Guren was having a great day. She was currently on her way back to the base in Oto with her new charge in tow after successfully completing her mission. Of course, she completed her mission. Guren never fails a mission, and you'd best goddamn remember it.

Speaking of the mission, she was tasked with investigating the rumors surrounding the current(?) Mizukage, Yagura, and his potential bastard child. Whether or not Yagura still counted as the Mizukage while he was laying at the bottom of a pool of lava curtesy of the leader of the rebellion, Mei Terumi, was still up for debate. Guren had left before any power could officially be handed over to anyone, so for the time being, Yagura was still the Mizukage of Kiri.

She was happy for Mei, though. Mei was rad, and she wouldn't mind having a rad Mizukage friend.

Back to her mission, she had found Yagura's supposed child (and there was nothing "supposed" about it, the kid looked exactly like him minus the scar under his eye) holed up in a decrepit shack deep in Loyalist territory. He didn't particularly look like he wanted to be there, so that just made her mission all the easier to complete. She didn't even need to whack him in the back of the head with a blunt crystal shard, so she chalked it up as a win for everybody.

The kid, who she learned was named Yukimaru, was cool. He was rather skittish, but he was also kind and soft-spoken the more she talked with him and got to know him a little bit. They somehow got to talking about their favorite meals, and Guren supposed that the ice was sufficiently broken because Yukimaru went on a 5 minute spiel about the superiority of pocky as both a snack and a versatile meal. Guren also learned that he was a manipulative little shit because they somehow found themselves in a convenience store halfway through Hi no Kuni so that she could buy him pocky.

It wouldn't have been much trouble, except for the fact that they were not alone in pocky aisle.

Standing in front of the stocked shelf of multiple flavors of pocky was a man with long, black hair wearing a black robe. What immediately set off alarm bells were the red clouds on the robe. Guren had been warned against facing off with anyone she encountered wearing that specific get-up, and she wasn't going to argue. As powerful as she was, if Orochimaru himself was wary of Akatsuki, she would not press her luck. That in mind, a tense silence followed in which the black-haired man did not take his eyes off of the pocky for even a second. She was about to turn right around and leave the store, but Yukimaru chose that moment to literally stroll up to the man that had her on pins and needles.

The young boy stopped to the right of the man and stared at the boxes of pocky himself, taking stock of each flavor available. Guren did not move as she watched the two silently mull over what they wanted for what felt like hours, until the older man finally moved. Guren tensed, ready to jump in and defend her charge, but the man only turned his head to look down at the boy, meanwhile Yukimaru did the same and met his stony gaze with one of his own. Another silence fell as they studied each other, and Guren could only wonder in cold sweats if the atmosphere was as tense for the two of them as it was for her.

Apparently, it wasn't. The two nodded at each other, an understanding resting between two connoisseurs of the sweet snack, before both the man and boy grabbed one box of each flavor available. Guren bemusedly watched the two approach the counter where the man paid for his pocky while Yukimaru finally turned back to look at her. She broke herself from her stupor and went up to join him, paying for his snacks and exiting the store.

Upon leaving, she found the man standing with another man in the same Akatsuki robe, this one tall with blue skin, and if she was correct, he was sporting nothing but exasperation on his face. The blue man's beady, shark eyes flitted to them, particularly on the bag full of pocky in Yukimaru's hand, and exhaustion seemed to take him over.

"Oh my shit, there's more of you, Itachi."

"True pocky brethren are hard to find."

"Is that all you have to say after making me wait for 20 minutes?"

"Hn."

And with that, the two men quickly departed without sparing them another glance, leaving Guren to stare blankly at where they once stood. She was only broken out of her trance by a stick of pocky entering her field of vision, and she robotically took the offered stick before continuing on her trek with her new companion.

The journey back to Oto was much simpler and went without any further interruption. Reaching the hidden entrance, she took in the familiar scent of snakes and lemon pledge before guiding the youngster through the convoluted network of torch-lit hallways. Along the way, they strolled past one of the training chambers where Guren spotted a young teen with black hair who vaguely resembled the man she and Yukimaru encountered at the convenience store. She couldn't get a great look at him because he was in the process of being wailed on by an...

"Is that an ostrich?"

Guren looks down at the puzzled boy to her left who, try as he might, could not parse the situation in front of him. Deciding that it wasn't worth dealing with at that moment, she led the boy onwards in the direction of the unofficial Otokage's office. Reaching the door, she knocked, expecting to hear the serpentine drawl of her boss, but a clipped, "Come in," was uttered from a voice that was decidedly not Orochimaru's. She opened the door to find Kabuto sitting at Orochimaru's desk and irritably filling out paperwork. She watched in a mixture of confusion and amusement at the silver-haired teen signing a document from the Daimyo of Ta no Kuni before he stamped it with a huff and slid it to a pile of signed/stamped papers.

"Glad to see you've returned, Guren," he exhaled without the usual needling sarcasm.

"Thanks," she snorted. She wasn't about to pass up an opportunity to get under the medic's skin as he usually does to her. "Having fun being a pencil pusher?"

"What Lord Orochimaru did not factor in when he turned his base in Ta no Kuni into an official ninja village is that the designation inherently comes with paperwork," Kabuto replied without missing a beat.

"Right, um, where is he, by the way?" She queried, mildly disappointed that her attempt to aggravate him was unsuccessful.

"He's in the nearest training chamber with Sasuke."

"Oh, so that's the Uchiha kid? And we just walked by there but only saw the brat fighting an ostrich."

"That's him."

Whatever Guren was about to respond with died on her tongue as Kabuto's statement processed.

"...Excuse me?"

A tiredness washed over the medic as he adjusted his glasses. "The Sound Four and Kimimaro did not return with Sasuke in time." He paused. "They did not return at all, actually. I had to rendezvous with Sasuke after they all, presumably, came down with a case of death. Lord Orochimaru could not wait that long for a new vessel, and you were busy on your mission, so he elected to enter the body of an ostrich as his newest vessel."

Guren said nothing as Kabuto's words sank in. Yukimaru also said nothing, but he was more concerned with the last of his pocky than whatever the two adults were talking about. Guren turned to a cabinet on the wall and opened it to find a small bottle of sake inside. Picking up and studying the bottle, she seemed to come to a decision.

"I do not have enough alcohol for this."

She put the bottle back inside and closed the cabinet before turning to leave the room.

"Come on, Yukimaru, I'll get you more pocky."

Next up is probably Team Yamato's encounter with Ostrichimaru. Thanks for reading.