Menmaverse.
Chapter 8: Mission to wave – demon brothers
Konoha main street/after sundown.
After saying goodbye to one another the two genin parted ways. Tenten started heading home thinking Menma would do the same. Instead Menma decided to pay a visit to the library and see what he could learn from the book Tenten mentioned earlier on their date.
'What was it called again? Sealing technique for genin? Yeah that was it!' Menma thought.
Arriving at the library, Menma stopped to take a good look at the building. It looked a little like the hospital further down the road. Except for the fact that it wasn't as wide and only had a single floor.
However when Menma tried to enter he was stopped by an old lady who blocked his way. Confusion was written all over his face as he looked up at the old librarian, who glared back down at him.
"Is there a problem?" he asked. "I didn't let that blond brother of yours in here and I'm sure as hell am not going to let you in either." She stated. "You and your brother both aren't allowed into my library! No demons allowed!" she said.
Hearing this Menma closed his eyes as he took a deep breath through his nose. Still with his eyes closed he exhaled to calm himself down a bit, once calm he looked the librarian deep in the eyes and said "I can't say for sure, but I don't think my brother ever burned someone alive for being kicked out somewhere. I on the other hand have no problem with this."
Shocked that the boy in front of her wasn't afraid of her and just left, but actually threatened her life, she didn't know what to do. The other one had been a pushover, but this one… seeing that he wasn't going to just conjure up a smile and say "surprise! Just joking!" she started to sweat as she become nervous, so she stepped aside to let the black-haired demon through.
"Make it quick…" she said. "we are about to close for the day."
Menma looked back at her over his shoulder and nodded. Quickly going through the different aisles he found what he was looking for. Grabbing the black book he noticed a white swirl on the side of the cover. On his way back towards the library front desk he came across another aisle where he found another interesting book on the human body. This section of the library was labeled "basic biology and medical ninjutsu". Taking the two books he went to check them out at the front desk. After paying for his membership card and the assurance fee he left towards his apartment to start reading before going to sleep.
(assurance fee = people are allowed to take the books with them on missions but only if they pay the price for the book. In case it is lost or destroyed you don't get the assurance fee back as it will be used to buy a new copy. If it is returned safely and undamaged you get the money of your assurance fee back.)
Training ground 13/the following morning 9:03 o'clock.
The next morning Menma arrived at team 13's usual training ground, although slightly later than usual. Observing the area Menma failed to locate Ryuudan-sensei. Hinata was going through one of her gentle fist "kata's". (a kata is a series of martial arts movements following one another to create a simulation fight against non-existing opponents. The number of opponents varies.) While Shikamaru was playing a game of shogi under the shade of a large tree… wait no, chess… huh? Okay he was playing a game with chess pieces on one side and shogi pieces on the other!
Getting over his confusion Menma walked over to Shikamaru to ask where their sensei was. Before he could open his mouth, Kenshiguru walked out from behind the tree. "Well…" he said, clapping his large hands together after putting out his cigar. "Now that we're all here, we can go collect our first c-rank mission! Follow me!" he said and stormed off towards the village again.
Hinata dropped her kata and joined her sensei while Menma stayed behind to help Shikamaru pack up his game.
Briefing room.
Several minutes later team 13 found themselves in the briefing room.
"Jounin Ryuudan Kenshiguru, requesting a c-rank mission for team 13!" Kenshiguru said as he saluted Hiruzen Sarutobi.
"What! You can't be serious!" The voice of Iruka rang through the room. "Ryuudan-san, your team is only 3 weeks old! Team 13 isn't ready for c-rank missions yet! I know Hinata and Shikamaru very well. I taught them myself!" Iruka continued.
"Hold your tongue you brat! How old are you anyway?" Ryuudan-sensei asked, his face clearly telling everyone he wasn't pleased.
"I'm 23. What of it?" Iruka said, slightly startled by the jounin's question.
"Well I'm 62 and I've grew up during the first and I've fought in the second and third shinobi wars. If my memory serves me right you should have only fought during the last part of the third? Now how about you show some respect!" Ryuudan snapped at the young man.
"Now, now Ken-kun. Calm down, Iruka here is only worried about his former students that is all." Hiruzen said trying to calm the man down.
"Hokage-sama please don't refer to me as Ken-kun in front of my team!" Kenshiguru stated with a serious look upon his face. "Now please, my request for a c-rank mission?" He asked.
