Temari sat in the forest with her new fan in her lap, laughing hysterically. Naruto looked over from where he was cooking supper and raised an eyebrow.
"Whats so funny, exactly?" The boy asked.
Temari tried to control herself, "In our village (giggle)… there's always been the legend that wind masters could ignite the air. I always thought (snicker) that it was because their fans were painted to look like it."
She started to laugh again and held up her fan for him to see, on the inside of the frame were carved words, starting with the Kanji for "Kaze Nenshou no Justu"
The burning winds technique.
Temari looked at Naruto, "There are only three fans like this in all of hidden sand, and they never make more. There are over 40 wind users who are jounin level and only three of them know the jutsu I just read over. I've spent 9 years training with my battle fan, 300 swings a day, and learned a few low and mid level skills. In the first week I spend with you, I find what's probably among the most powerful wind jutsus in existence."
After saying it, Temari wasn't sure what she thought of this new revelation. Naruto, however, just shrugged.
"So? My strength has at least doubled in the couple months it's been since I left Konoha, It's to be expected of missing-nins."
Seeing Temari's curiosity, he elaborated.
"The idea of a hidden village is that it teaches a certain set of skills, which it keeps secret. For example, mist jutsus aren't taught in hidden leaf and fire jutsus are rarely taught in hidden mist. This means that people are very limited in what they learn. Nukenins, on the other hand, have no such restrictions."
He continued on, checking the food as he did so.
"The sword I use is a mist sword, no one in leaf uses such weapons, but I do because it suits me. I know that you love your fan, but I can and intend to teach you every jutsu I know. It's a sharing of resources, and its what makes missing-nins so strong."
Temari nodded, though the idea of learning foreign jutsus sounded odd to her, it made a lot of sense.
Seeing the food was cooked, Naruto took it off the fire and sat down next to Temari's fan. His own words had given him an idea.
"How long," he asked, "will it take you to learn that fire jutsu written on your fan?"
Temari thought for a moment, "assuming we spend most of each day traveling, about a week to be good enough to use it, but completely mastering a jutsu like this takes years"
Naruto started digging through scroll pouches on his vest, he finally found what he was looking for and passed it to her. It was the scroll of basic stealth jutsus from hidden mist the old barber had given him .
"I want you," he said, "to learn the first jutsu in that scroll, Mizu Gyoushuku no jutsu (water condensation technique), it's a basic jutsu used to help people learn Kirigakure no jutsu. It supersaturates the air around you with water, like on a very humid day."
"And why," Temari asked, "am I doing this?"
Naruto started to eat and spoke between bites, "I have an idea, but I won't say anything else until I see this 'burning winds technique' of yours. More importantly, if we move at a steady pace, I expect the next hunter squad to catch up to us in just under two weeks, I want to be ready for them when they appear."
Naruto took a bite of rice and chewed for a minute, "They won't make the same mistakes as last time, they'll be far better prepared, and there'll probably be more of them. All this means that not only will I need your help this time, we need to plan in advance."
Temari set down her fan and grabbed some food for herself, and the two spent the evening talking. By the time Temari slid her fan into her sleeping bag and crawled in next to it, her mind was a whirlwind of activity. She had just decided to help ambush a group of leaf-nin, allies of her country. Her status as a Nukenin would be unquestionable after this.
Somehow, that thought didn't bother her nearly so much as it should have.
As the leaf army set up camp for the night, Tsunade sent a messenger to Iruka. She had finally arranged for the transfer of everyone he needed. She had temporarily transferred 7 shinobi to the hunter-nin and their first group briefing was to start in 10 minutes.
When said time arrived, Iruka strode into a tent of mostly confused looking faces. Iruka quickly took control.
"Everyone, SHUT UP!" he called, silencing the group. "As some of you know," he continued, "you are here because you have been temporarily put under my command for a very important mission. That is to find and incapacitate Uzumaki Naruto by any means necessary"
Iruka saw a couple people gasp slightly and went on, "I want each of you to tell me, now, why you've been selected for this team. You need to understand that before anything else, go from right to left."
The person on Iruka's far right stood.
"I am here," Morino Ibiki said, "because I am the best personality analyzer in Konoha. My purpose is to study the targets movements and figure out what he'll do next."
Iruka had done some digging and discovered that Ibiki had played a similar role in the hunt for Uchiha Itachi.
Ibiki sat and the second person stood, "I am here," said Hyuuga Neji, "to act as a scout for the squad."
