Chapter 5: D.S.I part 3
Sasuke walked along side Iruka with the same clipboard Konohamaru had given him, taking his very first record. He could only help but think that as soon as D.S.I became profitable, he would have to talk to Naruto about printing some forms. It would make his job a lot easier. "What was the Client's name?"
"Takoyama Mayota" Iruka replied, stepping over a fallen tree and entering the area they'd been meeting in since last night. It had become an assembly point for the group, at least one person could always be found here at any given time.
Sasuke wrote it down then skipped down a line "How much did he pay?"
"One million dollars."
Sasuke lifted an eyebrow and looked up at him, "He paid a million dollars? What demon did he hire you to exterminate?"
"Yes he paid all of it thanks to Kakashi. "Iruka shook his head "And I'm not sure what the correct name for them was, but they were insect type, ant demon. About 2 to 3 feet tall and very quick."
Sasuke sat down on the tree, looking over to Neji who was sitting on the same safe as before with a sheet of paper in hand. Neji glanced up at the two acknowledgingly then looked back down at the paper in hand. Then Sasuke looked over at Iruka who was leaning against a tree waiting for his next question "Was it poisonous?"
"No. "
"How did it attack and how did you kill it?"
"It's main strategy was to rush at us head on and use it's manacles. They weren't very bright, and there weakness was attacks from behind. Fire was a weakness too, and besides burning the only other way to kill it was to pierce it's skull in two places." Iruka explained.
"You could only kill it with 2 pierces?" Sasuke sounded skeptical "Are you sure you just didn't go deep enough on the first strike?"
"No, I'm sure on this. I can remember at lest 2 instances where a kunai went through the skull completely and came out the other side, yet they didn't die until a second piercing was made." Iruka said with a small nod as if to convince himself of what he was saying.
Sasuke gave him a second look then wrote it down, it didn't sound probable, but on the other hand demons weren't probable. "Alright, that's all I need." Sasuke said, Iruka nodded and jumped off, vanishing with his speed to some unknown place. "Neji, what are you doing?"
Neji glanced over at Sasuke, it was uncharacteristic of him to bother with a question like that, but if Sasuke could, so could Neji. "Lee left me this safe, Though he didn't tell me the combination is, so I'm trying to gather information on what it could be." Neji sat the paper down behind him and jumped off the gray steel box. "I'll have to do it later though, I need to track down some reference material."
The boy shoved his hands into his pockets and began walking in the opposite direction, leaving Sasuke alone to finish his work.
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Naruto let out a sleepy yawn and wrapped his arms around Gaara who was sleeping lazily with his head on his chest. He couldn't help but let out a small grin when he looked down at the boy, seeing him sleep was like seeing a whole different person. His defenses were down completely, apposed to when he was awake he always seemed to have his guard up even when he was with Naruto.
He seemed stoic and unemotional when he was awake, some what detached about most things around him. But when he was asleep he clinched on to Naruto needingly, sometimes he smiled, some times he mumbled something or another action that wouldn't have been seen when he was conscious.
Naruto always found himself watching Gaara at some point when he was asleep. It was surreal to see a person like Gaara act so…un-Gaara like, he could barely imagine Gaara being anything else then the person he was now. Not that he would want too, Gaara just wouldn't be as much fun if he didn't act the way he did, it was something about that stoic and emotionless nature that drew Naruto in.
He often wondered what cause Gaara to act so differently when he was asleep, why he smiled like that. It wasn't that evil smile that he used to show right before he killed someone, this one was warm, happy, as if he was enjoying himself. Naruto had to admit, it was really kinda cute, and the way Gaara hugged him tighter when he did it only made it more so.
"I wonder what your dreaming about." Naruto said thoughtfully, it had to be an interesting experience seeing as Gaara had never had one before. "I wonder if you can tell the difference between a dream and the real world." Naruto remembered instances where a dream seemed too realistic and he couldn't tell if it had actually happened. For someone having there first one in his life it might not be as easy for him as it was for everyone else.
Naruto ran his fingers through the unruly red hair below him.
"Naruto." Gaara mumbled softly.
Naruto's grin grew into a smile. He never thought he could be so happy doing nothing.
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"Sasuke." Konohamaru called, walking into the clearing where Sasuke sat, just finishing his report.
