"I'm gonna kick her ass Boss!" Konohamaru declared devoutly as he did pull-ups on the railing of Naruto's balcony while the man in question sat in a chair set up there that let him look out over his street, "The chunin exams are the best chance I've ever had! I'll finally prove that I'm the only one that can be your apprentice, you'll see!"
The entire time Konohamaru had been over and visiting on his day off from team exercises, he'd been chattering something about a 'destined showdown' or something with Hanabi, but Naruto hadn't really been listening. He'd been acting as if he had been in order to humor the young genin, but his mind was out to lunch and anyone that looked at him for longer than five seconds could tell.
It had been two days since the wild and wooly chase against that mystery ninja that had taken him and some of his friends all over the sizable land holdings of the Uchiha Clan. They hadn't managed to catch a thing and the trail had gone cold. They weren't going to find any help outside of the lot of them.
And who would they have told that might have helped them anyway? They hadn't been attacked first, they had been the ones to initiate any fighting that took place. The guy had been spying on them, and after living in a situation for three years where someone spying on you could mean treason against the daimyo and eventual painful death to you neither Naruto nor Shikamaru took very kindly to any espionage against them.
"-Are you listening Boss?"
No, he hadn't been listening, but in the lucid state of awareness that he had been in the entire time that he had been thinking and fussing with his newly purchased pair of goggles trying to prep for the eventual painstaking branding of his seal on them Naruto had heard enough key phrases to caveman up a response, "Yeah, yeah. You. Hanabi. Gonna kick her ass. Woot."
Now hopefully he'd be left alone to work. He didn't want to go back to Tenten and tell her that he made her waste her abuse of her ninja tools discount because he screwed up some clandestine sealing combination on them. That girl had gotten scarier since he'd left and returned.
"Good. You were listening." Konohamaru said, stopping his pull-ups to peer over the top of the safety railing at Naruto, "So you're going to teach me some killer awesome anti-Hyuuga Clan tricks right?"
He was? When the hell did he say that? He could say quite confidently that he had never said that he would do any such thing at any time… ever. But if he flat out said no he'd have to listen to Konohamaru bitch about how he liked Hanabi better and blah, blah, blah. It just wasn't worth the headache that a one-word answer would give him.
"Look, I can't teach either of you anything." Naruto said, trying to let the younger ninja down rationally, "First of all, I can't teach. I suck at it. Second of all, it's a total conflict of interest because I like both of you and if I taught you something I'd have to go back and teach her something just as good to balance out my conscience and it'd be a wash. Third of all, the only 'anti-Hyuuga' move I have only works for me because it's basically an overpowered version of something Iruka-sensei taught me."
He pumped too much chakra into it. It wasn't supposed to give Naruto the clarity that it did, it was just supposed to give him a general idea of where things were. Frankly, if most others tried to do it the way that he did they'd wear themselves out within three bursts.
"So Iruka-sensei knows that jutsu too?"
"Sure. Yeah, let's go with that." Yep, dump Konohamaru's jutsu begging off onto Iruka. He dealt with kids every single day, he was probably used to such a thing. The man was a teacher for crying out loud, "Wait a minute, why are you talking about beating Hanabi? The start of the chunin exams aren't for another month."
Konohamaru pulled himself up onto the railing in a flip that was actually pretty impressive, "Because it's just destined Boss! We're gonna face off once and for all, epically I might add! It's what rivals do! In front of everyone just like you guys did in your exams!"
"You're probably not even going to get to fight her." Naruto informed him pushing on his forehead with his index finger far enough to make Konohamaru lose his balance. Had it not been for Naruto sticking his finger to his forehead with chakra to keep a hold on him he probably would have fallen, "You should focus on passing instead of beating up one person."
"Why?"
"Do you know the odds of you actually getting to take her on? At all?" Naruto asked, finally letting Konohamaru keep his footing on the railing safely, "…Because I don't. My math sucks. All I know is that between the three stages, and the tournament at the end of it, you're probably not going to fight her, so stop worrying about it until it actually happens."
Konohamaru took the advice with a nod, but had to run a buzzkill remark through his head at the thought of he and his long-standing rival not facing off with one another on the biggest stage they'd been able to reach thus far.
The small bonding moment more or less ended when the sound of Naruto's front door opening caught both of their attention followed by the voice of a female, "Ugh, what a mess. I swear Goldie-kun… and people call me a pig just because of my name."
Upon hearing the shuffling through his idol's home, Konohamaru raised a confused eyebrow, prompting Naruto to answer the unasked question, "It's just Ino-chan. She's still got the key to this place from when I was gone." Once again Konohamaru didn't say anything, he merely raised a closed hand with the pinky extended upward, "No. And don't let her see that or hear you talk about it either or you won't make it to any chunin exam."
Yes, Konohamaru knew as much because girls got testy over that kind of thing, examples came to mind of Moegi and even Hanabi stomping him flat in the Academy to accentuate this. He didn't need to get beaten up by an experienced kunoichi of all things.
Thus his mouth was sealed tight when Ino passed through Naruto's room and found the two of them out on the balcony, "There you are. You're messing up the apartment I did such a good job of keeping clean you know."
"It's my house." Naruto replied, leaning back in his chair to get a look at her as she came through the open door to stand out there with them, "What's up? We weren't supposed to all meet up for a few more days." Shikamaru wanted to take way too much downtime after missions for Naruto's tastes.
"Yeah, to team train and/or work. That doesn't mean I can't visit my friends." Ino said as she sat herself down on the railing nearby, crossing one leg over the other, "Hey Konohamaru." She greeted to the young genin who nodded in acknowledgment, "Anyway, I heard about what happened the other day with you guys from Shika. You think it's the person all the buzz is about?"
She was talking about the village's spy. They knew about it. Every ninja deemed decently relevant in the village knew about it. All of their grad class knew, all of their former genin squad leaders knew, basically anyone worth their salt as a ninja which meant at least chunin in rank knew. No one talked about it except in very small circles, but it was a topic that permeated every social grouping in Konoha.
Naruto had managed to get an earful of the underlying situation in the village after everyone started on their way home following the failed chase, and while he'd known a bit before he was able to recognize what a damnable problem it was. It had been going on for years, and the spy hadn't moved on yet. Either they were very good or very cocky.
Probably both.
"No." Eventually Naruto responded to Ino's query with confidence in his opinion, "That guy couldn't possibly have been the one that you're talking about." Trying to spy on them as close as their interloper had been spying was just not something a master spy would do. It wasn't as if the guy hadn't been good at concealing his presence, but it was too straightforward to be the one keeping the village on its toes for years.
Ino had to admit that maybe she was just getting a bit antsy. She'd been dealing with Konoha's intelligence for a long time now, and the whole spy thing just pissed her off. What possible reason would the real-deal spy have to look in on a bunch of chunin?
What they were talking about went over Konohamaru's head for the most part, but that was the point. He didn't need to know about it. Certain folks at a particular level (genin) wouldn't know how to take the presence of a high-level spy, and it was for the best that this was kept as low as possibly allowable until they could smoke the mole out.
And Konohamaru had already heard more than he probably should have, thus it was time for him to go, "Konohamaru you should head on home now. Naruto and I have things to talk about that you probably don't want to hang around to hear." It was a rather weak excuse, but if needed Ino could always just bitch him out if he talked back.
He didn't though, instead turning toward Naruto curiously, "I thought you said she wasn't your girlfriend? That really sounds like a couple sort of thing to say to me." Shaking his head, the youngster turned around on the railing and prepared to leave, "I'll just go ask grandpa about what I should do to train then."
Instead of being angry or offended at what he said, Ino allowed him to vacate the premises and merely had an amused smile on her face as she addressed her teammate, "He asked you if we were dating? And he really came to you for training?"
"Yes to both." Naruto returned with a shrug, "Which is stupid because I haven't been back long enough to get a girlfriend yet. But meh, I'll probably end up teaching him something. Rasengan maybe. I don't see why not. He's a good kid."
Ino just stared at him, still smiling the same as before, "…You already did something like that with Hanabi didn't you?"
"No. But now that you say that, I think I should. It'd be hilarious."
And why wouldn't it be? They'd both have the exact opposite problem with the jutsu.
Hanabi had the control necessary to get the formation of the jutsu down within an hour and she had the advantage of literally being able to see her chakra and moderate it during the steps that would teach her about it, but she'd probably lack the power to put behind it that would make it anything more than a palm thrust that would knock someone a few feet farther away. She'd get stuck on popping the rubber ball for a while.
Konohamaru on the other hand probably had a similar problem to him in the focus department when it came to chakra control at the near same age, making the formation of the Rasengan shell a pain in the ass. Step three would work his last nerve for certain. On the flipside he'd probably get the power portion of the jutsu down way before the finesse-oriented Hyuuga Hanabi would if given the jutsu at the exact same time. It'd be good to bet on who'd get it first.
