Which Way to Konoha?
Disclaimer: I do not claim to own that which has already been created, patented, or copyrighted.
"Clearing that bridge was the easiest part…"
Naruto proudly looked over the newly cleared bridge. The once almost completed bridge resembled a dotted line now, but Naruto figured it would be an easy fix, after all it had only taken 7 and a half hours to clear it all off (and approximately 3 minutes to destroy it), could it really take that long to put it back together?
At the sound of a sigh Naruto turned to see old man Tazuna with his customary towel strung around his neck, beads of sweat decorating his upper lip and forehead. Naruto frowned in displeasure because from what he knew the old man hadn't lifted a finger, in fact he knew the old man hadn't. The old man had even sent the other workers home when they had started to show up for work, to further punish Naruto, he'd bet. After all, the workers had already had the week off as it had taken Naruto as long as that to get Tsunami's approval to do hard labor after his fight and consequential poisoning by Kanaye of the White Rain.
"Hey why do you look like you just spent the better half of the day clearing off the bridge when you got to sit around all day drinking lemonade and eating that lunch Tsunami made you!" blustered Naruto conscious of the injustice.
"The sun is a lot closer in Lightning then it is in Wave," commented Tazuna with a nonchalant shrug, suppressing a secret grin at the boy's rising ire, "besides it's your fault for destroying my bridge in the first place! It was the least you could do."
"So what, you didn't even save me one bite of rice you cranky old man! I was the one who did all that work and Tsunami told you to share!"
"Oh well, no use crying o'er lost rice," advised Tazuna as he stood up from his position on a stack of savaged steel beams, his back cracking with the motion.
"I'm starving! I was the one who did all the work!" shouted the displeased and grumpy Naruto.
"Ya're also the reason all that work needed doin'," grunted Tazuna with a scowl in the blond's direction before dusting off his pants, "Well come along brat, we have a lot ta do yet before the sun sets entirely." With that said Tazuna began to stumble his way around the construction tools that Naruto had managed to save from the wreckage.
"The sun's already setting, didn't think that one through didya?" muttered Naruto with a scowl as he followed the path Tazuna was blazing.
"That's why I said entirely set, ya should probably get those giant ears of yars checked you buffoon!" Tazuna shouted over his shoulder. Naruto paused to stick out his tongue at the crotchety old man's back.
"Hey, Tazuna what did those Nin's from earlier want?" asked Naruto curiously as he alluded to the gathering of Kumo Nins that had been questioning Tazuna that morning.
Naruto had had to wait a whole week before he could get this punishment over with as his lungs had needed the time to recover from the bout of smoke inhalation caused by that Missing Nin's jutsu (never mind that Naruto was fully recovered by the end of the day, but try telling Tsunami that.) In that week he hadn't exactly been informed in the village's happenings after the spotting of the dangerous Missing Nin, Tsunami had had him on strict bed rest and refused to let either Inari or Tazuna tell him anything that might excite him and disrupt the healing process. So imagine his surprise when upon his return to the bridge he had spotted a group of elite Kumo Nins talking with Tazuna.
Naruto had done the first reasonable thing that had come to mind, he had panicked.
He knew he had needed to calm down and think of an escape route because surely that guard that had refused him entry into the country had sent these Nins after him, telling them lies about his being that Kanaye guy.
With a deep breath and a pinch, a plan took form and he performed a clothed version of his Sexy no Jutsu. Naruto needn't have worried; however, as the Nins hadn't even batted an eyelash when the skimpily dressed, busty blond had found her way to Tazuna's side, in fact they had just bowed to the bridge builder and left the second she had arrived.
"They were the search party sent out the day ya got here ta look for tha' missin'-nin," informed Tazuna gruffly, he'd rather not dwell on the source of his current predicament, or at least a part of the reason. It was hard to avoid the other when they slept in the room next to your own and was at that very moment walking beside him.
"Did they find him?" asked Naruto.
"Naw, tha's why the group of 'em stopped by, they had hop'd ta pick up on some clue or another before we started ta clear off the bridge, suppose it wasn't much help though, they left in a tizz, seemed a bit angry if ya ask me," scoffed Tazuna with a shake of his shaggy head.
