Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
Saving the village again, apparently.
Shortly thereafter discovering both Uzumaki Naruto and his luggage, so to speak, Hinata and the gang at Ichiraku had dispersed, going their separate ways to rest for the night. However, on her way back to the Hyūga estate with thoughts as heavy as one Akimichi patron resting in her mind, an ANBU ninja interrupted her whirling theories with a call to report to the Hokage for a mission. Surprising, Hinata recalled as she lifted her knuckles to knock on the door leading into the Hokage's office, since it was already past 9 o'clock at night.
"Enter." The Hokage's brusque voice snapped. Hinata shuffled in, bowing politely towards Lady Tsunade before stiffening completely. Not having had her Byakugan activated as well as being utterly distracted by the rare late-night summons, Hinata had failed to realize who the other patrons within the room were.
Hatake Kakashi. Nara Shikaku. And Uzumaki Naruto.
"Thanks for coming on such short notice, Hinata." Lady Tsunade said offhandedly, still glaring at the only other blonde in the room. And there was that same knapsack she'd seen Naruto enter the village with perched precariously on the edge of the Hokage's own desk, though, thankfully, it was still covered.
"What the hell were you thinking?" Tsunade blithely hissed, her fists clenching on the arms of her chair before the material snapped off in her grip. She was unfazed, tossing the scraps over to the corner of the room where an unruffled Shizune and Tonton smoothly moved to gather them up and dispose of them.
"I was thinking of protecting everyone!" Naruto shouted back, crossing his lean arms over his equally lean chest, the material of his orange and black jacket stretching to accommodate his wide shoulders. Hinata felt heat rise into her cheeks and prayed no one could tell in the darkness of the poorly lit room. Hatake Kakashi came to stand next to her, hands in his pockets as his one visible eye crinkled to accomodate a welcoming grin.
"Hello Hinata-chan." His greeting was jovial and as composed as Shizune's expression, but Hinata could sense a stirring in his chakra that bespoke of hidden feelings of a more serious variety. She smiled up at him, dipping her head in a greeting nod as she grasped her own hands in front of her, needing something solid to hold on to. Being this close to Naruto always frazzled her nerves, even after all these years of training herself to be strong in his presence.
"How long have they been arguing?" she wondered out loud, looking up at the gray haired man in curiosity. He tilted his head to the side, very reminiscent of something the dogs he worked with might do when spoken to.
"A good ten minutes. At least." She nodded her head, wanting to sigh. When you put two explosives in such close proximity, they were bound to go off, after all. She glanced over at the last occupant in the room in time to see him rubbing the back of his neck as if he needed to smooth out some kinks, definitely stress-related. Shikaku glanced over at Kakashi and rolled his eyes, which in turn only made Kakashi smile more.
"You weren't thinking at all, you idiot! Do you even know who this is? Or, more accurately, who this was?"
"…No?" Naruto answered, sheepishly rubbing his hand through the back of his hair and making it stand up in all directions. Tsunade took a very deep breath, resting her face in one hand before she had garnered enough control to maintain looking at Naruto without trying to gut him. Taking her face from her hand, she looked up instead at Kakashi and Shikaku, both of which were staring at the bagged object on her desk as if they had no clue what was inside. And that's when Hinata realized, they probably didn't know. The only reason she knew was because she had cheated, of sorts, with her Byakugan. Though the identity of the severed head was a mystery to her, she suddenly realized that one of the two men beside her might know who it belonged to and thus could shine a light on what its importance was, though with one look at the Hokage it was clear she already knew who it had belonged to. Without wasting any more time, Tsunade whipped the cover off of the head with a grand flourish, waiting for recognition to register.
Kakashi whistled while Shikaku made a curious humming sound. The head had extremely pale skin, almost translucent white; with hair that was so pallid it almost blended right into the skin tone. Where his eyes should have been white instead they were black, with no pupils but instead a wide orb of white that encompassed the zone from iris to pupil. His nose was straight and small and his teeth all came to jagged, carnivorous points, quite like what Naruto remembered of Hoshigaki Kisame and Momochi Zabuza's teeth. He looked vaguely familiar to Naruto, in fact, though the blonde was certain he'd never seen him before the last mission.
