Deceiving Appearance
Disclaimer- I don't own this story or the characters in it.
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List of the Jinchuuriki
1: Sabaku no Gaara- the Kazikage of Sunagakure and jinchuuriki of the Ichibi no Shukaku
2: Nii Yugito- She blond hair and cat like eyes and dressed in a black outfit with a white strip across her waist. She's a former ANBU and now jonin of Kumogakure and jinchuuriki of the Nibi no Nekomata.
4: Sohma Kakashi- An elderly man with a black mark running across his face he is not currently associated with any village and is the jinchuuriki of the Yonbi no Sokou.
5: Koizumi Makoto- Around twenty-eight years old he is dressed in a gray jumpsuit with armor and pockets built in and with sort silver hair and is ajonin of Yukigakure and the container of the Gobi no Houkou.
6: Nakamura Asuka- She's a thirty year old woman in brown armor with brown hair tied into six different buns and four marks on her cheaks. She is a special jonin of Kusagakure and the container of Rokubi no Raijuu.
7: Kuroda Fukagawa- Around eighteen years old and wearing brown pants and a tight black shirt that covers his mouth, green hair, and a brown streak running down his nose he is a former Hunter-nin, now jonin of Iwagakure and the container of Shichibi no Kaku
8: Fujiwara Yin and Yang- five year old identical twins Yin is a girl and Yang is a boy. They both dress in plain brown shirts and black pants, have blue hair and red eyes. They are from Takigakure and have the Hachibi no Orochi split between them.
9: Uzumaki Naruto- she uses her second skin to act as a form fitting suite (but not so form fitting that it looks sprayed on) with a skirt-like part at her waist and added coverage on her chest. She is a former ANBU now special jonin of Konohagakure and is the container of the essence of the Kyuubi no Youko.
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"Speaking"
'Thought'
"Demon/jutsus"
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As the sunlight light up the room, the figure under the bed sheets groans as she tried to shut out the rays of light.
This was, however, to no avail. As anyone who has traveled in the suna desert, when the sunlight wants to get in, there is nothing anyone can do to stop it.
After a few minuets of desperately trying to go back to sleep, Naruto gave up, and with an exasperated sigh she threw off the covers.
Still groggy she sat up in bed and took in her surroundings. The room was large, but not too big. The quean size bed leaned up against the wall with room on either side for a simple night stand. Across from the bed was two doors separated by a simple wooden dresser.
The door on the right led to a closet while to one on the left lead to a bathroom. To the right of the bed there was an open space with a door leading out to the hallway.
There were no pictures hanging up on the walls an there was only one photograph of a blond and a redhead on the dresser.
It would surprise anyone to know that this sparsely decorated room belonged to the supreme ruler of Suna. But then again, if you knew Gaara, then you would probably expect the room to look this way.
Stretching her arms above her head, Naruto stretched to work out the kinks that developed from the night before. Gaara had left early that morning before the fist rays of sun were even on the horizon. He had told her that there were some last minuet details that needed to be taken care of, but Naruto was half asleep at the time so she didn't remember exactly what he said.
As she continued to stretch, the bed sheet fell from her chest and pooled around her waist. Here second skin was retracted, revealing her seemingly flawless skin and the black lines running accost her body like an exotic tattoo.
From downstairs she heard the sound of people moving around and food being prepared.
'Guess the others are up' thought Naruto to herself.
It had been decided during yesterday's meeting that, while the question of how long they would all stay in suna was up for debate, they would be staying at the Kazekage's mansion. This was decided on for their safety as well as the safety for the fest of the village.
If one of them lost control, or they were attacked by Akatsuki, the grounds of the mansion were big enough to hopefully contain the damage before it spread to the rest of the village. Likewise, with all the Jinchuuriki in one place, they could easily gang up together for mutual defense if they needed to.
Getting out of bed, Naruto padded barefoot to the bathroom to wash up before heading downstairs.
As she finished washing up she put a simple black hair tie to hold her yellow and orange hair in a simple ponytail. Steeping out of the bathroom she let her second skin flow around her, forming the black outfit that she wore the other day.
Reaching the kitchen, Naruto saw that she was not the last person up. Makoto, Yugito, Asuka, and Fukagawa were all milling around in the kitchen, each one of them getting their own breakfast while ignoring the others. They briefly paused to take notice of Naruto as she entered the room but soon went back to their food.
The tension in the air was unmistakable. While on one hand they were all Jinchuuriki and as such knew the heavy burdens each other had to carry, many of them had already met before…on the battlefield.
Naruto met Makoto about a year ago. She was assigned to assassinate a target and he and his team were in charge of protecting the person.
The resulting encounter was…anticlimactic. Thanks to his demon, Makoto was able to cast extremely high class genjutsu like they were nothing.
He was hoping to catch Naruto in one and then slit her throat before she didn't even know what hit her. And he succeeded.
She had no idea that she was in a genjutsu until the serrated chain that was wrapped around her neck cut into her.
