Chapter 44
With the wild early afternoon that had just ended, it was figured that everything else that happened afterwards would merely be calming and something of a come-down period after the minute amount of danger at the gates ended and the perpetrator was handled.
That was for everyone not named Uzumaki Naruto and for the people that did not hold positions working inside of the Konoha Intelligence Division building.
"Goldie-kun you… are still… stupid!"
Naruto held back a bit of a tremble at the volume of Ino's voice as he followed behind her through the halls of very plain and unappealing building. He was following her almost akin to a puppy as she strode through with a bit of a scowl on her face. Due to the fact that she was her place of assignment she was wearing her required uniform of the majority of the force; a grey button-up suit with black belt around her waist over the top that went past her waist to her thighs as well as her headband with a black cloth around her forehead.
"But this is your job isn't it?" Naruto defended meekly in order to alleviate some of the anger directed at him that Ino had bestowed upon him since his arrival. Upon the moment he walked through the door, Ino grabbed him and scolded him enough to make him feel eleven again, "And everyone that brought Haku in with me didn't say anything when I told them that I wanted you to interrogate her."
"That's because daddy is a captain of the force only under Ibiki and I'm his daughter/apprentice." Ino bit back without turning around to face him. Two days and he was already putting stress wrinkles on her, "It's because I'm good. That's the only reason anyone was okay with you asking for me, because they expect me to treat her like anyone else. It didn't have anything to do with you. You don't have any pull like that around the village buster."
"-Yet." Naruto mumbled before straightening out once he knew that Ino had heard him, "Come on. I know what I felt out there. Haku was out of it the whole time. You don't have to rummage through her mind or anything, do you?"
"I don't rummage through minds." Ino said in an affronted manner as she stopped and turned to Naruto with her hands on her hips, "It's more delicate than that." She said with a haughty sniff, "Besides… you can't be in the room anyway. You're not authorized to be."
Naruto's jaw dropped, to Ino's satisfaction a bit. Come into her place of work and make things difficult for her would he? He knew she was quitting this job. Oh she'd fix him good when she got the chance to, "What? That's stupid. I'm the one that caught her! I can't even be there to find out why she was here to begin with?"
"That's why a lot of us get specific occupations." Ino replied, more or less expecting this reaction in one way or another, "Because we're just chunin. We don't get to know everything that goes on you know. Genin get to learn all they need to know to become chunin, chunin learn all they need to know to run important missions and pick areas of specialty, then when you become a jounin you get to have more say in things. My specialty is interrogation so I get to, here's the kicker, interrogate. You don't."
It felt good to say all of that out loud as it made Ino feel like all of the time she had spent proving that she was good at her job was well worth it since she was being allowed to run interrogation on Haku, but she was expected an explosion from Naruto on the other hand.
To her pleasant surprise though, it never came. Naruto just sighed and rubbed a brow, "You're right. I'm sorry. I'm used to actually being kind of important though, remember? I had a lot of job titles at the capital." He got used to being something of a big shot with his hard-earned and kept position in the Guardian Ninja, now he was back to being a chunin in Konoha and he had to fall back into line.
"It's okay." Ino said, setting a hand on his shoulder as she was calmed down by this point. He had apologized and that was good enough for her, "Look, I'll do what I can in there, but we've got to figure out why she came all this way. Medics that checked her over said that Haku was running off of a near overdose of Military Rations Pills, they were the only thing keeping her body moving by the time you stopped her. For all we know she might have been sent here to attack."
Naruto frowned but gave a stiff nod. They didn't know if Haku was with Kiri or if she was still a missing-nin. Either way they couldn't just sweep this under the rug, "At least she didn't kill anybody." She still fought to disable instead of kill, even while unconscious.
A nod came from Ino before she set her hand on his chest and lightly pushed off so that she could start backing away, "Go home. If you want me to, I can find you once we find out what's going on and if I'm allowed to I can tell you then." She pointed her thumb further down the hall as she kept backing up, "I've got to get to work, so I'll see you later."
Waving goodbye and getting one from Ino before she turned to make her way to the interrogation room in earnest, Naruto turned on his own heels and made his way to exit the building.
He reached for his pocket before he remembered the sign on a wall when he entered and cursed at the fact that they didn't allow smoking in there. He really needed one right then.
XxX
(Elsewhere in Konoha – With Shikamaru)
Instead of walking around the village that day with the stir-crazy Naruto, Shikamaru chose to stay home and get reacquainted with the comfort of his bed. There was no way he was taking a mission when Ino had asked him to wait for her because he wouldn't hear the end of her mouth and he didn't need that so soon after his return to Konoha.
Now why did this mean that he couldn't spend time hanging out with Naruto during this time period? Simple, because Naruto would be just as troublesome to be around trapped in the village doing nothing as he was. It would drive Shikamaru straight up the wall, and after living with the guy for three years prior to this he had had enough of that for a lifetime.
Still, when the emergency signal went up a few hours ago he was forced to get up and be prepared to react. It turned out to be nothing really, nothing that required a full-on response of the village's whole force, but hey it woke him up and he wasn't going to get back to sleep. His mom was already riding his case on being lazy… and here he thought going off for three years on the great adventure of his life would get that lady off of his back for life.
So with no more chance to sleep his life away at home he took a walk after learning that Chouji was out of the village on a mission, and with the fact that he ran into someone he knew it was much better to join them than to simply walk around on his own aimlessly… it was way less creepy for one.
"Thank you for helping me carry these books back to the library Shikamaru-kun." Shiho said as she held a trio of books in her arms with a smile and a content red blush staining her cheeks. What great luck for her. He was willing to give her a hand even after so many years away, 'All those exotic and attractive women in the world and he's still willing to give me the time of day to help me out after three years. Yes!' She thought to herself.
Shikamaru nodded as he walked next to her, "No problem. It isn't a big deal." Really she should thank Naruto for making the scroll he was using to lug the tomes around. Ah, at least she was grateful… and normal. Normal enough by his standards. She wasn't looking to kill him or eying him up to wait for a mistake so those were points in her favor, "So how've you been?"
