Warning: This chapter contains Hidan. If you are sensitive to blood sacrifice, scythes used for non-farming purposes, foul language, proselytizing, or other possible triggers related to Hidan, please skip the section beginning with "The village stank with blood" and move directly to Chapter 18.

Chapter 16: Jinchuriki?!

Shizune had been waiting for us when we reached the base of the Hokage Tower. She let out a small sigh as we came into view, then squared her shoulders to give a confident, professional appearance. "The Hokage wants to see you all immediately."

"Is everything alright?" Sakura asked.

On our walk through the village, we had all sensed the tension. Civilians scurried down the streets, and merchants refused to step out from behind their stalls. The military police may have died years ago, but now Hyuuga ninja lingered in the shadows with the same watchful expressions.

We'd all kept our weapons in reach, and Hinata had set her puppet jerkily dancing at the end of her chakra strings.

"The Hyuuga are threatening to secede again," Shizune said as we hurried up the staircase.

Hinata ducked her head, hiding her face against the puppet's black hair "I'm sorry."

This happened every few years. The Hyuuga had never really integrated into the village system and resented the outside influence that it brought into their compound. The clan would calm down in a few days, and we'd all have a good laugh about it. Except the Hyuuga, of course. They never laughed.

This sort of treason just happened, a lot like demon attacks. It's nobody's fault.

I said, "Hinata, stop apologizing. It isn't your fault this time."

"That's not entirely true." Shizune opened the door to the Hokage's office.

The Hokage glanced away from the paperwork on his desk. "Ah, Team Seven. And Hinata, as well. Your father will be glad to see you with both your eyes attached."

Hinata's eyes widened. "Wh-what?"

"Due to your trip to Cloud, which has a certain reputation for bloodline thievery, under the leadership of Kakashi Hatake, who has a certain reputation of his own, the Hyuuga have been understandably concerned."

"Didn't you tell your dad you were leaving, Hinata?" Naruto asked.

"S-sort of? We don't talk," Hinata mumbled.

"Ideally, Kurenai would have informed Hiashi that Kakashi would be taking over as Hinata's sensei," the Third said. "Unfortunately, she was unable to do so because she also did not know."

I turned towards Kakashi with a raised eyebrow. "I thought you had an agreement?"

Kakashi's eye smiled. "It was more of an unspoken understanding."

"There have been some accusations that I am trying to assassinate the Hyuuga heiress"—the Hokage chuckled—"but with her safe return, they should stop their talk of treason."

An Anbu wearing an owl mask appeared. "Sir, the Hyuuga wanted me to give this message to you, which doesn't mean I am associated with their treasonous cause, merely that I was the first to—"

The Third Hokage took the letter. "I've never doubted your loyalty, Owl. Return to your watch."

"It's my job," Owl said softly, "but I would do it even if it wasn't."

The Anbu's shunshin covered the sound of the Third opening the letter. "The Hyuuga would like us to know that they are not angry; they are merely disappointed because they know we can do better. They know this because they have been watching us."

From his paperwork-piled desk, Tobirama snorted. "Like that's new."

"Sorry." Hinata had resumed her jittering finger movements. The puppet thrashed in front of her.

"No apologies necessary. Your family is quite anxious to check you over for amputations and needle pricks, and I'm sure you're just as anxious to show them your new talent"—the Hokage gestured towards the chakra strings dangling from Hinata fingertips—"I would officially dismiss you from Team Seven, but you were never officially a member in the first place."

"Yes, Hokage-sama." Hinata bowed and scurried from the room.

The Hokage turned to the rest of us. "Team Seven, I have a mission for you."

Naruto groaned. "Wha? But we just got back from a mission."

"Ah, but time is of the essence. A girl has gone missing, Naruto. A girl who is…like you." The Hokage gazed at Naruto's obnoxious, orange jacket.

I waited for Naruto to shout out his usual demands to know just what the Hokage meant, but he just nodded.

I suppressed my treasonous curiosity, shifting to safer topics. "Is she a noble?"

The Hokage glanced down at a scroll laid out on his desk. "Not at all. Her name is Fuu, and she is a Waterfall ninja."

Sakura said, "Hokage-sama, why didn't the Waterfall Village send their own ninja after her?"

The Hokage said, "The Waterfall Village is small. They lack the power to fight a rogue jinchuriki."

We all paused for a moment, since this was clearly Naruto's cue. He missed it. Idiot.

