A Big Crisis

[Fire Coast]

Considering they had technically just completed their first C-rank-turned-B-rank mission successfully, Team 7 didn't look very satisfied.

The kunoichi looked puzzled. "The reference to the fox," she started, "has to be because he was contacted by Gato. There's no other reason he'd know."

"Then Gato must have some kind of leverage on him," concluded Sasuke. "They weren't friends ahead of time; the daimyo agreed to the bridge in the first place. Maybe a bribe, or maybe blackmail."

The trio's sensei weighed in a bit here. "It could really be either way. Gato's known to Konoha as a pretty shady guy."

The blond jinchuriki didn't have as much to offer to the discussion. It was a little annoying, actually; he felt pretty useless here. Also, it didn't help that his presence, whether they knew it was specifically him or not, was the excuse used to kick them out. He couldn't come up with any clever plans like Sakura, nor could he really understand all the implications of what was going on here.

"If, and that's a fairly big if, the daimyo kicked us out due to blackmail," began Kakashi, "then we might be able to figure out what Gato's got against the man." That was...fairly conditional. "Basically, I don't think any of you want to leave Wave as it is now, do you?"

The kunoichi shook her head, no doubt remembering what the people on the street had been like. They'd had a chance to see them before their infiltration was underway, and it was...bad. Not enough food, too-poor of spirits, even with the news that Gato seemed to be leaving. The blond jinchuriki shook his head, not happy about letting this failure stand. The raven-haired shinobi grunted and shook his head slightly, his exact reasoning still a mystery to the blond.

"Well, we'll head back. Sneakily, like ninjas. Imagine that."

"How...how are we going back?" asked the kunoichi tentatively.

Tenzo-sensei, the blond concluded mentally.

"My colleague from the ANBU has alternative transport available, once the morning fog sets in again," said Kakashi with his mysterious eye-based smile.

Probably a freshly-grown boat, with some manner of wood-style-based propulsion, the jinchuriki supposed.

[Fire Coast]

Before sunrise the next morning, when the fog had settled over the sea again, the jinchuriki's suspicions were confirmed when the assembled Team 7 saw, floating on a boat near the shore, the blond's favorite sensei (not to knock Kakashi or Iruka, but Tenzo was important for some very practical reasons, and had helped him greatly through recent troubles).

They had a plan. Infiltrate the Land of Waves itself, this time, under transformations or, in the blond's case, plain old disguises and stealth. Determine the daimyo's motivations, and if they were solvable. The jinchuriki was instrumental here. Rather than trying to actually get into the daimyo's estate, he could get nearby and focus on his negative emotion sensing. If the daimyo was feeling primarily fear, it was likely blackmail. If not, bribery. If the latter, there was nothing to be done. If the former, they'd have to investigate more closely. They'd leave this to Kakashi-sensei, as the most experienced infiltrator in their team, since being discovered now could have serious long-term consequences. From there on, they'd have to reconvene and decide if they could do something.

They filed onto the wooden boat Tenzo had prepared, and set off quietly for the Land of Waves once again.

[Land of Waves]

The Wave Daimyo's estate wasn't a remarkably fancy building, nor particularly well-guarded. A few guards, though the blond couldn't say if they were native guards or Gato's, were easily evaded as the boy approached the estate. The building was designed for a family, but when he felt inside, he could only feel negative emotion from one source. It was overwhelmingly fear. Fear of serious loss.

'Fear', he signalled to his silver-haired sensei when he returned to the team.

Kakashi went off in his deeper investigation, his disguise that of one of Gato's goons. Somewhat surprisingly to the blond, this was sufficient for the guards to allow him in. He supposed Kakashi had identified one of the higher-ranking goons at some point. He supposed the allegedly permanent withdrawal was still underway, so a major goon still being around wasn't too much suspicion.

[Land of Waves]

The official sensei of Team 7 returned some time later to the previously determined meeting point with a "Yo" and a description of what he found, written on a scroll.

"So, it's blackmail, like Naruto thought; good job on that, by the way," he began. "In particular, the blackmail material is the Wave Daimyo's family: his wife Keiko, his mother Haru, and his daughter Kimiko."

He then produced photographs of the two in front of a wall with plain papering, both holding a recent publication to give proof of the date. "They were taken recently, the women and the photographs that is, in the time period when we were first on the island." Kakashi had gotten some fairly detailed info.

"Gato threatened that 'something real unfortunate' might happen, if the daimyo didn't get the ninjas off of Wave soon." Kakashi had found...Gato's specific quote? "Gato also said to let the bridge building just commence as planned. It was in his interests, he said."

