(A massive thank you to those of you reading and reviewing, and for those of you lurking too. We've seen a massive spike in numbers recently, showing there is a genuine interest in this story, and we couldn't be happier. Chapter 11 comes to you now since a few of us have the day off and decided to post up.)
Chapter 11
The front gate was already occupied by the time that Temari got there.
She expected to see Hinata, of course, and it wasn't a surprise to see Sai leaning over large scrolls used for sealing. Leaning on the wall lazily was Kiba, picking his teeth with one of his long fingernails. At his side, a black and white furred pup eyed the gathering, yipping playfully.
Temari hadn't seen this dog before. "Where's Akamaru?"
"Keeping an eye on the family, I'd think." Kiba murmured, ruffling the fur of his nearby companion. "He's an old dog, better suited to guarding now. This is Akimaru, a pup he sired last spring."
"Kind of scrawny..." Temari said, more to herself, than to the man petting the animal.
"Yeah, pups of her breed are. Thick skinned though, even if she is a runt." He handed Temari the pup, who took the small dog by the scruff of the neck.
She wasn't a master of dog breeds by far, but as an animal user herself at times, she knew the make of a good companion when she saw one. "As long as she doesn't piss on me with her dynamic marking." She said, setting the animal down, watching as the creature pranced back over to Kiba, laying at his side.
"I don't know, Kiba. Do you think she can run a mission of this caliber?" Hinata asked him, eyeing the little dog wearily. She had taken a great deal of comfort in Akamaru over the years, and had entrusted her life to him many times. She'd never been on a mission with this young pup, and so she was a little worried.
He lifted up the pup, studied her carefully. "Dunno. Guess we'll find out. She's my main mission dog now."
"So long as she doesn't eat any of my bugs…" All eyes turned to Shino.
"She's not that stupid, or starving." Kiba shot back with a playful little sneer.
Karui finally made it up the path alongside Ino, and Hinata finally sighed out a breath. "Good everyone's here."
"I count seven." Karui said after a quick headcount. "We're missing one."
"I've sent a currier bird to Sunagakure asking them to send one of their best to meet us." Hinata reported as the group gathered around. "Given the state of events, Konoha isn't the only village facing major casualties. I think it would be best to join forces, even if we are the ones leading the expedition. Konoha will be funding this mission from our own coffers, Sunagakure gains the benefit by tagging along."
"Did it ever occur to you that we probably should have asked a medical ninja?" Kiba asked, his voice gentle in spite of his words.
"What the hell do I look like?" Ino rebuked, "An errand girl?"
"Ino…" Sai put a hand on her shoulder, as if that would be enough from clobbering Kiba if she really wanted to.
"Sakura can't come because she's due for her own mission." Ino said knowingly, already having spoken to her good friend. "Besides that, Sasuke is still out cold. So, it's either me or nothing, so you better shut up and deal with it."
"Better not sign a check your ass can't cash, Ino." Kiba grinned nastily. "Hate to have to put you in your place."
"Yeah, yeah...keep barking buddy." Ino grinned back, their little tit for tat game making the rest of the group members roll their eyes.
"Kiba, please…" Hinata said to him, her eyes pleading.
"Yeah, fine…" Standing down, he rolled his eyes.
"I agreed to let you come along at Naruto's behest, however, I did so under the one condition that you'd be civil. Do not make me regret that choice." Hinata told him in her usually quite, but stern way. "That goes for all of you. We fan out into divided cells, if you find anything, report your location, we'll come running."
It was Shino who nodded his agreement first. "How are we dividing?"
"A cone formation." Hinata told the group, knowing it was the best bet for what she wanted to do. "Temari, Karui, and Sai are to stay together at all times, roughly twelve-o-clock. Ino goes with me, at nine-o-clock. Shino and Kiba, three-o-clock." She gave them a knowing look. "Don't kill each other."
"No promises…" Shino murmured, but it was more for the sake of seeing Hinata smile at him than anything else. Of course he'd never do anything to hurt Kiba, or vice versa, the two of them had been team members for far too long.
With teams divided, she handed everyone several handfuls of paper seals. "We'll use Ino's ability to coordinate our positions. At all times, the sealing team should be positioned between both tracking teams. When the help from Sunagakure meets up with the rest of us, Ino and the Suna ninja will fall back to Karui's squad. Then, I'll position Temari with me."