Oh… he just came up with a way to make a load of money off of the idea and give his two favorite brats a great jutsu at the same time. He'd have to put that one into motion sometime later.
"Rasengan huh?" Ino said as she sauntered over to Naruto's side with her hands on her hips, "Well if you're going to be teaching it to some kids you aren't related to, why don't you show it to me? I kind of suck at taijutsu anyway, comparatively speaking of course, and something close-range would help. So come on. You owe me for watching your apartment for three years."
"No, you owe me for giving you your own private pad for three years, free of charge. I know you slept here a lot, and don't ask me how I know."
"…I left clothes over here didn't I?"
"Oh yeah. Clothes and stuff in the bathroom." Naruto drawled in return before seemingly thinking in an effort to tease her, "But you've got a point. A strong Ino-chan means a strong Team 10, so come here." He didn't expect Ino to cheekily plop down in his lap unceremoniously with her legs swung over the arm of the chair, "I meant grab an actual seat, but whatever." As if he was actually going to complain about it.
It had been a while since Ino had messed with him like this. She felt a wave of pleasant nostalgia wash over her as she batted her eyelashes at him sweetly, "Okay Goldie-kun, train me up. What do you want me to do?"
Naruto snickered a bit at how charming she was trying to be before getting a rather bright idea. First taking off one of his arm-warmers and then grabbing one of her hands in his, Naruto pressed their palms together and interlocked their fingers. Ino held a confused look on her face as her cheeks involuntarily heated up. What the two of them must have looked like.
It was partly her fault though, but she had casually forgotten that once she felt Naruto's chakra in between their hands. All of that bravado of hers got swept out the door rather quickly once she realized the position that she had put herself in.
"Alright." Naruto said quietly, actually having a lot of fun now that the shoe was on the other foot in teasing Ino for once, "Part of the Rasengan is chakra control. You need good control to keep the form of the jutsu because it's just raw chakra manipulation. It's what makes it spin in every direction." Ino nodded bashfully and continued to listen, "I'm using the same amount of chakra I use to keep the shell stable, you figure out how much it is and match it, and it'll separate our hands. Got it?"
Truthfully this had absolutely nothing to do with learning the Rasengan, but Ino didn't need to know that. It sounded good, and that was all that mattered.
Using her free hand to smooth her bang out of the way of one of her eyes, Ino tried to tug her hand away to see if she could only to find it stuck fast due to the application of chakra that was the signature of Naruto's taijutsu style. He was barely holding onto her hand with muscle at all.
Naruto's thumb stroked the back of Ino's tinier hand, figuring that he had full control of the chosen little game when he saw the embarrassed red on her face and heard the softer than normal voice that came with it, "…C-Come on Naruto. What are you doing?"
"You'll have to make me let go. It wouldn't be any fun if I didn't try to hold on to you."
Realistically, Ino didn't want to even try to separate their hands at all. This kind of closeness with Naruto was something she had wanted, and the better thing was that he had basically initiated it himself. While before he wasn't necessarily reluctant in regards to her advances, he always seemed noticeably uncomfortable with her forward approaches.
…Now, not so much.
Either way, this was what Ino wanted. She wanted him to want to be closer to her. And the fact that they were all alone made it better. It had been years since they'd spent any real amount of time together, and there was definitely a more grown-up vibe to it altogether. It made her heart thump a bit faster in her chest.
Instead of trying to break the connection, Ino kept their fingers laced and squeezed Naruto's hand, dropping whatever pretense of playing around that they had held beforehand, "What if I don't want you to let go?"
Naruto's eyes went somewhat wide at what she said, but before he could even think of anything to say or do in return, they found themselves disturbed out of their situation unceremoniously.
"Yo."
Looking up above, standing on the roof of Naruto's apartment building peering down at the two of them was Hatake Kakashi in all of his one-eyed, facemasked glory, waving down pleasantly as if he had no clue what he was doing.
"Kakashi-sensei?" Ino said absentmindedly before clearing her throat and getting up from Naruto's lap after feeling Naruto's chakra bond to her hand vanish, "Uh, what can we do for you?" As put off as she was, venom-spitting Ino would be no good at the moment, since Kakashi would more than likely just shrug off anything she yelled at him.
"Oh, I just decided to drop in and chat for a bit with the old students of a colleague." Kakashi said, sounding both bright and completely uninterested at the same time, "I remember back when you two were just cute little genin, and now look at you; getting interrupted from making out. Kids grow up so fast." Ino turned away and leaned on the railing of the balcony, face aghast at being called out in such a manner.
'Kami I wish I had my machete on me.' Naruto thought to himself, trying to hide the twitch in his brow. If Kakashi didn't have a good reason for showing up, Sakura, Chouji, and Sasuke could count their sensei as a missing person in just a few moments, "Is there something that you want?" That probably came out a bit harsher than he intended it to.
"Actually yes." Kakashi said with utmost seriousness, "You had a run-in with Uchiha Itachi on your last mission didn't you? I know that you did because you told Sasuke about it." Naruto nodded in confirmation, seeing no reason to indicate otherwise, "I see. Could you tell me about it?"
It wasn't an issue that he told Sasuke because he was old enough to know the happenings going on with his brother, especially since his goal as a ninja revolved around him. He just wanted to make sure that everything was okay. Sasuke hadn't gone off the handle and actually took Itachi's resurfacing rather well thus far, but hearing that Naruto had run up against the man wasn't something that he could brush off with what he knew of him.
Dredging up the memories of that little encounter came easily for Naruto. There wasn't any way he was going to forget just what had happened that day at all, "Inside of Orochimaru's base he was there too looking for the jinchuuriki that Otogakure had created and we wound up fighting. It was just me and him until Kimimaro jumped in and then we tore the whole place apart. Oh, and the genjutsu. He got me in a good one that I couldn't have broken if he hadn't had to move to stay alive."
"Still a sucker for a good illusion eh Goldie-kun?"
"These weren't normal bullshit mind tricks, they were seriously well-done! I know how to break a goddamn genjutsu Ino-chan!"
Kakashi wouldn't say it out loud because it wasn't told by the Sandaime Hokage for a reason, this he believed. Even so, even if it wasn't known by any more than a handful of people, Naruto was his sensei's son, and he did have some kind of interest in the young man's well-being, "That's a dangerous Achilles' heel to have when your enemy possesses a doujutsu."
Naruto let out an exasperated groan. He'd actually heard the same thing or something similar from almost everyone he'd spoken to about it since his return, "It is not an Achilles' heel. He layered the genjutsu. Layered it. As in one on top of another. Now that I know he does that I'll be ready for it next time."
Besides... he was going to get Sasuke to help him out with finding some tricks of the trade to avoid such a fate come hell or high water even if he had to blackmail the Uchiha youth into it somehow, and eventually he was going to find the time to fix his seal array back onto his goggles sooner or later.
"Well if you ever need advice, I'm always around somewhere." Kakashi offered coolly, trying to cover his own intent to assist Naruto somehow, someway. Asuma had done grand work with him, but a part of him wanted to have something to do with his further development as well, "I don't think I'm that hard to find."
With a smile, Naruto nodded and both he and Ino waved goodbye as the jounin leapt away to attend to his own business. Once he was gone, Ino turned to Naruto and raised a curious eyebrow, "Okay what the hell was that? Kakashi-sensei basically offered you help on command."
Let it be known that Yamanaka Ino was good at her job of interrogation and could read between the lines.
"Yeah." Naruto said, plopping back down in his original seat to screw with his eyewear once again to prepare the goggles for what he needed to do, "It's because my old man was his sensei. By the way I found out who my dad was. Whoo."
Kakashi's sensei had been Namikaze Minato, the Yondaime Hokage.
So basically Naruto was telling her that his father was the last Hokage before the Sandaime took over once more. She swore to Kami… if one more widespread hidden thing like this just popped up out of the blue involving that poor boy she was going to find an adult that she thought was responsible enough for the truth being buried and she was going to stab them, "And you know this how?"
"Super high-stakes chunin exam fantasy league wager with all of the Guardians, Ero-sennin, and Tsunade-baa last year." Naruto recalled, "She lost all of her money betting all over the host town during the finals, and he lost a lot of it on… other things around the same time. They had to pay me somehow."
"And it took taking advantage of a compulsive gambler's terrible streak of luck and the vices of a lecher to learn this, why again?"
"Something about enemies and secrets and grudges and stuff like that."
All Ino could do was sigh. What else could she do? The whole goddamn village was built on crap just like this, decades in the making, so it had to be expected to some extent, "…I love this village, but I hate being a ninja sometimes."
"Maybe. But really, what else are we really qualified for Ino-chan?" Naruto said, motioning the poor girl forward for a hug that she desperately looked like she needed and didn't shy away from in the least, "We were literally bred for this." All she did was moan piteously into his shoulder, mulling over the repercussions of having the child of f'n Namikaze Minato by her side nearly every damn day for years and years.
