New chapter! I know it's been a while...
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It had been three days since Shisui left them. Naruto didn't cry when the older boy turned his back on them, shouldering his own pack and leaping into the trees. He had felt a hole tearing in his chest, and heard Danzo-sama's whispered words in the back of his mind monsters do not have friends but he tenaciously ignored them. It was hard not to reminisce on the days back in his cell, he felt safe in the small, dark space and in most of his memories Shisui was there, filling in the silence by teaching him or telling him stories or showing him ninja tricks. Naruto knew, that cell should have been cold and lonely and miserable, he knew how horrifying the Root prison was, he knew firsthand what kind of torture went on in the cold cells, but Shisui had made that dark place home.
Sakura and Sasuke were weird, and worse, they thought he was weird. He could tell from the way they looked at him sometimes. When he took his sandals off within the first half hour of parting ways with Shisui, saying he much preferred to walk barefoot. When he refused to eat the berries and squirrel they had cooked for dinner, and instead ate his ration bars. When he had pulled out the stolen stuffed dog he had taken from the old house as they climbed into their bedroll each night. The communicated with each other using prolonged looks and slight shakes of their heads and shrugs of their shoulders and Naruto felt left out. Yesterday afternoon, he had been surprised when he got a rise out of Sakura, earning a loud shut up! and more ranting from the pink-haired girl after two hours of his incessant chatter and questions. After the girl's outburst, Sasuke then directed a shoulder shrug his way and Naruto at least felt companionship in the fact that they both thought Sakura was crazy.
They were now stopped for the night; Sasuke had managed to kill a rabbit and was cooking it over a fire while Sakura had gathered nuts from the trees earlier that day. Naruto had to admit, the scent of the sizzling meet smelled enticing, but he was afraid how his stomach would react to the new food if his experience with growing accustomed to the ration bars was any example. But they had occasionally had meat in the soup served in the Root prison, and Naruto was willing to risk it.
Sasuke gave a self-satisfied smirk as he finished cooking the rabbit hand handed a piece of it on a stick to Naruto. He quickly finished setting up the barrier seals around their small camp and went to sit by his two companions. He tried to refuse the handful of nuts Sakura passed his way.
"Eat them, Naruto, we only have a couple more days until we reach Wave and you need the nutrition."
He couldn't refuse her large eyes that shone with an apology for her rude behavior, resolving to eat slowly.
"So, what do we know about Jiraiya-sama again?"
Sasuke frowned at his toes before answering. "He's tall and has white hair, and can summon toads."
"He's also the biggest pervert, according to Izumi-chan." Sakura pitched in. "We know he was last seen in Wave, but that was several years ago. But looking for Tsunade-sama seems more tedious as it has been even longer since anyone has heard from her."
Naruto popped the nuts into his mouth; they were quite crunchy and plain. "They were Orochimaru-sensei's teammates, but that's all I know."
There it was again. That stare that Sasuke and Sakura gave him that labeled Naruto as weird. Sasuke's stare turned more pointed.
"You were taught by the Snake-sannin?"
Naruto cleared his throat a bit. "Uh, yeah. In the Root prison…he taught me sealing."
Sakura shivered. "Didn't he experiment on hundreds of people, even children?"
Naruto was starting to feel queasy. "Well…he did a lot of experiments. But he's a smart guy."
Sakura turned away and started unrolling her tarp and bedding avoiding Naruto's gaz. She noticeably put herself on the other side of Sasuke and Naruto tried not to let the obvious slight hurt his feelings. Sasuke rolled his dark eyes and continued to eat, occasionally glancing at Naruto and his slowly disappearing dinner.
It wasn't too much later during the night that Naruto dragged himself from his bedroll, gripping his cramping stomach as his dinner was regurgitated. He felt Sasuke's eyes on him again from where the other boy had been on watch, but Naruto couldn't care much about his dignity as he again gagged. When he was done, he scooted away from the vomit and collapsed on his back with his arms and legs spread, breathing deeply and gazing at the stars peeking through the tree leaves. If only they had an endless supply of ration bars. His water canteen suddenly blocked his view of the canopy. Naruto moved his gaze to Sasuke's impassive face as he held the container toward him and swallowed harshly before reaching up to take it. After taking small sips and feeling well enough to sit up, Naruto offered to take his watch early and let Sasuke sleep.
The next morning, the three pre-teens found themselves running. A loud yell had come from up ahead on the road, and so they dashed into the surrounding forest. Sakura was keeping up an impressive rant as they huffed and puffed.
"This is idiocy! When you hear someone scream, you don't run toward it! We're supposed to stay out of danger!"
