Experiment 52
Summary: Saratobi realises that the village is becoming more and more corrupt, he realises that unless something is done about the council then the ninja's will begin a rebellion. So he calls in the only person he can think of with enough power to defeat an entire village of corrupt politicians. [Pairings undecided] [FemNaru, FemDei]
--
Special Thanks to: DarkRavie, PrincessOli, YunaNeko, harlequin320, for your reviews. Also, thanks to those who continue to read, review, and favourite our story even through the terribly slow updates.
--
"Speech"
'Thoughts'
-- Setting change
** Time Change **
"Demon Speech"
--
Chapter 8: Honour Between Thieves
"I think her body is starting to react, but badly." They looked to Gaara, his mouth was set in a grim line, his thoughts else where, "She will not recover with out outside help."
"What do you mean?" The hokage asked, confused. Gaara sighed, 'I am truly sorry Naru, but I would rather face your wrath than your death.'
"Naru has… associates, that would be able to provide her… power… that would be able to… convince… her body to… heal itself." Gaara hesitated throughout, trying to chose words that would not give too much away but would get the meaning across. The hokage thought over what he had said.
"These associates, am I right in thinking that they do not come from this village?" Gaara nodded once. Saratobi sighed, looking to the body of the unconscious girl.
"I suppose, if it will save her life. How soon can they be here?" Saratobi looked to Gaara and decided immediately that he did not like the grin on the boy's face.
"Within a few days. May I move her to a different place?" He asked, politely.
"If you can touch her without being burned." They watched as Gaara slid his arms under her and walked out without a burn. The hokage sighed, another sign that Naru didn't trust him them. He glanced to his left and saw Anko scratching at her arm, the exact arm that held the seal to Naru. He nodded and watched her leave.
"Ahem, so do we just…" He turned to the last group of people and saw the genin, Kiba was the one who had spoken. The hokage smiled.
"You may leave congratulations on passing the second exam." There were numerous sighs of relief as they all trudged out, conversations starting between them. Again, the old man sighed, he was starting to hate his job.
--
Gaara set Naru down on her own bed, watching as her body relaxed almost immediately. How he hated seeing her like this. Temporarily sealed Naru wouldn't wake until the bandages were removed from her forehead and power was given. Currently, her chakra and her power were fighting of the combined effects of poison and impure chakra in her body. Kyuubi was helping in any ay he could, the reason for the sandimane's burnt hand. Not to say that Kyuubi was spending this time burning unknown peoples, no, he was heating up her body to a degree where the bacteria's of the poison would simply boil away. Her body would be, for lack of a batter word, purified. It would take a while for her body to emerge from this, as now she would have to devote energy to making enzymes and cells that had burnt away during the purging. Turning to her desk he found some paper and started to write a note. Simple and cleverly disguised no one would notice it for what it truly was. The letter read:
Hello again,
I'm afraid to tell you that dear Niami has gotten fever. If you could come visit her it'll make her week. You know where we live, see you soon.
From Gali.
Obviously Gali was Gaara's code name, and Niami was Naru's. The code was simple, a plea for assistance, because something had gone wrong with Naru that required them. And everyone would come because it was Naru, the leader of them all, and the key to their plan. Plus everyone liked Naru, which was always an added bonus. If the letter was intercepted then no one would be able to guess what was going on, though it shouldn't be intercepted. He handed the letter to his own fox kit that Naru had given him, Selene, she was strong and fast. Gaara trusted her to get the letter to her siblings that had been given to the others. He opened the window and the fox was gone, heading into the dusk. Now it was just a waiting game…
** The Next Day **
A knock on the door alerted Gaara to visitors. He sighed and stood, it wouldn't do well to ignore them, after all it may be the hokage. He opened the door and his mouth dropped. Standing in front of him were about twelve people, all gasping for breath. Some of them gave him a smile. Most of them were standing looking around as they tried to regain their breath.
"Your early." He said simply.
"When we got the message we ran through the night. Some of us met up outside of Konoha and some of us inside, I don't know where the rest are." One of them, a girl with long blonde hair and slanted ct like eyes said.
