Author's note: A few chapters back, some of you may remember that I said something about time-jumping in this fic being determined by the chapter numbers, right? Well, scrap that. Scrap ALL that. I've been raking my mind for some time now, trying to write up a new Young Naruto chapter…but then things got complicated when I realized it would mostly have to center on Naruto and Hinata. Now this brings us to the issue of 'romance' within this fic: I know the majority here wouldn't mind that kind of chapter, but then again some of you probably would. As for me, I find 'romance' devoid of cheese and corniness to be something quite difficult to write: so until l find a way to do just that, well, I'll just have to skip the 'flashback' chapters. C'mon ladies, cut me some slack here.
In all previous chapters I already had to balance out a lot of things just in order to keep most readers interested: be it cheap shots, melodrama or gratuitous violence. Please remember that while I am trying very hard to keep everyone happy, I am not writing for a specific audience of fangirls/fanboys either: this fic targets just about anyone who shares my warped sense of humor. Definitely not for hardcore Itachi groupies…nor Kurenai fans either, for that matter. Wait a minute, do Kurenai fans even EXIST out there? I'm actually starting to wonder. But if you DO happen to be one, however, then you might…uh…want to skip this chapter in particular.
Anyway…while I think about how to put together that Young Naruto chapter, try to enjoy this one instead.
As a side note, Tsunade's also definitely one of my favorites characters since it's so fun to mess around with her. Big thumbs up goes to Masashi-sensei for managing to sneak her into Shonen Jump, even though her loose gi's obviously nothing more than an excuse to create perpetual cleavage shots. Dude, now THAT'S what I'm talking about.
Chapter 5 Part 1– Crisis! Final Showdown at the Hidden Sound Village
Just like the most vicious of cycles, the Great Serpent's reign of terror could never truly end. And once again…once again Orochimaru was rising up from the dead, with diabolical plans of revenge against Konohagure on his mind! MWAHAHAHAAAAAAAA!
So…yeah.
Not that it really came as a great surprise to anyone, mind you. No one exactly knew the how, or the WHY for that matter, but evil bastards usually possessed that strange type of innate resilience which enabled them to get up and come back for more punishment, even long after the good guys could have sworn they killed them for good. Orochimaru, sadly, was no exception.
You see, although in normal times perhaps regular individuals would have gotten medals for this kind of commendable persistence, this particular case had gotten just too darn…well, ANNOYING. Our slithering friend here had gotten to a point where no amount of manga-esque sappy background stories could any longer keep on justifying his erratic behavior. So WHAT if he was a freak whom had lacked both parental and peer affection as a child due to his abnormally long tongue? Many Konoha villagers have been through worse childhoods, so it was no damn good reason for a guy his age to try and get attention now by running around being a prick. It didn't give him any right to desecrate the corpses of brave fallen Konoha warriors, although most Konoha villagers did that traditionally at funerals anyway. And that didn't really explain why he wore purple lipstick, although the fact that he grew up in Konoha village could say a lot. It was a proven fact that that 'type' of entourage could really do things to your mind.
But the point here was that although other people out there were trying to get lives, Orochimaru wasn't making it particularly easy on them. Tsunade, for one, had no time for that kind of nonsense: true, she was perhaps perpetually bound to him as another of the Legendary Nins, but that didn't mean she had to or even wanted to associate with him. Now what the lady wanted, you see, was a goddamn BREAK: no sweat, she already had a freakin' village of nutcases to run without having even more issues to deal with. Seriously, imagine having to run a ninja Village known by the whole world as 'the Fruit Basket'. Geez. With that kind of stress imposed on them, it's no wonder that most Hokages didn't even live all that long to start with.
As a bit of history, there was first something an outsider had to understand in order to fully comprehend the Hidden Leaf's culture: the fact that while in theory being a Hokage officially meant dying FOR the Village, if anything all Hokages had dug themselves an early grave because the Village had somehow indirectly killed THEM instead. Seriously. The first Hokage had died an hippie's death, from a drug overdose: his own plantation's success had unfortunately also been his own doom. The second Hokage for his part had died after tripping down the stairs in his own house: but while that didn't exactly kill him, he was sent to the hospital for treatment, where some underpaid nurse accidentally finished him off. As for the Fourth Hokage, he had met his doom 24 years ago, in the largest threat Konoha Village had ever encountered: the Kyubi's very random and still unexplained attack on the Village. A rather unfortunate fellow, the Fourth Hokage had then been reluctantly attached to a grandfather clock and desperately catapulted at the monster when the villagers ran out of sizeable boulders for ammunition: an action which by the way proved wrong once and for all the myth that tying an Hokage after a projectile made it any stronger. When the maneuver obviously didn't work, with Konoha's Yellow Flash's predictable transformation into Konoha's Red Splat on the Kyubi's silky fur coat, the Villagers began catapulting newborn babies at the Demon Fox instead.
Yes, it was retarded. Even moreso than that whole ugly business with grandfather clocks. But it WORKED.
From the village records, it was determined that the rain of bawling kids had soon made the Kyubi's eardrums implode, making it lose its sense of balance: the Demon had then tripped and knocked itself unconscious on a jeep that the young Jiraiya, Orochimaru and Tsunade accidentally kamikazed into it, while driving in a drunken stupor after a wild night at the pub. Seriously, considering how only average these guys are on the Naruto Universe power scale (with badasses like Itachi at the top and THE Kurenai at the bottom), this was the only real reason why they were now known as the Legendary Nins.
