Chappie 4! And the longest one so far! Phew!
It's so darn hot here in Arkansas…arrrggghhh
To start off, I will answer the questions.
1. What was the black and red shadow technique? Get ready for a long explanation.
It is a variation of the Kagemane jutsu that the Nara clan uses. However, instead of freezing the targets, the "Shadow Hand Technique" (and I have no idea what this is in Japanese) allows Kumo to elongate shadows and then use the shadows as gateways for her chakra. In other words, she can use shadows as a medium for chakra, so anywhere where there's a shadow, her chakra can go in and go out at another region on the shadow.
Shikamaru's new jutsu lets him make the shadow crawl onto the victim's body, using the body as a medium. Kumo's jutsu employs a similar mechanism.
The difference between these two jutsus is that while Shikamaru's Kagemane is restricted to the point where the shadow makes contact with the target, Kumo's jutsu lets her reach the target with her chakra even if he jumps out of the shadow's way.
The downside is that Kumo's jutsu can't freeze people, and it takes her more chakra to perform this jutsu than is required of one who uses Kagemane.
2. As for if Kumo can use the Sharingan…well…you'll just have to find out, don't you?
Some of the other questions are self-explanatory in this chapter. So read on!
Disclaimer: I never owned Naruto and I don't own it now
Chapter 4 Never Trust an Uchiha
In which an enigma walks the streets, Naras have a secret meeting, Yamanakas face the bee crisis, Sasuke gets a nighttime visitor, Sakura falls down a well, and jounins go in the hospital.
Do I?
Do I? Do I? Do I? Do I? Do I? Do I?
Abruptly Kumo blinked. She had been doing a lot of blinking lately. Blinking helped her forget things, and now she looked up, looked down, looked around, and grinned like a monkey.
She couldn't quite remember why the "Do I" had been stuck in her head, but it sounded pretty agonizing to her, so she threw it into some dim corner of her mind and barred it shut with a five hundred ton cement block.
"What a house!" she exclaimed. "Perfect…hahahah…" Then she remembered the puppet…Even better!
The gods of angsty thoughts threw their hands up and gave in.
A fog of mystery drifted through the streets of Konoha, turning heads everywhere.
At the center of enigmas, a tall, dark, and handsome young man strode toward the Hokage tower, full of secretive purposes.
Nobody stopped the foreign shinobi…because mysterious don't answer questions.
"This is troublesome," said Konoha's number one genius and all time shougi champion, glancing at the somber, lazy, or, in some cases, snoring faces of the Nara men and the fiery-eyed faces of the Nara women.
"Be quiet, Shikamaru!" Nara Shikamaru's mother hissed, holding the frying pot over his head.
"Alright, alright, geez…" Shikamaru frowned. But this is supposed to be a secret meeting…
Indeed, the Naras were having a secret meeting.
They were having a secret Nara bloodline meeting in Konoha's number one restaurant, where an average of one hundred eighty-eight people visited per night. Right now the place roared with one hundred eighty-eight voices and occasionally cries of pain as ferocious women stomped on the foot of drunken men.
Shikamaru winced as he saw Shiranui Genma limp away from Mitarashi Anko. Sheesh. Women are so troublesome, and he's an idiot for even going near her.
Another member of the Nara family piped up, "Shikamaru-chan (Shikamaru winced) is right, you know. Why are we holding a secret bloodline meeting in Konoha Flame?"
"Nobody knew," hissed one Nara woman who Shikamaru deemed to be an aunt of some distant relation, "nobody knew UNTIL YOU SPILLED IT!"
Shikamaru and Shikato glanced at one another. Troublesome.
From the corner of his eyes, Shikamaru spotted a familiar-looking boy drifting through the dining guests like a ghost or…Is that Sasuke? Why is he stealing food from the tables?
And then Sasuke looked over…and smiled.
"I must be going crazy…" Shikamaru muttered.
He had no idea that "Sasuke" had been stalking him the moment the Nara family gathered. He also had no idea that "Sasuke" slipped a dozen different pills into the Nara family's drinks.
