Chapter 56: Another Jinchuriki Down
Hello World! OMG I had the most awesome training day at my Jui-jitsu camp, me and my longtime rival and friend went thirty five mintues against each other with only two minute stoppings every ten minutes. He came out the victor though with five submissions against me and I got three on him, he beat me fair and square, but I'm gonna do better next time. Anyway thanks for waitng for this chapter and I will write up the next chapter soon.
* A few miles outside Konoha *
Our group of ninjas made it back to Konoha a bit late due to the unconscious Naruto and Tobi. Hinata did a diagnosis on both of them and found that Naruto took the brute of his own attack and will take time to recover and Tobi was close to complete chakra exhaustion and like Naruto would need time to wake up. Fu and Shino woke up when they were halfway to Konoha. Fu didn't talk to anyone except Shino and when Hinata asked what was wrong Shino told Hinata that she blames herself. She said that if she hadn't gotten involved by knocking Naruto's attack away, then he'd still be awake and she wouldn't have hurt Shino.
Mostly though she was afraid to go near Hinata, because she though that she would hate her now after what she did to Naruto. Hinata talked to Fu and told her that she could never hate Fu for something like that, Naruto was okay and she was too and that was all Hinata could ask for. Fu though was still unsure how Naruto would feel about this and was even more worried since she was the one to hurt him.
Konoha was in sight now and the everyone was so relieved. Hinata had summoned out a small raven to alert the Hokage that they were close to home. By the time they were able to see the gates they could also see their welcome home group. Among them were Team's Kakashi and Asuma including their sensei's, Tsunade and Shizune, Aoi, baby Miyu, Shisui, Hikaru, Kana, Hana, Mikoto, and Hiruzen Sarutobi.
The welcome home group walked over to them and began embracing the ninja squad that had been gone for so long. Gai walked to the Hokage and gently placed Tobi on the ground saying to him, "We were able to capture this Akatsuki member during the last point of the battle. This is the one called Tobi." The welcome home group was shocked that they actually caught one of the members of the criminal organization. Hiruzen rose his hand in the air and four ANBU appeared around them and he told them, "Take him to holding and I want Ibiki, Anko, Hiashi, Inoichi, and Shikaku to interrogate him. Now go!" The ANBU swarmed around Tobi and then vanished. Team Gai told everyone that they were going to call it a day as well and they all headed out. Kana followed her son and the two headed back to they Hyuuga compound telling Hinata and Hana that they would see them later.
Hana was hugging her daughter, then drifted her eyes to Gamakichi who was carrying an unconscious Naruto. Tsunade also saw him and moved to help get him off of the toad and immediately began to try and heal him. Hiruzen watched as they were healing him and he addressed Gai and Itachi, "Please meet me in my office for your teams debriefing." Itachi and Gai nodded and they watched the Hokage walk away. Itachi gave a kiss to Aoi and Miyu telling them that he'd go to the hospital first to get checked out then come straight home. Shisui told Itachi that he was going to oversee the investigation of Tobi as he was desperate to know who the Uchiha was. Kakashi and Asuma were also interested and left with Shisui to the interrogation wing of ANBU headquarters.
Shino helped carry Naruto to the hospital so they could get checked out, though Tsunade trusted Hinata to do the healing she just wanted to be sure. So the remaining members of the welcome home group escorted the ninjas of Teams Itachi and Gai to the hospital.
* Hokage Tower *
Sarutobi sat down in his desk and set up the sound proof jutsu so that no one outside the room could eavesdrop, "Okay report." Gai and Itachi were both standing side by side in front of the Hokage's desk and Itachi started off first, "First off our team made great time into Otogakure territory and we were able to find out that the Akatsuki ninjas Tobi and Kakuzu were there fighting Orochimaru and his soldiers-" He was cut off when Sarutobi asked, "Kakuzu? As in the nuke-nin who defected from Takigakure?"
