Chapter Thirty-One
Kotaru Kazama smiled to himself as he walked through the tiled streets layered with frost of the town of Hoko. Part of it was an act, something he had picked up in his time as a chunin field agent of the Hidden Leaf to blend in with crowds. The rest of it was an honest expression of satisfaction.
Kazama had been promoted to tokubetsu jonin many years before, specializing in development of shinobi technology. He had spent the time since working on teams for various projects, but in his spare time he had been developing a device that none of his colleagues believed in: a weapon that would store and fire a large, concentrated blast of chakra at a moment's notice, with no need for hand seals. And after years of research and development, he had devised a prototype and presented it to his superiors.
And yet those short-sighted fools had denied his application for more funding. They had rationalized that the chakra requirements were too high for a single attack and too predictable and easily countered. Kotaru had argued that he would be happy to develop more specialized ammunition, such as any number of chakra nature forms, and methods could be devised so that ammunition could be created prior to missions and en masse. It would be a game changer in the shinobi world! But his funding was still denied and he was reassigned to another department, one working on improving flak jackets of all things!
In reality, Kazama had been assigned to that research team as an interim while the Jonin Council looked over his designs and determined if they were sound, and then how they might be modified for more practical use in the field. Kazama had failed to realize this, only feeling that the project that he had put so much work into had been outright denied rather than put on the backburner.
That had been the last straw, as far as he was concerned. Kazama had spent three months planning his escape with the plans for his project — and a few others he had been able to get a hold of — making a break for it while on "vacation" to the Land of Hot Springs. There he had met with a representative of the Hidden Cloud, who had been thrilled at the implications of Kazama's device.
True, the fact that it was so large at the moment, about three feet long and six inches wide at the muzzle and weighing at almost twenty pounds, was a bit of a downside — Kazama himself could admit that. But the Cloud representative had assured him that he would be granted the funding he needed to devise a smaller and less cumbersome model, perhaps one that could be fired with just one hand.
Now Kazama was biding the time for that same Cloud nin to make his report to the higher ups of Kumogakure to secure his funding and allow him to work. Just a few more days until his contact was due back in the town and he would be free to make his new career in the Land of Lightning, doing what he loved the way he wanted to do it. And to make matters even better, he hadn't seen a single Leaf nin, meaning he was practically free and clear!
Or he would have been, had he not forgotten one facet of his research assignment in Konoha: a mandatory record of his chakra signature. A detail meant as a contingency for this very sort of situation.
Kazama's step faltered as his instincts suddenly screamed at him that something was not right. Before he could respond, glowing chains burst out of the ground all around him, weaving themselves into a dome and the gaps between being filled with semi-transparent chakra. "What on earth?" he asked in shock. Before he could process this further, he picked up the rumbling of stone beneath him and leapt away, just barely avoiding the grip of a red-haired shinobi attempting to headhunt him.
Kazama tried to backflip for room, but was blindsided by a flying kick to his side that sent him reeling and crashing into the barrier. He bounced off with a cry of pain and tumbled back to the ground, but rolled onto his feet and drew a kunai as his battle instincts began to shake off dust. 'I suppose falling behind on training really was a mistake,' he thought wryly as he sized up his opponents.
One was the redheaded man of average height and slim, muscular build, his hair pulled in a short tail and clad in grey winter wear. His eyes were blue-grey and hard as steel, and a strange black short sword was swung over his shoulder. But strangest of all was the fact that the chains that surrounded them all were coming from this man's back. Which meant taking him out would probably bring the barrier down.
The other was a woman of age with her partner, somewhat short and svelte, with shoulder-length dark brown hair and matching eyes complimented by tanned skin. Her winter wear was more dark green, and she held an unsettling smirk on her lips and a naginata over her shoulder in perfect reflection of her partner's stance. She must have been the one to hit him out of the air.
"Kotaru Kazama," the woman said, her tone confident and carrying, "you are under arrest for crimes against the Village Hidden in the Leaves. You have a choice to come quietly and stand trial for defection and attempted sale of village secrets, or to fight and lose before being dragged back to stand the same trial."
