A/N: Hi everyone! Welcome to another chapter of Hidden Sunray! I really enjoyed writing this chapter, so I hope all of you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!
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Hidden Sunray
Chapter 5
The wan sun slowly sunk beneath the horizon, solemnly announcing the end of yet another day. A guard halted for a second in his patrol, slightly squinting into the sun, acknowledging the message the sun relayed. He stretched his arms slightly, trying to get rid of the stiffness in his arms before he continued his patrol. It was just another normal day; nothing of significance ever happened in the area. Their only real job was to keep prisoners from escaping from the building.
At the other side of the building, the guards standing watch at the entrance were more or less experiencing the same thoughts. The guards peered lazily into the distance, not really paying any attention to their surroundings. Neither of them had ever thought that their inattentiveness to their surroundings would prove to be their undoing, but neither of them had ever thought that they would have the wrong time to stand watch that day. A three-pronged kunai suddenly hit the ground between the guards. Both guards stared uncomprehendingly at the kunai, not understanding where it came from. There was a flash of yellow light just when the sun set in the horizon and the two guards fell.
Minato watched the guards fall in a heap at his feet before he signalled the rest of his party to join him. They all arrived within a second of his order and cautiously entered the building. Minato signalled the teams to split up and took the northern corridor with Kakashi while the other teams all went their own ways.
Minato and Kakashi followed the corridor for a few minutes before they stopped, after ensuring that it was safe to do so. Minato turned to Kakashi and nodded at the Copy Ninja. Kakashi nodded back at his former sensei before he gently cut his finger with a kunai, flashed his hands through some handseals and slammed his hand down on the floor, softly murmuring the name of the jutsu. A small cloud of smoke appeared and when it finally dispersed, a brown pug with a Konoha forehead protector tied over his head and beneath his chin sat on the floor in front of them.
"Hello Pakkun. Do you still remember the Hokage's son's scent?" Kakashi asked the brown pug in front of him. Pakkun looked thoughtfully at his surroundings for a second before he replied.
"That is one scent I have been unable to forget. I take it he is in here and you want me to find his scent, is that it?" the pug enquired curiously. Pakkun had always been able to figure things out quickly. Kakashi nodded.
"Yes, we have found reliable information that he is indeed in here. His scent might have changed over the years, but we want you to follow any scent that could be his. Can you do that?" he asked his summon.
Pakkun puffed himself up in slight indignance. "Of course I can do that! Who do you think I am?" he asked rhetorically and turned his attention to the ground, cautiously sniffing the floor. Minato and Kakashi kept their eyes on the little pug, waiting for him to finish his investigation.
The pug looked up after a small while and turned his attention to Kakashi.
"I cannot sense his scent from here: I can say with certainty that he has never been in this corridor. However, I can smell a scent that could be his coming from that direction," the pug said and pointed towards a corridor diverging from the one they were standing in. "But the scent is very faint, so I could be wrong."
"We'll take the chance. Lead us towards it," Minato told the pug. Pakkun looked at Kakashi for confirmation and turned towards the previously mentioned corridor at his nod.
"Then follow me," the pug said and started running towards the corridor, not even bothering to see if the two shinobi were following him or not. Minato and Kakashi rushed after the pug, keeping their eyes on him. They turned a few corridors and halted when Pakkun came to an abrupt halt. The two shinobi immediately tensed, readying themselves for battle.
"What's wrong, Pakkun?" Kakashi asked his summon. The pug turned around where he stood, sniffing the air.
"The scent disappears around here. There are too many different scents coming together in this spot. I cannot follow the scent amongst this confusion of scents," the brown pug told them. Minato and Kakashi looked at each other in hopelessness before Minato took command.
He looked at the metal of the doors keeping the people inside the building prisoners, trying to determine which floor they were currently on. He still remembered his son's file stating his cell number, so if they followed the cell numbers, maybe they would be able to find the boy. A small engraving etched into the metal of one of the doors caught Minato's attention and he squinted slightly towards it, trying to determine what it was. A small '2' was engraved on the door, but Minato could not make sense of the rest of the numbers. There was one that looked something like a 3 (or a 5, it was difficult to tell) and another that was so faded it could have been anything. He turned his attention back to Kakashi and Pakkun.
