Kailor: I wish I owned Naruto. All I own is this idea.
"You were right. This definitely sounds like a hot spot I wanna play with."
Tsunade rolled her eyes at the young man sitting across the table from her.
Around them the little cafe on the edge of their town bustled with the morning rush. They'd been there for about an hour already while Tsunade pitched her new find to her companion. She was starting to get annoyed at the way their waitress kept popping up, eyeing the young man, and interrupting her spiel. She noticed the woman moving back towards them and flashed her a glare that could have set her on fire if it had any physical power. The waitress changed direction and disappeared into the kitchen. Tsunade turned back to her partner.
"Naruto, pay attention, would you?"
The blonde man looked up from the files she'd given him, blue eyes wide and innocent. "I am paying attention, boss. You're saying this place has the history and reputation I've been looking for."
Tsunade reached over their empty plates and took a picture from the folder in front of him. "No, I'm saying you need to be careful with this one. I know you have some wacky obsession with any Celtic paranormal, but look at this picture for a second here."
The picture showed an Irish castle complete with towers and battlements and large wooden doors. Three sides of the castle were surrounded by thick forest but the front was sloping lawn with ancient rock pathways that led down to the lake edge. Bits and pieces of the castle had crumbled over time and someone had removed the rubble and replaced it with stones that were slightly darker than the rest of the keep. Along the shore, nearly half the length of the castle, was a narrow building with curves and openings all along it. The castle itself did not look scary or even remotely intimidating. As Irish castles ran, this one was rather small and the land around it was lush and vibrant, setting off the beautiful sparkling lake. Despite the quaint setting Tsunade got a chill each time she looked at the picture. It was probably because she knew what had happened there.
"Naruto, I know you've already decided to take this case. I just want you to give this one a bit more thought than the other investigations you've pulled. No going in half cocked. No going alone. No forgetting your first aid kit, for Christ's sake."
"That was only once, Tsunade. And I didn't forget it completely. It was in the car. Now we've been here for an hour and we've chit-chatted and bullshitted. Now present this case so I can accept it." Naruto folded his hands on top of the open file, giving her his full attention-something that he rarely did with anyone else.
She sighed and leaned in. "Naruto, listen. You've been ghost hunting since you were seven-that's sixteen years now- and none of the cases have had this much history to them. I'm serious. You have to really think this over."
"Tsunade," Naruto shook his head, as if he were reassuring a child. "I'm going to be fine. You know I can't ignore this case now that you've showed it to me. It's not in me."
"I know. Your father was the same way." Tsunade allowed herself a wry smile and a sip from her tea. "Fine, let's talk about it."
She placed the picture in the center of the table, turning it so they could both look at it right side up. Adopting her realtor voice, she cheerfully said, "This is Castle Roisin in County Derry, right on the border of County Tyrone in Northern Ireland. It overlooks Lough Draighean. Though beautiful, the castle isn't much of a tourist attraction due to its seclusion from society. It is about fifty miles from the nearest village, which is Claudy."
"So our closest civilization is fifty miles away. Anybody lives in the castle?"
"No. The owner is..." Tsunade flipped open a folder on her side of the table. Naruto braced his elbows on the table and hoisted himself up to get a look. "Calum McClarrin. He, his wife, and their two daughters live in Claudy. He inherited the estate from his uncle, Alroy McClarrin. Alroy was the only person who lived in the castle for longer than a year after the initial family. It seems Calum has been trying to sell it but can't manage to. Everyone in those parts seems to know there's something wrong with the place."
"And what's so wrong about it?" Naruto dropped back into his seat and studied the photo between them, brow wrinkled. "Looks like your run of the mill haunted castle to me."
"You're an idiot, though." Tsunade chided, laughing. "It was originally owned by Diarmuid Mac Airt. He was well-loved by his clan and eventually named Chief."
"How perfect," Naruto commented.
Tsunade looked up from her papers. "Why's that?"
Naruto blinked, obviously not realizing he'd spoken aloud. "Oh, because Diarmuid is an ancient name that means 'without enemy'. His parents sure nailed him on the head."
She'd forgotten that he was fluent in nearly every language that had ties to the Celts. For the zillionth time she wondered where the man got his strange love of the people. Taking another swig from her tea and motioning the waitress to bring another, she went back to the folder. "Well, Mister Without Enemy had Castle Roisin built in 1362 and named it after his wife Roisin Lanigan. His clan moved into the castle and they meant to build more onto it as the clan grew. Roisin gave birth to three children, two girls then finally a male heir. They were twelve, six, and four when everything started going wrong."
