Eneko's eyelids fluttered open and she froze nervously as everything around her was blurry but relaxed a little when everything cleared up. Remembering what had happened, she quickly looked around, finding herself to be in a hospital room, just as Kisame had said. She smiled at the memory, her eyes tearing up slightly at the memory of her old friend.
Itachi was watching her worriedly, checking her expression to make sure that she was actually with them. She felt around her and found that she had an IV drip in her arm and oxygen cords in her nose. She quickly pulled the oxygen cord out and sat up, trying to move the covers off of herself. Sakura came up from her other side and, with Itachi's help, tried to push her back down onto the covers.
"No, stop it, I need to get back out there. Sasori and Payne are in Konoha because of my miscalculation!" She growled softly.
"Eneko, you've been severely poisoned! You're not allowed to move!" Sakura scolded her, continuing to try and push her back down. Eneko calculated her chances. It wasn't long before Sakura started using her strength to get Eneko back down so she didn't have much time. Her eyes widened as the searing pain hit her back again and she slumped forward, clutching the bandages on her chest. She coughed violently into her other hand and didn't even seem surprised when she saw the blood speckles. Sakura and Itachi pushed her back down and Sakura injected more of the anti-venom into her bloodstream. Eneko grabbed Itachi's hand, her eyes wide.
"Itachi, oh, Itachi, I saw him! I saw Kisame. He's happy, Itachi, and he doesn't blame me, just like you and Deidara said. But he also told me that it will be possible for us to defeat Sasori and Payne. We just need the right plan is all." She winced again as she felt the poison move through her system. Itachi pet her hair gently, trying to calm her down.
"Ene-koi, you were poisoned, you probably didn't really see Kisame. It was probably a hallucination. And do you still blame yourself for what happened all those years ago?" Itachi asked, concerned. She slapped his hand away, glaring at him.
"Itachi…" She murmured softly. "Sasuke brought me here because Kiba and Akamaru smelled blood. Oh, and Sachi's got a water element specialty and Kisame transferred the techniques he knew to me so that I could teach them to Sachi and Kisame's passed down samehada to our son as a gift to him." She gave him a look. "Still don't believe that Kisame came to me?" Itachi said nothing, his eyes wide in shock. Sakura passed her a shocked look from checking her medication.
"W-well, Eneko-chan, what's your plan then, if your old friend helped you?" Eneko smiled at her rose-headed sister-in-law before closing her eyes in concentration, pulling the IV swiftly out of her arm, ducking under both Sakura and Itachi's grasps and running out the door, clutching her bandaged chest tightly. The guards posted at the front of the hospital reached out to stop her, but she lashed out with two fingers and hit the pressure points in their arms, causing them to go limp.
She continued running toward her destination; the hokage building. She hoped that Naruto was actually in his office and she made a mental note to check his house if he wasn't in his office. She grimaced as she thought of Sakura and Itachi back at the hospital. She'd be lucky if Itachi only sent out two ANBU guards after her. She sped into Naruto's office, bursting into the door and doubling over, covering her mouth as she felt the blood coming back up.
"Defiantly worse that the taste you get after brushing your teeth and drinking orange juice. I don't care what Itachi says." She muttered sorely as she looked up. Naruto was sitting at his desk, a pen grasped in between two fingers, staring at her in complete shock, stopping in mid-word on whatever he was writing on. Eneko blinked and then crossed her arms over her chest.
"What? Is there something on my face or something? All I did was cough up blood. What's the big deal with you people? Man…" Naruto cleared his throat, stopping her in mid-rant.
"All right, Eneko, tell me why you're here instead of in the hospital. AND why you're coughing up blood. I'd like to know that too." Eneko held one finger up.
"Alright, the first reason that I'm not in the hospital is because I've seen way too much of that place." She held up another finger. "The second reason is that I need to talk to you about a plan to defeat the two Akatsuki members currently in this village." She crossed her arms back over her chest.
"And the reason that I'm coughing up blood is because Sasori poisoned me. Any questions or can I get on with telling you the plan?" She smiled slightly, a threatening feature in her eyes. Naruto gulped nervously and nodded, putting his papers away and threading his fingers together and setting his chin on them.
"Continue, Eneko." He nodded to her. She smiled; her little Naruto had grown up. She took at deep breath before going on to explain her plan in intricate detail, making a list of people and telling Naruto what to tell them to do when the fighting really got started.
"I warn you, Naruto. This may not end well. If this is like what happened ten years ago, let me be the one that has to transport Payne, Sasori, or both to the otherworld. Now that I know how to get back, it won't take me as long. And I promise that I'm not pregnant this time, so you don't have to worry about me bringing home another child. Even though I love Sachi, Ijin, and Niji to pieces, I just don't think that I'm ready for another child." She grinned sarcastically, but Naruto just frowned.
"Eneko, I will not allow you to be taken away from those you love and who love you again. Do you really think that I want to see Itachi's face when you leave again? I won't allow it, Eneko. And I won't allow you to disobey my orders like you did with Taki and Neko." Eneko flinched visibly, tears entering her emerald eyes.
