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Sakura

Practically numb, her body senseless as clay, Sakura shepherded the two boys like prisoners through the Konoha streets and into the Hokage's tower, ignoring the odd looks they drew.

A part of her wanted to reach back, to mine, to analyze all the possibilities she could have and should have explored even though it was useless now. What was done was done. If there had been a way to save Naruto and the boys' secret and her own sense of what was the right thing to do (and she was sure there was) she hadn't found it. In the end, she'd failed too.

Climbing the curved staircases, one after the other, to Lady Tsunade's office, Sakura couldn't help but wonder what would happen now. Only one thing seemed sure: it wouldn't be anything good.

Shizune greeted the three in the lobby, her own expression a mask of uncertainty as she lead the rest of the way to the Hokage's office, knocked on the door then ushered them in.

Tsunade rose grandly from her wide, 'U'-shaped desk piled high with paperwork with a smile cool on her face. It was only because Sakura knew her master better that she noticed the tension beneath the placid veneer.

"Welcome to the Hidden Leaf Village…though I guess you two have been here awhile," the woman offered amiably and humorously enough, seeming quite gracious and poised in her robe of soft jade. "My name is Tsunade and I'm the village's Fifth Hokage. I gather you're Inari," she said in her best non-threatening voice then bent toward Inari, "and you must be Chuuya," she said to Chuuya.

Tomb-like silence followed.

"I see," the Hokage continued with diplomatic calm in answer to her guests' stony 'I-hate-you' stares. "Listen," she tried again, "you're not in any trouble…with me at least. That you two were able to sneak in here and hide out for so long tells me that our security needs some serious upgrading. Even so, I'm really, really impressed that you were able to pull it off."

Tsunade looked back and forth between the Wave Country boys with an expression that was borderline motherly. "But one of my ninja's has gone missing, hasn't he? And it's very, very important that we get him back and make sure he's safe."

The kunoichi rose up to her full height and put her hands on her hips.

"I know you boys feel an obligation toward Naruto as your friend - a bond. I too, and every ninja and every citizen in Konoha, have a bond with him just like it. He is one of us. When he became a ninja he swore an oath that he would protect us and we…we have a duty, each of us, to be worthy of that service and loyalty. As Hokage, no one feels this more deeply than I do for the sole responsibility rests with me. I'm responsible for him, care about him, as I care about all the shinobi and citizens of this village. It's not unlike how your families care about you.

"So," she added gently, smiling in summation, "would you please tell me where Naruto's gone?"

Chuuya's dark eyes rose like drawn longbows as he answered slowly in stark defiance: "We will NEVER tell you." He added then with a scowl: "scary old lady."

His leaner partner, Inari, clearly bothered a little by the impudence nevertheless nodded in solemn solidarity.

Sakura grimaced. Her blood ran cold while Tsunade blinked and gave the boys a taut smile.

"You don't think so?" she offered then, still smiling, said to Sakura and Shizune, "give us a minute alone, would you?"

Sakura, with her heart in her throat, nodded compliantly then joined the Hokage's assistant as they paced to the door and stepped out, risking one last look at her sensei and the potentially doomed children.

Seconds later, the two kunoichi, who hadn't strayed at all far from the door, overheard their master growl something unintelligible followed by the boys' frantic confession and then:

"Naruto did WHAT! He went WHERE!" Tsunade bellowed followed by a thunderous crash that rattled the concrete bones of the Hokage's Tower.

Sakura and Shizune gaped at each other in horror then went stumbling through the door and into Tsunade's office where their Hokage stood, straight and still with her back to them. The twin braids of her long, sandy hair and the hem of her jade robe blew fitfully in the wind while papers and documents fluttered about the room like a flock of startled doves all against the sprawling, verdant backdrop of Konoha and the forests beyond aglow in the mid-morning sun that was clearly visible through the giant, jagged and gaping hole in the wall where a long band of windows used to be.

The two boys, Chuuya and Inari, huddled on the floor in a quaking, terror-stricken embrace.

