Chapter 24

Warning: (Mild) Mature Themes

Several days ago, a group of ANBU wearing their original drab and animal masks stood behind a man wearing a faceplate with dark, short spiky hair and almond shaped jet black eyes. He descended onto one knee, looking down at the ground after walking into the ceremonial ANBU task-assigning room. It was built long ago, only a few years after the founding of ANBU, but long after the secret 'root' or 'Ne' group was formed. Using ANBU as a guise, root was allowed to be considered a "special-special forces unit" that acted under the sole purpose of defending the village and staying unseen by the populace and even by other ANBU branches and the masses of jonin, chunin and genin rank. They were not supervised by the Hokage or the council (as a whole); Ne was watched by a third party, a man of cunning and renown, yet was secretive and was only known as a great shinobi who had Konoha's best intentions at heart. Though he was part of the village council, Shimura Danzo ran root as its general, its leader, and tactician. By secretly selecting certain recruits from various ranks in Konoha, Danzo was able to set up an organized system of spies that were stealthier than even the best jonin, more dangerous than most grizzled war veterans, cold and incorruptible than even the best interrogators Konoha had to offer.

In fact, many of his recruits were brought in through the interrogation department. Though the Hokage didn't sanction Danzo's cruel methods, he used torture to bring out the worst, and the best, in any of the older recruits that were a part of root.

The very best, however, indeed the absolute best were only those few which were bred from childhood to be his soldiers, his shinobi: tools crafted from the purest, sturdiest materials. Children who were brought up to know no emotion, care for nothing, and carry themselves as if they were not even human, because as far as Danzo was concerned: they were not.

A shinobi, he believed, was one who detached him or herself from emotions and cared not for trifles such as vengeance, avarice, pride, or worse: love. A tool could not love anything. A tool only had obligations. A tool only served its master, its creator, and there was no room in its lifespan for anything but. He felt that he was also serving this greater purpose himself, and that his aspirations were no more than goals that needed to be met in order to bring about the greater good. In no way, did Danzo ever believe that his methods, which oftentimes used the ends to justify the means, were anything but the best move he could possibly make for the village's security and prosperity. He believed…

"A tool only has obligations. A tool only serves its master, its creator, and there is no room for anything else. A tool does not love, it does not feel, it only cuts, lifts, reaches and builds. It kills if made for that purpose." The group of root members standing behind the man wearing the faceplate spoke quietly in unison a statement which was ingrained into their minds as either young adults or even as children: "It does not wield a blade; it is the blade wielded. Shinobi are tools. We are shinobi."

"Master, I kneel before you."

Danzo sat in the room behind a large desk with several scrolls and books sitting on the table. He currently had opened a log full of written accounts of different resources outside of the village. There was a special seal on each of the scrolls and books in the room that caused them to light aflame if anyone other than the commander of root, Danzo, opened them. Standing beside him at attention was a woman who behind her bat's mask scrutinized his guests carefully in search of any kind of genjutsu or other techniques which may have been in use to conceal their chakra or appearance. Looking up from his scroll and peering through his one eye which was covered by bandages, Danzo's one good eye slowly peered at his peripheral just before she said, "They're clear, master." He turned his eye back on his subject and nodded, speaking then in a deep voice as he sat back in his chair, setting the scroll down on the table before him.

"You will use your original codename for this mission. Tenzo, you are to bring back the Yamanakas who have gone to care for the Daimyo's nephew. Once there, however, you will find that the Namikaze is in their midst. My sources indicate that he is now a missing nin from Mizu and was last seen heading to the capitol in order to find a trail leading to the criminal sannin. Your previous mission statement notified you of his relationship with the Yamanaka girl, Ino. You will assassinate her and her father before returning to Konoha, making it seem as if the Namikaze was the one who committed the murder. You will be put under scrutiny and intensive interrogation, no doubt at the insistence of our Hokage, and your word will be that when you arrived, the young man and his accomplices attempted to kill you after he killed her father and before he made off with the young Yamanaka. You attempted a rescue, but he killed her and left the scene before you could get back onto his trail."

Danzo closed his eye and a shadowy figure came out from behind him in the darkness, wearing a mask like any of the other ANBU, but dressed completely in black and wearing a cloak. His voice sauntered off the tongue lazily, demurely almost. "That's an interesting statement to return to Konoha with… isn't Tenzo here much stronger than any of the three shinobi that make up the Namikaze's party?"

