Chapter 69

Kurotsuchi tried her best to keep her cool. Honestly, she did.

She was level-headed and confident in her abilities, but at times that led to moments of arrogance. Moments like two days ago.

She should have put Uzumaki back under, the very moment he'd awoken in fact. But she wanted to see what Konoha's jinchuuriki was like firsthand for herself. He hadn't impressed her, and every subsequent time she had seen him after from that first moment had done nothing to change her mind. At his worst, he looked two steps away from gnawing his own leg off like a trapped coyote just to get the chain off that kept him hooked to the wall of his cell.

There was no way he would have made his escape before the chunin exam participants made their way back to their villages. Not without access to the things that made him truly dangerous, his chakra and unique ninjutsu. By then they would have come up with a way to extract the Kyuubi somewhat safely and subtly, and even if they hadn't they would have had the run of the village to themselves for a month before the final exam began.

It was plenty of time to get the biju out, let the medics study his corpse, and dispose of it. To do it right then would have been ill-advised even if they could do it. Such a thing would have required all of the village's manpower for security, and all of that was being dedicated to security for the chunin exams in the first place. Not only that, but every village would know of their little secret within six hours' time if they did it the moment they got a hold of him.

Only, Uzumaki did escape.

Not only did Uzumaki escape, the Uchiha did as well. And no one could find them.

The prison was a swarming hive of humanity, with shinobi checking all over, in every nook and cranny. No one had left since long before the escapes were noted, so the guards manning the posts had nothing to report as to the comings and goings. Even then, it had only been Kurotsuchi stepping out to oversee her assignment for the exams. Not doing so would have been suspicious to the jounin sensei of the other villages, as it had been something assigned to her before any of this Kyuubi and Sharingan business ever began.

What the hell? How did they drop the ball? And where did that random white plant-man corpse come from in Uchiha's cell? Was that who freed him?

How had this happened? She had been there yesterday! Hell, she had been there earlier that morning! Uzumaki had still been chained to the wall with a look on his face that made it seem as though his brain would overheat if he kept thinking, and Uchiha had still been isolated, blindfolded, and unable to so much as turn his head.

When addressing the amassed prison staff, it was very hard to not remind herself that one day prior, everything seemed to be going Iwagakure's way. Now, it looked like it could all blow up, right next to the powder keg that was the chunin exams.

"Iwa doesn't get stuff like this dropped in our laps every day. All we had to do was one, simple thing. Just one," Kurotsuchi said, trying to keep a vein in her temple from pulsing as she spoke, "That's why I'm asking... can anyone tell me just how we let the two most valuable and dangerous people our village has had in our hands in twenty years escape? And what the hell are we doing about it?"

Every shinobi and kunoichi stood dumbly, not knowing how to respond. All of them looked around at each other as if that would magically create something to blame it on, to take the heat off of them.

A handful of the staff had been found incapacitated in various ways, and the ones that would eventually be able to wake up again hadn't done so yet. There would be no answers from there in the next hour at least, and time was of the essence.

In the lineup, same as everyone else, were two nondescript Iwagakure shinobi, but these were mere disguises. Underneath the basic disguises, Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke stood, waiting to be dismissed. They still needed to come up with a way to make their way out of the prison itself before the guards all caught on. It was only a matter of time.

Sadly, leaving in any way would get them much unneeded attention. If the ninjas manning the entrance were eagle-eyed and paranoid before, they most certainly would be now.

"You!" Kurotsuchi suddenly barked, causing Naruto and Sasuke to freeze in place and turn to face her. Damn, and they had been so close to the gathering ending so that they could get away from her, "Did you two have any ideas before this little get-together was called?" She asked, stomping right up to the two of them.

Kurotsuchi got as far up in Naruto's face as she rightly could, wanting the entire work force of the prison to know of her displeasure. She was going to continue yelling at the pair, until she suddenly stopped, choosing to instead analyze Naruto's face.

She had never seen him before, she was certain of it, which wasn't such a big deal. There were tons of shinobi in the village, and many who worked in the prison that she had never seen before. What mattered was that while she knew she didn't know who this person was, his face looked damnably familiar.

So did the guy next to him somehow. He was scowling, but waiting patiently. He wasn't even the one that set her senses off.

Where on earth was that vague sense of familiarity coming from when she looked at the more expressive one?

She didn't know enough Iwa shinobi by name for it to bother her that she couldn't place two of them, and she definitely didn't remember crossing paths with either of them before to any significant degree.

"I asked you two a question," Kurotsuchi said, her voice notably quieter as she tried to place the appearance of the two shinobi she had begun to shake down, "...Where are you going?"

Naruto looked over at Sasuke, who was ever calm under pressure and smooth in his reply, "If they escaped, they've got to be on the way out of the village. We can head them off or catch up if they're already gone. The only direction they could possibly go that would be safe for them in the end is east."

Kurotsuchi stared a transformed Sasuke down, while Naruto of all people mentally begged Sasuke not to try and do something dumb like use his Sharingan to try and hypnotize her into agreeing with him. He didn't put it past him for a moment not to do it.

In the end, Kurotsuchi backed down and waved them on, "Send word to Pursuit Squads and then get your asses back here. I need everyone to figure out who dropped the ball and let them escape. And be discreet. Don't make too much of a fuss in town."

Both Naruto and Sasuke nodded before hastily leaving and never turning back around… all the way outside. Not another soul tried to stop them. Not after they had been given direct orders from the Tsuchikage's granddaughter.

The natural sunlight hitting their eyes for the first time in days burned them mercilessly, but they were able to hold off on flinching until they were out and into Iwagakure proper. The entire village sat amongst a mountain range comprised of small waterfalls. The buildings were all grey, made of rock and stone; shaped from large, elevated rock formations into tower-like structures. Many of them sat on cliffs connected by a network of bridges.

The entrance to the prison Naruto and Sasuke had been trapped inside of was built into one of the rocky mountain ranges surrounding the village, giving them a grand view of just what they were going to have to explore if they were hoping on getting to Itachi's body, and more importantly his eyes.

Neither one of them believed that they were in over their heads, but they weren't delusional enough to think that this would be a cakewalk either.

XxX

(With Ino – Hi no Kuni – Konohagakure no Sato)

Ino hadn't said a word to her parents about the mission she'd been slated to go on. She simply returned home and immediately began preparing her things. In less than fifteen minutes she was fully equipped and out the door again with a quick goodbye to her mother.

If there weren't so many buildings in the way, she would have been staring a hole through the village's main gate all the way there. Without question, this would be the most important mission she had ever undertaken until that point.

