Well LMD has been a little under the weather recently so its my turn to introduce the chapter.
So enjoy!
Family of Four
Takara gave the teens time alone, it was only right, they hadn't seen each other for a while. She returned to Jiraiya, he was kneeling on the ground and rummaging in his pack.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"Looking for something Tsunade gave me…" he answered and dug deeper. Takara wrung out her sodden bikini and spread it on a rock to dry.
"Got it" Takara turned around and found Jiraiya still kneeling in front of her and holding up a small blue box it was open to reveal a ring.
"Did we come at a bad time?" Hinata asked, she and Naruto had just come back into the clearing to find the two adults.
"Either you are very confused or you want hurt." Takara hissed at him, Jiraiya looked confused for a second and then caught on to the fact that he looked like he was proposing. Laughing to himself he stood up and brushed dirt off his trousers. Takara continued to glare at him while he adjusted his wardrobe. The teens where confused and decided to stay out of the line of fire.
"What are you doing?"
"Well, remember a family unit is less noticeable." He plucked the gold ring out of the box and tried to take Takara's left hand. She shook him off and snapped the ring off him.
"I'd rather you didn't put it on" she looked at the ring, it was a plain gold ring, made to look reasonably priced to avoid attracting the attention of bandits. Jiraiya had a similar ring which he pulled out of his pocket and slipped onto his finger. He flexed his hand and held it up to show Takara.
"How does it look 'honey'?"
"I will hurt you…" Takara muttered looking at him flatly. He chuckled to himself and walked away. Takara sighed heavily,
"It's for the good of Konoha, its for the good of Fire" she muttered to herself repeatedly trying to convince herself it would be worth it "… but it'd not good for my sanity…" and failing. She turned the ring over in her hands for a while before she finally brought herself to put it on.
Hinata sniggered and Takara shot her a glare.
"What? its funny…" Hinata shrugged, Naruto was also smirking.
"Alright! Fine! But if you try anything…" she pointed at Jiraiya and left the threat unfinished.
"So anyway moving on, are we gonna stay here tonight or go to the town?" Hinata asked before the white haired sannin could provoke Takara any further.
"I dunno… the town is pretty close I guess." Takara said picking up the map.
"It's still early." Naruto prompted.
"True" Hinata agreed.
"Screw it, we'll head to town." Takara shrugged and gathered her stuff, Hinata got hers together too. Once they were ready the four walked back to the road and started off towards the next town. On the way Takara walked ahead with Jiraiya close behind her and the teens trailed behind.
"Isn't Ero-sennin old enough to be Takara's dad?" Naruto asked randomly.
"Ah, but love knows no bounds Naruto" the man called back.
"Well you had better have some." Takara muttered from the front.
"How old is Takara anyway?" Naruto asked, once again being random.
"You know… I really don't know" Hinata answered, and tried to think, did Takara ever tell her? "well she was in Gai, Kakashi, and Kurenai's class at the academy, so she's got to be roughly the same age as them.
"But we don't know how old they are." Naruto said.
"That…… is a valid point…" Hinata shrugged, maybe she'd ask Takara later.
She never got a chance to because Takara really wasn't in the mood for talking because she was trying to mentally prepare herself for the challenge of not killing Jiraiya, by the time they got to the town it was getting late so they stopped at the first guest house they came too. Takara, Hinata and Naruto headed on in to the small dining area to get dinner while Jiraiya arranged the room for them, he joined them soon after.
They chatted about shops they had seen on the way in, for one thing it was where they could stock up on supplies and it made them stand out less.
They ate the food and Jiraiya tried to tempt Takara to stay in the bar and have a few drinks but she declined so he came with them up to the room, with a small bathroom complete with shower. It was a small room, that was too expected due to the cheap nature of the guest house. There was a tiny table with four cushions, one on each side, and three futons, two single and a double. Takara glared at Jiraiya with a twitching eyebrow.
"What!? We're married remember," He held up his hand to flash the ring, "if I asked for four singles it wouldn't have looked right." he was enjoying this.
"I'm exhausted, I'm gonna get ready for bed," Hinata whipped out her pj's and went into the bathroom to get changed.
"Me too." Takara grabbed hers too and the women locked the bathroom door and got changed. when they came out the boys where already changed.
"Bed time!" Jiraiya clapped his hands and grinned.
Not long later, Jiraiya lay on his back and stared at the ceiling of the room with his arms under his head, huffing. Takara had refused point blank to stay in the same bed as him.