And now he was asking her how she'd been while he was gone! He did care! Sure it could be seen as just making small talk… but where was the hopeful romance in that? Nowhere, that was where. And Shiho believed in the hopeful romance. She believed in it bad, "Ah, I've been fine. Things are just moving along at work like always." She laughed a bit nervously at being put on the spot before coming up with something not so good, "But… it's just Otogakure."
"Oto?" Shikamaru asked, remembering that village from before he had left to work at the capital. Most notably he remembered how that crystal woman tore his team of newly promoted chunin apart, "What's the problem with them now?"
Shiho looked at him with a heartfelt frown as it brought up her situation at work, "They're a step ahead of us in intelligence somehow. It's weird. We've cracked several of their codes, but whenever we do it's already changed before we can even make use of it. They're like ghosts sometimes. We hear about them causing trouble in the northern part of the country, and our border guards seem to be bypassed often. Too often. It's kind of scary."
She had been told that there was a chance that it was because Orochimaru was once amongst their ranks, but even that didn't warrant these things working out so swimmingly for them. Orochimaru hadn't been in the village for over a decade so that point was mostly moot. It wasn't like Konoha hadn't updated the way they did things since then. It was giving Konoha's Cryptanalysis Squad fits whenever Otogakure seemed to come up.
"So that means someone's leaking information to another village?" That was blatantly what the issue just so happened to be. It wasn't to a major village either. It wasn't like Shikamaru hadn't had a run-in every now and then with an Oto ninja while working as a Ninja Guardian, and they never knew when he was coming while working for them, so it was clear that a spy was the problem.
"There's an ongoing investigation trying to sniff the spy out, but we aren't getting anything." Shiho said, turning her eyes in the direction of Hokage Monument, "Hokage-sama is under a lot of pressure to produce the spy by his old teammates the elders Utatane and Mitokado, supporters of Danzo-sama." When she heard no response from Shikamaru she turned back towards him and saw him giving her a dry look, "…Shimura Danzo. He was Sarutobi-sama's chief rival for the title of Hokage back in the time of the first two village leaders."
Then what the hell did he need supporters for? The seat of Hokage? Why would they replace one old-ass man with another? No offense to any of the people being spoken of obviously, but damn… that just didn't make much sense.
While Shikamaru mused on how different things were these days, Shiho's face was burning as she thought to herself, 'Why are you talking about your job so much? Stop dumping your troubles at work on him, he just got home he doesn't want to hear any of that!'
"Thanks."
"Huh?" Shiho stopped her self-berating and looked at Shikamaru confusedly as to what he was thanking her for, only to get a somewhat roguish smile from him in turn.
It was actually really helpful to him to hear these things about his village and what had been going on while he was gone. He wondered what else was happening around him and Shiho seemed to know a lot. Ino would only have gossiped about things that he didn't give two shakes about had she been in the same situation, "Thanks for sharing that with me. I don't know much about what's going on these days and as troublesome as it is I don't want to be out of the loop."
An airy and nervous laugh came from Shiho as she dropped her books to hold her hands over her cheeks, "It's not a big deal Shikamaru-kun, as long as I could help you out a bit. We're friends aren't we?" She then realized that she had dropped books in the dirt that didn't belong to her and scrambled to pick them back up.
Shikamaru raised an eyebrow at her strange behavior, "Okay…" Strange behavior that he wasn't really unfamiliar with.
Crap. He'd seen this happen before… repeatedly for some reason to both Naruto and himself, and while he had been far better acclimated to bowing himself out gracefully (because unlike Naruto he was well aware of when a girl was acting strangely), this time there wasn't the easy advantage of being able to just leave because he was back in Konoha for good.
But then again he'd never considered Shiho to be a bother like with most girls. She wasn't violent, she wasn't particularly loud, and she was notably smart. Her troublesome traits were few and far between by his standards. He didn't really know her that well, though that was something that could be fixed over time if he really wanted to give it a try.
And just thinking about this whole thing was wearisome in of itself. So that put an end to that train of thought.
'Even when they're not being troublesome… women are still troublesome.'
XxX
(Konoha Intelligence Division HQ – Cold Interrogation Room)
Contrary to what many believed when they thought about being in front of the Konoha Torture and Interrogation Force, it wasn't always someone strapped to a table drugged up with truth serum being prodded with painful metal instruments to extract information from them.
That was just a last measure really. It wasn't really used even then unless the possible information was vital to the village's security and the safety of its citizen.
No, more often than not interrogations often took place in a small room like the one Haku sat in currently. Just a plain 10x10 room with solid grey walls and a wooden table with two wooden chairs within, one of which she was seated at.
Haku was grateful that they didn't just go to task on her after her body gave out in the forests just around the village. They actually treated her and allowed her to clean herself and change clothes for the first time in many days. She had been on quite a run from Mizu no Kuni. Had she been awake at the time she would have wasted no time in telling them what they wanted to know about why she was there; it was her main reason for coming in the first place.
The door to the room opened and in walked a man in a gray uniform, a black Konoha headband, and a long black overcoat. He had long blonde hair in a ponytail going down his back and had very stern features on his face. Haku figured that he was going to be the one questioning her until he merely stood by against the wall as a lighter-shade-of-blonde female walked in. She wore the same uniform sans the overcoat and took a seat down across from Haku calmly.
Ino was to be the main interrogator on this day with her father keeping watch for security and for observation of her progress. It was how things normally went. Sometimes it would be Ibiki or another senior member, this time it was Inoichi, "Hello Haku. Do you remember who I am? My name is Yamanaka Ino."
There hadn't been too many Konoha ninja that would ask such a question, and less that were blonde, thus Haku did indeed remember, "Yes. You are that girl that I fought in Nami no Kuni. I believe your name is Ino?"
Ino spared a small smile acknowledging that she was grateful for being remembered, "A close friend of mine asked me to handle this for him. He was the one that stopped you outside of the village. Do you remember Naruto too?" Attention to detail was heavily stressed as an interrogator, and Ino wouldn't have been worth her place in the division if she didn't notice the slight lighting up of Haku's eyes when she mentioned Naruto's name, "He's the one that managed to detain you."