And so the Kyubi, as the story goes, was left completely defenseless against the Konoha Jounins…whom soon realized that they were also powerless, since they'd be like puny ants poking a sleeping elephant with q-tips. Finally, the only way they devised to get rid of the Nine-Tails before it woke up was to seal it away in a body, and they used the best thing available: the loudest and stupidest baby of the catapulted bunch, whom had almost single-handedly brought down the Kyubi with his annoying voice. But not to reward the boy, really: it was more like a precaution, with the thought that if the Kyubi one day took over its medium it would be too retarded to cause any real harm. And as we now know, things all turned out okay or almost.
Now, the only thing I don't understand in this story is why the Fourth Hokage as the legend goes on had finally been said responsible for all of this: maybe the Villagers wanted someone to blame, or had just felt bad for wasting him (literally).Who can remember anyway? The rest is history.
And now just to finish up the whole deal about Hokages, let's resume how Sarutobi, the third Hokage, had met his demise: as all of you can probably remember, in an epic battle against Orochimaru, where the former finally ended up backstabbed by a slippery flying sword and the latter with sore arms that made him cry like a little bitch. Well, put in that way it sounds kinda lame, but that was the basic idea. An important thing to mention would also be that the Sandaime was the only Hokage yet to live beyond 30, mostly because he discovered chilling off was the only way to go. See the time the man had wisely spent on his hobbies, like painting and surfing adult channels on his magical crystal globe. One minute of silence for the legendary Hokage, the only one yet whom had truly lived and fallen in an honorable way at the very end.
………..
That said, let's get back to Tsunade.
Well, for all she's worth, Tsunade didn't have her Sensei's wisdom nor patience. Oh, she tried, but usually ended up coming short. Her technique wasn't off by that much, but Orochimaru was just a really difficult case to deal with. You see, Tsunade had done all the correct decisions, treating Orochimaru like any child throwing a temper tantrum: she had tried ignoring the wannabe villain in hopes that he'd eventually give up his antics out of boredom. And by God, she had tried.
She tried not slapping her forehead every time she heard that he had rebuilt his Hidden Sound Village, using the bottomless money supply he had from collecting his own life insurance. And she tried calmly ignoring the threat/insult/booby-trapped letters he kept on flooding her mailbox with, and the retarded Sound Nins that came every once in a while to paint-spray vulgar images on her Village's walls like a bunch of teenage delinquents.
She tried SO hard, fighting against all odds and the unhealthy blood pressure. But eventually…SNAP. There were places where she just had to draw lines with bullet holes as exclamation points.
Oh, it's not that Tsunade was a bad Hokage. Sure, she could be incredibly selfish and impulsive at times, but under her administration Konohagure had never seen better days. The economy flourished, leading to the opening of new trade routes with other Countries, mostly thanks to her wise investments in the markets of jeeps and lawnmowers. And as a political figure, she was very popular amongst other Hokages as a prudent leader whom kept her alliances in check and used her influence to maintain a lasting peace amongst Hidden Countries. Or, since all the other Hokages were all perverted old men, maybe they just loved her for the eye candy. Go figure, she got her way any day anyway: her position enabled her to do just about anything she wanted and still get paid for it. And better yet, she KNEW it. No sweat, she had the sweetest job in the whole world. She was…THE GONDAIME HOKAGE!
And granted, it was pretty stupid trying to pick a fight with her in the first place, even if you considered yourself immortal. She was never one to stand back from challenges and if you pushed your luck too much, you could bet that she would get you your fight, even if it implied clearing her entire Village's schedule as a mean to do so. Tsunade definitely was anything but an angel: if anything, she was somewhat more of a witch…or short of a better description, a big, bad, bouncy mob queen. On steroids.
If Orochimaru was begging for it so bad, he was going to get it. Our story begins as a very pissed-off Tsunade called an emergency Jounin Assembly in her office.
"Oi, sorry that I'm so very late like usual, and for the nerve I have to even apologize for it."
Kakashi's three Jounin colleagues were pretty much used to this by now, so they just turned at their friend and lazily waved at him. Tsunade, however, looked like she was about to pop a vein: to make a long story short, her foot was stomping, her eyes were glaring and her hands were manning the mounted M60 she kept behind her desk.
"Why hello, Hatake Kakashi. So what happens to be your excuse this time?" she asked, sarcasm obviously dripping from every word of her sentence.
Needless to say, Kakashi immediately stopped smiling and started sweating profusely at the sight of the impressive artillery currently pointed in his direction: there wasn't even the smallest doubt in his mind that Tsunade wouldn't hesitate opening fire. He gulped and made some quick calculations: first of all, both her trigger-pressing reaction time and the bullet velocity of a M60 were faster than the 3 seconds he needed to run out of the room and hide. That definitely wasn't a good thing.
"I…" he started, but was cut off.
"And please, at least TRY this time." Tsunade hissed, her finger trembling nervously on the trigger.
This was a rather complicated situation, you see. Knowing Kakashi, if he tried telling her the truth, he was screwed. And if he lied and that she didn't believe him, he was also screwed. So after a long moment of reflecting on his options, our friend finally decided to go with the latter. What was a man supposed to do anyway?
"I…um…was walking…and…got ran over by a jeep?" the silver-haired man tried, his visible eye shifting nervously left and right once.
