A DIFFERENT GENEALOGY: DECISIONS & DOGMAS
ACT II: SCENE I
The door slammed open to emptiness. Ino gave the room a quick once over with her eyes, not daring to try looking for the boy's consciousness after her last disastrous attempt. Seeing it was truly empty, she whiled from the doorway growling in frustration. On the other side of the dark corridor, Kakashi was busy searching an identical room.
"He's not in there!" she informed the grey haired Jonin behind her as she darted further down the corridor.
"Nor this one" he replied despondently from the other side of the hallway.
The door was slammed shut and footsteps echoed down the dank, dark hallways at a rapid pace. They were so close now! So close, he was somewhere in this underground labyrinth, Ino had confirmed. All that was left to find him. God, if this was another dead end she didn't know what she was going to do with Naruto.
"You're sure he won't be with the other test subjects? Ino asked, picking up her pace as they twisted around a corner.
Searching these underground cells - seemingly for test subjects - was proving unyielding with results, but Itachi hadn't been eager to explore the cells that held Orochimaru's test subjects.
Ino was certain he would be in a cell of his own further underground with a mind like the one she had sensed earlier, but that posed another problem in and off itself; all these damn corridors looked the same, and she had yet to come across anything resembling stairs, or even a ladder.
"I don't know, Itachi wasn't to eager to go down there, but… lets just keep looking up here for now" the copy-cat said , trying to placate his blonde companion.
Ino growled and skidded to a halt in front of another door.
Down another hallway another blonde slammed open another door; a glance with swirling red eyes told her that no-one with an iota of chakra was inside it. Naruto swore and hastened down the halls once again, searching for the next door. A boy with short black hair and another Jonin with equally dark hair in a low ponytail ran behind her.
"Where the hell is he?" she growled.
gNaruto calm down; we'll find him. Orochimaru wouldn't let the source wander around by his own free will" Itachi soothed, though the noticeable grit of his teeth showed his own frustration.
"Kakashi-Sempai would have sent word if he or Ino had found something" Sai stated in a business manner.
"Not until were certain Sai; those cells are… going through Orochimaru's criminal file back in Konoha was one of the few times I've been chilled to the bone. Some of the things we're likely to find there are nothing short of monstrous."
Itachi shuddered at the memory of certain photos that had been taken of the man's lab directly after defection.
"You think I don't know about monstrous Itachi? If you don't I can show you some of the dreams the Sharingan gives me! Go ahead! You can use Tsukiyomi right now!" Naruto hissed, skidding to a halt.
The corridor veered in two different directions. Itachi turned his gaze onto Naruto with his Sharingan spinning angrily. Sai, having only recently even broached the realm of psychology called emotion, was somewhat uncomfortable with the expressions on their faces.
I'll just… go this way…" he informed them warily, taking off and dashing down the hallways at full speed.
"That's irrelevant Naruto" Itachi growled calmly.
"In what way? I almost killed him, I almost killed Ino, and I could do the same to you Itachi! Unlike you, I remember everything! Every single detail, and that's far worse than anything Orochimaru can do!" Naruto hissed.
Itachi wanted to argue aginst that since there was one thing Orochimaru had done that was, if he was honest, worse than anything else the man could dish out but something told him that naruto wouldnt be willing to listen to that right now.
"You're making too much out of this! I've seen those experiments before, and I threw up before taking two steps into the room! There's monstrous, then there's emotional, and then there's Orochimaru Naruto" Itachi hissed, anger rising in his voice to a level of evidence.
"And you're underestimating me Itachi! Sasuke is counting on us to find this guy, and I'll be damned if you get in my way! I don't care if you're my brother Itachi; you're not going to stop me!" Naruto snarled, her eyes slitted.
A match of glares erupted between the two and two varieties of red eyes glared. Naruto was certain the Kyuubi was being agitated by the Sharingan; it was easier to pull on it's chakra for some reason.
Itachi sighed.
"This is getting us nowhere, lets just… put this aside for now, and keep looking up here" he suggested, recognizing a stalemate when he saw one.
Naruto gave a short, reluctant nod, and they took off down the remaining corridor.