Tsunade's desk was nowhere to be seen.

Too stunned to speak, Sakura held her hands clutched at her chest.

Bits of crumbing concrete dripped from the opening where Tsunade stood. A wobbling ceiling panel finally wrested free and came clattering to the floor as the whirling paperwork slowly started to settle.

Without turning, the Fifth Hokage uttered in syllables distinct and measured: "Get me Shikamaru."

Sakura and Shizune exchanged looks, wondering which of them their master was talking to before deciding it really didn't matter.

Sakura swallowed hard and turned to go just as Tsunade gestured vaguely toward the horizon and, with an edge in her voice, commanded testily: "and…and get someone to find my damn DESK!"


Shikamaru

Shikamaru Nara didn't need the intellectual gifts with which he was often credited or the powers of prophecy he lacked to realize that today was going to be especially troublesome.

Having Sakura Haruno march into the den of his family's ancestral home, inform him that the Hokage wanted to see him "NOW" then proceed to drag him through the city streets when he didn't move quickly enough was all more than enough to entrench that idea firmly in the newly-promoted chunin's head. In case he was still unclear, the pink-haired girl (and, Heaven and Earth, she was strong!) hauled him up the stairs of the Hokage's tower then ushered him un-gently into the woman's office.

"Ow!" Shikamaru protested uselessly, rubbing his smarting bicep. "Hey Sakura, ease up. I might need this arm later in life."

Stumbling to a stop, the black-haired teenager's eyes flickered at once to the enormous hole in the outside wall which was crisscrossed with thick bands of vivid yellow tape that read 'CAUTION CAUTION CAUTION' in black, block letters. The breeze from the opening whispered and gusted unnaturally in the room, making it hard for Shizune to gather up the reams and reams of paperwork strewn about the floor like so much confetti.

A sad sigh drew Shikamaru's attention to his right where two kids - black-haired boys he'd never seen before, sat grim-faced on the floor.

Lady Tsunade turned away from the tape-obstructed vista toward a card-table, her chair and a folding chair that all sat where her desk normally did.

Uh-huh, the shinobi mused. I suppose, statistically speaking, that there's a tiny, tiny chance this isn't as bad as it looks.

"Good afternoon, Shikamaru," greeted Tsunade in a business-like tone who then rolled her chair up to the table and gestured. "Have a seat."

Pacing across the room, taking care to step over the remaining papers, Shikamaru lowered himself into the folding-chair's uncomfortable embrace then waited for the explanation he felt sure was coming.

"A few months ago you and several other ninjas were dispatched to retrieve Sasuke Uchiha, right?"

The young ninja coughed. Being that everyone who went on that mission including himself and his closest friend Chouji Akimichi almost got killed and still failed to bring back the renegade Uchiha and was by far the most humbling, emotionally-wrenching and pivotal event in his life, how could he forget! It had been barely three months ago…IF that!

"Yes, Lady Tsunade," he answered in forced understatement.

"Well we have ourselves a similar situation, only this time," her amber eyes blazed with leonine intensity, "it's Naruto."

Shikamaru's jaw tightened as a litany of curses ripped through his head. "Ok," he accepted with a sigh, managing (heroically, he thought) to keep his initial thoughts to himself. "Do you know where he's gone?"

"Apparently," the Hokage began with a sour look on her face then cast a quick glance over at the two boys, "the Village Hidden in the Mist."

Shikamaru could almost HEAR his insides clench and even he couldn't hold off the expression that came to his face.

Lady Tsunade nodded. "So I hope you enjoy the prospect of a challenge and this time I expect a better result. Your last outing was a little sloppy if I recall correctly." While Shikamaru frowned thoughtfully at that remark, the Sannin paused for a moment before supplying gruffly: "I should add that, despite what you might think about your former classmate, Naruto's importance to this village cannot be overstated. Were he to be captured by the Mist it would be nothing short of catastrophic. Is there anything about what I've said that's unclear?"

