Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto
Chapter 8: The Bond
"Out for a nightly hike, Danna, hmm?"
Though the slow, steady flapping of humongous wings nearly drowns out the question, the voice from the top of its shadowed ride is recognizable. A moment to adjust and you would see the long, draped sleeves hanging down at either side of a familiar uniform, drifting against the wind given off from the powerful arms of a great white bird.
The covered figure down below scowled silently. He wasn't in the mood from any Deidaric humor tonight.
One visible eye penetrated from the smaller figure amidst the larger, shimmering coldly down at him for a moment. One stare at his senior got a small chuckle of amusement from himself.
"What are you doing with that blanket covering your body? You look like you got up and marched yourself right out of the morgue, yeah."
The other figure raised a bare arm out of his coverings; a silverish ring around the thumb of his hand shimmered in the moonlight, a crimson seal with an emblem etched itself right in center.
A deep black Japanese insignia in the center of the emblem.
Sphere.
He grabbed the surface of the cloth right around his face, and tugged at it.
The gentle and subtle sound of the black fabric drifting followed it all the way as it floated to the ground near his feet. A small dust cloud rose around the sides, swept up from the light object.
A heavier set of clothing had lingered under the entire time. A black coat, layered with clouds of red, eventually working its way up to a neckband.
Red hair swept up overhead where the sheet had once covered. The innocent face of a child, looking no more than sixteen of age, graced out of its old, haggard hiding place. By all accounts he was handsome. Flawless, slightly pale skin made up his face, and it looked as if he hadn't suffered a single slight inconvenience with it over all the years.
A body that never decays, unbound by mortality.
A secret that few are aware of.
It was his secret. He won't share it with others.
His eyes opened up in an elegant shape. No reflection in the eyes. This is Akasuna no Sasori.
"How did you find me?"
The other man gave a toothy grin. Lightly kicking down with his heel on the head of his owl, he landed it down with enough space, stretching it across the dirt-patted floor, and it automatically folded its wings back in a perched state. He flipped off the top, and stuck the landing with two legs.
"Not hard at all."
"Where're the others?"
Deidara gave a quick look around. Something was…missing from his partner.
Shifting his eye back into fixation on his partner, he asked, "Where's Hiruko, un?"
Sasori narrowed his eyes. "Don't switch subjects with me. Hiruko was decimated."
Deidara's pupil shrank. His host body was…destroyed? Almost unbelievable. That hadn't happened since…
"You encountered someone very powerful, hm?"
"Don't be ridiculous." Sasori scoffed. "I let my guard down and reinforcements came. I could've won against her easy if not for-"
"Her?" Deidara inquired, practically purring out the emphasized word slow and gravely. Quickly switching from a devious grin to a cooing, goo-goo eyed expression, he pressed the tip of his index finger to the bottom of his lips, and stared at Sasori with a single puppy-dog eye that any fan-girl would giggle over.
"Was…she…pretty?" He asked in an incredibly shrunken voice.
Sasori countered the question with one of his own.
"Would you like your mugshot to go into the obituaries?"
Deidara shot both arms up towards the sky in the same way a robber would surrender to a police officer, but smiled nonetheless. "Easy goes it, Sasori no Danna. I was only joking. But seriously, you did win, didn't you? No escaping?" He was perfectly aware that he was teasing, but his partner was behaving unusually strange.
Sasori turned himself away, his back to his fellow artist. Choosing to stare at rock over his increasingly irritating partner, he folded his arms neatly over the uniform identical to the other. Hanging his head down to look at the ground, he half-heartedly punted a mound of dirt up, creating a meager dust cloud and the light sound of gravel to roll with it. After a while of silence, he lightly lifted his hand up without breaking from the cross, and fingered the latch of the zipper, half out of mind.
Finally devising the most well-rounded answer, he turned back to face him directly.
"I'll share my stories with the real you, along with the real everybody else. But you tell me, have you apprehended the Fox?"
Deidara shrugged his shoulders, causing Sasori to close his eyes, furrow his eyebrows, and sigh in annoyance. He remembered that Sasori was the only one coming here who hadn't used Pein's jutsu.
"Beats me. But I did my part and blew out two of the targets. There is no way they could have survived a blast with that amount of C-1 clay."
He gave a somewhat surprised look as Sasori again turned around and walked on, his arms neatly folded, and his grayed eyes leering ahead. He was pacing. He was coming up with a brand-new plan, and he was doing it with much anxiety.
Deidara groaned and rolled his eyes before walking up to close in on his pacing pattern.
Either Sasori was not aware, or he didn't acknowledge the fact that he was being followed closely from directly behind everywhere he steered himself.
"I don't understand, so please explain. How could your host body be destroyed, hn? I know that a genin couldn't pull that off. Are you slipping, Master, hn?"
A short, semi-second groan immediately followed the question, but Sasori kept power-walking.
"Did you feign death…?"
