Scroll 23: Will of Fire
Kakashi had done his best to inform the three ninjas – his best friend and senbon-biting Genma Shuinei, the tri-eyed ANBU agent Otou and the medically trained Hani Takimoto – that would be accompanying him and Yukari on the mission that the Hokage had relayed to him twenty minutes before. The silver, messy-haired ex-ANBU member stopped as his uncovered eye viewed the section of stone high above, that was currently being excavated and prepped for carving. Since Tsunade had become the fifth Hokage, it was only logical that her profile would be added to the other four reliefs that had taken up residence on the medium-sized rocky mountain that resided in the middle of his village; Konohagakure.
The project was an event that drew curious civilians and shinobi alike. It was, Kakashi surmised, amazing to see the feminine face slowly take shape. Tsunade's face would look excellent up there with the four other masculine faces of leaders past. On a tangent thought, Kakashi realized that his absent student's face – one going by the name Naruto Uzumaki – would be up there one day as well; as Naruto's life-long dream of becoming Hokage would inevitably come to pass. That dream – Naruto's noble goal – Kakashi had come to accept as a fact of life, would not fade away into nothingness; as so many other dreams were sadly destined to do. He finally acknowledged Naruto's ability to fulfill that dream – it would be a long, straining journey to reach it - but the Sharingan user believed his student's Will of Fire would accomplish that dream.
But for now, Kakashi; had been temporarily stripped of his genin team by time's ever-moving surge forward – Sakura Haruno had been chosen by the Hokage Tsunade to be trained as the next genius medical nin; Naruto Uzumaki had been taken by another one of the legendary sannin, Jiraiya, to start his training; and Sasuke Uchiha had become a missing nin when he too, had fallen in with the last third of the Sannin team: Orochimaru, to gain power enough to fulfill his dream of killing his murderous brother and restore his clan's honor.
The Hatake ninja shook his head as he realized he still had other students to teach – namely the red-eyed heiress of the Uzaruki clan, Yukari. The girl, remarkably similar in personality to Naruto, was keeping him on his toes. The crimson-colored hue of her kekkai genkai – the Akashingan/red death eyes – was remarkably unique to herself and her clan. The girl, having been through the loss of her team, was somebody that Kakashi could relate to on multiple levels.
He, too, had lost his team in combat when his was her age; the tender age of 14. The fact that her sensei, a scum-bucket hailing from the Akanchi clan, had betrayed her to Konoha's enemies was something that hadn't happened to Kakashi. It was this reason, her previous sensei's betrayal, that the Hokage had deemed it wise enough to give Kakashi Yukari Uzaruki to train while his other two remaining students were occupied.
A smile graced Kakashi's masked lips as he thought back on his time spent with the strong-willed, justice-centered and amazing kunoichi. If not for her opposing physical features – black-raven hair, red-eyes, and feminine physique vs. blonde hair, blue-eyes and masculine build – he might as well be training a female Naruto. The truth of that thought, Kakashi mused, wasn't at all accurate. Yukari was worlds different from her male rival, friend and motivation: Naruto. The two ninjas were worldly unique; different from each other in so many ways that one couldn't count the differences.
Yukari had pains in her heart that Naruto did not, and Naruto had pains in his that the girl did not. Not that Kakashi cared for comparing dark stains of emotional trauma of the two shinobi, but he was – deep in his heart – thoroughly glad to befriend both of them; and glad that they both had befriended each other.
If anything, the Sharingan user had grown closer and closer to the red-eyed kunoichi over the past months, becoming accustomed to the surprises she offered when he sparred with her. He and another ANBU member, one going by the name Otou, had combined their efforts to train Yukari in becoming an independent chuunin – something that couldn't have happened on its own given the fact that her previous sensei hadn't given a rat's tail about her. Indeed, Kakashi had given in to the sensual thrills she gave him when she exerted her chakra. It was interesting to learn about his new student; given that they had even fought together before.
