Amidst the Hate: Chapter 25
A young girl lay beaten in front of a group of shinobi. She had mint green hair, amber eyes, and tan skin as if she never missed a day of sun. Her outfit consisted of a slightly torn, light grey hooded jacket and matching pants. She struggled to get up, but one of her attackers grabbed her by the collar and threw her up against a tree. "Where is she?!"
"I...I don't know what you're talking about…" At the end of her sentence, she spit in his face, earning a punch.
"Don't play dumb with me! We know that you were with her that day...that day where everything went wrong!"
The girl scowled. "Even if I knew where she was, I wouldn't tell you bastards! I would never give up my friends!"
"You stubborn little...I guess we have no choice but to kill you. At least in this way, we can still avenge all the innocent lives you destroyed!"
"Go ahead, kill me! You won't get anything fr-" Her eyes darted to the left upon feeling what she came looking for. 'So I did feel the Nanabi's chakra!' "Heh...heheh…"
"What? What's so funny?"
"You really don't feel that? Hahahaha! Say your prayers, since this will your last day walking on this earth!" The man became confused...until one of his men screamed out in pain. The leader dropped the girl, turned around, and saw a terrible sight.
A shaking hand covered in red chakra had a woman's still beating heart in it's grasp as it stuck out of her chest.
"You will all pay, you hear me?! NO ONE HURTS MY FRIENDS! I WILL KILL EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU, AND I WILL ENJOY YOUR SCREAMS AS I TEAR YOU APART!" Menma crushed the organ in her hand, and removed her arm, letting the now lifeless kunoichi fall to the forest floor.
"It's...it's you! The one responsible for all of our problems!"
"That's not true and you know it! Your system destroyed our and so many others lives!"
"Because people like you exist! You twisted our leaders mind, made him agree to things that never should have even been considered, and you broke your promises!"
"ENOUGH! Come at me if you dare!" She made a few hand seals, causing the chakra shroud to fluctuate a bit. "Wind Release: GREAT BREAKTHROUGH!" Using Chomei's power, she aimed the jutsu at the other subordinates, and all hell broke loose as the powerful technique tore the ground asunder. They were blown away, leaving only the leader and one other in the immediate picture. Summoning Kubikiribocho, she dashed forth, her enemies barely able to block the attack together. "Fools! You can't stop me! I will never stop my advance, I will never relent! You have no future in which you survive to see the end of this day!" Bringing it back, she used both hands this time, making mincemeat of their defence and embedding the giant sword deep in the subordinates shoulder. Kicking the doomed man off her blade, the ones that were sent flying earlier came back.
"Water Release: Wild Water Wave!" A large stream of water shot towards her back, but she turned, arm facing the jutsu, and uttered the one thing they didn't want to hear.
"Lightning Release: Electromagnetic Murder!" As the technique touched Menma's hand, the energy now had something to travel through. The poor man didn't have the time needed to end his own jutsu, spasming and losing control of his body. Using this window, she ran toward him and bisected him, ending his pain. "Who's next?" The last rage filled three charged at her with no plan, just praying they could get a good hit in.
How foolish of them.
When they got in striking range, she used a kawarimi with a log and threw the sword into one of them, carrying them to a tree and impaling itself to it, the shinobi doing his best to remove the blade from his stomach, but Menma appeared in front of him and crushed his skull against the bark, taking his life. Using the wood as a springboard, she jumped after the closest one. Striking them in the cheek first to daze them, her hands became blurs, hitting multiple places on their torso before backing up, charge chakra into her leg, and gave the man a knee strike that, if it didn't kill him in a few minutes, it would at least take him out of the fight. This left the supposed 'leader' all alone against her.
"You monster! They had families, hopes, and dreams! Yet you murdered them without even thinking!"
"I do think, and I think they needed to die! They hunted down my friend when she all she wanted to do is move on with her life! You beat her, all an attempt to find me, most likely! I won't let justice go un-given!"