Not just because it involved finding Konoha's jinchuuriki. Because it involved finding Naruto.

If it had been her who was missing, Naruto would have raised hell until he got the chance to go and find her. After all of the times he had saved her backside and fought for her, it was high time that she had the opportunity to do something similar for him.

Before she made it to the main street that led to the village entrance, Ino found Shikamaru leaning against a fence, seemingly waiting for her to pass through. He stood eyes closed, arms crossed over his chest before noticing her presence and peering over at her.

He looked her over, noting how heavily she had packed to travel as he was the first of them to speak, "Well you got yourself together quickly," He said as she got closer and stopped right next to him.

Ino blew the bang covering her eye out of the way before fixing her fists to her hips in a serious stance, "Did you come to try and talk me out of going?"

-Because nothing he could say would make her stop.

Shikamaru didn't say anything, instead shaking his head and merely opening his arms wide. Ino's face twisted up as though she were about to cry. She didn't need any more prompting from him to step into the embrace and let it happen.

"Go get him back, would you?" Shikamaru said to her, gently rubbing her back. He could feel the tension in her, something she had probably been holding onto for the better part of a week, or longer, "It's too quiet around here. It's weird."

Ino nodded and moved away from her teammate with a noticeable shudder, blocking sobs that she had been holding back for days. She hadn't cried in all of that time. She wasn't about to start right before she set out to do something about the cause of it.

Shikamaru gave her a pat on the back as she left him behind for the gate. He would have told himself that he didn't want any part of missions like this, but he would have been lying to himself. As troublesome as it would have been, he wanted a hand in grabbing Naruto and getting him home.

He would have to rely on Ino to represent in the field for both of their sakes. God help whoever wound up being responsible for Naruto's disappearance then.

Continuing on her way to the gate, she eventually caught sight of Jiraiya waiting patiently on her. She really hoped that she wasn't late, but then remembered Jiraiya's earlier words to her. No tolerance for anything less than excellence and her complete compliance. If she had been late, he wouldn't have even been there.

Jiraiya had eyes on her like a hawk as she eventually stopped in front of him, showing the same face that he had seen on her yesterday, "Easy there. No need to be so tense before we even get moving. There'll be plenty of time for that soon enough," He told her, trying to talk the scowl off of her face, "Seriously, you'll give yourself wrinkles that way. Why do you think Tsunade needs to use that Henge of hers to-? Oh, hello there Shizune!"

Wisely cutting off his comment about Tsunade before the woman's apprentice could get within earshot, Jiraiya switched his attention over to greeting the dark-haired medic. The last thing he needed was for those words to reach Shizune somehow and then make their way to Tsunade herself.

Shizune either hadn't heard what he'd been starting to say, or otherwise ignored it, walking up to the team leader, prepared to head out. Instead of her normal black kimono, she wore the standard shinobi outfit of black trousers with the dark green flak vest. The black shirt she wore underneath had very long, loose sleeves that dropped over her hands whenever she held them down.

"Jiraiya-sama," Shizune said with a smile and a slight bow before looking over at Ino. The two made eye contact, and as much as Shizune wanted to go over and wrap the younger girl up in a hug, it would have been too much out of place. She would talk to her later, but for now she knew that if nothing else, Ino would give her absolute best if she was truly coming along.

"Sorry. I would have been here earlier but I had to drag Kakashi here to make sure he made it on time for once."

"Asuma, don't you think I would know better and make it here on time for something this important? On second thought, no need to answer that."

Ino wasn't surprised to see Kakashi. She remembered stepping in during the tail-end of a conversation between Kakashi and Jiraiya where he basically told Jiraiya that he was up for whatever the man had planned to go search for any sign of Naruto and Sasuke. Seeing Asuma though, it made her think that this might have been a bit dangerous for someone who was going to be the father of a newborn in a handful of months.

It was strange, because upon seeing her, a similar thought must have gone through his head as well, only he didn't have the reasoning that she did to settle on that her experience explained away any danger factor in her involvement.

"Ino? What in the hell are you doing here?" Asuma exclaimed upon seeing his only kunoichi student present amongst their vastly more experienced ilk. She shouldn't have even known that this mission was going to take place, let along be there to see them off. It was then that he saw that she was packed to travel and immediately turned his attention to Jiraiya, "Don't tell me. Jiraiya-sama, she-."

Oh no. Hell no. Not today. Not ever. She didn't need much time gauging his reaction at seeing her to realize that he was set to completely argue against her coming along. She hadn't gone through the trouble of getting the guts up to convince Jiraiya just to do the same thing with Asuma.

Ino had to put a stop to any of that talk before it even began, "Sensei, don't look at him, look at me," She said, stepping in front of Asuma to get his eyes off of Jiraiya. She needed him to pay full attention to her, "If you're going to say anything about my not being ready, or that I can't be taken into something like this, I just have to ask you one thing. What the fuck did you waste your time training us for?"

Jiraiya said nothing, did nothing to step in. This wasn't about him. He had already agreed to have Ino along for the ride, and she had already agreed to his terms of engagement. Anything beyond that was a moot point. If she was easily rattled enough to be talked down by Asuma, that was up to her. But this clearly was not the case.

To Asuma, the members of Team 10 were almost like his kids. Especially Ino. When Shikamaru and Naruto had gone off, she had remained in Konoha. He had remained her advisor when she had been a chunin doing her own missions with different teams. He had even worked with her on many an assignment for old times' sake.

This wasn't going to be a sunshiny, ideal mission. It was going to be very gritty. It was going to get ugly if they ever got a lead to follow. And there was a monumental chance that they wouldn't even find Naruto and Sasuke alive. There was a chance that they wouldn't find them at all.

No, Asuma still saw Ino as the pushy young girly-girl in the purple dress he'd met on day one of his time as a jounin instructor. The same one that fretted over getting her clothes dirty after a long mission.

Even if she was sixteen, going on seventeen, if he rubbed his eyes hard enough he could still see her as a twelve-year-old genin, as clear as day. Inoichi and his wife may have spawned her, but she was his kid too, damn it. And unlike the other two in Naruto and Shikamaru, she had never been far enough out of his line of sight for her to grow up without his noticing. He would always be the most worried about her.

"Sensei..." Ino said in an eerily level voice, as though it were the calm before the storm, "I'm a big girl now. You don't need to hide anything from me. You can be honest. So if you don't think you could bring me up to be a good enough shinobi of this village, to do the missions I need to be able to do, I want to know why you bothered to let me ever be a genin in the first place."