It was during the Sand-Sound war that it had happened – back when he was obsessed with training Sasuke to find his potential with the Sharingan. When Kakashi was off in who knew what location, training the Uchiha heir, fate had decided to set events up that would inevitably lead to the Uzaruki girl and he confronting the traitorous Kabuto. Kabuto had been a spy for Orochimaru; and assisted the snake-sannin in converting Sasuke over to their side.
But in Kabuto's spare time – here Kakashi grimaced in primal hate – he had stalked the red-eyed Akashingan user and had abused and molested her for his sick, demented urges. The kid, half as young as Kakashi himself, was a medical ninja on par or even beyond the skills of Tsunade – the woman who was hailed as a medical pariah. The silver-haired ninja, posing as an ally under a mask, had infiltrated the chuunin exams and gained Yukari's trust before degrading her in the second, worst possible way; pinning her with a curse mark.
Kakashi had managed to pull off a rescue of precise timing, as he faced off against Kabuto in the midst of battle. Yukari had already been in position, lying at Kabuto's feet, when Kakashi attacked. She had enough wits to help Kakashi drive off the traitor. However, he later found out that Kabuto had used his time well, having apprehended the kunoichi well before Orochimaru launched his attack on the third Hokage. The events that Yukari had reported – having been interrogated separately – were grim. Kabuto had rendered her unable to move before he used his medical knowledge to screw around with her body and afflict her with his own style of curse mark. He had focused on her red-inked tattoo that depicted her clan's symbol and altered it into a curse mark.
That curse mark – which was located just under and between her shoulder blades – was the now the kanji for demon bird. Unlike the curse mark that Orochimaru had inflicted upon Sasuke Uchiha, Kabuto's curse mark was less vile and controlling. However, that didn't stop the harm that continued to plague his Yukari. Yes, his Yukari. The more Kakashi thought about it, the more he liked that idea – Yukari was his and he was hers. One of the reasons why he was still keeping his feelings for her known; was that same, damned curse mark – one that affected her chakra gates and was triggered by heightened hormones.
"KAKASHI-SENSEI!" A feminine voice interrupted Kakashi's trip into the memory banks. He snapped out of his reverie and turned around. Yukari stood there smiling at him and his reaction – only visible reaction at least – was a smile back.
"What are you doing there, standing like a stick!" the red-eyed kunoichi canted her raven-haired head to the side in question.
"Ohh, nothing, I was thinking, that's all." He answered, as his eye closed in mirth.
"Does it hurt?" Yukari's question made him open his uncovered eye again.
"What?"
"Does it hurt; the thinking?" The girl before him had to bite back a broad smile as she repeated the question.
"Very funny, Yukari-chan, very funny." Kakashi would glower through his mask.
"I thought so." She subtracted the distance between them and stood next to Kakashi, as he turned back towards the Hokage building.
"I've packed a nin-travel pack and finished tying up ends that couldn't wait for the time amount for this mission, Kakashi-sensei!"
"Great." Kakashi muttered; trying to distract himself from the perverted thoughts that ran through his head when she mentioned 'typing up ends.'
"Although, my kage bunshin hasn't dispelled yet - I wonder what could be taking her so long to deliver those kids to the Wheel Nin." Yukari changed her gaze up to the stone faces of the Hokages, giving Kakashi peace of mind that her red eyes weren't on him.
XXX
The said clone-Yukari was currently pouting sadly at the giant cook as his hand was on Shozaku's face.
"Awh, you are such a prude, Cook-nin-san. Shozaku and I just want to have a little fun before I die." Those pretty red eyes came back from watching the trio of kids – the Kage Bunshin did not yet know that all three of them were girls – and arrowed on the jolly giant. "It won't hurt anything to make-out a little, will it?"
To emphasize her point, clone-Yukari giggled and ran a trail of kisses down the side of Shozaku's shaved head. Shozaku laughed, and then his eyes flickered on like a flashlight, and a small cone of light emitted from behind those darkened glasses – however, he didn't face the Yukari-bunshin yet.
