Month Two Weeks One-Two and a Half
Meetings and Preparations
The sounds of the few vehicles on the street were drowned out by the rain pounding on his mask as he ran along the river line. Helicopters were patrolling along the river and bridge making crossing extremely difficult. Moving towards the roof of a seventeen story building five blocks away from the blocked off bridge to get a better sensor range, he began searching out for the seals that would draw the people he had marked over the pass week to him. He activated one of the ones on a hero, might as well get some information about whats going on. So he sat down with his back to the ledge of the roof and closed his eyes to think while he waited.
His memories still consisted mostly of his battles during the war, most of his ANBU training, a month of fighting and his Hokage candidacy, the title given to the strongest fighter and leader of the generation wherever his home was. It was also because of some of the memories of the war that caused him to choose Kyuubi as his code name.
The ANBU training helped him adapt to his surroundings when he first woke up. But now, with a month having passed, he had noticed that most of the constellations he had learned of were no longer there, and some looked different if it remained. His training had also helped him start his information network within the city that was already giving him good, general information on the world at large as well as providing a source of income.
And since he was one of the high ranking ANBU that were taught the standard sealing methods and high level seals, on top of the exotic sealing, seal breaking, and security sealing techniques taught to him by Jiriaya, he was able to somewhat modify the ROOT control seals that were released sometime after Danzo's death to get information sources within the local rulers and the Hero community.
The fighting was just a conjoined mess of memories, mainly consisting of both the month and other extreme stress fights. Each fight blurred together until he wasn't able to distinguish between them. Small flashes of other, older memories had returned, like the cold looks and glares of faceless people, fighting some sort of sand demon, and a demonized Sasuke. The fights he remembered also let him gain some insight into what his range of skills and power was, but no real memories about himself had surfaced.
Having a few clones reading up on the languages he could understand, then translating it into English over the past week gave him a good grasp of languages. That had also made it easier to read the information from the dead-drops his informants used.
Ten minutes later, the sound of a motorcycle pulling into the alley below drew his attention from his thoughts. The faint sound of metal hitting concrete that followed let him know that the new arrival was heading for the roof. The bolt shot onto the ledge by his head about a minute later let him know her identity.
Opening his eyes, he saw that the crossbow in her hands was shakily pointing at him. Purple mask that went up into two points hid her eyes, but not the anger directed at him. Her black hair hung down to her shoulders with a black cape with white edges attached to a neck guard hung down to her ankle's. A black armoured shirt that left her stomach bare hugged her body and met with her black tight shorts. Purple belt with five straps held some pouches and the empty crossbow holster on her hips. Purple armoured gloves stained with blood, probably busy taking care of some gang when the seal activated, and knee high armoured boots completed her attire.
She called herself Huntress while wearing the mask, but her name was Helena Bertinelli. He first met her three weeks previous after dealing with a gang his current employer was supporting. She had managed to sneak up on him as he was exiting the factory they had set up shop in. The short fight that followed left her with a clean dislocation of the shoulder and elbow before he knocked her out.
Their next meeting came after 'The Ventriloquist' had found his hideout. Since he had fought her once already, that time he decided lead her on a chase around the city before losing her to meet up with Colin.
When she showed up a week and a half ago after he dealt with the twelfth group of assassin's and met his employer for the first time when she went with them, he decided to use Helena his first informant in the hero community. With that in mind, he had let her follow him to one of his safe houses while a clone followed her. As she watched the building he went into, his clone snuck up on her and knocked her out.
His musing were cut short as another bolt struck by his head, piercing his hood. Moving his glaze from her eyes to her hands, he noticed that one of the seals he applied to her had activated. Removing the bolt from his hood, he stood up before walking towards her in the middle of the roof. This was the first time he met her face to face for information since he marked her, and it was so far proving interesting.
"Put your weapon away," he ordered as the auto reloading crossbow bumped into his chest. The shaking in her arm increased before a seal began to faintly glow on her arm, then started fading as she slowly put the crossbow into it's holster. Letting amusement creep into his voice, he spoke again. "That's better Helena. Now tell me, why is Arkham closed off?"