Asuma looked at the house, looked down, looked around, and eyed Kurenai. A few minutes later, a pop sounded as the infamous copy-nin appeared on the street, one lazy eye staring at nothing. And then a skinny man wearing sunglasses and a blue bandana walked towards them. Though he had tried to hide it, the newest comer had two black eye underneath the black sunglasses.
All four jounins looked at one another, eyes straining to see three directions at once. Finally, Asuma coughed. "Did you –?" he began, reaching into his vest pocket, but beat Kurenai beat him to it and held up a scraggly piece of bandage. Immediately Asuma deflated. "Oh. You too."
Ebisu pushed up his sunglasses. They twinkled nervously. "Me as well, Kurenai-san."
Three pairs of eyes looked into Kakashi's half a pair. Said jounin scratched the back of his head, grinned in a lopsided way, and replied, "Hai?"
Crossing her arms thoughtfully, Kurenai took a few steps away from Ebisu, eyed Kakashi's Icha Icha Violence, and at last settled next to Asuma. "An invitation to the Uchiha mansion," she spoke, narrowing her eyes at two established perverts. "It has been abandoned for two years."
Suspicion cracked in the air like a water balloon.
Asuma held up a mental umbrella.
Kakashi leveled a calculating gaze at the house. "From the outside, nothing looks very suspicious."
Several Kurenai kunais of suspicion stabbed in his direction.
"I think we should –" Ebisu began, and stopped at the looks.
"We?" Kakashi cocked his only visible eyebrow.
"Ebisu-san, you are making a suggestion?" Asuma exclaimed. Once a closet pervert, always a closet pervert, and your ideas could only come from the closet, where the worst kind of ideas had been buried in dust for centuries.
Then an ominous fog of mystery passed down the street…and stopped before the four jounins. The young man at the fog's center could have peered at the house, but Asuma couldn't be sure. The guy was an enigma, after all.
Slowly, quiet as death, the young man spoke, "I would not go in if I were you." Then he turned around and disappeared into the fog, as though he was never there.
Asuma gulped. "Did he just…"
"You don't ask questions about mysteries," Kakashi cut in.
He received looks.
You are a mystery if I've ever seen one. Thought two jounins at once, trying discreetly to make out what's lying under that mask of his. Kurenai just glared scissors at the copy-nin's, conveniently, mask.
Then Ebisu spoke again, "We don't have to go in…you know."
Once more the jounins glared at each other. Five minutes passed. Asuma fidgeted in his pocket for a cigar, but instead his fingers touched candy wrappers and a piece of bandage.
"Um…" Kurenai picked up conversation #2. "Why are you still here?" Her eyes pierced and stabbed multitude of guilt into the hearts of all males present.
The male jounins exchanged glances, but Ebisu was frantically dodging Kakashi and Asuma's gazes. "Why are you still here?" Asuma decidedly shot back. The absence of a smoke was killing him.
Silence.
The jounins reached a consensus at last. Without a word, each took their piece of bandage and dropped it into the garbage. Then, as one, they stepped carefully into the Uchiha house.
"How bad can it be?" Ebisu asked.
Three jounins groaned in dread. He just had to ask.
A pair of puppet eyes glinted in the dark.
The door slammed shut and the screams began.
At this exact moment, Kumo passed by the Yamanaka residence and smelled honey.
Inspiration was good to her today.
Four pieces of bandage fluttered to the bottom of the trash can.
A lurker emerged from the bushes where it had hid underneath a very eye-catching box meant to resemble the road.
To Sarutobi Asuma,
Be at the main Uchiha house by sundown if you want to see your cigarettes again.
To Kurenai,
Be at the main Uchiha house by sundown, or never SEE MR. WIGGLES…FOREVER!
To Ebisu closet pervert,
You saw Jiraiya, yah? Unless you wish to end up in the hospital like him, be at the Uchiha house by sundown.
P.S. if you throw ignore this note and attempt to throw it away, I will give you a black eye.
P.S.S. if you ignore my first warning, I will give you another black eye.
Kakashi's bandage lay at the bottom. The writing, however, had been crossed off.
