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Leader	By : mannahpierce Category: Naruto > Yaoi - Male/Male > Naruto/Sasuke Views: 2163 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: This story has some of Masashi Kishimoto's characters from Naruto in a universe of my own devising. I do not own Naruto. I do not make any money from these writings.

Chapter List
- 76
- 77
- 78
Thank you to my beta and muse, Small Fox. This story grew from a plot idea he gave me.
Also thanks to Procrastination_is_key, satterb, SunaoTsuji and melissen for reviewing after chapter 76 was posted. Readers’ feedback, support and comments mean a great deal to me.
Thank you to everyone who has been in contact through reviews or emails. Knowing you are out there reading gives the inspiration I need to write.

Leader
Part 8: Clan
77: Betrayal

Madara settled at his desk and suppressed a sigh. They were very impressive offices, in the best part of Prime, with a private dock.
They were, however, not in Uchiha headquarters. Just as his apartment was not in the Uchiha household.

When the container had arrived, bearing the Uchiha seal and Haku’s signature, he had considered sending it back. The gesture would have emphasised his disapproval.
Instead he had kept the contents: his favourite clothes; the ornaments he most valued; the small pieces of furniture, rugs and paintings he had chosen for his room.
He told himself they were a reminder of what he was working towards rather than of what he had lost.

He had yet to release a statement or give an interview. The media was rife with speculation. They had latched onto the fact that he had offices in Prime and one of the more competent journalists had found out about his new apartment.
He had people spreading his message in the corridors of the lower levels: Sasuke Uchiha had infested the clan with hybrids; having an heir who was a hybrid was as dishonourable as having implants to win a leadership challenge; giving hybrids rights was the first step towards giving them your jobs, your homes and your children.
The HDL were still making statements about living together in harmony while AHB squads were eliminating hybrids and dumping their bodies down disposal chutes for the Scavengers.
Another few divs and it would be time for him to step forward and become the voice of reason.

The sound of an incoming communication. His eyes automatically went to the outer office where Sakura should be. Instead Kimimaro was filling in, which was far short of satisfactory.
He still hoped that Sakura would agree to continue working for him. He had not yet received her resignation, unlike Ino’s.
Looking back, he wished he had managed the transition better. He had left her and Ino speculating about their futures instead of assuring them that their jobs were secure. He should have trusted that they would keep the rendezvous rather than sending some of his men to check. The men had handled it badly; Ino had overreacted and Sakura must have been frightened.

In truth, Madara was not sure if Sakura would fit into his new organisation. She was too... ...clean. That was what he liked about her; that and her little idiosyncrasies.
Kimimaro was lurking in the doorway. Madara signalled that he should come in.
“This was at the Stellar Exchange for you, Uchiha-sama,” Kimimaro told him, placing a letter on his desk rather than in the letter rack. “Also Kurotsuchi-san is on her way with some important information.”

Clean was not a word Madara could use about Kurotsuchi. It was difficult to come out of any conversation with her feeling anything other than grubby.
He would have disliked her if she was a man. In a woman, her behaviour made his flesh crawl.
Unfortunately, he was stuck with her. She was delivering the AHB and he needed them.

He did not have time to open the letter; Kurotsuchi was coming through his door almost before Kimimaro had announced her. She had two goons with her but one threatening look from Kimimaro was enough to have them sitting down in the outer office like well-behaved schoolboys.
They were utterly terrified of him, which was good.

She waved Kimimaro away. He, of course, stood his ground and looked to Madara for instructions.
“Thank you, Kimimaro-san, that will be all,” he confirmed. He did not require Kimimaro to snap Kurotsuchi’s neck should an appropriate opportunity present itself.
Kimimaro bowed. “Uchiha-sama.” He pointedly avoided Kurotsuchi and left, closing the door behind him.

Madara could see her biting back the comment she was on the edge of making. He wondered who made her so uncharacteristically reticent, him or Kimimaro.
“You have information for me, Kurotsuchi-san?” he hinted. The sooner he could get her out of his office the better.
“Yes. I thought the pink-haired bitch was familiar.”
It took him a moment to realise that she meant Sakura. He tightened his hold on his temper. “You mean my personal assistant?”
“That’s the one. She was in the Warren during the uprising.”
“I am aware of that, Kurotsuchi-san. Sakura herself mentioned it.”
Kurotsuchi snorted. “I bet she didn’t tell you what she did. I thought I recognised her, so I asked my people. She coordinated the runners who were working for Uchiha during the evacuation. She hired them, briefed them, kept them in contact, acted as their link to Uchiha.”
Madara was certain she had to be mistaken.
“I knew you wouldn’t like it, so I dug about. One of our people managed to plant a camera at the couriers’ briefing. We were interested in the couriers but it caught her as well.”

