DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN NARUTO, FAIRY TAIL, OR ANY ASSOCIATED CHARACTERS
Two chapters in one day lol. Guess I have nothing better to do, so here you all go. More exposition in this one, but the action will pick up again soon. That being said, read, review, and as always, enjoy!
Chapter 20
Shizune definitely enjoyed her job, on most days, anyways. There was the rare occasion that the workload for Tsunade was so high that it spilled over on to her, but those days were few and far between now that Naruto had returned to the village. The young blonde always seemed to give Tsunade new life whenever he was around.
Unfortunately for Shizune, another of those bad days had arrived, and not because of an increased workload. But when Tsunade had screamed her name, Shizune had thought that this would be the day she died, judging from the severity of the tone.
When she pushed open the door to the Hokage's office, she saw Lady Tsunade sitting at her desk, a box of scrolls and papers in front of her that clearly wasn't apart of her workload for the day. "My lady?" she asked, wincing in preparation.
"Summon Jiraiya at once!"
Shizune bowed and quickly scurried out of the room, letting out a sigh of relief that she lived another day. When she turned the corner, she slammed into someone's chest and fell flat on her rear. Looking up, she was both surprised and elated to see that it was Jiraiya himself.
"What's the matter Shizune? Tsunade threaten you again?" he laughed.
Shizune shook her head as she stood, placing a hand behind her head in embarrassment. "No, I was actually sent to summon you."
Jiraiya raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Well as a matter of fact, I was just on my way there."
"She'll see you right away," Shizune bowed, allowing the Sannin to pass her. Given Lady Tsunade's serious tone, she knew that they would be a while, so she decided to take a well-deserved break.
She headed outside, leaving the courtyard with a contented sigh, breathing in the fresh air. As it happens, she spied a certain blonde dragon slayer up ahead. Laxus had just turned the corner on the way to his apartment. Shizune hurried up to him before he could make the stairs, stopping him in his tracks.
"Hey," he greeted in an indifferent tone.
"Hey," she smiled back. "I finally got some time off, so would you like to go find something to eat?"
Laxus shook his head. "Already ate with those three idiots."
"Oh, I see," the kunoichi dropped her head in disappointment.
Normally, Laxus would have left the girl standing there by herself, but she had actually begun to grow on him. His features softened just a bit, not noticeable to anyone but even his closest friends as he looked down at her.
"I could go for a walk, though," he offered.
Shizune beamed as she looked up at him. "Great! I know the best spot!"
Laxus motioned for her to lead the way. The two walked for several minutes, passing the Hokage's tower as they headed towards the cliff that the stone faces were carved out of. At first it was silent, neither saying a word, until Shizune turned to look down at his still bandaged hands.
"Are they feeling any better?"
Laxus flexed them as he looked down. "Yeah, I can feel everything again, thanks."
Shizune nodded, resuming the silence. After another few minutes, she thought of a question that she could expand upon and keep a conversation going with the less than enthusiastic dragon slayer.
"You said your grandfather was the master of your guild?" she asked with inquisitive eyes, receiving a nod from Laxus. "And he banished your father? Why?"
"Not exactly sure on the specifics, but I really don't care anymore, the guy was a piece of work."
"But he's your father, right? There must be some connection still."
Laxus snorted. "Yeah, right. What kind of father implants things in their own son to turn him into a weapon?"
Shizune gasped. "He did that...to you?"
"Yeah."
"Is that why your grandfather threw him out?" Shizune asked.
Laxus shrugged. "Like I said, I don't know the specifics. Though the old geezer seems to have a habit of throwing out his own family members," he muttered.
"He threw you out?"
"Yeah."
"Why?"
Laxus sighed. "Not something I'm proud of at all. You'll probably run away if I tell you, to be honest. But I tried to kill every one of my guild mates and an entire town just to take control of the Fairy Tail guild from the old geezer."
Shizune dropped her head. "Why?"