Sasori stepped on the breaks, shot himself up into a straight position letting off a loud click before snapping his whole body around, springing forth to his partner, and quickly throwing his face within inches from his, locked on him with a horrendously psychotic wide-eyed stare that Deidara rarely ever saw, but definitely knew what it meant.
He called it 'Sasori's Happy Face'. He used it in the event that he kills people in ways that weren't invented yet.
Before things could get out of hand, Deidara closed his eyes and smiled nervously, raising his hands in front of him.
"Kidding, un! Just kidding. I know that you wouldn't do something that shameful and pathetic."
Sasori ran both of his hands through his red hair without dropping his severely distressed face, and turned around with it to continue his laps.
Deidara sighed in annoyance again.
"Well if you're going to be so melodramatic about this, can we at least join with the others now?"
Sasori's trail stopped. He deadpanned the ground he was standing on. Both of his sleeves draped lazily at his sides while he remained silent.
He was brainstorming the day. What had he learned? Well, for one, don't procrastinate. For Kami's sake – don't procrastinate! Sasori should have been well aware of that rule above everybody else, so why couldn't he follow it?
It should have been easy.
It should have been swift.
It shouldn't have taken that long, but it did. No sense of dwelling on mistakes past would really cover it up. But he really could have gotten it over with earlier in the afternoon before she transformed. But then on the other hand, he had not really known that she was a jinchuuriki now, did he? He could have killed her and never have realized what she was.
But he still had time. He had all the time in the world to set things the way they should go. His way.
He put his thumb to his mouth and bit down on the nail.
'Next time.' He decided. A devious grin worked its way to both ends, his teeth still slightly pressed down against his thumb.
'…Next time.'
He turned back and stared at his partner with the calm demeanor, lacking of any emotion, like he knew he was used to.
"The Moonlit Plains, is it?"
"We discussed we would meet up there. It's a wide stretch of land, so it'll be easy to distinguish hundreds of feet in the air from all of the crowding trees. It's the ideal gathering point, un."
"…It's rather late."
"So now we'll know why they call it the 'Moonlit Plains', right?"
Sasori unzipped his coat only a small ways and slipped a hand into it, intent on reaching his inner pocket. Shuffling around for a few seconds, he turned his head back to see Deidara waiting patiently, regarding him with a smug grin.
Finally Sasori found what he had been looking for, and he slipped his hand back of the gap to pull out a silver pocket watch, a mechanism that fit in the palm of his hand. A thin chain linked the watch to the insides of his clothing, hanging out of the gap where he left his uniform unzipped.
Deidara took note of the tiny trinket and cackled.
"I didn't know ya had a pocket watch, govna'!" He blurted hysterically.
Sasori averted his gentle gaze from the tiny decoration to look to his partner. After a moment, he let his eyes lazily wander back to where they were, looking over the surface for scratches or tarnishes.
The watch protector shone with the slightest hue of blue at the moonlight reflecting off of its smooth surface. There were no such flaws visible to mar the essential beauty of his possession. Sasori squinted to recognize beautifully decorated patterns of thin vines evenly stretched and wrapped around the frame. It looked like some Greek design, with the ever so tiny leaves sprouted all over each limb of the vines. He loved to stop and stare at his precious keepsake every time there was a place with beautiful sources of light and only the right amount, so that there wasn't so much light that he couldn't identify it, nor so little that it just didn't make it worth the look.
An extremely tiny, almost unrecognizable grin departed from Sasori to his family achievement. It was truly beautiful. Parts of light danced in shapes of broken fragments of glass when he ever so lightly tilts it with a careful hand, thus altering the positions of the reflections of light. The chain attached let loose long series of chimes, each with equally tiny frequency in sound as the links tapped each other. A silver metal, a silver moon. Silver upon silver. The vines etched on the trimmings of the sides of the cover were illuminated from the outer lines like neo.
He will trade in every single one of the puppets in his collection before he lets Suna get this back. For this was the ideal example displaying everything that Akasuna no Sasori stands for. This charm was his guardian angel, and he was its.
It was a bond.
"My great, great grandfather brought this back from jolly old England, during the time of the First Kazekage. It's an antique. As you can see, the silverwork is still just as flawless and well-kept as it had been when I first took it with me in secret." Then he decided to add more clash to what he was saying. "The beauty of this watch preserved through these long years is just another example of how my art overshadows yours."
Deidara slipped out from behind him and peered at it from over his shoulder. Having analyzed it, he thought it best to get one point out of the way before starting on the other. Closing his eyes in a formal way, he raised his index finger and pointed up, the same way a teacher would lecture during a class.
"The thing that makes my art different from yours is that I limit the exposure, the way it should be when people see it. Think of it as fireworks, but not too literally. When a firework goes off, it is bound to get a more pleasing effect out of people than when they just look at a firework in, say, a picture. Once you show somebody a new puppet, they may stand around for an hour at best going, 'Ohhh wow, it's pretty' before getting tired of staring at the same old thing. With my art, people are limited to only seeing a minute of the beautiful combustions I make before begging for more – which naturally I give them. Every explosion - art..." Sasori lazily set his gaze on him without bothering to turn his head, knowing what was come next. …is a real blast! Haha!"
