This chapter is Filler but it's filler with a purpose! it has to be since its only the Third chapter, dissapointing much? Yes, VERY. I'm just trying to milk it out instead of quick pacing it like in Silver fang , it was supposed to be 20 chapters -_- how many did it up being? 12. It still has a 2 in it!
Thankies: Yuti-chan, Lycan723, katsuki-namikaze and Queenoffanficworldlovegunner. It's always nice to type new names ^_^
Oh and Miki611 for a fav totally unrelated to this story.
I don't own Naruto and if I suddenly did, I'd kill everyone! except the antagonist (Does not include Kabumaru)
(Start)
Three hours of traveling and cursing at the clouds to "Stop with all the fucking rain already," Madara decided to give his second in command an update as to what was going on. he readied himself for the lecture he thought he'd get and called Pain.
Both their holograms appeared in the dark cave meeting room that only Pain, Madara and Konan were allowed to use.
"Lord Madara, how is the mission going?," Pain asked the hologram of his boss.
Madara almost winced,"Not very well, " he answered slowly with a hint of, anger? no, not anger, more like, disappointment.
The ringed eyed man rose an eyebrow,"Has something gone wrong?,"
What was harder to say? I may have compromised the mission by killing a bunch of ANBU or I lost my partner?, "Yes, Deidara has been captured," Rather obvious which one he chose.
"Sir?,"
"There was an incident in Kusa, in my search for my partner, I compromised the mission...If word gets out, the agent may not be willing to cooperate anymore," Madara explained.
"You know that makes no difference, it was you that said 'Seal the mouth leave the mind wide open,' we can still obtain the information we need," Pain assured.
"I'm glad you see it that way, now I can resume my search,"
"Sir you-,"
"I will get him back soon enough, then we'll find the intel agent and head your way to perform the mind-swipe,"
Pain let out a croak, "Wait! What did you-," Madara's hologram vanished, "Do?,"
A familiar pair of golden eyes popped open in the darkest corner of the room, "Pain,"
"I know," Pain pinched the bridge of his nose, sometimes that man was just plain strange.
Many miles away in Kusa forest.
Madara yawned and stretched high, running a hand over his face, his mask was pulled to the very top of his head, acting like a hat that smashed down the spikes of black locks and kept the rain off of his face.
'That went better then expected,' he thought, for once not hearing a sarcastic retort from his subconscious.
Now that he had back up from Pain, if need be, he could start the long journey to Konoha, after much debate with the voice in his head he decided they were the most likely suspects.
Yes there were other villages he was suspecting if the whole Konoha thing didn't work out, such as Kumogakure, they had the eight-tails and then there was the Bombers own village, which was home to the Four-tails, even if he wasn't there they'd still see to it to eradicate an Akatsuki if given the chance.
But Konoha was the first stop. He was just hoping he wouldn't arrive too late, his teleporting abilities were only useful when he had a specific knowledge of the area, something he didn't have for Iwa, Kumo or the new Konoha.
Kami knows what had changed since the last time he was there, he'd heard from Itachi that Orochimaru attacked the village sometime during the Chuunin exam a few months before Sasuke defected, depending on the damage the entire area could be different.
Unsure though he was, there was one place that he knew was exactly the same. The Valley Of The End. The place he went to think, to plan and to nap when the base got too noisy.
Not to mention it was the perfect place to plan his strategy and his route once he found the ANBU base. It obviously wouldn't be IN the village itself, which was the problem, it would be somewhere on the outskirts, probably underground and heavily guarded by Black Ops.
The Black Ops in Konoha were littered with ROOT ANBU, the bases wouldn't be any different and where there are ROOT there was Danzo.
And there inlaid the biggest obstacal, if Madara was found out, he'd be left to fight Danzo and that would intercept his master plan.
The Moons Eye Plan.
But if Deidara died...It wouldn't effect anything.
So what was he doing here. If he knew that, what was the point of leaving the safety of the house and trudging out even deeper into the forest to find supplies so he could go save Deidara, the same man that was practically useless?
'You know why,'
Madara groaned as his head began to throb. His reality was slowly slipping away, his perception and his judgement were also disappearing, leaving him, just like everything always did.
'Maybe you should go see a medic for that. it can't be good to be getting headaches and fevers at the same time,'
Plus he had his own mind -which had created an opinion of its own- to deal with, stupid thing, more annoying than a nat.
The currently unmasked nin continued on despite the pounding, eventually he worked his way so far into the forest that he came to a cliff, but not just any cliff.
Madara couldn't help but gape a bit, "Roku falls," And damn did the landscape live up to its name, from above the ninja counted six waterfalls, all about as large or larger than that in the final valley and all flowed down into the dense green overgrowth, where the sound of the splashing was muffled but not silenced.
