Chapter 11. Distance.
Senju Tsunade cracked a grin and slumped down into her most comfortable armchair. A bottle of her favorite sake sat on the end table, easily within reach. She threw her legs up on the table with a grimace and wiggled her toes. The nerves tingled in protest, but her muscles were nice and warm from the long, hot bath she had just taken.
Retirement tasted sweet. No chunin harassing her to do paperwork, no catastrophes waiting to be dealt with, and – bless the gods – no loudmouth kid barging in on her every time he got some new crazy idea in his head.
She hummed to herself and picked up the bottle to take a deep, long swig. Screw the world, this was Tsunade-time. The hospital could wait.
That delightful sense of peace and relaxation lasted for roughly two and a half minutes before the aforementioned loudmouthed kid kicked open her door in a flurry of chakra and urgency.
"TSUNADE-BAACHAN!" Naruto shouted, apparently unaware she was barely five feet away from him and not, in fact, deaf, no matter what rumors might be going around.
The bottle in Tsunade's hand gave up its struggle against overwhelming outside pressure and burst into a thousand pieces. Tsunade's eyebrow ticked. It hadn't done that in a while.
Naruto froze on her doorstep and gulped audibly. "Ahhh – err –"
The door he had just kicked in gave a last, defiant screech, and fell out of its hinges.
"UZUMAKI NARUTO!" Tsunade tossed the remnants of the bottle at Naruto.
He squealed in fear and threw himself behind her sofa.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" Tsunade roared.
A single, tanned hand appeared above the sofa, shaking minutely. "I'm so sorry, Tsunade-baachan – it's just that there's trouble –"
The urge to punt him out of a nearby window became particularly strong. Instead, Tsunade let out a fierce growl and fell back into her chair. Her knees were shaking. There would be no beating anyone up today. Damn nerve damage.
She glared up at Naruto as he carefully reappeared from his hiding place and said, in the voice she knew usually left him shaking in his boots, "What?"
Naruto held out a letter with a shaking hand. "I just got this from Sasuke. Trouble in Sunagakure…" He paused, gulped again. "He thinks Orochimaru is involved. And, err, Kakashi-sensei. I think he's in trouble. I tried contactin' Gaara to ask him about it, but he's not responding."
There was a lot of information there, but Tsunade had no trouble unpacking it.
Of course.
Was it so much to ask that her old teammate would accept the inevitable and settle into retirement himself?
Or for that matter…
"What has my idiot successor done this time?" She said instead, and infused it with as much chagrin as she could manage.
Ah – those were the magic words. Naruto's posture changed. "All Sasuke would say is that he – that he vanished."
Vanished. Of course he did.
Tsunade kept her face blank. "Vanished. And that's all Sasuke would say?"
"Yeah. So I gotta –"
Tsunade held up a hand to forestall the enthusiastic rant that was surely about follow. "You want to go after them, don't you?" She asked, narrowing her eyes.
Naruto nodded, his eyes blazing.
"And ignore your Hokage's orders in the process?"
"If it means saving his stupid butt, then hell yeah!" Naruto said, pumping his fist.
So Kakashi was in trouble, his fate unknown, and Naruto was willing to go to any length to save him – now why did this sound so familiar?
Oh, that's right. This sort of thing happened to team Seven all the damn time. Excuse her for not immediately leaping up in worry.
She slammed her hand on the side table. The furniture in the room gave a gratifying little jump. "Are you telling me you do not trust Kakashi and Sakura to figure this out by themselves?"
Guilt flashed over Naruto's face for about half a second before his customary, entirely too determined expression made its return. "We're teammates. My teammates are in trouble. I'm not just going to sit around and wait. And anyway, sensei is still recovering."
And when Naruto didn't want to sit around and wait, as he called obeying orders, there wasn't anyone capable of stopping him from going wherever the hell he liked.
At least if Orochimaru was involved it explained why Kakashi sent Naruto back home. Dammit! She had asked Kakashi not to tell her every damn thing going on in the village, she was retired, but that didn't mean she couldn't still be pissed off for being left in the dark. Screw being reasonable.