Now anywhere else in the world, this kind of lie wouldn't have worked: the odds of something similar happening were so low that it would have rather sounded as if Kakashi had purposely wanted to insult his Hokage's intelligence. In Konoha Village however, where everyone always lived on the edge, even crossing the streets was something so dangerous one always had to wear their best set of clothes to prevent themselves from unexpectedly dying without style. Just to give you an idea to start with, there were about 2500 jeeps in the Hidden Leaf village for a population of about 1000 villagers. Do the math: that's about 2.5 jeeps per person. It was actually possible to determine social status just by looking at how many jeeps one individual owned: the Uchiha Household for instance, had 63 jeeps, while Kakashi by himself had 27 jeeps. Tsunade, the Hokage, had a parking lot with 392 jeeps, while the person with the lowest social ranking in the Village, Kurenai, had the fifth of a jeep. Naruto for his part laid somewhere in between with a rundown motorcycle he managed to salvage in a junkyard somewhere. Simple, isn't it?
Needless to say, for such a little town, every day's rush hour was like an American disaster movie. On the other hand, car accidents in the Hidden Leaf Village had also become more forgiving, as only about 25 of the cases were now lethal: as everyone had become used to this lifestyle of dodging and minimizing car impacts, it now wasn't that unusual for someone to get ran over, immediately get back up and go home to change. This was a realist calculation, since the opposite would have meant Konoha's immediate extinction from the face of the Earth. Tsunade, as the Hokage, knew this better than anyone and so was thrown into a state of absolute confusion as to whether Kakashi was lying or not.
"…All right. Just for this time, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt," Tsunade finally sighed, letting go of her gun.
Kakashi for his part exhaled in relief: that had definitely been one of his moments.
"So, what is this meeting about, Gondaime-sama?" Asuma asked.
"I'll get straight to the point: Orochimaru is alive."
The whole room fell silent.
"And…? Why are we being called here?" Kakashi motioned her to go on, as this was nothing new.
"Because this especially concerns all your former students. Shikamaru's unit has been ambushed by Orochimaru, and the whole squad is now M.I.A."
The room fell silent again, but this time out of incredulity.
"This can't be! Shikamaru is way too smart to get trapped by anyone!" Asuma cried out defensively.
"You're talking about the OLD Shikamaru. Nowadays, I wouldn't be too surprised." Kakashi pointed out, referring to our shadow-using friend's massive IQ drop over the years.
Asuma growled: the other man was right.
"If it's not too much to ask, what were they doing exactly when they were captured, Gondaime-sama?" Kurenai asked.
Tsunade sighed.
"I had dispatched them on a A-classed mission in the Hidden Sound country. But uh…that's classified information."
The Jounins just looked at their Hokage, detecting she was obviously hiding something from them. They decided to let it slide.
"Anyway," Tsunade continued, "they were apparently ambushed while coming back from that mission. Orochimaru must have attacked them while they were at their weakest. Knowing Nara Shikamaru, he probably surrendered instead of putting up an useless fight."
"Unforgivable!" Asuma yelled out. "No one picks on our students like that! Let's go kick Orochimaru's sorry butt!"
"Grrr! And I thought that I had done that Orochimaru in for good the last time!" Gai said, slapping his fists in frustration.
This made Tsunade roll her eyes.
"Gai, you should have known by now that merely running over Orochimaru with a jeep wouldn't kill him."
"I knew that! That's why I did it twice!" Gai said defensively.
Tsunade exploded.
"This is Orochimaru we're talking about! You think twice would be enough! The darn cockroach won't die unless you run him over at least FIVE times!" grumbled Tsunade, fuming.
That's when Kakashi scratched his head and nervously took a step forward.
"Well…Um…Actually, Hokage-sama…The truth is that we ALL ran him over," he finally said. "You see, Gai was driving in front of us, and he looked like he had so much fun that we kinda aimed for Orochimaru too…"
Our favorite Copy-Ninja then looked a bit embarrassed, probably because he had enjoyed doing that a bit too much.
"I ran him over too, after I saw both Gai and Kakashi do it," Asuma admitted.
"Likewise," added Kurenai, so as not to be left out.
This threw Tsunade completely off and she had to count again on her fingers.
"Wait a minute…do you mean to say that Orochimaru survived even though all four of you ran him over, including Gai whom did it twice? That adds up to five times! It's impossible!"
"Well…one of us might have MISSED," Kakashi pointed out, his eye at the same time turning towards a certain other Jounin.
On cue, everyone turned back at Kurenai and GLARED at her: the female Jounin first laughed nervously, but then hung her head down in shame and started whimpering.
Tsunade sat back down behind her desk and crossed her arms.
"Okay, putting all that aside, are you four interested in saving your students?"
"Well none of MY students are actually part of Shikamaru's ANBU unit." Kakashi pointed out, but was told to shut up.
"WHAT SHOULD WE DO!" Gai cried out, since he was in the exact opposite situation. All of HIS students were in danger.
Tsunade sighed.
"Well, as you know, since this time Orochimaru has hostages we can't just go crashing in like we usually do. We're going to have to accept his deal. Orochimaru is proposing a trade."
"What kind of…trade?" Kakashi asked, eyeing her suspiciously.
"He wants us to hand over Gai to them, so that he can exact revenge for all that ugly jeep business."
Upon hearing this, Gai reacted by jumping up in surprise.
"WHAT THE HELL?.?"
"Gai, I truly admire your willingness to sacrifice yourself for your students. I'll remember to mourn you when I visit our Village's Heroes gravesite." Kakashi said with a fake tear, tapping on his Gai's shoulder.