Temari nodded, fully expecting to act as Hinata's bodyguard. It was a role she'd known ever since she was a teenager, protecting her younger brother, so stepping into line during a mission was as natural as breathing. "Got it, standard recon."
Hinata paused, pulling her lower lip between her teeth. something else bothered her. "I shouldn't have to say this, but I'm going to. If we do end up having to seal our opponents, Sai will be left open and exposed. It'll be our responsibility to provide adequate cover for him until he finishes."
"What if we don't find anything?" Sai voiced, earning him a round of glares from all sides.
"Oh, I assure you, we will find something." Hinata said to him. "We don't return home until we do." Everyone else seemed to agree with that statement, and she turned to the forest ahead. "We should head out."
Dispersing their separate ways, they maintained the formation, gliding through the trees and groundcover. The afternoon was a restless one, they surveyed a lot of ground, but nothing came up in the search. The cone shaped parameter they'd established was the one route that the ANBU themselves hadn't chosen to cover, and for good reason. It was a very direct path out and away from fire country.
Finally, they reached the outskirts of where the ANBU had been deployed, and soon, everyone could hear Hinata's voice echoing in their minds.
"Status report?"
"Nothing over here, not even a strange human for miles." Kiba said from his place alongside Shino.
"It's the same over here." Hinata said unhappily. "Karui?"
"…nothing." The dark skinned ninja said after a moment of silence. "Mind you none of us are particularly proficient at tracking, but even so…"
"I sent out a few dozen ink mice." Sai added for the sake of explanation. "They'd have made a fuss by now if they'd found anything."
"I don't like this…" Shino added then, conferring with Sai's assessment. "It's almost like the forest is too clean. My bugs haven't even found a carcass since we passed the stream about an hour back."
"That's what I was worried about. It can't be helped then." Hinata's voice came timidly at first before her next order. "Alright, keep the formation tight."
It was then that the feed was cut.
"I wonder if Ino's holding out okay." Temari said absently. The blonde woman had a habit of nosebleeds when she tried to extend communication too for, or for longer periods of time. "Don't want her passing out."
"Doing better than the three of us, I'd bet." Sai said, carrying the cumbersome sealing equipment on his back.
Temari had the urge to yank it off of the slender male beside her, but realized the foolishness of that soon enough. They weren't a team meant for speed, and Hinata had planned for Sai to lag behind just a little bit. It was almost as if she wanted him to, but just hadn't said it out loud.
"Or not, who knows?" Karui laughed. "Either way, I feel better about Ino staying with Hinata than either Kiba or Shino."
"Huh?" Sai asked dumbfounded.
"To put it bluntly, Kiba would let his masculinity in the way of his brain." Karui said with a shake of her head, dark ruddy tresses swaying in the breeze behind her. "Shino's too passive aggressive, and it's bad enough that Hinata's non-violent by nature."
"I don't know about that." Sai murmured distantly. "I get the feeling they'd use their heads. Well, if it came to her."
"I don't see how you figure that." Karui said, giving him a searching look.
"Man's intuition." Sai shrugged.
"If there is such a thing." Karui allowed amicably, but still had her doubts on the matter.
"It helps that Ino can also call for help." Temari told him. It was the most obvious fact, but one too easily overlooked. "Hinata probably took her for added security. I think we all know the Hokage well enough to assume that he didn't approve of this mission in the first place."
"Let me guess," Karui laughed then, "Shikamaru gave you an ear full."
"He tried and almost ate shit. From the sounds of it, Choji put up a fight too." Temari smirked, realizing that their husbands worried more about them than they gave either of the men credit for. "What about you, Sai? Did you bitch and moan about Ino's placement on the team?"
Innocently, he cocked his head to the side. "Do I look suicidal?"
"I heard that!" Ino's voice shouted across all of their minds, causing her husband to stumble in his place.
"Sorry, Sorry…" Sai regained his balance, falling back into stride with the ladies at his side.
"Geeze," Ino seemed to huff indignantly, as if she'd been thrown off balance by his thoughts. "What have I told you about thinking so loudly?"