"Let's try going down a couple of levels; I know he is on level 6 and according to Bear, the levels with the higher numbers were the levels lower in the building," Minato told the two of them. The two of them nodded and Pakkun set off into one of the corridors again.
"It's this way to the lower levels," he told the two shinobi. They followed the small pug again, following him deeper into the building. The pug seemed to pick up the scent again after a few minutes and increased his pace. "You were right," he told Minato. "The scent seems to grow stronger the lower we go." The two shinobi nodded in acknowledgement and still followed after the pug.
The two shinobi followed the pug for a while until the pug slowed his steps again, staring at a wall in front of him. He gingerly walked towards the wall and cautiously sniffed it before he turned his attention to his summoner.
"Well, the scent leads to this wall," Pakkun told the two shinobi. "It's not as strong as it could be, but it stops at this wall." Kakashi blinked in surprise at the pug's words and turned his attention to the wall, raising his forehead protector and opening his Sharingan eye. He scanned the wall with his Sharingan for a few seconds before he closed his eye again and slipped his forehead protector across his eye.
"It's not a genjutsu. It appears to be a plain normal wall," the Sharingan wielder told his Hokage. Minato looked thoughtfully at the wall, wondering if it could be a trap. He opened his mouth to say something to Pakkun, but a soft growl from the pug caused the words to die in his throat.
"Somebody's is coming," the pug told the two shinobi accompanying him. They both assumed battle-ready stances, readying themselves for battle. They waited in silence for a few seconds until they could hear footsteps nearing them. They all tensed up and waited for the newcomer to approach them.
A dark figure turned into the corridor, stopping when he saw them. The figure in front of them tensed up and assumed a battle-ready stance, ready to take his opponents on. Minato and Kakashi slightly adjusted their positions, ready to take the figure on.
Minato felt the fury rise in him. Who did this person think he was, trying to stop them from rescuing his son? Minato narrowed his eyes in anger and took one of his famous three pronged kunai out of his pouch. He would not allow the newcomer to prevent him from rescuing his son.
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A busty blond woman, a red-haired beauty and a dark-haired man with pale eyes stood in a corridor, the blonde and the man both looking intently at the redhead. She was drawing a design in the dust on the floor between them, indicating to them what the plan was.
"Okay, so according to the information we received from Bear, we need to descent to level 6. Hizashi, can you use your Byakugan to look for signs of which level we're currently on?" the redhead asked the Hyuuga.
Hizashi nodded and activated his Byakugan, slowly scanning the area around them. Kushina felt the impatience rise in her, silently urging the Hyuuga to hurry up. A couple of seconds later Hizashi deactivated his Byakugan and turned to Kushina.
"It appears we're currently on level two, Kushina-sama. There are signs of a way down approximately 100m from our current position," he told his leader's wife. A slight frown appeared on Kushina's face at Hizashi's suffix, but it levelled out when she turned her mind to more important matters.
She nodded at Hizashi. "Lead the way," she ordered and impatiently waited for Hizashi to start moving. Hizashi gave a brief nod and moved off into the corridor, not bothering to look if the two kunoichi followed him.
They descended down the building in silence, nobody making a sound for fear of drawing unwanted attention to them. Kushina kept her attention firmly on her surroundings, silently daring the smallest thing to keep her from her child. She would not be denied her son again.
Hizashi suddenly stopped and activated his Byakugan. The two kunoichi stopped behind him and kept silent, waiting for him to tell them the problem. He attentively scanned the area before he tensed up a bit and turned to the two kunoichi with him.
"We've got a problem," he stated softly. "The only way down this building is twenty meters in front of us, just around the corner. However, there are a couple of guards standing five meters away from it. Five guards. We will have to go through them to get any further," he informed them.
"Are you sure that's the only way to get down?" Kushina asked.
Hizashi gave a brief nod before answering her question. "In this side of the building, it is," he assured her.
"Then we'll take the guards out," Kushina decided. "Are the guards paying a lot of attention to their surroundings?"
Hizashi shook his head. "No, they are currently playing with cards," he assured the redhead. "Poker, if I'm reading the signs correctly."
