A/N This is an AU story. Heh…sorry for not saying this earlier. (But, I hope you enjoy this story nonetheless.)
Continue~
…
With an hour and a half of practice, Team 7 had managed to get the hang of the simple dance routine. Kosari wonders, in the back of her mind, if the event might include more complicated dance routines, but she knows it's futile to worry about something like that now. Even I'm not that good at the most complicated ones.
It's not like they had that much time, anyway.
The five Konoha shinobi, under the moonlit sky, walk towards the rather expansive estate. Naruto stops in his tracks, his blue eyes shining with awe. Kosari gives him a sideways look before Sasuke grabs Naruto and drags him along, "This guy hosting it is probably the daimyo or something. Don't look so shocked, idiot."
In front of the entrance are four guards and a tall, muscular man with a scowl. Kosari leads the three around the estate until she finds a window. Her black eyes flit from left to right. No one.
She examines the window and finds a lock standing between her and getting in. She takes out a senbon and carefully picks the lock. Within a few moments, a soft click sounds as the window gives way to a gap from the sill. She pushes it open and enters first, followed by the Genin, and then Monkey. She glances back at her Genin, shrouded in a henge, before exiting the small room, presumably a storage closet. She grips the doorknob and turns it as she tries to sense if anyone is outside.
No one.
Without a shred of doubt in her heart, she goes forward and steps into a long hallway with doors on both sides, leading to small and unique little spheres of humanity, a pitch black end with only a small stained glass window depicting something ancient, and a brightly lit other end. She turns towards the brightly lit end and strides towards it, dispelling any fear that threatens to topple the notion that the mission would go smoothly.
"You two go with Monkey," Kosari orders Sasuke and Hinata. "Uzumaki-san, you're with me. Let's go," she turns and goes up a flight of elegant wooden stairs, her hands running along the smooth banister. She looks down at the three melt into the crowd of people dressed just as formally before looking at Naruto, who catches up to her. His generic brown eyes and striking blonde hair bounce slightly as he jogs up the stairs, overtaking her easily. He waits at the top, patiently. She can see under his easygoing façade that he's nervous. A bead of sweat rolls down his face, which he wipes away.
"I guess you didn't take all of us because we'd attract attention, right?" Naruto asks as he trots behind her silent footsteps and eyes that analyze the doorways and hallways that go on forever.
"You could say that," she says quietly.
"It's not just that?" Naruto asks, curious.
"You three are a team," she says, "What's the point in assigning you in teams if you three learn the exact same things, never to rely on one another? It's good for all of you to know the basics, sure, but I'm playing to each of your specialties. Uchiha-san and Hyūga-san have their keen eyes," she pauses. At least, Hyūga-san does. I don't think Uchiha-san has activated his sharingan yet. She turns to face him fully, "Your mother, during her time as an Academy student, hated studying and focused pranks, whether it be from having smoke bombs explode in the Hokage's office when the door was unlocked to sneaking into heavily guarded and secured areas and stealing priceless items. I've been always very, very busy with my ANBU career until I became your sensei, so I don't know how the three of you grew up. But, I have a feeling that you'd be good at this sort of sneaking around or, to put it simply, infiltration tactics."
"How…?" Naruto's blue eyes are wide, shining.
"She was famous," Kosari shrugs simply, "There was a few kid in my class that wanted nothing more than overtake her title as Master Prankster, and talked incessantly about doing so. I never knew about her until I looked into his crazed obsessions."
"What about my dad?" desperation laces his voice.
"Smart guy," Kosari says. "Strong guy. He fought in a completely different company than I did in the War, but he took on an entire Iwa army and won singlehandedly. The medic, Nohara Rin, was his student. Ask her."
Naruto stands in awe, stuck in his own thoughts.
"Come on, we've got a mission."
"Dangerous targets are almost always one of two things: surrounded by allies, or lone wolves. The more dangerous they are, the more cunning they are, or simply have luck on their side. They won't reveal themselves unless they want you to see them," Monkey says quietly as the two children tag along behind him.
