Chapter twenty five
My exams are officially FINISHED! YES! Now I only have to wait for the result ::very anxious::.
I need to apologize for the confusion that might have occurred in the two previous chapters due to the lack of separating lines. I wanted to try a new kind but apparently fanfiction refused them. I fixed the problem in chapter 24, but weirdly enough any attempt I make in chapter 23 fails. I'll keep on trying but I'm not sure I'll succeed (this chapter seems heel bent on rejecting separation lines).
Anyway, please enjoy this chapter ^_^
"The guards seemed really surprised to see us." Said Damaru, her hand resting on Gin's head.
It had taken them some time to reach the western coast of the water country. After that they had to find the lake described in Damaru's ancestors' book.
It was a tough task, but they finally found a place corresponding to the description in the journal. After that finding Kiri and presenting themselves at the gate was the easier part.
"Indeed." Replied Itachi "It's almost as if they thought we wouldn't come this far."
"With what Tazuki told us." Concluded Damaru "Now we're sure that finding Kiri was a test and that Kiri ninjas were given the mission to stop us."
"We should investigate which teams were able to make it." Itachi scanned the crowd they were in, noticing a few foreign headbands here and there .
"We should wait a bit thought." Countered Damaru "There's still one week."
The black haired boy nodded and they entered the Mizukage's tower, where they filled and handed their inscription sheets to two water ninjas.
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Sarutobi finished reading the letter before looking up to the two children in front of his desk.
The girl, around Damaru and Itachi's age, was obviously a ninja, just by her attentive stance and the way her chakra fluctuated, but she didn't have any headbands.
Sarutobi had heard rumours about missing nins taking apprentices, but the very few he had seen were bloodthirsty murderers with cruel tendencies.
But this girl seemed… well, normal (as normal as a ninja her age could be at least). She was polite, if not a bit too direct. And Damaru had given her her trust.
The boy (at first he had to admit he thought he was a girl with those long hair and the soft face) seemed constantly afraid, as if he could be attacked at any time. It was obvious he had lived on the streets until now. Damaru's wolf's presence however seemed to calm him down a bit.
"Well." He finally said "I don't see why you couldn't stay. And I see no problem if Damaru wants to adopt the boy."
He turned to one of the guards.
"Go get me Sakumo." He ordered.
The man bowed before disappearing.
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Damaru held up two different kinds of flour before choosing the cheapest one (which was still quite expensive).
'What's with the water country and flour?' She grumbled in her mind, putting the package in her basket 'We'll have to make it last as much as possible.'
She finished her shopping, paid the clerk and went out of the shop stepping into the cold atmosphere outside.
She didn't like at all the atmosphere enveloping Kiri ever since the last teams made it.
There were now two teams from Taki, one from Iwa, four or five from Kiri and two from Konoha, including them.
The senseis wouldn't arrive until later, but she definitively didn't like the way the Iwa team looked at them.
Mist chose this moment to rise, gradually enveloping the white haired girl in a thick veil of gaseous water.
Huffing, Damaru chose a shorter way through the park. She had never got accustomed to the way mist could arise suddenly at any hours of the day.
She walked briskly through the patch of forest and the playgrounds, trying to reach the apartment Itachi and she shared (her hair, with too much humidity, had a tendency to became too untameable).
The mist, however, was too fast and soon she could barely see two metres ahead of her.
This was why she almost tripped on the body lying in her path.
Gasping, she put her groceries down to kneel beside the boy.
She recognised the Konoha headband while checking his pulse. He was dead.
Almost immediately she tensed, her senses in high alert.
She realised the mist was too thick. She pushed a bit of chakra in her eyes, but the mist stayed as thick as it was before.
This meant only one thing: this mist wasn't normal.
She remembered reading in her ancestors' journal about the silent killing technique Kiri ninjas liked to use to assassinate efficiently and silently.
Damaru was in a bad position. She could try to dissipate the mist with a blast of chakra, but her attacker had surely more chakra than her (damn her young age!), so it was useless.
She could ty to run, but it would leave her open to attacks.
If she waited here, she also would surely end up dead.
