Hey all, wow, been awhile eh? I know, I should do this more often, but I've had a bit of a game addiction lately, (bloody titan quest) as well as a few interesting stories I've read (ima plug one now, Black flames dance in the wind; by devilkeys writing. It's awesome)
Anyway, enjoy the new chapter.
0o0
It was only three hours later that the group found themselves at Tazuna's new house, a non floating one, not too far from the original, it was in a denser part of the forest, but an area had been cleared around it to give the feel of a lawn. It was in the same style, and had a nice porch out the front, complete with a rocking chair and swinging seat. The owner of said house would be arriving in three days, along with his family. Naruto smiled fondly as he remembered his encounter with Tazuna.
FLASHBACK NO JUTSU! (I've always wanted to do that)
Naruto sat at the Ichiraku ramen stand with some of his only friends, having a last meal before he was forced to leave, Kiba was trying to get Shino to show…ANY emotion, Lee was shouting about the 'unyouthfulness' of the council, Shikamaru was half asleep, muttering something about the whole situation being troublesome, and Chouji was gulping down an eighth bowl of Ramen. Naruto himself had just polished off his ninth bowl, all of which were either on the house, or on one of his friends. Just as he reached for another bowl, he was pulled away by the sound of his name being called by a familiar voice, telling his friends he'd be back soon; he ducked out of the shop to see just who he expected.
"What's up jiji?" he asked Tazuna, a smile graced the older mans lips as he fished around in his pocket. Withdrawing something, he tossed it to Naruto, whom caught it easily in, looking down at the object he gave Tazuna a strange look, "a key?" he asked. Tazuna chuckled at the blonde knucklehead.
"Yup, it's our spare house key" he explained, "just encase you and any friends you gain ever need a place to stay, for whatever reasons, then our house is your house" Naruto's mouth dropped open in an O shape, before it was replaced with a small smile.
"Thanks, Jiji" said Naruto softly, he then walked up to the older man and gave him a warm hug, one that he felt happy to return. After he broke off his hug, Narutos regular fox-like grin was once again present, "well I better be getting back to my friends", Tazuna nodded at his young friend. After Naruto left, Tazuna stood there for a few minutes, listening to the sounds from the ramen stand, and prayed that this would not be the last time Naruto got to laugh among his friends.
KAI (I've also wanted to do that, but to a much lesser extent)
They had never actually given Tazuna or his family an answer, as they wanted to keep the number of people who knew about their group limited to those they could trust, and that could defend such information.
Naruto produced the key from his pocket and gained access to the house. They filled into the currently empty house and, after flicking on the hall lights, headed for the living room. Naruto wished that Tazuna's family could have come with them, but having civilians would have made being tracked much easier, and have slowed their progress, even if they were carried it would still be the case. So Tsunade had done what she had with all the other guests who thought it unwise to travel at night, put them up in a hotel, and paid for genin teams to escort the guests to their destination. For the sake of the groups safety however, the genin team was ordered to drop them off at the bridge, and return back to the village.
As Naruto entered the room he couldn't help but notice the difference of furnishing since his last visit. Two large comfortable chairs and a three person sofa sat spaced around a low but sturdy looking polished oak coffee table, all made from shiny brown leather. Directly across from the couch was a 30 inch flat screen TV mounted into the wall, Naruto couldn't help but wonder how much it must have cost Tazuna. Either way though, it would seem the land of waves had been doing much better since he'd left.
"now then" said Shizune once they'd all taken a seat, Tsunade and Shizune had taken the two single chairs and Ryuden had elected to lean against the wall, leaving Naruto between a slightly out of breath Tenten, and a tomato red Hinata. "we made really good time on the trip, and no one seems to tired" shizune glanced over at Tenten and Hinata, who both caught exactly what she meant, but before she could continue, a rough cough cut her off.
