Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto
Chapter 3: Sorrow and Bad Luck
Kankuro was having a good day.
First he finished his morning mission early. Then he'd bumped into his current lover while at the market. Since he knew that he didn't have to meet Gaara and the others at the Mansion until after 4 o'clock, Kankuro didn't feel too guilty about not returning as quickly as he would have. Now he was much more relaxed and content with life than he usually was.
The purple make-up wearing puppeteer walked into the drawing room and stopped.
"Hey! Gaara, glad to see you back from Konoha," he said, placing his hand on his brother's shoulder. Kankuro's eyes widened when Gaara didn't respond. He walked around the redhead and looked into his eyes. They were blank and hollow and he looked as if he was in a trance.
Something was wrong.
Temari, Shikamaru, and Kina were on the floor, while Temeki was on the couch and each of them had the same expression on their faces as Gaara.
Something was very wrong.
Suspecting an attack, Kankuro summoned his puppet from his back and stood in a battle stance. He looked around the room and noticed that Lilith wasn't there.
Fear spread through his body as he wondered what happened to his family.
"Lilith?" he yelled out. "Where are you?"
He almost used his puppet to attack when a voice called out from behind him.
"Uncle Kanky!" Lilith screamed. "You're home!"
The man caught his niece and held her close to his body. "What happened, Lilith-chan?" he asked, still prepared for an attack. "Who did this to everyone?"
The 3-year-old beamed and exclaimed, "Me!"
Kankuro's eyes widened as he stared at Lilith. "What do you mean?"
Lilith wriggled out of her uncle's hold and brought her camera to her eyes. She wanted a shot of the moment she told him her news.
"I told them that Sakura-neechan said that she didn't want to be a virgin anymore and that she was tired of her fingers and she was going to give it to Shino-san," she said quickly.
She waited for the shock to come over his face like it had over the other adults and was disappointed when he just blinked and laughed.
"Why aren't you being funny?" she demanded. "Mama and Daddy and Auntie Temari and Temeki-chan and Shika-kun are all funny. Why aren't you being funny?"
Kankuro laughed again and walked over to her father. "I'm not really like them, imp," he said. "C'mon, Gaara, wake up."
He snapped his fingers in front of Gaara's face and, when that didn't work, he smiled and punched the Kazekage hard in the face.
"What the fuckin' hell?" Gaara yelled, holding his hand to his suddenly throbbing cheekbone. "Kankuro, what are you doing?"
"Daddy said a swear!" Lilith said, gasping.
Gaara tuned toward his daughter and frowned. The memory of the past ten minutes flashed through his mind and he vowed to get back at Sakura no matter what.
"I'm sorry, Lilith-chan," he apologized. "Uncle Kanky just surprised Daddy and he wasn't thinking."
"Will Mama swear when you wake her up?"
"Wake her…?" Gaara looked over at his wife and immediately bent down to hold her in his arms. "Kina…Kina-chan, wake up…sweetheart, please…Kinabuhi, I have chocolate covered almonds."
Kina's eyes opened and she sat up. "Where...?"
"Mama!" Lilith said. "You're awake!"
Kina looked around and saw that Kankuro had shaken or hit the others out of their shock.
"What time is it?" she asked.
"Frown o'clock," Lilith answered. (1)
5:40? Kina thought.
"Omigosh!" she said. "Gaara-kun, you're going to be late for your meeting! Temeki, we have to get that paperwork done before tomorrow and we have at least five huge piles of 'and junk' to go through."
Temeki nodded and grabbed Kina. Together, the sisters left the room.
Shikamaru, Kankuro, and Gaara turned to leave as well.
"Temari," Gaara said. "Please explain to Lilith why it's important to not tell everyone her news."
Lilith stopped smiling and froze.
It was never good when Daddy called her 'Lilith."
The blonde looked at Gaara and asked, "Why me?"
"Because Kina-chan and Temeki are busy and we have an important meeting."
And I don't want to even think of explaining to my 3-year-old daughter what a virgin is, Gaara admitted to himself.
"Gaara—"
"Meeting," he repeated quickly and the men left.