At Kakashi's whistle, Naruto seemed to realize that he and Tsunade were not alone and looked wonderingly over his shoulder, eyes widening as he noticed Hinata. His gaze leapt to the two men beside her, jumping back and forth as if the answer would be in their gazes, and he became frustrated when it wasn't. His lip pouted out and he huffed, turning back to Tsunade with a glare.
"That's not something you see everyday." Kakashi joked, scratching a sideburn. Shikaku sighed again.
"Well? Who is it obaa-chan?"
"Does the name Hozuki Mangetsu mean anything at all to you, Naruto?"
"…Who?" Naruto was laughing, his entire persona exuding how sheepish he felt for not knowing. However, Hinata was as much in the dark about his revealed identity as he was. There was no familiar feeling along with the name, and even the up close view of the face still frozen in a scowl didn't bring her to any conclusions other than blank ignorance. Before she could delve deeper into her memory, trying to draw up that name as if she'd read it somewhere before, a hand was suddenly curved around her from the left and Kakashi was pulling her closer to him, away from the vase that had been thrown with chakra behind it straight for a now dusty and cringing Naruto. The vase had crushed into his stomach and sent him flying straight back into the wall, breaking through the plaster to slide into the hallway. The few patrons there gave him strange looks, as if he alone was the reason he was buried under some rubble in the hallway and there was now a missing wall to the Hokage's office. Hinata watched in bemused concern as one patron even stepped right over him.
"You little idiot!" Tsunade snapped. "How many times have I told you: reconnaissance missions do not entail casualties. That's why they're different from normal missions! You go in quietly and you leave quietly. You do not kill anyone that might raise flags, and especially not random rogue ninjas that are prominent enough to be Kages because they are back from the dead!" Lady Tsunade stood with hands spread over her desk, holding up her weight as she bared her teeth down at Naruto as he slowly stood and brushed the rubble and plaster from his clothes. He walked awkwardly back through the hole his body had left in the wall, frowning at Tsunade and looking no where near repentant enough to escape another flying vase should she find one. He even picked his pants from his butt, uncaring of any of the gazes currently staring at him.
"I still don't know who that is, obaa-chan. You can yell all you want but if you don't speak it plainly I'm still not gonna understand." Hinata flinched, waiting for the incoming projectile to knock Naruto yards farther than the previous one, but surprisingly none came. Tsunade simply straightened, shaking her head. She gestured to Kakashi as she turned her back on the room, looking out at the darkened village through her floor-to-ceiling windows, surveying the dim lights that spread periodically around the streets.
"Hozuki Mangetsu was a formidable ninja of Kirigakure's Hozuki clan. He was known to many as the Second Coming of the Demon, and was a member of the previous generation of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist." Kakashi paused, wondering how much Tsunade wanted him to elaborate. Taking her silence as the prodding it was intended to be, he continued.
"He died long before your time of unknown causes, but was indeed dead. He has one relative, a Hozuki Suigetsu, who has been seen traveling with a team of rogue nin including Uchiha Sasuke."
"Now do you understand, Naruto? You've just killed someone who was already dead."
From the expression on Naruto's face it was clear he still had no idea what was going on. Finally learning, though, he remained silent and instead screwed his expression up into one of helpless confusion. Shikaku was the first to take pity on him, opening up the floor for him and Kakashi to explain everything to Naruto in a way that he could finally understand why they were feeling such mixed emotions over his souvenir.
"There's no way you could have run into Hozuki Mangetsu, Naruto. It's impossible."
"But you just said that was him, right there!" pointing, Naruto gestured angrily to the head before reaching up to tug at one of the longer strands of hair framing his face. Hinata couldn't stop her mind from tilting off topic for just a moment, admiring the way his hardened, callused hands pulled through the golden strands. He was everything she wasn't, had everything she didn't. Whether it was his bright hair, his sun kissed skin, his sapphire eyes so deep not even the oceans they mirrored could compare to them, she was the complete, boring, opposite. Dark hair, pale skin, light eyes, was it any wonder everyone gravitated towards him and wanted to be in his shining presence? His smile was a thousand watt kind that seemed bright enough to transform those around him, and his words held more meaning when he spoke them than a thousand of her stutters. Was it any wonder she was in love with him? How could she not be? He was strength personified. Everything he did, he did with confidence. Whether it was speaking or fighting or breathing, he lived it. Even with the proof of his plight carved into his cheeks, six deep scars that interrupted the smoothness of his skin, he wore them unflinchingly, like a badge of honor. Was it any wonder, she thought.
