Naruto: Soldier of Root
Chapter 10: Reunion
I'M SORRY! Ok I know I haven't updated in 10 months but I really just haven't had the time to put a lot of effort into doing a consecutive story they would've all come out halfcocked if I didn't put my full attention to them but anyway I should be updating relatively quickly now that I'm back so here we go.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Yah might as well join the club cus the only one who does hasn't even heard of me.
XxX
Naruto, Jiraiya, and Itachi had started on their trek back to konoha so Itachi could be reinstated as a shinobi of Konoha now that his long term mission as a double-agent within akatsuki has become null and void.
'It's about time I clear my name and hopefully be able to clear my conscience.' Itachi thought to himself.
Naruto had a clone carry an unconscious Sasuke over his back while Itachi had an equally knocked out kisame over his. Jiraiya was the lucky one only having to seal Samehada into a scroll.
About halfway there they ran into Maito Gai, who had been sent to pursue after Sasuke and to make sure Naruto had not been taken.
"Yosh! Jiraiya-sama, Lord Hokage sent me to retrieve young Sasuke-kun here! But what are you doing with our most un-youthful former comrade Itachi!" Gai questioned.
"All shall be explained soon Gai, but in short Itachi was ordered to kill his clan, and he has been an agent of ours in Akatsuki for years, the old man had decided to end his mission and bring him back. He believes he can do more good for us at home than gathering intel on the akatsuki." Jiraiya stated.
Gai took a minute to process the words before starting to cry anime tears and yelling "YOSH! A thousand apologies Itachi-san! I wish my flames of youth could shine as brightly as yours for forcing yourself to give up your future for your village. I will strive to fan the flames of my youth to even greater heights! From now on, you are my eternal rival!"
The trio sweatdropped at Gai's antics while Itachi mentally smirked before saying "Well then 'eternal rival' to prove you are worthy of being a rival to me, you need to carry both Kisame to the Torture and Interrogation department and Sasuke-kun to the hospital in under an hour. Otherwise your 'flames of youth shall be vanquished."
Gai immediately paid attention while nodding vigorously "It shall be done and to prove my youthfulness I will complete this task in thirty minutes! If I cannot do this I will run around Konoha 10,000 times while they are both still on my back. And I cannot do that I-"
"Gai you are on the clock" Itachi said.
"Yosh! So long my youthful comrades!" the spandex wearing man yelled before taking off in a trail of dust.
"Well that went over well" Itachi said.
"You really dodged the bullet on that one, oh well lets head on back to the council so they can be briefed on the new developments." The toad sage said before picking up the pace.
"Right!/Hai" the remaining two in the group replied.
XxX
After the three of them had managed to get through to the hokage tower while avoiding any other ninja so they wouldn't have to deal with explaining as to why Itachi Uchiha was back in Konoha, let alone twice in one day, the first time engaging in combat with three of Konoha's Jounin.
Sarutobi had already called for the meeting and was waiting for the three to arrive. 'This probably won't go over too well, oh well what can they really do about it, and we all know how much the civilians love the sharingan.'
After a few minutes of waiting Jiraiya entered the room followed by Naruto and Itachi. Immediately the room was in an uproar with the Anbu poised to attack, only halted by a signal from the hokage to stand down, while the civilians were in panic and trying to make a break for it.
"Calm down everyone Itachi has been brought here by my orders there is nothing to fear!" the old hokage yelled out while the members reluctantly going back to their seats while the majority looked apprehensive.
The clans heads just looked on impassively waiting for an explanation but ready to fight if necessary.
"Thank you, now to start us off I will tell you all the truth about Itachi and his clan. The Uchiha were planning a coup de tat and Itachi was our agent on the inside, the elders and I all back up this claim." Hiruzen stated while his two teammates and Danzo nodded.
"After negotiations repeatedly failed our only option was to eradicate the Uchiha clan rather than start a civil war within the village which I am certain other villages like Kumo or Iwa wouldn't hesitate to take advantage of, especially with how recent the Kyuubi incident had occurred, and our weakened state."