The older man smirked and opened his eye, looking at the mask of the cloaked figure who currently leads the regular ANBU branch. "I suppose so… however, from what I hear, Naruto and a companion of his took out a rebel base in Mizu on their own and he was even supposedly at chunin level there. If one of his companions is one of the original sound four and the other the last known pupil of Orochimaru, then it wouldn't be hard to believe that they were able to escape from him, as Orochimaru is a splendid escape artist himself and undoubtedly educated his pupil and underling in his ways. The fact that Namikaze is the son of Minato, our deceased Fourth Hokage, also only lends to the idea that he must have grown exponentially over the years, especially in such as harsh place such as the Bloody Mist. There is also some word of his growing renown. He has been a part of quite a few dangerous missions during his stay there."

The ANBU captain cackled, his body heaving as he imagined the life that the poor young man had to lead in such a volatile place such as Mizu, when he easily could've stayed in Konoha and lived a much simpler life here. His Root counterpart ignored his laughter and simply looked back over to Tenzo.

"You are dismissed. Failure means that you shall be disposed. If you fail during the interrogation or at any time before and after the mission and attempt to relay even the most minuscule bit of information regarding this briefing, then the seal on your tongue will immediately trigger your demise." With the seal set during their initiations, it is no wonder that the war veteran could speak of such an openly treasonous affair without worry of tongue slips and repercussions.

"Understood. Master, I am your blade," said Tenzo, his entire character definitively stoic.

"Slice deep." With the command given to him by his leader, Tenzo stood and walked out of the room while the rest of the root members kneeling down continued to do so in silence showing complete obedience and restraint. They were members of Ne, the organization within ANBU that was not a part of ANBU. In secret they kept the village safe, but their goals, they kept safer, hidden from everyone save for one person.

"Shimura Danzo, how odd. I still don't understand why you need to have the two Yamanakas killed. I wonder, what do their deaths do for your cause?"

Danzo scoffed. He simply opened the scroll before him again and continued to read. "As if you had no idea."

The man's laughter echoed in the ancient room once more, making even some of the root members there tense. The killing intent that dripped from this man's voice was a gaseous toxin; it peeled apart the flesh, devoured the mind, and drank the soul. It smelled of death, and one could see corpses when hearing the shrill laughter coming from deep within his throat.

"Well," he began, smirking as he leaned back into a chair beside Danzo's sensor bodyguard, his hand reaching back and stroking her thigh playfully, though she dared not budge nor react, "… as you have come to finally understand: the boy is anything but stupid," said he, wearing the cloak. His hand slowly traced up her thigh, his finger tips sliding in between her legs, leaving what felt like to her a slimy trail up along her inner thigh as he reached at the junction between her legs.

Speaking casually, the man just watched her body react to his touch as he caressed and felt her. "And since he's already different from other children, all I have to do is take away all of his precious people… make him think that it was-" he paused, as if he was thinking of the word that he needed to string his thoughts together, "-Konoha that killed the person he loves… and then!"

With a decisive tug, he pulled down the back of the woman's shinobi pants, exposing what she wore underneath. His hoarse laughter broke through as he watched the "tool" slowly, futilely look towards her master with hidden eyes that asked if he was really going to just stand there and do nothing. She closed her eyes, knowing no one would see her pain with the mask she wore as she felt the man reaching into her, taking away something she couldn't take back, and knowing she couldn't even speak a word against him. As a strong kunoichi, she never, even being a kunoichi or being in an organization such as root, had expected something like this to happen.

Looking away from the woman for a second, the head of ANBU looked as if he were staring past something in the room, something beyond Konoha. He was seeing something special. "He'll become the perfect underling… someone strong minded, strong willed, and loyal to me; the man who will bring him vengeance for the death of his comrades and his crush."

Danzo turned to look at the man as he pulled off his mask with the other hand not currently occupying itself, revealing his face to him. "He'll gladly become the spearhead, leading my army to Konoha's destruction. He'll be the first one to light his torch and the last one to leave… watching in ecstasy as it burns to the ground."

"And a new, stronger village… no, a city… shall arise from its ashes," said Danzo, looking coldly into the yellow eyes of the serpent, which smiled a leathery smile.

