Traveling through the forests of the Fire Country, more discreet than ever before, Team 7 was not happy, "How is that bastard still alive? We literally saw Zabuza decapitate him." Naruto growled in anger.
"Who knows how he did it," Sasuke replied, "But evidently their professional relationship wasn't perfect given the circumstances. He probably figured to leave while he had the chance."
"Whatever he did, we end it now." Sakura said.
"We have to be careful, if he's faked his death dealing with mercenaries before who's to say he won't do it with some of the Guardian 12?" Naruto replied.
"Okay guys, we can't talk freely like this anymore, we're nearing the capital border." Sakura said.
"That's right. From now on, none of us exist. Not to the citizens of the Fire Nation's capital, not to the shinobi stationed here, and not to the Guardian 12 regardless of if they're betraying the Daimyo." Naruto reaffirmed.
"And not the Daimyo either. If we get caught he'll pretend we don't exist," Sasuke added.
"Look at us, genin last year, I was barely a chunin, now we're on a top secret S-rank." Naruto said mischievously.
"You can pat yourself on the back later," Sakura said in annoyance, "We seriously need to be quiet now. We're 400 meters from the capital's border. The security is insane here, those were your words not mine by the way."
Naruto quieted down, but couldn't help but smile behind his mask. Ever since they'd become ANBU they'd spent most of their time in the village, acting as glorified police officers in the shadows, and sometimes as security. Of course, Naruto knew that under normal circumstances this was preferable, most ANBU missions were assassinations, and Naruto had come to slowly realize that missions like that probably weren't ones he would always agree with.
Which was precisely why he loved this mission. He knew at some point he'd probably have to do something he didn't like. Kill someone who maybe didn't deserve it, but was needed dead for political reasons, so when he got the details for this mission he was secretly ecstatic. Killing Gato was something he didn't have many qualms with, and he was even lucky enough to happen to be assigned this mission with his old team. They didn't get to spend much time together nowadays, this was going to be some good old Team 7 bonding.
"Rendezvous in 45," Sasuke said quietly. Sakura and Naruto didn't even reply. Their task was already known: infiltrate the capital, do an initial scan of the area, and return to decide their next plans.
Naruto kept pondering the mission as he sat in a branch, suppressing his chakra and observing the security patterns of the border patrol. Their mission was a rather important one. Jiraiya had remarked most ANBU missions were simple assassinations compared to this. According to the Daimyo, two of the Guardian 12 had reported Gato's presence in the capitol, no doubt setting up some new smuggling operation. The other 10 Guardian 12 had gone on to confirm Gato's presence, but hadn't involved themselves as the first two: Ogachi and Susho. Who'd promised to handle it on their own. After several weeks of non-results the Daimyo had begun to suspect their betrayal.
Normally he would simply order the others to investigate, but the Guardian 12 wasn't what it once was. After losing half of its members in coup attempt nearly a decade back, (Asuma regularly bragged about how his loyalty to the Daimyo had stopped this attempt from succeeding) the Daimyo wasn't interested in further degrading the sanctity of the Guardian 12, not even to the other members of the Guardian 12. And now Team 7 had to do all the dirty work, it was just how the world spun.
Naruto finally found an opening and slipped through the border, into the capital city of the Fire Nation. He had little time to be in awe at the scale of it, as he needed to avoid being seen and to get a feel for the area, but he managed to construct a model in his head. Unless one were looking out they'd completely forget they were in a nation surrounded by forest. The streets were clean stone pathways, unlike the dirt roads of Konoha. Everyone walked at the most leisurely of paces, seemingly unconcerned about any places they might have to be.
Naruto admired the emerald roofs before he realized he could not run on them. The rich nobles of the city are probably not used to shinobi using their homes as pathways. Looking for a moment at the setting sun, he decided to hop from beam to beam, knowing that it wouldn't shake the buildings like running on a roof would. He scanned the streets intently, making sure to lay low as he did. Naruto frowned at the realization that the border was too easy to cross, but one look to his left told him everything he needed to know. The Daimyo's palace was huge. At least, it was bigger than any building Naruto had seen before, in fact it was too big. Naruto made his way closer to it, logic told him that this was not only a palace, but a city within a city, and he avoided trying to infiltrate the walls. While it was dark enough to go on rooftops unnoticed (with the help of some camouflaging jutsu), it was not wise to try and enter what was a literal fortress.
