Days 15-16: Damsel in this dress, part 1
Disclaimer: Not mine and I make no profit.
It wasn't that Uchiha Sasuke didn't understand why he wasn't included in rescuing his teammate. He just didn't like it; he and Sakura-san were Naruto-baka's teammates, dammit! Had he known of Itachi, he would have liked it even less; most likely to the point where he would have up and left, consequences be damned, and Sakura would have left with him. As it was, he got distracted by his flair for vengeance.
It begun when he saw the ANBU walking councilman Danzō by them, not paying the slightest bit of attention to three genin as they led the traitorous man into the Tower, supposedly to be interrogated by the Hokage before being turned over for the Interrogation Department. Sasuke remembered Ibiki-san, and had it been someone else, he might have acknowledged how undesirable the man's situation was, if not actually pitied him. But now all he felt was fury that the man had gotten off easy.
Sasuke wasn't a Naruto kind of shinobi. His view of the world was much dimmer, his opinion of people much lower and he was very apt at reading between lines what (the adults) his superiors would have preferred he didn't. Fact one: Danzō-san had forced Naruto-san into an illegal branch of ANBU, no doubt planning on using the jinhchūriki to further his traitorous goals. Fact two: there was no way Naruto-san would have taken that lying down – the idiot didn't understand the concept of lying to save his skin. Fact three: now Naruto was somewhere unspecified and Senju Tsunade herself was included in the rescue team. Conclusion: Naruto was fucked… Naruto-san! Naruto-san was fucked and now the Hokage had the gall to forbid Sasuke from joining the rescue. Additional fact: the only reason Danzō-san had gotten his slimy paws on Naruto-san was because the Hokage had allowed him to, in order to use Naruto as a spy. Naruto, a spy! A spy in an organization led by someone as ruthless as Danzō! Sasuke wasn't only mad, he was enraged beyond anything he had ever felt if Itachi didn't count and the one he intended to take his feeling out on was marching right past him.
Naruto-san had sort of become Sasuke's best friend almost by default, or as close to a best friend Sasuke could ever allow himself to have with those red pinwheel eyes of his brother forever haunting the edges of his consciousness. He wasn't in the mood to be obedient.
"Come with me now," he hissed and grabbed both Sakura-san and Hinata-san by wrist, dragging them away from the tower and calculating a distance that was far enough to not be seen as loitering around, but still within Hinata-san's Byakugan's range. A sudden motion caught his eye, but it was only an empty paper bag the wind carried.
"Y-you aren't going to do anything in-inadvisable, are you?" Hinata-san whispered like one who knew the answer already.
"You are still on parole, don't mess it up!" Sakura-san hissed at him fiercely. Sasuke glared at them. He had learned to glare people into submission at early age.
"That idiot Naruto has gotten over his head and Danzō-san is at fault. We are going to have a conversation." Hinata-san gave in first, as expected. Sasuke wasn't blind; he knew she had it bad for Naruto, as bad as Sakura-san for him. Of course, Hinata-san was a lot less annoying about her feelings.
"You are going to have a conversation with who? What has this got to do with Naruto-kun, and what are you getting my teammate into?" The bark of a puppy accompanied the words.
Now there were heirs to three clans and one self-declared bride of one of them. Konoha nights were like Konoha days; more often than not full of politic intrigue, in a lot of good ways and bad too. At times it was even completely accidental.
Takigakure wasn't an easy place to sneak into. Despite what its name suggested it wasn't particularly hidden in the middle of the plains of Taki no Kuni, but being surrounded by endless, hopelessly flat fields of rice and wheat made sneaking in while trying to stay hidden a bitch of a job. True, there was a small forest near the village and some peaks, not to mention the waterfall the village had been named after and the giant tree in the middle of it, but to get to that cover, one had to sneak through the surrounding landscape. Landscape that was very well patrolled and full of small outposts.
"I have a better plan," Naruto said, giving the wet rice fields a hairy eyeball. It was very idyllic-looking, painted deep red by the setting sun, but crawling through knee-deep water all night long and sleeping in muddy bank sounded plain stupid. It was going to be cold, wet, dirty, wet, slow, wet and just what would Fū-chan think if she saw them covered in mud from head to toe?