Gai was a little surprised that he knew, "You know the man Hokage-sama?" Sarutobi grinned telling the two, "Yes I do, though I was a little kid at the time the village was aware of an assassin attacking Hashirama Senju. We kept it low profile, but a select few like myself knew that the assassin was Kakuzu. I never would've guessed that he was still alive… Sorry for interrupting you Itachi, please continue."
Itachi nodded and continued, "Hokage-sama I wish to report that we also had some assistance from an outside sources in our battle." Gai and Sarutobi had questioning gazes at Itachi as he told them, "Apparently before Naruto returned to Konoha he sought the help from ninjas from other villages and had them join an unofficial team."
Sarutobi listened as he wanted to know about this team Naruto put together, "The ninjas that joined Naruto's team are quite famous. The ones that were in the group are Zabuza Momochi the 'Demon' of Kiri, Resshin the 'Man-made Earthquake' of Iwa, the late Bane the 'Stone' of Iwa, and Hikyuu Hayashi the 'Psychopath' of Kusa." Stunned wasn't even the words to use to describe the faces of both Sarutobi and Gai, they were flabbergasted by the news of some of the ninja world's famous ninjas. Sarutobi asked Itachi, "How did this little agreement go?"
Itachi answered truthfully, "They followed Naruto without questioning him at all. If it hadn't been for their help we would have had a much more difficult time fighting Orochimaru and his army. Though there is bad news." Sarutobi braced himself for the bad news he was about to here, "Kakuzu and Tobi both captured Fu during the battle and extracted her biju from her."
Itachi began to explain the whole situation from the battle, to Fu's capture, and to her rescue in complete detail. Gai had explained the situation when they arrived after Fu was rescued and his involvement in the battle against Kakuzu and Shino's help in doing so, the two even explained Kakuzu and Fu's relationship with each other and her intrusion with Naruto and Tobi's battle and both men's current predicament. Sarutobi soaked this information up like a sponge not trying to miss a single word that was said and not even saying a single word till they were done with their debriefing.
Afterward the two Jounin waited for him to respond. Sarutobi simply said, "Well this mission has been a success then, aside from losing the Nanabi everyone came home alive and well. The others who went to the other bases found that they were already destroyed and found dead bodies everywhere so it would seem that you and your squad caught the full force of Orochimaru's forces. I want to speak with Naruto, Shino, Hinata, and Fu after Naruto is completely healed and can move around. Until then Teams Itachi and Gai will be paid for and S-Rank mission, glad to have you all back home." He stood up from his desk and walked over to the window behind him and glanced out at the village, "Check yourselves out in the hospital and I'll call for a meeting regarding the clan heads. I called a meeting some time ago, but not all of them showed up though, so I'm going to call for one again tomorrow at the most. Itachi I really need you to attend this meeting since this concerns Naruto."
Itachi simply nodded and left the room with Gai to head over to the hospital to get checked out. Sarutobi leaned back in his desk awaiting an arrival of someone.
* Konoha Hospital *
Naruto was still unconscious laying down in the hospital bed with an I.V. in his arm. Everyone was gathered around his bed waiting for him to wake up. Hinata, Ino, Sakura, Shizune, and Tsunade were keeping a close watch on him doing everything they could to wake him up. Itachi and Gai walked into the room they were told was Naruto's by the woman at the reception desk. Itachi looked around and saw his wife and Hikaru sitting off to the side and moved over to where they were, Aoi smiled and handed over Mayu to Itachi so he could hold his daughter. Shizune and Sakura walked over to Itachi and Gai to give them a diagnostic.
Shizune was looking over Itachi and Sakura was checking Gai over to see if he had any wounds. Shizune told Itachi, "Well you have some bruises, minor cuts, and a few fractured bones, but all in all nothing to amazingly serious." After Sakura was done checking Gai she told him, "Your actually okay, nothing that needs you to stay in the hospital.