Naruto went silent, it wasn't everyday that a ninja couldn't pick up on a fresh trail, an old one yeah sure it was understandable if they couldn't follow their guy. But those Nin had been sent out only a few hours after that missing-nin had fled and to keep them running in circles for the following week? Naruto supposed the nin was better at covering his tracks then Naruto would have first suspected. Naruto shrugged, there wasn't much he could do about it now, it wasn't like he planned on going off to search for the guy, he didn't have any kind of particular drive too, anyway. Naruto started slightly once he noticed that when he had been lost in thought Tazuna had gotten ahead of him, Naruto easily picked up his pace.
"Hey, Hey Tazuna where are we going anyway?" asked Naruto inquisitively when he finally caught up with a winded Tazuna at the end of the bridge, Naruto wasn't even panting.
"We're going ta see a man about some worker's," informed Tazuna after he finally got his breath back. Naruto didn't have the slightest idea of what he was talking about but decided he had better tag along to find out.
Naruto hadn't really been paying attention to where they were going so the next thing he knew he found himself entering a smoky room as he bypassed two fully armored men. The room had curtains gathered at the highest point of the domed ceiling, its ends draping down the walls, blocking out any light that didn't originate in the room. In the dim lighting Naruto could just barely make out one large desk situated on the furthest wall from the door, where a large fat man lounged, a long pipe dangling between his teeth.
"Ah Tazuna, I was wondering when you'd be coming here," the man mumbled around his smoking pipe. Naruto watched the man closely, a baffled air about him, as his eyes adjusted to the gloom. He had never seen such a large man, and the way his trailing mustache twitched with each word was amusing.
"Nee, Tazuna, he has more hair under his nose then he does on the top of his head," whispered Naruto, hoping the tension that had set into the old man's shoulders would loosen up soon. Naruto never did well around high strung individuals.
"Silence your brat, Tazuna!" blubbered the man, his pipe nearly tumbling from his slackened lips. Tazuna turned slightly towards Naruto, a warning look alight his otherwise stoic face. "Now this is about your workers isn't it? Or should I say my workers?"
"What else would this be about? They came today ta inform me they could no longer work for me, they mentioned that you had offered 'em a better job with better pay in the city," Tazuna said with a scowl he usually reserved for Naruto and Monday mornings. "The question is, why are you so adamant about preventing the construction of this bridge."
Naruto was briefly reminded of Gato and had to wonder what it was about bridge building that invited sabotage and assassination. After a moment's thought, Naruto speculated if he should really be asking what was it about Tazuna that welcomed sabotage and assassination? Though the bridge builder did have a bit of a nasty attitude that made him hard to get along with, Naruto supposed that had something to do with it. Naruto would know—he had worked under the builder during Tazuna's last bridge project in Wave Country, and even he'd been tempted to rebel against the builder.
"It's not that I don't want the bridge completed, in fact I look forward to the day that it is, it'll make business… transactions… so much easier to accomplish," the man's mustache twitched with each word and spit clung to his whiskers, Naruto snarled in disgust, he took it back it wasn't amusing it was sickening, "it's just… your construction is taking far too long and with each passing day you and your family continue to overstay your welcome," he sent Tazuna a heated glare as he tapped the bowl of his pipe onto his desk, sparks of burnt tobacco skittering across the desk's scarred surface before he retrieved a small pouch from a hidden pocket of his overly large robes, "add to that that the longer you stay here the likely hood of more instances like last week increases," the man struck a match, dipping its flaming tip into the newly stuffed pipe before taking a drag, the motion hiding a sinister grin, "Yes the bridge's construction would go along far smoother if someone else were to take the lead on it." The larger man took another pull from his pipe, the embers lighting up the sharp contorts of his face in a red glow before he exhaled a ring of smoke in Tazuna's face, making the old man splutter and cough as he waved away the offensive smoke.
"Are ya tryin' to get me fired from the construction of a bridge I designed?" growled Tazuna, knowing the longer he stayed in this gangster's presence the shorter the fuse on his temper would become, "and gettin' me fired 'cause of some cursed hogwash the villagers of a foreign land have spouted in jest?"
Naruto watched from the sidelines as Tazuna confronted the man without really paying attention. He was far more interested in watching the movements behind the man. The curtains that hung off of the wall shifted from some unexpected breeze, and Naruto watched amused as the smoke from the man's pipe drifted behind him, indicating a draft of some sort. He wondered if he could pinpoint the exact area using the same trick he had just witnessed with the smoke…
"Hey, Tazuna, is there a window behind that Mustache Guy?" asked Naruto after a few minutes of guesswork, interrupting the arguing pair without much thought to their discussion. Naruto was sure whatever they were discussing wasn't getting anywhere fast; he distinctly remembered accusations and raised voices without any sounds of resolve.
