It was disgusting. And troublesome. And stupid. And…. Even Shikamaru's brain couldn't find the proper wording for how ridiculous the current situation was. He looked around at the others, gauging how they were taking current events. Not well, by the looks of it. Neji sat crosslegged under a tree with his eyes closed and his hands clasped together in his lap; Lee slumped against the tree and stared off into space, his face plastered with sweat and his eyes vacant. Tenten lay curled up in a ball at Neji's feet, sleeping as close to the safety of her team as she could without touching them. Her clothing, like the other's, was coated in mud and dust from the harrowing journey they had undergone to get here; though only Neji had any apparent injuries, in the form of myriad cuts coating his body. To their right Shino sat on a tree branch with his back against the trunk so that he could keep watch over his two sleeping teammates. Kiba and Hinata slept back to back, using Akamaru's body as a pillow. They were likewise dirty and sweaty; though the injuries were more evenly spread out amongst them then with Neji's team. To the left of Neji's team was Team 7, the only four man group amongst them. Sai and Sasuke were both standing watch, with Naruto holding Sakura while they slept. Shikamaru's own team was currently awake, as Ino was trying to heal a deep cut in Choji's right arm that stretched from below his elbow to the base of his thumb. Sakura would normally have done it, except that she was currently far more worn out then anyone else, from having healed Sai when a sword had gone through his right lung and out his back.
All in all, not one person except maybe Shino looked up for a fight, and with Shino it was impossible to tell through his layers of clothing. At least there were clear lines of command, so there wouldn't be any struggles for leadership. Neji was visibly the center of his team, Shino was in charge of his, Naruto was less visibly in control of his but every member accepted his authority. Shikamaru was indisputable the leader of his own team, and knew that if he died Choji would follow Ino. The question then was which team would be the lead one; Neji was smart enough to do it, and had previously out ranked everyone else, but Sasuke wouldn't follow anyone besides Naruto. Naruto had always wanted to be leader, but Shikamaru found the idea of following him somewhat disconcerting. Frankly, he wanted to be in charge himself; but Sasuke probably wouldn't follow him, and Naruto wouldn't do anything to alienate Sasuke. Sasuke might want to lead, but no one would follow him after he had been absent for so many years. So it was going to be Neji, Shikamaru, or Naruto. Now that Shikamaru had an idea of what they would do about the lack of older leadership, he began to think about where they could go. 13 missing nins couldn't hope to stay in a land that was attempting to track them down, they would have to go find a no mans land to live in. The areas without direct ninja control were the lands of Wave, Sound, Rain, and some small areas in the borders between the Great Nations. While splitting up made sense in the manner of eluding detection, it would lower the willingness of all involved to continue to survive. A life on the run would be difficult together; split up it would prove impossible. So… the area that had contained Orochimaru's sound bases seemed the best one. It was filled with rouge ninja already, and lacked any form of government at the moment. When the others were awake, he would suggest that as the best course of action. He knew that some of them would want to fight back, but it had almost killed them all just to get to this rendezvous point. Neji had ended up killing four ANBU members by himself to prevent them from getting Tenten, while Lee had been trapped by a sizable group of Gennins and Chunnin. Every group had similar stories, of being attacked by everything from rookie teams to expert hunter nins from all of the Great Ninja Villages. Based on this it was apparent that all of the villages were mobilized in an attempt to find them; though they might deserve it.
In retrospect, killing the Kages when they attempted to protect Danzou had been a bad move. Danzou had led the coalition against Madara, but after the battle he had killed most of their teachers when they had spoke against his attempt to make himself into both the Daimyo of the Land of Fire and Hokage. The old Daimyo had died at Madara's hands; a ploy to create chaos in the Land of Fire during the Fourth Ninja War. However, Danzou had simply taken control of the government and continued to fight on; a choice which was acceptable in peace time but more chaffing once the war had ended. After he had killed their Sensei's, however, there was not other option but to kill him. Except for Gaara, all of the kages had attempted to interfere, and had ended up dead after a long and brutal battle. They had miraculously escaped alive, and had broken up to escape the tracking units, with the goal of meeting back up here. And so the 13 of them were sitting around the lightly forested field by The Valley of the End, the one place that had no settlements that they all knew well. Eventually someone was going to realize that this was the case, however, and send ANBU here. Which was all part of Shikamaru's musings, as he looked at the others and thought about where they could settle on a more permanent basis. "Hell, at the very worst we can just take over the old Akatsuki headquarters. No one but us knows where those were anyway." Shikamaru murmured to himself, his eyes widening at the idea running through his head, realizing how perfect it was.