"Even if we all die, more will rise, and one of them will take you down!"
"Let them come! I will take all challengers, and I will force them to eat their own tongue! NOW DIE!" Her tails slimmed down, becoming stingers, and shot forward, going clean through the final members lungs and heart. He gave one last gasp before going limp against the spectral appendages. Her enemies dead, she let the shroud disappear and ran to the other girls side.
"Hey...Nameless."
"It's Menma now, but close enough. Are you alright, Fu?"
"Yeah, just a little bruised from the beating I took. If only it was one, then I'm sure I could have won! They weren't that well trained…"
Menma smiled. "Even after all this time, you're still the same Fu I remember, always thinking that she can take on anything."
"And you have changed quite a bit, at least in looks."
"I guess not all things stay the same. Sorry to cut our reunion short, but my genin team could be here any moment, and we need to make up a story."
"Wait, you lead a genin team?!"
"What? No! I'm in one!"
"Oh...but why do we have to lie to them? Wouldn't it be for the best if we told them the truth?"
"No. If we told them what we did, we could be thrown in prison, or worse, put to death. I would be fine with only me suffering those fates, but like it or not, we're in this together. You'll be thrown in with me, and I won't let that happen!"
"Then...what do we tell them? They're going to take one look at those corpses and know they're from Takigakure."
"I have been thinking about that since I got to Konoha, and I think I have the ultimate solution. We don't tell them everything." She leaned in and they begun whispering, just in case the others got there soon.
-a little bit later-
"What...happened here?" said Kakashi as he, Mito, and Sasuke came upon the grisly scene.
"They were attacking my friend, so I killed them." simply said Menma.
"Is...is that the one you've been looking for?" Mito was barely able to speak. Seeing the condition that her teammate left her opposition made her sick to her stomach.
"Yes. Everyone, meet Fu. Fu, this is my squad. The cyclops that's hiding his other eye is my leader, Kakashi Hatake. That boy with a tanto is Sasuke Uchiha, and the girl is Mito Namikaze, daughter of the Hokage."
"Hello! It's nice to meet you all!" said the girl in a cheery tone, to the other threes shock.
"How aren't you affected by all the death around you?" asked the jonin.
"Oh, I hated these guys, so their dead bodies are fine with me. Where we come from and what we went through, it's only natural that-" The blind one struck her over the head, making Fu cover the place she hit. "Ow! Why'd you do that?"
"Because you don't have to say that. We're going to have to tell them when we get back anyway."
"Right...still didn't mean that you had to hit me."
"I also had some pent up aggression from when you decided to not come with me. If you had, you wouldn't have been in this mess in the first place!"
"Ugh...you're right...again."
"When am I ever wrong?"
"Well, there was that one time…"
"We agreed to disagree on that one, if that is what I think you're thinking. Not my fault my preferences are different."
"Then...I got nothing."
"Exactly."
Kakashi decided to look at the mutilated bodies for any identifying insignia, and he found it strapped to their heads. 'Taki?!' "What's a band of Takigakure shinobi doing attacking a young girl?"
"We will explain at Konoha, when we give a debrief on the status of the mission, and not a day sooner. I will not tell our story more than once." Menma left her orange eyed friends side and went over to the body of the man stuck to the tree. Grabbing the hilt, she tried to pull it out, but it stayed put. 'Huh? Why isn't this working?' Using both hands, she tried, and failed, again. "...give me my damn sword!" Bringing out a tail's worth of power, she tugged at it, and in her irritation wasn't prepared for it to come out as easily as it did, ending up on her back, blade in hand. "Finally…"
"How hard did you throw it?!" asked the only one not a ninja.
"I used three tails, how hard do you think I threw it?!" she rebutted.
"That's true…I kind of forgot that you had the cloak on when you got here."
"Wait, you know she's a jinchuuriki?" asked the blonde, getting a nod.