She sighed and sagged into her chair, wishing it would swallow her. It was true that the whole incident with Fox had only been a few months ago… Kakashi was resilient, of course, but he had been very ill. Even so, Naruto couldn't go running off every time a friend of his was possibly in trouble. Tsunade knew her work; the seals filtering the poison in Kakashi's system had very nearly finished their task, and Kakashi should be more than capable of taking care of himself.
Maybe it was time to play the guilt card.
"Didn't you come back to the village just because Kakashi asked you to?" Tsunade said. "Or are you telling me you inflicted Killer Bee on us for no good reason?"
"Hey, Bee is great – but that's not the point! I get why sensei sent me here, I really do, but it seems to me that if sensei is onto the old snake all the way in Suna, Orochimaru isn't going to go after us here," Naruto said.
Tsunade was fairly sure her old teammate wasn't planning a hit on the village at all – he knew better than to try, what with Sasuke choosing Konoha's side. Anyway, she had thought his ambition had been curbed. That he had… Not retired, but chosen a quieter life.
Evidently not. He had just chosen a different playing ground.
So what had Kakashi found that made him want to keep Naruto inside? Her successor was a genius. He didn't know Orochimaru as well as she did, obviously, but he had seen the man save Sasuke's life and slink off. Then again, Orochimaru's definition of a quiet life wasn't exactly the same as that of anyone else. She pushed down an old and familiar sense of regret. 'A quiet life' wouldn't stop him from doing whatever the hell he liked within his own village. Perhaps Kakashi felt Konoha had tolerated him for too long. And perhaps it had.
As for keeping Naruto away from the conflict, Kakashi's motivations could be as simple as keeping Naruto from seeing things no one should have to see.
"You can't just leave. What were Kakashi's orders, exactly?" She said.
"Oh – that I should go home because Konoha might need someone capable of defeating an S-rank criminal…" He trailed off, his expression suddenly thoughtful. "Someone," he repeated softly.
Oh boy. Naruto narrowed his eyes into a squint. "Someone," he said again.
Tsunade squinted back. "You better not be thinking what I think you're thinking."
A wide grin spread across Naruto's face, far too mischievous for Tsunade's liking.
"No," she said, in the tone of voice she usually used to keep Tonton from stealing her snacks.
"I'm not going to do anything Kakashi-sensei didn't tell me to do," Naruto said innocently.
Well. There was no dissuading an Uzumaki once they had set their mind to something. Tsunade should know; she was a quarter Uzumaki herself.
She sighed deeply. At least with Naruto gone, her retirement wouldn't be interrupted so often. That, and perhaps she wouldn't have to worry about her successor quite as much. "Whatever you're going to do… Make sure you think it through for once," she said. "You won't be doing Kakashi any good if you endanger either yourself or the village."
Naruto gave her his best innocent smile before throwing her a salute. "You can count on it!"
"And tell Yamato!" She bellowed after him.
She groaned again, and gave her sake bottle a forlorn look. "It's never just going to be me and you, is it?" She murmured, and then stood up to make her way to the hospital. If there was going to be trouble, she might as well be prepared.
The real beauty about Naruto's scheme, he thought, was that it wouldn't just allow Naruto to reunite the team and help out Suna, it was also a great way to pay Kakashi back for the many, many times he had exploited loopholes to get out of paying dinner bills.
Of course, that was little more than an afterthought given the circumstances. Naruto leapt across the rooftops with great determination, hands already crossed in a familiar sign."Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"
A mere second later, several copies of himself were grinning up at him expectantly. He saluted them. "Hello boys. You know who to get, don't you?"
A chorus of "yeah!"'s and "yes sir's" rose up, and then the clones scattered.
Naruto nodded to himself in satisfaction. Now, all he would need was a venue. Somewhere large and spacious, where people didn't overhear.
Surprisingly, Ino and Sai were the first to make their way to the training field Naruto had chosen. Ino frowned and held up her and Sai's hands, clasped together. "What the hell is this about? We're in the middle of the date!"
Sai seemed mildly surprised by this statement and opened his mouth to say something. He closed it again. Character development, Naruto thought.
"Glad you made it!" Naruto called out. Better to ignore the questions for now. "We just gotta wait a little bit until everyone is here, okay?"
Ino scowled. "This better be good, Naruto."
"It will be, it will be!" He grinned, trying to be patient despite the itch under his skin that told him to leave as soon as possible.
