Chapter 14: Playing With Dolls

To say that Sera Uzumaki was currently having a fun time would be an utterly despicable lie to the highest degree, one that deserved the death sentence… no, a magical girl tickle torture for all eternity!

"For the village blah blah blah I have the influence jibber jabber my hubris talk talk talk look at me I'm crippled so I deserve pity points words words words."

Whenever people asked Sera what she heard coming out of the councilman's mouth that day, she would vehemently say that those were the exact words she heard. Word for word, blah for blah. Anyone else's accounts were heinous lies, end of discussion.

"Ok!" Sera yelled, slamming her hands down on the desk in front of her and standing up, "You! Cripple! Shut the hell up!"

The first born Uzumaki pointed her finger at the bandaged man who had, in her honest opinion, been talking out of his ass for the past ten minutes and wasting everyone's time. All the man talked about were getting results and annihilating the Hidden Leaf's "enemies" as if they were still in the warring eras.

"Excuse me?" the bandaged councilman said with a sharp gaze.

Sera scoffed at the audacity of the man for even looking slightly offended, "You're not excuse, because honest to all things holy, everyone here hates you and your little group of brainwashed boy toys."

This got a reaction out of everyone in the meeting room, even the Nara clan head who had been dozing in and out of sleep ever since the meeting began. Now, the shadow user looked fully awake and one hundred percent more amused.

"That's right, we all know about your not-so-cute brainwashing army that you've got hidden away in your hideout. Seriously, it's like THE worst kept secret in the village and even to the outside world! I can't even remember how many times I've come across enemy ninja out in the field who knew about your blank mask group!"

Sera didn't stop there. Oh no, she had the floor now and if she were going to suffer through the hell that was the village council meeting, she would make sure everyone else suffered just as much.

"Plus, we all know you have an arm under that thing!" Sera exclaimed, pointing at the man's sling, "Come on dude, that thing radiates more chakra than a fresh Genin from the Academy. What? Is it made out of the First Hokage's fucking wood or something? Also, can you shut up for just one second? One second, and let other people talk?! Not everyone here has an intense hate boner for every single person who looks at the Hidden Leaf funny."

She saw the man twitch and motion something with his fingers, to which she immediately slammed her magic wand on the table. In a split second, a pulse of chakra radiated from the wand, pinpointing all of the blank masked members of Root and trapping them mid-air.

Now, everything was out in the open. The bandaged councilman's personal militia frozen mid-strike against the "Princess of the Hidden Leaf".

"You must be a bigger idiot than I thought you would be," Sera smirked at the man, "Danzo Shimura you dirty old bastard. Do you touch your boy toys with that hand?"

Sera took that moment to shoot a glance at her Uchiha teammate who just happened to be sitting next to her. She blinked her eyes a bunch and made a coo-coo motion next to her head with her finger.

"No," Shisui said sharply, knowing exactly what Sera was asking for.

"Ah, come on Sui-sui, it'll be funny!" Sera exclaimed, now fully turned away from the frozen attackers and a baffled room of council members.

"No means no! This shit takes ten years! TEN YEARS!" Shisui yelled just as loudly now, "That's a decade! I'll be a prune like Kakashi and Obito by the time it resets!"

"They aren't that wrinkly," Sera tried to argue.

He just countered her words with another glare, "Kakashi literally as old man hair and Obito unironically walks around with a cane because he can, in his own words, 'wack rude kids with it and it's funny catching people off guard'."

"Ok," Sera relented, "Point. Still doesn't change the fact that you aren't using it on anything right now."

"I will too!" he gaffed.

The Uzumaki just scoffed and slapped her friend's shoulder out of pity, "Oh hun, you don't need to brainwash Hiro to fall in love with you. He's already head over heels infatuated with you."

This got the aforementioned Hyuga to sit up and barge into the conversation, "Uh, excuse me?"

Did he get an answer? Not really.

"Sit back down pretty boy," Sera waved him off while Shisui just huffed and gave him a look to sit back down, "This is a delicate negotiation between your Uchiha boy toy and me."

