I hope that all who read this find enjoyment in doing so.
Dedicated to my best friend.
I do not own any of the copyright material of the Naruto series. I am simply a fan of it. Though since I neither cosplay nor obsess over it, I like to think I am in no way shape or form a fanboy. Hmmmm, then again it inspired me to write a fanfiction... hmmmmmm.
Chapter 10: The Business of Lives
In the deserted ruins of the village known as Bristem...
Gently rubbing her hand across the shoulder blades of her sobbing charge, Kushina turned to look at her redheaded teammate, who had her eyebrow cocked inquisitively to indicate her intent. Wordlessly understanding her teammate's facial cue she nodded her head in approval and turned back to continue offering words of comfort to Miki. Satsuki walked a short distance away and reached up holding down a button on her wireless short range headset.
"Come in Shikamaru-sensei, Minato-kun. This is Satsuki. Do you read me? Over."
"We read you loud and clear Satsuki." came the voice of her sensei over the grainy speaker in her earpiece. "We do not have visual contact of you and Kushina, although we did witness the collapse of a building. We witnessed a person blast their way out of the ceiling of the collapsing building using some kind of katon jutsu. Was that you? What is your status Satsuki? Over."
"Yes that was me sensei, and were both fine you don't need to worry. We have located a single civilian of the village. They appear to have suffered extreme emotional trauma. They are a young teenage girl named Miki, and they have indicated knowledge of what happened here. Over"
"Really? What have they indicated transpired here? Over."
Satsuki looked over her shoulder at the sobbing teen and bit her lower lip in apprehension.
"She has indicated that the villagers were all abducted then the village set ablaze, to cover the evidence presumably. What do you make of that sensei? Over." There was a pause on the other end of the line that only furthered Satsuki's nervousness about the scenario. She didn't want to believe that something like that had occurred here.
"I was afraid of that. If she is the only citizen then escort her to camp and make her comfortable while Minato and I take a look around the village ourselves. Over."
"Hai sensei. Over and out." Removing her finger from the button on her headset she walked over to Kushina and whispered their orders into her ear. Kushina gently patted Miki on the shoulder to get her attention and began to talk to her in a soothing gentle tone.
"Miki? We have received orders to escort you to a safe location. Can you handle being carried a short distance? OR do you need a minute?" Miki was silent for a moment, allowing her sobbing to slowly subside before she wiped her eyes and nodded to Kushina. Kushina turned around and proffered her back to the teen. Once Miki was comfortably situated on Kushina's back the three all took off towards the forest surrounding the western border of the village.
An hour later at the camp...
Miki had long since regained her composure and was staring at the small fire in the center of the small well hidden grove the girls had taken her too. Kushina with a steady had was laying out sealing runes of a slip of paper, periodically stopping to channel some of her chakra into the runes. Satsuki stood in a nearby tree keeping a lookout for the return of their comrades. Soon she heard a bird call coming from the direction of the village.
"They are back." she said as she leapt down to the ground just as their sensei and teammate shadow blurred into the clearing. Miki gasped and jumped to her feet in shock at the sudden appearance, but after a few seconds her look of shock faded to be replaced by one of pure fury.
"Who are you? Stand back there are leaf shinobi here with me!" she cried out at the two, receiving a very puzzled look from Minato his massive eyebrows shifting around on his large forehead very comically, while Shikamaru only sighed in annoyance.
"We ARE leaf shinobi. We're the teammates of the girls who rescued you. Troublesome..."
"That's impossible!" defiantly cried Miki pointing an accusatory finger at the male duo. "Leaf shinobi are all girls! So back up or they will kick your asses!" Minato choked on air in complete disbelief while a drop of sweat rolled down the side of Shikamaru's head. Behind Miki Satsuki fell to the ground holding her stomach as she laughed uncontrollably at the bizarre assumption Miki had made and Kushina herself was holding back giggles trying not to add to the humiliation the victimized teen had brought upon herself.
"Where the hell did you get that idea?" shouted out Satsuki between spurts of unrestrained laughter.
Miki turned in shock at the amused reactions of the kunoichi, confusion painted across her face like bright red profane graffiti.
"B-but all the shinobi that came to the village were always girls! I-I thought..."
"Sorry to shatter your troublesome little unisex world view, but no not all shinobi are women. Gender plays no roll in the world of shinobi, men can kill just as well as women can kid. What, did you think only women could be good people?"
"I-..."