Iruka was pleased with that answer, he had been afraid the Hyuuga might start into a speech about destiny.
The third member stood, "As troublesome as it is, I am here to strategize, and because I'm the only one to see Naruto's powers of manifestation." Shikamaru added a grumble for added effect.
Number four stood, "I guess I'm here because I'm somewhat…experienced with the habits of S-class criminals." Anko smirked as she finished.
The fifth member just looked lost, so Iruka stepped in.
"Tenten is here," he said, "because she has by far the most experience with weapons, and as of now, we know nothing about the sword Naruto carries or how to counter it"
The sixth member stood and casually put his book away, "I guess I'm here because Naruto was on my team, so I know him pretty well, and of course, because I'm a jounin."
All the gennin and chuunin glared. Kakashi just smiled under his mask.
The seventh member stood looking only slightly nervous, "Tsunade-sama has sent me to act as the squads medic and her representative." Shizune quickly sat back down.
Iruka surveyed his team. He hadn't asked for Shizune, but knew she would be a good addition.
"First thing," Iruka looked pointedly at Kakashi, "I don't care what your rank is, you're under my command until the Hokage says otherwise."
He got a round of nods.
"Good, now onto the briefing." Iruka had decided to start off with a demonstration, so he took the photos of Gaara and Sasuke the Hokage had had transferred to clear plastic and overlapped them.
"We are looking," he said as he held the overlaid pictures up to the light, "for someone of almost exactly this hair color."
Ibiki nodded slowly, but the rest had wide eyes.
Iruka set the pictures down and turned to his team. "Right now, Naruto is changing, and so he looks to what he admires to see how he should change. It's a period all missing-nin go through, redefining their identity, but it doesn't last forever. If we are ever going to catch him, we need to do it now, while he is relatively predictable."
Iruka started to pace as he talked, "But there are complications, not the least of which is Temari of the sand. Initially, she was his prisoner, but we have a report stating she killed one of the hunter-nin last sent after them, so we have no idea what to expect from her."
As time passed, Iruka called various team members up to explain certain things. Ibiki gave a speech on the possibility that Naruto was using the accumulation of fear stimulus, which most of the team members had never heard of before. Tenten was asked to talk about the various methods Naruto could be using to control his swords, and Anko talked about making sure they didn't allow themselves to go easy on him because he had once been their friend. She calmly explained that they would have enough problems beating him going all out, never mind if one of them got cold feet.
At the end of 4 long hours, Iruka let them go off to bed, as they were leaving for Konoha early the next morning. Most left feeling they had accomplished a great deal, but they all knew they were short on information. All they could do now was speculate based on the words of a single hunter-nin.
Once the tent was cleared, Iruka sat alone and rubbed his head. He couldn't believe he was doing this, but also knew it needed to be done. This was the best shot they would ever have; they knew approximately where the boy was, and what he was doing. More importantly, they had an idea of who he was.
A year from now, Naruto could be a completely different person. Iruka knew he was the only one who could do this, not even Kakashi understood Uzumaki Naruto the way he did.
He couldn't allow himself to fail.
Gaara, Kankuro, and Baki sat in their tent, facing each other somberly.
Kankuro smirked at his jounin teacher, "Go fish."
Baki cursed silently, he had been sure Kankuro had a two. He drew the four of clubs and re-examined his hand. It wasn't looking good.
Baki decided to gamble, "Gaara, do you have any fours?"
The red haired boy glared as he handed his four of diamonds over.
The three were now relaxing with a game of 'go fish' after hours of dastardly plotting. They knew the worst they could do was slow the hunt, but they intended to do that as much as possible.
The first act had already been done, as Gaara had used his sand to steal all the hunter-nin masks in camp and had hidden them in a bag. He then found a hornet's nest in a tree in the forest and used the bag to block it.
Whoever removed the bag would get a rather unwelcome surprise.
Naruto woke up the next morning with a sense of purpose. They were only three hours from a small city, and he decided they would spend the day there.
He figured that the two of them needed some time to enjoy themselves. They had made excellent time over the last couple days and were ahead of schedule, and Naruto also didn't want to get too far ahead of the hunters.
That may have sounded odd, but his plan required that he know when the hunter-nins were coming, and if they initially escaped and the hunters couldn't find them, who knew when the masked shinobi would find them again.