He felt for her, he really did, having all of this dropped on her without warning. Good lord, if he were normal what would it have been like for him after finding out? Fortunately Naruto spent three years having never-ending back-to-back near-death experiences to take his mind off of most things. Neither he nor Shikamaru were ever given much time to think to themselves.
That was just as well because according to Shikamaru, free time to yourself allowed you to ponder. Also according to Shikamaru, pondering made you emo. Yes, the way they lived for three years chipped away at the long-term sanity of the two boys, but at least Naruto could say that he would also never take shocking news the way Ino usually seemed to.
XxX
(Elsewhere in Konoha)
It was time to go. Serving as a spy for several years uninterrupted in the village that he despised more than any other was a good enough record.
In a small hiding area nestled in between two of the lesser used training fields utilized by Konoha's shinobi forces, Kabuto was busy covering his tracks and ridding himself of any possible trace of his presence as a spy in the village.
'How should I do this?' He thought to himself with a smile as he started stashing away things he wished to take and things he needed to eradicate before leaving, 'I could fake my death… but what's the fun in that?'
His ideal situation would be to somehow let Danzo know that the spy he created with his treachery years ago happened to be the one that had been keeping Konoha's enemies nipping at their heels.
Honestly, Kabuto wanted to be a royal jerk about the whole thing. Flaunting the fact that he had been there, under his nose, thwarting his plans the entire time would have been the sweetest thing to him, and even more so if he could let people know that it was him in particular.
Seriously, Danzo had never even taken to learn his goddamned name before sticking him with an alias and dumping him in some godforsaken place as his mole. And when he finally came back and retook his real name, and the surname of his matron from the orphanage that Danzo procured his services from the bastard just assumed he was one of the other no-name orphans that he didn't care anything for due to their lack of use as potential Root members.
To say that he held a grudge against the man would have been the understatement of the year.
'Creating a major village-disturbing occurrence and slipping away should be good enough sending a message.' The bespectacled young man thought to himself with a smirk as he thought about all of the 'clues' he'd leave in the aftermath after he left.
He wished he could stay just to hear the reactions, like, 'Oh, he was such a good person. How could he be a spy?' And, 'A quiet guy like that? He was the one?'
Kabuto wondered if he could find a way to pull this off while gutting Shimura Danzo's damned Root at the same time. If only he could see the look on that old crone's face after it was all over.
He was the best at being nobody for all it was worth, no matter how much he hated it, but after he was gone from Konoha everyone would know his name.
They'd never forget it.
XxX
(Meanwhile – Elsewhere in Konoha – Roof of Ninja Academy)
Tenten and Rock Lee admittedly felt a bit out of place as they stood in line along with a few dozen other shinobi including their teammate Neji and their sensei Maito Gai. Even as chunin, their missions hadn't particularly revolved much around anything involving village security.
Neji didn't seem to be unnerved as out of the three Team Gai students he was the jounin, and Gai had a business-like look on his face that said that it was just another day at the office. He didn't seem to be in his flamboyant mood today though, and they all knew why.
Another mark of just how serious this was: Neji's Byakugan, and the Byakugan of every other Hyuuga that had been requested was active in order to search for any discrepancies in the immediate area. If a spy was stupid enough to try and get a close look, they were pretty dumb considering who they had watching the area.
It was good that this was done on a day where the school term was over for a few weeks.
Hair still in buns, Tenten's clothing consisted of a white long-sleeved Chinese blouse with red trim, red hakama pants that exposed the top outsides of her bandaged thighs, low-heeled sandals, black fingerless gloves, and a large scroll strapped to her lower back.
Lee still looked the same with his bowl-cut and his green jumpsuit ala Gai, but over it he wore a flak jacket to mark his past ascension to chunin status. Unlike Gai who was waiting in silence, Lee seemed to be just about ready to explode in anticipation, "I cannot believe that we were selected for such an important task force."
Tenten rolled her eyes at Lee trying to quietly express his excitement without causing a stir, "Well it probably had a lot to do with the fact that we're Neji's teammates." How wouldn't the ability to see through basically anything be useful for locating a spy? That was probably why there was a fair number of jounin Hyuuga Clan members there with the teams that they usually found themselves on.
Standing in front of all of them, the unmasked Yamato walked up and down the line looking over his selections for his unit and the teams that came along with them. No one he was suspicious of when it came to being a double-agent was there, but then again wasn't that what made the best ones so good at what they did?
But there was a good number of useful shinobi there, and all of them had already been cleared as far as village security went. The possibility of any of them being the leak had been eliminated.
"Thank you all for coming." Yamato said as he took a spot in front of all of them, clear to see, "There are forty of you here and the village needs every one of you to be ready to perform at your best. As of today you will be direct support to the operations of the ANBU within the village until the threat that we are all aware of has been weeded out and disposed of. You will be the first response for any alert that goes out, and will be meant to take down this person or persons when we divulge their identity. You will also be active in regards to stirring the nest to bring them out. Further briefing will occur in private in your personal teams. Any questions?"
"Yes, why are we doing this in the open? If we're trying to keep this quiet, what's the point of doing it here?"
A small smile came to Yamato's face following the query from one of his ninjas, "If a spy is stupid enough to come here, to the middle of the village, to spy on a rooftop being guarded in the shadows by three ANBU squads, for something like this then they're not worth the effort of putting all of this together because they're not very smart. Of course…" His face then took on a rather eerie shade as he stared at the lot of them, "…That's assuming that the spy still isn't among us."
A suspicious air settled over the grouping as everyone seemed to eye everyone else, as if they'd be able to scrutinize just if there was a traitor there with them just like that.
The mood was broken then when Yamato let out a chuckle and shook his head to try and clear things up, "I can assure you that you've all been screened thoroughly. None of you have any black marks or unexplained void points on your records. You're all impeccably serving shinobi, and I'm proud to have all of you here. When the time comes trust each other, and trust your own judgment."
"Gai-sensei." Neji said as he stood next to the veteran jounin in question. His Byakugan was still active and he hadn't lapsed in his duties of watching over the area. Hopefully this would flush the spy out, but no one had their hopes up. It was just the first major action that they had taken since the revelation of a spy in their midst had become loud and clear, "Has anything like this ever happened in Konoha before?"
"Not for this long without someone being caught." Gai told him before smiling in his usual confident and strangely reassuring manner, "Don't worry Neji. As long as you do your best, I know that when the time comes you'll be just fine."
Neji nodded but still had to contemplate to himself who it was. Even as a jounin he didn't know that many of them. How many people in Konoha were capable of such a thing? How many of them weren't well known enough to be famous for it? It had to be someone well under the radar, but how could someone hide ability like that and just go on as a mundane shinobi?
The coming days would serve to be very interesting, 'If Konoha requires my best and the best of my teammates, that is what I will have to give them.'
Yamato continued explaining what was to go on to the amassed group like the commander that he was, "Your ANBU will relay your standing orders to your squad leader and will be your method of communication with me. You are not to discuss the formation of the task force or of your duties to anyone other than those within your squads."
It was to be business as usual, with everyone on the trail of the enemy like bloodhounds until the time came to spring into action.
XxX
(Sometime Later)
The training grounds that Team 10 opted to use for their operational preparations found itself privy to a rather honored guest, as in the middle of a rather important session of team training it was crashed by said guest who didn't say much. Not much other than throwing a scroll at Naruto's head with questionable intentions.
It didn't really stop much as the field of the training ground was pretty busy with all of Team 10 as well as Team 8 there to take part in a few joint exercises at the behest of their team leaders. Naruto lifted a hand before the scroll could remove his skull from his spine and looked at it, just staring as the soreness in his palm throbbed, "…The fuck is this?"
How eloquent.
"It's a scroll Naruto." Kiba answered patronizingly, patting a growling Naruto on the shoulder, "People write things in them, seal things in them… you know." He quickly found his hand stuck fast to his blond buddy after a few pats, much to his chagrin.
Naruto just glared at him in return, still sticking Kiba's hand to his shoulder via chakra, "Hey Kiba, have you ever seen me suplex someone on their head without laying a hand on them?" Kiba shook his head no as he continued trying to pull his hand away, "Do you want to?"
Tsunade simply stood there with her arms crossed as she sternly looked over at her most beloved brat to hate, ignoring his playful or not so playful threat at his longtime friend, "It's your next mission. You and yours are locked in for it when it's go-time. It's kind of time-sensitive."
Shikamaru just stared long and hard at the woman before the genius finally opened his mouth to play his game of 20 questions with the shifty old lady that seemed to like both he and Naruto (more Naruto really) for some strange reason, "Does this have anything to do with Akatsuki?"
