A/N: I forgot to write one for Utakata! I'm a horrid person.. it's been over a month since Month 6 Day 16!
Here is to make it up to him!
Wr. 28715
UPD 30715
UPD 31715
UPD 09815
NAME 150217
Utakata: Happy Birthday!
The man who was cast out his home-village; the Rokubi Jinchuuriki, Utakata.
Utakata usually spends his days living in a secret area covered with waterfalls and steam. Little did the man know that his birthday is upcoming and little did he care. Even if he knew it was his birthday, he wouldn't get excited as he has no-one to be with.
The Hokage has summoned some of her finest kunoichi to her office. This is all because the most of the male ninja are away on long-term missions.
"Listen ladies, I have a cooperative mission for all of you which have been given to us from Kirigakure. All of you will travel to the outskirts of the mist through boats and your task is to capture the Rokubi Jinchuuriki who has been set on a bounty of 50,000,000 ryo." Tsunade informed them, "I don't care what method you use, capture him dead or alive!"
"Yes, Tsunade-sama!" All the girls responded.
The kunoichi left the building.
Ino being one of them asked, "She said we can use any method, right? Why not just a friendly one?"
Sakura shrugged her shoulders. "She also said we have to work in pairs or a group. Wha'd ya say?"
"Let's get him! Seriously, 50,000,000 ryo!? That's a bit much, he must be tough.." Ino replied.
Tenten approaching, "It seems you two are a pair. I would join but that means Hinata is in the dust."
"I don't see why they needed to summon Hinata. All her skills are taijutsu based and I doubt it would work on the thick jelly-like body in which he can transform into." Ino pouted.
"You can try your Shintenshin technique?"
"Yeah but what if he can slither around it." Ino sighed. "Maybe I'll use my chakra hair-trap technique.."
Sakura surprised, "Your not going to cut your hair just for him!?"
At the time, the girls arrived at the west border of Kirigakure and had taken a boat journey to get to the huge island-country.
"Last one to get to him buys us all dinner!" Ino yelled and started running, signalling it towards Hinata as she is the slowest of them all.
She stopped for a moment. Ino thinking up a strategy as all they know is that his beast has a liquid-like body. "Sakura let's go to the Mizukage's mansion!"
The two arrived quicker than they imagined, both had permission to enter the Filing room as the Mizukage was away but they were excused due to being part of the mission to catch the six-tails.
Both Sakura and Ino started searching through the books. Ino stopped and traced her hand back to the previous book and pulled it out.
The blonde read out the cover title, "Tehaisho: book of search instructions.. otherwise known as the 'bingo-book'.."
"There must be information of him in here. Since he has a huge bounty, he's like a criminal. I bet he's ugly too." she snickered at the last remark. Sakura sweat-dropped at the joke her childhood friend had made.
The Yamanaka started reading through the book. She found the details of him written down, "There's a lot written about him but no picture! Well, this ugly-slug must hide a lot."
"Yoshi! I found his whereabouts. We have to head through the dead forest.. sounds like the forest of death in the Fire Country. Then the snake-pit Orochimaru was once experimenting from." Ino wanting to choke herself. "How does this guy get past all these obstacles?"
XxX
"We're here. The dead forest." Ino said in a scared-tone.
"It's probably just dead trees," Sakura tried to comfort her.
"Hey, you guys!" a distant voice call out to them. As the person approached, they figured out it was; their senpai Tenten.
The brunette cleared the bugs away from her clothes as she came out of a cramped space. "Scary!" both Ino and Sakura thought as another figure followed, it was the previous Hyuuga Heiress.
The closer the girls got to the forest entrance, the bigger the guard there became.
He signalled them to stop, "I am Ao. Under strict orders only members of the Rokubi Capture Team should be entering this restricted zone. I see you guys are from Konohagakure. Okay, Godaime Hokage-sama has sent me a list of ninja registration numbers. If you guys can call yours out, I'll let you pass."
Tenten paused and recalled her number. "Oh, mine is 012573!"
The guard nodded as let her through. She threw a 'peace sign' at them from behind him.