"I'll take that as a yes." Shikamaru said as he rolled his eyes. Then he walked up to her and placed a hand on either of her shoulders looking deep into her eyes. "It's a drag but the world is not black and white like that. Sex is a purely physical difference, people are so much more than just having ovaries or having testicles kid." Her eyes sparkled for a moment as she looked up at his wise confident features and a blush crept across her cheeks. Seemingly ignoring this Shikamaru patted her on the shoulder as he walked towards where all three of his students now stood looking at the heap of feathers Minato had brought back. Miki stood in a daze, continuing to stare in the same direction after Shikamaru no longer occupied it. Then with a shake of her head and a huff of stubborn pride she shouted at his back,
"Well I'm not so easily convinced! I still believe the others about how men are all awful! B-But I'll trust you two because Kushina and Satsuki do, and ONLY because they saved my life!" Shikamaru ignored her statement and joined into the conversation the others were exchanging.
Minato passed what was still recognizable as the charred remains of a hawk, if just barely, to Kushina as he talked.
"We found it's burnt corpse in one of the central buildings. It didn't have a message capsule attached to it so we don't think that it was ever even prepped to deliver a distress signal. Sensei said they must have known there was a emergency messenger hawk in the village and snuck in to kill it before they began the attack."
"So if the other team hadn't happened along the village then we wouldn't have known for weeks. Whoever they are they've clearly done this before, right sensei?" responded Kushina.
"Right, and since our mission directive entails locating and assisting the villagers were going to have to figure out where they all were taken. Troublesome bastards covered their tracks well though, almost looks like they had some semblance of shinobi training on covering their tracks. But this attack would have required hundreds of men to happen quickly enough so that only one escaped and we would know about such a massive number of missing nin so clearly they are not actual shinobi."
"So then what do we do now?" asked Satsuki. "We don't know what direction they went."
"Well, they left to the west." The four shinobi all blinked in surprise before turning to the source of the revelation, a still brooding Miki with her arms crossed.
"Really? Could you identify the exact direction from the village border?" asked Kushina.
"Yeah they all passed underneath the tree I was hiding in... dragging the others with them in lengths of chains." she said looking away from them while talking about the villagers abduction to protect her pride.
"Okay then, point us in the right direction while Minato escorts you back to the village for safety."
"What!" shouted Minato and Miki in unison.
"I have to come! I need to help save them all!" Miki protested.
"Why do I have to take her back?" demanded Minato.
"One, Minato you have to take her because your the fastest and will make it there and back here to follow our trail the fastest; two, of course you can't come this will be dangerous and you can;t defend yourself like we can." Minato dropped his head in resignation, and Miki stomped her feet in a stubborn display of childishness. Shikamaru sighed and nodded his head from Kushina to Miki. Kushina picked up the cue and in a flash moved to Miki and placed three seal tags on her temple. Miki tried to shout in protest but her shouting was halted instantly as she passed into unconsciousness. Minato caught her as she fell and turned to Kushina with an eyebrow raised.
"How can you do that? Seriously?" Kushina stuck her tongue out and pulled a tag out of the storage seals sewed into the inside of her sleeves.
"These tags seal the chakra flow around the brain to trigger unconsciousness. Doesn't work on Shinobi though, because our chakra networks are more resilient due to our training." Minato clicked his tongue in a combination of annoyance and awe.
"Seems cheap. I prefer knocking them out the old fashioned way." He paused and looked at them with a serious face. "I'm worried about not being around to heal you guys..."
"Pfft. How about this, I'll bet you a trip to Ichiraku's that when you get back none of us will have needed your help at all." He smirked and responded,
"Your on." he then nodded to the other two behind Kushina to signal his departure as he slung Miki over one of his shoulders with casual ease. Kushina sealed his travel pack into her storage seals so he wouldn't have to worry about it's safety since he couldn't carry both it and Miki quickly enough back to the village. He then took off towards Konoha while the other tree set about reverse tracking Miki's footprints to locate the tree she had hid in.
One day later at night, in the hill covered north western wilderness of the Land of Fire...
"Their trail sure was easy to follow once we got a few clicks away from the village." remarked Satsuki as she, Kushina and Shikamaru leapt from branch to branch following the obvious trail of blood and torn clothes left in the wake of the kidnappers' cruelty to their victims.
"Like I said, not actual shinobi the pain in the ass amateurs." responded her sensei as they swiftly traveled.
"The trail getting fresher isn't it?" rhetorically asked Kushina. "They can't move very fast marching prisoners through wilderness. We might catch them before they reach their stronghold, Minato is gonna be pissed he missed out." she said with optimistic confidence. Suddenly as the three rounded the crest of a hill something came into view that stiffed Kushina's optimistic postulations.
