"Akatsuki in its current incarnation is rather different from its inception, which was an organization to bring about world peace nonviolently," Daemon said over dinner. "It's current goals are four-fold. Hand-in-hand are gathering funds and providing cut-rate, superior services to the various villages in order to make those villages increasingly more likely to rely or depend on them.
"In addition to that, they wish to capture the tailed beasts to be deployed at will to start and end minor wars to hasten the process of everyone coming to rely on Akatsuki, and drive the villages out of business. Once that happened they would have little resistance when they conquered the world."
"And the disappearance of the Kyūbi?" he asked.
"Vexing, to put it mildly," Daemon replied. "As members we have Pein, Konan, Kakuzu, Kisame, Hidan, Itachi, Sasori, and Deidara, with unofficial members of Tobi and Zetsu. We'd have to find this Pein fellow, or possibly Konan, to uncover the real motivations behind the group, I expect. Either way, from what I got out of Itachi's mind, until they can figure out where the Kyūbi went, their plans to capture the others have been put on hold.
"They're mostly nuke-nin. We'd really need to track down Pein or Konan, since they're the heart of it. Itachi's mind says their primary base is in Ame. Also of note is that this Pein fellow has a dōjutsu, the Rinnegan."
Brows rose all around. "Samsara eye?"
"I know what I'm getting Heul for his birthday," Sin said gaily.
"I wonder if they'd transfer," Chikusa said. "I mean, the twins have what amounts to a dōjutsu, as does Mukuro. If Heul acquired the Rinnegan…"
Tsuna huffed. "If I acquire the Rinnegan, you can be damn sure I'd be using illusion, runes, or seals to hide that fact. I'm still a bit wibbly over the idea of an eye transplant, but I know these people do it as a matter of course. Either way, we have to track the fucker down first."
"Then let's get to it."
xXx
Konoha was in mourning for its lost sons and daughters, and the smell of burnt flesh lingered in the air from many of the attacks. It was not called Fire Country for nothing. Most of its inhabitants had a fire affinity, so Konoha's collection of fire-based techniques was second to none. Tsuna had no doubt it'd be even worse if T&I used outdoor incineration pits for the bodies of the enemy dead.
The clone he had left at the shithole flat he still pretended to live in had not been bothered, but Tsuna still went to the mass funereal ceremony, if only to be polite. Hatake sidled up to him at one point and said, "We won't be doing any missions until Monday at the earliest. I'll let you know more later, once I know better."
He nodded and turned his focus back to the proceedings.
Once he got to the Kuro compound he was informed that Jiraiya was in town. "The man who is supposedly Naruto's godfather?"
"Yeah," Mukuro said. "Found him using a telescope to peek in on the women and girls at the hot springs baths."
"That is disgusting," he said sourly.
"It is, but it gave us a chance to shuffle through his head," Xeul said. "He was the one who originally taught Konan and two fellow orphan friends of hers, Nagato and Yahiko, about ninjutsu. Jiraiya seemed to think that because Nagato had the Rinnegan he must be the reincarnation of Hagoromo, the Sage of the Six Paths."
"So Nagato is Pein?" Chikusa asked.
"Considering how damn rare the Rinnegan is, I'm thinking so. Either way, we lifted a number of techniques out of his head and will add them to the collection. The Sage techniques we'll have to just file, though, as without sage training they're useless. I did find out that Nagato is Uzumaki Nagato, so like Heul's body, he's a descendant of Hagoromo, so both are related to the Senju, Uchiha, and Uzumaki Clans."
Sin tilted his head questioningly. "Does that mean Heul could develop the Rinnegan naturally?"
"Possibly, yes. It is a bloodline thing. It'd be far quicker to just acquire Nagato's eyes, though."
"So we poke around Ame some more," Daemon said. "If this Akatsuki organization intends to capture the jinchūriki and use them as Itachi thinks they will, that alone is reason enough to wipe out these people as defects."
"On a side note," Xeul said, "Itachi and Kisame seem to be in Konoha, having tea. They're looking for two things. One being the state of Sasuke, and the other any clues at all about the Kyūbi. They know it's been here all this time, so they think Konoha must have some clue where it is now—who has it contained. Hatake is leaning against the wall just outside of the place, seemingly unconcerned. Hilariously, both Itachi and Kisame are wearing their Akatsuki cloaks."
Xeul revealed a window in time for them to see Hatake take note of Sarutobi Asuma and Yūhi Kurenai walking down the street toward him.
"Hey, you two. You guys look good together. Are you guys on a date?"
"Idiot!" Yūhi said sharply. "Anko asked me to pick up some sweets for her."
"What about you?" Sarutobi asked. "What are you doing here? Are you picking up some sweets, too?"
Hatake eye-smiled and tilted his head. "Not really… Sometimes I stop by to buy some stuff. Right now I'm meeting up with someone. I'm waiting for Sasuke."
The two Akatsuki did not twitch or otherwise give away their interest, and yet they did.
"Are there that few Konoha nin who have any clue about the Akatsuki, then?" he asked. "You'd think more people would find those two wandering around to be a curious sight."
"It's very rare to see you waiting for someone," Sarutobi said as Sasuke came into view from behind them.
The kid walked past the totally-not-a couple and said warily, "It's very different of you to arrive first."
"Well… For some occasions…"
Sasuke glanced into the tiny eatery and saw it was empty. The two nuke-nin had vanished between one moment and the next, leaving behind their drinks and a small dish still filled with sweets. "I was planning on buying some sweets, but it's useless now."
"Yeah, it is," Hatake said … for some reason.
"I feel like they're speaking in code," Ken muttered.
"Sasuke doesn't even like sweets," he said.
Another heartbeat passed and all three adults suddenly looked up (or up and back), then Sarutobi and Yūhi jumped up on top of the nearby building and dashed away. Kakashi followed them a second later, leaving Sasuke in wary confusion.
Shortly thereafter the three were at the river, facing down Itachi and Kisame.
"You know, there's something seriously wrong when those three end up standing on the surface of a river while facing a known user of water techniques," Chikusa said.