"Power," Laxus said simply. "It was all I cared about in those days. All I wanted to do was make the guild stronger. I just saw all these guys as weak kids that the old geezer let run around."
"Did they stop you?" Shizune asked, an odd tenderness to her voice that Laxus hadn't expected.
He nodded. "Yeah, Laxus and Gajeel beat some sense into me, then the old geezer threw me out."
"But you came back?" she asked.
"Yeah. I fought with them against some other punks, and the old geezer still didn't let me back in. He still technically never did," Laxus revealed.
Shizune raised an eyebrow. "What does that mean?"
"Long story," Laxus said, waving a hand.
Shizune took that as Laxus was done talking, so she returned to the silence that they'd started with. She led the dragon slayer towards the steps that led up to the top of the stone faces. Just before their feet hit the first one, Laxus spoke.
"What about you?"
"What about me?" Shizune asked quietly.
Laxus nodded as they ascended. "What's your story? How'd you end up working for the boss?"
Shizune laughed nervously, rubbing her arm. "Well, it's kind of a long story, too."
She had intended to leave it at that, but seeing Laxus' stern gaze convinced her to reveal her secrets. She took a deep breath before she began.
"Well, I was very young when I started traveling with Lady Tsunade. My uncle was her, uh...lover. After he died, she took me under her wing, and we left the village. She trained me to be a medical ninja just like her. She's the only kind of mother I've ever known," she said with a sad smile. "Three years ago, Naruto and Lord Jiraiya tracked us down and asked her to be the Hokage, so here I am."
"Sounds like you're close," Laxus remarked.
Shizune nodded with a big smile. "We are! I mean, she yells at me a lot, and I always have to cut her off from drinking and gambling, but yeah!"
Laxus chuckled at that. He had no idea how Shizune could simply be content running errands for and babysitting the leader of the entire village. Shizune joined him in laughter as they reached the top of the steps. Wheeling to the left, Shizune led him to the cliff that overlooked the entire village, much higher than the Hokage's Tower.
"It's beautiful," Laxus said as he watched the sun set on the village.
Shizune nodded, a peaceful feeling washing over her. "It is. Thank you for helping protect it."
"I didn't do much," Laxus said, crossing his arms in his usual manner, indicating that he was receding from the connection.
Shizune shook her head. "That's not true! You almost gave your life for the village! In anyone's eyes, you're a true Leaf ninja."
"Definitely have done more good in this world than my own, that's for sure," Laxus nodded.
Shizune sighed in exasperation. "Don't say things like that!"
Laxus looked down at her, one brow raised. "Why?"
"Because...well, because you're amazing," she admitted. "You rushed off to help Lady Tsunade without a second thought. Then, you took on someone alone to protect an entire group of Leaf shinobi! I refuse to believe that you didn't do things like that back in your world."
"Did you miss the part where I tried to kill thousands of people, including my closest friends and grandfather?" Laxus asked. "Besides, you saved an entire damn hospital of people. I did nothing compared to that."
That angered Shizune. To think that he was so down on his own accomplishments that he refused to take a compliment. She stepped forward to aim a punch at his upper arm, but his large hand caught it before it arrived.
"What's that for?"
"For being an idiot!" she said forcefully.
Laxus pulled her towards him by her trapped fist and lowered his head. "I'm not an idiot, alright? I just haven't done a lot of good in my life until now."
Then, the two seemed to realize how close they were. Laxus released her fist and the pair stepped back, each blushing, Shizune much darker than he was. They remained like that for a few minutes, watching as the sun finally disappeared below the horizon.
Silently, they turned back towards the stairs and descended them without a word being said. They reached Laxus' building soon after, and turned to face one another. Laxus scratched the back of his neck with his left hand nervously.
"So listen, I had a good ti-"
He was cut off when Shizune stepped forward, grabbed the collar of his purple shirt, and pulled him down in a soft kiss. Laxus was wide-eyed with surprise, but he gingerly returned it. They parted after a few seconds, Shizune smiling even wider than before.
