Yadda…after I posted the prologue, I was just too tempted to write a first chapter. So here it is! The proud chapter one of From Thunder to Leaf by Raofee!

This could be said as the background chapter. Also, as a side note, Sasuke has been retrieved and is currently spending some time recuperating. Everybody's still a genin or a chunin, and Gai's teeth still shine as bright as ever.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto….wahhhh!

Chapter 1 Raikage's New Mission

In the tower of the Raikage, a silver haired man sighed in defeat as he watched the young man sitting across the table tumble through confusion, recognition, disgust, and then abject horror. Admittedly, the "young man" was older than the Raikage, but Ryoki personally felt that being a Raikage subjected him to instant maturity, and so anyone who was below his rank became either a young man or an old soldier. The guy currently in the meeting room, which was occupied by only the two of them and Tou's fat cat on the windowsill, looked like an actor from some horrid noh plays.

The elder brother of the Kazekage didn't make much of an ambassador. He had scared some of the genin to kingdom come. When Tou saw the painted face and the ridiculous suit, he bluntly told Ryoki that he refused to attend the meeting – that explains why the Raikage was alone with what's-his-last-name Kankuro.

Right the moment, Kankuro tore his eyes off the portfolio opened before him. He almost screamed out. "NO!"

Instead what came through was a high-pitched, rather girly protest incorporating a couple of swear words and lots of exclamation marks.

Ryoki raised an eyebrow under the cover of his huge Raikage hat. "No?" It wasn't unexpected. In fact, it was predicted that Sand would reject this shinobi exchange. After seven years Thunder Country rolled on in top economic shape with its shinobis brought back to proper shinobi standards. After seven years, the Raikage, formerly a missing nin, attempted to establish "certain peace" with all the other countries. This new peace was not the old Raikage's simple "you don't attack me and I will try not to attack you."

Ryoki had actually tried to get close to Sunagakure by establishing trade agreements and political truce. He and Reibane had forced the Thunder Country prime minister to administer a marriage with one of the Wind Country nobles. It worked out well, but when it came to dealing with the Kazekage and the rest of the Sand shinobi population, Ryoki hit a dune and got lost in a sandstorm.

To put it nicely, the Kazekage was not a so nice person. His son, the newest Kazekage, was certainly not a whole lot easier on the ambassador issue. Sabaku no Gaara, it is said, had a reputation for killing people whenever he wanted.

Hanashiba Ryoki had a reputation for being reputable. He was a Raikage loved by the people and generally looked up to by the shinobi. Not much else could be said about him, since most of the shinobi who had witnessed him fighting generally couldn't say much afterwards. Right now, though he was ashamed of the bill sticking out from underneath a pile of paperwork consisted of profiles on various shinobi from every hidden village. He had been planning to go grocery shopping when the ambassador came in rather late. The profiles he just forgot to put away.

Nobody said that information gathering wasn't allowed during peace-time. He thought uncomfortably, but he still felt like a little kid who'd peeked at something he really shouldn't have…and then gone on looking.

Kankuro established a widespread reputation of himself the day he set foot in Kumogakure. If Ryoki ever needed to know where the ambassador was, he just had to stop a couple of kids and ask them where face-paint man was.

Kankuro established a reputation for himself the second he stepped into the Raikage's office. That same instant he was assaulted by traps from every side possible and found himself trapped in a genjutsu. When Tou released him from it, his puppet was gone.

Everybody knew who played the prank on Kankuro, even Kankuro.

It was just that nobody wanted to say that a thirteen-year-old girl easily beat the snot out of the Kazekage's elder brother. The fact that she was the ANBU captain and was supposed to be training a few ANBUs that day didn't help the matter one bit.

Thus now Ryoki found himself sighing in defeat, and wished that he had taken Kumo's name from the list as soon as news of the prank reached his ears.

Why can't she just leave them ALONE! Ryoki thought with a growing sense of doom. If the Kazekage demands punishment…Kumo would probably go to Suna and raise Hell there. And we will have a war on our hands, and Kumo might just be happier.

Ryoki grimaced.