"And for a genjutsu specialist to try to pull a fast one on a sharingan holder?" Hayato said. "That chick might be hot shit with her illusion techniques, but she's pretty fucking dumb, too."
Right around the time Hatake said too much and Itachi ordered Kisame to kill him, Maito Gai showed up to be helpful. After hearing that Maito had called for reinforcements, the two Akatsuki left.
"So, all right, we had intruders in Konoha, but they just let them go," he said. "Sure. You know what, I'm going to go get more groceries for that shithole, to keep up appearances. I'll be back in a little while, guys."
"Try not to trip over any shadows, tesoro."
"Bite me, schatz."
After stepping over to said shithole and replacing his clone, Tsuna exited the flat and headed down to the ground level, then out so he could do some shopping. Merchants still liked to overcharge him and try to sell him defective goods, but not with the same vehemence as when they were aware he was the Kyūbi container.
He was waylaid by Jiraiya as he was walking past Ramen Ichiraku, who informed him he was going to accompany the pervert on a mission.
"Why?" he asked.
"It's a mission! We're supposed to find a certain girl. It's also a 'special' trip. We'll stop by the red-light district in Hima. You'll learn much more than what Kakashi-sensei has taught you."
'Considering all he taught so far was tree walking, and even then it was only a short demonstration and no actual teaching…'
"Why me specifically?" he tried again.
"Because I said so! And this woman, she's hot! She wants to meet you."
I think … this is a trip to go find Tsunade. I just saw the Hokage's two advisors talking about it. They wanted Jiraiya as the Godaime Hokage as Sarutobi is doing poorly after the invasion, but Jiraiya said hell no and suggested Tsunade instead.
I'm not getting out of this, am I.
Probably not, darling.
"I very much doubt that," he said. "How long is this trip supposed to take?"
Jiraiya shrugged. "Not sure. I'll meet you at the main gate in an hour."
"Fine. Whatever," he said. "I'll go pack." He headed off again, disdaining the shopping he had originally meant to do, and stepped back to the Kuro compound as soon as it was safe to do so. He had a lot of bentos to make in not much time.
xXx
"You know, I could let you sign the Toad Contract," Jiraiya said as they strolled along a road heading roughly west.
Tsuna wrinkled his nose. "No thank you. I'm not fond of toads."
"What are you talking about!? Toads are awesome! It's been said that I'm the Toad Sannin. And that's not all. In the north, south, east, and west, the legendary three ninja's white-haired toad-summoning child! The handsome man that can silence a crying child! He's Jiraiya-sama! That's me!"
He shook his head, utterly unimpressed. "I'd be more inclined to sign a contract for hawks or ferrets. Maybe cats."
Jiraiya wilted and went into a sulk. To up the theatrical nature of his sulk, a small cloud formed over the man's head and wet on him.
Some time later they hit a decent-sized town and Jiraiya said, "We're staying here," as he eyed up one of the ladies nearby.
That she was clearly a streetwalker had nothing to do with the man's interest, surely. Jiraiya led him into a hotel and arranged for a room, then tossed Tsuna the key. "Head on up and work on refining your chakra control."
He heaved a sigh and checked the room number, then headed up to do some reading and have one of his bentos.
Side note: Sasuke learned, after seeing Hatake down for the count, that Itachi had been in town. He went nutso and ran off looking for clues. He's determined to track his brother down and do him in.
Tsuna rolled his eyes and took a bite of his onigiri.
For some reason he's convinced Itachi is after you.
Maybe this has something to do with the natural course of things in this world? Sort of like how you ended up on the wrong team?
Tsuna considered that and ultimately shrugged. Jiraiya is probably Itachi's contact. He is Konoha's spymaster, right?
Yes. Don't be too surprised if Sasuke shows up.
He sighed and continued reading until a knock came at the door. His brow went up as he set his book down and went to answer it, ready to slip Between at a moment's notice. The first thing he saw when he cracked the door was a set of sharingan. The second thing he saw was Shark-Face, which made no damn sense.
A second later Itachi looked back over his shoulder, which made Tsuna take a look down the hallway. Sasuke was there, looking murderous.
"Uchiha Itachi… I will kill you!" Sasuke built up a chidori around his left hand. "I have lived for this!" For some reason, as he ran down the hall, Sasuke decided to rake that chidori against the wall, causing untold property damage and slowing his momentum, rather than bracing with his right hand and aiming straight for his brother.
Itachi moved slightly to dodge, then reached out to snap his brother's wrist like a twig.
And then Jiraiya popped up on a huge toad. "You don't seem to know very much about me. I'm better at getting girls than they are trying to get me. Even though it doesn't look like it, it's my specialty. I, Jiraiya, this epitome of manliness! I will fall for no woman's feminine wiles! When you're someone like me, you only have to flash that sexiness to have women fall at your feet!"
"I distinctly recall her winking at you and you slobbering like an overheated dog," Tsuna said flatly. "I think I'll start calling you Ero-Sennin."
Jiraiya frowned. "Hey! Don't call me that!"
"This guy is mine," Sasuke said.
"I have absolutely no interest in you right now," Itachi said dismissively, then kicked his brother into a wall.
"This fight is mine!"
Itachi strolled down the hallway.
"Come on!"
Itachi picked Sasuke up by the front of his shirt, slammed him into the wall, then apparently used Tsukiyomi on him.
Jiraiya did some freaky shit with a toad technique and Tsuna was surprised to find pink organic matter coating the hallway on all fronts.
"Why are you so weak?" Itachi said quietly. "Still not enough hatefulness."
"Too bad, Itachi, Kisame," Jiraiya said. "You are already inside the esophagus of the giant toad from Myōboku Mountain. I hope you enjoy being food to Iwagama!"
Itachi dumped his brother and said, "Kisame, come!" He whipped out another of his sharingan tricks, a black fire, and the two of them escaped.
'I'm going to assume Jiraiya wasn't trying very hard so that Itachi could safely retreat,' he thought.