I fulfilled his usual duties. "What is a jinchuriki?"

"Heh, heh, heh, heh." The First Hokage's laughter grew so loud that the civilians on the street below had begun peering up at the tower's windows. After a couple of minutes, he returned to his paperwork, still chuckling.

The Hokage cleared his throat. "Right. A jinchuriki is a human with a demon sealed inside their body, who serves as its living prison."

Sakura shuddered. "That sounds horrible."

"Actually, it's great. They get to tap into the demon's chakra, turning themselves into deadly half-beasts that can destroy armies with a sweep of their tail." The Hokage swept his paperwork off the desk with a sweep of his arm.

"That's an interesting gimmick," Kakashi said.

The owl Anbu appeared to restack the paperwork, which seemed to have doubled in size during its time on the floor.

"The village can use that power to supplement their ranks. For instance, one jinchuriki turned Sand from a pathetic village full of weaklings into a village full of weaklings and one jinchuriki"—the Hokage's eyes curved into an amused crescent—"Of course, Konoha has no need for such things. Why, Naruto killed the Sand jinchuriki in a simple spar, and he was only a genin at the time."

"Believe it," Naruto agreed.

"Besides, a rebellious jinchuriki is a dangerous thing. Waterfall was a far greater village before their last one rampaged."

The First Hokage laughed again, short and harsh.

I was glad that Konoha didn't have a jinchuriki. They sounded unsafe.

Sakura's facial twitches were slightly more exaggerated than usual. "So we're supposed to capture this jinchuriki?"

The Hokage said, "Yes. In fact, you're an ideal jinchuriki capture squad."

He gestured at each of us. "Sasuke, your Sharingan can confuse and manipulate even a loose demon. Sakura, your Yamanaka training allows you to quietly capture an enemy without accidentally releasing the demon inside. Naruto, you have absolutely no talents or abilities that are related—"

Naruto yelled, "Hey, what about—"

"Absolutely none," the Hokage cheerfully continued. "But I'm sure Kakashi will find some use for you."

Kakashi leaned casually against the Second Hokage's desk, thoughtfully stroking his mask. "I've been training them to be an assassination squad this whole time."

"That's fine. There's a lot of overlap."

"It's been nineteen hours since Fuu was last seen," Shibuki, the young village leader of Waterfall explained.

It wasn't particularly odd for a chuunin to be in charge of a hidden village. The new Kazekage was a chuunin and the Third Hokage had only been a genin when he was elected. Yet Shibuki lacked not only an official rank, but the confidence of a man who can murder everyone in the room. He hunched his shoulders slightly when speaking to our team, and I think he was still embarrassed that he had been hiding from a pigeon when we first arrived.

Naruto gaped. "Eh? How do you know she's missing if it hasn't even been a day?"

Shibuki rubbed the back of his head. "We keep a pretty close eye on Fuu. When Kegon and Yoro didn't bring her in for her evening check-in, we thought maybe she was playing hide and seek again and had delayed them. But when they still weren't there after two hours…"

"Are Kegon and Yoro Fuu's teammates?" Sakura asked.

Shibuki laughed nervously, smoothing back his long hair. "Not exactly."

A mid-twenties jounin, with a katana slung across his back and eyes like ice, shunshined beside Shibuki.

Shibuki greeted him. "Kawaguchi."

Kawaguchi said, "T&I has finished autopsying the demon's guards, sir. I'm certain girl has at least one accomplice."

Shibuki winced. "Are you sure?"

"Yoro was electrocuted, burned, and ultimately drowned. Kegon was tortured for some time, partially skinned, his stomach cut open, and his organs spread out in a circle around him"—Kawaguchi snorted—"Fuu isn't that subtle."

Sakura's killer intent drew all of our attention as she said, "She might have been kidnapped. Is there any sign of a struggle?"

"Oh, no, she wouldn't have struggled," Shibuki said. "Fuu is…"

The other Waterfall ninja interjected, "Fuu would follow a Shinigami into the underworld if he asked nicely."

The Waterfall Village was in poorer condition than even my family's old district. It seemed as if they still hadn't recovered from the wartime bombings. Half-demolished buildings sat ignored beside busy marketplaces. The people held their shoulders in a perpetual hunch, their heads curving lower at the sound of Naruto's laughter.