Another door, another, another, another, and another, but still nothing! The fury grew insider her, and a pricking sensation flooded her; she stomped down on the voraciously violent chakra, turning down another hallway. Controlling the Kyuubi was taking more effort than it usually did; the old pervert should never have tampered with the seal.
Naruto slammed open another door and gave a howl of frustration, crashing her fist into the wall as Itachi caught up behind her; he caught up in time to see a blast of the ominous red chakra shoot out of her hands and his eyes widened in alarm.Naruto stared at her hands seemingly unsurprised for a few moments before the sounds of explosions reached her ears.
It echoed and rumbled throughout the entire underground maze. Naruto strained her ears as she darted from the room. The sound of rubble, of Ino's voice, was coming from one of the unseen corridors. Pausing several times to get a better sense of direction, she finally found a passageway that showed signs of recent destruction.
Naruto sped down towards the destruction with Itachi snapping at her heels.
Sai was already there, his Tanto drawn at a faceless enemy when Ino finally came across the destruction riddled corridor and found the wall-collapsed room he stood in; she gritted her teeth in frustration. After everything, was he still going to betray them? Oh, she couldn't wait to get the first socking punch on him if he had. He'd been asking for it since they'd first met!
"What the hell is going on? You'd better have a god-damn good excuse Sai!" she demanded, bursting into the light.
"He's up there!" Sai pointed in the direction he was facing.
Turning to see for herself, Ino could clearly see the pile of rubble that had fallen from the roof - the light came from a small hole in the roof where the rubble had originated. Sitting atop the rubble was the boy they had spent the last two months crashing through Orochimaru's bases in search of.
Giving a tentative push from her frontal lobe with her chakra she tried to get a shot glimpse of his consciousness. The pain that it sent through her forehead was reminiscent of her prototype brain boost juice - it was like listening to the static on a coms-device, only amplifies and in the form of rampant thoughts instead of crackling, fuzzy sound.
In another hallway the interaction had not gone unnoticed by the second Jonin; he didn't even bother to restrain the girl beside him and ran with just as much speed, though with a comparatively less vocal demeanour. Their gaze followed that of the squad-mates (as five people could hardly be considered a three-man-team) and dozens of responses flooded their expressions, the younger of the two the more expressive than any of her squad-mates so far.
Bi-Polar Juugo, we've been looking for you!" Naruto growled, eyes changing to a lighter shade of red and her irises spinning slowly.
During the three years of her absence, Itachi truly wished his youngest sibling was around to shed some light on the course Ino's mind was taking. Other than the daily training she received from Tsunade (working alongside Kiba of all people), she had her own training routine that was privy to no-one but herself (he didn't even know where she trained), the mastery of her clan techniques mixed with clan-running 101 from her father, interrogation lessons from Ibiki and Anko, missions with her brother's team…
It was a wonder where she found the energy to do all this and have one free afternoon a week to meet up and discuss things. The only thing Ino hadn't accomplished was the promotion to Chunin; she had refused the exams stating that until both her team-mates were back in Konoha, she wouldn't set a pen anywhere near a registration form, despite being Chunin in everything but official rank.
Itachi found himself swamped with ANBU missions and the running of his own clan (significantly lower in number thanks to the Suna-Oto invasion, but still enough to take up a fair amount of his time).
He was glad Shisui had agreed to take over the police department, because he had absolutely no time for it. He was planning on handing in his resignation to the ANBU fairly soon just to get some time to himself.
Yet Ino, who was doing just as much as him and then some (oh yes, he knew about her sneaks out of the village to nose up information on Orochimaru), was still finding time to test his self control.
Back before all the madness started, as he liked to generically refer to past events as, her Genin crush had been of no consequence. He hadn't realised it till a few weeks after she started training with Tsunade, but he had eventually picked up on it.
He been uncertain if his father would have been relieved his hormones had finally kicked in, or torn out his hair in frustration for reasons known only to himself, but in either case the childhood crush had not worried him. Why should it? He had been nearing nineteen at the time, and Ino had only passed her thirteenth birthday a few months before graduating - that sort of thing was called paedophilia in the legal system.
Sixteen year old Ino, however, was a different matter. She had obviously just been biding her time, because she hadn't made any direct moves towards him during the past three and a bit years other than a few hugs during celebratory occasions - and a few not so celebratory ones, such as the death of her mother on a mission in Earth country.