"That's fine, come in all of you." He stood aside holding the door open. The run down apartment didn't even get a second glance, these were people who knew the life Naru was living, and they knew it well. They placed themselves wherever there was space. Gaara looked around, trying to find out who wasn't there. Yugito and her partner, His own partner and Naru's, Rōshi and partner, Killer Bee and his partner, Han and partner, and lastly Utakata and his own partner. As he counted them something occurred to Gaara,
"Did you tell the guards at the gate that you were here?" the guilty glances that were passed around told him enough, he sighed, "So let me get this right. You've snuck into a ninja village that is currently hosting the chunnin exams which means that any wrong move by other village's ninja is looked upon as an attack?" they all nodded slowly.
"But none of us were caught!" Yugito protested. Gaara sighed again.
"Anyway, once the others arrive we really need to help Naru, things are going to get worse the more she stays ill." The others nodded. Naru was someone they would all help as soon as they could, after all it would do no good to loose their leader now. "Until the others come you re free, try to get some food." With a nod they were gone.
That day Konoha suffered from series of strange happenings, things that people had only just used would suddenly go missing with no sign of where they had gone, Fresh bread would be taken while it was still hot, clothes that had just been tagged in the shops would be gone from their swinging hangers, bags in people's hands would be gone. The hokage herd the ANBU's reports of all these things and gave a sigh, he had no idea what could've happened or where these things could've gone. A complete mystery. Then a chunnin came in, Saratobi recognised him as one of the chunnin who had been given guard duty. He stood to attention.
"Sir, it has recently been found that some people have vaulted over the wall. We have found the foot prints in the soil, they look to have occurred during the early morn, possibly during shift change." He stood standing tall as the hokage contemplated this new information. The man nodded once, letting the ninja go on his way. Sanding he grabbed his hat and set off towards the low rent district, towards Naru's apartment. Arriving he knocked twice. The door was opened by Gaara who looked slightly shocked,
"Um, Hokage, sir, hello. What brings you here?" if Saratobi had known Gaara better he would've known that his tone held a warning to the frozen occupants of the apartment, as silently as they could they started to look for hiding places.
"Well I wanted to check up on Naru, I also wanted to know why twelve large chakra signatures have suddenly appeared in my village." He heard the shuffling inside stop, someone cursed, "And don't try saying that it's the participants of the exam." Gaara's mouth shut. Slowly he stepped aside to let the man in. Standing in a guilty circle of people were the twelve large signatures.
"Hello sir." One of them said, getting small smiles from the others.
"So I suppose you are the cause of a sudden number of mysterious thieveries." It wasn't a question. They all nodded.
"But to be fair, we only stole it because they wouldn't sell it!" One of them stepped forward, a man with red hair, wearing a purple garb and a large headband that covered his whole forehead.
"Rōshi!" One of them, a young girl with bright blonde hair chided. The hokage simply chuckled, having dealt with worse manners than this, and besides he knew that because of their upbringing many Jinchuuriki had no respect for people, Naru was exactly the same. Respect was earned, not given.
"Are you expecting many more?" The old man asked, looking around at them,
"Four. Two more Jinchuuriki." Gaara spoke from behind him, leaning up against the door.
"And Naru?" He asked; worry seeping into his voice though he tried to keep it diplomatic, they understood. The Hokage couldn't show favouritism, and this visit was bordering close on it, if they hadn't been here he wouldn't have been able to visit at all. The council was slowly stripping away his power, and everyone knew it.
"She hadn't woken, she hasn't even moved." Gaara's voice suddenly seemed tired, stripped of all his power and confidence. If the others didn't get here soon, it would be too late. The hokage nodded, understanding.
--
They only needed to wait two hours before another knock alerted them to someone being at the door. When Gaara opened it he was happily relieved, the two youngest Jinchuuriki stood with their guardians smiling proudly.
"We came as fast as we could."
"Come in. Everyone Yagura and Fū are here!" People came from all over the apartment to give them hugs and welcomes. After having a little bit of a rest they started preparations for helping Naru.
--
It was dark, almost black compared to the heavy afternoon sunshine that had been there only an hour ago. The Jinchuuriki were gathered around Naru's bed, each of them touching a body part with their partners standing guard around the apartment. With a deep breath as one they gathered their chakra into a pool that surrounded them as a circle, it slowly started to branch off into Naru. Her body shook, her back arched as her mouth opened in a silent stream. Slowly the chakra around her turned from the misty blue of their mingled chakra to a dark sickly purple. It was the poison, being forcibly pulled from her system, her gritted teeth gave the signs of how much pain she was in.
