Continuation of last chapter...
Without further ado, Winnie-the-Pooh
Chapter 46: Once More Unto the Breach
The last thing Sasuke had expected at three in the morning was a knock on his door.
The almost frantic knocks that droned on continuously roused him from sleep, and he couldn't help but immediately grow annoyed. This wasn't the first time a certain someone had come to him in the dead of night, wanting to try some new prank, or train, or goof off for some unknown reason.
He breathed out an angry sigh, trying to let go of those feelings before they could overtake him. There was always the chance that something serious had happened, and he was needed for some reason.
He slung his way out of bed, letting his legs dangle off the edge as he rubbed at his eyes, getting the goop out of them. He stood up after a moment, yawning into his hand as he walked towards his door, but somewhere along the way, he began to slow down.
The knocks on his door were lacking in any of his blonde friends normal exuberance, and he couldn't help but feel there was more than one presence outside as well. Before he placed his hand upon his doorknob, he first doubled back, grabbing his ninja tools off his bedside table and slotting them onto his pants, drawing a kunai and three shuriken out, and slotting them into his right and left hands, respectively.
He also, in a moment of realization, dawned his new Chuunin vest. It might not have been a great amount of protection, but in case he was about to be attacked, he'd take what he could get.
As he made his way back over to the door, he reached out and turned the knob with his right hand, using his pinky to hold the kunai around his finger, and pulled inwards suddenly, trying to disturb whoever was on the other side, and potentially catch them by surprise–
"Sakura!?"
He looked at the girl before him, held up by a rather fat man he didn't know, and flanked by three others, two boys and one girl, who were all smiling insidiously at him. One, a white-haired boy who seemed to have a second head growing out of his back, stepped up first, clearing his throat in an overly-dramatic way that had his teammates laughing under their breaths.
"Hello there, Mr. Uchiha." The man bowed before him, and a flash of anger coursed through Sasuke as the ninja rose once more, and he saw the mocking look on the boy's face. "How are you this evening?"
He gritted his teeth together, his Sharingan spinning into place as he took a step forward. He briefly weighed his chances. If he could make the combat loud enough, then he could receive reinforcements within the next couple of minutes, all he needed to do was buy that much time, and then–
"Ah ah ah," One of the others, the female with red hair and a flute in her left hand, held a knife to Sakura's throat, lightly scoring the girl's skin and drawing a thin stream of blood. "None of that. We have no qualms with killing this one."
He took a step back, but stayed tense, still holding–
"Drop the weapons." The girl spoke again, pointing with her flute to his left and right hands. "Those shuriken and kunai, on the floor." She pushed slightly harder with the knife in her right hand, drawing a small cry out of Sakura's unconscious form that sent a wriggly, white hot feeling of dread down into his stomach. "Now."
Begrudgingly, he followed the girl's orders, letting the weapons clatter against the carpeted floor beneath him. The next moment, the other guy, the white-haired one, came over and picked all four up.
"Wouldn't want any record you were fighting someone getting out." He spoke simply. "No, we're going to disappear nice and easy. By the time they can trace any of this back to Lord Orochimaru, we'll be long gone."
Sasuke bit down on the side of his mouth. At this point, he'd lost. He wasn't afraid to accept that he was going to be taken by the four before him. He couldn't risk Sakura's life like that. On the flip side, he couldn't exactly let these people get away with both of them without a single trace.
"Now, Mr. Uchiha," Two-head spoke, stepping back into their older formation and signaling for him to follow. "You'll be coming with us to meet our most generous sponsor. If you have any complaints, I'm sure he'll be more than willing to field them himself."
He didn't move, couldn't. So far, he'd not been able to do a thing, but it seemed he wouldn't be given an option as, a moment later, the girl from before sighed, and slammed her fist into Sakura's stomach, causing the girl to violently wretch.
His Sharingan blurred, as if screaming at him, but he couldn't do anything except place his hands in the air, showing off his surrender and hoping they'd stop hurting Sakura.
"That's better." Two-heads spoke once more. "Now, come on out, nice and easy."
He nodded towards the white haired one, taking a step towards the entrance and thinking wildly. He needed some way to mark their exit, and not just any way, he needed for someone to be able to pick up on their trail.
And that meant he had to leave one.
/-/
Zaku tensed as pain once more shot up his right arm, biting down on his own shirt inside of his mouth and staring directly at the clock. It wasn't the greatest way to keep his mind off of the pain, but it was as decent as any other idea he'd had, and at some point, he'd simply had to roll with it.
7:45… 7:46… 7:47…
The minutes didn't exactly fly by, and it wasn't for lack of trying, either. He would've loved if the woman sitting next to him could've hurried this procedure up, given that he'd been experiencing nothing but pain for the past hour and a half, and it didn't seem like it'd be stopping any time soon.
It was, perhaps, another two hours before the woman finished.
"Whew, alright." The medical ninja let out a loud sigh, evidently rather exhausted with the procedure. "I do believe you're finished. If you'd like to look now, you can. It's all healed up."
He did as suggested, looking down at his right arm and inspecting it.
There was, of course, still the massive scar from when his entire arm had been cut from his body by that bug kid, but now there were also a few smaller scars dotting across the limb, at seemingly random spaces.
