Sasuke Uchiha sat cross legged on a tatami mat in the middle of a sparsely furnished room sipping at his green tea. He placed the still steaming cup on the low table in front of him before looking to the comrades on his left and right, studying them with the calculating precision of a team captain rather than a friend. They had been working together for years and each battle, each saving of one another's life, had brought them closer together than most ninja squads. They were all each other had, after all. Still, it was in these quiet moments before an operation which were vital to its success and Sasuke needed to be sure of even the slightest changes.
Jūgo sat on his own tatami mat with his legs crossed as well and his palms cupping his knees, eyes closed and completely relaxed despite the number of small birds that used him as their perch. His orange hair had grown longer and he was looking more rugged than he had all those years ago, but he always looked younger whilst meditating. The time with the shinobi monks at the rebuilt Fire Temple had done him good and this meditation which they had taught him all but erased his violent outbursts. He had not needed Sasuke's Sharingan to pacify him in over a year.
A smile graced the Uchiha's lips for a second before he turned his attention elsewhere.
Karin meanwhile lay on her side with her head resting on her arm and her red eyes half closed as she studied him dreamily. The years had made her more feminine and she knew it, changing her outfit into a more provocative two piece number which showed off a sizable portion of stomach as well as almost all of her legs. She had lessened her fanatical advances on him ever since his past betrayal, yet even to this day she would fawn over him and flash him as much of her exposed flesh as possible. Though she had especially not liked it when she found out about him and Sakura, even going so far as pummeling Suigetsu as a means to express her jealousy, she had come to begrudgingly accept it by now. Instead she had turned her attention to practicing her taijutsu enough to participate in combat alongside the rest of the team.
Sasuke was about to ask her why she was staring at him when a noise came from the room's only window, causing him to look up.
Suigetsu stood with one foot on the edge of the window sill and smiled down at his teammates. All and all Suigetsu was exactly the same as he had been during the war with the only difference being greater definition in his shoulders and arms as a result of his continued use of the Kubikiribōchō. The Executioner's Blade, back to its full length, was strapped across his back along with the dual Kiba swords which he had tied to each side of his hips. They were a recent acquisition after the war and he had become as expertly adept with them as his long lost brother; a fact the Kirigakure missing-nin brought up every chance he had.
"Oi, asshole." the white-haired swordsman called with a mischievous grin. "They're there now. I get to kill the muscle head though, bastard stepped right on my face."
"How many are there?" Sasuke asked coolly, his tone all business as he tried to plan out what would come next.
"Three of them went in but they made it sound like there were a bunch more inside. Apparently the boss heard we were in town and got a little nervous. Geez, you won't believe what people say when they think only puddles 're around to hear 'em."
The sound of Suigetsu's voice hung in the air as the Uchiha let the information sink in. Without a further word he pushed himself up, slipped the sword between his belt, and moved to the window where he hopped up onto the sill. He looked to the right at his ivory haired companion, nodded, and his form flickered as he disappeared out into the bustling city.
The pace was non-stop until their destination was reached, the entirety of Team Taka perched atop the billowing metal chimneys of a residence two blocks away from the targeted building. It was decrepit on the outside and few would have guessed it had been the towns largest textile factory back in days long passed, but rumor had it that over the past year it had become the region's headquarters for the black market. They ran everything from bounty collection to weapon smuggling out of these places, the most notable of which being the hiring of especially deadly missing-nin as either body guards or assassins.
It was for this reason that Taka had been staking out this particular location for weeks. Rumor had it that Kenichi Yamaguchi, the local black market boss, was looking to hire some major muscle and had come across a pair of A-ranked ROOT members whom had gone renegade upon hearing of Danzo's demise.
"Why's there only one guard?" Jūgo asked.
"There are four more just inside, guarding a second door." Karin responded, her eyes closed as she studied the hidden chakra signatures. "They have eighteen more inside. Two of them are pretty strong, their chakra is cold."
"That's them." answered Sasuke.
He leapt forward then, silently alighting from the building and heading toward the unsuspecting guard with enough speed to overwhelm the senses. It worked as he had planned and within seconds he landed on the old factory's chimney before the guard had so much as an idea of what was approaching from above.
The guard was big and his arms rippled with the kind of muscle which was meant to flaunt his strength. A junk yard dog meant to scare off any passerby's. Sasuke regarded him with as little worry as he would a real mutt.