"Dango and pocky for the next five years," Sera negotiated seriously, leaning in closer towards Shisui to stare into his eyes, "I'll also drop the nickname until your weird eye beam resets."

This got the Uchiha teen to still, grinding his gears to an absolute stop.

"No Sui-sui for a decade," he confirmed.

Sera nodded.

"Dango and pocky for five years," he continued.

She nodded again.

Shisui fell silent for a few seconds, leaving the room to bear with the awkward silence, "Fine, deal."

"Score!" Sera yelled, jumping up and pumping her fist in the air, "One magical girl Shimura please!"

This brought the room out of its stupor as they registered what Sera Uzumaki had just said out loud. Especially the councilman in question, the bandaged man actually rose out of his seat and looked like he was about to book it out of the room.

"Hey Danzo," Shisui called out and unfortunately for the man, he turned to stared into the Uchiha's eyes, "Kotoamatsukami."

Nothing fancy happened after that. The Uchiha and Uzumaki duo just sat back down, one with a smirk and other with a giant smile while Danzo Shimura collapsed in his seat in a slump.

"Is… he ok?" one of the elders asked cautiously.

"Eh, he'll be fine. He's just sleeping for now," Sera waved off the worry, "He'll be up and around soon enough."

"Al… right then," Minato said awkwardly, not knowing how to deal with everything that had just happened, "As I was saying, we'll be forming an elite team of the village's best shinobi in order to track down and take down the Akatsuki organization before they get out of hand."

The meeting continued on as normal. Well, as normal as a meeting could be with a bunch of blank masked attackers frozen in the air and a councilman passed out on the floor with drool coming out of his mouth.

As soon as the meeting ended, Sera and Shisui booked it out of the room with Hiro right behind them as the Hyuga knew better than to stick around. Especially since both of his teammates had fled in a hurry.

"So, Fugaku do you know what Shisui did to Danzo?" Minato asked.

"The Kotoamatsukami is powerful technique that's currently unique to Shisui," Fugaku said with a frown, "It casts a very powerful mind-controlling illusion technique on the target."

"Does that mean?" the blonde Hokage trailed off as he looked at the passed-out councilman.

"Yes," was all the Uchiha clan head said in response.

"Ok, meeting adjourned. See you all at tomorrow meeting!" Minato said quickly before grabbing a hold of his wife and flashing out of the room in a flash of yellow lightning.

Fugaku Uchiha did the same but with a fire version of the shunshin technique while Shikaku Nara, for some reason, ran out of the room. RAN. A Nara ran out of the room on his own accord. This alone caused the Akimichi and Yamanaka clan heirs to flee the room as well.

The rest remaining in the meeting room all stared in confusion at the fleeing clan heads. However, the reason was revealed in that moment.

"I AM MAGICAL GIRL ZOZO-TAN, FEAR MY MAGICAL WINKS AND LOVE BEAMS!"

The screams of dozens of scarred men and women were heard throughout the Hidden Leaf that day and the Yamanaka Therapy was booked for the next year, all trying to forget what they had seen that day.

"So, why are we here again?"

Currently, Team Red was sitting around a small campfire deep inside Fire Country near the border of Wind Country. They were ordered by the Hokage to stay put in the area until they receive their next orders via toad summons.

"Because we kind of pissed off almost, if not all, the clan heads and high figure council members?"

The Hokage had not wasted any time putting together a serious of teams targeted to hunting down all the known members of the Akatsuki from Jiraiya's intel. So far, the group seemed to be few in numbers, barely below double digits, and apparently the Yellow Flash wasn't willing to let that number grow any larger.

"I had no part in your devious schemes."

This caused the Hyuga's two teammates to give him the stink eye.

"We are a team," Shisui droned in a monotone voice.

"We live together, we die together," Sera followed up with a dead tone as well.

"You two can keep me out of your little cult rituals, no thank you," Hiro huffed, "Are there, uh, membership benefits?"

"We have cookies," Sera shrugged and smiled, opening up a pouch from her tool bag and offering the Hyuga a chocolate chip cookie, "Pretty good deal if you ask me."

