Red Clouds and Cherry Blossoms
Chapter 2
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Sasori leads the group into the dark and mysterious buliding to their core objective.
Deidara- Does it have any nostalgic memories attached to it eh Sakura?
Sakura-...No... Just because iam the youngest and last to leave their village from our trio it dosent mean that Iam a member who still has emotional attachments to her home. she turns to face Deidara Just because Iam younger than you dosent mean you need to adress me so immaturely.
Deidara(getting serioius)- Well if your so desperate to have a big boy reputaion as a desensetised ninja.
Sasori- Enough we should focus on getting to the erased data.
Deidara- Understood Sasori.
Sakura- Yes Sasori-sama
Sakura's inner thoughts- To think it was out of spite i was paired with Master Sasori.
Flash Back Fog
Sakura's inner thoughts- Was it worth it?...Was it worth this judgement?... What am I saying of course it was. Isnt this the entire reason i started my journey? Its ok Sakura just get a hold of yourself. Its over all thats left is your assigning...but who will you be put under?
Sakura has woken up in a black room that contains a horrific deamon like statue. On the stone hands of the statue that are jutting out from the floor are fuzzy silouettes that must be astral projectons of the 10 missing-nin of Akatsuki. One each assigned a finger. Sakura who was blacked out untill this moment is now gazing up towrds the powerfull Akatsuki members. She has passed the year full of cruel, tedious and very difficult tests of loyalty as well as power and all that is left for her rather parcular place in the organization is her to be assigned as an assistant or subordinant under an already preasent member. But witch of these ninja would she answer to? She already knew thier average power levels after once defeating one of Sasori's blood clones.
Itachi's astral projection- Haruno Sakura, after reveiwing your inproved skill level we are accepting you as a servant to the cause of the Akatsuki.
Kisame's astral projection- Your case was indeed strange as not many shinobi request to be put into servitude by our group.
Zetsu's astral projection- And with your former village of konoha we have decided it best if you are not paired with another former leaf ninja.
Sasori's astral projection- Which is why you will be working in servetude under the member you once attempted to slay.
Sakura(eyes glistening with fear) Yes Mas..Master Sasori-sama
Sakura knew being under Sasori's command was punishment for her misdeeds against the organizaton. Sasori was the one member who did have subordinats under him witch he used to infiltrate other villages. He was in no need of an assitant.
Flash Back Over
Sakura's inner thoughts- Even though those 2 years with Sasori-sama were not the most luxurios they could have been iam gratefull he did not hold to his grudge against me. I admire his way of thinking. She walks over to Sasori as all three head to the very back of the huge library.
Past over three dozen rows of books thet walked by untill at last they reached the most southern facing wall.
Sakura- Is what we are looking for not found here? Iam sorry I thought any information recorded by the village would be here.
Deidara- Dont trouble yourself to much. If its anything like my former villages library then a switch should be right around here. As the last word came out of his mouth he pushed on one of the many brown and grey bricks in the almost identicle masonry and it sunk slowly but deeply past the other stones. You see through-out the long history of these ninja villages the 5 great shinobi lands have unknowingly shared similair ways of secrecy. I was betting on Konoha having the same type of info. hiding that the village hidden in stone did. Even though it has been a while i still remember my village and you shouldent want to forgett every thing about your own. If you remember things about the village you will be valuable on missions in that area.
Sakura(who had always thought differently)- Oh, I see... I didnt know how similair their security tactics and security was, or that they really shared traits at all.
Sasori- No matter how diverse a culture, no matter how much know,edge is attained, true shinobi will always think in the same complex way as other ninja.
Sakura's inner thoughts- He is right as usuall. Wether the cause is rightous or injust, self motivated or for others the ninja will always use similar tactics to get what they want.
As the stone sinks back to its limit a crease starts to form in the wall. The line of mortor running down starts to crumble and seperate.
Sakura- What? How long has this been down here?
Sasori- For many decades if not centuries at most. For years Countries have required their hidden villages to destroy case sensitive used information. The passage now completely open is himid, dank and contains an undescribable feeling of darker ages. Sasori outstreaches his arm and his palm lets out a spark of falme. The spark ignights what seems to be oil on a torch attached to the wall witch Sasori peomptly grabs as a source of handheld light. The problem with that was that later when the shinobi village needed the destroyed information it couldent be retrived.
