Hell yeah, I'm back. It has been what? A five years hiatus? Anyway, I won't explain why I stopped writing nor apologize. I've been hit by the writing spirit so let's just try to milk it till it goes away.

Does anyone still read this?

(・・?) Kaeru (・・?)

The storm brews

The events that would later be called The Storm of Water and Leaves didn't actually start with a stormy weather. In fact, it all started with a summer night full of starlight.

At that time, the main actors of the Storm of Water and Leaves didn't even have the faintest idea of the chaos and destruction that would surround them, they just thought that they had to meet with their respective Kage. The fact that the two Kage were in the same room should have given them a hint of what was to follow. But alas, they were mostly preoccupied with the masked jounin lounging on the Hokage's desk and twirling a kunai between their uncovered hands.

Uchiha Shisui, the Shisui of the Body Flicker who would soon be known as Shisui of the Body Flicker and the Swift Silver Tongue, was already feeling dread at the mere idea of being in the same room as the Toad masked jounin. Mostly because he remembered well the precedent day where he'd to babysit two jinchchūriki who had been at each other throats' since the beginning.

On the other side of the room, the jounin from the Hidden Village of the Sand, Baki, was quietly examining the people surrounding his Kazekage and entourage. Weirdly enough, the Fourth Kazekage wasn't frowning like he tended to do whenever Konoha was mentioned. In fact, his leader was sitting next to the Hokage and sipping his cup of tea quite daintily. No shimmer of gold dust could be seen around him and Baki slowly started relaxing his tensed muscles. If the Kage wasn't worried, then he didn't need to be ready to fight.

Then, there were the two Kage. While there had been rumours that the Hokage and the Kazekage didn't like each other and were always plotting against the other, the two men were actually sitting calmly and drinking tea. Furthermore, they had both left their Kage regalia and hats on the desk where the infamous Kaeru was lying nonchalantly.

"Hokage-sama," Shisui finally said when he realized that nobody wasn't going to talk.

Even if he'd heard Kaeru talk no less than one hour ago, he still knew the weird masked man enough to know that the latter loved awkward silences. Shisui clenched his fists and hoped in the bottom of his heart that, someday, the bastard would get what he truly deserved.

"Shisui," the Hokage finally put his empty cup of tea down, just next to the idle Kaeru's leg, and slowly rose to his feet. "Suna and Konoha will work together for this crucial mission. You already know your orders."

The young Uchiha shifted awkwardly on his feet and glanced at the Suna jounin and Kazekage. While there were foreigners in the room, he couldn't talk to the Hokage about his worries about the Uchiha family and his slowly decreasing reserves of chakra.

"Baki," the Kazekage's stern voice pierced through the silence and both jounins jumped to attention. "the Frog will be the leader of the team. Don't disappoint our village."

Baki nodded curtly, a fist to his chest and bowed deeply to his Kage.

During the whole exchange, the masked jounin hadn't moved from his spot, still twirling the kunai and looking at the broken window behind the two Kages. However, once Baki had bowed to the Fourth Kazekage, Kaeru jumped to their feet and nodded at their teammates.

「Time to go. 」the masked man wrote on the desk with his kunai. 「The clock is ticking. 」

The three men jumped through the broken window and vanished into the night.

Left alone in the room, Sarutobi Hiruzen sighed heavily as he looked over his defaced desk.

"Why must he always write over my furniture," the old Kage muttered to himself.

"At least, he didn't write it on the face of someone," the Fourth Kazekage commented lightly as he finished his tea.

Hiruzen raised an eyebrow.

"He didn't."

The Kazekage put down his empty cup of tea and looked at the Hokage grimly.

"Am I the kind of man to joke around?"

Touché. Hiruzen inclined his head to accept the good point the other Kage had given him and pondered about Kaeru's revealed actions.

"Was it the traitor in your council?" he asked lightly while pouring more tea in the Kazekage's cup.

"If it hadn't been them, would the Frog still be standing?"

Touché. Again.

Hiruzen gave an amused smile and slowly shook his head. Without Kaeru's intervention, would he have ever known that the Kazekage had such a dry humour?

囧

At the same time, just as Kaeru was writing that the clock was ticking, another person was telling the same thing to Morino Ibiki.

"So he's back," Ibiki repeated for the fifth time that night while glaring at the frazzled woman eating dango on his desk. Which was filled with unfinished reports. Which were now covered with sweet and sticky soy sauce. Which meant he'd to rewrite everything. He could feel his headache start yet again.

