The Land of Iron

Naruto was ready to get out of here, but the Daimyo's court had different ideas. Evidently, if leaving had taken an inordinate amount of time, returning home was even slower, because they had to wait for (and occasionally help in) all the packing. And these rich people had a lot to pack. Suitcases always magically seemed to get smaller at the end of a trip compared to the beginning, and that wasn't even counting all the gifts and souvenirs they'd all managed to pick up.

Naruto thought Ino had a lot of clothes, but it was nothing compared to the entire closet of formal kimono and jewelry these people had brought along with them. Their unusual affluence was frankly just mind-boggling to Naruto. Seriously, it was crazy! Who needed all of this stuff?

Well. He knew why. In the royal courts you needed to make an impression. In their social sphere, they needed all of this – stuff – to survive. Just like how ninjas had their weapons. Civilians would probably ask them why they had to pack so many kunai or shuriken or exploding tags, in the same way Naruto wondered why these people had so many clothes. That was just how they fought their own little wars.

A world in which all wars were fought with words and embroidery. As lame as it was, Naruto wished he lived in that world.

But he would never belong in it. For the longest time, Naruto had lasted on two sets of clothes, both of which had the same design. Ever since he had become a ninja, he had been able to get more variety in his wardrobe – but all of it had been for completely utilitarian purposes. Like, green clothes versus desert camouflage or gray mist stuff. And the set of formal wear that had been given to him for the last mission in Tanyu, which he hadn't touched since.

"Goddammit," Naruto muttered. "Kakashi-sensei, as the team leader I demand a story. A good one, too. Not one of those infinite recursive stories that you use to get annoying brats like me to shut up. And you better not read aloud from Icha Icha."

Kakashi glared at him over his book. "Are you abusing your position of authority, Naruto?"

Naruto smirked. "I learned from the best. Besides, you owe me several stories about my parents."

Yeah, that's right. He went there. What type of shinobi would he be if he didn't bring out the emotional manipulation?

"All right, all right, settle down, my cute little Genin." Kakashi-sensei closed his eyes. "Once upon a time, there was a technique. This technique was so awesome, that it was awesome."

"Wow. Was it awesome, too?"

"And it was also...awesome."

Shikamaru rolled his eyes. "Very descriptive of you. Truly, eloquence fit for the ages."

"Why thank you," said Kakashi-sensei, once again demonstrating his ability to selectively misread sarcasm as he saw fit. "Now, if you want the short explanation, it was a very simple, seal-based, non-chakra intensive teleportation jutsu, and − "

Shikamaru snorted. "Oh, simple. Really. A seal-based teleportation jutsu? You'd be jumping dimensions with that."

"That would be the long explanation," Kakashi-sensei interrupted.

"We've got time, sensei," Naruto grinned. "And as designated team captain, I say we all want more storytime from you."

"This technique was not an original technique," Kakashi-sensei continued, surprisingly candid in comparison to his usual self. "It was originally an invention of the Nidaime Hokage, who intended for it to be used as a mode of faster communication. But it was temperamental, complicated, and ultimately more of a mental exercise than a technique with useful applications in war. As a result, it never caught on very well, and people ended up forgetting about it. Until a man named Minato Namikaze came along."

The Yondaime Hokage. Someone that their generation should have grown up under, and yet never got to know. Naruto's breath hitched ever so slightly. They all knew much about the fox, but none of them knew anything about the man who had given it to Naruto.

Maybe Shikamaru had his theories, but beyond that they knew nothing, for that was one of the things Ino's father wouldn't gossip with them about no matter how much they asked, and so Naruto desperately wanted to know what Kakashi-sensei might have to say about him. He would have been old enough to remember.

"Minato-sensei was…how should I put this," Kakashi-sensei trailed off, sounding vaguely sad and nostalgic. "He was…one of the most brilliant men I ever knew. And he was infinitely kind and patient. If you think I'm hard to deal with now, you should have seen me when I was a child. Impossibly selfish, bad-tempered, and antisocial."

"I don't think you're selfish or bad-tempered," Ino said, false sweetness dripping from her voice.

He ruffled her hair. "Despite all of my flawless qualities, he was still definitely a lot nicer to me than I am to you."

Ino snorted.