Sakura(walking step after step behind Sasori)- So this is why we needed to come all the way to the library of records and why destroy information they would later need?
Sasori(winding down the staircase)- Yes and you have completed your main part in this task. The countries that orderd the records destroyed were foolish with pride.
Deidara- The countries, especially the Country of Fire, dont want to much light shed on the slip ups of their ninja military. A bad reputation for their main power may lead to other lands thinking that they are weakness. The most common record destroyed is that of a missing-nin. Even though the bingo book now keeps track of us it used to be very easy to stay undetected just becuse of a foolish countries pride.
Sasori- That was good and bad. The bad thing was that since villages like konoha had had so many missing-nin and so much contact with us it would not matter if records were kept or not. Also even in other countries if our files were ordered destroyed the shinobi leaders were smarter than the country leaders and posed their destruction keeping the real documents hidden well. The good thing for our part is that in hiding the records and limiting the people that knew about them eventually the locations of the files were lost from common knowledge among the kage and leaders.
Deidara- That means not even the kage's usually know about the gold mine of knowledge that lies beneath their librarys.
Sakura- So we are here to collect the files the files helpfull to us?
Deidara- Yes, not so much the missing-nin records but mostly other things in konoha's carfully disguised past.
Sasori- Now that you know what you need to for now remember your task. You are to attain the file types i tell you to from certain areas of the records room we are going to come out in.
The walking continues for several minutes down the ever twisting and winding steps of the old staircase surrounded by identicle stone laid walls. Sasori's firey flickering light being the only difference in the drab and grey cobblestone step's apperance.
Sakura's inner thoughts- What could be in the Leaf village's past that was important enough to be hidden. Or to be dug up by Akatsuki for that matter. If erasing our personal records isnt our goal then what info are we after? Akatsuki is usually only worried about secrecy on missions like this...Sakura dont worry yourself, the mission will be over soon and it will all be clear.
Deidara- Here we are at Sasori's feet the almost endless stairs stop and end in a cobblestone floor spreading out into a 700-800 square foot wide circular room. Only the very rim of the area can be seen with the now fadeing glimmering light of Sasori's handheld torch.
Sasori- This... a tomb of memories best left forgotten.
Sakura- Did my village really do such horrid things?
Deidara- Dont worry or be so anxious. You will learn more and as much as you need to soon enough.
With Deidara's explination Sasori lifts his torch to the wall revealing many more torches bolted into it all connected with a pipe of oil for easy lighting. Sasori's alights another and its sparks send a stream of light along the walls sides torching the oil and alighting the other 10 torches letting the rest of the chamber be better seen. Spaced between the torches are shelves of books and files that seem to not have seen daylight since the cement had sealed the passageway when the library was first constructed.
Sasori- Deidara, look up the Villagies Economic autherization records
Deidara- Yes Walks to the left wall and proceeds to dust of binded journals from the wooden shelving system.
Sasori- Sakura, In the row of paper files over there you should find about a dozen identicle paper folding files.
Deidara walks deeper into the chasm of books and dissapears from the torches flickering light. Sasori also ventures into the very high shelves on an objective of his own leaving Sakura to walk quietly to the stone shelves that have been sculpted into the plain concrete walls.
Sakura's inner thoughts- I should stop talking so much and just get to work. I definitly need to get the files quickly to avoid keeping Sasori-sama waiting. She quickly with her head down approaches the ancient wall of shelves.
Blowing of the dust covered thick paper Sakura looked at the first file lifted from its dirty crevace and wondered breifly to herself "What am I looking for really? Iam i only to get these files and nothing more" Still for a few minutes she pulled out file after file accumulating a stack of 10. As she put her fingers around the ruff paper spine of the 11th and slipped it unsmoothly out. With the prints of her fingers still shown in the dust she held it in the palms of her hands.
Would Akatsuki really care if i flipped throught the info. they trusted ME to gather? Sakura lifted the flp of the folder and splayed out the heavy paper. The top of the parchment inside red "Battle at Forrest of Kage- date:December 22" What? Where is this Forrest of Kage? At the ninja acadamy we covered every recorded battle in konoha history as well as where they took place didnt we?