"Yes," Mitarashi Anko nodded without knowing that she'd been the reason of Ibiki's headache yet again. For the hundredth time this week. "The Frog menace confirmed it."

The headache aggravated yet again when Ibiki heard the two most infamous words in the T&I department.

Frog Menace was actually synonymous with innumerable hours of unpaid work, damage control and yet again, reunions with the Yamanaka factions to know how-the-hell-could-you-miss-such-a-big-shit followed with the we-aren't-paid-enough-for-this-shit consequence and then, the great finale, the Nara's -this-is-so-troublesome-let's-ask-the-Frog-Menace-to-just-work-at-T&I. Every time, it was the same.

Every.

Fucking.

Time.

Ibiki pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath with his mouth. He counted till five then let it out. Inoichi's sessions were working, his left eyelid still hadn't started spasming.

"So what did the Frog Menace say this time," he sighed heavily.

"Nothing much," Anko frowned as she looked down at her empty plate. (Ibiki sighed in relief, no more sauce on his reports) "The Frog Menace killed a white snake and wrote that it was an omen. And then, he added a music note."

Ibiki's headache went from "this is just a slight spy problem" to "Frog Menace has uncovered yet another conspiracy" and was slowly bordering the "Unpaid hours and no sleep for two months" zone.

The head of the T&I department stopped pinching his nose and started massaging his temples.

"So the snake might be back," he said as he immediately called for an ANBU with a small chakra surge. "I want Wolf's team on call and for everyone to start patrolling the village. Also, Anko…"

"Yes?" the kunoichi tilted her head with a smirk.

"You're on writing my reports back to shape duty. I've already told you to avoid eating dango on my desk."

Anko pouted and threw all the empty dango sticks at the wall. Where they joined all previous empty dango sticks from all the times she'd done the same thing to Ibiki.

Meanwhile, Ibiki was already preparing himself for yet another reunion with the Yamanaka and Nara. He grimaced. The two clan heads were horrible to deal with whenever they were called during the middle of the night.

"Fucking Frog Menace," the torturer in chief muttered to himself. He walked some steps and stopped. If he remembered well, the Hokage had asked the team following the Frog Menace to stop doing it for the following week. Didn't that mean that the Frog Menace was leaving the Village?

If Ibiki's theory was true, then this would also mean that this omen, be it good or bad, could happen while the Frog Menace wasn't in Konoha.

His headache was now firmly into "Red Alert". Ibiki's left eyelid started twitching.

囧

As Shisui already knew, but Baki quickly learned, Kaeru wasn't one for chatting. Or rather, Kaeru was someone who loved using seals to avoid making any noise and thus surprise all his targets. Which sometimes could even be his own teammates.

"I swear to all the shinobi gods, Kaeru," Shisui hissed between his gritted teeth as they all jumped through the heavy forest. "If you do this again, I'll use the Sharingan."

The masked jounin's shoulders shuddered in what could only be seen as laughter as he jumped elegantly from branch to branch. In fact, this same elegance that could only be used by a Konoha nin was unnerving to Shisui. How was it possible for a perfect stranger to master so well the tree walking that all Konoha nins used? Even Baki, supposedly the best Suna jounin, was having some difficulties following them.

[No. Time.] Kaeru told him with ANBU hand signals. Yet another thing that was making Shisui's skin crawl. How many Konoha secrets did this man know?

A sudden wave of dizziness distracted the Uchiha from his musings and he faltered in his next jump, almost missing the branch he'd been aiming for. However, a firm hand took hold of his arm and pulled him forward so he could step on the branch.

[injury?] Kaeru asked him with a hand signal hidden from Baki's eyes.

"No," Shisui hissed as he wiped the sweat from his forehead. "Just exhaustion. I told you I wasn't the best choice."

[Nonsense.] This time, Kaeru had started tapping on his wrist in Morse code. [Uchiha Illusion should be stopped for the next three days. Once you're back, put it back. Hokage's order.]

Shisui blinked. On his left side, Baki had finally caught up with them and was looking at them with suspicion.

"The Hokage did?"

Kaeru nodded and then looked at Baki. The masked jounin tilted his head and seemed to be thinking over something. He then clapped his hands once and turned towards Shisui with a kunai on his hand.

