In Which:
The Otokage is chosen – Sasuke displays the mind that had him named genius – Naruto gains a fangirl – Sound begins to move against Akatsuki.
The vote had been close, very close. Between them, the jonins Orimota Toshiro and Kazuki Kanna received only about 16 of the votes, but that surprised no one. They were relatively unknown to most of Sound, and the villagers outnumbered the ninja. There was barely one percent difference between Naruto and Kabuto.
The villagers knew Naruto, too, but mostly from stories. The brief summary Orochimaru had given them of his past had circulated and grown in the telling, as had Hiro's rescue. He was undeniably powerful, he was friendly and charismatic, but he was also very young. They wondered if someone Naruto's age could lead a village successfully.
The villagers knew Kabuto: he was always running errands for Orochimaru, he was a constant fixture at the hospital, and he was familiar. On the other hand, he was a smug bastard who could get on a person's nerves without ever opening his mouth. They wondered if Kabuto could lead for more than a week without someone assassinating him.
The votes were counted, the decision made. Yakushi Kabuto would be proclaimed Otokage in three days.
"AUGH!"
Sasuke smirked. Standing across the training ground from his teammate, Naruto scowled in response. It had been Sakura's idea to get together to train the way they used to, but she had been called away by an emergency at the hospital, leaving Sasuke and Naruto alone. The blond was trying to hold one of Sasuke's fire techniques long enough to melt a rusty kunai – and failing miserably.
"Having trouble, dobe?"
"Damnit, I'm not a dobe! And it's not as if you could do any better!"
"Oh, really?"
Sasuke sauntered over to the blond, his smirk growing with every step. Years ago, while he was still in the academy, Sasuke had encountered a street performer who played an odd instrument called a didgeridoo. The constant flow of air needed to play the instrument should have been impossible for human lungs, and a fascinated Sasuke had immediately demanded lessons in how to breath the way the performer did.
The black-haired boy turned to the kunai, ringed with burnt grass, ran through the hand seals that were half-reflex now, and blew.
And blew.
And blew.
Naruto's jaw sank lower and lower as Sasuke continued his family technique for 30 seconds – a minute – two minutes – and finally ended the flow of fire form his mouth. The kunai was a small lump of melted metal in a circle of bare ground, Sasuke's flames even heating the stones in the soil to a red-hot glow.
For a moment, there was silence. Then Naruto exploded.
"HOW THE HELL DID YOU DO THAT?!"
Expression infuriatingly smug, Sasuke shrugged. "Circular breathing, dobe. It isn't hard. I'm sure you could pick up the trick…eventually."
"Eventually?! I'd learn it so fast it would make your head spin, if I wanted! Which I don't!" Somehow, this childish exclamation didn't seem quite sufficient to the blond. "So there!"
Sasuke suppressed the urge to laugh; the situation was so similar to their genin training exercises. Although, Naruto did have a point. "You don't use that technique much anyways, so it isn't really useful to you…dobe."
"Stop calling me that!"
Sasuke ignored him, an idea distracting him. A frown made his brow furrow, as he slowly voiced his thought. "Would it be possible to apply the same idea to other techniques, except use it to re-use chakra instead of breath?"
Naruto, who had been gearing up to rant at his darker teammate, blinked. "Eh?"
"Well, the rasengan uses chakra to push air in opposing directions at high speed. It takes chakra to maintain, right? It's the release of chakra that makes it work. What if you could recapture the chakra as it was being released, and reintegrate it into your chakra system? It would be possible to sustain a technique for indefinite amounts of time."
Naruto stared at him for a long moment. His eyes grew thoughtful, and he collapsed ungracefully into a sitting position on the ground. Sasuke watched him think for a few minutes before growing bored. "I'm going back to central, dobe."
"Mmm." Naruto waved him away absent-mindedly. The dark-haired boy shook his head, half smiling, and turned away.
Sasuke walked casually into the main building in the complex web of the administrative district. And found chaos.
People were shouting, papers fell like snow, all the filing cabinets were open. Clustered around the mission assignment desk was a group of loudly arguing jonins. He recognized a few of them: the teacher Orochimaru had assigned him on his arrival, Orimota Toshiro, Ikko was practically bouncing off the walls with tension, and Himoto, who sat behind the missions desk was looking thoroughly harried and ready to kill.
Rolling his eyes at what was fast becoming a familiar scene, Sasuke ignored the shouting jonins and headed directly for Himoto. "What's got them all riled up?" he asked her quietly.
She sighed. "Report came in from one of our field agents. A pair of Akatsuki have been located, and they're all arguing over who will go." She snorted. "As if they're the ones who'll make the choice. Hah!"
Sasuke's eyes narrowed. "Which two?"
Himoto blinked at the sudden tension in the boy's body. "Um…Deidara and Sasori. They were sighted going west from Suna. Why?"