"Ino," Asuma wanted to explain why she shouldn't go, why she had no business getting involved. Yes, she was a chunin, but this was the kind of thing that would rattle someone who wasn't a hardened veteran, "It's not that. I know you're talented."

Ino stared him down before nodding slowly, "I'm glad that's been established. So let's go."

Asuma grabbed onto her shoulder and spun her back around as she sought to end the conversation and start out on the mission, "I don't want you to go because something like this might break you, goddamn it!" He told her, "This isn't some cut-and-dry job you can distance yourself from! You're going to see us do things that will make you sick! You'll probably end up doing a few yourself! Not yet! Not until you have to!"

Not until it was absolutely necessary. Until it was for the safety of the village, the country as a whole. Until it had to be in her hands. Until then, leaving it all in the hands of the veterans who had been forced to step up and do it themselves was for the best. They had to protect the next generation. The mistakes of the past had never stopped trickling down and affecting them. Those messes had to be cleaned up by those who made them. It was only right.

It shouldn't have been Ino's job to risk her life in such a way, for such a thing.

"...I don't want you to face something that will tear you up while you're still so young. I don't that for you. For any of you."

Frowning deeply at one of her chief role models, Ino moved his hand off of her shoulders and grabbed Asuma's bearded face in her hands.

Ino had a deep understanding of people, mostly without ever needing to read their minds for a moment. It came with the territory of working in the Intelligence and Torture Division. You had to pick it up. She understood. Really, she did. She actually appreciated it.

But she needed him to cut that shit out immediately.

"If you didn't want me to see or do something that would tear me up, you should have failed the team during orientation," Ino declared, getting Asuma to widen his eyes in surprise, "Because it's way too late for that. If you'd have done that I wouldn't have wound up in T&I. I wouldn't have learned about the burden that Goldie carries on his back every morning when he wakes up. I wouldn't have gotten so close to him. And he wouldn't have been lost like this."

She needed him to understand her.

"Whatever I have to do, to get him back or at least find out what happened, won't ever fuck me up inside worse than if I just turned around and went home without even trying," The Yamanaka telepath said quietly. So softly that only the two of them could clearly make out what was being said, "So thank you, sensei." She continued, stopping to kiss him on the forehead before speaking again, "...But if we have to have a conversation like this again, I'm gonna headbutt you in the face, 'kay?"

Asuma suddenly didn't feel like a thirty year old man. He felt like a teenager again. It lasted for only a moment, but it was long enough to realize that it had happened. Regaining his composure in the face of Ino's resolve, he stepped back and lit a cigarette to busy himself in the meantime, "Mmph."

Jiraiya smirked and moved off of the gate he had been leaning against, clapping his hands together to get everyone's attention on him, "Well if everyone's done with that, I think it's time we get down to business," The mirth quickly fell from his face the mood shifted with his expression, "Move."

Everyone took off on cue, moving right behind him as he led the way through the forests, heading due west.

Whether Suna liked it or not, whether anyone liked it or not, the first stop was the last place anyone had seen Naruto or Sasuke. The place that was now off-limits, that Konoha was taking the blame from Suna for destroying. The ghost town that now lay in ruins.

Sora-ku.

XxX

(With Naruto and Sasuke – Tsuchi no Kuni – Iwagakure no Sato)

Sometimes an underdone Henge and an old-fashioned disguise was just what the doctor ordered. Don't change everything. Just change enough so that your real traits don't stand out. Just a face in the crowd.

"What were you saying? My plan was what now?"

"I can't believe that steaming load of bullshit actually worked."

Escape aside, Naruto and Sasuke figured they had at most two hours to find a place to hole themselves up before people smartened up and their disguises became useless. In the meantime they spent as much of it as they could getting familiar with Iwagakure before finding a place to disappear to.

That information would come in handy later, knowing where everything was. Sasuke personally doubted that Itachi's body was really hidden anywhere. It was probably just in the place that had the most security. Normally that wouldn't have been a concern for him or Naruto, but they had a few problems at the moment.

Namely that the two of them were weighed down with so much fuuinjutsu to restrict them that they might as well have been genin all over again. They would have to wait until they could hide somewhere and then search each other for the seals before removing them from each other.

That would probably get awkward later.

"Man, we didn't find our gear," Naruto complained as they walked through the village streets. Naruto felt very naked without his primary Chakra Chain sticking out of his wrist and connected to a deadly weapon.

Sasuke rolled his eyes in return. He was missing his war fan and everything else he'd come armed to the teeth with at Sora-ku as well, but no one saw him crying about it, "So what? Get replacements when we get back home."

"I don't want to buy another machete," Naruto insisted. He liked the one he had. It was nice, sharp, and the handle had been broken in for his grip, "And my goggles! Do you have any idea how hard it is to make the seals I put on those things?"

Not to mention the large amount of sealing notes and explosive tags he kept on his person. Those were gone now, probably the first thing those vultures stole from his supply. Hell, they even swiped his cigarettes. They could have run off with anything he'd had on his person at the time. Even the necklace Tsunade had given probably would have been at risk if it hadn't been nestled safely around his neck.

…

Naruto reached for his neck and found a disturbing lack of a cord wrapped around it, "…No," Naruto rasped dryly, feeling no green crystal pressed securely against his chest under his disguise, "No-no-no."

"What?" Sasuke asked, watching Naruto throw a miniature fit in public as if there were parasitic insects all over him, "What are you searching for?"

"Someone took the Shodai Hokage's necklace!" Naruto hissed at Sasuke under his breath, panic evident in his face.

Oh, that was right. Naruto did wear that ugly thing all the time, didn't he? Sasuke still didn't see why he was supposed to care, "So what?"

Freaking Uchiha. Of course he wouldn't give a crap about a Senju Clan artifact, but let Naruto not care about Itachi's eyes being in someone else's hands and watch Sasuke get set off that way, "Aside from the fact that it's worth three whole mountains and the gold underneath them-," Naruto said, repeating the line he was constantly told about the necklace's value, "-Tsunade-baachan will murder me if she finds out I lost her keepsake from her grandpa."

"Right. Which is the less desirable fate... as opposed to Iwa murdering you and ripping the Kyuubi out of your guts."

"I'm not sure which of those things I should be more afraid of. That should tell you a lot about her."

"Idiot."

To hell with it. It didn't matter when there were so many other things at play. Jewelry with sentimental and historic value could wait for when there weren't village secrets and their very lives at risk, "Anyway, why haven't they killed you and taken out your eyes yet?" Naruto asked, finding a spot out of the way to talk with Sasuke as they tried to recall their bearings for later.

