Rise of the Guardians

By Daishi Prime

- 25 – Dawn -

The two figures standing in the field were tall, one massively built, the other built like a racer. Both wore wide straw hats, and ground-length black cloaks, adorned with red clouds, thrown back over their shoulders. The larger stood slightly further away, and further out, blocking them from escaping the farm.

"Kisame and the new kid," Anko stated, "Why are you letting the kid do the talking, Kisame? Scarecrow got your tongue?"

"Watch your mouth, reject," Kisame snarled back, maimed hand tensing on the hilt of broken Samehade.

"You aren't worth his time, Anko-chan," Tetsuo told her with a smile, "since our orders don't concern you. But what about you three, hmm? Master's very interested in talking to one of you… well, any of you, actually."

"We aren't interested," Raiden said softly, shifting into stance and focusing his attention on Tetsuo. Mitsumi, you're our best chance to match his speed, based on Rumiko's report.

Just make sure you hit him the first time, Mitsumi replied.

Don't fade yet, wait for him to move.

Don't tell me how to do what I do best, she snapped back, but she remained visible, and began sliding to Raiden's right, widening the distance between her position and Yohko's.

Tetsuo chuckled, "Don't tell me you kids actually think you have a chance against a pair of S-Class criminals? What are they teaching at that Academy these days?"

"Academy has nothing to do with this," Raiden said, "You are a clear and immediate threat to Konoha's safety, one that must be eliminated at any cost. ROE Omega." He felt Mitsumi and Yohko tense behind him, and grinned at Tetsuo. Not that the girls had been taking this lightly, but he had just put this fight on a totally different level than what these two were expecting.

"Back off, Raiden," Anko ordered, "We're not up to this right now."

"Oh, but we went to so much trouble to arrange this lovely greeting for you, Anko-chan," Tetsuo said, almost whining, gesturing at the field which hid this farm's dead.

"Your murders have no bearing on us," Anko said. "Back off, Raiden. I'll slow them down, you get word back to Konoha."

"We can't have that," Tetsuo countered, "Kisame, why don't you entertain the reject while I spring the offer on the kids?"

"I'd rather be killing Kakashi."

"Which is probably why the Master gave that job to someone else, ne?"

While they argued, Raiden shifted, checking Yohko and Mitsumi, gathering his chakra tight, then lunged forward. Mitsumi had declined to show him how to manage shunpo, as had Yohko, but he understood the basics enough to manage something close, and for split second thought he was fast enough. His fist caught the edge of Tetsuo's hat, shattering the straw construct instantly, but the missing-nin disappeared between Raiden's fist hitting the edge of the hat and his landing.

A ring of metal on metal behind him brought his attention around, and he found Tetsuo, facing off with Mitsumi. Both of them had kunai out, but were not in contact, a little less than a meter apart. "Baaaka," Mitsumi drawled, "I can see you bright as day."

"Ah, then we're even," Tetsuo smirked, "I could sense you kids even before you left Konoha. It's pathetic how obvious you are, I even knew that your team was coming out here one short."

Raiden started sliding left, vaguely aware of a thunderous crash to his right where Anko had been. He had to concentrate on Tetsuo, however. Words were one thing, but taking down someone good enough to be Akatsuki, good enough to be paired with an infamous monster like Kisame, was going to take all his focus. Mitsumi, be careful. Your burn or my bolt?

Little from column A, little from column B, she replied, still grinning at her opponant. "Silly boy," she said aloud, "You can't follow what doesn't exist." Then she wavered and vanished.

Tetsuo shifted back, not flinching just opening his senses to a wider area, and his smile became less sadistic and more amused, "Oooh, good. All three of you are working against me. This could actually be a challenge then. I haven't had fun in..." He cut off, spinning sideways and sweeping a vicious kick through empty air. Raiden felt the impact echo through the link, even as Mitsumi lost her focus and became visible, sailing through the air. "... months, maybe even years," Tetsuo finished.

I'm fine, Mitsumi told him, blocked it before it hit, but damn he's good.

"You may be invisible, girl, but you still make noise, and you still leave tracks." Tetsuo shifted, looking over all three of them. He was now in the center of a triangle, as Raiden and Yohko moved in, but he did not look in the least surrounded. "Now, let's have some fun, shall we?"

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"I'd like to think I qualify as at least 'dangerous'."

Hinata skidded to a halt, and the stranger who had appeared beside her kept going, stopping more gently a few meters away, black cloak floating around him to settle concealing a moment later. He was about her size, which put him towards the lower end of shinobi size, with a thin wasted appearance. He radiated a sense of wrongness that she quickly identified as a permanent low-grade killing intent. This man quite obviously looked at everyone else in the world as a victim waiting to die.

