Chapter 17 Hidden truth revealed
A lone figure lunged as quiet as a mouse through the forest of trees using the night's overshadowing darkness for cover. A small light through the trees from the moon allowed the creatures of the night to catch a glimpse of the mysterious figure. The figure was a person, towering at 6.2' in height, judging from the persons strong body build it appeared to be a man.
The man was wearing dark blue, baggy shinobi pants, with shin guards that no longer had its 'new' looking gloss. The man was wearing a black vest with reinforced armoured plates on the shoulders. The man's face was unidentifiable, due to the dark red fox mask covering his face from the world. The man's hair was also unidentifiable, due to a hood that was covering the back of his head. The only object that shined brightly in the night was the gold designed hilt of the well maintained, and 5 foot long katana strapped diagonally across the man's back.
The man stopped in his journey through the branches, and jumped down onto the ground, although his size denied the plausibility, he didn't make a single noise as his feet touched down on the soft grass. The man then walked up to the base of a tree, the tree itself had no unique features to the others surrounding it, but that is not what the man was interested in…it was what was underneath it. When he was roughly half a meter from the tree, he began running through several seals in rapid succession, finishing on the Ram seal. He then placed his left bear like palm onto the bark of the tree. When he wiped his hand across, the small insignia of the 'leaf' village appeared, gleaming brightly in a yellow shade, illuminating his mask to reveal his pure milky white eyes.
He took a step back, as undergrowth by the tree began to slide across, making a silent grind noise from the mechanism. When the undergrowth had slid to underneath the tree, it revealed a brick stair well, leading to the unknown. The person was about to put his foot down on the first step when he froze. He tilted his head the split second before the metal of a tagged kunai could connect with the back of his head, and buried its tip into the tree. The tag on the kunai began to glow, as suddenly a long slimy scaled tentacle shot out and attempted to constrict around the man's throat.
There was a loud screech emitting from the brightened tag, as the man lodged two fingers straight into the soft tissue of the tentacle, causing it to retreat back in the tag as if it had just received an electric shock.
"You should know better than to treat Wani like that, Araiki."
Araiki grunted and responded to his attacker in his deep and arrogant voice, "Maybe if you and your repulsive summon stopped trying to test my eyes patience, I would show either of you more respect over all, Thomas."
A maniacal laughter was heard, as the man named Thomas walked out of the shadows. He was wearing similar attire like Araiki, but had a blue fox mask, and didn't have a hood, revealing his short brown hair. Instead of carrying a katana, Thomas had a large summoning scroll secured to his back. Thomas also was noticeably shorter than Araiki, going at 5.7'.
"You're no fun Araiki, I was just seeing if I could find this rumoured blind spot I hear about your clan having in its near perfect vision." Thomas beamed, the crazed joy clear in his tone.
"Hmmph, you are wasting your time." Araiki responded, clearly not concerned at all.
"You know, you don't seem to fit the profile for an ex ROOT member. Maybe Danzou was cutting you guys some slack back in the day." Thomas's wild laughing and chuckled stopped, and all traces of emotion in his voice just disappeared in an instant.
"It helps me blend in with my fellow shinobi. Do not speak so ill of Danzou-sama's flawless training regiments."
Araiki snickered "Still showing your old master respect yet again. You are aware that he would highly disapprove with what our mission goal is? Also I didn't know attacking your comrades was part of 'blending in'."
Thomas shrugged. "I say it on reflex from the result of my training. And to your second enquiry I simply find it amusing...what you have to report?"
Araiki sighed, but decided to answer his teammate's question.
"They have arrived, it appears they are taking shifts with watching the bridge over the day and night, tonight marking the day the deadline is reached."
"What about the target?" Thomas enquired.
"The target is taking the night shift tonight, along with the chuunin that wears the spandex."
Thomas nodded "Good, it means he won't be able to put up much of a strong fight tomorrow, and from your previous report you were saying that chuunin was extremely dangerous, so it will be useful if he is not at top combat efficiency."