"I had a great time, too," she said before turning on her heel and heading off down the street, leaving Laxus utterly confused as to the inner workings of the female brain.
Jiraiya knocked on the door, entering when prompted. The red wood swung open to reveal Tsunade sitting at her desk, poring over a dusty scroll. Several others were strewn about her desk.
"You finally catching up on your dusty family history, Tsunade?" he teased.
Normally, she would have rolled her eyes, but when she didn't, Jiraiya knew that this was something serious. "I've made a shocking discovery."
"And I come bearing bad news, so who goes first?" Jiraiya asked with a chuckle.
Tsunade motioned for Jiraiya to take the floor, which he did so. "Well, I suppose there's no dancing around the issue. As you know, I'm the Leaf village spymaster. Using my network of spies, I've been keeping an eye on the Akatsuki. Thankfully, they've left the village alone while we make repairs, which could be a good or bad thing, I don't know yet. But this much is clear, they're gathering up all of the Tailed Beasts, and quickly."
Tsunade nodded. "Yes, I know that."
"No, originally, we thought that it took them years of preparation to nab a single jinchuriki, Gaara being the first one they even attempted to pursue after they failed to get Naruto three years ago. But they gathered the Two and Three Tails much faster than we could have anticipated. And I just got word that the Four Tails went missing earlier this week in the Land of Stone.
"They say the entire battlefield was covered in steam and water. The steam can be contributed to the Lava Style of the Four Tails, but the water, on the other hand….The only member of the Akatsuki that uses Water Style jutsu is Kisame Hoshigaki, one of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist. His partner is Itachi Uchiha. Those that abducted the Two and Three Tails were clearly not either of those two. They're employing their full might to gather the jinchuriki as fast as possible," Jiraiya finished.
Tsunade nodded. "It's worse than we feared, then. Lucky for us, then, that we have those reckless and clumsy wizards in our village then, isn't it?"
"What do you mean?" Jiraiya asked.
Tsunade handed him the scroll in her hands, the one that contained the most relevant information. Jiraiya's eyes scanned every word on the rolled up parchment, growing wider by the second.
Looking up to Tsunade, he said, "This is Sartobi-sensei's writing. Where did you find this?"
She simply pointed to the butt-shaped hole in the floor of the office. Jiraiya nodded, placing the scroll back on the desk. "Then it's a good thing that we managed to kill Danzo," Jiraiya chuckled.
Tsunade nodded. "Yes. He is the man responsible for the Uchiha massacre all those years ago."
"To think that he would go so far as to give such an ultimatum," Jiraiya thought, shaking his head in disappointment.
Tsunade nodded again. "Regardless of the reasons, we now know the truth. Itachi Uchiha is not who we believe he is."
The next morning, Gray rose with the light streaming through his window. He donned his usual clothing and stepped outside, yawning as he locked the door behind him. His hands in his pockets, he proceeded towards the Hokage's Tower, only to turn before he got there, for his destination was a different one.
When he arrived, following the directions from a shinobi he'd asked, he walked into the small concrete building. After descending a flight of stairs, he came to a large room, where a few members of the Torture and Interrogation Unit were already at work.
One of them, a taller man with a long, black cloak and gray uniform, turned to face the ice wizard. He had scars running diagonally across his face, and the edges of a large burn could be seen from beneath the headcloth that secured his forehead protector.
"Can I help you?" he asked.
Gray nodded. "Yeah, I'm Gray Fulbuster. I was told I could be admitted to see a prisoner."
The man nodded. "Ah, the ice wizard half the town keeps babbling about when they're not talking about those other three, eh? I think I have an idea of who you're wanting to see. This way. Name's Ibiki Morino, I'm the head of this here division."
Gray nodded. "Good to meet you."
