Chapter Twenty-Five-
"We're low on shinobi," the old hag said seriously, "So we have no choice, but to send all our forces."
There was a loud muttering that swept through the hall and Naruto glanced nervously around, tugging on the lapels of the Chunnin vest that he really hated to wear. They had all been assembled here about half an hour ago to discuss their strategies for the upcoming…well, war. It seemed hard to believe. Naruto was used to dangerous missions and encounters with incredibly strong opponents, but an all-out war…
They had called the Sand's attack on Konoha a war, but it wasn't one. Not really. Naruto knew that wars were long and brutal and could hardly end as nicely as the brief skirmish with the Sand did.
"I know that might seem over the top," the Fifth Hokage explained, "But I don't want to take any chances. I want this done and over with as soon as possible. I'm sure you all agree with me."
There was a loud murmuring of assent from the Jounin and ANBU around them. The Chuunin, especially the newly appointed, looked around nervously. The Genin looked terrified.
"She can't be serious," Naruto muttered, "Does she mean she's going to send Genin to war?"
Kakashi-sensei shook his head, "It usually works like this; the Genin stay behind and guard Konoha and other cities, and Chuunin do low-level reconnaissance missions. Theoretically, Jounin and ANBU are usually the only ones who are supposed to do the actual fighting."
Sasuke glanced up at the grey-haired man, "So you're going to be…"
"No, I'm still the head of your team, so I'll stick with you."
There was a strange nostalgic look on his face for a few seconds, and then it was gone.
Naruto glanced worriedly over at Sasumi, who hadn't said a word since Kakashi-sensei told them about the Rain's declaration of war. Instead, she looked out dully in front of her and Naruto was getting worried.
As soon as the Godaime Hokage stopped talking (which Naruto hadn't really been listening to anyway) they left the crowded hall and Kakashi-sensei took them aside.
"Go home," he said, "Pack as many weapons as you can and two sets of clothing. Bring money, a water bottle, and some food."
Naruto opened his mouth.
"No ramen," Kakashi-sensei said and Naruto pouted, "Nothing that you have to cook. Eat full meals and get a lot of sleep," this was said towards Sasumi, "And meet me at six sharp in the town square in four days. Is that clear?"
"We've already got our mission?" Sasuke asked in surprise.
"Er…When you say six, do you mean six, or do you mean nine?" Naruto asked slowly.
Kakashi-sensei narrowed his one eye and Naruto gulped. Hey, it was a valid question!
"Six," he said and then disappeared into a puff of white smoke.
"What's his problem?" Naruto huffed in annoyance, "He's the one who's always late."
Sasuke made a disgruntled sound and makes his way towards his apartment. Naruto turned around to say something to Sasumi, but finds that she had disappeared. Naruto sighed. Nothing good could come of this. And he knew it.
The morning of the mission came all too quickly, and Naruto overslept. He woke up at 5:50 in a complete mess and barely made it to the town square before 6:30. Kakashi-sensei was actually on time (for once) and was not amused.
"Let's move out," he said and they did.
Sasumi had still yet to speak. He was sure that Sasuke and Kakashi-sensei had noticed this, but why hadn't they said anything?
But Naruto wasn't twelve anymore, so he kept his mouth shut and kept walking.
Her arm hurt. Or rather, the place where her arm had been was hurting. In fact, it felt as if her arm had never been amputated, but instead was burning. She had read about phantom pains before, but she had never expected them to be this bad. And of all the inopportune moments…
She really didn't know what to think about the upcoming war. Which was odd, considering she had foreseen it. But it was different now that it was really here and she was still struggling over her feelings on the whole matter.
One, people were going to die over her. It was inevitable. It wasn't like they hadn't before, but…this time they were dying for her. She didn't like that. Not one bit.
Two, it wasn't like she could just leave, give up, turn herself in. The Fifth Hokage herself had made no compromises in negotiations with the Rain, and Sasumi couldn't think of any reason why.
So here she was; off on some reconnaissance mission that lead to the ultimate destruction of her former country and she still didn't know what the hell she was doing. It only made matters worse that Naruto kept throwing worried glances her way and Sasuke was still mad at her. And her arm would not stop hurting…
They stopped after nine hours and took a break. Kakashi consulted the large map for a long time while the rest of them caught their breaths and ate a part of their rations for extra energy.
"Are you going to explain the mission yet?" Sasuke asked, wiping sweat from his forehead.