"HEY! W…Wait a minute! Why am I the only one who gets to be sacrificed? I thought we agreed that we all had a hand at running over Orochimaru the last time! Why only me!.?"
"Unfortunately Gai, you're NOT the only one," Tsunade continued, sighing. "Actually Orochimaru wants us to hand over Asuma, too."
"WHAT DID I DO!.?" Asuma cried out, looking completely shocked and offended.
"Well apparently, it seems you've accidentally killed Orochimaru's beloved grandmother sometimes amidst the raging battle. And then, there's also that issue about the jeep."
"…Oh. So he does have a valid reason to hate me," the bearded man reasoned, scratching his chin.
"Well, 2 Jounin for 7 Anbus, I'd say that's a pretty fair trade. Godspeed, Gai, Asuma. I'll try my best to fill in for the both of you back here," Kakashi said, shaking Asuma's hand.
"Hold it, Kakashi. You're on Orochimaru's hit list, too," Tsunade said.
"…NANI!.?" Kakashi yelled out, his eye opening up to its full extent. "I didn't do anything! That whole jeep thing was an accident, I swear!"
"I don't think Orochimaru even cares about that. Actually, I think he just dislikes you because you have a Sharingan while he still doesn't. Who knows? Maybe he's settling for yours."
"That conniving son of a…! This baby's mine!" Kakashi yelled out, placing protectively his hand on his covered left eye.
No one was touching HIS Sharingan, especially not after all the trouble he had went through to get one.
"Well, that's Orochimaru's list of demands. If any single one of you weren't to comply, then Shikamaru's squad in its entirety would be executed on the spot."
"Sacrifices have to be made," Kakashi grumbled, but Gai and Asuma slapped him in the back of the head.
"Wait a minute, what about me? Orochimaru really hasn't said anything about me?" Kurenai felt she needed to ask, mainly because she felt left out in this whole tradeoff deal.
And then the unexpected happened: the Gondaime just stared at her for a few minute with a very puzzled look, as if she had just noticed the presence of the younger woman.
"…No, I don't think so. And who exactly are you, again?" Tsunade finally asked with a raised eyebrow.
For some reason after that comment, Kurenai's eyes became very wide and watery. Completely mystified by this reaction, Tsunade turned to Kakashi for answers only to find him sighing.
"Her name's Kurenai, the dead last Jounin in this Village. You know, that kunoichi whom specializes in Genjutsu, and even then is not all that good at it…?"
"Oooh, I remember now!" Tsunade exclaimed, slapping her fist into her other hand in realization. She then frowned.
"Well, no wonder: Genjutsu sucks. No one actually uses that."
The very hurt Kurenai then fell on the ground and started bawling, with Gai at her side trying to comfort her. Soon enough, after he realized that it didn't work and that she wasn't paying any attention to him anyway, he went for her purse instead.
"Anyway, all that's beside the point!" Tsunade said, completely ignoring both Kurenai and Gai. "Are you Jounins going to accept Orochimaru's deal or what? You do remember Shikamaru and his friends have entrusted their lives to us, don't you?"
Everyone turned back at their Hokage in surprise, with the exception of Kurenai whom was weeping in a corner of the room by herself.
"Shikamaru is not irresponsible to the point of sending his whole team to their deaths. I believe the only reason why he would even consider surrendering would be to protect his friends from unnecessary battles in their worn-out state."
"In other words…he's stalling for time. They're waiting for us to do something."Asuma said, snapping his fingers in realization. "It's our duty now to answer them."
"I guess that does put things in another perspective..." Kakashi reasoned.
"Well, I'll go. I've had my time, while Shikamaru and Chouji still have too much to live for. I'll gladly exchange my life for them," Asuma finally said.
Gai followed him up.
"I'm coming too. Neiji was an exemplary student, and Lee will carry on my legacy so I have no regrets," he said, clenching his fist dramatically.
Notice how he also conveniently forgot to mention Tenten, the biggest failure of his entire career as a Jounin teacher.
Kakashi thought for a while and then nodded: true, he didn't have any ex-students on that Anbu squad NOR did he really want to let go of his Sharingan. But he knew very well when sacrifices had to be made and he was willing to be part of it. Oh c'mon, you know he'd do it: Kakashi was a pretty nice guy once you looked underneath the underneath.
"Well then, let's all go and die," he sighed.
Tsunade nodded approvingly, and then pulled out a map from her desk.
"Now that that's settled, here's the attack plan. While the three of you will act as a decoy, I will dispatch Uchiha Sasuke and a small unit of Jounins to make asurprise attack from the flank: they should be able to secure your escape when the whole exchange process is done. I will also send another unit to infiltrate the Hidden Sound Village by its Southern Gate while the attention's on you guys, in order to locate and release Shikamaru and his friends. From there on out, you will have free run as to what to do. Do you guys have any questions?"
The 4 Jounins could only stare at Tsunade with their mouths wide open.
"Wait…you're not just going to perform the exchange? You're actually going to try and save us?"
"I'm not that heartless, dammit! It's my duty to protect all members of the Hidden Leaf! Not only am I going to save Nara Shikamaru and his team, but under no circumstances would I have sacrificed the whole lot of you as a mean to do so! For God's sake, it would have been like throwing a baby into a cage of hungry lions and expected it to come out alive!"
"Or stripping Iruka naked, making him walk 10 feet in the village and expecting him to remain unmolested." Kakashi pointed out.
Everyone just looked at him.