He dropped down to a section of the roof just out of the man's periphery and let the muscle bound fool hear him. When the guard turned to check out the noise he was met with the crimson gaze of a fully matured Sharingan, his body paralyzed as the three spinning tomoe in each eye cast a genjutsu strong enough to take complete control of his actions.
The rest of the team appeared then and watched as the man began sweating from the sheer effort of trying to fight his way free.
"Yeesh," Suigetsu groaned, "still creeps me out when you do that. Just kill 'em, don't use 'em like puppets."
"He'll get us in to the second door quietly. After that we can be as loud as we need to."
"Whatever," Suigetsu sighed as he pulled the two needle thin blades from his sides, "I don't give a shit so long as I can make 'em bleed."
While the other members of the team were not so cavalier about the action to come they certainly prepared themselves, with Jūgo's Cursed Mark spreading to cover his entire right side and Karin readying a kunai and falling into a combat stance.
With a look from Sasuke the hulking guard took jerking steps toward the building's door and shakily unlocked it before walking through and into the long narrow hall. Each step sounded loudly as his muscles were guided by sheer dominating will rather than the finesse of the bodies actual owner. The result was an overly stiff and loud walking which raised the attention of the four guards who leaned on the walls closest to the inner door.
"Hey, Jin, what're ya doin'?" the closest one called as he pushed himself off the wall and looked to his colleague "Shift change isn't in another hour. Gotta piss or something?"
The controlled guard, Jin apparently, said nothing but simply kept his steady unnatural pace. The silence seemed to unnerve his comrades, each one moving forward with the stilted pace that betrayed their nervousness.
"Hey, big guy. What's the deal?" the closest asked again, taking a toothpick from his mouth as he eyed his friend. "There anything to worry abo-"
He didn't get to finish the sentence before a high pitched chirping was heard and a thin blade of pure electricity suddenly shot through Jin's muscled torso and pierced his own chest.
The other guards were still processing what they had just seen, that they were under attack, when Suigetsu leapt out from behind the dead muscular thug and flashed them a pointed tooth smile. It was the last thing they each saw before he sliced through them with quick and deadly precise cuts from his two new blades. The only sound in the hall was the wet thuds of their collapsing corpses.
Sasuke and the rest of Taka approached, deftly stepping around the growing puddles of blood, and stopped just shy of the door where Suigetsu's stood.
"The last guy had the keys." the Mist nin said, twirling the ring holding the keys around the point of his blade as if he were a bored child.
"No need." Sasuke replied without so much as a glance. Instead he stepped to the side, looked to Jūgo, and gave a nod.
The orange haired shinobi returned the nod before he squared himself with the door, took in a deep breath, and wound his arm back as if to punch through the thick metal. Without so much as a grimace the man's arm began to shift beneath the shirt that surrounded it, contorting itself into an enormous grotesque version of what it it had just been. The protrusions from its elbow had broken through the fabric and now glowed as they worked like chakra fueled jets to propel the massive fist into the door with enough force to send it rocketing off its hinges in a cloud of dust.
The four man team was a blur as it leapt into the awaiting room. Screams followed.
-
The room had been luxurious. A fully stocked bar lined an entire wall, two pool tables had occupied the center, and leather couches were scattered throughout. It was obviously meant to convey wealth and power, to impress guests into respecting the authority of its owner.
That was impossible now.
Now the room was covered in the blood of the eighteen bodies that had fallen haphazardly around the floors, couches, and tables. Craters and embedded ninja weapons betrayed the miniature battle that had gone on within these walls, with an enormous black scorch mark giving testament to a particularly powerful katon jutsu.
The only people standing were members of Taka, each one performing their own routine after a mission such as this. Jūgo sat in the cleanest of corners working through a mediation in order to prevent any resurgence of his manic bloodlust. Suigetsu was in the farthest corner, out of sight, as he let out his more sadistic urges by hacking away at a few lifeless corpses. Karin was studying the many scrolls and ledgers on the hideout's shelves, seemingly in her own world as she read through each scrap of paper for information Sasuke might deem valuable. The raven haired Uchiha meanwhile, was busy getting information from the source by using his Sharingan on Yamaguchi himself.
"Why were you trying to hire ex-ROOT?" Sasuke enquired, his voice hard but hinting at just how little he cared about killing the gangster.
Yamaguchi's eyes were wide and bounced feverishly in their sockets, the combination of pain and terror and genjutsu doing nothing but overwhelming his mind. Sasuke was about to simply rip the information from his mind all together when Karin suddenly called to him.