"But what if someone comes in? it would raise questions" he argued
"Its a guest house, the door is locked" Takara shot back. He was instead banished to one of the single futons. Naruto took the other and the two women shared the double futon.
"Fail" Naruto grinned as he teased from the other futon.
"Shut up" he shot back and rolled over to put his back to the boy. The two women were already asleep.
The next day they split up to wonder around the town to listen in on conversations and try to get a few leads, Takara with Jiraiya and Naruto with Hinata, they had arranged to meet for lunch later in the day. Hinata and Naruto headed around the clothes shops, Naruto needed a decent travelling cloak, and hung around the general restaurant area, while the older two took a look around the general market to gather up supplies and to get Jiraiya a less eye catching outfit. Takara also took the time to get new chalk and stencils, it was to keep up her cover as an artisan and it was a good way to earn a bit of extra money when they needed it. While Takara was paying for the supplies Jiraiya noticed a few sound wandering around the village, one of which had a large sword balanced on his shoulder. Jiraiya muttered this to Takara as he took the bags. They followed the sound onto the main street then watched as they left toward the north.
"Guess we know where we're going tonight" Takara intoned. Jiraiya nodded and noted where the sound left the main road they could follow tracks from there later. "Come on, time to meet the kids." Takara bumped his arm to get his attention.
"Yes dear" Jiraiya replied with a smirk. Takara gave an amused tut, she was staring to see the funny side of this. They headed back along the main street towards the place where they had arranged to meet the teens. They found the two of them laughing at some private joke, a few shopping bags at their feet.
"What did we get?" Takara asked stopping near them.
"Oh hey, we got Naruto a proper travelling cloak…" she paused to pull it partially out of the bag to show Takara. It was a thick light green material, the thickness would keep in warmth and keep out rain. "His one is far too thin, since now its winter too."
"Nice, how much did that cost you?" Jiraiya asked running his fingers over the material to test it, good quality stuff like this was pricy.
"Nothing… Hinata bought it for me…" Naruto replied. Takara sucked air through her teeth as she looked at the price tag that was still attached.
"Well I missed his birthday so…it was a late present…" she shrugged, she had only managed to send him a card for his 18th.
"She insisted" Naruto confirmed.
"Alright then…" Takara shrugged, she promised herself she would stop interfering in their relationship, it was hard. "come on I'm hungry"
"I spotted a good place an hour ago." Hinata said she jerked her thumb in the direction of a side street. "Sounds good." Jiraiya nodded.
Hinata stuffed Naruto's new jacket back into the bag and they headed off down the street.
Once they ordered their food they sat in a little booth at the back of the noisy café.
"So did you find anything interesting?" Naruto asked the adults. Takara told them about the group of sound they spotted heading north.
"We saw a few head that way earlier on too." Naruto confirmed.
"Guess we need to check it out later on then?" Hinata asked.
"As soon as night falls" Takara nodded and raised her hand to get the attention of the server. They left off the conversation of the sound while they ate.
They spent a few more hours in the market place, listening for more rumours, they heard little but they did see a few more sound. Each of them seemed relaxed.
"I wonder why that is?" Hinata wondered aloud, while they prepared to find the base.
"It's because we're so far from the border, any bases here wouldn't be too alert, they wouldn't be expecting any attacks." Takara explained and pulled out hers and Hinata's stealth suits from the hidden pocket in her bag, and threw Hinata hers, the younger woman went to get changed in the bathroom
"The sound are too confident that spies won't find them." Jiraiya said digging out his own suit.
"Tonight is recon only, with the many sound that we've seen its probably a base, more likely an underground bunker." Takara said.
"If that's the case we might get some good intel." Hinata said returning to the room and pulled on her mask.
"True" Naruto intoned he also pulled on his mask.
"Alright then, the sun is setting now so we'll leave once its nice and dark. So in about ten minutes" Takara was peaking out the window at the orangey hue in the sky.
"Sounds good," Jiraiya stood it was his turn to get changed in the tiny bathroom. Takara was distracted checking her katana and Hinata was checking her twin swords, Naruto was sitting in the corner checking his small dagger. It was sharp and clean so he shoved it back to its sheath and looked around the room. Takara was running a whet stone over her blade in the corner, Hinata was standing close to him, her back to Naruto. The boy couldn't help but notice that the stealth suit was very form fitting. His eyes traced the outline of her body. Hinata turned to pick up her other blade and Naruto's gaze settled on the front. Hinata looked up and noticed him staring.