Kazama stared at the woman with narrowed eyes. Why on earth was she saying such things so loudly? Then he caught movement outside the barrier and his eyes widened in shock at a crowd gathering just outside. Civilians were approaching from all over to witness what was happening, and he caught whispers of "ninja" and "traitor" and "arrest." Damn, that was clever. She'd outed his scheme to this entire town, which may well cut out any repercussions these shinobi may receive for taking him. Which meant he would have to play this carefully.
"I am no Kotaru Kazama," he rebutted, loudly. "I am a simple researcher taking a vacation in this town."
"One who has had clear shinobi training, Kazama?" the woman asked, glancing down at the kunai in his hand. "And please don't insult me by saying it's a collectible that you just happened to be carrying on a cold, icy day."
Well, she had him there. He had to admit these two had maneuvered him quite well. He had no choice now but to fight, or surrender to the non-mercies of the Hidden Leaf and their Torture and Interrogation Department. Flicking through hand seals, Kazama spat a burst of fireballs, the Phoenix Fire Technique, to try and hit the shinobi keeping up the barrier, but he sunk back into the ground and left Kazama alone with the woman.
"Was the Leaf so low on competent shinobi that they sent a little girl after me?" Kazama asked. In truth, he was fully aware that kunoichi could be just as deadly as their male counterparts, if not more so. But he also knew that many kunoichi had at least some form of insecurity from working in such a male-dominated profession. He just needed to see if this woman would lose her cool.
"I'd watch the attitude, Kazama," the woman said, her tone playful but hiding a sharp edge. "This 'little girl' is more than enough to take you on. But please, do try your best." She swung her naginata into a ready position. "I've been itching for a good fight."
So hitting the gender button wasn't going to work. He grit his teeth and prepared himself, again cursing his stunted training over the last few years in favor of research. If this girl was sent with only one shinobi as back up, it meant she was at least an experienced chunin. And while his research skills were jonin-level, his other skills were more in line with the chunin standard, and probably rusty. This would not be easy.
"If I may ask one more question before we begin," he said with forced calm. "Who might I have the honor of defeating?" If she revealed her clan name, it may give him insight into her skills and abilities. Granted, she may be from no clan at all and therefore have no reputation, but it's not like fishing for information would harm him. Knowledge is power, after all.
"Sure, why not?" the woman said with a shrug. "Tomoko Sarutobi of the Hidden Leaf."
Kazama winced at the sound of that name. Sarutobi. That did not bode well.
Tomoko shouted a battle cry and lunged for the defector, the blade of her naginata wreathed in flames. Kazama ducked, wove, and flipped to avoid a salvo of slashing arcs, many of them passing so close he could feel the heat from the flames. 'It can't be easy to maintain that kind of chakra flow for long,' he theorized, 'so she can't possibly keep it up long-term.'
As if responding to his thoughts, Tomoko ceased her assault and leapt backward, the flames around her blade snuffing out. She took some deep breaths and charged again with another battle cry. Kazama laughed and threw his kunai and a handful of shuriken, which Tomoko deftly evaded without even slowing down. She swung her naginata and Kazama backpedaled out of range … only to feel a hairline incision down his shoulder to his hip.
Hissing in sudden pain, Kazama flicked through hand seals and unleashed a wide sheet of flames that forced Tomoko back and allowed him to fumble something from his pocket. He crunched a specialized soldier pill, an experimental medical tool that he'd snatched from the Hidden Leaf labs before he fled, and felt the incision quickly begin to close up and his blood restored. He grimaced as his stomach twisted with discomfort, a side effect that had not been ironed out, but chose to deal with it.
"Wind chakra flow," he surmised. "Very clever."
"It's amazing how few people see that coming," Tomoko noted before lunging back into the fray.
Drawing another kunai, Kazama did his best to fend off Tomoko's renewed assault, grateful that she seemed unwilling to expend more Fire chakra to keep her naginata burning. He thought furiously as he rolled under a swing and maneuvered away from the edge of the barrier, taking some comfort in the faint oohs and aahs of the crowd. If that blasted barrier wasn't there, he could-
An idea came to him and he fought to get out of Tomoko's range, tossing a few exploding tags to force her retreat. Patting his vest to make sure the blueprints for his creation were still on him, he took a scroll from his vest and unsealed the real deal: a fully-functioning and fully-loaded chakra gonne. After all, he wasn't so foolish as to present his idea with no proof of concept.