"In any event," Kakashi-sensei continued. "He was the one who made the Nidaime's obscure technique famous, for he managed to perfect it for use in battle. Through many painful practice sessions, and even more equally painful design sessions, he managed to learn how to deal with the disorientation of a dimension jump well enough to use this technique hundreds of times in rapid succession. That use was what finally gave the technique its name today. It is called the Hiraishin no Jutsu – the Flying Thunder God."

The same technique that had won the war, and one that made Kakashi-sensei dangerous enough to be allowed back out on the field, even with his damaged eye and inert arms.

Kakashi-sensei continued to slip in stories, though he would always stop the second he even got the slightest sense that another living soul had come within hearing distance of them. Naruto listened with fascination, soaking up every drop of information like a dry sponge in a rainstorm. The alternative was watching all these rich people and their poor, overworked attendants figure out how to fold clothing properly.

Eventually, the Daimyo and his people were finally done, and even longer than that for them to reorganize themselves into something fit for travel on the open road and finally arrive back in Tanyu. Never before had Naruto been so glad to drop a client off and just get out of there.Those people just walked so slowly. Taking to the trees again – now that was something he wouldn't give up for the world. You couldn't get this anywhere else. Konoha was the Village Hidden in the Leaves for a reason, after all.

They hadn't seen the Cloud nin since their meeting. Not that they were meant to rendezvous anywhere, but Team Samui had left surprisingly quickly, even though the Lightning Daimyo was just as slow as all the other nobles. Naruto's clones managed to catch something about a "big cat", whatever that meant.

"There's at least one person in Kumogakure who summons either mountain lions or snow leopards," Kakashi-sensei said. "The only other cat they have is Yugito Nii, the jinchuuriki of the Two-Tailed Beast. Or, it could have been a random code word. Who knows."

"Speaking of 'who knows,' where the hell did all these things come from?" Shikamaru wondered aloud. The side of the road, normally lined with Konoha's famous trees, had been invaded by a random patch of the ugliest wild sunflowers ever known to man.

"They must have fallen out of someone's tent bag," Kakashi-sensei answered.

Shikamaru furrowed his eyebrows. "Normal people don't store sunflower seeds in tent bags."

Kakashi-sensei honest-to-goodness giggled.

Naruto simply sighed. There was a group of merchants making their way down the road in the opposite direction; perhaps they would be a better source of news than the isolated Land of Iron. Ino volunteered to go make first contact with them. Upon returning to the group, she informed them of what she had gleaned from their short conversation. "Apparently, the Wind Daimyo was unable to make it to the economic conference because he was ill."

"Ill, or," Naruto formed air-quotes with his fingers, "ill?"

"What do you think?"

"Well, you know what they say," Kakashi-sensei said, as they departed the city towards the Land of Wind. "The winds in the desert are always shifting. Actually, the winds everywhere are always shifting, but that's beside the point."

"That's worrisome. If there's even any truth to this rumor…" Shikamaru frowned. "What's Sunagakure up to? And didn't the guy have any sons? Where are they?"

Kakashi-sensei shrugged dismissively. "They're young children. Thirteen and eighteen. They hardly matter."

"Here, now. Thirteen and eighteen are not that young," Naruto argued. He was almost fourteen. That was plenty old enough, to be trusted with missions. And the Third Hokage had started his tenure when he was in his late teens, early twenties.

"For shinobi, perhaps," Kakashi-sensei said, "but they are not shinobi. These boys, trust me. They are children."

As for where those boys were now…no matter how many people they asked, the closer they got to Wind Country, no one knew and no one cared. There were rumors that the younger boy was sick with the measles, while the older one had yet to return from a hunting trip. And then, most worrisome of all – the current sitting Wind Daimyo was the brother of the normal one.

Royal children didn't last long when uncles gained control. Ask any history textbook.

"How much you want to bet that the position of Kazekage has finally been filled after a whole year and a half of this bullshit power wrangling?" Shikamaru muttered.

To become a Kage, one needed the nomination of his or her country's local warlord – in this case, the Wind Daimyo. And given how much that man had isolated his resident hidden village, it must have been child's play for one of his enemies to team up with them. And so, even without ever entering Wind Country, all of them could easily figure out what had gone down. The uncle would get the title, the assassin would get the hat, and as long as they kept doing business together, trade would remain fair. And they would find out whoever the main perpetrator in this affair was once the newest Kazekage was announced to the world

"A fool's bet," Kakashi-sensei said. "I always said pissing off your resident enclave of trained killers was a bad idea."