"What?"
"Nothing…" he looked down at the sheathed blade in his hand, and was glad his mask hid the massive blush on his face. Hinata smiled as he looked away quickly, she glanced over him, he was wearing a similar outfit to herself, tight fitting, revealing his body. It was Hinata's turn to blush.
"Time to go." Takara suddenly announced making them both jump. "The suns set." She stood up and slung her katana over her back.
"Hai" Naruto got up and stood next to Hinata. Takara checked the area with her serpents eyes before climbing out the window. The others followed her outside. Crouched on the roof they glanced around the area. It was dark, and the night sky was filled with clouds blocking out the moon. Perfect conditions for them. They moved swiftly along the roof tops keeping low and quiet. Outside the village Jiraiya found the tracks left by the sound and they followed them keeping to the shadows.
"There it is." Jiraiya whispered. The four of them where hiding in the shadows glancing at a small clearing. Four guards and a big fire, they stood in front of a gate is a relaxed guard, two where playing poker on a barrel.
"What are we looking at?" Takara asked Hinata. The girl activated her Byakugan to take a closer look.
"Behind the gate is a ramp heading underground, it is a bunker."
"Can you see what's down there?"
"I'll try." She fully activated her eyes and looked deeper. "It looks to be in construction. Five rooms, several corridors that led to dead ends."
"Numbers?"
"Under twenty, not including those at the gate. They're pretty well spread out."
"Normally I would turn away from this, but since there are four of us now…" Takara glanced over the three of them.
"At this time of night they would be relaxed many are probably asleep. Like I said they are over confident, we can move from room to room. Removing them along the way." Jiraiya said.
"Looks like they have an intelligence room at the back." Hinata added,
"Looks?" Takara asked.
"It's hard to see underground Nee-chan." Hinata shot back.
"okay, its good enough. We'll go around behind them, onto the roof of the entrance tunnel."
"Got it." they backed away and circled around behind the bunker, they climbed quietly onto the roof and crawled to the front, positioning themselves above their targets. They jumped on the sound at the same time, taking them out swiftly. Leaving the bodies where they were they cracked open the door and Hinata took a closer look.
"Numbers?" Takara asked again.
"1, 2, 3.… 19. Jiraiya is right most appear to be sleeping. And they're pretty spread out."
"Perfect, slow and steady then." they moved slowly through the complex, a few corridors appeared to still be under construction. It was a relativity new base. With an armoury, a mess, barracks, map room and a fifth still being dug. They sneaked past the mess where the sound that were still awake where gambling and drinking. First they would take out the sleeping sound in the barracks. Once that was done they tried to think of away to take out the sound in the mess, there where more of them awake than they first thought.
"I have an idea…" Hinata whispered "come on, back to the armoury"
There where 13 in the mess, a little risky to just barge in. They had crept back to the armoury and stole a number of smoke bombs and a few explosive tags.
"Ready?" Hinata whispered, Takara, Jiraiya and the multiple Narutos nodded. Takara and Hinata where on one side of the door, Jiraiya and one of the Narutos on the other. Takara mimed a count down on her fingers, three, two, one.
Hinata and Naruto rolled two smoke bombs each into the room, under the tables the sound where gambling under. With a loud hiss the smoke poured out and the sound jumped up in confusion, Takara and Jiraiya stepped out into the door way and threw kunai with explosive tags, each hit a target killing the sound, and exploded killing more. Takara and Hinata guided the men to the remaining enemies through the smoke and they charged in. The confused shouts turned to screams and by the thing the smoke cleared those who survived the blast where dealt with.
"Everyone alright?" Takara shouted.
"Yup" Hinata replied,
"Still alive" Naruto called, allowing his shadow clones to disappear.
"I'm good" Jiraiya said from his place in the corner where he countered an attack from one of the sound.
"Good, Kit, check it out did we miss anyone?"
"No, that's all of them. They really were unprepared." she said after checking the area one more time with her blood line.
"All the better for us." Jiraiya told them.
"Think there's anything useful in the armoury?" Naruto asked.
"You and Hinata go find out, me and Jiraiya are gonna see what we can turn up in that map room."
"Got ya Nee-chan, come on Naruto" Hinata nudged him and they went back to the armoury to have a proper look around, now that they didn't have to worry about being sneaky.
The two adults headed into the room where a number of maps and scrolls where scattered around a table and on a shelf.