"We shall see," he replied, turning to and smirking at the woman wearing the ANBU mask. "I'm going to borrow this one. You have my word that I'll treat her like a porcelain doll; I'll be so gentle a feather with a silk spine couldn't caress any softer." With that said, he felt the involuntary shudder that rolled down from just above her shoulders and reverberated all of the way past his hand down towards her toes.

Danzo simply turned back to his scroll, not answering the man as he placed his mask back on. He walked his claimed prize out of the room in front of him, whispering in her ear all of the way, making her wish Danzo would just order her to kill herself to avoid bedding the demon trailing her, as he spoke of the terrible things that he was going to do to her body, and how not even her mind was safe from his touch.

In K-city, Ino, her father and Tenzo walked quietly outside of the city limits as they headed back to Konoha. Ino smiled brightly, so happy that Naruto had given her the concealed blade which she was now wearing and had gotten quite used to drawing on any given notice. She changed her clothes in a bathroom in the shopping center before they left; she now wore her shinobi outfit as she usually did. The one thing on her mind was the handsome young man who she knew would overcome the prophetic dreams of the daimyo's strange nephew. He would face it head on, she was sure, and he would come back to her one day in the village.

While they were walking, however, Tenzo seemed to enter a strange state of calmness after they got away from Naruto. Something about Naruto had apparently set off some kind of radar in his mind, or maybe Ino was just over thinking things.

"So, Tenzo-san, what is your last name? I don't believe we've ever met, which is quite a surprise, honestly!" Inoichi said, smiling as he extended his arm out to shake the younger man's hand.

"I don't have one."

Inoichi, who still had his hand extended, just blinked as they walked. "Ok, it's a secret then?"

Tenzo shook his head. "No, Tenzo is my code name; I don't possess any names which link me to any particular family line or heritage. It doesn't exist."

Inoichi frowned while Ino just rolled her eyes at his remark. What a weirdo, she thought.

"Surely that is a mistake?"

"I can assure you that I am not mistaken."

Inoichi's frown deepened. "I see. Forgive me, it's just that not every day do you meet someone who doesn't know his last name."

Tenzo shook his head. "Forgive me; you still do not understand: I was born without a name. I was never given a name. Tenzo is only something you may call me to make you feel better."

What the hell is going on with this guy? Ino asked herself, inconspicuously veering slightly away from him while they walked down the road.

Inoichi tried to think, starting to worry that perhaps this was some sort of set up and Tenzo wasn't from Konoha. He felt like he had seen or heard about him only one time before… something about a laboratory survivor… Orochimaru… Inoichi spat when the name entered his brain. What he wouldn't give to never see those yellow eyes again. Damn monster… he's made my baby's life so hard.

His eyes trailed over the forearm guard which she wore and he smiled.

"You know, your friend was very thoughtful to have gotten you a gift for your guard… I would have never thought of that; he has grown to be a very insightful young man."

There he goes again, hiding Naruto's name from Tenzo. Ino slowly turned to look at the man, who seemed to be watching straight ahead, ignoring her eye contact.

"Yeah… it was really thoughtful of him… not only was it nice, but it's functional too. He really thought that gift through."

"It's odd, you know, the first gift that I got for your mother was a bracelet. She wore it every day, kissed me for it too. I was so happy."

Ino chuckled, "You never told me about that!" She stepped closer, walking slightly faster to get a few steps away from Tenzo as she pulled her father forward. "Tell me more about mom. How old was she when she passed away?"

"Baby, she'd kill me if I ever told you her age. She always hated when I bragged about having an older, more experienced girlfriend… and eventually wife."

"Just tell me… she won't get mad if her daughter really wants to know, I'm sure of it."

Inoichi smiled, "I guess she wouldn't be too upset… she was 37. I was 33."

"That's not such a big difference," Ino said, smiling. "She was very beautiful anyways, right?"

"She was definitely pretty. I couldn't believe she liked me as much as she let on. She could have chosen anyone! But, I don't mean she was just beautiful on the outside; your mother's outside paled in comparison to what was here," he pressed his palm to his chest and smiled softly. He remembered fondly the woman he fell in love with when he was a teenager.

"And the age thing was really bad at first. I just turned sixteen when I met her and she was twenty…"

Ino laughed. "So she was robbing the cradle then?"

