Disclaimer: Naruto isn't mine. If it was, fans would probably come to my house and murder me for taking forever to update.
Author's note: Really sorry about the lack of updates. My laptop died and the only computer I could use was one that was really public. My family members kept stopping by to see what I was typing, and I can't work like that.
Other updates will probably be spread out, but hopefully not this much.
To Ser Serendipity: That's a really good question, and probably not. I didn't even think of that.
Beta-ed by ECDL
Rin's POV
Last time with Rin
Currently she was worthless though. Provided she could catch this ninja off-guard, there was a small chance that she could escape, but she had just started medical ninjutsu training, and with her speed he would likely kill her before she could even draw a weapon.
Without any other option, she made up her mind and cautiously followed her teammate's imposter.
Following the fake Obito was nerve-wracking. Whenever he would talk to her she would flinch.
Luckily she had been able to pretend that she was on edge due to danger from enemy ninja.
At first she had wanted to run, but they were being followed, and certainly not by one of Rin's teammates.
She had tried calling for her sensei and Kakashi, but the fake had put a stop to that quickly. After all, it was stupid to be loud when avoiding an enemy. So for now the only hope that she had was stalling them.
She wished that she could have kept the seal Minato had placed on her apron-skirt.
Unfortunately, fake Obito had requested that she leave it behind as a marker. When she'd suggested the bracelet Obito had given her in its place, he had immediately refused, meaning he knew about the seal. He'd also argued that it would help Kakashi track them better if he needed to find them, meaning that he knew at least some of Kakashi's skill set.
After that she had focused on determining who these people were.
The seal her sensei had created was of interest outside of Konoha.
So why didn't these people want it if they knew about it? More importantly, why were they going out of their way to take her when they should have been convinced that she didn't have the scroll? Then, even further, did they know that her team, which had never been assigned a C-rank before, would be assigned this particular mission? Or were they collecting information on all Konoha ninja and her team was just unlucky? And was she their target, or were they trying to take them all out separately?
They finally reached an open area where the dirt road ended and Rin was sure that they were almost to the village.
Minato had informed them that there was a rock outcrop that stretched for about a mile before they would reach the village, and she could now see it about twenty feet ahead.
This was the last chance that she would have, and she carefully pulled a kunai from her pocket, having tied an exploding tag to the end of it as they walked. Before he could react, she threw it towards him and activated it, breaking into a run.
They hadn't been expecting that from her, but it only delayed them for a moment. Before she had reached the rocks, she was thrown from her feet onto her back, and someone was pinning her to the ground.
"You're losing your touch if you're getting knocked around by a little genin," the man above her laughed. He wasn't huge, but big enough to keep her from throwing him off of her. Taking a guess on his age, he seemed a little older than her sensei.
After struggling and failing to break free, she turned in time to see the imposter shed her henge. She was quite a bit older than her partner, though Rin supposed that her hair was more genetics than anything. The woman wasn't old enough to have completely white hair after all.
The exploding tag hadn't done much, it seemed. The woman's sleeve had been burnt, and there was a small amount of blood dripping to the ground, but there had been no other damage.
The woman scoffed at her partner.
"All that means is she's not as much of a burden to her village as she seems," the woman told him edgily, before looking down at Rin who was struggling to free herself from the man's grip.
"It doesn't matter though, she's still not all that skilled," Rin tried to move away from the hand that reached out to her, but it was no use, and a moment later everything went black.
Obito's POV
Last time with Obito
The only warning they got was the sound of the leaves rustling as the man flew at them from their left.
Obito didn't have time to do anything as the man moved faster than he could keep up with, ax aimed at his side.
He'd barely had enough time to close his eyes in preparation for the impact from the ax that would chop him in two, only to hear the sound of metal against metal.
Opening his eyes revealed Kakashi, struggling to hold the ax away from him as the man applied more force. The short-sword was planted in the ground, with the kunai Obito had given Kakashi was pressed firmly against the hilt of his sword and the only thing holding the ax back.
Kakashi was slipping back as the man continued to apply force, though he was barely moving. The kunai was glowing with a light blue chakra, and the short-sword was a blinding white.
"Move," Kakashi ground out, and Obito complied readily.
The short-sword was no match for the ax since it was obviously made for slicing and not blocking or anchoring as Kakashi was using it for. Even though the ax wasn't pressed against the blade, he could see that it was starting to bend and would likely shatter if Kakashi slipped back any further. Kakashi's chakra was probably the only thing that had prevented it for even that long since the ax should have destroyed it immediately upon impact.
