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Sai looks at the spider crawling up his arm. He doesn’t say anything, nor can Naruto read the expression on his face.
It’s a complicated thing, what Naruto wants to do. He wants Danzou to suffer and he is only more determined everytime Sai struggles to pull himself back together into some semblance of humanity. Every time Shisui screams himself awake from nightmares that are horrors beyond Naruto’s imagination. Every time Tenzou gets that glazed over look on his face.
Every time, it only serves to strengthen Naruto’s drive.
But it’s never that simple. Sai is still apart of Root, still attached to Danzou.
Kurama stirs inside of him, sensing Naruto’s angry thoughts.
“These spiders are in the Root facility now? And they are helping you?” Sai’s voice doesn’t change tone like it would with other people, but Naruto has known him long enough to be pretty good at knowing what’s a statement and what’s a question.
“Yeah, they are,” Naruto says. He can’t tell how Sai feels and it frustrates him to no end.
Danzou has been Sai’s entire life up until Naruto, Kurama and Sakura accidentally blew up everything Sai knows and understands.
Danzou doesn’t treat his soldiers with anything that can even remotely be called humane, but it’s all Sai knew. Naruto can only assume that it’s hard to get Danzou off that pedestal in his head. The product of years of brainwashing can’t be washed away in such a few months, no matter how much he wishes he could hug away all of Sai’s pain.
The spider stops a little way up Sai’s arm and nestles down on that spot.
“Okay,” is all Sai says, distracted with the little resting spider. Sai likes the spiders. Naruto isn’t sure how to explain it, other than Sai’s face changes a little when they crawl across his arm. It’s not a smile, but it’s not a frown or a grimace either.
“I hate it,” Kurama whispers from inside him. “I hate how he has to hurt so much.”
Everything is so slow, every two steps forward Sai takes is another step backwards.
Naruto has had his entire life to discover who he is, and the thought of starting that process now, not having a single clue about himself, terrifies him.
Naruto hates this, hates Danzou, hates that Sai - his best friend - has had to suffer so much. Naruto nudges Kurama back in his mind.
“I hate it too,” Naruto whispers back.
Sai looks up at him, and he gives Naruto a long look, almost like he’s nervous but it’s too unusual of an expression that he isn’t sure what to make of it.
“Thank you,” Sai says. His gaze is a little too much, a little too weighted, but Naruto doesn’t mind.
Sai is trying, and Naruto won’t let Danzou do any more damage. The spider stretches out a leg on Sai’s arm, and even though it only brings a slither of light to Sai’s life, Naruto is so, so happy he trained his spiders for this.
Naruto hadn’t asked Tenzou to help him because he didn’t think he’d want to get involved with Danzou when he’d only escaped from him a few years ago.
But Tenzou stands in front of him and Sakura, arms crossed over his chest and an intense frown marring his face.
“I would like to help,” he says. “What you’re doing is working. I want to help.”
Kakashi stands next to him, and Naruto would have expected him to look at least a little exasperated, but Kakashi, if anything, looks like he agrees.
Naruto blinks as he takes a moment to catch up to current events because this was not what he expected. He didn’t think Tenzou and Kakashi would want to risk it.
Sakura smiles, clasping her hands together. “The more the merrier!” she cheers. Naruto can’t help but grin right along. Getting excited about the prospect of causing someone great mental anguish isn’t what people would expect of Sakura. But most of Sakura’s mannerisms are unexpected.
Sakura looks harmless, but she is far, far from it.
Naruto extends his arm towards Tenzou and several spiders crawl out of his sleeve.
“Take these with you wherever you go, it makes it easy for me and Kurama to know where you are,” Naruto says.
They crawl across Tenzou’s arm, and Naruto can’t help but see Tenzou as a forest, and the spiders on his skin, just seem to fit in so well.
He does the same to Kakashi and pulls back.
“Tonight is the night we raise hell,” Sakura says, leaning on Naruto’s shoulder.
One side of Tenzou’s mouth twitches upwards in an awkward half-smile. “Good,” he says with an enormous amount of conviction that Kakashi pats him on the shoulder, chuckling.
At first, training all the spiders to behave like they do, adapt to different people and adapt to Sakura’s poisons seemed like such an impossible task that he had considered finding another way.
But training his spiders has brought him closer to Sai, closer to Tenzou and Kakashi, and closer to Sakura.
Training his spiders to raise hell, even for a night has given Tenzou some sort peace, and if that’s what Naruto needs to do, if it means one of his precious people sleeps a little easier and feel and little better, then Naruto will do it again. And again. And again.
Danzou has hurt too many of Naruto’s precious people, and that is more than reason enough.
That night isn’t filled with screams of terror. Nor is the air alight with tension.
That night, as far as the rest of the population is concerned, is a normal night.
Danzou’s wide-eyed reactions to the spiders in his coffee cup, in his draws, on his Root shinobi and in every crevice of entire structure goes unnoticed.
His tenser than usual shoulders are overlooked by his soldiers and his sleepless nights haunted with poison induced nightmares are not known to anyone else.
No one knows except them, and Kurama rumbles contently inside Naruto’s stomach. No one knows about Danzou’s suffering, but that’s fine.
Tenzou’s relaxed shoulders and Sai’s content gaze is more than enough in return.