"Oh man…" the lurker groaned in disappointment.
"Konohamaru-chan?"
"Konohamaru-kun?"
The lurker groaned.
"Why are you crawling in a garbage can?"
The Yamanakas have a legendary vase of bees locked up in their basement.
It is said in ancient prophecies long ago…that the bees may only be unlocked during times of crisis…or bad things may happen.
People have always wondered how the Yamanaka's got their flowers for the flower shop. Heck, nobody ever saw them picking flowers. Even the thought of a Yamanaka Inoichi prancing the meadows, flower basket in hand, gave people the willies.
The thought of a prancing Ino was more appealing, but less likely.
Unfortunately, Ino found tonight, that for the first time, the "flower-duty" has been passed to her.
"I'm so sorry, Ino!" cried Ino's father as he lay feebly in bed.
"I'm so sorry, Ino!" cried Ino's mother as she wobbled to the couch and lay down. Her forehead could have boiled a thousand eggs and melted three glaciers.
"I'm cough so so-coughrry, cough cough cough Ino ---" said Ino's grandfather as he lay in his nice big bed.
"Oh Ino! I'm so –"
"Never MIND!" screamed Ino as her grandmother tried to explain herself, sitting on the couch.
It was customary in Yamanaka tradition that men got the bed when they were sick and women got the couch. It made more sense. That way, the Yamanaka women would be closer to the kitchen, that one holy place were no male Yamanakas are allowed to go in case they tripped on something and impaled themselves on a fruit knife.
Right now, Yamanaka Ino felt that the whole world was against her.
Flower-duty. Me?
She would commit suicide if forehead-girl saw her. Hell she would commit suicide even if it was just Shikamaru. But I will take him down with me… She thought, just for good measure.
Then she picked up the flower basket, climbed into the Yamanaka trapdoor in the secret basement, walked through the tunnels that only Yamanakas knew about, and emerged in a flower field, half an hour later, situated on Konoha's far outskirts.
As soon as Ino left, all the members of the house bolted up, even the grandparents.
The Yamanakas all thought that the image of Ino picking flowers in a meadow would get her a boyfriend. They all thought she needed one.
"Phew, faking that pox was hard!" exclaimed Inoichi, peeling away the angry little patches of pox from his skin.
"What? Try faking a 110 degree fever!" challenged Ino's mom.
"Huh? You call that hard?" Ino's grandmother shrilled, "Try –"
"MY BACK!"
Three Yamanaka heads swiveled in grandfather's direction.
"Ahhh…." Inoichi sweated, "you are a master fraud, father. Now please, there's no need to –"
A loud crack whipped through the house.
A vase that somehow got next to grandpa Yamanaka's footstool broke into pieces…and the little, very poisonous honey bees that had dwelled in that vase for dozens of Yamanaka generations swelled through the house in sheer curiosity.
Unfortunately, sheer curiosity consisted of running into things that were generally human and susceptive to lethal injections of honey bee poison.
And bees had the instinct to sting whatever human things they ran through that swatted at them.
And Yamanaka Inoichi had the instinct to attack anything that ran into him that wasn't human.
Ryoki sat at his desk and sweated.
Now that the meeting had been taken care of, there was only one thing to do.
"NIBURO!" he hollered.
Then he picked up a brush and wrote quickly on a scroll.
Very bad, Kumo. You've really done it this time.
The Kazekage has promised to kill you.
And when Niburo opened the door, Ryoki gave him a scroll. "Now, Niburo, I want you to send this scroll via messenger birds to Konoha." He winked conspiratorially. "I'm giving a scroll that's going to warn Kumo of the Kazekage, aren't I?"
Niburo frowned in puzzlement. "Ha-hai?"
"Good," Ryoki folded his hands. "And I did tell you to send it with all speed to Konoha, didn't I?"
"Hai, Raikage-sama!"
"Good," Ryoki smiled. "And here's the bit you won't remember if anybody asks you: destroy the scroll and make sure nobody sees you."
"Hai, Raikage-sama." Niburo nodded. The Raikage was a tad odd sometimes, but he was still the awesome Raikage who toppled the old Raikage's oppressive regime.