"I've got several here, but let's start your team of with an easy one." Hiruzen said as he rummaged through a pile labeled c-rank. "Here, how about this one? Escorting a bridge builder back to his home in Wave and continue to protect him from bandits until he's finished his bridge?" Hiruzen read the request.
"That will do!" He said as he stepped forward and took the piece of paper from the hokage. "This is going to be a long-term mission so go home and pack your bags! We'll meet at the village gate in an hour." He said as he turned around.
"Hold on for a moment! Kenshiguru, Hinata, Shikamaru stay here for a minute! Menma you can go ahead and prepare for your mission."
When the door closed behind Menma, Hiruzen's smile disappeared in exchange for a serious frown. "Before you leave on this mission, there are some things I have to tell you." Hiruzen said as he stared over his hands that had been folded into each other to cover his mouth from view.
"It is possible that Menma-kun might be a threat to the village. Menma wasn't born here in Konoha like you so we aren't sure where his loyalty lies." Hiruzen took a deep breath and sighed before continuing. "You have all been chosen to be on his team because of your abilities. I'm sure that together, should anything happen the two of you will be able to deal with him."
"Excuse me but what do you mean with possible threat? Does that mean that you aren't sure?" Hinata asked not liking the idea of having to fight her teammate.
"Yes. For the meantime I want you two to keep an eye on him to see whether he is loyal or not. If Menma were to take any actions against Konoha, I want Shikamaru to capture him with his shadow while Hinata knocks him out with her gentle fist." Hiruzen said as he looked both genin in the eyes.
Seeing that the hokage was being serious Hinata and Shikamaru sprang at attention. "Understood, hokage-sama!"
"Good. Now that you now your ongoing mission during your training as team 13, you may go and prepare for your first c-rank mission." Hiruzen said as his smile returned.
Outside of Konoha.
An hour later team 13 and their client Tazuna. They had been walking for several minutes and the sun had almost reached its peak. Fall was almost here but for now it was still summer.
And it was HOT!
Boy was it HOT!
It was so hot that Shikamaru started walking on the right side of the road underneath the shade. He was soon joined by Tazuna and Hinata.
Hinata was sweating heavily and was considering removing her jacket, but she didn't seem to be able to make up her mind.
Tazuna didn't seem to bothered with the heat since he had his hat to protect him. The same couldn't be said about his bottle of alcohol though. In the short minutes they had set out his 'cold one' had become warm and he couldn't stop grunting to show exactly how displeased he was with that.
Menma was trying to read the medical book he had borrowed from the library the day before. TRYING being the perfect way to describe it as he kept stumbling over little rocks and into holes in the road. Although he did seem to be able to read a bit as he flipped to the next page once in a while. He also seemed to be having trouble keeping his sweat from entering his eyes.
Kenshiguru didn't seem affected by the heat at all. Instead he seemed to be fidgeting with the chains that were wrapped around his lower arms. In other words the journey so far had been boring.
That was until they passed two puddles of water, one on each side of the road. Tazuna, Shikamaru, Hinata and Menma all passed between them without anything happening. But the moment their sensei stepped through, two shapes jumped up from the puddles. Gozu and Meizu the demon brothers of the mist pulled on their gauntlets. The chain attached to them jumped up from underneath the ground and wrapped itself around Kenshiguru's body from his legs to his upper body.
Team 13 turned around just in time to watch their sensei be ripped into little pieces. Or so the demon brothers thought. They grinned and Meizu said "That's one." He then looked at Menma saying "you're next!" at that moment the two brothers pulled as hard as they could.
…
"what the…?" Meizu and Gozu said as the chains didn't budge. They looked over their shoulder and there stood Kenshiguru. Still wrapped up in their chains, the sharp edges off each link in position to pierce his exposed skin. Gozu and Meizu gave a slight experimental tug but the edges never pierced the skin. Before they could do anything else a voice called out behind them and they froze.
"Shadow possession jutsu, complete!" Shikamaru said when both brothers had been caught in shadow. Shikamaru had spotted the puddles from a mile away. He then came up with his plan, by moving into shade on the side of the road he was able to strengthen his own jutsu. Therefore giving him the advantage.
Shikamaru didn't hold the jutsu for long as Hinata and Menma had already jumped forward. Gozu was quickly incapacitated by Hinata's gentle fist and Meizu found himself gurgling up blood as Menma plunged his kunai into the side of his throat.
Meizu struggled for two more seconds, writhing on the ground grasping at his throat looking over towards the unconscious form of his brother with tears in his eyes. All three genin and Tazuna watched the chuunin level missing ninja from Kiri with fascination and horror as he slowly passed over to the afterlife.