Sasori ignored him. There were plenty of opportunities to argue his point later on, but between the mission and looking at a once-in-a-decade magnificence, there were more important things. Eying the watch once more, Deidara got to his secondary point.
"As for your watch, it's not perfect. But Master, you've been keeping it safe and well for so many years. You care for it deeply. Not a care in the world for other people, but you would throw everything aside for such a tiny little thing."
"…You don't understand it."
With the elegance of the gentleman, he used the thumb of the hand holding the watch, and flipped the latch of the covering open to check the time.
Deidara saw what he was doing, and decided to break it to him.
"Now you honestly can't tell me that something so old works just as well as it did back then. If you didn't spend so much time gawking at the exterior and not the interior, you would probably find that something so beautiful turns out that it doesn't work anymore. It's for the same reason that the Gilded Age in America got its name, un. Something that looks good on the surface turns out to be total rubbish. Like trusts in corporations."
Sasori scowled without looking back at his egotistical comrade, and let his eyes befall upon the tiny arms representing the minute and hour hand of the small, portable clock.
Nonchalantly, he held the clock up to his face, following Deidara's statistics with one word.
"Works."
"Eeeaaaahhhh?!"
Watching the second hand tumble by at perfect pace, Sasori closed his eyes and smiled as he imagined a metronome ticking in harmony every time the second hand hit a dash mark. Soon after, he was unknowingly rocking his head slightly back and forth in the rhythm. He was so charmed by the imaginary sound of gears clicking and tumblers ticking, that he had lost himself in his thoughts and was now floating on a cloud that separated him from reality. Time is such a precious thing…
…Oh…that's right…
Realizing this, he blinked his eyes open. Snapping back to what he was doing, he slowly blinked again.
'11:47…' He certainly didn't make record time, that last battle.
"Everyone agreed to meet at midnight."
"We did. There would just be no style in high-ranked ninjas gathering in the middle of broad daylight. Nighttime, and the especially late hours, are when all of the shinobi of each village see to the safety of their own cozy little cottage homes in the event of enemy ninja, bandits, or raiders possibly making an after-dark attack. Is that not hilarious?"
Sasori used the pointed tip of his finger to gently close the lid of the clock. It made a small clap to confirm that it had closed completely. Then he slipped his antique back where he got it, along with its equally beautiful chain it linked to. Where the other end of the chain met is unknown, but by the length of the link, it is certainly somewhere to the high left of his torso.
He raised his hand out in a semi-wave. "Well, I'll meet you there."
Deidara's jaw could have quite literally dropped to the floor. There were clearly better options open than just walking. Did he not realize this quite right? He was about to offer…
"D-Danna, y-you can't seriously be…"
"Serious?" Sasori turned back to face him and grinned in a way that was just asking for trouble. "Of course. Do you honestly think that I'll sit around with you on the back of that miserable mound of sod you call 'art'?"
Deidara's expression was thrown into full comical. Off guard, the sudden attacks had clearly swept him unbalanced. Is there going to be an artistic debate right now?? Hardly the time.
"Why, I'd rather perform surgery on myself right here in the middle of the wilderness in a clueless, particularly aimless attempt to change my heart to go with the rest of my body than to throw myself to shame riding a piece of my rival artist's 'showmanship'. Art that lasts forever will always take the win. Understand my meaning? Good. Never forget that."
Deidara's eye gleamed coldly at his bastard of a superior. He had never made his insults towards his art quite that direct.
"You're very bold…even if it is you…" Deidara was furious, and he showed it through vocals. It was a tone that no one – even the ones associated with him were accustomed to hearing, but he just used it. "I'm sure that even your fine puppetry won't keep the wood from rotting thanks to the humidity of a high-temp forest. Decompose the whole way for all I care, hmph!"
Sasori pretended to be startled and taken aback.
Deidara didn't bother reading his face in response to the snappy comeback before leaping high over his perched statue and lightly kicking the head of it with his heel again, making it come alive once more. Rolling his eyes, he blew the long bang of blond hair from his face in annoyance.
Two gigantic wings swept over, knocking up huge clouds of dust, flapping faster and faster to gain an early lift off the ground.
Before he knew it, he was back in the air, leaving Sasori far behind below the trees around the launch point. Deidara felt the gentle breeze sweep over his face and through his lengthy hair. But he had hard time thinking about anything else when he just had an argument with his danna. The asshole can find his own way to the Moonlit Plains; plains that by the way happened to be tens of miles away from his current point. He's got a long road ahead of himself, but it serves him right every step of the way. He overlooked his own position.
Deidara grinned to himself. The others will probably be asking about him. It'll be up to him to come up with an excuse for why he doesn't show in time.