"Itachi was the one to eliminate the traitors before they struck first, and was labeled a traitor himself before becoming a missing-nin and joining the criminal organization the akatsuki, who he has been a double agent of ours ever since. "
The shinobi in the room who knew Itachi before he left nodded to themselves since it made sense to them that the peace-loving young man would never destroy his family without some kind of major reason.
The civilians still looked a bit skeptical but decided to wait and see what would happen from there.
The hokage continued after letting all of that sink in, "now Itachi will be reinstated as a leaf Jounin and will begin to partake in missions once more, he will prove himself once again as he did in the past are there any objections to this?"
Everyone in the room remained silent to ponder what the outcome would be of their decision. The civilians naturally couldn't even have a say in the final outcome since this was a shinobi matter but were just there so they could verify everything that was said to the populace in their districts.
"I see no reason for Itachi-san here to be punished for his actions, he was ordered to do it and the magnitude of his orders should be punishment enough. However there will be many who will be mistrustful so it will take major action to win everyone's trust back." Inoichi said while his two team-mates and the other major clans nodded as well in agreement.
"Well its decided then, Itachi will be sent along with Jiraiya and Naruto to retrieve tsunade to begin her medical-nin corp. and we will announce the news to everyone while you are gone to allow the worst of it to blow over." Sarutobi said.
"Hai Hokage-sama" Itachi said while bowing and beginning to exit the room with the two of them.
Jiraiya stopped and waited for the room to clear before talking "Itachi should mix back in with the shinobi forces once everything is explained without too much trouble, the most problematic thing is his brother Sasuke."
"Once his mind heals from his brother's latest Tsukyomi attack he will once again strive for revenge there is no real telling what he will do. Also we have captured Itachi's teammate Kisame Hoshigaki and we should hopefully have extracted all the information he has with Inoichi and the other Yamanaka working on him not to mention Ibiki and Anko." Jiraiya stated.
Sarutobi nodded "Very well good luck on tracking my wayward student."
XxX
A little while later on the road to Tanzaku no Gai Jiraiya was walking in silence while listening to Naruto and Itachi's conversation. Naruto would be asking questions on anything related to Akatsuki while learning more about Itachi while telling about himself.
Once they arrived back at the town where the carnival had been held they decided to stop for the night while Naruto had his clones go out for evening training in the forest and a few more to read jutsu scrolls while he slept.
After about a week of walking through Hi no Kuni they arrived in Tanzaku no Gai where they stopped at a restaurant only to find their mission objective right inside.
"Tsunade!" Jiraiya yelled out in surprise.
'That's tsunade? They weren't kidding when they said that she uses a henge to hide her appearance she looks like she's still in her twenties.' Naruto thought to himself.
"Jiraiya!" Tsunade said startled as well to see her old teammate, what's next? Orochimaru popping up out of the blue? unlikely.
"Who would've thought I'd have found you here and not in some casino or out running from more debt collectors." Jiraiya said with a chuckle.
Tsunade had the decency to look somewhat sheepish, while Shizune introduced herself politely to Itachi and Naruto.
Tsunade looked over at Itachi intently before speaking "Would you please care to tell me why an S-ranked missing ninja is accompanying you along with another blonde brat, and I thought only Orochimaru had a fetish for little boys. It seems you have that and then one for blonde ones."
Jiraiya quickly took a couple steps away from Naruto while said blonde quickly hid behind shizune rambling about how he wasn't into that.
Jiraiya quickly had a look of horror on his face. "Tsunade how dare you! After all these years of peak- er hem research I thought I had proven that I am the straightest guy there is."
Tsunade looked at him disbelievingly while smirking on the inside.
After about a bit more teasing Jiraiya explained Itachi's situation.
Tsunade nodded before speaking again "So who's the new blonde brat? we all know how that turned out last time."
Naruto proceeded to introduce himself "I am Naruto Uzumaki, tokubetsu Jounin of Konoha, it is an honor to meet you Tsunade-sama."