It didn't matter anyway, as Gato was said to be on the outskirts of the capital, so he decided that he'd make his way back. He hoped that Sakura and Sasuke had seen something more interesting than old noble ladies sharing anecdotes. Making it out of the border was just as straightforward as making it in, and he was careful to find their meeting spot. Naruto hopped down to where he saw two ANBU at a clearing.
"I didn't know the palace was like that," Naruto said.
"I couldn't see much of the palace." Sasuke replied.
"Neither could I," Sakura added, "I was towards the west side,"
"So was I, I think I found where Gato is set up." Sasuke said, "Between the eastern border and the city there's some forest, it's got way less security. I found discarded crates and some empty bags. They're probably around there somewhere."
"Let's wait till nightfall, that's probably when they'll start moving. Plus it's a pain in the ass to move through the city like it is now." Sakura replied.
"Agreed, let's just stake it out, suppress our chakra." Naruto said.
They all nodded, before shooting back into the trees in complete silence. The three kept a distance from each other, trying to avoid making too much ruckus in one hot spot. When Sasuke had finally brought them to the spot, they didn't move a muscle.
Things like this were typically the hardest on Naruto, he knew for the next several hours they would sit like this, in complete silence, only moving when absolutely necessary to keep their muscles from going numb. The only evidence that his comrades were even still there were their faint chakra signatures that he could only sense from months of training with them. He looked at the near empty clearing religiously until the last bit of light had finally been engulfed by the horizon, and it was pitch black outside. Finally, it was time for things to get interesting, but they didn't, not for a few hours.
"Where the fuck are those idiots?" came a distant voice that Team 7 had no trouble recognizing. Behind him, Gato had an equally short underling, holding a lantern. Despite the fact that he couldn't see them, Naruto could tell Gato had security on him.
"Everytime I get involved with shinobi, they always pull bullshit like this," Gato muttered in frustration, "Let's just sit down, see what sort of excuse they've got. You'd think I woulda learned my lesson by now." Well if he was talking like that about shinobi, he either had samurai as security or the shinobi guarding him didn't have much pride. Which would make sense, it's not like he could afford to hire some hotshot missing-nin when he was presumed dead.
Gato's underling didn't respond, probably out of fear. Whatever it was it didn't matter because Naruto now had to suffer through even more waiting. His legs absolutely screamed at him, begged him to stand up just for a moment, maybe just march in place, but 10 weeks of ANBU training torture had made sure that he wouldn't take stupid risks like that. He'd be here for as long as Gato was here.
Nevertheless, he felt incredible relief wash over him when Gato got up in anger, and muttered more obscenities about shinobi and how they were the scum of the earth. Well, he was probably right about that last part, but the words were hollow to Naruto when it came from an even more grimy scumbag. He waited until Gato was completely out of earshot before meeting with Sasuke and Sakura again.
"I don't like this, we need to investigate now, it might already have gotten out of hand," Naruto said. Even now it felt weird behaving like a leader, and he hoped it would dissipate by the time he became Hokage. Sasuke and Sakura simply nodded before they split up. The problem for Naruto was despite his friend's instant approval of his suggestion, it still somehow felt ridiculous to do.
He could already hear Ino's voice in his head, "Silly Naruto, you just have trauma, let me enter your brain and help you fix it," Okay maybe she hadn't exactly said it like that, but she did seem awfully interested in entering his brain. Naruto wasn't sure how the demon in his stomach would feel about that.
Eventually they decided to split up, scan the area better. It was already pitch black so they wouldn't have a problem being invisible. Naruto skillfully maneuvered the streets of the city, listening in to blips of conversation, checking suspicious corridors and alleys. Logically, shinobi had no reason to hide in the alley's of their own city, but Naruto's gut told him to check anyway. Unfortunately, Naruto's gut was right.