"What?" he growled in annoyance.
"This video was filed with a letter from two weeks ago." Karin explained, holding out a VHS tape. "I think this is why he was looking for extra muscle. Sasuke...you'll want to see this."
-
"What is this about Kakashi-sensei?!" Naruto shouted.
"ANBU brought me the intel a week ago and the Intelligence Division confirmed it yesterday, which is why I bring it up now." Kakashi started as he stared across the Hokage desk at his predecessor, his soon to be successor, Yamato, and Sai. "The information I'm about to tell you all is highly classified and I'm only telling you because I know it is better you hear it from me than from anyone else."
"Wait a minute..." Tsunade exclaimed and she looked around at the occupants in the room. I suddenly open shot and she can be gasp and she realize the one common factor between them all. "You can't mean this is about-"
"Yes. It seems that whilst on her mission S-"
"Hokage-sama!" a chunin shouted as he burst into the room without warning. "An unidentified flying object heading in this direction with great speed! We're worried this might be an attack on you sir. Please get down!"
Everyone in the office, each a high class shinobi, turned to look out the window in preparation rather than simply run. There they saw what the chunin warned of, a large bird shaped object making a direct and speedy course for the Hokage mansion at an altitude that made their defenses useless.
"Is it another attack from the Sky Nation?" Sai asked.
"Or something like Deidara's attack on Gaara?!" Naruto asked.
Kakashi wasted no time and activated his Sharingan in order to better study the fast moving target.
"No it's a giant hawk..." he explained, only guessing what that could mean. Nothing good.
Just as he was about to way the odds of whether or not his assumption was correct the hawk seemed to dive directly at the window he was looking through. Yet before he could even react to whatever threat this might pose it burst into a cloud of smoke, from which a shadow shot forth like a thrown kunai with the added speed of a directed free fall.
Kakashi's Sharingan tracked it and he groaned "Oh no."
The free falling blur was about to impact with the window when suddenly it vanished, only to be replaced by a tiny bright blue book, which hung in the air for but a second before it plummeted to the ground.
Kakashi turned to see a very upset looking Uchiha perched atop his desk where the book had previously sat. His purple left eye stood out starkly from behind his bangs and as he hopped off the desk he completely ignored the angry and confused stares which followed him, with the exception of his smiling blonde friend.
"Where is she?" Sasuke growled as he turned on his former sensei.
"Well hello Sasuke. I believe I warned you against rash actions such as these."
"I don't have ti-"
"Make time." Kakashi cut in, his voice hard as his eyes narrowed. "We're all worried about her Sasuke, your anger will not change a thing. We need to establish a plan."
Naruto stepped forward to interject himself between his fellow members of Team 7, eyes jumping back and forth between them. "Hold on! What's going on?"
"Sakura." Tsunade shot in, understanding the situation better than the head forward younger ninja. Her eyes were soft with worry but the popping of her knuckles as she balled her fists betrayed her fury as she said "Something's happened to her. Where is she Kakashi?"
Kakashi shifted his gaze to his blonde predecessor for the first time since his pupil's sudden entrance. Sighing in defeat he said "Our last contact with her was while she was on a mission to Amegakure. As you know the Hidden Rain suffered heavily immediately after the war, the combination of lack of leadership with the death of Pain and the reparations demanded by many of the other nations. We've been offering aid in the form of diplomatic and medical advisors to try and revitalize their infrastructure. Sakura, as our chief medical shinobi, was sent with a number of supplies and fellow medics in order to teach at their hospital as well as gain intelligence on the state of the village's recovery. She was supposed to return a week ago."
"WHAT?!" Naruto shouted, at once made equally furious and scared by Sakura's apparent capture. "How could this happen Kakashi-sensei?"
"Indeed." Sasuke hissed. "Why would you send Sakura of all people into an enemy village?"
"She's not a helpless girl to be protected." Tsunade shot back, staring the Uchiha down. She knew of the bond between Sasuke and Sakura, where his concern was coming from, but still refused to let anyone talk about her apprentice like that. "Sakura's my pupil and one of the finest kunoichi I've ever known. There's no way she'd go down without a fight."