"Shouldn't I just—" Hinata starts.
"No," Monkey says, "You want to blend in until you're almost positive that the target is the person you're following. Whether he's alone or in a group, he's going to be extra vigilant. He'll notice."
Monkey's eyes sweep the crowd before him before he plunges into the crowd of moving bodies, dressed in elegant black suits, with and without ties, dressed in dresses, with and without flashy designs. He makes his way to a table lined with drinks of all kinds and takes one, discreetly plopping a pill in it. I've no idea if this is poisoned or laced with anything. I only have a few of these anti-narcotic pills. Danzō-sama won't be happy I've wasted one of these on a petty mission like this, but…
It's then that Monkey notices something very, very strange. All of the men and all of the women have sport silver hair, long and short, shiny and matte, light and grey in tone, curly and not, and eyes that range in color from a green that even when the light hits the iris it's almost black…but not quite, to a green that is a vibrant green grass to a yellowish green.
He looks up at the second floor of the estate for Kosari and Naruto, but doesn't see them. He looks around again and sees a man with hair as black as his own smile at him as he ascends the stairway. Monkey blinks and the man has disappeared in a room. After sensing both Kosari and Naruto's chakra, he's somewhat relieved.
"Who was that?" Sasuke narrows his eyes.
Monkey isn't sure. He notices a few women making their way towards him and grimaces.
"Hey there," they purr, "I'm Yukiko." And "I'm Setsuna."
"What's your name?" another woman drapes her arm around his shoulders.
"You don't look like you're from around here," another says softly.
"Don't tell me…" Setsuna says dramatically, covering her mouth with a gloved hand, "You've crashed this party?"
"They do stick out," Yukiko says.
"Oh, Setsuna-cha~n, you should've seen the woman hanging around him earlier," another woman gushes, "With black eyes!" her grass green eyes flash brilliantly. "And besides, mister, you shouldn't hang around an ugly woman like that, one with no class. Women like her are nothing but trouble."
Monkey roughly pushes away the women, "I'm sorry, I need some air," he grabs Sasuke and Hinata and walks out. He bursts through the entrance and leans against a tree, pinching the bridge of his nose. Those women…
Kosari grips the doorknob, rippling chakra through it to deactivate any seals that might've prevented her from entering, and turns the knob, halfway expecting some trap to spring and possibly blow up in her face. To her surprise, nothing happens. She enters first before determining quite quickly that her and Naruto were the only ones in the room. She pulls Naruto in before closing the door and looking left to right, scanning the room, "Uzumaki-san, look in that desk's drawers. Be careful of any traps," she says as she turns to the larger, probably a lot more dangerous, bureau with several drawers of varying sizes.
As the two flip through the neatly organized papers and files, Kosari grows more and more aware of the growing quietness of the hall where Monkey and Sasuke and Hinata are. She focuses chakra to her ears to enhance her hearing, at the expense of her other senses.
"…clear on the plan? I want this to go off flawlessly."
"Yes, ma'am."
"What of the budding algae designed cakes? You in kitchen four have prepped accordingly, right? I want all of my ingredients set to be mixed and baked. The oven should be preheated and outfitted with a new pilot light."
"Those have already been set into motion. All we're waiting for is your go-ahead."
"Good," a gruff voice replies.
Kosari is almost taken aback by the seriousness of the meeting across the hallway. It's just cake… She sighs and closes the drawer, having found nothing of note. She moves on to another cabinet, this time finding a few files on a few Konoha shinobi. As she flips through the files, she comes across one name that she knows rather well.
Why is Nohara Rin's file here?
Kosari begins to read more closely and her heart stops when she sees another name.
Orochimaru.
"Uh…sensei," Naruto says slowly, "I think you should take a look at this."