「Change of plans. Drop the genjutsu and start running to the Water Country. I'll keep up with you. Baki, climb on my back, you're slowing us down. 」he wrote on the trunk then glanced insistently at Shisui. The latter took a heavy breath and nodded reluctantly.

"Hokage's order," he muttered to himself as the three tomoe on his Sharingan slowly started swirling until they turned into a Magenkyo Sharingan. Then, as he took another breath, Shisui felt a shudder run through his body, it had felt almost like he'd taken a heavy weight off his own soul.

Luckily for Shisui, Baki hadn't noticed the change in his pupils since the Suna jounin had been arguing with Kaeru over slowing them down. However, their argument ended like all arguments with the Toad masked man ended, in Kaeru's undisputable victory. Thus, it was a dark faced Baki who jumped on the victorious man while the latter laughed silently and took tiny jumps to get accustomed to the added weight.

"Ready to race?" Shisui asked Kaeru with a smirk. Now that he had dropped the Koto Amatsukami, he felt like he'd way more chakra than before.

Kaeru raised a thumb in approval and jumped off the branch.

Shisui glanced back at the direction where the Konoha village was and winced slightly. Now that the illusion had been broken by his own hands, the Uchiha clan would slowly go back to their conspiring and the Hokage would face the storm without Itachi's or his help.

But enough about his worries, he still had a mission to finish.

Shisui jumped.

囧

"Damn, that was a big one," the white haired man whistled as he filled his former teammate's cup.

Tsunade of the Sannin tilted her head, the redness on her cheeks was deep enough to show how much alcohol she'd drunk during the night. However, her eyes were still sharp, and she glanced at the starry sky from her spot on the Ichiraku's stand.

"Was it your brat?" she asked with a blurred voice as she leaned on her elbows on the table.

"No," Jiraiya shook his head and his white mane almost ended on his empty ramen bowl. "That illusion was perfectly done, you know how bad he's at genjutsu. I'm afraid it was Uchiha based."

Tsunade narrowed her eyes and focused better on her surroundings.

"The whole compound?" she whispered in surprise. "What kind of genjuts…" She immediately stopped talking and widened her eyes in shock. "Oh no, he didn't."

Jiraiya shook his head again and took Tsunade's cup to empty it in one gulp.

"What has sensei done," Tsunade whispered softly.

Jiraiya put down the empty cup and belched.

"Well, whatever he did, it's undone now," he grumbled to his friend. "And I'm ready to bet my summoning scroll that the Uchiha are waking up and they will be pissed."

Tsunade winced.

Even if the sky was clear and the stars were shining, a storm was brewing in Konoha.

囧

While the Kazekage had left his office one hour ago, the Hokage still hadn't left his desk. He looked down at the opened file, just next to Kaeru's latest graffiti, and sighed heavily.

Hiruzen knew that this Naruto from the future knew more than he let it show. And he also knew that Naruto, or Kaeru has everyone called him here, had Konoha's wellbeing in mind. However, this plan of Shisui leaving the town and dropping the mind control he had on his whole family as he did so… This plan was too farfetched to work. Naruto, be it the young child sleeping next to the Kazekage's son or the war hardened adult on his way to Kiri, had always seen the best in everyone. But to actually hope that the Uchiha would wake up from their mind control and not use this as another reason to conspire against Konoha?

Wasn't that foolishly hopeful of Naruto?

Either way, Hiruzen had accepted. He'd had no other choices. Kaeru had already shown him what would happen to anyone who opposed him. In one way, this Naruto from the future could have been a terrifying Hokage. But in another way, he was too reckless and bloodthirsty too.

This bloodthirst he had shown when he'd confronted Daizo… Hiruzen still shuddered at the thought that maybe someday, it would be turned against him. But still, the Third Hokage wanted to believe in Naruto's vision. The man had already shown, time and time again, that his bloodthirst had a reason.

And the Village couldn't keep one of its founding clans under mind control forever. It just wouldn't be fair to his former teacher or even to the founding fathers of Konoha's vision of peace.

So maybe it was his old age, maybe it was foolish, but Hiruzen let Kaeru go with Shisui. He knew that he would face the worst storm that could happen to Konoha. But on another hand, the Village could get stronger out of this event. That is, if everything followed Kaeru's plan.

A stern knock on his office door broke Hiruzen's thoughts and he glanced at his crystal globe. From what he could infer from it, Morino Ibiki was standing out there, massaging his head.

'Oh dear, that's a Code Red headache,' Hiruzen grimaced as he told Ibiki to enter.