"The question is, is it safe to continue on with this information gathering mission?" Naruto asked. "Our job was to find out what happened to the Wind Daimyo, and though our information is incomplete we have a good enough idea already."

"Hmmm…what do you think?" Kakashi-sensei asked. "Naruto, you're the team leader. Why don't you tell me?"

Naruto jumped into his explanation immediately. "Chances are, if Sunagakure has really killed him over the whole money issue, then the new Kazekage that backed this operation will be pretty unfriendly to Konoha. And if they've completely shut down the country while they gather up power in the aftermath, like I suspect the've done, then a simple walk-in scan like we did in our first C-rank escorting that merchant won't fly anymore. They would probably try further consolidate their power and show how strong they are by being way more aggressive than usual."

"And if that is the case, what should we do?"

"Well, normally, I would not simply be satisfied with just a few rumours – I would definitely attempt a more comprehensive report. But really, we as a Genin team have already done our end of the mission, which wasn't officially assigned to us in the first place. If central command wants a more in-depth analysis of the situation, best to send a specialized ANBU team for infiltration, or something or that nature. And it's not just me being excessively cautious. Given the current atmosphere, us walking in there won't do us any good, and will definitely result in a risk of capture – which will likely only hurt Konoha even more, because we'd be some pretty high-profile prisoners, giving them an edge in hostage negotiations."

Kakashi-sensei looked at him, and nodded. "That should be a good enough excuse for the Hokage and his advisors. The capture of a jinchuuriki and two clan heirs would outweigh any potential benefits of a minor recon."

"Cool, so we can go home," Naruto said. "Shikamaru, Ino, let's – Ino? Ino, what's wrong?"

Ino had fallen to her knees, clutching her head with her hands.

"My father, he's – "


Fire Country

"Gaara," Inoichi yelled at the retreating group of ANBU, "if for any reason those two catch up to you, you have my explicit permisson to kill them."

"But I'm not supposed to hurt people – "

"These people are trying to hurt us, so you're allowed to hurt them back." Inoichi said quickly, doing his best to hide the fact that he was absolutely terrified from Gaara. Terrified, as in, no, no, no; this couldn't be happening – no, no, no, no, no…we're barely a few hours away from home, dammit! Why?

The smaller one of the two stepped forward. Hidan, the wanted cult murderer from Jiraiya's files. He looked strangely young, considering the number of years he'd been active. The other, Kakuzu, was even older, a holdout from the days of the First Hokage. The extent of both of their abilities were relatively unknown.

Fuck. Of all the ones we had to get, it was these two.

"Now, now, that wasn't very nice," Hidan smirked. "We only came to say hello, and you order your friends to kill us? I never knew Konoha nin were so impolite." His red scythe flashed in the air. "Well, if you're so certain…"

He barely dodged the massive scythe that the first one had swung at him. In his mind, he was frantically shouting as far as his mental range could go, to any and every Konoha team or outpost in the area that could listen. ANBU Team Jinchuuriki-1 to central command! Request for immediate backup, 2 hostiles, suspected Akatsuki affiliation – fuck that, definitely Akatsuki – we need help! NOW!

"Inoichi!" he heard Gaara yell.

Instinctively, he stepped in between the pair of goons and his new charge. He'd spent too much time with the boy, only to let him fall into the hands of the Akatsuki. If Gaara died or was otherwise captured here, all they had worked for up until this point would be for nothing. They would not be getting what they wanted today, not if he had anything to say about it.

"Secret Art: Mind Body Disturbance," whispered Inoichi.

A hard crack of shattering porcelain and tearing threads ripped through the air as Hidan's oversized weaspon embedded itself into Kakuzu's chest, sending sparks and plumes of smoke everywhere. Stunned, Hidan desperately tried to yank the curved blade free, but Inoichi took advantage of their shock to control Hidan into slashing at his partner in crime a second time.

Kakuzu's neck opened up straight to the bone –

And he remained standing.

What the fuck –

Kakuzu's shredded cloak fluttered to the ground around him, and what Inoichi saw made him want to throw up.