"Hah, I was the one doing the robbing, even if she was the one who got near the cradle."

Ino smirked, arching a brow. "You sound so sure of yourself dad; I don't know, I'm not sure I believe you were all suave or "debonair" or something. It really would be me taking a leap of faith to believe that one."

Inoichi chuckled, "Hey, now give your old man some credit. He's got some moves, ya know? No less than the ones Naruto has, I'm sure."

A sudden sense of dread crossed the two as they turned to look at Tenzo. He stopped and looked at them when they stopped, then arched a brow and kept walking, passing them. It was getting dark.

"We should hurry and make camp." He said, walking into a clearing surrounded by a dense forest and slapped his palms together. Suddenly, chakra exploded out of his tenketsu as he crouched into his stance before he used his wood release.

Ino and her father watched in awe as a cabin appeared before their eyes, a chimney, paper windows and an empty sauna directly beside it as well. He smiled at the two of them, brushing sweat off of his brow and chuckling once. "That was exhausting. Alright then! Why don't you two take a look-see and tell me how you like my handi-work?" Tenzo asked, smiling emotionlessly at Inoichi, who smiled awkwardly back.

"Oh, uh, sure… coming, Ino?"

Ino grinned, "Yup!"

They both walked up to the door and Inoichi opened it, looking inside and noticed that although he spared no detail outside, the inside was barren. No chairs, no rooms, just a big open space. He looked at his daughter and then back into the room and set a palm down on her shoulder.

Tenzo watched him carefully as he stood at the door, letting his hand fall near his kunai pouch as he waited for the older man's reaction.

"Huh, there's nothing really in here, is there? Aren't there even any rooms?"

"I figured we could start a fire and just roll out our sleeping bags. It's not like I could make beds or anything out of wood…" he said, disarmingly.

Inoichi nodded, looking down towards the floor. "Yeah… that would be pretty impressive though... Now I remember who you are… you're that boy that they found had been implanted with the first's cells… Hashirama's cells allow you to use these wood release jutsu, don't they?" He eyed a small stone sitting just outside of the door and kicked it. Tenzo's eyes widened slightly, and he quickly reached into his kunai pouch and shuriken holster at the same time to catch them unawares.

Ino watched as the stone spun forwards in the air. It spun and spun, and finally landed on the hardwood floor, making a sharp thud as it hit the ground.

"Dad, why'd you…"

Ino gasped when he grabbed her by her shoulders and dragged her down to the floor, dodging the kunai and throwing stars that were aimed for the back of their skulls. They watched as the hardwood floor fell apart into clean-cut squares and the protruded spikes below them appeared as the boards fell into the spaces between them.

"Daddy?" Ino asked, her eyes wide as she saw what it was they were just about to step into. An image of the both of them skewered into the long spikes soaked into her brain. Her eyes peered up as another thud sounded on the frame of the door, barely missing them, and she saw there were kunai and shuriken there.

It happened so quickly, Ino didn't even have time to react.

Inoichi gasped as blood spurted out of his mouth, spraying the man who just stabbed him in the gut with his curved kunai. Ino shook as she watched the monster stab her father over and over in the gut, trying to get the blond man to let go of his arm.

"Release me!"

Inoichi laughed, "Fat chance."

Agitated, Tenzo kneed her father in the kidney, but the blond simply gripped on tighter.

"Ino," her father gasped.

Ino didn't quite hear him. She just heard the blood dripping onto the floor in front of her as she watched the two shinobi struggling against one another's strength.

"Ino!" he exclaimed, shocking her out of her reverie.

"Da-"

"Run Ino. You need to leave, now. Do not go back to Konoha… he was sent from there… they wanted us dead for some reason… it probably has to do with Naruto."

"Naruto? Why would it have anything to do with him?" Ino asked, still shaking. Suddenly, her eyes opened and the scared little girl disappeared. Without hesitation, she rushed the man whom her father gripped onto tight and flicked her wrist, intending to stab at his throat with the blade that Naruto gave her. At his suggestion, she had switched the blade to the metal one, not sure if the obsidian one was a good choice either. When it sunk into the man's neck, the last thing she expected was for his neck to be made out of oak wood. Her eyes widened when she realized that he had guarded himself at the last second and his technique was slowly spreading throughout his body towards her father's hands.