Tomoko narrowed her eyes and thought back to what Uncle had told her about these weapons. These "chakra gonnes" fired bullets of concentrated chakra that could be pre-prepared or diverted straight from the user's reserves. Because of the density of the projectiles, they packed a powerful punch — enough to blow someone to bits at close range. But the weapons were cumbersome and unwieldy, they had a hell of a kickback, the projectiles were somewhat slow, and they tended to lose power the further they traveled as the density of the chakra began to unravel. They could also only hold one premade shot and the chakra requirements meant a user with average reserves couldn't fire more than two more.
Tomoko braced herself, half-closing her eyes and moulding sensory chakra to get a cue on Kazama's mental state and when he would fire. It was a tricky thing in combat — far more of an art than a science — but she had trained with the Third Hokage himself to develop and hone her chakra sense. She knew she could do this.
There, a flux! Tomoko Body Flickered out of the gonne's line of fire just as Kazama pulled the trigger, releasing a thunderous sound and fast-moving ball of chakra that soared and crashed into the barrier of chakra chains, its force reflecting with enough power to push each of them backward a step and causing the entire structure to ripple like a pond with a stone thrown in.
"Interesting," Kazama spat before he jumped into the air and aimed again. Tomoko moulded more sensory chakra and prepared herself to sense his intention again … but something was wrong. She opened her eyes a bit, vastly reducing the focus on her chakra sense, and found Kazama not aiming at her but at the ground. And in a flash of insight, she knew his real target. It wasn't her …!
"Ken!" she shouted in warning a split second before Kazama pulled the trigger and fired his bullet at the ground, the condensed chakra rupturing and splitting the ground before blowing it into gravel. The force of the blast and the stone shrapnel sent both Tomoko and Kazama reeling, though the scientist far less due to his distance from the ground.
Kazama landed in a roll and returned to his feet to find the barrier dropped. Yes, it worked! That redhead was probably a pile of buried mincemeat and he himself was home free. He stumbled a bit, but regained his balance and began running. He made it a few yards before a piercing shriek of rage and loss sent a chill up his spine. He looked backward to find Tomoko pursuing him, accompanied by a rotund simian creature. One of the Sarutobi clan's monkey summons, no doubt. Also a bad sign.
"You bastard!" Tomoko shouted, the genial air she'd had during the fight gone and replaced with absolute fury. "It doesn't matter where you run or where you hide! I will find you and drag you back before I kill you!"
Kazama redoubled his speed, sure in his very bones that she was telling the truth!
Kazama panted heavily as he sprinted at top speed for longer than he had in years. He swore to himself that when he made it to the Hidden Cloud he would do everything he could to get back into shape. His lungs were burning, his muscles beginning to spasm. But if he could make it past the town gates, he would be home free!
A small part of him idly thanked whatever higher powers there may or may not be that he was in a normal rural town instead of the Hidden Frost Village. If there had been ANBU even from a minor village, he wouldn't have lasted this long.
The gates were in sight and his heart leapt, putting on a final burst of speed. He could make it! But a sudden blur in the upper part of his vision caused him to stumble and tumble to a stop mere inches from where a thick metal pole had landed and stuck upward in the ground in front of him, followed by a collection of more that spread out into a makeshift cage, the poles actively growing to prevent him from bounding over them.
"Adamantine Staff Transformation," he muttered in fear and some awe. He knew as well as anyone the tales of the Third Hokage's famed indestructible weapon of choice. "Adamantine Prison Wall," he added grimly.
"Face me, you coward!" Tomoko shouted as she landed from the rooftops on three points, her naginata at the ready. The monkey landed beside her, a large kanabo in hand. "Bring it on!"
Without thinking, Kazama revealed his chakra gonne once again and hardly aimed before firing. The projectile flew at Tomoko with abandon.
"Little one!" the monkey shouted, knocking her out of the way before he exploded.
"Yama!" Tomoko wailed as her summon and friend burst into smoke before her, the chakra ball continuing on and demolishing a wall behind them. Wait, smoke? Tomoko realized it a second later: Yama had pushed her out of the way and reverse summoned just before the attack hit. He was alive!