All of a second after Pervert-Sage dropped his technique Tsuna stepped back in response to his intuition and heard, "Dynamic entry!" Maito Gai crashed onto the scene with all the subtlety of Liberace performing on stage.
That Maito's entry managed to nail Jiraiya in the face was everything Tsuna needed to make the trip worthwhile.
"Oh… Sorry. I was in a rush and using my hitai-ate as a mirror. It didn't give me a clear enough picture and so I … hit you in the face by accident."
Jiraiya slowly got up and nodded. "Well, that's all right, then. Anyway, the Uchiha needs to get to the hospital. He seems to have some fractured or broken bones, and suffered a mental attack."
Maito grabbed Sasuke, who was zoned out hard, and dashed off.
"So aside from being tricked by a sex worker, did you accomplish anything of value?" he asked dryly.
xXx
The next day they were on the road again, headed for a place called Tanzaku Gai.
"Are you actually going to teach me anything on this trip—anything that has nothing whatsoever to do with your perversions, I mean?" he asked.
"You bet! But we have to gather information on Tsunade-hime first."
He sighed. "I see. So you have no intention of teaching me anything. You just wanted someone along to boast to."
"I did not! I'll prove it to you!" Jiraiya got out a storage scroll and extracted a bag from it. The bag brimmed with filled balloons. He grabbed one and held it up, then did … something. "If you pay attention, you'll notice that I'm moving the water around inside with my chakra. Your goal is to do the same, and to make the balloon burst," he said as the thing deformed in multiple directions, then shattered. Water went everywhere.
Tsuna hooked the bag over his arm, took a balloon, and stared at it. The one Jiraiya had held and worked on was not … smooth. It rather reminded him of a gyroscope and how it had bands spinning in various directions. Except for the part where they spun in a non-orbital way.
'So… I use chakra to make the water move in multiple directions at once? Good thing I'm a Mist and have a very good imagination, and a fuckton of resolve and willpower.'
He spent a few minutes getting it straight in his mind, what he was trying to accomplish, then sent his chakra into the balloon and set the water in motion. Thirty seconds later the balloon burst. "All right, that's done. What's next? I assume this is leading up to something."
When Jiraiya failed to answer he looked over to see another cloud wetting on the man, who was back to sulking. It took several minutes for the man to bounce back, but when he did he took a rubber ball from his pocket and handed it over. "Now do the same with this. It's going be a thousand times harder, because there's no water inside to help you feel how the chakra moves, and the skin is much thicker."
Tsuna handed the bag of balloons over and concentrated on the ball instead. He could cheat and use Earth Flames, but that wouldn't help him master whatever technique (Rasengan, he assumed) it was. He had spent fucking forever on chakra control exercises, so this should simply be more of the same, with an end result of literally holding a ball of chakra in his hand that spun on the surface in multiple directions.
As before he took a few minutes to get the image down in his head, then channeled chakra to the interior of the rubber ball and started spinning it on multiple axes, taking care to try to expand it beyond the outer perimeter. He had to channel in a lot more chakra than he expected, but he burst the thing within five minutes.
Jiraiya started sulking again. It was an hour at least before the man was willing to speak about the third and final stage of the technique, which involved exactly what Tsuna expected it to be. Jiraiya wanted him to combine the first two stages to create the third, but that time without bursting a balloon filled only with air.
He held off on getting it right, if only so he didn't have to see a fifty-year-old man sulk like a toddler again so soon. That evening, after they camped and he laid down to sleep, he formed a clone and stepped out so he could practice.
Sin was ready with a bunch of already-inflated balloons for him to use, but first Tsuna checked the time and got some rest. He could turn back a day and merge with his clone after twenty-four hours had passed.
Shadow clones helped refine the technique during the course of the day, and by the time night fell he was very nearly there. He kept an eye on the time and used a spare room to turn back, hung up his time turner to keep it safe, then stepped back and merged with his clone.
They hit Tanzaku Gai two hours after they departed their campsite and Jiraiya found Tsunade at an eatery—one that served booze, of course. "Tsunade-hime!"
"Jiraiya…" Tsunade looked like she was all of twenty. There was a diamond-shaped gem at the center of her forehead, which went strangely well with her blonde hair. Next to her was a dark-haired woman. "Why are you at a place like this?"
"Finally, we've found you," Jiraiya said, then slid into the booth the two women were seated at.
"Why'd you come to see me?" Tsunade asked.
Jiraiya opened his mouth to answer, then paused and stared at Tsuna. "Sit!"
Tsuna snorted. "I wasn't going to until invited. Unlike you I have manners."
Tsunade waved a disinterested hand at him, so he sat down.
"To be honest, Konoha has issued the … request … for you to be the Godaime Hokage. The Sandaime is…"
If Tsunade and her friend were not already shocked half to death, the way Jiraiya trailed off clearly made them both think the worst.
"He's not dead," Tsuna said quietly. "Just old."
Jiraiya shot him a look before saying, "Orochimaru invaded during the third stage of the Chūnin Selection Exam, with Oto and Suna. He was there to destroy Konoha and kill the Sandaime. He did not succeed in either, but… It's time, hime. Sensei is just too old and needs to step down."
Tsunade flicked her gaze Tsuna's way, then asked Jiraiya, "And this boy?"
"Francis York Morgan, but you can call me York. Everyone does." Tsuna glanced at Jiraiya. "Isn't that right, Zach?"
Jiraiya shot him a confused and disturbed look, then said to Tsunade, "Uzumaki Naruto."
"I'm your cousin or something," he said with a shrug. "Not sure of the exact relationship."
"So… Your answer? Are you willing to accept?"
"…Impossible. I decline. They all die," she said, "give up their lives for the sake of the village. Life is different from money. It can't be risked that easily, and whoever does is a fool."
"You've changed a lot, hime."
"Well, I'm already in my fifties. Age changes people. Being Hokage is shit. No one but a fool would do it!"