As soon as Obito was clear, Kakashi quickly moved his foot and kicked, forcing the shaft of the ax to move upward as he dropped to the ground and freed his short-sword in one move before rolling out of the way as the ax came down once again.
"I'd heard Konoha ninja were skilled," the man said, laughter evident in his voice as he pulled the ax back up, "but I didn't think that applied to the baby genin," the ax swung down again, narrowly missing Kakashi's right shoulder.
"Looks like this won't be boring," the man laughed and brought the ax down again, grazing Kakashi's left leg. The next blow cut clean through the metal of Kakashi's wrist guard, narrowly missing his wrist which he'd turned at the last second.
The man wasn't giving Kakashi any time to rise from the ground. Kakashi was only fast enough to stay alive. Despite his size and the amount of armor he was wearing, this man was extremely fast. Had Obito gotten directly involved, he would have been killed immediately.
Luckily for him, because Kakashi was staying low to the ground. Obito could attack from a distance without worry of harming his teammate.
He climbed up a tree, and after making the appropriate hand seals he sent a fireball flying towards the enemy, forcing him to dodge and allowing Kakashi to make a quick escape.
The chuunin appeared on a branch next to Obito a moment later, panting harshly.
"Can you regulate how hot that technique gets?" he asked urgently, digging through the bag at Obito's side.
"Yes. Why?" Obito asked in confusion. Now really wasn't the time to be talking techniques like this. And did Obito not have whatever Kakashi was looking for?
The chuunin had stopped digging a moment later without pulling anything out.
"As soon as he swings his ax down the next time, use it on those puddles. Make it as hot as you can," Kakashi ordered, jumping back into the fight.
Obito frowned, but didn't even think to question the order.
Obito kept a close eye on the two and Kakashi slammed his hands down on the ground and rolled away as the ax swung down once more. As requested, he started the technique and sent out the fireball a second before the ax struck the ground.
He yelped as there was a hissing sound and steam covered the area, nearly burning him due to its intensity, before he'd been able to move away.
He couldn't see Kakashi or the man, but he heard the scream of rage and possibly pain from the enemy plainly enough.
Moving lower to the ground, he waited for the steam to clear somewhat. He kept on guard though, if this man could sense chakra then he would be able to find Obito readily since he didn't have the amount of control that most of the Uchiha seemed to have.
When the steam finally let up, he was surprised to see Kakashi struggling to stand, using the broken hilt of the ax to help himself up with his left hand, holding the short sword in his right.
Where the ax had come down, the broken hilt stuck out of the earth and he realized that Kakashi had somehow sunk it into the ground with a technique.
From the looks of it, he'd also cemented the thing in place.
That had been a good idea for taking out the weapon, but the man was furious, and Kakashi was having difficulty moving.
The chuunin's skin was bright red, and had Obito been closer he was sure he would have seen that Kakashi's skin had blistered from the burns that he'd received due to Obito's technique. He didn't seem to be burned as badly as the man was though, having known to move back as soon as he'd done his part.
Looking at the enemy nin, he could see bright red skin around his exposed neck, and judging by the metal he was trapped in, he'd probably been injured even more than he should have been.
Kakashi had barely gotten to his feet when the man rushed in his direction, sending Kakashi crashing into a tree and forcing him to release the short-sword.
Kakashi fought to rise and this time Obito intervened, after using another fireball, he lunged for the man's back with a kunai, aiming for his shoulder, just between the armor plates.
He didn't make it, the man whirled around, catching Obito in the chest, and throwing him several feet away, making him cry out in pain as he struck a tree.
Kakashi's POV
Kakashi was close to passing out.
He had used too much chakra in several of his techniques before meeting up with Obito. Keeping the boy from being sliced in two had also required a lot of chakra. Otherwise, it was obvious that the kunai and short-sword both would have shattered from the way the ax went clean through his metal wrist guard like it was butter.
Stopping the force from the ax had required still more. He'd had to keep himself stuck tightly to the ground, and from being pushed back, and keep his less developed muscles from giving out under the force.
Not to mention the two techniques that he'd just performed in succession, the Quicksand Technique and the Ground Solidification Technique, he hadn't practiced with. They were upper level techniques, but they had been the first ones that had popped into his head. Otherwise he wouldn't have used them since they required nearly all of his remaining reserves.
All of that, coupled with the fact that had been burned quite badly, didn't bode well for him. Right now he was just thankful that he had been able to move back from the steam quickly, as well as close his eyes to keep from being blinded.
He could barely move though, and his vision was blurring due to exhaustion as he tried to focus. His limbs felt like jelly now that he was no longer moving, and he knew it was only a matter of time before he was killed.
Obito had tried to help, but he was way too outclassed by this guy.