Chouji arrived next. Unlike his teammate he was perfectly pleasant about the whole thing. Of course, that could be the bag of crisps in his hand talking.
Team 8 showed up together, as they always did. From the look of things, they had been training; there were twigs in Hinata's hair and Kiba and Akamaru looked like they had been rolling around in a mud bath. Shino looked immaculate, of course.
Hinata gave him a friendly little wave which he answered with his best awkward smile. Things had been a little weird between them lately, ever since they had caught her father spying on them during a date. She had been too embarrassed and he too startled (terrified, if he was being completely honest) to talk about it, so it hung in the air between them like a dark, Hiashi-shaped cloud.
Fortunately, team Gai came to his rescue, their argument audible from miles away. "And I'm telling you, Lee, you can't just go around replacing people's wardrobes without their consent!" Tenten was saying.
Lee didn't look particularly sorry for whatever he had done. "I consider it to be a sign of my utmost respect and admiration! What better compliment to make than to ask someone to join me in my youthful lifestyle –"
"But a six-year-old Academy student? You don't even know if he has any taijutsu talent!" Tenten looked close to tearing her hair out.
Gai laughed uproariously. "My adorable little students, I'm truly happy to see the two of you taking an interest in taking up students of your own! I will certainly be the happiest man in town when you do!"
Gai spun his wheelchair into a series of complex and eye-wateringly fast turns, the tires squeaking in protest. He grinned lightly and pointed a finger straight at Naruto. "But for now it is still time for you to be youthful and be with your friends! The honorable Naruto-kun has invited us all here for something important, I can just feel it!"
The number of exclamation marks exchanged in the last couple of sentences made Naruto's ears ring. How Tenten managed, he still wasn't sure. "Ha – yup! That's right," he said, laughing awkwardly. "Thanks for coming, guys."
"You're welcome!" Gai and Lee chorused, giving him identical thumbs up.
Somewhere deep inside him, Naruto was sure he could hear Kurama groan.
He gave his stomach a comforting pat. This is the guy who almost took out Madara, remember?
He folded his fingers together a little awkwardly as his friends grouped around him, looking at him expectantly. "So, this is kind of important. There's something up in Sunagakure, and Sakura asked us for help." Well, technically, she had only asked Sasuke, but that was a mere detail.
"Suna? Why, what's wrong?" Chouji asked. He didn't sound particularly concerned but again, that could just be the potato crisps he was still eating.
"I'm not really sure yet, but I think my team is in trouble. I think Kakashi-sensei is in trouble again, anyway, so, like, that should be a village priority, right? Since he's the Hokage, and all that," Naruto's face scrunched up in thought. Justifying the whole thing was a little bit more difficult than he had expected, but he would manage. Talking people into things was kind of his shtick.
"Anyway, I think I should go there, but we also think Orochimaru might be involved so there should be someone here too, in case he attacks. So I figured I would ask you guys to keep an eye out – no, I mean, to properly survey the place and make sure everything goes right, you know?"
This wasn't really coming out anywhere near as smoothly as Naruto had hoped. The others were staring at him with slightly puzzled expressions, bordering on concern.
"Look, I just know something has gone wrong and Sakura asked for our help. She wouldn't just do that for no good reason. However, while I'm gone I want to make sure Konoha is looked after. Sensei asked me to make sure of that, so it's important," he said.
"Trouble with Orochimaru? And you think Kakashi is involved?" Gai asked, slowly. "ANBU should be watching Orochimaru."
"Well, clearly they haven't been doing a very good job, 'cause his people snuck all the way into mainland Wind Country," Naruto said impatiently. "One of Sasuke's buddies ran into them, but he heard sensei and the others were chasing after them as well. Next thing Sasuke says is that sensei disappeared."
Well, that silenced them.
"Look, I know he's strong, and I do trust him to look out for himself," Naruto pleaded, looking at Gai, "but he hasn't fully recovered yet and he's not very good at taking it easy, y'know? And anyway, I think it's bigger than just him. If Orochimaru is involved, it could be big. I want to be there when whatever happens, happens."
"Well, what about us?" Ino asked, putting a hand in her side. "We want to be there as well. Shikamaru and Sakura are there, and we all care about Kakashi-sensei. Can't we all go together?"