"I see…" Haku said lowly as her face looked pleasantly stiff with a smile that seemed difficult to keep up, "So it appears that I owe him twice now. Once for setting me on the path of my new goal and twice for allowing me to complete my mission." She then frowned, "I'm the only one of my comrades from Kirigakure to make it here. The others were killed just off the coast of the mainland. I was chased for much of the way by an enemy force that must have broken off pursuit when we got too far within Hi no Kuni."
"You're a Kiri ninja now?" Ino asked curiously. The last time they had met Haku had been a missing-nin that had left them with the purpose of fulfilling the ambition of her former master Zabuza. How that ended up with her returning to being a ninja of Kiri Ino didn't know, unless, "Wait, did you overthrow the Mizukage the way Zabuza wanted?"
A nod came from Haku, "In a way. Around three years ago, the Yondaime Mizukage Yagura started systematically hunting down bloodlines again with a different tactic, using an outsourced supply of shinobi from another village to handle the dirty work; Otogakure ninja. Not enough to comprise a powerful direct force, but formidable guerilla and ambush. This led to an underground uprising and resistance that split the country in half with those supporting kekkei genkai users and those siding with the Mizukage's ongoing regime."
'Another civil war.' Inoichi thought to himself as he listened to Haku speak, 'Kirigakure went dark around that time… this is the first time I can say I've personally seen a Kiri ninja in front of my face in quite a while.' He simply listened on to see if Ino knew where to take the conversation from there. Knowing how to steer the interrogation was just as important as getting the information in the first place.
Haku picked up where she had stopped since she was not finished yet though, "The in-fighting petered out with the disappearance of the Mizukage a year ago. He disappeared altogether and without him as the driving force behind the prejudice against those with kekkei genkai the war ended. And with not nearly as many casualties as the first time I'm happy to say. So I became a ninja under the Godaime Mizukage who I aligned with during the troubled times. She really is an indicator of the change in our village all herself."
"But you still have problems." Ino ventured as a guess, lacing her fingers in front of her face that she sat in front of her mouth tersely, "Your mission was to come to Konoha, with an entire team. Instigating a war with us even a year after the official end of a civil war isn't smart. No Kage in their right mind would order that."
The watchful eye of Inoichi was scrutinizing and mentally grading his daughter's performance the entire time, 'Careful Ino… a point like this is crucial. The time when you stop asking so many questions and start stitching together your own analysis of the truth.'
"So you want something else from our village. And your team didn't make it with you, which means that you have enemies that aren't afraid of straight-up attacking you. So you came to us for help." Ino finished, shutting her blue eyes with a sigh, "I'm not wrong am I? Or I'm not too far off base right?"
From her seat, Haku was smiling peacefully at the girl sitting across from her, "You've certainly grown in an interesting way Yamanaka-san. You're correct. I've come to request assistance from your Hokage to assist Kiri's standing forces in expelling the intruders from our islands."
"Intruders?" Otogakure. Ino didn't even need to ask the question to get the answer. Both she and Inoichi knew that was where it was going. Both father and daughter shared a glance before she continued, "You're telling me that they're rooted that deep that even united your village can't kick them out?"
A bitter looking Haku nodded, changing expressions at the thoughts of the vultures that took the human forms of Oto shinobi, "They've remained after Yagura's disappearance and continue to try and capture as many of our ninja as they can get. At first it was only rebels, kekkei genkai users, but now they don't care any longer. They kill and actually have land holdings now. The leeway Yagura gave them in order to allow them to operate against us was too much." Yagura was no fool, but he gave Otogakure an inch thinking he could keep them from taking a mile.
With his disappearance he was wrong. Very wrong.
But that still seemed somewhat sketchy to Ino, "Wait, your last Mizukage enlisted help… but now you're trying to do the same thing with us for a different reason."
"Orochimaru is a pox that was unleashed upon the shinobi world by Konoha." Haku said, balling her fists on the table tightly, "He's a carrion of a man that has ruined more lives than should be allowed by Kami." The hate was evident to say the very least, "We figured that you were the best suited to dealing with your former shinobi. The current Mizukage isn't asking you to dedicate an entire force, just a few key elements. Enough to give us an edge."
Both Ino and Inoichi looked at each other before Inoichi gestured his head, directing Ino that her job was done and she could leave the room. As she did so Inoichi moved towards the door as well prior to addressing Haku, "We'll get a guard detail and you can tell your story to Hokage-sama."
XxX
(With Naruto – Elsewhere in Konoha)
This was maddening.
In order to wait for any kind of word from Ino on what exactly was going on with Ino, Naruto went to the location of the gate where the entire mess had started, splitting his time between pacing around and sitting on the roof of the post for the ninja watching the main road of the gates, a post that had already been manned again by two more shinobi; a man with dark spiky hair and a bandage running over his nose named Hagane Kotetsu, and another man with brown hair combed down able to cover one eye named Kamizuki Izumo.
He'd already smoked through several cigarettes already, disposing of the butts in his own way that left no mess on the ground. Something he did whenever he was nervous, troubled, angry… etc. Anytime he was in a heightened emotional state really.
The two had taken to asking Naruto questions about where he had been as it had been a well-kept secret until he had ventured back. Only now could those that previously knew about his and Shikamaru's whereabouts talk about it.
It was actually impressive that Ino managed to keep that little nugget to herself for as long as she did. Either way, Naruto entertained them and himself by talking about his time as a Ninja Guardian, "…And then they made us their kings and we just left and went to the capital."
Kotetsu laughed and banged up on the ceiling to communicate in a way with the younger chunin on the roof outside, "Mountain ninja-monkeys that stole your stuff? I'm pretty sure Hokage-sama would get a pretty good kick out of that one. You know those were summons right? The kid summons to boot." He informed Naruto that went pale, "Ha! You're lucky you didn't run into the boss summon Enma and that those little monkeys liked you or that little story would have ended a little differently for you."
"Shikamaru said that mountain was too far out of the way for it to be the right direction…" Naruto mused aloud to himself about how he and Shikamaru had gotten lost on the way to the capital three years prior.