Kakashi knew this man by reputation, he'd been in the bingo books as a Kiri nin, S-class, seeking to take over for Akebino Jinin, who was one of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist. The swordsman wielded a sword called Kabutowari, a sword with an ax on one side, and then a hammer on the other.
Kakashi wasn't certain how, but the man they were currently fighting had been labeled as a missing nin and had never been seen again. At least, Konoha had no records of encountering him in the future before a bounty collector had marked him as dead.
He could only hope that he was remembering things wrong and the Konoha team that had had this mission the first time around had had not run into him and killed him. Otherwise he'd really screwed things up.
He saw Obito crash into a tree harshly, and futilely attempted to rise and continue fighting. He was sure that at least one of his own ribs had cracked when he'd been slammed into the tree, and only a small surge of chakra had left his spine intact. And Obito wasn't as adept at chakra manipulation at this point, so he had probably taken quite a bit of damage.
Kakashi hoped that maybe Obito would realize that they were too outmatched and run while Kakashi distracted the enemy, though he knew that the Uchiha wouldn't abandon him, and that in his current state he wouldn't be much of a distraction.
He had tried and failed to push himself up once again, when the man that was rushing towards him was struck from behind with a large number of what appeared to be senbon.
His furious expression changed to a pained one, and he turned around quickly, only to find himself sinking into the earth. He swore.
"Can you move kid?" Kakashi weakly turned to look at their rescuer, and concentrated on him, trying to identify the man, but failing as his vision blurred further and his eyes tried to slam shut.
"Uchiha, get him out of here," the man ordered. Kakashi felt someone moving him, and found that thankfully Obito must not have been very injured. The Uchiha placed his arm over his shoulder and then another hand around his waist before moving them both away from the battle.
They stopped a short ways away and he heard Obito ask him something as he was lowered slightly to the ground, but it was muffled and he couldn't make it out.
"Find sensei," he requested weakly before biting his thumb and slamming it onto the ground, using his last bit of chakra to summon Pakkun.
Shikaku's POV
Last time with the Ino-Shika-Cho Team
Their situation looked pretty bad.
While Inoichi tracking them would help a rescue team locate them faster, it would take a while to get them help, and that was provided Inoichi could even reach Konoha and alert someone to their predicament before he ran out of chakra.
The only reason that they had been kept alive, as far as Chouza was concerned, was so that Kumo could gather information. Otherwise it would have been a waste of time to treat their injuries and relocate them.
And if Inoichi could get them help, there was no guarantee it would be before they had talked.
After all, everybody talked, it was just a question of how long they could resist the enemy's methods.
He woke with a start, and immediately glanced around the room wildly before the memories rushed back to him and he fell back into the bed, resisting the urge to groan. The sound of shouting reached him, which could only mean one thing. Inoichi was awake.
"Damn it Inoichi. You ended up getting this injured for only getting us two pieces of information," The woman, Mimura, shouted at him.
"Two pieces of information that led you to our location," Inoichi's voice was audible as he shouted back, but Shikaku could hear the hoarseness in it.
Mimura Kimi had grown up with Inoichi, mainly due to a marriage contract that had been set up as soon as the girl had been born.
Usually the two got along, but when it came to how they acted as ninja, they couldn't reach common ground. Inoichi preferred to think that they were ninja, but also humans.
Mimura was of the group that thought once a person became a ninja, they were a ninja. Any minute they weren't out doing missions to protect the village, shinobi should be pushing themselves to become stronger. She expected that, as her fiancé, Inoichi would do the same.
Shikaku dreaded the day the two would marry and be forced to produce an heir.
"You could have given us more. That damn bird you hitched a ride in is being taken care of in the aviary, meaning you had more time," she argued.
"Yes, more time to fight against the bird's mind and perhaps deplete my reserves even further with nothing to show for it," Inoichi shot back.
"Had you destroyed the thing's mind you wouldn't have had to fight it."
Shikaku winced. Unlike his father, Inoichi wasn't as practiced at such a technique. He'd accidently done so when practicing his techniques on animals, but had focused on making sure that it didn't happen and it had been years since he'd made a mistake like that.
Inoichi's main goal when entering an animal's mind, after all, was to spy. It was much more believable if he just nudged the animal in the correct direction. Destroying the creature's mind meant taking full control of its body, and that meant Inoichi would have to focus on mimicking the animal's movements, and spying.
The bird that he had used had apparently followed them for quite a while, and Inoichi would have been caught had he been forced to take full control of it, the movements would have been completely unnatural.
Mimura didn't understand that it would have also wasted more chakra for Inoichi to be forced to fly the bird's body back, rather than to have it carry him to Konoha.