Kakashi shook his head, "I'm not supposed to give them to you, until we're across the border."
This got Sasumi's attention.
"What do you mean?" Sasuke asked, "We're already going in?"
Kakashi looked confused, "Of course, why do you think we waited four days before we started the mission. We had to wait for our main forces to engage."
"Wait!" Naruto exclaimed, "Are you saying that they're already fighting?"
"Yes…" Kakashi replied, "Tsunade-sama did say she wanted this done with."
"Why hadn't we heard this before?" Sasuke asked at the same time Naruto demanded, "Are we winning?"
"It's classified information, of course. They haven't released it to civilians and we haven't met for the past few days. How could you have heard it?" Kakashi still looked confused as to why they didn't know this already, "And Naruto, Konoha is more than ten times the size the Rain."
The blond blinked and Kakashi was forced to elaborate, "Yes, we're winning."
"But I thought size wasn't everything," Naruto complained.
Kakashi gave a snort, "Well, we all knew the whole 'size doesn't matter, it's how you use it' was bullshit anyway."
There was an awkward pause.
"KAKASHI-SENSEI YOU PERVERT!" Naruto screamed, quite red in the face.
Sasuke looked vaguely disturbed and cast his eyes around the forest nervously, as if embarrassed that an enemy could have heard him.
"Not so loud," their sensei chided, "Now pick up your stuff, we're going!"
"Y-you… you're so…!" Naruto seemed speechless (which was quite a feat.)
"Just shut up, Naruto," Sasuke said wearily.
"I hate you all," he muttered, "Except you, Sasumi! You don't make fun of me!"
Sasumi blinked at him and bent down to pick up her bag, barely registering his look of disappointment when she didn't respond.
She couldn't help feel that it was better that way.
"Alright," Kakashi said a few hours later, "Here's the plan. Our mission is to warn the main battle force if any other countries are going to interfere," he pulled out a map, "Alright," he said, "Here is the Rain. It is surrounded by us, the Wind, the Rock, the Grass, the Bird, and the former Whirlpool Country. The Wind is obviously not a problem, nor is the Whirlpool Country or the Bird, which at the moment have no ninja. The Grass and the Rock, however, could be. Both of them are our allies, but we've had wars with them in the past, and we don't know how they'll react. There has already been a team sent to watch the Rock, so we have been assigned to the Grass."
"Why weren't we assigned to the Rock?" Naruto asked curiously.
Kakashi hesitated, "Well, one reason is that the Rock are a much bigger country than we are. There was a Jounin team sent there. Just in cause." "And the other reason?" Sasuke asked shrewdly.
"Well…I am rather…well-known in that area," Kakashi said hesitantly, "Notorious really. I was part of a war we had with them about twenty years ago."
"Twenty years?" Naruto scoffed, "C'mon, Kakashi-sensei, you're not that old!"
There was a pause and Sasumi looked away.
"I mean," Naruto says looking nervous, "You'd have been really young…"
Kakashi ignored him, "We have crossed into the Rain now and we're going to travel to the border of the Rain and the Grass just north of their Hidden Village. Getting there will probably be the hardest part of the mission. Now, most of the Rain's ninja will be concentrated south of here, but we don't know if there are any or how many will be in this area. There will be no talking," he said seriously, looking over all of them, "I'll communicate to you by hand signals if I need to. Keep your eyes open. Are we clear on that?"
They all nodded and Naruto look at both her and Sasuke nervously, and then swallowed.
"Right," he said, "Right."
And so they began.
Sasuke had been sure that Kakashi was overreacting. They were in the middle of nowhere after all. The northern Rain appeared to be nothing but a jumble of mountains and pine trees. There were no villages at all, not even any sign of human life. Sasuke couldn't imagine why any ninja would be sent or voluntarily travel around here. Unless, there was an envoy being sent from the Rain requisitioning the Grass's help. Sasuke didn't know much about politics, but he knew that such a message was doomed to fail anyway. The Grass were too small of a nation to side with another small nation against a larger enemy. Now, the Rock, however, they could potentially be a problem.
Unfortunately, he didn't get much more time to ruminate on this, because, on the foot of yet another mountain, they were attacked.
"Incoming!" Naruto screamed and then there was a sharp pain in Sasuke's side. He managed to grab on to a tree before he fell in mid-jump. He pulled the shuriken out, hissing in pain and launched it back to his attacker. Up in the tree tops, Naruto was grappling with a masked woman and Sasumi was pulling out the kunai from her opponent. Sasuke winced.