"Fabulous," he said dryly. "Can we get back to the part where you're 'teaching' me that technique, Ero-Sennin? The stench of alcohol is starting to make me ill. I don't see why they want this woman anyway. If someone made the mistake of lighting a fire the Hokage tower would explode with her in it."
"I told you not to call me that!"
"And I told you I wasn't interested in coming on this trip with a pervert like you. Build a bridge and get over it."
"You've got some guts to say something like that about me, brat," Tsunade said, scowling at him. "Let's take this outside." She stomped off, her dark-haired friend following.
Tsuna shrugged and headed out to see them waiting on the street—because a street in the middle of town was an excellent place to have a duel.
"I've been one of the Densetsu no Sannin. I don't even have to be serious to fight this little ninja boy. One finger should be enough," she said, holding up her index finger.
"Funny how you used the past tense," he muttered.
She charged. Tsuna swiftly cut his hand, having learned from his family quite a bit more about the woman during his day away from Jiraiya, and flicked blood at her. Tsunade stopped dead and quivered.
"Careful now," he said. "Standing out here in the middle of town… People might start to notice exactly how they can bring you down. All those gambling debts and alcohol tabs must be piling up…. You might be old, but you're clearly vain, else you wouldn't be hiding it like you are. I wonder what unscrupulous people would do if they knew how best to—" He jumped back quite a distance when she lunged at him. "Did I hit a nerve?"
"I will end you," she growled.
"Wow, because that's not cliché or anything. Do you people get these things from a handbook or something? One hundred ways to intimidate your foes? Gosh, I must have been sick that day at the academy. It's fucking pathetic that you'd demand to cave in the face of a child just because you're not satisfied with your usual tantrums." He rolled his eyes and turned to go. "I'm done with this, Ero-Sennin. The council can slap me on the wrist or something when I get back for abandoning a mission."
Naturally, Tsunade lunged at him again, and missed when he stepped to the side too quickly for her to recover and redirect. He whipped a red sheet of cloth out of his pocket and held it to the side, bull fighter style. "Olé!"
"I will fucking end you," she said through gritted teeth.
Tsuna shook his sheet and shot a serene smile her way. "Sure, sure. Now all we need is a mariachi."
She lunged again, her index finger of doom pointing at him, but that time Tsuna sank under the surface of the road, leaving her to run head first into the cloth. When he popped back up she was wrestling the thing off herself.
"Brava, señorita!" he cried, wishing he had the right headwear for this little farce. He popped out another red cloth and shook it. "Olé!"
"Gonna grind you to paste and use your bones to pick my teeth with!"
"You never told me she was a cannibal, Ero-Sennin," he complained, then slid sideways at the last possible second. "Has she always been this, uh…"
The dark-haired woman grimaced.
"Well!" he said. "If she intends to do any of that, she'll just have to catch me, won't she? Assuming she's not too old to keep up." He laughed merrily and scampered off at a speed not normally seen except in people like Lee Rock and vanished into the distance.
Tsunade charged after him like a mad … cow … which only made him keep laughing merrily. That she was leaving craters in her wake was probably bad for the town, but surely they had people who did road maintenance—or could hire a genin team to fix the damage.
He spent the next six hours taunting her with merry laughter as he sped along the road toward Konoha. He blitzed through the main gate—incidentally not giving the gate guards a chance to check him in—up the main street to the academy, and inside to the mission office (his family had helpfully let him know where the Hokage was) where he flew up the wall and settled on the ceiling, still laughing like a loon.
Tsunade crashed into the room, swearing like a dock worker. "Where the fuck is the little brat!? I'll have his guts for gar—" She broke off when she realized the mission team and the Hokage were staring at her in disbelief. "Oh, uh… Shit."
"Tsu-chan," the Hokage said calmly. "Lovely to see you again. To what do we owe the pleasure?"
"Well, uh… I…" Her gaze went upward to see him sitting on the ceiling, aiming a serene smile at her. "Just you wait, brat," she muttered.
Jiraiya huffed in about then, the dark-haired woman behind him; she was clutching a pig in her arms. For some reason the animal was wearing a string of pearls around its neck.
"The brat and I were, uh, working on his speed," Tsunade said.
The Hokage smiled, ostensibly taking that at face value. "Since you're here, would you be willing to handle a few of the more serious cases currently in the hospital? They could use your delicate touch."
She grimaced and shifted her weight. "Since I'm here… Shizune, let's go see what they have for us." She stalked off unhappily.
"Am I even getting paid for this mission?" he asked from his seat on the ceiling. "Or was Ero-Sennin yanking my chain?"
The Hokage coughed as Jiraiya looked a bit shifty-eyed. "You will be paid, Naruto-kun. Check in tomorrow, all right?"
"Hokage-sama," he said, then flipped off the ceiling. After a bow he exited to go meet up with his family.
xXx
"Shikamaru was promoted to chūnin," Sin informed him once he got inside the main house.
"Oh? Good for him, I guess. He probably thinks it's troublesome. Honestly. Why anyone would think it'd be less troublesome to be a ninja and forced on missions when he could have just stayed a civilian…"
"Not generally an option for a clan heir," Xeul said. "Or a famiglia heir, for that matter."
"And it would have been too troublesome to fake his own death and strike out on his own," Tsuna said with a nod. "Even I had a few rounds before I was able to manage that. Besides, it'd probably be too troublesome to have to hunt down his own food and create shelter. I wonder if, now that she's here, Tsunade will agree to take over as Hokage. Being face to face with her sensei might guilt her into it, having seen how old and weary he looks."
"Or she might just take over the hospital," Hayato said. "She is a medic. She might decide there's just not enough of them. Konoha did lose a good chunk of their forces, though, at least a quarter of them. If she did, the only people she'd be training are kids still in the academy most likely."
Sin groaned. "You realize of course, this might mean our team may have to start C-ranks," he said to Daemon, who wrinkled his nose.
xXx
The next day brought about the news that Mitarashi Anko had been found dead in her apartment. What they were not saying was that her Cursed Seal of Heaven had seemingly exploded, leaving bits of her scattered all over the room.
A memorial was held, with precious few people attending. Yūhi was devastated by the tokujō's death and left dango as an offering.