She pulled a tape from her pocket and walked towards the player on his desk. In response he stood up and held out his hand.
“I shall take that, Kurotsuchi. Thank you.”
She handed it over. “It’s a copy,” she informed him.
“I appreciate your concern,” Madara told her. “Is there anything else? We do have our scheduled meeting tomorrow.” He walked around his desk, shepherding her towards the exit.
She may have argued but Kimimaro opened the door and gestured that she should come through.

Madara waited for Kurotsuchi and her goons to leave and then told Kimimaro that he did not want to be disturbed. Once the door was shut, he opened his hand and stared at the tape.
If what Kurotsuchi had said was true, it would be a bitter pill for him to swallow.

He could not deal with it here. As he disconnected the tape player, his gaze fell on the letter. Such things were usually from one of the old, well-established clans. It was bad enough that it had lain unclaimed at the Stellar Exchange for days without him delaying opening it. He snatched it up with the player and put both in the inner pocket of his jacket. Then he stalked out of the office.
Kimimaro secured the office behind them and fell in beside him.
Once they were at his apartment, he told Kimimaro that he would not be needed until the next morning.

It look him a while to work out how to connect the tape player to the display screen but he persisted. Finally a grainy video began playing.
There was no mistaking that it was her. She was dressed as a spacer. She even had a knife strapped to her thigh. He watched as she stepped up to stand on a tabletop.
"My name is Sakura. I have chosen to hire each of you because you worked for standards alongside couriers who were hybrids. Many of you wore HDL ribbons before the AHB made that unwise. If you are not sympathetic towards hybrids, please leave. I ask each of you to look at the other people in this room. Is there anyone who should not be here?
"Your job today is to assist with the evacuation. You may be needed, you may not. Two of you will need to be dispatchers. The dispatchers will receive messages from me by radio. The rest of you will use your initiative to find the target group for those messages and convey them. This bar is your base for the day unless you hear otherwise."

The taped record stopped there, with her standing on the table addressing the couriers. He told himself that it might not be what it seemed. She could have been hired and briefed to carry out the task.
He did not know enough about what had happened in the Warren to judge.

Unfortunately what was on the tape condemned her in Kurotsuchi’s eyes. It marked her as a hybrid-lover and probably meant that her name was on some AHB hit list.
Having her as his personal assistant would not be feasible. He would write to her, explaining that he no longer required her services.

The decision reminded him of the letter in his jacket. He drew it out and turned it in his fingers. There was no crest, which was odd.
He slit the envelope open and recognised the neatly-penned characters; it was from Sakura. He scanned it. She was resigning.

He had been about to dismiss her, so why did the letter annoy him? Images from the tape began playing in his head. A thought crept into his mind and began to grow,
What if it had been exactly what it seemed? What if she had been an integral part of the operation? What did that mean?
Why would the woman shown on the tape take a job as his personal assistant?

What had Kurotsuchi said? The woman annoyed him so much that it was always difficult to remember her exact words. She had accused Sakura of working on behalf of Uchiha and being directly in contact with them.

Working on behalf of Sasuke Uchiha and being directly in contact with his people. Creeping dread gave way to utter certainty. She was Sasuke Uchiha’s spy.

He tore the letter into small pieces. If Sasuke had stooped so low as to use a spy, what else might he do?

He stared at the objects on his desk. Even the pen had come from the container Haku had sent.
He disassembled the pen; nothing. Then he picked up the nearest heavy object and systematically smashed the components into small pieces; still nothing.
He did not know of he would recognise a bug if he found one.

He looked about him. Even if he destroyed every item Haku had sent it was probably too late. He imagined them arriving infested with tiny crawlers that Shikamaru had designed. By now they could be anywhere.
They could even be inside of him, put there by Sasuke Uchiha’s medicos.

He resolved to speak to a security expert the next day.

Then he went to the private gym that had so attracted him to this particular apartment. He imagined the practice dummy was Sasuke Uchiha and destroyed it.
Afterward he treated the damage to his hands and imagined them around Shikamaru’s neck, squeezing the life out of him as they had squeezed the life out of his brother’s lover.