Gai gave her a thumbs up, "Yosh! Then I guess I'll just take my leave. I'm felling so great that I think I'll do five hundred laps around Konoha, then do one thousand push ups, find Kakashi and challenge him to our usual sparring matches, then do a good two hundred kicks before bed." Everyone in the room looked at Gai as if he was crazy. Gai said his goodbyes to everyone and left the room. Itachi asked Shizune would he need to stay at the hospital, but she told him that he could come in in the morning and they could fix him up after he's gotten some rest. Shino looked at the people remaining and noticed that it was only Kiba, Akamaru, and Sakura from Team Kakashi that were among them.
Shino looked to Kiba asking him, "Where's Sai at?" Kiba looked at Shino and told him, "Apparently he got a mission request from the elder Danzo as we made our way back to Konoha. He didn't even take part in the Oto battle." Sakura also commented on this, "Yeah two ROOT nins approached us and told Sai that he needed to do a mission for Danzo."
Itachi was seated next to his wife with his baby girl in his arms saying, "Danzo is a tricky one. When I mentioned to the kage that we sent the two ROOT nins that followed us to the battle back here he didn't say anything about it. I'm not even sure if Sarutobi knew about anything that happened." Tsunade added, "No ROOT did return, there was a meeting called not to long ago while you were all gone and Danzo was gone as well. Most of his ROOT were gone as well. Sarutobi saw this as suspicious, but because of events that caught our attention we ignored it."
Hana asked Tsunade, "What do you mean sensei?" Tsunade crossed her arms and told them all, "I cannot, this is an S-Classed secret and only clan heads are to know. Most likely Naruto and Itachi will know about it soon, until then though I can't say anything." Hinata wasn't concerned with what everyone was talking about and was just focusing on the unconscious blonde in the hospital bed. Fu was standing right behind Hinata the whole time.
Shikamaru was leaned up against the wall with Choji was right next to his friend just standing quietly out of the way. Shikamaru though looked at the clock on the wall and saw what time it was saying, "Well this has been fun, but I'm heading out now. When Naruto gets up tell him I said hi." Shikamaru walked out of the room saying bye to his friends. Choji followed after him saying goodbye to everyone as well. Ino and Sakura decided to leave to do their daily rounds in the hospital before going home as well. Kiba and Akamaru left to get some deserved rest after the battle in Oto. Shizune and Tsunade told Itachi to come back in the morning so they could fix him up.
Itachi, Aoi, Hikaru, left the hospital next with Itachi still carrying Mayu. Itachi told his team to come to the hospital in the morning so they could talk a little more. Shino, Fu, and Hinata agreed and watched their sensei and his family leave. Tsunade announced to the one's remaining, "Okay well visiting hours are coming to an end, so Hinata, Shino, Fu I'll see you guys in the morning."
The three ninjas nodded and Hinata said to Tsunade, "Sensei, please take care of my Naruto." Tsunade walked over to Hinata and hugged her saying, "Don't worry I intend to." Hinata gives her sensei a smile and then leaves the room with Shino, Fu, and her mother so they could get the well deserved rest they need.
* Later in the Night: Kirigakure *
Utakata was walking through a town after realizing that the Sanbi was under his nose the whole time, rather Sanbi set up barrier to conceal itself so that it wasn't found. Regardless the Mizukage and a select few ninjas of Kirigakure knew where the Sanbi was and he let it slip. He found a bar and ordered a bottle of sake and a cup so he could have a light drink. He pulled out a senbon needle and started to etch words and drawings into the table he was at which was in the far back away from everyone else's eyes. After finishing the bottle of sake at a slow pace so he's not intoxicated right from the beginning he leaves some coins on the table and takes his leave.
