guards open the gates for him?" Sasuke frowned and leant his shoulder against the doorframe. "Did he pay them off or so?"
"That's the thing," Itachi spoke up, grimacing. "He didn't use the gates. I asked people about it and they assured me that nobody leaves the compound at night unless there is a specific reason. Until we showed up early this morning, the guards hadn't even seen anyone. They weren't lying either, I know that for sure."
"Then how did he manage to get outs-…" Sasuke trailed off; father's comment at the start now starting to make sense. "Wait, did he make some sort of secret exit?"
"It looks like it, yes," Father answered grimly and folded his hands together. "If the gates didn't open for him, but he still was able to go outside, then that means he must have had a secret exit somewhere."
"Do you think the blueprints would really reveal the hidden exit?" Yoshino asked doubtfully. "You were in charge of them, right? Wouldn't an extra addition have stood out?"
"It should have, but if he waited until the compound was nearly finished or finished entirely already, then it would be easy to adjust the blueprints without me knowing about it," Father answered darkly. "My guess is that he managed to convince someone to add the extra exit after he realised that the gates wouldn't open to anyone without an actual purpose outside."
"So he compromised the safety of the compound in order to have his nightly walk," Sasuke concluded.
If he hadn't already hated Danzo so much for nearly getting Naruto killed and being the indirect cause of Tobi's death, surely this would have made him start hating the bastard. What if outsiders had seen him leave the walls through this exit? What if they had decided to take advantage of that? They had been lucky so far that the exit hadn't been discovered by anyone with bad intentions! How fucking arrogant had Danzo been that he decided his nightly walks had been more important than keeping everyone inside the walls safe?
"Seems like it," Father said sourly. "We need to find out where this secret exit is. So far it doesn't seem that anyone else knows about this, but in the case that someone did actually kill him, I'm not about to take any chances."
"I thought you said there were no signs of struggle?" Hiashi raised an eyebrow.
"Someone could have targeted him from inside the woods," Itachi said and rolled his shoulders. "If it is indeed someone else, then they only appear to have had beef with Danzo himself, because Kiba-san's group returned without any issues."
"It could still be someone targeting the compound," Yoshino said, puckering her mouth in a thoughtful frown. "Danzo died during the night, while Kiba-san's group left during the early morning hours. The cover of night would make it easier to kill someone than trying to commit murder during the day."
"Could be," Itachi allowed, "but that would then imply that someone waited the whole night just on the off chance that someone would go outside?"
"Zombies are walking around," she said dryly. "Stranger shit than that can happen, including someone patiently waiting to strike."
"If that's the case, we'll post more guards on the wall facing the forest tonight," Father decided. "We'll equip them with the binoculars with night vision. Kakashi-san found some of those during one of his runs."
"That's the best we can do, I suppose," Hiashi muttered, leaning back against the couch.
"And in the meantime we have to find out where Danzo had this secret exit made," Father continued; his face darkening. "The last thing we want is for either an outsider to find it or for someone else in the compound to start making use of it and put us all at risk."
"If we ask others for help, they might try to take advantage of the exit," Yoshino cautioned and crossed her legs. The black skirt she wore was faded in several spots as if she had thrown bleach on the material. "I don't want to think ill of our people, but we have quite some young people around who might think it would be a 'thrill' to leave the walls at night."
Sasuke snorted quietly. Yes, it wouldn't surprise him at all if that was what some of them would want to do if they discovered the exit. Even nearly four years into the apocalypse, some people were still stubbornly stupid. Unfortunately more than one person had already been banned from going on runs, because they had put the lives of their teammates in danger by acting stupid in front of zombies. A hidden exit leading outside the walls? Some of those idiots would take full advantage of that, no doubt.
"We'll have to keep it to ourselves," Father agreed. "First thing we need to do is find the blueprints and see if anything has been added to them or find anything that can point us to the location of this exit. Once we find it, we can block it off completely depending on where it is."
"The blueprints should be either at Danzo's apartment then or Yamato-san's, no?" Itachi said, cocking his head to the left. "Yamato-san was in charge when we built the compound."
"Would he have given in to Danzo's demand?" Hiashi asked doubtfully.