However, thanks to Naruto's regenerative powers as well as the added protection from the second skin, the chain caused no lasting damage and it broke Naruto free of the genjutsu.
Not taking any chances Naruto blew herself up. Not literally, of course, but used a scaled down move that, if used as a suicide move on her part, could in theory take out an entire village.
Even scaled down, the resulting fireball charred a good portion of the surrounding forest, along with the target and two of Makoto's team members. He and his surviving teammate were severely burnt and Naruto was left smoking and exhausted.
It's wasn't the brightest move on her part, leaving herself open if there were more enemies lurking around, but it got the job done for the situation.
As for the other Jinchuuriki, she had not met them in person before, but had heard about them through their reputations, the bingo books, and first hand accounts. Just the other month, Asuka took on five Konoha jonin and killed all but one, leaving him heavily injured before an ANBU team arrived to save him.
All the other Jinchuuriki had similar stories, making the living arrangements a tad uncomfortable.
Soon the others came down, with only the twins still asleep in their bed. The added members only increased the tension in the room and soon it was thick enough to be cut with a knife.
Somehow, Naruto found her self next to Makoto and he eyed her suspiciously while she ate some fruit.
Noticing this, Naruto decided to try to break the ice. "So…feeling better?" she asked glancing at him.
Instantly the other occupants of the room froze as they waited to see what would happen.
Makoto eyes flashed with rage before he grudgingly answered, "Yes."
Still trying to break the ice Naruto continued, "Ah…so…tired to cop a feel on any other girls lately?"
"Wait, what?!"
"Oh come on" said Naruto with a playful smile, "I'm sure you did something like that to me."
Confused and off balanced Makoto said, "I did no such thing, I was trying to cut your head off!"
"Sure, sure lover boy" said a still smiling Naruto. The other Jinchuuriki who had heard about their previous encounter stifled chuckles while the other were left in the dark.
"And how do I know I'm really talking to you? You're so good with genjutsu that you could be coping a fell of Yugito-san or Asuka-san at this very moment?"
"I-I would never!" stuttered out Makoto as he desperately tried to figure out what Naruto was doing.
"Fukagawa-san then?"
At this the other Jinchuuriki couldn't keep their laughter in and soon they were all bursting into laughter. Realizing that Naruto had just effectively broke the tension in the room, Makoto let a small smile grace his lips and he chuckled.
"What ever you say sparky-chan, just don't go blowing up the house."
"Sure thing, candle-kun."
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At around mid-afternoon Gaara returned to the house from his meeting with the Suna council and his Kazikage duties.
As he walked up to the front door he didn't really know what to expect. Jugging from the interactions between the group yesterday and the pent up hostilities they held, he was grateful that at least the Kazikage mansion still had it's walls.
Opening the door he was not prepared for what he saw.
While he wasn't expecting to see the furniture destroyed and weapons lying everywhere, that possibility wasn't completely removed from his mind ether.
Instead he was greeted with a clean and orderly house, just as he left it.
Moving inside he heard laughter coming from the family room to the left.
Making his way there he found all the Jinchuuriki sitting on the couches, chairs, and the floor laughing and talking with each other.
As he entered the group greeted him but soon went back to the story that Asuka was telling.
"As I was saying, I was assigned to take out this one business guy from god knows where. Anyways the fat man got word that his competitor had hired me to take him out so he hired a chunin team from Oto to protect him."
Pausing her story for dramatic effect she looked at the group as Gaara took a seat next to Naruto, "Well they were in for a surprise when I showed up. These guys from Oto had no clue what they were going up against so when I stuck, they where dumbfounded."
"I started out my attack by zapping the fat man right in the middle of his protection squad. He has so much juice in him that he actually exploded, covering the Oto nin's in his guts. The look on their faces was priceless. They couldn't believe what just happened and they began to panic. Two of them started to run around, one was puking his guts out, and the other one was frozen in place."
"With a flick of the wrist and a few well placed explosive tags all of them were dead except for the one frozen in place. Now he was not only covered in the fat mans guts, but the gust of his own team. And to top it off, he pissed himself!" said Asuka with a sadistic laugh.
"So what did you do to him?" asked Kakashi with a slight smile.
"Absolutely nothing" laughed Asuka. "He stayed there frozen for three days until a bear came and ate him. He didn't even put up a struggle with the bear, that's how shaken up he was."
With her story finished Asuka started to laugh again and the others let out their chuckles or let smiles play on their faces.
Turning to Gaara Naruto said, "Will you were gone we began to trade stories of our past experiences. It turns out we all have a bad sense of humor…although Asuka's does seam to be the worst."
"Hey I resent that. I say my sense of humor is a proud result of the environment I grew up it" proclaimed Asuka as she pumped her chest with her fist.
"Why am I always surrounded by psycho women…" muttered Fukagawa.
"Because god hates you Iwa boy."
The room lapsed into a conferrable silence for a moment before Gaara spoke up.