Sasuke let his head fall back on to the tree, allowing him to get an upside down look at the boy approaching. "Huh?"
Konohamaru jumped over the tree landing in Sasuke's lap. "Whatcha doing?"
"Work." Sasuke said in a tone softer then his normal cold one.
"Finished?" Konohamaru turned around so that he was facing Sasuke. Sasuke nodded, pushing the clipboard aside while Konohamaru wrapped his arm around his neck and kissed him. "I really missed you." the boy said with a large smile.
"Me too." Sasuke winced inside of his head, talking like this was defiantly something he couldn't get used to no matter how hard he tried. "Did"
"No they didn't hurt me." Konohamaru said annoyedly, every time the subject of his capture came up he asked the same thing. Sasuke could easily tell there was something Konohamaru had left out when he told him what had happened, and there was, but Konohamaru really wasn't going to tell Sasuke. It was mainly about Itachi, and it would not go over well.
Sasuke shook his head in defeat, he didn't want to pester Konohamaru about it, he hated when people pestered him about things. "I'm sure you came here to tell me something."
"How did you" Konohamaru stopped, he had forgotten about Sasuke and his developing Sharingan. "Well yeah, Kakashi went to see another person about a job, we have our first mission." He said with an excited grin.
"Your not coming." Sasuke said immediately, watching Konohamaru's face drop disappointedly.
"Aww! Come on, I've been training, I can handle it." Konohamaru pleaded.
"It's too dangerous." Sasuke objected. "Besides, you're the assistant manger."
"But I wanna come!" Konohamaru sounded more childish then he intended too, childishness wasn't helping! "Assistant manger isn't important."
Sasuke smirked. "Konohamaru, every job is important. No matter how small it may seem every job has it's purpose."
"What's the purpose of mine then?" Konohamaru pouted.
"Every small job helps a bigger job, you help Iruka. Iruka cant get everything done on his own and if he didn't have you to help him then he couldn't be an effective manager. If we didn't have an effective manager then we would all be disorganized and unprepared, half the time we wouldn't know what to do. And if that happens then we wouldn't be able to do a good job on our missions or we wouldn't have any at all. If we don't do a good job on our missions then we lose credibility. Then everything would get much worse from there. " Sasuke explained.
Konohamaru looked up at him questing "Really?"
"Uh-huh."
"Then I guess I have to get to work." Konohamaru jumped off of Sasuke. "I have to go find Neji and Kiba." The boy ran off as soon as the words were out of his mouth, going to find the other two members of his team.
Sasuke just watched, at least Konohamaru wouldn't be mad when he forced him to stay behind.
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"I thought you didn't want to go back there." Kiba said, walking along side Neji through the baron field that was now Konoha. They could easily see that people now had truly lost all hope, most of them just sat around now. The younger children still played but that was the only sign of life left.
"I don't." Neji said. "But I have too. Some of the underground passages below the Hyuuga property were used as an archive or storage for old material. I'm not sure of there is anything that contains information on demons but I'm going to need to find out if I want to research them for our missions."
"How much dose it have to be to be an archive?" Kiba asked.
"The minimum is several hundred files, records, and/or books."
"…That's a lot of reading." Kiba shuttered at the thought of going through that much material, He barely paid attention in school. That much work would be hell of Kiba, Neji on the other had was use to doing tasks like this.
"I'll try to be as quick as possible." Neji wasn't saying that for Kiba's sake, more so because he felt the desire to be as far away from his family. After he came back to Konoha he found himself wanting to separate himself from the tradition and beliefs more so the ever. Now was the perfect time to do it, no one even knew he was alive more or less what he was doing.
"Hey Wait!"
Both of them looked back towards the cause of the sound and found Konohamaru running after him. The boy stopped about a foot away, placing his hands on his knees and trying to catch his breath. "I've been looking all over for you guys."
Kiba looked towards there destination just about a mile away "Why?"
"We have a mission. Kakashi wants to see us." He said.
Neji and Kiba looked at each other "I guess it will have to wait." Neji didn't sound the least bit annoyed or disappointed that a mission had come up while he was trying to finish this particular chore.
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"You must be the team from D.S.I." A middle aged man said as he saw Sasuke's team approaching. He was around his mid forties with short graying hair, standing out side of the gate of a large 2 story mansion that appeared to have at lest 16 rooms in each. "I'm surprised that they would send some kids to do this job but at this point I'll take any help I can get."