"Coward," she muttered.
Temari looked at the little girl in front of her and tried to think of the best way to keep her from telling all of Suna Sakura's secret plans for Shino.
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Gaara sat in his office and tried to forget about the situation with his daughter and get into his 'Kazekage Mode.' He needed to have all of his attention on this meeting. He couldn't afford to be distracted today.
Shikamaru stood to the left and behind Gaara's chair while Kankuro stood on the right. The brunette looked at the two Suna shinobi and wondered why he was included in this meeting.
When Tsunade exiled the transformed Sasuke, who was now in the female body of Temeki, from Konoha for 6 years, she had given Shikamaru his 6 year mission. That mission was to live in Suna for six months of the year and monitor the health and mental well-being of the former Uchiha. At least, that was the first part of his mission.
The second part—the part that was only known to Shikamaru, Gaara, Kina, and Tsunade herself—was to eliminate the Uchiha if he so much as thought of returning to his old ways.
Luckily, the leaf nin hadn't had to fulfill that part of his mission. Over the years, Shikamaru got to know Sasuke, or rather, Temeki, and the two had become close friends. From all of the training they did together with the Sabaku siblings and with the birth of Lilith, they both slowly became part of the strange and loving Sabaku family. Now, the six year exile was almost finished and the two Konoha natives could finally return home for good.
"Why am I here, Kazekage-sama?" Shikamaru asked, fully aware that Gaara had gone into his 'business' persona.
"Suna's best hunter nins are coming to report on their latest mission," Gaara answered.
"Again, why am I here?"
Gaara leaned his elbows on his desk and folded his hands under his chin. "You are here as a representative of Konoha, Nara Shikamaru. I understand that you will be returning to Konoha at the end of the month. You will repeat what my hunters have to report directly to Tsunade-sama along with your usual psychiatric analysis of Yawa Temeki."
Shikamaru nodded and folded his hands behind his back. He settled in to wait for the hunters when a large gust of wind blew through the room. He shielded his eyes against the blast and when he removed his arm from his face, two masked women stood in front of the Kazekage's desk.
They were both short for hunter ninja. But if the ease with which they carried the weapons on their hips and the katanas on their backs was any indication, they were experienced hunter nins.
They both wore the traditional white porcelain masks that all ANBU and hunter nins wore. The Suna symbol was carved into the foreheads of both masks and Shikamaru was surprised to note that they both had the same kanji character painted onto the white porcelain.
'Regret.'
But he also noticed that the one in dark purple had the kanji on the lower left quadrant of the mask, while the one in dark blue had the kanji occupying the upper right portion of the mask.
Both women wore black pants tucked into knee high boots along with the ever popular backless kimono-style top that Kina had designed and worn years ago. The top looked like a normal kimono top—in the front, that is. When looked at from behind, the sleeves of the top only covered the shoulder blades and then made way for nothing but the exposed flesh of the wearer's back. Two pieces of cloth from the front of the top tied at the small of the back and helped to keep the garment on.
But these tops were slightly different from the others Shikamaru had seen around Suna.
The most obvious difference was the fact that these tops had hoods attached to them. The hoods covered the hunter nins' hair and were attached to a thick strip of cloth that lead from one sleeve to the other across the back of the women's necks.
The second was that the sleeves were split to just below the bicep. He could see that the one clad in blue had metal armbands that had numerous shuriken on them while the one in purple had metal gauntlets that reached up to her elbow.
Shikamaru was pulled out of his reverie when Gaara spoke.
"Nara Shikamaru, I'd like to introduce you to Aitou,"—the woman in purple lifted her hand to her heart—"and Zannen."—the one in dark blue did the same. "They are Suna's best hunter nin."
"They are our only hunter nin," Kankuro said.
Shikamaru was shocked. "Your only hunters?" he asked. "Why only two?"
"After Suna foolishly joined the Sound to destroy Konoha, many of our jounin were killed," Gaara answered. "Too many. We had to recall all of our ANBU and hunter nins and have them perform jounin and chuunin level missions."
