Circle of Leaves
Chapter Seven
It was dark, and quiet. There was a man falling in and out of conciseness, bound to a chair in the middle of a poorly lit room. His eyes were opening slightly, trying to adjust to the lack of light.
The captive man tried to get a layout of his surroundings. His chest hurt, no doubt from either bruised or possibly cracked ribs. The man attempted to move, and soon found that his hands were tied behind his back and to the chair, which was secured to the ground.
He cleared the blurriness from his vision and again took tally of the room he was in. There were no windows, and only one heavy, reinforced door, as far as he could see.
His mind was working faster now. The mission, he had failed the mission, and worse still, he was captive. He wondered if his partner was also captive, in a similar situation, or if he or his partner had given anything away.
He thought hard. No, he didn't recall anything since that bastard slammed him into the tree. Hopefully he was only out of it for a short while; they wouldn't be able to get anything out of his in that time.
After all, the boss wouldn't like that, not one bit.
The captive man tested his restraints and smiled a bit to himself. These would prove to be easy to slip out of, hell a newly minted Genin could get out of this. But before he released himself he looked around again, damn it if there wasn't a way out aside from that door.
Said door suddenly opened, and another man entered the room. The new comers face caught a bit of the light. The captive's eyes widened as he recognized the man, 'Oh shit.'
There really was no way out of this any more, not with 'him'. He had no choice had to do 'that'. The captive fumbled with his tongue for a moment against the side of his mouth. He found his objective and, audibly swallowed.
The effect was almost instantaneous his body began to convulse. He was barely aware of rapid footsteps, and a hand gripping his hair, roughly forcing his head back.
He caught sight of a pair of red eyes peering into his. The malice of those eyes would have caused him to shiver and flinch, were he not already shaking uncontrollably. He heard a voice, distant and forced calm. "Who are you, what is your goal?"
The words escaped the captive's mouth before he was able to stifle himself, "the decedents…" He stopped talking, his shuddering making it impossible to say anything else remotely coherent. The captive man then fell limp and still.
Sasuke let go of the prisoner's hair and straitened up, he sighed and shook his head. He reached for the mans neck and felt for a pulse, there was none to be found. "Damn it," he muttered to himself, "The dope is not going to like this."
The Uchiha's eyes faded back to black; he walked back to the door. Knocking on it and calling out to the guards, the door opened.
Sasuke jerked his thumb over his shoulder, back into the room. "He is to be taken to the morgue, the Hokage is going to need a full work up and autopsy results in his office."
The young guard bowed to him, "Hai, Uchiha-sama."
Sasuke made his way out of the basement, and climbed the stairs to the top of the tower, where he knew Naruto would be waiting for his report on the interrogation of the prisoner.
He was a bit more than upset with himself. His Sharingan had never failed to get the information that he needed out of anyone that he used it on. It was true that Sasuke sometimes did not need to use it, opting for other ways. Hell he even outshined his predecessor to the title of Head of Interrogation.
But the Sharingan, when used, never failed, until now… then again, he also never had a prisoner die in the middle of an interrogation.
Sasuke found himself outside of the Hokage office; nodding to the guards he knocked and entered.
Naruto was standing at the window, overlooking the village. He was talking with Kawazu and Mayte, who were sitting in front of his desk. The three of them cut off their discussion as Sasuke entered the room, not surprised to find that Shikamaru was absent.
The blonde Kage turned and gave his old friend a strained kind of smile, "so, what did you find out?"
"Not much," Sasuke said grudgingly. Naruto's eyebrows rose in surprise, "the prisoner is dead," he clarified.
"Dead?" Naruto asked, "What the hell did you kill him for, Teme?"
Sasuke shook his head, "he was dying when I entered the room. I've ordered an autopsy already, but I only managed to get a couple of words out of him. I asked him who he was and what his goal was, and he said, 'the decedents'. Then he died."
"The decedents?" said Kawazu. "So is the attacker part of 'the decedents' or is that their target?"
"I can't be sure," Sasuke admitted.
The door to the office opened again, a young medic darted into the room. He bowed to Naruto and then spoke, "Hokage-sama, the initial report of the deceased prisoner show a false, hollow tooth. The autopsy is still underway, but we believe that it held some type of poison. My superior felt that you should know this now, and we will have official results as to identity and cause of death shortly." The medic said this all quickly, hardly drawing breath.
