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The Long Run	By : Sasunarufan13 Category: Naruto > Yaoi - Male/Male > Naruto/Sasuke Views: 1939 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto nor make profit of it. Kishimoto owns it.

Chapter List
- 21
- 22
- 23
Author's note: This has been a mentally exhausting week. Have this update while I work on the others and hopefully have more ready this weekend.
Warnings: Minor time skips
I hope you'll like it!
Chapter 22
"I am dying," was the monotonous comment greeting Sasuke when he walked into the apartment.
Rolling his eyes, he followed the voice to the couch where Naruto was lying as star fished as possible with the limited space he had. Leaning over the back of the couch, he waited until blue eyes settled on his.
"You're not dying, but you are suffering from dramaqueenitis," Sasuke said dryly, snorting when Naruto looked at him offended. "I take it Tsunade was less than open to your suggestion of going back to your assignments?"
"That old hag is just enjoying my misery," Naruto muttered darkly. "Don't know why she became a doctor when she's as sadistic as they come. Don't get what the pervert saw in her; his imagination must have been a lot nicer than reality for sure."
"She's looking out for you."
"She's taking pleasure in my agony."
Sasuke sighed, shaking his head. "If you can stop being a drama queen for just one minute, I have something to tell you that might cheer you up."
Naruto squinted up at him. "Are you going to defend my honour against the evil witch?" he asked hopefully.
"What honour?" Sasuke easily stepped out of the way when Naruto reached out to swat him.
"I don't know why I even hang out with you if you think this lowly of me," Naruto complained with a huff, sitting up.
"Because you love being fucked and I'm the only one you tolerate," Sasuke retorted lightly and walked around the couch, sitting down next to him.
"True, true, you have your uses," Naruto mused and eyed the jacket Sasuke had yet to take off. "So what happy news do you come bearing? This shit better be amazing to make up for the crushing blow I was dealt with today."
"Father discovered that Danzo left the compound through a secret exit," Sasuke announced and smirked when Naruto's face lit up with interest immediately. "Yeah, figured you might be interested in that. Chiyo had caught him a couple of times and afterwards she kept hearing him leave his apartment up to four times each week."
The intrigue on Naruto's face made way for a frown and he raised one leg on the couch, bending it to lace his fingers around his knee. "If she knew about the secret exit, then why didn't she tell you guys about that sooner? Seems like a rather important titbit to keep hidden from you all."
"Apparently she was hoping he would get eaten by zombies."
"Ah." Naruto paused, mulling it over. "Well, can't say she was wrong for hoping that. I guess she doesn't know where the secret exit is, though?"
"No, that's something we have to find out soon, before someone else might stumble across it," Sasuke replied. "The Council is keeping it quiet for now, but some of them will be looking for the secret exit to block it."
"And the others?"
"We'll be looking for the blueprints in case the exit is hard to find and hope Danzo was arrogant enough to actually have the proof written down."
"We?" Naruto repeated, a bit dubiously. "Who's we?"
"You and I will search through Yamato's house and see if the blueprints can be found there – if you're up for it," Sasuke added smoothly, raising an eyebrow.
"Dude, my leg could have been ripped off and I still would want to join you!" Naruto exclaimed, slapping his thigh. "I've been bored to death the whole time you've been gone, so this makes for a great distraction!"
"Nobody said you had to remain sequestered in your apartment," Sasuke pointed out. "You could have talked with others here."
Naruto looked at him as if he was stupid. "Why the fuck would I want to do that?" he asked incredulously.
"I don't know," Sasuke said sarcastically. "To be social? I've heard that's good for the mind."
"All right, don't need to hear that shit from you, Mister Social Butterfly," Naruto snorted and stood up. "We're going to Yamato's house now?"
"Yeah, the sooner we've checked there, the better," Sasuke replied and rose up as well.
"Won't people think it's suspicious if we go into his house?" Naruto questioned, stretching his back before following Sasuke to the door.