Before Naruto could even completely comprehend the scene before him he almost had a heart attack. He was not expecting to find three of the Guardian 12 in an alleyway, even if he was looking for suspicious things. While he was invisible to civilians and most shinobi, the Guardian 12 were not most shinobi. Thankfully nobody seemed to notice him, and once his initial panic went away, he was able to find the reason for tonights' absence.
It was Ogachi and Susho, standing in front of the dead body of their comrade. Shit.
"What do we do with him?" Ogachi said
"We need to dump him," Susho replied.
"We can't just dump him you idiot. You used your blood release on him, you're the only blood release user in this whole continent that isn't a Kiri spy. We'll be made instantly."
"Not if nobody finds his body." Susho interjected.
We can't move him now, his fucking blood is everywhere. We need to get to Gato anyway, his patience is already thin,"
"You're out of your mind, we can't just leave his body here, civilians use these alleyways all the time, if one of them finds him it will be a riot." Susho argued.
"Let's just move that junk over there, and cast a genjutsu in this spot. That should hold us over until tomorrow night," Ogachi said.
"This better not backfire on us or we'll have this whole city hunting for our heads, not just Gato." Susho replied as he started to drag over some debris that had been shoved into the alley.
Naruto decided this was his best shot to leave without getting caught, he carefully retreated from the area and sprinted off back to the forest. He returned back to where Gato had gone for his meetup and found Sasuke there investigating the area.
"Oi. this just got a lot more complicated," Naruto said.
"You bet, look at this," Sasuke replied as he held up a bag, "Looks like they're not afraid of this spot being investigated, they just left this here like this." Naruto took the bag from Sasuke's hand, not having magic eyeballs of his own, he snapped his fingers and a small flame appeared atop his thumb, imitating a lighter. He moved his hand up the bag and noticed blue and white dust.
"They're smuggling drugs?" Naruto asked.
"Yeah, it's weird but I've heard from other ANBU and off-duty jonin that this kind of stuff is actually a big problem in these types of affluent places. High-end labs make this stuff, it's supposed to be safer, but tons of people end up dead from it."
Naruto frowned, "You think that's bad? I actually ran into Ogachi and Susho. They would have definitely sensed me out if they weren't arguing on how to hide the dead body of their teammate."
Sasuke groaned, "Are you serious? How are we gonna cover that one up?"
"Worse, Susho used a blood release assasination technique, the poor dude's eyes are all red and his arteries are black. Luckily they went to meet up with Gato and didn't have time to get rid of it. If we hurry we can take it back and figure out how to clean him up."
"Speaking of Gato, Groundhog followed directly after him, we need to make sure she's alright," Sasuke replied.
Naruto nodded and followed Sasuke through the forest, for some reason he had gotten astonishingly good at tracking Sakura. He knew that they'd gotten closer over the past few months, but it was still bewildering. Eventually they had made it out of the forest and to a building not so far outside of it. A tall wooden structure looked like it was abandoned and not in the best condition.
Naruto and Sasuke paused, Sasuke held a hand signal up to Naruto that told him to let him take the lead and to follow as carefully as possible. Naruto had no objections to this and watched as the boy scanned the building. If he looked really closely he could see where the pupils of Sasuke's blood red sharingan were examining. He faintly made out some shinobi and samurai in the spots Sasuke was looking.
While he pondered just how much the sharingan revealed to Sasuke, he felt a tap on his shoulder, "Down there," Sasuke whispered as he pointed to the end of the path that led to the decrepit building. Naruto saw, for the second time that day, Ogachi and Susho.
"C'mon we need to get inside now," Sasuke whispered again, and Naruto once again followed his lead as carefully as he could as they infiltrated the presumed headquarters of Gato. They had finally managed to slip in through a window, where they scaled the support beams until they had finally met back up with Sakura.
Sakura turned to them and Naruto noticed mild surprise in her body language. She swiftly materialized a kunai from her pouch and pointed it at them, "Who am I," she asked in a hushed voice.
