"Politics."

"Always fun. Itachi, you alright to stay up while I get some sleep - " He waits for her nod, then says, "Which is something I should be getting. I can go multiple days, but it's extra not fun. Hopefully the world won't explode before tomorrow."

Anneia gives him a thumbs up. "That'd be nice."

And he can go collapse into bed.

Itachi stays up - 

And a messenger hawk comes screeching into their window.

She surges to her feet, sees the yellow-striped red band on its leg, and shouts, "Shisui! Emergency!"

To the girls, "There's a hostile intruder, high priority emergency." A sense of panic flutters in her chest - nothing's changed, Danzo didn't have any dead man's switches that would go off against Konoha, she checked - 

But Madara always seemed to know every single little thing she did or said or thought - 

And he knows damn well she'll do anything for Sasuke, and he hates the clan, and the foreigners are her best shot at foiling him and she's pretty sure he was conspiring to get Shisui killed - 

"I need to go. Stay with Shisui, there might be someone after him and he knows what to do and people'll trust his word you two are fine."

She takes off.

The girls are on their feet in an instant and transform in a burst of light.

"Go make sure he's up-" And Tasara flashes out after Itachi.

Anneia runs to Shisui's room.

Itachi ignores the hawk's message - instructions to gather at a certain set point - and barrels for the compound.

It's stupid. She might get attacked by friendly fire.

But it's like she's trapped in a tunnel, forced forwards, no other place to go but Sasuke - 

Several people are dead when she gets there. She ignores them, and the sound of fighting - multiple loci - and darts for the clan head's house, zeroing in on Sasuke's window.

She arrows after Itachi, close on her heels the whole way.

There's a Madara - she doubts the real one - in Sasuke's room, leaning against the wall. Sasuke is nowhere in sight.

"What did you do with him - " she demands, hanging back, sword in hand and sharingan spinning.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk, Ita-chan, why do you think I did anything?" he replies, voice deep and amused.

"She usually has a good reason for it," she says. A simultaneous flick of her wrist brings a shimmering net out of nothing to trap the man.

He laughs, and strolls through it. "Don't you care at all about your clan, dying around you?" he teases.

"I care about my brother!" she snaps, then folds in on herself almost, takes a deep breath, mind racing.

(Hitting him with Shisui's Kotoamatsukami might work, but she doesn't know if he's vulnerable, suspects the Mangekyou might be protective - )

"There's nothing actually here, Itachi. This is a distraction, a trap set for you."

Breath, and she takes off, looks through the house - nothing - to the emergency fallback because Sasuke's most likely to be with the other children, and he might be kidnapped or otherwise gone but Tasara's right, it's a distraction, she needs to serve her clan and village - 

She identifies Tasara as allied when she reaches the shinobi - very few now - defending a cluster of civilians. They've gotten them into one of the emergency houses, locked down against most dimensional changes, a harried chuunin explains in a breath, so the man's not able to teleport in but he's sure making mincemeat of their defenders - 

(There are, indeed, more solid clones of Madara here, wood ripping through people - and sirens, off elsewhere in the village.)

Itachi turns to Tasara, says, "We need to either find his real body, or else start picking off his clones one by one. That shield - you seemed confident he couldn't have just phased."

"It acts as an anchor, to keep the object here and present. No phasing, no shifting, no teleportation. Not even the Polemarch could just walk through it."

"Doesn't rule out odd interactions between magic types, but that does seem likely, yes. Can you maintain multiple at once? It'd be a convenient way to get rid of his clones, though it's likely they can share experiences."

"Yes, I can."

The nearest attackers are now wrapped up in the netting.

He tries assorted ways to get out, then turns to her. "Interesting ability," he says, and collapses into a formless pile of wood.

"That'll suffice for destroying the clones, but we need to find the original. I don't know how much chakra he has, nor how many he can make," Itachi says.

"Do you have a lead on that?" she asks, moving to the next. "I can't look and do this. Or Anneia should be with Shisui if you can find them."

"I'll find Anneia," she says, before taking off.

Tasara continues netting clones, and encouraging them to turn back into formless piles of wood when necessary.

Itachi barrels over to where her crow tell her Shisui and Anneia are.

Shisui, being a responsible adult, had been going where he was told rather than haring off.

He still recognizes Itachi's look of repressed panic, and says, "What's wrong?"

"Sasuke's gone. I think the masked man, who's attacking the Uchiha, has him. He was taunting me. I can't find his original body, he's using clones. I need Anneia's help."

"Okay, yeah. Which way?"