"Are you sure? She is a very capable ANBU." That at least was true. "And she completes all her missions in record times…" all time slow "…and she brings back a lot of money…" robbed, maybe "…plus she is a jutsu expert."

Oh yes, Kumo was a maniac when it came to jutsu research. She could just about rival Orochimaru when it comes to creepy experiments, only people never ended up dead.

"I'm. Sure." Face-paint said in a way that hinted at a mad twitching of the corner of his mouth.

"Oh," Ryoki sighed. "Not even any of the others?"

"No."

"That's…a disappointment." Why oh why did Kumo have to spoil everything? "I hope that you have a pleasant journey back…err…and please greet the Kazekage for me."

Face-paint stared at him as though he was a walking talking teddy bear.

"Oh," Ryoki muttered again. He had been Raikage seven years and still didn't quite master the "kage" tone that most kages used to achieve respect and fear from fellow shinobis.

He blamed this on Kumo, too.

Face-paint bore a hole through Ryoki's head with his expectant gaze. Was Ryoki forgetting something?

"Ah…well, this meeting is adjourned." He added quietly under his breath, "I suppose."

Face-paint nodded, stood up, and left the room with all the dignity a face-paint guy wearing a black bear suit could muster after he'd lost his prize puppet.

A moment later he stuck his head back in and coughed, badly concealing embarrassment. "I really want Karasu back." There was just a hint of threat in his voice.

"Oh, that." Ryoki waved dismissively. "We will have it brought to you when we find it." He didn't add that when they found the puppet it'd probably be lying in pieces scattered across the woods. Kumo had a great hand for disassembling things.

As face-paint marched out of the Raikage tower, Ryoki summoned Tou and asked him to bring the genin Niburo in, who happened to be Kumo's student, and who ran to find Akai-chan who ran to find the third member of the team whose name nobody knows and who in turn found Shingen Kumo dozing in a tall tree almost tipping over the cliff of a very tall mountain, which didn't have a handy deep-watered river running beneath.

Ryoki leaned onto his hands as the black haired, black eyed, and black clothed kunoichi walked in, dripping wet.

The Raikage had forgone raising an eyebrow a long time ago.

"A cloud passed over me and rained," the kunoichi explained lazily. Her headband hung slightly slanted behind wet bangs.

Ryoki had also given up on deciphering her hopeless excuses. He got right down to business.

"So…where…ahem…did you put the Sunagakure ambassador's puppet?"

Kumo blinked. "Huh?"

Abruptly, Ryoki felt like he had just stepped on a sinkhole, and it was getting softer by the second. Very carefully, he asked again, "where is the Sunagakure ambassador's puppet? You took it this morning when you used genjutsu on him."

Kumo blinked twice. "Pardon?"

Ryoki's eyebrow twitched. "Please tell me that you haven't forgotten." The sinkhole was appallingly wide. At the bottom of it, the Kazekage's wrath waited.

"Um…I don't recall any puppets," Kumo replied, "but I had dango this morning from Chihoya's and created a new jutsu that can make a leaf float really high and far and saved a cat on a tree and accidentally pushed a genin into the lake and…"

A black wave deafened everything else. The Kazekage was not going to be happy that his ambassador, no less someone related to him, had been embarrassed in Kumogakure and lost his weapon there.

Once Kumo really forgot something, she made no effort to recall it, and it usually remained forgotten forever.

She was irresponsible like that.

This calls for punishment. Ryoki thought bitterly. He had been looking forward to getting rid of the number one village headache ever since he ran out of missions for her. He could give her A-ranked missions forever and she would complete them all in a week. If he gave her D-ranked missions then she was gone for two minutes and back for more. If he gave her nothing to do then she snuck around the Kumogakure advanced bloodline families and tried to steal their secrets. If he called her and reprimanded her then she did her other researches that involved things blowing up and generally useless jutsus created.

When she was six and he took over Kumogakure, he kept her busy with the prospect of working hard to becoming a jounin. She had labored intensely, and in the end Ryoki wasn't so sure if he was a better shinobi or her.

Then he tried to make her teach classes, but every day more than half of the class visited the hospital.