"I went ahead and removed the shards of bone that were still caught in your arm." The woman explained, removing the scrunchy that'd been holding her blonde hair back as she smiled at him. "Your whole wind tunnel thing's pretty far beyond working again, but, honestly, kid, you got obscenely lucky. You said that when your arm was removed, it was broken at the time, right?"
He nodded, eliciting a small wince from the woman as she seemingly thought about what that particular experience must've been like.
"Yeah, so, if you'd have been not so lucky, you would've had that break be where your arm was ripped apart, and some of the bone in your arm would've been lost. At that point, there would've have been anything anyone could do for you."
He nodded, trying not to dwell on that.
"Luckily, it seems where your arm got blown off and where your arm was broken were two different spots."
"Yeah, Orochimaru broke my wrist around…" He pointed to around halfway up the limb. "Here," He moved his finger up. "And then I lost the limb around here."
"Sheesh, that's some shitty luck you've got, nearly rivals mine."
He tilted his head.
"I thought you just said I was really lucky?"
"Well, yeah, you're really lucky for a horribly unlucky person." The woman smiled, her cherry red lips gleaming in the morning sunlight. "No one with any real luck would've gone through any of that shit in the first place."
True. He admitted to himself. I've not had the best go of it.
"Now, let me inspect your other arm real quick, just make sure nothing's wrong, and we can get you out of here."
He nodded, reaching up with his right arm, which ached considerably, and placing his shirt in his mouth once more. The cloth was a bit damp from being his makeshift teeth protector, but he'd just have to live with it, he didn't exactly have anything else.
"I'll ask again, you're sure you don't want me to anesthetize you?" The woman looked undeniably pained at having to do this to him. "I know you said you didn't, but you can't think going through all this pain is worth whatever hang-ups you've-"
"Don't trust doctors." He mumbled out past the gag in his mouth, clamping down on it. "Want awareness."
The woman shot him a pitying look, one he hated with every fiber of his being.
"We're not all like Orochimaru, you know."
He wouldn't deny that. So far the woman before him had been nothing but helpful, walking him through the procedures she'd be performing and offering to put him under anesthetic, and even operating on him past when he'd refused the drugs.
He couldn't help it, however. Despite what the woman before him might've thought, Orochimaru had taken some things away from him, likely permanently. One of them was his trust of any form of doctor or surgeon. He'd been put under the last time for a simple cut he'd received in training…
And he'd awoken with two metal tubes running through his arms, ones' he's never asked for.
He zoned out as the woman began to work, and it wasn't long before she patted the arm, having done nothing to it other than look.
"The air tunnel in this arm's gone kaput as well." The woman spoke, setting his limb down in his own lap. "Unfortunately, I don't think we'd be able to repair either of them without literally ripping your arms apart, and with your fear of anesthetic…"
"Yeah." He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "They can stay broken. I… I might've built my strategy around them, but that doesn't mean I can't learn to do something different."
The doctor removed her gloves, smiling over at him as she did.
"Mentally freeing yourself from Orochimaru's clutches?"
He smirked at the woman's teasing.
"Certainly something like that." He looked over at the woman, finally curious enough to voice a concern he'd had all day. "By the way, I've been in and out of here all month, well… I wasn't a week or two ago, but up til the Chuunin Exams I was, and… I'm rambling."
The woman snorted.
"Uh, basically, are you new here?" He asked the woman, who, from the looks of things, seemed to be in her late thirties. "Because I kind of figured I'd have the same doctor my whole time here, I'm surprised you were able to fill in for that old guy, given that he must be way more experienced."
He realized quickly how rude that must've sounded, and, trying to develop better habits when interacting with others, Zaku resolved to fix his mistake.
"M-my apologies. I didn't mean for that to come off as bad as it did. W-what I meant was that… well, you look like you're maybe twenty-five, and… well, that old guy was… I… I'm kind of blanking right now, but-"
He was interrupted from making even more of a fool of himself as the woman let out a laugh that sounded almost like honey. She placed a hand in front of her mouth, shaking slightly as she tried to hold herself back.
"Oh, y'know." The woman waived away his concerns, seeming oddly amused about something or another. "Maybe I'm just some hotshot new rookie."
Zaku supposed that made sense, even if it didn't exactly fill him with joy. Despite how nice the woman had been, and how well she'd done overall, he couldn't quite help the feeling that he would've felt safer in the hands of the doctor he'd been seeing all this time. He might not've trusted the man as a person, but he trusted him more than some newbie who must've been fresh out of training.
A moment later, another woman opened the door to their room. She looked slightly younger than the Blonde, perhaps in her late twenties, with dark hair and even darker eyes. She wore a simple purple kimono that complimented her decently well enough, and she stepped into the space with a level of confidence that said she owned the place.
"Ah, there you are!" The black-haired woman exclaimed, walking towards the blonde with a spring in her step. "I'm shocked. You actually did some honest work for a change."
Who's she? Zaku wondered, sitting silently on the bed as the doctor who'd operated on him turned in her stool, facing the new entry with an annoyed air. I… I can't tell if they're friends, or…
"You say that like I never do anything."
"Which makes sense, given you don't."
"Oi."
"Sorry, that might've been too much."
The blonde flicked some hair out of her face, turning back around to her desk and filling out a small amount of paperwork.
"Well, one of my old pupils called me in, asked if I'd handle a particularly tough case he'd been dealing with, tempted me with money…" She held her hands up in a 'what can you do' gesture. "At that point, I didn't exactly have a choice."
