Team Disaster: Origins Of Infamy

Summary: From the day they met to the day they made history, snippets in the lives of Konoha's infamous Team Disaster, their nearest and dearest and the devastation and chaos they cause.

Red Dawn

Part 4

Hiruzen didn't even register how time passed as the group funeral was prepared for his old father and even his mother. It wasn't fair, a part of him registered. Sarutobi Asuma was a good man who had only ever had the well-being of the village and others at heart. He didn't deserve for those savages to just hunt him down and kill him. Hiruzen hated that he had been there to see it at all. He hated that he and his teammates had been the ones to find the intruders, that they had been the ones to engage them because it had happened close enough to his house that his father had gotten words of it and had immediately jumped to his only son's rescue. Hiruzen was his eldest, his heir, and while that was no longer as vitally important as it used to be to the clan before the village was built all those decades ago, Hiruzen was still Asuma's son.

He had joined the fight, saved six foolish young adults and paid with his life for it. One of those monsters had preformed some kind of unholy ritual and had stabbed himself through the heart to kill Asuma. Hiruzen had watched in horror as his father died from no wound inflicted to his body, only pain and death shared with a man who was in no way worthy of him.

And what was even worse, the other monster of a man had just picked up the body and the two of them left after killing several more ninja and former ninja when Namikaze-sensei appeared and nearly tore them apart with his giant Rasengan coupled with natural energy. Several more bodies had been stolen and no doubt taken to bounty hunters or collectors, since they were all rather skilled and infamous people. Hiruzen hated that they had died, hated that he couldn't save any of them, hated that Danzo now had a vivid reminder of their failure in the form of a scar on his face, hated that his friends were trying to console him when he didn't deserve it.

He had been the one to fail his father and his village so completely that he should be punished.

Instead, Tsunade-sama just gave him her sincerest condolence and didn't argue when he demanded that it be their team that goes after the two Akatsuki members. With Namikaze-sensei and Jiraiya-sama going with them as the leaders of the mission and, to Danzo's disgust, Senju Tobirama and Uzumaki Mito as their backup.

Hiruzen didn't fully understand why Danzo didn't like the kids all that much, to the point that he actually might hate their missing - in a medical coma for recovery purposes, as he'd heard - teammate, which was weird as Madara was Kagami's favorite younger cousin. Well, Danzo was intrigued by Tobirama and the kid's sharp mind and sharper tongue, but he hated Madara and was uneasy around Mito. Hiruzen honestly liked the kids but hated that they were sent as their backup against two dangerous and seemingly immortal individuals. Of course, they were probably sent with them for that exact same purpose, given that there was no way there wasn't some trick behind Kakuzu's and Hidan's immortality. A jutsu or a seal, whatever it may be, these two or Namikaze-sensei were the most likely to figure it out.

Sarutobi found he didn't get to focus much of his attention on the kids or that they spared him any, either. They were silent and yet seemed to have a form of communicating between them that had Namikaze-sensei complaining to his own former teacher that was going to drive him insane one of these days. Tobirama and Mito only spoke up when they started discussing ways to fight the two 'zombies' or when Namikaze-sensei prompted them to share their experiences against the other four Akatsuki members they'd faced so far.

Which was impressive, given the reputation the organization had accumulated in just several years. So far, there were only a handful of survivors as far as even Jiraiya-sama knew and he was the one actively spying and gather information on the group. They travel in pairs, they wear black cloaks with red clouds and they are all S-ranked criminals who had defected from their villages, usually because they were displeased with what the leading authority thought of their actions and experiments and goals. Except Kakuzu.

Kakuzu, if Mito was to be believed, formerly from Takigakure, was once sent to assassinate Shodaime Hokage, before the first Shinobi War broke out and he was ridiculed and all but exiled from his village for his failure despite being heir strongest ninja. Not much is know about him but he's practically the oldest being except boss summons and biju in the Five Elemental Nations.

It spoke of skill and it made Hiruzen and his friends aware of the fact that if they fail now, they won't live to have a second chance. Sarutobi hated that he was dragging his friends into this mess but they had felt slighted by how easily they had been nearly taken down if not for his father's help and so they had set out to amend that, restore their reputation, all the while helping him avenge his father's graceless death.

Kakuzu, when they found the two Akatsuki nin, was as uninclined to help his partner fight as he had been the last time until Asuma had beheaded Hidan, leaving him practically immobile. This time, though, he had to fight for his own survival, as the Yellow Flash and Jiraiya of the Sannin had no plans of letting a dangerous enemy like him keep running around, hunting biju or kidnapping innocent children again. It had been a rough week behind them all and no one was in the mood to be merciful. Not if the lightning sword in the little Senju's hands and the Kyuubi's chakra cloak with three tails surrounding its Jinchuriki were anything to go by.