"Poor, simple, simply-stupid Sasori…you should have rethought your words before they emerged. And frankly, I'm surprised that thing that you have with you didn't bust on your first day with it…"
"Deidara…?"
Deidara immediately sweat-dropped.
"Aw shit he followed me."
He fought the urge to dive off of his bird while suspended hundreds of feet in the air to escape a quite possibly pissed-off master. He shut his eyes tight, as if instinctively anticipating a long row of poisonous blades to lodge into his backside.
But then, putting his best act together, he forced himself to turn his head around and gave a wide, toothy smile.
"Hiya, Master."
"Save your 'hiyas' for karate class, Deidara."
"For the record, a little over ten percent of what I just said was false."
The black figure behind him sat at the tail end of his bird, one leg was hanging down and swinging lazily from it while the other was firmly planted. Arms folded neatly, he answered back.
"Then I believe it."
"Is it time for a major 'I-told-you-so'? Is my art really that useless?"
Sasori's head twisted all the way around to face him, making the sound typically generated from a wind-up toy.
Shudders instantly entered Deidara. It gave him chills when his danna used his unusual conditions for things like that. The undeniably scary wide-eyed leer that he was using right now just added sprinkles to the topping.
"Ah, well, wouldn't you know it I changed my mind at the last minute and decided to ride it just this once. …Just this once."
Deidara gave him a worn look. Obviously that wasn't the case.
"Well, make-believe time was fun…now that it's over, gimme a real reason, un."
"How can I put this…? Hmmmm…" Sasori purred out as he pretended to actively think with his head still unnaturally twisted all the way around. Staring at him that way a few moments longer to let the feeling sink in, he finally twisted it slowly back to the way God would have intended it to be. After a long, played-out pause, he turned himself around properly and put on his best impression of the goo-goo eyed face that he recalled Deidara making earlier.
"…I was kidding, un." He was sure to grunt out the end with extra effect.
Deidara's jaw dropped for the second time that night, possibly lower than it was before, which would have made Orochimaru jealous.
"D-did you just use my speech impediment, un??!!"
Sasori's face instantly turned serious.
"Remember, Deidara: you're not the only one who knows how to be facetious."
Sasori spoon-fed him the hint that his idea of jokes was a lot less decent and more messed-up than his. And yes – it was something to brag about. In spite of this, it was for everyone else's own good that he keep from joking. That's why he hardly ever jokes. Practical jokes, he might actually wind up accidentally killing someone he's not supposed to.
Deidara snapped his head back in a huff to continue looking ahead. What. A. Dick.
"…Say, this thing looked a lot faster when I watched it from the grou-"
"Oh don't make me throw you off the bird, hm."
Kakashi continued swiftly following Pakkun through the trees in the forest; a forest that almost seemed haunted now that it was dark, and not many of the shinobi, even the advanced ranks, took through them like this. In some missions, yes, but it wasn't a routine basis. It was even more difficult to find your way around a forest when it was dark. But the Copy-nin was more than capable. He had faced incredible odds before. And all he needed to do was follow that big implosion of energy…
"The scent's getting stronger, Kakashi. This way!"
He leapt through another branch, nearing the wide open fields of the Moonlit Plains. Out into the open, he dashed along the grassy surface, far to preoccupied to save his students to pay attention to the pail corpse lying face-down on the ground a ways back, and even to the tall, black figure standing up to watch him go, hauling something the size of a child over his back…
'No worries. Itachi will take care of him…'
Then the head of the figure turned upward towards the dark sky. The air has thickened and moistened. Tonight, it will rain.
Three figures simultaneously leapt in around Kakashi, sprinting in his same direction, with their arms thrown back to balance their maneuverability. Asuma, Kurenai, and Anko. Following up, two additional shinobi with darker clothing also leapt in. Both of them wore a mask that seemed to represent a kind of animal, though one's had single red stripes going down the cheeks, and the other's had multiple, thin stripes design of the same color. The single-striped ninja had long purple hair flowing smoothly, while her friend had exotic ornaments in her hair holding up two long, blond bangs that dropped down on each side of her head.
"Kakashi." Asuma alerted him, still dashing along.
Also dashing, the Copy-nin didn't look back at him to answer.
"You all followed me. Why?"
"This concerns our students too, Kakashi. And you don't really think we'll let you hog all the fun, heh? Even though you intended to go it alone, this mission was given by Tsunade to all of us."
"Asuma is right, Kakashi. And after what Rock Lee told us, you really need to let us in on this as well." Kurenai added.
Earlier-
Rock Lee was panting profusely and down on one knee, while the other figure took a step towards him, seemingly unfazed by the fight – if it could even be called a 'fight'. One blow through the use of one of the man's weapons was easily ten times the strength of any of the other ones from that previous form. He had already struck Gaara down, and he made it look like it was nothing.
And now, ten seconds of fighting toe-to-toe with this man had left Rock Lee on the brink of collapse. His taijutsu was almost as respectable as his ninjutsu. He knew that he was outmatched by every way.