Black-hair nodded, but looked concerned about something.
"And your Hemophobia?"
"It wasn't fun…" Blondy admitted, and Zaku could remember back to the beginning of their session, when the woman had stopped working for a nearly five minutes after she'd cut open a part of his arm. Despite that, she'd later gone back and continued as if nothing had happened, not taking another break until they'd finished. "But I managed it."
The black-haired woman smiled radiantly, reaching down and hugging the blonde, drawing a small blush from the doctor.
"H-hey! None of the touchy-feely!"
"I'm proud of you."
Blondy seemed to shrink into herself a bit at that, but returned the hug a second later, wrapping her arms around Blacky's back and sighing.
"I appreciate it."
Blacky laughed.
I… I feel like I shouldn't be here. Zaku couldn't help but think. Like… like I'm witnessing something oddly intimate.
"Oh, shit, sorry!" Blondy turned back towards her desk, and, after another ten or so seconds of writing, took the form she'd been filling out and handed it to him. "You can bring this to the front desk, they'll schedule you for your next follow-up, should be about two weeks."
"R-right." He nodded, still a bit jazzed from this whole situation. "Will I be seeing you, then, or my old doctor?"
"Really depends." The woman shrugged. "If I'm available, I'll do it. If not, he will."
"Understood."
He slid off of the bed and walked towards the door, but couldn't quite help hearing the remainder of the two women's conversation as he opened it.
"Oh, by the way, Lady Tsunade, did you finish filling out your paperwork at the office today?"
"Ergh, I, uh…"
Wait…
Zaku turned back around, eyes slightly wide as he stalked back into the room.
"Hold on!" He shouted perhaps a bit too loud. "W-what did she just say!?"
The blonde woman leaned back on her stool, pouting slightly as she looked towards her partner.
"Aw, Shizune…" The woman groaned out. "You had to go and ruin my fun."
"L-like Sannin Tsunade!?" He pointed to her, and the way the woman's eyes narrowed told of her amusement. "Teammate to Orochimaru Tsunade!?"
"Yes, and yes." The woman acknowledged, putting her hands behind her head and leaning against the desk behind her as she did. "I am all of those things."
"But… you… Hotshot rookie…"
"Well, you went and said I looked twenty-five," The woman practically cooed. "How else was I supposed to react to such a fine, upstanding gentleman? I didn't want to ruin the illusion."
Zaku continued to guffaw wildly at Tsunade for another few seconds before there was a knock on the door behind them. The person behind the repetitive noise didn't bother waiting for any admission, instead pulling the door aside and stepping in without so much as a care in the world.
"Ah!" The newcomer yelled out, and Zaku immediately recognized Naruto as he stepped up to the resident Sannin. "Hey, Granny, have you seen Sasuke and Sakura?"
Zaku inclined his head, interested in what the boy had to say, and eager to use it as a way to avoid any further embarrassment.
"They weren't at home?" Tsunade asked, leaning forward and holding her head up with her hands. "I thought the three of you went out for lunch yesterday. You'd be the one to know where they are, did you all not hang out afterwards?"
"Well, we did, that's the thing." Naruto elucidated, stepping into the space with a worried expression. "I was wondering if maybe you knew where they went this morning. I stopped by both of their houses, well, Sasuke's apartment, but they weren't there, and Sakura's mom and dad said they hadn't seen her since she left for a bit of training this morning."
"Training?" Tsunade seemed perplexed, lightly rubbing her chin with one hand. "Seems an odd time to be training, given she should still be recovering."
"I mean, I only stopped by Sasuke's apartment and knocked, but he's always awake at this hour, and, well, compounded off Sakura not being there… I guess I was just a bit worried."
"Don't feel bad," Tsunade smirked, though there was some small semblance of anxious energy in her voice as well. "I get being a bit paranoid. We're all like that. I'll ask Anko if she's heard from Sakura, meanwhile, why don't you head back to Sasuke's and invite yourself in. If he's there, just be honest with him, I have a feeling he wouldn't mind too much."
Naruto sighed, laughing as he gently rubbed his own cheek, trying to get himself out of his own funk it seemed.
"Thanks, Granny." Naruto looked up at the woman with a smile. "You're right."
"And stop calling me that."
"I make no promises."
"Let me come along."
All the voices in the room turned towards Zaku, who'd been silently waiting for the conversation to finish. Perhaps he was growing overwhelmingly paranoid, but there was some part of him, an almost insignificant piece, that seemed to be screaming that something wasn't right. And if there was only one thing he'd learned on the streets, it was that one trusted their intuition.
"Uh, sure." Naruto scratched the side of his head, seemingly quite confused. "You're Zaku, right?"
He snickered.
"Yeah, I'm Zaku. Good to know I'm so memorable."
"Hey, you're Sakura's friend, not mine!"
/-/
Naruto stepped up to Sasuke's apartments with a different air than he usually did. Often, he came here with the intention of challenging the solitary boy to a training match, or to ask him out to lunch so they could chat.
He didn't usually come here under stress.
"So, eh… Zaku." He turned towards the other boy beside him, a member of the sound trio they'd dealt with multiple times in the past, with no real trust. "Why exactly did you want to come?"