"What is it?" Fū-san asked. Naruto liked this about ANBU: they always listened. They didn't always think his ideas were so great, like when he had proposed they have an office party – he had already made the hot cocoa and gotten the ramen too – but they listened first. They always remembered that even though they couldn't think of a better plan, someone else might.
"We go in as clients. We are going to have to travel through the Ta no Kuni and there are all those freak missing ninja running around free, so we are gonna need the protection," he improvised. Heh, they got to blame it all on Orochimaru! That always made Naruto's day.
"The idea has some merit, but they would see our faces," Fū-san mused, stroking the handle of his sword. "And we would have to leave most of our weapons behind."
True, Naruto hadn't thought that far, he had just wanted to avoid crawling his way to Takigakure, but now he was on a roll. But he met the weaknesses in his plans the same way he met other obstacles: not retreating, not choosing another route, but finding a way to push through.
"That's easy enough. You guys are ANBU, so you learn new jutsu quick, right? Just look at this!" And with a single handseal – ram – he was covered with white smoke. And when it evaporated…
This was what Naruto had termed as his Hyūga variation of the technique since he had modelled it after them, minus the eyes, and because it was the classy one and Hinata-chan was classy. He was about as tall as he always was but a lot more slender, with long, dark brown hair and brown eyes and dressed in simple orange travelling kimono and a funny, pointy straw hat. His skin was pale and there were no possession-marks on his cheeks. He looked, in short, like any of Hinata's cousins if not for his eyes. Oh, and he had breasts of course. Sai wasn't surprised since he had seen enough of random genderbending already, but Tomiko-chan frowned. She first cupped Naruto's right breast, making him blush and stutter, and then placed her hand on Naruto's shoulder.
"Why am I always plagued by perverts?" Naruto moaned. Tomiko-chan snorted.
"Kai," she tried to release the genjutsu. Nothing happened and Naruto looked at her oddly.
"Most genjutsu can be broken with that. Most henge doesn't pass the touch test either," she explained her actions and knitted her brows. "That's not a simple genjutsu." It wasn't a question.
"Well, I was really bad at henge because it used so little chakra I always broke it, but I found I could do it if I pushed the chakra through my body and spent the extra inside instead of just putting it over me." Kakashi-sensei had once said that Naruto trying to do a D-rank jutsu was a bit like trying to fill a glass from a dam hatch; it didn't matter how careful you were with the glass, unless you did something about the water pressure, it broke. And, well, his control had gotten better in the Root thanks to Hibari-sensei's tablets, but it still wasn't anything to write home about.
"Firefly, that sounds more like a ninjutsu," Sai said slowly and Naruto realized he had never explained to him how he did it before. Yeah, he knew that using ninjutsu to change the body was supposed to be incredibly dangerous and all, but it was the Academy teachers' fault, except Iruka-sensei's.
"Nobody told me henge was supposed to be genjutsu before I made this," he complained. He could almost see Sai rolling his eyes at him under the very cute, if a bit maniac-looking, lamb mask.
Hmmm, what if it was possible to see through things without the Byakugan? Gaara could see with that sand eyeball of his, but since he used pure chakra where Gaara used sand maybe he could see through it somehow…
"Firefly-kohai, please pay attention," Fū-san commanded him sharply. Naruto rubber his hair embarrassed.
"Uh, sorry, but I just got the coolest idea." And he referred it of course. Why not; they were all Konoha ninja so they were allies, and besides Sai and Tomiko-chan were friends too. Silence reigned.
"There are several Academy teachers I would like to kill for wasting a resource like you," Fū-san said eventually. Naruto was torn between being happy – his new team leader thought he was intelligent – and blustery since he wasn't a resource! Kami damn it.
"So. Firefly, you are Yagami Natsu, Ram, Yagami Sakaki. You are siblings, on your way to live with your husband in Ta no Kuni's capital…"
"One husband! What a dirtbag! I'm going there to geld him!" Naruto declared. Only to wilt a second later; it was scary how well Fū-san could glare through the mask. Maybe he had some secret chakra eyeball jutsu?