The day after it was made known by Team 11's jōnin sensei, Hiroshi-sensei, that they really needed to start picking up missions again, but with Chuya in the hospital (injuries sustained during the invasion and not critical, and therefore not high on the waiting list of those to be healed), they were unable to.
Sin and Daemon conspired and Naruto was borrowed from Team 7, as Sasuke was still recovering, and Hatake did not seem to care one way or the other.
Tsuna went to the mission office as part of Team 11. Hiroshi picked up a C-rank without bothering to check what it entailed and shooed them back out before reading the scroll.
"Meet at the main gate in one hour. Pack for two weeks."
The three took off to do so, packed everything they'd need into storage scrolls (or storage) and raced off to the main gate. Hiroshi showed up several minutes later and checked them all out, then started off at a jog.
Man, he doesn't talk much, does he.
Nah. It's a lot of "do this" and "do that" from him, but very little talk.
They were about five kilometres outside of Konoha when Hiroshi slowed to a stop and said, "The mission is bandit extermination. Mission details say it's a small group, so we shouldn't be overwhelmed. I realize this will be a troubling mission. It's not unlikely that you'll have difficulties once it's done. Just keep it together until it's safe. Watch each other's backs, and we'll get through this. Now, let's keep moving. We have quite a distance to cover before we can stop for the night."
They continued on, made camp for the night and sorted out a watch rotation, then had a sketchy breakfast in the morning. They set out at a ground-eating pace. Two days later they made it to the area the bandit camp was in and set up again, though that time it was up in some large trees with abundant foliage and plenty of undergrowth.
"In some cases it's better to carry hammocks," Hiroshi said, "so you can bed down up in the trees. Well, assuming you can find two close enough to each other and still be hidden from the ground, or branches on the same tree that grow the right way.
"Depending on the mission in question, it's sometimes viable to get a room in the requesting village, but not every mission of this type has a target close enough to make it worthwhile. Now, according to the mission parameters, we're about a kilometre away from the camp location. We're going to sneak in and verify the information we were provided by the client…"
Hiroshi went on for some time. The man seemed almost nervous, but perhaps it was his first time being a jōnin sensei and therefore had never taken genin on a first-kill mission. Tsuna's intuition was not alarmed, in any case.
Are we going to have to fake being a bit … blank, afterward?
Daemon smirked faintly. Fuck that. I'll just tinker with his brains to make him think we had the usual reaction.
Shortly thereafter they all skulked off through the terrain nearing the alleged camp and, when they spotted it, all hunkered down in the undergrowth to spy the place out. Tsuna counted ten bandits, all them unwashed, rough-looking fellows. They had the sense to have their camp up against a rock formation, an indentation into it, rather like a proto-cave, and the ground had been cleared of grass under and around their fire.
They spent several hours observing before it was time to bed down for the night, once again rotating the watch, and were back at it the next day. There were always seven bandits in the camp at any given time. A random three would head out and return hours later with what meagre loot they could scrounge up.
That evening, as they themselves ate, Hiroshi asked them how they would handle the situation.
"One option would be to wait for a trio to leave," Sin said, "give them a good hour, then take out the seven left behind. Assuming it's not too messy, prop them up so at first glance they don't look dead… Then take out the remaining three when they get close enough, preferably from behind. Or flip that and take out the three who leave, then double back for the rest of them."
Hiroshi nodded. "Any other ideas?"
"I imagine they have a watch rotation at night," Tsuna said, "but we don't know if they relieve themselves while on watch or before trading off. Assuming the former, the ones on duty could be taken out stealthily, and since the rest should be sleeping, more of the same. It'd make more sense for them to do it right before the hand-off, though."
"Scope out where they're doing their 'hunting' and see if it's possible to set up a delayed trap using genjutsu," Daemon said. "Corpses, specifically, savaged by wildlife if there's anything in this region that would make sense. The loot they'd bring back would be planted by us and contain a whole lot of exploding tags we could set off remotely. Or, well, genjutsu in general. Make any night watch not even see us as we stroll in, or use it to draw them off so they could be taken out away from the immediate camp vicinity, then further use genjutsu to get to the ones sleeping and quietly deal with them."
"If they're sitting around a fire at night, their night vision would be terrible," Sin said. "That'd be in our favor, too. If they're smart they'd be patrolling far enough out that the fire wouldn't affect them so much, and make them more vulnerable to being taken out quietly. It's a small group, though, and frankly, they didn't look all that smart."
Hiroshi nodded again. "All decent ideas, though I think the genjutsu idea would be better after you've all had more experience. It can be quite tricky to keep that going when you're inexperienced and under pressure. We'll observe for one more day, then we'll set the plan and complete the mission."
xXx
They stopped in at the client's location to give proof of completion, got the mission signed off on, and were on their way back to Konoha. The bandits were taken out by stealth, at night, and it was all very boring to three seasoned killers. The journey back was spent listening to Hiroshi talk them all through their "first kills" while they tuned it out—not that the man noticed, not with Daemon tinkering with his brains.
The mission was turned in and they were released, though Hiroshi was signaled to remain behind. Tsuna, Sin, and Daemon headed off to collect their pay and return to the Kuro compound.
"Plenty of news to share," Mukuro said when they entered the house. "But first, are you three okay? Do we need to sit around a fire with hot cocoa and talk about our feelings?"
Tsuna snorted. "Oh, you're so precious. What news?" he asked as he started unpacking.
"One, Senju Tsunade agreed to be the Godaime Hokage, so the old man has retired, again. Two, the Uchiha defected with four Oto nin. Three, a group was sent after him, led by Nara Shikamaru. Included in that group were Akimichi Chōji, Inuzuka Kiba, and Hyūga Neji. Oh, and Lee checked himself out of the hospital after his surgery and went after them to help. Sadly, too many jōnin and chūnin are out on missions, so… Anyway, they failed."
"And we should take from this that Mitarashi's death was no coincidence, and that Orochimaru used one of those cursed seals to resurrect himself…?"
