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Regular speech: "Wryyyyyy."
Thoughts: 'Wryyyyyy.'
Summon's, higher beings regular speech: "Wryyyyyy."
Summon's, higher beings thoughts: 'Wryyyyyy.'
Locations: Somewhere in the deep ocean…
Techniques: Kawarimi!
'Document, quotation'.
Italics can be used for certain kinds of emphasis or snide comments.
Bold can be used for forceful yelling/shouting/screaming.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or JJBA.
Chapter VII
A quiet night in the Country of the Waves. All that could be heard was soft rocking of the waves and the crickets croon. Although the summer night's anthem was said to calm one's nerves and helps insomniacs to get some sleep, three genin and a hunter-nin were full of tension, waiting for any intruders in the dead of night. They currently sat around the table, in the middle of a conversation.
"So, Haku, let me get this straight," Naruto put his elbows on the table in a puzzled frown. "Your Mizukage orders to kill all shinobi with kekkei genkai, which is why you got orphaned, then you meet Zabuza, who wants to start a rebellion in the Mist, and in order to do that you and him earn money as mercenaries, am I right?"
Haku, who sat at the head of the table, with his hands folded in front of him and his mask laying next to him, nodded. "Yes, It's just like you said."
"Wow, Haku-senpai, you are amazing!" Sakura said in awe. "I didn't know you have such a worthy cause!"
Then her enthusiasm deflated, a childish pout replacing it. "Still doesn't excuse you guys for almost killing us and Kakashi-sensei though."
"Or Tazuna for that matter," Sasuke stated in a serious tone. "But what really matters now, is what Zabuza told Kakashi at the bridge. Do you know anything about it?"
"Its not for me to disclose this information, and not for you to hear it," Haku answered with an equally cold tone.
After a short staring contest between the two, the Uchiha conceded with a sigh. "Alright then, but you can tell us who'll be after Tazuna this night?"
'If they'll even show up…' Naruto thought, yawning. 'I'd very much like some sleep at the moment…'
For a moment, Haku was considering what to answer to the genin, most likely recalling the top mercenaries beside himself and Zabuza that were in Gato's employ. "There are few shinobi in Gato's ranks, and even if he does send any, I don't know anything of their abilities, so It could be anything."
After hearing the nukenin's response, Sasuke pondered for a moment, then asked the blonde teammate. "How many clones did you say you sent out to guard the area?"
"Ten, they'll let us know if any-" the boy's answer caught up in his throat, quickly realising something getting up from the table. "Someone's coming!"
The genin were quick on their feet, ready to bolt out of the house, when Haku stopped them, already wearing his mask. "Let's quickly get on the roof and have a look around."
With that they went out from the back of the house and silently jumped atop the roof, lying on the tiles as to not to giveaway their position to the enemy. They watched the hypnotizing dark of the forest for what seemed like hours, until they heard a noise coming from the bushes. After a couple of minutes, the intruders showed up, revealing themselves as a lone pair of swordsmen. Haku instantly recognized them as Gato's personal bodyguards.
"Huh, I thought they'd send more on the house presumably full of shinobi," Naruto whispered to the others.
"Stay here, I'll deal with them," Haku said and disappeared via Shunshin, instantly reappearing behind the backs of the henchmen, knocking out the two with the chop to the back of their necks.
Standing in the middle of the clearance, the nukenin was ready for an ambush out of the woods, but minutes passed, and everything was quiet still.
"Can we come down yet?" Naruto shouted from the top, dodging the punch to the from Sakura.
"Stay up there, I'll check their bodies first, watch for any activity in the woods," with that he started going through the mercenaries' pockets, throwing out their swords and pocket knives.
"Can't you be less loud? This isn't a field trip, Naruto!" Sasuke berated his teammate.
"What's the point of being so quiet anyway? We would've been attacked already if there were anyone," Naruto argued, wearing an irritated expression.
"Doesn't mean you have to be shouting for the whole country to hear," Sasuke shot back, as annoyed as his blonde comrade.
"Umm, guys, where's Haku?" Sakura asked the pair with an uneasy tone.
The boys looked into the clearing, seeing only the two unconscious swordsmen and their weapons lying in a heap nearby.
"W-what the hell? He was there just seconds ago!" Naruto said in disbelief. "Sakura, you was the only one watching, didn't you see anything?"