He decided to leave the little town in Water country and go where ever his feet take him. He began walking a dark path due south avoiding all mist ninjas that he might see and hopefully the Hunter nins as well. As he walked through the dark forest he noticed that a mist started to roll in, which wasn't unnatural since this was a common occurrence in Water country. As he ventured into the mist he felt more uncomfortable with this, later he soon realized that the mist was the thickest he's ever seen it. Stopping in his tracks he shouts out, "Who's there!? I know this is no ordinary mist so come on out and face me!"
"My my still the little brave one aren't we?"
Utakata immediately froze when he heard that voice, a voice he committed to memory unfortunately. Soon a series of footsteps could be heard and he kept looking around for the source they were coming from and he looked and looked and finally the mist let up a little bit and what he saw were three men standing in front of him. All wearing the Akatsuki robes. Though Utakata's eyes were glued to one man and he said, "Kisame."
Kisame was holding his trademark smile that showed his vicious rows of teeth, "Been a long time Utakata. Oh these are my friends, Hokori and Hidan." Hidan rested his scythe on his shoulders saying, "So this is the son of a bitch we got to capture huh?" Kisame smile widened as he said, "Yeah he's got the Rokubi in him. The thing is a glutton if I remember correctly, but then again so is my Samehada."
Utakata didn't look that much intimidated and glared at Kisame shouting, "I already killed a Swordsman of the Hidden Mist and I don't mind adding another one to my list kills!" Utakata began to let chakra spill out of him.
Hokori said, "Well isn't he serious." Utakata had an explosion of baby blue chakra shoot out of his body with a tint of white mixed in with it. The remaining mist that was around them was pushed back by Utakata's power radiating off of him at alarming rates. Kisame however took Samehada from his back and tossed it at amazing speeds at Utakata.
Utakata saw this and leapt over it clearing it by a foot, but his chakra suddenly disappeared. Samehada hit the ground behind Utakata and then under the wrappings the sword began to wiggle as if it was alive, Utakata was shocked that all his power had just disappeared. Kisame chuckled saying to Utakata, "You jinchuriki are so unfortunate to fight me. Especially in your little chakra shields."
Hidan tossed his three bladed scythe at Utakata aimed for his head, but Utakata dodged it by ducking, though he didn't know that the scythe hooked onto Samehada and he pulled it back with enough force with the cable that was attached to his red weapon back allowing Samehada to fly into the air and landing right into Kisame's hand. After retracting his scythe Hidan grabbed hold of his weapon and pointed at Utakata with it saying, "So who wants first dibs?"
Utakata was now in a bind. Running was no option since he doubted he get far, unleashing Rokubi's chakra was a no since Kisame's sword seemed to absorb it, and fighting was a death wish. Utakata had no choice, he immediately pulled out his container and his pipe and started to blow bubbles at the men. Kisame grinned and so did Hidan with both men shouting, "This is gonna be fun!"
* Morning: Konoha Hospital *
Hinata was the first to arrive early in the morning. Since she was registered as one of Tsunade's apprentices she had the privileges of roaming through the hospital whenever needed, but when it's not her hours to be there she is treated like all others no matter her status. She walked through the hospital entrance saying hi to the receptionist as she walked in. She happily walked through the hallways heading straight for Naruto's room carrying a bag of herbal creams for him. She reached his room finally and walked inside being as quite as she could so as not to wake him up, though she wanted him to be up and about just not like swinging the door open and scaring the hell out of him. He needed rest and she was going to let him have as much as he needed.
When she opened his door she peeked in and widened her eyes in happiness. Naruto was up and was stretching out his arms and legs, he heard the door open and looked at the door and saw Hinata in the doorway, putting on his usual smile he said, "Hey hime? Miss me?" Hinata regained herself and walked over to him pushing him on his bed so he was sitting playfully scolding him, "Naruto-kun you shouldn't be up like that, what if you injured yourself stretching." Naruto watched as Hinata pulled out some creams from the bag she brought in and she immediately uncapped on that had skin lotion written on it. She took some out and rubbed it on his arm first telling him, "You've been out since the battle in Swamp. Your skin was badly damaged and it took awhile for me to get you skin to repair itself."