Inoichi would have also depleted his reserves more than someone like his father, who destroyed minds without a second though as long as his victim wasn't a Konoha ninja or ally. Besides, Inoichi had gotten them rescued, so really this shouldn't have been an issue.
As always though, Kimi was overreacting, and not giving Inoichi any time to explain himself. In a moment she would offend his blonde teammate and get thrown out of the room.
"You could have waited for instruction from Nara-sama. Instead you just gave up," she accused.
Shikaku winced at that, feeling a surge of anger as well.
"I did not give up. My technique was weakening, I didn't have enough chakra to stay and the hawk was fighting so hard that I wouldn't have been able to concen-," he was cut off by a banging sound, likely made by Mimura.
"You left its mind intact. Damn it Inoichi. I have no idea how you made it to jounin with how soft you are," she lectured.
"Out," he demanded in a dangerously calm voice.
Shikaku was sure that Inoichi had a pretty terrible headache, he always did when suffering chakra exhaustion, and for some time after. This argument wouldn't be helping any.
With that in mind, Shikaku forced himself out of bed, wincing as he stressed his ribs, before moving towards the room. He hadn't been allowed up and around as much as he would have liked. The doctors had ordered him on bed rest until his ribs were healed a bit more and Yoshino had made sure to enforce it whenever she visited.
Besides, it wasn't as if there was anything he could have done before now, Inoichi had been put into a medically induced coma when he'd been brought in as a precaution, and Chouza wasn't even in the hospital.
"Excuse me?" Shikaku winced as her voice grew louder.
"I put my full effort into this mission, as I have done with every other. Killing it wouldn't have helped, so don't you dare accuse me of putting my teammates lives and Konoha's safety as anything but top priority," even though she hadn't explicitly said it, that was obviously what she was thinking.
She had basically just implied that she thought he would have tried to spare the hawk at the expense of his teammate's lives.
"You-," she started, but Shikaku cut her off as he stepped into the room, "were suffering severe chakra exhaustion and all of your visitors were given strict instructions to alert the hospital staff if there were any changes in your condition," he finished for her before turning to Mimura.
"I'm sure you feel your reasons outweigh the pesky 'don't stress him out,' rule, but for now let's pretend that Inoichi's health is more important than lecturing him for successfully completing a mission," Shikaku suggested coldly.
"I'm his fiancé, and-," Shikaku cut her off again, "and he already has my condolences for that, and will receive copious amounts of aspirin as a wedding gift. Now leave," he ordered.
"You can't talk to me like-," Mimura words were halted once again, but this time not by Shikaku.
"You heard him. He said out. This is a hospital and there are more people here than just you. I won't have my patients stressed out because of your issues. Now leave," the new voice right behind him made Shikaku cringe.
Tsunade of the sannin was a great ninja, and definitely somebody you didn't want to piss off.
He half-expected Mimura to argue back, it would be just like her. Thankfully for the two, as well as the nearby rooms, she didn't, just glared at the two that had thrown her out as she left.
Once she was gone, Tsunade moved forward to check Inoichi's injuries.
Inoichi had been in the coma for three days before the staff had deemed it safe to stop the treatment. This usually wasn't a treatment that they employed, but for the Yamanaka, which had more developed chakra pathways in their brains, it was the safest route for them to take. Unlike normal chakra exhaustion which was usually bad for the chakra coils and the body as a whole, Inoichi's mind had been in danger. The coma had been a precautionary measure until his chakra levels had increased.
They had kept him on a mild sedative after they had brought him out of it, just to make sure that stress wouldn't aggravate his condition. After all, there had been several Yamanaka in the history of Konoha that had been driven insane when they'd overdone their techniques before, something not found with the regular effects of chakra exhaustion.
They obviously hadn't counted on Mimura being here though.
Looking him over at his teammate who was answering some of Tsunade's questions, he could see that Inoichi was alert, and his earlier fight with Mimura, while not ideal, was encouraging.
"You're fine for now brat. Someone will be in with something for you to eat in a little while," she told him, before turning to Shikaku with a glare.
"You can stay, but if you stress him out or aggravate your injuries…" she left the threat hanging in the air as she walked out of the room.
"You shouldn't have talked to Kimi like that," Inoichi said disapprovingly.
"She was just trying-,"
"I don't care what she was 'just trying,' to do. She was aware of the protocol, and ignored it," Shikaku told him stubbornly as he moved to take the chair that Kimi had probably vacated before he'd arrived.
Inoichi just sighed at that, by now probably knowing that trying to get the two to get along was a lost cause.