"Groundhog," they responded in unison. Sakura eased up and they turned their attention down to the scene below them, apparently Sakura had situated herself right above Gato.
"Let em' in," Gato said in his gravelly voice, and two samurai opened the door revealing Ogashi and Susho. The pair walked into the office, showing no fear, and simply spoke to Gato.
"Forgive us, security issue at the palace, we couldn't make it," Susho said.
Naruto tapped Sakura's shoulder, "They're lying, we'll fill you in later." he said quickly.
"Whatever, just don't let it happen tomorrow, we got a big shipment and we can't leave it laying around. We need to start getting some of this stuff in the walls of the palace, be here by 10. I trust you didn't solve this security issue too well?" Gato said.
Ogachi and Susho had the briefest moment of unease before they responded, "We'll definitely be there on time, we want to get this over with." Ogachi said.
"Good, good. Now get outta here, suns about to rise. We have no time to discuss logistics today."
"Understood Gato," they replied, and they left the warehouse shortly thereafter.
"I'm gonna go to bed, make sure no one goes poking around here," Gato said to his crew as he got up from the seat, "What a bunch of fucken' idiots," he muttered to himself as he disappeared into an unseen corridor of the building.
Team 7 swiftly left the warehouse, and when they'd gotten far enough away, Naruto retold the full story of his discovery to the both of them.
"You think you can clean up the body S-Groundhog?" Naruto asked.
"I don't know. . . ." she responded.
"I thought you had your. . .you know. . .teacher." he said, making sure not to say Tsunade's name or any of her descriptors out loud.
"She's really inconsistent, I don't even know why she agreed to it when she always acts like it's the biggest chore in the world. Advanced medical ninjutsu is still more about healing people than manipulating their dead bodies to cover up cause of death. Regardless, I'll know for sure when I see the body for myself."
"Good, I'll just lead you there then, we have to hurry cause it's in the city. We have to get out of here before light comes again." Naruto said.
Naruto finally managed to lead them back to the scene of the crime, "Be careful there's a‒"
"Genjutsu, yeah," Sakura finished for him as she scanned down the alleyway.
"You, stay up here, this isn't some standard genjutsu, it's weaved together all weird. If we're careful, Sakura and I can go in and recover the body without changing the composition of the jutsu." Sasuke said.
"Uh-huh," Naruto said, and he continued to lay atop the roof, watching his comrades slide down the alleyway. They'd stop every couple of feet, seemingly tampering with the genjutsu themselves. Eventually they got down to the ground and moved things around until they found the body. He watched them exchange a few words before Sasuke carried the body up, and Sakura kept casting her own genjutsu.
"Sun's about to rise, let's hurry up," Naruto said.
"Don't rush her," Sasuke hissed back, and Naruto had to wait another minute before Sakura finally made it back up and they could flee the scene of the crime. They sprinted across the city, narrowly missing the creeping blanket of light that was beginning to engulf every surface of the earth.
"So, what can you do about him?" Naruto asked when they had finally made it out of the border.
"I can get rid of most visible signs that Susho killed him, but it might not hold up in a deeper examination. Our best bet is making a different wound that distracts from his real cause of death, I can rig the body to look newly deceased after that." Sakura responded.
"Holy shit, we're gonna have to desecrate his body?" Naruto asked in shock.
"It doesn't have to be that bad," Sasuke said, "I saw one of Gato's guards, she had a lot of explosive seals, if we just use those on him, we don't have to do it so. . . .up close. It will just look like she blew him up."
"That's. . . .still pretty fucked up." Naruto said, "So this is what it means to be an ANBU. . . . "
"Let's not think about it now, we need to focus on ambushing them tonight." Sakura replied, "We also need to sleep for a few hours, I'll take first watch,"
Naruto had no objections to that.
Sitting upon the same support beam in Gato's warehouse as yesterday, Naruto was busy fastening a body that belonged to one of the Guardian 12.
"You don't have to worry about a thing here," he told it, "All you need to do is stay here with me, and I'll bring you back down there when Sasuke and Sakura have finished your traitorous comrades off."