Naruto rubbed the back of his head saying, "Yeah that tends to happen whenever I go into that form. The good thing is that Kyuubi is always healing me when I'm in it, though it takes away from some of my power since we are recycling some of our chakra to heal me." Hinata finished rubbing the cream in his left arm and started on his right and said with a hint of worry, "Was he really that strong that you needed to go into that form?"
Naruto caught her worried tone and answered, "Kinda, but I wasn't going to chance it. I needed to kill him now and I didn't wanna risk capturing him." Hinata looked at him and said, "Good news though, we did capture him." Naruto was a little shocked and asked, "How did you guys pull that off?" Hinata reached over for the cream and walked behind Naruto and got up on the bed on her knees so she could put some on his back saying, "Well the thing is that when that second part of you was about to attack, Fu used a wooden technique to hit it in the face knocking the attack away from Tobi, though the attack was powerful enough to knock him out of his defensive state."
She started to rub the cream on his shoulders and then toward the center of his back, "But your second self aimed the attack a few feet in front of you which caused you to get caught up in your attack and which is why you are in the hospital." Naruto smiled and got the chills since the cream was cold and Hinata was now going down his spine, but he told her in a happy tone, "Well we have to thank Fu for that. I was goin for the kill and she was able to get me to knock him unconscious, though not the way I woulda done it." Hinata got to his sides which made Naruto a little ticklish she suddenly stopped and Naruto looked behind and saw that she was a little worried.
He put a hand on her shoulder asking, "Hime what's wrong?" Hinata put the container on the bed and said, "Fu feels real bad. She blames herself that you got hurt, she asked me if I hated her because she put you in that state. I of course told her no since I cannot hate Fu because of that, but Naruto-kun you really need to talk to her about this. It's tearing her up."
Naruto sighed and said, "I don't know why she would feel bad. I mean I'm alright and we captured a Akatsuki, by the way what about the other guy?" Hinata picked the cream up and walked around so she was facing the sitting blonde and started to rub the cream on his chest saying, "It turns out that Kakuzu was Fu's father and that he sacrificed one of his hearts to save her. Fu ended up delivering one killing blow, though due to the immense strain his body was taking it wasn't just Fu that did him in. It also turns out that Tobi might know what happened to Fu's mother and that's why she intervened in your fight." Naruto made an oh expression finally understanding why she did what she did.
Naruto gave Hinata a genuine smile and he told her, "Don't worry Hime I'll set Fu straight. I don't hold no grudge against her for doing what I would've done in the same situation. I'll set everything straight." Hinata leaned up and kissed Naruto on his lips and even forcing his mouth open allowing her to let her tongue roam in his mouth. Naruto leaned back on the bed and let Hinata take control. As she kept deepening her kiss she heard the door open and the two love birds looked up and saw a blushing Fu and Shino with a kind of embarrassed look on his face. Hinata got off of Naruto and handed him the cream telling him, "Naruto go in the bathroom and be sure to rub this into your body, this will rejuvenate your skin and keep it healthy. After all this is a new layer of skin and it's fragile at this point."
Naruto took the cream and asked, "You mean…. 'Everywhere?' As in…" Hinata simply nodded her head and pointed for him to go into the bathroom. He did so without question and closed the door behind him. Shino looked at Hinata and said, "Were we interrupting something?" Hinata was fighting her blush and said, "Not really. I was just applying a medical cream to his skin."