The opposing figure took another step. The Power of Youth won't be saving him this time.
The man with the evil eyes raised his arm up and outstretched it towards the helpless boy. There won't be escaping the attack, this time.
Kakuzu launched his hand out to finish him off, and Rock Lee tightened his closed eyes.
The sound of stitches snapping and wires whistling passed him, and wanting to know what had happened, Rock Lee dared himself to open his eyes again. Pleasance greeted him.
"G-Gai-sensei!!" He smiled, tearing up in the eyes.
His teacher firmly stood his ground in front of him, struggling in a death-grip with the detached hand which had attempted to end his student's life. His arm locked over the dead-looking hand, but especially for how detached hands go, this one was really strong. The wire holding it up throbbed furiously like some big organ.
"Rock Lee…" His voice shook, and it was hard to tell if it was because of his current dilemma, or that he was overtaken with joy that his precious student is still alive.
"…wh-what were you thinking…going out in your current condition…?" As much as this should have sounded demanding, it was much more of a friendly question.
"Interrupting my attack…" Gai snapped his head back to follow the low voice to its source. "…Both of your lives are now forfeit."
He sprung forth his second hand. It whistled on the wires as it went for Gai with the intent of strangulation.
The older version of Rock Lee threw a high kick and knocked it off course, sending it whistling skyward. Dark gray wires littered the field around them, entanglements here and there, pulsating grotesquely like veins of a heart. And the sound was the throbbing of a heart as well.
Gai was far too concerned for the safety and well-being of his student to pay it that much heed.
"C'mon Lee. The Spirit of Youth will burn to fight another day!"
Before Kakuzu could use his area attack, the strange pair disappeared in a cloud of smoke.
The old ninja relaxed himself, glaring at the spot where they had once been.
"Hm."
-------
"Hokage, we'd like to report."
The scene had changed and they were back at Tsunade's office in Konoha. Tsunade sat looking at them from a desk covered with towers and towers of yesterday's paperwork. She clasped her hands together. She wasn't much brightened up from the moment that she sent out the squad for Sasuke. But seeing that Rock Lee had returned safely, some of her stress was uplifted. But it looked like he had been roughened up quite a bit, due to the bruises on his face and dirt around some parts and on his outfit.
Nevertheless, she acknowledged him with a smile.
"Well done, getting Rock Lee back to the village, Gai."
Gai struck a pose. "Ahh, well, you know, saving my young-spirited comrade is its own reward and all…"
"Rock Lee, step forward."
Remembering why they had come, and self-admittedly getting a little too full of himself, Gai grimly lowered the pose.
"It's all terrible, Hokage-sama! Gaara of the Desert is dead!!" He grunted in pain and gripped his side with his arm. It would be better not to speak up after maintaining such injury.
Tsunade's mouth gaped open. That couldn't have been possible! Not by normal shinobi – any shinobi able to take on the Sand's jinchuuriki would have to be as strong as…
"What?! What happened?"
Rock Lee shared his knowledge of the mission status with her.
"I went out to offer my friends assistance with their mission. Coming up to a clearing in the forest, I encountered a strange man whose name I do not recall, but he wore this white covering on his head, and wore an outfit like none the which I have ever seen!"
"Describe it to me."
Rock Lee cleared his throat and continued. "I do not know the material of the apparel, but he appeared to have a black coat stretching from his ankles up to a large neckband covering the lower half of his face."
Tsunade put her finger to her chin. It didn't sound so familiar…
"…And it had what appeared to be red clouds on it."
Her eyes shot wide open. Not wasting another moment to breath, she immediately broke for Shizune.
"Shizune!! Go fetch all of the jounin in charge of the retrieval squad members, Anko, and two of our finest agents of ANBU! Have them gather here!"
Poor frantic Shizune was trying to build herself back up faster than she was falling. This was happening way too fast.
"A-at once!"
"And get Izumo in here!!"
While her nerve-struck assistant stormed out of the room, Tsunade steered her chair to face the window of glass that made up the entire wall behind her. Staring down at the civilized village below, she puzzled over what her next move should be against Akatsuki. Winning was out of the question. The village would have enough difficulty fighting off two of them, as proven through past experience. She could only hope to slow them enough to allow her to think on it some more…
"Rock Lee, I need you to tell me everything you've learned from battling the shinobi you were describing to me. More possible detail of appearance, attacks, strengths, weaknesses, everything!"
Rock Lee saluted. "Yes ma'am!" His grin slowly depleted. "There…was something else."
"Let me hear it."
"It's about…Hayate. You know how he went missing a few weeks ago…"
Tsunade's eyes adjusted on him carefully. She didn't know Hayate personally, as he had gone missing before she returned to her village and became Hokage. After researching the records of all the shinobi it, she remembered his name, face, and background. Hayate Gekko, age 23. He had a long-term poor health condition and had an apparent romantic involvement with Black Op Agent, Yugao Uzuki.
