When Jiraiya and Naruto got to the Kazekage's office, they jumped in through the window, not really wanting to have to explain why they were carrying an unconscious man through the tower. After they were inside, Rasa frowned at the man that they had dropped on his floor and sighed. He looked at Naruto and said, "What did you do this time Naruto?" surprised and disappointed that Naruto had found the time, and reason, to prank someone after having become a genin.
"Hey! It wasn't me! Honest!" Naruto exclaimed.
Rasa scrutinised Naruto for a minute before sighing again and asked, "What is it then?"
Jiraiya spoke up, saying, "I was just getting Naruto to demonstrate a problem that he has with one of his seals when I saw this guy running over rooftops," nudging Sora with the side of his foot.
"Oh? And who is he, exactly?"
"His name's Amano Sora. He was a chūnin from Konoha."
Rasa raised an eyebrow and said, "Was?" and paused for a couple of seconds before asking, "Past tense?"
"Yes. He was exiled for misusing his skills."
"I see. Any idea what he was doing here?"
"No. I knocked him out before any questions were asked."
"I see. I trust that you will have no problems if I let my guys try and extract that information out of him then?"
"Of course not," Jiraiya said, uncomfortable with giving the go ahead for the use of torture, but understood that it was going to happen, where he was alright with it or not. "On the condition that that is all that your men go after, and we get him back when you're done."
"That can be arranged," Rasa nodded. "Would you like to search his effects to see if there's anything Konoha-centric in there?"
"Yes. Thank you," Jiraiya said, appreciating Rasa's tact.
"Of course, I'm going to have to assign someone to observe your search."
"Certainly," Jiraiya said. "Would Naruto do?"
"I suppose," Rasa shrugged, figuring that two sealmasters would have a better chance of finding something that may have been missed by others. "Though you might as well do it here. I don't have any more meetings for another few hours yet."
"Alright," Jiraiya shrugged, grabbing Sora's bag and putting it on Rasa's desk. He started rummaging through it, taking things out and placing them on the desk, randomly taking things form the desk and sealing them into a scroll, a lot of which had absolutely nothing to do with anything, but a mere smokescreen for anything that was important. Then they saw something that none of them was expecting. It was a ring crafted out of a single sapphire and had a gold trident cameo on it.
Rasa said, "That's…odd. Though I think that I've seen it before at Satsuki's house."
Jiraiya frowned at it and said, "Naruto, come and have a look at this," jolting Naruto's head up, having been consumed in his search.
Naruto moved around the desk and asked, "What is i…" and saw the ring. He frowned at the feeling that he was getting from the ring and activated his dōjutsu. He looked at the ring again and his eyes widened for a second before he looked at Rasa seriously and said, "You need to get Amayah and her mother here."
"Those two? Why?"
"Because that ring has a seal on it and I've only seen the characters on it in one place."
"I see," Rasa said, thinking, 'Those two will have a lot of explaining to do. As will Satsuki the next time I see her.' He then called in his assistant and told her to fetch Amayah and her mother, along with Rei and Mai.
Within ten minutes Jiraiya, Naruto, Rei, Mai, and Amayah & her mother were sitting in front of rasa's desk, wondering what they were there for. Rasa didn't let them wait for long, saying, "Naruto. Would you like to begin?"
Naruto nodded and said, "Sure thing. When I was getting some held with one of my seals, Pervy Sage and I apprehended a thief from Konoha and brought him here to rasa-san's office."
"Okay, what has that got to do with us?" Amayah's mother, Sayaka, asked, greatly annoyed by being interrupted during her, and Amayah's father's 'alone time'.
"I'm glad you asked," Naruto said in a chipper tone, completely ignoring Sayaka's mood. "When we got here we started rifling through his stuff to see if we could find out what he came here for." Naruto paused to let it sink in. "That is when we found this," Naruto said, pulling the ring they found from his pocket. The gathered kunoichi squinted as they tried to make out what Naruto was holding. Sayaka gasped, recognising exactly what he was holding. Naruto said, "So, you do know what this is then?" already knowing the answer.
Sayaka sighed and said, "Yes. But I had thought that 'they' were just a bedtime story."
Amayah looked at her mother and hesitantly asked, "Mum, what is that thing?"
Sayaka sighed and said, "Like I said. I thought that it was just a story that my father told me, because even I thought that it was too far-fetched to actually be true."
"What is it?"