"Sorry, Eneko, I know that you hate for them to be brought up, but there was nothing that you could do to help them after Payne had already decided to kill them. You're lucky that you've got Ijin now and you should be happy that you saved her from the same fate. Now, I'll go through with this plan of yours, but I won't let you leave us again." Naruto finished his small lecture in a no-nonsense tone that was unlike the Naruto that Eneko had known ten years ago. She sighed, thinking of the carefree Naruto of those days and turned away from him, facing the door.
"I'm going to check on my children, hokage-sama. I'll give you the signal when it is time for the plan to start." She stepped towards the door, pausing when she got in the doorway and turning her head so that she was speaking slightly over her own shoulder. "You won't be able to stop me, Uzumaki. No matter how strong you've gotten, I'll always be stronger. I'll always be your big sister." She murmured softly before turning and leaving.
Using her chakra, she propelled herself over the roofs of the buildings leading to the outskirts of town. She made a mental note that an angry Itachi was probably waiting for her at home, considering that he didn't send any ANBU after her. And with their family connections, that fact would probably be easy. Either that or members of the police force since Sakura was probably mad at her too for leaving when she was a patient and under physical stress from the poison. Eneko sighed. Things were so complicated around here now.
She came to a stop, still not at the outskirts of town. She wrinkled her nose in distaste and made a hand seal, closing her eyes and concentrating her chakra. She opened her mouth to call out the familiar kekki genkai jutsu when strong arms wrapped around her, breaking her seal and her concentration. Her eyes snapped open and she was about to turn and attack when she felt the familiar chakra signature.
"I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't have run off like that, but I knew that once you had heard my plans that you would insist that I stay in bed and you wouldn't let me help and I'd regret not helping the rest of my life, so I ran and I'm surprised that you didn't send any of your ANBU buddies after me and another thing – " She was cut off by a gentle finger pressing her lips together.
"Do you think that after twelve years of marriage that I don't know you better than that, Eneko? I knew what you were planning before you even did. I'm not mad, and I'm not insisting that you stay in bed. But I am, however, insisting that you go and talk to the children. Sakura told them that you had run off again, after being poisoned I might add, thinking that they might know something and it caused Niji to nearly break my arm to come and search for you. Sachi nearly used his kekki genkai and flew through the roof and I caught Ijin trying to sneak out the window to go and find you herself. You've caused some problems with our children, Eneko." She cringed and shrugged out of Itachi's embrace, smiling.
"Then let's get going, Itachi! Why didn't you tell me any of this sooner? I would have gone straight home if you had told me that the children were worried. By the gods, you're such a man!" She took off running, faster than before. Itachi let out a short laugh before chasing after her at top speed.
Eneko stopped running and started walking about ten feet away from the door. But as soon as her chakra signature passed the fifty-foot radius of a barrier around the house, the three children all burst out, tackle-hugging their mother so hard that all four of them fell to the ground. Eneko winced as the ground scraped against the stab wound in her back, but laughed all the same.
"Oh, you three, you should all know by now that whatever happens to me, I'm never in any real danger! I always bounce back at one point or another!" She laughed. The three kids laughed too.
"Yeah, we know," Niji explained, grinning crookedly. "But that doesn't stop us from worrying about you. It comes from Dad's side of the gene pool." Eneko laughed as Itachi, who had come upon the scene just as Niji was saying this, made a face. Eneko suddenly broke off, moving her children gently off of her before running in the house. She went into a special room that she had created just for the purposes of having somewhere to remember the fallen. From the wall, she took down a large wrapped sword and ran her fingers over the wraps lovingly.
Thank you, Kisame. Thank you for giving this to my son. I'll never forget you. She smiled and went back outside where the children sat, confused. When Eneko came out holding a huge sword, all three got into battle-tensed positions, expecting a full-out war to start then and there.
"Sachi. This is…a present. I was told to give it to you by the person that once wielded this. His name was…Kisame. This is Samehada. It won't be wielded by anyone it doesn't trust and Kisame told me that he passed it on to you. It's your birthright. He promised it to you while you were still in the womb. While I was in Akatsuki." Sachi's eyes were wide as he took the sword from his mother. Eneko tensed, half expecting the sword to stab into her young son's hand, but it was quiet and Sachi gave it a few test-swings.
"I'll have to teach you how to use it exactly a little bit later, when we have the time. And I'll have to teach you all of Kisame's techniques. He gave them to me so that you could have them." Tears entered her green eyes and she wiped them away quickly. Sachi hugged her mother tightly.
"I wish I could meet him, Momma. I think I would have liked Kisame." He gave her a sideways grin. "He seems to have gotten into a lot of mischief with this Samehada. This'll be fun." Eneko let out a short laugh, hugging him tightly. Itachi smiled and wrapped his arms around Eneko as well; Niji and Ijin soon following suit. Eneko pushed them all off with a laugh before getting serious.
"All right. It's time that I tell you four the plan and your roles in it. The battle starts soon."