Mukuro nodded. "Also that Gaara, Temari, and Kankurō decided to join the party for some insane reason—then again, Gaara is insane—probably because Suna discovered that Orochimaru had killed their father and Kazekage and felt they owed a debt. Or something. Or maybe Gaara wanted to see what the blood of Orochimaru's minions tasted like.
"Chōji and Neji are in critical condition. Shikamaru's wounds were minor, Kiba's deep but not critical. On a side note, it's entirely possible that Shikamaru and Temari are falling for each other. Isn't that sweet?"
He blinked, wondering how that was going to work out. He supposed if Gaara had inexplicably turned over a new leaf—'Pun intended.'—he might conceivably succeed his father as Kazekage. Suna wouldn't need both Temari and Kankurō, right? 'Or maybe I'm just thinking too far in advance of this and should quit while I'm ahead.'
"And finally, Sakura asked Tsunade if she'd take her on as an apprentice."
Daemon cackled. "We really need to grease the wheels on getting Heul onto our team, then."
xXx
Team 11 was having a grand time fiddling with Hiroshi's brains—never to the detriment of a mission—as they went on C-rank after C-rank after Tsuna was switched to their team to replace Chuya (she had conveniently decided to investigate medical training after being wounded in the invasion).
There had been talk about Naruto being taken off on a three-year training trip with Jiraiya—mostly so that he would have "family" rather than teaching him anything of value in terms of techniques—but that was easily enough nipped in the bud.
"If the pervert really had given a fuck he would have made that clear years ago," he said. "Anonymous presents every so often would have gotten the message across that someone out there gave a damn. To then decide on a three year training trip in which no actual training happens? I did not just trade up from Hatake to get saddled with someone even worse."
Tsuna would sooner shoot himself in the face than go on a trip with that man again. Sending a clone might have worked but for the part where Tsuna was also taking all those C-ranks with Team 11. And speaking of that, who was holding down the home front if so many of their jōnin, tokujō, and chūnin were out on missions?
Konoha had lost around one quarter of their forces. Maybe it was more that people were being pushed to complete their missions in a more timely manner, so that there were always enough shinobi in the village at any given time to protect it?
Daemon just shook his head. "We meddled. Any time his brain even starts in that direction it'll veer off to his spy ring or something connected to keeping Konoha safe. And if the offer was only halfheartedly made, it'll just slip away fairly quickly. We haven't done a correlation between information in his mind and that of the Sandaime's, but I assume he's been bringing in enough quality information that he's been left to continue his wandering."
"So he's useful, just impossible to spend time with if you have any brains."
Sin snorted. "Impossible to spend time with if you aren't a brainless bimbo in heat, a fangirl with loose morals, or a savvy prostitute, you mean."
"Well," he said, "since we have the rest of the day off, let's talk about tasks. Off the top of my head we have the Akatsuki, Uchiha Sasuke, Orochimaru, anyone with the Cursed Seal of Heaven, potentially cursing Ero-Sennin with erectile dysfunction… Oh, and the so-called Madara."
Daemon cackled and stepped Between.
Tsuna shrugged and started baking. He barely had his ingredients gathered when his brother came back, still cackling.
"That's Ero-Sennin taken care of," Daemon said cheerfully.
"Awesome. I have to wonder just how many people Orochimaru successfully cursed. We could try mining their brains for information—assuming it hasn't made them all go bugnuts—but even they might not know for certain. Hell, Orochimaru might not know, though I'd hope he does. You said ten percent survival rate, so hopefully he's got it all written down somewhere."
"Find him again, pump him full of Draught of Living Death, then go after the ones we know about plus any documentation?" Hayato suggested.
"Could work," Chikusa said. "If he's insensate, not dead, he shouldn't reenact a scene from Alien again, right?"
"We find a hideout, flood it with sleeping gas or an aerosol version of Living Death, kill off the Cursed Seal of Heaven minions, dump any innocents—should any exist—at the nearest town, then gather up any and all documentation to be found, store it, then move on to the next one?"
"Well, we could use veritaserum to interrogate the minions regarding other hideouts, first," Ken pointed out.
"And the Uchiha?" Xeul asked. "We'll find him, surely, but without a way to remove that seal…"
Tsuna sighed. "I lean toward offing them as defects, if only because of that seal. Mitarashi had that thing for years and no one could remove it, not even seal masters like Jiraiya or this body's parents. Maybe they just weren't creative enough, I dunno. The overall plan there, yes. As for the Uchiha, he has to go. I'd say we could do something nice—" He shuddered slightly. "—and make out like he took them all out, but no one but a fangirl would buy that."
"So we off him and steal his eyes," Mukuro said with a satisfied nod.
"Speaking of eyes!" Sin said.
"Yes, yes, we need to find Pein," Daemon placated. "We realize you are upset that you missed Heul's birthday because of all the C-ranks, but we also need to be certain one of us can do the transfer properly so that our beloved leader does not end up blind."
"Akatsuki does not seem to be as pressing simply because they aren't moving against the jinchūriki due to the Kyūbi going missing. However, they are working to destabilize all ninja villages, which isn't a small thing," he said. "Either way, what do we have eyes on already? If we can step over to one of Orochimaru's bases right now, there's no reason not to move on all that, even if only to the extent of mapping out all his little hidey-holes and getting tags on defects so they can be wiped out in one operation. If we already have eyes in Ame and know where Pein and Konan are, same deal. Daemon, Sin, and I are a bit constrained, but that leaves five of you. Two and two with one watching the compound?"
"And if these C-ranks taper off," Sin said, "we might actually catch a break and be able to help without resorting to time-turning every day."
xXx
Tsuna, Sin, and Daemon shuffled into the Kuro compound's main house wearily after yet another C-rank mission.
"I wish to hell these would taper off," Sin complained. "We went from nice, relaxing D-ranks from here to eternity to endless C-ranks. We've offed so many bandits I may never get the smell of unwashed peasant out of my nose and clothes."
Tsuna giggled tiredly.