She tried to pull the blade out of his throat, but it just stayed jammed in the wood, so she detached it by pressing on the switch which she had used to change it in the first place.

"Ino, don't be stupid! He is ANBU, a special-forces shinobi. You don't have a chance… now look at me, you asshole," Inoichi growled, glaring at the man in front of him as he spoke, "Just because I'm a jonin doesn't mean I'm not a threat. Did your leader really think that it was a good idea to send just one of you out to get us? It'll take at least three of you to take me down on a bad day!"

Ino almost laughed at how cocky her father was, but she held it in with a gulp as the man continued to grow his oak flesh. "It will only take me. And I will kill both of you."

Inoichi looked back at Ino and shook his head, "Darling, I love you very much… now go! Now!"

"No!" Ino cried out, but suddenly the man broke free and kicked her father far away. He turned to her and quickly broke the distance between them, striking at her with an extension of his skin which became a blade made out of wood.

Ino ducked underneath his swipes, dodged left and right past his stabs and even jumped up into the air and kicked him in the chest sending him back when he lunged at her.

To her surprise, however, he quickly rebounded and moved into a spinning backwards fist, smacking her left shoulder fiercely with his knuckles and then leaning into the movement by bending one leg and elbowing her in the gut and following through with a double-handed thrust that threw her off of her feet onto her back.

Ino let the momentum he gave her carry her and rolled back onto her feet, only to have to begin dodging anew as he continued to strike at her with his bladed arm.

Inoichi suddenly struck from behind though, elbowing him in the back of the head and sending him barreling forwards past Ino as she dodged to the side, reaching into her kunai pouch for the obsidian blade to quickly try and attach it to her fore-guard. She watched as her father fought him back, throwing kunai and having him block it easily with his wood release defensive and offensive techniques, something special which only the Shodai Hokage had been able to do long ago.

"You may as well give up. I am far stronger than either of you." Tenzo began forming several seals, standing far away as he erected a pillar using his wood release jutsu.

"That may be… but what are you fighting for? Why are you fighting us? Because someone ordered you? No one ever has to order to me to protect my daughter; I will, no matter what."

Inoichi clenched his fists, forming his own seals as he watched seedlings grow into man-sized trees before reshaping themselves into exact copies of their would-be assassin. The blond didn't like what he was up against, and neither did his young daughter who realized quickly that each of these clones were real and able to do damage as all of them, over twenty, began attacking at once.

Ino stepped forwards and kicked straight up, catching one of the clones with the heel of her foot and snapping his neck cleanly back. Tenzo watched her alternate her legs and use her body as a fulcrum to spin her other heel around into a deadly spinning kick that knocked the next clone onto its ass.

Her father, similarly impressive, rolled backwards to dodge a kunai attack and then lunged forwards and shared an intimate embrace with two clones' faces using his knees. He landed and quickly dodged several cheap shots, even forcing one clone to punch another before he caught one that overreached and flipped him flat onto his back.

Ino finally attached the blade and flicked her wrist twice to make sure it was on securely. She then jumped up into the air and thrust her palm into the face of one of the clones, forcing the blade into his throat and finding that it cleanly sliced through the oak that made up his flesh. She spun around after retracting her blade and stabbed another, then kicked backwards to deflect a sneak attack.

Tenzo looked on in disbelief at how easily their oak flesh was pierced by the girl's blade. He looked at Inoichi who, even after being stabbed several times, was having no trouble trouncing his clones, so he, now sure that he would have to intervene, began running towards the blond man to finish the job.

"Yamanaka!" Tenzo called out, stabbing at the man again with his kunai though he was sure the man would be able to deflect it since he saw it coming.

Ino looked up after lopping off the heads of another clone. She noticed that curved blade again, "Dad! What the hell!? Dad!"

Inoichi smirked and turned to look at his girl, "Baby… I'll stall him… run."

Ino's eyes widened when he held his hands out in the Yamanaka seal and caught Tenzo's mind.

"Oh shit…"

She faintly remembered him telling her about her grandfather's last ditch effort to save a comrade… it resulted in his death, but he spared another man's life. It was a bad trade, he said he once thought, but he said he had come to terms with what his father had done and said that everyone could learn from his selflessness, even if he did deprive his own son of a father and his wife of a husband.

"Dad…" Ino closed her eyes, tears flowing past her squeezed eyelids.