Sasuke relaxed. Not his brother, then. "Never mind." Raising his voice so that the other jonins could hear him, Sasuke sighed. "Why hasn't anyone called Naruto or Kabuto, then? They both have some experience in dealing with the Akatsuki, so shouldn't they choose the team for the mission?"
There was a sudden, embarrassed silence behind him. Sasuke kept his back to the room, fighting a smirk, as someone shuffled across the room and out the door. He couldn't resist flashing Himoto a quick smile as he continued as though there had been no pause. "Besides, if they want to be useful on a mission against Akatsuki, shouldn't they be doing research on the people they're to fight? Or, at the very least, planning ways around each member's unique abilities?"
Relief and gratitude spread across Himoto's face, as there was a sudden rush for the door. In seconds, most of the jonins were gone, and the room (while still a mess) was quiet. She smiled at Sasuke, and muttered, "I owe you one, brat."
Scowling slightly at the nickname, Sasuke simply nodded. "I finished rewriting the Konoha mission. It's with Ikko now. Don't let him loose it."
Snickering at his expression, the jonin waved him away.
Naruto frowned, lost in thought. Sasuke's idea…it could be really useful if he could figure out how to do it. He didn't think it would work for the Grand Fireball technique, or any others that consumed the chakra needed to do the technique, but …
The Rasengan was what Naruto thought of as a contained technique. The chakra that went into the technique was used to power it, and all the 'runoff' chakra was simply wasted. Sasuke's idea would work for techniques like that. But for most fire techniques, there was no 'runoff': the more chakra you put in, the bigger the fire, end of story. That meant that if he tried to reuse chakra from that type of technique, he would just be weakening the effects.
So there were limits to the idea, but still…being able to hold, say, a Big-Ball Rasengan for more than the time it took to use it? That meant he could use it again, and again, without pause, and with no drain on his chakra reserves!
Naruto punched the air, thinking of how awesome that would be, and was surprised to hear something behind him squeak. He twisted his upper body, still sitting on the ground, and came face-to-face with a rather surprised looking girl in a chunin vest.
He blinked.
"Er…hi?"
The girl flushed. "Uhm…T-the missions desk is going to organize the team to go after the first pair of Akatsuki member, and they want you to help them choose who is to go."
"Oh. Guess I'd better get down there then. Aw…I don't feel like walking." He stood, and grinned at the girl. "Wanna go for a ride?"
"What?!"
"C'mon!" Naruto scooped the surprised chunin up, launched himself into the air, and flew. The girl in his arms made that cute little squeaky noise again, the one that reminded him of Hinata back in Konoha. She buried her head in his neck, and he frowned. That wouldn't do, Sound looked so cool from above! He nudged her with an elbow. "Look down!"
She obeyed tentatively. "Wow!"
He laughed, and spent the rest of the short flight pointing out all the neatest landmarks.
For Naruto, it was nothing more than an entertaining way to spend a short but boring trip. But for one Hisagi Mio, it was nothing short of amazing.
She had, of course, heard of the jinchurikki chunin that had joined Sound. Her friends told her his story, and about some of the mission stories they had managed to get Sakura-sempai to tell them, but she didn't believe a word of it. He was probably just another one of those boys who exaggerated everything to make themselves look good. So, when a jonin had wandered over to her and some of the other off-duty chunins and asked for someone to take a message to Uzumaki Naruto, she was the only one who didn't jump at the chance.
Which, in retrospect, was probably why he had chosen her.
When she'd found the boy everyone was talking about, he'd been deep in thought, and clearly off guard. In a bought of mean-spiritedness, she had decided to give the boy a scare, maybe deflate his ego and prove he wasn't all that great after all. She'd snuck up on him, and he'd shown no signs of noticing her presence, yet just as she was about to grab the blond-haired boy, his fist had shot up and nearly hit her in the face!
She'd let out an involuntary squeak and backpedaled several steps. When he turned around, Mio found herself looking into mismatched blue and purple eyes. Their mischievous twinkle had pinned her to the spot, and she's delivered her message in a daze. Clearly, there was some truth to the hype after all, she'd thought dazedly.
Then Uzumaki Naruto had asked her to 'go for a ride' and all respect for the boy had been wiped away by fury. But, instead of trying to jump her bones, the boy had scooped her up and she was flying! It was impossible to fly! Everyone knew it was impossible to fly using chakra!
Apparently, Uzumaki Naruto didn't let that stop him.
As Hisagi Mio looked down on the Hidden Village of Sound, she smiled. She had found her hero.
Naruto settled easily just outside the door to the missions room, and set down the chunin in his arms. "Er, I just realized I don't know your name." He scratched the back of his head sheepishly.
"I-it's Hisagi Mio, Naruto-san."
He laughed. "None of that '-san' stuff for me, Mio-chan. I'm just Naruto! See ya later!"
He made his way into the missions room, leaving a heavily blushing girl behind. The room was surprisingly calm, with the jonins who wanted the mission (in other words, every jonin in Sound) sitting or standing around the perimeter of the room with Himoto at her desk in the middle along with Kabuto, Sasuke, and Sakura.