The woman who landed next to and slightly behind him was taller, broader but not terribly so, with short blonde hair and piercing green eyes. Beside the blatant hostility of her compatriot, she was almost ignorable, but she looked awfully similar to the woman she had told Ino about.

"Akatsuki," Kakashi spoke calmly, and Hinata did not know him well enough to predict how much of that was an act.

"Ooh, so the scarecrow has eyes," the man said again, smiling confidently, "Good, I much prefer to kill people who know what's about to happen to them."

Kakashi sighed, "Hmm, should've let me finish kid. I was about to say, 'Akatsuki won't like you imitating them. You should probably loose the cloak before they find you.' Good advice, ne?"

The man snarled, and Hinata thought he would attack instantly, but he managed to restrain himself. "I earned this cloak," he growled out, "I have more than earned my place in Akatsuki, and the power the Master has granted me, and the more power he will grant me on bringing him one of you kids. The rest will die, by the hand of Aku!"

For a moment, the four of them just stared at him. Then Juubei asked, voice tight, "Aku? Would that be... you?"

Aku smiled viciously, revealing canine teeth filed to points, "Of course, boy. Don't worry, you won't have to remember it long."

Despite the situation, despite the feelings of frustration and anger from Raiden and Mitsumi, Hinata could not help giggling, though she did manage to cover it after the fact, pretending to sneeze. Kuma, Kakashi and Rumiko were similarly polite, but Juubei laughed aloud, for several second, "'Evil'? You? Oh, Kami-sama, what a joke! Short little bundle of wires like you is 'evil'?"

"That's enough, Juubei-kun," Hinata managed to get out, "taunting an S-class criminal is pointless."

"And dangerous," Aku snarled, crouching slightly. "Come on, Nori, let's finish this before sand-boy back there realizes something's up and comes for a look-see."

All of them tensed and froze at a distinct meat-chopping sound, then he very slowly keeled over and fell face-first into the sand. Through the small cloud of dust, a single kunai was visible, standing up at the base of his skull, buried to the grip.

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Raiden rolled away from Tetsuo's latest counter, coming up cradling his right arm, but on guard. A brief shift told him Tetsuo's counter had broken it again, and a part of his mind wondered what Rumiko would say about it this time. The rest of his attention was on his opponent and teammates. Yohko was further back than he was, trying to set up Tenjin's Maze, but Tetsuo was too fast and had avoided the Maze so far, and seemed able to counter her genjutsu as quickly as he could block kunai. Mitsumi had fallen back when Raiden was sent flying, and was now on his far side, ready and waiting.

The three of them had been struggling against Tetsuo for several minutes now, Yohko in support while Mitsumi and Raiden tried to kill or incapacitate the missing-nin. Their techniques had been as good as always, but they had so far proven unable to overcome his speed, and Raiden thought he knew why. With Hinata so far away, both he and Mitsumi were off-balance and their timing was not as synchronized as it should have been. With the two of them off, they were not able to work with Yohko as well as they should have been. Which meant he was probably going to have to follow through on ROE Omega's removal of all the Guardians' self-imposed limits.

Tetsuo, for his part, was actually breathing heavily, though he had yet to draw any weapon beyond the first kunai, still held negligently in his right hand, and none of the Guardians had managed to land a single real hit. Still, they were pushing him, and all of them knew it. "Damn, kids, I saw your matches and you're still doing better than I expected." Tetsuo shook his head, "but I'm thinking it's time I ended this."

Raiden had just enough time to form a cylindrical barrier around himself before Tetsuo struck. The missing-nin hit with enough force to cause the structure to shatter, sending Raiden sprawling. As he recovered, he heard Mitsumi's cry of pain, and rolled to his feet in time to watch her go flying, though there was no sign of Tetsuo anywhere near her. He's too damn fast, Raiden thought, lunging back to his feet and searching for Tetsuo, Even Mitsumi can't keep track of him.

"Raiden!" Yohko's shriek got his attention, and when he spun to face her, Tetsuo had her by the throat.

"Thanks for the game, kids, but I've got my prize," Testuo was still grinning, flashed through a series of one-handed seals.

Raiden never generated a Thunderbolt that fast before, generating and throwing it in one second as Tetsuo pressed three fingers to Yohko's forehead. The massive bolt of pure chakra flashed through where the missing-nin had been standing, but Tetsuo spun clear.

Slinging Yohko's unconscious form over one shoulder, he again formed his seals one-handed, shouting, "Katon: Goukakyou no Jutsu!"