"You must be MR. Daku." Sasuke said, recognizing him more by his demeanor then the physical description Kakashi gave.
"Those monsters took over my home, they're everywhere. I just hope your worth your pay." Mr. Daku snorted, his attitude was anticipated by the 3. This was a typical reaction to a new organization who wasn't known and didn't have any credibility yet, especially when they sent someone in this age group.
"Can you give us a description of them?" Neji asked.
"Well." The man looked up with an expression of contemplation, then turned his eyes toward Neji again he found the right description. "They were orange wolfs or foxes, something like that, with a lot of tails, like 8 or 9 of them. And they had these strange red eyes."
The three of them glanced at each other for a moment, " Sounds like the Nine-tail's pups to me." Kiba said, the thought of them brought back bad memories of his leg injury which had healed nicely all considering.
"Do you know how many of them are inside?" Sasuke asked, he'd fought them before, he could hold his own against a fair amount…when they were separated.
"1 or 2 in each room at lest, I'm not sure about the basement but I heard some down there too." Mr.Daku said "Oh and the power is cut so be careful down there." The man unlocked the large, wooden double doors of the stone gate allowing access to the house's front door.
Neji, Kiba and Sasuke walked through, hearing Mr. Daku close it behind them. "No turning back now huh Akamaru." Kiba said with an anticipating smirk, he'd fought these enemies before but having it for his first mission make him feel like he'd never heard of them before. It was just like his first mission as a Genin.
Sasuke opened the large doors to the mansion, allowing sunlight to shine through the frame into the darkened front hall. The windows gave some light also, enough to see clearly through out the first floor, there really wasn't much to see. Everything was in shambles, they could see scraps of what used to be furnishings, desks, things of that nature. Large claw marks were slashed along the walls, the carpet was torn into pieces, the only thing that wasn't broken was the windows.
Sasuke turned back towards Kiba and Neji, sizing them up for his next directions, "It'll be faster if we split up. Neji, since there's no light in the basement you'll have to handle it." Sasuke knew Neji's Bakyugan also worked when there was no light present and since he could se nearly 360 degrees around him nothing could sneak up on him. "Kiba, you take the first floor and I'll take the second."
Neji and Kiba nodded then separated, the stairway to the basement was in the back of this room so Neji headed that way. Kiba took the left path down the hall opposite of Sasuke who took the stairs on the right wall.
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Neji moved carefully and quietly down the stairway, he could hear something...some things stirring below. Before even enabling his Bakyugan he got an idea of what was in the basement by the sounds, he could hear the demons bumping into boxes which seemed to be along the walls. The demons were avoiding the center of the room and open areas, just like in Konoha.
Drawing a Kunai from his holder, Neji used his Bakyugan to see exactly how many of them he'd be facing. He counted 3, one of them on the left wall of the room, another on the right and the last in front of the stairway, he hadn't noticed that before. Using his physical eyes he could see the faint glow of red eyes looking up the stairway. It had it's nose in the air trying to identity his scent, he had to attack now before it realized he was here.
With trained stealth he jumped off the stairway, diving over the demonic fox but coming close enough to drive the Kunai into it's head. Neji rolled in the air and landed on his feet facing the faltering nine-tail's back. It's death filled the air with the scent of blood and the other two foxes ear's perked at the sound of the third fox's body falling the ground.
They instantly turned towards Neji and ran at him with fangs bearing, they're speed was still just as fast as the last time he'd faced them. He barely had time to step to the side to avoid the first fox before the second pounced on him from behind and knocked him to the ground. Neji rolled over and knocked the demon off of him with his elbow, then sent a sharp kick into the other one that attacked him through the darkness.
Neji flipped to his feet, holding the bloody Kunai in his hand loosely before tossing it in to the wall in the back of the room to throw off the demons. It seemed to work by how they were looking around and not move directly toward him, they couldn't depend on sight so they were using hearing and scent to track him and they'd been using the first scent that drew them which had been blood.
Neji pressed his back against the wall, pulling out 2 more kunais while the foxes crept toward the bloody scent like they were sneaking up on a pray. 'Now.' Neji ran off the wall as soon as the nine-tails pups were directly in front of him. He managed to get right in front of the side of the closet's fox's head, thrusting the knife into it's skull directly above the eye.