"No, doubt they'll pay much attention to us," Sasuke replied. Not with dinner time being so close. "They won't question us; they'll just assume it has something to do with father."
"Ah yes, being the leader's son comes with perks." Naruto nodded sagely, grinning when Sasuke rolled his eyes and smacked his shoulder.
"Come on now, we've got a job to do."
The absence of its owner could be clearly seen in the house when Sasuke unlocked the front door. It was obvious nobody had been in here since Yamato had left. Dust had collected everywhere already, turning the chairs and the table dull. Dust particles floated around them when they walked further into the house, glancing around. Yamato had been rather neat; everything seemed to have its own place and there weren't even dirty dishes left in the sink. Books were still placed neatly in rows in the lonely bookcase and his bed was made.
"Where do you think he would have kept the blueprints if he had them?" Naruto asked; his voice low.
It was doubtful anyone would hear them, but the atmosphere clinging to the house – imaginary or not – made them quite subdued.
"I think father once mentioned Yamato had a study here where he spent most of his time sketching the designs," Sasuke said, backing out of the bedroom. There was only a closet, a bed and a nightstand here and none of them contained anything remotely similar to blueprints.
"Could be that one," Naruto said, jerking his head to the room at the end of the corridor. "Unless he lived together with someone?"
"No, he was on his own from the start, I believe," Sasuke said distractedly.
The door opened to reveal a room which looked a lot less tidy compared to the others. It was still rather neat, but there were various piles of paper placed around the room and the desk was still cluttered with a collection of pens and pencils and unfinished designs. Against the walls several cabinets stood, each containing three drawers. A couple of the cabinets had pictures on top, showing Yamato surrounded by several unknown people, ranging from kids to elderly. They were all smiling; the backgrounds showing either the back of a rural looking house or a lakeshore. They must have been his family or close friends. The implication as to why Sasuke had never seen any of them made him press his lips tightly together.
He turned his back to the pictures and took a look at some of the designs scattered around on the desk. Furrowing his eyebrows, he picked up one of them; his eyes honing in on the number etched into the upper right corner.
"He numbered all his designs with the date at the end," he realised after taking a look at a couple of other designs. They appeared to be sketches of the southern wall, though extensions had been drawn, showing the wall running closer to the trees. These must have been the designs Yamato had prepared in order to enlarge the compound then.
"So if we go back to the year these walls were built, we should be able to find the blueprints?" Naruto questioned, already making his way to one of the cabinets; the one right next to the window.
"Yes, we'll have to look for the start of the year; that's when father gathered enough people to actually start thinking of building the compound," Sasuke answered.
"Well, let's hope Yamato was a lot more organised with his work than I ever was with my notes," Naruto said lightly and pulled open the first drawer.
They quickly realised that this cabinet would be a bust. All the designs were the most recent ones, though several of them had been crossed out, showing that Yamato hadn't been satisfied with the end result.
"Why even keep them if he wasn't happy with them?" Naruto muttered as they moved on to the next cabinet.
"Maybe he thought he could recuperate some of it at a later date?" Sasuke shrugged. He'd never been involved in the conversations father had had with Yamato about the building of the compound. He had known he could trust Yamato to come up with sturdy designs that would protect them against the zombies and that had been all that mattered.
While the designs were all neatly organised according to their number and date of conception, the cabinets themselves were out of order. The first cabinet contained the most recent sketches, while the second cabinet went back a year before – only for the third cabinet to go back to the beginning of this year. The fourth cabinet did yield the year they needed and they flipped through the papers, counting back the months until the start of that year. They decided to take out the sketches belonging to the maps bearing the labels January, February and March. Sasuke started looking through the map labelled January while Naruto picked the one of February.
For a bit, only the sound of pages flipping broke the silence of the room. Sasuke was no expert in reading blueprints, but he could remember seeing the final sketches on father's desk all the way back at the start of all this. He still remembered them perfectly, so he figured that any addition would stand out to him, even if he wasn't an expert in blueprints like Yamato had been.