"I'm guessing that shouting match wasn't preceded by an update of what's happening," Shikaku said lazily as he shifted in the chair to a more comfortable position for his ribs.
Unless Inoichi had asked, Tsunade wouldn't have told him, seeing no need to further stress her patient, and there hadn't been enough time for her to explain everything in any case.
Inoichi sighed and shook his head.
"No. I mean, all I remember is us getting out of that house, but I must have passed out," he replied.
Shikaku snorted. Of course he had. The idiot had been suffering from chakra exhaustion when he'd used another technique. He told him as much and Inoichi just nodded, seemingly deep in thought.
Shikaku sighed.
"Chouza's in the T&I Department, first floor. At his request," he explained without prompting.
Inoichi frowned at that, and Shikaku couldn't blame him. The basement of the T&I Department was where the torture and interrogation took place. The upper floors though, were for recovery purposes.
Chouza had been tortured upon their capture, and he'd panicked the few times he'd woken up after their rescue. While this sort of recovery wasn't required, Chouza knew techniques that could level buildings if he didn't become aware of his surroundings in time, so he'd checked himself in as a precaution.
Yoshino was there right now to check up on him.
"Why the hell didn't Kimi tell me?" Inoichi demanded, shifting to sit up.
Shikaku had several reasons as to why she hadn't told him anything. For some reason though, Inoichi took offense when Shikaku gave his opinion on the woman, so he kept his mouth shut as Inoichi finally managed to sit up and lean back against the pillows provided.
"How long were we held?" he finally asked tiredly when Shikaku didn't respond.
Shikaku shrugged, he'd attempted to figure it out, but had only gotten a range for how long Chouza had been tortured, which was what Inoichi had been asking.
"We were found in a house several miles from Kumo, but close enough that it had to have taken us five days to get there, nine at most if they took time to cover their tracks. Considering we arrived in Konoha seven days ago and it took us eleven days to get here without alerting the enemy to our presence, I'd guess we were held for between nine and twelve days," he replied.
That was as close as he could estimate. Thankfully the ninja that had held them were incompetent in medical ninjutsu and weren't able to call for any sort of aid. While usually that would be a bad thing, that was the only thing keeping them in their location.
It seemed their orders had been to take Shikaku and Inoichi. Chouza wasn't necessary, but would have been taken as well, had Shikaku and Inoichi recovered enough to move to a new location.
Flashback
Shikaku woke abruptly to the sound of screaming. Immediately, he tried to calm himself and feign sleep, apparently succeeding if the voices in the room with him were anything to go by. Another scream rang out, before everything went completely silent.
"Think he's unconscious again?" one of the voices near him questioned.
"Probably. The bastards pretty resilient. We'll have difficulty with the other two if the weakest member of their team is this resistant to our techniques," a second voice stated.
Shikaku internally smirked. Chouza was always underestimated, by both enemy ninja and comrades. He was easily dismissed because Shikaku was being trained to take over for the jounin commander, and was well-known for his strategies, and Inoichi was training to become the head of the Torture and Interrogation Division.
They never seemed to hold the Akimichi clan all that highly either, and ignored the fact that Chouza would one day be clan head.
Often he was passed over as just another jounin, and while jounin were all considered highly skilled, people seemed to elevate Shikaku and Inoichi to a status above that.
Shikaku had always felt that Chouza would hold up under physical torture better than he would, a close second to Inoichi who could dissociate from pain.
After a few more minutes he was able to reasonably guess that they were in a safe house of some sort with several guards, and that they had yet to be taken to their kidnapper's final destination.
"We'll have to wait until the others arrive," one of them said in annoyance as they went out the door, leaving Shikaku alone.
His eyes immediately snapped open as he took in his surroundings. As he thought, he was alone in this room. While he already knew Chouza was somewhere else, Inoichi wasn't here either.
After an attempt to move that ended in a lot of pain, he decided to buy them a bit more time. So he closed his eyes, concentrating on forcing shadows to cover his entire body. It was hard, and the reason he didn't use shadows in this manner in battle. Without hand seals he was slow and it was difficult to shape them as well.
Thankfully they had underestimated him, much like they had Chouza.
Whoever had planned this didn't have much intel on them, though they seemed to know who Inoichi and Shikaku were to Konoha. True, Shikaku had been injured enough that he'd been unconscious, and it was likely Inoichi was in the same situation if they were only commenting on Chouza.
Shikaku's chakra wasn't sealed though, and he wasn't guarded at all times. Plus there were the guards that spoke with one another and, albeit unintentionally, fed him information.
