Chapter 1: Trouble
"It's a pleasure to have you in our city again, even if it is for a mandatory meeting." Kakashi laughed lightly, walking through the city streets.
Gaara, the Kazekage, walked at his side, attracting the attention of curious girls whispering together. A few of them managed to get up the courage to talk to the red head, handing him small gifts which he took politely.
"I apologize for the bother, what do you do with those gifts?"
"I give them to Kankuro. He disposes of them or finds ways to put them somewhere if they're useful. I've heard he gives some stuff to Shino."
"Those two are quite the unexpected couple." Kakashi laughed lightly. "Where is your brother currently?"
"He ran off to find his boyfriend as soon as we got here. Same with Temari, I can't take them anywhere."
"Ah so that was the important business that Shikamaru had to attend to." Kakashi laughed looking off in the distance. "Do you not intend on marrying anyone Gaara?"
"I could ask the same of you."
"Not someone I could reproduce with, but I only ask because your village is so insistent on the position of Kazekage passing within the family."
"The council who helps me run my country has had a few ideas about who I might take as my wife. They've run the idea of a betrothal a few times past me, but I would rather be able to choose my own bride. If worse comes to worse, I'll adopt a kid, the village elders can't say anything." Gaara laughed lightly and Kakashi shook his head.
"The other Kage are supposed to arrive later today for the summit, do you wish to wait at your hotel room or wander around the village?"
"I think I will enjoy the sights today, it is a beautiful place."
"I will temporarily assign an Anbu member to follow you around at a distance, just in case anything should happen."
"Of course, thank you for your concern." Gaara and Kakashi separating, but Gaara knew when the Anbu member had taken his place in protecting him. He smiled; perhaps it wasn't completely horrible being the Kazekage.
-oOo-
"Hey crybaby," Temari greeted when she found Shikamaru on his favorite hill watching the clouds.
"Troublesome woman," he replied back, glancing over at her. "Managed to escape from Gaara?"
"I think he knew what I was planning on. Kankuro left him too, but Kakashi was with him. I'm sure that he won't be left without some kind of a guard."
"'Course not, Kakashi wouldn't do anything to damage our relationship in the alliance."
"Have you been busy with work lately?" Temari asked laying on the grass next to him.
"Yeah, was lucky enough to break away today, even if it was for a moment."
"We could make it longer than a moment," she suggested looking at him with a smile. He chuckled.
"I suppose we could."
-oOo-
"So I've heard that there's a pretty attractive shinobi teaching classes at the academy in Konoha now." Kankuro said loudly coming up behind Shino while he was eating breakfast with Kiba outside his house on the Aburame compound.
"Is there? I haven't heard anything," Shino replied calmly glancing sideways, above the rims of his glasses.
"Yeah I didn't hear anything like that either," Kiba joked tossing some food to Akamaru.
"And here I was getting my hopes up." Kankuro sat down on the porch next to Shino looking at the man who was looking back, but kept glancing at Kiba.
"Oh just kiss, I don't care, I know you're dating." He rolled his eyes focusing in on the food. Kankuro did as instructed, stealing a sweet and lingering kiss from the Aburame.
"So what'd you guys get for breakfast?"
"Lots of rice," Shino pointed at the abundance of white grain.
"A man after my own heart." Kankuro joked lightly taking a small bowl of it. He had already eaten something light with his siblings on their way here, but he felt a little hungry still.
"Do you want to meet my parents today?" Shino asked quietly as the three ate. Kankuro paused looking at his boyfriend.
"Are you sure that's something you want me to do?"
"Yes, it's only proper as I have already met your family." He hummed, looking at the bug ninja.
"Let me know a time and I'll be there."
"His parents are nice people, I highly doubt they'll disprove of you." Kiba offered kindly.
"Do you have any siblings?" Kankuro asked curiously, brushing his shoe against the grass.
"I did, he died at the beginning of the war."
"I see. I must pay my respects to him as well." He smiled. He brushed his hand softly across Shino's. Kiba pretended to gag. He received a face full of rice from Shino.
-oOo-
"You're home?" Iruka looked up at the doorway where Kakashi was removing his shoes.
"Only momentarily, left Gaara with an Anbu. I was starving and didn't feel like eating out." Kakashi replied. He pulled his mask down to reveal his handsome face and the small beauty mark at the corner of his mouth.
"What do you want?"
"Saying you would be too cliché." Kakashi chuckled sitting down at the table with Iruka who was now glaring at him.
"If you're going to be like that, you can go back to work."
"I can't leave Naruto in charge?"
"As much as he'd love that, you have a duty."
"And you are my lover." Kakashi quipped softly.
"So what do you want for lunch?"
-oOo-
"Ai you'll be going in last, we'll keep them busy while you do a back sneak attack for quick kills." Ru ordered and Ai nodded. She pushed her blonde hair back, slinking up against the wall so she wouldn't be spotted easily.
"No problem," Ai nodded, her hand reaching for her deadly kunai.
Ru pushed open the door and the fight started.
-oOo-
Shikamaru watched as the messenger hawk from the four-man Anbu team Kakashi had sent out recently on a message circled above the Hokage's office during the Gokage meeting. After receiving a curt nod from Kakashi, he slipped out of the room, heading to intercept the message so they could view it in entirety. Several shinobi were already waiting for him as he entered the small messenger area. They handed him the tightly bound scroll and he headed out of the room immediately.
Once he was in a safe place by himself, Shikamaru opened the scroll, a simple bracelet falling into his palm. He recognized it immediately, it was Ai's bracelet, with the Kanji character Ai hanging from the brown band, the two woven brown, and single orange and blue bands standing out separate from it. His finger brushed the character on the bracelet, noticing that the scroll had no writing on it whatsoever. As he touched the character, screaming issued from the charm. Shikamaru's jaw tightened as he listened, Ai had gotten them a message and it wasn't a good one. He was going to have to interrupt the Kage Summit.