Then, once she'd attained all the legal requirements that could have hindered her by reaching sixteen and becoming a legal adult in the court system (which was different from the ninja system), her main aim in life had been to drive him to near insanity.
He'd never understood why his father hated the idea of hormones so much before the madness, but now… He sympathised with the man. He truly did; he didn't know how the minutest of movements could make his eyes wander to places he'd rather they not wander to.
Take now for instance; he was seated across from Ino at one of the new tables at the Ramen stand. Ino had gobbled down a dish of cold seasoned noodle-broth (a new addition by his old team-mate he was wary to try), having arrived from a practice session with Tsunade in the hospital's poison lab. After that she had proceeded to release the first few buttons of her short purple top.
"What are you doing? You're in public you know…" he informed her warily, expertly disguising the panic in his voice as nonchalance.
"Hey, those labs are stuffy! And I'm not taking the whole thing off, Perv!" she replied, a certain degree of weariness in her voice as she mentioned her work in the hospital.
If he knew which female ninja had decided wrapping their breasts with bandages was a good idea, he would personally hunt them hunt the down and give them a lecture on all the reasons why they were the exact opposite. He couldn't help but give the wrappings on Ino's own a critical eye; did they really hold any use at all? They didn't seem to hold anything down, at least not for Ino…
He scolded himself and turned back to his bowl of noodles; why couldn't Ino have stayed a nice little thirteen year old with a twisted sense of humour? The sixteen year old version hadn't been looking like they typical friend recently - why did she have his sense of humour? Probably from seeing Ibiki so much as a kid, it was where his came from (nobody escaped from that man unscathed).
Either way, their common personality traits were sending his brain messages different to the old thoughts of 'my brother's amusing team-mate' nowadays, which he found that uncomfortable. Mainly because… he just did. He had no excuse (though if anyone asked he would make some codswallop about age-gaps), and that worried him. No excuse probably meant he wasn't as opposed as he silently convinced himself he was.
"Itachi! Ino!"
The two were distracted by the sound of Kiba's voice as he jogged over to their table at a rapid pace, barely pausing to catch his breath upon reaching them. His giant hound came trotting up behind him and Ino was certain it would be chastising his partner for running of behind him had he mastered the basic human language that Kidomaru (Tsume's one-eared partner) had.
"What is it Kiba? You look excited… Did Hinata finally say yes? I told you the daises would work! What took you so long?" Ino asked, eyes glinting at the prospect of another successful Ino-enhanced matching.
"What? Hinata? No! The gate! You've gotta go to the gate! The gate!" he shook his head profusely with a hint of red staining his tattooed-cheeks, and Ino's face fell into a point.
"Why do we need to visit the gate?" Itachi asked, deciding it would be best to get right to the point."Because… wait, didn't Ino notice?" Kiba asked in confusion, turning back to the blonde.
"Notice what?" she asked, raising an eyebrow in confusion.
Kiba stared at her before his face broke into a teasing grin.
"Concentrate on all the people in the village; who sticks out? Akamaru picked up their scent ages ago!" he gloated, pleased to be ahead of her on the gossip front for once.
Though not particularly close during their academy and Genin days, working under their temperamental - and often tipsy - Hokage for three years had created a friendly rivalry between the two; apparently Kiba had as much a nose for gossip as Ino, but he never quite managed to beat her to some of the juicer titbits - the advantage of a mentally linked clan was a large one he had yet to counter
Ino frowned in confusion, but decided to humour him and closed her eyes, connecting her mind to the collective consciousness of Konoha's citizens. All she had to do was concentrate on their chakra and an awareness of each inhabitant flooded her mind. Discerning them was a task, but was manageable.
She presumed Kiba was referring to a member the military population, and filtered out all the civilians to concentrate on the ninja ranks: 'Kakashi… Sakura… Uwah, that's Shino all right…'
She jittered upon moving past Shino's awareness - Aburames were always a little odd thanks to all the bugs. She moved through all the ninja not finding anyone that should jump out by the northern gate. Not wanting to be out done by Kiba, she turned her direction towards the west main gate.