"Exactly. For Sakura to go missing like this there was either treachery on the part of Amegakure's new Kage or there's a very formidable unknown player." Kakashi cut in as he opened a drawer and retrieved a file which he opened before laying it out on the desk. "We believe it's this man, Hei Shineki. ANBU's intelligence has turned up little other than that he was a higher up in Amegakure's hierarchy under Pain and has since become something of a boss in the village's underground. We assume he's not too dangerous since he wasn't deemed worthy of Akatsuki membership, but at the same time we know too little to rule him out."
"It's him." Sasuke affirmed suddenly as he looked at the shadowy picture clipped to the file.
The entire room turned to look at the raven haired missing-nin, wondering how he could speak with such certainty.
"Sasu-"
"Before coming here I found intelligence on a black market safe house. In there was a VHS message inviting the recipient to participate in a tournament in which the prize was a prisoner with high value intelligence on Konoha. The speaker introduced himself as this Shineki before showing Sakura in some sort of coma. The only reason I came here is to get a location on this trash before I hunt him down."
"Teme!" Naruto shouted back. "You think you're just gonna go in and get her all by yourself? She's my teammate too Sasuke. And she's a shinobi of Konoha, we'll rescue her with you!"
"No." Sasuke said dryly, his onyx eyes betraying no hint of emotion. "The man on this video, Shineki, said he'll be looking out for shinobi from any of the major villages. Unless the participants all have reputations as notorious criminals he'll kill them, her, and scatter the operation. I go alone."
"That's ridiculous! We've run undercover operations before and gotten away cle-"
"Not with Sakura!" Sasuke growled, his eyes turning red and purple from unconsciously activating his respective Sharingan and Rinnegan.
Kakashi broke the ensuing silence by saying "I don't like it...But it makes sense. This man's a former subordinate of the leader of Akatsuki. He wouldn't trust anybody that wasn't in a bingo book. Sasuke may have been pardoned but he hasn't worked a single mission for the village since, they might still think he's an outlaw shinobi. You think you can sell it?"
Sasuke looked back to his former teacher and for the first time since arriving cracked a cocky smirk as he said "Hn."
Tsunade shook her blonde head and muttered a hushed "Damn Uchiha" before nodding her agreement.
Only Naruto refused to agree, but assented when Kakashi assured him that he would be leading one of the teams they would have positioned around the village's interior as a precaution.
"The video said to arrive three days from now. My team and I will go in alone, you and your formations should show up the next day so we don't seem coordinating together if your caught. I'll have Jūgo handle communications if anything goes wrong." Sasuke said, taking charge of the operation despite his lack of authority.
Kakashi was about to remind him of that fact when Sasuke suddenly burst into a cloud of smoke and was gone. Looking at the space where his former student had previously stood he said "Reverse summoning. Seems like Taka's already on the move."
"Of course he wouldn't wait for the village." Tsunade sighed, still not used to the impetuous ways of Kakashi's team. "I'll go help assemble the teams. I'm sure you know that I'll be leading one of them."
"Ya me too!" the other blonde ninja chimed in.
"Yes, I figured that would be the case." Kakashi sighed before they left. It was on days like this he missed being a jonin.
Looking down at his desk the white haired Hokage groaned when he remembered just how Sasuke had gotten in. "I'm gonna need Naruto to give me another copy of his book."
-
The constant rain of Amegakure was like a white noise that drowned out the noise of the overly industrialized city for number of smaller neighbors. Even the lights that dotted its skyscraper horizon seemed to be dampened by the torrential downpour it's ever present storm produced, making it truly hidden within the rainfall. In the days of Pain's complete control the rain had acted as an extra alarm to make infiltration all but impossible should anyone bypass their already impeccable security. Nowadays, however, the city was forced to rely upon its more conventional measures to prevent intruders.
Yet, none of these went off as a large purple snake undulated its way through the lake that surrounded the city. It's size was just large enough to fight the current but just small enough to avoid detection and met no resistance as it made its way into the drainage system and slithered into the city's bowels.
In the depths of the sewer system the purple serpent found a large enough platform to suddenly crack open its skin and pull itself free from the dead epidermis. However, the reborn snake which spilled forth was more than five times larger than the molted skin it came from, curling upon itself until what came free was an enormous reptile the size of a small house. It gave a loud hiss before opening its mouth, a popping sound emitting from it as it's jaws dislocated and widened even further. Laying it's chin on the ground it let out a lower more subdued his.
Out from its pitch black throat walked Sasuke Uchiha and the rest of Taka's members, each of their eyes roaming there surroundings for threats as they filed out from the serpent.
Sasuke gave the area a final sweep with his Sharingan before saying "We're in."