There didn't seem to be anything amiss in the map he had, though. The blueprints looked just like they had when Sasuke had first seen them, not a line out of place; nothing smudged out that might indicate an extra exit having been added. Perhaps in the map of March then? Or even later, that was also possible. Danzo could have easily approached Yamato at a later point in time to request him to add the exit. It didn't necessarily have to have happened at the beginning.
"There's a page missing," Naruto announced suddenly, his fingers pausing between two sheets of paper.
"What? You sure?" Sasuke leant over his shoulder.
The first page in view had been dated as 186/Feb while the next one said 188/Feb. Naruto flipped to the next page, showing 189/Feb.
"Maybe the page was misplaced?"
Naruto side-eyed him and snorted. "You have seen how orderly the dude was, right? All the other maps had the pages in the correct order and you're going to tell me that he just fumbled this map?"
Sasuke sighed, placing his own map on the desk. "No, I guess not. If the blueprint isn't in there, that means it has to be the one containing the exit, no?"
"I would assume so at least," Naruto said and leafed through the rest of the pages, coming up empty. "I want to bet that the rest of the maps are back to their regular order. That missing page has to be the one with the exit, but why did he not keep it? Did he throw it away on purpose?"
"I don't think he would have done that," Sasuke said, shaking his head even as he frowned. "I don't think he had bad intentions. He was loyal to the entire Council, not just father, and if Danzo approached him for an extra exit, he wouldn't have necessarily thought that was a bad thing, depending on what Danzo might have told him."
"I didn't personally consider Danzo charming enough to mislead anyone," Naruto said dryly. "But hell, the old croak somehow managed to weasel his way into the Council, so what do I know? Maybe he could be charming when he wanted to be." He braced his arse against the desk, stretching out his injured leg.
"You okay?"
"Yeah, fine, the bandage's just itching a bit," Naruto waved off his concern, back to thumbing through the designs. "So if Yamato didn't consider anything off with Danzo asking for an extra exit, why is the blueprint not in this map? You think he gave it to Danzo?"
"No, father made sure that the blueprints stayed together in one place," Sasuke refuted. "He didn't want the plans of the compound to be spread around everywhere. Yamato would have never given one of the blueprints away, no matter how much detail was in them."
"If he didn't give it away," Naruto said slowly, closing the map, "then someone else took it?"
"Danzo might have taken it," Sasuke muttered, staring down at the designs covering the desk. "If he was visiting Yamato and Yamato got distracted at one point … Danzo wouldn't have wanted anyone to have proof of what he did."
"And if he thought that Yamato might at one point blabber about it, then there wouldn't be any evidence to back up his claim," Naruto finished; his eyes lightening up briefly. "After all, who would suspect the old bastard from putting everyone in danger?"
The absolute cynicism dripping off Naruto's voice had Sasuke snorting in spite of everything and Naruto briefly flashed him a smile.
"Next stop Danzo's place then?" Naruto suggested, straightening out from his slouched position.
"Yeah, if the others haven't found it by now already."
By the time they arrived at Danzo's apartment, it looked like a whirlwind had found its way inside and had raged around furiously. Papers were strewn across the rooms, pillows thrown off the couch and unzipped, showing off the white stuffing. The ostensibly looking portraits had been taking off the walls and dumped on the table. Every drawer, every door had been opened, showing off the content in the cabinets and closets. Even the carpet had been rolled up and put to the side.
Chiyo supported herself with a wrinkly hand on the couch, raising an eyebrow at their faces of disbelief. "What? You've never seen a thorough inspection of a room?" she scoffed. "My, you two must have been bloody angels when you were younger. The gods know my darling daughter was a master at hiding shit."
"Looks like you were a master of finding her shit," Naruto remarked casually, stepping over a discarded pillow. "Any success here?"
"Yes, actually." Hiashi walked out of the bedroom, waving a blue map in the air. Grimly he opened it, showing off the missing blueprint. "It was under a loose floorboard underneath his bed. There is no way we would have thought to ever look underneath there."
