Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, nor am I affiliated in any way with it, other than being a fan. Those rights belong to Masashi Kishimoto. I do own the OC's and any techniques and weapons I add to the story.

A/N: Now we have a mission to Otogakure in order to clean up a few loose ends. Nothing should go wrong… right? Sigh, looks like Naruto and the crew are in for some mayhem.

Chapter 25: Mission to Sound

"And you recommended this mission why?" Minato asked Sasuke. He, Kushina, Sasuke and Naruto were currently standing in the Hokage's office, Sasuke having brought up the subject of going to Otogakure to raid Orochimaru's bases.

"Because it seems necessary, Hokage -sama," Sasuke replied. "Orochimaru had a lot of experiments that I know of going on, and who knows what will happen if they are left unattended. Plus, he has several people that I knew at some point locked up in his labs, and a few not entirely loyal servants, and I have no intention of just leaving them there. And there is the possibility of him returning if we don't take care of a particular problem soon."

"Wait a minute, what do you mean he could return?" Naruto asked.

"Did you not see Orochimaru in the future, before time was turned back?" Sasuke asked.

"Uh no, but now that you mention it…" Naruto said as he remembered that Minato had mentioned that Orochimaru had resurrected him during their brief reunion in the future, but Naruto had pretty much forgotten about that.

"One of Orochimaru's means of immortality lies within his cursed seals," Sasuke said as he rubbed his neck somewhat semiconsciously. "He has a bit of his own consciousness within them. Ceilia got rid of the one in mine, and she is as we speak finishing up Anko's, which is the one I used when I needed to bring Orochimaru back. But there are several other curse marks that are not attended to, and if we leave them as they are, and someone where to simply hold up a piece of flesh with Orochimaru's DNA to the seal and perform a certain jutsu, next thing we know, all of the efforts to get rid of the snake are defenestrated (A/N: Another word I like, it means literally to throw out the window) .

"All right then," Minato said as he looked at some files with intel on Otogakure. "And just who are these people you knew? Just out of curiosity I mean."

"There are three in particular. Suigetsu Hozuki, Jugo, and Karin Uzumaki," Sasuke stated, and Kushina showed some surprise that a member of her clan was still alive. "I would also release all other experiments after we have made sure they have no curse mark. Those who do will have to have theirs removed by Ceilia before we let them go free."

"Well there is no way in hell we are leaving an Uzumaki in Oto, and I certainly don't want to have to kill that traitor again," Minato said.

"Damn right about that," Kushina said. "If you did have her left behind, you would never get off the couch at night." Minato sweat dropped.

"All right then, I will have the strike teams assembled. I will send them out tomorrow. I assume you both want to be a part of it?" Naruto and Sasuke both nodded. "All right then. Dismissed."

…..

Kabuto sighed in relief after he finally made it back to one of Orochimaru's bases. Ever since the failed invasion, he had been hounded by several Konoha ninja, and he had to take some very confusing routes and use every trick in the book to shake them. He amused himself for a moment with the image of the reactions he was sure a group of Inuzukas would have once the pepper bomb traps he set went off.

He entered the base and considered his next move. Since Orochimaru was dead, he would have to be very careful as to what he did from now on. He supposed he could just be a freelance spy, but he did have something to fall back on. It looked like he would have to contact Sasori again, but he would need a good faith sort of payment if he was going to work for him long term.

He visited Kimimaro's room, and looked at the charts. Needless to say, the man was devastated to hear about Orochimaru's demise, and just sunk into depression. Kabuto made sure the machines would keep Kidomaro alive for at least a little longer before he went to send a message to Sasori. After all, the puppet master would want the body to be still alive before he worked on it…

…..

"Everyone here?" Felix asked the next day as the group assembled. The team that had been chosen consisted of twelve members with three groups, with Felix being the leader of his own, consisting of Xackary, Borace and Anko, who had her seal finished with some modifications, and was eager to exact a personal poetic revenge against Orochimaru by helping to pick apart the nation he had built by using the power he had given her without the original drawbacks of him messing with her mind.