"Yo!" Naruto exclaimed cheerfully as he marched straight for the desk. Himoto looked up and grinned at him.
"Naruto, good! Now we can get things underway." As Naruto went to stand with Sakura and Sasuke, Himoto moved to the center of the room. "Alright, I've collected and sorted all the information and ideas you jonin have submitted, and now I'm going to read it all out. Team Seven, Kabuto, feel free to add your opinion as we go."
She took a deep breath. "Right. So far, the Akatsuki has captured four jinchurikki: three-tails, which had no container was taken a week ago; five-tails, whose container was Yuu Misao, age five, was taken three days ago; two-tails, whose container was the Kumo-nin Nii Yugito; and the six-tails, container unknown, was taken a little over a year ago."
"As I'm sure you've concluded, they have stepped up their activity substantially in the last little while, though we don't know why. The Akatsuki pair we've located are a former Stone nin by the name of Deidara whose main weapon seems to be his 'art'. He has a mouth in the middle of his palm, which he feeds special explosive clay. The mouth spits the clay out in whatever form Deidara wants. He had been known to form giant birds of the stuff and escape on their backs. Did I mention the fact that his statues are animate?"
"His partner is a former Suna nin by the name of Sasori. Where we don't know much about Deidara's past, our allies in the Sand were quite willing to share Sasori's past. He's a puppeteer, and his puppets were all once human. He grew up in Sand, obviously, with his parents and grandmother. His parents died, and he made their bodies into puppets, then left Suna. The grandmother is still alive. All his puppets have some form of poison, all of them can move faster than most ninja, and Sasori's body is encased in a puppet as well. Geez, I'm half-glad I'm stuck doing paperwork this week. Good luck killing these guys."
For a moment, there was silence. Then Kabuto spoke up. "I can't tell you much about Deidara, but there are weaknesses in Sasori's protections I do know about. Before Orochimaru-sama broke his hold over me, I was Sasori's spy within Sound."
There was a startled silence at this revelation, but Kabuto continued quickly. "There were weak spots in his protective puppet where any sort of blade or poison came out. The joints of all his puppets are extremely strong, so sticking kunai through them won't work. If you can get sand or small pebbles in the joints it'll slow them down a bit. Don't know what you'll do about actually killing him, and I can't help you with Deidara at all."
Naruto snorted. "C'mon, it's simple, somebody engages whatever clay thingies he makes, someone else gets in close and distracts him with taijutsu, and someone with good stealth gets behind him and drops an explosive note in his supply of clay. It's an explosive, isn't it? We get the hell out of there and Deidara goes boom."
"Boom?" Sakura's voice was chocked with something hovering between amusement and the knowledge of exactly what the 'boom' would do to Deidara's body.
"Boom." Naruto turned to look her straight in the eye. "They hunt jinchurikki down and tear the demon from his or her body. It takes hours for a jinchurikki to die normally, what do you want to bet that the ritual they use makes it take longer? Think about it – once a demon is sealed inside something with a soul, it's like a parasite. It holds onto the soul while the Akatsuki tries to pull it off. I'm not gonna feel any guilt for killing these guys in the most painful ways possible. I won't go outta my way just to cause'em pain, but I won't avoid it either."
He turned back to face the jonins, leaving Sakura to her thoughts, and clapped once. "Right. I'm thinking four-man teams for each guy. People who're good with big attack jutsus, west corner, people with good stealth, east corner – Himoto, show'em my stealth technique – people who're fast, north corner, and anybody who doesn't quite fit anywhere else, south corner."
There was a general shuffle and the jonins talked quietly and moved to their corners. Naruto. Deep in conversation with Kabuto and Himoto, missed the whispers. His teammates did not.
"Kabuto was a spy? Can we really have him as our leader, then?"
"Don't know, but does it matter? The vote is in!"
"Well, I want to change mine, the kid's a good leader, and you know how strong he is!"
"Yeah, but he's so young – what do you two think?"
"I think the vote should be recast – you heard Ikko raving about the kid's amazing stealth technique and he's teaching it to a quarter of us jonins, no questions asked!"
"Suppose if we do get him as Otokage, we're gonna have to top calling him 'kid', hm?"
Sasuke ignored the rest of the conversation and the ones just like it all around the room, and smirked at Sakura. The dobe was totally unaware of the allies his openness and utterly deceptive nature gained him. Sakura noticed his expression and smirked back.
It would be fun to see their dobe's face when he was declared Otokage.
So…only a week late. Ehehehe, no real excuse. Oh well, here it is. Sasuke is taking a more active role, though Sakura did kind of fade to the background for this chapter. Next chapter – Naruto kicks ass, the Sound is invited to the Chunin exams in Suna, which sparks my favorite part of this story: Naruto the Otokage vs. Tsunade the Hokage in the ring of intervillage polotics!
If I say any more, I'll give it away. Bwahahaha. -Heliotropic