"Not until I told you," Chiyo said smugly. "Loose floorboards; my daughter thought she was so smart when she hid that whiskey bottle underneath one. Hah! She was always underestimating me."
"What kind of family did she have?" Naruto muttered underneath his breath.
"The exit on there?" Sasuke asked, tensing up slightly.
"Yeah, and I already know where it is," Hiashi said, pointing at an innocuous looking line in the lower right corner of the page. "This is the basement of this building. The exit is near the boiler."
"But this building doesn't connect to either of the walls," Naruto remarked, frowning as he took a look at the design. "Unless - "
"A tunnel," Sasuke realised quickly. "He made a damn tunnel. That has to be the way he managed to get out of the compound without anyone seeing him."
"If only he had exerted this much effort in being a decent man," Chiyo said critically, eyeing the blueprint unimpressed. "You three go check the tunnel, unlike Danzo my legs aren't made anymore to do so many stairs at once."
"You wouldn't say that with how this apartment looks like," Naruto muttered, offering an innocent smile when she regarded him with piercing eyes.
"Let's go. We have to know where the tunnel ends," Sasuke said before she could start grilling Naruto about what he had said.
The basement was empty, of course, as barely anyone had a need to visit it at any given time of the day. It only contained some cardboard boxes filled with stuff the inhabitants of the apartment building either didn't need anymore or wanted it out of the way. Even with the boxes stacked up against the wall, the basement looked dreary in its gaping emptiness. The flickering lightbulb did little to improve the atmosphere. The boiler itself had been placed around the corner of a wall that stuck out slightly; the light didn't reach that far, draping the corner in darkness.
Feeling around the wall, it didn't take long for Sasuke to take notice of a strange ridge, as if he was running his fingers across sandpaper. He pushed right next to the ridge and the wall gave in, swinging backwards underneath the pressure. If Sasuke didn't hate the guy so much, he would have been impressed with how he had managed to make the door go up in the rest of the wall this much. Unless you knew where to look for, it was highly unlikely that anyone would suspect that part of the wall contained a secret door.
"Anyone have some kind of light?" Naruto asked, peering around Sasuke into the tunnel stretching out in front of them. "Because if I somehow manage to trip and wreck the cut again, that old hag might actually lock me up in her basement."
"There's a flashlight right behind the boiler," Hiashi said, reaching out to grab it. He handed it over to Sasuke. "You got any weapons on you just in case?"
"Got a knife," Sasuke said, because even in the compound he rarely went somewhere without at least one weapon on him.
"I've got my dagger," Naruto said, patting his thigh. "If I had known we would go on a treasure hunt immediately, I would have brought my crossbow."
"Let's go then," Hiashi said. "Before people start wondering what's taking us so long."
The tunnel was rough, unfinished save for the wooden panels supporting the walls and preventing the earth from collapsing on top of them. The air was muggy here, unpleasant and if they had been any broader, they would have had trouble making their way through it; the tunnel narrow and barely high enough for them to walk comfortably. Foot imprints with a single dot right next to one of them were evenly spaced out, proving that Danzo had used this tunnel to go outside.
It wasn't a long trek; if pressed to tell, Sasuke estimated it took them around five minutes, maybe six to reach the end of it though their pace was brisk. The end was actually above them; a small ladder leaning against the wall providing the only way out of here. A hatch was right above them; the woodwork rough to the touch. Clearly Danzo hadn't cared about sanding the edges before using the hatch. Where did it lead to, though? A hatch right outside the wall would have been noticeable immediately, considering they did perimeter checks every two to three days.
He climbed up the ladder, steadied himself and then pushed against the hatch, throwing it to the side. At once it became clear why they hadn't noticed the hidden exit before. The tunnel ended right at the start of the tree line. When Sasuke had pushed the hatch open, a rustling sound had followed and when he climbed up completely, he noticed a large, dead bush next to the hatch.