"Horse, you are Yagami Toshiro, their older brother who escorts them. Natsu-san, you will find a way, tonight, to apply the Oiroke no Jutsu," Fū-san said it like it tasted dirty on his tongue, "into our weapons and packs. I will be a wandering medicine seller, Masahiko Furiko, who travels the same way with you; it is a good cover for my poisons. Tomorrow we will travel as civilians." He gave Naruto a last appraising look before turning to put up their camp, reciting the details of their cover story at the same time.
Again, Naruto not knowing how things were supposed to work was working for him. If he had known that casting ninjutsu-henge, an improbability in and of itself, upon something that didn't have a chakra system of its own and wasn't part or extension of him... Well, he would still have found a way to do it, eventually. But now he just cast the domestic variation of Oiroke no Jutsu on their packs and weapons, poked Fū-san and then spent the rest of the evening teaching them how to apply and cancel it, as well as the ins and outs of ordinary Oiroke no Jutsu of course. And ANBU did learn quickly by example even when they had no idea why something was working.
Of course, being a civilian brought its own problems, as they found out the next day.
There was an infamous nest of bandits, known as Brotherhood of Lawless Assassins, less than a day's journey by shinobi means from Takigakure. One might wonder how they could have survived there for so long and reached the obvious conclusion that they were allowed for some reason. Few non-shinobi did because by normal means it would have been three days journey, at tops, with two fast horses, and most people didn't know that much about shinobi capabilities. Also, most clients didn't wonder, period. Bandits were like cockroaches: everywhere and difficult to exterminate. They were part of the scenery.
"They are Takigakure's scapegoat for illegalities they commit in the vicinity. Not a very believable one, but it doesn't matter in the game. You have to be able to prove your accusations," Fū-san instructed Naruto as they walked slowly towards a small ravine where five men were crouching, trying to stay hidden and failing miserably. Sunlight reflected from one man's gold tooth and no one had even tried to mask their chakra. Or bothered to go under the wind, or bathe first.
"What about clients? Wouldn't Taki get angry if these clowns attacked people on their way there?" Naruto asked.
"I believe they have a quota, and instructions to not attack anyone important-looking. Sooner or later they will get too cocky and then they will be replaced." Somehow Fū-san made his sandal drop and they all stopped to wait while he strapped it back on.
"... take the women... pretty brunette, gonna see how good roll... good rack..." Small bits of whispered conversation drifted towards them, accompanied by lots and lots of inventive swearing.
"Trouble ahead," Tomiko-chan sighed. Naruto evaluated the situation like Hibari-sensei had taught him to. Seven bandits, easy to beat, but they shouldn't be able to, and nowhere to hide the bodies. And bandit bodies lying around, living or not, would give them away big time.
"Hey, I have an idea!" Naruto brightened. "How about we let ourselves be captured and then Tomiko-chan brings Fū-chan to the rescue?"
"That idea is not completely without merit, but there is little chance they would send someone of her caliber to deal with small fry like these," Fū-san said, but he sounded contemplative. "Still, it might be for the best to allow ourselves be caught and then escape. We may claim they drunk themselves to dumb stupor. No one thinks highly enough of bandits to suspect that story."
"And we'll be able to teach those bastards some good manners," Naruto smiled grimly.
They walked on in the bright light of morning. For a moment it seemed like the bandits wouldn't attack after all, but when Naruto was walking past the one with the gold tooth the man, big, burly and ugly, leaped and grabbed his arm. The man was practically a small mountain with ham-sized biceps and very little neck. Naruto let out a feminine-sounding shriek.
Of course, his experience with feminine shrieks were mostly of Sakura-chan shrieking indignantly, soon followed by a punch, so he actually made the man step back half a step, though he didn't let go of his arm.
"Oh no, bandits! Whatever shall we do?" he tried to fix the situation, raising his left hand to his forehead dramatically, trying to look faint. Sai made a small noise that almost sounded like a snort.
This was obviously not how this had been supposed to go, but the bandits weren't about to let that stop them. Quickly they surrounded the little group completely, making threatening moves with their big knives and staffs, laughing anticipatorily. But Naruto was the only one making even half-assed attempt at looking scared and few of the unkempt faces begun to take strange, vaguely uneasy looks.
