Day 4
On the fourth day, Gai and Kakashi were back near the border of Grass and Fire, but further north toward Rain since they had tried to make up the distance.
They heard a familiar bird call, the warbling of a Leiothrix lutea (aka Peking nightingale, or Japanese robin). Kakashi recognized it as an Anbu greeting and warbled back in the secret Konoha code. An Anbu in a tiger mask appeared suddenly before them.
"Kakashi sensei, Gai sensei, what are you two doing here?" asked a familiar voice.
"Same as you probably," Kakashi responded.
"I see…we sent a message to the Hokage a few days ago. Are you our reinforcements?"
"We must have left just before Sandaime received your message. Did you find her?"
"Yes, but, we lost her again and…" his voice grew dark and shook with an undertone of something between grief and fury. "She took out my platoon…"
"She killed them?"
"Almost. She came very, very close. "
"Where did you last see her?"
"Tsukushi Village, 20 miles east of here. How did you know to come here if the Hokage didn't send you?"
"I've been tracking her with this," Kakashi uncovered his left eye to reveal the dark one replacing his sharingan. "Have you seen an old temple in the vicinity? It seems that might be a hideout for a gang of some sort."
"No, nothing like that in the area. We have to go. My team needs to get back to Konoha for medical treatment. They're finally well enough to travel, but…be careful. Her senbon are poisonous." With that warning, the Anbu disappeared, leaving behind a puff of dust.
"So now she's able to take out a whole platoon of Anbu by herself," Kakashi evaluated, thinking it was probably because of the sharingan's advantage.
Gai came to the same conclusion. "So she has your sharingan, things can be worse. It's not like you taught her the chidori," he said encouragingly.
"Well, actually…"
"You did what! Why would you teach her a lethal jutsu that shouldn't be used without a sharingan?"
"Because she asked," Kakashi shrugged, "but don't worry, she's inexperienced and not as fast as you. With your speed, you should be able to evade her attack. We can take her down together…"
"Well, actually…"
"Hmm?"
"I sort of taught her about the inner chakra gates…"
"You did what! A forbidden technique! How irresponsible…"
"Look who's talking!"
"I thought you stopped that after Lee…Why?"
"Because she asked!"
Kakashi groaned, things could get very messy indeed. 'Can things be any worse?' The answer came down in buckets as dark clouds suddenly rolled in and the heavens' faucets opened at full strength. So much for any future attempt at tracking by scent. But at least they had a solid lead.
-…-…-…-
The two men entered Tsukushi Village while using henge. Gai felt they did not need to (he did not want to distort his beautiful face) but Kakashi explained that no one wanted to answer a shinobi's questions and it would be best to pretend they were civilians. Gai wanted to just remove his forehead protector from his waist but Kakashi insisted he at least transform his clothes into something more normal looking. So Gai entered the village looking like Gai in normal plain green robes while Kakashi transformed to a generic weak looking civilian with normal short black hair.
Kakashi showed a rather rough sketch of Rikako around town, explaining to people truthfully that his girlfriend had run off after a fight and hadn't been seen for days and he was worried about her. He offered a hefty reward. Money always got people to talk. They visited numerous inns and restaurants, but it seemed no one had seen her at all.
The two men decided to break for a real dinner and sleep in a real bed, so they splurged on modest accommodations at an inn on the outskirts of the village. Now that Kakashi was in transformation mode, he could eat freely without revealing his face, but still he ate nothing as Gai consumed his dinner ravenously.
"You really should eat something other than shinobi rations," Gai advised. "Sure they have all the fundamental nutrients, but real food is always best. Try some of my curry, it's extra spicy good!"
"If it's poisoned, only one of us will die," Kakashi replied seriously.
"What makes you think it's poisoned?" Gai stopped chewing.
"I think these people have seen her. They're just too afraid to say anything. Silence is probably the rule around here. If she's joined up with one of those organizations…no one will want to talk about anything related to them." Kakashi had lowered his mind filters and noticed that when he showed his rather pathetic drawing of Rikako, a few of those interviewed at this inn had pictured her in full realistic color.