Sakura shook her head, her gaze still held on the area, and her face wearing a nervous scowl. "No, I was looking out for an ambush, I didn't see a thing. It's as if he wasn't there to begin with."
"Quick, check for any genjutsu!" Sasuke commanded, the three instantly performing the Kai sign.
Finding that it didn't make the hunter-nin appear, Sasuke frowned.
"Sakura, go to the house and check how Tazuna and his family are. Naruto, make a clone to do the same as well," the boy listed orders, still holding the area in sight. After his team did what he asked them to do, he asked the orange-clad genin. "Naruto, any other clones still in the woods?"
The said blonde, focusing his mind on his clones, suddenly looked at his teammate in surprise. "Now it seems that there isn't any! I couldn't recall them disappearing at all! They must have fallen prey to the same thing that Haku did…"
Despite the cold of night, Naruto swiped the sweat of his brow. 'I wonder how Kakashi and Zabuza are, caught in ambush as well?' the thought seemed more apparent than before. 'Good grief…'
The deal that was conducted on the bridge has greatly piqued Kakashi's interest, and so he agreed to help Zabuza. The nukenin mentioned that Gato had ties to the people responsible for the attacks on the trading routes in the Land of Fire, which was almost the key issue for the Third at the moment. And nukenin himself wanted, surprisingly, the aid of the Leaf to the rebels of the Mist. Not that the masked jonin could speak for Hokage, but he thought that the man wouldn't be against lending a hand to an establishing government. Now that the Mizukage was dead, there wasn't any reason not to help the rebels. With the leftovers of the corrupted government crumbling on itself without a leader, the opposition would secure the win soon enough either way.
Admittedly, Kakashi felt that he was wary of a backstab coming from the nukenin, he still listened to the man's plan, which was to sneak into the Gato's base, and to snoop around looking for any clues and proofs of Gato's connection to the caravan raids. With Haku and his genin set guarding the Tazuna, the duo of dangerous jonin was ready to strike come night.
Sneaking through the dark of the woods, the two looked out for any guards stationed around. They didn't encounter any of Gato's mercenaries right until they faced the big ugly building in a form of arrowhead, embedded in the trees. From one glance he could notice archers stationed on the many balconies, and he pondered over if there were any booby-traps or any more archers in the tree crowns.
"If you wonder if there'll be any surprises here," Zabuza whispered as if reading the jonin's mind. "There wont be. You're overestimating Gato and his pet worms."
"If you say so," Kakashi shrugged, shifting his posture. Despite the tense situation, he was calm and collected, as befit a former ANBU Captain.
"Alright, how are we going in?" the masked jonin asked the swordsman.
The said man came closer to the jonin and pointed at the highest level of the facility. "His office is there. As far as I know, it is the only place he works at, and he doesn't allow anyone in there, but there are no security seals there, there is no doubt about that."
Kakashi measured their options, forming a plan in his head. To climb up that high, they would either need to run all the way up on the walls, jump off the high trees, that are in numerous amount here, or enter the building's lower levels, and sneak their way to the top.
'We can't possibly expect to sneak around the whole place and not be spotted, so it leaves only the first two options. Although it is not completely impossible to run up all the way to the top stealthily, I still think it is safer to drop down from the top of the tall trees. The guards won't expect this,' he mused.
With the strategy chosen, the duo began to ascend the tall trees, masking their presence from Gato's mercenaries, not that they'd see them coming anyway.
Finally having reached the appropriate height, the shinobi jumped down on the roof of conical shape, sliding down to the balcony and landing with a finesse of a cat, and as soundlessly as one. Reaching the door to the office, Kakashi looked into the keyhole, observing the dark with his Sharingan. Not noticing anything out of order, he picked the lock and entered the room with Zabuza closing the door hastily, but silently still.
"Alright, check his desk, I'll go for the book shelves," the man said to his partner, placing silencing seals along the way. "And keep that Sharingan of yours out for any surprises."
And just like that, the masked duo began going through all the papers the mogul had in his office, finding each new discovery as useless as the previous, if not more so.
Having looked through all that were on the table and in the drawers, Kakashi started looking for any secret buttons. Working as an ANBU, he time and time again wondered why he kept stumbling on these seemingly clichéd contraptions being used by almost all the high-profile targets that he had over the years. Alas, there wasn't such a thing under Gato's desk.
