I don't own Naruto
Chapter 44
My first thought when we transported into the War room was: 'I thought we were early.'
Dozens of eyes stare at our entrance. Most of them I don't really know but a few stick out. Hyuga Neji is off to one side, stone faced as always. He's become quite the talk of the town with his rapid promotions to Chunin followed by Jounin. It makes perfect sense that he's in ANBU already too. He's the first from our generation to do so if I remember correctly.
Aburame Shino is the second. His quiet presence is by the door. I can't quite tell if he is looking at us or not underneath his huge hood and dark glasses. His membership to ANBU also makes sense when you take into consideration his…unique…skill set.
All of the proctors from the exams so many years ago are here…Kakashi-sensei too…and Shisui…Wait a minute…
No way had Kakashi gotten here ahead of us
Burning Amber orbs catch my attention and send me hurtling to my knees a half second behind the Black Cat beside me. We hold our formal bow as required of ANBU greeting their Kage.
"Where in the seven Hells have you two been." Instead of anger, all I hear in her voice is ice. Rising to my feet with my Taichou we both remove our masks. This new protocol of 'ANBU knowing ANBU' put in place a year ago still has Itachi ill at ease I notice as he hesitates a split second before removing his. I'm probably the only person close enough to realize this but I can blame him. The room nearly exploded the first time he did…literally.
Tsunade-Sama slowly rises to her feet, bracing her hands on the table before her and leaning over menacingly. "This meeting, a Very important one might I add, started yesterday. Can you tell me why my best strike team is just now waltzing in?"
Oh shit…she's pissed!
The pride I feel at being called the best is quickly covered with confusion and no small amount of fear.
"My Lady," Itachi smoothly interjects, "we were informed—"
"Yes you were informed," She cuts across his words, voice steadily rising in volume. "A notice was sent out two months in advance to ever team! This was to ensure that no one was late!" Her voice is now booming across the room.
"…But Tsunade-Sama…" She interrupts my soft voice with a look that screams 'no buts!'
"The missive we received stated the meeting was to be held tomorrow."
Dead silence meets Itachi's words. Most of the ANBU surrounding us have schooled their features into a blank mask, but the Hokage has no problem with showing her confusion.
"That's impossible I wrote the missives myself and Shizune sent them out with Kakashi's help…" She trails off as an idea enters all of our heads…
He wouldn't…
A nervous chuckle escapes my sensei as blonde pigtails swivel in his direction. Running a hand through his silver locks he crinkles his one visible eye and says the worst possible thing.
"Well you see, I was going over the missives to send them out and it was so late…My eyes played a trick on me…I thought you had written the wrong data, you really need to work on your penmanship Hokage-Sama. However I corrected the date and all is well!" He finishes with a dramatic flourish that has Shisui shaking to hold in his laughter.
Tsunade-Sama is shaking too…
Very different reason…
With a roar the Legendary Sucker is upon the Copy Nin. The Mizukage can probably hear the yells. I can barely make them out…something about sabotaging the Hokage, making her worry, and stop hitting me…
This goes on for a while until with a delicate twist of her wrists my sensei is sent out the door and down the hall. Brushing off her hands like nothing happened Tsunade-Sama turns her attention back to her 'best strike team.' I hope that title will spare us her wrath.
"You have missed much and will need to be updated privately." Luckily throwing Kakashi out seems to have sated her anger. "Let us continue the meeting where we left off. Take your seats…and Pup remove the Henge, there is no need for one here."
Briskly moving on Tsunade-Sama takes her seat and looks expectedly at me
What Henge? She doesn't mean the jutsu that took away our Sakura-ness does she? No one knows about our mission yet.
Tapping her fingers impatiently the Hokage gestures to her head when I don't make any move. "Hello Pup? Your hair is red. Fix it."
Oh…that…forgot about that…
In a perfect imitation of Itachi I tell her in a monotone, "It is not a henge."
Giving her some credit I must admit it does look uniformly red like a henge does but…it's not. It was an accident…
For seemingly the first time everybody notices that the usually white armor Itachi and I wear is tinted red.
An Inuzuka stands with his nose uplifted, sniffing out the source of the red even though everybody can tell what it is from experience.
"How."
Wow…where to start.
"A dying enemy sought to get the 'last laugh' as it were—"
"He planned to cast a jutsu to 'forever stain our hands with his blood'—"
"However I interrupted his delivery—"
"And this is the result—"
"It won't dry or wash off—"
"But should wear off within the day—"
STOP FINISHING EACH OTHERS SENTENCES! IT'S CREEPY.