'Better be respectful for right now while we need her to come with us, she's famed to have an extremely short temper and ticking her off won't exactly help the mission.' He thought to himself.
"Well anyway what do you want with me Jiraiya, don't tell me the old man kicked the bucket and wants me to ask me to be hokage again because you already know my answer." Tsunade said while sipping another drink.
"No of course not, nothing of the sort, we are actually here to request you to come back to start that medic-nin corp. that you had tried to start so long ago. Back then we didn't have the money or resources to get it to work and now we do." Jiraiya said.
Itachi, Shizune, and Naruto just went over into another booth to talk amongst themselves while the two teammates discussed.
"So how long have you been with Tsunade, Shizune-san?" inquired Naruto.
"For quite a good number of years, she has been training me as her apprentice, I'd like to think I'm almost as proficient in the medical ninja arts as she is." Shizune replied.
The conversation continued on as they talked about themselves while Itachi started to loosen up showing a more laid back personality while not having to pretend to be evil 24/7 or not having to act emotionless during battle.
"Konoha shall take care of all of your debts and pay you handsomely for leading the charge in this new area, and then thanks to our old teammate there's a certain… surprise waiting for you back at home." Jiraiya said while grinning hoping this might sweeten the deal a bit.
"The village has taken much from me, it is about time they actually offer me something, just as long as they don't try and make me hokage I might decide to stick around but if this is some kind of trick I am out and you'll also be missing a very vital aspect to your reproductive system." Tsunade said with a bit of her killing intent at the end.
Jiraiya sweated a bit in his seat before managing to smile "It's settled then I guess we will leave in the morning."
XxX
On the road back home Naruto was talking to Tsunade and telling about himself while learning more about her.
The four experienced shinobi quickly sensed two presences heading there way before Jiraiya called out "Come on out you old pedophile! We know you and your flunky are here."
"Kukuku it seems you have improved slightly in your taste of companions dobe, it's nice to see you again Tsunade." The pale Sannin said while coming out of the earth with his second in command Kabuto.
"I was hoping to speak to you before you left Tsunade in order to ask you to consider joining me in search for knowledge, but it seems you have already thrown your lot in with these imbeciles, although it is a great surprise to see Itachi-kun here after so long." Orochimaru said while licking his lips.
Inwardly though, he was getting a bit worried, he knew if he couldn't get either Itachi or Tsunade with him he could not win against all of them. 'Kabuto could possibly get rid of the little assistant but he might not fare too well against Naruto-kun although I should still be able to incapacitate him by using the curse seal.'
He kept this train of thought unaware of Naruto's 'changes' to the seal.
"I heard about how well your so called invasion went Orochimaru, these 'imbeciles' as you called them seemed to be able to completely rout your attempt at destroying the leaf village. I feel it wise to side with them, rather than the losing side." Tsunade said with a smirk.
"I also know the perfect way for Itachi here to regain some trust back in konoha, and destroying another of Konoha's greatest criminals will do just the trick don't you think?" Jiraiya said while getting into a fighting stance and starting to draw upon massive amounts of chakra.
"That is most unfortunate Tsunade, I'm afraid you may not leave here alive then Tsunade, the same goes for you Jiraiya, soon I will be the only remaining Sannin." The snake sannin while preparing himself.
"Naruto you and Shizune get rid of his little helper while the three of us will get rid of Orochimaru. Can you handle it?" Jiraiya asked already certain of his answer.
"Sure thing Jiraiya-sensei this shouldn't take too long it's time I cut loose a bit c'mon Shizune-neechan" Naruto said before adding a foxy grin and drawing Kusanagi from his back.
"Let's go wild!"
XxX
A/n I'm back and better than ever things will be escalating for a bit I just had to get Itachi's implementation into the story
I am truly sorry to my devoted fans and I hope I can make this story great and that you all will enjoy it. I should hopefully be updating again in the next few days.
I wont be adding much fluff in between Naruto and yugito until after the timeskip most likely. Or will I?
Kakashidex out.
Feels good to say that again