"We have had no such orders," Gai said, a little gruffly. "If all of you go, there will be no one left in the village who knows about any of this. Will there?" He looked at Naruto.
"Tsunade-baachan knows, but she's just one person and she doesn't fight anymore. That's why I'm asking you guys. I trust you, and I know you're strong. If we go around telling everyone, people will just panic," Naruto said.
Gai nodded his agreement.
"I guess it makes sense," Kiba said, a little doubtfully. He crossed his arms over his chest.
"It does. Why? We do not want to put all of our eggs in one basket," Shino added.
It was Hinata who spoke up last. "Naruto-kun... I understand you want to go, but… Don't you think that between Kakashi-sensei, Sakura, Sasuke, Shikamaru and all the others they can solve it themselves?"
Naruto's mind blanked. No they can't, he wanted to say. They can't, because he loved them and he didn't want them to be hurt. But Kakashi had vanished just after Naruto had thought he was finally safe, and Sakura was in the middle of nowhere without any of her teammates, and Sasuke could be face-to-face with Orochimaru again, after everything. Because he couldn't forget how close all three of them had come to dying during the war and after, when he hadn't been there to help.
He was silent for too long. The others were all looking at him with a mixture of sympathy and confusion. They knew he had no real reason to go. They knew it was just an excuse.
Except three of Naruto's favorite people in the world were a long way away, and all he wanted to do was to be with them.
"I am a part of team 7, too," Sai said quietly, interrupting his thoughts. "So is Yamato-taichou. I think perhaps the two of us should go to him and discuss the best course of action."
Naruto's eyes dropped to the floor. For a moment, he felt like a little boy again, all his secrets exposed for everyone to see. Anxiety and reason warred.
Come on, kid. You know he's right, Kurama said, unexpectedly gentle.
Naruto sniffed and nodded, and looked up at Sai. "Yeah. Okay. Let's do it."
His friends dispersed slowly, until only Sai and Hinata were left behind. Hinata glanced up at Sai and asked, gently, "Would you give us a moment?"
Sai took perhaps a little bit longer than most to register her request, but nodded. "I will see you in Yamato-taichou's office," he told Naruto, and left.
Naruto nodded. "I'm sorry. I made a mess of it," he said, when Hinata came to stand next to him.
She smiled sweetly and grasped the fingers of his good hand between her own. "You didn't. You just really care. There's no shame in that."
"I know, but I rushed into it. I dragged you all out here for some dumb idea that wasn't going to work anyway… " Naruto looked down. "What if sensei was right? What if Orochimaru does attack Konoha, and I'm not here to stop him?"
"Well, we would do our best," Hinata said, with a wry twist to her smile. "I know we're not as strong as you or your teammates, but we love this village just as much."
"Yeah, 'course you do. I'm sorry. I just don't know what to do. It seems like only yesterday when Fox attacked Kakashi. And Sasuke has a history with Orochimaru. And Sakura cares so much, you know? I just want to be there for them, if something goes wrong," Naruto said, squeezing her fingers.
She touched his cheek with her free hand. "I know you do. And you will, if you have to – but not before you know all the facts." She pulled her hand back. Her eyes hardened. "Yamato-san is the leader of ANBU, isn't he? If anyone knows Orochimaru's movements, it's him. Go to him, like Sai suggested. Figure out what's going on first, and then decide what to do. I know you can do it."
Naruto smiled at her. Always so sensible, his Hinata.
"It's a good thing she's so smart when you're so dumb," Kurama rumbled.
Naruto ignored him. "Thanks, Hinata. You always know what to say."
She shrugged slightly. "Not really. I just know you."
Naruto grinned, bent forward and kissed her cheek. He gave her a wave and ran off to find his remaining teammates. Perhaps kicking it with ANBU for a while would be fun…
Sasuke reached Sakura and her team around noon. He'd made the trip a little bit faster than he would have under different circumstances, so his feet ached and his eyes felt tired from the glaring sun. Not that he was about to admit to that. Not to a bunch of strangers, anyway.