"We cold beat it out of them," Gai suggested.
"Let's just wait…"
-…-…-…-
For security reasons they had asked for just one room. But the rooms available each had only one single full size bed. Their ready acceptance of the limited accomodations raised some curious eyebrows. The second floor room was simply furnished with a small desk (which doubled as a washstand) and dresser in addition to the bed. The toilets and showers were communal.
Both men were tired of sleeping out in the open with rocks and roots for pillows, though neither would have admitted it to the other. But despite the inviting comfort of a mattress (no matter how worn or lumpy, it was still better than the cold ground or a precarious tree), they debated about who should keep watch first. Gai finally gave in to Kakashi's reasoning so he went to bed first. Despite Gai's protests and insistence that he would be fine for another 24 hours without sleep, he crashed into a coma-like state as soon as his head touched the pillow. His loud snoring disturbed Kakashi to the point where he had to touch Gai's nose with a bit of chakra to clear out his sinuses - a neat medical jutsu he learned long ago.
Night came with its stillness, shadows, and secrets.
Kakashi had not tried using her eye today, but he instinctively felt that they were on the right track. He was now feeling restless. To keep his mind from dwelling too much on his love's betrayal, he took out his book, but it was a gift from her and reminded him all the more of his lost. He decided to put it away and take out his mission log instead. He had been lax about keeping notes as nothing much had happened during their pursuit, and his partner was even worse about taking notes. So Kakashi resigned himself to writing down, in code, what he had seen so far with her eye and their meeting with the Anbu. It did not take very long for him to finish so he took the book out again. It was a ninja spy novel where the undercover agent used women to obtain information. It was an interesting and suspenseful story, although it did not have quite the explicit nature of Jiraiya's books.
The two men had planned to take 4 hour shifts. They were to swap off at around 2am. The time between 2-4 am is the most languorous time, the time when most people fall into their deep sleep mode. Kakashi was barely hanging on now, but he resolved to let Gai sleep just a bit longer to make up for all the times he kept watch.
But he found himself drifting off a bit as he imagined, as he often did, what his life could have been. In his sleep deprived haze he thought of all those who had gone before him. What if they had lived? Would Rin and Obito be happily married and he'd be the outsider looking in. Or maybe it would have been Rin and himself. Or maybe if Obito hadn't died and taught him his lesson and gave him his eye, he'd be the one with his name engraved in the cold stone back in Konoha.
He imagined himself living a nice normal life, just teaching at the academy, no mask, no dangerous missions, returning to a good home cooked meal, a warm hug and welcome, and a clean apartment with no pending laundry. He should marry a civilian like Iruka did and retire from all this. It wasn't too late now, was it, to just turn around, go back to Konoha, forget all this, just remove her eye, and retire. He fell into a comfortable calm, thinking of how nice it would be, but a little nagging voice continued to call to him, "My eye, don't forget about my eye…"
Kakashi's eyes snapped open at the imagined complaint. Someone was filling the room with poisonous gas and it was only because he still wore his mask that he wasn't knocked out. The man of a 1000 jutsu immediately performed the katas to summon a wind funnel, which whirling centrifugal action condensed and centralized the poisonous gas before directing it out the half opened window. He quickly woke Gai from his sleep.
The enemy was good, very good, to have been able to sneak up on both of them. Even asleep the two experienced jounin could normally sense danger and the presence of an enemy's chakra. Kakashi clamped his hands over Gai's mouth before Gai could complain about how it wasn't his turn quite yet. Kakashi pointed at the door. At the very bottom a thin wisp of smoke continued to stream in. Gai immediately held his breath. He would be good for at least five minutes.
With his fist full of chakra, Kakashi smashed through the door at a low angle and caught a black fragment of a shirt, and plenty of splinters, in his hand. The culprit had already disappeared.
Gai spied the culprit from the window under the clear starlit night. The man, or woman, was fast, very fast, faster than even himself from what he could calculate. "There!" Gai shouted and jumped out the window in pursuit before Kakashi could turn his head to reply.