Four grotesque, white faces were protruding from his back, one of them cracked and destroyed due to his manipulation of Hidan's nerves. And the man was covered from head to toe in stitches, like a rag doll but even more hideous. Kakuzu's threads opened up and unraveled, and then, his partly-severed head began sewing itself back together.

"They don't call us the fucking Zombie Combo for nothing," Hidan smirked.

"Shut the hell up, would you?" Kakuzu growled, and then the remaining three faces fucking burst from his body, dragging their emaciated, black, ribbonlike bodies with them. Within seconds, the tables had turned on Inoichi, and now he was being forced on the defensive.

Just who the heck were these guys? Inoichi cursed under his breath as he was forced to release his technique to dodge the column of fire that was bearing down upon him. His flak jacket took the brunt of the damage from the barrage of wind that followed, but he still sustained a good amount of scratches and bruises.

He tried to hit Kakuzu with his Mind Body Disturbance, to attack Hidan with, but it did him little good, for the strange white faces were not connected to his nerves. They would have to destroy all of those flying things somehow, to even have a chance of getting at the real guy.

If that's what it takes, then I'll do what I must.

Inoichi stood up, wiped the blood off his cheek, and drew a kunai. Whatever that drawing on the ground was meant to do, Inoichi knew that letting Hidan finish it up could only mean bad news for him. Naturally, his reaction to that was to disrupt his miniature art session. Quite funnily enough, mind control and muscle paralysis did some nasty things to one's artistic ability.

The amount of swearing resulting from that one move told Inoichi he was on the right track.

But his cheek wouldn't stop bleeding, and Inoichi could only maintain his Mind-Body Disruption for so long. He could feel his chakra draining. The ANBU team that remained with him – chosen specifically for their fuinjutsu and combat ability in the event that Gaara for some reason broke during transit – couldn't seem to make a dent in him. Any wound they gave him, save for dismemberment, only served to excite him more…and not in the regular way people were normally excited.

"Awww, yesss, that feels goood – now that's what I call a massage worthy of Jashin-sama!"

There was definitely something wrong with him.

"You know, I might just let you live a little longer for that. It'll be more painful, but hey, that's a good thing, right?"

Suddenly, Inoichi saw it. An opening. The Mind-Body Disruption had messed up his nerves enough for him to leave his neck exposed. If they could chop off his head, and prevented him from reattaching it, then they could win this


Konoha Border Patrol

They were out doing a crappy C-rank for payday (boring, but today Sasuke was too tired for a real mission, and payday had to come from somewhere) when Hinata suddenly stopped and gasped. "One of our teams is being attacked."

"By what?"

"S-rank nin. We're the closest team available. The next closest team is also in this area, but they're another half an hour away." She deactivated her Byakugan. "Asuma-sensei, do you think we can take them?"

Of course they fucking couldn't. Asuma-sensei had just been given his final medical clearance from the last time he fought Kisame Hoshigaki and The Royal Fucking Asstwat. Sasuke frowned and straightened his hitai-ate. "Even if we can't, it's our duty to slow them down while more reinforcements arrive."

"They're Akatsuki, though."

"Hmmm, no doubt."

"Ino's father was among the people being attacked."

"Then there isn't any time to lose."

"Sasuke, they were wearing the same cloaks your brother was wearing when he invaded during the Chunin exams."

"My brother," Sasuke growled, "can go fuck himself up the arse with an untrimmed rose bush."

"All right," Hinata said. "Just making sure you won't do something stupid like, I don't know, run off and try to take him yourself if we do run into him."

"If we do run into him, I have three grenades' worth of tear gas in my left pocket and five flashbangs in my right. Ever since Sakura screwed over your emo cousin with that trick – "

Choji coughed something that sounded suspiciously like "pot and kettle."

" – shut up, Choji – I'm not taking any chances."

"Those don't look like the standard-issue bombs," Asuma frowned.

"Of course they aren't. I stole them from Jiraiya, who confiscated them from Naruto. Which automatically means they're ten times worse and probably laced with extra-strength itching powder and concentrated sriracha for good measure."