"No." Tsunade replied evenly, "Why would I knowingly have you do anything involving those psychos?" True enough. She did seem to love Naruto violently enough and she liked Shikamaru fairly enough as well. If she wanted anyone to hurt either of them she'd want herself to be the one doing it.
"Are you requesting us so that you don't have to pay full price for a commission?"
"I'm not nearly that broke and I'm not that cheap!"
"Are you sending us somewhere just to tell someone that you're not going to pay your debts to them?"
"...Maybe." Stupid perceptive genius brat. That was closer to what it was than she cared to admit without someone reading the mission statement. Why couldn't either he or Naruto just read the damn scroll and be done with it? Most people would have just been honored that she had requested them for a mission and gone along with it without a care in the world.
Not for two people that had spent most of three-plus years interacting with her. The luster of how great Tsunade was at what she did kind of wore off after you got used to all of the vices that came with that hard-earned talent. The napping in her office during down times, the drinking, the gambling, the incoherent snaps of rage of which no living creature could hope to stand against.
Yeah, the novelty of the Sannin, all of the Sannin, wore off pretty quickly after you hung out with them for longer than it took to get past being star-struck. That went for Orochimaru as well. You stopped paying attention to what a great ninja he was in exchange for how arbitrarily creepy a person he was all of the time, and you'd start mistaking the latter as evidence of the former.
It was kind of amazing for Ino, Hinata, and Kurenai to see Shikamaru speaking to the prime example of kunoichi strength in the ninja world in such a detached manner. They couldn't think of doing so themselves. Sure, Ino had had a bit of a flare-up at her before their chunin exam finale years ago, but that was a one-time thing. No one else in the village would do such a thing.
"Damn it Tsunade-baachan, these are dangerous people aren't they?" Naruto asked, marching right over to the woman decades his elder, waving the mission scroll as if it were a ward, "Why else would you hire us instead of doing it yourself or sending Shizune-nee?"
Well count Naruto as someone else in the village that would do such a thing.
A smirk crossed Shikamaru's face as he walked over and grabbed the scroll from his yellow-haired teammate, "I wonder how much money she owes that it's cheaper to hire us to tell the guy off and fight with him when he tries to kill us than to actually pay up."
Both boys had developed a habit of picking on Tsunade when they could get away with it, but the second they basically saw a tree explode from her punching it they put their hands up in a disarming gesture, Shikamaru even dropping the scroll to the ground. It was evident that playtime was over, "I will pound the both of you into chunky salsa."
Naruto slowly started to back away, sparing a glance at the gnarled splinters that remained of the centerpiece of the field, "I liked that tree."
While all of this was going on, Asuma stood back with Kurenai at a safe distance away from his male students and their attempt to antagonize one of the most legendary shinobi that Konoha had ever produced, "Is there-? Is there something wrong with them?" Kurenai asked warily, clutching at Asuma's hand tightly with her own, "Why in Kami's name would they think any part of what they're doing is a good idea."
Asuma showed off his more chivalrous side as he used his body as a partial human shield for the raven-haired beauty just in case violence spilled over in that direction, "I don't know. I don't think I was nuts enough to antagonize the S-rankers after I got back from my trip." He still wasn't that nuts as a matter of fact.
Meanwhile, Ino had gotten her hands on the scroll and had opened it up to determine what exactly the hell was going on and what they were supposed to be doing next, with Kiba, Shino, and Hinata reading right along with her. By the time she reached the third paragraph she wondered why exactly every major idol of the ninja world had to have some kind of major malfunction, "Apparently you have a new open bounty on your head, and you want us to find the person that put it out on you?"
"Oh that's right…" Shikamaru said, as if he were remembering something he had been aware of beforehand, "That banker guy you borrowed money from before the chunin exam where you bet Naruto, I remember he said something about putting a hit on you if we disappeared without setting up a plan on you paying him. That was a year ago. What was that guy's name again, Gin-something?"
Apparently the memory banks of the second of the three people currently in the loop kicked on too as Naruto snapped his fingers in recollection, "Yeah! He was all like, 'I don't care if you're a sannin or not, I know some pretty scary people myself who'll do anything for enough money.' And of course Tsunade-baachan just blew him off and ditched town after she lost everything she borrowed."
The guy probably hired some roving missing-nin that had a bit of a reputation before abandoning their village for whatever reason. It happened all the time. Loan sharks were hardly ever creative when it came to the means of how they got their money or their pound of flesh.
Ever attentive, Shino quickly picked up on something that had been left out, "Why is this illogical? I'll tell you. Because as the primary medic for the daimyo's court her wages should have been more than substantial to gamble comfortably in most establishments without resorting to a shady line of credit." Being put on the spot got Tsunade's cheeks to redden as if she were a teenage girl, 'She lost that money beforehand didn't she?'
He didn't say it out loud because Shino was smart, and mouthing off wasn't in his nature, especially if it could kill him. But damned if he and everyone else didn't think it.
"Kind of my fault." Naruto chimed in, "I ended up taking a lot of money from her." And he didn't lend it back to her to gamble with out of principle, because that was how she lost it to him. Also because he knew he would never be paid back either, "Geez, I won a cool 3 mil off of you, and that wasn't the end of what you lost? How much did you borrow before we got to Kumo?"
"Way more than a pissant 3 million ryo that she apparently paid you." Ino said as she finally got to the portion where she could read Tsunade's bounty, "That's almost two Asuma-sensei bounties! Who even has the money to pay that off?"
With her own standing in question here, Tsunade quickly steered the conversation back her way, "Long story short; no I'm not paying that prick for my own reasons that you don't need to know, and yes, you all are going with me to go tell him exactly that."
Asuma had to raise an eyebrow at just what amounted to his team being used by Tsunade to shirk out of what was probably an absurdly massive debt, "And dad signed off on this mission… this mission that has absolutely no foreseeable benefit to our village and would really only benefit you?"
A firm and confident nod from the buxom blonde legend was the response, but it belied just what she was actually thinking about in regards to this mission being approved.
Tsunade was in reality working off what the mission cost would be at Hiruzen's behest. Damn it he was smooth. This was officially the second time that the old man had goaded her into staying in the village instead of travelling around with Shizune. She should have known better than to return after Naruto, she'd get locked into something like this somehow.
Because she definitely didn't feel like hanging around just because it was where Naruto happened to currently be residing. Just like how she didn't offer her services as a healer to the daimyo's court just because that was where Naruto was. Just like how she didn't stay in the village the first time after the chunin exam finale years ago past the point where she was needed because Shizune enjoyed being back with her friends.
Nope, those things had absolutely nothing to do with any reason why she was staying at all. It was all Hiruzen repeatedly conning her into remaining there, and if anyone said otherwise she'd fight them on the spot.
"Well I won't be going then." Asuma remarked out loud, "I've got a few reasons to hang back in the village for a while."
Reasons such as the unspoken of spy that had not yet been named. Also Kurenai, the mother of his yet-to-be-named (or even revealed to his friends at large) child, the unspoken of child of his that sat within her womb, and it was amazing that it wasn't showing yet after two months… unless she had a genjutsu cast on herself to disguise it.
Hey, he never really ever checked for that. Tsunade did it to hide her age, and Kurenai was the best damn genjutsu user in the village so why couldn't she use something similar to hide other stuff?
'Hold up…' Asuma thought to himself, trying to feel a steady chakra stream coming from Kurenai where their hands were attached out of sight, '…Nope, no genjutsu, it's all her. Damn it I am awesome! I have immaculate taste in women!' He tried to block a very self-satisfied grin from his thoughts as he continued to speak, "Kurenai ain't going either, and good luck tricking Kakashi into it, so you guys are basically on your own. Get a fourth for a squad leader."
"Fine." Tsunade expressed glibly with a raised eyebrow, "I'm going, so taking you would be overkill at a time like this." Popular or not, elites like him were needed in the village. It was only a matter of time before Yamato located the spy with his revamped task force, and Konoha planned on crashing down on whoever it was like a wave.
"Oh, you suck Asuma." Shikamaru said as Kiba snickered right behind him at their troubles, "You can't even take it upon yourself to find us a replacement?"
Asuma didn't seem bothered in the least at making it the problem of the others to find a leader for their mission. Mostly because it didn't involve him and he wasn't their babysitter any longer, "Ah, ah, ah. Pecking order. I don't do grunt work."
"It's B-ranked Asuma." Kurenai pointed out as to the priority level of the mission, "They don't need a jounin to run the mission for them, they just need a fourth ninja to round the team out." And they had one of any three potential prospects to do so in her team, "So who do you guys want to take?"
Ino beamed at the practical jounin kunoichi before gesturing at her for Asuma's benefit, "See Asuma-sensei, why can't you be more useful like Kurenai-sensei is?"
'I'll remember that the next time you're pinned underneath a destroyed warehouse after some crystal-shooting lunatic almost takes your head off.' Asuma thought to himself with a glare set on his female student, "Alright… who are you taking then?"