"Had a weird feeling." The boy admitted with what seemed to be honesty, and Naruto couldn't help but nod his head in solidarity as the other boy looked up towards the apartment and bit his lip. "Just… what you said just set some weird alarm bell off in my head, I haven't quite been able to identify exactly what it was, but I'm working on it. Felt like if I saw the scene…"
"You might be able to work something out?"
Zaku nodded as they ascended the flight of stairs to get to Sasuke's room. By the time they made it up, Naruto's nerves were going a bit haywire.
Calm down. He told himself, trying to force some of that particular emotion into himself. It'll be fine. We'll Find Sasuke, we'll laugh about this little misunderstanding, and we'll all grab some ramen later.
By the time they made it to the front door, Naruto couldn't help but knock immediately, hoping to have his prayers answered sooner rather than later. A few seconds went by in relative silence, the birds in a nearby tree calling out, and a bug in a nearby plant seemed to have made it his mission to be as obnoxious as possible.
And yet still, nothing happened.
He took a deep breath as he knocked once more, but was pushed aside by Zaku, who stepped up to the door and knocked far louder.
"Oi, Uchiha, you in there!?" The boy called out, putting his ear up to the door. It was a few seconds later before the sound ninja turned back towards him, perplexed. "He's not there."
A coil of fear blossomed in his chest.
"Then let's check it out." Naruto brought a lockpick from out of his coat, having brought it along for this very reason. "Give me one second."
"Got it."
Zaku stood guard as he began to work. His friends house this may be, but he suspected a random passerby would call the Police force first and ask questions later.
"Got it!" He declared a minute or two later, pushing the door open and standing up, stepping into the space with a small amount of recklessness. "Hey, Sasuke, you in here!?"
The room looked just like it had a few weeks ago when he'd last been here. It was, perhaps, just a tad bit dustier than it should've been, what with the fact that the two of them had been on a mission to retrieve Tsunade for nearly two weeks, but other than that, it was clean and well-kept.
But, just like Zaku had mentioned, its proprietor wasn't present.
"And now…" Zaku stepped into the space, looking around at everything as he flicked on the light. "The question becomes 'Where exactly are those two?'"
Naruto put his hand on his chin and thought for a moment.
Is it possible that they went out for some like… date thing? Naruto pondered for a moment, before dismissing the thought. No, they'd still let me know. It's not like I've liked Sakura for like… four years, they wouldn't hide it from me or something.
And Sakura would've been extremely eager to tell her parents where she was going in that case. At the very least, she might've told–
"Ino!" Naruto shouted suddenly, turning back towards the door, and stepping back onto the balcony. "I can't believe I forgot to ask her!" He took his hands off of the balcony railing and began to walk down the stairs. "I'm sure that's where those two are, and… and if they're not, then she'd know-"
"Hold it." A hand on his shoulder prevented him from going anywhere. "Before you go all 'everything's totally fine, we're overreacting' on me, finish the investigation."
"What?" Naruto turned back to the boy; eyebrows raised. "What do you mean, investigation?"
"You don't smell that?" Zaku turned back towards the room, leading him into it. As they walked in, Naruto focused harder, and did, as the boy said, pick up on a small, subtle scent. "It smells like iron in here."
Naruto nodded, feeling a small core of… something begin to build in his lower abdomen.
"I guess it does seem kind of… metallicky. What's what mean?"
"Could mean a ton of things." Zaku admitted, before turning back towards him, eyes hard. "The worst of which is the smell of blood."
Naruto freaked out for just a moment, before forcing himself to be calm once more.
"Y-you don't think-"
"I don't know." Zaku answered honestly, rubbing the back of his neck and making a clicking noise with his tongue. "Despite that, I've had this weird feeling ever since we walked in, and ever since you told me about what Sakura's parents said… there's just something…"
The boy walked towards the center of the room, getting down on all fours and looking around.
"Off."
Just like Zaku, the moment Sakura's mother and father hadn't known of her whereabouts was the moment he'd become truly worried. It wasn't at all like the girl to not tell her parents anything. Even if she were going to train, she would've given them exact details, or a name, at the very least. Plus, she would've invited along her master, and, from what Naruto had been told by the Hokage, her location was known.
This was starting to seem almost sinister in nature. Sasuke and Sakura, both missing mysteriously, both dropping completely out of contact with everyone. Tsunade had mentioned she'd ask Anko, but…
He couldn't shake the overwhelmingly bad feeling that the woman wouldn't be getting an answer.
"Help me out here." Zaku waved him to the ground, and he did so, getting on his hands and knees and searching the wooden floor beneath them. "We're looking for blood specifically. It's possible that something else was wrong, but if something happened to either of them, then we want to know immediately."
Naruto nodded, agreeing. As he searched, however, he noticed one rather important thing was missing.
"Sasuke's bag." He pointed out, checking one final time under the bed, and finding nothing. "It's gone."
"His weapon bag?" Zaku asked.
"Yeah."
"Hmm… We can't exactly make a blanket statement yet, keep searching, see if anything comes up."
Naruto nodded once more, turning back to his work.
They searched in complete silence, checking around for anything in case it was well hidden. He decided, as he finished up working in the back of the room, that he'd flip up his switch, instead searching the front near the door.
He ran his hand across the dusty floor, kicking up some particles here and there as he worked. It wasn't exactly fun, and he found himself coughing more than once, but it was necessary. If it turned out that something had happened, he was determined to be the first to–
A particular pattern caught his eye a second later, and he inspected it further with a curious eye. He reached down with his hand, trying to swipe at it, and nearly had a heart-attack as he partially wiped it away.