Caught up in observance he managed to catch a glimpse of something strange out of his eye for a split second before moving on again.
'Oi, pinecone head!,' His mind caught him.
"What?,"
'A house! Go back to where you just looked ya bloody moron there was a house!,'
Madara looked down over the cliff and muttered,"You're kidding," he looped his vision back around, it took him a minute but sure enough hidden beneath the cover of foliage was a small shack like house- the roof of it anyway.
"What the hell is a house doing in the middle of a canyon?,"
'Why was the house you and Dei bunked down in out in the middle of a freakin' forest? Who cares about details! They might have FOOD !,'
"I have more important matters to attend to!,"
'Well I am hungry and you and me are one in the same, two pea's in a pod, two fish in a barrel, two squid in a frying pan,' Madara's eye drooped lazily as he listened to his subconscious mind ramble, 'Two scoops of ice cream on a cone, a cup of tea and a good book, a-,'
"I GET IT!," Madara yelled, his voice hit the walls of the canyon and echoed back at him making his eye twitch.
'So, we're going right?,'
Madara sighed, "If it'll shut you up, fine," he put a foot on the edge of the cliff and looked down, trying to find a place to land.
'Dude you know talking to yourself will make people look at you weird,'
"Have you seen what my mask looks like?," The Uchiha laughed.
'Point taken me,'
Madara leaped over the edge and plummeted down towards the trees below while his own mind screamed at the top of its metaphorical lungs.
The walk down to the house is boring so we skip!
Madara threw the front door of the shack open and scrambled inside before slamming it shut and leaning up against it, several thuds sounded as a mob of creatures slammed their tiny bodies into the wood. Soon they stopped and all that could be heard was the soft rain pattering down and a few angry squeaks.
The scratched up ninja panted a bit, "DAMN LITTLE RODENTS!," he yelled.
'Man don't you think you overreacted just a bit?,'
"NO! It shouldn't have jumped on my head!,"
'Still didn't have to strap a paper bomb to it...'
Madara couldn't help but smirk a bit, "It was a justified defense tactic,"
'His attack was justified, that squirrel was only trying to avoid getting squished by your huge pedicured feet,'
"That thing was a demon trying to gouge my eye out is what it was," The voice didn't have a response to that.
Madara smiled in triumph, straitened out his cloak and situated his mask to cover his bloodied face, the squirrel had managed to leave a few battle scars on him before it blew up, he'd fazed through the explosion but was promptly surrounded by the tree rats friends
( He could've sworn one was dressed in a miniature suit of armor with a twig as a sword, riding on the back of a cat, but he chalked it up to a fever induced hallucination. Where would a squirrel find tiny samurai armor?)
If Deidara had been there he would've loved that, he always loved it when his partner got attacked by small creatures (One time a chipmunk crawled up his pant leg ,the blond was blue in the face). Madara's smile dropped, there was that feeling again, the one that struck him in that day-dream.
'Alright enough pouting! To the kitchen!,'
Madara winced at the volume and clenched his head, he slunk forward with a lazy posture down the long hallway, passing the kitchen and an empty front room as he went.
'Oi, I said KITCHEN! Where are you going?~!,'
"My head hurts too much to eat," He just wanted to find a place to rest a for a bit, he didn't know why but he felt fatigued all of a sudden, like his body would just give out any second.
'Pft, fine, starve us see if I care,'
Madara pushed open the first door on the right of the hallway, the light from the window at the very end of the hall was letting in just enough light to dimly brighten up most of the room and cast a large silouette.
Inside was an empty well made bed, a scroll with the Kanji for 'Ink' pinned on the wall and a night stand.
He walked in and after setting up a chakra sensor that would alert him to any intruders (or squirrels) laid down on the bed with his arms behind his head. Almost immediately his headache began to lessen, soon it was all but gone. Normally that would be the signal to get going again, but by then he'd already drifted off into a light sleep.
0 0 0
Tobi was leaned up against the wall outside of the Inn room bathroom door, his arms crossed casually over his chest as he waited for his partner to exit his make-shift 'Bedroom'.
"Sempai, Tobi's back hurts," His acting abilities kicked in to overdrive as he played hurt.
Sleeping in the tub was far from a ''Pleasant'' experience but it wasn't bad. Actually the worst part was having to lean his head against the wall making his neck stiff.
"If you had stayed on your side of the bed you wouldn't have had to sleep in the tub, hmm," Deidara called back as he turned off the shower spray.