"Huh, I guess he didn't account for us?" Ino's eyes shot open and she quickly brought up her fore-guard to deflect an incoming swipe of a kunai.

"What the hell?"

"Ino, listen… even clones like these… they can only go so far before becoming useless… they're not real shadow clones and so they don't have their own chakra systems… so you just need to run away from them and eventually he'll run out of chakra here waiting for me to bleed out. It shouldn't take too long…"

Ino noticed that there were still several clones, and even the ones that she had 'killed' were beginning to get back up. "Dad… I don't want to…"

Through gritted teeth, Inoichi yelled, "Go to him, Ino!"

Ino's eyes widened slightly and suddenly she wanted to do nothing more than to just run.

"Tell him what happened here… tell him that someone has betrayed the Hokage. Don't die here and turn him against his own home!"

Ino didn't quite understand it, but she wondered if what he was saying somehow had something to do with what he knew about Naruto's psyche.

"Ok, dad…" Ino looked around as the clones began nearing closer.

"Listen… don't make me a grandfather so quickly, alright? Live your life first, darling. Promise me that?"

Ino blushed, "I promise."

He smiled, and there were tears in his eyes.

"Good bye, pumpkin." This was the last she heard from her father as he began to focus all of his chakra on forcing Tenzo's chakra into the jutsu.

Ino ran just as the clones began throwing kunai. She gasped when one embedded itself in her shoulder and bit back the pain as she closed her eyes for a second. When she opened them, she jumped up into the trees and made a bee line for Kumamoto City.

After a while, Ino stopped and waited for them to come. She had lost too much blood already and couldn't quite keep her wits about her while standing there just outside of the city limits. She wasn't sure how far the clones could go, but they seemed to slow down about two miles back. Looking at her wound, she tentatively touched the knife sticking out of the back of her shoulder and shook her head from the throbbing pain.

Ino then clasped the handle and yanked once and fell unconscious quickly afterwards. As she lay there, three people heading west away from the sea had just arrived in the outskirts of Kumamoto.

"Naruto! Who are you talking to?!" Young Minato asked as he climbed up the large mountain with the help of Tayuya, holding the small doll that his mother had given to him before her death, while Anko stood directly beside Naruto trying to shake him out of his apparent stupor.

"Naruto! What are you saying all that for? There's no one up here!" Anko yelled, a little frightened that he seemed so insistent that he was speaking to someone on top of the volcano for the past five minutes.

So have you made your decision? I cannot wait here all day, Namikaze. I may have waited for years already, but I can wait no longer. Either you do it, or you don't.

Naruto clenched his jaw, then looked back and young Minato, Tayuya and then turned to Anko. "You three need to leave."

Ino sat upright in her bed, shuddering as she remembered the vivid dream of Naruto looking down at her from on top of the volcano… wait, does that mean that she became Mount Krakatoa?

Ino looked around and reached for her kunai pouch, but froze like ice when she saw a giant, glimmering blade descend upon her and her neck was nearly surrounded by the giant "cleaving" head-cutter that was held over her. "Holy shit."

"You'll stay put while Haku is away. I don't have time for bullshit, lady."

Ino looked at the bandaged man who had his mouth covered and had a terribly scrunched up brow as if he were very angry at something.

"Ok, ok. That's cool, wait for Haku… but uh, please… take away that sword? Jeez, how long can you hold it straight like that?"

The man laughed, shaking his head. "I don't know, should we find out?"

Ino paled, "Definitely not!"

"Yo, yo, just relax Zabusa-sama!" Chojuro said, smirking when he saw the blonde. "She's pretty… it'll be a shame if your shoulder gets tired and you accidently chop that pretty head off her neck."

"Wow. You're a just a dashing prince, aren't you?"

The blue-haired young man shrugged, "Eh, I don't like to run very fast."

Zabusa smirked and pulled back away the cleaver, leaning back in his chair as he looked at the young blonde. "Chicken legs here probably could teach you a thing or two… she obviously was running from something when we found her."

Chojuro and Ino both looked at him, while Chojuro asked, "How'd you know?"

Zabusa rolled his eyes, "Besides the fact that she was passed out due to a shoulder wound that could've been addressed by any prepared shinobi? The trail of blood that was coming from the south where she obviously ran from… an elephant couldn't have left a bigger trail.