'Kotetsu and Izumo… Tsunade-sama… Wait, Tsunade?'
Ino pulled her thin waves of chakra back to her mentor in confusion.
'All right, why isn't she in the office? Shizune is going to pitch a- Wait, Shizune's there too? Why isn't she-'
Ino's jaw dropped open when the delicate pulses of chakra came into contact wit two other consciousnesses. She turned to Kiba, mouth still gaping wide. His smug grin answered her silent question and she bolted from her seat, catching and dragging Itachi by the arm as she did so.
"T-The gate! We have to get to the gate!" she blurted, dodging the alarmed walkers they flew past in her haste and ignoring Kiba's barking laughter.
"Hiya bandage-face!" Naruto crowed cheerily, waving to her old academy teacher as the passed by the visitor watch station.
Kotetsu looked up from the game of Shogi he was playing with Izumo at the sound of her voice, and a look somewhere between alarm and cheer crossed his face. Naruto grinned at the residual effect her academy days had instilled in the man, and dashed ahead of her teacher, ignoring his sigh of exasperation.
Deciding to let loose, she darted up a telephone pole, her restored bunches flipping in the wind around her face at the top. She let loose a loud enthusiastic yell, taking in the long-missed scenery. She snickered at the new stone face on the mountain, before she was distracted by a loud bark and a yell from below.
"Oi, Blondie! Get down here and say hello properly you dolt!"
She turned her head, and jumped down to talk properly greet her old classmate. Before she hit the ground she squashed herself onto Kiba, knocking him off of the back of his large dog (what kind of vitamins had they been feeding that little puppy?).
"Kiibaaaa! You missed me!" she teased, releasing him enough for the boy to stand and brush the dust from his clothes.
"Yeah sure, don't disappear like that without leaving Ino a note or something again! She nearly destroyed the ICU when she found out you were gone!" he berated, bopping her on the head, noting he had to reach a fair bit higher than he used to.
"Oh wow! The mutt knows new acronyms! Do you know what it means though, that's the real question!" she replied grinning at the twitch of his jaw.
"Of course I do! I learned medic stuff while you were gone! Ino too, but Ino's obsessed. She got the crazy strength too, I never quite got the hang of that…" he trailed off, wincing at the memory of his training; Tsunade's lessons were best described by the words 'doge of death'.
"Speaking of Piggy, where is she? I figured she'd have been her before I got through the gate…" Naruto mused, toying with the sleeve of her orange dress.
The top third or so and sleeves were short and black, as was a short band of fabric on the hem, and perhaps half an inch on either side of the zip. Underneath was a short mesh bodysuit and black cropped sleeveless vest - hidden by the zip, and on her feet a pair of heeled boots, more mesh poking to just below her knees from beneath them.
"Hmm… probably with Itachi, what the hell is that thing for? It's made of that chakra metal right? That must have cost a fortune!" he gawked gesturing to the enlarged shuriken that hung against her back with a shoulder chain.
Naruto gave it a glance before turning back to Kiba with a grin
"Secret mutt! Now what's this about Ino and my bro- and Itachi…" she cursed her almost-slip of the tongue internally, thankfully Kiba didn't seem to notice.
"They meet up to taken every once in awhile; it's not a date but it might as well be for all the attention they give anyone else" he explained.
"I see…"
"Why don't you go get them Kiba? Itachi is probably beginning to panic anyway, and you know how those two get" a new voice suggested.
Naruto turned to find the Hokage herself and her assistant closing the increasingly short distance between them.
"Tsunade-Sensei, Shizune-Sempai! Err, I mean, yes Ma'am!" Kiba replied, giving a mock salute to the blonde woman before hurrying down the street with his faithful canine companion.
"Sensei?" Naruto asked, surprised even though Kiba had already mentioned his medical training.
"He's rather competent; nowhere near Ino's level in the field, but put him in an operating theatre and he's a brilliant surgeon. I think that's his sister's influence with the veterinary clinic; his mother was more of a field medic during the war…" Tsunade mused, bopping Naruto on the head.
"Good to see you brat" Tsunade greeted, squashing Naruto as she hugged her.
"You too, but seriously, Kiba is a medic? Kiba?" she asked, still not believing the facts.