"Good news, everyone!" Mukuro called out. "The chicken survived the Winterhold invasion this time!"
Tsuna fell over laughing. 'Oh, kami, I must really be tired if I'm laughing this hard,' he thought. Sin picked him up off the floor and hauled him away to the kitchen to be deposited in a seat.
Mukuro looked mighty pleased with the reaction. "On a more serious note, we have proper news. We have eyes in Ame and are sweeping the village for Pein and Konan. We also found one of Orochimaru's hideouts and began sweeping there, mostly data mining for now. Ero-Sennin seems to think that the Akatsuki flat out won't bother collecting jinchūriki until they figure out where the Kyūbi went, so we have time to get these both done."
"Hopefully before I die another hilariously stupid death," he muttered.
"Also," Mukuro said, "we've decided that we need to figure out that seal on your stomach."
His brow went up.
"It'd be better if we knew precisely what it's intended to do. So we'll be wanting you to lie down at some point, channel enough chakra to make it appear, and start copying it out so we can decipher it."
"All right. I suppose I'm curious. I mean, if the Kyūbi got out, if the seal broke, what would happen? It only has half its chakra. Would it steal from others to regain what it lost to the shinigami? Would it naturally acquire what it lost? There's only one Uchiha out there—two, perhaps—with the eyes to even capture it again, right? And no, of course, I'm not suggesting we let it loose. I might not much like this world, but neither am I ready to move on."
xXx
By the time the next class of shiny new genin was near graduation, the C-ranks had thankfully tapered off. Other villages had stopped thinking that Konoha was ripe for the taking and turned their attention elsewhere.
It freed up Samsara to better work toward their own goals. All of Orochimaru's hideouts had been mapped by the Kuro Clan, both on a map of the Elemental Nations and by the composition of each stronghold, as well as tags placed on each and every person the snake summoner had tainted with that Cursed Seal of Heaven.
In a move that hearkened back to Samsara's removal of Death Eater defects, they coordinated to kill every last one of them, including Orochimaru again, in a single night. Any and all research was acquired and scanned into the system, with the original material put into storage. Sasuke's sharingan had been removed and stored after the boy was killed.
"If anyone managed to escape, I'm sure we'll hear about Orochimaru popping up again," Tsuna said once they had gotten a good rest.
"So we can turn our attention to Akatsuki," Xeul said cheerfully.
"I assume you told Hiroshi that Team 11 was not the least bit interested in the upcoming Chūnin Selection Exam," Ken said in an aside.
Sin wrinkled his nose and nodded. "Yeah. Well, Daemon did."
"Hokage Senju was not the least bit pleased to hear that," Daemon said. "I think she's wanting closer control over Tsuna here, to get back at him. Him being a chūnin would allow for that."
He rolled his eyes. "Not my problem if the woman is a cowardly drunk. Boo fucking hoo and all that. Like she's the only person in existence who's had to deal with loss."
"Can we get on with the part where we acquire a shiny set of eyes for Heul?" Sin said impatiently.
Xeul snorted. "Pein has a little something going on kind of like Mukuro's abilities."
Mukuro perked up in interest. "Oh? Do tell."
"Those rinnegan eyes of his allow him to possess, essentially, corpses and use them as extensions of his own body. He calls it the Six Paths of Pein. Each one of those bodies has a particular power, one of the paths. Basically, he uses this thing called a black receiver, embedded into the body in question, to channel his chakra through them. It's kind of like the Yamanaka Hiden, where they can control another body through mind switch, except that in this case the body acts as Pein's, because it has no mind of its own.
"Pein himself was left crippled during a battle with some fellow named Hanzō, so this allows him to be mobile, so to speak. The Deva Path has gravity manipulation. The Asura Path has body manipulation. It's a bit rude, really. He can manifest additional arms, as an example, and even fire those arms as projectiles. There's more, but…
"The Human Path has a soul reading technique. It yanks the soul out of a body and learns all its secrets. The Animal Path is like Mukuro's in that it can summon animals to aid him. The Preta Path has the ability to absorb chakra in any form, though the user is still subject to the limitations involved with senjutsu techniques.
"Finally, the Naraka Path gives the ability to use an entity called the King of Hell to question people. It's … odd. The target needs to be held in some way, at which point the King of Hell appears and starts the questioning. If the target lies or refuses to answer, they die; they're consumed by this King of Hell. If they cooperate and tell the truth, they live, but they're drained by the experience. Apparently, anyone killed by the Human Path can be kept, so to speak. Their soul can be stored with this King of Hell. Apparently, the rinnegan can be used to bring people back to life, and not in an Edo Tensei sort of way."
Tsuna shook his head. "No. Let's obtain the eyes and store them in stasis, like the sharingan we have. I don't need any of that."
Sin scowled and nodded. "I have to agree. There's literally no point. Sure, it might be nice to be able to resurrect someone you cared about who died, or for Heul to read minds—except for the part where the target dies—but… That's seriously edging into god territory."
Xeul nodded and continued, "We have his location, Konan's—because she's never far away from him or one of his paths, and she's the only one who knows his real location—and we can see about dealing with the remainder of the Akatsuki, including those hangers-on Tobi and Zetsu."
"Zetsu is very, very weird," Ken said. "He's like a human-plant hybrid or something. It's fucked up. He likes to eat his enemies, for one thing."
"Tobi appears to have a single sharingan," Chikusa said. "So we need to kill him and acquire that. He's clearly a defect if he's with Akatsuki."
"Use your eye or the Imperius Curse to control the real Pein," Tsuna suggested, "get him to call for a meeting, and we wipe all of them out then?"
"We could have him claim he's learned information about where the Kyūbi is," Hayato said.
"One other thing," Xeul said. "Actually, more than one. Other abilities of the rinnegan. They can see chakra. It acts sort of like a byakugan. As with the sharingan, they can easily learn any technique and master all five nature transformations."
"Still don't need it," Tsuna muttered.