"Of course! I was the previous one, after all!"
Her blue orbs widened. "Then you should be dead! From what my mom and dad say, only Uzumaki can survive the extraction process, and they have to be in their prime to do so!"
"Like I said, Mito, we'll explain later. I...I know that I've been hiding quite a bit, but just wait until then, alright?" said a now standing Menma, with Kubikiribocho stored safely in it's seal.
"Then we should get going. I want to know what you two did to get one of our allies to start actively hunting you down." said Kakashi, with an icy edge in his words.
"Okay." Fu seemingly didn't hear the new tone, and turned to the Nanabi jinchuuriki. "You're going to carry me, right?"
"Yes, but I will not carry you like that one day."
"Come on, it made me feel like a princess!"
"No. I won't do it. Either get on my back or ask sensei to carry you."
"Aww...fine. Killjoy..." She climbed onto her friends back, and the now five-man group took off for the village hidden in the leaves.
"The C turned A Rank mission of escorting Tazuna back to the Land of Waves was a success, Lord Hokage." reported the silver haired man.
Minato sighed. "I figured it was going to get more dangerous when you sent that bird saying you captured one of the Demon Brothers...but who's the girl? I don't think I've seen her before."
"I'll let her and Menma explain in a bit, but I should continue with the report. It turns out the business magnate Gato was responsible for the Land of Waves problems, taking over by buying all of their shipping lanes and exploiting them. He was also the one behind sending shinobi after Tazuna, and he even got Zabuza Momochi to try to kill him. Both were killed, thanks to our secretive teammate."
"...what?"
"During my fight with Zabuza, I made a mistake, allowing him to trap me in a jutsu. Menma revealed what she was, a jinchuuriki, and freed me. We killed him together, and she took his blade. Later, she found where Gato was hiding, took all his money to give to the country, and blew his base up. Afterwards, Tazuna finished building a bridge to the Land of Fire so that their country didn't have to rely on those shipping lanes. Expect a message asking about an alliance in a few months or so."
"Well, it's good to hear that so many people could be helped, but Menma's a jinchuuriki? Which one does she have?"
"The Nanabi...I don't think I need to tell you why that's important."
His eyes widened. "Taki?! They're from Taki?!"
"I'm sure, since only they had the Nanabi. And you won't believe what happened on our way back. Fu, the new face, was attacked by shinobi from our ally, and Menma killed them with extreme prejudice. This paints a certain picture: they did something to anger them."
Minato turned to the two girls. "Explain. Now."
The abysmal haired one nodded. "I will. You're right, we are from Takigakure, but we have no affiliation with them, not after we escaped."
"Escaped?"
"Yes. It's what you do when you find your standard of living to be unbearable. Let me tell you of our lives there. Fu is an orphan that was forced to become Chomei's jinchuuriki. Thanks to that, she was attacked by the very people she was hoping to one day protect nearly daily, becoming an outcast in the process. And I...I was just a girl that wandered too close to the village, being thrown in so that I never revealed where it was located despite having no idea where on the geographical map I was. I put myself in the darkest corner I could find, and one day I met Fu. At that time, I had lost the will to live, but she put that back in me when she showed that even after being scorned by the villagers and having no one to turn to, she would continue fighting, if just to wave it in their faces. It was then I realized...thinking that I should be dead wasn't going to fix my life, so I clutched to her like a life-line so I didn't lose my will again. We bonded over our terrible lives, and became sisters in all but blood."
The Hokage had a thought as he heard the tale. 'Would...would Mito and Anza had lives like theirs if Kushina and I died? Tormented by the very people that should watch out for them? I...I would hope not...but I guess anything's possible.' He regained focus. "Wait...you said that she was the jinchuuriki, and yet you are one now. Something isn't adding up."