Even as they laughed, however, Sasuke's hands were shaking uncontrollably. In the shadows of the burning forest, he could make out a few odd, flat, white disks with limbs attached. As one of them turned to face him, he saw a vague face-like shape etched onto it. The painted mouth opened. Blades of wind poured out of it in torrents, ripping axe-sized scars into the rocks and wood.

"What in the name of the Rikudo's shriveled ballsack is that goddamn thing – "

He never got to finish his sentence. There was a faint whoosh of air, and Sasuke dropped to the ground, his clipped black hairs flying all over the place. Good thing it was spiked up a lot higher than his neck, otherwise his smile would be –

Several branches before them splintered like bullet-riddled windows. Hinata tackled him to the ground, just in time to dodge the windmill of woodchips flying through the air.

Another gust of air. Choji and Hinata landed on the ground beside him. Sasuke tasted the smell of burning.

Iron. Blood. But not his own. There was something wrong. Cooking meat. Definitely cooking meat. No, charring meat. There was something wrong. It was not the meaty smell of Choji's mother's barbecue, nowhere near as pleasant. There was something wrong. Choji's mother's roast pork smelled wonderful and inviting, spicy and savory in all the right ways. This was meat, definitely meat, but it was acrid, moist, earthy, like burning rubber, no not rubber, it was thinner, sharper, leaner, angrier, more painful, the smell of suffering. There was something wrong –

"Fuck!" he screamed. "FUCK! Hinata!"

Choji grabbed as much dirt as he could in his enormous hands and dumped it on top of the flames shooting up from Hinata's jacket. The thing was meant to be mostly fireproof, but the fire coming from the mask-things had been too hot, and it had melted straight through the fabric into her back.

"Medic down! Medic down!" Sasuke yelled, over the sound of Hinata's screams. Even as her face turned red and her throat went hoarse and her skin charred and her own body stole away her reserves of healing chakra, however, she continued to insist that she was fine. "Crap, that'll scar really badly…"

"Scarring doesn't matter," Choji snarled. "She needs to live first."

And then he ripped a fucking tree straight out of the ground, roots and all.

It was at times like this that Sasuke was brutally reminded of why the Akimichi were considered one of the Four Noble Clans alongside the Uchiha and Hyuga – and not just because they were a large family (no pun intended). His true fighting ability rarely manifested itself beyond the gentle nature he normally displayed, but every time it did…

To taunt a giant was a dangerous thing.

Despite his size, he was fast. Ridiculously so. As in, even the flying masks had a hard time shooting at a target that big. His fists came down, leaving a crater in the earth – Sasuke squinted through the smoke, and could just barely make out the target with his Sharingan – black cloak, red clouds.

It wasn't Itachi, though. The figure was too big and bulky for that. And, also, too slow. At least, compared to Itachi. By himself, he was plenty fast. Enormous, bloodied knuckes fell upon him time and time again, and yet he kept standing back up. Insane healing factor. This is not good.

"I'm going on defense," Sasuke said. How he was going to deal with these things, he didn't know yet. His best style of ninjutsu was fire style, and obviously that was going to be useless in front of these things, which were doing all the burning in the first place. "Hinata, don't worry about us. Heal yourself first."

"I'm okay I'm okay I'm okay I'm okay I'm okay I'm okay I'm okay I swear I'm okay – "

"Yes you are, yes you are, you'll be fine, hang on – " That was a big fat lie, and as the words left his lips both of them knew it. Her skin was clammy, and her face had gone from red to grey. She was going into shock, and Sasuke didn't know any medical ninjutsu. She was the one person on their team who did. He'd have to do it the hard way – physically keep her warm and hope that her mind didn't shut down before her healing finished –

Where were all the ANBU? The report was that an ANBU team was in trouble. Where were they? Where were they? Where were they?

They were somewhere else. There was a second guy, and they were busy spending all of their sealing resources just trying to keep him contained. There weren't many left. Presumably, the rest had been killed by the flying masks before their team had interfered. Well, wasn't that reassuring.

"Stay with me, Hinata; you can do it," he whispered, because that was the only thing he could do.


A/N: All of the fight scenes involving the Akatsuki are happening simultaneously. For example, Team 7 did not travel from Iron to Fire in between the time it took for Inoichi to meet the Akatsuki (last chapter) and start fighting them (this chapter). They started walking a few days before that, and Inoichi's section was a flashback/split-screen.

Comments and questions welcome.