The chunin blinked then rubbed the side of his face. Almost all of his memories of Naruto involved him doing something stupid, his almost complete cluelessness, his tragic grades, his braying laugh. Not that Shikamaru at all thought that the blond goofball was disposable, in fact he kind of liked him, but it was just a little hard to put together how Naruto's loss could be considered 'catastrophic'. That Sasuke's leaving the village was a loss was easily explained – his 'magic' Uchiha eyeballs - but Naruto?

Then again, his dad, Shikaku's mood always turned a little serious and his old, scarred face sometimes got a little puckery whenever Naruto's name came up so there could well be more to the story.

"Lady Tsunade," Shikamaru ventured though he suspected what the answer would be, "as I'm sure you know, the more information I have going in the better the chances for success."

The Hokage frowned. "You're absolutely right," she answered. "However in this case, as in many cases, you must proceed with what you know incomplete or not."

Shikamaru took this in stride. The Nara clan had for generations been involved in various Village matters and projects that were expressly NOT for public consumption and so he was familiar with the idea that there were things he wasn't supposed to know.

"Yes, ma'am," the young ninja replied, figuring there was no point in arguing. However, being that his life and the lives of those who went with him might hinge upon what he knew or didn't know, he vowed to get the information he wanted from some other source, by hook or by crook if necessary, and that would be the end of that.

"You must maintain absolute secrecy about this mission. Circumstances being what they are," Tsunade continued, "you may take with you anyone you chose who happens to be available with the exception of Kakashi Hatake and any member of the Hyuuga clan."

"Understood," answered Shikamaru, realizing at once and not without a touch of irritation: Sure, of course, you wouldn't want to risk losing any more of your precious 'magic eyeballs' now would you?

"Ok then," the lord of the Leaf Village declared, "dismissed."


The Fire-Tongue Fleet

The sentry didn't spot the returning marines or even sense their presences until they were almost right up on the bow despite being on high alert in the bright, broad daylight and armed with high-powered field glasses.

"Whoa!" he yelped in spite of himself, feeling quite foolish. "Shit! Hey! You guys are supposed to radio in before you head back." The ninja glared down at Ko, the expedition leader who looked back up from the waves on which she stood and gave the hand sign for 'radio not working' before she and her team streamed aboard.

Minutes later both the sentry and the entire rest of the crew were dead. The same was true aboard the other three ships the main fleet had left back to wipe out any possible survivors from the bombarded island. The marines, many of them spattered with blood, gathered up the bodies and dumped them without ceremony into a pile on the foredeck before letting their transformation jutsus fade to reveal the descendants of the Tsujita, Kaguya and Nikai clans along with other sundry expatriates unfortunate enough to have fallen from Kirigakure's fickle grace.

"That was very neatly done," their master, Lord Tohma Nikai offered, appearing on deck in his robes of grey and white with Gennosuke and Sakiko in tow. "Especially you, Gennosuke," he added as he knelt on one knee and stroked the lavender hair tenderly from his disciple's weary face. "You've used your nascent gifts a lot this day – far overused them. But you've saved all of us from certain destruction, given us insight into the state of things as well as a cloak to hide behind until we could strike. If you do nothing else all the rest of your life, you've done enough already to insure your place in the loftiest heaven."

While Gennosuke grinned sheepishly in the glow of his sensei's praise, Sakiko, the young Kaguya, looked around at the blood-streaked decks and the mound of fresh corpses she herself had contributed to with a bleak expression on her face.

"What does it matter, Sensei?" she asked, a desperate woefulness in her voice as the girl brushed a stray ribbon of white hair from her face. "They've found us, destroyed our home. From what Gennosuke saw, Lord Tsujita failed. Haku's dead, his friend's dead; we're going to be hunted again."