"Mendokuse," he mumbled, heading quickly down the hall, back to the summit meeting room. "I'm sorry to interrupt your discussion, but something serious has happened to our top elite Anbu. The ones sent to Kurogakure to neutralize the threat to our countries."
Chojuro looked over at Shikamaru, having been the one interrupted with the door opening.
"Well that's more interesting than our statistical reports." He tried to joke, waving off the interruption.
"Was it inside that message?"
"Technically." Shikamaru threw the bracelet onto the table, it spun, the Ai landing so it was facing Gaara directly. He jumped slightly, wondering who was wearing such an ornament.
"That's-" Kakashi's eyes widened in surprise.
"Ai's bracelet, I'm aware." He sighed. "Touch the charm."
Kakashi reached out and touched the symbol slowly. He hadn't been expecting the screaming explosion of a choppy radio frequency to pitch out from it.
"Look who it is," a male voice chuckled.
"Get off me you bastards," a female spat back.
"Of course you'd be the one to survive after being thrown out with your bones broken." Another laughed loudly. "Think you can come back in here that easily? Were you missing Kurogakure that much?"
There was silence. A slap.
"I asked you a question."
"I don't have to give you an answer." She snarled.
"This headband tells us what we need to know anyway, working for the scum city Konohagakure."
"Sent to assassinate us, huh? Let's take her back to Jose."
There was a crack; Kakashi assumed it was a whip.
"Oi, watch where you are swinging that thing. She'll go insane if you bring that thing too close."
"To think you'd get taken over by us." One of the men laughed.
"Fuck you," they heard her say. They heard a neck snap and the drop of a body. Ai ran, her feet now pounding in their ears. A thud indicated that she had dropped to the ground.
"Drugs work wonders," they heard someone say. The sound of crinkling from a scroll drowned out the voices, the bracelet went silent.
"Are they alive?" Mei asked, looking up at Kakashi.
"Yes," he brought a hand up to his mouth. "Kurogakure is known for turning shinobi into their personal weapons, using a variety of methods. It's concerning that they have Ai back, she could easily be broken back into her old habits."
"It's apparent that Kurogakure has grown too strong for us to fight them with Anbu." Shikamaru stated.
"But who are we going to send?" A demanded.
"I'll go," Gaara volunteered. Everyone turned to look at him in surprise. "If we can't fight them with Anbu, we have to fight them with Kage and Kage guard."
"Are you sure about this Gaara?" Kakashi asked slowly.
"Yes, I want to help. It's been a while since I've had a good fight."
"Shikamaru, will you decide on a larger sized team to go with Gaara?" Kakashi looked at the eighteen-year-old expectantly.
"Sure, but Gaara will be the only Kage to go. Sending anyone else would be too obvious." Shikamaru stated outright. "If need be Gaara can vanish inside his protective sand, none of the other Kage have this luxury."
"Good thinking," A agreed, despite his momentary flash of anger that Gaara would be the only one to get what he wants.
"How large are we making his team?" Shikamaru looked between Gaara and Kakashi.
"The smaller the better, but we need the most force we can." Gaara responded softly.
"Chojuro would be a good choice for a source of power, I would put in Temari and Kankuro, and I know they wouldn't let you go alone willingly. Omoi from Kumogakure and Kurotsuchi from Iwagakure. Along with myself, a perfect mix of long range and close range fighters. We'll be confronted with both. This is the city of assassins."
"When will we set out?" Chojuro asked, putting on a strong face.
"As soon as we can," Gaara nodded.
"We will postpone our meeting until this event is taken care of. Please bring our Anbu back." Kakashi nodded at them.
"I want to ask you what you will tell their families, Max will be the first to freak out when he discovers Ai is missing."
"Let's refer to them by their real names. I'm sure their identities have already been revealed." Kakashi noted.
"Sanmari was smart enough to get that bracelet to us, but if Max figures out what'll happen you'll have a whole other issue on your hand. Rocha's wife is pregnant too, and she won't be in a good condition to hear that her husband has been taken hostage."
Something stirred inside Gaara when he heard the name Sanmari.
"Sanmari? As in the Dark Flash?" Mei asked in surprise.
It clicked. When Gaara was younger, he'd been told tales of a girl his age who was a trained assassin. She would vanish in the shadows and could take out five-hundred men in minutes.
"The one and only, she was kidnapped from Konoha as a small child. Her twin brother is a shinobi for us as a Jounin, he's currently off on a mission though and I would rather he not be informed that his sister is missing. They've only been reunited for a few years." Kakashi confirmed. "Here's the pictures of our targets for recovery."
Rocha was nicknamed Ru for the mission, the name scrawled at the top of his photo. Bushy eyebrows over kind, but hard blue eyes. He had a rigid jaw line, indicating a strong build.
Ka and Shi were the set of twins, both with dark brown hair and brown eyes. The names Anzu and Shogo. They were fairly attractive and of a slim build.
The final picture was of a blonde, her hair cut to follow her hairline base from back to front so that it framed her face on either side. Bangs covered her forehead, but highlighted her hazel eyes. 'Sanmari' was scribbled on the top of the photo with the name Ai. She was slender, but had a little healthy weight on her. In the photo, Sanmari was looking backwards over her shoulder, an uncomfortable expression on her face and eyes broken, completely on guard of everyone around her.
"We'll bring them back," Temari told him. She scooped up the photos and tucked them into her pouch.
"Forty-five minutes, then we'll leave." Gaara decided, having been designated as the leader as the only Kage. Everyone nodded.