Kosari strides over, nearly collapsing from the sudden apprehension in the lump in her throat. She seals the files she'd found hastily into a scroll. She takes the folder that Naruto holds and a wave of chilling cold shudders through her from the fingers that grasp the folder to the tips of her toes to every last follicle on her head.
Naruto stands patiently for a few moments before he slips into a feeling of general discomfort. Kosari stands silent, her eyes wide and glassy. If the pages hadn't been clamped together with a paperclip, the pages would've fluttered to the ground as she flicks through page after page. Naruto himself hadn't really looked at it much, just the first few pages that said something about kekkei genkai and Konoha. It was rather in-depth and very detailed and incredibly dull; science had never been something he was particularly interested in. Shinobi tactics, in comparison, had been the highlight of his Academy career.
But, sharp and pointy things were his real interest.
"Sensei?"
Especially throwing them.
"Sensei."
He supposes, to some extent, that what he'd found might've been some village secret.
Again?
Finding that scroll was fun and all, but putting it back before the ANBU captain found him was stressful and made the whole ordeal completely not worth his time.
"Kosari-sensei."
But, learning a few jutsu was cool, at the time. They're useful, even now. Especially the shadow clone technique.
"We…" Kosari whispers, urgent, "We need to go."
"What?" Naruto blinks, "What is this, anyway?"
"We need to go," Kosari repeats.
"Why?" Naruto says with a slight firmness in his voice, "What are these papers?"
Kosari shakes her head as she takes a scroll from her hostler under her dress strapped to her leg and seals the papers away. She grabs Naruto and drags him outside.
"Yeah, and he didn't even stand a chance!" he exclaims loudly. His eyes gleam with glee as the group of Academy students presses further towards him and condenses in a squirmy squid-like gang of insatiable hunger for knowledge. Or rather, simply recognition and to follow the latest trend. Not much really happened in Kumo, being so far from much of anything than rock and sky, other than the super-popular rumor that the two infamous Uchiha murderers had visited Kumo.
Looking for him.
"You're so cool, Haruki-sama!" a small first-year Academy girl squeals with her little blue pigtails bouncing as she turns this way and that way as she childishly squirms in delight at being so close to the 'celebrity'. Kumo never really had any famous shinobi like Konoha did, except for the Raikage and his predecessors and Killer B. And, of course, the new addition: Imagawa Haruki. His name, originally a bland and forgettable one, had turned into a household name and small children to elderly women would stop him on the street and eagerly ask how he'd managed to survive coming in contact with the Uchiha killer.
"Could you show us your sharingan?" a young girl pleads.
"Sure," he grins and his eyes light up red with a single tomoe.
The children shout with excitement.
"Amazing!"
"My new favorite color!"
"How'd you beat him, Haruki-dono?" a young boy cries out, his eyes stars with admiration.
Haruki leans back further on his lavish seat in the middle of the training ground in the shade of a tree. He snaps his fingers at a second-year girl with long blonde hair and she adheres to his command to fan him faster. He sighs in contentment, "Oh, you want to hear about that?" his black eyes are half-lidded above his smug smile.
"Yes, sir!" the children all bow excitedly.
He snaps his fingers at another child, in their last year of the Academy, and the boy quickly hands him another skewer of grilled chicken.
With a smack of his lips, he starts, "I sensed the guy coming before he even was in my sight. I was training hard, as I normally do, and then the guy comes rushing at me. I activate my sharingan and whip out my kunai and almost slice his head off! He tries some taijutsu with me, but it's obvious I'm no match for his mediocre skills. He bitterly says that he'll get me next time and runs away with tears in his eyes."
The crowd of children gushes with amazement.
"You're so cool!"
"Can you train me after class?"
"Me too!"
"How about me?"
The children start to grab at him, trying to get him to listen to just them and only them. Haruki nervously smiles as he tries to free himself from the grabby children. He hears a rip and begins to panic. Not my favorite shirt!
He looks up and sees Korohi walking by with his hands in his pockets.
