DISCLAIMER: I don't own the trademarked stuff from Naruto, I own the characters I made up, which are most of them. If you guessed who the hokage is… yay for you. The story starts to heat up here. Please R&R I put a lot of effort into it and I'd hate to see nobody reading it. Without further ado, the Weasel presents…
NARUTO: THE HYUUGA INTRIGUE
Chapter 2: Naruto
The Hokage looked out the window of his room in the palace, watching the gates close. He had been having strange dreams lately, dreams about people he knew that belonged to the Hyuuga bloodline dying. Last night in a dream he had seen every Hyuuga he had ever met, those now alive and those now dead, killing each other off in the streets of Konoha. He was forced to watch as they fought so bitterly that they didn't even care to use the Gentle Hand style. They fought desperately and barbarically, biting and scratching each other, tearing off flesh and being spattered with blood. Then something fell from the sky, swirling and twisting, a great tornado except more like a solid stream of air. Rain began pouring down, lightning set buildings on fire and struck down people where they stood, the Hokage couldn't even bear to watch. As the huge tornado hit the ground, there was a huge explosion of force that knocked him down. When he got up and looked around, he saw nothing. No houses, no people. Nothing.
"Dreams are stupid!" he thought aloud. "Why should I listen to that dream? The Hyuuga are fine. I know them, I married one damn it. They're going to name a successor next month. Everything is going to be fine as long as that little jerk Kamui doesn't show up." The Hokage knew that that wasn't precisely true. The only person who could stir up trouble in the Hyuuga family was Hyuuga Kamui, who had left more than ten years ago in a fit of adolescent angst to escape being the head of the powerful family. That was only the first bit of trouble to befall the Hyuuga family in the last decade. Five years after that, his younger brother was killed during a dangerous mission on foreign soil. Then the family has had to wait another five years to nominate his wife's third nephew as successor of the head family.
"In fact," the Hokage thought, their bad luck had begun when my wife and I didn't have a son with the Byakugan." He chuckled, but he knew that he was right. "I would have raised him with a sense of responsibility, and taught him the importance of frugality. That nephew of mine couldn't save a single Yen, it's no wonder nobody likes him, and his son Tenshi doesn't do anything but throw parties." He realized what a bad situation the Hyuuga family was now in. Since the branch family had begun to despise the Head family because of this, there would certainly be trouble if a pretender to the succession turned up, and the Hokage knew that Kamui was just the type to do it.
It couldn't happen at a worse time. The Hokage had completely forgotten about the Hyuuga's ceremony when he had sent nearly all of his ninja. Although Kamui had been a rebel like Tenshi, he certainly hadn't been as lazy. If Kamui returned, he would do it en force with a private army, or cunningly by hiring assassins. "Kuso!" sputtered the Hokage. "Why hadn't I thought of that earlier?"
Suddenly there was a knock on the door. "Is something wrong, honey?" It was his wife.
"Hinata," he called, "please come in."
The door creaked open and in walked the Hokage's wife, Hyuuga Hinata. "What's wrong, Naruto?"
"I'm having this huge anxiety attack!" Naruto blithered. "About your family, about the succession."
"Well what about it? What could possibly be wrong?"
"I have this itching suspicion that Kamui is going to come back next week!"
"Kamui is coming back. What's wrong with that?"
This disturbed Naruto. "He is coming? Why didn't you tell me?"
"Well, I did tell you a few weeks ago but…"
"How could you not remind me, Hinata? He's… He's dangerous! I would have kept more ninja in town if I knew he was coming!"
"Well, Naruto…" squeaked Hinata, "I did remind you but…"
"And furthermore, Hinata, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if he showed up with his own private army and threatened to kill you all if you didn't pass him the succession!"
"Naruto-sama, please listen to me!" Hinata said rather loudly.
"Okay! Okay! Sheesh, Hinata you don't have to be like that."
"My nephew is a good boy. He may be a bit of a rebel, but he is a true Hyuuga. He has a sense of honor, Naruto. He would never do anything like that. Besides, he left because he wanted to get away from the family. Why would he decide to take back the position he went through so much to get out of?"
"Because he is dangerous." Said Naruto, turning away and putting his hands on his hips.
"No he isn't, Naruto." Hinata was starting to get angry. "He is my favorite nephew. I know him well. He couldn't do something like that."
Naruto turned around, and Hinata changed her face to that little pout that always won him over. She had grown old gracefully, and still looked about ten or fifteen years younger than she was. She was no longer the young woman who had worked so hard to make Naruto fall in love with her. Naruto, however, could still be taken for a man of forty-five, and he knew that it was because of the charka of an immortal Demon which had also allowed him to outlive most of his generation. He would not have Hinata much longer, and whenever she broke into that little pout Naruto remembered that and only wanted to make Hinata happy while he could, in every little way.