Ibiki led him down a long corridor, then a flight of stairs. When they reached the bottom, they found that the right side was covered in iron bars, divided up by stone walls. As they passed the cells, many of them were occupied, some with Sound ninja, others with former Root operatives.
Ibiki stopped and turned to face Gray, gesturing to the one next to him. The ice wizard nodded his thanks as he stood in front of the bars. Ibiki walked a few paces away to give them some semblance of privacy, but he couldn't just leave him alone with the prisoner.
Gray looked down at the form that lay cross-legged on the ground in front of him. "Hey," he said.
The figure raised his head, revealing Sai, the former Foundation member that Gray had defeated during the coup. "Ah, it's you," Sai greeted with a smile.
There's that fake expression again, Gray thought.
He sighed. "You really gotta stop that, man. It's creepy."
"Stop what?" Sai asked, tilting his head.
"Smiling," Gray said in exasperation.
Sai looked utterly confused. "But I read that smiling is how you get people to like you."
Gray shook his head. "You ain't winning any friends after you betrayed the village."
"So why come and visit with me?" Sai asked.
"Because you seemed bored during our fight," Gray revealed. "So that either makes me think you were holding back, or you don't believe in what you were fighting for."
Sai said nothing, only cocking his head again as Gray continued. "That's why I beat you. I believed in what i was fighting for. Well, that and the fact that I clearly outsmarted you."
"I don't believe that you did," Sai said. "I simply made a tactical error."
Gray chuckled. "Like I said, I outsmarted you. But that's not why I'm here. I'm here because there's no way that you could actually believe in that psychopath's way of thinking."
"Lord Danzo trains us to follow his exact will. Our personal feelings do not exist."
"That's a load of crap," Gray retorted. "You're all humans, not mindless puppets. The guy just used you and your comrades, and you did nothing about it. I know that you have personal feelings, they can never be taken from someone completely. When you're ready to admit that, I'll come back. No kid deserves to live in a prison cell."
Gajeel jolted awake at the sound of wood hitting concrete. Squinting his eyes against the morning sun, he sat up from his position in one of the chairs on laxus' balcony. Standing over him was Jiraiya.
"What's up?" the Toad Sage asked with a grin.
Gajeel groaned at the splitting pain in his head, picking the empty bottle up from near his feet and tossing it over at Laxus. The bottle hit him square in the chest, waking him as well. He took a few moments to adjust to the surroundings as well.
Jiraiya completely disregarded the lightning dragon slayer, his eyes focusing only on Gajeel. "Come on, kid. I got a mission for you and that guy Natsu. Go pack."
Gajeel grumbled as he stood up. He leapt over to his balcony and disappeared inside his apartment to pack his things, mostly just his iron trail mix. Laxus looked even angrier than usual as he stared up at the Toad Sage.
"You need me for somethin'?"
Jiraiya shook his head as he hopped up on the railing. "Nope, never did."
"So why the hell did you wake me up?" Laxus demanded.
Jiraiya shrugged. "I didn't," he said before jumping to the street below.
Laxus spouted every curse and profane word that he knew as he retreated to his bed, intending to sleep off the effects of his hangover.
Naruto and his many clones yelled and grunted from all the exertion. Twenty or so Narutos stood side by side on a thick wooden beam that stretched the length of the roaring waterfall that fell into a pool below.
Kakashi lounged lazily underneath the shade of a tree, a book in his hand while Yamato kept a close eye on Naruto, ready to suppress any emergence of the Nine Tails' chakra. Kakashi's training with Naruto had resumed as soon as the white-haired Jonin was released from the hospital.
It had taken the young blonde several days to be able to tear a leaf with his chakra, and they'd been at waterfall cutting for the second day now. Sakura watched on in amazement at her teammate, and who she now considered a close friend.
She'd brought a basket of thick, brown, food pills for Naruto so that he could recuperate faster. Which she set on the edge of the forest like she had been. She was about to turn to leave when a figure emerged from the trees, his hands tucked into the pockets of his long, white trench coat.
