Narumi fought back a sigh as she closed the door to her and Kurenai's shared room. It was hard to even look the jounin in the eyes as she delivered the news to her. Narumi wasn't prepared for Kurenai to be so shaken up and distraught about Naruto. Even through the door she could hear the faint stangaled sobs echoing in the room behind her. Their relationship was far more developed than Narumi had originally thought possible. It was sort of a wake up call for Narumi, even though her eyes glowed with unconditional sorrow for her traitorous brother she was glad that he had someone so close to him. Filling in the void his family failed to give him.
Leaning her head against the wall she closed her eyes in thought, wincing in pain as her bandaged arm scraped uncomfortable against the wall behind her. Being alone with her thoughts for the past week had given Narumi enough time to digest what exactly happened during her fight with her blonde brother. His words echoed in her head, bouncing off the walls in her mind before engraving themselves deep in her brain. Strangers...he had called them strangers. And what made it worse was that Narumi couldn't fight his claim, she knew he was right, looking into his multicolored eyes that night only solidified the sinking feeling in her chest.
His eyes.
At that thought her mind went blank. Eyes she was sure she would never forget for the rest of her life. She shuddered at the memory of the spinning Uchiha doujutsu that lived in his left eye socket, no doubt belonging to his late sensei Shisui Uchiha, the very man that Naruto praised over everything else. Narumi wanted to scoff at herself, she should have known better when Naruto came home one day with a large scar over his left eye all those years ago. Her younger self had asked her parents about it. They threw her a broken answer her way saying that he had always had it since birth. Her feeble mind accepted the answer and never bothered to confine her brother about it, so she shrugged it off. Narumi cursed her younger self, what a bitch!
In hindsight, and now that she had time to mull over and reflect, she wasn't that surprised over the sharingan. In fact it made sense to her, putting the pieces together wasn't hard for her after a few moments and she was left without even second guessing the doujutsu. It was his right eye that made her uneasy, the golden coin that glared at her with such exasperation it made her physically wince at the thought and made the demon residing in her thrash about wildly. Even now the demon continued to squirm in his cage. Both demon and human were shocked beyond belief as they laid their eyes upon the golden eye of the Sanbi. For the life of her, Narumi just couldn't figure out how mif was even possible for Naruto to have the Sanbi sealed inside of him. When could it have even happened? Did her parents lie and the Sanbi was with the Kyuubi the day he attacked the village almost 13 years ago?
Her theory was quickly debunked by the Kyuubi himself, confirming that he was alone during the attack.
No matter how long she thought of any reasoning it just led to more unanswered questions, the only way she would truly know would be asking Naruto himself. And that was physically impossible at the moment in time, and for who knows how long.
"Hey ummm, Narumi-san?"
Narumi was blown out of her thoughts as she tilted her head to look at the shinobi that Kurenai had picked up running over to her. His onyx black eyes looked over to her in uncertainty, she could practically feel awkwardness oozing off of him as he got closer to her. She raised a quisitive brow in his direction, looking at him in question. Narumi truly didn't really know how she felt about Kagami. All she remembered was waking up with her arm in a cast and the tall strange man looking over both her and Kurenai. He spoke with such familiarity towards Kurenai it threw her for a loop. Calling her sensei and doing anything in his power to make sure they were healing. At first she was on edge of the mysterious man, and if she was being honest, she could tell right away that he wasn't as strong as he looked. She could have killed him and even buried his body before he had even known she moved. But after he begrudgingly told her about his rare condition that he could only use genjutsu, he eased up on him.
Apparently Kurenai had agreed to take Kagami back to Konoha if he came clean and revealed everything that he knew about the kidnapping operation. Narumi couldn't fault Kurenai on her decision after a moment of thought. If she was a master of certain ninja art and she seemingly met someone with a massive amount of potential, she would have taken them in too.
"What is it Kagami-san?"
Narumi said, her brow furrowing in confusion as he fidgeted in place. Question shined in her blue eyes as she pushed herself off the wall, looking upwards to meet his eyes.
"I think it's best if you just follow me."
Narumi slowly nodded her head as she quickly followed after the retreating back of the tall man. Now Narumi was burning with curiosity the closer she and Kagami got to the hotel lobby. Her mind was flying through endless possibilities as to why Kagami was acting as strange as he was, he was tense. Borderline uncomfortable as he dragged his feet across the smooth hotel floor. Narumi offered basked in the heated room and offered a strained smile and a small incline of her head to the hotel employee behind the desk, quickly recognizing her as the same lady that had given them their rooms over a month ago, Uta if her memory serves her right. The lady ignored her smile, staring blank back at her. Narumi was certain there was an annoyed flash in her eyes as she looked at her and scoffed silently.