But it also meant that his Adamantine Prison Wall disappeared in a string of smoky bursts. Kazama laughed drunkenly, his chakra almost at its limit, and lurched toward the town gates and what he believed was freedom. But just as he passed through, a bunch of long, glowing blurs darted at his back and wrapped around him like serpents, resolving into familiar golden chains that bound his wrists and ankles and lashed them to his sides until he fell to the ground. He was dragged backward by the chains to stop on his back in front of the redheaded shinobi from before, bruised and scratched but very much alive.
"You!" Kazama cried in shock. "You should be dead!"
"Nope," he replied before slapping a sealing tag onto Kazama's forehead. He hissed with discomfort as sealing formulae spread out over the skin of his head, neck, and upper body. The sensation was like fire ants crawling in lines over his flesh until they stopped spreading and the ninja peeled the sealing tag away. Then he made a hand sign and the process resumed in reverse, the lines of esoteric text crawling backward to settle into a swirl-shaped seal on his forehead. The chains then loosened and receded into the ninja's back so quickly they were gone in seconds, as if they had never been.
The redhead took a breath to presumably speak but he was tackled to the ground by the Sarutobi, who held him close in a fierce embrace. Kazama was stunned for a moment at the open display of affection between the obvious teammates before he realized this was his last chance to escape. Thank heaven for youthful emotional foolishness. He began to run again, but made it only a few steps before his body seemed to shut down and he collapsed in a boneless heap.
Kazama tried to move, but he didn't even feel any pressure. His body wouldn't move … he didn't even feel the ground beneath anything but the side of his face. It was as if he had suddenly become paralyzed from the neck down.
"Not gonna happen," the redhead said, both of the younger shinobi standing up and brushing themselves off. "You're ours, Kazama."
Lord Hiruzen hummed in thought as he examined the proposition before him.
It was a letter from the Village Hidden in the Sand, directly from the Kazekage himself. Apparently, young Ken had made quite an impression on the Wind daimyo when he won the Chunin Exam Finals. It was common practice for the daimyos of the various nations to attend the finals to learn about up and coming talent, thus allowing it to stand in for war as was explained to the Exam participants.
Hiruzen himself had met with the Wind daimyo very briefly during the last Exams to discuss the flow of missions to his own village, which were steadily increasing. According to Jiraiya's informants and various other intelligence reports, the Wind daimyo had been taking these missions away from his own village of Sunagakure and funneling them to Konoha on the grounds of cheaper prices. And while the added income was always welcome, it did raise the question of how the Hidden Sand would react to being sidelined by their own national ruler.
This letter, however, was not an aggressive missive, as Hiruzen had feared. It was, quite surprisingly, a request for very specific aid.
Rasa had heard glowing testimonials from his daimyo about the sealing arts displayed by young Ken. And given his age — he would have been a genin at the time of the fall of Whirlpool — he had likely heard war stories about the lost clan and their talents. As such, Rasa was requesting aid from their newest chunin in the form of consultation on a piece of sealwork.
But while it was framed and worded rather formally, Hiruzen couldn't help a feeling of deeper meaning to the request. From what he knew of the current Kazekage, he was a proud and utilitarian man who balked at the notion of asking for help of any kind. The formal wording of his letter, therefore, may have hidden a more heartfelt plea.
Hiruzen's thoughts were interrupted by a burst of smoke that dispersed to reveal Sir Yama of the Mountain of Fruit and Flowers, calmly surrounded by the blades of the four ANBU who acted as Hiruzen's general security.
"Forgive my intrusion, Lord Hiruzen," Yama rumbled.
"Not at all," Hiruzen replied. While his closest companion among the monkey tribe was with King Enma, he personally liked Yama, too. "What can I do for you?"
"I just thought you may want to know that the little one and her red-haired friend have apprehended their target. However, they also ran afoul of local law enforcement, so you may have a few repercussions from that. Just a heads up, I suppose. Good day, Lord Hokage." With that, he tipped his head and vanished in another cloud of smoke. With a signal from their Hokage, the ANBU stood down and returned to their virtually invisible stations.