Sayaka sighed and said, "Amayah, you are aware of how our respective clans came to hate one another, yes?" Amayah and Naruto nodded, to the surprise of Mai, who found such a thing utterly ridiculous, given how close the two of them were. Sayaka brought them out of their thought, saying, "Well, the story of that ring goes back even further."
"Seriously?!" Amayah and Naruto exclaimed.
"Yes. At a time before we had chōinjutsu, we used brushes and ink to craft our seals, as did the Uzumaki eventually, though they were much better at it," Sayaka groused. "Anyway, at the time we managed to anger the Ōtsutsuki because we wouldn't cow-tow to them like the rest of the continent did at the time due to their ability to cause great destruction wherever they went. Thinking on it, they probably used chakra to do it, but that doesn't matter. What does, is the fact that we needed power to stand against them."
"And that's where the rings come in," Naruto said.
"Yes," Sayaka agreed. "But there were more than just rings being produced. There were pendants, earrings, weapons, you name it, if it could be inscribed, we used it." Jiraiya, Rei and Rasa all bit their lips, the true meaning of Sayaka's words not as lost on them as it was on the genin. "Before you say anything like, 'surely that's going to an extreme', or, 'that's just nuts', the Ōtsutsuki were that much of a threat. When our war with the Ōtsutsuki was done, some of the members of the Tenkatagi realised what we had created, and the danger that they posed, and set about stealing them all and scattered thme all over the known continent, sealing them away in temples, caves or whatever other dark place that they could find. When they were done, they killed themselves, taking the locations with them to the grave. What I'd like to know, is why one of them is here."
"A very good question," Rasa said, "but a better one would be why did Sora have it, and how did he know about it."
Rei looked at Sayaka and said, "Sayahka, do you know what those rings can do?"
"No," Sayaka sighed. "Supposedly they can empower the user somehow, but the items themselves all did different things as far as I'm aware."
"I see."
Jiraiya said, "Is there any record of how these things can be made?"
"I don't know. Like I said, I thought that those rings were a myth. But in this room, there are three people that could potentially recreate the method."
Jiraiya said, "Now hold on a second, there's no way that I would try to…"
Sayaka laughed hysterically. She said, "You? You must be joking."
Jiraiya gruffly said, "What's so funny?"
"I don't know who you are, but those rings use a base form of chōinjutsu. It's a sealing form that far predates the current form of character-based fūinjutsu. When I said that there were three people that could potentially recreate those rings, I wasn't talking about you. I was talking about my daughter and I, as the only chōinjutsu users in Suna, and Naruto, who has the nerve to incorporate our family's art into his fūinjutsu."
Jiraiya looked at Naruto as he scratched his head, grinning. He thought, 'So that's why I recognised those Fūin Tensho earlier. Naruto incorporates other sealing styles into his own. It makes sense really, many martial arts copy the traits of animal's in order to progress.'
XXXXX
A bit later, in the Torture and Interrogation Chamber, the head of the Division, a woman with straw-blonde hair was sitting opposite Sora, a table between them. She was what most men would call beautiful, if it weren't for the arrogant smirk that was permanently on her face. She was saying, "Alright, I'll get straight to the point. Your name is Amano Sora; you're a B-Rank missing-nin from Konoha and you were sent here to steal a ring from Fujisawa Satsuki. Why?"
Sora said, "Hn," looking away uninterested in what she was saying.
"Alright then, we'll save that for later. We'll go for a simpler one. Who sent you after it?"
"What makes you think I'm working for someone?"
"Simple. We know what the ring is."
Sora grinned and said, "Believe you me. Whatever you think you know about it, you might as well forget because you'll be way off."
The chief thought, 'Okay, so he's one of the ones that likes to talk.' She said, "Hmm…you might be right," tapping her chin. "Members of the Tenkatagi clan are few and far between. I bet even more have forgotten their past history too." Sora's eyes widened when he heard the name. He quickly returned them to the way they were, but his interrogator had seen the reaction. She thought, 'So, he is working for somebody or some organisation, and there is at least one person who either is a Tenkatagi, or at least knows a great deal of knowledge about them.' She started tapping her long nails on the metal table, considering the information and how she should use it. She sighed and said, "You know what, why don't you save yourself a lot of pain, and me a lot of time, and just tell me who sent you."
"If I do that, they'll kill me!"
"If you don't tell me what I want to know, I'll kill you. That said, I like to drag it out for as long as I can and savour it for as long as I can."