"Did you find something out about him?"
Rock Lee struggled to maintain eye contact with her.
"I did… It was not the Sand, or even the Sound that had caused his mysterious disappearance…" He took a deep breath and continued. "…It was that strange man that I had battled. He is responsible."
Rethinking back on Lee's grim warning only made the group of jounin realize that there was little that even they could do.
"There's no doubt about it," Kurenai urgently pressed, "'Akatsuki'! It's much too dangerous, even for you."
Anko gave a wide, foxy grin and added on. "You know I always wanted to fight one of those 'Akatsuki's. All I've heard were stories on how great of fighters they are. Frankly the same thing gets boring after awhile, so this oughtta be fun!"
"You already fought one, don't you remember, Anko?" Kakashi hinted.
Anko's face instantly switched from cheerful to one of puzzlement.
"…Orochimaru." He concluded darkly.
Her face instantly crinkled slightly with a touch of anger at the mention of her former master's name. But what surprised her even more…
"He was part of the group?"
"Hokage never told you?"
Asuma decided to cut in. "Now is not the time to be pissing her off, Kakashi! We've got a real crisis on our hands right now!"
His colleague didn't respond. His single visible eye stared blankly in the direction they were bound. He didn't have time for this.
The two ANBU Black Ops going with them kept to themselves, as natural for the elite ninjas to be perfectly silent.
Choosing not to break the silence, they all continued tirelessly through the field, moonlight reflecting off of them from one side, towards the Valley of End; the border between the Land of Fire and Sound.
The roaring sound of water rushing down was distinctly visible from the crickets chirping around the field. A feeling seemed to whisper all around to everybody that that was where they had stopped, Sasuke and Naruto. And they had hoped as much.
Focusing the rest of his chakra to the bottom of his feet, Kakashi accelerated ahead at a blinding rate, leaving the others behind in the dust. All of them shielded their faces from the particle debris for a moment, and then regarded Kakashi's hasty move with surprised faces.
"K-Kakashi, wait up! Don't go too far on your own! You don't know what's out there!"
But in that short instant, Kakashi would probably be a half-mile ahead, by now.
Asuma proceeded to do his own handsign to speed up after him, but an arm reached out and disrupted him.
"Don't, Asuma. Conserve every bit of chakra you have. If this is indeed 'Akatsuki', then we'll need it, fully."
Her colleague closed his eyes and nodded, and everyone continued on.
Kakashi's heels struck water before he knew it.
Gradually he began to feel the sprinkle of water upon his head. It had begun to rain.
With Pakkun by his side, he worked his way through the flooded, ankle-deep water towards someone lying on the ground meters away. Nearing it with each step, Kakashi's fear grew to another level, recognizing the bright-orange color of an ever so familiar jumpsuit.
Picking up on the pace, Kakashi rushed up to the fallen genin's side. Blond, ruffled hair stuck in sight from a face with eyes shut and whisker-like scars. Naruto. He lay there, still, unconscious.
Kakashi got to his knees to recognize a headband lying at his side. A long scar was drawn across the center horizontally, splitting the leaf emblem in half.
Pakkun sniffed it.
"It's Sasuke's."
Looking back, Kakashi saw that Naruto still wore his; a proud, dedicated shinobi of his village.
He closed his eyes in self-shame. If he had been there just a bit earlier…
"I'm sorry, Naruto… I was too late."
"Too late, Kakashi."
Kakashi snapped his head towards a voice echoing out from the shadows, right in the centerpoint of the wide gap between the statues of the First Hokage and of Madara Uchiha, the two great founders of the Leaf Village. Between the darkness of night and the even darker shadows provided by the towering statues, it was pitch-dark, and clearly impossible to see through it. The waterfall roared soundly from behind, like ongoing thunder. Rain poured all around.
And then…a faint splash; distinctive even from the water impacting at different frequencies from everywhere else. Someone had taken a step forward, out towards him, Pakkun, and Naruto, who was helpless.
"…Once more, too late…" The voice echoed faintly again, and Kakashi struggled to understand it from the loud waterfall directly behind it.
Another splash; another step towards them.
The outline of a heavy uniform with a neckband gleamed off of the moonlight, almost giving the figure a mystic aura. Kakashi's first guess just by staring at it would have been that it was a ghost, if he didn't know better. His efforts to hear the voice paid off, and he recognized the monotone.
"Long time no see." He said in a surprisingly calm demeanor, despite the grim recognition of the voice belonging to the last person he would like to see at the given moment.
There was a long pause.
"…Kakashi Hatake." The echo answered.
"You bounce back quickly. But coming here by yourself was a mistake. And don't think that I haven't learned from my mistake the last time we fought."
"…Oh?"
"You're after Naruto again, aren't you?"
Another pause came between the two. Several more faint splashes in the water as invisible footsteps drew farther and farther out of the shadows. Two familiar, blood-red dots glowed with evil intent at the Copy-nin from the abyss, and they didn't belong to Sasuke.