"Or so earnestly?" Temari laughed darkly while the mental feed was still open.
"I forgot you could hear his thoughts." Karui mentioned then, it was a power that seemed very strange to her, be it a jutsu or not.
"Comes with the territory. The closer you are to someone, the easier it is to attach to their thoughts and emotions." Her voice seemed to say, as if a grin was playing across her lips. "I'm close enough with you and Temari too, sometimes I have to try and block out the both of you."
"Talk about being a little fly on the wall…" Karui mentioned then, only to hear Ino sigh.
"Trust me, it's not as great as you think…" Then, after a moment she added, "It takes its toll. Thankfully, because of Choji and Shikamaru, I got plenty of practice learning to block out things that didn't concern me. Only good thing about being able to eavesdrop is that when Inojin was little, I never had to worry for his safety."
Temari smiled at that. Old memories cropping up. How many times had they spied on their children, worrying for their safety? She didn't believe much in helicopter parenting, but even she worried about her five year old flinging sharp knives around the first week at the academy. She wouldn't lie about it, she was making sure an eye didn't get poked out too, in her own little ways.
Everyone seemed to fall into silence for quite a long while. The sun was already high in the sky, soon it would begin to descend. With the heat of the day also at risk of fading, Hinata's voice filtered into their minds once more.
"Halt, please, everyone."
"What is it?" Kiba growled with predatory determination.
"From here on out, you'll have to be particularly careful." Hinata began, feeling as though everyone was suddenly paying grim attention to her words. She hoped they would be, but it was still a strange feeling. "We no longer have the ANBU's eyes at our backs."
"How far do we have clearance for?" Shino asked, realizing they were coming particularly close to the boarders of their jurisdiction. Anything beyond that point could be considered costly for the treaties signed by the great villages.
A short time later, they could hear Hinata's sigh. "That depends."
"On?" This time, it was Karui, growing tired of just standing around waiting for new orders.
"On how receptive Sunagakure would be to us walking along the line of our boarders." Hinata said swiftly.
"You think the boarder of the countryside poses a threat?" This came from Sai, not that anyone could blame the man. He was still fairly sheltered. He did what he was told, and didn't think beyond Konohagakure if he didn't have to.
Temari and Karui caught on immediately, giving each other a knowing look, but it was Karui who spoke. "She's saying it would be a bureaucratic nightmare."
"Huh?" Sai, still clueless, asked as he adjusted the gear on his back.
"We try to give the other nations a vow of trust when we can." Hinata explained, mostly for Sai and Kiba, the both of them the most ignorant about political matters. "Naturally though, that gives independent factions ample room for hiding places."
"And you think they might be scattered along the boarders…" Karui filled in the blanks. "Just great, as if we didn't have enough to worry about."
"You say that as if it's never happened before." Shino shot in with a grave tone. "Tactically, they have every advantage to do things that way. Because of the treaty, no single country can hold jurisdiction over those neutral borders."
"Even before the treaty..." Ino piped up, almost agitated. "Don't forget about the Akatsuki before the Fourth Shinobi World War."
"Temari, I need your call on this." Hinata replied smoothly. "One hundred meters ahead, and we're completely out of Konohagakure's jurisdiction."
Temari paused, thinking about what Hinata was asking. "That wouldn't be Gaara's problem, it would be ours."
"Only insofar as Land of Fire reaches. Once we cross over, we need to consider Hidden Valley Village." Hinata sighed at length. "The Land of Rivers sits between Sunagakure and Konohagakure."
Temari frowned. "...and they're not a major power vying for dominance. Well, shit."
"Therein lies my concern. All villages in Land of Rivers are small, but that only makes for inconspicuous activity." Hinata spoke, her words as resolute as they could be. "Can we expect Sunagakure to act in accordance to the treaty? Or, would it be safer to assume that Sunagakure is waiting to strike once the iron's hot?"
"If we find anything, Sunagakure will comply with the treaty. Gaara has no intention of going to war over seven dead shinobi." Temari was sure of that. "He's already siding with Naruto on this. You can expect full cooperation from Sunagakure, assuming Suna can expect full cooperation with Konoha in return."
