"Sota, there you are! I've been looking for you for hours!" Raidou yelled at you as you walked towards the entrance.
"I'm sorry sensei, I just wanted some time alone," you said.
"Didn't I tell you to not get out of my sight on this mission?"
You shook your head, you were pretty sure he didn't.
"I was sure I did, anyway, we're going back in now," he said and dragged you by your arm, inside the hotel, up the stairs, down the hallway and into your room.
"I'm staying here keeping watch on you till it's time for breakfast tomorrow. Got it?" He asked.
You nodded.
"Is there anything you want to say?"
You shook your head. It was best to say as little as possible, you didn't want him to know about your talk with Bee and Yugito.
Thanks to that nap, you didn't feel like going to bed right away. There wasn't much you could do apart from starting to draw again.
Raidou's eyes were fixed on you the entire time, or at least every time you moved your eyes away from what you were doing.
"I'm don't want to go to bed yet, I'll just get another nightmare, so you can just go to bed," you said.
"I'm not letting my eyes off you, who knows where you'd be sneaking off while I'm asleep."
"How long are we staying here?" You asked.
"I don't know. Hyousuke seems to want us here for god who knows that reason. But it's not like we have any hurry in going back. If you just can keep out of trouble for once, it's better to have you were away from Danzo," he said.
"Thanks," you replied. "I cannot deal with him well. I wish he could just die. But I've no idea how."
"You shouldn't try to kill him, that will just get you in more trouble. You're good, but not that good. You've not even been a genin for a year, and he's over sixty years of experience behind him. He knows your tricks, so please don't try anything stupid."
"It just gets worse and worse, I cannot cope with it anymore," you said.
"Which is why I'll talk to the Hokage when we're back," he said.
"Like he'll do anything, he's let Danzo do whatever till now and all he has done is to take his anger out on me!" you yelled.
"Sota, you don't talk like that about your Hokage, and please keep your voice down. I'm sure he's a pretty good reason to do what he's been doing. His relationship with Danzo is complicated, so he has to thread careful," he said.
You didn't want to talk to him anymore, so you let out a big yawn and went back to your drawings. Maybe if you could just lay down a bit. You weren't going to sleep, just have your head on the pillow with your eyes closed.
-x-
As you opened your eyes, you were aching in pain. A blue cloud was surrounding you and you could feel your energy being drained away from you.
Through the fog, you could see ten figures standing on each their finger. Not being able to make out anything other than Pain's Rinnegan.
Behind you, you could see the creepy Gedō Mazō statue sucking in Matatabi's chakra.
No, no, no. That wasn't a dream, you were awake. You just dreamt that you were in a hotel with several other jinchuuriki. Maybe they were the result energies from the others that had been sacrificed on the altar of Akatsuki. Meeting Deidara here was just your brain's way of processing everything. Him stealing your sushi was just your brain telling you that he was taking Matatabi.
What could you do? You could try to drag the chakra back maybe?
-x-
Before you could do anything. Your body jumped up in your bed and you were awake. You took deep breaths to calm yourself down. Outside it was still dark and you could hear the rain hitting the window. You looked over at Raidou's bed and you could see him still sleeping.
It was not real, it was not real.
Maybe you should take a walk? If you were lucky there were some lights outside even at night. All that you were certain about was that you didn't want to fall back to the same dream.
As you left your room, you saw Deidara entering his. Why had he been out at this time?
You heard no click from his lock, so maybe… maybe you could take him out. Maybe Danzo was right about taking out your enemies before they could hurt you.
No, you couldn't think like that.
But Akatsuki was dangerous, and you got a reminder of what would happen if they found you. They'd capture you with any means available. If that meant attacking the village so they'd give you up, they do it. And unlike Naruto, few would stand up for you, and unlike Naruto when Pain attacked, you had little to defend yourself with against a self-proclaimed god.
So if you could take out one member while he was still weak, you would gain an advantage.
It would also save Gaara, as his flying bird and explosives were what won him the fight. With all the changes to the timeline that you had caused, there was no certainty that things would play out the same this time.
Naruto might never befriend Gaara. Sakura could fail to defeat Sasori. Chiyo might not sacrifice herself this time. There was a lot that could go wrong.
Anyone else in the organization would be at a much greater disadvantage against Gaara and fewer members would mean that everything from gathering funds, hunting down Jinchuuriki and extracting their chakra would go slower.
But if Roshi was there with him, then you had a bit of a problem. You looked behind you, just to see that no one was watching your plotting. But there was no one, and the doors were fitted with proper locks you couldn't see through.
You also needed to wait till Deidara was asleep. Wait, didn't you see Roshi entering a different room earlier?