"Korohi! Help me!" Haruki cries out.
Korohi continues walking calmly.
"Hey!" Haruki yells, getting a little more desperate.
Korohi doesn't stop.
"I get it—you're just intimidated by me!" Haruki laughs, "Aren't you!"
A kunai whizzes next to his ear and nicks—"Why would I be intimidated by a liar like you?" Korohi's eyes burn with detestation.
In the blink of an eye, the children disperse in silence.
"Why wouldn't you be? Just because you graduated early doesn't mean you're stronger than me. I have the sharingan, and you don't," he grins as he crosses his arms. "Plus, you can't prove that pretty scathing insult. You weren't even there."
"Don't insult Haruki-sama!" a small girl wearing a pink dress haughtily says with scowl.
"You think you're stronger than me?" Korohi raises a brow, "You've never trained a day in your life and surround yourself with mere children who can't even hold a kunai right. Kami, you've never even been out of the village."
"And you have?" Haruki snorts, "Yeah, right, brat. There's no way you're stronger than me."
"Why're you so eager to get your ass kicked?" Korohi glares at the taller boy.
"Right back at you," Haruki steps towards him with his shining sharingan.
"Get him, Haruki-sama!" the crowd of fans cries.
A moment later, Haruki charges at the younger Genin. Korohi blurs from the Uchiha's sight and reappears behind him. He quickly grabs the older boy and spins on a heel before taking a step forward and slams him against a tree. Haruki manages to soften the impact and rebounds at him with a split lip. Korohi narrowly dodges the boy's kunai swiping left and right and arcing up towards his neck. His ink black eyes catch the sunlight as they calculate and his hands quickly form seals.
Haruki, overwhelmed by the ability to…almost predict the seals, he doesn't copy them. His eyes go wide in shock. Orange flames consume his vision and he narrowly dodges the inferno unleashed before him. He ducks into a tree and watches in awe as the flames burn a bright orange. When they die down, Haruki jumps down and approaches Korohi. Korohi throws kunai at the boy, which Haruki manages to catch, "Where did you learn that?"
"None of your business," Korohi spits. Haruki's sharingan fades into a black and Korohi is quick to throw a punch, causing Haruki to hit the floor, "I don't ever want to hear you talking about those inhuman murderers ever again, much less to innocent children! If I do hear you talking about them again," Korohi's eyes boil with hate, "I won't hold back."
The boy shoves his hands in his pockets, leaving Haruki to lie on the smoking grass in pain. The children shuffle away from him, not seeing him as cool or strong anymore. He'd just lost to a…
"Damn cocky brat," Haruki mutters, "Just who does he think he is—some kind of genius? I'll get him in the Exams, along with that famous Uchiha Sasuke."
"Uchiha Sasuke, huh?" a cold voice echoes from the trees. Haruki dusts himself off and looks up at his sensei.
"Ah, Darui-sensei," Haruki says jovially, "Sorry, you weren't supposed—"
"Is that your wish?" Darui asks, slouching as he puts his hands in his pockets and almost glares at his student.
Haruki nervously rubs the back his neck and sighs, "I guess," he glances up at him with a little bit of admiration, "I mean, I just want to learn how these work and if I'm stronger than that Uchiha that they all talk about."
"Pack your bags," Darui says easily as if he were simply talking about the weather.
"What?"
"You heard me," Darui's eyes turn cold, "You want to go to Konoha that badly? Fine. Better to get your acquainted with that place the sooner the better right? Your teammates are already by the gates, along with C's team. We're setting out today."
"Hey! That's enough!"
Suigetsu's body was halfway in a puddle and the other torso half holding Chojūro's sword with two hands on each side. His toothy grin turns into a grimace in effort as he strains between the two black-eyed shinobi.