Kiba had to fight the urge to raise his hand like a kid in school, instead choosing to stand and try looking detached and aloof so that he'd be picked. Besides, Akamaru was the dog and was more than willing to show his own exuberance for the both of them, panting eagerly as he awaited the decision.
Shino was doing a far better job of schooling his emotions, though the jacket with the hood covering his head and the sunglasses over his eyes helped that immensely.
Hinata on the other hand silently saw this as an opportunity to go on a mission with Naruto, having not done so since the two month period right before he went off with Shikamaru to join up with the Guardians. Ino knew this as well, and this was why the two were currently trying to stare holes through each other. Hinata's glare was infinitely better than Ino's though, and that was without the Byakugan.
Ino was a telepath though, and they could fight without saying a word aloud to each other, "Oh would you really take advantage of a mission to try and shack up with Goldie-kun? Even I don't do that."
Hinata's mental response was simple enough, "All's fair in love and war… and this is both. So yes. Yes I would."
"Oh you do not want to start with me. This is not a game."
"I started with you three years ago, it's all a matter of finishing it now."
"This is tough." The oblivious for the most part Naruto said, looking over the three chunin of Team 8, one of whom was locked in a death stare with Ino. And indeed it was a tough choice. All three of them had the same extent of use when it came to the mission that they were about to take, shaking down a loan shark, "Well I guess if they all want to go there's only one fair way to figure out who it is-."
"-Yeah, that's enough of that." Tsunade cut in with her hands on her hips, "I'm going, I'm leading the mission, and I say that we're using more than four of you tagalongs." She was going along in order to make sure that she didn't have to hire a jounin to lead the mission and bump the priority up to A-rank. She wasn't made of money. Several chunin would suffice for what she needed.
"We're tagalongs?"
"Yeah, I thought that it would be a nicer way of saying that I'll probably have to babysit my own entourage."
"Don't be down." Asuma said, throwing an arm around his team and bunching them all up before either Naruto or Ino could say something impulsive to Tsunade in response, "Whenever you're down just remember the team motto."
Shikamaru raised an eyebrow at that, "Aim low?"
"… I meant the other team motto."
"We have another team motto?"
Tsunade just let them all hash it out while she thought about the mission from her own side. It was actually kind of important. The sooner that stupid bounty got taken down though, the better it would be for her and probably everybody else.
What Ino didn't really pick up on was that the official bounty statement that was also put out into bingo books all over the Elemental Nations omitted a few things that the poster of the bounty happened to be unaware of.
The physical descriptions, the rundown of her legacy as a ninja for safety's sake, her known associates in Shizune and Tonton (they'd even lumped in crappy descriptions of Naruto and Shikamaru). But it was late on a few things. For one thing, her last known position was off by more than six months, but at least they listed that much and suggested visiting a certain bounty station for more possible up-to-date info on her whereabouts.
The really dangerous thing about it, the main reason that she gave any sort of care about the fact that this bounty was out there was not that it meant that there was a price on her head. No, her reason for wanting it gone was far more annoying than just people trying to kill her for money, she was sort of used to that. The real thing was the main reason she had been so good at never staying in one place for too long as a traveler.
It was that in regards to her current status, the bounty had her listed as an unaffiliated wanderer.
That was infinitely more annoying for its own particular reasons, and had the potential for far more trouble for her and possibly the village as well.
XxX
(Sunagakure no Sato – Kazekage's Office)
"This is an opportunity that we cannot allow to pass us by." The Kazekage said, leveling his gaze on the three members of his ninja force that stood before him. On his desk in front of him sat the most recently updated village distributed bingo book to warn the shinobi in the field of recent developments and threats that they could face.
The book was currently open to a section featuring a bounty that had recently been placed on the head of Tsunade.
"Temari, Kankuro, Gaara, this mission is up to you."
The eldest of the Kazekage children in Temari looked absolutely shocked at what she thought was being asked of her. She still wore her blonde hair gathered in four spiky ponytails, but her outfit had changed with her age. Her headband sat around her forehead and over a short-sleeved mesh suit that cut off at her thighs she wore a black sleeveless battle skirt outfit over a sleeveless lavender blouse with a darker purple sash. Attached to her hip she had her supply pouches and a mid-sized scroll, and on her arms and legs sat black cloth coverings and shin-guards respectively.
Kankuro's appearance consisted of purple war paint with a line stretching across both eyes and from one side of his mouth to another with a line coming down from his chin to intersect and give it the appearance of a 'T'. His black bodysuit now had a kimono design to it and on his head rested a looser hood than the eared hat he wore when he was younger.
Gaara stood stoically with his arms crossed over his chest, dressed in dark grey trousers with a lace tied around the leg just over the knee and just over the ankle of both legs. Up higher he wore a long dark red coat with a single-strap grey holster vest that allowed him to carry the still massive sand gourd on his back.
The first to react to what was being told to them, Temari felt a touch of bewilderment at what was going on in her head, "I'm sorry Kazekage-sama, you want us to find and take down Tsunade?" That sounded thoroughly insane. Jinchuuriki that Gaara was, this was still not something you requested someone to do.
"Alright." Gaara said in his normally cold voice. Of course he'd be alright with it.
Kankuro scratched at his brown hair beneath his hood before voicing his own concerns, "…Are we really going after her just for the bounty? I mean, sure it's a lot of money that Suna can use, but-."
"The money isn't the reason why this mission is important." The similarly featured Kazekage informed his children as he pointed out what he saw was the most important part of the entire entry, "After all of these years she still doesn't affiliate herself with Konoha. There may be a chance that we can obtain the services of the most powerful kunoichi in the world if we can just get an audience to negotiate with her."
Temari's mind ran rampant at the thought of Tsunade being a Suna ninja. It was something like a dream for any kunoichi anywhere to say that Tsunade was a part of their village. Sure, Chiyo wouldn't be too much of a fan, but she stopped choosing to partake in anything involving Suna after Gaara was born.
She managed to pull herself together enough to speak on a mostly confident part, "D-Do you really think there's a chance something like that can happen? What about Konoha? Won't they take offense to that?"
"Let me worry about that." The Kazekage said, "They are our supposed allies, and as such this should be something negotiable if we manage to ruffle their feathers." After all, Sarutobi had been the one to allow the woman to leave for twenty years no strings attached. He had to realize that something of this nature was always a possibility, "It's all politics, and it can definitely be smoothed over to prevent any strife between our villages."
"Are we killing her or not?" Gaara interjected suddenly, his seafoam eyes shining over with impatience, "You're all being very unclear about what our mission is supposed to be."
Well… it was at least better than it used to be. That was the thought of everyone in the room. Back in the old days he would have probably slipped a none-too-subtle threat in there about killing his teammates/siblings and something about how much he hated his father/Kazekage.
That was something that said Kazekage was quite grateful for. While Gaara was still quite the figure of terror to the village, his results in the field could not be ignored, and he had warmed to Temari and Kankuro somewhat. 'Warmed' wasn't really the best word to describe tolerating them past killing them for any mistake in his presence.
He still also assumed that Gaara was going to try and take his shot at ending his life eventually, and he was preparing for that. But for the time being the boy was useful and markedly more stable than at any other point in his life other than his earlier childhood, "No Gaara, you're not to try and kill Tsunade. You're meant to try and recruit her. If nothing else, see if you can at least broker it for her to return to Suna to discuss the possibility of obtaining her services with me."
Hopefully it wouldn't be Gaara doing any of the delicate reasoning. Tsunade was notoriously volatile.
XxX
(Kumogakure no Sato)
Steel clashed against steel, one side far more aggressively than the other as a dark-skinned girl with long red hair attacked a dark-skinned young man with short white hair and a sucker in his mouth, "Take it back Omoi! Why would you even think of saying something like that?"
"Karui I was just thinking out loud!" Omoi replied, defending himself from his rather hotheaded partner, "Is that really such a big problem that you had to pull a sword on me?"
"When you say something stupid like what you did then yes!" Karui's amber eyes shone in annoyance at her overanalyzing teammate as she pushed him off and sheathed her sword. One of these days he was going to overthink something too heavily and what he said was going to piss off the wrong person, "I'm pretty sure if you'd said what you just did in front of Raikage-sama they wouldn't be able to find enough pieces of you at the bottom of the mountains for a burial!"
"…That was why I didn't say it in front of him." Omoi muttered, sitting off to the side on the safety railing that lined the side of the mountainside platforms that comprised Kumo's town streets, 'Seriously, nobody's gonna try and point out that Raikage-sama has a lot of good looking women in high-ranking positions? He could definitely be a playboy and that's why he wants us to bring Tsunade back here. She is really hot.'
His face told his longtime friend that he was thinking exactly what had led to her little blowup to begin with, "Don't you even say it again." Karui warned.
"I can still think it." Omoi muttered in return, though thankfully Karui just let him be this time around.