And they were strangers, the people surrounding Sakura. He vaguely remembered a couple of them, like the creepy snake lady and Gaara's siblings from the chuunin exams. Decent shinobi, though hardly brilliant. The only other shinobi in their company were an older Suna shinobi with extravagant facial tattoos and a female ANBU in an owl mask, her deep violet hair the only sign of individuality. A larger group of civilians was huddled together at a short distance from the shinobi, around what appeared to be a freshly dug grave. Perhaps one of them had died. Sakura would've said, wouldn't she, if someone he knew had died?
It was the ANBU who noticed him first. She had laid her chakra out across the desert like a net, spanning almost half a mile. She was a sensor, and quite an impressive one at that. Sasuke could see her shoulders tense when she noticed him. To her credit, she didn't make a grab for her sword.
Sakura noticed him next, her face lighting up. "Sasuke!" She called out, and for a moment she smiled as brightly as Naruto. The smile faded quickly though, and was replaced by a more serious expression.
"Hi," he said when he reached her. He wasn't sure what else to say. He looked her over quickly for injuries, but saw nothing more serious than an already faded bruise on her upper arm.
"I'm fine," she said, catching his look. "Thank you for coming so quickly. I wasn't sure who else to call. I know you're not a seals expert, but I thought… Perhaps with your Sharingan or Rinnegan..."
Sasuke was actually rather keen to deactivate the two doujutsu to keep them from digging into his reserves, but he had the feeling that doing so now would be poorly timed. The Suna shinobi were practically glaring at him, and Sakura seemed so hopeful. He sighed softly. "Where is this seal?" He asked.
Sakura gave him a relieved smile. "It's this way. Here, I will show you."
The abandoned prison complex was huge and intimidating even in its dilapidated, ruined state. Sasuke's eyes turned the protective chakra barrier around it into a pearlescent shell of colors. It must have been incredibly impressive when it was first cast, before time and distance had caused it to fade. Perhaps one of the people who had originally cast it was still alive – otherwise, it probably would have dissipated a long time ago.
Away from the other shinobi, he allowed his Sharingan to fade.
As Sakura led him further into the ruins, the telltale signs of Konoha involvement began to show: one of the buildings have been blown up almost entirely, allowing him to see down, down, down into the depths of its many basements. The prison had at least four levels below ground, each of them equipped with cells.
The Suna of thirty years ago had either been stronger than Sasuke had thought, or it had been more ambitious.
Sakura led him all the way down. The lowest level was dark even with the sunlight falling in from above. A couple of burned out torches lay on the ground. Sasuke took one of them and lit it with a basic fire jutsu. He grabbed another, lit it as well, and handed it to Sakura.
She looked tired in the half light as she lowered the torch to illuminate the floor. Dark symbols appeared, curving around and forming a perfect circle in the middle of the room. At first Sasuke thought it had been drawn in ink, but the Rinnegan was picking up signs of animal matter. It was blood.
He followed the trail to a smaller room that had probably served as a guard station once. He wasn't actually sure what exactly the Rinnegan was showing him – the trail wasn't blood or chakra, but rather… Life force, perhaps. Something that connected the blood to something in his room.
To something in the closet in the corner of the room. A layered genjutsu hid it from view, but the illusion was no match for his eyes.
He kicked the closet open and two bodies came falling out.
"This is how they got the blood for the seal," he muttered.
At his side, Sakura gasped. She rushed forward and turned the bodies over, but it was clearly too late. They were both dead. Sakura's face crumpled. Sasuke looked away.
"They used the two Suna chuunin who stood watch over the prison," she said softly, when she recovered. "They were sixteen."
Sasuke stilled. It was certainly Orochimaru's MO to use and abuse people until they fell apart, regardless of their age. "I thought most Suna shinobi didn't know about this place?"
"They were from Yamada-san's clan. Oh no, we'll have to tell him they're dead.." Sakura covered her mouth with her hands. "I think they were his nephews."
Sasuke shook off the involuntary shiver that went down his back. "Let's focus on what we can do here and now, first. That seal, that's where you saw Kakashi last?
Sakura tore herself away from the bodies with visible difficulty. "I – yeah. Him and Shikamaru, and the Suna Elder, Ebizou-sama."
Sasuke left the guard room. His footsteps echoed eerily across the seal in question. He reactivated his Sharingan and focused.