He tried to assign her onto jounin teams and found her completely lacking in teamwork. When he gave her a jounin class to teach, her routines were so ridiculously hard that the units filed complaints up to the Raikage's desk.

He'd given her the position of ANBU captain when she was eleven just so she would stop pestering him all day, but she made a terrible captain and so all the work ended up falling on Tou's shoulders.

Kumo was ANBU captain by name. Tou was captain in reality.

It meant that giving Kumo the job really didn't help much.

The shinobi exchange had been a perfect mission.

But…

What now?

He drummed his fingers thoughtfully. Ah…well…there's always that.

With sudden certainty, he stood up and beckoned Kumo closer. "I've got a…" he paused deliberately, "fun…mission for you. Lots of new sights, foods…people…jutsus." He nearly grimaced at the faraway yet so at home look on her face. "And no, this isn't a spying mission. You are not allowed to maim, kill, or mentally traumatize anyone or use them in your experiments." As a bonus nudge in the right direction, he added. "And there's lots of advanced bloodlines there…you've read about the Nara and the Yamanachi, huh?"

As though in a trance, she muttered, "Konoha."

"Yes." Ryoki smiled. Just you watch me! I will have you out of my hair by the end of today! Hurray freedom! "And Aburame and Inuzuka…and also the Hyuuga, the two sannin Tsunade and Jiraiya, the great copy-nin Hatake Kakashi and…" again he watched Kumo bite the bait "…the Uchiha prodigy."

That did it. Kumo's spirit positively soared. Ryoki could swear that her eyes glinted.

"A diplomatic mission to Konoha?" she guessed.

"Yes," Ryoki confirmed, still smiling. "You have my permission to stay there as long as you want, so long as you achieve what I request and don't kill, mentally traumatize, or maim any Konoha shinobi."

Kumo glanced at him, a certain suspicious glance. "Are you trying to send me away? Forever?"

Ryoki had anticipated that question with open arms. "Of course not! I'm just…letting you get acquainted with your ancestral roots. You are of the Uchiha line of Konoha, you know. Although everyone in the world except us" and he meant the former Kumorokunikunin "know that you are the…third last Uchiha."

He had seen a picture of Uchiha Sasuke and Uchiha Itachi, so had Kumo. Ryoki didn't have to think long to know that Kumo would find the resemblance amusing and awfully inspiring.

It doesn't matter what pranks she cooks up. Ryoki thought smugly. At least I will take no part in it.

"When do I leave?" Kumo asked.

"As soon as possible. Oh, and bring this scroll to the Hokage please." Ryoki had to kick himself mentally to remember that this was also a diplomatic attempt at peace. "I hope that you can establish a peaceful relationship between Kumogakure and Konoha. Your recent sabotage of the Sunagakure visit was very inconvenient."

He hoped that if he sent the Kazekage enough dango, he'd be forgiven.

Kumo nodded. She had been in Konoha a few times, mainly on spy missions and other dull duties of a shinobi. Up until now the Fire Country had been a banned spot on her have-time-will-travel map. She'd practically toured every corner of the world except Konoha, and that was because for one reason or another Gin wouldn't let her explore Konoha on unofficial business.

But Gin wasn't here right now.

Hanashiba Ryoki, Oyamaru Reibane, Jikiri Tou, and Kumo had decided to stay in Kumogakure after the takeover. Gin and Yodoniku Rasen had vanished to who-knows-where.

That afternoon, as the Raikage watched Kumo leave through the Kumogakure gates with a light, warm sensation in his heart. It was happiness.

And then he looked down at his desk and realized that not only did Kumo forget to take the scroll with her, she also forgot her pass to Konoha.

Moreover, she had taken the wad of bills he set aside for grocery shopping with her.

Gone also was the stack labeled Konoha shinobi.

Ryoki wondered, as people always said, if the Hokage was feeling a sense of impending doom.

TBC


I hope I didn't make any grammar mistakes in there…oh dear.

I really enjoyed typing this chapter, since creating Ryoki's character was so much fun! He is OC, by the by, and thus I hereby claim ownership over this lovable Raikage.

Next chapter: Konoha meets Uchiha. How will Kumo fare in her home village?