Fighting Hidan was near impossible since he wouldn't simply just die. They can blow him up to smithereens, chop him up into tiny, itty bitty pieces and he can be reassembled if only Kakuzu was around with whatever strings he was using that stitched both of the zombies' bodies in various places. Namikaze-sensei and Jiraiya-sama seemed to be keeping up well enough with the ancient man, all things considered, and Namikaze-sensei even managed to destroy one of his hearts - which, what the fuck!? - but then Kakuzu had these four monstrosities running around the field with various chakra releases and Kakuzu now wanted the Yellow Flash's raiton since he'd killed his raiton heart and Hidan was doing his best to draw blood on one of them but Mito and Tobirama were confusing him enough that Hiruzen got to use one of the strongest Sarutobi katon jutsus to give the man quite a few burns.

It all proved to be not nearly enough until Koharu got sick of the endless fighting that was only exhausting them and opened a giant hole in the ground to trap Hidan. "Go for the head and smash his brains out already, damn it!"

Kagami, being the fastest of their team of six, immediately ran for the opening, Sharingan active and reading any shifts in chakra or muscles that will allow him to predict movement, only to have to be tacked by the white haired Senju when a swift futon was sent his way, sharp and strong enough to definitely cut him in half.

"That's not going to work! We need a more permanent solution. Mito!"

"On it!" The Uzumaki immediately responded, hands flying through several hand seals before she sank to her knees and pressed both palms to the earth. Lines upon lines of seal kanji immediately flew from her fingertips, changing direction until they were forming a circle with a square on the inside as a sealed dome flickered into existence, cutting Hidan off from the world. From each corner of the square, something akin to black chains sprang from the ground and wrapped wound the trashing Jashinist. "There. At least he can't move anymore. We can study his condition as he is now."

"We're here to kill him, not examine him," Danzo reminded coldly, already taking out a kunai and some sort of special seal that, if Hiruzen was not mistaken, was developed by the Fuma Clan to severe chakra networks or strings without cutting into the body or any physical manifestation of a solid form.

"If you haven't noticed, brat," Jiraiya-sama calls from where he's apparently wrestling with one of the ugly heart creatures. "That guy may actually be really immortal. He doesn't need extra hearts, at the very fucking least!"

"You can't kill me!" Hidain taunted them with a deranged, crazy sounding laugh that sent shivers of dread down all of their spines. "I am Jashin-sama's devotee! Jashin-sama is mighty and he will never allow for one of his own to die as long as I am loyal to him! You won't be able to hold me here forever! Once I free myself, I will take all of your blood and sacrifice you all at once for the glory of Jashin-sama in one big ritual! Jashin-sama will be so pleased that he will reward me plenty- What the fuck!? Put it out, put it out! Fuck, this actually hurts and burns and it's burning me! Put it OUT!"

Hiruzen, Danzo, Kagami, Koharu, Homura and Torifu all stared in horror as black flames appeared out of nowhere and started burning the trashing silver haired man still trapped in Mito's seal. Team Disaster, though, turned as one to look around until their eyes settled over their shoulders to where Uchiha Madara was standing. Unarmed, no forehead protector, no protective vest. Hell, the fifteen year old was even for once out of the robes he usually wore and was instead dressed in what Hiruzen recognized as a hospital gown.

"Oops," the Uchiha said as Hidan continued screaming. "I guess one god losses to another, no? Amaterasu has always been known for burning her enemies until not even ashes remain and what kind of Uchiha would I be if I didn't take your declaration as a challenge?"

"Madara-kun, you should be resting!" Namikaze-sensei, whose own fight against Kakuzu and his creatures had stopped upon Hidan's agonized screaming - which had quieted by now; that black fire worked fast and Hiruzen suddenly understood why Team Disaster had such a reputation if they had ways to kill immortals - admonished upon setting his blue eyes on his Uchiha student.

"And you should have waited for me to wake the hell up or woke me up if you knew you were going up against supposed immortals!" Madara snapped, sounding pissy. Hiruzen did his best not to look the teen in the eyes. He knew what the Mangekyo Sharingan could do. Kagami had been geeking out about it ever since his two cousins awakened the advanced form of the Uchiha doujutsu.