The waitress appeared with her tea and placed it on the table, leaning forward far more than was necessary. Tsunade glanced sharply at Naruto but the blonde hadn't even noticed the woman's jiggling cleavage nearly in his face. He had picked up the picture and was studying it, lips pursed in thought. Glorying at the disappointed expression on the waitress, Tsunade grinned as she left.
"So what happened then?" Naruto asked immediately.
"Well legend has it that Diarmuid came home from a trip and found Roisin naked in bed."
"You call that everything going wrong? I call that a welcome home present."
"I would to if it weren't for Diarmuid's brother, Fergus, also being in the room-also naked."
"Uh oh. Hoe alert."
"Well," Tsunade flipped the page. "Not quite. Roisin claimed Fergus had raped her while his brother was away so Diarmuid killed him in a rage that night. Then he rode out of Castle Roisin and visited the chief of a neighboring tribe to calm down and he ended up telling him about what had happened. He returned home and a few weeks later the neighboring tribe sent a messenger to invite him to a banquet for their daughter's wedding and the messenger found the entire clan slaughtered."
Naruto whistled in appreciation of the gravity of the situation and leaned his lanky frame back in his chair, crossing his arms. "To a man?"
"Not a soul left of the Mac Airt line."
"I thought Diarmuid was 'without enemy'."
"Not so much it seems." Tsunade closed that folder, sighing. "He was found in bed with Roisin, run through with his own sword. Someone didn't like him."
"Ouch, poor fella. So that's the history. Why would this place interest a ghost hunter like myself?" Naruto asked.
"Well the messenger told his chief and after they could find no suspects people began to widely believe that Fergus had come back from the dead and killed his clan. No one wanted to claim the castle then, despite the chief's assurance that since all the Mac Airt's were dead and their bodies had been removed Fergus would rest in peace. So the chief took it himself but couldn't bring himself to live in it. Eventually he died and it passed to his son-in-law. Now, he did try to live in the castle but two weeks later his niece drowned in the lake. He left and sold the castle to the chief of another clan. They had weird shit happen, sold it. The buyers had weird shit happen, sold it. And so on and so on, the castle was sold off or passed on to someone else over the years until finally Alroy McClarrin moved in. He lived there a full year until he died of a massive coronary."
"So this 'weird shit' that kept happening, what's that all about?" Naruto was now in full ghost hunting mode. Tsunade smiled at how like his father he sounded. She missed that man like crazy and his red-haired wife. They had been excellent hunters and a wonderful team.
Blinking away an unexpected moisture in her eyes, Tsunade quickly tried to compose her thoughts. "Uh, well after the niece drowned, the weird shit consisted of your normal bumps in the night and spooky sightings. Nobody died again until 1998. Here." She flipped open another manila folder and slid it across the table.
Naruto picked it up and perused the text. "1998. Owner-Scott Samuel. Was sleeping with one of the maids. Went on a trip to Britain two months after he bought the place and his son, Scottie Samuel, murdered the mistress. Damn, the kid was nine? How'd he do that?" His blue eyes traveled a little farther down the page then grew wider. "He chainsawed her? How the hell did a nine year old get a chainsaw?"
"Who knows?" Tsunade shrugged. "Scott senior came home, found out his son had done it, sent the kid to an insane asylum. Scottie junior claims to this day that he doesn't remember doing it. Ah-" she held up a hand before he could ask. "He's in Whittfield Hospital, two hours north of Castle Roisin."
"Wait, he was nine in 98'? Holy hell, the kid's my age."
"What? Your generation isn't allowed to be psycho?"
"No, we're too busy keeping your generation from having a fit of Alzheimers and stepping into traffic."
"I am not that old, you brat."
"You just called a twenty-three year old a brat, Tsunade. Face it, you're over the hill and sledding down the other side." Naruto dodged her slap just in time.