"Sorry to interupt" said Ryuden, "but I have work to do on Naruto, and it's probably best if I start now" everyone nodded and awaited his intsructions. Soon enough Naruto found himself sitting shirtless on the coffe table, with all the girls looking at his currently visable seal. A small surge of Chakra from Beneath Ryuden's sleeves caught their attention as a brush fell into his hand. A glint from the brush brought all eyes to rest upon it, and all mouths fell open to hit the floor. Ryuden chuckled mirthlessly at the others as he regarded the brush in his hand.
The handle was made from a dark, polished wood that dully reflected the light cast by the ceiling light, the real eye candy though were the many jewels that were inlaid into the handle. Diamonds, rubies, emeralds and sapphires all twisted and danced in a complex pattern that shined in the rooms light, until it looked almost as if it were alive, and every move Ryuden made, no matter how subtle, brought it to life. At the end of the handle was the actual brush, made of fine white fibers that seemed to be silk, connected to the handle with a silver band, decorated with a vine pattern. Once everyone had reeled their jaws back , Tenten couldn't help but ask the questions on everyone's minds.
"Where'd you get that, and how much did it cost you?" she demanded, Ryuden chuckled mirthlessly, again.
"if I'm right, then you want to get one" he said as he moved over to Naruto to start his array.
"well, I use seals a lot, and that looks like it's a quality tool" she replied, shrugging.
"it more than looks it" he said as he stared to draw on Naruto, black, even lines appearing from the clear white bristles, preempting the question he explained, "a storage seal is inscribe in the silver joiner, and it is filled with ink, I channel chakra into the seal to slowly leak the ink out, which I then control with my chakra to travel along certain bristles on the brush, helping me to make it neat and exact without having to stop and re-ink the brush" everyone nodded in comprehension, before settling down to watch Ryuden work. After a few minutes of simply watching, Hinata realized something.
"h-hey" she said softly, trying not to cause Ryuden any problems by breaking his concentration, he nodded to show he was listening, even though his eyes, and hands, never left the work of sealing. "w-well, I d-don't mean to distract you, or anything, b-but you never did tell us where you g-got that brush, or the price of it".
"Don't worry about it" he replied coolly "I prefer to talk while I work, anyways" he paused for a moment, looking at his brush fondly, before continuing his work, and the conversation. "I'm unaware of how much this costs, as it was a homemade gift" he didn't even have to look to know he was getting skeptical looks from the girls, he chuckled again "it's true, honestly. But forget the price, for me; the real value comes in its meaning. I'm not usually a sentimental person, but this brush is actually my first birthday present ever, I got it when I turned 10"
A stunned silence overcame the group; no one really knew what to say to that. Naruto himself couldn't help but feel for Ryuden; after all, he knew how that felt. Letting the silence settle, Ryuden made quick work of his seal. In almost no time he'd constructed a confusing maze of ink, one no one present could understand, that sprawled across Narutos back. The only thing that Tenten could recognize was a barrier seal that stretched around Narutos front to encircle the death god seal, making it immune to the dispelling seal.
"well, that's about it" Ryuden stood back and ran a critical eye over his work, nodding to himself, took a step towards Naruto and prepared to activate it. "now once I activate this, you'll probably be comatose for a day or so. The memories that have been repressed by the mental seals will be released and you'll have to live through them in your mind. You may also find that your personality changes somewhat" Naruto nodded an affirmative, inwardly resolving to stay as much the same as he can, unknowingly sharing the thoughts of every other occupant of the room.
Ryuden took a deep breath, gathering his chakra; he began a series of hand seals that he slowly performed, careful not to make any mistakes. Reaching the final hand seal, he allowed his chakra to flow into his hands before slamming them between Narutos shoulder blades. The group watched in amazement as the ink glowed an ominous red, Narutos mouth opened in a silent scream of pain as the lines and letters of the seal sucked themselves across his skin, condensing under Ryuden's hands. In only a few seconds, the whole array had disappeared. Naruto slumped forward, completely unconscious, the only sign of the seal a small tattoo of a fully black and glaring Kyuubi. Ryuden himself fell backwards, not even moving to stop his fall, he was barely caught by Tsunade, who placed him down gently.