"Zaku!" He shouted, not daring to stand, lest he somehow blow it away. "Come over here! Get me a light or something."
The boy didn't speak, instead, he drew a small object from his bag, and pointed it at the spot on the ground. It illuminated the wooden floor, and Naruto recognized it as a miniature flashlight. The light reflected off of the ground, but that didn't particularly matter.
He could read the message on the floor.
"-CHIMARU." Zaku read the remainder of the message.
"I ran my hand over it on accident." Naruto spoke, looking at where Sasuke had, seemingly, written the word 'OROCHIMARU' into the dust on his floor with his toe, and tried not to vomit. "But… but this is really bad."
"It's almost certain now that something happened last night." Zaku placed a hand on his hip, while another massaged his chin. He bounced his leg up and down, making a quickly repeating noise that would've normally grated on his nerves. Now, however, Naruto had bigger things to worry about. "This message would've been nearly impossible to see with the lights off, so this might've been the only thing he was able to write and get by whoever… or whatever took him." Zaku ground his teeth together. "Took them."
Naruto closed his eyes, trying, a bit oddly, to cancel out the energy his brain would normally spend on his sight, and trying to channel it all to his nose. He wasn't sure if it was all that successful, but he was able to pinpoint the epicenter of the smell, and walked over towards it.
It came from the doorframe. There, at the very bottom of the wooden frame, was the very tip of a screw that stood out at an odd angle.
And it was coated in a very small amount of blood.
Off the top of his head, it wasn't like he actually knew whose blood this was. He reached down, and was about to wipe it off with his finger, before Zaku grabbed his wrist hard, nearly causing him to fall over.
"Don't disturb it!" He exclaimed. "We have evidence now. We take this to the Hokage, and we get her to launch an actual investigation." Zaku placed a hand on his shoulder, looking away awkwardly. "Look man… I get it, you're worried about your friends. But don't let that prevent them from being found! Our job ends here! We go and report this, got it!"
Naruto gritted his teeth together, his stubbornness briefly warring with his concern for his friends, but the emotion was utterly annihilated. He stood up a moment later, nodding to the boy beside him.
"Right."
They exited the room, and Naruto couldn't help but think rather deeply about some of the things they'd found inside the room. The message was obvious, Sasuke had realized there was nothing he could do, and decided to leave behind as much information as he could, but the blood…
The blood was less so obvious.
Maybe it was an accident? Naruto wondered honestly, trying to ponder why the boy would've wanted to cut himself. I mean… it was the middle of the night, it's not like he would've been able to see–
The answer smacked him in the face like a ton of bricks.
He stopped in place on the stairs, beginning to examine every single step carefully. Zaku looked at him like he was crazy, but he ignored the boy, checking each and every inch of the stone until, finally, he found what he was looking for.
A single dollop of blood on the stairs below.
"It's a freakin' trail!" Naruto shouted to the boy just behind him as Zaku scaled the steps as well, looking at the small stain on the stone below. "He left us a trail!"
"But… that cut wasn't anywhere near big enough to have been useful for a longer trail." Zaku once more massaged his chin as they scaled down more steps, spotting another droplet a few floors down. "Hell, I'd be surprised if that wound wasn't already starting to scab by the time they made it to the edge of the village."
"That's true…" Naruto pondered that for a moment.
"Plus, it's not like Kin, Dosu and I don't know where quite a few of that guys bases are. We know which direction to be going. Why would he need to make a trail to a place we already have the location of?"
Naruto couldn't answer, and it seemed Zaku realized that, sighing a second later, and gesturing with his head for them to keep going.
"Seriously though, let's tell Tsunade and prepare ourselves." Zaku tensed suddenly, taking a deep breath. "I get the weird feeling we probably aren't getting much of a break."
Naruto laughed a bit bleakly.
"You too, huh?"
/-/
"And you're sure?"
Naruto nodded, trying to convey his absolute sincerity with his expression. From the looks of things. Tsunade had taken him at his word, rubbing her temples as she thought about their next course of action.
"Shit." The woman sighed out, leaning back in her chair, and gazing up at the ceiling. "We've already got so much garbage to be dealing with, and now this, too?"
"Uhm… Granny?"
Tsunade looked back towards him with a guilty expression, letting out an exhausted sigh as she averted her gaze, staring down the desk in front of her instead.
"Naruto… we…" The woman groaned loudly, rubbing her hand across her forehead. "We just don't have the resources to mount a rescue operation with so little information."
His eyes widened as the woman looked up towards him, pain lingering behind her eyes, clearly not wanting to have had to say what she did.
"I don't care."
And then, suddenly, the woman's eyes were wider than he'd ever seen them, like great big saucers as she attempted to process what he'd said.
"What?"
"I said I don't care." He declared firmly, walking up and placing both of his hands upon the desk in front of him. "I'll do it by myself! All I ask is you get someone who can track where they left the village from, and I'll take it from there!"
Tsunade opened her mouth, presumably to respond to his ridiculous outburst, but shut it a second later, smiling sadly as she looked towards Shizune, who'd been stood silently behind her the entire time.
"Advice, please."
"…You do have resources you aren't using; you know." Shizune said, pointing over at Zaku and making an odd hand gesture. "They're not the only ones either, and I think they'd be totally cool with going along."