Naruto frowned, and then he started to pace behind his desk. Turning to the young medic, "Thanks for the information, get the rest of the results to me when you can. Don't rush it, take your time and make sure nothing is missed."
The Medic bowed himself out and hurried from the room.
Mayte spoke, "he is probably right, Sensei. The man killed himself to prevent us form getting any useful information."
"Well that makes thinks potentially worse," Sasuke put it. "After all, what are they after that is so important that he was willing to take his own life to protect the secret? That they would attack a rookie Genin squad, with the intent to kill?"
"You're right Sasuke," Kawazu said. "I can understand trying to kidnap Minato or Shikara. After all, their families would do what it took to get them back. But either way, whether it was kidnapping or intent to kill this is more or less an act of war."
"With that reasoning, I don't think the attacker is affiliated with any other village. Most likely a group of missing nin banded together. Like the Akatsuki was," Sasuke said.
Naruto listened to his friends talking, and gave an involuntary shudder at the word 'Akatsuki'. After a moments silence, he nodded once, as though confirming something to himself, "Right. Mayte," he said suddenly.
"Hai," the Jonin responded.
"You said that there were two attackers, that right?" Naruto asked.
"Hai," Mayte confirmed. "The second one ran once his partner was dispatched."
"Then I'm sorry, I have another mission for you," Naruto said. "You and Kawazu will go in a three man squad; I will have Inuzuka Kemonoi waiting at the west gate. Go to the place you were attacked. Hopefully he can track the scent of the one who ran, to some kind of base."
The two man nodded, and Naruto continued. "Kawazu, observe and investigate, you are to report back in a week with your findings, but keep me posted. So the two of you go home and get ready, pack as normal, and meet Kemonoi at west gate in an hour."
"Hai," the two men said in unison, and vanished from the room.
Naruto had one of his guards go to inform his old Inuzuka student of the mission after the two had left.
"Do you really think that this will work?" Sasuke asked when just the two of them were in the office. "Tracking them and getting the information, I mean?"
Naruto shrugged, "whether I think it will work or not, is not the point. This is our only lead since the other one seems to have killed himself before you could get any information out of him."
"Yes, I suppose I would have obtained more information if he didn't do that," Sasuke said in an offhand voice.
"You suppose?" Naruto said shrewdly. "Of course you would have gotten it. Those eyes of yours have never failed to see the truth and draw it out."
Sasuke stared at his friend for a moment, he then smirked. "Naruto, sometimes I keep forgetting just how much you have changed. Then at times like now, you show just how much you have changed from when you were the dead last." He paused, "But you will always be a dope to me."
"What brought that on?" Naruto scowled, he then broke into a grin. "But to be fair you will always be a heartless teme to me."
The statement earned a slight glare from the Uchiha. Naruto continued, "every one has to grow up sometime, Sasuke. When I was a kid I could have said I would be Hokage until I was blue in the face, but do you really see that guy doing this job?"
Sasuke said nothing, and Naruto sighed. "It wasn't until I heard that Jiriaya had died that I really started to change. I remember talking with Shikamaru, we had gone to see Kurenai-sensei. Shikamaru had said something that really got me thinking. He had said, referring to her then unborn son, that he would be that kids sensei someday."
"That's what got me thinking," Naruto continued. "If a lazy jerk like Shikamaru could plan for the future, keeping a promise he made to Asuma-sensei, then what the hell was I doing? I needed to grow up, if I was going to make good on my goals."
Sasuke cocked his head, "what brought this on?"
Naruto smirked, "you said that I was a dope to you. I wanted to make it clear to you, I couldn't be, and no longer am, the baka that I was when we became team 7."
"YOU INCREDIBLE BAKA!" a very familiar, and obviously angry voice was the next thing heard in the office. It was the only warning that the two shinobi had before the doors flew open, close to being knocked clean off of its hinges.
In the door way stood a seething Sakura. The moment she saw Naruto, her fist tightened, cocked back and started glowing blue. She then charged her old teammate, "Do you have any idea of what you have done!?"
Naruto's eyes went wide, he had not seen her so pissed at him in years. Before her attack could connect, he dodged it, side stepping her assault, which caused her to stumble past him her fist making contact with his desk, which burst into a pile of splinters.
"Sakura, what's wrong?" Naruto cried out waving his arms in front of himself, in a way of begging her to stop.
"What's wrong?" she shouted, "don't give me that crap!"