"Their exact locations aren't known, but we do know that Gato's checking up on it," the silver-haired jounin continued. "It's essentially a dead man switch. If 'something real unfortunate' happened to 'that short, fat fuck', then those three would be dead." What...what was on that scroll, anyway? How did Kakashi decipher all this very specific detail, down to actual quotes in so little time? The blond tried to lean in for a closer look, only for Kakashi to pull it in, where he couldn't see.

"So, mission parameters are: find the Wave Daimyo's wife and mother and bring them back unharmed, along with any other Wave citizens Gato may be holding hostage in this manner, and then, if possible, apprehend Gato himself," he finished. Then, as an afterthought: "I should note, this mission ranks somewhere between B and A due to complexity, even with no significant threat of enemy ninja, and certainly A-rank in political importance." ...Mission? Rank? The blond caught a glimpse of the scroll. It was...a damn mission request. With the Wave Daimyo's signature and everything, and a specific fee amount, to be paid upon completion. Kakashi hadn't "investigated" a damn thing; he had just straight up asked the man. The jinchuriki couldn't decide if it was stupid or brilliant.

"Are you sure you wish to do this?" he asked of them. Three nods of heads, and then an answering eye-smile. "Then, let's go. Congratulations, Team 7; you get to save a princess on your first outing from the village."

Huh. The Daimyo's daughter counted, the blond supposed.

[Land of Waves]

The search was under way, but pretty fruitless, so far. Kakashi had summoned dogs (apparently something the man could do) in order to track the hostages by scent, since the jinchuriki's equivalent wasn't working very well in that country. That had lead them fairly quickly to...a dock. And a boat on the dock, clearly devoid of the hostages.

"Of course," sighed their silver-haired sensei. "He took them off Wave entirely."

"To where?" asked Sakura reasonably. "Geographically speaking, there's not much but Wave to reach with a boat like this. The Land of Fire, maybe, but why would he take the hostages to a location where his enemies have more authority?" Reasonable enough. Wave was off the southern coast of Fire; for a long ways in either direction, Fire was the only thing around. If they went west a really long ways, they'd eventually get to the Land of Rivers, maybe, but not in a boat of the size they had found. "They've got patrol boats, even if there are a lot fewer and they've stopped harassing people. Probably around under excuse of 'overseeing the withdrawal'. It may have just been easier to move them via boat than on land, especially if they weren't cooperative."

"So...just search all of Wave?" wondered the blond.

"Looks like it," responded the sensei.

They'd then moved on to check what they'd identified before as typical gathering points for Gato's mercs, and hadn't found what they were looking for; they hadn't even found mercs. The blond hadn't felt any significant fear in the defensible areas while they were slinking quietly around, nor had Kakashi's dogs picked up any other trace. Nothing near Gato's mansion, either. Unrelated to the search itself, they had also checked on Tazuna while they were around, but found the family of three essentially as they were before, though the jinchuriki definitely felt looming fear over them. At least they hadn't been caught up in this hostage crisis.

"This is taking too long," Sasuke said finally. "There's too much of Wave to just keep scanning like this; the scent trail won't last forever."

"Sasuke brings up an excellent point," remarked Kakashi. "We need a way to search a wider area more quickly." He looked carefully at the jinchuriki now. "I can think of one..." What was...

...oh. "Umm," the blond began, "I'd...I'd rather...not..." he finished weakly.

"Your sense range is greater while transformed. If you really push it, how much do you think you could cover?" he asked.

"W-wait, you're going to have him transform?" asked Sakura suddenly. "H-here? In the middle of a foreign country, one we're supposedly barred from entering?" 'Near me?' the blond imagined her adding, with a frown.

"Why not? It gets us what we need, lets us find the princess, and the...um...queen, and, err, older queen...what does the rest of the daimyo's family count as?" he continued, getting a little lost in his own swiftly-collapsing metaphor.

He hadn't really tried to think of it, before. He'd really rather not sense so many negative emotions, but he supposed his full range was probably quite high. "I...I don't really know about the full sensing range; I've not tried it."

"Anyway, I bet it'll let us find the daimyo's family much faster."

"He's just...I don't really like it when he transforms," the kunoichi admitted, a little lamely, but with a small nod of agreement from Sasuke. The blond could feel the fear again from the memories being brought up, and he again wanted to punch himself in the face.