Tsunade let out a worldly sigh as she put her head down on the table.
"Those two old-bats would flay me alive if that went south."
"Yes, but you'd still have done the right thing."
The Hokage's head impacted against the desk beneath her.
"Uuuuugh…"
Naruto looked back and forth between the two of them, confused as to what they were talking about. A second later, Tsunade snapped her fingers, and two Anbu, both dressed in the traditional garb of their group, flickered into existence beside both he and Zaku.
He jumped minutely, but the two didn't seem to care.
"You called, Lady Hokage?"
"Yes…" The woman let out another titanic sigh, before, seemingly finding her resolve, she looked the both of them in the eye. "Go get Zabuza Momochi and his son, along with the remainder of Zaku Abumi's team."
"What should I tell them, ma'am?"
"Tell them…" The woman's eyes glinted in the midday sun. "I have a mission for them."
/-/
Naruto stood silently as the people who'd been called up filed into the room one by one. First had been Zabuza and Haku, followed a few minutes later by Dosu. Kin had strolled in perhaps a minute after that, looking a bit perturbed.
"Uhm… ma'am?" The female sound ninja asked. "What exactly is it we're here for?"
"A mission." Tsunade summed up very briefly, before going back to the forms on her desk which she seemed to be agonizing over. "I'll be with you in a moment."
"Er… OK."
Naruto turned and looked at the group of people surrounding him. He noticed almost immediately the through line for all of them, which was that none of them were officially Leaf Ninja…
And the more he thought about that, the more Granny's plan began to make some sense.
"Right." She pushed the formed in front of the desk, of which there were four. "Zabuza's already been given one of these, so I'll spare explaining it to him…"
The man in question let out a quiet affirmation.
"But for the rest of you…" Tsunade stuck her hands out, as if trying to hug all of them. "These forms are for officially accepting you into the Leaf Village, and allowing you to undertake missions as Leaf Ninja."
Zaku, Kin, and Haku looked up at the Hokage with wide eyes, evidently not having expected this. Haku had already begun to start filling the paper out when Dosu, ever the pessimist, held his hand up slightly, as if waiting to be called on.
"What is it?" Tsunade turned towards him. "Did you have a question?"
"Yes, actually." The sound ninja's single exposed eye narrowed, clearly not as trusting as his counterparts. "Why give this to us now?"
"Because I felt you'd earned the right, of course." Tsunade waived away his concern with her hand. "You fought alongside numerous other Leaf Ninja during the Root invasion, and brought us key information that protected us against Orochimaru, I don't see why we wouldn't-"
"But why now?"
Tsunade's eyes narrowed, seemingly caught by the boy's words. Haku, who'd already made it halfway down the form, stopped writing, instead looking up towards the Hokage with a curious expression.
"Because right now, you five are the only untapped resources in the Leaf Village, and this is the only way I can give you five the mission I have planned for you." Tsunade admitted, standing up and placing her hands on her desk, leaning on them.
"Last night, Sakura Haruno and Sasuke Uchiha were, we suspect, kidnapped by agents of Orochimaru."
Everyone but he and Zaku reacted at that, Haku especially seemed almost devastated as he stood up suddenly and looked towards Naruto.
"H-how's Ino taking it?"
Zabuza ran a hand down his face, before trying to steer the conversation back on topic.
"Alright, I was a Jonin of the Leaf as of two weeks ago, but you hadn't sent me out on any missions yet." The man seemed to take that oddly personally. "Why?"
"Simply put, because of the pressure the council of the Leaf's been putting on me." The woman admitted, groaning from seemingly just thinking about them. "Not trusting enemy ninja who've infiltrated the village, not falling for your tricks, not believing the lies of enemy ninja, not doing blah blah blah blah blah!" Tsunade sounded legitimately angry. "They just don't shut up!"
"Right, so you're opting to use me in a rescue operation?" Zabuza tilted his head to the side. "You do know my specialization is assassination, right?"
"Yes, well, I'm sure you can manage rescue just as easily. After all, you're one of the seven swords of the mist, are you not?"
Zabuza gave a mirthful grunt, apparently finding some amusement in the woman's words.
"I suppose I am. Not like I could turn this down, anyways, my brat would nag me to the ends of the earth."
Haku bristled slightly at that but didn't deny the man's claim.
"So, I guess the two of us are in." Zabuza looked over at Naruto and smirked. "You should be grateful."
Naruto nodded, bowing before the man and, apparently, stunning him.
"Thank you for your assistance."
Zabuza seemed to try and find the words he was looking for, but let out a breath that, given enough time, could've perhaps been construed as a laugh.
"Don't mention it."
"I'm going." Zaku said simply, reaching down and finishing the rest of the writing on the sheet below him. "I don't much care about being a Leaf Ninja or whatever, but I'll do whatever it takes to go along."
Dosu let out a dry laugh.
"Someone's got a crush."
Zaku's face lit up red, and Naruto couldn't help but smirk sadly at that.
I don't know if he's got much of a chance… But I wish him luck.
"Eh, I guess I'll go as well." Kin signed her name at the bottom, pushing the form forward and in front of the Hokage. "Got nothing better to do with my time."
Tsunade smirked as Dosu let out a deep sigh.
"You guys do realize I'm the leader of this team, right?"