"Yes, it should be impossible." Kakashi interrupted, crossing his arms over his flak jacket covered chest. "By all means you should not have been able to come across Hozuki Mangetsu, Naruto, but as you have so aptly provided us proof that you have, you can imagine how troubled we all are right now."
"Hozuki Mangetsu was dead. As in, dead and buried and gone. But here we have the man's head, and a story from you telling us you're the one to have killed him." Shikaku added, shuffling slightly to center his weight.
"And we believe you. How can we not? So the question is, what exactly does it mean that this man, who was and up until now has been dead, was alive enough for you to kill him once more?" Naruto seemed to understand, his jaw working as he considered all that was being said, and what was being left unsaid, too. Hinata was left wondering why in the world she was privy to this information, when all she had thought to do was come and be issued a mission, but she was not daft enough to think the Hokage would let her in on such important information if it was not meant specifically for her ears. So rather than interrupt and ask if she was in the right place at the right time, she kept silent, waiting patiently for what was to come. Her patience was duly rewarded.
"So, we need to figure out what we're going to do now. We cannot allow anyone to get ahold of this information. If the other villages found out that the dead were coming back to life, and not just any dead, but those powerful enough to cause some serious trouble, and not just anywhere, but around here, then we could be right back where we were with the last war. This is why I've asked you here, Hinata." Lady Tsunade finally folded herself back into her chair, now missing its handrails, and stared openly into the lavender, pupil-less gaze of the kunoichi before her.
"Naruto met and killed Mangetsu-kun on the border of Amekagure, far from his home of Kirigakure. As one of the Hozuki clan, he was able to be cut and wounded multiple times only to reassemble in a very…liquid-like manner. According to Naruto, the two of them fought for quite a while, with Mangetsu-kun constantly pulling himself back together and seeming undefeatable. In fact, the only reason he didn't reattach his head to his neck was because there was some sort of malfunction, something that made Naruto pause." Kakashi glanced over at the blonde and nodded as if to encourage him to explain, since he was the one who had experienced the situation directly.
"Yeah, well, I wasn't doing much damage the whole time because, like Kakashi-sensei said, he kept pulling himself back together. Kunai would become a part of him or something and he could fish them out of his skin as if he was made of mud. I was getting my ass beat for a while before his attacks became really jerky and uncoordinated. I mean he was strong, like seriously strong, and then it was like there was a malfunction in his brain or something . It looked like he was having a seizure even as he continued to attack me, so I just used my wind element and sliced his head off, ya know, thinking it would slow him down so I could catch a breather and then it would just plop back on. I'd done the same to his arm earlier and it'd reattached just fine. But then his head and body weren't moving and I kinda had to wait a few minutes for my chakra to heal me up a bit, but while I was resting this dude in a cloak comes out of nowhere, lands right in front of me, and starts picking up water-boy's body! So of course I jumped up and went to stop him but the moment I got too close he just disappeared. Like straight vanished. With water-boy's body under his arm. So I grabbed the head, which was disgusting by the way, and put it in my pack. I'm no Nara, but I knew I couldn't just leave it there." Naruto shrugged, crossing his arms over his chest again as he finished his story. "And now it's here. And apparently it's a dead guy that's now a dead dead guy."
Hinata's eyes were wide but there was a feeling of relief coursing through her. She hadn't thought Naruto would simply behead someone, even if they had attacked him and intended to take his life. He was more likely to knock them out and escape, especially if he was on a reconnaissance mission. He knew better than to stir up trouble on recon missions, or else Tsunade never would've allowed him to take such missions. The pieces were finally falling into place and the sense of understanding relaxed her.
"I'm assigning you a reconnaissance mission that will place you along the borders of Amekagure. We need to see if this is their doing, since Mangetsu-san here was a problem spawned right from within the walls of Kiri but was almost as far from there as he could possibly get, heading in the direction of Wind Country. Naruto couldn't get a good look at the mysterious cloaked figure that took the rest of Mangetsu-san, but his ability to vanish into thin air is anything but comforting. He'll probably be wanting the rest of his prize and having come across Naruto, we can be certain he knows the location of the head is in Konoha. But sending you to hunt down a ghost would be pointless, so until he pops up again and we can properly engage him, we'll leave it for another squad to deal with. All I need you to do is scout around, see if anything suspicious pops up, then immediately return. We're in the middle of rebuilding a village, which leaves us extremely vulnerable, and I can't have some of my top shinobi out running around chasing invisible leads. You'll be granted a maximum of three weeks to complete this mission, and I'll be expecting occasional reports and any urgent information immediately. " Taking in the news stoically, Hinata nodded her head, brushing a wayward strand of violet hair away from her eyes. For just a few moments, she forgot she was in the presence of the one person who would without a doubt make her nervous enough to resort to her stuttering, nervous nature.