Zabuza was also selected for the mission after his probation period had ended and his team was Haku, Hana Inuzuka, and Kin, who was given the mission due to her familiarity with Otogakure, and was told to consider it a test of her loyalty. Haku was picked because even though he was officially a genin, Zabuza assured Minato that Haku had the abilities of at least a high chunin. Hana was put on the team to serve as a tracker and a medic for the team.

Itachi was the final team leader and would be bringing two of his own subordinates, Naruto and Sasuke, along with Shizune, who Naruto requested to be included so she could give immediate medical care to Kimimaro once they reached the base he was held in. Naruto had heard of Kimimaro's story previously from Gaara, and was determined to help him as well. Sasuke said that may be extremely difficult, because from what he heard about the Kaguya, he was very single mindedly loyal to Orochimaru.

Naruto had expressed surprise that Xackary was going to be in on the mission to Sound, which was explained by Borace. Apparently Xackary wanted to punish Kabuto for abusing the dead in the future. Once again, Naruto was a little confused because he had thought that the Elder Dimension knights were unable to fight those Naruto had fought before. Borace corrected him, saying Felix was unable to do so, because the seal used to rewind time was written in his blood, meaning it could only be used with his permission and he alone was bound by the rules. That said, it was still frowned upon for knights to fight battles in a world of reversed time that the seal owner couldn't, but considering how personal it was to Xackary's clan for people to abuse the dead, Borace was sure the Elder Dimension's Ruling Council would turn a blind eye to the transgression.

With that taken care of, the group headed for enemy territory. Their first destination was to the Southern Base, where they would find Karin, so they went southeast to Wave Country to get a boat to the island.

…..

Sakura and Hinata sighed simultaneously. They were both depressed that their crushes were out on missions without them. Hinata had been told by Naruto that it was a mission into Otogakure, and she had wanted to go with him, but he told her that all the members had already been selected for the mission. She was concerned, but he told her that Oto was in turmoil after the demise of Orochimaru and failed invasion, so there should be little to no serious threat of organized resistance from the Sound ninja, and besides, it was not a large nation to begin with, and was mainly just scattered bases over the nations.

"Do you think they will be alright?" Hinata asked Sakura, who did not know the details of the mission Sasuke was on, but was aware that it was an A rank mission.

"Of course they will be, don't be silly," Sakura replied. "I mean, they have some pretty strong companions with them from what I heard, and you know how strong Itachi is."

"That's true, Itach-sensei is very powerful."

"And don't forget, Naruto and Sasuke may still be genin officially, but they are shoo-ins for chunin once the judges make their final decision. They practically stole the entire show during their fight, they seemed more like jonin hopefuls than chunin. If only Orochimaru hadn't interrupted the event, I would have killed to see Sasuke-kun's victory."

Hinata spewed the water she was drinking in shock. "D-don't be ridiculous," she sputtered. "Sasuke-kun may be very strong, but Naruto-kun would have beaten him if the fight had continued."

"Oh yeah!?" Sakura demanded as the two girls glared daggers at each other, and everyone else around them wisely backed off to avoid the dangerously close cat fight. "Sasuke-kun would not have been beaten by Naruto, I mean, he had the Sharingan for crying out loud, how do you beat that?!"

"The Sharingan may be powerful, but it's not invincible! No dojutsu is!" Hinata retorted, glad none of the elders of her clan were around to hear that and reprimand her for belittling the Byakugan.

The argument continued and was heard though out half the village.

…..

A few days later, the boats Naruto's group were traveling in departed from the Southern Base with Karin in tow. Though she had been a little difficult at first to convince, she was much more reasonable once she had learned the Naruto was an Uzumaki like her. Once she started listening and learned of Orochimaru's demise, she was willing to join the Hidden Leaf. So once the prisoners had been released, none of them having the cursed seal fortunately, Karin was accompanying them on the way to their next destination, Yugakure, the location of the Eastern Base, where they would find Suigetsu, and the Hawk Summoning Contract (A/N: It was never told how he got that, so I will just assume Orochimaru had acquired it and had it stored somewhere), which Sasuke decided he would sign again.