A very disturbed silence lingers after our little story. The Hokage's face is stuck in this slightly disgusted slightly amused expression. A few others seem a little entertained by our antics, not that they were on purpose. It's not the first time we've showed up for a meeting covered in blood because something just plain weird happened. Usually Tsunade-sama sends us (read: me, always me) to shower but that won't help this time. Luckily Itachi has black hair so it's hard to see the red unless it dribbles onto his face.
Ever since that first time when I accidently hit that guy's artery and got covered…it's like a curse…a very icky curse.
An half the time it's not even human blood…remember that time with the chase through the butcher shop….priceless.
SHUT UP!
"Whatever just sit down and…try not to drip." Stepping towards an empty seat my sandal squelches and Shisui nearly explodes with silent laughter. Later he's going to be insufferable.
"Moving on from the interruptions. Scouting team! Give us your findings."
From then on the meeting continues seriously. Minus Kakashi stumbling back in.
Each team presents their findings. I learn the location of at least a dozen of Orochimaru's hideout, his movements, and even some of his research. The diplomatic team unravels the latest 'peace treaty' delivered and all its loopholes. This one had the absolute surrender of Konoha in the small print.
A Med Nin gives statistics on the increased amount of casualties, fatal and otherwise, due to the Snake's machinations. More Konoha Nin than ever are being hurt on routine missions.
But of course none of it can be traced back to Oto. Orochimaru is very diligent in that respect.
Merchants have begun to skip over Konoha because they can sense the war brewing. No one has a better sense for war than merchants.
Yet Oto flourishes like no other. The newly appointed Kazekage questioned this recently. Orochimaru's exact words were 'the Gods love music, so they must love Oto'… or so I heard.
The highlight of the gathering is when the intelligence teams brings up Ying and Yang. They pose a bigger threat every day. Their most recent target was the corrupt Daimyo of Wind country…and his entire palace of guards. No one knows who they are or what they want, that makes them dangerous. Survivors' reports only tell of a two person squad as different as night and day. A man and woman dressed in black and white respectively with little regard for life and civility.
Ying and Yang? Really? Couldn't someone have come up with a better name for us? I'd like to kill the person who thought up that one.
You must admit it makes our cover more believable. The worse the nickname the more powerful the ninja. Look at Tsunade-Sama the Legendary Sucker.
Hours later the meeting is ended…too many high-powered Nin in one room getting angry about Orochimaru. That is the only reason these occasional meetings take so long.
"Pup-san Black Cat-san, I believe that your jutsu has worn off."
Well geeze Hyuga. Sorry for offending your sensitive sensibilities.
"Thank you Hawk-san." Reaching up I touch my hair only to see flakes of dried blood fluttering to the ground.
Never mind Hyuga, I am eternally grateful for your observation it offends me too!
As quick as I can without running I make my way to the women's locker room within ANBU headquarters. I'm the first to arrive, as I'm sure a few other kunoichi were on missions just before the meeting too. I could see at least two who looked a little frumpled from a quick mission this morning.
Reaching my locker I furiously grab a towel and high tail it to the stall with the good shower head. I'm gonna need it.
Turning the water as hot as it goes, I step under fully clothed and watch as the water immediately turns red…Thank goodness…it's finally coming off…Stripping off armor piece by piece I let it gather in the corner so the water will get some of the blood out.
A few minutes later I hear others coming in and soon the entire washroom is coated in a layer of steam.
I'm the first in the shower and the last out. I have to make sure every last bit of blood is out of my hair lest I turn it pink. Don't need pink hair to tip anyone off to my true identity. Turning off the water I dry off and walk back to my locker wrapped in the damp towel.
Several Kunoichi are gathered around the lockers, chatting about the meeting. I ignore them and drop my towel, all modesty gone. Changing into a spare set of causal Nin-wear a disbelieving whistle interrupts me.
"Damn girl…How'd you get those?" I turn partially around when I realized she was talking to me. It's Inuzuka Tsume, Kiba's mom I think, and she's staring at my body intently. Looking over I give her a confused look.
"HA! Don't act cool. Kiba tries the same thing. I'm talking 'bout them scars. I have a collection myself, but you're way too young for that."
My eyes trail down to take in what she's talking about. Without really noticing my hand drifts up to my neck.
"Aha! That one must be your first!" Her loud boisterous voice startles me and several of the other girls nearby. Curiously they join the conversation.
"Um…yeah...a near decapitation." A series of 'ohs' answers my statement.