--
It was a happy time, the days when she was with her sister. The days were spent with simple ideas and thoughts. The ideas of a child, the thoughts of someone who wanted nothing more than to continue these days forever. But of course, nothing lasts forever. That was learnt when she lost her mother and father, the loss was something she did not understand., She wondered why they had to move from the wide fields and comfortable house, why her sister cried, why her mother no longer said goodnight and gave her a kiss on her forehead, why her father was no longer around to lift her into his arms and laugh with her.
--
Naru's body jumped, more chakra was needed but the Jinchuuriki were not strong enough to pull more out and sustain in. Many now had chakra burns over their body, the younger ones were crying, torn between the need to save Naru and the need to just sleep. They had been going at this for at least three hours now and the poison had no sign of lessening. Gaara gritted his teeth, being the one with the weakest demon he was suffering from near chakra exhaustion. He felt a hand on his shoulder and a new wave of chakra passed through him, his strained arms relaxed and he felt stronger. Turning his head he gave a nod of thanks to his partner. Around him he saw the other shadows stepping forward to give a helping hand. 'I need to get the poison out quicker, but how? How?!' his eyes widened, of course!
To his right, away from his partner stood Naru's partner.
"Go get Yaminaka Ino, don't look at me like that just go. Tell her Gaara and Naru need her, she'll come straight away!" with a slight nod the figure was gone. No to just keep going until Ino came. In less than 10 minutes Ino was standing beside Gaara, her lips pressed into a thin line. She gave a slight sigh and rubbed her hands together.
"Stop pulling chakra into her, but try and keep all the poisoned chakra in a bubble." She ran into the kitchen and brought back a wide and deep bowl, she encased it in her own chakra. "Set it in here." They did as she said and carefully moved the poison into the bowl. Once there they retraced the chakra from it, leaving only the chakra that couldn't be taken back because it had bonded with the poison. Ino looked at the bonded mass and frowned. She glanced to Naru, who was still sweating and back to the bowl.
"Ino, Ino what are you thinking?" Gaara asked, his voice low from exhaustion.
"I'm thinking I hope what's just happened in this bowl hasn't happened in Naru." Gaara gave her a slightly panicked look. Carefully ignoring him, Ino looked at the people around her, she saw them watching her, wary of how she may react to them. "Calm yourselves, I know of what you are." Few of them relaxed, "Now, those of you who are going to pass out, do so in the other room, those of you who can still provide chakra stay, but it has to be a large amount and it will be for a long time, if your body cannot sustain either your own chakra or that of another's, leave." She was precise and blunt, treating them like another human, and it surprised them and made them listen, properly.
--
It seemed like it was far away, maybe listening through water, a strange feeling. The noise sounded like a voice, a person. It listened, carefully. The person was yelling, feeling lacing the words.
"Naru! Naru! Come back to me, where are you? Naru! Answer me!" she gave a sigh and felt a burning pain. Pain, a strange feeling indeed. Slowly feeling came to her, a physical pain, that's what she was feeling. The dark receded, she could see blurry shapes around her. When had she become a she? She blinked, and could see the blurry outline of… things. Hands, said her brain, your looking at your own hands. Everything came rushing back to her, and she did what was natural. She panicked.
--
when everyone was finished admitting their own mistakes there was only everyone's partners and four Jinchuuriki left, out of the nine, it was those with the higher tails of power, Killer Bee with five tails of power left, Fū with four tails left, Utakata with three tails and Han with two. Ino sighed; this was going to take a while.
"Now, this is the hard part, what I need you to do is to put you chakra into Naru's coils, keep control of it, don't give it to her, then you need to find parts of the poison, I'll help with that, and you need to combine the poison with your chakra, once its combined pull it out and put it in the bowl, whatever you do, don't get the poison into your own body. That's the one thing you cannot do! We don't have enough people to have more than one infected." They nodded, their faces showing their understanding at the severity of the situation.
Carefully they started to worm their chakra into Naru's body. Ino's hands flared green; she placed them at points around the girl, and told them where to put the chakra. The Yaminaka kept moving, keeping everyone working. She would put one person at one point and move on to another, continuously circling them and providing the bowl before moving them to a different point. In all she never left a person at one spot longer than five minutes, even if there was still poison there.
"Ino-san, why don't you let us stay until all the poison is removed?"