As soon as his shadow was in the proper locations, he forced a lot more chakra through it and wrapped around his limbs tightly before he pulled, biting back a scream as several of his bones broke. His breath was now coming in harsh gasps. He'd made sure to break a couple of ribs and they were very close to puncturing his lung. '
Hopefully that bought us some more time,' he thought dimly as his vision blurred. He heard the sound of people rushing in, no doubt having sensed the massive amount of chakra that he used, as he passed out. This method would only work once, he would be watched and unable to do anything of this scale after today.
When he'd next woke, it had been to an ANBU undoing the bonds, and he'd been too tired and in pain to verify that that was who it was. It wasn't as if he could fight them after all. He passed out again when they shifted him upright and pain crashed down on him.
After that he'd woke several times, enough to know that he was indeed back in the company of Konoha ninja.
Inuzuka Tsume and her ninken, as well as Aburame Shibi had led the rescue party to them. The team consisted of two ANBU, and a medic. While that wasn't the ideal size of a rescue party, especially for three people, it was likely all that could be spared.
Shikaku had been informed that Konoha was probably going to war, and the Hokage had been sending out ninja left and right in an attempt to discover if this was the case.
Inoichi had been unconscious for the first day of their escape, but had woken once or twice on the second. He was suffering from chakra exhaustion, and would have continued to recover, had they not been ambushed by several ninja lacking headbands a day before they were to reach Konoha.
Inoichi had used up all the chakra that he'd recovered saving one of the ANBU.
Chouza had woken up several times, but they'd been forced to sedate him when he'd panicked, not able to do much else if they didn't wish to broadcast their location.
End Flashback
Of course, both Inoichi and Shikaku would be reprimanded for their conduct.
As Mimura had said, Inoichi had allowed the hawk to live, which meant he had ended his technique early and spared its life, which in most people's minds mean that he had endangered the three. After all, Inohiko skillfully used it in a more destructive manner easily and Inoichi would be expected to be able to do the same. The council didn't like Inoichi much, and would see any explanation he gave as an excuse.
Shikaku though, would be in a great deal of trouble for breaking the Shinobi Rule that stated "a ninja must be willing to take their own life to prevent information from falling into enemy hands".
Instead of just injuring himself when he'd been given the chance, he should have ended his own life or fought against the enemy to escape, ending his teammate's lives before killing himself if he wasn't completely sure he could get away. Of course, the rules were slightly more relaxed than they had been before, most of these were guidelines, but because of the amount of information that he and Inoichi held, the council wished to speak with them.
Shikaku had always had a bit of trouble dealing with the council members. They were quite intelligent, especially Danzo, but they thought much the same as Mimura. In their minds, the fact that he'd been relying on Inoichi to get help with only the assumption that Inoichi would, wasn't good enough.
The Hokage, from what Shikaku knew of the man, would agree with the measures that both had taken. Shikaku had wanted to protect his teammates, and his action had both prevented their movement further into enemy territory, and bought them time for people to find them.
He sighed when he saw that Inoichi was deep in thought again.
He smirked.
"You know, she's right, but I don't mind that you're soft," he said as he rose and moved back to his room, smirk widening when Inoichi called after him, demanding to know what he'd meant.
His teammate was fun to mess with sometimes.
Kakashi's POV
"Looks like he got you hurt again," Kakashi whirled around at the sound of the voice to find nobody behind him.
It was completely black around him. He was sure it wasn't darkness because he could see his hands easily.
"Who's there?" he demanded. While usually he would remain cautious, he couldn't sense anything around him, despite knowing somebody was there. The voice was strange, very familiar, but at the same time there was nothing distinct about it.
"You should have just run and allowed the threat to be taken out before everything could occur," the voice told him.
"You wanted me to leave Obito behind?" Kakashi demanded.
"He destroys everything. Why are you still protecting him?" The voice wasn't accusatory or angry as he expected with those words, Kakashi couldn't actually hear any sort of emotion in it.
"I'll save him. He won't be left alone this time," Kakashi insisted.
"You should give up. You were meant to die a long time ago. You've done more than enough. You should let someone else deal with this," he felt a light breeze behind him and turned around quickly.
Kakashi's eyes shot open, and he gasped for air before he could even think to still himself.
"That was some nightmare kid," he flinched in pain as he turned to his left towards the voice to see Jiraiya of the Sannin seated on the bed next to the one he was lying in.
Looking around, he found that they were in a hotel room of some sort. There were three beds along one wall with him in the middle, Jiraiya on the one to his left with papers spread out, and Rin was unconscious in the one to his right.
"What-?" Kakashi asked, before he broke off, coughing. Jiraiya moved from his seat to get him some water.