Araiki nodded but then added. "The girl with the pink hair will most likely be the most dangerous of the group tomorrow, and she seems very protective of the target. Once she is removed from the equation, the other lazy fool won't be able to stop us."
Thomas took lead of the pair, as they began walking down the stairs, each step echoing as they travelled further down into the darkness.
"That may be true, but we shouldn't underestimate him either." Thomas added. A dim light could be seen down the stairwell, as the two entered a cavern lit up by several lanterns.
"What about the other variable?" Araiki asked.
"Ronan and his team are already laying their trap, although it probably won't stop him from coming back, it will slow him down more than long enough so we can complete the mission."
Araiki smirked behind his mask with his next question. "And the trump card?"
Thomas faced Araiki. "…He is arriving at the same destination."
Araiki chuckled at the news. "I can't believe the fool actually took the bait. And he dare calls himself one of the legendary three."
Thomas continued, not sharing Araiki's enthusiasm, "We will attack before their rotation, that way we can avoid any unnecessary surprises from them since they will all be together."
Araiki snickered, as if Thomas's logic on 'surprises' was foreign to the Hyuuga. Araiki began to wonder though about his teammate, or more specifically, what it was he was feeling. The idea of having no emotional response was a concept the Hyuuga never could understand, especially over their situation.
"Are you telling me Thomas that you don't feel any emotion at all for what we are about to achieve tomorrow?"
Thomas was silent for a while, and pulled off his mask to reveal his scarred face. He had a large gash going down his left cheek, while his dull brown eyes held no emotion in them at all.
"To be honest I'm not sure what it is I am feeling. It is a strange sensation, I keep remembering that night roughly fifteen years ago when the kyuubi attacked. We were instructed by Danzou-sama to try and fight against the monster, as we were ANBU and ROOT alike, Konoha's most strongest elite force that rivalled even the Uchiha's before their slaughter."
Thomas's hand clenched tightly, but he continued after feeling the emotion brewing up again.
"The amount of shinobi we lost in the attack…and on top of all that, Yondaime-sama died sealing the creature within a child..."
Thomas's hand clenched to the point where his nails were digging into his skin, causing blood to drip and echo in the cavern.
"...Then Danzou-sama tried to debate that we turn the jinkuriki into a weapon that would truly make Konoha the strongest of all nations, since we had the strongest of the nine Bijuu....then Sandaime-sama rejected it, making all those lives we lost go to waste!"
Thomas's voice was rising towards the end.
Araiki smirked at his comrades behaviour, knowing that it was truly impossible to feel no emotions.
"Tomorrow we will avenge our fallen comrades that were slaughtered that night Thomas, tomorrow we will finally kill the Kyuubi once and for all!"
----------------------------------------------
Jiraiya smirked in pride, even though he estimated a week to reach the first suspected outpost, it only took him just under three days to reach the first destination, which was close by the border town of the fire country. He internally chuckled that he even had time to do a little bit of 'research' on the way, and yet was still earlier than he expected.
'Im growing too old for my job the gaki says, Ha!' His gaze snapped to attention though when he got back to his task at hand.
'Now, the spy reported that it was near a stream line...ah there it is.' J
iraiya mused as he saw what appeared to be an entrance in the cliff end just beyond the water stream. When he closed his distance on the entrance his eyes narrowed. The entrance was opened, to the side was a large boulder which appeared to have a tag on it marking the word 'seal'.
'Somebody has opened it already? It cannot be an Akatsuki member though...there's no way they would be stupid enough to just advertise their entrance to the world like this.'
Jiraiya thought, as he cautiously made his way into the cave. Although the only source of light was from the sun behind him, Jiraiya could tell by the faint outlines that the cave was actually quite a large cavern, his eyes narrowed though when he thought he saw a figure deep within the darkness. His eyes widened in shock though, followed by all the hairs on his back sticking up by the cold and familiar voice he heard speak to him from the darkness.
"Kukuku...what are you doing here, Jiraiya?"