"Damn my first scar came from a misplaced kunai back when I was a genin."
"Mine came from cutting myself in the kitchen."
"My first was from tripping over a wire butt-first into a thorn bush."
Each woman shows off the scar in question as they describe their first.
Didn't really need to see that one's ass.
Looking at their bodies I see that I'm not the only one with awful marks. Inuzuka-san has several claw marks down her thigh. The woman I know as Crane has a nice sized burn mark from upper shoulder to her elbow.
"But really Pup, what's the story for the others. Surely Black Cat protects his partner." Everybody gets quiet, anticipating my answer.
"Well yeah, but I can protect myself! Besides a lot of these came before I joined the Black Ops." Wrong thing to say, wrong thing to say. If I say that it means the mission it happened on isn't classified. They can pestered me about for as long as they want.
"I see…"Her words say 'I understand' but her eyes and posture say 'tell me now.'
"Aright this one," I point to the burn mark underneath Zabuza's cut, "and most of these little ones down my arms came from a teammate's malfunctioning lightening jutsu." Sasuke getting me out of Gaara's sand and a little of Ringo's specialty. "And this one round one," I gesture to the puckered skin on my thigh, "I did myself to get out of a genjutsu." Itachi's genjutsu, but they don't need to know that. "This on—"
"Yeah, but what about your back?"
One innocent question sours my mood a little and the others can see it. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have ask—"
"No it's okay," deep breath "I did those too. Got wrapped in my wires. Waited too long to get to a healer." They all read my hidden meaning. Couldn't get to a healer.
My hand floats over the scars I can reach. The eight lines that killed me.
Don't be so morbid. We're still alive and kicking ass better than ever. Those are the eight lines that SAVED us.
"I like you! You're one tough girl. If only my Kiba was more like you, he still comes crawling to mommy when he stubs his toe." Her words make me and the other woman laugh as the tense atmosphere is lifted.
Suddenly I realize I've been standing here talking to these women for going on a half hour…butt-naked the lot of us. When I point this out we all have another laugh and finally get dressed.
Mid-way through pulling on my sandals Mitarashi Anko comes busting in yelling up a storm.
"All right where's the Puppy at! She has two Uchiha Kitties sniffing at the door!" Stumbling over my shoes I stand and make a grand gesture of leaving so Anko will stop yelling. The other girls' giggles following me out.
Exiting the door I turn right down the short hallway to the lobby-ish room at the end. Upon entry I notice both Itachi and Shisui with their heads close together discussing something important looking. Making my way to them I notice a scattering of other ANBU including Neji, Bear, and Genma? Is that his name?
Yeah that's it.
The Uchihas break apart as I get closer and Shisui steps forward, head still turned to Itachi as he asks his cousin "Should I explain it, I have a p—"
"I swear if that's a papaya I will kill you slowly!" My random outburst have many of the very serious ANBU cracking up. So that means the less serious shinobi are practically on the floor their laughing so hard. Apparently Shisui's method of explaining things has gotten around.
"I'm with her Uchiha! You pull out that damn thing one more time and I'll skin you!" Someone I don't know comes up to agree, throwing an arm over my shoulder he glares at Shi.
Quickly Itachi, much cleaner than the last time I saw him, steps forward and deflects his cousin's comeback. "There's no time for this, we have a debriefing to get to."
Pulling me away from the unknown Nin, mentally not physically Uchiha Itachi doesn't touch others unless necessary, we head to the door.
His voice is off…Something's wrong. "What is it?" His eyes briefly flick over to mine before returning straight ahead.
"We have a mission." His words are normal sounding again, but something is still off. What about this Very important meeting. It's scheduled for tomorrow too. After missing the first day we really should go to the last day.
Something in my posture must convey my confusion because he answers all my questions with three words.
"Mission's too important."
Ah I see…Life or death again…He gets like this every time an extremely dangerous mission comes up.
In place of a moderately dangerous mission?
Exactly. We can expect something messy.
…
I'm excited.
Who remembers the papaya? I just did and had to add it. It might become a running gag or something. Anyway the next chapter will be the mission and it will be a doosy. Not length wise, I've no idea how long it will be, but it will be important and suspenseful. Thanks for all the reviews, I'm trying to get back to writing so hopefully you guys won't have to wait months before an update. No promises.
P.s. I received a pm and got a review or two about Sakura's hair. Don't forget that it's only white because of a jutsu that rearranged her color pigments. That means bleached hair and dark pink eyes.