"What are ya talkin' about Naruto?" questioned Tazuna shortly; did this brat ever know when to keep quiet? Tazuna was already bristling from the man's insinuations but having the brat interrupt wasn't helping to calm his growing fury. Tazuna puffed out a breath as he tried to remember why he had invited the brat along hoping the insight would calm him. He was sure there was something about protection in his carefully thought out plan earlier, not that he remembered much from that plan now.
"Hey, Mustache Guy, what's that behind you? How come there's a draft in here?" questioned Naruto, who had become accustomed to having most his questions go unanswered. Naruto looked around him, his sharp eyes taking in more insignificant details, such as a pile of papers on either side of the large man's large desk, or how the only light came from a dim lamp behind Naruto, which cast eerie shadows across Mustache's face, and as Naruto counted shadows he was surprised to only count three, Tazuna's, his, and Mustache's although he thought he had heard a human grunt sound from behind Mustache Guy. Naruto shrugged it off, since he hadn't been paying attention whoever it had been must have snuck off earlier, he knew he had wished he could have. "Don't you know reading and writing in this low light hurts your eyes?"
Mustache however remained oddly silent as he turned his full attention to the blond that had accompanied Tazuna. He hadn't expected the old bridge builder to bring along someone with such sharp eyes. The low lighting of the den usually kept such prying questions away, it was bothersome when they started to ask questions. The large man frowned as he lifted his large hand to unhook the pipe from his clenched teeth, he didn't need to bite through another mouthpiece, as he tipped the bowl of the pipe against the desk, in agitation.
Tazuna perked up, as he watched the embers from the pipe splash over the desk, the red glow lighting up the singed desktop. For a second, Tazuna swore he saw the reflected glow of an ember on polished metal, and Tazuna grew leery as he took an instinctual step back.
"You have a problem, brat?" asked the large man, his face no longer glowing from the flaming tobacco.
"Naw, I was just wondering where all that smoke went!" asked Naruto with a foxy grin that told the mustached man he knew exactly what had happened.
"What!" asked the large man, with far more feeling then Naruto thought was necessary. The large man growled and wondered if that brat had known that there was a special chemical in that smoke that slowly poisoned an individual making them lethargic and weak, enough to bring even the strongest of ninjas to their knees in exhaustion and weakness.
"You should be thanking me!" assured Naruto, "it was suffocating in here! Plus I've been practicing Wind Jutsu's so I just used my jutsus to fan the smoke into that wall with the draft! Really you should be thanking me! The other day I had smoke inhalation, and let me tell you, it is not fun, not even slightly!" proudly declared Naruto as he barely repressed a shudder.
The room had been really rather smoky, nearly overpowering Naruto with its sickly scent. Plus the doctor Tsunami had brought home the other day to check up on Naruto had told him to avoid smoky places until his lungs had cleared themselves out. But really if Naruto was being honest he had just wanted an excuse to practice his control. The crack in the wall was rather small and Naruto had never been the best at precision and… Tazuna and Mustache Man's conversation had been boring, really boring. Naruto smiled, he could already imagine the praise he would receive when he told Kakashi-sensei, Tsunade and Sakura-chan his accomplishment.
The man gasped, and with a speed Naruto hadn't expected from the otherwise languid man the man whipped around in his seat, tearing back the curtain to reveal a crack in a dully colored brick wall, small wisps of smoke spiraling out. A soulless black pupil surfaced in a sea of red, just barely visible in the glow of the room's single lamp. Tazuna's eyes widened in fright and he took a step back at the ominous air coming from that one visible eye alone. The gangster swore loudly, his short, fat fingers clawing at mortar and brick.
Naruto let out one sharp impressed whistle as he clambered his way beside the desperate mustached man, his hands tucked in his pockets, his eyes half lidded with exhaustion after working on the bridge all day. Naruto leant down to look into the crack, but the glow of the lamp on the opposite side of room did nothing to illuminate the man hidden inside the wall.