Hiruzen sighed and ran his fingers through his grey hair, or what little remained. The problems with local agents were to be expected if Kazama had fought back. It was a headache, but he could handle that with relative ease; those two would get a severe dressing down, of course, but it was a first offense and he wasn't that worried.
Though the mention of Team TAK, as his "niece" liked to call them, brought back the situation of the letter. After a few more minutes of thought, Hiruzen decided to take something of a break and took up his wide-brimmed hat before leaving his office. He made his way to the base of the Hokage Monument, where a small, out-of-the-way shrine housed a single-person bench and tranquil pool of water over which hung a small gong and padded mallet.
He took the mallet and tapped the gong, creating a ringing note that made the water in the pool ripple and dance. Hiruzen sat upon the bench and waited patiently for a response. He was there for about twenty minutes before something arose from the water and leapt out, revealing a small, red and blue toad wearing swimming goggles that it moved from its eyes.
"Lord Hokage," the toad said with a bow. "May I help you?"
"Yes, Kotsuke," Hiruzen replied with a welcoming smile. "I had hoped you might get a message to Jiraiya for me."
"Of course," Kotsuke replied with a smile. "What's the message?"
After being detained for a few hours for property damage and verifying their story, Team TAK was allowed to leave by the magistrate of the town with Kazama in tow. Ever the gentleman, Ken had volunteered to carry their prisoner over his shoulder. They were able to get a few hours of travel in before the setting sun forced them to make camp for the night. Another few days and they would be back in the village and its more moderate winter climate.
As they put up their tents, Tomoko's and a much smaller tent for their prisoner to have shelter in, the two kept glancing at each other with red faces, clearly thinking about what had happened that morning. And wondering if it would repeat itself.
When they had picked up supplies for the week-long trip back, Ken had considered purchasing a completely new tent for himself … but a weight in his belly had stayed his hand and urged him to simply pick one up for their prisoner. He knew that there was a deeper meaning to that feeling, but he refused to put serious thought into it.
After having their dinner, and being spit at for trying to feed their prisoner, Team TAK took their leave and prepared to spend another night hiding from the cold in their warmed tent. Another round of subtle awkwardness came as they each undressed in the warmth of said tent, even with their backs turned away from each other. As they settled into their bedrolls, Tomoko pretended not to notice how Ken's abs were rather defined and his loose sleeping pants rode low on his hips, while Ken avoided thinking about how Tomoko's short shorts showed off her slender legs and how low her tank top was cut.
As the pair began to settle into drowsiness from a hard day of searching, fighting, and transporting a limp prisoner, Tomoko spoke up out of the blue. "You know, maybe we should keep the camp site like this," she said. "It would be less work to put up only one tent, right?"
Ken was stunned at the very idea and spoke without thinking. "I can't argue with that," he said honestly, silently adding that he wouldn't if he could.
"Good," Tomoko replied. "Sleep tight," she said before lapsing back into silence.
Unbeknownst to the other, both members of the team were thinking over this development with trepidation and … excitement? But soon enough the day caught up to them and they fell into slumber. And at some point in the night, Tomoko rolled over toward her teammate while Ken reached out for something to hold.
It was no less awkward the second time, but … not in a bad way?
Chapter thirty-one!
*Kotaru Kazama's name can roughly translate to "cultivate [the] wind" or to think big. It was fun coming up with that for a ninja inventor.
*Hoko, the name of the village, means "hoar" or greyish white. It's part of the term hoarfrost, an archaic term.
*I'm working with the head canon that sensors can record unique chakra signatures as an image, kind of like fingerprinting.
*The word "gonne" is used for the first true firearm, also called a hand cannon, used in China from the 13th century onward and exported to Europe to eventually become the firearms we know today.
*For those who may or may not cry out on outrage "Only Naruto can sense negative emotions with Kurama's help!" - Tomoko is sensing disturbances in his chakra much like the canon-use of sensing when someone is lying by detecting fluctuations in their chakra. There's no way bloodlust or fear won't alter your chakra flow, too.
*For those who are wondering, I'm assuming that a monkey doesn't absolutely HAVE to be in Adamantine staff form to create copies of the staffs.
As always, I hope you liked it! Leave a review, they're always fun to read! And may your inspirations rise to the clouds.