"Tobi's sorry, he just couldn't help himself, you looked so pretty,"
"Learn to exercise some self control or next time you're going to be saying goodnight to leader, yeah,"
"Tobi doesn't think Leader would like him intruding on alone time with Konan," last time that happened he had to grow a new leg and everything.
"Hmm," Deidara walked out of the bathroom with a fluffy white towel wrapped around his body, it was pulled up his chest for some reason, probably to stop his hair from dripping all over the place.
". . ."
"What?, hmm," he asked, feeling uneasy at his rowdy partners silence.
When Tobi didn't answer, the blond eyed him for a moment before shrugging lightly and going over to the bed where his cleaned clothes sat, Tobi had been nice enough to ask (threaten) the cleaning lady to wash them.
Deidara forced down a chuckle, ah the look on that old woman's face when the cold blade of the masked mans kunai was pressed against her throat, priceless.
"I lied,"
Flinching out of his thoughts Deidara turned to look at Tobi,"You lied?, hmm,", A nod," About what?,"
"My reason for breaching the border,"
It took a second for the bombers mind to work this through before he barked,"I KNEW IT! YOU FUCKTARD YOU TRIED TO KILL ME, DIDN'T-," he was cut off by Tobi gently lifting a handful of his sopping wet locks up and pressing them to his mask,
"What I meant was you always look pretty,"
Deidara lightly blushed as he brushed Tobi's hand away,"Don't touch my hair, hmm,"
Tobi chuckled.
0 0 0
'OIIII! PINECONE!,' Madara let out a strangled noise as he opened his eye, 'Oh good you're awake,'
"Ugh, what?," The raven mumbled sitting up in the bed.
'It's time to stock up and head out, you've rested long enough,'
"How long have I been out?,"
'Six hours! It's been very boring, for a genius your head is pretty damn blank when you're asleep,'
Madara snorted, swing his legs over the edge of the bed,"Couldn't you just watch my dream?,"
'I did, it was quite captivating though lacking somehow,' The voice said in a thoughtful tone.
"Oh yeah?,"
'Yeah, you and Deidara flirting, it was so cute,'
"I didn't flirt!," The Uchiha bellowed.
'Touching his hair, calling him pretty and chuckling at how cute he is when he's blushing isn't flirting? Wow, then Itachi owes those fan girls of his an apology,'
Thunder rolled, and lightning flashed as it started to rain again, Madara's expression drooped.
'Oh it's raining again,' his Subconscious noted.
"Great,"
How long was this damn storm going to last? it was like it was following him.
Taking the chance the voice started chiming,'Food! Food!,'
Madara sighed.
0 0 0
In the Kusa village market, standing in front of one of the many makeshift stores connected by tarps stretched over the walking paths, a cloak less Madara was waiting for the produce stand owner -an old farmer woman- to finish bagging his rice.
He didn't want to be a nag but It was taking forever.
You ever hear the old proverb that says women age like wine?
This woman apparently aged like milk. Her hands were shaky, she moved half the speed of a snails ass and the Uchiha had to repeat everything he said over and over and over and over again.
He didn't want mice and he certainly didn't want lice he wanted RICE.
Eventually she understood and got to work, ''Eventually'' being the key word.
"What? you won't have any Chocolate vine (1) until next week?," Madara looked away from the freak show at the sound of the surprised mans voice.
"I have to send my kid all the way to Roku falls to get them," The owner of the exotic fruit stand behind him said,"And the festival is this week,"
"Oh yeah, I forgot what day it was," The balding customer said sheepishly.
Festival?
"Six-hundred ryo," The old farmer heaved the small pound and a half bag of rice on the counter.
The elder handed her the money, it was exact so she didn't need to count it, thank Kami-sama,"Thank you please come again!,"
Madara grunted as he grabbed the bag and walked off, his mind already someplace else.
What festival could the men have been talking about? he didn't see any decorations being prepared, there weren't any booths being set up. Though he did notice the older shinobi of the village standing outside of shops wrapping bandages around their wrists.
Something ninja did when they expected to be a fight with heavy hand-to hand combat.
But unless the festival was going to be one giant drunken brawl he didn't suspect it had anything to do with the festival.
Shrugging he decided to forget about it, what relevance could it have?
A few hours later back in Madara and Deidara's inn room, the raven lay sprawled out on their bed, his stomach full of rice, happily snoring and muttering incoherent things, though every now and then a not so subtle word would pop up.
"Lower," he giggled, "Nice,"
He was jolted awake by Deidara throwing his cloak across his stomach.
"Get up Tobi, hmm," he said throwing down the bag Tobi got him by said ninja's feet and roughly pushing in his cloak and whatever else he wanted to swipe from the inn.