"You're one weird-ass ninja Naruto." Izumo chuckled, his feet up on the counter of the booth, trying to relax during the boring job. No one attacking the village would come through the gate. They'd go over the wall elsewhere. The gate was for legal visitors to have their credentials checked and filed for the duration of their stay. Protocol was boring as hell.
Kotetsu sighed and shot a short glare at his partner, "Yeah, it's a damn shame when a kid at least ten years younger than me gets more actiony missions than me." He then elbowed Izumo in the side a few times, "If only someone, and I'm not pointing any elbows here, manned up and let us take some missions outside of guard work or cross-country patrol. Then maybe we'd have some cool work again like a Ninja Guardian."
"If you want to try that murderer's row go ahead and do it." Naruto said glibly, poking his head down in front of the booth opening to give Kotetsu a dry look before blowing smoke inside, "Back to back to back to back missions… again and again. You have no idea how many people want to kill nobles. And then there's the personal stuff you get into that you have to deal with. Oh, and Ero-sensei's stupid ass stuff from his past coming back to bite me in-. Ow!"
Naruto started to complain when Kotetsu reached out and grabbed his nose to tease him for hanging down in front of the booth, "Alright, alright. I hear you. Being a Ninja Guardian is seven different pains in the ass, blah, blah, blah. Man. Asuma didn't complain about it when he got back."
"Asuma didn't even talk about it at all." Izumo said as he broke his partner's grip on their helpless blonde junior, "He didn't tell us any kickass stories either. He just called us runts. We're fucking three years younger than him and he called us brats… the jerk."
"Well the thing is, I'm scarred for life." Naruto remarked convincingly as he took his place sitting back on top of the station, "I can just talk about the stuff that happened to me because if I didn't vent I'd have three stress ulcers by now. I'm pretty sure Asuma-sensei's stories are worse because he was a member back when there were actually twelve." Either that, or they were easier going because there were twelve and the work load per ninja was lighter.
"What kind of a fight scarred you for life?"
"Oh it wasn't any fight that did it. It was the people around me… that I saw every day… that I worked with and trained with." Naruto's eyes started widening and his pupils started dilating as if he were flashing back to something traumatic, "Even our lead medic-nin… Tsunade-baachan. Oh Shizune was the only one that was always cool. And Ero-sennin… that bastard. One time I came back from a mission and I found him in my quarters with some girl from town-."
"Naruto-oniisama!"
Naruto's internal battle with the demons of his past that were all still alive and kicking was brought to a halt when a dark blur slammed into him like a missile and knocked him off of the station to the ground.
He was about to place his attacker in quite the debilitating joint lock for interrogation purposes until he got a good look at the large milky eyes looking at him excitedly and took in the rest of the person before him, 'Hanabi?'
It was indeed Hanabi, still with her long dark brown hair and her sleeveless v-neck shirt with the mesh top underneath, but she now wore a dark blue skirt with mesh leggings that went to her thighs, and the most prominent thing of all; a Konoha headband wrapped around her neck.
She was more grown up than when he had left, looking more like the recently graduated Konoha genin that she was as she got off of him with a pleased look on her face, "You're back! Where did you go? Did you bring me anything? Did you learn anything else amazing? How strong are you now? Do I look stronger? Am I pretty onii-sama? Can we fight again?" All of these questions were asked in rapid succession.
Naruto blinked and got up off of the ground before setting his hands firmly on Hanabi's shoulders, taking a deep breath, and giving her his astute answer, "Good Lord Little Firecracker... how am I supposed to respond to anything you just said? I think that was the longest run-on sentence in the history of mankind! Did you even take a breath that whole time? Jeez!"
Hanabi pouted and crossed her arms over her maturing bosom as she turned away from Naruto, "You're still so mean." She then looked back down the road she had just sprinted down when she saw Naruto in the distance with her Byakugan, "Where's Hinata-oneesama? She's so slow, I swear she was right behind me." She said, ignoring the snickering Izumo and Kotetsu inside of their booth.
Hearing that one of his friends from the Academy actually happened to be in the village, Naruto's face brightened up, "Oh, Hinata's with you? Where's she at? I want to say hi."
Looking around normally, Hanabi couldn't see her sister, but she then turned her Byakugan on and pointed her out for him, "She's over there. Behind that row of trees lining the road. Come out and say hello to Naruto-oniisama!" She finished, shouting towards Hinata who let out an audible 'eep' at being called out.
At this point Izumo and Kotetsu couldn't hold in their laughter anymore and they both let it out, pounding the counter of their station humorously. It was just too much.
From her place behind the tree, Hinata was close to hyperventilating before she bit her knuckle to calm herself down, 'Come on, this is what you've been waiting for isn't it? Go out and talk to him, he isn't going to bite you! But Naruto-kun got so handsome-. Grr… of course he got handsome! You didn't expect him to stay the way he was did you?'
Either way, Hanabi had already told him that she was there, and if she didn't come out soon he was going to think she was weird. She wanted to make a good first impression on him after all. That settled it. This was it. She was going to go out there and charm Uzumaki Naruto and there wasn't anything that was going-.
"Hey." Right at her side Naruto greeted her cheerfully with a wave and a grin, "Long time no see Hinata."
He couldn't help but look her over because it was a night and day difference from how she used to look. She really grew up. Her hair had grown longer down to her waist and her body had a much more adult curve to it. Her outfit had changed as well to a hooded lavender jacket with white sleeves and lavender cuffs unzipped enough to show a mesh shirt beneath it, dark blue pants, and high-heeled sandals. Her headband still sat around her neck the way that it always had, and her face was red. Very red. At least that hadn't changed.
Having Naruto come right up to her instead of her going up to him threw Hinata's built up confidence all out of whack and she simply stared at him owlishly for a moment until she got herself under control, "H-Hello Naruto-kun." She mentally applauded herself for keeping it together long enough to get that out. It was a start, now all she had to do was keep her voice steady. Steady and confident… or at least just steady, "Welcome home. It's good to see that you're safe."