"Ino's father inspired him; Tsume never endorsed medical techniques to him much, but Inochi was the one who healed him and kept him alive till the medic team could arrive after the res-" Jiraiya clamped a hand over her moth before she could finish her sentence.
"Don't say it!" he hissed, keeping a beady eye on Naruto who was being given an edited version of events by the quick-witted Shizune."What?" Tsunade asked in confusion, pulling his hand from her mouth.
"Don't mention the mission! She'll turn into a useless plied of depressed orange mush! I tried using it for motivation, but she ended up walking around in a daze for the whole day!" he hissed.
Tsunade had a brief recollection of the same thing happening with Ino, and to a lesser extent Kiba (he still held some partial feelings of guilt for not doing more to help), during her own lessons.
"I think I know what you mea-"
"Come on Itachi you slow poke! Move your ass! Are you a Genin? Move! Move! Move!" Ino's voice echoed throughout the street, before the purple-clad Yamanaka appeared on the corner, dragging a rumpled looking Itachi behind her.
Ino finally released Itachi upon sight of the orange and yellow figure, and sped towards her, ponytail flying behind her. She crashed into her long-gone friend in much the same manner Naruto had Kiba, landing in a purple, orange and blonde tangle on the street.
"Don't you dare leave like that again!" Ino yelled angrily, shaking Naruto's shoulders enthusiastically to get her point across.
"I'm sorry, but I sent you a peace offering! Did you get it?" Naruto asked, recovering from the shaking and raising an eyebrow.
Ino's face melted into a blissful grin and she glued herself to her friend, knocking her back to the street once again, yelling apologies and thanks for the unknown truce gift. Itachi let Ino have her moment before moving to greet his sister himself. Ino finally let up, catching his approach from the corner of her eye and pulling Naruto up with one hand.
Itachi notes the four pointed star on her back briefly before tapping her forehead in much the same way he once had with a younger Sasuke.
"Good to see you again" he greeted; Naruto twitched.
"I see I have work to do with you; you're even more closed up than before I left Itachi! Why can't you just gimmie a hug like normal people?" she asked with a visible twitch in her eye.
Before Itachi could answer she'd jumped the small distance necessary to reach his shoulders and greet him in what she deemed as the proper fashion… The usually placid man was taken aback for a few long moments before giving an awkward, but equally sincere one armed hug, doing his best to avoid the giant metal weapon strapped to her back.
"Welcome back Naruto" he mumbled, slightly embarrassed by such a blatant display of emotion.
"Sasuke! Look! The snake bastard's leaving!" Suigetsu hissed in a bubbling voice, water muffling the sound made by his vocal chords.
Sasuke looked up from the cleaning of his Katana to see that Suigetsu - his fellow prisoner, albeit of a slightly different kind - was indeed correct. Orochimaru passed by the entrance to the water-lab in that weird black red-cloud spotted cloak of his.
He'd been forced along on one of these outings when the seal that kept him trapped in Otogakure was still being tweaked (it had worked, but not enough for Orochimaru's standards), and had heard enough snippets of their conversations (no to mention other enlightening moments) to know what the Akatsuki were planning; demon extraction.
The slithery man gave him one of those sickening soft smiles as he passed: 'you may know what we do, but what can you do to stop me?' it said, and it made Sasuke's blood boil.
"I hate that look" Suigetsu bubbled from his watery prison."Overhear anything on how long he'll he long?" Sasuke asked, settling back to furiously removing the dirt from his long blade.
"Err…"
Suigetsu scratched his head with a watery hand.
"Ah! I heard something about a Raccoon when that red-head was here the other week, but I didn't really get it… Sasuke, hey what's wrong with you now? Ya' look as pale as that snake creep!" Suigetsu report took on a worried tone as Sasuke froze his furious scrubbing.
"Oi, tree-hugger, what the hell?" Suigetsu asked again, using the strange nick name he had dubbed the boy with.
Sasuke broke out of his statuesque state wit his Sharingan blazing angrily.
"That raccoon is the One-Tailed Tanuki! Gaara holds the Tanuki! That's the first of the demons they want to extract! They've started searching for the Jinchuriki!" Sasuke hissed.