"If you're asking about Rin-chan, you should wait for Minato and that Uchiha to come back," he said as he helped Kakashi sit up and take a few sips before easing him back down. The sannin reclaimed his previous spot.
"To tell you the truth I'm more curious as to how a not-too-bright genin and a chuunin, were able to hold their own against Satori Jin," Jiraiya's voice was getting further away, and Kakashi shifted, sending waves of pain across his body as everything protested.
"The scroll?" he questioned instead of explaining.
Kakashi didn't really care all that much about succeeding in the mission to be honest, but needed to know if the mission was going to continue, or if they would be able to go home. He'd left the scroll with Obito when he'd dug through his bag, but judging by the boy's confused expression, he hadn't realized what Kakashi was doing.
"The Uchiha finally found it in his bag. Oh, and good job by the way. You made my job really easy. I barely had to do anything more than summon one of my toads to take that man back to Konoha," he congratulated.
"Pakkun?" he asked next.
Jiraiya hadn't mentioned his ninken, but he could hazily remember that he'd indeed summoned him.
"He's going back to Konoha, though I sent him through Mt. Myouboku with one of the toads," he assured, which made Kakashi feel better.
Pakkun usually had no trouble handling himself, and Kakashi was sure that the danger had passed, but Mt. Myouboku was a much safer route so if he could go through there then it was better.
Kakashi just nodded once again as he tried to suppress a yawn but failed. Jiraiya saw and gave him a grin.
"Go to sleep kid. I'll wake you up when the food gets here," he promised.
Though Kakashi wanted to protest, too nauseous to eat, he didn't have time before he slipped back into sleep.
Obito's POV
He was slightly distracted as he walked around the village with Minato looking for somewhere to get food.
The fight was still running through his mind. He'd been almost useless.
Had the sannin not shown up when he had, then the two would have been killed easily.
Obito had needed to rely on Kakashi during the entire fight. The only injuries Obito had managed to inflict had been either using Kakashi as a distraction or following Kakashi's orders, and they had barely slowed the man down at all.
Plus, he'd ended up harming Kakashi quite a bit if the burns were anything to go by.
Sure, the sannin, Jiraiya, had said that the man was S-ranked, but Kakashi was only a chuunin. He shouldn't have been able to hold his own for so long against someone of that caliber. And the fact that he could, well, that just meant Obito had to be weak.
"Obito, how about this?" Minato pulled him from his thoughts, pointing out a stand selling ramen.
"I'm fine with it," he agreed.
"Good, wait here," he requested, and soon they were walking back to the hotel carrying six bowls (two for Minato).
Obito was, once again, deep in thought. He'd spent all of his time training, knowing that Uchiha were supposed to excel, but all he'd accomplished in this fight had been nearly getting his teammate killed as the boy protected him.
This entire time he'd been relying on activating a bloodline that he wasn't even sure he had, and after today he wasn't so sure that it hadn't skipped him.
He knew some ninja in his family who didn't have their sharingan, after all. They weren't closely related to the main line though, most having had people from outside the clan marry into the family. His parents both had their sharingan, so he should as well.
"We're back," Minato broke him out of his thoughts once again, pulling open the door with his free hand and leading Obito inside.
He would have to do some more thinking later. For now, the important thing would be completing their mission and surviving their trip back to their village, otherwise it wouldn't matter.
Minato's POV
Minato was glad that they'd been so close to the village when they finally met up because it had taken him a long time to find a place to stay, as well as a medic, once they'd arrived.
It seemed several people in this village were wary of ninja and didn't want to get involved. He couldn't really blame them either, and the medic that they'd found had requested that they not mention that she had helped them. Jiraiya had also paid her more than her usual rates.
Thankfully Rin was just exhausted, and they were letting her sleep after they'd woken her to see if she had learned anything pressing about the enemy.
Obito's shoulder had been sprained, but other than that he only had a few scratches and scrapes that she had disinfected before finishing with him.
For Kakashi though, he was suffering chakra exhaustion, had several cuts, scrapes and bruises, as well as chakra burns over his hands, and steam burns over a large percentage of his body.
The woman had healed his injuries enough that he wasn't in danger of dying, but he would be extremely sore and on bed rest for another couple of weeks. They couldn't allow that though, and she had insisted on a week minimum before it would be safe to continue on the mission. She had left them with burn creams and a few chakra pills which Minato added to Rin's medical supplies.
Minato was glad that Rin had taken an interest in medical ninjutsu. When he'd sparred with her during the week that Obito and Kakashi had been absent from training, he'd noticed that while she had the speed, she really didn't have the strength to fight in hand-to-hand combat. Also, while her chakra control was excellent, her reserves were pretty low.