"What do you mean?" Chojūro asks quietly, pulling his sword away from him and chakra stops swirling around it, causing it to reduce greatly in size, "I wasn't going to—"
"Yeah, you were," Suigetsu growls, "You were about to kill her. I know those eyes when I see them," he turns around as he materializes to his female and much younger teammate, "Are you okay?" When he says 'okay' he exaggerates the sentence, furrowing his brows, gesturing at her, and giving her a thumbs up and then a thumbs down before tilting his head.
She excitedly grins and gives him a thumbs up.
A woman from the edge of the clearing of the training grounds calls out to her and she waves as she runs over to her, away from her teammates. Once her grey pigtails are out of view, Chojūro glares hatefully at his teammate, "How could you even treat her like a child?"
"What does that mean?" Suigetsu asks darkly, "I have never understood why you don't like Aiko; she's a perfectly nice kid. Are you intimidated by the fact a six-year-old is on a team with us?" he puts his hands on his hips, "Didn't you hear sensei and Mizukage-sama talking once? She's a clan kid. Don't—"
"She can't even speak!" Chojūro exclaims angrily, "This is ridiculous! I'm being put on a team with an idiot. And by the looks of it, two idiots!"
"Hey," Suigetsu glares, "She might have been born mute. Don't judge her so harshly. I'm sure this is just a phase. She's just six. If you find her to be such a problem, why not see your own hypocrisy: you dislike a six-year-old yet you lower yourself to comparing yourself with someone half your age. If anything, you're being the ridiculous one here."
"Shut up," Chojūro hisses, "You know nothing. You understand—and can't possibly—understand a thing about me! That girl is an abomination! I hope she dies in the Exams!"
This guy…! "Tch," Suigetsu's blood boils over as he slugs the other boy in the face.
"Just—"
He raises his arms to keep his face from burning off from the flames expanding from the exploding tag.
"Get out of here!"
His red eyes flash angrily, met with placidly calm red ones. "No."
"Itachi!" Shisui yells, "Listen to me!"
Shisui's attention is drawn from the lethal Kage to the disobedient Uchiha, "I'll put this bluntly then: you're going to get in my way. Have you forgotten? Your body has gotten a lot worse! For our sake—"
The Raikage comes. Itachi suppresses the urge to take a step back and readies his body to move as fast as what his eyes tell him. He begins to mold chakra, but a terrible surge of pain electrifies him and he drops to his knees, coughing blood. Shisui curses and kicks him—he has no time—out of the way and cries out in pain when the Raikage's lightning grazes him. He grabs Itachi and jumps back a far distance and examines the younger Uchiha with both concern and rage.
"What did I tell you?!" Shisui demands, "You—"
"I'm not Shirusu," Itachi warns, getting out of the man's grasp easily and glares, "I'm not a child."
That shuts Shisui up. He purses his lips and focuses on the angry Kage before him, "Itachi. I won't say this again," a four pointed star gazes at the teen, "Go."
"Even with Susanō, without me you can't—"
"Leave!" Shisui snaps. He bites a thumb and slams his hand on the ground. A cloud of smoke dissipates and reveals a growling form clad in fur and pearly white teeth, "Take him far away from here."
"Yes, sir," its teeth gleam and it pounces on Itachi before disappearing with the sickly teen. Shisui glares angrily at the Kage, eager to take out his anger and frustration on the Kage. Green flames burst around him before a skeleton slowly is burned into view, of white structure with a tinge of green, "Come at me!"
"Monkey," her icy hand rests on his shoulder before her feet touch the ground, "We need to leave."
Monkey turns to look at her and inadvertently catches the eye of the man with hair as black as his own from earlier. The man gives him an eerie grin and his eyes, a dark color, seem to shine a sickly yellow and his skin gives off a pale sheen where the light bounces off of his face. Monkey stills, feeling an aura of death emanate from him. He wants nothing more than to look away, but freezes to the spot when the women from earlier descend upon him like angry hawks and the man strides over with his feet that don't seem to touch the ground.