"What? It just seemed more in context with the whole theme about our village." Kakashi defended himself.
Tsunade rolled her eyes.
"Kakashi, the difference with my expression and yours is that odds right now are bad. Not IMPOSSIBLE."
Everyone nodded, and somewhere in the village Iruka sneezed from a glacial feeling crawling up his spine. Again.
"Well, I understand that we're going to pull Sasuke-kun out of retirement again…But what about the unit that's supposed to infiltrate through the Southern Gate of the Hidden Sound Village? Do we have another Jounin capable of handling this delicate situation?"
Tsunade scratched her head.
"It's risky, but I was thinking about only dispatching one individual in that unit. That's the best shot we have."
The Jounins looked at her again, and were surprised to see her smiling.
"It's simple. While the Tenken takes care of most things up front, we're going to unleash the Byako on their backs."
It happened that both Ino and the young Sakura were off for some special kunoichi training in the mountains that day. Without his wife and daughter around, Sasuke didn't have much to do and decided to spend his day relaxing and cultivating himself a bit. He didn't have much of a choice anyway: while his house was in a real mess since the Shikamaru squad didn't show up like they usually did, he knew himself that he was way too incompetent with these kinds of things not to endanger himself uselessly. His un-proficiency at housework had gotten so bad to a point that it was almost suspicious that he did it on purpose so as to never have to work at anything. Maybe he was just the kind of guy who'd rather impale himself with a broom than spend 2 hours sweeping the house. Who knew? Something blunt like a broom definitely wasn't anywhere near his weapon of choice anyway.
After some time spent at the Kabuki theater, where he disappointedly had to watch the out-of-work Genma talk to himself with sock puppets for 2 solid hours, Sasuke decided to get some lunch and stopped by the local fast-food, ordering a soda, some chili dogs and fries. And so, he was simply enjoying his meal when Kakashi suddenly appeared out of nowhere in a puff of chakra smoke. It was a well-known fact that sneaking up on people was one of the Copy-Ninja's favorite hobbies. Especially people whom were in the middle of drinking something.
"….What?" a very annoyed Sasuke asked, while passing a napkin over his face to clean up all the soda he had just nasally spewed over himself. That joke had gotten old a long time ago.
"You know, for a dog-lover like you, you know they don't actually make those with dog meat, do you?"
"Get to the point, please," the Uchiha sighed, his mood darkening.
The silver-haired man chuckled a bit and then pulled out a kunai.
"I'm just here to relay a message from the Hokage," he said, and then performed a sign with the kunai.
Sasuke understood immediately: not many people knew this, but this was the secret sign that Tsunade had invented for desperate situations where she needed his help and had to pull him out of retirement. Well, at least that was the original idea: nowadays the woman freely abused of it, often calling upon Sasuke for stupid little chores that she just didn't feel like doing herself. And there was nothing he could do about it: she was the Hokage after all, and he had to respect that.
More importantly, the 'secret sign' in its actuality consisted of 3 rapid air slashes with a kunai in the general direction of his crotch: that said a lot more than Sasuke even cared to understand. Moreover, Kakashi even had the kindness to raise the number of slashes up to 10, since he found it so amusing.
Understandably, Sasuke's mood darkened even moreso. His chewing speed also decreased drastically, considering the nature of his food. At this point, his appetite was completely gone.
"…And what will the blackmail of the day be?" he asked sarcastically.
"I can't tell you here. Come back with me to the Hokage's office and I'll brief you on the way," his elder answered.
"Fine, I'll come. But for ruining my lunch, just give me 5 minutes to finish up my drink and fries, okay?"
Kakashi drew his kunai again and re-started the slashing motions, even faster this time.
"FINE. 2 minutes. And for God's sake, PLEASE stop doing that. It makes me queasy."
"That's the idea," Kakashi chuckled.
Exactly 2 minutes later, Sasuke had emptied his tray in the nearest trash bin and was jumping some rooftops with his former Sensei.
"So you understand the situation at hand, do you, Naruto?" Tsunade asked.
Naruto rubbed his sore chin and nodded.
"I think I do…What I still don't understand however was why Kurenai-sensei had to throw a BRICK in my face to get my attention…"
"Eh, we TRIED calling out to you with no success," Gai pointed out. "Besides, standing on the roof of your house with a fork to steal cable television is just wrong to start with."
"And I was aiming somewhere 5 feet left of you…" Kurenai admitted, hanging her head down in shame.
Anko patted her on the shoulder.
"Don't worry about it, Kurenai. The pervert was probably watching something dirty again anyway."
Naruto opened his mouth to defend himself, but then noticing that he was being outnumbered by the 3 women present in the room, he decided to remain silent. He just placed a hand on the back of his head and laughed nervously.
"ANYWAY…" Tsunade coughed out. "I've been through your folder, Naruto. I won't comment on your questionable hobbies outside of duty, but for the short time you've been back with us, you've already completed a dozen of difficult missions by yourself with top-notch records. You've been chosen for this current mission because I believe you are the very best we have as far as scouting and assasination skills are concerned."
Naruto beamed with pride and grinned.
"Well of course! Don't you think I'd have picked up at least that much from my years on the road? I'm awesome, ain't I?"
"HOWEVER," Tsunade frowned. "I can't say I always approve of your methods."
Naruto raised an eyebrow while the Hokage shook her head.
"I'll admit that it gets the work done: that is undeniable. But at least tell me this, Naruto," she articulated slowly. "Why do you always have to…tear your targets apart?"