Kushina stared at him in amazement. "Poker? They're playing poker while they're supposed to be guarding the place?" she asked incredulously. "I knew they were unprofessional, but I never knew they were this unprofessional," she said, shaking her head in contempt. "Not that it matters. This is what's going to happen," she told her two companions and quickly outlined a plan. Hizashi and Tsunade listened attentively to her, making sure they understood the plan.
"Let's go," Kushina whispered and took out a kunai. Tsunade and Hizashi both nodded and all three of them appeared to disappear into the shadows, none of them leaving any sign that they had occupied the building.
One of the torches providing light to the five guards playing poker flickered slightly before it sputtered out, sending a thin wisp of smoke into the air. One of the guards, a large bulky man with brown hair and a scar running down his cheek, glanced at the torch before swearing and placing his cards face down on the stone floor.
"Stupid torches," he muttered in irritation. "Ne'er works when ya need 'em," he complained and turned to the other guards. "I'm gonna get a new one, so I'm outta this on'," he told them and laboriously got off the floor. He walked away from the other guards with a grumble and soon disappeared down the stairs.
The other guards turned their attention back to their game, ignoring the flickering torches. Money and various other objects switched hands when the guard sitting with his back to the corridor suddenly fell onto the man sitting next to him, blood seeping out from a wound on his back. The remaining guards wasted a second by blankly looking at their felled companion, but that second proved to be their undoing when three dark figures dropped from the shadows, killing two more of the guards and holding the third one captive.
"Where is Namikaze-Uzumaki Naruto?" a cold voice with a promise of death demanded from the captive. The captive shivered at the threatening voice, cold seat sliding down his face.
"N-nami-w-who?" he stammered out nervously. The kunai at his throat dug slightly into his throat, causing a few drops of blood to fall to the floor.
"You know exactly who I'm talking about," the voice hissed in his ear. "The blond blue-eyed boy who had been here for five years," the voice spat out, the kunai point digging deeper. The guard started to shiver uncontrollably.
"I-I don't know! I've only b-been here for a c-couple of m-months! I swear I d-don't know any blond kid!" the guard exclaimed, his words getting mangled by the fear in his voice.
"Are you sure about that?" the voice demanded icily from him. He stammered out a confirmation and his heart lifted slightly when he felt the kunai retreat from his neck. His relief was short-lived, however, when the kunai suddenly slit across his throat, causing blood to seep from the wound.
Kushina swiped the kunai on the dead man's shirt before twirling it once around her finger and stowing it away.
"Well that was a waste of time," she muttered and turned to her companions. "Let's go before that other guard comes back," she said and moved towards the stairs, but before she managed to get far a sudden sound of objects hitting the floor alerted them all to the return of the last guard.
The guard wasted no time and flashed his hands through a couple of seals, the name of the technique flowing from his mouth. The entire floor suddenly started to rumble and spikes made of stone suddenly shot into random directions, most of them in the general direction of the party of three. They all evaded the spikes with little effort until the attack ceased and they stopped in astonishment when they laid their eyes on the guard. A single stone spike was stuck in his forehead, his eyes staring lifelessly at the three Konoha shinobi.
A stunned silence fell over them for a few seconds before Kushina broke it. "How did that happen?" she asked incredulously. Tsunade cautiously approached the corpse and examined it, snorting slightly after a few seconds.
"This idiot somehow got hit by his own technique," she said, her voice heavy with contempt. "He couldn't even aim his attack correctly. It was probably the first time he ever tried the technique. Talk about an idiot," she said, shaking her head.
An ominous rumbling suddenly informed them of bigger troubles as small pieces of the ceiling landed on the floor. Larger pieces of pebbles started to fall around them until the stone ceiling above them started to groan loudly and cave inward.
"Watch out! That idiot's technique weakened the walls!" Tsunade exclaimed and jumped out of the way, pulling Kushina with her. The walls and ceiling of a certain part of the corridor finally collapsed completely, kicking up large clouds of dust. The floor rumbled a bit as stone after stone hit the floor, forcing everyone to adjust their stances so that they wouldn't lose their balance.
A stunned silence fell over the small group while they tried to regain their balance and waited for the dust to clear. Kushina absently waved the dust away from her face while she tried to peer through the heavy dust cloud to the other side of the cave-in.
