Flashback~
Kakashi was late.
It was nothing new but this time, the man had assured them he wouldn't be late.
"Kakashi-sensei? Where were you?! We've been waiting for you for hours-"-Naruto
He couldn't manage to complete his sentence. The look on Kakashi's was something that had scared him. He saw a desperate man. It was the first time he'd ever seen Kakashi with that face.
Kakashi swore he saw him flinch for a second at his intense gaze but he ignored it as he frantically asked the boy something.
"Naruto! Do- Do you know where Veronica is?!"-Kakashi
"H-huh? No"-Naruto
He didn't get what was going on. A part of him did realize that whatever had happened was something he'd like to have written off as a dream. He couldn't rationalize any of what was happening.
"Naruto!!!"-Iruka
He turned around to find Iruka running towards him. That same angry face he had whenever Naruto would pull his pranks in the academy. He was still shocked at what had just happened with Kakashi and so he didn't fully register anything happening around him, until Iruka hit him in the head.
"You disrespected the Hokage monument again!!! I thought you'd finally grown up but-"-Iruka
"What do Ya mean?!!! I didn't do anything!"-Naruto
Iruka paused and was about to yell at him for lying before seeing the look on Naruto's face. He was telling the truth.
The two thought together about who could've done such a thing if it wasn't either Naruto or Konohamaru. Sighing, Iruka decided to head back to the academy after bidding his farewells murmuring something about him having to clean up the place himself. Naruto also began his search for his teacher yet again after sending a clone to inform his friends that he did run into Kakashi once.
Whatever was going with Kakashi-sensei worried him.
Naruto finally saw the Hokage mountain when realization dawned on him. Not only was some of the kanji used on the Hokages face from the basic fuinjutsu he was studying but some of the words he saw on there were from a language he had seen Veronica write in. If you didn't pay much attention to it though, you wouldn't be able to tell there was a secret message in the prank though.
It really couldn't have been noticed by anyone other than people who had observed Veronica for a long time. Naruto and Veronica had often times communicated like this when they were out pranking people.
He didn't understand what was happening.
Stumbling back a bit, he tried to balance himself as he ran towards his teammates. His first instinct had been to find his 'jiji' but then had settled on his teammates. He would tell his dad about it later too.
Flashback ends~
Naruto had finished his little story telling to his dad, Minato, and Kakashi, who was looking so lost. Honestly, he didn't like either of the expressions his father or his teacher were making. One thing was for sure though, even they couldn't figure what was happening.
They couldn't even begin to look for Veronica as they didn't even have any leads for them to latch on to. Even false ones could lead to something but there wasn't a single one.
It had been days now.
Everything just seemed like it was falling apart yet also just fixing itself. Naruto had his dad now. The village was stable. But Veronica was gone. His childhood friend was gone.
He was happy yet so sad at the same time.
He walked towards the training grounds, where his team was supposed to meet.
A brown haired woman closely watched him in astonishment.
Karasu was certainly surprised at the blond boy's improvement. She didn't think that she could impact his thinking ability so much, from what she'd seen from the one week she'd spent in Konoha. Then again, she reminded herself, he was able to lead a war when only being a teenager himself.
She continued on her little walk, already having checked most of the things Veronica wanted her to.
She could guess Shisui had already found out about her disappearance. But she wasn't too concerned with that. She had already made Sasuke rethink and question his brother's actions enough to not want to kill him on sight and finished her part of the deal by throwing Ura off track. She knew that she had already pushed Sasuke in the right direction and, given some more time, he would find his answers himself. Besides, she doubted he would find it in himself to stay with Orochimaru after he'd gotten attached too much to morals and his friends.
With ROOT, they both knew that it would take some time for them to actually destroy it. She did manage to warn the major clans and Shikamaru one way or the other though.
It didn't take much effort to make the Aburame clan suspicious, given that Shino's brother had became a part of ROOT and all she had to was raise some questions in the clan head's mind. With the Hyuuga clan, she had to ignite some suspicions of what Danzo was up to within the elders of the clan. She knew that those elders would chew off Hiashi's patience and get the man to at least check on Danzo. She had also managed to convince some Akimichi, having close ties to the clan head, to be wary of the disappearances of children.
She didn't do much with the Nara and the Yamanaka clan, given that her little mind games could be easily revealed to the two clans; one of which was famous specializing in psychology and the other for being geniuses. She figured if the Akimichi and the rest of the clans were warned they would get the hint soon enough.
Karasu nodded to the shadow clones disguised as civilians, by make up and wigs, to let them know that their job was done. They had been the ones to infiltrate Konoha through the red light district to warn the clans and after a week their tasks were done. If the village hadn't been busy with the celebration for Minato taking up the hat again then so many clones may not have been able to get in the village so easily.
The clones didn't disappear immediately, knowing that Veronica would feel a backlash from so many clones' memories coming to her at once.
--- --- --- --- ---
"You still haven't found the two tails' location yet?"-Obito
The man looked at the orange masked half-human and half-plant man beside him and shook his head.
"There's no trace of it left anywhere. Don't blame me, ******."-Nita
The man before Obito was certainly different from the first time he'd met him. Nita, before had been closed off and polite, and now, he was comparable to Hidan with his language and choice of words.
Nita's voice betrayed his frustration even if his face remained neutral. It had been years now and there wasn't even a trail for them to latch on to. Not only that, there were many unknown factors now.
Saki's betrayal had been the first mistake in their plan. They had never even thought the woman would have it in her to betray the people who she swore an oath to follow. Then again, they didn't think the woman was brave enough to risk her life for the betrayal. The second mistake, something that they didn't even consider, was that a tailed beast, a creature made entirely of chakra, could hide itself so well that no one could find it.
The third mistake, for Nita only, was the unknown factor called Veronica.
Obito didn't consider her a threat yet. But Nita knew a troublesome leach when he saw one. There was something off with her chakra just as it was with Naruto's and Sasuke's. He didn't even know of this girl existing until she suddenly appeared before the Hatake. She was almost like Saki in some ways, but Saki's chakra seemed to lack something when he compared it to Sasuke, Naruto, Veronica or even himself.
He didn't know just what he did to make the girl that suddenly exist in this world.
Sighing, he focused back at the present and the Akatsuki gathered before him and Pain, the fake leader. Although they were all strong they all behaved like a bunch of 5 year old children. It was exhausting to get them to do what he wanted.
"Sit the **** down, you dumb ********!"-Nita
He wondered just how these noisy things looked like but then he thought he didn't need to know that as they were already disturbing him with him just listening to them, he would go crazy if he was even able to see their idiotic faces.
Mumbling something that sounded like, 'troublesome...', to the gathered members he looked at the Pain in front of him to let him know that he should start this meeting. They all knew the noise wasn't going to go away until the missions were announced but he still wanted to shout out his frustrations.
[A/n: Do you all want an event? Mass release? Any other ideas I should think of for the fanfic or something else? Give me some stones and gifts. I need some motivation.]