"They have Itachi's eyes and they don't know the first thing about using them," Iwa had tried to torture that out of Sasuke, and had failed. Also, they were still looking for a candidate they wanted to try and take them. The idiots wouldn't know that Itachi's eyes were more or less useless to anyone other than him at this point, "Don't worry. After they did whatever they were going to do with those and screwed them up, they'd have taken mine out next if it makes you feel better."

Naruto wasn't sure how that was supposed to make him feel better, but at least Sasuke may or may not have been making the effort to begin with, "…" He didn't know quite how to respond though, "…Well alright then."

"You though," Sasuke said, eying Naruto carefully, "I thought they would just deal with you and be done with it. Why haven't they taken the you-know-what and killed you yet?"

That should have been the damn priority, getting a gigantic chakra beast out of Naruto's gut and into someone loyal to Iwa. Their available resources should have been on getting that done first and foremost, not on trying to figure out all that they could about his brother's eyes.

Naruto's grin spoke of both pride and pure, unadulterated vindictiveness, "They want to replace both of their jinchuuriki that Akatsuki took, but they don't know how to get it out of dad's seal and into somebody else without actually freeing it first."

That would have been a bad thing to do. That would have been very bad. It was a very fair reason to keep him in holding until they were absolutely sure they had a way to reach past Naruto's seal safely. Still, Sasuke wasn't happy that Naruto hadn't been awake to get any of the torture he'd been getting.

Sure, none of it would leave any physical scars or any mental ones worse than those he had already been sporting beforehand, but that wasn't the point. It hadn't exactly been a stay at a five-star resort. Both of them stopped off at a rocky bluff overlooking a scenic area of the gray, stony village. It wasn't exactly in plain sight, so it bought them a few minutes of privacy at least.

Naruto wasted no time in losing his Iwagakure flak vest and shirt, showing his back to Sasuke, who wasn't exactly thrilled to be in front of a half-naked jinchuuriki, "What the hell are you doing?"

"I've got seals all over me, and you probably do too," Naruto explained, trying to channel chakra to help reveal more of the fuuinjutsu on him, "I found one on my gut, but there's more that I can't see, so that means they're on my back. I can't reach. Don't be weird, ya bastard! Just get 'em off for me!"

It had been mentioned before, but Naruto had lost most of his shame after being trained by Jiraiya. Shedding clothes in public meant almost nothing to him.

"I was awake when they were processing us, and they only put one on me," Sasuke said, raiing an eyebrow in return as he spotted the marks that Naruto likely referred to. That didn't mean he was going to help though, "Aside from the fact that I don't know half of what you do about seals, I really don't want to touch you. Why don't you just make one of your stupid clones to do it for you?"

"…I was going to do that. This whole thing was just a trust building exercise… and you failed!"

"…"

"No? You're not buying it?"

"Just get the stupid seals off so we can work."

Five minutes later, five seals were removed from Naruto, finally letting Naruto take the Five Elements Seal off of his stomach. One was also taken off of Sasuke as well, though his was situated on the Cursed Seal that sat on his neck, instead of being somewhere he couldn't reach.

"So now what?" Naruto asked, fully dressed once again and feeling quite smothered by standing in the middle of the community that had captured him just a handful of days ago, "We've got to find your brother's eyes, but we don't know where to start."

"I don't know," Sasuke said before deciding to try and make a call. They knew just as much as they did when they were both locked up, only now they had a bit of the lay of the land. It was better than nothing, but it still wasn't much, "I think we should split up for a few hours."

If Sasuke had been expecting Naruto to be excited about one of them coming up with some course of action, he was starkly disappointed. Fortunately, he didn't care.

"That's a shitty idea," Naruto declared, as bluntly as humanly possible. And coming from him that meant something. Naruto's plans weren't exactly kinds of things that went down in tactical textbooks. Then again, he had been hanging out with Shikamaru for a large portion of his life. Shikamaru set the bar for ideas pretty high, "That's really bad."

For the first time since meeting back up in Iwagakure, Sasuke gave Naruto the infuriating smirk that he hadn't exactly been missing, "Do you have any better ones?"

It just so happened that Naruto did not, and turnabout was fair play after all. He had used the same reasoning to justify his own approach to escaping earlier, "...Meet back here later?" Naruto said begrudgingly. Where they were seemed as good a spot as any.

"Four hours," Sasuke said in agreement before they both went their separate ways. He didn't care how long it took. He wasn't stepping foot outside of Iwa until he had Itachi's eyes in his possession. Then he could wrap up his ugly family business once and for all and perhaps move on with his life.

XxX

(Outskirts of Iwagakure)

Tobi sat on a bluff of one of the mountain ranges surrounding Iwagakure, looking down at the vibrant village below. It had been so long since it had seen the fires of war, but very few of its shinobi had forgotten what that was like. Even their children were made to know for certain of what had been in their past.

What a worthless way to teach their youth, and for what? To prepare them for the next wholesale slaughter?

Well it wouldn't matter once he saved them all. This worthless place was just like the rest of the world; beyond saving. It wouldn't be missed once everything changed for good.

Tobi's eye moved away from the scenic view of Iwa when he felt the presence of Akatsuki's primary spy emerge from the ground behind him. Half black and half white-green in color, despite being dressed in Akatsuki's robe he seemed more plant than man.

"The Nine-Tails jinchuuriki and Sasuke are both free," The white half of the plant-man reported dutifully, "But Sasuke killed one of our Zetsus that helped him escape."

Such a thing didn't matter to Tobi. White Zetsus were easily replaceable, and served a good purpose as agents for his cause at a time when Akatsuki was down its share of operatives. Killing off one or two meant nothing when he could grow multiples of that at a time.

"I expected nothing less, honestly," Tobi said, kicking his legs idly over the side of the cliff, "That boy has a lot of rage in him under normal circumstances, Zetsu. I can only imagine how twisted up he must be now, for various reasons."

Zetsu's white half chimed in, speaking in deference to the masked man of Akatsuki, "So what do you want to do, Tobi?"

A good question. There were plenty of options available for him at the moment. All beneficial to boot. He had been stewing after both Kisame and Itachi died, but there were a few opportunities to cause his share of fires to pop up. The chunin exams were a powder keg after all, and there were various ways to cause trouble indirectly, "I think I'll go and see him myself. It's been so long since I've stood amongst… family."

"And the Nine-Tails?"