"Fox," Sasuke hissed from about fifteen feet away, "Shut. The Fuck. Up."
Naruto rolled his eyes, there was nobody here, they'd been waiting for four hours. Whatever Gato had planned was taking a while, but just as Naruto had that thought, the footsteps of their targets could be heard beyond the doors of that room.
"We really saved your ass out there Gato," came the gloats of Susho. "And after all the shit you talk about us!"
Naruto didn't hear the rest of this conversation, as he had already retreated to outside the warehouse. He carefully scaled the walls of the compound until he made his way to the spots that Sasuke had outlined for him. Just as Sasuke said, there were four samurai stationed outside. It was lucky for Naruto that Ogachi was a wind-type, so Naruto could get rid of these assailants while maintaining the lie they were here to uphold.
He chose first to take out the samurai furthest from the entrance, two of his clones made a silent ambush from the skies, they covered the mouths of the samurai and slit their throats. It only took about 45 seconds for the whole thing to be over.
"You two," Naruto hissed, "Keep them from bleeding on the floor, and plant them near the entrance once you've got the signal." Naruto didn't even wait for acknowledgement and leapt off to create the signal he was responsible for creating. Several meters from the entrance Naruto had his eyes planted on the samurai, Susho was supposedly the stealthier shinobi of the pair, while Ogachi chose to be more loud.
He'd gotten the stealth portion done, now it was time to be nice and loud. Naruto retrieved an exceedingly heavy stack of sliced up rocks he had planted on a branch earlier. Apart from Wind, Ogachi was apparently exceptionally talented at Earth-release. Naruto wasn't capable of Earth-release, but he'd read up on Ogachi and realized he could replicate one his signature techniques if he prepared ahead of time. Apparently, Ogachi was fond of calling it 'Rocky Hellfire', although Naruto decided he was not actually about to say something so embarrassing.
Naruto tore open the sack, "Over here!" he yelled straight at the samurai from his spot on the branch. The samurai were quick, but Naruto was quicker. Before they had managed to even move Naruto had launched the sack of murder rocks up into the air, and leapt up after them. In the light of the full moon Naruto was able to see each individual rock, and he weaved hand signs rapidly as his soaring body rose over the pile of stones. Naruto didn't possess a sharingan, but he was still a shinobi, and his battle trained eyes were able to perfectly deduce the millisecond in which the stones reached weightlessness. A perfect corridor in which the force of the throw was stagnant, and the force of gravity had yet to drag them down. It was at that moment Naruto executed his wind jutsu, blowing an extraordinarily powerful gust of air straight at the stones.
The poor samurai only had enough time to look up, before the 'rocky hellfire' rained down on them and shredded their bodies apart, tearing through their armor as if it were gelatin. Any rocks that hadn't touched their bodies had hurled through the deteriorated wood behind them, immediately notifying Gato and all of his men that something was very wrong.
Of course, this was exactly what Naruto planned, this was his signal, not just to his clones, but to Sasuke and Sakura as well. Naruto rapidly retreated from his spot and back into the compound from where he left. Just before he reached the body he was meant to be babysitting, he received the memories of his two shadow clones, who had planted the other two samurai only a few meters from the entrance. Perfect, unless they fucked this up, it would like like Ogachi and Susho had just stumbled upon the compound and infiltrated it normally. Naruto frantically untied the body as he heard the violence happening in the adjacent room, and hoped Sasuke and Sakura were still in one piece.
"Find them! They can't be far!" Gato screamed at Ogachi and Suso. The scene that Naruto was met with was an angry Gato just receiving notice from Ogachi and Susho of their slaughtered security detail. Before they could flee back, Sasuke suddenly appeared in front of them.