"Just…what do you intend on doing?" Kiba asked slowly, not sure if he liked where this was headed. The hair on the back of his neck started to rise, and he fought down a deep growl of pure dissatisfaction.
"We're going to retrace our steps, see what remnants of the war weren't destroyed. It may be as simple as our sealing team failing to gather everyone all those years ago." Hinata could almost feel Kiba's heckles raise as she continued. "I know these are places that have been thoroughly investigated before, and I know logically, there should be nothing there. No sign, no trace. However, this also leads me to believe that there may indeed be loose ends we've failed to tie up."
"Doing that could have us traveling all the way north east to Kumogakure!" Kiba barked with a shake of his head. "Do you realize just how many little hideouts those people had, and it wasn't just them, either."
"So we take our time, Kiba." Hinata sighed. "For now, let's gather and set up camp. We can continue this discussion in person, after we've made suitable accommodation's for the evening."
It was a mission gone personal…
None of them said it, but many of them thought of it. For some, that mission hit just a little too close to the heart, and to know Hinata was leading the charge only made that matter more clear. They set up camp near a hot spring that was shallow enough to rest in. It was near enough to the Land of Rivers that they could cross down into the boarder in less than an hour by foot.
It was also far away enough from the boarder to keep suspicion low. It was here, in this safe little spot, that Sai sent a flock of birds drawn in ink. Each one of them took flight holding a message for someone back in Konoha.
No one was going to pass up the chance of a hot spring, but since there was only one, they'd have to take turns. The ladies took their bath first. Their thoughts were as different as the stars in the sky. Someone had to say it. Someone needed to cut the fat from this whole ordeal, and yet, none of them wanted to. Temari, Karui, and Ino looked amongst themselves, a heated debate going on without Hinata knowing it.
It stood to reason that Hinata wasn't going to be the one to explain herself. One of them needed to be the one to do it. Knowing Hinata for the longest time, Ino opened her mouth. "This isn't going to bring Neji back…"
"Ino!" Temari balked, sending her a murderous glare.
"If we're going to talk about this, let's just talk about this…" Ino said without feeling any intimidation. "We're all thinking it anyway. Skirting around the issue is only going to drive us all nuts. Besides, you two are chomping at the bit, so why not?"
"You do realize what you're saying, and to who, don't you?" Karui asked, looking as Ino as if she'd grown a second head.
Ino just closed her eyes, leaning back into the water. "Yeah...so?" She didn't have to see Hinata's expression to know that she was being watched by the most powerful woman in Konoha. One wrong word, and it could technically be considered treason. Not that Hinata would ever do such a thing. The woman was too sweet to put Ino's name in the bingo book over a few offhanded remarks. "Oh, come on… I've said so much worse."
"This isn't about Neji." Hinata found it unusually easy to say. Speaking his name was always a difficult thing, especially after his passing. She viewed him with reverence, even now. "Naruto wants to be out here himself, I can sense that. He doesn't say it, but you can tell he's itching to find out what's going on. Now that Sasuke's no longer out here roaming around, the one set of eyes Naruto could rely on isn't here."
"At the risk of sounding arrogant," Temari began, "did it ever occur to you that this might be a bad idea?"
"It's a horrible one, Temari." Hinata sunk deeper into the water. "I am well aware of my short comings, I always have been."
"What I love, is that Temari finally admitted she's arrogant." Ino laughed, earning a splash in the face as a result. "I wondered when she was going to pull the kunai out of her ass."
"So says the one who actually keeps one between her ass cheeks." Even as Temari said this, her eyes remained squarely on Hinata.
"That only happened once, and thank god I had it there, because you were disarmed." Ino shot back, not at all bothered about the mission that had long since passed. "As they say, any port in a storm."
"No arguments there. If you got it, use it. Lord knows I do." She said, obviously referring to the knives she sometimes kept under her breasts. Finally, she crossed her arms over her bosom, green eyes finding grey. "You know, Hinata, not that I really care what you usually do...but you're going to make Naruto worry…"
"He's already worried." Hinata pressed. "Something must be done."
"Yeah, and now he probably worried about you on top of it." Temari grumbled. "Karui and I could have undertaken lead of this mission. You don't have to be out here. You shouldn't be."