"Because the more time you spend in one spot, the more the poison gets used to your unique chakra, if you stay there the poison will latch on to you or recognise you as a foreign substance and react violently, creating more pain for Naru-chan." They nodded, after all Ino was the one with the best idea of what was going on right now, Naru, and all of them, were in Ino's hands. Something she seemed to realise and detest.
--
Somehow, she knew this voice, these voices. They echoed inside of her head, causing her whole body to hum with energy, she loved it. The feeling of being free that she had right now, it was delicious. Every now and then though, her mood would darken violently, how dare they invade her body! How dare they try to remove it. What it was she had no idea, all she knew was that the white mood, as it seemed to her, didn't like the random bursts of darkness. They seemed to be from her body, not all of her body, just parts. And the energy was fighting it, pulling it away from her. The darkness was fighting back though and the energy didn't realise. It was already safe, safe here inside of her brain, her heart, her lungs. And the energy couldn't reach it there, because the green couldn't probe that deep. It couldn't get past the muscles and the bone to reach the core of her being. Slowly she felt it building, and she felt rage, a red blinding rage that it dare try to fight.
--
They had been removing the poison under Ino's direction for two hours when it happened. just as everyone had been about to give up at ever removing all the poison, Naru's brow furrowed. The first movement she had made in more than three hours. That was all the warning the got before Kyuubi's red chakra exploded from her body. Luckily enough they were barely harmed, the chakra having been directed somewhere else. However with Kyuubi's chakra came a strong bloodlust, it had them frozen to the floor and the others awake and panicking. Gaara rushed in and saw the swirling power. He did the only thing he could think of then, he pealed away the seal that was keeping Naru unconscious and safe from the pain of the poison. Her eyes flew open, pupils a deep blood red with animalistic slits. She gave a chocked sob and gritted her teeth. Her back arching as the chakra forcibly dragged the poison from her vital organs. They saw the purple-black flow from her head, from her chest and realised why there seemed to be no sign of her getting better. Mockingly the red chakra surrounded the poison and burned it over the bowl, leaving the ashes to float down.
There was silence filled only with Naru's pants. The red chakra had dispersed; her eyes had changed to pure silver. A colour no one had ever seen before, Naru had never once before had eyes lesser than a light pale blue. She gave a tired smile to everyone around her and slipped into unconsciousness again. Slowly, everyone else joined her.
** One week later **
Naru lay with her head resting on Gaara's stomach; she hadn't been awake long and was simply lying watching the clouds through her bedroom window. Ino was to come round in a few minutes, and that was good enough right now. The silence continued, comfortable and sleepy, it was Gaara who broke it.
"I've never seen your eyes so light." To anyone else it might have been a strange statement, but to Naru it made perfect sense. She gave a sigh, reluctantly moving so she could see him.
"I know, with the chunnin exams and Orochimaru and everything I haven't had time to relax, and after being sealed im weak. Weaker than I thought." A frown marred her face; Gaara gave his own sigh and sat up to embrace her.
"You did better than ever expected." He whispered into her ear.
"Besides, what more can be expected of you?" Said a second voice from the doorway, they looked up with a small amount of surprise to see Ino standing in the doorway, her shoes in hand.
"Ino!" Naru chided, Gaara glanced to the shoes,
"That's cheating." Ino stuck her tongue out,
"Is not."
"Is."
"Not."
"Is."
"Not!"
"Is!"
"Not!!"
"IS!"
"NOT"
"IS, IS, IS!"
"NOT, NOT, NOT!"
"Stop it!" Naru yelled before the two could start the real fight, as it was they already centimetres apart and spitting. It was quite disgusting to be honest. The blonde shook her head, how had she managed to find the two most immature people on the planet? They both turned to her. Ino, knelt in front and her hands lighted with a familiar green glow. As she checked the blondes vitals she shook her head and said;
"Im so glad you taught me those healing justu's when you did, any later and I wouldn't have been able to help."
"Yes, well you know why I did." Naru replied, she leaned back and threw her arm over her eyes. Gaara and Ino shared a look, and then both rolled their eyes. Sometimes Naru didn't realise the stress she piled onto her body, therefore she needed someone close to her to be her doctor, and stop her from harming herself in a way that couldn't be healed.
"I now declare you fully healed!" Ino said, cutting off the chakra around her hands. Naru gave a grin, and her body fully relaxed,
"Finally!" She gave a sigh of relief, "I thought you were never going to say those words!"