"So…," Ino began, trying to jump into the conversation to find out just what the hell she was doing in a bed with a man pointing a giant sword at her, "you two saved me?"

Zabusa laughed and Chojuro just snicked. "Oh hell no, he'd never save you… I might, but I would want a favor in return. You're lucky it wasn't me that found you."

"I sincerely doubt you would guilt her into doing anything she didn't want to do with you, Cho-kun. You have too big of a heart."

Ino's ears perked up while Chojuro put on a big grin and said, "Hey! Haku! Welcome back. Did you find whatever it was you were looking for?"

"Why yes, I did." Ino caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a beautiful young woman and her jaw dropped. "Why, hello there! You're awake then? Are you feeling any better?"

Ino couldn't talk for a moment, finding that her mouth was dry. She blinked and looked at Cho-kun, figuring that he was the boyfriend, then at Zabusa and… it took her a minute… but he must be the… uncle… -ish? Ino shook her head and turned back to look at Haku.

"I uh…"

"It's okay… actually, you should just lie back and rest for a little bit… you don't know how bad these type of wounds can get if you don't clean and disinfect them as soon as possible! Cho-kun, hand me my pestle and a bowl please."

Chojuro looked around and found the two things and handed them over. They were both made out of a good quality red oak. Ino watched as the young woman sliced open a prickly plant and used the knife to scrape out the gooey, viscous insides onto the bowl where she took a choice leaves and a root from a plant that Ino knew as a tack-fern, an odd, fern-like plant that was seedless and when its root was ingested was dangerously poisonous, but when ground up in small amounts and mixed with water was diluted enough to be a great pain-numbing balm that Ino had to guess Haku was going to use on her wound which hurt like hell.

Haku poured a small amount of water into the mixture and ground it up, stirring it and then using her pinky nail to taste it, much to Ino's shock since she knew the root could easily kill someone if they weren't careful when using it for medicine.

"Okay. Perfect. It might sting at first because of the devil egg, but it'll feel good after a few moments if you can just tough it out, ok?"

Ino looked at Haku and nodded. "Ok…"

She didn't know what to say as she felt her shoulder grow numb and the pain that had begun to throb and give her a sharp headache began to fade. Her eyes closed and she barely heard the question coming at her as she started to drift away.

"Can you tell us why you were out there on your own? Where are you headed?"

Ino blinked when Haku repeated the question and nodded. "I ran away. I was going to Mount Krakatoa."

Haku frowned, "You were going the wrong way though… but you said you ran away? From what?"

Ino turned to look away, "From… it's not really important right now…"

Zabusa leaned forwards, "I think you owe it to us to at least be square with us. Don't piss me off, girly."

Haku frowned, "Zabusa-san, that's not nice."

"Don't get me started on what not nice is. I'll get really freakin' not nice in a few minutes if I have to keep putting up with this shit… when are you going to just pass someone by and let them go ahead and die? Maybe she was running away from loan sharks or maybe she's some kind of baby killer or something? Worse yet, what if she's a dumb brat who can't stand her parents anymore and so just ran away from home and got mugged?"

Chojuro looked at him, dumbfounded, "Baby killing is not as bad as being a dumb brat and running from home?"

Zabusa shrugged. "What I'm saying is, if it's not interesting, then it's not worth my time."

"I can't let someone suffering just lie there and die when I know I can help them..." Haku turned back to look at Ino and smiled softly. "Look, miss, you don't have to say anything or even be grateful. You don't owe me anything, ok?"

Zabusa looked at Haku, slack-jawed, "Are you freakin' serious? What if she's rich? Hell yes she owes you something! Hell, a blow job might do you some good."

Ino looked up at Haku and asked, quietly, "You're not a girl…?"

Zabusa and Chojuro looked at Ino and then each other and they broke out into fits of laughter, each shaking their heads or guffawing in their own way.

Haku sighed. "No, I'm a guy."

Ino just stared a moment until something seemed to click. "Oh, well shit. That somehow makes this feeling worse..."

Haku tilted his head, "Huh? What feeling?"

"Envy..."

Zabusa and Chojuro began laughing again.

Author's Note: Next chapter is the end of this 'arc' I suppose. Naruto, Ino and co. all have something to do with it. Your other favorite character makes another appearance as well. Hope you enjoyed the chapter.