As for Sakura, he fell asleep dreaming of what he would do to her.

Shikamaru felt better than he had for days. The previous evening’s combination of caffeine, alcohol, mucking up Neji’s room and fucking would be worth repeating.
Not that he could imagine Neji allowing him into his new room. He watched as Neji selected an item, dusted it carefully and then took it through the doorway to be placed in its new position.
“I could help,” he suggested.
“I would very much prefer you not to,” Neji replied as he returned for the next object. “Think about how you would like this room to be.”
The answer suggested itself immediately. “Empty, with a big storage closet here.” He indicated the wall with the door that led to the shared area.

Neji stopped, still holding the small sculpture he had picked up. Shikamaru could tell that he had caught on at once and was thinking about all the scenarios they had used when Shikamaru was breaking down Neji’s reluctance to fuck.
“It was fun, Ne-chan,” he pleaded.
“Yes it was,” Neji admitted. “You can explain to Sumiko-chan.”
Shikamaru had not thought of that. They could block the door to the shared area. It would give them more storage and cut down the chances of Su-chan finding out. “You agree then?”
“For now,” Neji concurred. He carried the sculpture through the doorway. “I am sure you have work to do.”
Shikamaru decided to take the hint.

He decided to continue clearing his backlog of incoming communications; some of the less urgent ones had been waiting days for his attention. He thought about using the simulator in the cupboard but decided to make do with the kit he had in the office he shared with Neji.
After all, he did like his desk.

He settled into his chair and decided on a visor rather than goggles. Earpieces in, control wire gloves on, he opened his interface.
To his surprise there was a priority two alert; maximum importance but not immediately urgent.

As soon as he investigated, his good mood drained away. The alert originated from Centre and had been generated by the Sai-type code that he had introduced into the Centralite systems.
Bettencourt, the man Izuna had met on the liner, had visited the Institute of Psychology on Centre I. Three psychologists who specialised in typed-geniuses worked at the Institute. Two senior Civil Servants had visited at the same time.
There was no record of an agenda nor any account of what had happened. Perhaps the meeting was not about him.

Only he knew it was. He felt empty and slightly nauseous. He began searching for Bettencourt’s current whereabouts.
It was easier than he expected. Bettencourt was on a civil service ship heading for Tarrasade; a journey that could take as little as two divs.

He had two divs to prepare for, at best, a ten standard absence and, at worse, being separated from his family forever.
For a moment it felt like Izuna had won.

But he hadn’t. Sasuke was alive and Izuna had shown he would not risk his life by challenging. The family was reunited. They had reclaimed the household in Tarrasade. Orochimaru and the Akatsuki had been eliminated. Skyburrow was a safe haven for them should they need one.
Sumiko was old enough to cope without him. At least she had Sai. Shikamaru hoped that he would be able to send her vids.
Haru had matured hugely. Working with Sai, he could solve problems that Shikamaru could not. He might not be ready to step into his shoes as Sasuke’s advisor, but there were things that they could do to help span the gap in the next two divs.

Then he thought of Naruto. Even if he managed to get away after a decade in the Central Civil Service, like Klenn had, would Na-chan still be alive when he returned?
Not if Rin was correct about his lifespan; he would have been dead for two standards. Suddenly those three standards that Orochimaru had been offering seemed even more precious.

He closed the interface he was using and opened the project that he had been working on for the last five divs, ever since Orochimaru had said there was a way of prolonging Na-chan’s life.
The top layer of a huge, dedicated database appeared. Underneath was everything he had collected that might impact on the problem. It included everything he had gleaned over the standards, everything Kotohime had given him, everything he had dug out of Orochimaru’s records and anything the Sai-type code had managed to detect in databases across known space, including Centre.

Half a standard of effort with no hint of success. He wanted to ask Sai and Haru for help; Sai because tagging and sorting that took Shikamaru the better part of a day would take Sai seconds and Haru because Haru could find patterns that were invisible to anyone else.
He had not done so because he didn’t want to raise Haru’s hopes and he couldn’t ask Sai to keep a secret from Haru.

Having a time limit of two divs simplified the decision making; he involved Sai and Haru or he gave up on the idea. He reached for a throat mike and pressed it into place.
“Sai-kun?”
Sai was there in a flash. “Shika-san?”
“I need your help with something.”