"You can't! Konoha…"
"Doesn't care. It was your precious Jiraiya that signed off on this."
"Now I know you're lying. There's no way that Jiraiya of the Sannin would…" Sora's eyes widened when he saw his interrogator push a sheet of paper over toward him. He read it and saw that it was a disclaimer, signed by Jiraiya, that stated in no uncertain way, that Konoha would not seek compensation for any injuries inflicted. "That's…gotta be a fake."
"You want proof?" his interrogator asked. Then, in a loud voice, she said, "Hey, ya ol' perv, come on in."
Jiraiya entered the room, muttering about stupid, loudmouthed, blondes. Sora exclaimed, "Jiraiya-sama! They've forged your…" then he saw the look that Jiraiya had on his face and sullenly looked away.
Jiraiya said, "Sora, just tell them. Then they'll put you into my custody and I can take you back home."
"I'm sorry, but I just can't do that."
Jiraiya sighed and said, "Then I'm sorry," and turned his back on Sora.
The chief looked at Sora's face and saw the look of introspection that she had seen time and time again, so said, "Well, I need to talk to some people about this, so I'll leave you for a while," and stood up and left the room, joining Jiraiya, Rasa, Rei, Mai and Naruto in the adjoining room. Amayah and Sayaka would have been there too, but they were getting grilled about the Tenkatagi Clan, and the skills used by them. The chief said, "I've got him."
"I don't think so," Jiraiya said doubtfully.
"You saw the look on his face. They've always got that look just before they break.
"Ye-ess…" Jiraiya said, "…and with any other shinobi, you might be right. But Sora's in a different category than your normal…"
"Customers?" The chief supplied.
"Why do you say that?" Rasa asked.
"Sora was trained by Ibiki," Jiraiya said, "so he knows all of the tricks and cues. So he can use them like a master puppeteer."
Rasa said, "Hmm…if that's the case, then Minako probably won't be able to get Sora to reveal what we want to know."
"Now that's hardly…" Minako said, her smile replaced with a scowl, annoyed at her leader doubting her skills.
"Come on Minako, be serious. Who do you think is better, you or Morino Ibiki?"
"Well…" Minako said, her internal struggle on her face. She struggled to say, "But only 'cause he's got more than a decade on me."
Rasa sighed and said, "Maybe so, but the fact remains."
"So what do you suggest we do? Give him over to Konoha so that they can do our jobs for us?" Minako spitefully said.
Naruto said, "You could let me have a shot."
All of the jōnin looked at Naruto sceptically, except for Minako, who laughed maliciously before angrily saying. "You think that you can do it when I can't?"
Naruto said, "I think that I've got a pretty good shot at it, though I would need your help in the preparation."
"Oh?" Minako said, her annoyance changing to curiosity.
"Yeah," Naruto said with a malicious grin of his own.
"Do tell."
"Alright, but not here."
"Okay, you can come to my place when I'm done for the day."
"Alright, when's that?"
"'bout four hours or so."
"Alright, I'll see you there," Naruto said.
While Naruto and Minako had been talking, Rasa, Rei and Mai all had unsettling feelings, concerned at what the Head of the Torture and Interrogation Division and the most notorious prankster that never was could cook up together.
XXXXX
A week later, Minako had been at Sora during the day, using everything at her disposal, from sensory deprivation and starvation to more physical methods. Sora, by the end of the first day, was talking a lot, only telling the truth a third of the time, though even that was useless. Naruto, in the meantime, had been studying the ancient blueprints of the Kazekage Tower, frowning a lot of the time, discarding one plan after another before finally deciding on the one that had the greatest chance of succeeding, which brought him to what he was currently doing.
He was standing on the top of the cliff behind the Kazekage Tower at ten o'clock at night as he tied a black mask, that had a silver floral pattern embroidered on it, onto his face, a was a replacement for the red one that he had had to leave in Uzushiogakure to pass on the seal's designs. When he did, he was told that if he could kill an army of mercenaries, then he deserved to be a full-fledged assassin. Naruto said, "Right then," and sighed as he pulled his hood up, "here goes," and ran down the cliff. When he was level with the roof of the building, he kept on going.