"Give us all your money and stuff and we maybe let you go," the man who was holding Naruto's arm prisoner ordered Tomiko-chan. "And women stay too." He pressed Naruto against his chest. And he made a move to grope Naruto.
When Naruto had trained with Hibari-sensei he had been surprised just how much someone held in classic hostage position - back to attacker's chest, arm around neck - could do. He'd been even more surprised to find out that even face to face a knee to the groin was an error since it left the person doing it off balance and was easily blocked by a shift of one leg or simple twist of the hips. The alternative move Hibari-sensei had taught him had the advantage of working in this back to chest position as well. He reached back between them, grabbed, pulled and twisted. Hard. The man screamed like a stuck pig and doubled over, letting go of Naruto. He turned and hit once. The man dropped like a rock.
"Help! I'm being molested!" he screamed. "Big brother Toshiro, save me from this brute!" His face – her face in this case – was pale and frightened. Said brute was out cold at his feet and couldn't have threatened a newborn kitten.
"We are gonna fuckin' make yer regret that…" one of the thugs shouted and made a move towards Naruto, as the rest growled and closed ranks around them, but Tomiko-chan grabbed the man's arm and pinned it behind his back in one, effortless move, forcing him on his knees.
"You are going to take us all hostage and bring us to your base, or else," she said. Sai cracked his knuckles and gave one of his creepier smiles.
"Or else we let Natsu-chan practice gelding with you lot," he promised with a sunny voice.
Hiro was the leader of the Brotherhood of Lawless Assassins. He could read and fancied himself an educated man. That could be blamed for the name of the Brotherhood also. His Sons weren't mere nameless thugs, no, they had class! At least Hiro thought so and no one had argued the point out loud. Hadn't he even managed to strike a deal with a real ninja village? That any single competent shinobi could have massacred them all anytime they chose to do so was something he chose to not think about much. He was the Father of the Brotherhood, and a real father to many of them.
Nobody could remember if Big Brother was the oldest of Father's children or not except maybe Father, but it didn't really matter. He hadn't gotten the moniker Big because of his age, but due to his sheer size and nobody was eager to take it away from him. He wasn't all that agile and he had never learned much technique, but that was because he had never needed to. He wasn't as stupid as he looked and he was a fighter to be reckoned with because of his monstrous strength. Anything punched by Big Brother – from wild boars to smaller buildings – stayed down for the count. He was never in a very pleasant mood and everybody left him well enough alone, most time even Father.
And so no one was surprised when Big Brother's group returned successful, even bringing three really pretty women and one other hostage with them. His looming shape darkened the room as it blocked out the afternoon sunlight from the doorway for a moment – the door had met its maker a long time ago. The prisoners walked in after him and his men after them. There was a pretty, buxom brunette with a sinful little mouth and delectable hips, one woman with inky black hair and an older, but still beautiful redhead with a medicine-seller's back pack. They didn't even look all that roughed up so they must have done the smart thing and surrendered without a fight. But there was something odd going on: why had they taken the man also? The Brotherhood wasn't big on accepting non-conventional sexual preferences.
"Good work, Big Brother," Father said. But why didn't the prisoners look scared? The brunette kind of did, except she seemed to have way too much fun being scared.
"So, this is your secret hideaway? Well, you could do worse than an inn," the redhead said with the air of one not terribly impressed. So it was a little dirty, so what? They were bandits, not maids. These women could double as maids if it bothered them so, they could even steal black miniskirts and white aprons for them.
"And first we are going to rid you of that unfortunate attitude. Maybe watching your man being tortured would do it for you?" he asked, expecting them to start begging.
The brunette kicked Big Brother and he fell down on his knees, whimpering.
"Mommy… too strong… big knife…" he mumbled with broken voice. His men, still armed and presumably dangerous, cowered in corners. There were only four corners in the bar/dining room so a small fight ensued about who had the right for the last one, One-eye Kogoro or Baby Brother.
There was general alarm while the not-prisoners spread over the floor. The ring of trembling blades and clubs and staffs was met with disdain (redhead), nothing at all (black-haired), perkiness (brunette) and amusement (the man).