"Depends on what Danzo might have told him," Itachi answered clipped.
With Yamato's good nature and Danzo's ability to charm others like a goddamn snake, it wouldn't surprise Sasuke if Yamato had indeed been convinced to add a secret exit. Danzo could be very convincing when he wanted to be. It was how he had got onto the Council, after all.
"Perhaps we should divide the tasks?" Yoshino suggested. "Some of us can go look for the blueprints, the others can try to look for the exit already. That might be faster than trying to find the blueprints first."
"Sounds good to me." Father nodded thoughtfully. "How are we going to divide this?"
"Naruto and I could go look for the blueprints," Sasuke offered, remaining calm even when both Yoshino and Hiashi raised sceptical eyebrows. "You know Naruto wouldn't go blab about the exit - "
Hell, if other people save for Sasuke got a greeting from Naruto, they could already count themselves lucky, let alone that the blond man would go around talking about the hidden exit. Perhaps even more than they did, did Naruto know how important it was to have a secure place.
"And if we don't give him something to do, he might actually annoy Tsunade enough that she will explode," Sasuke finished, grimacing.
"I thought he was supposed to rest for a week?" Itachi lifted an eyebrow, looking vaguely amused.
Yeah, it was easy to be amused when he wasn't the one who had to hear Naruto complain about his lack of being able to do anything every time he was near him. Not that Sasuke didn't understand him. He thought he himself would grow antsy as well if he wasn't allowed to do anything, but at the same time he also understood Tsunade's concerns. If that cut reopened again, Naruto would be back to square one and it wasn't as if he knew how to take it easy. Unfortunately taking it easy wasn't something Naruto seemed fond of doing. At least this way he would be able to do something without straining his thigh too much yet.
"He is supposed to, yeah, but he isn't exactly happy about it," Sasuke said curtly. "What do you think, father? Would it be okay if Naruto helps us?"
Father nodded thoughtfully. "He knows about Danzo's death already, so him knowing about the secret exit won't hurt. He has helped us out so much already, I know we can trust him with this."
Yoshino still looked a bit dubious, but she didn't fight the decision. "When are we going to inform the others that Danzo is dead? Eventually there are going to be questions."
"In a couple of days when we can be relatively certain that nobody is targeting us," Father said. "Telling them now might lead to unnecessary panic. We'll increase the guards for the next couple of nights and have some patrolling on the ground as well. If someone did find out about the exit, we'll know soon enough, I suppose."
"They might question the increase of the guards," Hiashi pointed out. "They'll want to know why we suddenly have more guards patrolling the walls."
"That's easy," Itachi said and shrugged. "We just say it's because we're worried the scream will attract a horde and we need enough people on standby in case something does happen."
Hiashi thought about it before slowly nodding. "I guess that would work. At the very least it will buy us some time to figure out whether Danzo just had an unlucky fall or someone actually did kill him from a distance."
"So we're in agreement then?" Father looked at them; his gaze flitting from one person to the other. "We'll increase the guards during the next couple of nights. We'll search for the blueprints and for the hidden exit at the same time."
"Sounds good to me," Hiashi said. "No other way to handle it, I think."
"I agree as well," Yoshino said and ran her hands through her hair with a sigh. "I know it's rude to say, but I hope he just fell and died from the fall instead of someone targeting us."
"I saw no signs of a struggle and no objects that could indicate something was thrown at him to push him out of balance, so it does seem like he fell," Father said and looked at Sasuke. "Sasuke, why don't you and Naruto go take a look at Yamato-san's home? I don't think anybody has emptied yet."
Considering Yamato had had no family, it wasn't surprising that all his stuff was still left at his house. Naruto had been the last person so far who had joined the compound, so there hadn't been a reason yet to empty out Yamato's house.
Sasuke nodded and straightened out. "I'll go tell him now."
At least Naruto would be happy to have something to do now.
AN2: Is Danzo's death an accident or actual murder? We might never know ...
Please leave your thoughts behind in a review; should you spot any mistakes, please point them out to me.
I hope to see you all back in the next chapter! Please stay safe and take care of yourselves!
Cuddles
Melissa
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The Long Run