"The Joker escaped custody of the guards in the Intensive Treatment building before starting a riot." the angered look in her eyes changed to a disbelieving one as she spoke before bringing out a small holographic projector. She then continued to speak in a monotone, " A lock down of the island was initiated after Joker took control. The fire at Blackgate had some of the prisoners move to Arkham, providing Joker with some of his gang that was part of the group transferred in. Anyone seen getting close to the island will cause Joker to detonate some explosives located around the city. That's all I know."
"Any other info for me?" he asked. Seeing her reach into one of her pouches for a memory stick.
"I see." Storing the item she handed him away, he turned around and started to move back to the ledge. Letting a bit more amusement into his voice, he spoke again, "You may go now. And remember not tell anyone about this little chat and continue with your operations."
He didn't have to turn around to know that she was struggling against the seal to try and attack him. The curse and rapid steps away let him know that she had left the roof. By the time she got to the ground, the memories of the encounter will be sealed away and she will follow her orders subconsciously until the next time he called for a face to face meeting.
Now, to get to the island without being seen.
His lungs were burning as he pulled himself out of the river and onto a small ledge on the cliff face. Having decided that he couldn't approached the island from the surface, he figured that swimming would be his best bet. He got three quarters of the way before the small air tank that was in one of the suits pouches emptied. Swimming the last quarter on empty lungs resulted in him almost drowning.
After letting his breathing even out, he put his mask back on and started climbing the cliff. As he got halfway up the cliff, he sensed a sharp intake of natural energy that was accompanied by the ground shaking with the source of the intake being in the green house along with some phantom pains to his head. A curious piece of information, but he decided to do the mission first before investigating.
A minute later he was over the edge of the cliff and had found a way though a window into the mansion. Entering into a empty, long, narrow room full of metal filing cabinets on a walkway, he formed several shadow clones. Moving on top of the filing cabinets in the middle towards the door on the far side, he left the clones to search the room for information.
Moving up the steps of the next hall, he looked left and saw a sign. Dr. Young he was told might be studying the body, so he figured it best to check out the office.
The first room looked like a secretary's office. Just past that was a white tiled room that had eight cold chambers for bodies along the wall with one of them open. Moving to the open one, he was surprised to find that there was a body in it and even more so that the toe tag matched with name he was given.
Pulling out the table, he grabbed a biological sealing scroll and sealed the body within. Now it was time to find out the source of the energy.
Moving back to the Records Room, he ordered the clones to disperse over time before climbing out the window.
Jumping across the gap between him and the Greenhouse to come face to face with a giant vine. Looking along the vine to the left lead him to seeing larger vines had grown through the main hall and around the mansion before two wrapped around the clock tower. The plants, he noticed were gathering and releasing small amounts of natural energy, and were reacting to him as he sensed them. Shaking his head at flashes of forests spurting up during a fight, he moved for the door of the greenhouse.
Entering the building to find vines going across the hall, he noticed it was pulsing with natural energy. Jumping over it only to have to jump off of the vine as it attacked him. Rushing past the room entrance hall, he came upon a large gardened room with faint trace of energy on the plants. Jumping over the statue and across the room, he continued through the door on the second floor.
The next room contained a pool of electrified water with the hall blocked by debris. Jumping across the water and climbing past the debris, he continued on before walking on the wall to cross a gap to arrive at were the source of the energy was. Opening the door to a short hallway with plants at the end and a fountain in the middle of the room.
Stepping into the room, he was surprised when the plants started moving towards him and by the source of the energy. When some vines started to wrap around him, he let them get a good hold of him before slowly absorbing the energy they had collected. As he absorbed the energy, he took the time to study the sources intake and output of natural energy, which was not balanced enough for a true Sage Mode variation, but imbalanced just enough for a partial physical transformation. Dropping to the ground after the plants lost the natural energy controlling its movements, Naruto moved forward to stand in the middle of the door and fountain to come face to face with the source of the energy as memories from a particular clone dispelling hit him.
Pamela Lillian Isley, better known to the world as Poison Ivy, was experimented on with plant, animal toxins, and some other drugs that had a interesting effect on her body as a result. She was now able to produce various toxins within her body for a variety of uses. He could also sense that a natural oil has been developed within her body that has similar, but weaker properties to the Sacred Oil Fountain of Mount Myoboku(more information that doesn't completely answer any questions he had of his overall identity), which explains her gradual transformation into a plant hybrid. Unlike his transformation into a toad when his chakra and the natural energy wasn't properly balanced, she started to take on plant-like features at a slow rate. After the experiments were completed and she was released from the hospital she had been administer into because of the effects of the drugs, and probably the natural oil in her body, had on her, she moved to Gotham City. Or so the clones memory on her say.