"Why, are you going to stop us?" Kin smirked at him. "Cause it doesn't seem like it."
"No… I'm not." Dosu sighed as he walked up to the desk and signed his name as well, passing it forward. "We'll go as well."
A giant smile formed on Naruto's face as he looked at his collaborators. Misfits the lot of them, but he couldn't deny he felt an odd sense of trust already beginning to form in it's members.
And then the door behind them practically exploded open as another figure entered the room, panting as her hands fell to her hips, and she shot the Hokage an angry look.
"SO!" Anko shouted, standing up to her full height and crossing her arms. "Just planning on… what, sending me off on a mission, and never actually informing me that my student had been fucking kidnapped!?"
Naruto took a step back from the woman as she forced her way past them, slamming her hands down on the Hokage's desk and glaring at the woman opposite her. Tsunade placed her hands in front of her mouth, in an effort to give nothing away.
"You weren't informed because I knew you'd do something like this if you were." The woman spoke as calmly as she could manage. "At least Kakashi could see reason, We simply don't have the resources to allow any of our higher-leveled Jonin to be taking on a high risk and potentially lengthy rescue operation."
"You think I give a shit about resource allocation!?"
"No, and once more, that is why you weren't informed." Tsunade stood, looking down on the woman with a hard gaze. "You have a mission, Anko, one you were specially chosen for. I would ask you complete it before asking to be assigned to-"
"I forfeit that mission."
"Wha-"
"I forfeit that mission and request to be moved to the mission to rescue Sakura Haruno and Sasuke Uchiha." Anko explained, eyes narrow as she continued. "I will complete double the regular allotment of missions when I return to make up for my misconduct, but I implore you…"
Anko bowed more deeply than anyone Naruto had ever seen.
"Please. She's… She's the only person I've ever really cared about at all." Anko spoke under her breath. "Don't deny me this."
Tsunade's eyes widened, and she opened her mouth to speak, but chose not to. A second later, after gazing at the woman's bowed back, she leaned back in her chair again, looking towards Shizune and, silently, asked her for advice.
Her retainer simply nodded.
"Alright… fine." Tsunade let out in a single breath, and Anko immediately shot up, a hopeful glint in her eye. "You're in."
Anko let out a horrid gasp, filled with relief as she bowed once more.
"Thank you!"
"Sheesh…" Tsunade rubbed her hand against the back of her neck, sighing dramatically. "No one's listening to a word I say today."
"I think that probably has to do with the people in question, Lady Tsunade." Shizune smiled at her, and the Hokage returned it with a shake of her head. "They've got a hell of a lot of people looking out for them."
"I guess you're probably right."
"I usually am."
Tsunade turned back around, rolling her eyes playfully as she looked towards the seven of them. Naruto, in a fit of feeling inadequate, tried to stand a little taller, just so it wasn't as obvious that he was clearly the shortest of all of them.
"Alright. Zabuza Momochi."
"Yes, ma'am?" The swordsman spoke, evidently going along with the proceedings.
"You are the captain of this mission. Prove you're able to lead a squadron to victory, and we'll see about getting you out for missions within the month."
"Understood."
"Anko Mitarashi, you'll be second in command, Naruto Uzumaki, you're third."
He bristled slightly at that, having expected practically anyone else in the group to be given that title. Despite his mind's complaints, however, he didn't voice any of them. He'd take the honor that granny had given him.
"Your missions is to track the missing ninjas Sasuke Uchiha and Sakura Haruno, retrieve them from whatever situation they've gotten themselves into, and return them to the Leaf Village. Any other objectives are unnecessary, including going after Orochimaru himself, even if the perfect opportunity were to present itself. This is a search and rescue, nothing more."
Zabuza nodded, as did Anko. Naruto wasn't sure if he had to, but he did so anyways. Judging by Tsunade's smirk, he hadn't needed to, but she'd expected him to anyways.
"You'll meet up with Kiba Inuzuka in front of Sasuke Uchiha's apartment. He'll be accompanying you all on this mission as well. From there, you'll follow the trail of blood the boy left behind, as well as their scent if you can pick up on it." The woman waved her hand horizontally, effectively dismissing them.
"Go, and good luck to you all."
/-/
Naruto squinted down at the black spot on the gravel below them, which, according to Kiba's dog Akamaru, was a droplet of blood that had come from Sasuke.
"The trail continues this way into the forest for at least fifteen miles." Kiba explained, before turning to the sound trio with a questioning glance. "So, you three were all under Orochimaru at one point, right?"
"Yeah, for quite a while." Zaku looked unusually pensive, as if considering something he hadn't previously thought was possible. "I'm taking it you're asking for our opinion as to where they're going?"
"Yeah. you got any idea?"
Zaku, Kin, and Dosu all turned towards one another, sharing the same odd look from before.
"Yeah… we've got some idea of where they're going, it's just…" Zaku hesitated, clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "Well, that'd be why he left the trail."
"It just doesn't seem to be where we expected." Dosu continued from where his teammate had gone off topic, looking towards the rest of the group. "For reference, we'd expect them to be headed out the front of the village, then going northwest… but from what it seems like here, they've pretty much just gone straight north."
"Is that terribly unusual?" Zabuza broke his way into the conversation. "They could've simply decided to go a different route, maybe to throw you three off their trail."
