The spy had come.
Saskue Uchiha stood in the front hall. With him, the new spy/ student. The student was a girl, which was surprising enough, but she was also extremely pretty. Her hair was a dark red and a long braid, and her eyes were like two sapphires, flashing biting coolness. Her frame was thin and lithe and covered with a burlap cloak. She wore a hunter green tank top, brown pants, with knee length brown boots.
There was no conversation, as it usually was among this new life of his, except for the random interrogations he threw at the girl.
"So, you're here to serve Orchimaru?" Saskue asked the girl.
"Yes." The girl's voice was emotionless and cold, yet smooth and beautiful.
"State your name."
"Ari."
"What no last name?"
"No." Her eyes narrowed. He was about to retort, but a cold voice broke the silence.
"Ari! How nice of you to join our little family!" Orchimaru said, breaking through the large room.
"Thank you for welcoming me. I promise, I will not be a disappointment."
"I'm sure you won't. I see you've already met Saskue Uchiha. You will be joining his training program. I warn you though; we're not starting from basics."
"I understand." There was no trace of fear or intimidation in her eyes.
"I'm glad you do. Saskue, please escort our newest member to her room."
"Yes master. He didn't dare to disobey the man who had changed his life. Now, with his newly required strength, he could beat Itachi
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"What is that?" Naruto asked. He gazed into the green light of the orb.
"We don't really know." Tsunde replied.
"Can I touch it?"
"Wait, I don't think that's such a good-" But Naruto had already touched the orb. He was thrown back into a wall.
"Naruto, are you okay?" Sakura asked, rushing over to help him up.
"I think so…"
"Stupid."
"Children…" Sai said, "Let's not fight."
"Why you..!" Naruto pretended to lunge. Instead of punching him, he slapped Sai a bit harder then necessary on the back.
"Ow…"
"Tsunde," Sakura asked, "Could this be connected to the Atasuki?"
"I don't think so… from what I've been able to determine, the orb is a power source, like a chakra re-fuelling station almost. Our experts have determined that this is not a bomb…"
"Deidara is very talented at making bombs though…"
"But this orb doesn't have any explosive properties, unless touched. Even then, it just belts out an enormous amount of chakra that could support this entire village."
"Then what is it?"
"I have an idea of what it is. I found something similar to this in the first's village entries."
"What?"
"According to my findings, we could have one of the orbs of fate. There are 4 in total. These orbs are the spirits of powerful demons from hell. If arranged in a certain way, they could cause the end of the world, but if arranged in a different way, they could cause the world great good. At least that's how the legend goes."
"Granny Tsunde, you said there were four. Do you know where the others are?"
"We currently know that the Sand Village has one, as well as the Fire and Water Village. We are going to dispatch troops to each village to tell them of our findings."
"What happened to mail?"
"If intercepted by the wrong person, this could be a very bad thing. No one can know that we might potentially have the orbs of fate."
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Three Weeks Later….
Ari dodged the weapon aimed at her by Saskue. This was child's play. This was Orchimaru's definition of hard training. She had done this when she was ten, one on one combat, with various booby traps hidden around the arena.
She looked around quickly, infusing her eyes with chakra so she could see better. Her new maximized vision spotted a piece of disturbed earth. That would be a booby trap. She thought about manipulating it on to Saskue. Bad idea. He would probably discover it with his Sharingan technique, and move away when it was set off, leaving one less booby trap to her advantage. She sailed easily through the wide space, using chakra to make herself movie faster. She drew her swords from her weapon belt, and pushed herself off a wall towards Saskue. He intercepted her first blow. That was his demise. She turned back, and came at him with more speed, crossing the blades in a move that would usually cut his throat. But, since this was training, she caught the shoulders of his clothes and adding more speed, but pinned him against the wall in a show of dust and rocks.