"You alright?" she asked, Ryuden chuckled, of course the medical expert would be the first to ask.
"Yeah" replied Ryuden, looking at the still worried Kunoichi, he elaborated "you see, I use a special ink, one no one else does" he paused for a breath, and found that despite having the girls attention, Tenten was almost unnerving the way she stared at him. "It's a special solution I made, its extremely strong and helps reinforce the seals power. But thanks to the extreme potency, it also backlashes on more complex and/or chakra intensive seals, leaving me temporarily paralyzed, I'd say for about 10 minutes" The girls all relaxed visibly, but Tsunade was still a little worried.
"So there's absolutely nothing to worry about?" she asked.
"Well" said Ryuden dismissively, "unless we're attacked in the next 10 minutes, then yes. Besides, what would the odds be of us being att-" Ryuden was suddenly interrupted as an explosion rocked the house.
"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!" yelled Tsunade, she turned to Hinata, but she had already activated her Byakugan.
"S-someone is j-just outside, t-they appear to be injured" announced Hinata, everyone looked to Tsunade for orders, and she quickly looked over the occupants of the room.
"looks like its our job to protect the boys, lets go" she ordered, Tsunade then spun and ran out the door, followed quickly by the other Kunoichi.
-0o0-
Anko yawned tiredly as she jumped from branch to branch aimlessly, these long term assassinations were a drag. Seriously, she thought to herself, three chunins? No probs. All with bloodlines? Not so good, but not to threatening, three coinciding bloodlines that could significantly strengthen the others attacks, and teamwork that would make Kakashi applaud? I hate that fucking council. And for good reason to, she had just finished another near suicidal mission, was running low on chakra, and had received a message to meet with a contact in the woods near The Great Naruto Bridge. Anko sighed, she remembered the last time the council had tried to be rid of her, paying for some shinobi to ambush her. Anko froze as she landed, it was exactly like today. No exact meeting place or time. Her, exhausted from a hard mission. All this in an area known to not have many shinobi passing through it. She immediately went on guard, focusing all her senses on the surrounding forest, and luckily for her not a moment too soon. She leapt back quickly, barely avoiding a hail of senbon, kunai and shuriken that buried into the branch from four different directions. She landed in a crouch and glared at where the attacks had come from.
"Kukuku" laughed a smooth voice, Anko shivered, no, it couldn't be him. "it seems our lovely little hebi-hime has determined our positions" without another word, the four shinobi jumped out of hiding, landing on a branch not 30 meters away. Much to Anko's relief, it wasn't Orochi-teme, but she was still far from safe.
The man she had thought to be Orochimaru was just as pale as the sannin, and even wore the same style of outfit; the only difference was the color, his being a darker grey, so much so it was almost black. His long black hair fell loosely around his face, landing lightly on his shoulders, and she guessed he'd be about Kakashi's height; he was looking down at her with a smirk.
The man to his left was only slightly shorter, but half a foot of that was brown spiky hair. She couldn't help but remember the hidden rain ninja from the chunin exams when she looked at his outfit. His straight jacket like outfit was black, as well as his eye mask and rebreather, he stood, slight hunched over, eying her warily.
To his left was a girl half a foot shorter than him, she had dark green hair that was tied back in a ponytail and reached her shoulder blades. She wore very light leather armor, dyed black, with many pockets for weapons and two katana in an X across her back. She stood confidently, but looked at her with boredom.
To her left was a man almost two feet taller, he had a relitivly bulky frame, made up of bulging muscle. he wore a simple dark grey cloak, it was both loose and light, allowing for unhindered movement. His silver hair was brushed back formally (like Hidans) and he stood casually, but looked to be ready for anything.