"I was getting there. You see, when I entered the picture, she had just become a jinchuuriki no less than a week ago. Using that information, we came up with a plan to escape: I would take her job of carrying Chomei. We had to convince Shibuki to do the transfer, but we did, and I was able to use his power to get me and her out of there. It was a risk, since we didn't know if she would survive, but here she is, alive and well. I theorize that since her body hadn't yet become reliant on his chakra, she was able to endure."
"I see...but how could you use Chomei's power as soon as you say you did?"
"That's simple. It turns out that some things I said while he was in Fu struck a chord with him, and he too wanted to get away from that terrible place. After being placed inside me, he contacted me for the first time, and we made a deal: he would give me enough chakra to escape, and I would remove all limitations on him afterward. Shibuki couldn't even react in time to me grabbing Fu and running with three tails worth of power."
The Yellow Flash put a hand to his forehead, letting all the information sink in. "By all rights I should send you both back…"
His daughter let out a gasp. "But you won't...right? Not after she just told you what they both went through?"
Sasuke nodded in agreement. "You can't do that, Lord Hokage. If you cast them out, you're no better than what they escaped from in the first place."
"I know...and I won't, not if there lives were really that bad. Menma, you can continue being on Team Kakashi, and you, Fu, can do whatever you want."
"No she can't." butted in Menma, drawing his and her tan friend's attention.
"What?" she asked, getting the black wearing girl to turn her head to face her.
"You heard me. You are not going to do whatever you want. You are going to be trained, since I won't always be there to save you. I may want to protect everyone I care about, but I can't. I'm only one person."
"But I thought you said it was okay that I could be a normal citizen!"
"I never said that! What I remember is you saying you want nothing to do with being a kunoichi, and I having to leave you, since I needed to train for my goals! Come on, Fu, open your eyes! You're being hunted, and you need to be able to defend yourself!"
Fu hung her head, knowing she lost the argument. "(Sigh) You're right...I'm useless the way I am now, and I don't want to be a bother to you…"
"Now you're taking it too far. You will never be a bother to me, Fu. We're sisters, remember?"
This brightened her up instantly. "Yeah! So...who's going to train me? Is it going to be your teacher?"
"Uh...that's a good question. I haven't thought that far ahead…"
"Go ahead." said Minato.
"...huh?"
"I said 'go ahead'. Even if someone isn't a jonin, I can allow individuals to train others if I think they are qualified. I did the same for my late daughter when I let Shisui Uchiha, a chunin at the time, to teach her how to be a ninja. He had an Anbu commander helping him, but that's beside the point."
"T-thank you. That's...kind of you."
"No problem, just make sure to wait until your teams activities are done for the day before doing anything. Now...where will she live?"
"That's easy! I'll live wherever Menma lives!" said the subject of the conversation, causing Menma to rub the back of her head.
"Um...about that...I don't have a home, Fu."
"What?!"
Mito nodded. "She's right. Menma's been living on the streets for months now, not taking our offer of staying at my place or getting an apartment now that she has money."
"Why?"
"Because I have no need of a home, Fu. I've been living off the wild for so long I don't care if I have a roof over my head at all times anymore. Please, Hokage, Mito, take her in until she can earn enough money to live on her own."
The blonde man gave a smile. "I can do that. The extra bedroom can now actually be useful. Team Kakashi, Fu, you are dismissed. Except for you, Kakashi. I need to talk to you for a minute." The genin and one citizen bowed, and left them.
"Okay, so what is it, sensei?"
"The lone Demon Brother you detained? He's probably getting a new home soon." He fished through his desk, getting a scroll and throwing it to him. "Read this."
"Um...okay…" He opened it, and his visible eye widened at it's contents. "Are you sure this is genuine? Because if this is...this could mean a giant step towards peace."
"Yes, it is. It was sent to me a few days after you sent your own bird, and it has Kirigakure's special seal, only known to those in it's highest ranks. Kirigakure has a new Mizukage, and she wants to come to Konoha to talk about an alliance."