"It will be fine where it is for now," Tobi said. Even if Naruto blew it and was recaptured, Iwa wouldn't kill him until the Kyuubi was extracted, something that wouldn't happen suddenly, "The jinchuuriki can't escape Iwagakure on his own, nor would he try to without Sasuke along for the ride, even if he had to hold off the entire village to buy time. He's predictably loyal in that way."

From the eyehole in Tobi's mask, a swirling vortex took form, expanding outward and consuming his body. In a matter of moments he had teleported from his seated position on the cliff, leaving no trace of his presence behind. Zetsu quickly made to do the same, slowly sinking his body into the ground seamlessly.

"Things are getting fun," The white half of Zetsu said, while the black one scoffed at his other side, "Perhaps for types such as ourselves. We won't be anywhere near the point of impact once it all begins."

XxX

(Amegakure no Sato – Pain's Tower)

Konan stood out on the balcony at the very top of the tower at the center of Amegakure, looking out over the high-rises that comprised the heart of the village. This was her home, and one day when peace reigned across the world she would be able to stop the perpetual rain that her home was known for.

But it seemed to be more complicated now than they had planned for in the first place.

Itachi and Kisame were dead, and the Nibi jinchuuriki had been rescued before all of her biju could be extracted. The battle in Sora-ku had been a complete disaster and no one could figure out how it happened. Both Nagato and Konan swore that Tobi had a inkling of what happened and why, but he wasn't forthcoming with any theories.

She could feel the presence of one of Nagato's Six Paths of Pain behind her before any of them even said anything.

"Must we really be concerned with Orochimaru at the moment?" Konan asked, "I know he possesses the Sanbi, but going after him now… I'm afraid only you would be able to take him on as he is."

The Deva Path shook its head as it moved out into the rain to stand with Nagato's most loyal underling, "If we give him enough time to dig, it will be another several years before he surfaces for us to find him again," He explained, "I will not give him the opportunity. Even with the power of a biju at his fingertips, Orochimaru cannot outmatch God."

She knew that. No one had the power that Nagato had. She had never seen a more powerful being in her entire life. If there was anyone who was meant to bring about a new world order, it was him. But Orochimaru, she had never seen a more conniving, scheming individual. If he was an enemy, and he most certainly was, he would stop at nothing to thwart and eventually crush them.

He had the advantage of having intelligence on them that they didn't have on him, and he was not enough of a fool to do battle with Nagato without thorough preparation. Until then, he would likely continue to chip away at their remaining manpower. Deidara, Hidan, Kakuzu, and Konan herself.

That, or he would let their enemies do it for him.

It wasn't that she feared battling Orochimaru. She was confident in her own abilities and would stand against even the Kage themselves if it was required of her, with full confidence that she would emerge victorious. But there was no way to fight Orochimaru and believe for a moment that you would win cleanly.

For anyone who fought Orochimaru, even when you won you didn't really beat him in the end. For a man searching for immortality, he seemed to have found it in several different ways. And now he seemed bolder than ever before, with a body that had the power to support how disgustingly skilled he was as a shinobi.

"I don't like this," Konan said, not even flinching as the rain from her beloved village impacted off of her face, "We've lost Itachi, Kisame, and Sasori. They were among the best their villages ever produced."

Nagato understood, but to back down now would have been to throw away what they had spent over twenty years of their lives working toward, "Konan. Our preparations were made knowing that the goal of capturing all of the jinchuuriki would be difficult. We will incur losses, and we will face hardship. But it will be worth it in the end. We can bring peace to this world. We will lead the way."

And if the entire world decided to go kicking and screaming, he would show them the pain that their struggling would cause. After they knew true pain, they would heel. They always did. They would bow or be destroyed. That included Orochimaru as well.

XxX

(With Naruto – Tsuchi no Kuni – Iwagakure no Sato – Downtown Area)

Naruto found himself constantly looking over his shoulder as he traversed Iwagakure on his own. He couldn't help but feel paranoid. Too paranoid to try and use his chakra pulse to check his surroundings. Now that the seals retarding his chakra were off of him, any use of his chakra in a large manner would have been like shooting a warning flare into the air for any of Iwa's sensors to check in on.

But it was fine. All he had to do was be cool and pretend that he belonged there until he could find where Itachi's body was being kept. Someone had to know, or it had to be somewhere obvious. It was obvious for the most part in Konoha which buildings contained sensitive details. Hell, sometimes they were even labeled.

'There are a lot of foreigners around,' Naruto thought as he saw many different headbands while exploring. It made him feel a tad less self-conscious to think about, 'Eh, that's how it's supposed to go in a village hosting the chunin exams.'

That was something that could work out for them later... if only he knew how far along things were. It definitely wasn't time for the final round yet, that much was clear. Naruto had been to enough chunin exams to know what that festival atmosphere was supposed to look like.

'Man, I hope Sasuke is able to find something,' Naruto thought to himself.

The longer they stayed there, the more openings there would be for them to escape, but that would only stand for as long as they weren't discovered. After their current disguises became worthless, what would they do then? 'We've gotta get out of here, fast.'

He had a plan in the works to aid with their escape, but it involved some serious people-watching. He just needed two good candidates for what he wanted out of people who weren't Iwa shinobi.

As he walked about, scanning the crowds he stopped upon seeing a rather familiar face from home.

Hanabi sat all by herself by herself, wearing her usual kunoichi garb. There were a few bandages on her, which meant she had just gotten through fighting not too long ago. It was then that Naruto remembered that she was supposed to compete in the chunin exams this time around. Of course! He had helped her train a bit for it in his spare time.

'Aww, Little Firecracker,' Naruto thought to himself, chest full of pride at the sight of her, even if she didn't look very regal at the moment, sitting around and taking in the sights while munching on a banana, 'If she's beaten up a bit she must have finished the second stage, and if she isn't moping or anything that's gotta mean she passed.'

Way to go. It was supposed to have been impressive for Naruto and all of his friends to make it that far back when they had taken the exams for the first time. Hanabi had just crushed the lot of them, by not only getting as far as she had as a rookie genin, but as an underage rookie genin. She had been two years younger than her entire class when she graduated.

He was so proud of her, he just wanted to run up and give her a big hug to congratulate her. Unfortunately, people were looking for him to torture and brutally murder him by removing the Kyuubi from his body, so doing something that suspicious wasn't the best course of action, no matter how much he wanted to.

The choice wasn't necessarily his though.

Hanabi must have felt him looking at her, because her eyes turned his way. She looked confused at the sight of an Iwagakure ninja fixing such a fond, harmless smile on her, but Naruto's pride in seeing Hanabi at the chunin exams slowly turned to horror when he could almost literally see the gears turning in her head at the sight of him.