"Surrender now and we may consider being merciful," Father offered with false bravado. The redhead raised a single, elegant eyebrow.
"Alas, we are alone in the den of bandits! Who can help us now?" the brunette recited excitedly.
"No need for pretense, Natsu-chan. We don't have to fear hostile eyes anymore," the black-haired said and her hand disappeared into her long sleeves. Everyone stiffened, but she only took a paper and a brush dipped in ink. Some detached part of Father's mind wondered how she had dipped it in ink in her sleeve.
"We are your prisoners for a little while. We will escape after you have drunk yourselves unconscious. Since murdering unconscious men in cold blood would make us look quite bad, we will let you live as long as you promise to confirm this story," she said and let her brush fly on the paper.
After that it hurt a lot and they ended up very unconscious indeed.
The sun had gone down and the wind was chilly. Fū-san ordered watch and Naruto took the first turn just so he would get uninterrupted sleep once he got to sleep. He created his trusty Kage Bunshin and spread them all around their small camp, sitting himself on the bank of the rice field. His muscles were aching little, but it was the good kind of ache after a day well spent. He looked far into the distance where he could only barely see the small, darker batch that was the forest near the hidden village, lost in his thoughts. He thought of Gaara and how things were for Fū-chan. He thought how it was really confusing to have two Fūs around. He thought how he really missed his team even though Sai and Hibari-sensei and Tomiko-chan and man-Fū were totally awesome too and he had learned more with them than during his entire Academy time and ninja career put together.
If Rasengan didn't count, that was, and he guessed he should credit Ero-sensei for him being able to summon Gamabunta, even if the man had only kicked him off a cliff.
"Aww, this day was fun, too," he said and leaned back. And as he tore off small patches of green grass and threw it into the water he wondered about this mission.
It hadn't seemed too strange at first; of course he would help his fellow jinhchūriki in need, but all this sneaking around was pretty funny business. Why couldn't they just up and go there openly and tell them that creepy S-class terrorists were after one of their kunoichi? Something was off here. But his musings were interrupted when Tomiko-chan walked up to him and plopped down beside him even though she should have been sleeping.
"What do you think it means to be a shinobi, Natsu-chan?" she asked him without any niceties or explanations. Naruto liked it better when she called him kohai because that meant she thought of him as a real ANBU. Technically he was still a trainee, but he had a mask and a name, as stupid as they were, and Tomiko-chan called him a junior officer.
"Shinobi protect their people and village and country. They complete their missions and make their village proud. And make a living on the side," Naruto made himself add. Even totally awesome people needed to eat and pay their rent after all. And eat yummy, yummy ramen.
"The way you say it, comrades first, mission second and self last?" Tomiko-chan asked, hugging her knees casually. Naruto hadn't ever thought of it with those terms, but it was a good way to put it so he nodded.
"Did you know that what I said is a mangled version of an ANBU tenet? Mission first, comrades second and self last is the way of the ANBU."
Naruto saw red. Not Kyūbi kind of red that sent his blood pounding in his ears and his fingers itching like there should have been claws instead of soft human fingernails, but the kind of red that happened when people insisted on being so stupid. They had gone after Hibari-sensei with blowpipes when all she had needed was someone who said it was going to be okay. Sasuke had tried to defect to Oto because he couldn't become strong in Konoha, never mind that it was where Itachi had become so strong. In Suna they had thought it was a good idea to be mean to someone as strong as Gaara, Neji had taken his pain out on Hinata-chan when she was the only one in their clan who was both really sorry, really innocent and always nice, and Haku-kun had to die before that jerk Zabuza got around to confessing he liked him. People just made their own and everybody's lives as difficult as possible and then sat around moaning how it was so inevitable.
"It doesn't take miracles to not traumatize yourself! I have…" Naruto thought of what Iruka-sensei had once said to him, of him, right after the exams but before they had gone off to protect Koyuki-hime-chan. "There are always happy people regardless of how sucky their lives have been and there are people who are miserable and make all kinds of problems for themselves regardless of how wealthy and sheltered they are. I have the greatest wealth of all because I choose to be happy." And he was proud of it.