By the time he made that move the other one had already dived at him and before he realized it he was being pressed down on the ground while a fox went for his neck. Even with his Bakyugan he couldn't anticipate that kind of speed. Neji lifted one hand, grabbing it's lower jaw and holding it back before he drove the same Kunai into it's face.
"That wasn't too hard."
He heard a loud growling behind him.
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Kiba and Akamaru didn't bother trying to hide his presence from the demons as he walked into the living room. He could smell them, some of them past the door leading to the dining room, some of them standing right in front of them growling fiercely. It was standing in the rubble of the couch, leaning toward him offensively.
"Akamaru, Mimic me!" Kiba shouted, pulling the small dog off his head and tossing him into the air. Akamaru let out a bark, triggering the Jutsu and causing his body to envelope in a cloud of smoke. A larger form emerged just above the demon, an exact copy of Kiba only with more animalist eyes. It caught the pup off guard causing it to flinch just as Akamaru came down on it, he knocked it to the ground and pinned it there.
"Good job boy, alright get ready!" Kiba stretched both of his hands out to his left side, pushing all of his Chakra there also. "Now! Gatsuuga!" Kiba shouted, thrusting both hands forward and unleashing a wind like blast toward Akamaru and the demon. Akamaru scooted back some, tucking his head behind the pup's and tried his best to hold it down while it thrashed wildly under him.
Akamaru let go as soon as he felt the vibration of Kiba's blast strike the Nine-tails, rolling to the side and narrowly avoiding a discharge that devoured the demon in it's wake. It was knocked into the wall under a window, laying un-moving in a near sleeping state, Kiba quickly put an end to that, driving a Kunai into it's head and quickly pulling it back out.
A loud growling could be heard from Akamaru behind him, he was crouched down pushing another one of those foxes by the shoulders. The Nine-Tail's pup let out a strained bark, unleashing it's charka in an explosive way. It was usually un-aimed and often missed, but this time it managed to hit nearly dead-on, it erupted in-between the two, knocking Akamaru back in a wave of debris from the carpeted floor and surrounding rubble.
Kiba reached out and caught his identical partner, setting him down on his feet. The incinerating blast managed to burn off most of the clothing on his front torso revealing just how accurate a copy he was. "You alright?" Akamaru barked and nodded. "You what? Are you serous?"
The mimicking Akamaru gave an affirmative bark, he'd said that he had just learned the demon's main attack. Not surprising considering Akamaru's nature of attacking was to mimic and learn those he'd seen before, similar to the Sharingan. "Then go for it."
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The third floor was just a hallway with 3 rooms on each side, the corridor split into 2 paths at the end of the stairs. At the end of both sides the hall turned to the left leading to a bathroom, this was a large place to have 12 bed rooms and 2 bathrooms. Sasuke didn't know where to start, so he just picked the bed room right in front of him.
Sasuke walked to the door, turning the knob only to have the door knocked off from the other side and pin him to the ground with an unexpected weight. Of course it was one of those damn foxes who had been waiting on the other side for him, smart.
It's head dived trough the door with it's mouth wide, biting down on to Sasuke's out reached arm. "Ufff!" Sasuke grunted, his charka flowing heavily in his left fist as he charged a Chidori. His hand eased out of a fist as a glowing blue orb now was being held there, lighting radiated out of it in stray bolts, all of them striking the demon in the face. After a few of them the nine-tails pup let go of his arm and jumped off of him, but Sasuke was quick enough to throw the Chidori and strike it in the neck while it was still in the air.
There was little left of it after that.
"Damn foxes." Sasuke said annoyedly, looking at the bleeding bite mark on his arm. He had to worry about surprise attacks now.
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"You three really did the job." Mr. Daku said. "I can go back in to my house now."
"I'm just glad we did a good job." Kiba said with a smile, he was mostly worried about getting credibility up. More credibility, more money, more help for Konoha.
"But who's going to clean up all of this?" Daku looked around at the fox demon carcasses and blood.
"That wasn't in our contract." Sasuke said with a tired annoyance, he didn't want anyone to attempt to talk him in to do it. This job had been a little fatiguing. "Let's go, I have a paperwork to do."
Mission complete