"That's a rather tricky situation you found yourself in, how come you have a man locked in a wall behind your desk?" Naruto earnestly questioned alternately asking the man behind the wall and mustache guy.
"Shut up you little monster!" crowed the large man, and Naruto was surprised his howling hadn't alerting the man's lackeys on the other side of the door. "Help him! Save him! You did this, now fix it!" howled the man desperately the pipe clenched in his hands falling to the ground, before it was trampled underneath stomping feet. Naruto didn't need long to contemplate the man's request, he was rather fascinated by the action of the black eye in the crack. Naruto watched disinterestedly as the eye began to flutter closed, as if the man in the wall was fighting a losing battle.
"That can't be good," murmured Naruto as he easily summoned a shadow clone to power up a compact Rasengan, trying to calculate the right amount of power to blow a hole in the wall without taking down the whole building.
"Naruto!" cried Tazuna from where he stood, plastered into the wall opposite the commotion, his eyes betraying his surprise as the very air around them began to hum with power, a small blue ball of charka pulsated in anticipation forming in Naruto's hands. The blue glow of energy illuminated the wide grin on the Naruto's faces, turning it sinister, the large, mustached man whimpered and backed away slightly at the apparent bloodthirsty look on the boy nin's face. Naruto and his clone exchanged a nod before a small poof of smoke claimed the space one Naruto once stood, the large man flinched away and he took two giant steps further away from the boy.
"Yah!" grunted Naruto as he thrust the glowing Rasengan into the mortar and brick, hopping backwards when a waterfall of dust and brick washed downwards. Smoke began its reemergence into the room but with one swift, charka enhanced kick to the wall behind the collapsed man sent a rush of clean, damp air and watery lantern light into the den. Naruto coughed as he ran a hand through his earth stained hair, brushing off the grime that clung to his hair. "Huh?" muttered Naruto as he bent down next to the snoozing man, covered from head to toe in red dust.
"Is he—is he alive?" asked Tazuna as he made his way towards Naruto's side, having deemed the structure of the building safe from collapse as well as the reality that the man was truly unconscious. Tazuna sent a pitting scowl towards the shell-shocked gangster a few meters away from the destruction Naruto had wrought.
"Yeah, he's fine," answered Naruto with a wave of his hand, "it's not like a little smoke can kill you."
"Nearly killed you," murmured Tazuna to himself as he reached out to brush some of the soot off of the man, "how'd he get in there? And why is there a secret…" Tazuna paused to look at the room the man had been trapped in, figuring out the right words, "closet in the wall?"
"Hey, hey isn't this that missing nin?" crowed Naruto, when the nin's white blonde hair became apparent in the dull yellow light of the street lamp a few yards away from the building. With careful fingers Naruto rubbed the dirt away from the man's cheeks, in order to get a clear view of the missing nin's more distinct features, the gorging scars on either side of his cheeks, some clan's distinction mark Naruto had been told.
"Well there's tha' money trouble solved," murmured Tazuna as he plopped down beside the hole in the wall, "if we wait here a minute or two those Kumo nin will be right over, no need ta rush things, 'ey Naru-chan?"
Naruto scowled at the nickname, but nodded all the same. Kayane wasn't going anywhere for the next several hours, and if he tried Naruto would be there to happily detain him once again.
Just as Tazuna had predicted a large group of Kumo Nin had been dispatched to investigate the large pull of chakra in the area. Within an hour the missing nin had been collected as had the gangster for all his troubles at the conclusion of the Nin's investigation.
As it turned out the Mustached man had had a run in with the missing nin where he had struck a deal to hide the man away from the tracking nins that were already looking for him. All Kayane had to do was do something for the gangster in return. One of which was to show up at the developing sky bridge as workers arrived and scare them away.
This part of the plan had of course gone awry at Naruto's early arrival and subsequent battle with Kanaye. There had been an instinctual part of Kayane that had reacted to Naruto's arrival, and the missing nin had fought like a dying man for his survival.
In the end both had been caught before they could do anymore damage, and both Naruto and Tazuna had been heavily rewarded.
"Well that was kind of an accident, but so was getting trapped in that city…"
To be continued…
A/N: Sorry it's taken so long, before this was posted it had to go through extensive revision in order to lengthen and improve this chapter. But as a side note, there are only a few more chapters left! I hope to get this story done before I'm off for another semester in college in the spring. Here's to setting goals!