'Oh shit,' He thought to himself upon realizing that Hanabi knew him well enough and was more than smart enough to see through his crappy disguise, 'I forgot. Hanabi's actually sharp.'

His beautifully simple disguise might have worked wonderfully on people who didn't know him and were looking for specific traits to find him, but Hanabi had seen him so often that she could key in on the little things that no one would look for and that he hadn't bothered changing to keep from making his transformation too complex.

She was figuring it out. It was all over her face.

He tried to play it off with a cool demeanor on the surface, but mentally he was panicking, 'You're seeing things. It's a mind trick. I'm not me. No, don't get up. No, don't come over here. Aww…'

At that point, the most he could do was lead her away, out of sight and earshot of anyone that would swarm on him after Hanabi made him in public. There was no doubt that she had. She wouldn't have followed him so reservedly if she hadn't.

Earlier, Naruto had been able to find an area outfitted with statues dedicated to Iwagakure's greatest heroes. It was a landmark area to Iwa, but something that all of their population had seen hundreds of times already. In the same vein, it would be something that outsiders wouldn't have cared too much about, giving him enough freedom to actually speak to her. He backtracked there and let all pretenses drop.

"Hey, Little Firecracker," He greeted in his actual voice. Both the sound of it, the manner of address he used, and the grin on his face flat out killed any possible doubt that Hanabi may have had that it was him.

"Naruto-oniisama…" Hanabi said, her posture limp and unrefined, quite unlike her. Dumbfounded was the best way to describe the way she looked, and he couldn't blame her, "Y-You came all this way to see how I was doing in the exams?"

He had completely forgotten that she had been in those this time around until he had seen her. Honestly, with everything that had been going on in his life since the last time he had even talked to her about the subject it had slipped his mind.

"Sure. Let's go with that," Naruto said, steering the young girl onward with him. It probably looked extremely odd for a man dressed in an Iwagakure uniform to be walking with a Hyuuga Clan member, but he didn't care about that at the moment. It wouldn't take long, and if this went well, he could give her some information and have her take it somewhere more useful, "So how'd you do?"

He really did want to know. He'd picked up that she'd passed thus far, but he wanted to hear it from her.

A shine came to Hanabi's big, clear eyes as she remembered how she and her team made their way through the tests thus far, "I'm in the final stage of exams. Kono-baka is too, but we're the only ones on our teams who made it through."

Well that was just fantastic. Of course Konohamaru, Moegi, and Udon were there as well, along with who knew how many other Konoha genin. That just made this a lot more dangerous. It dawned on him a bit too late.

No, he couldn't use Hanabi to carry a message to any of the jounin sensei present for the chunin exams. It would put too many of the genin in danger. Iwagakure wanted his capture kept under wraps, so they wouldn't do anything against the youngsters unless they knew that they were working with him and Sasuke.

'Damn it!' Naruto kicked himself inwardly. In hindsight, thirty seconds too late, making contact with Hanabi was the most irresponsible thing he could have done. She was just a genin. Yes, she was ultra-talented, but she didn't have any business getting mixed up in this kind of mess.

Unfortunately, Hanabi was the dangerous combination of sharp and ambitious, yet too inexperienced to be of use in the situation that she discovered. Why was Naruto there to see her when all of the teams would be heading back to the village where she could come to him then, and why was he in a Henge, weak though it may have been?

Whatever the answer to those questions were, she needed them. Holding Naruto's hand, she pulled him onto a seat next to her by a fountain.

"Onii-sama," Hanabi said, her demeanor more akin to that of a Hyuuga in her standing and position within the clan, "What's going on? Tell me, please."

Naruto figured that she was in it now. There wasn't any taking back the fact that he'd already spoken to her, so the best thing he could do now was make sure that she was up to speed. If something happened after this point, it was going to happen regardless.

"Okay, just sit tight. I'm hitting you with it all at once, Little Firecracker," Naruto inhaled fairly deeply in an effort to get what she needed to know all out in one breath, "The Kyuubi that attacked 17 years ago's not dead, it's living in my guts. I got captured on a mission and now Iwa wants to rip the Kyuubi out and stick it in somebody else to make them as badass as me. I got away, because like I said, I'm badass," He told her before realizing that there was more to it, "Oh, and Sasuke's here too. He got captured and escaped with me. We're looking for his dead brother's eyes, 'cuz Sasuke killed him on that mission I told you about, and now Iwa has the Sharingan. And that's bad."

Hanabi stood still, nodding and taking it all in. It was really very impressive that she was taking all of those crushing realities one after the other with only a stoic understanding. He hadn't even explained them that well. It was then that Naruto realized his hand was numb, and he quickly figured out why.

Hanabi had been holding it the entire time, and with every extra thing he had added onto his quick rundown of the current events surrounding him, she squeezed it a little bit tighter.

"I wish you hadn't told me that," The young genin girl said, staring out at the distance with a thousand-yard stare. That was a lot to absorb in a short amount of time, but she would have to do her best to suck it up and deal with it.

Naruto ran a hand over his bandanna-covered hair, regretting every action that had led to this moment. He had put a lot of pressure on an eleven-year-old girl's head, "I wish I hadn't talked to you in the first place. I just haven't seen a friendly face in a week."

"I thought you said Uchiha-san was here?"

"Right, a friendly face."

Hanabi turned her Byakugan on to make sure no one was nearby or watching them. Upon confirming that the coast was clear, she leaned over and gave Naruto the biggest hug she could. It surprised him at first, but he let her settle against him and placed an arm around her back, rubbing it comfortingly.

"We've got to get you out of here," Hanabi said, determination in her voice, "The second stage of the exam is over. When the teams all leave to head back to Konoha, we can try and-!"

"No, you don't do anything," Naruto demanded of her, squeezing her a mite tighter, "You didn't see me, and if it comes up with anyone else here who isn't from Konoha you damn sure don't know me. Don't even say a word with my name in it until you're far away from here. I'll be fine. I've just got to think of something else."

"But… but..."

Naruto cut off her disputes by kissing her gently on the forehead. He needed her calm, so that she would listen, "Forget about this. Go home, and train for the finals. I'll be back before you know it, and I'll come see you when I make it in. You made it to the finals, so I'll teach you a jutsu, just like I promised. Now be good, and do what I say."

Hanabi buried her face into his chest and let him rock with her. She was supposed to be taking the exams that would elevate her rank in the village, so why did she feel like she was seven-years-old all over again?