"There's clear, found anything?" he asked Zabuza.
"No, clear as well. Look if he has a safe behind the portrait, I'm gonna go ahead and draw some books, maybe he has some sort of a secret room," the nukenin answered, looking through the shelves once more.
Kakashi then approached the said painting, that depicted a beautiful woman, posing with hands on her knee in front of a plain landscape. Be it any other day, he'd take some time to appreciate the beauty, however, he had a job to do.
Lifting the picture, he did in fact find a medium-sized safe, embedded in the wall.
"Bingo…" he whispered to himself, and went on to pick the lock.
Having opened the safe, Kakashi faced only stacks of yen, few gold bars, a heap of papers and a small pouch, filled with something. The papers turned out to be mere stocks for Gato's shipping company. Not that Kakashi was particularly well-versed in the auction market, but he read somewhere that the price for these papers is tremendous and ever-rising. Considering that after Gato's downfall his empire will crumble, he mused that so will the stock prices, and left them there, going for the mysterious pouch, which was filled to the brim with black pearl.
'A trophy straight from the Wave's people's pockets. Their lives would be much better if they'd never discover that precious gem. How ironic,' he thought grimly, putting it back inside.
"Nothing but value in the safe, not what we need though," Kakashi said to the nukenin. "Found anything?"
"No, as you can see," Zabuza sighed, frowning. "Maybe your precious eye can be of help, try to find anything."
With that said, Kakashi turned his gaze to the bookshelves, looking for something out of place. After looking over several times, he was ready to give up, but then something caught his eye. Inside one of the shelves there were some metal parts, that connected to the wall, through which he could not see. Eyeing the shelve more closely, he noticed almost erased finger prints at the edge.
"There it is," said Kakashi, gripping the shelves at where the prints were, pulling out a twin pair of levers, then twisting it upwards.
And with that, something clicked behind the bookshelves, putting the levers back in place and revealing a small room with a surprisingly simple desk with a radio and a diary on it, and a map on the wall.
"Huh, it seems that they conducted their meetings over that radio. We can't get much use of it, even knowing the frequency wouldn't be of much help," Zabuza pondered, choosing to study the map. "There are markings here — barely noticeably holes from pins, mainly over the big cities in the Land of Fire."
"And that is a business diary of Gato's. Although details are scarce, it is clear from it that his main contact resides in Tanzaku City," he read from the organiser. "It is written here that 'the man looks as plain as a commoner, although holds an air of unparalleled authority'. I can only guess that he refers to the head of some gang."
Zabuza nodded at Kakashi in a somewhat relaxed matter. "It seems you found what you need, now, let me get what I need, and we're good to go," with that said, he went on to grab all of value laying in the safe into his empty sealing scroll.
Upon lifting a surprisingly heavy gold bar, he heard a soft mechanical click, that came from the button that the bar was laid on.
Instantly realising his grave mistake, he grabbed his belongings and shouted. "RUN! IT'S A TRAP!"
Just after the two exited into the balcony and jumped of, the office became engulfed in a burst of fire, barely nicking the pair. Plummeting down, they managed to stick to walls once again, sliding on them with great speed. Upon reaching the ground, Kakashi tried to check their surroundings, but both of them got blinded with multiple projectors, hang up on trees.
"Now, would you look at that. Zabuza and his friend, caught with their hands in the cookie jar," came the remark from none other than Gato. They were now surrounded with all his mercenaries he could muster, that being a little under a hundred.
"Are we going to go the easy, or the hard way, gentlemen? I sure you would want Tazuna's family to stay relatively unharmed," he said with a twisted grin.
Sharing looks, the two jonin nodded at each other. "Don't try and bluff at us. Even if you did hold them hostage, you'd already have them killed by now, or chained up somewhere, making them work for coppers, and taking everything for your lazy midget ass," Zabuza replied, mocking Gato.
The man was angered by the bold words of the swordsman, his face twisted in an ugly grimace of rage. "Have it your way. Men, kill them!"
The pair was ready to fight: Zabuza unsealing his Kubikiribocho, and Kakashi grabbing his kunai, they faced the charge of petty bandits.
= = = To be continued... = = =
I'll be the roundabout
The words will make you out 'n' out
I spend the day your way
Call it morning driving through the sound and
In and out the valley...