"This may take a while…" Takara muttered.
"Then it's a good thing we came early. You take the shelves, I'll take the table" the man said with a raised eyebrow and started shifting through the documents on the table.
It didn't take the teens long to browse through the armoury and they gathered a number of kunai and shurikan to replace those that they had lost during previous attacks. They soon joined the other two in the map room and helped look for anything useful.
"Takara, take a look at this" Jiraiya called.
"What is it?" Takara set down what she was looking at and looked over his shoulder.
"I'm not entirely sure."
"Let me see" Takara stepped closer and took the map from the man.
"I don't recognise any of these landmarks." He said pointing to marked locations.
"That's because the sound use a code in their maps, look see these borders aren't the borders of rice."
"So what are they?"
"considering the size scale, it must be a large area… is that what I think it is?" Takara jabbed her finger at a marker on the map.
"I think so…. What do you think it is?"
"The sound village you idiot" Takara snapped.
"You might be right, but looks like only a sound can read this map, I don't know any of these landmarks."
"Me neither. I guess the sound aren't as careless as we first thought." She took a closer look at the map, "No borders, no geographical points, and they've changed the names of places so we can't tell them apart, I'm not even sure if this is north" she tapped the top of the map.
"The sound village is in the centre, so if we knew where that was then we'd be able to decipher the rest of the map" the man pointed out.
"That's just it, we don't know where the village is, this map is useless unless we find out what they are using as landmarks." she replied.
"We should hold on to it in any case, maybe even send a copy back to Tsunade." Hinata said butting into the conversation.
"No, its too sensitive, I'd rather keep this with us and give it to her personally. There is still a leak in Konoha, if they find out we have one of their coded maps they will change the code." Jiraiya butted in.
"He has a point, this should stay with us for now." Takara rolled up the map and tucked it into her suit.
"Find anything else worth noting?" Takara asked.
"Not a lot really a few lists concerning the local area, a few personal reports, nothing of interest." Naruto said.
"I didn't find anything else." Hinata said, tossing a scroll over her shoulder.
"Anything important was on the table" Jiraiya said.
"All right then, grab anything important, its getting early so we should get back to the village before the sun comes up." Takara said.
"Got it." They gathered up any useful information, the supplies taken from the armoury and mess and got ready to go. Just before they left they stashed the bodies of the four guards in the bunker and sealed the doors.
"Lets move we don't have much time left." Takara ordered.
"I'm moving!" Naruto called and followed the woman into the woods. They got back into the village without much trouble and quickly returned to the guest house through the window to their room.
"So much for recon only…" Naruto said pulling off his mask.
"Either way we got a good bit of information." Hinata said, "Naruto you're bleeding."
"huh?" Naruto tried to look over his shoulder. There was a nick in the suit on his side. "dam."
"Hinata get that sorted for him will you, he probably can't reach it." Takara instructed.
"yeah okay, Naruto I need you to take off the stealth suit so I can see it." She dug bandages and disinfectant out of the packs while Naruto peeled off the top part of his suit and sat with his back to Hinata. Now that the tightness of the suit was gone he started to bleed heavily. Hinata wiped the wound with a swap soaked in disinfectant and bandaged him tightly. While she worked Naruto tried to hide the blush forming on his cheeks as her fingers moved over his skin.
On the other side of the room Takara smirked at the interaction between the teens then looked back down at the map they had taken from the base.
There was no geographical detail on the map, so trying to pinpoint the area by using mountains was impossible.
"What are you thinking?" Jiraiya asked her.
"I'm not sure yet. Hand me that map of rice."
"Where is it?"
"In my pack it should be near the top." Takara was to intent on the coded map to notice the map being handed to her, Jiraiya had to tap her arm with it. "Thanks"
"The names of the towns and cities have been changed there's no point." he pointed out.
"That's not what im looking at…"
"Then what…"
"Stop talking and I might think of something" she snapped.
"Alright! Relax… I'm gonna get some sleep then." with that the man shuffled off.
Takara continued to compare the two maps while the others got some sleep. Hinata was the first to wake.
"Did you sleep Nee-chan?"
"No… I know there's something here…" Takara set the maps down and rubbed her eyes.
"Maybe if you take a break…"
"No I need to figure this out." Takara was betrayed by a loud stomach growl.
"Take a break Nee-chan, we can go get breakfast first."
"Alright then. Kick those too awake and I'll get changed."