"Guess she isn't over the hallway brawl."
Narumi had the audacity to look sheepish as she forced her head to turn away, feeling somewhat uncomfortable about the situation. Shaking her head to rid her thoughts, Narumi watched as Kagami grabbed the door handle, he seemed to hesitate for a moment and looked back at Narumi. The red-head tilted her head in confusion again, he was just acting so strange.
Then without warning Kagami pushed the door open. Narumi had to squint slightly at the sudden soft glow of the moon as it shined down on them. She let her eyes adjust before walking outside right behind Kagami. The second she took a step outside she felt her entire body freeze up, not because of the freezing temperature but because of the painfully recognizable chakra signatures she just picked up on. Narumi's heart threatened to stop beating as she tried her best to avert her gaze at the three flushed faces looking at her. Their cheeks looked like they were permanently stained pink as they breathed heavily. They looked like they had had decided to run across the ocean to get here instead of taking the boat. She was lost in her own thoughts and didn't even hear Kagami whisper that they were here.
"Narumi, can you please explain why this man is refusing us access to see Ku-chan and Naruto-kun?"
Narumi recoiled at Anko's harsh words, they felt like they had burnt her skin and sizzled uncomfortably. On either side of Anko were the two remaining members of team 11. They both looked more flushed than their sensei and were looking at her with such expectant looks that she was beginning to wish she stayed in bed for the day.
Anko scowled in annoyance as she watched Narumi force her eyes away from her. Anko barely registered the cast over the girl's arm and stepped closer to the red-head, glaring daggers at Narumi. Even in her pissed off state, Anko internally patted herself on the back for not just killing the man who had refused her access to her best friend and student. She didn't know she had that kind of self control in her.
Narumi had to bite back a sigh, she was secretly hoping that Kurenai would have to be the one to break the news to team 11. As a consensus they genuinely liked Kurenai more and it would be easier to hear it from her. The Kyuubi roared with laughter in her mind at Narumi's sudden misfortune making sure to rub it into the girl's face. Narumi just chalked it up to karma finally coming back to haunt her, it had to come back sometime right?
"Well Anko-san, it's...complicated." Narumi said.
Anko scowled at her words, her two students following her actions subconsciously. Shizuka's eyes darkened considerably, her glare intensifying by the second wishing her look would burn theNamikaze alive in order to keep her warm in this freezing weather. "Just hurry up and fucking let us see him!"
Narumi closed her eyes again, she could feek Kagami's concerned expression on her side but it did nothing to calm the six eyes looking at her with unadulterated annoyance. Even Sai's usual stoic expression was cracking at the sight of Narumi's silence. His hand gripping tightly around a paper in his hands, and this time Narumi was completely oblivious to it.
"Kurenai-san is upstairs resting still, she got put under a powerful genjutsu and was out for about 10 days." Team 11 felt their eyes go wide, not believing what they had just heard. Especially Anko, she knew how powerful her friend was at genjutsu, she wasn't labeled a master just for the fun of it. So the mere thought of a genjutsu master being out for over a week was frightening.
"And Naruto-nii. Well-"
Narumi felt her throat close up as she spoke. How could she tell them that their teammate left them? Abandoned the village for his own personal gain, should she even mention the thing about Kise and Kurenai dying? The only reason she had told Kurenai was because Narumi thought she had a right to know since it heavily involved her. And Narumi knew that the two of them were the closest out of anyone, so it made sense to Narumi to tell Kurenai everything.
But team 11? She had no idea, she went silent as she tried to think of what her brother would want. Did he want them to know why he left, and if he did then how much did he want them to know?
"H-he left...didn't he…?"
Narumi snapped her head over to Shizuka in apparent shock. Her head turned so fast she was grateful she didn;t suffer from whiplash. Narumi noticed as the three faces that were just looking at her with anger were now heavily crestfallen. Shizuka choked back a set of tears and Sai just clenched his fists. Anko looked the most affected, her frown was almost hard to look at as her eyes shined with sorrow. Narumi felt her mouth fall agape, the gears had stopped turning in her head, hell even the Kyuubi had shut his mouth for a change. No words escaped the red-heads lips, she starred in silent shock as her eyes flickered between the three of them. Finally they settled on Anko, the purple headed jounin's hair this time was out of its comfortable ponytail as she let it drape just past her shoulders. Her usual seductive beguile was gone, and what lied in its wake did not fit the jounin's beautiful features in the slightest.