Hiro gave up trying to reason at that point and accepted the cookie. Better to be confused with a cookie than confused with no cookie after all. All he knew was that the three of them had been deployed near the Wind Country's border in order to intercept an Akatsuki member Team Blue were flushing out.

"So, who's the poor sap we're bag and tagging?" Shisui asked.

"Sasori of the Red Sand is what dad told me," Sera answered with a neutral tone, "We're the best at concentrated wide scale damage, so we were the ones sent to deal with his puppets."

"Ew, puppets?" the Uchiha blanched, "They're so creepy, why did Sand think it was a good idea to weaponize wooden dolls of all things? Like come on, you have sand all around you, come up with some kind of sand style jutsu or something."

"Just deal with it," Hiro said while a shiver ran down his spine at the thought of lifeless puppets attacking him in hordes, "Think of it as a super long bodyguard mission for your family. Do you really want creepy puppets killing, I don't know, Sasuke?"

Shisui cringed at the thought, "Please don't. The little twerp is as precious as an Uchiha kid could be. I'm glad Mikoto got a hold of Sasuke before uptight Fugaku could raise another stoic one. Itachi's fine and all ever since he started going on regular missions and mingling with his peers, but he's still trying to grasp social queues. It's kind of sad."

"Same here with my family and little Hinata and baby Hanabi. God, if some slimy douche ever touches a single hair on the heiresses, I'm going to neuter and torture them to death and back," Hiro growled.

"Ok, you two, calm your tits, they're sagging," Sera told the two to lighten the mood, "We all love our little ones back home, yes, yes. Let's just make sure we keep the harm outside the village walls by doing our jobs, yeah?"

Sera got up at that point as she saw a little toad hop into their little clearing before returning to the summons realm in a cloud of smoke.

"It's show time ladies," Sera clapped.

"You must be one ugly ass female if we're the ladies," Hiro shot back as he flipped his long Hyuga hair to the side.

"Yeah, look that them luscious locks," Shisui followed up and flipped Hiro's hair for added effect, earning a weird look from the Hyuga, "What? I don't have long enough hair to do a pretty boy hair flick. It's a shame, I know."

"Wow… you are one ugly mother fucker."

To say that the face of Sasori was not something Team Red was expecting would be an understatement.

"Don't be rude, Shisui, I'm sure he gets enough ugly comments already. Also, what's with the tattered mask? You hiding some weird lips underneath? Buck teeth?"

Hiro slapped the back of Sera's head, "Really? You lecture Shisui about being rude and you follow that up with a lip comment? What's wrong with you two?"

"Ice Devil of the Hidden Leaf, Shisui of the Shunshin, Silent Killer Hiro. You three will make great additions to my repertoire," the three heard their target said in a gravelly voice and even chuckle drily.

Sera gagged at the voice and insinuation, "Ok, gross. No holds bar, let's get this bread boys."

"Seconded," Shisui chimed in with a disgusted look.

"Thirded… please," Hiro looked like he wanted to throw up.

The four shinobi fell silent for a split second, but for the four that mere second felt like an eternity as they waited for someone to launch the first attack.

"Ice Style: Magical Snow Globe Technique!"

Sera was the one to throw the first attack, jumped up and pointing her wand at the sky. A large amount of chakra shot out of the wand, piercing the sky and causing it to darken quickly. Clouds rolled in as if they weren't in a desert of all places and in an instant, snow began falling from the sky.

Shisui and Hiro shrugged off the cold as they were already used to fighting around ice and the cold weather due to their third teammate.

"Shadow Clone Jutsu," Shisui muttered under his breath as he fazed out of existence, utilizing his signature technique.

"Earth Style: Hiding in the Earth Technique," Hiro said quietly before sinking into the ground as if it was water.

This was how Team Red, former Four, operated around each other's unique fighting styles. Sera Uzumaki took point as the team's heavy hitter and elemental jutsu specialist while Shisui probed the enemy's defenses for weak points which Hiro was watching for using the Byakugan and popping out of the ground to land the killing blow.

They covered each other's weak points and made sure that any person or people that stood against them would be overwhelmed and overtaken within seconds. In their opinion, fights that dragged on for too long were just inefficient and draining for no reason.

