Kami ga Kita Tame ni Tochi
By Chyna Rose
Disclaimer: Chyna Rose does not own – nor does she claim to in ways beyond legally purchased merchandise – any recognized character, technique, places, or other entity (including 'local' laws of science) in this fan based work. That honor goes largely to Kishimoto-sensei, the good people at Viz, and whoever else just so happens to hold the rights to Naruto minus a few real life gods and goddesses. Chyna Rose does however own Hasegawa Miyuki, her summons, her kekkei genkai, and the other unrecognized characters, techniques, places, and other entities (provided said character is not being borrowed from some other fandom in order to fill some character shaped hole or the other.
Warnings: Foul language, violence, sexual innuendo, adult situations, death, alternate timeline, original characters.
Spoilers: Diverges from canon at the end of the Sasuke and Sai arc, but will have references to events on through the Shinobi World War arc (a.k.a. current American Jump release).
Pairings: Kurenai/Asuma; others to be announced as they happen/are revealed.
Author's Note: This project was started somewhat on a whim for NaNoWriMo 2012, the first one that I decided to participate in. To date this counts as my largest work so far, and has pretty much eaten up my entire November. I was not however, able to hit the goal word count of 50,000. Hell, I barely hit the half way mark of 25,000 (pre-editing). But I tried it at least. Feedback is always welcome. Praise will feed the ego, actual constructive criticism will be taken into account but in the end as the writer I get final say on the way things are written, flames will either be laughed at or discounted entirely depending on my mood. Since I'm never going to please everyone, I might as well just please myself.
Prologue
To say that the forest was silent would have been a lie. No forest was truly silent; the flow of the wind amongst the leaves and branches of the trees and bushes, the movements and calls of the small – and those that were not so small – things which lived there. Perhaps there was even a stream or a creek which, lazily or hurriedly, wound its way from high place to low place. Even the winter's cold could not choke the sound from the place; while many animals slumbered and the trees were bereft of leaves, some still wandered the quiet chill, the wind still whistled through the leafless branches, and on occasion a clump of snow would fall to the ground with a thump from overburdened boughs. Even in a forest of bone or scar of a wasteland there was quiet but not silence. To the ears of the dead, however…
The forest was silent and still. Almost unnaturally so. Nerves stretched taunt, waiting. There was something here, unseen. There had to be, be it bear or wolf pack, or tiger, or man with ill intent. No birds, no deer, no rabbits, or squirrels foraging or singing or doing whatever else it was that marked a life meant that there was a predator near. To call out or move would be to become lunch – which did not seem like such a bad idea for himself, but now was not the time. Not when the unseen threat, whatever – or whoever – it was might take the opportunity to become seen and attack. And weren't there rumors of bandits in the area (bandits they had been hired to defend against should they get the bright idea that the client's goods and money was better off in their pockets)? There'd be time enough for lunch afterword, when the client reached the small town of Yanagieda and the danger had passed. But now he had a job to do, even if he hated this part (a trained killer he might be, but no-one said he had to actually enjoy killing; so long as he did not hesitate to do so when he had to).
Every sense on alert they moved on, and still nothing. Not even a breeze to stir the leaves, but perhaps that was a blessing. As tense as they were, such sudden noise and movement would have had them jumping into action; no doubt one of them would lob a kunai at whatever empty branch broke this strange spell, which would not have been a good thing since they would look less like the trained professionals they were and more like the scared children jumping at shadows they would have looked like. Which was quite frankly embarrassing; sure they were young, barely in their teens, but they were seasoned ninja – hell, they were chunin; so what if the client had kids their age. They were full, blooded shinobi not civilians to be babied and this was far from their first escort mission. Even so…
It was not (just) the opportunity to show to the client that she had not been cheated when Team 10 had been assigned to her that had Choji wishing that whatever it was that was hiding would show itself and attack them. To be able to fight this whatever (or whoever) would mean that it would be over and they wouldn't have to worry about what might be because it will have been and they could relax (relatively speaking since they still had to keep an eye out for whatever else wanted to take swing at them or their client).
There, just out of the corner of his eye, a patch of black on green and brown. No sound, no movement; just a pair of eyes watching them pass by the tree it was perched on. There was, as far as he could tell (it was a bit of a distance away and he didn't have the byakugan), intelligence in those eyes which was not a concrete sign that it wasn't what it seemed to be then since crows (or was it a raven; it was kind of hard to tell for him) were rather smart birds to begin with. However, it made no move toward them so it wasn't currently a direct threat and could be ignored as any potential but not actual threat was. This was a simple C-rank mission to protect silk weaver Ishida Mizumi from the normal threats to her purse and person of traveling as she made her home from Otafuku Gai; nothing was mentioned about someone spying on her and anyone wanting to spy on them was quite frankly inconsequential to the mission at hand so long as the spy didn't launch an opportunistic attack. Choji shivered. Lunch or no lunch, they couldn't leave this forest fast enough.
(He watched as the kids – and no matter how old they were or what rank they held, they would always be kids to him – and their jonin sensei continued uneasily on with their client in tow unaware of the utter carnage that they had passed by a scant few feet away. The bandits that had hunted in these woods were no more, leaving naught but faded ghosts to haunt this place and bodies to nourish what grass grew under the canopy of the trees. No doubt his mistress would move on once she woke, but for now she slumbered under the watchful eyes of him and his brother.)