Suddenly she heard steps to her right, and the metallic hiss of a kunai, maybe a sword.
She dodged the blade and took a few steps back to see her opponent better.
Damaru recognised the Iwa symbol on the boy's headband and frowned.
The silent killing technique was only known of Kiri ninjas, and by definition it was silent, which the iwa nin was not.
She deduced there was at least one nin mist, of high level since he or she could execute the silent killing technique (it was a A ranked jutsu after all).
The iwa nin tried to attack her again. She dodged and he took refuge in the mist again.
Perhaps she couldn't hear the Kiri nin, but the Iwa one was making enough noises.
She crouched down and closed her eyes. She opened her other senses, something she was becoming good at with her training with the wolves, and put her hand on the ground.
There, a vibration at eight o'clock. Her ears picked up light footsteps coming her way.
And now that she had glimpsed how her opponent was physically, she was able to slide under his guard and hit him with her foot, blocking his airways momentarily.
Using the distraction her hit gave and the momentum, the green eyed girl straightened and with another hit sent him against a tree.
The boy slumped on the ground and she went to check on him. He was just unconscious.
It was only sheer instinct that allowed her to dodge the sword that went down on her from behind, and she still got a nice gash on her shoulder.
This time the man was a Kiri nin. He disappeared in his mist again and Damaru tensed, trying to anticipate his attacks.
She heard a metallic sound behind her and wirled, ready to fight, only to find a strange blue skinned man blocking the enemy's sword with his arm, the other unsheathing his own.
The match quickly ended, the mist nin's head rolling on the ground after a simple swift arc from the man's sword.
Said man wiped the blood off his sword and sheathed the blade before turning around and Damaru took a few steps back when she recognised the mist symbol on his headband.
"You don't have to worry." Said gruffly the blue skinned man, holding up his hands to show he was unarmed "I won't attack you."
He had to wait a few minutes before the girl deemed him trustworthy and relaxed somewhat.
"You're injured." She said, observing his forearm where the opponent's sword had left a deep gash "Let me heal you."
"It's nothing." The man tried to refuse "It's just a scratch."
"Your 'scratch'" retorted sternly Damaru "Will need stitches. Come on."
Kisame for a moment wanted to refuse and walk away, a bit offended to be ordered around like that by a child that didn't even reach his waist. But there was still this 'something' about the girl which interested him so much.
So he began following her through the fading mist, leaving the corpse to the cleaning team.
"By the way." Said the white haired girl while they exited the park "My name is Damaru. Nice to meet you."
"Mine's Kisame Hoshigaki, and I guess it's okay to meet you gaki."
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"Damaru-chan surely has a lot of children to take care of." Said Tazuki, looking at the herd of what she liked to call little monsters running around in the garden with two cubs, even the little Haku who at the beginning had been so shy "Is she planning to open an orphanage or something?"
"No." Sakumo chuckled, looking up from his book "She was like that since she was little. She got her big heart from her parents, and all of us wouldn't be here if it weren't for her."
"Really?" Tazuki blinked, detaching her eyes from the children to gaze up to him.
"Yes." Nodded Sakumo before pointing to the blond haired boy who was running around like he had too much sugar "Naruto would have ended up in an orphanage and his life is already hard as it is. At least here he's loved and taken care of."
Tazuki had no idea what was so special about this kid, but she wisely chose to stay silent and not pry any further.
"And the others?" she asked instead.
"Sasuke here." Continued Sakumo, pointing to the child who had a weird duck butt hairstyle "Is Itachi's younger brother. Damaru accepted to house him since his family situation doesn't allow the best environment to raise a child."
Once again there was something fishy going on, but Tazuki still didn't feel it was her business. So she let the man continue:
"Sai and Shin." The man added, pointing to the other black haired, very pale boy, and the silvery blue haired one who was sitting under a tree reading a book "Were found by Damaru when she was younger and she asked her father to take them in seeing they had no home."
It was the third time Tazuki detected an undertone, but once again she let it go. It really wasn't her problems after all.
"And you know why Haku is there." Finished Sakumo.