"ANBU Black Ops?" Ogachi said in disbelief, but Sasuke was wordless and ran straight into the pair. Both of them struck at Sasuke, but he was too smooth, and he effortlessly dodged both attacks while returning a slash of his own from his sword. The pair almost tripped over themselves and Naruto knew Sasuke was smirking behind the mask. He watched as Sasuke continued to dodge and weave their attacks, slowly leading them towards the remaining shinobi and samurai that Gato had hired to defend himself. He noted Sasuke was slowly showing cracks in his form although he couldn't blame him considering his opponents. Naruto then searched the room for Sakura, after pinpointing her energy he found her in her hiding spot, quietly casting genjutsu.
Just as he planned. Kakashi had strongly focused on subtle genjutsu when teaching them, even Naruto had been dragged into learning some of it. He remembered Kakashi's consistent drilling into their heads about how it could easily turn the tide of a battle when pulled off correctly. Of course that had proved to be true according to Sasuke and Sakura, and looking down now, it seemed to be proving true once again. Sasuke was balancing 6 shinobi now, including Ogachi and Susho, and none of them seemed to notice how off-balance they were, or how much they were being toyed around with.
Finally Ogachi and Susho decided to stop toying around, and created some distance as they weaved hand seals. Susho was the first to act and began to reclose the distance he had just created. Sasuke observed the unique seal of his opponent and realized this was not a technique that could merely be deflected. When the distance finally closed there was a violent spray of blood that splattered across Susho's pale face, which made his triumphant smirk look even more disturbing. Fortunately for Sasuke, Susho's smirk was wiped off his face when he realized the dead body in his hands was actually one of Gato's other hired shinobi.
"You think you're slick using a body replacement like that? You're only delaying the inevitable." Susho snarled as he threw the body aside and tried to pinpoint Sasuke again. His search was abruptly ended when a kunai on wire impaled his left eye and he was left writhing in pain.
Sasuke had no time to celebrate as Ogachi had finally finished weaving seals, hitting the floor with a loud smack. Sasuke felt the entire earth under him start a low rumble, and with another Samurai only a few meters away, Sasuke realized he had to take drastic measures and decided to use a new jutsu. He remembered back to when he and Kakashi developed this one, "I copied this from the Raikage years ago but haven't had the chakra for it till now. It's still chakra intensive but I bet we can make a lighter version." The memory of Kakashi's words ran through his mind as he briefly went through the seals and muttered under his breath, "Lightning Release Chakra Mode."
Sasuke learned immediately that his timing was perfect, as razor sharp stalagmites shot from the ground. Even at his ridiculous new speed and the impairment that Sakura's jutsu was having on his opponent, they were still rapidly following behind him. Sasuke understood now why Ogachi was part of the Guardian 12, but it wasn't going to save the man's life.
Sasuke threw his sword high in the air, opposite the direction Sakura was perched. They still had the mission of making this look like a failed drug-bust, and Sasuke had just found a much better weapon for this. Only two lightning-charged paces away, was the samurai that had been charging towards him. Sasuke ducked the samurai's swing and grabbed her entire body. She stumbled on herself as Sasuke held her waist and slithered his arm into hers, hijacking the katana in her hands. He narrowly dodged the next stalagmite, and drastically increased the lightning chakra coursing through his legs. Ogachi had no chance as Sasuke practically teleported in front of him. A final stalagmite surged from the ground in front of him but Sasuke merely dodged and threw the samurai on top of it. Ogachi had an expression of horror on his face.
Just as Sasuke had thought, it was a high concentration jutsu and Ogachi had wasted potential escape on that last ditch effort. Sasuke didn't hesitate to slice through Ogachi's neck, leaving the gash at an angle to give the illusion that the samurai had been interrupted by Ogahi's stalagmite, but still quick enough to kill him.
Without missing a beat Sasuke sped back swiftly enough to just barely catch his previously thrown sword before it hit the floor. Sasuke's now hyper-adept ears just barely heard Naruto mutter the words "fucking showoff," from the spot he was perched up in. Sasuke shifted his attention to Gato's last shinobi-for-hire. She was a tall muscular woman in cloak, and he recognized her to be the explosive specialist.