The disagreement came to an end just as the last two members of their team rounded a bend and came across them.
One of them consisted of a fairly tall young blonde woman with neck-length hair and a low-cut grey short skirt outfit with a sheathed tanto at the small of her back. Her white Kumo flak jacket had been modified personally to wrap around her waist instead of going over one shoulder the way they normally did, emphasizing her rather large bust, "Can't you two ever be cool when I'm not around? I stay back with Darui-san to get our mission parameters and you two are here fighting again?"
In tow along with her was another dark-skinned man with shaggy white hair which covered one of his eyes. He wore a normal one-strap Kumo flak jacket like Omoi and Karui but underneath it he dressed in a high-collared sleeveless outfit with bandages on his wrists and a strange sword that seemed to be folded up strapped to his back. On each shoulder he had the kanji for water and lightning tattooed respectively.
"Yeah sorry, but I'm guessing that the double-booking of jounin on this mission is happening for a good reason." Darui said as he observed his three teammates. All three of them were students of Kumogakure's guardian and strongest ninja, Samui was a jounin while Karui and Omoi were chunin, "I'm sure that the Boss would have sent Yugito-san instead though if he didn't think that Tsunade would see it as a threat or something."
"We're not going to try and kidnap her or something are we?" Karui asked with a sigh, "I remember hearing about a lot of that old power hoarding crap that Kumo used to do back in the old days to keep an edge over the other villages outside of war times."
Samui fixed her fellow Kumo kunoichi with an even glance filled with curiosity or skepticism, "You really think that we could pull off kidnapping Tsunade?" She was confident in her own abilities as a ninja, but she'd pass on trying to grab that particular tiger by the tail, "This is to be a strictly diplomatic negotiation." Which meant that Karui and Omoi needed to shut up when it was crunch time or they'd probably wind up blowing it.
Omoi shifted the katana around on his back, slightly nervous at having to look for a living legend of the ninja world, "So why are we going then? Samui and Darui would be enough for something like that."
Darui gave the younger man a pat on the shoulder and began leading his group toward one of the village exits, "The Boss thinks that if we got this info in our bingo books, it would be everywhere. We're probably not the only ones with the same idea. It'd be best for us to find her first before the other villages get to her."
"They'd try to recruit her too?"
"Well Iwa won't." Darui explained calmly, "They'll probably try to kill her or something. But pretty much everyone else; yeah, they'll do something like what we're doing. She's seriously intent on not going back to Konoha. She actually worked for the Fire Daimyo for years until apparently leaving recently, so we've got a little bit on her trail."
"Where do we go to find out more?"
"Southeastern Hi no Kuni, to the bounty station that issued the reward."
XxX
(Northeastern Hi no Kuni – Shuuten Town)
A green-suited young man with spiky brown hair returned to the office that he and his partner shared only to find things in complete anarchy, 'I only left to go get lunch… what the hell?' Entering the office and setting his bag of food to the side, he walked over to his slick dark-haired, black-suited business partner, "Ginji what's the matter?"
Instead of simply answering, Ginji grabbed his partner by the collar and shook his furiously, "Kyoya, you put the bounty out didn't you?" Confused as to what the problem was at first, Kyoya merely nodded before he was cast aside as Ginji returned to his previous action of packing as much crap as he could into a travel case, "Damn it, we've got to go now! This is not good!"
What wasn't good? He wasn't making any sense, "You told me to prepare the bounty on the Tsunade woman who borrowed from us. I did. So what?"
"I didn't want you to send it out to the black market exchange point for every ninja with a bingo book and their grandmother to find out about!" Ginji exclaimed in a panic as he started gathering money, "I just wanted something to hand to the only actual person I wanted to look into the bounty! I called him here to show him, and when he finds out he's not the only horse in the race he's going to be pissed!"
"So?"
"Do you remember who we bank and account for mainly? And do you remember why we put this bounty out to begin with?"
Kyoya did remember, and that gave him pause. The ninja that they did the majority of their work for was a major bounty hunter, and he was scarily powerful, "B-But the money she borrowed and split with was-."
"Yeah, it was Kakuzu's money to begin with. How was I supposed to know that the whole 'Legendary Sucker' crap was for real? We were expecting her to pay us back and make a profit off of the interest." Ginji said, starting to calm down somewhat since talking about it made it somewhat easier to deal with.
The entire bounty idea was just something meant to be presented to Kakuzu as a method of paying him back for losing his money on an investment, and giving him a simultaneous shot at the woman that cut and run with his cash if he so desired it.
That entire idea failed when something was lost in translation and Kyoya put the bounty out for everyone in the world to take a shot at if they were gutsy enough to take the chance.
"Kakuzu is on his way here because I summoned for him. It'd be better than him finding out later." Ginji continued to explain, wishing that he had a drink or something, "Of course I just found out that by now the bounty on that detestable woman had been distributed from stations all over the continent… and when he gets here and finds out what's up he's going to flay us alive and his partner is going to wear our skin like trench coats."
"…Graphic." Kyoya muttered, actually seeing such a thing happen. To say that Kakuzu had a temper was like saying that the ocean was wet, and his partner was a very odd bird, and that was just being polite, "Why do we work for Kakuzu again if we're deathly afraid of him? Remind me."
"Because the man has a fortune from bounty hunting so he pays well, and managing money for someone that never tries to spend it the way he never does is as easy as house-sitting."
Well it was supposed to be anyway.
Things tended to get all screwed up and out of whack when you dealt with Akatsuki. Things that were supposed to go a certain way had a tendency to mess up. Being an employee of theirs had a low life expectancy when you were an actual ninja, to say nothing of when you were just a number-crunching civilian working for one of their members.
So the best thing that Ginji and Kyoya could do as people that couldn't fight and had no uses to Kakuzu outside of their ability to manage his money while he did Akatsuki missions and side bounties to procure even more money was to run away, because he'd probably kill them painfully, "If Kakuzu gets here and he doesn't like what we have to say he's gonna-."
Unfortunately, the door to their office flew open and in stepped a confident pair of figures in black cloaks adorned with red clouds. Well hell. And here Ginji figured they'd need at least a full day's headstart if he had any hope of getting to the coast to leave the mainland to somewhere safer to hide.
"Oh don't mind me." The first man to enter in a mask said, his strange eyes seeming to pierce through any confidence in their survival that they had, "By all means continue. Give me some ideas."
"I hate coming to this dump of a town." The second man to enter the office said as he entered. His purple eyes gazed around, bored and irritated by his current situation as he ran a hand through his slicked back silver hair. His fingertips on his other hand tapped impatiently on the handle of the large triple-bladed scythe he carried on his back, "Why do you have to run back here all of the time? What, do you feel a disturbance in the force?" The man joked.
Both Ginji and Kyoya gulped nervously. He probably wasn't that far off. Kakuzu was obsessive when it came to his money, and he probably did have some kind of sixth sense about it. It definitely wouldn't have been the strangest thing they'd have heard of from a ninja.
And Kakuzu was a woefully imposing figure without the threat of upsetting him. Tall and sturdy-looking with tan skin and eerie green and red eyes. He wore a tight grey hood covering his head with his slashed out Takigakure headband around his forehead and a black facemask covering his nose and mouth, "Well Ginji? Your message said for me to return here as you had some news. I'm hoping it's good."
God his voice was scary.
"Well Kakuzu-san…" Ginji started to say as his back straightened out. If he was going to die he was going to die standing like a man, "A very large chunk, insignificant if one looks at just how vast your savings are but a large chunk nonetheless, of your money was loaned out to someone in the hopes that the interest that would be made off of them would turn quite a lucrative profit."
Neither of the two men needed to hear anymore, but the silver-haired man was the first person to blurt something stupid out, "Huh… they lost your money and you're not killing them yet." He remarked, wondering why the wall wasn't splattered with civvie remains by now, or why the entire building was still standing, "You're getting better at holding your temper, is venting on me really that good for it?"
"Oh, no I'm still absolutely livid Hidan." Kakuzu said in a surprisingly calm voice for what he had just said, "I'm just assuming for the time being before I see red that our associates here have a very good add-on to go with this news, otherwise they would have been smart to leave town, leave the country, leave the entire continent, and fake their own deaths on the way out."
Kyoya opened his mouth but quickly shut it when he saw that Ginji had hidden the travel case the moment that he heard footsteps from outside. Smart man, "W-W-Well… the thing is…"
"I'd like to hear this from someone that won't piss their pants just trying to get the sentence out." Hidan interjected before pointing at Ginji, "You. Greaser-man. Talk now. Fast."
Spoken like a Neanderthal or not, Hidan had a point as far as Kakuzu was concerned, "Well Ginji, we're waiting. Do try to make your point as quickly as possible."