"Ever the pessimist, Kakashi. You insult me to think that I would claim what 'Akatsuki' are after…"
A flare of white gleamed over the two red dots peering out at him without blinking.
"…without enjoying a few moments with my favorite Leaf jounin."
Kakashi held his glare. "You regard me as your favorite… Isn't that sweet of you." He added a bit of mocking tone at the end.
The opposing eyes gleamed evilly again, and the figure continued out all the way. Slowly as the moon loomed over, the figure's face became more noticeable. The customary scowl marred his lips; his neckband now zipped wide open to reveal the rest of his face.
"…I will kill you."
Five shinobi instantly jumped in and surrounded the ominous man. Each had their weapons drawn; Asuma had his brass knuckles, Kurenai held a kunai patiently, while the two Black Ops behind her had their hands on the hilts of their katanas, preparing to draw them.
Anko stood away from the others, holding her own kunai, grinning at the figure with anxiety.
"Hey Kakashi, aren't you gonna introduce me to your new friend?"
Kakashi never removed his glare.
"The others and I fought him a few weeks ago before Sasuke went missing from the village. He and his partner are both very powerful shinobi. Even back when we outnumbered him, they both escaped after he rendered me unconscious. Maybe if you were there, things would've gone a little differently."
Anko closed her eyes with her smile. "Well I'm here now!"
The surrounded figure leered silently at him.
Anko licked the sharp point of her knife, which brought some slight amusement to Itachi.
He turned his head to face her eye-to-eye. "I was partnered with someone who had a habit like that…"
Anko's smirk never left her face. "Is that so?"
"…Have you ever heard of Orochimaru?"
Now her smirk left. Why was that name being said so many times today?! She was sick of hearing that name. If it came from an academy student, another jounin, the Hokage, or an S – Rank enemy, it frustrated her all the same.
Kakashi finished. "He's Itachi Uchiha – get back!"
"…I would love to stand around here and watch the shinobi of the Leaf crowd around my jinchuuriki like cowards, but I have other things to attend to."
Itachi raised his hand up and held a finger to bring symmetry to his face while he gazed at Kakashi.
"Remember he uses eye techniques. Don't look!"
But though he managed to look away in time, it was too late for the others.
Snapping his eyes open, Itachi instantly pinpointed Asuma with a bloodshot eye. Red waves left from his Sharingan, which now looked completely different. The tomoe had conjoined together to form one odd shape. Mangekyou. Kaleidoscope Form.
A great burst of pain swept over the unsuspecting jounin, and before the others could react, Itachi turned his eyes and pinpointed the ANBU agent with the multiple markings. A small beam, like laser sighting, moved rapidly along the surface of the animal-like mask until it found itself in one of the peephole sockets of the eyes.
Nailing a second target, the Black Op also fell to the ground, under the influence of his powerful genjutsu. Her friend grunted in surprise at the sudden fall of her comrade.
Kakashi, Kurenai, Anko, and the red-striped ANBU agent all dashed for Itachi with their weapons drawn.
Kakashi arrived first, but Itachi ducked out of his way, and locked kunai with Anko. Struggling to keep the power over her, he pulled four shuriken out of his other sleeve, and without looking, threw them for Kurenai.
Thinking quickly, Kurenai used her own genjutsu in the form of a handsign and transformed all of the oncoming blades into beautiful pink flower pedals.
The ANBU agent charged the Akatsuki with a long, slender katana drawn, intent on finishing him while he still strove with Anko.
In a flash-instant, Itachi broke away from Anko, leaving her off-guard, and dashed around to the approaching assailant.
He wrapped his arm in a headlock around the ANBU officer, using his other arm to wrench the agent's weapon out of her hand. But he underestimated her agility, and the Black Op threw an upward kick for Itachi's face. He blocked it, and backflipped away.
Kakashi, Anko, and Kurenai all caught up behind the agent.
"It looks like you're out of chakra." Kakashi stated to the missing-nin.
Itachi frowned at his rival.
"You're just as perceptive as ever, Hatake. True, the Sharingan's hidden abilities can be truly overburdening – even the smaller eye techniques can wear away a large amount of chakra…"
The remaining Leaf ninjas once again surrounded him, all serious expressions.
"…But all the same, you forget your place in the cycle. You were smart to bring help with you, and I can admire your thoroughness…but you had never really won against me."
Kakashi's glare deepened. He did understand what he had meant. 'Itachi' wasn't nearly as powerful as last they fought. His chakra would never wear out so quickly in the real fight.
"So…what happens now?"
Itachi grinned. "Now? Now, it happens as it happened the last time we met. I attempt to capture Naruto. You all attempt to capture me. I escape. You escape with your lives." His grin faded into his normal despondence. "…Does that sound reasonable enough, Kakashi?"