"The council and I have come up with some plans that could be effective from keeping us away from Akatsuki. The first option is to stay here in Suna. The second option is to go to one of Konoha's fortified outpost that they're willing to let us use. The first option, while allows us to have the entire security of a village on our side, poses a significant risk of collateral damage to the village. The second option allows us to work together but will group us all in one place for Akatsuki to attack."
Pausing his speech he looked the other Jinchuuriki in the face before continuing, "The third option is for us to scatter. To cut all ties to out former villages and move independently or in small groups of two or three. If we choose this path then no one can know were we are, not even each other, and we will have to spend the rest of our lives on the run."
Before anyone could speak, Gaara said, "I want you all to think about this. The council has given us a week to decide so spend the next few days thinking about this."
Having effectively killed all future conversation the group dispersed and went their separate ways.
Naruto followed Gaara back to the room they were sharing and entered as he was removing the Kazekage robes.
Sitting down on the side of the bed and watching him in silence for a few minutes, Naruto finally asked, "What do you want to do?"
Sitting down next to her and looking at the floor, Gaara said, "I…don't know. I want to protect my village at all cost, but if I leave it will feel like I'm abandoning it and if I stay I know I will be putting it in undue amount of danger all because of me…"
"I-I know what you mean" said Naruto in soft voice as she leaned her head on Gaara's shoulder. "I still love Konoha and would still give up almost anything to become the Hokage, but I know that if I stayed there I would be putting the village and everyone I cared for in great danger. That's why I agreed to come here in the first place, so I understand what you are going through."
"But cheer up Gaara-kun, there is still the fourth option that I'm sure the others would love."
Turning his head, Gaara looked into Naruto's blue eyes.
"Instead of running from Akatsuki, we could take the fight to them."
This brought a smile to Gaara's lips and as the sand began to lightly swirl around them, they shared a kiss.
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In a dark cave two figures stood in the shadows.
Surrounding them were translucent projections of seven other people, all dressed in the same black robs with red clouds on them.
"The situation has changed" said Pein, on of the two people who was attending the meeting in the flesh.
"The Jinchuuriki have all gathered together in Suna to try to protect themselves from us. This will require us to rethink our strategy on how to get them."
"My sources tell me that they are discussing what course of actions they should take" side the projection of Sasori.
"It will be a problem if they stay within the walls of Suna, but if they leave then they will be ours for the taking."
"Any clue as to where these fuckers will go?" asked Hidan.
"Konoha has offered the use of one of their fortified outposts and there is the option that they will try to scatter and go into hiding."
"There is also the possibility that they will try to attack us head on" said Pein. "They have been fighting for their entire lives so the thought of running away must be particularly repugnant to them."
"Will we be able to handle them if they attack us all at once?" ask Konan from Pein's right.
"Yes, and if that happens then your previous assignments for capturing the Jinchuuriki will stand. Tobi you will aid in whatever battles occur unless they somehow have the Sanbi attack along with them. Understood?" said Pein as he looked at the assembled members of Akatsuki.
"Understood" responded the gathered missing-nins as they faded from view.
Turning to Pein, Konan said, "And what if they choose to run?"
"Then we will hunt them down until there is no where they can hid. They can not escape God forever."
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Two days latter the Jinchuuriki could be found sitting around the dinning room take. They had discussed what they wanted to do and were now awaiting Gaara to return from the Kazekage's tower.
Upon entering the house, Gaara was met with all the Jinchuuriki waiting for him and while he was expecting this happen, part of him was dreading the encounter that would soon happen.
"We have talked about the…situation and have come to a consensus" said Kakashi looking at Gaara directly in the eyes as he sat down at the table.
"We reject your plans. Instead we like the plan proposed by Naruto-san instead."
Hearing this Gaara let a small smile form on his lips, "Good, because I like her plan too."
"There is just two matters that need to be attended to before we can set out" said Yugito from her place near Gaara. "On is where can Akatsuki be found. And the second is what will happen to Yin and Yang. They are too young and inexperienced to handle this sort of conflict."
"We where hoping that they could stay here is Suna under constant protection and be trained just in case the shit hit's the fan" said Fukagawa.
"Understandable" said Gaara from his seat. "I will work with the council to set up their protection and training and to find where Akatsuki is currently located."
"That part won't be a problem" said Naruto from her seat to the left of Gaara.
"Akatsuki wants us right? So all we have to do is to stand out in the open with a huge sign saying, 'Come and get us!' and hopefully they will come running."
"But what if they suspect that it's a trap and don't come?" asked Yugito.
"Then we make it seem like it isn't, if you can find out what country Akatsuki is in, all we have to do is start traveling to that country. It would seam as if we know their location so they will move to intercept us" said Naruto with confidence.
"That could work" said Makoto. "Even if they suspect something, they would still want to take us down, so they would come… I think that it might just work."
"I agree" said Gaara thinking the idea through in his head. "I will make arrangements with the council and collect the information. With any luck, we will be moving out within the next week."
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This story is nearing the end! Only a couple more chapters till it's finished.
Soon the battle with Akatsuki will commence. Who will live and who will die? While I'm not taking a poll I will listen to you're suggestions. So please review!
Ja ne!