"Well, that explains it," Hiashi said, narrowing his eyes. "He didn't leave right outside the walls, but used the trees as a cover. Smart. Nobody would bother checking underneath a bush."
Naruto bent down, studying the hatch and the bush. "This hole needs to be filled up and the rest of the tunnel has to be collapsed," he said before straightening up and looking around them. "I think you were incredibly lucky so far that nobody else discovered this. This tunnel was basically screaming for someone to infiltrate the compound."
"We know about it now, so we can block the tunnel," Hiashi stated. "We'll have to think of the best way to do that without risking anyone's life, though. Filling this hole wouldn't be a problem, but collapsing the tunnel entirely? That's going to be a bit more problematic."
"It has to be done, though," Sasuke said firmly. "Naruto is right. If anyone else discovers this, they would have a direct way to infiltrate the compound and we wouldn't know about it until it's too late."
Hiashi turned in the direction of the grassy patch where they had found Danzo's body. "Think someone followed him from here and killed him?"
"If they did," Naruto murmured, his hands resting on his hips and his eyes cool, "they did us a huge favour if you ask me."
Sasuke squeezed his shoulder gently. "Let's go back. Father needs to hear this."
"Do you really think Danzo just tripped and had an unlucky fall?" Naruto questioned that evening.
They were spending the night at Sasuke's house this time, after a long discussion about how to collapse the tunnel in the safest way had led to father suggesting that Naruto might as well spend the night here instead of making the trip back to his place. It wasn't as if it was dangerous at night, but with the extra guards on shift now, the less people moving around at night the better.
Surprisingly it hadn't taken long to convince Naruto. Sasuke had expected him to protest, to say that he was old enough to go home alone, but Naruto had accepted the offer easily. They were entwined on Sasuke's bed, their legs tangled together underneath the sheet and Naruto resting against Sasuke's chest with Sasuke's arms wrapped around him.
Sasuke had been rubbing small circles into the flesh of Naruto's upper arm, but his question had him looking down at him. "You don't think that?"
Naruto shrugged half-heartedly. "Not that I particularly care one way or the other," he said casually, "but walking through that tunnel just got me thinking. Who knows how many times he walked through that tunnel, but if he could walk through that every time without even tripping once – which at his age and with that tunnel's state would be a fucking feat – then why would he trip in open air?"
"You think he was killed?"
"Maybe," Naruto said and rubbed his head back and forth against Sasuke's chest. "I'd say some of us at least had a pretty good motive for offing him, don't you think?"
Sasuke looked up at the ceiling, at the way a thin silver beam of moonlight cleaved it in two. "I suppose. Would it bother you if someone we knew had done it?"
"I murdered an entire group in cold blood and didn't give a single fuck," Naruto said dryly. "Why the hell would I be bothered by someone killing Danzo? Guy had it coming, simple as that."
"Then I guess the case is closed," Sasuke hummed, kissing the top of Naruto's head. "I'm not particularly interested in the how or who as long as it's not an outsider."
"That's the spirit," Naruto grinned.
They shared one more kiss before they fell asleep, hugging each other tightly.
"Please for the love of everything that is holy and dear, tell me I can join the run with Sasuke!" Naruto exclaimed.
Father snorted, looking up from the schedule. "Haven't you been put back on assignments a week ago?"
"Yeah, but the old bag was looking at me weirdly yesterday and she would try to fuck me over even now," Naruto said, pursing his lips briefly into a pout. He bounded over to Sasuke then, proving his thigh had stopped bothering him for more than a week already. He wrapped his arm around his shoulder. "But I know Sasuke is going on a run tomorrow, so please, please, tell me I can go out as well!"
"You have to be the only person that desperate to go mingle with dead fuckers," Karin's amused voice drifted over to them from the doorway.
Sasuke turned his head, watching a grin spread out across her face. "Hey boys, you mind if I join in on the fun?"
AN2: I'm going to have so much fun writing the next chapter, you have no fucking idea. Time to leave the walls again, my dears!
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