When the door closed, Ryoki turned in his seat to find Tou's fat cat staring at him accusingly.
"Hey, it's not like I didn't write a warning scroll to Kumo and send it out," said Ryoki. "It just probably gets lost, you know. These things happen."
He stared at his empty wallet and thought, she deserves it.
Kakashi dodged a whole barrage of statues, landed on a trap, leaped away just as tomato juice splattered all over the walls, broke into a smoke screen, dodged another volley of water balloons, landed on the ceiling, and felt his legs sink into the wood.
Asuma ran in circles as Kurenai rolled on the floor, screeching.
Ebisu, who fell into a hole the moment the doors closed, was presently nowhere to be found.
Kakashi sighed, used his Sharingan for the one hundredth time in one hour, and dispelled the genjutsu. At once his legs stopped sinking.
A plastic axe swung into him.
Eggs cracked on his vest.
This is a mad house. He thought, just as a puppet that looked disturbingly familiar dropped down in front of him…and cackled.
Then an army of rat skeletons marched out from holes in the walls.
Childish…thought Kakashi, but he was too amused to leave the house.
To the horror of every person who has watched groovy horror movies in his childhood, man-size spiders clambered down the ceiling…toward Asuma.
To Asuma's growing dismay that-so-was-not-bordering-on-terror-and-rage-at-whoever-thought-this-was-funny, he found himself stuck in a very big spider-web. And the floor underneath his feet really was sucking him in.
Stomachs growled.
Asuma was more than a little disappointed that none of them belonged to him.
A golden sliver vanished in the West.
"Finally," Sasuke groaned, opening his eyes.
A few hours ago, a group of medics came in and snapped him in a horrid bodysuit made from twenty tons of lead. When he struggled, a particularly clumsy nurse nearly ripped his head off with her shoe. He could still taste the pig things and age-old blood.
The nurses in this hospital are murderers.
If he hadn't kept his eyes closed, three hours of sunlight beaming down at his eyes would have drawn patterns into his brain. He still couldn't move his head.
That pudgy, stink-footed nurse was gonna DIE.
I was going to be released from the hospital today, dammit!
A rattle against the shutters drew him out of his reverie. He strained his ears to focus on the scuffle.
BING. BANG! "Ow!" CRASH. BBBBBOOOOOMMMMMM. "Ooooooowwwwww…"
Sasuke watched in sudden realization as a rack by his bedside, full of scalpels and needles and screws, leaned over…and keeled in his direction.
BAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!
A few seconds later, Sasuke stood up from the floor.
He would have liked to glare at his bed, or the things that without a doubt now penetrated his bed, but he couldn't, so instead he imagined himself glaring, red Sharingan orbs spinning madly. And he felt, rather than heard, the new presence in his room.
"Hello! Sasuke!" A face loomed in front of him.
Sasuke tried to move his neck, winced inward at the pain, and gave up.
"Errmm…" said the trespasser.
"…" replied Sasuke.
Then Sasuke saw, rather than felt.
He experienced the disturbing sensation of déjà vu and something else that, for a lack of better words, felt like mashed yams with fish gravy.
It was all there…
The tied hair. The black eyes. The pale, cool complexion. The lean, enigmatic posture.
Sasuke's mind spun along with the Sharingan. A growl burst from his throat. "Itachi."
Two hands circled his neck…and snapped.
At last! Thought Kurenai, running toward the end of the hallway, where a white light shone like the sun after a storm at sea. Light!
The ghosts moaned.
Kumo's bunshin pulled the strings.
Some people never learn.
Only bugs flew heedlessly toward the light with all speed.
Somebody shrieked like a banshee.
Sasuke felt his neck. It's healed!
He stared at Itachi, and felt his jaw drop six feet under with horror, for Itachi was smiling.
Itachi sighed. "Unfortunately, no. I am not Uchiha Itachi."
"No?" Sasuke blinked. The Sharingan froze, like the rest of his mind. He was stuck in Ice Age mode.