"You had to jinx it didn't you." growled Satsuki as the three looked down upon the valley. In the center of the valley sprawled out a compound with high walls, strange red spotlights, and many guards. Within the fortifications could be seen about six barracks shaped outbuildings surrounding a central building shaped like a decadent mansion, but fortified like an shinobi fortress.
"Shit, look." said Shikamaru, pointing to the large courtyard directly in front of the mansion and between three of the outbuildings. Despite the distance the height allowed them to see about one-hundred people lined up in rows, presumably chained together and being circled by other small specks of people.
Kushina activated her Byakugan with a hand seal and took a closer look at the courtyards unwilling guests.
"Oh my God! They-they are beating them! The kidnappers are beating all of the women from the village, with them lined up on their knees!"
"Those ANIMALS!" shouted Satsuki.
"Quiet! You want our position given away? Calm yourself down Satsuki and keep a level head." scolded Shikamaru, then turning back to Kushina. "What else can you see? Are the buildings protected from your eyes?" Kushina focused for a minute before responding.
"The central castle is line with something blocking my vision, but I can see into the other buildings. They are filled with... spotlessly clean and extravagantly furnished kitchens, bathrooms and bedrooms? Yes on their first floors but the basements are just series of large jail blocks. What is this sensei?" Kushina asked in bewilderment and concern. Shikamaru sighed and turned to Satsuki to make a zipping movement across his mouth which she nodded agreement to. Then he turned back and responded,
"It would appear that we have located... a slave trafficking ring." Unable to shout, Satsuki pounded her fist into a nearby tree cracking it's bark in pure fury. "The rooms you see on the first floors are for... training... they savagely beat their captives into obedience and train them in domestic 'services.'"
"Wait, no! Not-"
"Yes, that too. The ideal slave caters to all of their master's needs. Even... even that..." said Shikamaru unable to look either of the girls in the eye as he explained. Kushina gasped and covered her mouth with her hands as tears began to well up in her eyes. Satsuki dropped to her knees and pounded the dirt as it was made moist by her own tears of grief.
The same moment at the village gates of Konohagakure no Sato...
"Thank you Minato, your report will be passed along to the Hokage and the girl will be well cared for by the hospital psychological staff." said one of the two chunin who had gate duty that day. He took Miki's still sleeping body from Minato and gently held her in a bridal fashion.
"Don't take off the tags until she is in a locked room, she will throw a fit when she wakes up. Oh and you should probably only have women taking care of her." responded Minato, sweating lightly from the nonstop sprint back to the village. He took a water canteen off his belt and drank deep of it's contents. Then with a wave to the chunin he took off back towards Brishtem. Just as he got to the treetops however, he felt a tingle go down his spine and his ears itch. Taking advantage of his privacy he scratched the itch away. 'I have a bad feeling. I need to hurry.' With a fresh look of determination he poured all of his power into running as fast as he could to get back to his teammates' side.
The following evening at the slavers compound...
The three shinobi all shadow blurred back together on the hilltop overlooking the compound, serious looks on their faces.
"Report." said Shikamaru to the two.
"It appears that each barracks has separate keys for the prisoners' cells, so we can't just take one key and not worry about the others." said Kushina, slightly tired from using her Byakugan all day to gather intel. "And it would seem that the commanding presence resides in the castle because the others are constantly going in there after their guard rounds."
"Okay. Satsuki?"
"I was unable to locate any point along the wall with weaker defense than the other sections. The tall platform next to the main gate has some kind of metal dome at the top. It looks to be some sort of machine but I couldn't verify without blowing cover."
"Damn. Figured as much. Clearly this place is run by missing nin, it's too well constructed against shinobi assault not to be. Based on the number of subordinates I would guess only around two shinobi are involved here. We probably can-"
"Guess again leafies!" shouted a muffled voice, as if separated from them by a wall of pillows or a pane of glass. The three went wide eyed in shock before scattering just as an impact erupted just where they had stood, flinging dirt everywhere. They all stared at the crater in the center of which stood the voice that had interrupted their discussion.
A man stood there with short black hair with long gray striped running along the sides, contrary to his apparent age. His stubbed nose moved disgustingly with each inhale and his prominent brow gave the appearance of constant concentration. He was garbed in a simple black battle plate under which her wore a gray shirt with white pants. He stood above a hole which he had apparently come out of from below.
"Awwww you had to go and move didn't you." he jeered as the sound of alarms being raised came from the valley below. "We had a feeling somebody was snooping around. Those idiots let one escape so it was inevitable I suppose. By the way there are three of us running this very very lucrative business here, and no leaf genin squad is gonna ruin that for us. Now kindly die, we've got a client scheduled to come in today for first pick from the new merchandise." He smirked wickedly at the three as they all fell into battle ready stances. Kushina, byakugan active, shouted out,
"Below! There are a series of tunnels everywhere just below the ground! If you can't see them you'll fall into one and he will have you. It looks like his jutsu involves digging!" The man's smirk vanished, replaced by a look of disgust.