"Hey, mister," a green-eyed woman bats her mascara-covered eyelashes at him and wraps her pearly white arms around him. She leans in close to him as another woman steps in between Kosari and Monkey, "What did I tell you?"
"Hey—"
whoosh.
Monkey's sentence comes to a shuddering halt when something whooshes past his ear. A moment later, his ear feels unspeakably warm and he slowly touches it with a finger.
Blood.
"My, my," the man stands a few feet away from them with his arms crossed. The green-eyed silver-haired women and men form a large circle around them, "I didn't expect Kuchinashi-chan's party to be crashed by such a handsome young man and his little niece and nephews," he tilts his head at them, "Or, to bring in such a lovely young lady. Was she your pass in?"
"Who are you?" Sasuke steps forward with a scowl.
The man winces in an exaggerated way. He frowns disapprovingly, sending chills up Sasuke's spine. The man's expression reminds him of his father's face, looking so glum and so disappointed he hadn't saved him from Itachi that night, "'Introduce yourself before asking the names of others', right?"
"I…I'm—"
"This is Tachibana Ryūji and his nephews and niece: Tachibana Iko, Hashi, and Shōsuke," Kosari cuts in.
"Kukai-sama wasn't talking to you—" a woman starts angrily, cocking back a fist.
"Setsuna."
A regal voice booms down and the air becomes still. Yet, Setsuna can't help herself and Kosari ends up meeting the floor. Monkey blinks in shock. I didn't even see her punch. A woman wearing a diamond encrusted blue dress walks over with an aura of regality reminiscent of an aristocracy in Kosari's eyes and watches as the woman is slapped across the face.
"Are you an idiot?" the regal woman asks quietly, her emerald green eyes burning with ire. Kosari studies the woman intently, unencumbered by the punch earlier. The woman, for some reason, is familiar to Sakumo's daughter. Her obsidian eyes scan the woman's body and from her position on the ground, she sees paper woven into the inside of her dress.
"N-no, Kuchinashi-sama," the woman trembles with fear. Kosari stands and looks at the emerald-eyed woman.
"Forgive my intrusion, but I can explain: Setsuna-san was talking to Ryūji-san and I had interrupted disgracefully; I had interrupted Ryūji-san's confession of affection for her," Kosari bows deeply.
"Is this true?" Kuchinashi glances from Kosari to Ryūji.
Monkey nods slightly, unspeakably horrified and confused. Setsuna stares at Kosari with her eyes wide.
"Kuchinashi-chan," the man grins, "Let's not go off on this useless tangent. We must still deal with these intruders, love confession or not."
Kuchinashi glares at the four without silver-hair, "Throw them out. I'll pardon this man's indecency by not informing Setsuna's fiancé of this," she looks at Kosari with a strange look; her glare instantly melting, "What's your name?"
Kosari watches as Monkey and her Genin are quickly escorted out before answering, "It's…not that important, right?" Her ears ring with a fear she can't describe.
"What?" Kuchinashi demands, "Answer me!"
"If I told you," Kosari doesn't meet her eyes. She stares at her hands, "What would you do? Your party has been crashed and there isn't enough alcohol to keep people here. And, from the looks all your guests are giving me, I'm not welcome here."
"Damn straight," someone sneers, "Ugly scum like you aren't—"
Kuchinashi peers into Kosari's endless black abysses, "You're a Hatake, aren't you? This silver hair," she grasps a few strands with two fingers, "I haven't seen such pure silver hair in a long time," she leans in close to Kosari, "This man is an outsider," she tucks Kosari's hair behind her ear and dons her glare once more, "For a woman with silver hair, a color of hair that is superior to all the rest, to have interrupted my comrade's confession because you yourself have lowered yourself to feeling any sort of emotion for a black-haired devil, a man who dares crash my party no less, is inexcusable. Regardless of your name, Hatake or not, I cannot let you remain here. Leave!"