"From the last scene, it's written here that it took the police 3 whole days to clean up what was left of the body after you were done with it," Anko said, flipping through some files. "Your infiltration and extraction sequences always go perfectly, but why do you always have to make such a mess at the actual scene?"
"I've heard about this too. I don't believe that kind of violence is necessary," Asuma said.
"Like YOU can talk," Gai pointed out, referring to the bloodbaths the bearded man always left behind.
"True, I can't," Asuma agreed, raising his shoulders.
"Keep on changing the subject and someone here is going to die strangled with their own intestines!" Tsunade roared, prompting the 2 male Jounins to shut up.
And all that while, Naruto had simply stood his ground. Even when confronted by his superiors about his actions, he was very calm and smiling: he obviously had no regrets and as far as he was concerned, wasn't guilty of anything.
It was unnerving. The young man in front of her was making Tsunade terribly nervous, and a bit of sweat trickled down her forehead.
"Look, Naruto," she started, sighing deeply. "I'm not judging you, here. As a matter of fact, as long as you continue working for us, you can keep on approaching your missions any way you want. But could you at least help us understand…?"
"I followed my orders and killed my targets. I don't need to make any excuse for my actions." Naruto answered bluntly.
When it became obvious that no one was going to be satisfied with just that, he scratched the back of his head.
"Well, I'll admit that I also tend to get carried away sometimes. You see, some of the targets I was assigned were murderers, rapists…I just can't stand people like that. Those guys think that everything is over once their deed is done, but they can't even understand…"
Naruto looked up, thoughtfully.
"They can't even understand that the pain will carry on to the victim's loved ones, and burden them forever. Nothing is that easy. Left unattended to, such feelings can even darken and keep on festering in one's mind, slowly turning into deep resentment. Eventually, it could ruin entire lives."
"Well I guess you'd know, uh, Uzumaki?" a voice commented.
Everyone turned back, realizing that Kakashi and Sasuke had finally arrived. Most of the Jounins couldn't help noticing that almost instinctively at their sides, Naruto had jumped back defensively like an cornered animal.
"Uchiha," Naruto hissed between his teeth. Sasuke simply smirked when confronted with such animosity.
The two men kept a respectable distance and faced each other, tension quickly climbing up in the room.
Meanwhile, completely oblivious to all of that our favorite Copy-Ninja had been automatically assigned the responsibility of explaining the tardy arrival to Tsunade.
"Well, sorry that we're a bit late…We…um…got lost a bit," Kakashi tried.
"…In your own village?.?" Gai pointed out, incredulous.
Tsunade slapped a giant fan on her desk, silencing everyone and their petty arguments. The ninjas regrouped and lined up in front of their Hokage in an orderly fashion.
"By the way, why didn't you tell Hokage-sama the truth? We almost got ran over by jeeps on our way here," Sasuke silently asked Kakashi.
"I've already used that this morning," the elder Jounin whispered back, hanging his head down.
"Now that we're all gathered here, let us resume the situation. I take it you've been briefed on this matter?" Tsunade asked, looking directly at Sasuke. He nodded.
"And so do you accept this mission?"
"Whatever," the young man answered nonchalantly, knowing only too well that he was going to be blackmailed into this matter no matter WHAT he said.
Tsunade now turned to Naruto, and was very relieved to see him give her the thumbs up.
"Now...I'm aware that there is some bad blood between the two of you, but I'll have to ask you to cooperate on this mission. There are many more lives than your own riding on this," she said.
"Bah, don't worry, Tsunade-obasan! I'm not going to do anything stupid while the lives of some of my best friends are on the line!" Naruto laughed out, and then turned his head towards Sasuke.
"My quarrel with this guy can wait. I'll cooperate with Uchiha for now," he said calmly, patting the other man on the shoulder and then stepping outside.
Sasuke sighed: even Naruto's efforts at concealing his own hostility were strained. They were on bad terms, and this was obviously going to become an issue once they were on the field. But there was something the raven-haired Jounin had to recognize however: Naruto's strength…was the real thing.
The Uchiha winced: his shoulder was throbbing at the point where the blond man had previously briefly placed his hand, the muscles stinging as the blood slowly regained its circulation.
"Truly a frightful thing..." he quickly thought to himself before turning to the others.
"Uzumaki will form a one-man unit. As for me, I'll request a team of five Jounins for this mission," Sasuke finally declared in a composed voice.
"Granted. Haul ass, you guys!" Tsunade said, ordering around the Jounins whom just happened to be there.
Sasuke raised an eyebrow and Tsunade caught the very quick motion of his eyes, which questionably pointed towards Kurenai's general direction.
"I don't want to hear any complaints, Uchiha: even at his age, Kakashi alone is still worth a Jounin and a half. Gai's worth a good 1.4 himself, and as for Asuma, he's equal to at least 1.1 Jounins. And with Anko herself being worth one Jounin, it all adds up to the 5 Jounins you wanted. Do the math if you want. Eh, you even get Kurenai as a freebie, for whatever decorative purposes you may need!"
The female Jounin in question winced as the Hokage's reference to her as living scenery scarred her for life. As for Sasuke, he trying processing Tsunade's reasoning for a while, before coming up with the conclusion that it just didn't make any sense.
"…Hokage-sama, not to sound disrespectful, but…don't these guys already have to act as decoys?"
"Well then, you'll just have to get off your butt and cover up for whatever else you need. Give me a break here! We're out of real Jounins in this Village. Do you really want me to call out Genma to back you up with his sock puppets no jutsu?.?"