"Hizashi? Are you okay?" the redhead asked with a hint of concern in her voice. She could barely see a hazy figure through the dust, vaguely resembling the Hyuuga, but the rocks between them blocked the way.
A single cough sounded from the other side of the rocks and a voice spoke out. "I am unharmed, Kushina-sama," Hizashi told Kushina. "However, I am unable to reach you."
Tsunade cocked her fist. "I'll clear the way for you," she told the Hyuuga and stepped forward, but she was stopped before she could use her superhuman strength to clear the rubble from the corridor.
"With all due respect, Tsunade-sama, that would not be a good idea. The rest of the ceiling and walls of this corridor are currently very unstable. Any additional impacts will cause the entire corridor to collapse," Hizashi interrupted the sannin. "It will be safer to find an alternative route."
Tsunade pursed her lips in thought. "How long will that take?" she asked the Hyuuga. A few seconds passed in silence while Hizashi thought it over.
"I cannot say. It would be safer for you to continue onwards. I'm certain the noise caught a lot of attention, so it would be best to change our location," he told the two kunoichi.
Kushina hesitated slightly. It would be safer to move away from their current location, but she was still loathe to abandon Hizashi.
The Hyuuga seemed to notice her discomfort. "Do not worry, Kushina-sama. I will be fine on my own: I am not a jounin for nothing. If I encounter any more problems, I will contact the rest of the party," he assured the kunoichi.
Kushina sighed and nodded reluctantly. "Fine, we'll do it that way. You better catch up with us," she threatened him.
"Of course, Kushina-sama," Hizashi assured the woman.
Kushina reluctantly turned around and faced Tsunade. "Let's go," she told the sannin and walked away from the rock-fall with one last gaze over her shoulder.
You better be fine, Hizashi,' she thought one last time before turning her mind back to the mission.
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Minato and Kakashi stared tensely at the figure in front of them, ready to attack at any time. The figure regarded them closely, standing in a stance that was defensive rather than offensive. Minato stared at the figure, a contemplating thought nagging in the back of his head.
'His stance looks familiar,' Minato thought while he stared at the figure. 'Almost like...' His eyes widened when he realised whose stance the figure had assumed.
The pug standing with them suddenly gave a low grunt and sat on his haunches. "It's the Hyuuga, Hizashi," he told the shinobi and all three people relaxed at the pug's words. Hizashi stepped out of the shadows and bowed slightly to Minato.
"Hokage-sama," he greeted his Hokage respectfully. Minato sighed slightly in relief before he turned his attention to the Hyuuga.
"What are you doing here, Hizashi? Aren't you supposed to be with Kushina and Tsunade?" he asked the Hyuuga.
"We got separated from one another, Hokage-sama," Hizashi said and proceeded to tell Minato the previous events. Minato listened patiently, a resigned expression forming on his face. He sighed when Hizashi finished, slightly shaking his head.
"Minato-sensei?" Kakashi asked for clarification from his sensei. They had been companions for so long they knew how to conduct a conversation with the least amount of words. A small smile formed on Minato's face and he shrugged slightly in answer to Kakashi's question.
"Both Tsunade and Kushina have a horrible sense of direction. Whenever they are alone, they have this habit of getting hopelessly lost," he told his companions with a slightly amused face.
Kakashi frowned. "Really? I've never noticed that before," he said surprised.
Minato snorted. "You're always late for everything, so of course you wouldn't have noticed that before," he pointed out to the masked jounin and shrugged again. "Oh well, they always manage to reach their destination sometime or another, so we should just continue with the mission."
Both Hizashi and Kakashi stared at their Hokage with surprise on their faces.
"You're not worried at all?" Kakashi asked, perplexed at his former sensei's words.
Minato shrugged slightly. "Not particularly, no. Kushina and Tsunade can handle any trouble going their way and they've never gotten so hopelessly lost before that they needed help to get back," he told them. "When we hear walls collapsing one after another, we'll know they're on their way to us," he continued nonchalantly.
"I take it this isn't the first time it happened," Kakashi said. Minato shook his head.