"Never mind that, you imbecile," Tobirama snapped, drawing attention to himself this time and everyone's head - except Hidan. There was barely anything left of him at this point in time - swiveled to face him as he seemed to be struggling with himself not to march right over to Madara and whack him over the head for his apparent stupidity. "Your chakra has still not reached your full reserves and yet you're already using your Mangekyo again!? Are you crazy!? Or just masochistic!? And for that matter, why aren't your eyes bleeding!?"

"Madara, you eyes," breathed an entranced Kagami barely a few feet behind him, making Tobirama twitch and everyone's attention swivel back to the younger Uchiha cousin. Madara immediately reached with his fingers - for once bare of his usual gloves that he had seemed not to take off for years now, since he'd acquired them - to touch just underneath his eyes and proceeded to blink in confusion for some reason. Seeing as the Senju had mentioned bleeding, it was, apparently, at the lack of blood on his fingers.

Mito abandoned the seal she had been keeping since there was nothing left to keep sealed as, indeed, not even ashes were left of Hidan, and she instead Shunshined over to her teammate, her eyes going a bit wider in wonder and awe. And confusion, like, copious amounts of confusion. " Madara, is it normal for your Mangekyo pattern to change?"

"What? No. The Mangekyo is unique to every Uchiha and is the final form the Sharingan takes. It can't change further. Well, unless if an Uchiha were to ... " Madara trailed off, eyes narrowing and that strange design within them spinning a slow, calculative circle before his expression fell into a deadly glare. "I am going to kill them. I am going to kill them," seethed the boy, his Mangekyo giving a more vicious spin but Mito, to her well deserved credit, did not flinch back.

"Explain," she said simply instead and Hiruzen wondered when his revenge and his team's redemption plot became an Uchiha drama over their super special eyes.

"According to tradition, the Mangekyo pattern can only change if two compatible Uchiha of a close blood relationship exchange eyes after they both activated the Mangekyo Sharingan," Kagami was the one to reply since Madara appeared to be too angry to answer. "The closer the blood relation, the better. Once the eyes are exchanged, both of the Uchiha restore any lost eye sight and it is immensely easier to use Mangekyo techniques. All of this is speculation, of course, as we only have one confirmed occurrence of an Uchiha taking another's eyes and that guy went crazy."

" ... That does look a little bit like a combination of your's and Izuna's pattern," Tobirama grunted when he got closer to inspect his teammates eyes himself. "So he should be able to use all of his previous techniques with more ease now? Less strain and chakra?"

"Supposedly," Kagami shrugged, frowning. "Though don't you guys already know that? I know you have access to all of the clan archives, even the Head House's library."

"I'm making a point," the youngest Team Disaster said absently. Madara scowled at that.

"I told you I don't want to take Izuna's eyes!"

"And so he decided to give them to you when you're too exhausted to protest. Something you shouldn't even be doing, not here, not now, not when we're in the middle of a fight that could very well cost us our lives. So if you're just going to stand around and bitch, you might as well leave."

"Oh, fuck you, Senju!" Hiruzen nearly craped in his pants when suddenly, there was an absolute giant the size of the fucking Kyuubi standing in Madara's place, the teen seemingly nowhere in sight until he looked up and he saw him somewhere in the giant's head, in a jewel on its forehead. The giant looked a lot like a tengu, if Hiruzen were honest, and that sort of freaked him out, okay? Tengu were supposed to be fairy tales!

"What. The. Fuck?" Kakuzu echoed all of their thoughts, no doubt, as they all craned their necks to look up at the chakra construct. Hiruzen wasn't sure if he'd stayed that cold-blooded in the face of a thing of nightmares. He'd ... heard rumors of the Uchiha's Susanoo after a bunch of chuunin accompanied Madara, Izuna, Hikaku, Touka, Mito and Hashirama a few months back to save Tobirama after he got kidnapped. And he'd heard about the tests Tobirama insisted on Madara and Hashirama doing in the wake of said rescue operation so the Uchiha could better learn to control it. Hell, he was pretty sure he'd seen outlines of it in a significantly smaller form from afar since said tests and experiments tended to happen outside of the village walls for everyone's safety of mind and body. He can see why, though what he'd glimpsed and heard of paled in comparison to this.

"No fair~!" Complained Kagami, Sharingan eyes drinking in the sight of the tengu-warrior-chakra-giant-thing unabashedly and with the usual fervor and reverence Uchiha usually reserved for fire and all things fire related. Hiruzen knew they came from a clan of natural fire users but he comes from a clan that has its own special katon jutsus and they weren't so enamored with arson. The Uchiha, he'd learned, were natural pyromaniacs. "He's a kid and yet he gets to do shit like this~? I want one too~!"

"For fuck's sake, Kagami." You knew it was a bad day when Torifu cursed.