"Damaru really has a big heart." Commented the scarlet haired girl, scanning one last time the children before glancing at him "And what about you and this masked guy I saw once or twice."
"You mean Kakashi-kun?" Sakumo chuckled again "Damaru's father helped me once and gave me and Kakashi a roof in times of need. The least I can do after the is watching after his only daughter."
Tazuki contemplated what the dark eyed man told her before sighing softly. Decidedly the Senjus were full of mysteries and shadows.
But even for someone as young as her, she had to admit there was something about Damaru (and Itachi too) that drew her in like a warm light.
And if the feeling for now was a bit fuzzy, there was one thing he was sure of.
If she stayed with them, things would surely get interesting.
Positively or negatively, that was the question.
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"Oh my god!" exclaimed Damaru when they reached the apartment before running ahead, jumping through the huge hole marring the now pretty ruined building.
Having nothing better to do, Kisame followed her.
He found her kneeling next to the dark haired boy, a silver furred wolf at his side resting, and by instinct quickly checked if they were any hidden enemies. But apparently the three bodies lying on the charred floor a bit away were the only other people beside them.
"Itachi-kun!" asked Damaru, her eyes scanning for any injuries and her hands glowing green "Are you alright? Are you hurt? What happened?"
"Calm down." Reassured the grey eyed boy, taking her shoulders to steady her and noticing the gash on one of them, the girl's hairs becoming an interesting shade of pink from the blood seeping out. He narrowed his eyes "You're hurt."
"I was attacked on my way here." Explained Damaru "One Iwa nin and a Kiri one." She turned to Kisame, gesturing to him "Fortunately this man helped me. Without him I probably wouldn't be here now."
"It was nothing." Grumbled Kisame, not used to compliments "The girl was really handling everything well. I just helped her end the fight quicker."
Itachi's black eyes thoroughly scanned the blue skinned man before returning to Damaru who smiled reassuringly at him. Kisame would die before admitting it out loud, but he was somewhat relieved when the boy's scrutinising gaze left him.
"I spoke to the manager." Itachi finally said "He gave us another apartment and medical supplies for our injuries."
"Great." Damaru straightened, helping her teammate doing the same "We'll go there. Are you coming Kisame-san?"
Still trying to figure why he was still listening to a barely ten years old little girl, Kisame followed the two konoha guenins out.
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Rin sighed while arranging back the papers on the table.
She didn't have many friends (mostly due to her association with Naruto, not that she'll ever blame the kid), no relatives and she could count the people close to her with her two hands only.
But even with so little people, preparing a marriage was so stressing!
And Kakashi who was too busy with missions to help her!
At least when Damaru had been there, it was bearable. They had asked the Hokkage to perform the ceremony, scheduled a date and passed an entire day devising and discussing the best arrangements for the multiples layers of colourful silk constituting the several traditional kisodes Rin would have to wear.
But now the girl wasn't here, busy passing her chuunin exam in the water country, and poor her was left alone with all the rest of the planning, which included the decorations, the menu, and hiring every people necessary as well as preparing the invitations.
She felt arms surround her frame and bringing her out of her brooding. She sighed before relaxing into her fiancé's hold.
"You should rest." Said softly Kakahi, kissing the top of her head "You'll exhaust yourself."
"How was your mission?" asked tiredly Rin, getting up.
"Quick."
Rin accepted the short answer (after all most of ninjas' missions were confidential) and sighed, snuggling into him.
"Let's go to bed." She said softly.
Kakashi nodded and kissed her before scooping her up, bridal style.
Rin chuckled before putting her head on his shoulder, tired but happy.
I really like writing Kisame's replies. He's gruff and lack a certain sense of tact. XD In the anime he isn't one of my favourite character but weirdly enough in this fic he's the one that gives me the least problems when I'm writing.
I put a bit of Kakashi/Rin fluff. They deserve that I put them forward at least once or twice now because I'm not gonna write a lot of fluff about those two later on. And they're soon getting married so I have to focus on them a bit.
I also put a little glimpse of the children, because they're so damn cute! And after this first part they're gonna grow up more quickly and lose their cuteness. ::sad pout::.
Well, don't forget to review! Until next week!