The Copy-nin looked around him. Asuma and Komachi were still out cold, facing the ground. He could only re-imagine what the two were going through, right now. He had been hit by that jutsu before. The circumstances for the fight didn't look suitable for himself or the others against the rouge.
He closed his eyes, smiling grimly through his mask. "Yeah… But next time…"
Itachi looked at him nonchalantly.
"Next time, you'll do what?"
"Next time…I swear the Village Hidden in the Leaves will be ready for you. You can't run from what you've done forever. You do remember, don't you?" He questioned assertively. There was only silence on his younger rival's side. "ANBU will find you, and that will be the end of Itachi the Clanslayer."
Itachi glared at him.
He gave a sporty look back. He had struck a nerve.
…Or at least he hoped he did.
"…But I'm sure you already know about all that."
Anko threw both of her arms up high in the air at how the argument was going.
"Woo-hoo! Go Kakashi!!"
Itachi ignored the high-strung woman and continued to leer at his rival.
"If anyone is going to defeat me…" His tone was low and dark. "…It's going to be someone who shares my same blood. Anyone short of that is unacceptable. …I'm leaving…but remember my words, Hatake."
He turned his head to look at the kunoichi facing him on the other side. "...See you three in your nightmares."
Everyone's attention shot alive as Itachi again raised two fingers in front of his face to provide the symmetry effect again.
He murmured one last word.
"Release."
With that, Itachi's entire figure burst into black and dark gray flames, leaving nothing behind but a whirlwind of ashes.
Everyone was aghast.
"Kurenai. Anko. Itachi's genjutsu will lift if you touch the people it has afflicted. Go wake Asuma and Komachi before their mentality reaches their limits."
Both of the kunoichi rushed towards their selected targets and shook them. It was no good.
"Kakashi, they aren't waking…" Anko said, giving him a childish pout after trying it on the agent.
Kurenai was using handsigns on Asuma to try and pull it out with her own genjutsu.
"They don't respond with my Release Techniques either."
Kakashi grimaced. Even though it may have only been a few minutes since they were hit, Itachi could trick their minds into thinking that weeks had gone by. Weeks inside his own customized world.
"It's possible that he could have used Tsukuyomi."
The kunoichi all looked at him.
"Tsukuyomi? What's that?"
"Moon Reader. Itachi invented it after he obtained the Uchiha's special technique. Why would he really go to so much hype to use it on these two?"
Something dawned on Anko. "Oh, yeah, Kakashi. Itachi's jutsu was radial, wasn't it?"
"…Yeah."
"Then how come you, Kurenai, Yugao over there, and I weren't affected?"
Kakashi looked at her. "Well for starters, I can just about guarantee that his original target was me. But since I looked away from his eyes, it thwarted his attempt to catch me in it. So he must have elected Asuma and Komachi, who hadn't broken away in time. But since he only used it on just those two, I'm guessing that that's all the chakra he had in reserve at the time."
Kakashi looked over the two limp bodies.
"…But they're very lucky. If they don't respond to your touch, then they probably didn't even get hit with Tsukuyomi. When he got me with it, I was told after I awoke from my coma that I was screaming endlessly until they had the chance to release me from it. Clearly Itachi is one of the most formidable members of the organization, and he's only in his teen years! He's…dangerous."
"Then we have something to look forward to." Anko cheerfully concluded.
Kakashi looked at her again in a funny way. Was she really enjoying this that much? She certainly had a very 'Orochimaru' sense of humor. But best to keep that to himself.
"Don't be so sure that he'll come for you, Anko. If you're lucky, you'll become a rival with another Akatsuki. Itachi seems to only be interested in Naruto…and me if I get in the way again – which I will." He hissed in a vow for his student, glaring at the smoldering area where Itachi once stood.
Kakashi walked towards Naruto and scooped him up onto his back. Pakkun followed by his side. The poor little dog was shaking after witnessing the episode between the Leaf jounin and that Akatsuki fellow. He had a chance to get in there and bite his ankle, but declined for fear that he would practically get eaten.
"Both of you pick up one of them and come with me." Kakashi ordered. "We'll be taking the long route back to the village."
The two nodded and proceeded to do so. The ANBU agent stood around silently and waited for a few moments. The other two kunoichi were on the verge of following Kakashi, but she just stood there.
Kakashi noticed her absence from the rest of the group and looked back at her.
"Uzuki, are you coming with us?" He hinted at her being distracted.
The young masked woman jumped up slightly with surprise before standing back up straight and speaking.
"Permission to stay behind." Her voice was a soft one.
Kakashi looked at her with a stern eye. He really didn't have time to argue. If an ANBU Black Op felt the need to stay behind, then it must be for extremely good reason. He used to be captain, so he knew.
"Granted. But be careful out there. And don't do anything rash. I'm counting on you, Uzuki."
There was no way to read her face from under that white decorated mask.
"…Hai." The feminine voice stated clearly.
Bowing to the jounin, she disappeared from sight. There was something pulling her back towards that field.