Naruto turned desperately to his friend, "Sasuke you want to help…" only to see that the teme was no longer in the room. Turning back to Sakura with his eye twitching, Naruto muttered, "oh, you damned traitor."
Sakura was charging up for another shot, "it's about time that someone taught you a lesson, baka."
Naruto dodged her, once again, "lesson? What are you talking about Sakura? Please calm down, you are pregnant after all, isn't it bad for the child to get too stressed?"
"Bad for the pregnancy?" Sakura spat, "you weren't thinking about that before, considering what you did to Hinata!" She shouted and charged him again, this time Naruto froze, her powered fist inches from colliding with his face when he snapped back.
Naruto's arm sprang up, grabbed her by the wrist and held her fists away from himself. Sakura made to get him with the other fist, but Naruto deflected that attack as well.
Naruto now had her by both wrists, and said to her, in a more commanding tone than anyone ever heard him use, "Enough! What did I do to Hinata-chan? Just what the hell are you talking about Sakura?"
The charka faded from Sakura's hands. She was still glaring at Naruto, but saw in his eyes that he really had no clue what she was talking about.
"You know Naruto, you may have changed a lot but you do still have your moments of absolute stupidity." She said this as Naruto released her wrists, and her hands found themselves on her hips. Naruto was still staring wearily at her, as though expecting another outburst.
"Ok," Naruto said, "so what is this all about? And what is wrong with my wife?"
Sakura sighed, "She saw you, baka. With what you did in the hospital with Ino, Hinata was there for a check-up."
Naruto cocked his head, "so what does that have to do with anything? I needed a medic nin and Ino was there. What I did is the only way that I could have gotten her to where she needed to go fast."
Sakura had calmed down, "I know that, and deep down I think Hinata knows that too. But it's the way that you grabbed Ino. It really upset her, she came to my house, sobbing. I managed to calm her down enough to get her home. She is sleeping now, after that I came here…"
"And tried to kill me," Naruto muttered. He then got a confused look on his face, "but if she understands that, then why get upset about it? One of our children was in possible danger, I needed to work fast. Hinata-chan is one of the level headed people I know, so I don't see why she would be upset."
Sakura's eyebrow twitched a bit, "why is she so upset? Are you serious? She's pregnant you Baka, you have been with her and around other pregnant women before, right? Of course she understands, absolutely she gets it. But her hormones are so different then normal right now, that seeing you put your arms around another woman, regardless of the intent, triggered a reaction from her. And you know her she never gets ultra angry or violent, but she finds ways of blaming herself." Sakura said this all and was suddenly aware that she was jabbing Naruto in the chest with her finger.
Naruto nodded in understanding, "you said that she was at home?"
Sakura chewed her tongue and nodded.
Naruto took off out of the window, he needed to fix this. Naruto still didn't think that he had done anything wrong, but the fact that Hinata was upset about this was just something that he could not handle.
He made it home quickly, if it was any faster he would have been using Hiarishin to get there. Naruto made his way through the door and up to the bedroom. When he got there he immediately saw that she was not sleeping. Her back was to the door, but the way of her breathing was not like when she slept.
Naruto sat down on the edge of the bed, he said nothing for a moment. Just sat there quietly thinking about what he should say. In this situation there was nothing else that could be said, "I'm sorry Hinata…"
She did not respond, she said nothing as he sat there. Naruto wanted to explain, he wanted to let her know what had happened, but struggled to find the words. Finally after a long pause, "Sakura came to 'see' me, she told me what had happened. Hinata-chan I am sorry that what I did upset you so much. I wasn't thinking, but you have to know that it was nothing, it was needed."
Still there was no response from his wife, she just lay there shaking slightly. Naruto resisted the urge to wrap her in his arms, "I just wanted to make sure you knew, I am sorry." He got up from the bed, "I'll let you sleep…"
He was half way to the door when her voice stopped him, "please, don't go."
Naruto looked back to see her sitting up looking at him. A pain hit his chest when her saw her tear stained face. "Hina…"
"Please, d-don't go Naruto-kun," she said softly. "I'm sorry for overreacting, but, well I just never thought that I could feel this type of jealousy." Naruto opened his mouth, but she continued, "I know there is nothing to be jealous about, but I couldn't help it."
Naruto walked back to the bed and sat down, Hinata's face fell onto his chest, pushing them both down.
It was that way the she fell asleep.
Authors note: Ok kinda filler chapter, but whatever. I hope you liked please review. And this is the chapter in which I changed the story to category of family. It just seemed fitting.