"Aw, thanks a lot. It's good to see you too." Naruto replied as Hinata managed a smile at her small victory of managing to elicit a bit of a conversation out of him without stammering harshly or barely being heard, "Damn it though… all you girls just got super-gorgeous while I was gone. It's amazing. You're beautiful you know."
Telling a girl he thought she was attractive wasn't a big deal to Naruto. If it was the truth then it was what it was, it wasn't like he was Jiraiya just saying whatever he had to in order to charm his way into another free drink or a girl's pants. He was just being honest; if a girl was pretty, she was pretty, and he knew what pretty was. It was that simple. It was mostly Jiraiya's fault for forcibly desensitizing him to the form of a stunning woman.
The thing was though, that this often got him into more trouble than it was worth for the last three years. But that was another story altogether.
For Hinata however, Naruto's attention was firmly on her. She had his undivided attention, and he had openly called her beautiful. She had dreams that started like that.
Hanabi wasn't standing right there smiling sweetly at the two of them in those dreams though.
That actually helped to sober her up and keep her from overanalyzing things and freaking out. She had to give her little sister a thank you gift later, "Naruto-kun is very handsome too." She almost couldn't believe that had come out of her mouth even as quietly as it did, but it wasn't really heard because Hanabi had diverted Naruto's attention again trying to show him what she had learned while she and Hinata had been out on this little training excursion.
Thus she reminded herself to take back her thank you gift she had originally intended for Hanabi for her actions beforehand.
"Yeah, but you still can't beat me Little Firecracker." Naruto chided, giving her some patronizing pats on the head much to her noble chagrin. Hinata could at least take some solace in the fact that Naruto was able to keep her little sister down a notch despite her skill as a genin, "Listen to your sister's advice alright, because you're still a rookie… and Kami knows I needed some advice when I was your age."
Another heartfelt smile came from Hinata, as Hanabi had taken much of Naruto's advice in the past and if he was telling her to defer to her older sister she would probably do it. Such consideration, "Hanabi-chan is training for the upcoming chunin exams. Hopefully her first time with them will go better than mine did." She thought with a sadly reminiscing smile.
"I'll win just like Naruto-oniisama did." Hanabi boasted confidently, "I'll show everyone what the heir to the Main Branch of the Hyuuga Clan is capable of… especially Kono-baka." She unconsciously activated her Byakugan out of anger of thinking of fighting Konohamaru but her expression turned normal again soon thereafter, "Uh, Hinata-oneesama, that girl is coming this way."
'What girl?' Naruto thought to himself, looking at Hanabi curiously. While doing this, he missed Hinata activate her own kekkei genkai and glare at the incoming person that Hanabi had been speaking of. A moment later Ino landed in the vicinity dressed in her usual purple clothes instead of her Konoha Torture and Interrogation uniform, "Ino-chan?"
"You're seriously hard to find." Ino said first and foremost, pointing at her recently returned teammate, "What are you doing all the way out he-?" She stopped asking her question mid-sentence when she saw her chief rival of sorts glaring a hole through her in a Byakugan-enhanced manner, "Hello Hinata."
"Ino. What brings you here?" Hinata responded rather coolly in return as she turned off her kekkei genkai as if Ino didn't matter enough to use it against, "I was just having a conversation with Naruto-kun. I ran into him at the gate."
"Then why are you behind the tree line?" Ino quipped in return, knowing that she must have hidden back there like when they were younger. Some things just didn't change, even if she did become a little lioness over the last three years, "Seems like a strange place to talk to a friend. Anything you want to confess? Or was that actually why you took Goldie-kun back here?"
Without saying anything, Hanabi grabbed Naruto's hand much to his confusion and stepped back out of the way as the two older girls had something of a standoff, "What the hell's going on?" Naruto whispered. He felt that if he did something to disturb the situation bad things would happen, "Are they about to fight?" He knew a fight brewing when he saw one.
"Onee-sama and Yamanaka-san don't really get along that well." Hanabi whispered back to him, glad that at least he understood how precarious this whole thing was, "They're polite about it, but they fight a lot. They won't here though… not in front of us." She was not about to mention the reason for their mutual strife. Exposing her sister's, and by proxy Ino's, crush on Naruto before either of them simply came out with it themselves was against an unwritten code.
Not hearing any return comments, she looked up at Naruto's face and paled at the indomitable look on his face after her short explanation. Knowing what he was about to do, Hanabi quickly jabbed Naruto in the back of his knees with her Juuken and propped him up against her with her shoulder before he could fall, "Little Firecracker what the hell?"
"No." Hanabi hissed out lowly as she continued to bear Naruto's weight against her to keep him from falling, "You are not going to walk over there and say what I think you're going to say. You are not going to make them stop, you're just going to make it worse." She informed him, undoing the damage she did to his legs at the same time now that her point was made, "Just let it go."
"Never get in the way of women that you know fighting brat." He could hear Jiraiya's voice advising him in his head in between one of their training sessions, "And just because no one's throwing a punch doesn't mean there isn't a fight going on. Whatever you do, just avoid it and let it go. If they don't bring you into it, it isn't your problem."
The choice was eventually taken out of Naruto's hands on whether he was involved or not when Ino turned on her heel and marched towards Naruto, grabbing him by his elbow and dragging him off back onto the road and towards the gate, "Nice seeing you again Hanabi… Hinata. Goldie-kun and I need to go have a talk… Konoha T&I business… Team 10 stuff. You know."
Hinata just watched them go with a frown on her face and a slight glower in her expression. So Ino had a built-in advantage due to Naruto being on her team? That was okay. It only meant that she'd have to make her own opportunities count when they came for her, "Hanabi-chan, I believe it's time we go home. Otou-sama will probably want to hear about your progress."
'Onee-sama should just take him.' Hanabi thought to herself as she followed obediently behind her older sister as they started walking back on the road and towards the gates, 'That's what I'd do if I were her. What, would he say no? Not a chance.' She didn't care much for all of this roundabout crap when it came to Hinata and Ino dancing around Naruto.
Unfortunately, for Hanabi who despite being a sweet girl had also been taught to be nobility, she had also been taught that if there was something that was rightly obtainable there was nothing that anyone could do to keep her from taking it.