"Interesting," Sasori muttered, "Red Secret Technique: Performance of Fifty Puppets!"

The puppet user unfurled a scroll and out came fifty puppets… or it was supposed to if it weren't for Shisui's intervention. The Uchiha had shunshin'ed in front of the scroll and ran a kunai through half of the scroll, effectively making more than half of the puppets null and void.

"How aggravating," the Akatsuki member drawled as only twenty-three puppets appeared from the scroll.

Team Red, however, didn't respond as Shisui glanced over at Sera and tapped the center of his chest twice before phasing out of existence once more.

Sera, without missing a beat, began raining down ice spikes from the sky, shredding through the flimsy puppets.

While Sasori was busy trying to fend off the ice spikes from the sky with his remaining puppets and iron tail, Hiro saw the single flaw in Sasori's structural integrity from below the ground. Taking no chances, the Hyuga swam up with an elongated chakra scalpel, driving it through the "body" of Sasori of the Sand.

Sera took no time to cast her barrier skill.

"Ice Style: Brain freeze!"

Before Sasori's outer shell could even completely fall apart, he was cased in a dome of ice, restricting his movement as well as overall chakra flow somehow.

What the native Sand shinobi didn't realize was that Sera's ice style techniques weren't completely fueled by chakra at all. In fact, over half of the energy used was Devil Magic. No mortal chakra could compare to the pure intensity of Devil Magic and Sera would have forgone the use of chakra completely if she hadn't needed to hide her Devil heritage.

"Fire Style: Flame Needle," Shisui said before spitting a single needle of intense white flame through the ice dome straight at the chest of the Sasori that laid inside his shattered outer body.

"Secret Hyuga Technique: One Finger Death Jab," Hiro said before laying a single finger on the hole created by Shisui. To the untrained eye, it might have looked like Hiro was playing around but to Shisui, who had his Sharingan active, it looked like a bright blue beam of chakra that rammed straight through the hole, into the chest cavity of Sasori, and out the back of the ice dome.

It was strangely beautiful, and mesmerizing.

"Ho….w?" the sound of Sasori's muffled voice could be heard from inside the ice dome.

"We don't fuck around," Sera said as she approached the ice dome with a large scroll in her hands.

"What kind of self-respecting shinobi makes a fight longer than necessary?" Shisui followed up.

"Our job is to finish the mission as quickly, and efficiently, as possible," Hiro finished, "You made the mistake of going for flair instead of efficiency. We know how much you love to flaunt your 'art' and we took advantage of that."

This had been their team motto for the longest time.

Get shit done fast so we can go home.

It was partly their Jounin teacher's fault that they strived for the most efficient method of completing a mission as the Nara Jounin wanted to maximize his lazing around time as much as possible. The sentiment sort of rubbed off on his three students.

"And off you go," Sera sighed in relief, "Seal!"

With that the ice dome as well as any remaining traces of Sasori disappeared into the scroll of sealing, which Shisui burned just as fast with a small fireball technique.

"We take those," Sera said with a smile.

"A win is a win," Hiro nodded.

Shisui hummed in agreement, "So, food?"

"Sure, you know any good places to eat around here?" Hiro shrugged.

"Oh, oh!" Sera said, jumping up and down, "There's a really good sushi place near the River and Fire Country border that I found a while ago."

The Uchiha and Hyuga looked at each other and back at their Uzumaki teammate, "Sushi it is."

"Score!" Sera exclaimed before skipping towards their new destination.

Hiro quickly followed, but before he picked up the pace, he asked Shisui, "You think we should send a bird or something to the Hokage?"

Shisui looked up at the disappearing dark clouds, "Eh, I'll send a bird when we're done eating."

"Oh yeah, I forgot you Uchihas have a bird contract."

"Uh huh, you Hyugas should really get a clan summon already."

"We do."

"Wait… you do?"

"Why would we?"

"I don't know, never seen a Hyuga use one before."

"That's because we rarely have the need."

"Oh… so what are they?"

Hiro smirked, "That's for me to know and you to figure out."

Without another word, the Hyuga dashed forward to catch up to Sera, leaving behind a baffled and slightly tilted Uchiha at his heels.