"Well, since you are healed…" Ino trailed off, deciding to get her meaning across in a more physical way. Naru felt soft lips on her and didn't have to move her arm to know it was Ino. She moved her arm from her eyes to Ino's neck and pulled the girl closer. As she did so the blonde settled herself on Naru's stomach. Their kiss intensified as they finally got to release all their emotions. Neither of them got this chance when they were around the others and Naru had been ill for the most of any time they had recently had. Without much argument their clothes came off, the desire for bare skin getting unbearable. Ino moved lower, lower…
--
Gaara came into the room not an hour later and saw the two girls sleeping next to each other, their legs and hands entwined, he gave a small smile and picked the blanked that had been abandoned on the floor up. With another small smile he lay it over them, kissed them both on the forehead and left. The redhead returned to the door and told Sasuke, Sakura and the rest of the Genin teams from Konoha to politely fuck off as Naru was not available currently, needless to say this didn't go down well with them. But who cares, they weren't exactly going to break the door down.
"FIST OF DISTRUCTION!" CRASH! 'Well, what do you know…' Gaara thought as he watched the door go flying past his face. It smashed into the far wall and left splinters all over the carpet, turning round to the door slowly, he observed the group of genin staring at Lee.
"You're paying for that."
"My door!" came a broken whimper from behind him, turning he saw Naru hugging pieces of wood to her. Though she may have been mourning her front door, Gaara had to say, she looked beautiful, her skin had returned to its healthy glow, her hair was loose and flowing around her, her shirt hung off one shoulder showing the tanned skin, her stone almost glowed in the sunlight, her… wait, what? Her stone. Gaara looked to her head, oh shit! And the seals around her wrists showed too, aw crap! Slowly while the genin were still shocked her walked over to her and placed himself in a strategic position to block her from view. Nudging her to get her attention her handed her some bandages. She got the hint and immediately wrapped up her forehead, focusing on her wrists only after.
"Um, yeah, sorry about that." Kiba said, awkwardly coughing. The uncomfortable silence continued for a few more seconds. Been broken only by Ino coming out of the bedroom, dressed similar to Naru only she was wearing shorts with her shirt.
"oh, hello." Ino said, the others simply stared, "um, yeah, we took a nap." With her explanation done, she wandered into the kitchen.
"So, instead of standing outside, come in!" Naru waved them in.
As Naru pottered around, making numerous cups of tea for them all, everyone took the chance to look around. All except Ino and Gaara, who by their relaxed postures, had been here many times before. Sasuke kept glancing at them, dirty looks that were shot mostly at Gaara. The red head only smirked, nudging Ino and drawing her attention to them. By the time Naru was finished everyone had satisfied their curiosity, well for the rooms they were allowed in, which was exactly two, the living room and the kitchen. For the rooms further on they found the doors locked tight. The group sat around the low table, the only place with enough space for them all.
"Naru, how come some of your doors don't open?" Asked Sakura, quite a few of the others shot her surprised looks, thinking that, as Naru's team mate, she would already know what was behind them. The blonde smiled over her tea cup.
"Because they're private places."
"like what?" Kiba asked, ever the rude one.
"Like bedrooms dip shit." Ino replied before Naru could, the blonde in question laughed, hiding it as a cough after Kiba glared at her.
"Anyway! Why are you guys here?" Naru looked around at them all, setting her cup on the table. There was a slightly awkward silence.
"We just wanted to know how you were doing." Sakura said.
"We honestly thought you were gonna die!" Kiba rushed, their faces told her how frightened they had been, of course, seeing her like that would be traumatic. Sasuke pointed to Neji's team,
"And they just came along." Naru nodded calmly.
"Then, since you have seen me, I think you should leave, im afraid im still weak from the treatment for the poison." She stood slowly and Ino rushed to help her, they both went into the bedroom. Slowly all of the genin filed out. Once the door was closed Sasuke spoke.
"She wasn't still ill." They all shared a look, something was going on.
There! We're so sorry for the terrible late update, we are ashamed of ourselves. Also since we are starting our GCSE exams now the updates are going to get even slower, but don't worry! We're defiantly not giving up on the story! As soon as we can, the next chapter should be up! Please have patience and tell us any problems with the writing. A lot of it may seem badly written and we apologise for that, it's sad to say that our hearts haven't been truly into this.
Love, Envy and Angel.