囧

As the name 'Storm of Water and Leaves' says, this bunch of chaotically disruptive events didn't just happen in Konoha. In fact, the word Water was in front of the Leaves not just because it was poetically better sounding, as the Mizukage told the Hokage time and time again when the latter protested the order of the words, but also because the events in the Hidden Village of the Mist were simply way more impacting to their lives.

Yes, the Mizukage would tell the Hokage years after the whole debacle started and ended, Konoha almost got his Uchiha clan to revolt and try to upstart their Kage. But Kiri simply lost trace of its Mizukage for two days. At least the Hokage stayed in his tower, warm and protected, right? He didn't have to endure some annoying little shit's running commentary for two days in a damp swamp, right?

Which, the Hokage would always retort that he had to deal with the annoying little shit's running commentary daily, thank you very much. And, would the Mizukage like to swap the order of the words if he got to keep the annoying little shit with the running commentary in his Hidden Village, the Hokage would thank him and owe him one.

However, the Mizukage always refused the Hokage's offer for he wasn't a fool. He knew that the annoying little shit didn't speak at all in Konoha and that, once the annoying little shit stepped foot in Kiri, he would drop all pretence and go back to annoying the hell out of every Kiri nin. And the Mizukage liked being alive, thank you very much, he didn't want to court death by annoying his ninja into revolting against his power. (Once was enough)

And this whole affair would then be concluded by the Kazekage saying that Suna had helped both of them during the whole Storm of Water and Leaves and they didn't even complain about being forgotten in the title since they were shinobi and weren't shinobi supposed to be unseen and unspoken? Also, the annoying little shit was always welcome in their Hidden Village of the Sand so there you have it. Which, of course, would immediately spark yet another argument between the Hokage, Mizukage and Kazekage over which Village would keep the aforementioned annoying little shit.

But enough about this talk that wouldn't happen for many years.

When the Storm of Water and Leaves happened, only some people had been warned. And, weirdly enough, all of them had been in contact with the mysterious jounin with the Frog (or was it the Toad? The drawing was just so abstract, it was difficult to discern which of them it was, truly) mask. Therefore, what was the truth behind the Storm of Water and Leaves? Was this Kaeru jounin the one pulling the strings? Or had he been, yet again, the one who uncovered the conspiracy?

Nobody could ever know. And now that this event was about to happen, Uchiha Itachi, Uchiha Sasuke, Uzumaki Naruto and Sabaku no Gaara would be the first to discover how deep Kaeru's involvement ran during the Storm of Water and Leaves. However, those four weren't the only actors in this play, for Kaeru had warned and brought over more players to finally untie the Gordian knot of treachery and conspiracy lying in wait in the Hidden Village of Konoha.

囧

As the sun rose, so did the Uchiha. The head of the clan, Uchiha Fugaku, awoke with a persistent headache and the conviction that his mind had been tampered with. He immediately thought of the Imanaka's kekkei genkai and gritted his teeth.

"So they have fallen this low," he uttered with disgust as he put his kimono and tied it firmly. His spouse, Mikoto, stayed in bed and shook her head with shock.

"I just don't understand," she whispered with a frail voice. "What did we do… what did we do to deserve such treatment..."

Burdened by the same sadness and shame to have fallen so low as a clan head, Fugaku decided that it was time the Uchiha clan had a meeting. And this time, they would do it with the Hokage as a formal guest.

'Let the old coot try to explain why he did such things,' Fugaku thought grimly as he walked past his sons' doors. 'This time, he won't be able to push the blame on our clan.'

One of his steps ended up on a creaking wooden slat and it resulted in Sasuke's bedroom door opening. Fugaku stopped walking and glanced at his youngest son. The latter was still pale from his shock caused by the Frog Menace (yet another thing that Fugaku needed to talk over with the Hokage) and his eyes were red with his newly awakened Sharingan.

"Father," Sasuke said with a soft voice. "Something happened last night, I felt…" the child stopped talking and furrowed his brows. He seemed to be looking for the proper words to explain what he had experienced. "It felt like our family chakra? And… I can't find Itachi-nii-sama."

As if he'd been thunderstruck, Fugaku tensed and stopped breathing, his eyes widening in horror. It was similar to a veil being lifted from his eyes, he could see so many things that he'd ignored lately. Itachi being summoned to the Hokage's office weekly, even when he had just gotten back from a mission and had already delivered his report. Itachi's increasing stress lines, his tired eyes and slowly vanishing smile.

