Chapter III

A Bunch of Furious Bigwigs

St. James Palace stood imposing above the Pall Mall, dominating the street. Lord Tobiason's car pulled into the drive, heralded by trumpeters posted on both sides of the gateway to the inner courtyard. The car pulled up to the steps, and the driver exited and opened the door for Larke and the ninjas. Larke exited first, briskly mounting the steps, followed by first Kakashi, then Sakura, then Hinata, then Sasuke, and finally Naruto.

Upon seeing Sakura, the old butler at the door said to Larke,

"I was unaware that Lord Tobiason utilised the services of such women."

"She's not a whore, she's just an Oriental. That's traditional dress for them. Please, get the lot of them proper clothing, James."

"Yes sir. I shall depart for Harrods as soon as the measurements are taken."

"Very good. Have the cook send some Jasmine tea to my parlour, along with some rice cakes."

"Yes sir. Will that be all?"

"Yes, thank you James."

Larke continued up the stairs to his personal apartments, in which there was a beautifully ornamented parlour which he bade the ninjas to sit. A woman in an electric blue dress came up to measure their clothes sizes, and when she was finished, she hurriedly departed.

The Jasmine tea and the rice cakes were brought up in fine Korean porcelain cups and dishes, and they all partook of the meal.

"So..." Sakura tried to start a conversation. "What exactly is so immodest about my clothing anyway? I don't understand."

"Your shorts look like ladies undergarments."

"What? These aren't my underwear! I swear!"

"My god! Do your undergarments cover anything? Or is it just a piece of string?"

"Underwear covers exactly what it needs to cover, nothing more! And certainly nothing less, not mine anyway!" she blushed, realising she was talking about her own underwear in front of quite a few men, including Sasuke.

"This is a most inappropriate conversation for a gentlemen of my stature to partake in. Please change the subject." Larke said.

"How on Earth did you get to your status at such a young age?" Sasuke asked.

"Well, when I was thirteen, my father passed away and my mother couldn't handle her grief. She's locked up in a madhouse now, and me and my sister run our family estate. Well, I do most of the work since she seems to enjoy spending her time with London's ne'er-do-wells. Anyway, when my mum was institutionalised, we inherited 40,000 pounds, a considerable fortune. I immediately set about expanding the family wealth by buying up steamships, airships, and rail lines, forming the Imperial Transit Company when I was only fourteen. Since then, our annual income works out to be about 1 million pounds, so I currently hold assets worth 12 million pounds." Larke took a long sip of his Jasmine, his eyes glossy with remembrance of his rise to power.

"wuh-wuh-wow. Yu-you certainly have gone a long ways," Hinata said shyly.

"Thank you, Ms... Oh! I haven't introduced myself! I am Lord Larke Gregory Tobiason, Heir to the Duchy of Gloucestershire and President and Chairman of the Imperial Transit Company. You are?"

"My name is Kakashi Hatake. These are my ninjas. I teach them. They're my students, really, except for Ms. Hyuuga here." He said as he nodded towards Hinata.

"Ah! Ms. Hyuuga, Mr. Hatake, a pleasure to meet you." Larke said.

Naruto cut in "Naruto Uzumaki, and I'm gonna be Hokage! Believe it!"

Larke nodded, dismay evident on his face. "Hokage? I'm unfamiliar with the term."

"That's the most powerful ninja in the village, whose like the boss of everyone!" Naruto exclaimed.

Larke again nodded politely, groaning inwardly. He turned to Sakura and asked "And you are...?"

"Oh! My name is Sakura Haruno!" Sakura said quickly.

"A pleasure to meet you, Ms. Haruno," he said, inclining his head towards her. "One last introduction. You are?" He asked Sasuke.

"Sasuke Uchiha." Sasuke answered sullenly.

"Well! Very good, very good! All the introductions are taken care of! Now, Mr. Hatake, you said something that rather puzzled me. Ninjas?"

"You don't know what ninjas are? Don't you have any?"

"No and no."

"Ninjas are.. well we're... you see we... are especially trained since our youth, seven or eight normally, ending at age twelve. We're trained to carry out missions for our village, our villages, you see, take missions from people all over the countries, who pay money to do what ever they ask. Depending on the difficulty of the task, it is given a rank, and depending on the rank, different ninjas are assigned to the task depending on their skill. They use techniques that involve chakra to carry out the task." Kakashi said.

"Oh! You lot sound like mercenaries!"

"Well we don't just kill people. Though we would if paid enough." Kakashi responded.

"Mercenaries." Larke said. "See, here we use armies to defend our countries with guns."

"Guns? What's that?" Kakashi asked.

"Well, guns are used to kill other people. You pick up one, press the trigger, and it basically detonates a tiny bomb behind a metal pellet. The pellet shoots out of the barrel of the gun at high speed and strikes its' target, burying deep into flesh and bone and its' usually fatal."

"Where exactly can I get one of these.. guns?" Sasuke asked intently.

"Oh, they're illegal for anyone outside of the military or the government to own."

"Damn." Sasuke said under his breath.

Sasori managed to break up the fight between Deidara and Hidan, who both rose to their feet. Hidan yelled at Deidara,

"What the fuck dude! I wanted to fuck her!"

"I didn't want to watch!"

"SHUT UP!" Kakuzu yelled. "I have to find out how to get to Buckingham Palace, so go out into the fucking street and ask! One of you go!"

"Okay! If I can get away from that crazy sex addict, I'm all for it!" Deidara said as he stormed out of the alleyway towards Knightsbridge. He grabbed a passing worker by the shoulder and demanded, "How do I get to Buckingham Palace from here?"