Naruto started to pack up camp just as Temari was waking up. As had become their custom, Naruto turned his back as she got out of her sleeping bag, and after 15 seconds or so, went back to whatever he had been doing.
The two were soon running and arrived at the edge of the city at around 11:00. The first order of business was, as always, to find a place to stay. Temari suggested a tall hotel so they could practice on the roof without being seen from the ground. Naruto agreed and soon they had a room.
They both quickly retreated to the roof where Temari was practicing Mizu Gyoushuku no jutsu while Naruto counted their money. They were still well off, but the money would run out just before or as they arrived at hidden cloud, so they would have to find work quickly.
Meanwhile, Temari was having some problems with her practicing. She managed to gather water into the air around her, but it took a long time. She clocked herself at about 30 seconds to complete the jutsu. The other problem was that her cloths were soaked through, and she would swear Seirei Kirite was leering at her.
She would be just starting the jutsu, and she would have this incredibly creepy feeling run down her spine, but when she turned, the sword was just sitting there on the roof next to Naruto, same as always.
Inside the sword, Kyuubi was grinning to himself. He had noticed that he had become more easily amused after 14 years of imprisonment, but didn't really mind. Every time Temari turned her back, the demon would manifest just a little bit of his head, enough to stare at her until she started to turn and the demon dropped the manifestation.
This went on for 20 minutes or so until Naruto noticed, immediately telling the fox to give it a rest, as Temari was starting to look mentally unstable.
Finished with his monetary evaluation, Naruto stood and stretched.
"You up for a taijutsu spar?" the boy asked the still irate sand-nin.
Temari nodded abruptly and brought her fan into the ready position, Naruto looked at it nervously.
"You do realize," he said, "that taijutsu means no wind blasts…I seriously doubt the hotel would appreciate a hole in its roof"
Temari didn't even bother to respond, she just ran, swinging low, trying to take Naruto's legs out from under him. Naruto decided to experiment; he blocked the fan with his sword and sent an image to Kyuubi.
Temari expected her attack to be blocked, but didn't expect the counterattack to come if the form of a manifested glowing claw. She flung herself backwards, just dogging the demon's swipe. The spar continued mostly like that.
The sand girl found herself often able to block Seirei Kirite it she saw it coming, but the Demon and Naruto were working together in synchronization. Kyuubi could manifest from anywhere on the sword at any time, making him completely unpredictable.
The final experiment came when Naruto threw his blade, which Temari just managed to dodge, only to find herself flying through the air. Kyuubi had manifested from the flying blade and grabbed her ankle.
Since letting go meant dropping her, Kyuubi just flew around in a full circle, releasing Temari so she fell into Naruto, causing both nins to go sprawling. They tried to untangle themselves while Seirei Kirite embedded itself in the roof, oozing self-satisfaction.
Both deciding that was enough sparing for the day, and as it was around noon, the two went back to their room and started to think about lunch. To Temari's mild shock, Naruto changed into one of his T-shirts, and even more odd was that he left his sword in the room and told her to do the same with her fan.
"I really don't like the idea of walking around un-armed…I just got the fan a couple days ago and am still getting used to it."
Naruto waved off her concerns, "Seirei Kirite will watch the room and make sure nothing happens to your fan. We," he said with a grin, "are going out."
At this point, Temari demonstrated the art of appearing embarrassed and angry at the same time. It's a subtle combination of a light blush and narrowed eyes. Naruto figured she was about to ask why, so he just grabbed her hand and walked out of the room.
3 minutes later, the two were walking down the street, Temari's complaints and questions forgotten.
"So, where are we going, exactly?" she asked curiously.
"It's a surprise"
"I don't like surprises, tell me"
Naruto stopped walking and turned to examine her for a moment. Without warning, he closed the distance between them, wrapping his arms around her neck.
A moment of fiddling later, he pulled off her forehead protector and slid it into his pocket with a grin.
Temari remained frozen for a few seconds longer, then glared, but noticed he wasn't wearing his own either.
Naruto shrugged, "We won't need to be shinobi today, so there's no need to advertise that we are shinobi."
Temari continued to glare, "Next time, tell me. I'll do it."
Naruto shrugged again, "Ok.", but he was still grinning.
Temari didn't realize she had forgotten to ask where they were going until they arrived.
Back in their hotel room, the maid was vacuuming the floor when she suddenly jumped and screamed. There was no one in the room but she would swear someone had just pinched her.