Fu playfully teased, "In his mouth?" Hinata's skin turned a bright red. Shino and Fu sat down in the available chairs in the room waiting for Naruto to come out. Naruto returns five minutes later saying, "I feel all exposed and weird." Shino and Hinata laughed, but Fu only offered a small unsure smile. Naruto looked at Fu and sat down on his hospital bed with Hinata joining him. He said to Fu, "So Hinata tells me that you beat Kakuzu and assisted in capturing Tobi. Great work Fu." Naruto said all of this with a smile on his face. Fu however slumped and said, "Naruto-nii, I understand if your making fun of me because I put you in the hospital. I didn't mean to hurt you nor-"
Naruto immediately cut her off by holding his hand out for her to stop saying, "Fu I don't want you to worry about what happened and I sure as hell don't want you to blame yourself for something like that. I can take a lot of hits, but I can't take one of my friends blaming themselves for something they have no reason to do. I got hurt, so what I'm awake, I'm healthy and we all came back safe." Naruto got up from his bed and walked over to Fu and placed a hand on her shoulder saying, "Don't beat yourself up, I would never hate you, make fun of you, or blame you for anything. Shit happens, so just forget about it. Okay?"
Fu felt an enormous weight lifted off of her, as if an entire mountain had been lifted off of her. Fu began to let a few tears fall from her eyes and she said, "Arigatou nii-san." Shino smiled and looked from Fu to Naruto. Naruto looked at Shino and the two exchanged a nod of thanks and happiness. Naruto walked over to the side of the room and said, "So, who wants to get me out of here?"
Hinata immediately stood up and held her hand out to him stopping him, "Oh no Naruto. You still need some rest and recuperation." Naruto whined and started rolling on the ground saying, "I hate hospitals though! It's boring, the food tastes like crap, everyone is cranky, and it smells like death in here!" Shino said to Hinata, "Your going to be married to a two year old husband who's trapped in a fifteen year old body." Hinata giggled, but leaned down and kissed Naruto on his lips saying, "Yeah, but he's mine." Naruto smiled at Hinata and got back into bed, much to his dislike. The team decided to wait for Tsunade to come in with Itachi so that he could get the good call to leave.
* Former Land of Whirlpools *
Kisame, Hidan, and Hokori were waltzing down the path along side a giant ocean beach where a giant whirlpool was. Hokori had a beat up and bruised Utakata under his arms as the trio made their way to the base in the old whirlpool country. Hidan was currently missing his left arm since a bubble wrapped around his arm and blew up. He used to have Kakuzu reattach it, but as far as they knew, he was dead. Akatsuki got lucky when Zetsu found Utakata roaming through Water country and Pain immediately set Kisame out to get him, though Hidan and Hokori wished to join as well. Kisame told his group, "We are almost there. Won't be long now."
Hidan shouted, "Bout fucking time!" Hokori asked his group, "I wonder what we will do next?" Kisame shrugged his shoulders saying, "It's what ever Pain or Madara wants. Pain wants the Kyuubi alive, but Madara wants it sealed, I'm just goin with the flow." Hokori left it at that and followed his teammates to their Akatsuki hideout.
* Amegakure *
Pain was sitting down looking out at his village and Konan was next to him. He'd occasionally look over and watch her rub her stomach, he suddenly looked out at his village and stood up saying, "Some one has disrupted my rain." Konan stood up as well asking, "What can you tell?" Pain focused and said, "He's strong, very strong. His chakra is up there with Jiraiya-sensei."
Konan asked, "What will you do?" Pain told her, "I'll find out who it is. You lead up the sealing, the Gedo should be in Whirlpool awaiting the extraction of the Rokubi. I'll finish this as quickly as I can." Konan nodded and watched him walk out of the room and toward his private room.
* The perimeter or Amegakure *
A figure appeared from out of the water allowing the rain to hit his head. He waded through the water silently and hid underneath a sewer pipe, he tossed off the breathing gear he had on and allowed the light to hit his face. He lit a cigar he pulled out from his pack and said, "Time to get to the bottom of where Hanzo is."
There you have it. Though short I couldn't really think of many things to do in this chapter, but in the next one a lot of things will happen and I hope you guys will like it. Well R&R, Stay Gold, and Goodbye World!!!