"What was that Shika?" Choji asked from where Ino was still trying to get his cut to close, wincing when she pushed too much chakra into his skin too fast. "I think I have found the answer to our problem" Shikamaru said with a smirk, laying back on the grass to look at the sky. "You found a way for us to get back into Konoha?!" Ino asked eagerly, a bright smile on her bruised and dirty face. "No, but I found a place for us to live, and it's free." Ino's smile faded, but she no longer looked like her spirit had been broken, as it had ever since she had forced the Mizukage to commit suicide with her technique. Shikamaru lay watching the clouds for a long while, ignoring everything else, before Sakura walked over to him and blocked his view with her shadow. She had massive dark circles under her eyes, and looked bleary on top of it, but it was still an improvement over how she had looked when Naruto had carried her into the camp. She had looked like she had already died then, her skin so pale that the dirt couldn't even make it seem dark. And the dirt on her made what anyone but Lee's had on them seem insignificant. "Ino says you found a place for us to live. I want to know if we are going to have to spend the rest of our lives vacating one spot after another." Shikamaru looked up at her and thought about how to answer. "Sakura, the place I am thinking about is only directly know about by members of our group. Everyone else who ever saw them is dead. And if they do find them, Sasuke knows the location of dozens of hideouts of Orochimaru's that no one ever found; and he had committed the same crime as us. We should be able to settle down for a quite a while." Sakura nodded, and smiled slightly before whispering "thank you" and walking back to Naruto, who was raising himself on one elbow to watch the exchange. It was apparent that all of them needed somewhere safe for a while to relax, by the way they were all staring at Shikamaru and waiting for him to solve their problems. 'And here I thought I was going to have to let someone else lead' he though as he stood up.
"Okay, so here is the plan. We are going to set up at the old Akatsuki hideout along the border between here and Suna. The old hiding seals should still be intact, and no one but us knows where it is. If the Akatsuki were able to hide there from the world then so should we; it also has the advantage of already being habitable. It's only been a few years since they abandoned it, so we should be able to get it cleaned up quickly. If that doesn't work out for some reason, we can run to one of the old lairs that Orochimaru hid in. As for funds…. I'm sure no one here wants to hire themselves out to some warlord or to start collecting bounties, but there really isn't much else that ninjas can do. Shinobi kill things, and we in particular have had tremendous amounts of training and practice in that pursuit. Does anyone have any suggestions?" Shikamaru asked, hoping that they could find a better source of income then simply butchering populations for rich, greedy tycoons. Naruto nodded, which wasn't surprising since he was the one who hated killing the most, and spoke up. "I think we should be burglars. We can't physically be more wanted then we are right now, so lets look for corrupt business men like Gaito and kill them. We can forge wills giving the money to people living in outlying nations, and then retrieve our portion in order to keep ourselves afloat. We can still do good in the world, but since we don't have a population to protect we don't have to worry about the repercussions. And any ninja working for them are bound to be evil, so we don't have to worry about killing innocents." Neji nodded during Naruto's speech, and then brought up several points supporting it. "We won't have to worry about being turned in by our employers, and we can gather sufficient funds to allow us to retire when we start wanting families. I know some us are going to want to do that sooner then others, and those who don't want to settle down can keep them supported indefinitely. It's a much more gratifying system then fleeing to the four corners in the hopes of not being detected."
Shikamaru nodded, finding the plan to be a good one, but Sasuke spoke up before he could. "And what about all the ninjas wandering around the remnants of the Sound? The people living in those areas aren't safe, we should do something to bring order to the area." Shino agreed, his voice raspy from lack of water. "We need to gather the ninjas that Orochimaru held captive. Why? Because they will need guidance to not fall into the same path that you mentioned us avoiding. Sasuke killed their captor, he would definitely be able to convince them to join us." It was a good point, Shikamaru conceded, and one that would likely draw enough attention to their location to get them all killed. It was troublesome, but since each of the teams had spoken up, it was time to lay down the best possible decision. "Sasuke, I agree with you. Orochimaru's former experiments need help, and we can provide it. Can I ask you to hold off on that until the pursuit is less immediate? From the trip here it seems like every single ninja in the 5 Nations is mobilized to find us right now. Once we have more breathing room and greater funds we can set about pacifying the Sound." Sasuke nodded, he understood that for the next while they couldn't really do anything. "Then I suggest we head out; the longer we stay here that more danger we are in." And with that they began to move into the forest; with Hinata, Kiba and Shino leading and Neji, Tenten and Lee ending. It was the most effective formation for avoiding traps and noticing enemies.