Lord Nikai winced at his student's words as if each were a painful accusation. "I'm sorry, child, that you were born into a world like this." He paused to take a breath of the clean ocean air and looked out at the surrounding vistas of bright sun, blue sky and gentle surf – a quiet beauty seemingly at odds with their elegiac fate. "It does indeed appear as if Noriyasu had a poorly-timed crisis of conscious encouraged perhaps by Haku. I can hardly blame them. To unleash death on so many requires a hard heart – one tempered to steel by a hard life and the fires of countless injustices. Even so," he observed, his eyes coming alive, "we are still alive and providence has taken from us one sword only to furnish another. There can be no clearer sign that Heaven favors us."

The shaggy-haired ninja lord prepared himself then his hands moved through an elaborate series of seals. Ocean water summoned by his call crept up the side of all four boats, wriggling like tendrils or tentacles as it crawled across the decks and over the mounded bodies, flowing into and around the dead flesh. Long moments passed where it seemed that Tohma's dramatic technique had had no effect until the first lifeless eyes blinked and limbs began to twitch. One by one, the dead mist-ninjas dis-entangled themselves from the pile and rose.

"Stations," their new master commanded with a charitable smile, clapping one on its soggy back as it slogged past him without expression. "Return to your stations. That's a good boy." Turning toward his shocked followers and brethren he explained: "We can't very well have ships without crews; now can we?"

Everyone continued to watch in unsure silence as the sepulchral processions made their way back to the posts they'd occupied in life as though nothing had happened.

Tensai Kaguya looked on stoically, as pale and still as an ivory statue. "And what should we do, Tohma-sensei?"

The ninja-lord-in-exile reached out to give the shinobi's lean, iron-muscled shoulder an affectionate squeeze then said, "Get everyone, shinobi and civilian alike aboard this ship and make for Wave Country. Find shelter somewhere on the seaward side of the island far away from its port city." The Nikai patriarch then folded his hands behind his back and strolled to the railing.

The sea before his eyes stretched out to meet the distance in an infinity of blue. He turned then and looked over the deck of the Fire-Tongue Ship and the battery after battery of rocket launchers that stood upon it; then the others, just like this one, waiting at anchor nearby. "I have unfinished business with Kirigakure," he explained in a tone as distant as the clouds, "and so I will take the three remaining ships our enemies have kindly given us…and lay waste to the city using the very weapons they used to destroy us."


Naruto

Freshly-showered and wearing crisp new clothes, Naruto wandered lightheartedly down the hallway and out into a glass-paned conservatory where the glowing rays of bright sunshine brought him immediately to a stop as his pupils, unaccustomed to the light after days spent in quarantine, constricted painfully. Once adjusted, the boy picked his way past the rows and rows of colorful and fragrant blooms redolent with perfume to a terrace that overlooked a breathtaking garden overlooking the sea.

A wide smile spread over his whisker-marked face as he took in the fresh, sea air and the fanciful, fairytale architecture of Castle Hirai: sweeping, clay-tiled hip roofs and towers soaring against the backdrop of cerulean sky, beneath them walls of ancient stone that landed upon a cascading series of gardens each one more splendid than the last. Everywhere drifted the faint music of bells which hung every so often along the perimeter and from every broad overhang.

As his sapphire eyes wandered over splendid, geometrically-conceived flower beds laid out in crisp, intricate patterns, ornamental shrubs and noble, green topiary animals, they came to rest on a solitary figure - a slender, raven-haired beauty in a kimono of pure white and pastel blues with her gaze fixed raptly upon the horizon. Naruto's mind wandered romantically for a bit then abruptly returned.

What? he realized with a frown, jarred unpleasantly from his fantasy. Aww, that's just Haku again.

The genin's expression flickered ambivalently. Without Haku, he'd still be trapped on that stupid little island, starving and going crazy while waiting around for some weirdo mist-ninja to come back and eat him. The black-haired teenager had rescued him but even so Naruto wasn't totally sure how things stood between them.

Never one not to force the issue, Naruto narrowed his gaze and galloped down the steps then made his way along paths paved in stone, across a lush lawn softer than carpet under his booted feet to join the ninja at the guard-wall. Smirking cleverly, Naruto grabbed a handful of the older teenager's butt then laughed hard when Haku jumped in surprise and turned with a look of truly uncharacteristic discombobulation.