"Oi! Let go of me shoulder and I'll tell ye!" The man said in a thick Scottish accent. "It's jist down this here street a few blocks, off towards the right in the middle of all those parks and gardens. It's the huge structure with the yellow walls and a dark roof."

Deidara let go of the man and re-entered the alleyway.

"Kakuzu! It's down the road! Big thing, all yellow bricks with a dark-coloured roof, and in the middle of a bunch of gardens. Can you find it?"

"Yes. I'll meet you back here in ten minutes!" He bounded off over the rooftops towards Buckingham Palace, leaving the others behind. He jumped from roof to roof until he came to the terminus of the buildings on that road and jumped down into the Buckingham Palace Gardens.

Kakuzu crept slowly along the outer wall towards the palace, careful not to be spotted by the Beefeater guards posted all around the gardens. When he finally reached the palace, he jumped onto the roof and began to scurry towards an open skylight.

He dropped in the skylight, landing softly on a carpeted floor. The room in which he landed was a parlour of some sort, totally deserted. The room was beautifully decorated, with a theme of gold-wrought furniture and white upholstery. The door to the next room was slightly ajar, revealing a maid in a long black dress tidying up after some sort of tea party.

Kakuzu rushed through the door and seized the maid by her arms, pinning them behind her back.

"Where's the Queen?" he demanded of the frightened brunette.

"Sh-sh-she just went buh-buh-back to her chambers," the maid said, her voice shaking with fear.

"You're going to lead me to her. You got that?" Kakuzu said, letting one of his body strings twist around the maid's neck.

"yes." she said in a very quiet voice.

"Yes what?"

"Yes sir."

"There we go. Now move!"

The two of them moved quickly through a quick succession of parlours, tea rooms, dining rooms, and living rooms until reaching an imposing double door, fashioned of mahogany and lined with gold.

"Open it!" Kakuzu said, keeping one of his strings wrapped tightly round her neck. She nodded and walked over to the doors, lightly tapping on them before opening, saying,

"Your Majesty? Some one to see you."

"Why was I not informed before hand? It is most improper to just 'drop by' Buckingham Palace!" an imperious voice said.

"It's rather important!" the maid said in a high-pitched voice as the string began to tighten.

"Who is it?"

"I really don't know!" the maid squeaked as the string began to cut off her circulation.

"An unannounced visitor who announces themselves through the maid! I cannot believe-" the Queen said as she opened the door. She saw Kakuzu and said simply "oh."

Kakuzu chuckled. "'oh' indeed."

"What do you want? If you seek to kill me, the Queen of Great Britain and the British Empire, and the Empress of India, you will have a fourth of the world devoted to your demise." Queen Victoria said defiantly.

"I don't seek to kill you, I simply wish to know if you seek to save a life. A young- niece of yours, I think she said?"

The expression on the Queen's face was one of utter revulsion and dismay.

"Not Bayley!"

"Yes, Bayley. I want 10,000 ingots of gold for her safe return. To be delivered to the brick alley on Knightsbridge in three weeks. Otherwise..." he said, an evil smile upon his face. "I'll do this!" he said as the string tightened around the poor maid's neck, rupturing her jugular vein and causing blood to spurt all over the Queen. The maid fell motionless to the floor, her blood pooling on the already vermilion carpet. Kakuzu smiled and took off, hurtling out of an open window.

The queen fell to her knees, sobbing over the maid's body. She had been a close friend of the queen, and Victoria had confided in her many times. The sight of the dignified old queen on her knees sobbing over a servant was humbling, as the first servant to come upon them discovered.

"Your Majesty! Are you hurt?" the Butler asked, dropping his silver tray of tea and crumpets and rushing over to her.

"Yes, yes, I'm fine," she said, regaining her legendary composure. She straightened up, and said to the butler, "Get someone to remove Ms. April's body and clean up the blood, and fetch my chambermaids, I need to get changed."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Oh, get the Prime Minister and Lord Tobiason on the phone. I should inform them of the demand the murderer made."

"Yes, Ma'am."

A butler hurriedly trotted into the parlour where Lord Tobiason was having his tea.

"Yes, James?"

"Two things sir. One, I'm back from Harrods and there is proper clothing awaiting your guests in the rooms, and two, Buckingham Palace just called, they're on the phone right now and they say it's urgent."

"Okay, I'll take the call in my study. Get a maid or a servant for each one of my guests to help them with their clothing."

"Yes sir."

Lord Tobiason briskly walked off towards his study, wondering what would prompt an urgent phone call. A matter of state security? No, I would not be the first informed about that. Something to do with my sister? Almost certainly. They probably found her body floating in the Thames. Damn.

Larke walked over to the gilded mahogany desk and picked up the silver telephone.

"Hello? Lord Tobiason here."

"Larke? I have less than good news," Queen Victoria said.

"What is it, Aunt Victoria?"

"It's about your sister.."

"Damn! Which section of the Thames?"

"What?"

"You found her dead body somewhere in the Thames, didn't you!"

"Oh no, she's just being held hostage by a psychotic Oriental."

"Oh! Well at least she's alive."

"Only for three weeks, unless we give them 10,000 gold ingots."

"And we confirmed that she's with them?"

"We've put a missing persons report out for her, but so far there's been no sighting."

"Damn. Has the Prime Minister been informed?"

"Yes, I just finished a call with him. He's deploying the Royal Marines around London's perimeter and at all the major railway stations and Underground Platforms. If she tries to leave the city, we'll have her."

"We really ought to deploy the Royal Air Marines at Heathrow and Victoria Tower, to search outgoing and incoming airships."

"True. I'll call Commander Iverson right away."

"Thank you, Aunt Victoria."

"You're welcome."