A small pulse from his mask let him know that the seal that filters the air had activated. Tilting his head and relaxing his posture as he stared at her waiting to see was she does results with her walking towards him as the vines, having collected enough natural energy, moved to her.
"How did you do that?" she asked, confusion and curiosity in her tone.
"A variation of the way you control your plants," Naruto answered, seeing no harm in telling her.
"Activate the seal," Kyuubi's voice ordered over the radio he gave them.
The radio was kind of a pain in the ass to use. Three people had to supply it with power to even get a signal across the city, but a few people could manage it alone.
Turning to look at the twenty people standing looking at a marking that covered the wall, door, and the interior of a closet and nodded to them, signalling them to start channelling 'Chakra' like Kyuubi showed them. The markings, or Beacon Seal, was put in by Kyuubi during the day before and was suppose to be added to their hangouts throughout the city soon.
"Uh... are the marks suppose to be glowing?" asked an unnamed teen wearing a biker getup and red helmet into the mic in his hand.
"I think so," Colin responded nonchalantly after grabbing the mic. "Seals are active. Do we need to do anything else?"
"Yes, the seals are suppose to glow." came Kyuubi's reply the teens question before continuing. "Good. Now just wait a moment."
A few seconds later a knock on the closet door lets the people know to stop channelling energy and move out of the way, while also surprising the teen with the red helmet. The door opens and out comes Kyuubi with a memory stick held in his outstretched hand.
The boss may have been able to learn all those languages he now knows with only his own weird language as a base, but he wasn't really computer savvy. So he decided to leave all computer related items he receives from his contacts and the dead-drops with some of them to go over. Grabbing and pocketing the memory stick, he and the teen followed Kyuubi out of the room.
"The drop-point by Miller Harbour was compromised earlier by a hero and the remnants of a few of the gangs in that area." was the first thing Colin said as he pulled out and handed Kyuubi a scroll.
Grabbing the scroll and putting it away, Kyuubi responded while turning into the stairway, "Adjust it into the Upper East Side tomorrow after you're sure all information has been collected, but continue keeping tabs on the area for a few more days. Take all things gathered within that period to throwaway bases."
"There's also seven new members that need markings." This caught the teen's attention as they reached the next floor and walked towards the room setup for Kyuubi's own use.
"Jason, you can start on your plan. Take Jersey and Jan, have them setup the Beacon Seal when you get started up in the city." Kyuubi ordered as he opened the door for the room. "Colin, get the supplies ready and I'll start on the new members in an hour. But first, bring me some paper."
With that Kyuubi went into his room, leaving Colin and Jason with their own jobs.
"So, who and where are Jersey and Jan?" asked Jason as he led the way to down the hall towards the stairway.
"Jersey and Jan are two of the people who were shown how to reproduce the Beacon seal," Colin replied as they came to the stairway and Jason turned for them. "They should be at a apartment somewhere in the Upper East Side."
With that said, Colin continued down the hall for the supply room hearing Jason muttered curses fading off. Grabbing a stack of paper and heading back to Kyuubi's room, he knocked before entering.
Kyuubi was sitting at a desk reading with some of his clones writing, his cloak and body armour hanging on a hook right by him. His hair does the weirdest thing with his cloak, when it is on Kyuubi's hair looks blonde, but it's hard to tell. When the hood is down it looks black like right now.
Walking up to the desk, Colin put the papers on the desk and saw the clones writing out what looked like profiles on some of the more well known criminals that have been to Arkham Asylum before turning and leaving. Now to get the supplies ready and get the memory stick to Rani for her packet monkeys to go over.
While Naruto had been to the island to take care of the mission, then satisfying his personnel curiosity, he had clones search for the psychological profiles the Asylum had on the 'Villains' in it's custody. He would have went to Arkham eventually to get the information regardless. Having the clones dispel if they found anything interesting had proven to be a good move as when he met Pamela Isley, he was able to use some of the information to leave a good first impression and offer her a deal. Now he had his clones spending time writing out all the information from the Asylum and anything his contacts had on the people while he went over some new information.