"Alright Hinata," Naruto conceded, "I guess I should at least give him the benefit of the doubt." He didn't really feel that way, though.
"I know you don't trust him, and I don't blame you," Hinata cooed, embracing Naruto, "but it's nothing to get worked up over like this. Now, please find something else to think about. Please excuse me." Hinata kissed Naruto on the cheek and walked out, shutting the door behind her.
"Ugh," grunted Naruto, "I just can't let him run around like that. If only I had extra ninjas that weren't defending the city… about four would do. Don't I have even four extra ninja?" Naruto went into his filing cabinet.
As the Hokage was looking for four shinobi with nothing to do, four shinobi with nothing to do were looking for a Hokage. Blood, Toil, Sweat, and Tears walked slowly through the bustling city, towards the palace. Every once in awhile they found a poster for a local rock show and read the date and time. No well-known bands had this place on their list just yet. Every once in a while, they'd spot a group of several punky kids and enthusiastically raise their right fists and shout "OI! OI! OI!" and swell with pride as the kids did the same. As the four assassins passed one group friends, however, someone noticed the character on Blood's jacket and called out:
"Hey, aren't you Blood?"
The Oni turned around, and Blood acknowledged. "Yeah that's me." The pod of punky kids walked up to them, and the speaker bowed a bit and extended his hand to Oni's most famous member. Blood did the same, and shook his hand. He was a short guy, about 15, with short light brown hair spiked out in all directions and the weirdest pink eyes. He was dressed in a light red flannel jacket, a black shirt, and green army pants. He also had the trademark Konoha headband.
"Someone else who can rawk and fight, I see." Blood remarked, observing the headband.
"That's me." said the kid.
"A Hyuuga, eh?" asked Toil.
The kid laughed, "Not just a Hyuuga, my friend, I'm the proud successor of the Hyuuga bloodline, Tenshi Hyuuga."
"What if we were here to kill you?" asked Toil, "You recognized the Oni character, so you know we're freelance assassins."
"You're Toil, aren't you?" inquired Tenshi, "You trained under the late Rock Lee, if I'm not mistaken, and you're from here."
"That's right."
"Then you should know I used the Byakugan on you before I even spoke to you."
Toil slapped his head. "How could I have been so dumb?"
Blood's interest peaked. "Byakugan? I've heard of that. It gives you powers of insight, right?" Tenshi nodded. "So you know that we're just looking for work and checking out the scene right? Cool. So how did you hear about us?"
"Well your reputation precedes you." Tenshi said, "I heard that there was a group of assassin-shinobi-punks, who had a guy called Blood who used his own blood as a weapon, a non-chakra-user named Toil who was from around here, and a guy named Sweat who secreted a nasty poison through his skin."
"That's us," chuckled Sweat, topping his fedora two a pink haired, emo-looking girl.
"But I heard there were four guys." Spoke up one punk with an obnoxious rainbow Mohawk. "Who's the chick?"
"The other guy left awhile back." Toil explained. "This is Tears. We aren't exactly sure what she can do just yet. We call her Tears because she cries every night."
"Interesting," said the guy, looking Tears up and down.
"What are you looking at?" Tears demanded, subtly readying a shuriken. The guy raised his eyebrows and mouthed something. "Piss off, creep!" shouted Tears, as she threw the shuriken and sliced off the kid's hair. Everyone laughed except him.
"Looks like it's time to go," said Tenshi. "We'll be seeing you."
"Sure," agreed Blood. "Bye!"
The two groups parted ways, and the Oni continued on toward the palace. It wasn't long until they reached it, and went inside. There were only a few people, including three Chuunin guards and two Jounin guards, but everyone's eyes were on the Oni. Even the palace was badly protected. This made the assassins happy. Sweat, who sort of had the role of manager, walked up to the reception desk.
"Excuse me," he said, tipping his hat to the receptionist, "We'd like to see the Hokage. Is he busy right now?"
"I'll check." She said. She was about to dial on her phone, then she held the receiver up in the air near her head. "Who are you guys anyway? A rock band?"
"No," said Blood, "we're assassins." Suddenly, a kunai sliced the air, someone shouted "Get down!", and the room descended into chaos. One of the Chuunin quickly ran up the stairs to alert Naruto. "Hokage-sama, we're under attack! There's been a battle in the lobby!"
The Hokage and the Chuunin rushed to the stairs, where they surveyed the results. People were lying face down on the floor, hands over their heads. One Jounin was squirming on the ground, his head under Blood's foot, his arms and legs wrapped in a sticky brown mess. Tears had a Chuunin with one arm around his waist and a Kunai across his throat, and was threatening him not to move. The other Jounin had gone unconscious before he even got near Sweat. The other Chuunin had been knocked-out by the blunt edge of Toil's Dai-Katana. The secretary was in shock, her body frozen as if it were still holding the phone, her phone pinned to the wall behind her.
"What happened here?" demanded Naruto.