"Keep talking and I'll move your hill a shitload closer."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Now, after Scottie's little mental break Scott Samuel sold the castle to some rich chick from America. Three weeks after she moved in her sister leapt out of a tower window for no reason. She sold the house to another American. He lived their only a week and found his grandmother had drowned his six year old in the tub and then hung herself with the shower head. It took him two years to sell it. An Irishman bought it and two days later he was up on the battlements talking to his father and the old man suddenly attacked him and threw him to his death in the courtyard below. The castle passed to his son. The son never lived there. Instead he looked for five years for a buyer and finally found Alroy McClarrin. Alroy bought the place but didn't move in for another four years. Then he lived there with his dogs for a full year and some. Then he had his coronary and Calum McClarrin got the house. So in total, let's see..." She thumbed through one of the folders in front of her. "Ah, that's five people, plus the niece, plus the whole Mac Airt clan...they were about forty strong...so about forty six people give or take have died in this castle."
Naruto took a deep breath and leaned his head back, staring at the ceiling. She could see he hadn't shaved in a day or so now. Finally he rocked back forward and ran his hands through his wild blonde hair. "I want to do it. I want to investigate this place."
"I knew you would." Tsunade smiled. "I solved the two major problems you had and now I just need to know when you want to do this."
"Well, I-" Naruto cut off, blinking. "Two major problems?"
"Yes. The first is you have only one person you hunt with on a regular basis and one other person you sometimes forget. Temari and Sakura are not going to cut it. I called in some more members for your crew." She dug through the pile of folders in front of him, finally pulling out one near the middle.
"Well, who then?" Naruto took the folder from her and flopped it open. Temari's file sat on top and she saw him give the image of her spiky blonde ponytails and dark eyes a tilted smile as he moved it aside. Temari Sabaku was the only person Naruto had ever brought on every single hunt since she'd joined him. The blonde girl was a professional photographer who'd been featured in many of Japan's most popular magazines but she would drop anything and everything to go ghost hunting the moment Naruto called. For the last seven years she'd been the blonde man's partner in crime. Though Tsunade was sure the girl did not have a thing for Naruto, it was hard to think of another reason she'd be so interested in his job that she'd leave her own for weeks at a time. She and Naruto got along insanely well and Tsunade liked her.
Sakura Haruno's file was beneath that one and Naruto quickly flipped it out of the way. He and Sakura had a tedious relationship. Some days they were the best of friends and some days he would call Tsunade for the sole purpose of complaining about the pink-haired girl. Tsunade knew he'd once had a crush on the young medic but over the years of on again off again friendship, he'd forgotten it and now she was just a girl he sometimes enjoyed hanging out with. She knew that at that moment he wasn't very interested in being around the girl because they'd fought just the day before but she also knew that he knew Sakura was needed on a mission this big. Sakura Haruno had graduated a year early from Keio University, gotten her medical license, and now worked as a part-time doctor at Saiseikai Hospital in Tokyo. Just in case, Naruto forgot the first aid kit again, Sakura would accompany them.
The next file was Shikamaru Nara. She saw Naruto's face light up. Despite having the stupidest hair she'd ever seen- spiky brown hair he kept in a ridiculously high ponytail- Shikamaru was a tech genius that owned a spy shop in Osaka where people could buy anything from a handheld camera to a listening device the size of a toothpick that could record sounds at forty feet away. Naruto, who lived just down the road, had happened upon his shop once and the two had struck up a fast friendship. Shikamaru had accompanied Naruto on a few cases over the years since and they kept in touch regularly. Tsunade had been tempted to write "Pineapple head" across his file but resisted...barely.
Beneath Shikarmaru's sheet was another name and photo she saw he recognized. Kiba Inuzuka's wild brown hair was common in Japan but the two dark red fang tattoos that stretched from under his eyes to his jawbone were not. Naruto's father had helped the boy's family deal with a particularly vicious ghost when he was very young and Naruto himself made friend's with him afterwards. In fact, Naruto was the reason for Kiba's distinctive tattoos since he'd gotten his poor friend into a fixed bet when they were sixteen. Kiba lost and his punishment was the markings. However, when he'd found out that Naruto had cheated him, he forced Naruto to get whiskers tattooed on his cheeks. They were great friends and Kiba had even enlisted Naruto's help in starting up his business when they turned nineteen. Naruto took a few months off of ghost hunting and he and Kiba opened up Kiba's dog kennel/training facility in Kyoto. Kiba trained dogs in all the normal ways but he also trained a few special dogs to be "spirit seekers" and he had also accompanied Naruto a few times in the field. Though Tsunade thought she'd hate anyone who made her get such stupid tattoos, she admired the kid's spunk and knew Naruto was thrilled his friend would be going with him.