This led her belief of male-female relationships to be not much more advanced than walking up to the person and bluntly saying that she liked them, consequences be damned. Luckily this had never been a point of contention while she was in the Academy or little Hanabi might have wound up quite embarrassed due to a social faux pas.
The two sisters began walking home, but as they departed, a family of black field mice ran from a nearby area where they had been foraging around. Strangely enough though, they all wound up heading in the same direction in an orderly manner, unlike how they had been prior acting like normal mice in a forest.
Eventually they reached their destination of a young man with short black hair, black eyes, pale skin, a high collared shirt with no midriff, black pants, and a black Konoha headband. He sat beneath a tree merely sketching away in a notepad as a large scroll sat nearby.
The mice drew his attention as they turned into words on the ground right before his eyes, recanting what had been seen during their time of existence. The young man read these words with not an inflection of feeling on his face, "Well then. The Kyuubi jinchuuriki… doesn't seem that special to me." He said to no one in particular, "Danzo-sama will probably feel the need to test him to find his value to the village."
XxX
(Elsewhere in Hi no Kuni)
"Such resolve in such a trash ninja." Sakon remarked as he sat against the trunk of a tree. The sun was unable to be seen despite the fact that it was still firmly in the late afternoon. They would get moving again at night when it was safer to do so without being seen by someone that could report the patterns of their movement to Konoha.
It was obvious that they'd be catching enough heat after Haku was interrogated as she had managed to pull too far ahead of them to catch up to.
"I can't believe the fucking ice bitch got away." Tayuya muttered in her own cursing manner as she and Sakon rested themselves along with the remainder of their squad in densely forested area that had been referred to as a blind spot when it came to Konoha's countryside patrol routes; ninja wouldn't take a route like on patrol without reason given to do so; either by rumors from the area or witness accounts that knew of something within in the past.
The reason being because of the limited visibility and unsuitable grounds for combat as well as the large scope of the rest of the country with more important places to cover, making keeping a close watch there superfluous at best as it was really an insignificant and small patch of terrain. Just as much of a risk for those within it as for those planning on heading in.
How did these Otogakure ninja know which of the few places in Hi no Kuni were safe to retreat to in case of a need to stay there for a short time while within the country? Well it helped to have a man on the inside able to feed them this info from noticing the patterns of the ninja around him every single day.
"Now now…" Appearing from the dark edge of the rally point was the purple-clad Kabuto. His appearance hadn't changed a bit at all over the last three years, still wearing the same purple clothing as ever, "There's no need for such vulgar name-calling Tayuya. There's nothing anyone can do about any of it now."
"Easy for you to say." The hat-clad redhead said, averting her eyes away from Otogakure's most prolific spy, "You don't have to go back and tell Kimimaro. That fucker will kill us this time."
"He won't do any such thing." Kabuto replied matter-of-factly, stopping by one of the unnamed Oto ninja to check him over for injuries. Fire and ice. That was what you got when you worked for Orochimaru and any of his underlings; fire and ice. You had to keep the useless ones like the man he was examining thinking that you cared at least a little bit. That would allow hopeless people like that to do whatever you wished to them such as send them on suicide missions or experimentation, "You know that you two are far too valuable for Kimimaro to throw a temper tantrum on. Otherwise Orochimaru-sama will discipline him on wasting resources again. Anyway, she's there now. There's nothing anyone can really do about it."
"Orders?" Sakon asked as Tayuya muttered to herself about how Kimimaro was still going to make them pay for failing, "What do we do now? Do we return to Mizu no Kuni?" Both he and Tayuya were hoping for a no. They seriously didn't want to face Kimimaro again. They hated that guy.
"Return to Otogakure instead of Cha no Kuni and wait there for your next mission. Orochimaru-sama is waiting there and plans on travelling, he requires your bodyguard services." Kabuto instructed them, "Now I'm on the clock so to speak. I've got another meeting to keep not too far from here and then I have to return back to Konoha before any suspicions rise. They've allowed me to leave the village on medic-nin duties to collect materials for medicines, but I can't stay away forever you understand. Don't risk leaving until sundown. My contact would kill you on sight just out of principle."
A nod of affirmation from Sakon and Tayuya before they started chatting amongst themselves as Kabuto disappeared from their sight and his presence left the area altogether, "Jeez." Tayuya said under her breath, "I don't see how that prick can do what he does; dancing between Orochimaru-sama, Konoha, and Akasuna no Sasori. It's like he has a fucking deathwish."
"No." Sakon replied, wondering if he should switch with his lazy-ass brother Ukon for the trip to Orochimaru, "It's more like he gets his rocks off from it. He's like a snake charmer, pushing his luck with three different cobras just for the thrill of it. One slip and it all ends, but the rush has to be incredible."
It was kind of admirable. That man was a real shinobi. He didn't care about living in the light, and one could never tell exactly when he was lying, what was the truth, what was a half-truth, or anything. Yakushi Kabuto lived for the lie. The most powerful weapon that he had despite his skill as a shinobi that he had kept hidden from Konoha for years was not any single ninjutsu or strategy he knew. It was the truth. The truth was the single most dangerous weapon in Kabuto's possession…
Because he knew things that could sink three different forces of the shinobi world: Konoha, Oto, and Akatsuki.
Kabuto was something of an arms dealer in this regards, and Sakon could swear that he was holding his best stuff back from Orochimaru and Sasori because depending on who he was really peddling to he could influence the end of one of them or all of them.
Actually, with that thought in mind…
"Let's go now." Sakon said abruptly, getting up and getting the rest of the squad up and into action, "Right now. We're leaving."
Tayuya was about to berate him about how he was so stupid when Kabuto had just told them to wait until sunset when she realized that it had been Kabuto who had told them to wait until sunset in order to diminish the risk of being seen, "That motherfucker…" She said to herself as she gathered her gear and prepared to leave, "He wouldn't."
"He would and you know he would." Sakon said as they all began to move, "He'd sic Sasori right on us to cover his own ass as a show that he was still under Sasori's control as a brainwashed sleeper agent. Even though he has an allegiance to Orochimaru-sama that doesn't really extend to us."