And so the conversation officially ended there. Once again, Sasuke left the Hokage's office with the familiar feeling that he had just been cheated.
"Everyone's got their equipment? We'll be leaving in exactly 5 minutes. Use this time to do a last checkup."
The group of Jounins was now standing in front of the jungle, beyond which laid the terrifying Hidden Sound Country and Orochimaru's seemingly indestructible Village. Since the team had some free time before departure, Sasuke decided to do a roll count and check if every head was there.
First of all, he had to agree with the Hokage: he had a darn good team of Jounins to work with this time. Hatake Kakashi, the famous Copy-Ninja, was both his ex-Sensei and the ex-#1 technician of Konoha Village: Sasuke was well-placed to know that as long as it didn't involve getting anywhere on time, he could count on this fellow's abilities any day of the week. As for his eternal rival, Maito Gai, he was just as awesome at Taijutsu as he was an annoying prick, providing a loud but yet very reliable backup. And although he wasn't as good as the two others, Asuma, A.K.A the fearsome 'Scratchinator', was still slightly above your average Jounin. And Kurenai…well…was Kurenai.
Sasuke suddenly noticed that the female Jounin in question had vanished inexplicably, and tried masking his relief with an annoyed tone.
"Not that I really care whether she finally shows up or not, but where's Kurenai-san?" Sasuke asked, simply because it was his duty as team leader to do so.
"You don't have to worry, Uchiha-kun: I spiked her coffee. She'll leave us alone for a while," chuckled Asuma.
"Nice! Good call, Asuma!" exclaimed Gai, and the two Jounins slapped hands.
"…You guys are real assholes, doing that to a woman," scoffed Anko, rolling her eyes. "You make even that pervert Naruto seem like a nice, sensible guy in comparison."
She glared at Naruto, whom for his part turned back and started whistling innocently. Just yesterday, he had been caught peeping in the hot springs and then hung upside down like a piñata for 5 straight hours, as every female in the room took her turn disciplining him with a baseball bat.
Before they realized he was actually enjoying the spanking.
"Hey hey c'mon now guys, having Kurenai on board's not so bad," said Kakashi, trying to sound practical. "We could always have used her as cannon fodder, and just stuck her in front of us to make the enemy waste ammunition."
Upon hearing this, his colleagues all turned and just looked at him inquisitively as if he was one sick bastard.
"What? It's called efficient resource management. I got the idea from Shikamaru since he apparently also has to deal with a similar case in his unit," Kakashi continued.
The other Jounins were wondering why they had never thought of that before when Kurenai actually DID show up.
"Sorry I'm late, everyone. I had forgotten my shuriken pack at home," she said apologetically.
But instead of answering, everyone just stared at her with very surprised looks on their faces.
"Kurenai…didn't you forget your coffee?" Asuma tried.
It was Kurenai's turn to be surprised.
"Huh? Coffee? But I never drink coffee. You remember that I only drink herbal tea, right?" she pointed out, making Asuma slap his own face.
"But then…WHOSE coffee cup was that?" Kakashi asked out loud.
The Jounins all started pondering on the question…and suddenly remembered that there had only been one other person with them in the room at that time. Upon realizing that, they immediately started running around in a blind panic.
"…WE'RE GONNA DIE!"
"Strange? Today, the coffee…tastes kind of funny," Tsunade thought. "Who the heck made this?"
She stared suspiciously at her cup for several minutes.
"Oh well," she said, taking another sip and then getting back to work.
There were 3 minutes left, and Sasuke went on with his roll count: now accounted for were Kakashi, Gai, Asuma and Kurenai. And all in all, there were seven of them if he counted himself, Sasuke thought. There were only 2 other members left.
Those two, well, the Uchiha had mixed feelings about. Anko wasn't a bad kunoichi, he knew at least that much: apparently she had even made a special request to Tsunade in order to join this expedition, since she too had some business with Orochimaru. But even though she was herself a Jounin in good standing, Sasuke knew that the older woman hadn't taken the field in some time, having been involved in more pacific occupations as of late. She was looking good, but there was no way her skills couldn't have rusted after all this time.
More importantly, she didn't stand a chance in a one-on-one against Orochimaru, and so he was particularly wary about her asking to go mano-a-mano.
"Uchiha, Orochimaru is MINE. I won't have you interfere when I'll confront him. Is that clear?"
Sasuke slapped his own face. Just as he had thought.
"I'll allow you to fight him as an individual favor. However, if at any point in time I consider that your personal issues are putting our mission in jeopardy, I will jump in. Please remember that, Anko-san."
She spat, a bit disappointed, but finally nodded. That was enough to satisfy her.
"Good enough," she grinned, and went back to setting up her equipment.
Naruto, for his part, had just been sitting there mentally preparing himself: it was difficult to tell what his feelings were at the moment. Heck, it was difficult telling ANYTHING about him when he was in this state: now that he had calmed down and sealed his chakra in preparation for the mission, the usually bright young man had returned to being nothing more than a silhouette in the background. Even though he kept telling himself that there were no illusions, Sasuke couldn't help but get the odd impression that he was staring at a ghost.
"I'm sorry I snapped at you, Uchiha. That was discourteous of me."
"I can understand…this is the first time we've met in 8 years, is it not? But I guess we're just not the kind of people with such happy histories that we could both sit back behind some sake and laugh about old times."
"I'm glad we're at least agreeing on that," Naruto nodded.