"Smart little tart eh? Fine then, you don't get to die. We'll just see if we can't pump a few little Hyuugas out of you instead. Should turn over quite the profit, unsealed Hyuuga infants." Kushina stood slack jawed at his statement for a moment before charging straight at his with a terrible war cry.
"IN YOUR DREAMS SICKO!" Satsuki was about to leap in to help her when Shikamaru grabbed her wrist to stop her.
"You need to be very careful, I can't stay to help in this fight." said Shikamaru in a blank tone, suppressing his own urges to try and help as well. "We need to attack now before they can get organized if we want to save those villagers. Temper that courage Satsuki and take your time against the problem at hand. Listen to Kushina's warnings against pitfalls and don't let him bait you." She stopped struggling against his hold and nodded before leaping to another tree branch and drawing kunai. Shikamaru gave the duo one final look before darting off towards the compound.
"If that guy was a gauge as to the strength of the other two we might still be able to do this. We can't retreat, he said they already have a client on their way and we might not be able to find them again if any are sold. I need to act now and have faith that Kushina and Satsuki can handle themselves well enough. Minato likely will not be here for another day or so, so I'm on my own." he mumbled to himself as he approached the fortress. Soon he was coming up on the large iron gates as they slowly swung shut to keep them out.
"Troublesome." murmured Shikamaru as he flew through several hand seals. "Doton: Forest of Antlers." he said as several pillars of stone shot up from the ground to hold the gates open despite the efforts of the guards. A volley of arrows came from the walls, though they traveled to slow to hit the shinobi who effortlessly dodged them all. Darting into the gates they he plowed directly into the mass of guards that had gathered there to fight them. The clumsy attacks of the slavers were easily enough dodged on their own, but even in such numbers it was proving impossible for them to inflict injury against the veteran shinobi. Kunai drawn he did his best to mow down the ranks without wasting chakra, but more and more seemed to file in from every direction.
In the clearing...
Kushina leapt over a section of dirt she saw masked a pitfall as she charged at the missing nin. She threw a punch at the man and he deflected it with his forearm before throwing a low kick at her midsection. She twisted and spun her body horizontally dodging over the attack before landing and using the momentum to attempt a kick of her own to his shins. He jumped over the attack, but saw as a small volley of kunai came flying at his airborne body from the nearby trees. Flying through hand seals he cried out,
"Art of Animal Mimicry: Badger!" His hands grew in size as massive flat claws grew on his finger tips. He sung these new claws to deflect the kunai and then spun to fall headfirst towards the ground. The tunneled right into the ground with his claws and disappeared below.
"Damn!" cursed Satsuki as she leapt to Kushina's side as the Uzumaki followed the shinobi's underground movements with her piercing vision.
"You have any new tricks up your sleeves to help here?" asked Kushina.
"Maybe, though unlike you they aren't actually in my sleeves. I'll need a second to retrieve them from storage scrolls."
"Good, because I have a few new tricks too." Kushina then began to fly through a set of hand seals while Satsuki made for the treetops once more. The badger-like man flew out of the ground to try and intercept her as she jumped for the tree unable to dodge, but Kushina finished her hand seals and shouted,
"Suiton: Sticky Wad Bullets!" She puffed out her cheeks then spat out of her mouth at rapid speeds four head sized balls of orange liquid. Two of the bullets hit dead on and impacted his torso throwing of his trajectory and bring him crashing back to the ground. Satsuki reached the tree and produced two scrolls from her pouch then unrolled them both. In a puff of smoke their contents appeared and she set about attaching them to her wrists. Meanwhile the badger had found that the bullets of orange fluid had an adhesive quality and stuck him to the ground where he landed. Kushina charged forward to attack his vulnerability but he dug his claws into the ground beneath the liquid and quickly shoveled away dirt. Soon he stood with a layer of dirt still attached to his chest but the excess weight at a minimum due to his skill in moving dirt. He readied for her attack, razor sharp claws clicking against one another and assaulted Kushina. Parrying as best she could nonetheless she was quickly covered in fairly deep gashes inflicted by his claws. She suddenly smirked and leapt back puzzling him, then he saw another blade flying at him from the treetop. What appeared to be a medium sized shuriken cut in half along the blade edge while both separated and connected in the center by a cylindrical device with a hole in it's center lengthwise as a regular shuriken is. The man dodged the large weapon easily enough but then caught sight of an identical weapon approaching his from the side in an impossible tightly curved trajectory. He jumped over the horizontally curving weapon and noticed the gleam of ninja wire coming from the weapon and reaching back into the tree. Then the initial blade dislodged itself from the ground and came flying back in his direction spinning all by itself. The blade caught him by his side, tearing into his shoulder and incapacitating his left arm. He watched as the blade returned to the hand of the redhead, spinning in such a manner as to coil the ninja wire back into it's core device as it traveled leaving no slack in the wire at any point. She caught it skillfully and then caught the other as it returned to her in a similar manner.