"What, it's your own fault," Naruto explained through his pealing laughter, unrepentant mischievousness evident in his broad, Cheshire-cat grin, "for being prettier than most girls!"

The taller ninja's delicate dignity rumpled beyond repair, Haku looked askance at the blond. "Maybe it is…and for forgetting you're out of your mind."

The mood settled into something of a strained silence and Naruto noticed Hideo standing apart from them. The strange, pale and squat figure looked toward the pair briefly before returning his glassy-eyed attention elsewhere.

Naruto snuck a glance back at Haku and worried his lip. He didn't remember much about what had happened in Kirigakure after the ambush. The Nine-Tail's chakra sealed inside him had gotten loose, gotten away from him, had taken over. That part seemed pretty clear. Though he and Haku had talked about it before, talked around it mostly, Naruto wasn't sure how what had happened would change things. After all, he'd been feared and hated for years in the Hidden Leaf Village because of the Kyuubi and still was by some, especially by those who had seen it, by those it had hurt.

"It was bad, wasn't it?" the blond asked at last in a hushed, rasping tone as his fingers wandered absently over the capstone's roughness.

"What was?"

Naruto grumbled at having to explain what he didn't want to. "You know…'it'."

"Oh," Haku's expression rose with understanding. "Yes. 'It' was," he offered plainly then seemed to regret it. "I'm sorry to say it that way but it's probably better that you know. That chakra, that power inside you, is almost indescribable. It's a frightening and terrible thing, wild, evil, capable of -," the former Demon's Apprentice stopped himself then shrugged.

Naruto's heart sank. Among the worst fears that he could never completely shake was that those who loathed him, who ignored and avoided him had every right to; that he could never overcome the curse of bearing the Demon-Fox no matter what he did.

"But," Haku went on in a lighter tone, "I suppose I don't have the right be too critical. You and…the Kyuubi," he made a point of saying, "did save my life after all. I hope that doesn't make me sound selfish."

At just the flash of Haku's quick smile, sad as this one was, Naruto brightened. The Nine-Tails had cost him a lot but at least here was one friend it hadn't.

"So I guess we're not sick," Naruto ventured, looking on the bright side, eager now to move on. "I mean, since old-man Hirai's medical guys looked us over top-to-bottom and kept us locked up all that time before finally letting us go."

Haku nodded broodingly, seeming more intent on the gentle waves rolling below.

As the breeze stirred his hair, the young leaf-ninja's yellow brows knitted with puzzlement. "So…how come we're not sick?"

"That's a very good question, Naruto," answered Haku at last. "Since, from what Lord Hirai told us, plague has broken out in Kirigakure. Lord Tsujita, contrary to what he told me, was surely the source. Being that we had such close contact with him at the end it would make sense that we should be infected."

"Maybe the old guy didn't want us to be," the leaf-ninja suggested.

"Pestilence was his blood-gift. He might have had that fine a control over it." Zabuza's student let the idea linger for a moment then hung his head. "This whole thing was a mistake. I'm so stupid, Naruto," he confided in an aching voice, "for believing that we could stop what generations of war, hatred and fear have led to."

"What do you mean?" answered Naruto sharply. "We had to try. You know we had to try."

"But what did we accomplish," Haku countered, "nothing."

The yellow-haired boy turned toward him. "It's not about that! We tried to save all those people because it matters, because it's worth fighting for…even if…well, even if it didn't work out like we thought."

"No Naruto, no," Haku insisted coldly. "Leaping blindly into a fight armed only with good intentions isn't noble, it's just stupid. We might have just made matters worse. I'm only now starting to realize that there's much more going on in Kirigakure no Sato than I'd thought. After everything Zabuza taught me and told me, I really should have known better."

"Your assessment is entirely correct, Haku," Lord Hirai's kingly voice interrupted, making the two young ninjas whirl. Clearly, the man's advanced age had not affected his ability to move silently. "However, what you children ascribe to as mere stupidity or, even more lamentably," he shot a disdainful glance at Naruto, "altruism, may in fact be providence."