And the petrified banker did just that, "We found the woman that ran away without paying the money back, it's Tsunade of the Senju Clan. The wandering Sannin. We found out on the black market that she had been working for the Fire Daimyo until recently. We've already put a massive bounty out on her, and we'll give you your money right back, right out of our own pockets even if we're bankrupted from it."
"Oh of course you will." Kakuzu said, having moved across the room in the blink of an eye to lift both men up off of the ground by the front of their suits, "And I'll go ahead and take that bounty that you put out as well. That way I can profit from this even after you pay me back." His bit of speaking done, Kakuzu threw both of them back against the far wall hard enough to crack it once they hit, "Hidan, we're going hunting."
Hidan watched Kakuzu walk past and waited for him to exit the building before turning to Ginji and Kyoya who were still reeling from being tossed like ragdolls, "So did you mark her down for dead or alive?"
They assumed he was talking about the bounty and Kyoya being the one that put it out spoke up, "I didn't specify. Either or."
A feral grin sprang to Hidan's face as he turned to leave and follow along with his Akatsuki partner, "Dead it is then!" As if Hidan would let someone that fleeced him out of his money live, even if it was indirectly. Sannin or not, and she hadn't been in a real battle for years so she had to be out of practice, "If she's as much of a pussy as Orochimaru allegedly was after Itachi lopped his hand off this won't take long."
XxX
(Sometime Later – Hi no Kuni Countryside)
Tsunade let out a rather violent sneeze for what seemed to be well over the thirtieth time since the team had been amassed and the journey to the Hi no Kuni black market bounty station had begun, 'I swear to Kami… if I sneeze one more time I'm going to hurt something.' All of that sneezing was blowing her mystique.
Surrounding her as they traveled were nine chunin, ironically they were all of the kids that she gambled on during their first chunin exam years back; the nine rookie genin that had blazed a trail through the entire competition.
There was the team that she was most familiar with for better or for worse in Team 10. Uzumaki Naruto, Nara Shikamaru, and Yamanaka Ino.
Two of the three she had been patching up after their violent, ill-fated Guardian missions for the better part of over three years and she knew full well how those two operated. Naruto would beat you, it was as simple as that. He had the moves, and it didn't matter what you did, if given enough time he'd find some way to finish you, because he was smarter than he appeared to be. Shikamaru was better than having a team of strategists at your back. He treated battles like a high-stakes strategy games and his shadow techniques were shaped to take advantage of that. The latter in Ino Tsunade didn't know as well, but she sort of had a soft spot for blonde kunoichi that could take charge of the men on her team and back up most of what she said. With someone like Naruto that was very much needed. She was a poison specialist and a talented practitioner of the Yamanaka Clan's mental ninjutsu, risk in battle be damned.
Next there was Team 8, the squad of Yuhi Kurenai. A very strong tracking team, they were no slouches in battle themselves.
Inuzuka Kiba was their most direct combatant with the brutal style of fighting utilized by him and his ninken Akamaru and had taijutsu that could let him impress his will over almost any enemy, even without Akamaru tagging up with him. Aburame Shino had a very oppressive ninjutsu style with his kikaichu to cut off enemy movement and forcefully drain their chakra, along with a shrewd intellect to maximize his effectiveness in coordinating them. Out of the three of them though, as far as Tsunade could see Hyuuga Hinata held the most potential out of the three of them. Her doujutsu was strong, her chakra control was sharp, her taijutsu had the potential to be the most devastating out of all nine chunin if she truly endeavored to cause an enemy harm, and when her resolve hardened she could be just as scary as the strongest in her clan.
The final portion of the nine members of the squad consisted of the vaunted Team 7. All students of Hatake Kakashi, and all of them in of themselves showed off the diversification of the man's talents.
Haruno Sakura had managed to cultivate her talents tremendously, specializing in more subtle aspects of the ninja arts such as traps and genjutsu. She was certainly smart enough to utilize the latter effectively. Akimichi Chouji's taijutsu was his strongest point, bolstered by his clan techniques to add overwhelming power to deceptive speed developed from training with the last member of the team in Uchiha Sasuke. When it came to Sasuke it was difficult to find just what he wasn't good at when it came to battle, though his ninjutsu was his best feature. Like much of the rest of his clan his battle potential was staggering.
Yeah, not bad for a nine-person team. Tsunade definitely could have done worse.
Many of them were pissed off though. Namely Naruto, Kiba, Sasuke, Sakura, and even Chouji to a lesser extent. It seemed like a waste of resources.
"You sure you got enough of us going with you to this bounty place?" Naruto muttered miserly as they all continued to accompany Tsunade to her intended destination. His comrades in complaining all nodded in agreement, though speaking up around Tsunade would probably get them hurled over the trees.
Speaking of Tsunade, she had long since grown accustomed to Naruto's mouth and merely fixed him with a raised eyebrow glance, "Is there a problem my beloved, evil, miserable brat whom I constantly contemplate poisoning or smothering with a pillow on a daily basis?"
The detached complimentary yet threatening way Tsunade addressed Naruto got everyone to take at least one large step away from him just in case, but he didn't seem to care, "Yeah, this is a waste of my f'n time!" Naruto shot a pointed look Tsunade's way, "You could have taken any one team out the three of us! There's no reason for all of us to be here."
Seriously, he and most of the rest of them had their mystery ink-draawing attacker to figure out things about. And the whole spy thing? There were things that needed to be handled at home.
"You think so?" Tsunade asked, bringing the journey to a halt as she got in Naruto's face and stared at him eye-to-eye, "Okay, let's play that game. How long do you think I've been doing this?" When she saw the grin spring to Naruto's face she changed her question, "Nevermind, better question. How famous do you think I am?"
"Super-famous?"
"Yes. You want to know how I got super-famous? By killing a lot of people, making even more people seem inadequate as shinobi by healing victims of their best shot, and basically being better than everyone else and letting them know it." Tsunade said, a small smirk forming with every point she made, "Basically everything I've seen you do for the last three years only I was way better at it."
"Modest ain't we?"
"Look who's talking." Tsunade flicked at Naruto's nose only to laugh when he wisely swayed his head back just out of range, "Anyway, over the course of a long time I have upset many people just looking for an excuse to try and take my head, and they're not even the most dangerous types that'll get that bounty. As far as I'm concerned nine of you isn't too many for this. Nine isn't enough."
Everyone present looked around at each other without saying a word as none of them knew quite what to say. They could have assumed that it was just another older ninja being melodramatic about something that didn't warrant the animation, or they could have just had the fear of a deity stricken within them, "Uh…" Hinata didn't really know what to say, seemingly looking around to the others for some kind of backing.
Surprisingly it was Sakura who was quick-witted enough to come up with something pseudo-smartass to say, "Well, it's a good thing that Naruto here can make way more of himself then, isn't it?" She tried to laugh it out, but it obviously came out way more nervously than she intended it to, 'Stupid joke, stupid joke, stupid joke!' It got a loud bark of a laugh from Naruto though, which didn't really help.
"Whatever…" Sasuke eventually said in his usual manner, breaking the standoff of sorts as he started walking ahead to lead the procession once again, "We're all wasting time now."
"I'm with Sasuke-teme. For once he has the right idea. Let's finish this mission and then get back to the village where the real problems are." Naruto said, soon thereafter following behind with his hands resting up behind his neck, "There's friggin' nine of us out here. Ten counting Tsunade-baa, eleven counting Akamaru. What the hell could possibly happen?"
Omake: Guardian Days 8
(One Year and Four Months after Shikamaru and Naruto's Acceptance)
It had been two months since the hell on wheels mission to protect the daimyo during the trip home after the chunin exams had ended in Kumogakure, and after the Fire Daimyo caught wind of just how admirably Naruto and Shikamaru had performed along with the two older Guardians in Shinya and Akira in the week-long combat-filled trip back as the man's decoys.
Apparently putting life and limb on the line for the well-being of the nobles didn't really get any accolades from them, but the daimyo himself loved shinobi, and even more so the shinobi that worked and fought for him to an almost giddy degree.
Thus after a year, Naruto and Shikamaru were seen throughout the court and by their Guardian comrades as children no longer despite still being the youngest on the team by three years. It took a year, but hazing time was finally over, and thank goodness for that.
Naruto sat in one of the recreational rooms set aside for the leisurely enjoyment of the Guardians during their downtime, meditating serenely with the lovely strains of shamisen music in the background. Fuu told him that sheer willpower allowed a jinchuuriki the ability to use the power of their biju with more control. Jiraiya directed him to focus his efforts on Fuu's exercises for the time being until he made it back to train with him again, they would expand upon that later.
His concentration was broken upon hearing a rather sharp chord strummed, and he knew exactly what that meant as it had become part of his daily schedule while at the Guardian house.
Time to dodge.
Without missing a beat, Naruto Kawarimied with a nearby seat cushion and allowed it to be rended into a mass of chopped up fluff via Kotoko's musical wind blades, "Would you stop doing that?" He asked a bit heatedly from where he had attached himself to the ceiling.