"It wasn't until three years ago that we started to rebuild our ANBU forces," Kankuro added. "And only one year after that that we even considered creating hunters."
The leaf nin absorbed the news silently. If they'd had to resort to demoting ANBU members, he realized, then they must've been worse off than Konoha. He also realized that the Kazekage was entrusting a huge secret to the shadow user.
He trusts me.
Shikamaru knew that only a few completely earned Gaara's trust and was glad to be a part of those few.
Gaara looked over at the hunter wearing blue. "Well, Aitou?"
The woman coughed and stepped forward. "I'm Zannen, Kazekage-sama."
Shikamaru then learned something else. The fact that they dressed so similarly and each had the kanji character for 'regret' on their masks made it easy for a person to confuse the two. Even their names aided in the confusion.
Two hunter nins, Shikamaru summarized to himself. Both women and wearing similar colors. They both have the kanji for 'regret' on their masks. They both have names that mean 'regret' as code names.
It would be easy for an enemy to believe that he was dealing with only one person, he concluded. But if they work together as a team, they have the element of surprise on their side.
Zannen tilted her head in a manner that forgave the Kazekage's lapse and simply said, "Guess it's my own bad luck."
"And it's my sorrow that one is so often confused with the other," Aitou murmured.
Kankuro smirked and shook his head. "I regret that that's enough wordplay for today," he said. "Your report?"
Oh, Shikamaru grasped. They're telling me why they chose those pronunciations of the 'regret' character. Zannen can also mean 'bad luck' while Aitou usually means 'sorrow.'
The two hunters seemed to smirk at the twinkle in the Konoha shinobi's eyes. They knew he had gotten their message. After all, he was almost as cunning as they were.
"Alright," Gaara said. "Zannen? What have you to tell me?"
Zannen's manner immediately became serious. "Our informant was correct in leading us to what we wanted," she began. "Once we found out the location of the map, we obtained it from its previous owner."
Gaara's 'love' tattoo scrunched up as he raised a non-existent eyebrow. "Map?" he asked.
"Our informant told us that information concerning the movements of Akatsuki could be found in the Country of Field," Aitou answered. "And as Zannen said, the informant was correct. We were led to an assassin who had the map of Akatsuki safe havens in his possession."
"Why did he have the map?" Kankuro asked.
"He was hired by a nobleman to find any information he could to discredit his older brother," was the answer.
"Power hungry bastard," Zannen muttered.
"The assassin found out that the older brother was providing safe havens to missing nins all across the Countries of Fire, Wind, Field, and Cloud," Aitou continued. "But mostly to Akatsuki members."
Gaara nodded and held out his hand. Zannen stepped forward and handed him the map. Shikamaru wasn't certain, but the scroll seemed to freeze in the grip between the two and he thought he saw Gaara's eyes narrow at the hunter nin. But the moment was over too quickly and Zannen stepped back to stand beside her counterpart.
The Kazekage opened the scroll and nodded. He then looked at the two standing before him and said, "Dismissed."
Another large gust of wind signaled the departure of the two elite ninja.
"Well?" Kankuro asked.
"Shikamaru," Gaara started. "Tell Hokage-sama about this. We need to formulate a plan to wipe out Akatsuki, but it's going to take time and planning. Both the Hidden Villages of Konoha and Suna will look to you for help in this."
"Why are you doing something about Akatsuki now?" Shikamaru asked. "They haven't been doing much of anything from what I can tell."
"Until I have Tsunade's permission, I'm afraid that I can't tell you anything else," Gaara apologized. "But rest assured that you will know all of it soon. You're dismissed."
If Shikamaru was surprised by the abrupt dismissal, he didn't show it. Instead, he just bowed to the Kazekage and left the office. Besides, he had other plans for the rest of the day.
"Shika-kun!" Temari called from the top of the stairs.
Shikamaru turned unseeing eyes onto his girlfriend of 5 years. She seemed to look more beautiful each day—more annoying too, come to think of it. But she had grown on the heir of the Nara Clan.
"Shika-kun, what's wrong?" she asked. After 5 years of going out, Temari knew when something was bothering the lazy ass.