Elsewhere, the Konoha camp was chaos. No less than 7 incidents had occurred since this morning, and Tsunade was starting to get significantly annoyed.
It had all started when 2 hunter-nin had come to her reporting that their masks were missing, it was soon noticed that ALL the masks were missing. An hour of searching later, a squad covered in wasp stings fell at her feet, holding the bag of masks.
Since then, a group of people had gotten sick from food poisoning, a group of gennin had gotten lost in the forest, numerous shinobi had found small stinging animals in their shoes, and Ino had somehow escaped her guard and had traumatized three patients in the hospital with her incessant whining.
The Hokage was sure all these events had something to do with the three all-too-innocent looking sand shinobi in front of her, but had no proof. Gaara, Kankuro and Baki stood there smiling warmly, showing no trace of malice.
Tsunade had called the three here to discuss Baki's request for the squad to remain in Konoha to monitor events concerning Temari. She knew the three were just going to disrupt the hunt, but couldn't say that for political reasons
She was about to make up a reason to deny Baki's request when she noticed water on the ground and a chuunin burst into the room.
"Hokage-sama! You won't believe this! Come look outside."
Sensing the urgency, Tsunade rushed out of the tent and gasped. The whole camp was covered in 8 inches of water, which was very quickly turning the field into a swamp.
The three sand nins were no less surprised than the Hokage at he sight before them, this hadn't been one of their many plots, not of them had the power to do this.
ANBU suddenly dropped around them; the leader quickly kneeled in the mud and gave his report.
"It's some type of unknown water jutsu that brings water from underground rivers and springs to the surface. We sensed a large chakra signature, but when we arrived at its location the jutsu was done and there was no trace of the user, we did however, find this."
The ANBU commander handed Tsunade a sealed note, which she opened.
Dear HokageJust a note to inform you that your security is a little lax, I've been here for five hours and no one's noticed me. I was hoping for a decent fight, but in lieu of that, I've left you a present to remind you to be more observant. I hope your robes and scrolls kept are in a water resistant bag.
Itachi
In the margin was a drawing of a cloaked figure giving peace sign. Tsunade swore and crumpled the note in her hand.
She looked out at the mess that had been an organized military camp only hours earlier. It might be one or two days before the main force could move out again, they'd have to find the nearest river and camp there, as almost everything would need to be washed.
One man had just set an army back 2-3 days.
Tsunade sighed, "I know its hopeless, but search the area just in case Itachi decided to hang around, other than that, everyone salvage what they can from the mud."
Deciding that her declaration applied to them too, the three sand snuck out the other way. Gaara made a note to find and learn that water jutsu.
Temari walked excitedly through the street fair, looking at everything. Open shops and stands really didn't work in hidden sand, as windstorms were too violent.
Naruto just followed her slowly, as she rushed from one stall to the next, oblivious to the afternoon's heat. Naruto had always enjoyed places like this, but had only ever worked up the nerve to go to a festival in Konoha once. It had been the best night of his life until someone had recognized him and a small riot started.
Thankfully, there was no riot this time, just an overenthusiastic girl. Temari stopped for a moment to stare covetously at the merchandise of an old lady selling intricate fans. They were of normal size, but beautiful all the same.
Her attention was soon diverted, however, when she saw a stand selling mini-doughnuts. Realizing she had no money, she looked for Naruto. Said boy was walking down the center of the walkway when Temari rushed up to him.
"I need money for mini-doughnuts"
"Why?"
"Because I've never had mini-doughnuts before." Temari said, as if it were obvious.
Naruto sighed and handed over his wallet, "you can spend 3000 yen, no more."
Temari dashed off to buy snacks while Naruto fingered the money in his pocket. The old lady's fans sold for 4000 yen. He had 4300 yen. It was a lot of money…
He remembered the way her face had lit up when he had given her the master level battle fan in the forest.
Money wasn't that important after all.
Authors Notes: Sigh….deleted and re-wrote the second half of this chapter, but its much better the this time.
I have to say I'm interested in what the response will be to Iruka's chosen team, I tried to pick people that made sense (and people who have a role to play later on in the story…)
I'm experimenting with lines as scene separators as I got one or two requests.
Next Chapter: Temari's new jutsu and Iruka's hunt. Also, high stakes no-holding-back 'Go Fish' as Baki tries to regain his lost title as champion.
Translation Notes:
Kaze Nenshou no Justu - Burning winds technique
Mizu Gyoushuku no jutsu - Water condensation technique