Naruto scowled at the old man's condescension then noticed how Haku's gaze had fixed on the man their host had brought with them.

"Like a bad penny," Lord Hirai's companion, an ordinary-looking mist-shinobi with close-cropped brown hair, offered in a mild, nasally tone, "you just keep turning up. 'Surprised to see me again?"

Haku shook his head. "No, Mr. Sakurai, it stands to reason that Lord Hirai has spies keeping watch over important figures like Lady Inoue, and that it was you who added my assumed identity of Hiroo Okame to her files of active mist-shinobi. I can't help but wonder why though."

"Not just Inoue's but the official archives in Kirigakure too," the ninja, Sakurai, bragged then shrugged. "Maybe it was all in anticipation of something just like this."

"Suffice it to say," Hirai cut in impatiently, "that there is in fact more going on than you know. You came to the Hidden Mist Village, Haku, to save it from what you believed to be clans of ninja set on revenge. That part is merely the veil that obscures a much more elaborate design, one that reestablishes the Mist Village in the Land of Waves and installs my fellow councilwoman, Lady Chinami Inoue as the Fifth Mizukage."

Haku gaped slightly but fought to maintain a stoic, skeptical demeanor.

"Oh yes, you had the privilege of meeting her didn't you?" Hirai continued. "No doubt the Grande Dame of the Inoue Clan charmed you with visions of a magnificent future whilst you toured her works. I wonder if she made it clear that the future she described is built over the bones of the present. In light of what I've just told you, I'm sure you can apprehend how those with minds consumed with revenge are easily manipulated and anticipated…like Tohma Nikai and Noriyasu Tsujita. Yes, those two are not unknown to me. You must also understand that Lady Inoue would certainly never leave the necessary destruction of the current Mist Village to a clot of wild-eyed exiles living in the hinterlands."

Naruto watched the interplay between old ninja and young, beguiled at the depths of the intrigue unfolding and grateful that things were simpler in Konoha. Though, thinking about it, both Kakashi-sensei and Master Jiraiya sometimes hinted otherwise.

"She sent her own plague," concluded Haku who squeezed his eyes shut. "It didn't matter that Lord Tsujita had a change of heart."

While Sakurai turned grim, Hirai nodded. "More likely a poison, young master, since it's easier to administer and control. Real plagues tend to be unruly. The Tsujita's reappearance in the Mist Village; the spectacle of their clan patriarch's death there completes the power of suggestion. That is enough."

"Wait," Naruto broke in aghast. "Wait, wait, wait! You're saying that this councilwoman is gonna kill everyone in the Mist Village with a fake plague just to make herself Mizukage? THAT'S what this is all about?"

The silver-haired shinobi grimaced as if just the sound of Naruto's emotional and gravelly tenor pained him. "Her aims reach far beyond personal ambition," he answered then returned to Haku, "far beyond the ambition of even your late master, Zabuza. What she intends is nothing less than the creation of a new Mist Village informed by the tenets of her philosophy. The dissolution of the present one, the erasure of it's past are merely the means to an end."

It took a moment for the young ninja to digest the enormity of what the mist-ninja had just explained. Naruto grit his teeth. His fists balled. "How do we stop her?" he growled.

Hirai returned with an impatient sniff. "Not everything in this world can be moved by your personal intervention, child, despite what you believe or whatever so-called 'powers' you possess. Lady Inoue's plan, no matter how carefully prepared, hinges on a chain of events, each adding the necessary momentum to the next. If even one of those events is arrested then the momentum is stilled and her plan fails. I am taking the necessary steps.

"Of much greater immediate concern is that this scheme of hers has had an unintended consequence the origins of which wind back along a chain of causality to YOU, Haku."

This time, Haku couldn't hide his surprise at the ancient ninja's remark.