An annoyed growl slipped from Tayuya's throat as they all started putting more speed beneath them to quickly get themselves the hell out of dodge. The last thing they wanted to do was find themselves going toe-to-toe with the most powerful puppeteer in history.
There was probably a good chance that they themselves would end up in his massive collection of puppets if they did.
XxX
(Konohagakure no Sato – Hokage's Office)
Haku usually took great pride in the fact that there was no foe she was unwilling to face down in combat. If properly motivated she could move to battle fiercely against even the most powerful entities in the ninja world, evidence of such being how she wished she could get a fair shot at Orochimaru even though she knew that it would probably end with her death.
Because she was also a realist when it came to her own capabilities in battle.
And that realism had manifested itself in the form of nerves as she sat almost as still as a statue in the office of one Sarutobi Hiruzen. He wasn't scrutinizing her. He wasn't saying anything to her at all. He wasn't even looking at her. As a matter of fact she was certain that there wasn't even a soul anywhere near the office for his security just in case she was dangerous.
He was painting. That was it. All he was doing was painting the afternoon view of the village outside of his window. She was that wary of the 'God of Shinobi' that she was rattled just by him sitting there in his robes and painting, smoke billowing from the pipe in his mouth. And he wasn't even scowling or doing anything menacing, he was smiling serenely the entire time.
"I'm sorry." Hiruzen said suddenly, surprising Haku who jolted a bit in the seat provided to her as she waited for whatever reason she had been taken there for, "I hope this old man hasn't made you wait for too long. It's just, this time of day is good to paint the village. Early morning leaves too much of a glare and I can't make it out too well, but on the other hand I've already done so many sunsets over the years. I haven't really done many daytime pieces."
Haku didn't respond though, merely keeping an eye on the current reigning Hokage as he stood up and moved from the stool he had been painting at and back to his very spacious and cushioned chair behind his desk, complete with crystal ball set in the middle of it and ceremonial hat nearby.
Placing more tobacco in his pipe, silence reigned over the room once more until Hiruzen spoke again. Apparently Haku was not confident enough to say anything given her situation. She was still somewhat injured and still very tired. Her chakra was low and any ninja worth their salt could probably have finished her at the moment, "You chose to land in a very dangerous place. The east coast peninsula of the mainland; Cha no Kuni… it's a very treacherous place nowadays."
"I noticed Hokage-sama." Haku commented a bit smartly before choosing to bite her tongue again in case she had offended him. She did not expect the amused laughter from the powerful man, "I figured that to be neutral lands. That was why it was chosen as the landing place for our exfiltration from Mizu no Kuni."
"With the isolation of your islands due to your own domestic troubles you couldn't have been expected to know that there is a high level of influence that has been procured by the shipping magnate Gato, the head of Gato Company." Hearing of her former employer on the mission that changed everything from Hiruzen got her to pay rapt attention to him, "In Cha no Kuni which is basically a country that's a peninsula commerce reigns supreme, and Gato managed to gain sizeable land holdings to further his own business."
"That doesn't explain exactly why it was a hornet's nest of activity when my ship reached near the shore." Haku said with a frown.
At this point the age on Hiruzen's face could be seen clearer than any other point, the weathered marks of 71 years of age making themselves known, "We've found that Gato has funded the formation of many different hidden bases and other military endeavors for Otogakure in something of a working relationship. Degarashi Port is his main base of operations; a town that has done nothing but go downhill since three years ago. It's more of a fortress now than a town, and it's swarming with Oto shinobi lent out to him as his own private army for 'protection'. It's their gateway to the seas as it were."
"How do you know all of these things?"
"Spies were periodically sent in undercover after a disastrous mission years ago got our attention towards the newest hidden village in the Elemental Nations and their particular interest towards that area." Hiruzen told her as he placed more tobacco in his pipe and relit it, "It's of no concern now. It soon grew too hot for me to safely keep any eyes within that town. But it was never deemed a military move, just a client hiring a large contingent of shinobi to protect his equally large landholdings."
It was a rather brazen move of advancement for one's village, but it wasn't necessarily antagonistic. Nothing aggressive towards Konoha had been done, other than the fact that they had more than likely moved over the lands of Hi no Kuni to reach Cha no Kuni. As a matter of fact it was a rarity when a Konoha ninja engaged an Otogakure ninja.
"You know of my own Mizukage's request Hokage-sama." Haku asked, hands set firmly clenched in her lap, "This is only going to get worse. As I said to your interrogation force; she is not asking for you to commit an army, nothing close. Just a few of your ninja that you can trust in dealing with the treachery of Otogakure and your former student Orochimaru."
A nearly invisible flinch came to Hiruzen's face as Orochimaru was brought up as his former student, "There are very few I would trust with a matter as serious as that."
"We will of course reward you in a most fitting manner that we are able to provide, including the pay of an S-rank mission." Haku added, standing up to bow, "Kiri is prepared to forfeit hosting rights to the chunin exams to Konoha whenever they are scheduled to come our way for the next several years for your assistance in this manner."
A plume of smoke flew from the old man's mouth as he observed the bowing Kiri hunter-nin, "Your name was Haku, correct?"
"Yes Hokage-sama."
"A part of me wants to say that I cannot commit a team to assist you as you ask. That doing such a thing would be reprehensible as the Hokage, to send good shinobi into a situation that they don't endeavor to involve themselves in." Haku's head lifted up from her bow with a rejected look on her face at his words, "That being said, I have no doubt that there are a good few dozen shinobi here that would volunteer to put the boots to Orochimaru if given the opportunity and excuse, of which you have so richly granted us."
If they could indirectly do damage to Orochimaru's hidden village before he did damage to the sovereignty of Mizu no Kuni and its own hidden village system it could only help the rest of the world in general.
The brown eyes of Haku went wide as she observed Hiruzen writing out mission directives on a scroll for the benefit of whichever team would accept the mission. She couldn't believe it had actually worked. She hadn't even been expecting assistance to return to Kiri, let alone an acceptance of the request, "W-Who do you plan on sending if I could ask you?"