Suigetsu's mouth opened into an 'O'.
"Ah, that explains why you look like you want to kill something more excessively than usual - isn't your girl one of them? Or was it your sister?" Suigetsu's watery hand scratched his head as he attempted to remember which one had been mentioned.
"She's the host of the nine-tailed fox," Sasuke stated, clasping the mark on his neck Naruto had attempted to destroy with her Rasengan.
The gaping wound had been healed, but the cursed seal had grown back with it. There was a scar where the new flesh skin and bone met old, and his fingernails dug into the skin. If he thought it would do him any good he would tear it off his skin with his own nails.
It wouldn't do any good though - Naruto had proved that. He had tried escaping only once before, but it had been enough to tell him that he wasn't getting away from Orochimaru unless someone came with a rescue party, or Orochimaru died.
He'd managed to get past the guards and five miles away from the dank and gloomy base before a shooting pain crackled through his head, shutting off all the movement of his limbs. Unlike the sound fives' seals, he had an extra formula that reacted whenever he travelled too far from whichever base he was being imprisoned in, or from Orochimaru himself.
Having flunked out of his sealing class in the academy (miserably), and no books on-hand to instruct him in the subject (Orochimaru allowed him to train, but Sasuke's hopes for a fatal blunder had been dashed), that meant he was stuck.
It didn't help that every time he was moved, the seal knocked him out till they had arrived at the new hideout. He knew the bases by name, but by location? He could be in the middle of Earth Country and five miles from Iwagakure for all he knew. He had a few glimpses of scenery to go on, but that was hardly satisfactory.
In this situation he had decided to train with the goal of skinning the man's scaly hide. He was certain Naruto, Ino, and Itachi were searching for him, but he couldn't count on them finding him when his prison was changed so constantly, nor that they would be able to counteract the cursed seal. His best bet for escape was to get rid of Orochimaru.
It sounded so easy in his head…
"Hey, so which one is it? You girlfriend or your sister?" Suigetsu asked, jerking him back to their conversation.
Sasuke, having received the news he had, was feeling in a particularly venomous mood.
"Both." he stated, before sheathing his Katana into the strap on his back and leaving the lab, ignoring Suigetsu's gurgled demands for an explanation instead of crypticness.
Orochimaru had tried foisting those ugly sound robes and purple ropes on him, but Sasuke had pointedly torched them before even touching them.
Instead he wore a mesh shirt underneath a baggy black short-sleeved zip-shirt with a high collar and his clan symbol stitched onto the back and a pair of white trousers (nostalgia to his white shorts that he had long since grown out of) tucked into more mesh, and a pair of sandals and his Konoha headband secured on his arm with chakra in case some idiot tried to remove it.
The only things he had accepted (very grudgingly) from the renegade Sanin were his arm guards and his sword - which was permanently secured on his back over one shoulder, the metal chain securing it running across his front.
He made his way through the dark halls towards his room. After checking to make sure there were none of Orochimaru's pesky snake summons lying around to spy on him, he kicked back a dirty rug and removed a few of the loose floor tiles.
His secret compartment was somewhat juvenile, but the ninja around him would be expecting any hidden objects to be hidden under illusions - it was the obvious solution, and something as childish as rug-covered loose-tiles would be deemed a stupid idea.
It had worked so far; the seemingly harmless figurines and emergency communication scroll were still untouched. He picked up one of the small ornaments - a miniature peregrine falcon - and carefully hid it in one of his inside pockets before hiding the rest of the objects.
If he knew Naruto - and he did - then she would no doubt be part of the party sent to Gaara's aid if he were to be captured. He'd heard of the boy's promotion and was pleasantly surprised; if someone who'd been alienated just as badly, if not worse, as Naruto could become the leader of Wind country's military at their age, then it meant Naruto could do the same.
That was not the problem though - if Naruto went to the Akatsuki to help Gaara, then it wouldn't just be her life on the line. He needed to warn the only person who had any chance of keeping her from getting herself killed.
It was with this intention that he prowled the halls in search of a window, not wishing to use the heavily watched doorway unless absolutely necessary.