"Nothing," he muttered, walking down the stairs.
"It's not 'nothing,'" she said, following him. "What is it?"
"It's the Valentine's Day Dinner this Friday," he lied. "It's troublesome, but I have to find something to wear. I'll talk to you later, okay?"
"Okay," she answered, staring at his back as he left the Mansion. Temari knew when Shikamaru lied to her. She'd always known.
Just like she knew that he was lying to her now.
After all, she bought his Valentine's Dinner outfit two weeks ago. Just like she had done every year for the past 5 years.
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Gaara and Kankuro were silent after Shikamaru left the room. They both stared at the door until they felt a familiar presence behind them.
The three old friends stood silent for a few moments more until Gaara broke it.
"Will he be able to handle this?"
Aitou stepped away from the wall and sat on the edge of Gaara's desk, facing the two brothers. Her mask was pushed to the top of her head and her hood was down, revealing a long mane of black hair held in a high ponytail.
"Perhaps," she answered. "After the seeds you will plant have taken root and begin to bear fruit, perhaps then he will be ready."
"That's not an answer," Gaara frowned.
"It's the only answer I have to give you."
"Is this plan wise?" Kankuro asked his two best friends.
"No," Gaara admitted. "But time is running out."
"Kazekage-sama is right," Aitou added. "Even now, the seal Itachi placed on your sister-in-law throbs with a power not her own. The time is fast approaching when Akatsuki will come for her. As well as the kyuubi vessel. And you, Kazekage-sama."
"I know. That's why I need him to be ready."
Aitou nodded. "Hai."
"We need to know what Akatsuki is planning for the demon vessels," Kankuro muttered, slamming his fist into his palm.
"I wish I could help you," Aitou said. "But I have already told you all I knew of the situation concerning Akatsuki."
"I'm not blaming you of anything, Aitou-san," Kankuro said. "Your information has been a huge help as it is."
"You're arrival in Suna was the biggest help of all, though," Gaara said.
Kankuro grinned while Aitou simply tilted her head in acknowledgement.
"Kankuro…" Gaara hesitated long enough for his brother to know that the next sentence was an extremely important one. "If this plan fails…Lilith is to live in Konoha with Naruto as her guardian."
Kankuro was shocked. "Why not have her stay here with us if something goes wrong?"
"Because if Kinabuhi and I are lost, then Lilith will need someone to train and teach her to control that temper of hers," Gaara answered sadly. "Who better than another demon vessel?"
Kankuro stared at his brother and then at the silent hunter nin still perched on Gaara's desk like a bird. "You're sure?" he asked. When Gaara nodded, he asked again. "What does Kina-chan think of this?"
Aitou stared at Kankuro with dark purple eyes filled with tears, but none found their way into her voice.
"Your sister-in-law agrees with her husband, Kankuro-san," she answered. "The best thing for the child if things go wrong is to be raised by one such as her parents. Kyuubi already loves her as his god child. He would make a good father should anything—"
Nothing will happen to them, Kankuro vowed. Nothing!
"Nothing will happen!" Kankuro repeated aloud. He refused to allow his brother's family to be torn apart. He looked from Gaara to Aitou and back again.
These to people are my best friends, he thought. Together they made Suna great and together they made Lilith, my niece.
"The plan will not fail," Kankuro said, firmly. "He is stronger now; his will is stronger now. He'll be ready."
Gaara took Aitou's hand and held it in his, rubbing his fingers over the rings she had placed on her third finger after the meeting—the rings he had given her long ago. He looked at his wife and smiled sadly.
"I hope so," he said, speaking directly as the Kazekage and husband to his hunter nin and wife, Kina. "For the sake of everyone's happiness, I hope Sasuke's ready for this."
A/N:
Okay…was it obvious who Aitou and Zannen are? Well, hopefully it's not too obvious to Akatsuki or Gaara's plan isn't going to work.
And is Sasuke ready? Ready for what? I dunno…do you?
Later!
(1) "Frown" is what my younger cousin calls 5:40 on our analog clocks. Ever notice how it looks like a frown while 10:10 looks like a smile?