We approached a circular wall in the center of the village, fifty meters tall and hewn of rock. Past explosions had taken bites out of the edges, and black scorch marks patterned its stones.

"Is this where you guys test your bombs?" Naruto asked.

"No, we're not allowed to do that anymore," Kawaguchi said. "This is where we keep Fuu."

In the center of the wall sat a tiny hut.

A large rune had been drawn just a few paces from the hut's door. Within the bloody circle, footprints had been gouged into the earth, as if someone had stood there for hours. One chalked outline placed a corpse in front of the circle. The other lay within the open doorway. We stepped over it as we walked inside.

Kakashi summoned Pakkun and a silent hound. Pakkun barked at his larger companion, then turned to translate. "Alright, all we need is a good whiff of something full of her scent. A stuffed animal, maybe."

"Fuu doesn't have one of those," Shibuki said.

"Bedding's just as good."

"Well…" Shibuki glanced towards the hard cot, which was devoid of blankets. The only thing for the girl to wrap herself in was…

"Why are there chains on the bed?" Naruto asked.

"Fuu is"—Shibuki rubbed the back of his head—"a spirited girl."

"Set the whole damned village on fire last time she went sleepwalking." Kawaguchi sneered the last word, clearly not believing the explanation.

I could understand his frustration. After all, there was a sizable group of Konoha ninja who insisted that Itachi had murdered my clan during a sleepwalking session because no one in their right mind would willingly leave Konoha. Their argument had merit, but their insistence that Itachi was still sleeping today irritated me.

Pakkun huffed through his nose. "Does she wear clothes?"

Fuu and her kidnappers had not darted away through the trees. They had not trudged through any of the country's abundant waterfalls and rivers to destroy their scent. Instead, Pakkun led us down the main road out of town. They had apparently walked.

The nin dogs' noses were proven right with each body we passed. Some were cut open, others electrocuted. A disturbing number, however, had been burned to death—Fuu's specialty.

As we raced down the path that our targets had walked a day before, I contemplated the Hokage's assertion that Fuu was like Naruto.

Both shinobi were distance fighters who preferred fiery, environment-engulfing attacks, but I didn't think the Hokage was referring to that. Whatever the similarity was, it was bigger, something…innate.

The slender nin-dog paused at a fork in the road, turning back to his pug companion with a series of staccato barks. Pakkun said, "The path splits here, looks like the bloody one went into town."

"Was this recent, Pakkun?" Sakura asked.

The dog shook his head. "At least four hours old."

"The ninja's probably left town and rejoined the group, by now," I said.

"There might be clues, though," Sakura said. "Maybe one of them is injured and they had to buy medical supplies. Or maybe they mentioned their destination to one of the townsfolk."

I said, "At least we can get a description."

"Let's go!" Naruto shouted, charging into town. It occurred to me that he was now my superior officer and would one day lead us all to our deaths. Of course, Naruto himself would only be a clone, so he would be fine.

Kakashi watched the dust cloud Naruto kicked up as he ran. "I guess I'll keep following the trail. You guys can catch up later."

We nodded, following the idiot into danger.

The village stank of blood. Sakura and Naruto gagged. He covered his nose with a sleeve, and she slammed her mask down. I knew from experience that it would be better to take small, shallow breaths until I'd adjusted to the stench.

In the first house, we found a young woman collapsed in front of the same circular rune from Fuu's hut. The woman's blouse and chest had been torn open by a large blade. Her organs had been spilt, her heart pierced, and her eyes gouged out.

"It was a suicide," I said.

Naruto's face reddened. "Whaddaya mean 'it was a suicide'?"

I gestured towards the body, turning her hand over so that her unblemished palms were brightened by the sunset.

"The angle of the wounds don't make sense if someone was rushing at her. There are no defensive wounds on her hands, and she was standing straight throughout the attack, not cowering or running away"—I gestured towards the organs sloughing out of her abdomen—"She didn't even try to hold her stomach in."

"But that doesn't make sense," Sakura said, lifting up her mask to peer closer. "No one would try to kill themselves so horrifically. Unless…"

"Huh? Unless what, Sakura?" Naruto asked.

Sakura's eyes sparkled. "Unless the ninja used mind control or some kind of body-controlling technique."

"Maybe," I said. "Or maybe the opponent was so terrifying that a messy, panicked suicide seemed like the better option."

Naruto snorted. "Nobody's that scary, Sasuke."