The fireball flashed towards Raiden, and he had to lunge sideways. He was conscious of Mitsumi dodging the other way, and moved in unison with her, without needing to say a thing. The two of them barreled forward, both of them forming separate techniques as they cleared the swath of smoke and flame left by the massive fireball. As they cleared the smoke, though, Raiden could find no trace of Tetsuo, not even a foot-print.

Something hit him from the side, latching onto his arm. Before he could counter, he heard, "She's gone!" Mitsumi was practically shouting in his ear, "Yohko's gone! I can't see her anywhere!"

The realization hit him like a mountain. Yohko was gone, taken by Akatsuki, just like that. One of his sisters, his family, and he had been unable to prevent it, due to his own inability to compensate for a little distance. The emotions that exploded inside him at that moment were beyond words. Rage, fear, sorrow, hatred, every emotion he had so carefully controlled and suppressed for four years boiled to the surface in a single instant, a swirling torrent that he could sense echoing from Mitsumi. He grabbed her hand, and the two of them screamed to the heavens, "HINATA!"

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The woman standing behind the now-dead Aku sneered down at the corpse, while shrugging off her cloak. "Fool. So focused on murdering others, he never realized he had no reason to trust me at his back."

"You... you killed your own teammate," Juubei muttered in a horror-filled voice.

"Set him up, programmed his mind to trust me implicitly, then stabbed him in the back, yeah," she told them, apparently completely unconcerned with the monumental nature of her betrayal. "Tche, he'd've killed me just as quickly, if I'd given him the chance."

"Akatsuki will not let this slide," Kakashi told her, "traitors are killed, are they not?"

Nori chuckled, "I've been planning this departure for months now, Copy-nin. I want power, just like all of the others, but I'm not willing to become someone else's puppet to get it. I'm also not willing to take this lying down." As she spoke, black marks appeared over her skin, spreading from the left side of her neck, dots of ink spreading in rough lines over her white skin.

"Orochimaru," Hinata whispered, "he placed a curse seal on you." Despite that, only half her attention was on the one in front of her. Raiden and Mitsumi were becoming more agitated by the second, but were not responding to her, and she was deeply concerned with what they were facing.

"First stage only," Nori confirmed, "I'll die before I let him place the second. But I'll also have my revenge. The Master of Akatsuki is Orochimaru, the former Konoha shinobi everyone assumes is dead. He managed to transfer himself into a new body moments before Uzumaki's attacks killed him, and fled the scene. He controls the new Akatsuki by intimidation, curse seals, and the promise of power. And at the moment, his greatest interest is the seven of you, and the Yondaime's Seal. He thinks he can adapt it to allow him to use it himself, but wants live examples to study, first. That was our mission here, to retrieve one of you, alive, for him to study. Tetsuo and Kisame were assigned the same mission, but to take a member of the other team. And with that, I'll leave you."

Kakashi shifted, getting her attention before she could vanish, and asked, "Where is Orochimaru?"

Nori shook her head, "that's as far as I go for my revenge, Copy-nin. You and your kids will have to figure out the rest. I am going somewhere my abilities can be appreciated."

The two continued verbal sparring for a few minutes, but Hinata had to tune them out. Raiden and Mitsumi were still spiraling, obviously struggling hard, and the flashes of excitement, fear and pain she kept getting told her the opponent or opponents were very good. Then she felt a swirling burst of something she could not identify, echoing down the link like a tidal wave.

"Kakashi," she interrupted the attempt to argue more information out of Nori. "Get any information from her you can, however you can. Sibs, return to Konoha as quickly as possible, something is wrong with Raiden's team."

Juubei reached for her shoulder, "What are you going to be doing?"

HINATA! She heard the shout, with her mind and her ears simultaneously, and felt two hands suddenly grabbing hers, and her chakra spiraling away. The world washed away in white before she could reply.

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Anko was up to her ears in trouble, and she knew it. Kisame was no Itachi, but he was old, skilled, and apparently insensate to pain or fear. She had hit him at least once with her Double-Snake Destroyer, but he had shrugged the blow off. Even worse, the broken remnants of Samehade were still apparently capable of sucking off her chakra, and using it to form a chakra blade in place of the missing original. It was nowhere near the size of the original weapon, or as sharp as the chakra-scalpels she had seen medic-nins use, but it was still dangerous.

She dodged another furious swing, continuing the spin to slam a heel into Kisame's back. But the over-grown fish just tumbled away, and came back up to his feet. He was facing her before she could reach him, slashing at her with the chakra-blade, forcing her to fall back. She whipped a fan of kunai at him to try and throw him off balance, but before they could hit he was blown sideways by a massive burst of chakra, tumbling away to land in a heap at the end of a shallow furrow.