"I do apologize for his irrationality, but I'm not a civilian." Hinata said after taking a breath to steady herself. She expected this from Kiba, and maybe even Shino. She didn't expect it from the other women. "I've earned my rank with the same effort and honor that you did yours, and not even being married to the Hokage can diminish that. Instead, I believe because I'm married to him, given the man that he is, I've no other choice but to lead this mission."
"Well, well, well," Karui sat forward, "Hinata's spitting fire. Who'd have thought?"
"It's true, I'm often an unfit leader, but that's why I've asked you along." Hinata hoped that would words would strike a chord with them, and that maybe, they'd stop eyeing her with mixed expressions. She never had done well with all of the attention placed entirely on her. "I've chosen each of you for your particular merits, and it was not a choice I made halfheartedly."
Ino sat up from her floating position, pushing her long hair back behind her. "Hinata, we aren't saying that...but, this is a risk. None of us want to have to bring you back to Naruto hurt...or worse…"
"You know what would happen if we did." Temari added, having the distinct assumption it would be a very dangerous, not to mention explosive, reaction. "Personally, I don't want to be on the receiving end of that."
"It's not him, particularly, that I'd be worried about." Karui rolled her eyes. She thought of Kumogakure, and the comrades she'd left there. That said nothing Suna's own Kazekage, and it didn't end there. "It's the snowball effect. He's got some friends in high places. Some of those friends are forces of nature in and of themselves."
"That's true…" Ino agreed.
Hinata blushed at that. "He isn't…I mean…" She sunk even lower in the hot water. "Naruto is more aware of himself. He knows better."
Ino wasn't convinced. "Don't tell me he wouldn't upend anything and everything in his path if you ever went missing, because we both know that he would."
"Got that right. Exhibit A, Sasuke. Exhibit B, Gaara." Temari had almost forgotten about her brother's kidnapping, and didn't want to be reminded of it. "I'll be damned if you become exhibit C."
"Oh no, there's a whole alphabet soup in-between that." Ino scolded, hands on her hips, not that anyone could see clearly with the water rippling around them. "Not to mention the alphabet soup after that. Let's face it, Hinata, your husband can be crazy, and let's not forget about that son of yours." By this time, Ino was wagging a finger in Hinata's direction, looking every bit like a nagging woman passed her prime. "The two of them are like wrecking balls when left to their own devices."
"The sad part is, she lets them run wild." Temari added conspiratorially.
Karui had enough presence of mind to look aggravated. "Since when did this turn into a gossip fest?"
"W-with Ino around, when doesn't it degenerate into one?" Hinata asked indignantly with a beat red blush on her face. She was now low enough in the water that everything below her chin was completely submerged.
"When she's the center of attention." Temari said, yanking the younger blonde towards her, dunking her.
"Little old to be sinking down into the water, Hinata." Ino chuckled as she came up for air. "You're what, forty now, get a grip would you."
"H-hey! I'm the same age as you! Thirty-eight, thank you very much…" Hinata rebuked suddenly feeling much older than she wanted to.
"Great, now I feel like an old hag, Ino. Thanks..." Temari sighed, as the oldest woman there, she was forty. "Another eight more years or so, and it's menopause for me. Shit. The last think I want to be thought of is an old bitty who can't take care of herself."
"Some women hit it as young as mid-forties, and some skirt by until late sixties. Oh well, not that it matters. Take Tsunade for example, tough as nails." Ino was nonchalant about it, mostly. She liked to think of herself as stunningly beautiful. All of their ages were catching up to them. Yet, with that age came wisdom, and that proved undeniably true for their current topic of interest. "I can't believe I'm about to say this, but let's just agree that this is a really bad idea, and do what we always do."
"With that expression, Ino, I'm almost afraid to ask." Hinata chided once her blush had dissipated.
"Stick our heads halfway up our asses, get the mission done, and go home." Temari answered, already resigning herself to do strictly that.
Karui just smirked. "Sounds good enough for me."
"Just what kind of trouble do you three get up to when you're deployed?" Hinata asked, thinking she may, in fact, regret asking.
Karui, lifting herself out of the water, reached for her towel. "I'd tell you, Hinata, but I really think you'd end up fainting."
"Hmm, true." Ino laughed as Temari balked. "That's a story for another time..."