"Ah, it could be so much fun, and no it wouldn't hurt me. But I'm not all too willing to risk you doing this here: in front of little kids with their bad past and when you're not quite the real thing. Goodbye." And with that he turned his head, and as the light from his eyes passed across the bunshin, clone-Yukari would be dispelled. The jutsu was one of the many tricks of Shozaku's all-seeing eyes.
XXX
Suddenly, Yukari gave a nerve-rendering screech that sent Kakashi flying to the side in utter shock.
"THAT…THAT…THOSE-THOSE TWO ARE SO DEAD!" The Uzaruki girl's face was enraged; her brain collecting the memories of her now-dispelled Kage Bunshin.
It was an experiment that Kakashi had decided to try on her – namely the abilities of the Kage Bunshin – to further refine his training ideas for Naruto once the blonde-boy returned. The hypothesis was; that if the user sent a Kage Bunshin to do something in a place that was out of view of the user, then dispelled itself; the experiences of the Kage Bunshin would be relayed back to the user.
Kakashi barely had time to recall what Yukari had said moments before – something about her Kage Bunshin escorting the trio of odd kids back to the Wheel Nin. Judging on her reaction, the Sharingan user assumed that Yukari's kage bunshin must have done something idiotic to set the kunoichi off. But who was the other person she spoke of? It often took two people to enact an event. Kakashi dreaded to think how that person might be in big trouble if Yukari decided to pull revenge.
But it wasn't the time for revenge as Shizune appeared in a rush as she exited the Hokage building with a pile of folders in her arms. She stopped and looked at the shinobi in front of her.
"Oh! Kakashi-san and Yukari-san, are you here for the mission that the Hokage was going to give you?" the black-haired assistant struggled to keep the medical files in her arms.
"Yes, that we are, Shizune-san." Kakashi politely allowed himself to help Shizune with her burden. "It would seem that we are headed for the same person, Shizune-san, allow me to help you carry those." The jounin would smile nicely as the flustered aide reluctantly allowed him to do so.
"Ok, I guess, but Tsunade-sama wants to read these ASAP. So let's hurry!" the aide smiled – her burden lessened – and hurried to the medical buildings.
Yukari, being pulled out of her reverie of rage, blinked as Kakashi nudged her and nodded in the direction of the departing Shizune.
"Let's go, Yukari-chan, you can focus on your raging revenge later." Kakashi swung and took a wild guess at the reason of her emotions – and his guess was partially correct. The kunoichi was pissed at her now dispelled Kage for hitting on Shozaku and at Shozaku for not giving it back twice-fold.
"R-right." Yukari shook her head and followed her sensei.
If Kakashi had been looking for it, he might have seen that Shizune's shadow was rather…misaligned, as though a few of the features weren't as they should be.
XXX
Shozaku sat up and his eyes flickered back to normal.
"Well that sucked. I would've taken her up on it but then it might've strained relations with the real Yukari, not exactly the best thing when you're about to go on a long trip with somebody." It turns out the bald gambler did have some morals, though they were well-hidden and rarely used. "Anyway, I'm gonna go make the rounds and make sure everybody's ready to go soon, if not immediately."
With that the nervous gambler got up and left; so if Yukari had come looking for him, the only person she'd see at camp was Skiminachi.
Nearby, the puppy that had been paid with by Yukari's personal funds; was extremely busy bouncing from one kid to the next to the next. Sheena, Wydra and Gilligan all were ringed around the black and white puppy, watching and urging it to play more.
As the puppy wasn't human and had a better sense for this sort of thing, it might feel Sheena's chakra being slowly instilled in itself, as though she wasn't doing it on purpose. Sheena had gotten attached to the puppy quite quickly. If any one nearby knew how Sheena's synchronous chakra was latching onto the puppy, they could have prevented the puppy's fate – only if it was recognized it as something bad. Otherwise, it would just be another symbiotic exchange of chakra between Sheena and the puppy. At points in the past, this same exchange had happened to both Wydra and Gilligan; forming as a result of their time together.