After reading up on most of the information he was supplied with, Naruto decided it was time to start sealing the new members. So getting up from his desk, he moved to exit the room.
The seals he was using on the members of Whirling Tide, while fewer in number and less restrictive than what he had on Huntress and his other unwilling contacts, would prevent the recipients from telling anybody without the matching seals information he deems sensitive. The members of Whirling Tide all got the same seals on them, with the more trust worthy members having a few more that grants minor amounts of control over all of the other member seals. He was even teaching some of those members how to apply specific seals.
Walking through the halls and down the stairs to the basement, he came to the sight of the seven new members waiting in a short hallway outside of the room set aside for preforming the more complex sealing arrays like the one he was going to do. Moving pass them and entering the room he was greeted by three of the people most capable of learning how to make these specific seals.
Of the entire gang, only seventeen had the skill to draw storage seals and the Beacon Seal. Of those seventeen, only five had the required control to be able to draw the control seals. Those five he had spent the past week instructing on the sealing method with every application of the seal with Jan and Jersey being naturals at it. They had been surprised when he told them that Beacon Seal was comparable to only a quarter of the overall skill required to make seal he was going to be teaching them to apply new members.
The next four hours were spent applying the seals to the new members and watching over the three remaining as they applied the seal. Once finished, Naruto did a once over on the seals before he returned to his room to grab his stuff and some of the information pulled from the memory stick from Kamal before leaving to his own place to sleep.
By a clearing in a forest near Metropolis a week later, Naruto was sitting using the light from the rising sun to read from a small orange book as he waited within sight of the meeting point. The book was part of a series that was sealed in the emergency supply scroll written on a section of special, near indestructible paper. When he first seen the books, he faintly recalled a man with sliver hair and three quarters of his face covered, and a strange, perverted old man with red tear-like marking going down from his eyes that brought some memories for Naruto and he had taken to imitating their personalities when he was meeting his employer.
He had been reading for about an hour before the sun had started rising and was there a few hours before as the olive green helicopter with a white star on the tail had landed in the clearing. After the helicopter been had started up a few minutes before the meeting time and the people guarding the area around the clearing started to climb in, he put his mask and hood on before moving out from his hiding spot and heading for the open door.
Climbing in and seeing all but one of the seats were full, he sat in the empty seat and put on the headphones that were hanging over the seat on under his hood. The occupants were members of his employer's Order of Assassin's, with the first one he recognized right away being the black haired melee fighter sitting directly in front of him. The ones sitting next them looked vaguely familiar to him. They were probably one of the survivors of an encounter with him and assigned to watch him during the travel.
The flight to Metropolis was fast with the only sound being Naruto reading into the intercom. He had taken slight amusement from it since most of the members of the Order of Assassin's and the pilots knew the languages needed to have an extremely basic understanding of his, so that they knew what he was saying and all of them were now wearing the headphones. When the helicopter finally landed on a rooftop in Metropolis, there were some assassin's already hooking up their lines to points by the edge of the roof before going over and repelling down the side of the building and stopped right above the floor his employer was on as the assassin's in the helicopter he was in got out and ran for the rooftop door for the building. The black haired girl had stopped him from getting up and motioned him to stay seated across from her.
As the assassin's descended down the stairs, Naruto had picked up the familiar signature of a relaxed and content Batman inside the building with his slightly apprehensive boss. It was as his employer moved closer to him, that her resolve seemed to increased while Batman became more confused and on edge. Disappointment soon replaced the apprehension he felt from his employer before the assassin's burst into the room and attacked Batman.
Flipping the page of his book, Naruto continued reading as he followed Batman's fight though the assassin's and chase after his employer to the roof. After his employer entered the helicopter and it started to take off, Batman reached the roof. His employer was standing at the door looking down at Batman as the helicopter flew away. Closing the door, she turned to see Naruto reading his book.
Putting on a pair of headphone, Talia al Ghul was able to hear what Naruto reading. The slight tinting of her cheeks as he read a particular graphic part brought a chuckle from him as he flipped a page and stopped reading aloud.