Xeul ignored that and continued, "One of the things we should get rid of is the Gedō Mazō, what was once the body of the Jūbi. It was sealed into the moon, but apparently someone managed to summon it back. It's into that Akatsuki plans to transfer the tailed beasts. Pein managed to summon the thing during that conflict with Hanzō, and it's what crippled him. Meaning, we need to force Pein to summon the thing again so we can destroy it, or find out where it is now from his mind before he's killed."
"Vanish it?"
"Earth Flames? Storm Flames?"
"Shift it to an active volcano in another dimension?"
Xeul shrugged. "Whatever works. So long as it's erased from existence and cannot be reconstituted or re-summoned…"
"Okay," Tsuna said. "Then first, get Pein and Konan under our control. We can use them to get the location of the others. They must have a way to communicate without having to head to Ame every time. Once we know where each of them is, we can take them out, quietly. Then get that statue, destroy it, and take care of Konan and Pein last. Once they're all dead we can have our nameless bounty hunter turn them in for whoever pays the most, and to let the Elemental Nations know that Akatsuki is gone."
"I would say to spare Itachi, but…" Hayato trailed off.
"He followed his orders like a good soldier," Tsuna said, "and he's probably passing along information to Konoha via Jiraiya. Still, that he would follow orders and kill the children of his clan, innocents all, is not something I can simply ignore. I also can't ignore that he tortured Sasuke in an attempt to commit suicide by brother once the kid was stronger. Maybe he'll find peace in the afterlife.
"And while I'm thinking about it, we might consider doing a sweep of Konoha to see just who, if anyone, knows how to perform Edo Tensei. Wipe that knowledge, remove it from the Scroll of Seals, and hope that nobody gets it in them to recreate the technique. We might not be able to eradicate the knowledge entirely, but we could certainly make it harder for people to abuse it."
"Very few people ever learn fūinjutsu well enough to even attempt it, so that doesn't hurt," Sin said.
Tsuna hummed. "Let's take a break for today, relax after last night's push, and take it back up again tomorrow. As for food, how does pizza sound?"
xXx
Team 11 had to go do missions while the rest of Samsara got to do the fun stuff of destroying Akatsuki. Xeul took lead due to Daemon being only partly available. It really just wasn't a big deal, in the end, no more so than taking care of Orochimaru.
Plenty of planning, then the attack. Coordinated, relentless, and quiet.
By the time Team 11 got back from their latest C-rank (escorting a merchant to the capital) Akatsuki was no more, the statue had been disintegrated and then the particles vanished, and acquired dōjutsu had been stored along with the others they already had.
"So, what, we're down to the usual bandits, thugs, and power-hungry idiots?" Hayato said.
"So long as the other villages stay mostly in their own territory…"
"Eventually there will be some sort of issue when the current crop of jinchūriki need to be replaced—" Tsuna rolled his eyes at the vague similarity to the Arcobaleno—"but that could easily be decades from now. Not something I'm going to worry about unless it makes itself be an issue."
"To pass the time I figure we can get back to acquiring techniques from the various villages to increase our library," Xeul said. "We can't do anything with kekkei genkai, but there's plenty we can use, if we knew of them, and assuming they were in any way useful."
He nodded. "No reason not to. That and figure out this seal. That might have to wait until we've finished our contracted duty and can retire. Imagine that, being able to retire at seventeen."
"And not be in Amway," Sin quipped.
xXx
Tsuna's body was sixteen when the next bit of weirdness hit them, and it had nothing to do with Jiraiya cranking out four new "books" in record time due to frustration.
It was a sunny enough day—though a bit cool—when he stretched out for the next session of his family trying to finish getting the seal on his stomach diagrammed out on paper so they could decipher it. When he channeled chakra to make it appear, they all looked rather surprised. "What?"
"Uh, darling? The seal is missing," Mukuro said quietly.
Tsuna looked down the length of his body and, sure enough, no seal. "So where the fuck did the Kyūbi go?"
After a long silence Hayato said, "Well, we can try to figure the seal out with what we've got. Maybe it was designed to … absorb the thing into you? Destroy it that way? I mean, half of its chakra is vacationing inside a shinigami. Maybe Namikaze designed the seal to make the other half irrelevant?"
"If that is the case, it's just as well we protected the identity of the Kyūbi's jinchūriki," Ken said. "Even with this, I doubt people would believe it if Tsuna said the Kyūbi is gone. They wouldn't want to believe it. They already went quietly bugnuts when knowledge of who held it went missing. Their big bad weapon was no longer available, after all, not that Naruto was supposed to be aware of it, nor had he been given any training in the use of its chakra—now his, presumably."
"We'll know something soon enough," Mukuro said. "We can chart how Heul is doing with chakra control over the next few weeks or a month. If the chakra gains taper off sharply, or even taper at all, that would imply all of those gains were as much about acquiring the Kyūbi's chakra for his own as it would natural progression, or more so."
"Well, if it's gone, I'm going to go do my daily chakra control training," he said. "We'll know more soon enough, I expect."
It took a month, in reality, as they did still have to do missions, but they were able to see that Tsuna's gains in chakra control outpaced any increase in his reserves by a larger margin, which meant that he would likely not have to work so hard at maintaining a given level of control.
As well, his body was nearing maturity, and they already expected that the growth curve of his reserves would taper off to more directly correlate with activities that were intended to expand it.
"So, what?" Chikusa said. "An hour per day when able to work on chakra control—something like the shape manipulation of Rasengan—and you're golden?"
He shrugged. "Hopefully."
xXx
It was during a holiday—it was a happy day when Team 11 could retire, and did—that Tsuna's danger sense kicked in at one of those "impending doom, but it's too late" moments. Iwa was an interesting place all told, and it had a certain sense of style that was not entirely Japanese (though nothing could truly be called Japanese in a world where there was no Japan).
They made the whole stone thing work.
But apparently there was an altercation nearby—too nearby—and Tsuna realized just a little too late when a volcano erupted under him and burned off his legs before he could blink and started to swallow him.
His last thought before being fully engulfed by the lava was, 'At least I wasn't boiled to death by the Gobi while wearing a lobster costume.'