"Where is Orochimaru, Kisame?"

Staring at where that bolt had come from, Anko felt her knees go weak in surprise and more than a little fear. Standing between Raiden and Mitsumi, Hinata was holding one of each of their hands. How she managed to get there from Suna, Anko had no idea, but the fact that the other two had obviously felt it necessary to summon her gave Yohko's absence from the scene an appalling new edge.

When no one responded, the three of them spoke in unison, repeating, "Where is Orochimaru, Kisame?"

"Why should I tell you brats," Kisame snarled, rising to his feet, "Tetsuo's accomplished our mission, now I get to kill all of you."

"You will kill no one else, Kisame," they told him, "you will answer our questions, then you will die. Your only option is how much you suffer before you answer."

"Tche, I know just how over-rated you kids are."

"You know nothing," they told him, finally separating. "Anko, please do not interfere. We cannot be sure we can avoid harming anyone not one with us."

"Wha..." before she could ask what they were doing, the three of them vanished, the space they had been standing exploding in a cloud of dust. Whipping around, she saw Kisame take a swing at a shadow, then the lunge violently with Samehade. The chakra blade slammed into Raiden's outstretched left hand, and detonated. A moment later, the last remnants of Samehade followed, bursting into vapor in Kisame's hand, overloaded by the Guardian's massive chakra aura.

Raiden staggered back, stumbling, but before Kisame could take advantage, Hinata descended from on high in a massive axe-kick. The missing-nin was forced to dodge backwards, but moved right into Mitsumi's spin-kick, which caught him on one hip and spun him hard. Hinata piled on, a series of punches laced with chakra that Kisame, for all his skill and power, was hard-pressed to block or avoid, and before he could get clear Mitsumi crashed into his back again, this time with a pair of Fire Hammers.

Able only to watch, Anko was treated to exactly the sort of unified assault she had always anticipated from her students. The Chunin and two Genin that she had worked with for over eight months now proceeded to demonstrate a level of coordination that she had never seen. Two of them were always attacking, while the third prepared more complicated jutsus, always moving in perfect unison. The attackers were always coordinated, always striking from opposite directions with a simultaneous timing that left Kisame no options, only to break off at precisely the right time to allow the third to slam home whatever technique had been building.

Kisame was skilled. He had been a shinobi as long as Anko, if not longer, and had learned in the harsh school taught by the Village of Mist. He had earned his title as one of the Seven Swordsman of the Mist, and later as a member of Akatsuki, the hard and violent way. He had survived the devastation of the original Akatsuki through skill and knowledge of when to retreat. But now, in a minor farm in Konoha's backwoods, he met his match in three shinobi who's total age might have equaled his, overwhelmed not by numbers, not by chakra, but by the unrelenting, remorseless unity with which they attacked him. It was a shining example of everything Konoha shinobi were taught regarding the virtues of teamwork, and it was a frightening example of just how far from the norm her students had wandered.

For all its ferocity, the battle ended quite soon, with Kisame unconscious on the ground, beaten and bloody. Raiden, Mitsumi and Hinata stood in a triangle around him, breathing hard and sweating, and far from unscathed. Each of them was covered in cuts and bruises from Kisame's blocks and the infrequent counter attacks he had managed. Raiden's right arm was hanging at an odd angle, and he was further favoring his right side. Mitsumi was limping, and a long ragged gash traced an angle across her chest and stomach. The left side of Hinata's face was covered in blood from an ugly forehead gash, and she also appeared to have broken her left arm.

"He's still alive," they told her, still speaking in unison. "We will need his information to verify their lair's defenses. He is not vital, however. If he regains consciousness before being secured, kill him."

Anko had to work for a second to find her voice, "A... what did you..."

"Tetsuo took Yohko," they told her, "a teleportation jutsu we cannot follow. We will track her down, but we will need time to recover from this." The three of them turned and walked a few meters away, ignoring Kisame's body. "When we are ready, we will retrieve her, and slay the one responsible." Anko only managed to catch Hinata as the three of them simply collapsed, tumbling to the ground in utter exhaustion.

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When Yohko woke, it was with a sharp-edged suddenness that confused and disoriented her for a few moments. She was suspended in the air, hanging off the floor from loops under her shoulders, arms stretched wide by chains leading to walls on either side. Her legs were strapped together by wide leather bands, and another band held her head fixed forward. Taking in all that, it was simple enough to deduce that Raiden and Mitsumi had not been able to free her from Tetsuo.