You let out a big yawn. If only you could get a long night's sleep you wouldn't doubt your memory so much.
But if you remembered correctly, that meant that Deidara was most likely alone. You didn't see him with any team members earlier and he probably didn't have any sleepovers.
You started to count inside you to get a feeling on how long you were waiting. After about fifteen minutes you decided that enough was enough, and you opened his door. He was asleep. Thank god for that.
Slowly one after another step you approached him, making sure to not make a noise, you were in luck as the floor was on your side. Sturdy and not at all squeaky. You got a good grasp on the kunai with both your hands, you had one shot and you needed all the power your small body could provide.
You stopped in front of him and looked at him. He was still a child, you couldn't do this! He hadn't done anything worse than taking your food, probably due to some unresolved issues. He was sleeping peacefully, chest slowly rising and falling. Not knowing that he might at any moment stop breathing. Maybe you should just turn around and tomorrow you could try to befriend him, bond over your love for explosions. Maybe...
No, you couldn't hesitate now! Because he would not hesitate at all the day he'd bomb the village to get to you.
You looked at his neck, looking for a place to strike and went for it, but then someone put their hand in front of your mouth and pulled the kunai out of your hands
"Sota, what the hell are you doing," Raidou whispered into your ear.
"What's going on here!" Roshi yelled out and turned on the light.
Deidara woke up and grabbed the kunai on his nightstand and pointed it at you with a shaking hand.
"No need to worry, Sota here struggles with sleepwalking and must have thought this was his room. I'm sorry for waking you up," Raidou told Deidara before turning to Roshi. "Thank you for being understanding here Roshi, I'll make sure he isn't wandering about again."
"If you take him back to your village tomorrow, we can see past this misunderstanding. But if I see him attempt to make another move on Deidara, I'll personally kill him," Roshi told Raidou.
"Deidara, stay clear of him till he leaves, I'll be watching you make sure you're safe," Roshi told him.
"I really shouldn't have stolen his food," you could hear Deidara mumble as you left his room.
Had you made a mistake? No, he still had the same attitude that had lead him to Akatsuki the last time.
Back into your room Raidou looked angrier than ever. "I will not hear another word from you. Go back to sleep."
"I can't sleep! Every time I sleep I get nightmares, and every time a voice in my head is telling me it's all real," you cried out.
Raidou paused for a few seconds be for letting out a short. "Oh fuck."
"What is it?" You asked.
"Inoichi messed up," he said and put a hand on your head and you felt a spike of chakra entering your system.
"What's wrong?"
"You were convinced you were dreaming yesterday, so not knowing what else we could do, Inoichi put a genjutsu on you making you think you were awake. It was supposed to get dispelled as you fell asleep, but instead, it made you think your dreams were real too. I'm sorry."
"It's okay, so I can sleep better now?" You asked.
"Hopefully. So please try to get some sleep, not even you can cause problems in your sleep," he said with not much hope in his voice.
You let down another yawn before falling down in the bed.
-x-
You woke up as you were falling on the floor.
"Sota, are you okay?" Raidou asked.
"Yes, I'm just tired."
"I can see why, you've barely been still the entire night. Nightmares?" He asked.
You nodded.
"I'm sorry I didn't take your lack of sleep more serious. Get dressed so we can go to breakfast, the quicker we can get going the better," he said.
You nodded and got off the floor and found some clean clothes.
"If anything happens during breakfast, just back down. Don't taunt them, don't start a fight, just give them your food if you need to," he said.
"I get it," you said.
"And bring your stuff, I want us gone here as soon right after we've eaten so we won't have any problems with Iwa."
Most of your stuff is packed already, so you grabbed your bag, put it over your shoulder and wait outside in the hall.
You nodded.
The hallway was clear and no Kumo-nin was trying to drag you into their room. Not that they'd do it with Raidou walking right behind you.
As you reached the end, Raidou stopped. "I should probably go and tell the others that they need to make themselves ready and go down to breakfast, just go down and join the queue. I doubt even you can cause any serious trouble in ten seconds."
You nodded and let out a yawn before continuing down.
Without warning, you got dragged into another room. You tried crying out for help, but they had already placed his hand in front of your mouth to prevent you from making any noise.
And before Raidou could turn around and see that something was wrong, the kidnapper had locked the door behind you.
You started to kick whoever was holding you.
"Stop struggling kid. If you cooperate I'll be gentle on you," he said.
As you saw an open laundry basket in the middle of a room, you knew where this was going. You tried kicking him harder at the right place to maybe get him to drop you.
He quickly lifted you higher up. "I didn't want to do this, but you force my hand," he said and pinched your nose closed. "You better stop struggling if you don't want to run out of air."
You had to do something, you reached into your seal bag and grabbed a handful of whatever seals you could grab.