"Nope, it happened so many times before, I kind of lost count," he replied. "Kushina and I always know where the other is, so if it really comes to that we'll go their way and help them get out," he told them and turned his attention back to the problem the wall in front of them presented, indicating to them that the matter of his wife getting lost was closed. "So what do you think is up with this wall?" he asked the shinobi (and pug) surrounding him.
Hizashi blinked. "I am not clear on what you are trying to ask, Hokage-sama," he told his leader.
Kakashi turned his attention to the Hyuuga. "We followed the target's scent to this wall," he explained to Hizashi. "However, the scent appears to stop here and I've already confirmed that this wall isn't a genjutsu."
Hizashi nodded when he understood the situation and activated his Byakugan. Minato and Kakashi patiently watched Hizashi scan the wall before Hizashi turned to them.
"There are various seals placed on the other side of this wall," Hizashi told them. "The seals are all too complicated for me to understand, but there is definitely another corridor behind this wall," he continued. "The mechanism to open the wall is..." He hesitated slightly and scanned the wall again, his eyes following a line only he could see. He deactivated his bloodline limit and walked a few steps to his right. "...right here," he said and pointed to a spot slightly below him, close to the floor.
Minato walked to the spot Hizashi indicated and sank down onto his haunches, investigating the spot. A couple of strange lines and symbols were lightly etched into the stone. He studied the seal in the stone carefully for a couple of seconds before he stood up and turned to his companions.
"It's a chakra-specific seal," he informed them. "It's designed so that only people with a specific chakra can release the seal. Almost like a bloodseal, but it works with chakra instead of blood."
Kakashi shifted his stance. "Is there a way to bypass it?" he asked the seal master. Minato looked thoughtfully at the seal, only half of his attention fixed on the silver-haired cyclops standing next to him.
"There are a couple of ways to inactivate the seal, but these kinds of seals are normally linked to other seals as well as a safety measurement. In that case, the moment the seal is tampered with the other seals will activate as well," he explained to his former student before indicating towards Hizashi. "Hizashi did inform us of the other seals," he pointed out.
"So what do we do now?" Kakashi asked for all of them. Minato gave him a mischievous grin as an answer.
"We bypass it," he told the jounin. Kakashi frowned in confusion at his Hokage's words.
"But you just said..." he started to protest, but a lifted eyebrow on his leader's face caused his words to drift into silence.
"Who do you think I am? I'm not known as a seal master for nothing, you know," Minato pointed out and pulled out a scroll out of his jounin vest. "Guard my back," he ordered his companions before sitting down and unsealing the contents of the scroll: various sizes of paper and brushes as well as some inkpots. Kakashi and Hizashi immediately assumed a fighting stance, ready to defend their leader at any threat.
Minutes slowly ticked away while Minato focused on the seals he was currently making. Various lines and symbols of different sizes and shapes appeared on the four pieces of paper in front of him, symbolizing different functions of the seals. He stood up from the floor and placed the completed seals in various locations around the original seal etched in the stone.
"Be ready for anything," he warned his companions. "The seals I placed around this one ought to enable me to tamper with this one, but anything could happen, seeing that I'm not sure which seals are behind this wall," he explained. Both of his companions nodded and tensed slightly, ready to respond to anything. Pakkun gave a few steps backwards, guarding their backs from the corridor.
Minato looked at his companions and nodded, notifying them to be ready. He took a deep breath and activated his seals. The four seals surrounding the original one glowed slightly and glowing chakra lines shot out of the seals to meet with the other accompanying three seals.
The three shinobi and nindog stared apprehensively at the seals for a few seconds, waiting for the seals to settle, before Minato stepped forward again.
"Now for the more dangerous part," he murmured and sank down in front of the seal again. Cautiously, he gently added more stripes and symbols to the seals, crossing over some lines and modifying some symbols.
"Stand back," he ordered his companions again before stepping back himself and forming a single handseal. The four seals he created on the wall glowed brighter for a second before it dulled and fell off the wall. The central seal lit up briefly before it dulled and a soft rumbling sound reverberated through the air.
"What's happening?" Kakashi asked nervously, keeping his eye on the wall in front of them. Small pieces of dust and sand fell from the ceiling when the wall suddenly groaned and laboriously opened up.
"That's what's happening," Minato replied smugly. "I managed to bypass the seal. Let's go," he ordered. Pakkun trotted forward and cautiously smelled the entrance before he stepped inside.