"In the aftermath of Zabuza's attempt (and yours) on his life, the Fourth Mizukage, Lord Oku did something unspeakably foolish. He struck a deal with the oldest and worst of the Land of Water's enemies, the 108 Demons, releasing them from the captivity imposed upon them by our First Mizukage under the condition that they serve him. Now that he's dead, having been cleverly dispatched by Lady Inoue's conspirators, these demons, walking around in the form of the man Lord Oku sacrificed to them, have been left to their own devices and pose an even graver threat to the Mist Village than my colleague's plans."

A vision of the unnaturally large, mustachioed mist-ninja, Krishenay Rahaman made Naruto's eyed bug wide. "That's that crazy guy who wanted to eat me!" he blurted. "So you're saying that there's like 108 demons all crunched up inside him?" The ninja made a face. For the first time in his life the young teenager felt lucky that HE had only one; it was trouble enough.

Ignoring the blond, Hirai continued: "When we met last, you left me more than angry and disappointed with you, Haku. Your actions showed me that, despite appearances, you are callow and impulsive; you know little of the world and the forces that move it. Still, I set aside any ill feelings due to your youth and the sacrifices your Aramata clan have made in the past. When you set out to save Kirigakure you proved that my forbearance was justified. You were willing to risk your life to preserve the Mist Village. My question to you now is: are you still?"

Haku paused, clearly annoyed at how obvious the answer was – so obvious that the old man needn't have asked. "Yes," he admitted anyway.

Hirai gave him an approving nod. "As I thought."

For the first time then their host seemed to lose his focus and foundered uncomfortably not knowing what to say. After a lengthy pause he offered, "While you were enjoying your respite, Haku, I was having a," the tall, grey-haired man fell silent then cleared his throat, "chat…about you with my grandmother, and yours, young lord. Not surprisingly," his steely eyes flickered up, "they wish to meet you."

While Haku froze in disbelief, Naruto goggled. "YOUR grandmother?" the genin crowed; blue eyes goggled innocently. "But she must be like 50,000 years old!"

Long held-back temper worked its way through Lord Hirai's reserve as his wizened lips wriggled and he gushed with unrestrained anger, "This is no concern of YOURS, jinchuuriki!"

Though Naruto had never heard that word before, the boy recoiled reflexively at the venom in the old man's voice, the palpable hate every bit as potent as that he'd experienced for years growing up in the village the demon inside him had once destroyed.

"Now then," said the clan patriarch, again the very paragon of composure, "come along, Haku. There's still much more I have to explain and time is running short."

Haku started reluctantly to follow then cast a trailing look back at Naruto and, prevailing on the ninja lord, asked: "One moment, please?"

Naruto waited as Haku drew close to him and rested his hands on his shoulders. "Listen, Naruto," he began in a hushed, urgent tone. "You have to get out of here. Go back to the Leaf Village." His features pinched. "Hopefully Chuuya and Inari haven't killed each other yet."

"What do you mean? What are you -?"

"Naruto! I haven't known Lord Hirai very long, but long enough to know how he thinks. Look around, look at this place. This castle is a model of exactly how he views the world."

Naruto shook his head, completely puzzled by the dread in his friend's voice. "But," he contended, "what's wrong with it; it's amazing, isn't it?"

"Look again," the taller ninja instructed in tired frustration. "Look at the trees, the plantings. Do you ever see anything like them in nature?"

The blonde's blue eyes settled on a hedge - a solid-looking block of green with its corners trimmed at perfect right angles, then on a row of ornamental trees with their canopies shaped into equally precise-looking spheres. "Come on, Haku, you're being all -."

"Look DOWN. Look at the grass," continued the fifteen-year old, this time with an insistent vehemence in his grey eyes that made Naruto doubt his sanity. "Every blade that stood too tall has been cut short. Every blade that was too short has been weeded out. People are no different. If they exist in his world it is for a reason. It is to serve as part of his plan, an element of his design. If you stay here any longer he will make you into a part of that plan."

Haku risked a quick look back at his towering, ancient host who glowered with increasing impatience.