"let me guess" said Anko calmly, though her eyes betrayed her real anger, "you were sent by the council of konoha, they say im a security threat and need to be eliminated" the pale man she determined to be the leader chuckled again.
"Kukuku, I guess this isn't the first attempt then" he said smoothly, "but considering who you are, I guess it's only natural that they be wary of you" he saw Anko tense slightly, and knew he'd struck a nerve. "well as fun as this conversation is, we have a job to do", Anko's only response was to flick her wrist, detonating a smoke bomb at her feet. the smoke soon cleared and revealed that Anko had dissappeared, but she had left a rather obvious trail of broken branches and disturbed leaves. The four shinobi leapt after her at top speed, and not even a minute later, caught site of her. The green hair girl retrived a kunia and, with perfect precision, hit Anko directly in the back of the neck. For a split second, they thought it was over, before she disappeared in a cloud white smoke.
"crap" grunted the large silver hair nin as they came to a stop, "she used a shadow clone to lay a false trail, I knew it was to easy to follow her"
"so like, what now?" asked the green haired Kunoichi.
"kukuku, don't worry, I've got it covered" chuckled the pale one again. He raised an arm and let a small snake slithered from his sleeve.
"what isss it you wisssh of me" it hissed.
"I need you to find a scent, a girl, should smell of snakes", the snake nodded and swayed it's head to and fro, tounge constantly flicking in and out.
"yessss" it hissed after only a moment of searching. "her scent is here, and I can also smell her close by, on an almost parallel path" the snakes master nodded to him with a smirk.
"good job, can you lead us there?" the snake nodded an affirmative, it crawled onto his masters shoulder, and lead them to their target.
-0o0-
Anko panted heavily, her legs burned as she forced herself to keep jumping, the recently dispelled clones memories fresh in her mind. Making the clone had been a strain on her, but It was worth it for her escape, and having headed almost the same way as said clone, her pursuers would have a harder time finding her practically non-existent trail next to her clones more obvious one. so needless to say, being so confident in her strategy, she absolutely shit herself when a kunai nicked her ear. She cast a disbelieving glance back, and nimbly dodged a trio of shuriken thrown by the other Kunoichi. Said girl unleashed another wave of thrown weapons, which much to her chagrin, Anko dodged. Her friends soon joined in the attack, throwing the deadly projectiles in hopes of hitting the fleeing figure, and not having much luck. Anko writhed and twisted to dodge any attacks, showing an amazing amount of flexibility and skill, even managing to keep ahead of them. Soon enough though, one of them snapped.
"oh fuck this" growled the girl, she drew a kunai and attached an exploding note to it, and then another, and another. Soon she had five exploding notes attached to it, her teams eyes widened as she grinned viciously, the weapon was thrown, and her team did the only thing they could, fall to the forest floor and hide behind trees.
The kunai whipped past Anko as she leapt again, and embedded itself hilt deep in the branch she would land on. Too late did Anko see the notes, she was in midair, and unable to stop, the notes flared to life, indicating their imminent detonation. Anko acted on instinct, she brought her hands together and forced all her chakra into the shushin.
Appearing almost a hundred meters away, Anko was still blown off her feet by the force. She was completely spent, she had no chakra left, and her muscles burned, she curled into a protective ball as her back was littered with splinters. Tumbling through the air, she was barely able to brace herself as she collided with the ground, luckily enough, she hit feet first, and instinctively she rolled forward, using the movement to lessen the impacted . she rolled along painfully, the splinters in her back being driven furthur in with the motion, before coming to an abrupt halt against some sort of wall, the impact driving the air out of her. Sucking in a greedy breath, she growled to herself, the pain was nothing, she'd delt with worse, but completely spending her chakra reserves left her feeling useless, and she hated. She heard four sets of feet approaching, and knew that this was the end, her only alternative was using HIS mark, but she'd much rather die. Forcing her eyes to open, she set a determined look on her face, which almost instantly fell into surprise.