Sasori(now stamdimg behind her)- Confused are we? Its understandable for one who is still in youth.
Sakura(very starteled at the thought of being scolded)- What... hu oh Sasori-sama i apoligi...
Sasori- Save your excuses. Taking the folder away. Dont worry you are not in trouble, you realy are dangerous if uninformed about what you are fighting for.
Sakura(now releaved)-sigh
Sasori- The leaf village battle in the Forrest of Kage. It is a wonder this is the file you chose to look into.
Deidara- Is it wise for a non-member to know this much? The leader ws skepticle about assingning 2nd in commands anyway.
Sasori- But in the end he allowed it so we have his support and if we want it to pay off our assitants like Tobi and Sakura here need to be clued in on what their actions are leading up to. Returning his gaze to Sakura. Sakura when the countries were first divded with there blind boundries there were man different self sufficient shinobi and non-shinobi villages contained inside. These villages didnt abide by any countries laws before the government were established and still tried to keep out of unescisary conflict that is untill the self apointed leaders randomly set their country lands without thinking about the residents in the area. Three or more ninja villages could have been grouped in one nation and forced to compete for work, such is the case in the Fire Country.
Sakura- So Konoha was just one of the ninja villages?
Sasori- Natrully they had Konoha and Shadagan, Shadagn being the Village Hidden in Shadows. The country in its first year decreed that only one shinobi village would hansle the official missions of their country. Out of the 2 hardly anyhting but the name was known about Shadagan. It was full of deep rooted families and clans with exclusive techniques, this not being known to the Konoha shinobi. It had a very peaefull exsistance but in its isolationit fell into deep suspision. All its residents stayed deep in its protective caves coming out very seldomly to hunt.
Sakura- What of them now?
Sasori- Nothing. The clans extinct, The caves imploded, and every single record destroyed.
Deidara- Or so thought. Those files right there you puled out are the only ones in ecsistance holding every bit of information on that particular village. Its the only way in the world to prove they even exsisted.
Sakura- But why cover it up? Even if it was a compition village why work so hard to make sure nothing was known about it?
Sasori- Massacare! A look of astonishment and confusion came over Sakura's face. Konoha before it gained the title of villag hidden in the leafs, out of desperation of competition massacared an entire village of witch they knew nothing about.
Sakura-...They killed...everyone?
Deidara(unaffected by the fact)- Yup.
Sasori- Sigh Yes. It was a sneak attack set uo before a hokage or ninja council was set up. A group of war veterains who had the peoples support ran the village when they were still in a battle state of mind. They conatantly rushed to judgement and ended up in most cases wrong. Since Shadagan was so mysterious it was labled a threat to the title of the countrys hidden village... it was eliminated.
Sakura- How?
Deidara- We said the old group rushed to judge ment, we didnt say they couldnt think up a damn god plan.
Sasori- This is how the Hyuga clan earned its high rsnk in the village. Hyugas used their Byakugan to pin point weak points in the cave walls and ceilings where the Shadow ninja lived. Many multiple exploding tags were placed in the direct points.
Sakura- Just like that?
Deidara- Yes, The battle in the Forrest of Kage was the killing of the gaurds positioned on the outside mouth of the cave in the forrest the caves were loctaed. The initial attack was over very quickly.
Sakura- Was the village really that weak, to be taken down that easily?
Sasori- NO!. The Shadagan's shadow ninja worshiped a deamon witch was the source of most of their mysterious power. One of their few weaknesses is at the time of winter solcstice. At that time in the longest night of the year the Shadow ninja give up all their chakra as a sacrifice to their deamon. When the attack happend the Shadow were completely without power. It was very simple for Konoha to kill them off.
Deidara- Konoha's suspicions even though based on estimation were true. The Shadagan ninja were a serious threat. They were ruthless, blood thirsty, powerfull and above all smart. They could have destroyed the leaf village any other night without much effort at all. It was a very lucky coincidence that they attacked on the winter scolstice. That is the truth.
End of Chapter 2