Another second went by and Menma dropped to his knees beside the now dead man. Kenshiguru walked over towards the book Menma had dropped.
"Good job team! Very well done. Shikamaru, you noticed the enemy's presence almost immediately and took actions to improve your chances and even give you the advantage. Hinata, the moment the attack began you activated you byakugan to scan the area for more enemies and moved to protect the client."
Picking up the book he walked over towards Menma.
"Menma, you were also prepared for the attack because you dropped your book before the ambush began. You turned around and analyzed the situation and when you knew that the client was safe you decided to confront the enemy. You didn't hesitate and took immediate actions."
His voice then became more gentle.
"The first time is always the hardest, but eventually it…" Kenshiguru stopped when he realized that Menma had dropped to his knees to remove the gauntlet from the now dead guys arm. Menma looked up to his teacher and said "I know Ryuudan-sama, it gets easier" while not completely unmoved by the fact he had killed someone Menma was holding up extraordinarily well.
After removing the second gauntlet from the unconscious missing ninja. Menma neatly rolled up the chain around the two gauntlets and sealed the entire thing with the collection of weapons he'd bought with Tenten.
Kenshiguru had taken Gozu with him into the forest saying that he was going to interrogate him. Meanwhile Shikamaru and Hinata were guarding a sweating Tazuna while Menma had started reading again.
To their surprise Kenshiguru came back after only 2 minutes. "Hinata, come with me for a moment. This is a perfect opportunity to see if any of you have any talent when it comes to interrogation."
Hinata nervously followed her sensei into the forest. "Troublesome…" Shikamaru stated as they watched Hinata go with their sensei.
Inside of the forest.
Hinata now stood in front of the man she had knocked out before. He was chained to a tree and was glaring at her. A dirty yellow rag was tied around his mouth and between his jaws.
"Okay Hinata I want you to try and get him to tell you why he attacked us. Can you do that?" Ryuudan said. Hinata nodded nervously as she looked between Gozu and her teacher who was now missing the chains on his left arm.
"Good." He said as he removed the yellow rag from Gozu's mouth.
Before Hinata could say anything Gozu cut her off saying "It's a waste of time, I'm not telling you anything and neither will my brother! We'll die before we'll tell you anything!"
"Uhm uh… my apologies but the other person that attacked us was killed in the attack, I'm sorry for your loss…" Hinata said as she bowed at her waist her hands folded together against her legs.
Gozu looked at her, his eyes widened in realization as he saw that she wasn't lying. "Meizu…?"
"Uhm… c-could you t-t-tell us w-why you attacked us, please?" she said.
"my brother is dead." Gozu whispered to himself.
"Uhm hello? Could y-you please t-tell me why y-you attacked us? Hello? Sir?" Hinata tried to get his attention, but he just kept ignoring her. She was about to ask again when Kenshiguru stopped her.
"That's enough Hinata you're clearly not cut out for interrogation. Why don't you go back and tell Shikamaru to get over here?" Kenshiguru suggested.
"Uhm, yes, okay…" she said as she glanced at Gozu once again and then left.
A minute later Shikamaru appeared and was told the same thing as Hinata, to interrogate him and discover his motives. Shikamaru merely walked up to Gozu captured him in his shadow possession jutsu and forced him to look him in the eye.
"Man, this is troublesome… Listen, it would be wise to just tell us what you know and spare us all a bunch of trouble. What do you say?" He asked. The moment Gozu was able to move freely again he spat at Shikamaru, only to have it go straight through him. 'a clone!' he realized. The real Shikamaru was standing behind a tree with his back to Gozu.
"Being face to face with someone who is about to be tortured is troublesome and I'd rather not remember your face. so you'll have to forgive me if I don't look you in the eyes." He said and he started walking back towards the road. "I give up sensei, Interrogation is too troublesome. I'll go tell Menma to come over." He said and disappeared through the trees.
Another minute later Menma came strolling through the trees. "Hello sensei! Is it my turn now?" he asked. When he received a nod from his teacher he smiled and walked over towards Gozu.
When he stood next to him Menma bent down to pick up the dirty yellow rag and started slapping the dirt off of it. To Gozu and his teacher's surprise he tied Gozu's mouth back up using the yellow rag so he couldn't speak. Standing in front of Gozu Menma looked him in the eyes "Now this is how this is going to work. I'm going to torture you for 15 minutes…" he said. "and after those fifteen minutes I'm going to remove your gag and you have 1 minute to catch your breath. If you don't start talking during that one minute, the gag goes back on and you'll have another chance in another 15 minutes." Menma explained and looked over his shoulder towards his teacher.