"No," the stranger-who-was-not-Itachi repeated. "Call me Erimura – no, Uchiha…errr…you don't really care about my first name, right?" The way his eyes sparked…the way his mouth twitched upward…if he really was an Uchiha then he was the DISGRACE of the family. Uchihas don't smile. Uchiha eyes don't sparkle.
"Uchiha?" Sasuke murmured. Uchiha! Not Itachi, but "Uchiha?" It was crazy. Ice Age was a whacked out world. It was impossible for dead people to come back to life. Itachi wouldn't have been so careless as to let a little boy escape during the massacre.
The boy rolled his eyes. "Yes. Uchiha. Get it? Your cousin. Kidnapped by the Cloud thirteen years ago. Yep. Yep. No need to hug me now. Just you long-lost cousin. Don't cry. I'm not expecting you to." And when Sasuke really didn't move, the boy groaned. "Kidding! Hug me already!" And he extended his arms for a hug.
Sasuke snorted. "Uchiha? You?" These two words were followed by a glare that would've made Neji go on his knees and beg to be made apprentice of the awesome glare that could freeze two oceans and a continent.
The boy frowned and shook Sasuke like a rag doll. "Oy! Duh! Why are all Konoha shinobi such dobes!"
Sasuke gapped. Dobe? Him! He was a bastard through and through but not a dobe. That was Naruto's title. Sasuke, on the other hand, would die before he's called that!
"Uchiha? Show me your Sharingan then!" Sasuke challenged, "or do you not have it?" His eyes narrowed into slits.
"Ne, Sasuke-kun," the voice dripped maple syrup, imitating Ino to perfection, "There's no need to be so…Neji-ish. OF COURSE I HAVE THE SHARINGAN! Butmeanwhilewhydon'tweenjoyourreunion? I've brought sake!" He winked and patted a bag slung over his shoulder. In the dim lighting Sasuke could just make out "Konoha Flame" etched on the linen.
You are avoiding my question. Thought Sasuke.
Then the boy swung the bag, and Sasuke saw black.
Kumo blinked three times, and let out a small 'oops'.
"Oops."
She hand't meant to do that. They were going to drink sake together! Alright, so it was watered down sake…okaaay, it was really just water…with orange juice. At least he would have gotten his daily vitamins.
The oily gears in her head clicked as she gazed down at the limp Uchiha.
Well, everybody seemed to mistake her for Sasuke nowadays…and a prankster NEVER let any opportunity go to waste.
The fog of mysteries entered the Hokage tower.
It climbed the stairs, turned down hallways, and marched into the Godaime's office.
Seven and a half pairs of eyes looked up at the enigma's entrance.
The foreign shinobi might have glanced at a red and white Neji, a crying Lee, a bruised Jiraiya, and an extremely clueless yet sick Naruto, and a slightly ruffled if not scratched Kakashi.
It was probably a trick of light that people saw the foreign shinobi's lips crack into a smile of pure amusement.
Then Oyamaru Reibane opened his mouth and spoke cheerfully, "I see you've met Kumo-chan."
Night. Eight o'clock. Time for Sakura to go home after a long day's shift. It had indeed been long, that with the sudden arrival of over twenty Naras in the last hour, each inflicted with a rather unique sickness.
First Naruto, now the Nara clan?
She put down the clipboard and spoke in an experienced medic tone to the two mummies on opposite sides of the room. "Asuma-sensei, Kurenai-sensei. You should be out of the hospital in three days." She attempted a smile, and grimaced as it hit a sore spot. Somebody had snuck into her room (shudder) while she was away, and set up a trap. The moment Sakura walked into her home, a mitten with three tons of gravel swung into her face. She had landed three yards away only to find that the ground was really crisscrossed sticks. Her little moment ended with a spectacular splash in the mud hole.
"In the meantime," she continued speaking, with a new, sharp edge to her tone, "do rest well tonight."
Asuma seemed to speaking, but under all that bandage Sakura couldn't really tell.