The file underneath Kiba's was the first one Naruto didn't know already and she leaned across to get a look at the large man's spiky brown hair and wide grin. "That's Choji Akimichi. He went to Le Cordon Bleu Kobe for a few years before he dropped out and started doing a bit of ghost hunting with a few friends of mine. He'll be your food man while you're staying at Castle Roisin. I have it set up so he'll have a van to drive back and forth to Claudy to get supplies if you need it."
Naruto gave a nod that clearly signalled he loved the thought of having a chef along. He loved food-any kind. Tsunade laughed. He was his mother's child.
The last two photos were of a brown-haired woman who wore her hair in the Chinese style buns and a woman with insanely long blonde hair and eyes a paler blue than even Naruto's. "That's Tenten Kunai with the brown hair and Ino Yamanaka with the blonde. Tenten was in the army for a few years and trained as a sniper and a weapons specialist. She was honorably discharged when she was injured during a bomb threat in Kanagawa. I met her just after she left the army and she came on a few cases with me. She can do all the talking if any police or other type of officials show up while you're investigating."
"Yeah, they never want us to have fun, do they?" Naruto smirked. "And Ino Yamanaka?"
"Ah, she's the icing to your cake, my boy." Tsunade grinned, very proud of this last selection. "I know your senses are incredible and you have your almost psychic moments, but this girl is the real deal, full-fledged, 'I see yo futaaaa' type. She lives in Osaka and apparently she worked in Shikamaru's shop for awhile. He said they've been friends since they were little and she's for real." Her grin widened as she saw his eyes widen. His mother had been a psychic and he'd gone through dozens of wanna-bes trying to find a real one to fill the slot.
"So she's a psychic? Why didn't Shikamaru tell me about her before?" Naruto glared at his friend's picture.
"He said she's always been busy when you came to get him for cases. But this time, he says she quit her job at the newspaper and came back to work for him so he can bring her along. I looked her up and apparently when she was fourteen she helped the police from her hometown find a girl who'd been missing for a month. It blew everyone's mind and she was all over all kinds of news feeds for a while before she drifted back into anonymity. She didn't go to college, but instead went straight to work in her family's flower shop in Kanagawa. She moved to Osaka, worked for Shikamaru for a bit, then got a job freelance writing for the newspaper. Now she's working with Shikamaru again."
"Wait, she lives in Osaka?" Naruto finally looked up from the files in his hand.
"Yeah. Just down the road from Shikamaru's shop."
"I live just down the road from Shikamaru's shop."
"Well, she lives a little farther down the road than you do."
"I've been living this close to a psychic for ages and didn't know it?"
"Well I'm sure she doesn't walk around with a sign around her neck that says, 'I'm a psycho-I mean psychic'." Tsunade quipped.
Naruto snorted through his nose, looking very upset that he hadn't realized how close he was to the roll on his team he'd always wanted to fill. "Whatever. So that's our first major problem solved. I have a crew now." He placed the files back into the folder, Ino's on top, and closed it. "What was the other one?"
"You don't have a passport, dumbass."
His blue eyes closed and he groaned as he realized she was right. He'd gotten it taken away after he'd snuck into a haunted mansion in China without getting police permission first. "Crap. What am I gonna do?"
"Didn't you hear me say I've solved both problems?" She rolled her eyes again. "I have a friend who can fly you out of the country and will set you up with everything you'll need when you get to Ireland. No passport required because it's a private jet."
For a moment the blonde just stared at her. "How the hell did you do that?"
"I have my ways." For emphasis she leaned back, pushing her prominent chest forward and flashing him a flirtatious smile. Naruto looked like he was going to puke. She threw her fork at him.
"Fine, fine. So I have a crew. I have a way there. Shikamaru and I can come to an arrangement on supplies. I just need a time, right?"
"Correct. I'll call your crew and let them know when to be ready."
Naruto bit his lip, staring into his empty plate. "I want to go from at least October 15th to November 15th."
"Works for me. I'll send out the memo."
"Good. I'm going to find Shikamaru. Thanks for breakfast, grandma!" With that, he raced out the door, all the files tucked under his arm. She waved to his retreating back.
Then his parting words hit her. "Little bastard! I wasn't paying!"