Kosari doesn't need more motivation than that. Her heels quickly click-click their way out, carrying her out and away and into the night's fresh air.
"We need to go," Kosari repeats once more, "I'll get our bags at the inn. You four go ahead."
"That idiot," Itachi mutters. His black eyes stare into amber ones and its fangs retreat into its maw.
"You don't look very tasty, but I suppose I'll settle with you because if Shisui-sama dies I'm blaming you," the beast's warning rumbles within its chest and its eyes narrow.
"But he just—" Itachi's eyes go wide in disbelief.
"I'm not talking about now," the beast growls, "I'm talking about later on. There may not be any beast bound to the earth that could help Shisui-sama, but there may be a beast that takes flight with the cunning to help."
"Do you think Raikage-sama is that strong?" Itachi glances over at twin amber orbs.
The beast shakes its head, three times as large as Itachi's, "Shisui-sama has his wits about him. He'll escape alive, at least. He knows, just as you and I do, that killing that Kage will only cause Konoha more problems. Kumo may know that both of you Uchiha are no longer affiliated with your village, but you better than most that your past is the one that gets you," then its hard amber eyes soften, "Just how are Sasuke and Shirusu? And, what was her name…?"
Itachi looks away, "Shirusu and his sister are…"
The beast takes a step back, "W-what?"
Itachi looks at his hands, "I managed to save Sasuke," he tries to hold back tears, "I'm sorry."
"Those kids…" the beast looks at its huge paws, "Shirusu always thought I was some pack mule, a beast of burden. Far from it, I'd scoff, but I'd sprint over the lake within your compound so long as Shisui-sama was watching anyway. The damn kid was fascinated by it. Shisui-sama often told me explicitly not to talk to the boy about his mother. But despite the fact I didn't even know what she looked like, much less her name—Shisui-sama was always so secretive when it came to females—the boy would always ramble on and on about the woman. It had gotten to the point that the brat's curiosity and desperation for that female had infected me. I began to imagine what the boy would imagine and, on days when Shisui-sama and his father were forced to work late at the Police Headquarters, I began to believe what the boy would say about that female in his sleep. The poor boy, always having nightmares and no mother to soothe him. He was only six, wasn't he?"
"Almost," Itachi says solemnly.
"Tell me: did Shisui-sama's mate die on a mission while the boy was a mere babe? Or, does her heart still beat? Although, it may be hard for it to if her kits are dead and her mate is a criminal. But, it's not like I care…"
Itachi just shakes his head, "I'm sorry."
With an arm she cuts into the puff of smoke after consolidating Team 7's bag and Monkey's and her own in a scroll. She'd already changed into more comfortable clothes after deciding that having a dress flutter in the wind was impractical. She hops out of the window and soars into the night.
Into the dense foliage is where she goes; sprinting across the thick limbs of the trees and taking flight over a grass-covered soil is how she goes. Under the full moon, her hair glows the same color as the moon. With an unusual urge to go faster, she complies and flies past the trees until everything simply blurs into a dark green and brown and black. The moon, however, doesn't lose its brightness and lights her way like a guiding hand.
The silver wings flap a few times, to slow, and she lands gracefully to where their chakra signatures are. They had stopped, presumably to wait for her. She almost smiles at that, but something makes her stop. The air is too still and it becomes too apparent that breathing is getting harder and harder. She takes a closer look at her Genin and they kneel, shaking with fear.
Monkey and Hound had always been around Danzō's aura of death and killing intent and murder, and, what they considered justice in its purest form, so the constricting air didn't have very much of an effect on the former and current ANBU.
Monkey hisses as something pierces his skin and Hound watches with cold calculation as more blood stains his clothes. Something whisks Monkey back and an Academy student could see what it is: wire.
Hound is alone.
But armed.
"How rude, Kosari-chan. My files aren't to be considered as some library, you know. You can't just borrow them with an IOU or something like that. They're mine," he smiles, "I'm sure it's hard to understand the whole concept, right? Being an ANBU, former or not, makes it hard to say 'mine' when all your weapons come from the same deposit as all the other ANBU. Even the previous Hound," a sickly grin shines out from the forest.