Naruto was yelling back. "This is the direction we have to go anyways! And, if whoever it is that needs help is from Wave, and we help them then maybe they'll secure us passage across the sea!"
To both of their surprise, Sasuke then raised his voice. "Both of you shut up and keep running or they'll be dead before we get there!"
Desperately trying not to trip on a branch or slow the other two down, Naruto focused on sprinting faster. He finally saw through the trees and to his right three people. As they got closer, he distinguished two dark-haired masked men and an elderly man held still by a long chain. Sasuke pushed forward, almost growling.
"Naruto, you and I will just charge. Sakura, take care of the old man."
Naruto didn't have time to second guess Sasuke's haphazard plan, they were recklessly gaining on their targets. He gripped the hilt of his tanto, the broken sword he had found in the closet of the room he had stayed in in the abandoned house. He had spent many hours applying careful seals to piece together the pieces and ensure that the blade wouldn't again break, and he prayed with his whole soul that it wouldn't fail him. He hadn't had too many hours of practice with Shisui in using a tanto, but hopefully enough. He leapt at the masked-man closet to him, landing on the right side of the man's back and was promptly thrown off, missing his target of stabbing the man in the neck. A metal claw came his way and Naruto rolled and made another leap to his left. He stumbled back before trying to get closer, but the tanto didn't have the reach that the chained claw did. He rolled away again and threw a kunai at the man's shoulder.
He was too slow. The enemy had dodged his kunai, and still yanked the tip of the metal claw into Naruto's forearm. A yowl left his lips as the skin tore, and he felt something suspiciously burning slide into his veins. Naruto managed to defend himself from the claw the second time, his tanto making a screeching sound as it slashed the weapon away. The metal of the blade seemed to almost glow white as it flashed through the air. Naruto grit his teeth. In his peripheral he saw Sasuke faring a bit better, he had managed to overwhelm the other nin with a barrage of shuriken. Sakura had grabbed the old man by the arm and dragged him into the trees on the side of the road, where he had promptly fainted. As the ninja again went for Naruto, she unleashed several kunai, one of which landed in his shoulder blade, making him snarl. But Naruto didn't allow him to turn his attention on the girl; he dove forward, slashing at the man's ankles. He scrambled to get up and out of the man's reach, but his left arm collapsed beneath him. A punch landed on his back, knocking the wind out of him. He heard a whooshing through the air and the rattle of the chain as the vicious weapon descended.
Nothing happened. The claw never landed. He peeked up to see the dark-haired ninja flying back down the road, landing on top of the other. Sasuke was suddenly at his side, heaving a stumbling Naruto up and over to Sakura, where the three stood back to back, weapons raised. Naruto could feel his knees shaking.
"Dobe," Sasuke muttered, "Are you okay?"
Naruto nodded. "Poisoned. I—I have to let the poison out."
He awkwardly turned his tanto around and dragged it down his already scraped arm, letting loose a spray of blood. Sasuke grappled at his right wrist to tug it away from his forearm and Sakura let out a small yelp as she watched and was sprayed with a sprinkle of his blood.
"You idiot!" She hissed. But instead of scooting closer to Sasuke, she seemed to step closer to Naruto, to make up for his wounded arm.
Naruto would have gaped in amazement at the actions of his companions, but suddenly a large hand was jerking his sword out of his right hand. Sasuke brought his own tanto up higher in defense, a scowl on his face. The man in front of them however, just hummed.
"What an interesting tanto." The tall man tilted the blade so that the sunlight caught and made it appear to glow white again.
The man wore a black cloak with red clouds, and had a black mask covering the lower half of his face as well as a slashed Konoha hitai-ate slanted over one eye. He had a shock of white hair standing on his head. He flipped the tanto again, and briefly studied the curling seal Naruto had put on its base, his dark eye narrowing. He swiftly turned the tanto down and handed it hilt-first to Naruto. Cautiously, Naruto accepted it back and shifted it to a defensive position.
"Maa, no need for all that. I simply wanted to kill the Demon Brothers. They'll fetch me a decent bounty. You three are simply intriguing."
They looked toward where the now named Demon Brothers were running away. It was Sakura who bravely spoke up. "They're leaving, sir. You'd better go after them if you want that bounty."
The white-haired missing nin looked up from a small orange book and gave an eye smile. "Ah, I can always catch them later. Now, tell me what are you three children doing alone in the middle of the forest?"
Coincidentally, the white-haired man was also traveling to Wave. He said he was looking for work. The old man that had been attacked by the Demon Brothers gave his name as Tazuna, and jumped on the chance to employ the missing-nin to assist in building a bridge to connect Wave to the rest of Fire Country.
"We could use a strong ninja like you!" He'd said.
Through his mask, the man mumbled, "Hmm, Tazuna-san, will I be paid?"