"My own son," Fugaku whispered to himself as Sasuke looked at him worriedly. "So you would go this far…"

As the sun rose, the Uchiha awoke with desire of vengeance and feelings of betrayal.

But on another part of the Hidden Village, a lone Uchiha hadn't gone to sleep and was watching the sunrise with a solemn face. As one of the rare persons on the known about Shisui's mind control illusions put on his clan, Itachi had felt when the Koto Amatsukami had been released. He even knew his cousin's chakra well enough to say that Shisui had been the one to undo it.

Thus, as the sun rose and coloured the clouds with shimmers of pink, Itachi started to plan. He knew that Kaeru had been the one to ask for Shisui replacing him and, probably, undoing the genjutsu once they'd left the Village. This could only mean that the masked jounin wanted the Uchiha to be free from Shisui's illusion.

He wanted the Uchiha to rebel and form a coup d'état. But why?

As he looked over the red sky from his seat at the jinchūriki's dinner table, Itachi slightly furrowed his brows and went over what he could infer from Kaeru's actions.

Two jinchūriki that he'd placed in the same room, unprotected if not by a lone ANBU who had just discovered he had a problem with his chakra. So, a bait. Probably.

Him. The Uchiha prodigy who got diagnosticated with an almost uncurable sickness that only Senju Tsunade, the greatest Medic, could find and cure in time. It would be soon known by everyone in Konoha that he was weakened, making him too the perfect bait.

The Uchiha discovering that someone, an Uchiha, had put the whole clan under an illusion. They would surely start making conclusions by going over who wasn't in the compound. Like Shisui of the Body Flicker, the greatest in genjutsu they ever had. Or him, Itachi the prodigy of the Uchiha Clan. Whom they hadn't seen since yesterday and whom they didn't know of his sickness. Yet. So a big trouble brewing with the Uchiha. A distraction. From what?

The two Sannin. Both back because Kaeru had contacted them. Itachi had been the one to fetch Tsunade. She had come because she owed Kaeru from something. Why would he need her to be there now and not before? A Medic nin would be needed. Why now? Was it because his sickness needed to be found and cured? How could Kaeru know?
And then, Jiraiya. He'd arrived unannounced and stayed mostly low, visiting some bars and onsen. Nothing more, nothing less. Protection for the town. Jiraiya could have been patrolling. A Sannin as a protector wasn't something to laugh at. But from who was he protecting Konoha?

Itachi tensed. The plan was perfect. A bait full of powerful jinchūriki and a kekkei genkai almost offered on a silver plate. A distraction that would be like a civil war going on the streets of Konoha, nobody would ever notice if three people were to be missing at that time. And then, two powerful protectors, to make sure either the distraction didn't go too far, or that the bait wasn't taken away…

How many years had Kaeru taken to get to this plan? Had he gone to Konoha with this in his mind since the beginning? Was he the only behind this plan? Or maybe, just maybe, was he a mere peon in someone's hand.

The day had started and a storm was incoming.

Uchiha Itachi rose from his seat and walked to the jinchūriki's bedroom. Time for the bait to go out and work at it.

囧

Deep into the Konoha sewers, close to the Root's operating chambers yet not too close, a shadow moved and swiftly put all the light out.

"Time to make my great entrance," a soft and somewhat sibilant voice whispered as a messaging roll fell to the damp floor.

As the shadow sashayed away with the only source of light, one last ember fell on the forgotten paper, revealing a chicken scratch written on it with the following words.

「Play your role well, and the immortality you seek shall be attained.」

囧

All the pieces in Konoha had been carefully dispatched and should soon play their true part in the Storm. However, the same couldn't be said with the characters in the Hidden Village of the Mist.

In fact, by the time the team led by Kaeru had left the forest surrounding Konoha, nobody in Kiri could have known what would soon befall their Village.

Not even their Kage.

Nor the man who had just started planning on manipulating the Mizukage from the shadows. The latter had actually been bidding for the perfect time to pull the genjutsu on the Kage. However, he hadn't planned on Kaeru's arrival.

Nobody ever did.

So, next chapter should be out Thursday.

sneak peak :

"Have you always been such an annoying little shit?"

The Toad jounin shrugged.

Yagura, the fearsome Mizukage of the Bloody Kiri, glanced at Shisui.

"Has he?"

Shisui grimaced.