Your seals better not fail you now as you slapped them into your attacker and activated them. A large flash, and an ear-deafening sound later, you went falling through the floor. Which must have given up thanks to the explosion.
It was a soft landing as you landed on top of him. He was completely unstill. Everything around you was filled with smoke and dust. You considered checking his pulse, but after taking a closer look at him, it was clear that it was in no way necessary.
Almost on cue, you stared to chuckle. Danzo was right, this felt good. You shouldn't feel bad for him, he deserved it.
No, no, you shouldn't think like that.
But as Danzo said, it was all about sending a signal. No one would mess with a seven-year-old sitting on the top of their victim laughing.
Around you, the smoke had cleared up and you realized where you were. On top of the piano, raised in the middle of the restaurant for everyone to see.
The pianist had crawled next to the wall and was shivering as you turned your glance down at him.
Right above him was a mirror and in it, you saw a monster drenched in blood looking right at you. Smiling creepily at you. No, it was you, you couldn't deny it. No... No…
You clutched your head and started breathing rapidly.
You had completely forgotten that you were in the middle of the dining hall and looked around you.
A row of Kumo-nin had their sword out sparking with lightning looking ready to charge at you.
"He tried to kidnap me!" You yelled out in panic. "He was going to stuff me in his laundry bin!"
One of them broke the line and charged at you with the others followed right behind.
You froze up, not knowing what to do, you had nowhere to run. Your heart was beating faster and faster.
Tentacles followed behind them, and one after another they got yanked back by Bee. But he was too late for the last one, and the unknown Kumo-nin jumped up and swung his sword at you.
You tried dodging, but it was useless. As the blade hit you, an immense pain struck through your body. Your seals had captured the sword but did nothing against electricity soaring inside you, paralysing you in the process.
When everything had discharged. your heart was calm again. In fact, it had completely stopped, you clutched your chest and fell over.
Charka streamed out from your Matatabi's seal and filled your system. Moments later something started to squeeze on heart, then again, in a rhythmic fashion and you started to get back the feeling in your body that you didn't know you had lost.
You tried sitting up but you were too weak so you tried pushing yourself up by your arms, it was hard and your arms were shaking. A weak blue glow covered them and probably the rest of your body.
Thank you Mata
"Everyone calm down!" Bee yelled out with more authority than you've ever heard from him before.
You had no idea what was going around you and you didn't want to risk losing your balance by turning around.
After a few seconds had passed, Bee started to speak again. "He is lying, Kumo would never try to kidnap anyone. We can see past this, but then we want compensation."
"Compensation? You guys just attacked him and almost killed him!" You could hear the voice of Raidou yelling.
"He's alive. I tried to stop it, but you cannot say he didn't have it coming. We're being merciful here. As the highest-ranked Kumo-nin here, I've got a proposal for Konoha.
"Give Uzumaki Sota here a real choice of defecting to Kumogakure. There will be no charges against him and no one will hold what happened here against him. It's not his fault that you've been brainwashing him to become like this. He'll be under my care and I'll ensure no harm comes to him.
"Decline or renege on the agreement and you'll find yourself at war with Kumogakure effective immediately. You've ten minutes to decide."
"You cannot be serious. You expect him to want to go to Kumo after what you just did to him?" Raidou asked.
"It is his choice if he wants to defect or not. If you think he prefers Konoha, then you've nothing to fear. The clock is ticking, so you better figure out who here has the authority to make the decision," Bee said.
"I think we need some to discuss this in private," Raidou said. "If we're being late, please go and get us instead of starting anything rash."
"Very well," Bee said.
Raidou left with Hyousuke and two other Konoha-nin you didn't know.
The tension in the room made it hard to breathe, or it could just be the fact that your heart and everything else just got fried. Matatabi was still pumping diligently.
What would happen now? Would they be willing to give up Matatabi and you? Or had you just killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and all this was just an excuse to start a war to settle old tensions.
Around you everyone where pointing swords at everyone else. The Iwa-nin just held their ground, perhaps being afraid of getting caught in the crossfire if they headed for the exit.
Time felt like it was standing still, and your shaking had started to settle more and more as Matatabi did a good job healing you. You needed that as it seemed like no one else thought about providing you with medical attention.
After what felt like an eternity Raidou and the others came down the stairs.
"We've made a decision. We believe that Sota will choose Konoha, so we see no harm in taking your offer," Raidou said.
"Alright, now we just need your answer Sota. You'll not be punished for any of this and you'll make new friends. What happened here will be classified so it won't hurt your chances at integrating into our village. Take your time," Bee said.
What should you do?