"Those idiots were busy wasting their time with you, I made sure I'd be able to keep you trapped," she said. Sasuke's eyes scanned the walls and noticed huge fortification seals spanning the walls. "You know what's going to happen now right?" the woman said with a smirk as kunai with explosive seals materialized into her hands from her cloak, "You can run as fast as you want, but I won't have to hold back with these."
Sasuke had no time to think his way out of this. Fortunately he didn't have to as Naruto had already specified her as part of their plan. "FOX NOW," Sasuke yelled at the top of his lungs as the kunai left the woman's fingertips.
A Kyuubi-amped Naruto soared down from above, with the final member of the Guardian 12 in his arms. Naruto landed right between Sasuke and the kunai, and threw the body straight towards them. Sasuke barely had enough time to grab Naruto by the arm and get them out of range of the explosion. When the dust settled Gato's last shinobi was met with the sight of all three members of Team 7. Panic filled her eyes as she realized her opponents had just tripled, and before she could so much as yell out a taunt of false confidence she felt the powerful force of a kunai thud into her chest. The barely visible wire led her sight back to Sasuke.
"You've got a lot more explosives in there huh?" he asked rhetorically, "This won't be too hard then, I'll just have to activate one." and he sent a short volt of electrified chakra through the wire that quickly found and activated the nearest explosive tag, blowing her to smithereens.
Naruto grimaced behind his mask and turned towards his teammates, "Sakura just fix up his corpse and make sure Susho's kekkei genkai is completely undetectable. Sasuke, you make sure to scrub any signs of our interference. I'll handle Gato."
Moments later Naruto was back in the shadows of the compound, he'd kept an eye on Gato the whole time and was pleased to see that Gato had hid himself in his room. Gato had curled himself up in a fetal position in the darkness of his quarters, an unbecoming position of a man who had been so ruthless in his life. Naruto was just inches above him, sticking to the wall. With the most delicate of taps, Naruto's fingers touched Gato's neck, casting one of the few genjutsu he was capable of casting. He watched triumphantly as Gato's body ceased to shake. Deep heavy breaths began to take over and the man got up from the corner he was in.
'That's right, Susho did this to you, you should have never trusted shinobi,' Naruto carefully inserted his own suggestions into the genjutsu, as he steadily raised the anger levels in Gato's brain.
Gato was slowly entering complete rage, he didn't notice Naruto slowly following him from behind as he tore through the doors, yelling obscenities at the top of his lungs. He didn't even notice Sasuke and Sakura as he entered the wreckage of the previous battle. His bloodshot eyes were dead set on a fallen figure.
The agonized Susho had been on his knees trying to recover from his injury with no avail. He looked up in horror as Gato picked him up off the ground. Susho struggled to regain control, wincing through his injuries he grabbed Gato by the throat. What normally would have been an easy kill was made practically impossible in his current state. He yelled as Gato tore the kunai out of his eye socket and began to stab him in the shoulder. Susho just barely fumbled a kunai out of his pockets and planted it in Gato's neck, but at the last moment Gato decided that Susho chest looked a lot better than his shoulder, and stabbed Susho straight through the heart. The trio watched as Gato's barrel shaped body collapsed on top of Susho, and they both lay dead.
"Serves them right," Sakura said as the brutal scene before them ended, "I've finished up with the body, let's get out of here." The other two nodded and slipped out of the scene of the crime. Before any light had touched the city they were already well out of the border and rapidly traveling through the forests of the Fire Country.
"That was actually a really good plan, you're better at being team leader than I thought," Sakura said.
"Oh that?" Naruto questioned, "It wasn't so crazy. . ." Naruto replied in a humble tone.
"No really," Sasuke chimed in, "You'd already done the research on those Guardian 12 and everything. It would have been a lot messier if we had just winged it."
"Well y'know when you hang around people like Shikamaru so much I guess you pick up a thing or two." Naruto replied.
"Wherever you're getting it from, it's good. Before we laughed, but Hokage does really seem to be in the cards for you. We both think that," Sakura said as Sasuke nodded in confirmation.
Naruto smiled and gave a response of appreciation, but deep down inside he had no idea why his confidence about achieving his goal kept shrinking.