"Seriously!?" Tobirama and Danzo demanded both, the both of them sounding incredibly peeved through obviously for different reasons. Danzo was competitive and hated when he had to admit someone was stronger than him. Add to it his strange like/hate relationship with the Uchiha Clan in general, save maybe Kagami, and the fact that the person he now had to admit was vastly more powerful than him was several years younger and was an S-ranked genin and Danzo was bound to be extremely, completely and utterly pissed.

Tobirama, Hiruzen suspects, was probably angry this happened when he didn't have the time to appreciate the finer details of the workings and developments of the jutsu. They were in the middle of battle, after all, even if said battle had stopped the second Uchiha fucking Madara found a way to kill Hidan despite his apparent immortality as long as he stayed loyal to Jashin and served him faithfully or whatever nonsense the pink-eyed masochistic-sadistic moron had been spewing.

'Well, at least my father is avenged.' It wasn't by his hand but, if Hiruzen was honest, the only way he could think of to possibly kill Hidan would have been with an Uzumaki kinjutsu that would result in summoning the Shinigami, offering his soul to it so it would take both his and the Jashinist's life and dying on the spot, which would in turn be an extremely dick move as his mother and sister don't deserve that grief or to take up his responsibilities permanently instead of just until he's legally allowed to become Clan Head. Sarutobi-Yuhi Kurenai and Sarutobi Mirai didn't need the added grief after losing spouse and father respectively and Mirai would have to wait nearly eight more years before she could legally take over the clan. All in all, his loss was not one his family or his clan could take and he suspects Tobirama would use Edo Tensei - why was a kid allowed access to that highly forbidden jutsu!? Wasn't Orochimaru on the loose with it enough!? - just so his family could tell him how stupid and reckless he had been and would no doubt bring Asuma back, too, just to drive the point home.

It's Hiruzen's own fault for so often indulging Butsuma-sama's second son when he had been a child that Tobirama impressed on him as an older brother figure of some sort that would answer his questions instead of say 'I don't know, ask your father/mother/someone else' or along those lines. His own. Damned. Fault.

"At least this will benefit Konoha in the long run," Koharu says and Homura nods obligingly beside her and Hiruzen despairs at his choice of friends.

"If I ever become Hokage, I'm placing you as my council of elders."

"At this point, I think Madara-kun might end up being Yondaime Hokage, Saru." Torifu was just savage today, wasn't he? Maybe Hiruzen should have tried to just up and leave the village to get his revenge, possibly find his way to Orochimaru to learn some powerful jutsu before killing the snake in the name of Konoha and hunting down these two monsters himself but it had sounded like far too much effort. Besides, he was pretty sure old Mitarashi-sama wold hunt him down and beat the crap out of him if he killed Orochimaru since she had first dibs.

"I think you might just be right. Better not suggest that to Tsunade," Jiraiya-sama says in a afar too serious tone in what should be a joke. "She might take you up on the offer. Don't give her ideas. As lovely a sight as it's bound to be, I'd rather not witness the aftermath of a brawl between Tsunade and Ryukyu-sama." There was a collective shudder at that. Even Kakuzu shuddered and Hiruzen wondered who thought it was a good idea to let that woman have children. Madara took far too much after her for anyone's peace of mind.

If he ever became Hokage ...

'Please let it be Hashirama!'

" ... Can I surrender?" Kakuzu actually asked, speaking for the first time since verbalizing all of their thoughts upon seeing the tengu-warrior-thing of chakra.

Tobirama shrugged. "You have a kill on sight order and you're really not that interesting to study like he," he pointed to where there was not even any charred ground remaining that used to be where Asuma's killer had been trapped. "Would have been." On cue, bright blue burning shuriken like things that weren't actually shuriken because they were made of chakra and resembled connected comas lit on fire appeared in the chakra tengu-warriors hands, about the size of a Bijudama if HIruzen was not mistaken and a flat-faced Tobirama, Mito and Namikaze-sensei immediately started collecting their allies to Hiraishin out of the way and probable blast range.

"Oh fuck my life," the ancient zombie man groused before just one was released and Hiruzen watched with his teammates, the two Team Disaster members, the Yellow Flash and one of the Sannin as that single shuriken-coma-whatever chakra thing blew up the entire little rocky clearing they'd been fighting on. Like it was nothing. The aftermath will probably be burned in Hiruzen's brain for the rest of his life even without Kagami's super special doujutsu to preserve it because he's sure he'll be seeing it in his nightmares regularly.

" ... The fuck, Minato?"

"I know, Ero-sensei."

Hiruzen felt them.

He really did.