"He's not so bad, usually," Kakashi said. "You just caught him at a bad time. Hey, Tenzo, support me here!" He motioned to the ANBU. "You're with him all the time, right? Normally, when he's transformed, he's just like a big stuffed animal."

The ANBU seemed to visibly falter at that. "Err. Yes, normally Naruto is a model shinobi and jinchuriki." The blond could've sworn he heard him disbelievingly muttering "Stuffed animal?" under his breath. "Despite that, though, there's still the issue of making a scene."

Kakashi-sensei had a solution to that, too, though. "We'll hide him in the ocean." For some definition of "solution". "No, hear me out," he began again, sensing that his team may not be immediately on board with the idea. "He transforms in deep enough water, tails down, to hide himself. He can sense as far out as he can, and then point us to them."

"I cannot revert his transformation in the water. We'd have to go out on land, and it'd be hard to stay fully hidden for the entire process," objected Tenzo.

"Then leave him transformed until we've picked up the hostages and saved the day," Kakashi responded, as if that was a simple solution.

The blond wasn't fully happy with it, but he didn't have any better plan. "Okay," he said, somewhat to the surprise of the ANBU, he suspected.

[Wave Coast]

The jinchuriki swam out a ways through the fog of the next morning, trying to stay on top of the waves. Thank goodness for swimming as a practical shinobi class. When he was what he judged to be far enough out, he began to release the fox's chakra from the seal, consciously bypassing the delay. In a moment, a somewhat larger wave struck the beach, displaced by the now fully-formed and mostly-submerged demonic fox.

"And 'Operation: Fuzzy Whale Sonar' is a go," he heard Kakashi remark. The blond had clearly not objected strongly enough to that name.

For a moment, he reflected on the smells, keeping his nose just above the water. Salt water, definitely still there. Fish, also still very present. But finally besides that, the smell of Team 7, the somewhat wooden scent of his cat-masked sensei, and, distinctly, the somewhat more wooden scent of...well, the woods. But, enough of that.

Pushing out his senses, he tried to scan for negative emotion as far out as he could. What he felt was...not the same as Konoha, but not that far off. He normally could feel fear, primal fear of being eaten or crushed, by himself, as the most frequent negative emotion. Disconcerting, certainly. Here? Hunger, primal fear of danger, but slightly different, fear of losing loved ones, guilt...but not the very sharp fear he was thinking of.

He stretched his senses further. More of the same, plus the daimyo's own massive fear for his family, but not the sharp fear of imminent danger. Further out, really concentrating, and...behind him, somewhere. Behind, out at sea. There it was, three sharp fears, one less developed, probably the daughter. No wonder they couldn't find them on Wave...

"Irn thr wrblrlrgle," he gurgled uselessly. Right. Ocean, water, lack of air. Being in the form of molded demonic chakra that didn't actually need to breath made him forget that his mouth wasn't actually in the air any more. Slightly raising his mouth, he could speak more effectively. "In the water."

"Oh? Heh. Clever," remarked the cycloptic jounin. "They must've been doing the hostage checks and Gato counter-checks on their normal patrols. Tenzo, I think we're going for another voyage now."

Soon, the remainder of Team 7 plus a clone that looked like his own human self was on Tenzo's boat again, following a vague shape just beneath the waves and couple ear tips just peeking above the water level.

[Ocean]

Smelling salt water everywhere was one thing. Being submerged in it to the very tips of the fox's ears for an extended duration was something else. Ugh. And it was cold, too. At least he wasn't going to drown, though the few times he had opened the fox's eyes, he'd felt the sting of salt water in them and quickly closed them. Sensing all the way, then. Still, he would be happy when he could get out of the ocean and get Tenzo-sensei to dispel this wet fur.

They had been travelling awhile, somewhere east of Wave. Gato hadn't just put the hostages between Fire and Wave, but at least he hadn't put them further out into the sea. Now, though, it was getting close.

He felt something poke his back, the signal to stop. He moved one ear, his right ear, back and forth a moment, so they'd see his acknowledgement, then slapped the water with the tip lightly 3 times, for 3 hostages. Two showed a great amount of fear, the third showed somewhat less. He then submerged that ear and slapped the water once with his other ear, for one other person, probably hostile, feeling a vague discontent and, he suspected, extreme boredom. Finally, right ear again, 12 light slaps for about 12 minutes before the next patrol boat, which he could faintly sense due to someone on it suffering from depression of some form. Well, he'd lead them here and given them the information he had. Now it was time to wait see if they needed any help...