The room was rather boring, what she could see of it with the limited range of motion her bindings permitted. Cement walls, cement floor, cement ceiling all of them damp and dull. The coolness, damp, and lack of sound told her she was underground, which was not much of a surprise. Other than that, there was nothing to tell her how long she had been unconscious, how far she had been brought, or where. Nonetheless, she passed the time debating with herself the most likely locations for this Akatsuki interrogation room.

It was some time before anything changed, and she had just about convinced herself she was being held in Sound territory when she heard a rattle of metal, and the squeal of hinges behind her. Soft footsteps sounded, then the door was closed and locked again, the soft sound of breathing telling her someone had entered the chamber with her. A light appeared, the soft yellow glow and lack of sound telling her it was a lantern, a slight rattle telling her when it was hung on the wall behind her.

Time to play, she thought. "Bringing me here was a rather bad idea," she told her captor.

"Hhmmmm? Wasss it, now?"

The hissing sound bothered her, triggering one of her pet peeves, and she decided to test her captor's temper, "the proper pronunciation is 'was', short 's', not drawn out. Please speak properly, otherwise your meaning might be confused."

"Hhmm, aren't you the confident little girl." She finally identified the voice as masculine, though only just. "I will sssspeak asss I will. You will ssspeak asss I tell you too, ne?"

Yohko shrugged, as much as she could given the chains. "Of course I am confident. My siblings will come for you shortly, and by bringing me here, you have guaranteed they will kill you. Even if you kill me now, they will still come to this place, track you from it to wherever you flee, and kill you."

"Hhmm? And jussst how will they do that?"

"The seal I placed on Tetsuo, obviously. It functions as a tracker that any of them can follow. Since Tetsuo is quite obviously an underling, I created it to affix itself to the next person with a stronger chakra signature that he encountered. Which would be you."

He chuckled, a harsh staccato sound, "there wasss no sssuch ssseal on Tetsssuo, nor isss it on me."

"Aho," she muttered, "do you really think I would make it obvious? Visible? Please. I may not have strength of body, but I am far and away smart enough to lay a trap for anyone foolish enough to kidnap me."

He finally moved around in front of her, long gliding steps carrying him under the chain holding her left arm, and she got a good look at him. He was of average height, relatively slim build, with long straight hair hung around slightly slumped shoulder. What truly identified him, however, were the golden eyes with the serpent-slit pupils. He smiled when he saw the recognition in her eyes.

She sighed and hung her head. "Kami-sama, they will never let me live this down," she muttered, "captured by a has-been snake's underling. I suppose I could pass it off as a brilliant plan to capture you, but you are not worth effort..."

He chuckled again, reaching up with on long fingered hand to tap her jaw closed, "Quiet now. You are quite the interesssting little ssspecccimen, girl. I like your ssspirit, but you mussst know I will get all the information I desssire from you. You will tell me all the sssecrets you know, and sssoon. But, it doesss not have to be unpleasssant. I have an opening in my Akatsssuki, I think you would fill it well, with jussst a little ssseasssoning. I can offer you power, to fulfill your dream, knowledge beyond priccce, far more than Konoha can teach you."

She blinked, surprised. Is he really that ignorant of our motiviations? "Unfortunately, Orochimaru, you are, as my brother puts it, a 'clear and immediate threat' to Konoha. Especially now. You understand, all six of my siblings will come here with the express intent of killing you? They will not come to rescue me, they will come to kill you."

He chuckled, "Of courssse, I count on that sssingle-minded obsssesssion. The more sssubjectsss I have to ssstudy, the greater my underssstanding of your ssseal will be, and the more powerful I will be onccce I adapt it for my own ussse."

"You are truly a fool, then. Especially if you think I am going to divulge any information to you."

"You do not fear me, why?"

"Because fearing you is pointless," Yohko replied immediately, in an exasperated tone that showed how obvious she thought the answer was. "Do not mistake me, I am well aware of your capabilities, and your history. But the worst you can do to me is kill me. You cannot possess me as you have your current body, because of my gender and my Seal. You cannot destroy me, for you lack the understanding of what I am. You cannot turn me, because you do not understand why I have become what I am. Finally, you cannot break me, for I was already broken by my Seal. Thus, you can only kill me, and I have no reason to fear death, as beyond death is infinite knowledge, ne?"

He sighed, still smiling, "I understand you better than you think, child. Let usss sssee which of usss underssstandsss the other better, hmmm?" He caught her eyes with his, and whispered, "Tsukiyomi."

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Kurisu – thanks for the compliments.