In the environment she lived in, with the expectations she had been saddle with so early in her life, her family stopped treating her like a child long before she had ever even met Naruto. She had been taught powerful Main Branch techniques very early, and had even been pushed to graduate the Academy two years before other students were supposed to. Now she was eleven and set to participate in the final stage of the most publicized event in the Elemental Nations, and was expected to win the whole thing and be promoted.

Until Naruto, the only one that treated her for what she was had been Hinata, and for some time her sister had feared that Hanabi had hated her for being 'weak' until she had grown her own confidence.

Naruto had been the kindest and most understanding person in her life, and also the one willing to make her act her age when she found herself too engrossed in doing otherwise. He was also the strongest. Not always because of combat-related reasons either. This was just another example.

Hanabi wanted to help him, but if he told her not to, there was a good reason for it. She wasn't going to go against him, even if she was afraid for him. After all, he promised he'd get back and teach her something special, "I love you Naruto-oniisama."

Naruto smiled down at her, stroking her shiny, brown hair. He didn't know why he had taken such a shine to Hanabi, but he was glad he did. He liked kids, and she was a good girl. It made her wish she actually was his little sister, "I know you do Little Firecracker. Now get back to your team."

He didn't give her the option to follow him, getting up and leaving before she could. As he expected, she did try to follow him, but once he was out of sight he left her in the dust. He doubted she was allowed to use her Byakugan within the village, which was probably why she looked around first before using it the last time, so she wouldn't once she was back within a crowd.

Naruto felt like a real jerk, ditching her like that. But the more time he spent around her, the worse it would be for the both of them. He would apologize once he made it back home.

"Right," He told himself miserly as he made his way back to where he was meant to meet with Sasuke, "So we really are on our own, and we can't get caught for at least another day or all of the genin teams are screwed."

No pressure though.

XxX

(Elsewhere in Iwagakure – With Sasuke)

The more time Sasuke spent searching Iwagakure, the testier he became. Itachi's corpse was around there somewhere. No one had any right to do anything with it. He had made a guarantee, that no one would even remember Itachi after he was through with him. There wouldn't be a trace left of him in the ninja world after Sasuke was done. That had been his vow, made to his brother's face during their final encounter.

What part of that involved letting Iwa study his corpse and learning ANYTHING worthwhile from the Mangekyou Sharingan!? None!

Even if they couldn't use the pair they had, they could learn something dangerous from it that Konoha would suffer from somewhere down the line.

The general population kept a healthy distance from the disguised, brooding Uchiha as he walked the streets, his mood festering. He wanted to grab the first rube off of the street that looked semi-important and grill him on where they did their research and development, optical genjutsu-style.

As a matter of fact, after running it through his head, that sounded like a great idea.

The finer points of espionage were not Sasuke's strong suits.

One hour after making his decision on this course of action, Sasuke had gone through five different Iwa shinobi, none of whom had any idea where Itachi's body was being stored.

Sasuke dropped another unconscious body onto the ground from where he'd been grabbing on to their collar, "Tch, nothing," He complained, exiting the alley he'd hypnotized his unaware prey into entering. It had been easy. Do something to get his target's attention from a hiding place and make eye contact. They never knew what hit them, and they wouldn't whenever they came to.

Leaving corpses in the village wasn't a good way to go about business. Just doing what he was already up to would raise enough alarms once things began to click for Iwa.

Before Sasuke could leave, a spiral vortex formed in the air behind him, getting his full attention. Had he been caught?

From the odd warp in time and space, a man in an orange swirling mask and an Akatsuki cloak stepped out. Sasuke took a tentative step back, not knowing what this person was capable of. All he knew was that if it was a member of Akatsuki, there was no way he could fight them off and keep a low profile.

Tobi's single Sharingan visible through his eyehole locked onto the young man before him and instantly saw through his disguise, "Sasuke. You don't need to hide from me," The man behind the mask spoke warmly, "It wouldn't do you any good anyway."

"Who in the hell are you supposed to be?" Sasuke snapped. Things just kept getting better and better. Not only did a member of Akatsuki appear out of thin air right in front of him, but they knew him well enough to try and use his given name.

Tobi clicked his teeth in a chiding manner, "Now is that any way to speak to family?"

He couldn't have said anything worse to that particular person.

Sasuke immediately drew a kunai from the borrowed supply pouch he had on-hand and did his level best to carve out Tobi's throat, "I don't have any family!" He roared. But with every try, he seemed to hit nothing. It was as though the man before him was a ghost.

It took several more tries before Tobi tired of Sasuke's anger and teleported out of his range, "I guess Itachi didn't tell you much of anything before he passed. That sounds like him, keeping things to himself. But he could never hide his real intentions from me."

Who was this fool? Speaking of Itachi as though they knew one another well. His brother was a familicidal psychopath. His entire life until the massacre had been a lie. It had to have been. To go from the docile, loving person he had been to the sort of man that could slaughter every member of his own clan down the last child…

"Fools should keep from talking about things that they don't understand," Sasuke warned, trying to calm himself down. None of this Itachi-talk mattered now. He was dead and gone. The clan was avenged, "Go back to wherever you came from, you freak."

Tobi let out a sigh, "I see my words will fall on deaf ears until I give you something worth latching onto. But I'm afraid you won't believe anything I say to you now. So allow me to extend an olive branch, as it were," With that, another portal opened to the side of the two of them, "If you're looking for Itachi's eyes, I think you would be advised to start here."

Through the vortex, Sasuke could see the outside of the location that the masked terrorist spoke of. He wasn't going to step foot inside of that thing. But he did take note of the building itself. He could find it on his own now that he knew what it looked like. If Itachi was really there, he'd work to get to him on his own terms.

"Thanks," Sasuke remarked dryly before turning his back and leaving once more, "Now fuck off."

Tobi didn't expect anything else, but this was a start, "I'll be in touch. Just remember. If you have anything you want to know, I'll always be around, Sasuke. Family should help family."

Right, because they were such close relatives. He should have asked Sasuke what he did to the last member of his family that he had come across, "And what do I call you?" Sasuke asked, never ceasing in his departure.

"Hmm. Let's go with… Madara."

Sasuke froze in place, and his eyes went wide at the reference of his clan's most iconic figure, but once he turned around, Tobi was gone without a trace. Quickly schooling his expression, Sasuke scoffed and continued on his way, "Tch. Whatever. Uchiha Madara, my ass."

There wasn't any time for Sasuke to dwell on anything that was said by the individual in the mask. He had a former dead-last to meet up, a facility to raid, and an enemy village to get the hell out of. Still, he would have been lying if he said that it didn't stick in the back of his mind.