The old man took a swig from his sake bottle. "To be sure! There's money in Wave. It'll be no problem for you to get it, I assume." He mumbled the last part before stumbling a bit as he turned to the three children. "There's plenty of work for you too! You can stay with my daughter and me; we'll make sure you're decently fed."
They stared at him blankly but continued shuffling behind the two adults. Naruto rubbed the bandage Sakura had given him after disinfecting his arm. He'd convinced her not to use iryou-nin jutsu, stating that he healed quickly, but hadn't been able to refuse the bandage and ointment. He was still shaky as he walked, but Sasuke and Sakura were sticking close by his sides. They eyed the two men ahead suspiciously.
"He's got to be Jiraiya-sama." Sakura whispered.
Naruto nodded along. "He's tall and has white hair."
"He's reading porn."
Sasuke cut in. "But we don't know if he can summon toads."
"And Orochimaru-sensei always called Jiraiya-sama a 'big brute'. He doesn't look so brutish to me…"
It was true. The masked missing-nin was too lanky, and they had never heard of Jiraiya wearing a black and red clouded cloak. Or a mask. Or that he had one eye.
Sasuke set his jaw and started stomping forward. "Let's just ask him."
As they neared the man, he didn't look up from his book, even when Sakura rather loudly cleared her throat.
Naruto decided to just interrupt the man's reading. He asked loudly, "Are you Jiraiya?"
Shikamaru had crept out of his house and around the roofs of the many levels of the Hokage Tower. He wasn't too terrible at stealth, but he was relying heavily on his wit and shadow manipulation to help him stay hidden. Asuma-sensei had been summoned to the Hokage Tower late during their evening practice, right before curfew. After sneaking out to see if their sensei had returned to his own home later and seeing it dark and empty, Shikamaru couldn't help but feel foreboding.
He was perched outside Danzo's office, covering every inch of his skin in shadows and suppressing his chakra, and he just knew that the Root nin across the roof knew Shikamaru was there, but for some reason he hadn't been apprehended. So, Shikamaru sat there and continued to watch and listen. It was just Danzo and Asuma-sensei in the office.
"I can't end the lockdown yet, but we're losing clients to Suna. The Root nin not on ANBU missions need to stay closer to Konoha to protect it, but the loss of the lower ranked mission money is causing us to lose funding."
"What about the arms dealing? The other hidden villages buy a lot of our weapons."
The old man snorted. "They buy it because it's cheaply made and cheaply sold. You know this."
Asuma-sensei looked a bit put out. "What about food? Homura-san said crop production has only been decreasing in the last two years and the stores are running extremely low. Should we not focus on that also?"
The Hokage's pacing paused for a minute before continuing. "Homura also suggested trading the weapons for food, but that is out of the question."
Shikamaru balked. Money was more important than food? Asuma-sensei looked down at his hands and no emotion passed over his face.
"Since your father's passing and your return to the village, I have treated you like a son, Asuma. I need you to understand, Konoha cannot be seen as weak."
"A hungry army is a weak army, Hokage-sama."
Danzo's fingertips glowed red as he swept his hand out. "We will not beg the other villages for food! That is not our biggest concern, anyhow."
Asuma's dark eyes casually flicked toward the window and Shikamaru hastily rechecked that his chakra was sufficiently suppressed. His knees were weak with the effort of maintaining the jutsu for so long, but he needed to hear more of the conversation. The Root nin was now staring right at him, but still made no move. He forced the shadows tighter around himself, causing his vision to go blurry for a moment, but ultimately steeled his quivering and turned back to the window.
"If I don't have the boy when he returns, Konoha will perish." The Hokage hissed. "That madman!"
Asuma looked like he wanted to roll his eyes. "You've mentioned him at least twice this evening, Hokage-sama. Please, tell me who he is."
The Hokage shook his head. Finally sitting down, back straight and bandaged face serious, the man brought his still burning hand to Asuma-sensei's face and clasped his jaw, forcing the younger man to look him in the eye. Shikamaru squirmed, watching as Asuma's skin and beard was singed badly. His sensei was not a small man, but sitting before the Hokage, he appeared to be a child.
"I have chosen a successor, and another to succeed after him. You will never be enough to be Hokage. But, you will have the knowledge about a man known as Uchiha Madara. I expect you to advise them."
Shikamaru desperately tried to keep a grip on his chakra, but could feel his control slipping. He needed to hear the rest of the conversation, but would soon be caught if he stayed. He stumbled to the edge of the roof, wondering how he would get down and back home in his exhaustion. The Root nin across from him suddenly shifted, and Shikamaru was not fast enough to dodge the man's grab and was abruptly knocked senseless.