Kakashi was…where was Kakashi? Sasuke spun around. Never mind about that, there could be more of them.
"You little bastard!"
Sasuke caught the kunai that was thrown at him and attacked. He threw himself at his attacker, who was also masked, and sent three quick punches to his chest. The man stumbled back, and with one quick motion Sasuke grabbed his arm and snapped it. He cried in pain and then disappeared in a familiar puff of smoke.
"Shit!"
Pain sliced through his upper arm, and he barely caught sight of his attacker. "What the hell was that?" Sasuke fell to the ground, clutching his upper arm which was bleeding profusely, "Dammit, got to stop the blood…"
He ripped off one of the bandages from his leg and wrapped it around his arm, dodging another blow from his attacker. Damn, he was fast! Sasuke made to punch him, but his fist merely connected with air and he was kicked down to the ground.
"Foolish child," the man snarled.
Sasuke counted to ten and then pushed himself up, rolling out of the way of a kunai.
"One…Two…THREE!"
"Katon: Goukakyuu No Jutsu!"
His opponent screamed and rolled on the ground to extinguish the fire. The second the fire subsided, Sasuke knocked him out with an efficient blow to the head. He tied the man's hands behind his back and his ankles together securely.
Breathing heavily, Sasuke turned and surveyed the scene to find that he was perfectly alone. He swore and tried to pick up someone's chakra. He felt something, but it was too far away to identify as one of his teammates. An enemy? He leapt to the top of a tree and jumped form branch to branch until he caught sight of a flash of red.
"Sasumi!" he called landing a few feet away from her.
She tensed and looked him over carefully. She was standing in front of another unconscious masked shinobi with a large shuriken sticking out of his back. Sasuke fought down the urge to wince this time.
"Where's Kakashi and Naruto?" he asked shortly.
She pointed to the west. He sighed, annoyed that she still wasn't talking and leapt off into that direction, the redhead following him at a distance.
It wasn't long before he felt an unusual chakra…it reminded him of…
Oh, shit.
Sasumi launched ahead of him and together they barreled through the treetops. Dammit, that stupid idiot, could he do thing right…
They reached the gray slope of the all misty mountain and Sasuke quickly scanned the area.
"Above us!" he told Sasumi and they began to climb, alternating between jumping from slope to slope and using chakra to get over the sharper edges.
Sasuke's only thought at this point was, "How the hell did Naruto get up there?"
As they got closer, Sasuke began to hear sounds of battle and sound that suggested that Naruto…wouldn't look as he usually did when they reached him. And he was right.
Naruto's eyes red and he was in a crouch, surrounded by what looked red chakra. And was that a tail?
There were two bodies around him. One merely looked unconscious, but the other whom Sasuke recognized as the woman he had been fighting with earlier was leaning against a wall at the edge of the plateau, holding a huge gash in her abdomen and coughing out blood.
"Naruto, stop it," Sasuke said, swallowing.
The thing that used to be Naruto, turned it's head and looked at him like a starving man would eye a steak.
"Shit! Bad idea!"
"Don't provoke him, Sasuke!"
Kakashi leapt down beside him and Sasumi.
"Don't move," he said quietly, pulling a small piece of paper out of his pack.
Kakashi launched himself forward and flicked the paper towards the thing's forehead. The not-Naruto snarled, but then the red around it began to disappear and his eyelids began to lower. Kakashi relaxed.
Suddenly, they were wide open again and he jumped towards Kakashi with a speed that even the Jounin couldn't rival. Sasuke's eye widened in horror, waiting for the inevitable, but then Naruto was passing them and-
There was a splatter of blood and Sasuke turned around to see the man that he had burned and knocked unconscious. Naruto had broke his ribs, it looked like, and only then did Sasuke realize that the man had been aiming for Kakashi.
Before he could say anything, the man fell; but the momentum carried Naruto too far to the edge of the plateau. The last thing Sasuke saw was his eyes closing. And then Naruto fell.
"Naru-"
Sasumi was gone then, over the edge and he and Kakashi followed. To their horror, the fall didn't just lead to the hard ground, but a huge gaping hole that lead into nothing.
"Sasumi, don't-" Kakashi yelled as they hit the ground, but it was too late and she had already jumped in after him.
There was a strange smell, Sasuke thought, almost like-
"Water," Kakashi breathed, "She can't swim, not with one arm."
