As we were travelling to the Sand, I confirmed some things with Naruto and Kakashi-sensei. During my training, I snuck into Lady Tsunade's office and read her reports. And I did some investigating of my own on the Akatsuki. I knew Itachi Uchiha was a member and asked Naruto what they remembered when they met him. All Naruto knew was he had some sort of black fire jutsu that Master Jiraiya couldn't extinguish and had to seal.

Kakashi-sensei said he could put you in an unbreakable genjutsu from just a moment of eye-to-eye sightline. And that he could torture you for at least three days in a moment. He also had some sort of exploding shadow clone jutsu and could break out of Kurenai-sensei's genjutsu with ease, and she was a genjutsu specialist.

The only other member they had met was a rogue ninja from the hidden mist named Kisame, the 'Tailless Tailed Beast.' My new genjustu may work on Kisame, but Itachi would be a problem. I had no genjutsu that would work on him, and my taijutsu put me in range of his exploding clones. It would have been nice if I had better ranged jutsus.

We also discussed Sasuke as we travelled to the Sand. Though I grew out of my childhood crush, I still didn't want to see him dead... or worse. We had about six months to find Sasuke and stop Orochimaru from transferring his soul into Sasuke's body. Though Sasuke betrayed the village and put those sent after him's lives in danger, he had yet to actively attack the village. There was still the chance of bringing him back.

There was a precedent of Ninja pretending to betray the village to gain intel on the enemy. Lady Tsunade told me in private that if we could get him back before he killed any village's Ninja, she could swing it with the elders that he was on a deep-cover mission to spy on Orochimaru. And if he did actually kill his treacherous, rogue ninja brother, it would improve his image and our story. Naruto didn't know any of this, but he was still as single-minded as ever to save Sasuke. But if Sasuke killed any ninja, Leaf or otherwise, Lady Tsunade would be forced to put him in the Bingo Book as a rogue ninja. The fact that no foreign village ninja encountered him since he left is the only reason she was able to put it off. But if that happened, no matter what Naruto said, we'd have to either kill him or, at the very least, lock him up as a criminal.

...

After three days of travel, we arrived at the Sand Village. It turned out Kankuro went after Gaara's captors alone and was defeated and left to die. It was some sort of poison that the Sand's poison expert, lady Chiyo, was unable to cure. That old woman was very skilled, and she mistook Kakashi-sensei for his father, The White Fang, when she first saw him. I was getting ready to examine Kankuro when we entered the room, so I was too slow, but luckily Naruto stopped her before she did whatever she was going to do to Kakashi-sensei. My guess was to poison him, but we avoided that.

I was able to remove most of the poison from Kankuro's body, but I still needed to synthesise an antidote for the remaining poison I was unable to extract. It was difficult, but in the end, I could do it using the techniques taught to me by Lady Tsunade, but if I had been a few days later, Kankuro would have surely died.

There was a bright side, though; now we knew at least one of the poisons the enemy used and the identity of one of the members of the Akatsuki. Sasori of the Red Sand. Lady Chiyo's grandson, a puppet and poison user. And now we had an antidote to one of his poisons. Plus, Kankuro was able to tear off a piece of the other Akatsuki member's robe. So now Kakashi-sensei could track either Gaara's sent or the sent of the unknown abductor. Whoever he was, he was able to fly on some sort of white bird and use explosions. But that was all the Sand could see from the ground during his battle with Gaara.

As soon as Kankuro was inoculated, the four of us, myself, Naruto and Kakashi-sensei, as well as Lady Chiyo, set off after the sent of Garra and the Akatsuki members. Lady Chiyo insisted on coming, and we weren't about to turn down a Konoichi of her calibre who knew the most about Sasori. As we travelled, Lady Chiyo and Kakashi-sensei explained more about the Tailed Beasts. I knew some of the info, but she explained there were nine of them, and Shukaku, aka the One Tails, was sealed inside Gaara. I was knocked out when Naruto fought Gaara, but it seems that Naruto wasn't surprised to hear that.

As we continued tracking the Akatsuki who kidnapped Gaara, we found one. Though it wasn't either of the two Akatsuki we were looking for. In front of us, by himself, stood Itachi Uchiha.