He stopped when he was about halfway down the building, just about level with the fuse box for the Kazekage tower. He leapt over to the building and opened the box. He activated his night vision seal and read the labels under the fuses. He turned off the fuses dedicated to the alarm system. He took the fuses out of their slots and placed them in his pocket, not wanting anyone to be able to turn them back on in a hurry. Naruto activated a seal that he had just finished, saying, "Gyokuji: Kakuremino," disappearing from sight, not that anybody was there to see it.
He then picked the lock of the window of the mission assignment room next to the fuse box and slipped inside. He quickly ran through the hallways, making sure to stop before turning a corner and used a mirror to see if there was anyone there. When he was in the janitor's closet, he moved a broom that he found on the tower's blueprints that opened a secret passageway through the walls of the tower. He kept on going down until he got to the exit, at the bottom, which let him out into the elevator shaft that went down to the interrogation department.
He quickly ran down the side of the shaft until he reached the door lower door. Once he was level with the door, he walked around the sides until he got to it and pulled a lever next to it, hoping that that would open the door. It did. Naruto then waited after opening the door, having seen two guards at the end of the corridor when he went there the previous week. He didn't have to wait long before the guards came over, poking their heads through the door, which was what Naruto wanted as it gave him the chance to get inside and his feet on the ground because he didn't want anyone falling to their deaths, which would have happened had they tried to fight him in the shaft.
The guards looked at the one that had come down the elevator shaft and one of them said, "Ah hell, it's just some kid!"
The other one, said, "What are you doing here kid? Isn't it a bit past your bedtime?"
Naruto said, "Thanks for making this easier," and threw a kunai between the guards. He teleported to it as the guards followed it with their heads, seeing Naruto for barely a second before they could see nothing but their eyelids, on the floor, unconscious thanks to a knockout seal that Naruto had put on their backs. Naruto turned them over and placed a genjutsu seal on their shirt pockets that made it seem as if blood was pouring from there. Naruto then made his way carefully through the Torture and Interrogation Department, making sure to watch out for guards more carefully than he had been when he had been making his way through the Upper Kazekage Tower.
Eventually he made his way through the division to the holding cells, where he found a plethora of guards. He thought, 'Shit,' no getting out of this, and drew two kunai from the kunai pouches attached to his legs. Naruto crept up behind the first guy and stabbed him in the back, causing him to crumple at his feet, alerting his mates that there was someone else there, though they couldn't see anyone thanks to Naruto's cloak. Naruto moved through the guards like a ghost, stabbing them and cutting their necks before moving on to the next guard. By the time that he had taken down seven, the guards were shrieking in fear. Naruto took advantage of their confusion and moved through the guards to make his way to the cell that Minako had told him was where they were holding Sora.
When he was in front of Sora's cell, he dropped the hood and said, "Amano Sora."
Sora looked at the person talking to him and almost jumped in shock. He crept backwards, trying to climb up the wall, or dig a way out. Naruto said, "Fear not. I'm not going to end you."
"What?" Sora asked, shocked that he would get a reprieve from the assassin's blade. "But guild laws dictate that…"
"Yes yes, I know all that, but I did my homework before I came here tonight. You haven't given them a thing, about the guild, or about your mission here." Sora let out a sigh of relief. "Speaking of which, how did it go?"
"Easy. It was really easy to get past the guards, I mean really, you tell 'em some tall tale about being on a long term mission and they let you right in."
Naruto thought, 'Those lazy…'
"Okay, you can tell me the rest once we're gone from this place," Naruto said, looking around.
"No offence or anything, but how exactly are we going to get out? I mean, unless you've killed all the guards, then…"
"That wasn't necessary," Naruto said, getting on one knee to handle the locks.
"Then how…?"
"Did you forget already?" Sora looked at his saviour with a confused look on his face. "My cloak has an invisibility function."
"Well, no offence, but I don't think that that will do me any good."
"I don't doubt it," Naruto said. "That's why I brought one for you too." Finished with the lock, Naruto pushed the door open and threw Sora a sand coloured cloak."
"Thanks…uhh…"
"Satsuriku."
"Satsu…how did you get that name?" Sora asked as he put his cloak on.
"Oh, I just killed around two hundred mercenaries," Naruto said as he started to lead the way away from where he had left the guards.
"Two hun…" Sora's eyes boggled. "Surely you jest."
"I never joke about my work," Naruto said in a flat tone.
"You never…but you can't be much older than that blonde brat that…hey! You're him! You're that blonde! What's going on?"
"That's easy. I didn't know that you were on guild business at the time. I only found out when they contacted me with orders to take care of you. Even if I did, I couldn't very well say anything at the time, could I?"