An awkward moment of silence passed before Sasuke noticed that Naruto didn't bring any ninja equipment with him.
"You didn't bring anything?" he inquired.
"My specialties are hand-to-hand fighting and blood jutsus: carrying useless packs of scrolls and weighty weapons would only slow me down. And I could say the same about you." Naruto pointed out, referring to the fact that Sasuke didn't have his 2 familiar scabbards strapped at his side.
"I don't use swords anymore," Sasuke defended himself. "I don't think I'll need to for this mission, anyway."
"A pity."
"Why is that?"
Naruto chuckled.
"I would have liked to refresh my memory, as to how deadly and unforgiving your fighting style was. And in exchange, I would have showed you mine, so we'd be on equal grounds for the times to come."
The blond man threw out several quick air jabs to mark his point.
"Never forget. We're going to fight, Uchiha, sooner or later. And when we do, one of us will not survive."
"Yes, I'm prepared to face that consequence," Sasuke answered, standing upstraight.
Naruto laughed out.
"You were always such a stiff. Bah, it doesn't really matter right now just how badly I'm aching for a good fight: my best friend is in danger. What would I look like if I didn't even lift a finger to save her? God only looks away for so long, and I'll be DAMNED if I ever let anyone else precious to me die before my very eyes," he said, staring back at Sasuke.
The Uchiha shuddered a bit at the last comment, as he thought he detected some bitterness in the voice. He still couldn't get used to that strange yellow glint Naruto had now perpetually embedded in his eyes.
After he was sure that he had made an impression on his rival, Naruto slid on his battle gloves and spat on the side.
"Time's up. Give the order, Uchiha."
It took the troubled Sasuke several seconds for things to get back into focus. He quickly shook his head, regaining his alertness and acute senses.
"…Well," Sasuke finally said coolly, recomposing himself. "Let's move out everyone."
The mission had officially started: the group of Jounins acknowledged the order approvingly and then silently started entering the jungle. Soon enough, they'd be quickly picking up the pace and breaking into a moving ninja formation, becoming nothing more than shadows rapidly bouncing off branches and flying through the thick foliage at record speed.
Or not.
"Screw this," whined Kakashi. "This kind of intense physical work is really bad for my back."
"Ah-ha, my eternal rival! You should have known this would have happened sooner or later, being the reckless ninja that you were on your younger days! And meanwhile, I get off easy with some light rheumatisms!"
"That's still not so bad…Asuma, you've become practically asthmatic from smoking too much, right?" Kurenai pointed out.
"Let's just go back to the village and grab a jeep," Asuma sighed, already tired from walking.
"Can we leave already!" Sasuke finally snapped.
And so, after walking back to the village, getting one of Sasuke's jeeps out of the hangar and dealing with several complications ensued from a misunderstanding between Naruto and Anko when he asked her to hop on his motorcycle, our friends were off. Personal problems could always come later, but definitely not now: right now these guys were on a job and headed for the infamous Sound Country, perhaps to their doom…
And they got there in five minutes flat, since the Hidden Sound Country wasn't even that far away to start with. That's mostly because Orochimaru had never took the trouble to walk very far away from the Hidden Leaf country after he was first banished from it: after eating all his food rations for the month in a single day, he had actually decided to found his own Village right across the border before starving to death. As a matter of fact, it was so remote to Konohagure that you could actually even SEE Orochimaru's village from the window up in Tsunade's office. As things were, the only real separation between the two countries nowadays was an electrical toll booth which charged 2 whole bucks per person to cross from one country to the other: it was also considered an inter-country system of defense since the high price of passage usually could dissuade the countries from invading each other. Stupid? Maybe, but it had worked wonders for more than two dozen years now!
"All right, we're here. Can I get off now? I don't feel comfortable riding with mokkori-san here," Anko said, jumping off the blond Jounin's rundown bike.
"I told you already! THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT AND YOU KNOW IT!" Naruto whined, with one black eye and half his teeth missing.
The other Jounins for their part waited for their vehicle to come to a complete stop and disembarked in a more controlled manner.
"Let's just get this over with, PLEASE," Sasuke sighed.
"Hey, does anyone here have any change left in their pockets?"
"Nope, I'm broke. How about you?"
"Kurenai, you're paying for us. If you weren't here we would have saved two whole bucks."
"EH! That wasn't very nice!"
And so, after our grumbling ninjas somehow scraped together enough money to pay the outrageous toll, they passed through the customs and stepped straight into enemy territory.
Author's notes/driveling: And so, out of nowhere, I'm back again. As some of you may have noticed, the only thing more random than this fic itself are its updates. Oh yeah.
I'll be honest with you people: I've been buried in schoolwork during these past months. You see, becoming an honors student is easy: staying one however is a freakin' pain in the ass. Also, and I know this is unforgivable, I had almost lost all interest in Naruto fiction…until recently, when I played a bootleg Naruto fighting game on the PS2. I looked back into it and it turned out I had a lot of unfinished texts, and so I slapped together this chapter during my Christmas days off. Consider it my Christmas gift. Late. Very late. Aw, just be grateful, will ya?
Thanks to the several new reviewers that came around during my absence: it is always very appreciated.
(repost note: I had temporarily changed the title of this story to 'Byako no Densetsu' (Legend of the Albino Fox) since I thought a really mindless title would maybe attract more readers, but I rather disliked it as some of you did apparently. So it's back to normal now.)
Blur - Song 2 (...yeap... )