He hadn't missed the Sharingan, after all.

Omake: 'Til Death Do Us What? (5)

It had been a long day for Naruto, and he had hardly gotten anything worthwhile done. His attention had been occupied throughout the day with the ever-present Shizuka. She really was set on getting him to come back to the Nadeshiko Village as her husband.

Fortunately, she had enough respect for boundaries to refrain from following him home. It wouldn't have surprised him though if he woke up and exited his apartment first thing in the morning to find Shizuka patiently waiting in seiza for him to come out.

Upon entering his home, Naruto found Ino lounging at his kitchen table, quietly reading a romance novel to pass the time. He could tell because of the cover after years of hanging around Jiraiya. Fortunately it wasn't one that had been written by his teacher. That would have been a little too strange. She noticed him and dog-eared the page she was on before setting the book aside.

"Evening, Goldie," Ino said, sliding her chair back to stand, "Did ya deal with Shizuka yet?"

Naruto hadn't expected to see her again that day, but it wasn't as though he were complaining about it, "Still workin' on it," He told her before walking into his room and flopping facedown on his bed, "Isn't it a little late for you to be over here, Ino-chan?" He mumbled through the pillow in his face.

Ino had followed him down the hall and leaned against the doorway, frowning to herself, "Well, I just felt like I needed to talk to you about earlier, and I wouldn't feel right if I didn't before I went to sleep," It had started to eat at her more the longer the day had gone on, "I don't want to go to bed with things all messed up between us for a stupid reason."

Naruto pushed himself up and turned over to sit properly. Ino apologizing? That rarely happened, and if that was what she was doing he was going to give it his full attention, "I get it," He said, patting his bed for her to sit on.

Smiling at the invitation, Ino made her way into his room and relaxed next to him, "I was unreasonable earlier. I just... I hate the idea of some random girl taking you and running off never to be seen again."

Especially some girl that only wanted him because he was strong. It just made her so angry. Shizuka probably didn't know the first thing about who Naruto really was as a person. All she knew was that he could kick her ass, so he was her perfect match in her own mind. Absolutely not.

Ino would have been more okay with Hinata swiping Naruto up from her than someone like Shizuka trying to stake any sort of realistic claim on him. At least Hinata legitimately liked Naruto for real reasons. If nothing else, Ino knew that Hinata would try and take care of him instead of just fucking him for the super-strong babies and going about her business.

Naruto scratched his face uncomfortably. Apologizing in any way was so unlike his girlfriend, which was making him do something very unlike himself; admit his own fault.

"Okay, I screwed up too, you know," He told her, prompting Ino to fix a fake look of astonishment on her face. Naruto shoved her onto her side on the bed, getting a round of giggles from her before she sat up and let him continue, "Seriously. If you're supposed to be mine for real, I guess that means my problem is your problem too. When we were a team we dealt with everything like one. I'm not sure how this relationship crap is supposed to work, but I think it's supposed to be something like that too."

Ino let out a small laugh and tucked some of her hair behind an ear, "I guess we're not very good at this. Maybe we should ask for relationship advice?" For someone who actually did enjoy romance as much as she did, experiencing it herself was something else entirely.

Naruto physically recoiled at the thought of bringing up his circumstances with Ino to anyone else, "Advice? From who?" It wasn't as though they knew many people who had what he would call 'good' relationships.

With a shrug, Ino went to their immediate go-to in that department, "Asuma-sensei and Kurenai-sensei. Their relationship seems to work for whatever reason," She didn't need to be a mind-reader to tell what Naruto was thinking when a mischievous grin stuck itself to his face, "If you make a stupid Jiraiya-sama joke that ends with you putting a baby in me like them, I'm gonna slug you, I swear."

"...I'ma still think it," Naruto muttered as Ino crawled behind him and rested her chin on his shoulder, "We've still gotta deal with this Shizuka thing."

"We can start working on that tomorrow," Ino said, turning Naruto's head to give him a peck on the lips as a sly look slipped across her mouth, "There is something we can do tonight though, and I bet it'll make you smile."

She pressed her head to Naruto's using the intimate gesture as a means to speak into his mind her plans for the evening. After getting a brain full of her ideas, Naruto grinned and pulled her around into his lap, "Aw, and you didn't even have to read my mind for it."

XxX

Shikamaru let out a sigh as he quietly entered his family's home late after midnight.

Spending the entire day hiding from Naruto and Ino hadn't been all bad, being forced inside of Shiho's broom closet for a prolonged period of time aside. Aside from that, he'd been able to catch up on his sleep and his cloud-watching.

It was good that he'd found a hiding place where the two troublesome blondes wouldn't bother searching for him. He was public enemy number one until this whole thing with Shizuka played out, and he knew it.

That was just fine. He could definitely duck Naruto and Ino for as long as necessary. He could take some missions with others until then... or better yet, not work at all. That was much more preferable. A vacation sounded like just the ticket.

Shikamaru flipped on the light switch in his room only be greeted by what he thought at first was some sort of time-space jutsu that had taken him to another location. It took a moment for his brain to process that no, he wasn't somewhere else. His entire bedroom had been transformed into a purple-lit strip club.

"Seriously?" Shikamaru said to no one in particular.

It all smelled brand new. None of those things hadn't been there for very long.

His bed had been replaced with an elevated stage with a pole that ran from underneath it to the floor, straight up to the ceiling. Surrounding the bed were several chairs, presumably for the audience. On the walls were large characters that represented his 'stage name' from one goddamn undercover mission in the Guardians that he would never live down as long as Naruto was alive and kicking.

Shikamaru let out a long, languishing sigh. He wasn't even mad. He should have seen something like this coming after he'd disappeared all day long. Ino held grudges and Naruto was wickedly inventive, as evidence by some of his fuuinjutsu creations. Besides, this particular ploy had 'Naruto' written all over it.

"Dad probably let them in," He said to himself, yanking down the curtain at the end of the stage that led to his closet of all things. If nothing else, he had to say that was good planning and positioning.

Without much of a reaction, he changed into his night clothes and bunched his day clothes up to use as a pillow, the curtain serving as a temporary blanket.

He would take this one on the chin and chalk it up to a karmic bullet, courtesy of the other two members of Team 10. Hopefully that would be the end of it, and he could move all of his crap back in by tomorrow, or whenever he cared enough to put it all back.

Resting in the dull purple lights that lit his room, Shikamaru felt himself dozing off before one last thought ran through his head, "...Where did they get the pole and the stage from?"