"Wh-," The Iwa cut him off, "There are ANBU down stairs, they're passing around flyers, yeah,"
Beneath his mask Madara pouted, he though he really hit it off with the young Cashier girl when he was coming back from town, she giggled at his jokes and everything!
"Is anyone talking sempai?,"
Madara knew the people in Kusa preferred to maintain as much Peace as they could, whenever they could, for as long as they could. They wouldn't break their tranquility for two men, criminals or not.
Hence the cashier not being scared of a strange man wearing an animated loli-pop.
It was a long standing, unwritten, agreement.
As long as the Akatsuki left the village alone, The village left the Akatsuki alone. Neither side saw the other as a group of allies or enemies, mercenaries or not, the Akatsuki weren't expected to help Kusa in a time of crisis and Kusa wasn't expected to help Amegakure.
"No," Deidara stopped for a moment before resuming his violent packing,"But we can't be too careful, hmm"
Madara couldn't argue with that.
The two packed quickly and after a few curses on Deidara's end -his hair got caught in the zipper of the bag- and a few tears shed on Madara's -parting is such sweet sorrow- they were off.
Heading into the forest.
Which seemed to have gain a creepy factor since they first walked through it on the way here. The trees branches were now locked together, blocking out most of the sun light and there were no longer any birds chirping.
It was dead quiet.
Deidara stared at it with a bored expression for so long Tobi did a double take when he finally walked in.
"W-wait sempai!," The masked ninja cried, running after him.
The two wandered through the forest for a while, heading towards the high mountain standing proudly in the distance...Or at least that's where they seemed to be heading, every mile one of them *usually Tobi* would climb a tree to map out the route, but it seemed like no matter how long they walked they weren't going anywhere.
Literally.
The raven was so sure they were going around in circles that he started to randomly mark trees with a kunai.
He eventually let it go when he was assured they weren't lost.
This came in the form of a small, delapidated old two story house that looked like the entire structure would give if a single leaf landed on it.
He was pretty sure he hadn't seen that before.
Deidara walked up to it and opened the door.
Madara grimaced, the blond wasn't thinking what Madara thought he was thinking, was he?
"Looks like this is the best we're going to find, yeah," The elder Uchiha sweated, he was, "But sempai," the masked ninja crept up beside the Iwa, he cupped a hand over his mouth to whisper, "It smells,"
It did, like an old dead rat in a sewer.
Don't ask how he knew what that smelled like.
"Would you rather go back to the village? yeah," Deidara asked in a suggestive tone.
Tobi sighed, "No sempai,"
The Iwa 'Humph'ed,"Go sit your ass down, hmm. I'll go see if I can find some futons or something," he said starting his assent up the stair case behind the front door.
Madara shrugged and did as told, he headed into the living room, that smelled like a mold covered jock sock that had never been washed. Actually that's a pretty good way of describing how it looked too.
'It really does fucking stink in here doesn't it?,'
Madara blinked, who the...
"Sempai!," he called.
"What?~!," Deidara screamed back.
"Tobi has a fever right?,"
"No shit, why do think you're dizzy all the time, yeah,"
"Can fevers make Tobi hallucinate?,"
"..." the blond didn't answer.
'You can take that as a yes,'
0 0 0
Now that Madara thought about it, that wasn't the first time he had a voice in his head. When he was young he would catch fevers frequently, most of them were mild, not raising above a few degrees.
But sometimes, they rose insanely high. It was one of those times, when he was lying in bed sweating and shivering at the same time, that the voice had spoken to him.
Even now he could remember that the voice sounded different, it had a deep timber and slow/even tempo (Like the lowest key on a Piano) that made thirty year old Madara's voice sound like Tobi, but slowly over time as the raven got older and his fever became few and far between, the voice became more and more pitched until eventually it just vanished.
It was like it had talked itself into nothingness.
That was over eighty five years ago.
'How times flies,'
"Tell me about it," Madara grunted.
TBC
(1). Chocolate vine is a shrub native to China, Korea and Japan, it usually grows 10 meters or more in height and has compound leaves with round leaflets, it also has clusters of muddy pink colored flowers that smell like chocolate :D it has sausage shaped fruits that have an edible pulp -when they're ripe they're a bright purple color (or colour)- it has to be eaten like yogurt, slurp, slurp. Because of the seed that become bitter if they're chewed.
-_- this chapter is 3547 words, but there are more skips in it, Damn.
Lol the Squirrel bit was inspired by a real event, trust me you have not lived until you get chased by a mob of tree rats. Nya REVIEW PLEASE! or just fav and Story alert, I don't mind I'm not a review whore if a chapter's ever late it will never be because of the reviews or lack there of. Thank you for reading! JA NE~!