Kakashi dodged past trees as he was relentlessly pursued by his two female Genin. After a small blunder with the mention of Sasuke's name ('Note: never ever mention Sasuke unless absolutely necessary, or unless they mention him first'), the test had begun.
He'd been aware of Ino's training under the Hokage (and just about everywhere else for that matter), but knowing of her chakra enhanced strength was one thing. Experiencing it was quite a different matter; the destruction of the earth around him had been one of the few heart-stopping moments in his life, and Kakashi seriously hoped Itachi had better sense than to get the blonde girl mad.
Fortunately he had a few tricks of his own. His water techniques and a fireball that rivalled Itachi's had punctured their confidence; Naruto seemed to have improved her use of the Sharingan in close combat, but he had much more experience with Obito's than she had with her own, and experience had triumphed over DNA. He was sure Itachi would rectify that after watching though.
He kept the attack at a rapid pace with various elemental techniques, rapid hand seals, and superior tactical skills as the two kept up their defensive assault. Ino seemed to have improved her chakra reserves drastically if her use of shadow clones was anything to go by; she easily had the same amount as Naruto did without the Kyuubi's influence.
Her work with Ibiki was showing too; some of the illusions she trapped him in despite his Sharingan were positively grotesque. Though much to her irritation, he did not remain still long enough for her to execute her clan's famed mind-transfer technique (he knew better than to remain still when facing a Yamanaka).
Naruto had shown her improved use of her own clones, and seemed to have finally mastered the Rasengan with one hand, but he had yet to see anything new from her; the large shuriken remained ominously affixed to her back. He assumed that the material it was forged from meant she had mastered one of the elemental natures, but he didn't know which one that was.
She and Sasuke had both used small fireball techniques back before the 'madness' started - quoth Itachi - but those same techniques were equally open to other Genin, and didn't necessarily mean they possessed the fire element. Naruto's mother had preferred to use earth rather than fire, and her father had used wind and lightning.
With so many possibilities, he wouldn't be surprised if she defied traditional family genetics with chakra natures and used water instead; Naruto simply loved to throw a wrench in plans and tradition after all.
He was jerked from his musings by the sudden appearance of the two Genin; Naruto had finally pulled out the large shuriken, and was swinging it around her head on a chain, gathering momentum. Behind him were two identical blonde mind-readers, fists gathering chakra.
He dodged the blows from the two, leaping onto one of the soaring pieces of fractured earth generated from the impact of… where was Ino? Shit! Had they been shadow clones? He had no time to ponder the possibly as Naruto finally let fling the shuriken; it was released from the chain in a wide ark, soaring past him with a whistle of air before returning to the blonde girl who caught it with practised ease and replaced it on her back.
Why was she putting it away? She had missed- Kakashi caught sight of the ground the lump of earth he stood on fell downwards in horror and cursed; the ground was burning with thick red flames, and the scarlet heat showed no visible pathways out; oh well, at least they'd listened when he said to attack with killer intent - this was certainly life threatening.
He forced his largely diminished chakra reserves to coat his skin, acting as a protective layer against the flames as the large lump of dirt landed on the flames with a thud. Smoke clogged his eyes as he fought to generate a water technique with the dry humidity.
'Damn it there's no water in the air!' he growled mentally. He didn't dare take a step from the lump of earth that was beginning to smoulder - his chakra acted as a protective layer, but it couldn't stand up to direct flames. He looked up and considered the chances of jumping-
"Fireball technique!" two voices yelled simultaneously, and the previously manageable flames soared to humanly unreachable heights.
He decided to find out why Ino was using fire techniques later on; right now his vision was getting a bit fuzzy, and oxygen was becoming an issue.
"Mudbath technique!" Ino's voice yelled distantly from behind the crackling flames.
A swill of mud rose like a tsunami and engulfed the flames, and smoke billowed from the sopping soil substance. Before he could regain too many bearings Naruto descended upon him with her fists primed; Kakashi's eyes widened at the gathering chakra in them, thinking himself to be seeing things.
Thinking it better to be safe than sorry, he dodged the impending blow, and was horrified to find his hallucinations had been correct; the earth he had previously been standing on crumbled to dust upon the impact of Naruto's fists.