"It's safe. And the scent definitely leads this way," the pug said and started running off into the corridor. The three shinobi cautiously followed him, keeping an eye on their surroundings, not wanting to be caught off guard.
The corridor got darker the further they moved, descending deeper into the earth. The lights placed sparingly in the corridor occasionally revealed heavy steel doors, each one of them with a couple of numbers engraved in them. Minato swept his eyes over the doors, scanning the numbers.
'Five-thirty-one, five-thirty-two...' he read the numbers absently before turning his attention to his companions. "We're still too high, we need to go lower down in the building," he told them. Pakkun accepted the new orders and ran in front of them, following a scent only he could smell.
They reached a set of stairs and descended down them, following the steadily declining numbers. Minato felt the excitement rise in him when the numbers finally started with '6', especially when Pakkun told them that the scent was growing stronger. Soon, he would be able to see his son again.
"It's just up ahead," the little pug said and increased his speed. The three shinobi increased their speed as well, following for about a hundred meters before the pug came to a stop and looked at the cell door in front of him. Minato felt a turmoil of emotions well up inside him when he looked at the door. Finally, after five heartbreaking years, he would soon be able to see his son again.
"Hizashi," he ordered softly. The Hyuuga immediately understood what his Hokage asked him and activated his Byakugan, scanning the cell in front of him for a few seconds before he turned to Minato.
"There is only one person in there," he said softly. "A child." Minato thanked Hizashi with a small smile before he took a deep breath and lightly placed his hand on the door. Feelings of anxiousness and trepidation welled up in him, causing his hand to shake slightly. He had been so focused on getting his son back, he had never thought about what he would find. Would his son remember him? Would the boy think he was a threat? Would his son be injured? A sudden thought caused his heart to clench a bit. What if his son was...dying?
A sudden hand on his forearm broke his line of thought. He looked up and saw his former student smile encouragingly at him.
"Go ahead, sensei. Don't make him wait any longer," the Copy Nin said encouragingly. Minato felt the unrest in his heart settle down at Kakashi's voice. He took a shuddering breath and unlocked the door with a small jutsu. Slowly, he opened the door and his breath caught in his chest when he lifted his eyes to the figure sitting huddled on the floor.
"Naruto," he whispered softly, more to himself than the child inside the cell, but the boy seemed to hear him nonetheless. The boy raised his head, filthy blond tresses falling like a curtain around him and parting to reveal whisker-like stripes on his cheeks. His timid cerulean eyes frightenedly drifted up towards Minato's own blue eyes, studying the man in front of him in fear. Minato felt his heart clench tightly at the figure in front of him and he stepped into the cell, trusting his companions to guard his back. He knelt slowly in front of the cowering child, longing with his entire heart to hug him, but he could see in the scared cerulean eyes that it was not a good idea. Yet. Instead he just remained kneeling in front of the boy, gently looking at him.
The boy's timid eyes scaredly scanned his face for a couple of seconds before his mind finally appeared to register what was happening. He blinked a couple of times and opened his mouth, trying to say something. Minato waited patiently for the boy to speak, his heart hammering in his chest. This was the deciding moment: the moment everything depended on. He continued to stare at the child in silence, tears glinting in his eyes. The boy's own eyes suddenly filled with tears and he hesitantly reached out with his hand towards the adult.
"Daddy," he murmured longingly, his voice hoarse with disuse. Minato's willpower broke at the word and he leaned over to the boy, wrapping his son tightly in his arms. Naruto tensed up slightly for a couple of seconds before he relaxed, desperately wrapped his arms around his father and started crying. Minato felt the tears in his own eyes fall when Naruto started crying and held the boy a bit closer to him. He had been waiting for this moment for five agonizing years and this time, he would not allow anything to come between him and his son.
_~...end of chapter...~_
And that's the chapter! I hope you enjoyed it. ^_^
Please remember to leave a review! I really want to know what you thought about it, since this chapter included the first 'fighting' scene I have ever written!
Also, I think there could be a couple of grammatical errors in here: I didn't really get the time to properly proofread and since I won't have a lot of time for my hobbies in the future, I decided to post this chapter instead of letting you wait ^_^.