Sai quickly appreciated the task. Shikamaru watched as the data was dissected into facts and hundreds of tags were applied to each of the resulting pieces.
Standards of work for a flesh and blood person using conventional computers were accomplished in minutes.
“You are working on what makes canine-human hybrids age more quickly than purebred humans,” Sai pointed out.
Shikamaru startled. He had imagined Sai was having to concentrate. “Yes.”
“And it is a secret?”
“For now. I am going to tell Haru within the next few days but I shall be asking him to keep the secret too.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to raise people’s hopes if we don’t find anything.”
There was a pause. “Haru said that Naruto-san would be cross if he worked on it.”
“That too. Naruto-san would also be cross with me if he knew.”
“You are doing it anyway,” Sai pointed out.
“Yes, I am doing it anyway,” Shikamaru confirmed. “I want them all to be with us longer.”
“In their original flesh and blood bodies,” Sai checked.
“Yes, in their original flesh and blood bodies.” He wondered if Sai was suggesting they became Tronnies. Shikamaru knew that Naruto and the kits could never be happy living that way. Maybe he could be, but not them. “For many, maybe most, flesh and blood people, their bodies are an essential part of their identities.”
“I shall accept the parameters of the problem as you have set them,” Sai assured him.
“I appreciate that, Sai-kun.” He paused. “The tagging you required is complete. I have generated a second generation of tags that were suggested during the tagging process. These have also been applied.”
“Thank you.”
“You are welcome. When will you be telling Haru?”
“Within the next two days,” Shikamaru assured him.
“I must go and play with Sumiko now. I have been both there and here for more than two minutes and she does not like it when I do not pay her my full attention.”
“Go,” Shikamaru told him.

Shikamaru sat there once he had gone. It was tempting to begin looking for patterns in the tagged data but it was a waste of time; Haru would be much better at it than he could ever be.
He closed the interface and stripped off his equipment. Top of his new list was claiming more of Haru’s time.

Iruka was where Shikamaru expected to find him; in the kitchen. He made a point of working at the kitchen or galley table whenever there had been an upheaval in their living arrangements. That way anyone would feel free to sit down and share their concerns.
Moving everyone into the household in Tarrasade and establishing a fourth crew room definitely qualified as an upheaval.
“Shika-kun,” Iruka acknowledged at once, placing his tablet off to one side to make it clear that he was available to talk.
Shikamaru sat down. “Now that Haru is fourteen and sworn, I want to introduce him to the Uchiha systems.”
Iruka frowned slightly but nodded.
“I probably should have thought it through before, but the issues surrounding Izuna-sama were more urgent.”
The distraction worked. Iruka smiled. “Yes, it is good that the Izuna-sama issue is settled.”

The last word Shikamaru would have used to describe the Izuna issue was settled. They were in a new standoff, one in which Izuna was more likely to claim the leadership than challenge for it.
The situation would not be settled until Izuna died, preferably without having had any more children.
It was an unwelcome thought; Shikamaru sudden imagined rank upon rank of gestators containing full blood Uchihas. Once they were old enough to vote at a clan meeting, they could change the charter so that a person had to be a full blood Uchiha to challenge for the leadership.
Then they would be back where they had started.

“Shika-kun?” Iruka hinted.
Shikamaru realised he had been chasing the new line of thought. There was no evidence that Izuna had started gestating full blood Uchiha babies, so it would be over fourteen standards until they could vote. Hopefully he would be back by then.
“Haru?” Iruka tried.
He pulled himself back to the present. “Yes, Haru. I have been thinking it through. It will work better if we work on it intensely. I would like all his available time over the next two divs.”
“All of it?” Iruka queried.
“Yes please. Not only will it be quicker, but it will save total time. This is not something that can easily be achieved in dribs and drabs. Also, I do not want to get partway through and have Haru sent on a mission or assigned to a team going back to Skyburrow.”
“I will do what I can,” Iruka promised. “Is there anything else worrying you?”
He would have to work on appearing less agitated. “No. Thank you for giving the extra room to Neji. He’s moving into it so the shared room is between us. We have been talking about how to get our new relationship working better.”
Iruka smiled at him. “Good.”
It had worked, Iruka had been distracted. “I’m going to go and see how Neji is getting on with the move.”
“You do that,” Iruka encouraged.

Shikamaru left the kitchen by the door that led to their crew room but he kept going; out the other exit, heading for the simulator in the cupboard.
He had so much to do and so little time in which to do it.
- 76
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Leader