He could tell that she had been starting to feel discouraged as well, knowing her skills were relatively low in several areas of combat. Medical training though, required more of an intellectual approach before chakra could be put into the equation, and Rin had been the smartest of her graduating class so the field suited her extraordinarily well.
Minato hadn't expected Kakashi of all people to even pay attention to that, but from the way the team had come together during his absence, the silver-haired boy was making a considerable effort at making Team 7 work.
Right now though, he was more irritated with the chuunin.
He knew it was irrational, but from how freaked out Obito had been, there was no way that he had lied when he'd detailed the events of the fight.
There was also no way that Kakashi hadn't known what Obito's technique would do. That left the logical conclusion that the burns covering Kakashi were his own fault.
Rationally, Minato knew that up against an S-ranked missing nin, they had to do whatever was necessary, but Kakashi had nearly gotten himself killed.
And summoning Pakkun while nearly unconscious was one of the stupidest things Kakashi could have done. Sure, the pug wasn't in any danger.
Had Kakashi's technique failed, Pakkun had enough practice with summoning to know how to reverse summon himself to the chuunin if he knew he was needed.
The problem was that the amount of chakra Kakashi had used had left him much worse off than he would have been.
Shaking his head to clear it, Minato greeted Jiraiya when he entered, setting the food on the table and moving to wake Rin.
Jiraiya's POV
He hadn't been lying when he'd complimented Kakashi, and he didn't give compliments easily, unless it was to a really hot woman of course.
All he'd needed to do was wait for the man to get trapped in his swamp technique even further, and then he'd summoned a toad which had transported the man to the T&I Department in Konoha.
After that he'd gone in the direction where the Uchiha had taken Kakashi, to find them with Pakkun, tracking down Minato.
A short while later they'd reached the clearing near the first village, and found Minato with his female student. She had been unconscious, though uninjured.
Jiraiya supposed another compliment should be given to Kakashi's ninken for his skills, though he would never tell the pug that. Pakkun hadn't liked Jiraiya since he'd learned that the man had been supposed to look after Kakashi, but never even checked in with him when he was in the village.
The pug had been the only reason that they'd found the blood drops on the ground from one of Rin's attackers. So Jiraiya had stored the sample safely and given it to one of his toads to carry back to Konoha, sending Pakkun with him.
After all, even if he wasn't too fond of the pug, Kakashi cared for him, and would be highly upset if something happened to him.
From there it hadn't taken them long to enter Iriguchi no Sato (1), which was the main access point to the Land of Tea for those entering the country by land.
Like most areas, the people here were starting to feel the presence of war closing in. While this area saw its fair share of ninja, they were still highly cautious and had allowed the group a place to stay, as long as they agreed to move on quickly to the main trading areas.
Had Kakashi not been so injured, they would have likely made them continue on after one night.
The entire mission was suspicious.
According to Minato, Kakashi had sensed something wrong immediately, which coincided with his intel, and even though Minato hadn't sensed anyone, Jiraiya was positive that they had been followed the entire trip.
He wasn't any closer to finding out the motivation for it though.
They hadn't given the seal a second glance if they had insisted Rin leave behind her clothing with the seal, and hadn't even focused on finding the scroll, when they should have witnessed Minato handing it off to Kakashi.
In fact, by numbers the majority had gone after Rin once she'd been separated from Kakashi, and the people that had been left behind were probably used to distract the other three.
They'd purposefully lured the girl away, but then they'd left her unconscious in a very open area where she would be easy to find.
From what she'd told them, she'd been trapped in a genjutsu and asked all sorts of questions, but had focused on reciting her medical knowledge so she wouldn't be swept up in the technique.
The questions though, weren't anything she could have answered, even if she wanted to.
She was a genin, and from a civilian family. Out of the four, she was the least likely to know any of Konoha's military strategies, or even much about the clans of Konoha.
That was why he was still here.
Kakashi had been awake briefly when Rin had explained what had happened with her, and insisted that the stories between her attackers, and his didn't match up. Unfortunately he'd passed out again soon after, and because the threat level in their current location was low, Jiraiya had decided to wait for him to wake up again before questioning him further.
As far as Rin went, Jiraiya knew quite a bit about Minato's team, and she was the weak link.
Between Kakashi's genius, and the fact that the other boy was an Uchiha, she should have been a last resort for anyone trying to learn anything. And if their attackers knew that, then they had to have wanted her for another reason.
(1) Iriguchi no Sato - Meaning entrance or gate.
Thanks for sticking with my story.
Please take the time to review.
As for the Ino-Shika-Cho team, I really like them, but did I focus too much on them? Tell me what you think.