"Tch," the chakra that had once lit up the seal had faded, dying even as he watched. He had to push more chakra into his eyes to be able to focus on the myriad of interconnecting lines and chakra pools. Sakura was right; he was no seals expert by any means, but he could understand and see their layout, even their purpose if he really focused.
Now, for example, he could see the seal's core extended into the earth like a pipeline running away to some distant, unknown location. "This seal is connected to something. Another seal like it, perhaps," he said. "Except…"
One of the strings making up the seal's core looked like it had snapped suddenly and accidentally. Like someone had tampered with it… He focused on the physical shape of the seal on the floor, and noticed a large crack running through.
"Another seal like it?" Sakura said thoughtfully. "Do you mean here, in the prison?"
"No, it's much further away. There's a line of chakra that's supposed to connect the two of them. I can still see it, tunneling into the earth. If you could power it with chakra – a lot of chakra – you could probably get it to work again. That crack in the floor tampered with it, but it didn't destroy it," Sasuke said.
He strode over to another part of the seal, where he could see a dark, gaping hole where chakra should be. "I think you can even store chakra in it, so you can operate it with fewer people. There's these empty pockets you could use…"
"Why would this seal be connected to another one? What purpose would that serve? One of the refugees was saying the Sound shinobi forced some of the other refugees to go through it when it was activated, and that it made the bystanders feel strange," Sakura said, tapping her chin in thought.
"Strange how?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. Numb, I guess. Anyway, Kakashi-sensei must have somehow triggered the seal. Don't you think so? It's the only explanation for how he could disappear without there being anyone else around," she said, whirling around to meet him with a fierce expression.
Sasuke looked away. There wasn't really any way to be sure, was there? They could only speculate.
"So maybe if we fix this seal, it can take us wherever it took Kakashi-sensei and the others," Sakura went on, hopeful.
Except that was far too simple, wasn't it? They couldn't fix the seal because they didn't really understand the seal. Sasuke's eyes brought partial understanding, not knowledge. He couldn't just improvise, throw some blood around and hope for the best. Such a corrupted seal was more likely to kill them on the spot.
He met Sakura's eyes and shook his head, slowly. Her smile faded and her shoulders dropped. It made his stomach churn to see her like this.
"We can't just do nothing," she said weakly.
Sasuke closed his eyes. There was nothing to be done. The seal had already faded to the point where tracking its core line to the other seal would be impossible, even with his eyes.
"We'll have to trust Kakashi to know what he's doing," he said, surprising himself.
Sakura looked up with wide eyes. "You realize you're talking about the man who managed to get himself poisoned because he had to play a prank?" She asked slowly.
Sasuke grimaced.
"Also, as it happens, the man who ends up hospitalized on a monthly basis?" She continued, faintly.
True, Hatake Kakashi was in many ways a walking disaster just waiting to happen – but he was also one of the few people Sasuke would trust with his life, now more so than ever. Kakashi was the man who had promised Sasuke to truly change Konoha. And somehow, Sasuke believed him.
"But he always pulls through, doesn't he? He always gets the job done?" He finally said, a little gruffly.
Sakura blinked and then slowly, softly, smiled. "You're right, Sasuke. I shouldn't be doubting him, not after everything we've been through. Perhaps… Perhaps we should focus on what we can do. Like helping those refugees, and bringing these poor boys back home." She looked back at the guard station with wistful eyes.
Sasuke dipped his head in acknowledgment. "We will find a way to help Kakashi. And if we can't, we can at least figure out what Orochimaru is up to."
That, if nothing else, would be worth pursuing. Sasuke hadn't seen his old mentor in a while and, quite frankly, there were more than a few things he wanted to tell the old snake…
AN:
I love Tsunade, she's one of my favorites to write. Anyway, in case it isn't clear she sustained nerve damage from her injuries fighting Madara. Her lower body functions but is not as responsive as it should be. Managing the accompanying pain is a doddle when you're the best medic in the world, but actually fixing the issue is less so. I mean, the woman was cut in half.
Also, Naruto is a gift and so much fun to write. If he wasn't so overwhelmingly powerful that he can just take out any threat without breaking a sweat, I would use him everywhere. I have to admit I wasn't big on him getting together with Hinata at first, but I don't mind writing it. I feel like they could be pretty cute with, you know, actual screen time and development. *shakes fist at Kishi*