"Oh, hey Gray!" she greeted cheerfully.
"Sakura," Gray smiled a greeting. Leaning against a tree, he nodded to Naruto. "How's it going?"
"Good, I think. I haven't talked to any of them about it, but I think it's going well."
Gray nodded. "That's good. Now maybe I should get some training in of my own."
Sakura rolled her eyes. "The four of you could probably take down a small village by yourselves."
Gray shrugged with a smirk. "Can never be too strong to protect your friends."
Sakura relented at that. In truth, it was a feeling that she shared as well. Gray glanced down, spying the basket of food pills. "What are these?"
"My homemade food pills!" Sakura said happily. "They're supposed to help you recover faster, plus, they're really tasty!"
"Oh yeah?" Gray asked, now genuinely curious. He brought the brown ball to his mouth and bit down. Instantly, he regretted it. He couldn't swallow fast enough, but when he did, he realized that he'd forgotten to chew.
As he began to gag, a vein popped out of Sakura's forehead, her cheery mood having turned sour in a matter of seconds. She wound up and hammered Gray on the back of the head, causing him to drop unconscious to the ground.
"UNGRATEFUL TROLL!" she yelled before stalking back into the forest.
Luckily, the bite of food pill had been knocked out of his throat and had flown out of his mouth before he dropped unconscious. Otherwise, he really would have died. After a few seconds of unconsciousness, Gray managed to climb to his feet and approach the three in the midst of training. Kakashi was the first to notice him, his single eye swinging lazily away from the pages.
"What's up?"
Gray shrugged. "Just checking in is all. I'm so used to always going on jobs that I don't have a clue of what to do when I'm not on one."
Kakashi nodded. "I know what you mean. It's good that you haven't been given a mission yet, though, because I have an idea that involves all four of you wizards."
Gray raised an eyebrow in curiosity. "Oh yeah?"
"Yeah," Kakashi nodded, then jerked his head up to the training Narutos. "But he has to master that jutsu first."
"That's good," Gray commented. "Natsu and Gajeel went out on a mission with that Toad Sage guy earlier. Wouldn't tell me what it was about."
Kakashi exchanged confused glances with Yamato. Neither of them seemed to have any idea of what it was about. Figuring they'd find out sooner or later, they both shrugged. Kakashi buried his nose back in his book, and Yamato returned to watching over Naruto.
Gray took that as his queue to leave, heading back the way he'd come.
Gajeel rubbed his temples as he attempted to block out the sound of Salamander's incessant chatter next to him. He had to admit, though, that the fire dragon slayer was making some good points as they approached the main gates.
"What kind of mission is this? How much does it pay? Do we get to smash anyone?"
Jiraiya chuckled at Natsu's barrage, finally arriving at the city gates. He walked a few meters outside and turned off of the road, using one of the trees as shade while he turned back to the two dragon slayers.
"Alright, first thing's first. I may seem like a happy guy, but this mission is deadly serious. We're tracking two more of the Akatsuki, and I've chosen the two of you to come with me. I'll be team leader on this one, so you do what I say, when I say it," Jiraiya said, even though some part of him knew that his orders would be disobeyed at the first opportunity.
"Who are we tracking?" Gajeel asked.
Jiraiya held up a bingo book, the pages opened to two figures in matching black cloaks with red clouds. One wielded a large, bandaged sword, and had blue skin and hair. The other had dull, black eyes, and defined tear lines on his face. His jet black hair framed his face.
"Itachi Uchiha and Kisame Hoshigaki. Our objective is to capture Itachi and eliminate Kisame if we have to. We are not to pursue if he escapes. They were last seen in the Land of Stone, so that's where we're headed."
Gajeel and Natsu groaned. "Not more running," the fire dragon slayer complained.
"You get to beat both of them up as long as you don't kill them," Jiraiya reminded in a coaxing manner.
Natsu snapped to attention, his fists meeting each other, flames shooting off of them. "I'm all fired up!"