You'd said no to his proposal several times now. But this time it was different, this time you'd be sure you'd get to Kumo safely. You wouldn't get punished for trying to defect as Konoha wouldn't chase you down. They wouldn't start a war to get back a rebellious jinchuuriki, no one would be that stupid.
But Kumo just tried to kidnap you. Why? Bee and Yugito thought they'd convince you peacefully, so why not just wait? Or was he just a guy that decided to take matters into his own hand to get some glory at home? And now it was up to Bee to save face and give you a chance out at the same time.
You had no future in Konoha anymore, not after everyone had seen you like this. What you needed to save Itachi was done, there was nothing more you could do.
This was also your only chance to escape Danzo.
There was only one answer you could give and that was to say yes and switch your allegiance, no it was no switch, as Yugito had told you, you belonged to Kumo, so you did nothing wrong by defecting. You were no traitor.
As you opened your mouth to answer, you suddenly lost all control over yourself.
"No. I won't betray my village," someone made you say and you started to move off the body, off the piano and onto the floor again.
Your body didn't manage to stand up properly, so Raidou picked you up on his back and headed towards the exit.
"I knew I could trust you. Time to get Kabuto and Torune so we can get home," he said
As your body nodded your vision went black.
-x-
"Hello Sota, you finally decided to visit me again," Matatabi greeted you.
"Hi. You can stop pretending to not like me now. Thanks for saving my life," you said.
"If I didn't, Kurama would just make fun of me for letting my Jinchuuriki die that easily," she said.
"Like if you care what that grumpy fox says, besides his Jinchuuriki is an idiot so he shouldn't be taunting anyone," you said.
"If you are going to suggest that I'm soft you can show yourself out," she said.
"I'm sorry, you're not soft," you said.
"That's better," she said.
"Could you do me a favour?" You asked.
"Maybe," she replied.
"The seal on my tongue, could you remove it?" You asked.
"I would if I could, but I've no idea how to deal with seals," she said.
"What if you burn it away? Your chakra can damage me right, and you can regenerate parts. So if you did that to my tongue…"
"That sounds like would hurt a lot, but it also sounds like it would work. Though it might just hurt whoever has taken over your body," she said.
"Do it, let them hurt," you said.
"Very well," she said and blue and black chakra began to fly up into the ceiling of the mindscape and away.
She looked quite concentrated, so better not to disturb her.
A minute later it was done and she was right, you felt no pain during any of it.
"Your tongue should be clean now," she said.
You looked down into the water and watch your tongue in your reflection.
"The seal is still there," you said.
"That's because your shape in her doesn't change based on what's happening outside," she said.
"Sorry, I forgot," you said.
"Don't you trust me," she growled.
"Yes I do," you said. "Matatabi, what should I do now? Everyone hates me now. and all I do is to make things worse."
"I don't know. You didn't do anything wrong," she said.
"Of course I did something wrong," you said.
"You tried to kill a guy that stole your food and the other guy tried to kidnap you, so I'd say you were justified. That you humans don't see the same way I don't understand."
"You cannot kill people for stealing your food, that's not why I did it. I tried to kill him to prevent him from killing us in the future," you said.
"I cannot die," she said.
"You live more dangerous than you think. Akatsuki wants to suck you up into the dead husk of the Ten-tailed beast to reawaken it, and then use the Ten-tails to project the Sharingan onto the moon to enslave all of humanity into tiny cocoons and drain their chakra because some alien lady wants her chakra back.
"I forgot how exactly everything went, but that's the gist of it," you explained.
"I don't need your protection and I think that attack caused some brain damage," she said.
"They're more dangerous than you think and doesn't help if you're strong if they capture me," you said.
"I guess losing you would be a loss, you make a good hiding place when I want to be alone," she said.
"Thanks. I just don't know what do to now. Would it even help to kill Danzo? Would I even manage to, I'd need to take him down when he's weak."
"When he's weak, it's too late, you need to prepare now," she said.
"You're right. As soon as my foot fully heals I can bring out my clone to help me, I'm sure he doesn't mind helping out. But at the same time, why am I doing this other than revenge. Everyone will still distrust me. I'm just screwed."
"I know something that would help," she said.
"You know how to make people trust me again?" You asked.
"No, I've something even better. I'll let you rub my ears," she said and rolled around on her back.
You chuckled. Who would have known that the great Matatabi was such a big kitten?
You walked up to her and slowly approached her ear. As you reached into her fur, you noticed how incredibly soft and fluffy her fur was. You had her permission, so it was just to begin scratching her ear. And the result was the loudest purr you had ever heard.
The sound made you quite sleepy, and it didn't take long before you fell asleep on top of her.
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AN: Thanks for reading so far. If you like it, please leave a review about what you liked, it would really help my motivation to keep writing on this story.