Sakura next, "012601"
Then Ino, "012604"
Finally Hinata who was having trouble remembering. "Um.. 012612". She started walking as Ao stared at her eyes, noticing that it is the Byakugan; the same as one he has in his right-eye.
The girls started moving forward through the forest.
A hoard of plants with teeth appeared.
Hinata rushed out, I'll handle this! "Air palm!", the plant absorbed the incoming vacuum and grew bigger.
Ino threw her special poisonous flowers with explosives that burst their bodies.
They proceeded to the snake pit. Tenten and Hinata too scared to cross stayed on that end. The sight of them all gathering wanted to make them puke.
Two snakes slithered on the botanist as she glared at them to scare them off.
"Well, you scared them off Ino.."
Ino bopped her head, "Tehe~!"
The two arrived closer to the waterfall where the Six Tails Jinchuuriki awaits. "I hear he lives around here.." the blonde told her friend.
A shadow was watching them from afar..
Sakura and Ino proceeded to the waterfall. There was a house as small as a cottage. They entered his house looking for clues, the door was unlocked.
At first the two could not see anything until they waved their arms around, removing the clothing which were covering their faces.
"This smells nice!" Ino said, "I wonder what it is- uh.." she pulled up the soft material and blushed at it. "It's some mans' underwear!" she cried, "Now I can't get married.. but one more sniff."
Sakura sweat-dropped and gave off a sigh. "She smells it - likes it. She sees it and gets disgusted, saying she can't get married but goes back to smelling it.." she chuckled a bit at the end.
"We'll find nothing here.. I'm going back to the village. Coming?"
Ino paused and looked around, "Umm, I'll be there in a bit. Head back without me," and with that the pink-haired girl left.
The platinum blond searched through the shelf. She read some of the book and about the person who lives here's journal. "Ooh interesting, this stuff got birthday and everything. Also some info on his body parts, eh-heh .. " Ino drooling, imagining someone handsome.
She heard the door open, Ino hid the book in her pouch. "Back for more Sakura?! I wasn't looking for any naughty stuff by the way!"
A tall man entered. He had a dark shade of brown hair, honey-orange eyes. Ino had a slight blush on her face, "Uh.. welcome back dear! I was cleaning the house for you! Now, bye!" she headed to the door like a robot.
He grabbed her by the arm, "What are you doing here? I saw you enter my house earlier. Is there anything you needed?"
Ino looked at him, "Well, uh.. I was told I could find the Rokubi Jinchuuriki somewhere around this area and thought I could ask the owner of this house if they knew anything about him.."
The man about to kick her out of his house heard a growl from her stomach and sighed. "I'll make you something."
"Yay! Free food!"
He could only sweat-drop.
The man took the girl in and made her food from what he had leftover in his fridge. Ino looking into the fridge, "Not much in there, is there?"
He grunted. "Well, I have no choice because I live in hiding!"
Ino looked at him, "Uh, sorry."
During her meal, he asked her why she wanted to find him.
"To capture him of course."
"So that's it."
"He has a 50,000,000 bounty! And he is pretty famous!"
The man lied and said, "Never heard of him. Now, I think it's time for you to depart little lady."
Ino getting shoved to the door. "Calling me a 'little lady' - you are not much older than me!" - He pushed her further, "Wait, what's your name? I need to pay you back for the food later on." she asked.
"Utakata" the man wearing the robe which has the same colour as Ino's eyes had told her.
The girl dressed in purple nodded, "Yoshi, Utakata. Got it."
XXX
She left his house and headed back to the village to rendezvous with her friends.
Sakura greeted her, "Oi Ino! Want to go to the spring lakes here?"
The blond could only wonder about Utakata and how he could live in the same area as the one she is hunting down. "No luck today. Maybe some tomorrow. He was nice enough to feed me," she then noticed Tenten and Hinata staring at her.
"What?"
"You've been wondering off in your own thoughts for a while." Hinata said.
"That's right and are you going to come to spring lakes? - you know, those steamy gardens with huge ponds and curved-red bridges" Tenten added.
The Yamanaka quickly nodded and sighed. "Oh well."
The girls dragged her along, "Let's go!" as they were getting closer to the gardens' gate.