However, this bond-forming reaction seemed to have no harmful effect, as Gilligan was currently in the form of a teddy bear about the size of the puppy, wrestling with it on the ground playfully to Sheena's amusement. Wydra, too, was laughing at Gilligan's antics.
XXX
The three brothers stood in a triangle around a large and intricate symbol on the ground. They were somewhere near Konoha, but not inside it, and there wasn't anything else in the symbol. It looked as though they'd just gotten done with something. Jack and Jake turned to Jank, the hooded one.
"So she's safely locked in your head now, right Jank?" Jack asked. The silent hooded brother nodded; then raised his hands up in a questioning gesture.
"Well, right now we don't have any plans in specific. Get one of out spies in Konoha to start gathering the intelligence and information we need to perform the Return-Home jutsu. That should take a day or so, until then…I guess we should act like the children we are. Good work. Jank, you know where there library is. And Jake…you know that Hokage woman is in the hospital, are you really sure you want to go back just yet?"
Jake just laughed. "I'll never get caught by some Pentagenarian. I'll just need to borrow another of our spies from the village so it's not just a bunshin or a transformation jutsu. So don't worry, brothers."
After that, the three boys went their separate ways.
XXX
Minutes later, Jake was controlling a ninja that was currently in the hospital. The ninja didn't stand out much; he had the Konoha headband on, and was wearing a medical-nin outfit. The only oddity was that he'd been going around following up on the people he'd healed. He was just waiting until there was nobody else in the room, then he would go in and talk to the person while he got their muscles back to normal, and any other small problems he didn't have the time to take care of before when Curitsu had arrived.
He was standing outside Yuro's room, waiting for the Hokage to leave; listening to the boy inside talk.
"Who the wack are you, lady?" Yuro would open his mouth to talk to the twin-pony-tailed blonde of a woman – the Hokage. Tsunade was currently scanning over his chart when he addressed her.
When the Hokage didn't answer Yuro's frown increased in depth as the lady – absent-mindedly – left his room without answering him. His blue eyes did spot the nin that was standing outside his medical door and caused him to be confused more; seeing it wasn't his sensei, Akanchi Jamaru.
"Oy, who are you?" Yuro called out to the watching Jake.
Jake laughed, and having been noticed decided it would be better to just go along with the situation rather than walk away and arouse suspicion. He walked into Yuro's room, talking as he did so.
"Just a concerned medic coming to check up on you. How do you feel?" Using a med-nin as an undercover pawn Jake had walked up to Yuro's side by this point. He decided to start with a few questions, hoping something would attract the Hokage's attention soon or he would have to come up with something himself. It bothered him when he couldn't finish healing what he'd started.
"I have no clue as to why I'm here or even why my body is so weak." Yuro looked up at the controlled med-nin. "Last thing I can remember is some punk-ass ninjas attacking my team and we had to fight back." The blonde boy scowled. "Now my body is so weak, like I've been laid up for a month or something."
"Ah, well, if it were only a month you would be good to go, but you have been out for…well, sometime longer than that. Hopefully we will be able to get you out of here soon though. As to how you got here, I don't have the details myself, perhaps Curitsu or Tsunade-sama?" He turned towards them, wondering if they might be able to fill in the blanks. Conversation seemed the best way to go for now, letting the others fill in information he didn't have all the details on so he didn't mess up and give a clue that he wasn't a leaf-nin. Given that she led the village, he was going with the belief that something, or someone, would soon get her attention or she would go elsewhere.
XXX
Just as Yukari had locked and shut her door, a large, ominous eye would open itself on the wall beside Meko and a voice would be heard.
"I'm going to be blunt. What are the capabilities of the Uzaruki woman's ocular kekkai genkai?"