She walked out of the door and sighed. Ebisu-sensei is still missing, and Kakashi-sensei… According to him, the light at the end of the tunnel was a one-thousand kilowatt electric grid constructed with chakra. Only the cushions that had been thoughtfully placed before the trap to slow the fall had prevented Kurenai and Asuma from getting utterly fried.
Kakashi, being the experienced shinobi he was, walked to the trap rather than ran toward it, and so was spared the fate of the other two jounins.
Sakura shook her head. Whoever plotted this prank had gone too far.
Then she saw Sasuke, walking down the hall as if his neck hadn't been broken by nurse stink-foot. The blue shirt and the Uchiha fan were unmistakable. His hair was also short and spiked, not Erimura's long, tied hair.
The weird thing was that Sasuke had a huge sack slung over his shoulder.
Sasuke-kun?
Like a dutiful medic, Sakura followed the boy who was supposed to be lying in bed, recovering from his neck injury, out of the hospital.
Meanwhile, nurse stink-foot sneezed while staring at air.
Did she just see Uchiha Sasuke from ward thirteen fix his hair in the women's bathroom?
Sakura followed Sasuke, and followed, and followed.
Then passed through the near empty streets of Konoha, through the park, through the woods, and just when Sakura endeavored to reach out and call his name, he vanished.
Sakura blinked and glanced around.
There was a well next to her.
That was all she saw before something rammed into her and threw her down the well.
She screamed, trying frantically to gather chakra to her feet, but…
SPLASH!
Kumo chuckled to herself. At least all the orange juice didn't go to waste…
From the well, Sakura shrilled, "THIS ISN'T WATER AND IT'S NOT FUNNY!"
All the way in Sunagakure, Sabaku no Gaara opened the note brought to him by Temari's messenger bird.
A scuffle came from the hallway.
Gaara glared at the door.
Meekly, Kankuro stuck his head in. "Ga-Gaara…well?"
The Kazekage sighed and held out the slip of paper for Kankuro to see.
Gaara and Kankuro,
According to the Raikage, Shingen Kumo has gone to Konoha on a diplomatic mission. However, it appears that she has taken Kankuro's puppet with her.
Also Gaara, the Raikage has complied with your plan. He conveys that so long as you don't kill her, it's fine with him.
Temari
Gaara looked up to find Kankuro staring at him hopefully.
He sighed again. "Pack your things, we are heading to Konoha right now."
Meanmeanwhile, Kumo walked through the deserted streets of Konoha Sasuke-style.
She had been doing a lot of Konoha street-walking lately, she reflected.
Then she saw somebody in the meadows far away…
Immediately she crept closer. An escaped Yamanaka! Without further thought, she formed a flurry of handseals.
"Shadow Hand Technique!"
Seconds later, Ino screamed…and would have been heard if the kidnapping shadows didn't cover her mouth.
In slow motion, the flower basket clattered to the earth…and the flowers lay still.
Konohamaru and Moegi twitched at the message carved onto Chouji's rice bowl.
To the rest of the Konoha Corps,
I told you not to ignore my messages.
P.S. If you ignore this one, too, you will find Udon tomorrow in itty-bitty little pieces…so START COLLECTING THE MAPS!
"No signature," said Konohamaru.
Chouji frowned as he looked over their shoulders. "That looks like a threat."
Shadows on the dining table moved.
Moegi glanced at Chouji, horrified. "OH NO! WE'VE SPILLED THE BEANS!"
The shadows struck.
Meanmeanmeanwhile…
"This is stupid!" growled Kiba.
"Ki-Kiba-kun…" Hinata whispered.
Shino just stood like a tree and let his bugs sweep the area for traps.
Ten feet away, Kiba stepped on something that snapped…and swore as his feet sank into dog poop for the thirty-second time.
Then Hinata walked into a trap herself and moments later dangled down from a double-reinforced fishing net.
TBC
Author's note:
Bwahahah! Loved the poem, Ashen Rose!
I spend so long typing these chapters that I miss my sleep…oh well…
Not much to say right now…brain's on the frizz…
Next Chapter: Kumo is exposed, but will that stop the mayhem? The conclusion and the beginning of the worst as the Sand Siblings arrive with a vengeance!