"What the hell are those things?" he demanded, clutching his shoulder.
"You like them? It's something I've been working on. I think I'm going to name them 'Throw-Gos' what do you think?"
"Ugh awful name." said Kushina casually. "Shorten it, how bout 'Yo-yos'?"
"Eh, that kinda sounds like something you would name a kiddie toy. Anyways, they are attached to special bracers on my wrists by ninja wire and they have devices inside that automatically wind the wire back up returning the blade to my hand."
"You take me so lightly that you chatter on in the middle of a fight?" he shouted at her.
"Nah, it's just that your already done."
"What the hell do you-" he was about to ask as he tried to move forward but instead found himself unable to move. He looked down to see seals laid out on the ground around where he stood and that the seal had spread and now covered his body in immobilizing runes.
"Seeya." said Kushina as Satsuki threw one of her yo-yos at the mans uninjured shoulder, cutting his entire arm off. The seal deactivated and the badger's jutsu deactivated as he fell unconscious to the ground.
Several clicks to the west of Brishtem...
Minato flew like wind above the trail left for him to follow by his teammates. 'Must hurry! I just know something bad is going to happen! For once in my life I'm actually hoping that I loose a bet.' He pushed his legs as hard as they could go as he rushed towards the west.
Inside the mansion within the slavers compound...
"Looks like Shikamaru 'The Genius' Nara is here. Not good. And looks like his team killed that feeble ally of ours." said a man overlooking the courtyard from within the mansion. The woman next to him nodded towards the tower.
"Why not give him a taste of my invention? Or better yet use it on his teammates." The man was silent in though before responding,
"Yes order them to fire it upon the teammates, the genin. He will leap to their defense and they all will die."
In the compound courtyard...
Shikamaru was holding his own against the mass of slavers but he was nonetheless relieved when he saw Kushina and Satsuki come flying in through the gate carving up the guards with a deadly combinations of suiton jutsu from Kushina and a pair of bizarre new weapons wielded by Satsuki. He then saw something moving up on the wall and turned towards the movement. He witnessed the silver dome atop the heightened platform begin to turn, partially opening to reveal a strange catapult like weapon mounted on a swiveling axle. It was manned from a seat directly behind it by a guard who appeared to be slightly trigger happy as he immediately began to fire the weapon without waiting to line it up at the enemy. The weapon spat out at speed comparable to a shinobi kunai, but in rapid succession no shinobi was capable of. Attached to each kunai was a paper bomb tag and as the shuriken ballistae slowly turned towards the genin pair it left in the wake of it's scope a series of massive explosions ripping through the crowd of guards like a series of lead bricks through a sheet of stained red glass. His eyes shot open wide in horror and he flew as fast as he could to stand between the girls and the weapon, performing hand seals as he moved.
Too late did the girls notice the weapon and as it started firing they were unable to move due to the ground rocking from the continuous series of explosions drawing nearer and nearer to them. With deathly white skin the looked upon the face of death as they saw four paper bomb kunai coming down on their location only to see Shikamaru step between them and the bombs. The bombs went of in a series of nearly ten explosions in the exact location the three Konoha shinobi had stood at, and no shadow blur could be seen darting to safety out of the cloud of fire and dirt. The cackling man ceased fire to look upon his handy work and saw where they had once stood only a crater filled with the slanted shadows cast by the setting sun. From the compound gate Minato breathlessly mouthed the word,
"No..."
Dear Readers
Hello people, hope you enjoyed the chapter. Things are felling exciting, did the girls and Shikamaru make it out? Will Minato survive as well? Just how powerful are these shadowy slavers? Who knows? I certainly don't... Nah just kidding I do. Aaanyways, very little news today. Will likely post another chapter very soon seeing as I am about to start fall break. Lots of fun things happening, the more adult serious themes are to continue from this point forward. If you liked the chapter please leave a review with your thoughts, suggestions, or criticism. As always, enjoy life people. RIP Steve Jobs, we will miss you good sir.
Love,
Danthemanwithaplan7