"No can do Naruto-kun." The pleasantly insane musician melodiously said as she continued to play her instrument, sitting straightbacked in seiza all the while, "Meditating is all well and good for your concentration, but the enemy is not going to sit back and let you get in touch with your… shall we call it your wilder side?"
"Meh." Naruto muttered as he remained stuck to the ceiling. Perhaps it would be safer up there. The woman was so sweet, and sociable, and so helpful, and a lot of fun. But she was crazy. She was positively insane. There was no getting past that. Who else would think it was okay to fling lethal wind blades at your partners indoors to help with their concentration? "How are you doing that by the way?"
"Doing what?"
"Sitting like that and playing that thing with all of those books on your head. I can't do that even if I stuck chakra to the first one."
And indeed there were seventeen hardback books resting in a stack on top of her head, not moving an inch as her body stayed as still as a statue for the most part, "Oh, it is simply proper etiquette for a lady to have perfect posture." Her smile quickly turned to a feral grin and her cracked open menacingly, "On your toes now."
This time Naruto dropped down from the ceiling before Kotoko sent more wind blades flying that missed and cut through the ceiling, "Would you stop doing that! I need to stop hanging out with you!" Her face had long since returned to the previous calm expression with the normal smile and perpetually closed eyes, "You've tried to kill me once every day for the last two months!"
"I try to kill every fully accepted Guardian at least once a day when they're not already injured." Kotoko said as if that made it okay, "It keeps the team sharp. I can never find Shika-kun when it's convenient to try and kill him though so I usually miss him." Because Shikamaru was smart and painstakingly avoided her when he could outside of missions. And here Naruto was just assuming that he did that because he thought women were troublesome.
"I never see you try to kill anyone else!" Naruto argued in return before the doorway was filled with the form of the blind monk and unofficial leader of the Guardians in Sadao. He did not seem to be very pleased, "Are you mad about something?"
Instead of answering outright, Sadao pointed up, indicating the floor above them, "I was playing shogi with Shikamaru when a wind blade came through the floor and cut the table we were using in half." He walked up to the still smiling and performing Kotoko before stooping down to eye-level with her to stare at her. How this was to work Naruto wasn't sure because Kotoko's eyes pretty much never seemed to be open and Sadao was blind and wore sunglasses, "You owe me a new shogi set with pieces in Braille dear."
"Of course Sadao-kun." Kotoko said, that damnably beautiful smile on her face, "The very next payday."
Sadao let out a harrumph and stood up straight. If there was any way to fix her eccentricities he'd have found it by now, "Please save all of your attempts to kill us for the hallways, the outside yard, and the training pit. That'll cut down on the property damage since there are more of us to take shots at now." With that he left the room with a stunned Naruto looking after him.
As he walked down the hallway, Sadao noticed that Naruto was following him and called him out on it, "Yeah? What do you need Naruto?"
"Why didn't you just tell her not to try and kill us anymore?"
"We didn't tell you this story already? It's because she needs to try and kill us or she'll go crazy."
"She's already crazy." Naruto pointed out as if it were completely obvious, and indeed it was. A year there and it was clear that Suzukuro Kotoko was seriously messed up in the head, as wonderful a mentor as she was, "I love her just like the rest of us do, but she's nuts."
"Sorry, I meant berserk-crazy." Sadao amended with a sheepish scratch of his scalp before launching into an explanation, "If she didn't do anything moderately homicidal on a daily basis she'd get all pent up and eventually flip out. It happened once before back when it was just the two of us and we needed to rebuild the entire house after it was over. So we let her try to kill us because we can all handle it, and she keeps it down to one attack per Guardian at most per day and never in the field."
In the field it was never really necessary because there were usually all sorts of willing enemy ninja for her to kill in battle.
"She always attacks us face-to-face so we always see it coming and she'll usually say something before she tries anything." From a side door, Akira spoke. The punk-looking girl overheard the conversation as she leaned on the doorframe, "She isn't really trying to kill us, but her clan's training really fucked her up so she doesn't think anything of attacking us. The benefits of having her on the team outweigh the negatives by far though, so she stays."
Sadao chuckled and lifted his sunglasses to show Naruto his nonfunctioning eyes, "There's something wrong with all of us. I'm a monk that's been blinder than fuck since birth. Akira's an opportunistic bitch with almost no ethics or conscience. Kenta's a giant from a sect of monks that doesn't ever talk no matter what and he wears a basket on his head. Shinya's an albino from Kumo that can't stay in the sun without being covered well for too long. Shikamaru is the laziest human being I've ever seen even if he is a genius. And you, you're a loudmouthed jinchuuriki that can go five days without sleep and still have enough energy to make a hundred clones and fight an army."
Akira didn't take offense at Sadao's bitch comment and instead knocked on the doorframe she was leaning against with a chuckle, "The Twelve Guardian Ninja… the island of the misfit toys. If we were normal we wouldn't be nearly as cool." She got off of the wall and walked past Naruto and Sadao, giving the younger ninja a pat on the butt that got him to yelp in surprise, "You know we're awesome."
"This job sucks." Shikamaru commented as he walked past the opening at the end of the hallway, holding onto the two cut up parts of the shogi board from before shaking his head. Well now that the game had ended abruptly he could go outside and stare at some clouds for a few hours, '…I probably need to find a new place to hide again so Kotoko doesn't stumble across me.'
Ongoing Stats (Out of 5)
Konoha Ninja
Sarutobi Konohamaru
Ninjutsu: 3
Taijutsu: 2
Genjutsu: 1.5
Intelligence: 2
Strength: 2
Speed: 2
Stamina: 2.5
Hand-Seals: 1.5
Overall Score: 16.5
Team Gai
Hyuuga Neji
Ninjutsu: 4
Taijutsu: 4.5
Genjutsu: 2.5
Intelligence: 3.5
Strength: 2.5
Speed: 4.5
Stamina: 3.5
Hand-Seals: 3
Overall Score: 28
Rock Lee
Ninjutsu: 0.5
Taijutsu: 5
Genjutsu: 1
Intelligence: 2.5
Strength: 4.5
Speed: 4.5
Stamina: 3.5
Hand-Seals: 1
Overall Score: 22.5
Tenten
Ninjutsu: 3
Taijutsu: 3.5
Genjutsu: 1.5
Intelligence: 3.5
Strength: 2
Speed: 3.5
Stamina: 2.5
Hand-Seals: 2
Overall Score: 21.5
Maito Gai
Ninjutsu: 3
Taijutsu: 5
Genjutsu: 3
Intelligence: 3
Strength: 5
Speed: 5
Stamina: 5
Hand-Seals: 2.5
Overall Score: 31.5
Suna Ninja
Gaara
Ninjutsu: 5
Taijutsu: 2
Genjutsu: 3.5
Intelligence: 4
Strength: 2.5
Speed: 3
Stamina: 5
Hand-Seals: 4
Overall Score: 29
Temari
Ninjutsu: 4
Taijutsu: 2.5
Genjutsu: 1.5
Intelligence: 4
Strength: 3.5
Speed: 3
Stamina: 3
Hand-Seals: 3
Total Score: 24.5
Kankuro
Ninjutsu: 4
Taijutsu: 3
Genjutsu: 2
Intelligence: 3.5
Strength: 3.5
Speed: 2.5
Stamina: 3.5
Hand-Seals: 4
Total Score: 26
Kumo Ninja
Darui
Ninjutsu: 5
Taijutsu: 4
Genjutsu: 3
Intelligence: 4
Strength: 3.5
Speed: 3.5
Stamina: 3.5
Hand-Seals: 3.5
Total Score: 30
Samui
Ninjutsu: 3.5
Taijutsu: 2.5
Genjutsu: 3.5
Intelligence: 4
Strength: 2.5
Speed: 3
Stamina: 3
Hand-Seals: 4
Total Score: 26
Karui
Ninjutsu: 2
Taijutsu: 3.5
Genjutsu: 2
Intelligence: 2
Strength: 3.5
Speed: 3.5
Stamina: 3.5
Hand-Seals: 2
Total Score: 22
Omoi
Ninjutsu: 2
Taijutsu: 3.5
Genjutsu: 2
Intelligence: 4
Strength: 3
Speed: 4
Stamina: 3
Hand-Seals: 2
Total Score: 23.5
Akatsuki
Kakuzu
Ninjutsu: 5
Taijutsu: 4
Genjutsu: 3
Intelligence: 4.5
Strength: 4
Speed: 4
Stamina: 4.5
Hand-Seals: 3.5
Total Score: 32.5
Hidan
Ninjutsu: 5
Taijutsu: 4.5
Genjutsu: 3
Intelligence: 3
Strength: 4
Speed: 3.5
Stamina: 5
Hand-Seals: 3.5
Total Score: 31.5