Kakashi jumped out of the window following his comrade. In the distance he could see the flicker of a black shadow.
"Damn, he's too fast Kakashi…"
"We can't lose him…"
Without slowing down, Gai bit his thumb with his perfectly white, perfectly straight, and perfectly sharp teeth. "Summoning no jutsu, tortoise discus!" he announced. After the smoke had cleared, Kakashi saw that his old comrade held what appeared to be a tortoise shell about a foot or more in diameter.
Gai picked up some more speed, then twisted his body around to gain even more rotational momentum, and threw the discus toward the runner who was now little more than a speck on the horizon.
It would have been near impossible for Gai to have hit the runner, and in fact he did not. But the disc landed very close, close enough to throw the runner off his pace. The disc crashed into the ground, causing a fissure to form, dirt to fly all directions, and the figure to stumble. Those few precious seconds allowed the leaf shinobi to close the gap to a more reasonable distance. They could now see the full form of the figure. It appeared to be a man, an adult, slender and tall, a runner's physique. The figure turned his head and the leaf shinobi saw that not only were his head and the lower half of his face covered in the same black material that clad his body, his eyes were covered by a strange pair of goggles.
That was as good a look as they got as the runner again gained distance. Gai had picked up his summoning animal along the way and warned it that it was going for another spin. This time they were closer and he could aim better, but it would be best to aim low, at the legs, so that the runner could not easily leap over it or sidestep it.
The parties involved had traversed the grassy terrain and now approached a dense bamboo forest. Gai knew once the culprit entered the forest, he would be slowed but so would they, and chances were the runner knew the paths within. He let go the disc with a prayer that it would hit its intended target.
The disc landed in front of the runner and he swerved to avoid it, but now the tortoise was not just an inanimate disc but in full battle regalia.
The tortoise stood little more than three feet high, but in each reptilian claw it clutched a kunai. The runner in his surprise, stopped and stared. He had to stifle his laughter. But he found little to laugh about when the little reptile launched itself at him with surprising speed. In mid air it retracted back into its shell and became a whirling pinwheel of death as sharp blades poked out from the holes in its shell.
The runner's mission did not include engaging the enemy so he chose to evade and run toward safety into the bamboo forest. The tortoise launched itself again, knowing its mission was to delay the runner as much as possible until his master caught up.
Gai was very near now and could see the runner clearly. But he knew that he would not arrive in time before the runner reached the safety of the forest unless his summoned creature…
The runner knew the safe paths of the forest. It was littered with traps and a misstep could cause the lost of a limb. But he entered with confidence, weaving in and out of the tall bamboo stalks, some that reached upwards of a 100 feet. It was an old forest, purposely planted, no longer maintained.
But the summoned creature with its natural armor thought nothing of traps. Such slight things like kunai and shuriken had not enough penetrating power. Even explosive tags had little effect unless in high abundance. It launched itself into the bamboo, whirling and cutting, destroying parts of the centuries old forest in seconds, while triggering various explosions.
Gai finally caught up and saw the destruction from his summoned creature, but no sign of the runner. The little tortoise rolled over to Gai and emerged from its shell. "I'm sorry I wasn't able to…" it panted.
"It's all right now that I'm here. You did a great job!" Gai gave it a thumbs up pose before dispelling his little summons.
Now Kakashi finally caught up. "No sign of the runner?"
Gai shook his head. "Should we enter the forest? There may be traps."
Kakashi shook his head. "It's dark. He may have companions hiding in waiting. They know this area and we don't. We're at a serious disadvantage."
"But he's our only lead."
"I still have this," Kakashi pointed at his left eye. "And we must be close."
-…-…-…-…-
Author's Notes: I've always wanted to see Gai and his summoned creature in action. And yes I used to watch "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" but I never liked it much.
I was trying to keep this PG-13 but decided to add the lemon scene in the next chapter so the rating will be changed to the R equivalent.