"Meow, to you too, Eye-ball-san." Meko opened his yellow eyes and gazed back at the orb. "Yukari's wondrous kekkai genkai is the Akashingan, and it allows the user to attach their own optical senses to that of any birds'. It has two stages; and only her brother and father have reached the second stage. The ability of the second stage is, however, unknown to me." The cat mercilessly betrayed his mistress's heritagal-trust to an eyeball.
"Thank you for cooperating, cat-san." And with that the eye would just shut and fade away. Soon after that, Kensuke would feel himself being watched, as though the presence made no effort to hide that though it did hide its location.
XXX
Barokendo would approach the Takimoto compound, going around and following the directions he'd been given. He had assumed she'd be here since she hadn't stated she had other business later, and it would be a little irritating if he'd come this way for no reason when he could be training. If he wasn't busy, he trained. Barokendo sleeping was like a shooting star, you hardly ever saw it.
Hani Takimoto, having been asked by Kakashi Hatake to accompany them for a mission, had returned immediately to her clan home to pack. She was, however, extremely hesitant to leave her house; as a promise was made earlier. She was there waiting when Barokendo stomped right up to the gate; making her grey-green eyes widen in pleasant surprise.
"Hai! Konichiwa, Barokendo-sama." The female med-nin would smile brightly and open the gate to admit entrance. "I am so glad you came just now, as later would have been a bad time. I was just asked to report for an assignment minutes ago. I chose to be late, however, since I did promise you a drink!"
The woman said only what was deemed necessary and promptly shut up after.
Barokendo nodded. "I haven't been invited to an outing in quite a few years so I've forgotten what all there is for it. What would you suggest?" He stepped forward through the gate.
He tried not to laugh; gates always came across as funny to him. Or rather, anything that stood as though it would bar him from whatever he wanted was funny to him.
"If your other duties are more pressing, I understand how important these things can be." he said as he looked around at the compound. So this is what a normally family's home looked like when it wasn't being attacked.
He turned his head back down, looking straight into Hani's grey-green eyes unless she was looking away herself. This was a potentially awkward habit of his – maintaining eye contact unless otherwise necessary.
"Oh, no, nothing too terribly important, please the bar is this way."
Hani smiled again and led the giant of a man towards the elegant, yet modestly built clan house. She led the way as she made her way around the perimeter of the building and showed him to the open bar area that she had spoke of earlier that day.
Barokendo smiled as she poured him a drink in a large glass and offered it to him; before pouring her own. Then, as they sat in appropriate futons, they enjoyed their sake and such.
XXX
"Well, I do not think those here would ever want to kick you out, but now that you are able to go somewhere else you might find yourself unwilling to stay for too long." Abisu had been working his own muscles left and right; trying to see what was in the worst condition, as he noticed Crystania looking down at her own hands. After giving her another pat on the back, he would bring his hand back and swing his legs over the side of the bed, sitting up completely and looking around. "So what's the first thing you are going to do when we are released, Crystania?"
"The first thing I'm going to do is learn how to use my Byakugan and then, learn to use genjutsu!" Crystania smiled as Abisu and nodded. "But I would have to ask you to teach me, since I haven't even gone to the academy." She would sound embarrassed by the fact that she couldn't even harness her chakra yet. "I've never been taught properly, and the things I did learn, I don't trust. I was used as test subject by my superiors, so I wasn't treated like a human."
"Ah, that is rather unfortunate. I am going to continue my training also, but I think I would like to get some ice cream on the way home. Well, if you are a good learner and hard worker I think I can persuade my brother to help. He only has trouble with Konohamaru because the boy is often lazy, or would rather do other things. I had just graduated the academy before my accident, maybe we can train together, eh?" He smiled. "And…I am sorry about your life before, I wish there was something to be done to make up for all the bad things that have happened."
"That's ok, Abisu-san, it's not your fault that the Hyuugas as so full of shit." Crystania wasn't current on the news, nor was she all that knowledgeable of Hinata's personality. "Let's just enjoy today and see if we can get released from this white room."