Once they got dressed they headed to same little diner they had eaten in the day before.
"So anything anyone wants to do?" Jiraiya asked.
"We didn't hear anything else useful here." Naruto added, slurping up his meal.
"Maybe we should move on later today." Hinata said.
"Maybe…" Takara added and chewed on her food, her mind was still on the maps.
"I have an idea" Jiraiya said.
"What?" Naruto asked.
"well there's a bath house down the street. A nice long soak might help us relax." he suggested.
"Why am I not surprised." Hinata muttered.
"As much as I hate to admit it, he's right…" Takara said, "it will help me think."
Jiraiya grinned widely.
"Shall we?" he said while standing.
"This was not what I had planned…" Jiraiya muttered. Takara had got a split room with a sturdy bamboo fence blocking the two genders from view.
"Fail" Naruto chuckled. Jiraiya threw a sponge at him and sunk into the water.
"I was a little worried when he brought us to a co-ed bathhouse." Hinata said sitting at the edge of the pool.
"Please… I have no intention of letting that man see me naked." Takara said and slipped in to the water and lent against the wall with her eyes closed.
Hinata smiled to herself, although Takara was going along with this, but it didn't mean she was liking it. Then again Hinata was having the same hesitations about Naruto.
"This was a good idea." the four enjoyed the bath and returned to the guesthouse refreshed. They had now finished in this town so they gathered their stuff.
"I got an idea." Takara said, she was again looking at the map.
"What?" Hinata asked glancing over Takara's shoulder.
"Look here, it's a city, we don't know which but look here" she pointed to their map of rice. "these are the six main cities of rice, if we line up these maps then from which ever city the sound village is in the centre of rice."
"You are asuming that this map has north at the top." Jiraiya pointed out.
"True but if it isn't then the sound village would fall in neighbouring countries or in a canyon well to the southwest of rice. It we move further inland we'll have a better chance of locating it."
"It does seem to be the wisest choice." Naruto echoed.
"Even at that it still leaves a very large area to scour." Hinata added.
"the further we head into Rice the more danger we are in." Jiraiya warned
"We're pretty much in the danger zone already so I don't think a few more miles will matter" Takara replied. "Besides our mission is ultimately to find that village."
"You have a point" he agreed.
"Then lets go" Takara said.
"No arguments from me." Hinata said, Naruto agreed.
They left the town later that day and headed further into Rice. Meaning they left the road and cut cross country the next town was nearly a weeks walk. They stopped for the night and got a camp up Takara and Jiraiya pondered over the maps. Meanwhile Hinata left them to it.
"You okay?" She looked up it was Naruto.
"I'm fine a little cold though."
"Really… I can fix that." he sat down behind her and wrapped his arms and new cloak around her.
"This is better" she said and nuzzled into the warmth he provided.
"Just think, little more than a week ago and we wouldn't have got away with this." he whispered into her ear.
"I know, but nee-chan won't interfere anymore, I made her promise." Hinata replied.
"Good" he leant his chin on her shoulder.
"So are we going further north or west from here?" Takara asked.
"I think we should head north west." Jiraiya suggested.
"meeting me halfway on this? Alright then it sounds good, we can head to this village." she tapped the marking on her map. "Maybe then we can get some information on the codes that the sound are using when we get further into sound territory."
"More than likely. The last time I was here I found that the further you go into Rice the more sound you encounter in the villages and towns."
"Then it increases our chances of getting the information we're after." Takara smiled.
"It also increases our chances of being caught." her smile seemed to fade.
"There is that… anyway lets get some sleep we can move off tomorrow morning." She rolled up the maps and pushed them back into her bag.
"Takara" Jiraiya called softly.
"Huh?"
"Look" her eyes followed his finger to the other side of the fire. The two teens had fallen asleep, both wrapped up in Naruto's cloak, his arm was around her waist, the other was under Hinata's head and she had her hand resting on his arm around her waist, the other lay loosely next to her face. Takara smiled at the two of them, Hinata had a smile on her face so she couldn't fault it. After a moment Jiraiya said,
"You know maybe we should…"
"Touch me and you die." with that Takara walked away from him to a spot next to the fire. Jiraiya could almost hear Naruto in his head saying 'Fail'.
End chapter 34
You okay now?
Leave me alone Takara… (LMD sits curled up in bed wrapped in a number of blankets)
So your sick, cold and miserable?
You know I am.
I could have some fun with this
I hate you….