"We who choose ninja life become tools to be used for greater purposes. Whether we are happy or not doesn't matter," Tomiko-chan said. Her voice didn't have any inflection. Naruto felt like banging his head against something hard, maybe her thick skull.
"And how it helps Konoha if you are miserable and then die of ulcer at young age? Besides, if you were caught by some foreign village and they told you to do mission for them now 'cause they caught you, would you?" Naruto couldn't imagine any of these people who were so proud of being "tools" doing docilely that.
"Of course not! I am loyal to Konoha to death and beyond!" She was whispering but it in no way diminished the intensity of her voice.
"There you go! You aren't a tool, 'cause tools work for whoever picks them up. It takes a person to be loyal." Tomiko-chan bent her head to hide her face for a second and pinched the bridge of her nose like she had a headache.
"Analogies aside, don't you think you are watching this world through rose-coloured lenses? Do you really believe there could be a happy ending for people like us?" In all her white-grey glory she reminded Naruto of someone. Someone whose heart had also been frozen and brittle.
"Of course there won't be any happy endings if people don't make them and I'm not gonna be unhappy." Hence the choosing.
"And if I said that this hypothetical thing is my past and I've moved on?" Tomiko-chan asked. She seemed curious like a cat. Actually she was staring at Naruto like he was some freak of nature, like a two-headed calf.
"I would say you haven't moved on you've simply ran away. Hypothetically," Naruto said which caused Tomiko-chan to look away for a second. But when she looked back at him her body was relaxed and like a porcelain doll's her face gave away nothing.
"You interest me. You defy the reality around you and so far it has bent to your will. I am unaware whether this is luck or a capability of yours, however." Tomiko-chan rose and so did Naruto. The way she spoke had changed, he noted. It was like she was letting him see past some barrier that had been there before. She was more formal now, but she also looked to be more at ease and emotive.
He lit up like the sun. Tomiko-chan actually took a step to the side, taken back by his reaction, but Naruto didn't care. He was the kind that learned with his body and reacted with his body, mind trailing after, and he leaped, wrapping his arms around Tomiko-chan's neck. She was a whole head taller than he was and her back didn't bend under the unexpected weight so Naruto's feet were left dangling in the air as he attempted to squeeze it all from Tomiko-chan's lungs. Friendship just didn't feel the same if you didn't make them feel it. Sai had already learned it too. He had given up fighting when Naruto gave him a noogie.
"What is this about?" Tomiko-chan hissed, pushing him back down. Koyuki, she reminded Naruto of Koyuki-hime-chan before thawing. She looked like some kind of winter goddess; her face porcelain pale, her ash pale hair fluttering in the wind, almost colourless in the dark, wearing the white cloak of the squad leader she had taken from Fū-san as soon as they had left Konoha behind to make the potential enemies concentrate on the wrong person and the disguised as kimono. She was also a very proud goddess; the tilt of her head high and offended.
"Thanks for trusting me," Naruto said. Tomiko's whole body jerked like somebody had run a lightning jutsu through it. (Ouch, he thought, remembering the chirping birds and the sound of water.)
"You are better than I thought," she muttered. "Let us make a wager, Natsu-kohai. You have this one mission to convince me that you have the power to change the world for me, so make it count."
"What do I get if I win?" he asked.
"You have one living relative in this world. If you can convince me, I will tell you who they are." And so she dangled the one thing Naruto would do almost anything for in front of his face. It was cruel of her, but she had forgotten how to not be cruel when she wanted something. She just didn't know whether she wanted to be proven right or wrong.
What she who was called Tomiko didn't know was that one day they would list Naruto's luck under special abilities in Iwa and Mizu bingo books and there would be warnings to flee rather than bet with him. Not quite as cool as flee on sight, but Naruto would feel vindicated anyway.
Tsunade had learned it already. Never wager with Uzumaki Naruto.
Day 16/2, suborn count 2.
Recorded by the surveillance seal: Root squad sneaking into allied village (Takigakure) Security Zone under pretence of civilians.
AN: Again, thanks to my wonderful beta foreverdoomed!