"Ari… you're unstoppable." Orchimaru said, giving her a round of applause. Not taking the compliment, she pulled her swords from the wall and Saskue's shirt and put them back into their sheaths, without so much as a glance at Saskue. He was battered, bruised and angry. He wasn't accustomed to being beaten, especially by a girl. She turned around, and started to walk back to her room, assuming training was over. She'd been here for about 3 weeks now, and day in and day out was boring. She sharpened her swords once a day now, something she hadn't done since she first got them. She had even done some extra training of her own, by furthering her perfection of her dagger throws. Deciding that going back to her room wasn't what she felt like doing right now, she veered off to go to the target practice room. She unsheathed her dagger, and threw it at the nearest target. Without stopped, she put her arm out to the side, and opened her hand. The dagger came back, the black hilt fitting back nicely in her hand. Like it belonged there. Ari stopped to observe it. She traced the white designs on the blood red blade. She was still mystified on what the blade was made out of. It wasn't made out of metal, but more like a polished, extremely lightweight mineral or element. It had been a gift from her master, for this mission. She dedicated her time to master it. So far, she'd mastered summoning it back from short distances, but she wasn't that good at long distances yet. It also had to be with the right amount of chakra, or the dagger would slice her fingers off when it came back. According to her master, it had another speciality. If you stabbed another thing, such as a human, with this dagger, the victim would not be able to pull out the dagger, no matter how hard it tried. It would slowly bleed to death, or it would take someone else to pull out the dagger. She had yet to test this theory. She wished she could test it on Saskue, but killing him would ruin the mission, and anger Itachi, for Itachi wanted to slay his brother himself. Saskue would without a doubt die in the first few seconds in a fight with his brother. Even with the extra training from Orchimaru, he was still no where near his brother's power, even with his brother going blind.
"What are you doing Ari?" Orchimaru again. This guy must stalk her or something.
"Practicing my dagger throws. It's not like there are other things to do here."
"I know, and I'm deeply sorry for that. How would you like to go on a little mission?" Ari was instantly alert. She sheathed her dagger.
"Solo mission?"
"No, with Saskue. You two are my new….representatives out there."
"You mean the people who do your dirty work." Ari stated, turning to look at Orchimaru.
"Yes."
"What's the mission?"
"Well, my spy at the Water Village has told me that they have received an Orb of Fate."
"What's an Orb of Fate?"
"You don't need to know that. Anyways, the Leaf Village has been sending groups everywhere to tell the villages what the Orbs are. My spy said that the Sand Village has one, as well as the Leaf Village and the Fire Village." Ari bristled with anger when she heard the Leaf Village. They had killed Sasori.
"What are the Orbs of Fate? If I'm retrieving something, I would like to know what it is."
"That knowledge is not needed to obtain them." Orchimaru repeated. Ari glared at him. She had the familiar urge to kill. So she just nodded her head, and went to her room, where she disguised herself with the transformation jitu to go and see Atatsuki.
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Saskue was humiliated. The new girl had beaten him every one on one combat since she came here. And now he was going to have to work with her? He was furious. Well, part of him was anyways. The other part (which he hated to admit) admired the girl. She had the cool levelness and skill that made her an assassin. She had no true bonds that affected her state of mind during battle. She could probably kill her best friend, if she had one. If he had that state of mind, Naruto Uzumaki would be dead by now. Standing up, he started to look for his mission clothes. The ridiculous clothes that he had to wear in Orchimaru's hideout drew too much attention. Undercover was the best way to go. Every ninja knew that.
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Ari was kneeling before the Atatsuki leaders. She had just informed them of Orchimaru's plan.
"Well done Ari. We knew about this, but only a few details. Apparently our late Leaf Village ninja was the leader of the bomb squad, and wasn't high enough up the levels to know what the Orb was. You have just filled in the blanks. The plan has not changed. Once Orchimaru gets all these orbs, bring them to us."
"Yes master." Ari said, "May I ask one question?"
"Yes." The voice was irritated.
"What are the Orbs of fate?"
"If you've read any leader's notes from about 100 years ago you'd know. The orbs of fate are…"
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2 days later…………
Naruto, Sakura, Sai, Kakashi and Yamoto were standing in the Hokage's office again. They were about to be debriefed about their newest mission.
"It's just as we feared. The water village was brutally attacked, their orb stolen."
"Were there any survivors?" Naruto asked.
"Few. The one who gave his statement gave us a description of two ninjas. One was male, the other female."
"Two ninja's brought down an entire village?"
"There may have been others, it's just that our witness didn't see them."
"What was the description?"
"Male: Tall, black hair, brown eyes, Female: Average height, dark red hair, blue eyes, and apparently extremely pretty."
Naruto and Sakura glanced at each other. The male description resembled Saskue. Any lead they got on him, they would follow.
"Could it be Orchimaru?" Sai asked.
"It's our best assumption. He must have gotten a new member. But according to our witness, the girl was clearly a trained assassin. The way she killed, it was without hesitation, and she had a bunch of fancy weapons apparently. His friend was stabbed with a dagger, and couldn't pull it out. He bled to death." Tsunde said.
"Did he have an estimate for the age?" Yamoto asked.
"Late teens, 16 or 17."
"Basically our age then." Sakura said.
"Basically."
"So, what are we supposed to do?" Naruto asked.
"After I finish debriefing all the other teams your level, I'm going to dispatch you all to the Fire Village. Sand Village is on high alert, and as are we. But we think the Fire Village is most likely the next target, being the closest."
An hour later, they all left.
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