I closed the corpses' ruined eyes, the lids deflated on her pale face. "It's a pretty normal response to too much killer intent. I've seen it before."

Itachi's genjutsu of my family's murder had started off traditionally enough—drownings, beheadings, strangulation. On day two, he had started to throw in deaths like the one this Waterfall civilian had suffered.

On day three, he got creative.

I shivered as we moved on to the next house. More suicides. This time, it was a middle-aged couple.

The next house was unique. Though it reeked of blood and the circular symbols dotted the floor, sobbing drifted out of the kicked-down door. An elderly man held his grey-haired wife, his arms trembling against her as we approached.

"Knock, knock," Naruto sing-songed as he barged in.

The man's watery eyes turned to us. "Please, take everything; just don't hurt us."

"We aren't here to steal, sir." Sakura said, daring us to prove her wrong with a glare.

The wife moaned softly. "Oh, no. Not again."

"The dog is dead, and we don't have any children," the man said.

"Um"—Sakura glanced at me and Naruto in confusion—"That's fine. We just wanted to ask you about the ninja who came through here a few hours ago."

"A ninja did come," the old man said slowly. "But he only left half an hour ago."

We shared a startled look. Sakura winced. "S-sir, can you please tell us more about this man?"

"He stinks of death, but he will never die. He is blessed," the woman said, shakily pulling away from her husband. Her eyes were shadowed, but she forced a wide smile. "We have been blessed, too."

Her husband pulled a knife from atop his kitchen counter, shambling towards his small yard.

"If you excuse me, I need to go sacrifice a chicken to my new god"—the old man shuddered—"Jashin."

"Who's Jashin?" Naruto said as we glanced over the corpses of the neighboring house.

I gave the body a casual nudge, then followed my teammates to the next massacre. "Who knows? Civilian religions are weird. They have a lot of gods. Every time something goes wrong, they pick a new one."

Leaf shinobi, of course, only have one god—the God of Shinobi, who could bring us to great power or to nothingness with a single signature.

Through the open window of a small house, a man's voice said, "That is one shitty-ass circle."

"We're sorry, Mr. Ninja, sir," a child replied.

"Sorry," another said.

"That's fine. You've just gotta practice until it's less shitty. That's a life lesson for you cute little fuckers."

Two children painted lopsided circles on the floorboards of their home. They periodically dipped their brushes in the cracked-open head of the dead woman crumpled beside them. The smaller child, only three or four, held the dead woman's hand while painting.

Looming over the children like Iruka-sensei back in the Academy, a ninja surveyed their work. He was in his late teens, with silver hair and a slashed forehead protector wrapped around his throat. He held a tall, double-pointed scythe.

I shivered when I recognized the black and red cloak loosely draped over his bare chest. Itachi.

"Took you long enough," the ninja remarked, glancing at us through the window.

The missing nin looked down at the children, nodded approvingly at their smoother drawings, and leapt through the window at us. He swung the scythe at Naruto.

Naruto ducked. His dodging was really improving lately.

Unfortunately, I was expecting his clone's death to destroy the scythe's momentum, and I nearly lost a foot as I stumbled out of the way. Sakura didn't dodge at all. She met it with her ridiculously oversized blade.

Hidan's lips quirked upwards into a smirk. "Heh. This might actually be decent fight."

Sakura pulled down her mask and said, "We're experienced ninja of the Leaf, not just a bunch of snot-nosed genin."

"Yeah! The only snot-nosed genin around here is Sasuke." Naruto helpfully pointed at me so that our opponent wouldn't be confused.

I glared at him. "Hn."

"Screw you, too, Sasuke."

"Wait"—the silver-haired ninja jerked his head towards Sakura—"If you're Leaf ninja, why the fuck are you wearing a Mist hunter-nin mask?"

Sakura straightened. "It's a kill trophy from when I assassinated Zabuza and his apprentice. I'm Sakura Yamanaka, the Demon of the Mist."

The Naruto clone grabbed a kunai with an explosive tag and casually tossed it in the air. "I'm Naruto Uzumaki, the next Hokage of Konoha. Believe it."

The missing nin's eyes narrowed at Naruto, presumably from disbelief.

Well, as long as we were doing this…

"Sharingan Sasuke," I said, activating my Sharingan while maintaining eye contact.

Our opponent laughed, yanking his scythe back into his hand. "Always so damned cozy with you Leaf assholes. Call me Hidan. I'm your executioner."