"Our Wave country mission was simple, all we had to do was wait for a bridge to get built and protect the bridge builder. We managed to keep him safe and kill Gato in the process, apparently he was a briber and had overtaken many countries and smaller towns just with his money. But-," Anko trailed off, she reached up and solemnly patted Sai on his shoulder. Sai scoffed and forcefully thrusted his arm forward, catching Narumi by surprise.
Narumi looked at the page under Sai's sharp grip and she felt her heart drop several stories in her chest. With a shaky hand she softly pried the page from Sai's cold fingers as Anko continued.
"But we found this in his office, just laying there like it was waiting for us."
Narumi ignored her dark words and glanced over the page, her face growing more and more pale the longer she read it over.
"Reunited minus one.
In colorless white, the gold will fade away, leaving those closest to him in a waking faction while armed with another.
Under the full moon two teams await with a new ally; but while reunited; one will be missing, the one who had suffered timenly.'
Betrayal of the gold."
A tense silence washed over the five shinobi as the words left Narumi's mouth in a breathless whisper. The red-head felt her mind go numb in shock, not looking away from the paper in her hands. It seemed almost surreal, like this was just one whole big prank that was being played on them all. But it was real, and it was the hard truth that led them all to Yukigakure and to Naruto's abandonment. They were played, played like fools and were now getting it rubbed in their faces that they had lost. Following the pied piper blindly while they saw everything they did.
Narumi wanted to scream, she was annoyed. Why even leave these fortunes? Was it purely just to mess with them? If that was the case then it had worked. Kurenai was a crying mess upstairs and all three remaining members of team 11 looked far worse for wear, no doubt trying their hardest to get here on time.
Narumi barely paid attention when Anko spoke next, explaining that they figured Naruto symbolized the gold in the text, with his blonde hair. But Narumi knew better, it wasn't just his blonde hair that was a red flag for the red-head, no, it was something much more that they didn't know.
It was the Sanbi.
Narumi clenched her fist around the page. Schooling her features she looked over at Kagami making the man snap into attention.
"Can you check up on Kurenai-san? I want to get out of Roka and back to Konoha as fast as possible. Tou-san needs to hear about this immediately."
"W-wait shouldn't we try and find Naruto-kun? He has to be clos-"
"Naruto-nii had a ten day head start from us, he's probably been out of Yukigakure since the first day. We don't know where he went, searching now with all of us at our weakest will surely lead us nowhere."
Narumi said cutting off Anko and sending a trail of guilt through Narumi's core when she noticed the painful expression take control of Anko's face. Narumi pushed the not so foreign feeling of guilt down and instructed Kagami to go upstairs. Sai relecuntently nodded in agreeance with Narumi, his scowl still present as Shizuka looked down sadly, hesitantly nodding her head along with Sai.
Another silence fell over the group that was borderline uncomfortable. NArumi doesn't know how long they stayed in this tense silence, but she didn't mind. Making her face stoic once again she turned away from the group, trying her best to calm the growing guilt once again. She had made up her decision, the decision that she had been mulling over ever since she had woken up in a painful fury after losing to Naruto. The fortune helped clear her mind up a bit, something like this just couldn't have been a coincidence.
She just wishes her decision doesn't break things further than they already were.
The sun had finally set, basking the Elemental Nations in the bright white rays that shined down from the full moon high in the sky. Eight shadowy figures circled around a dark cave, all standing adjacent from one another, welcoming the silence and letting it wash over the pitch black room. Not a single word was spoken during their wait for their leader, their glitching bodies phased in and out at random, making it almost impossible to see their faces.
"It seems we are all here."
The eight figures all turned their heads to look at the new voice, a taller man stood at the top. His body was the only one not glitching as he crossed his arms over his chest. His deep purple eyes locking on to each set off eyes simultaneously. They all gave their leader their full attention, it was one of the rare displays of pure submission that the figures gave to him.
"We have a change of plans. Zetsu has just informed me that what we are looking for has been moved into Kumogakure. Kisame, Itachi." the strong deep voice said, making the two set of eyes look over at him. One set was blazing red, three tomoe sitting comfortably in his eye sockets. The other was a deep white, gills under his eyes that resembled that of a great white shark. They stood to attention at their leader, waiting patiently for his words.
"I want you two to head over to Kumogakure, find and kill Yuno no matter what. He has what we have been after. Dismissed."
And just like that, as fast as he appeared he vanished. Leaving the eight figures alone in the room once again. Itachi and Kisame merely grinned before they disappeared first, their see through bodies disappearing into the wind. One by one everyone else followed, leaving the dark cave completely empty and void of any life.
Just the way they liked it.