"Where's my father's body." she demanded some time into the flight after not seeing it in the helicopter.
"The body will be delivered at the agreed upon location." Naruto answered after he stopped giggling but with his head still towards the book. "But first lets talk about payment for further work."
"What are your terms?" she snapped somewhat annoyed.
Reaching into his left back pouch to pull out a broken chakra metal trench knife, along with a few pieces of his old ANBU mask and armour for his watchers to grab, he started talking, "I will need some weapons, armour, and masks made from that material. Payment for missions will start around $25,000 for anything C-rank and lower, while B-ranks will be about $80,000. A-ranks, about $230,000. S-rank and higher will be paid on a case by case basis."
Silence continued in the helicopter for the next few minutes as she waited for him to elaborate on what the rankings mean. But when he appeared to be more interested in reading his perverted little book, he could feel the anger in her slowly rise.
"Kyuubi," she calls him with slight traces of anger in her voice, "what do the ranks mean?"
"C-rank and lower are for the jobs requiring the most basic of guard details with the combined might of these four being at the minimum threat level expected to be faced, area suppression of low level targets, intelligence gathering, and various other small jobs," he started listing off lazily as he flipped another page wondering if this amusement was what the masked man from his memories had felt when he did this to people. "Right now I have a group set up to handle most of my information and have doing mostly C-rank jobs around Gotham with plans to include the neighbouring city soon. B-ranks are any mission that have a chance to involve combat with individuals that have powers or groups of skilled enough fighters. Nightwing or her could qualify as a B-rank opponent with the only thing holding them back is lack of true killing intent or not having a power. It will also have similar levels of security in guard details, espionage and sabotage missions, or assassinations.
"A-ranks might involve combat with more powerful individuals at some point in the mission, suppression of forces with powers, and VIP level security of people or places. S-rank and higher will deal with the handling and protection of extremely sensitive information or people, assassination of VIPs, and combat with S-rank and higher opponents."
It was then that Naruto pulled out a more detailed list of missions, the way he ranked threats, and a small, barely detailed, profile of himself.
The silence in the helicopter while she read the papers was only broken by Naruto's perverted giggling. After awhile, she finished reading and just sat there for the remainder of the flight.
Kyuubi was following her and Cassandra down a hallway after arriving in Gotham. Ubu was following him threateningly, probably because Kyuubi ignored and treated him like he wasn't a threat, along with several others behind him. Eventually they arrived at a large, open door leading to old, underground storefronts. Walking to the middle road with a door on the left. Past the next door was a room containing a Lazarus Pit connected to six large metal cylinders to give it limited re-useability .
Talia looked to Kyuubi to find out where the body is, but sees him taking out a scroll before he unrolled it. In a puff of smoke surprising everyone, the body of Ra's al Ghul appeared in only the hospital gown. Three people when up to the body and began to prepare it for submersion. While that was going on, Ubu moved over with the payment for this job. With the body delivered and his payment received, Kyuubi turn and walked out of the room just as preparations were completed. Placing the body over the water before completely submerging it, then the water started swirling. Eventually it stopped.
"And what do I owe this visit?" Ra's al Ghul asked Talia after she sent the others out when he surfaced out of the Pit.
"He refused me." Talia replied, noting that this times submersion wasn't like those before while she held a sword outstretched for him. "Which means he refused you. You can have this back."
Putting on his clothes that Ubu handed him, Ra's noticed his daughters tone before he spoke "Don't let it disappointment you. It was to be expected." Grabbing the sword and giving it a once over before he gave it a few experimental swings before he continued, " I do have good news. I've scheduled a meeting with someone who can only help forward our goals. A professor named Hugo Strange. He is someone we can use to our benefit. When this is through, Batman will no longer be our concern."
"While that's good news, someone has been killing our contacts within the city over the past month," From her position, Talia noticed her fathers expression and decided now was the best time to take out and hand over the papers that Kyuubi gave her. "This man has been able to take down the people that were sent after him. The ones that survived said that he didn't seem to be taking the fights all to seriously, so I took my more skilled fighters to check him out."
"And you were able to find him?" her father asked. He was always a fast reader, so he was probably reading about Kyuubi skills and specializations.
"We were able to track him for a few weeks but cornering him proved to be difficult." Talia began.