Of course, it did not take Karin long to develop a crush on Sasuke, like she had done last time. Naruto found this hilarious, while Sasuke was looking at the surface of the water, probably contemplating drowning himself. Once they had docked, Naruto managed to say to Sasuke without the stalker, er, Karin hearing him, "You better have a plan to stop Karin and Sakura from killing each other over you when we get back, because that would not be pretty." Naruto sniggered as Sasuke paled and cast one more glance at the water before they made their way to the Eastern Base. Once they were done there, they would go to the Northern Base to pick up Jugo, before they went back south to the main Oto base for Kimimaro and the Snake summoning contract, which Sasue also decided to sign again. It should take about five days, give or take to reach that final destination.

…

Somewhere in Iwa, in a hidden Akatsuki base, Drakmus looked at the new blade he had forged with a critical eye. He had left his other sword behind when he had escaped from Sasuke, so a new one was needed. Shaking his head, Drakmus conjured his Hellfire around the sword and got to work fixing the small error he had seen. Even though his materials were ordinary steel, using Hellfire to forge his weapons out of it drastically improved the metal and stained it black, almost the same shade as the natural black steel and about the same strength while holding just as keen an edge.

A few hours later, he looked at the sword again and finally nodded as he slipped the sword into its scabbard. "You really do have your work down to an art form," a voice said from behind him. Draknus turned to see his partner Sasori standing behind him without his Hiruko, because it had been broken during the fight with Roshi, and he was still putting the finishing touches on the new one. He had clearly patiently waiting for Drakmus to finish, which struck the part demon as odd, because he knew his partner's impatience.

"How long have you been there?" Drakmus asked as he rose and stretched, wincing slightly as his chest throbbed. He now had two scars on his body, the first being the one Felix had given to him while he was eight, the second being the one inflicted by the Rasenlance that Sasuke had impaled him with, and that one hadn't fully healed. While his demon hide would normally have turned even that attack, the repeated blows to his chest that day had weakened it to the point where it finally gave out to that attack. It was lucky for Drakmus that his enlarged body had only taken superficial wounds to a lung and his heart.

"About an hour," Sasori shrugged.

"That's unlike you. Normally you get ticked if you have to wait more than a few minutes for something."

"True, but as I said, I was fascinated by your craft, and it filled the time to watch."

"So what did you want?"

"A favor," Sasori said as he pulled a scroll from his sleeve. "I have recently heard of a new subject I can use for one of my prize puppets, and would like to add some of your weapons to it. Do you mind forging these tools for me?" Drakmus took the scroll and looked over the list.

"Hmm, it will take a few days to a week to make all these," he said thoughtfully. "But it is fine, I have nothing better to do."

"Well at least you can get us to where we need to be once you are done in a heartbeat. That rift splitting jutsu is a godsend for saving time. How long does an educated guess say the tools will take?"

Drakmus looked at the list and did some more thorough mental calculations. "My best guess… is about five days."

A/N: Sorry for the shortest chapter ever, but I thought that was a good place to leave off, plus I had to look at a map and do some serious guesswork as to where some bases would be. Did I select a good set of fighters for the mission to Sound Village? And who was expecting a potential meeting with Drakmus again so soon? This could get ugly…

I will close the poll tomorrow on who to pair Karin with. There seems to be an overwhelming majority of votes for a relationship with Suigetsu, a little for Jugo and none for Kimimaro, except for one request from a reviewer, but you need to go to my profile to vote, not just review. I am a little disappointed that there is almost no chance of Kimimaro winning, so I will have to find another potential pairing for him. He will have a clan to restore after all. Any ideas?

I am still on the fence with the idea of giving Naruto the Rinnegan, though I am leaning towards the side of doing so. My final decision will come next chapter, though he won't get it for a while yet, but someone else also brought up an interesting idea in a review, though it seems a little iffy to me. Sasuke could have possibly gotten some of Naruto's blood in his own stream during the transfusion, though that blood would probably just gone back to Naruto via the medical jutsu Felix used. But there is still the possibility of trace amounts, so the idea of giving Sasuke the Rinnegan as well is also on the fence, but leaning the opposite way as the thought of giving Naruto the Rinnegan. Let me know what you guys think of that as well!

So read, submit any final votes on the pairing you may have, and review! I felt a little short on the last chapter, so please review this one a little more!