"Will I be travelling with my team, Hokage-sama?" There was the briefest of pauses from the busty Hokage, one so quick and hesitant that Hinata almost missed it. Almost. The blonde's gaze became hard and intense as she stared the shorter woman down, surveying Hinata's every reaction before she finally opened her lips to speak.
"Because I want the utmost secrecy about this, I've complicated things a bit. I don't want anyone to know you're scouting, and your squad is infamous enough as an elite tracking unit that any sign of any one of you would tip any nin worth his salt off that you're there for shady reasons. So I've planted a mission within a mission, one that makes sense to have someone as ostentatious as the Kyuubi jinchuuriki along beside you, since he will be your only teammate on this mission." Hinata felt quite like she had traded places with the Naruto of a few minutes ago, being nailed right in the gut with a vase thrown hard enough to almost crash through her. Where had her stomach gone—was that it by her feet? But before she could even protest or whimper or faint, whatever her body needed to do to cope with this news, the Hokage pressed on, drilling her with a glare that demanded she stay conscious and focused.
"We have a contact in Kusagakure and he'll be expecting a scroll. You two are to deliver the scroll to him in Kusagakure, he'll pay you back in kind with a scroll of his own which is to remain sealed until it is in my hands, then detour back through Amegakure. Naruto will take you to where he came across Mangetsu-san, and you will station yourselves there and keep your eyes and ears open for any kind of information. I estimate your stay in Amegakure to be about a week. That should be enough time to find suspicious activity if there is any. You'll report directly to me the moment you make contact in Kusagakure, when you make it to Amegakure, and when you discover anything immediately concerning this…situation. You leave in three days. Understood?" Without looking at him, unable to actually look at him, Hinata straightened, morphing her complacent posture into the style a subordinate should have before a superior. She bowed low, respectfully, and said, "Hai, Hokage-sama."
"Naruto-brat?" Tsunade added, turning to him. He smiled cheekily at her, rubbing the back of his head again, crow's feet appearing at the sides of his eyes when he smiled.
"Why do we have to wait three days? That doesn't make sense," Naruto grumbled good-naturedly, casting a look at Tsunade who looked ready to rip out his spleen.
"Preparations." She said between her teeth, holding on to the last vestiges of her patience. Naruto threw his head back, staring heavenward before rolling it back into its normal anatomical position.
"Obaaaaaaaa-chan," he groaned, not understanding what was clearly left unspoken. Hinata knew easily enough that their mission scroll would have to be written up and all the essential information would have to be transferred, that the contact in Hidden Grass would have to be notified of their arrival and that they'd need to prepare monetarily and with their own items for their stays in each destination. Ever the impatient, happy-go-lucky character, Naruto almost groaned again at the silence his whining conjured from the Hokage, whose rare show of good manners were rapidly deteriorating.
"Naruto," she sang, still speaking between her teeth. "Say, 'Hai, Hokage-sama' and get the hell out of my building."
"Haiiiii, obaa-chan." And when he turned he smiled right at Hinata, a shining beacon that made her heart quicken a second before a text blurred through the air, slamming him through another section of the Hokage's office, plaster and wooden panels crackling around him.
"Are we dismissed, Hokage-sama?" Kakashi asked jovially, with his infamous eye-crinkling grin.
"I'll be speaking with you and Shikaku later, Kakashi, so don't wander too far. But for now, everyone get the hell out. Shizune! Where's my sake?"
A/N: Hi ladies and gents and everyone in between! Your reactions to Naruto-kun having a severed head with him made me laugh. I guess this is as good a time as any for a friendly reminder that questions you have now will probably be answered in upcoming chapters (since this chapter probably raised a bunch of questions for you all), so keep in mind that your patience is greatly appreciated and will ~hopefully~ be rewarded :) Thanks for stopping by!