Hiruzen chuckled at the fact that Haku seemed so surprised. The pay for an S-rank mission was very high, plus hosting more chunin exams was a very big deal. That wasn't even setting aside the fact that he felt responsible for the things that Orochimaru had done and had continued to do since fleeing Konoha, "I only have two people that I know without a doubt will wish to go. Other than that I have four open spots that I will need to fill."
"If there are spaces open…" Haku ventured to say, "There are people that I would like to request would fill those spots." A raised eyebrow of interest and curiosity from Hiruzen was the unspoken response, "If it is okay with you. I do not wish to be too presumptuous as you have been very gracious to me thus far."
"Run the names by me." Hiruzen instructed of her, "I will see what I can do if they are suitable to the severe nature of the mission." Haku only smiled at him despite his limitation on who she could ask for, "Choose carefully if you are that aware of the shinobi in this village that you can select who you wish to assist you."
"I'm quite certain that they'll be able to help." Haku stated confidently, "One of them was able to defeat Zabuza-sama despite being ambushed, and another one of them happens to be someone who had defeated me the most thoroughly in my entire career." She then decided to add something after the fact, "After all, he also told me that if I ever needed his help I could ask him. Something about how a future Hokage couldn't be weak."
Hiruzen rolled his eyes and stifled a groan, 'Naruto… who else?'
XxX
(Dark Tower Room in an Undisclosed Location)
Nine transparent chakra images appeared in a dark room. The main one in the appearance of a man with spiky hair and strange ripple-patterned eyes spoke first, "It has been quite a while since we've all contacted one another like this. I trust everyone is doing well and have their targets tracked?"
A figure in the form of Deidara was the first to speak up, "The Nanabi is still inside of Takigakure, un." He said, his image fading in and out due to interference, "She's strong, and they like her, something like the village's protector of sorts. She can fly too, and I can't hold her village hostage with a bomb… the tree in the middle of it is big enough to endure my C3."
Another image, this one in the hunched over form of Sasori spoke up next, "The Shukaku is in Suna as you know. The populace is afraid of him, but not like they used to be in his youth. He seems more apathetic towards anything other than missions that take him closer to Konoha ninja. He seems to have an axe to grind with that village or someone in it. I'd send Itachi to deal with him if need be, if only to coax him into fighting. Kisame can help deal with his sand."
The image of Kisame laughed, "Sasori… volunteering us for particular jobs, and even after I was the one that took down the Rokubi. But we'll have to pass on it for now. Itachi-san and I are still searching for the whereabouts of the Sanbi. Old Yagura up and disappeared on us right under our noses."
"You're all fucking useless. The whole lot of you." One vulgar hologram said with what appeared to be a large scythe hanging from his back, "How the hell do you lose a Kage for Jashin's sake?"
"Ask Sasori. He did it before right under a whole village's nose." The hologram next to him said with his strange green and red colored eyes, "Hidan and I just brought in the Yonbi… I'd rather cash in on some of the bounties I racked up pulling that one off."
"You're a greedy heathen Kakuzu."
"The opinion of a cultist doesn't really mean anything to me."
Sasori spoke up once again to cut off the petty bickering, "My spy informed me that the Kyuubi jinchuuriki has resurfaced back in Konoha again. He's back on active duty, and Orochimaru is causing trouble in Kirigakure. There's a chance that he's behind Yagura's disappearance."
"I'll investigate that Leader-sama." A hologram that showed a fully-evolved pair of Sharingan eyes stated calmly and firmly, "Kisame and I will go to Mizu no Kuni and track down the whereabouts of the Sanbi. We still need to find an opening to go after the Kyuubi jinchuuriki, especially if he's grown stronger over the last three years. We don't know what he's capable of. Better to give rumors time to circulate about first."
"We cannot seal the Kyuubi until last anyway or else it will ruin everything." The first hologram with the eerie ripple-pattern eyes said, "Very well. Itachi and Kisame will be dispatched to look into the disappearance of the Sanbi. If someone has destroyed the jinchuuriki we will probably have to wait for it to reappear, but I don't believe it is that simple. We will reconvene at a later date to discuss how we will deal with capturing the Hachibi that never leaves Kumo's territory later."
With that, the transmission of chakra images shut off one by one.
Ongoing Stats (Out of 5)
Konoha Ninja
Hagane Kotetsu
Ninjutsu: 2
Taijutsu: 3.5
Genjutsu: 3
Intelligence: 3
Strength: 3
Speed: 3
Stamina: 2.5
Hand-Seals: 2.5
Total Score: 22.5
Kamizuki Izumo
Ninjutsu: 3
Taijutsu: 3
Genjutsu: 2.5
Intelligence: 3
Strength: 2.5
Speed: 3
Stamina: 3.5
Hand-Seals: 1.5
Total Score: 22
Hyuuga Hanabi
Ninjutsu: 2.5
Taijutsu: 3.5
Genjutsu: 2
Intelligence: 3
Strength: 1
Speed: 2
Stamina: 1.5
Hand-Seals: 2
Total Score: 17.5
Hyuuga Hinata
Ninjutsu: 3.5
Taijutsu: 4
Genjutsu: 3.5
Intelligence: 3.5
Strength: 1.5
Speed: 3
Stamina: 2
Hand-Seals: 3
Total Score: 24
Otogakure Shinobi
Tayuya
Ninjutsu: 3.5
Taijutsu: 2
Genjutsu: 5
Intelligence: 4.5
Strength: 1.5
Speed: 3
Stamina: 3
Hand-Seals: 4
Total Score: 26.5
Sakon
Ninjutsu: 4
Taijutsu: 3.5
Genjutsu: 2
Intelligence: 2.5
Strength: 4
Speed: 3.5
Stamina: 4
Hand-Seals: 4
Total Score: 27.5
Yakushi Kabuto
Ninjutsu: 4.5
Taijutsu: 3.5
Genjutsu: 4.5
Intelligence: 5
Strength: 3
Speed: 3.5
Stamina: 3
Hand-Seals: 5
Total Score: 32