"But how are you a member of the Thieves Guild? They don't typically let shinobi loyal to a village in."
"Well, they didn't know at the time. Besides, it was either join the guild, or die."
"Well, they do tend to have a rather black and white way of dealing with that."
"Tell me about it. Anyway, do tell, what were you doing in Satsuki-san's house?"
"Simple. I saw the lady wearing a really expensive looking ring in the market the day before, so I followed her home and broke into her house to steal it. I don't even know what that thing was. It just looked expensive, so I took it with me."
"I see. But if that's the case, then why did Minako think that you knew something about it."
"Who knows? I only know of a Tenkatagi Clan having existed because my uncle back in Konoha was really into the pre-clan war period.
"I see," Naruto said.
XXXXX
In a room that had its walls lined with camera's, Rasa and Minako watched as Naruto went about his work, Minako watching with a surprised smile on her face. She blinked as she heard what Naruto was saying. She laughingly said, "Well I'll be damned, the kid really knows what he's doing down there."
"Yes," Rasa said. "Though even I'm surprised by how easily he managed to get Sora to talk after the troubles that he gave you."
Minako shrugged and said, "Eh, I was going light on him. All part of the kid's plan."
Rasa looked at Minako, stunned. He said, "That was light?!"
"Yeah. I didn't even get to bring out my knives."
Rasa sighed, shaking his head. "In any case," he said, "I'm going to have to deal with the shinobi guarding the gates. They've become far too lax if that's all that it takes to get them to let someone into the village."
Minako eagerly asked, "Can I do it?" a gleam in her eyes that rasa really didn't like.
He said, "No Minako, you're not torturing them."
Minako said, "Himph," crossing her arms as she looked away, saying, "you're no fun."
XXXXX
Once Naruto and Sora had escaped the tower, Naruto said, "Right, now, here," handing over his Suna hitai-ate and a Mk I temperate coat. "These will identify you as a ninja from this village. Leave now, and never come back."
"Wait! What about my things!"
"Leave 'em," Naruto shrugged. "There's nothing important in there, is there?"
"Hmngg…" Sora said, struggling within himself. Eventually he sighed, "not really. Just make sure that Jiraiya takes them to my uncle."
"Alright," Naruto said, turning to go home after watching Sora head in the direction of the gates. After Sora had left, and before Naruto could walk off, he saw Rasa and Minako standing at the doors of the Kazekage Tower. He said, "So, how'd I do?"
Minako grinned happily and said, "Kid, how do you want a job after you become chūnin?"
"Huh?" Naruto asked, confused by Minako's attitude and words.
Rasa sighed and said, "What Minako means, Naruto, is that you did a good job," rubbing the top of Naruto's head. Naruto looked up at them grinning. "Although I must say that letting him go like that was a bit…"
Naruto scoffed and said, "Who do you think you're talking to?" Rasa blinked in confusion, shaking his head a little. "That was my hitai-ate I gave him."
"What? Then you mean that…"
Naruto grinned and handed a tag over that had a seal marked on it. He said, "Here, channel chakra into it and you can hear what's going on and see whatever the symbol is pointing at."
"Are you telling me that…" Naruto grinned cheesily. "How long have you had this one?"
"Well…" Naruto said, scratching the back of his head and laughing, looking away from Rasa. "See ya, Rasa-san."
Minako looked at Rasa and said, "What was that all about?"
Rasa sighed and said, "Naruto is one of the most dangerous types of shinobi in the world." Minako cocked her head. "He has mastered three elemental natures, but uses fūinjutsu as his primary method of fighting."
"What?" Minako exclaimed, "Is that even possible!?"
"Apparently, though even I still don't know quite how he does it. I just hope that he didn't give him one of the more recent coats."
"Why?"
"Because, Naruto's original design was as a reversible coat and they were always active."
"Okay, what's your point?"
"Sora had his on the right way."
"Wait…then…" Minako started to laugh.
XXXXXXX
A/N
XXXXXXX
A/N
Before I go on to the usual stuff, there is now a poll on my profile as regards the harem in Sasuke's Sluts. If you can, please check it out.
Attacks
Uzumaki 'Satsuriku' Naruto
Gyokuji: Kakuremino(Sovereign's Seal: Magic Cloak of Invisibility)
A fūinjutsu application of the Meisaigakure ninjutsu.