"Ryuudan-sensei?! Can you tell me when the 15 minutes are over?" He asked.
"Yeah sure, tell me when you want to start." He said as he took a timer from one of his pockets.
"Begin!" Menma said and he turned towards Gozu.
*Torture begin not for the young find the next * signs and read from there*
Menma grabbed Gozu's hands and cut his bindings, he offered a little bit of resistance but without the use of his chakra, thanks to a chakra suppression seal on his head, it wasn't too much of a problem. Menma tied one hand to the tree and grabbed the other forcing it with the palm against the bark of the tree. Menma reached for his kunai and put the bottom of the ring on top of the end of Gozu's pinky. He then lifted the kunai and crushed the tip of Gozu's pinky using the blunt ring.
Gozu's cry of pain was muffled by the gag but the tears flowing down his face told everyone that he was in a lot of pain. Menma paused for several seconds to let his patient experience the pain fully before he crushed the tip of the ring finger. Once more Gozu's screams were muffled and more tears flowed down his cheeks and into the rag. And so it continued, Menma would wait a few second before crushing the next finger until he had crushed all. He then moved back to the pinky and crushed the bones a little bit higher up the finger and went down the row again. He repeated this process until every bit of bone inside the fingers on his left hand was crushed into tiny bits.
"Teacher? How much time has passed already?" Menma asked.
"Only 3 minutes." Ryuudan said. Menma smiled sadistically and Gozu started screaming again.
"I guess I'll have to move somewhere else then." Menma said as he took several steps back and looked Gozu up and down several time before walking up to his face and grabbing Gozu's nose in his left hand, he then put the point of the kunai in Gozu's left nose-hole and cut to the left, cutting through the edge of his nose.
Menma let Gozu scream for a good 10 to 20 seconds before he stabbed his kunai through Gozu's earlobe and pinning him to the tree. Letting go of the kunai, leaving it where it was Menma reached into the little pack on his lower back. He then took out a case of senbon needles and started piercing the upper part of Gozu's ear to the tree as well creating little holes. "You know, Gozu right? You know Gozu… torture is an art and a science, you can be creative or you can focus on the points that hurt the most." Menma said, looking Gozu in the eyes. Tears still streaming down his face only the muffled screaming had now been replaced by muffled pleading.
"What is that? Is there something you want to tell us?" Menma asked as he placed his hand to his ear and turned his ear towards his mouth. Gozu quickly started nodding his head as best he could since his ear was still pinned to the tree. "How much time is left Ryuudan sensei?" Menma asked, looking at his teacher.
"6 minutes left." Ryuudan said after checking the timer. "Well it seems you'll have to wait another 6 minutes before you get to say something. Isn't that just too bad." Menma said as if he were talking to a little child. "Now I've got 6 minutes left to play with you so let's make them count." He said before he removed the kunai from his ear and slid him all the way over the senbon needles making sure the holes were big enough. "Now what else can I do?" Menma thought out loud.
*Torture end it's safe to read now!*
2 minutes after Menma disappeared to do his interrogation Hinata, Shikamaru and Tazuna could hear muffled screams coming from the direction of their teammate and teacher. Hinata activated her byakugan but then quickly turned it off again and turned around with her back towards the screaming.
Tazuna swallowed and Shikamaru mumbled "Troublesome…" before turning around as well, trying to block out the barely hearable screams.
20 minutes later Menma and their teacher walked out of the forest. The screaming had stopped a couple minutes ago and no one had dared to go and check on them. "You've got talent for this kind of work kid. Good job."
"Thanks, it's a though and dirty job, but someone has to do it." Menma said seriously.
"I agree. But if I might ask what was with that time period? Why not allow the guy to speak sooner?"
"Because, that one minute has to be their safe haven, the end of the tunnel, something they can look forward too with hope. It's part of the psychological torture. Some people have pointy and rusty equipment hanging on the walls to intimidate while I use that 1 minute checkpoint to make them waver. Am I going to last another 15 minutes? What if I break in the first minute I'll have to live through another 14 of those. Perhaps I should talk now?" Menma explained, pretending to think like the one being tortured at the end.
"That actually makes sense." Ryuudan said nodding his head while thinking 'Ibiki is going to love this kid.'
End chapter 8: Mission to wave – demon brothers
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