After about three hours Hinata suddenly stopped, causing the column to stop as well at seeing her raised hand. She just stood there for several minutes, causing everyone to look at each other, but then Neji jerked and turned to stare off into the distance in the same direction as Hinata. "It's Iruka Sensei. He's alone, but I can't tell what his intent is other then finding us." Neji reported, still looking off. Hinata shook her head, her face concerned. "I think he's injured, but I'm not sure. He seems like he's limping." Naruto looked at her, his face showing concern as well. "How far is he?" Shikamaru opened his mouth, and then thought better of it and closed it. They all knew it could be a trap, he didn't have to tell them. But this was Iruka; he wouldn't do anything to them; not without being forced. "He's about 2 miles away, though it will be a while before he gets here at that speed." Hinata replied, only to startle when Naruto ran off into the woods. There was no way that the first person who had ever acknowledged him as a person would be allowed to stumble alone through to the woods with an injury. Shikamaru sighed, realizing that any attempt to create real organization would fail as long as they were all this close to each other. When Sakura began to trot into the woods, however, he shouted. "Stop! Naruto will bring him here at least as fast as you could get there." Sakura looked like she was going to run off anyway, but then thought better of it and returned to the others.
About five minutes later Naruto returned with Iruka over his shoulder, to the obvious dismay of Iruka. Obvious because he was shouting for Naruto to put him down as they came into sight. "This isn't necessary! I walked this whole way by myself and… Are you listening to me Naruto! Put me down this instant!" Naruto steadfastly ignored him, grinning from ear to ear as he talked about how great it was to see him. "It's great to see you Sensei! I was so worried about you! And I was thinking we would never see each other because of our being missing nin! But you came all the way out here! And…" Sakura face palmed, having never really gotten over the irritation she had felt as a child towards her boyfriend's antics. There was a long running pool about whether they would have their first kid before or after she killed him. Neji had bet that it would be the day she realized she was pregnant that she killed him; Sasuke bet on the day she went into labor. Lee, one of the nicest people in the world, bet that it would be their wedding, his face solemn as he placed his 1000 yen on the table, claiming that his tardiness would enrage her past the breaking point. Whichever way she killed him, only Hinata thought that Sakura would let Naruto live to the age of 40. Though not without muttering about his unbelievable healing saving his life so far. Iruka was at that point shouting that he would kill Naruto, which Shikamaru had to prevent. Afterall, he had 100000 yen down on Naruto being killed before Sakura could get pregnant, and specifically at her hands. "Iruka sensei! How did you get injured?!" Shikamaru shouted, hoping to distract the irate chunnin. Iruka looked up and saw them, and grinned almost as broadly as Naruto was. "Got in a fight with Anko about who was going to be the new Hokage. We destroyed a fair amount of the village while a shadow clone I made was off stealing something."
It was at that moment that everyone noticed the scroll pouch at his side; it wasn't the kinjutsu scroll of the village, but it was obviously something important if Iruka had attacked ANKO as a distraction. She wasn't as talented as, say, Maito Guy had been, but she was far more serious. Iruka was finally put down by Naruto as they reached the main group, and he took out a scroll covered in weird seals. He tossed it to Neji, and explained why. "It's a very special scroll; it has all of the records from the village in it. And I mean all of the records; almost every jutsu ever used by a leaf ninja, all of our medicines and poisons and bingo books and everything you could think of. I stole it when I was a kid because I heard it had the diaries of the Kages in it. That rumor actually turned out to be true; it has the first through the fifths right now, which amounts to about 12 books worth of reading. The techniques that they used are of course important, but probably more so is the issues they dealt with in founding and running a ninja village and how they overcame them… And I should warn you not to let anyone else near you. They originally wanted me to get close to you and open a summoning scroll that would summon the entire ANBU section, but I don't particularly like the way that ANBU has taken over the governments."
Tenten spoke up quickly, a shocked look on her as well as everyone else's face. "Governments? So they intend to go through with Danzou's ridiculous plan to merge the civilian and military governments?" Iruka just nodded, his face grim. "Well, welcome aboard! We have a pretty good plan for creating our own village!" Kiba said with something close to a smile, trying to hide his own discomfort with the situation overall. "You can't go back after you gave this to them! They will definitely kill you, so your joining us!" Naruto affirmed.
Quick note about this story; I'm going to try to keep it somewhat light hearted, since I don't want it to feel like a melodrama. There is going to be some fights in the next one, dattebayo!