-0o0-
"Anko?" shouted Tsunade, the slug sannin ran straight to anko's side, hands already glowing for a healing justu as the three other girls took up defensive positions around her. Anko merely looked up at her, to stunned to talk, she had no hope of survival, and a sanin just shows up? She couldn't believe it. And yet, despite the odds, she could feel Tsunades healing chakra flow into her, only enough to put her on par with, say, a civilian, but it was there, and it was comforting.
"Anko, what happened?" asked Tsunade.
"the council….s-set me up" Anko whispered, "on the way back….from a mission… I was meant to meet some contacts….it was an ambush….four ninja" Tsunade nodded.
"just stay here, we'll deal with it" Anko nodded, Tsunade helped her to a sitting position, where Anko readied a kunai for defense, before moving to stand with the other girls. "Hinata, there are four enemy shinobi nearby, try and locate them" the young Hyuga girl nodded and, with a whisper of 'byakugan', searched the surrounding area in an instant.
"they're hiding directly in front of us, five meters back from the tree line, and thirty five meters from our current position" Tsunade nodded, thanking Kami that she had decided to let both Hinata and Tenten come with them, otherwise they'd be in a spot of trouble. Stepping in front of the others, Tsunade crossed her arms and raised her chin, looking at the spot she assumed the four enemies to be in.
"you might as well come out, we know you're position" Tsunade shouted, hoping to draw the enemy out into the open.
"Kukuku" the vile laugh sent a shiver down Tsunades spine, the four shinobi jumped down to the earth, now only twenty meters away, revealing most all of their features in the dim light cast by the porches light. Tsunade was relieved to see it wasn't her former team mate, but considering who they were, this would still be close.
"ah, now what are you doing out here tsunade-hime?" hissed the sannin look alike, Tsunade ignored him, instead deciding to inform her team of their opposition.
"alright girls, im not gonna lie, this is bad" Shizune nodded in agreement, she recognize them from her bingo book.
"ano, who are they?" asked Hinata shyly, Shizune looked over to her and Tenten, both of them looked nervous, and she knew telling them the truth would just make it worse, but they need to know.
"they are a team of four missing-nin from various villages" said Shizune quickly, "The large man with silver hair is a mid C-rank missing nin from Iwa, his name is Tetsu, of the Hagane clan. He has a bloodline called Hagane no Kawa (literally means steel skin) , that allows him to make his skin harder than steel, it provides protection from low to mid physical attacks. The green haired kunoichi is Tsuin Ken, a high C-rank missing nin from the grass village , and specializes in all sorts of weapons, but mainly uses kenjutsu with her twin scimitar. The other man, the one with brown hair, is Mizu supaiku, a mid b-Rank missing nin from the hidden rain village, he specializes in mid to long range water jutsu and backs it up with thrown weapons." Shizune paused for breath , she kept herself alert for any movement, but her eyes focused on the last shinobi staring them down. "and that man, is the biggest threat. His name is Sanran Hebi, he's an old follower of Orochimaru, he's ranked as an A rank missing nin from grass, he fights using the hebi style, and has had altercations made to his body like that of Orochimaru himself, he-" Shizune was cut off as a sick laugh came from the man now known as Sanran.
"Kukuku, having a little history lesson, eh Shizune-chan?" he chuckled, "preparing the girls beside you for battle no doubt, meaning there isn't any chance of you simply giving Anko-hime to us, then" the kunoichi opposing him shook their heads, even the two young ones, though obviously scared, seemed to harden their resolve and set their stance. With a sigh, Sanran nodded to Tsuin, who, with a blurred flick of her wrist, sent four precisely aimed kunai flying toward the girls, forcing them to jump away, and apart. "I'll take Tsunade, your three can have your pick" the others nodded as Sanran jumped towards the Sannin.
0o0
There ya go, sorry for the slight cliffy there. I decided to leave the fight scene for the next chapter so I suppose it's something to look forward to.