"Naruto," he went on in a whisper, "after I ruined his plan to destroy Wave Country, Lord Hirai let me live for a reason. He's aided me ever since for a reason and when I begged him to help me get you back from wherever Rahaman took you he agreed and I assure you it was not out of sympathy.

"I'm about to find out right now what he wants from me," said Haku with a frown. "Whatever it is, Naruto, you must let ME deal with it alone and YOU – just get yourself home. Get poor Chuuya and Inari home and tell them to tell Mari," the ninja struggled in thought, pain shimmering in his eyes, "tell her…just tell her that I'm sorry."

With that, Haku spun away and rushed after the elderly Councilman who was already marching off with the other mist-ninja, Sakurai, at his side.

"Hey, wait a minute," Naruto called to his back, "you can't just -!"

Haku's returned glare of burning, desperate frustration, so different from any side of him Naruto had ever seen before brought him to silence. He watched his friend turn then stalk away to join their host, Lord Hirai, pausing only to shoot a glance at the distant Hideo who nodded almost imperceptibly in return.

As Haku fell in beside the old man, headed back into the depths of his castle, Naruto could only watch not knowing what to do. Though guilt pulled on him for having forgotten about his young friends Inari and Chuuya taking his place in the Leaf Village, tickling the back of his mind was the idea that this was close, way too close, to how he'd lost Sasuke.


Sentimental Gentlemen

At the bottom of a muddy, slow-moving river a catfish of unusual size napped in the silt. All at once it came awake, aware, alert and full of purpose then proceeded at once upstream. Breaking the surface, it thrashed in the unfamiliar world of air and light before coughing up an object lodged in its gizzard that hadn't been there minutes before and sending it flying end-over-end in the direction of a dark shape that towered along the bank.

A blue hand, massively strong and calloused from a thousand battles, took the spinning scroll-case effortlessly from the air, opened it then unrolled and upheld the message inside for a pair of cruel, glassy eyes to read.

Rolling laughter issued over sharp, triangular teeth. If there was a point where a man, by both fickle nature and the cumulative power of deliberate action, ceased being human then he had passed it long ago.

"Hey!" crowed Kissame Hoshigake in the direction of his more meditative partner who sat cross-legged atop a large, flat stone as if in contemplation of the void. "You won't believe this," he continued, flicking his fingertips against the paper with a snap. "Guess who's been spotted tearing up my home town?"

If the monster's news moved him at all it wasn't apparent, for Itachi Uchiha, no less a monster in his own right, barely stirred beneath his high-collared cloak of fuliginous black adorned with clouds of crimson.

"There's no need to guess, Kissame," he answered dispassionately. "The tone in your voice explains everything. It's the Nine-Tails. 'Strange that its jinchuuriki, that Uzumaki child, would stray so far from home."

"Kirigakure no Sato," said Kissame as if to himself, savoring the words before shooting a glance again at Itachi. "It's been a long time, 'brother'. You hear that, Samehada?" he went on, turning toward his surpassingly-strange, enormous and bandage-swathed facsimile of a sword then hoisting it aloft. "It looks like we're having fox for dinner."

A rumbling growl issued from the weapon as an undulant ripple of appreciation traveled up and down its length.

At this, the slayer of all but one of his own Uchiha clan turned toward Kissame; his expression unconcerned, his infamous, spectral eyes blacker than black under his leaf-ninja's hitai-ate marked long ago with a diagonal slash through its swirling emblem. "We DO have to deliver him alive, remember."

"Sure brother, sure," Kissame assured him suavely though, in truth, there was no need. Despite his aura of wildness and nearly matchless powers he was, after all, a shinobi and dedicated to his master's call. He knew very well whose banner he served under and would never stray. "I haven't forgotten. Still," he considered with a leering, shark-toothed smile, "no one will mind if we take a little bite for ourselves. It's only right."

The taller of the Akatsuki took Itachi's silence for assent.


That's the end for this arc: The Wonders of the Deep. I hope you'll be back for the next one: House of Candlelight.