They locked eyes, made a silent decision, and jumped in after them. It was dark and cold and Sasuke shivered as they were plunged into cold water.
"Sasumi!" he shouted once he surfaced, "Naruto!"
"Sasuke! I see them, follow me," Kakashi said a little way in front of him.
Sasuke swam towards his voice until he could make out Kakashi's outline and then the edge of the underground lake. He could make out stalagmites and stalactites, and finally two forms huddled on the edge of the bare rock.
"Wake up," Sasumi was saying, slapping Naruto's cheeks, her voice hoarse for not talking for days, "Wake up, wake up."
How did she manage to drag him ashore? The water was deep and she had one arm…
"Sasumi, is he-" he asked dragging himself onto the rock, barely avoiding a stalagmite.
"Wake up," she said again, not hearing him, "Wake up, wak-"
Kakashi caught her hand and she slumped. The grey-haired man pressed his head to Naruto's chest.
"Alive," he whispered, "There might be water in his lungs, though."
As if on cue, the was a deep coughing sound heard and Naruto raised his head.
"Wha-" he coughed again.
"Don't move, Naruto," Kakashi said.
"I can't see!" Naruto said, sounding panicked.
"That would probably be because it's dark," Sasuke told him, "Of all the places you had to fall in, you dumbass."
Naruto merely let out a cough and then made a surprised noise. Sasuke peered, and saw that Sasumi had grabbed the collar of his shirt.
"Never, ever, do that again," she said, "Alright?"
Naruto let out a choked laugh, "Deal," he said, his voice almost as hoarse as hers was.
Once they successfully climbed out, Kakashi decided to interrogate the attackers.
The previously masked man whom Naruto had successfully stopped from killing his teacher was the only one still conscious, but he wasn't cooperating.
"Why are you here?" Kakashi asked again, "Answer me!"
But the man merely narrowed his eyes in dislike and glared over at Sasumi.
"Typical," he snarled out, "You choose one of them monsters again."
Sasuke raised an eyebrow.
"What?" Sasumi said in a cold tone.
"He's just like her, isn't he? That demon bitch who-"
There was a flash of red and a crack and Sasumi broke the man's nose.
He cried out and she fisted one of the lapels of his vest.
"You say another word," she breathed, "I kill you."
They all stared at her, until she let him fall to the rock ground.
"They foresaw this mission," she said, "That's why he was here."
Kakashi nodded and they moved out.
"Ten deaths and forty-three casualties so far," Genma reported, "And-you're going to love this- the Hidden Village is under siege."
Tsunade's head snapped up, "Already?'
The man smirked, "It appears we overestimated them."
"That's good," Tsunade said distractedly, "Real good. Um…tell them to keep up the good work."
"Is there something the matter?" he asked, apparently confused by her lack of enthusiasm.
"Just thinking…" she murmured, "Actually, can you get me another bottle. I'm out."
He grumbled something about wishing he was sent to war, but left, leaving Tsunade to her thoughts.
She was too under-qualified for this. She didn't know anything about waging a war. And to make matters worse…
-Flashback-
"Are you sure there isn't anything else?" Tsunade asked the girl again.
They had been in her office for more than four hours, in which the Modoka had told her all the things she could remember about the inner workings of the Rain.
"No, I can't…" the redhead replied, "I can't remember anything else."
Tsunade nodded, "Thank you. You've been an invaluable help."
The girl shrugged, "They could have changed half of it over the years."
But she rose from her seat and opened the door to leave. The she froze and turned around.
"Yes?" Tsunade said, picking up the pen again.
"I…there's…" She appeared conflicted, "The Rain has a jinchuuriki."
"WHAT!" Tsunade gaped at her.
This changed everything. What would she tell her loyal shinobi going to battle?
"Yes," the girl said, "Female, tall, dark skin, brown eyes. She has strangely shaped ears…pointed and purplish colored hair."
"Which one?" Tsunade asked praying that it was a low tailed demon.
"The Rokubi."
Tsunade closed her eyes and took a deep breath, "Name?"
"Sekihara Yuuki."
-End of Flashback-
A/N: Okay, I've got it all figured out. There's going to be about four/five more chapters after this. It's so sad, Shi no Me is almost over…
Anyway, next chapter will be the takeover of the Rain and you'll get to meet this mysterious Sekihara Yuuki! So, please review!
p.s. Kudos for anyone who understands the chapter title!