Hound wants nothing more than to shove his intestines down his throat and pierce a kunai through his heart, but Kosari feels the urge to vomit and just obliterate him.
"You're not fooling anyone, Kosari-chan," he runs a hand through his black locks, "It's obvious you've hardly come to terms with being the last Hatake. Look at you: you're a mess. Just who was the target for this mission, hm? Me? Or Kuchinashi-chan? Or, have you, in your haste to get rid of these Genin and to scurry back into ANBU, simply given up? Well, you can tell Sarutobi-sensei that his client is less than happy," he casts a few paper bills at her.
"Have you not killed yourself yet because you've been jealous of Kakashi-kun all your life and can only bask in the fact you can claim the title of the 'Last Hatake'? He was the apple of your parents' eyes and the heartthrob of Konoha and grudgingly respected across the globe while you stayed in the shadows and faced only cold death and hate as you ended countless lives. Shouldn't you have been used to that, though? Remember the War, when—"
"Shut up!" Kosari yells. Her body shakes as the skies rumble above her.
"Fine, the War must be some soft spot for you," he tilts his head, "What about the night of the Uchiha Massacre? You're a plague to Konoha with your cowardice and—"
Rain.
"—are destined to be destroyed by Konoha. Staying there will only hasten your death, faster than how Kakashi-kun died. However, I'll tell you something: Sarutobi-sensei is planning to use you to kill Danzō. I'm quite sure he doesn't like the fact Danzō oversees a large ANBU population, along with his ROOT members that he has no intention of hiding from Sarutobi-sensei. Danzō is trying to undermine his authority and become Hokage, which Sarutobi-sensei intends to prevent. Sarutobi-sensei clearly places too much trust in a fickle girl like you and hopes to manipulate you into doing his bidding. He's never been one to dirty his hands. Just think of your family and the War: Sarutobi-sensei certainly never was farther than a mile from his office while you and I and Kakashi-kun killed under 'orders'."
"Don't compare yourself to me," Kosari says, "And, I hate listening to liars."
Leaves bounce with raindrops that quickly pour down. Kosari looks at her Genin barely able to breathe under the Sannin's icy glare. Without a single seal, lightning bursts around her. The roar of the rain seems louder in the absence of the crackling of lightning. Within moments, Kosari directs her chakra towards the Sannin and condenses it into a point at the end that zips through the air and cuts his skin after he shimmers away to dodge.
"I'm your ally," Orochimaru grins, "I wasn't the one that tried to kill you or tie you to a bloodthirsty village. And, nor do I want you dead. In fact, the very opposite."
Hound wordlessly flicks with her wrist explosives at him and watches as he chuckles, "In rain?"
The wind howls and the rain goes sideways. His hair stands on end as he dodges her lightning. In a flash of brilliance from the heavens, his body sizzles. He promptly vomits out another copy of himself before vanishing into thin air. Kosari pulls back her lightning and looks at her hands that shake. She looks up as Monkey frees himself from the wire and jumps into the trees, more than eager to return home.
"This is a bad idea."
He glares at his 'friend'.
His friend groans, but no one can hear that.
"You'll get confined to truly only your training grounds! I happen, as you may or may not have noticed, enjoy seeing other humans than you from time to time! For being stuck with you forever, don't I deserve some sort of respect?"
"…"
After roaming around a small town for a while, the jinchūriki finally settles down at a seedy inn.
Inside, the ox laments once more, "Bee, you should return to Kumo after this. I don't want any repercussions. Just because the Raikage is out doesn't mean you can suddenly roam the world."
"Shut it, fool. To be caught, I'm too cool," Bee grins.
"Well, enjoy your freedom now. Just don't venture too far. I have a bad feeling about all this."
Bee just smiles.