'W-Why is Naruto using Tsunade's strength techniques? Did she copy it with the Sharingan? No, it takes training and superior chakra control to use Tsunade's strength that Naruto just doesn't have, and Naruto wouldn't copy Ino's techniques without permission; she probably wouldn't want to copy them in the first place, so how-'
He was cut off by a near-miss from a Rasengan, coming from the owner of the strength Naruto had just displayed.
'…I'm lost! They aren't using transformations, I'd be able to see the chakra, but even with Ino's chakra control she wouldn't be able to master the Rasengan that quickly! What on earth is this?'
He dodged simultaneous devastating blows from Naruto and Ino, and for the first time he got a good look at their appearances.
"Oh dear god, what on earth have we unleashed?" he whimpered silently as the two girls formed Rasengan of identical size and force.
"Jiraiya did you teach Naruto how to use my strength techniques?" Tsunade asked in bafflement as Naruto created yet another crater in the earth.
"No… I'm guessing you didn't teach Ino the Rasengan then?" he replied as Kakashi dodged a hail of flaming, normal-sized shuriken.
They turned to look at Itachi with a questioning gaze.
"What?"
"You do have the Sharingan Itachi, it wouldn't be a surpri-"
"No, besides when was I supposed have trained either of them?" he asked, cutting the woman off mid-sentence, seemingly irritate by the assumption.
Akamaru barked to his owner and Kiba raised an eyebrow.
"I agree, getting into their bad books would be a health hazard" he snickered.
The rest of the viewers chuckled. They continued to watch the exchange, Itachi's eyes spinning furiously in an attempt to discern how the two used personally-impossible techniques with apparent ease. The match came to an abrupt end when Kakashi covered his eyes and ears, and the two girls easily retrieved their bells.
"Deidara, hurry up!" Sasori snapped.
"Keep your hair on! I'm coming, yeah!" the blonde replied irritably, picking himself up from the ground he had been trying to catch an extra thirty winks of sleep on.
"In case you didn't notice, Deidara, we have a Jinchuriki to catch!"
"You make him sound like some sort of animal," Deidara grumbled under his breath.
Honestly, would it kill these people to at least refer to their poor targets by name? Or did dehumanising them assuage them of their non-existent guilt? Or maybe they were just racist… because honestly, that's what all this Jinchuriki-hate seemed like to him.
Selective racism, maybe? Or possibly an attempt at self-fulfilling prophecy; refer to people as human sacrifices, and they will let you slowly kill them that much quicker!
"Did you say something?"
"Isn't he your nephew?" Deidara asked, covering his grumbling.
"Not my problem," Sasori stated bluntly.
Deidara repressed his urge to strangle the man with a clay snake before letting it explode; maybe it was just him, but these Akatsuki people had no morals, or they were so obscure they were hardly worth mentioning…
The desert, being a desert and therefore made of sand for the most part, was rather boring. He could annoy Sasori by playing eye-spy and constantly using 'S', but that could only last so long. He was pondering forming a bird and flying to Sunagakure (leaving the dreary puppeteer behind) when a familiar sight came as a minuscule dot on the sky.
It was a small clay bird, and Deidara immediate recognised it as one of his own; he hadn't recalled sending any birds with messages, and wasn't expecting any replies, so that could only mean one person had sent the small animated figurine.
He snatched it from the air as it neared him, gaining nothing more than a raised eyebrow from his partner, and hid the bird in the pocket of the black cloak. He would have to read Sasuke's message soon, but he couldn't do that with Sasori so close by.
The towering walls of Sunagakure came into view and his stomach churned.
'Here already, huh?'
Any thoughts of Sasuke's message were replaced by the more troubling prospect of capturing the young leader of Wind Country's military forces.
Ya-hey! The Sequel is up! For those who didn't get the ADG message, I've started to put up a mini-story about Minato and Mikoto. You don't need to read it to understand the story - and there will be spoilers if you do - but it's there for your viewing pleasure should you wish to view. It goes by the name of Diverce Inheritance.
Please dont expect fast updates; I have writers block, packing, and overdue exam revision to do. It isn't conducive for creative writing in the slightest. Crap, I have a NAB in that to revise for too. Maybe I'd better start that revising malrkey now...
Hope you liked!
Nat. xxx