"That's possible, sure." Kin voiced her concerns this time. "It's just… there is another location, straight in line with this direction. One which wouldn't be terribly odd… just… a bit worrisome."
Naruto tilted his head.
"Worrisome?" He asked the three. "What do you mean by that?"
"We mean it's directly in line not with one of Orochimaru's usual bases… but with his main facility." Zaku rubbed his arm, as if trying to massage out some kind of horrible ache. "We think he might've retreated to the Sound Village itself."
Anko's eyes widened, as did Zabuza's. He, Kiba, and Haku reacted, but theirs were certainly more subdued. Naruto, for his part, didn't see why such a thing would be a terribly big deal.
"So what?" He asked, looking towards the rest of the group. "Why's that huge news? We just need to break in, get Sakura and Sasuke, and head on back."
"The problem is it's not that simple." Dosu spoke, ridiculing him. "Sure, It would've been if we were headed for one of his underground bases. Hell, even the most major of the those bases the three of us still know like the backs of our hands…"
"Do you not know the sound village as well?" Haku voiced up this time, curious. "The three of you grew up there, did you not?"
"And you probably grew up in or around the Mist Village, right?" Dosu countered. "But tell me, if you were taken there again, could you, off the top of your head, list off every suspicious person, place, and thing from memory, or know precisely where an evil overlord was planning on hiding inside of it?"
Haku went silent at that, seemingly rather cowed.
"The problem isn't that we don't know it. We did grow up there, but… it's not like we could guide you through every square inch of it like we could one of the bases."
"Yeah, I for one really only know the backstreets." Zaku admitted. "I mean, that was the only place us street rats were permitted, and only because they didn't know we were there."
"Same here." Kin spoke up, face glum. "If he were hiding in one of the more well-off districts, You'd all have about as good of a chance at finding him as us two. Honestly, I think that goes for Dosu as well. It's not going to be a quick and easy insertion if we're headed to Oto."
Everyone seemed to contemplate that for a moment, except for Anko, whose eyes were quickly traveling back and forth across the ground below her, as if she were doing some odd calculation in her head.
"Hold up." She finally brought up, all eyes turning towards her. "If I'm right, then Orochimaru doesn't really drop by the Sound Village that often, correct?"
Zaku, Kin and Dosu turned to look at one another, before shaking their heads.
"He has a base a ways out from the Village, but that was often as close as he got to it. He'd send people to go collect food and things like that, but aside from those trips, we were usually isolated."
Anko made a noise of acknowledgement.
"In that case, why would he suddenly move from his normal base… and into what I can only imagine is a staggeringly larger operation? Is there any advantage for him to do something like that?"
"Yeah, like we just discussed, his ability to blend in is going to go up by a lot, as are his defenses, since he'll be surrounded by Sound Ninja." Dosu brought up. "Problem is, it also means he's going to lose almost all of the projects he'd been working on, along with any of the prisoner's at his old facility, he wouldn't have time to move them, or, likely, care enough to."
"I'm just worried about how weird this all is." Zaku voiced his concerns as he turned towards his teammates. "It's not much like Orochimaru at all."
"Yeah..." Kin let out a breath. "Same here."
"I think I get the point you're trying to make." Anko summarized, eyes hard as she turned towards the forests beyond the village.
"What could scare Orochimaru enough for him to abandon one of his bases and run?"
/-/
"Still, to think we're headed back to the Sound Village…" The boy named Sakon spoke up, turning towards his group as they jumped through the forests surrounding them. "What do you think's got Orochimaru so spooked?"
"I'd watch what you say, Sakon." The girl named Tayuya threatened, jumping off of a branch and traveling beside the white-haired boy. "If Orochimaru heard you say something like that-"
"I'd be mincemeat." The boy smirked. "I'm aware. I asked you all a question, though."
Tayuya groaned, falling back into their normal formation. Two in front of the group, the prisoners in the middle, and then another two behind, it seemed.
"Well, we know it ain't the Leaf Village." Another boy, this one with four arms and a mischievous grin, spoke out. "They've got too much shit to deal with in the first place to threaten him over some little kiddies, and he wasn't afraid to invade them and attack the Hokage himself."
"Yeah, that's what I'm saying." Sakon sighed, looking deeper into the forest as he tried to rationalize what he was feeling. Apparently, after a good few seconds, he ran out of patience. "Oi, you two!" He turned back towards Sasuke and Sakura. "You got any idea what's going on?"
Sasuke Uchiha looked up, his eyes immediately scanning the formation, observing to see if any of them would let their guards down. Upon realizing that none had, he sighed out, and answered the other boy's question.
"I've got no idea."
The group of six passed by underneath them, and one of the two shadows standing in the tree tops let out a quiet laugh.
"Oho, how funny!" The jolly voice called out, looking back towards his partner. Well, perhaps partners was the better word, given that he was technically two different entity's split down the middle.
"To think Mr. Uchiha…" Tobi spoke softly, gazing towards where the six children hurried into Orochimaru's walls.
"Would lie."
End Chapter 46
Heyo.
Welp, Coronavirus is sweeping the... *checks notes* entire world, apparently, so I'm no longer going on a trip next week.
Still going to take the week off, though, because my wrists have really been hurting lately, and I'm not trying to get early onset carpel tunnel. I like this story, but I don't like it enough to get a life-altering condition!
Anyways, we got some good stuff coming up, so I hope you all stick around!
See you in two weeks!