A/N: I'll try to get these out about once every one or two weeks, but I can't really make any promises. I already have the next three chapters roughed in and just need to go over them a couple of times for grammar, spelling, and continuity. Please drop me a line to let me know what I am doing right or wrong.
The Hokage examined his guest and found him to be the plainest man he had ever seen.
He was about five and a half feet in height, had light brown hair and hazel eyes. His was a medium build, and the Hokage swore the man would disappear in a crowd in seconds his features were so plain. He wore the typical garb of a Kumo shinobi on a mission: fitted dark grey pants and shirt with sandals and a flak vest. He had his Hitai-ate tied to his upper right arm, and carried a supply pouch on his left thigh. Slung across his back was a massive scroll that he had absolutely refused to part with. All of his weapons and other gear had been checked at the gate, however.
Considering not three hours ago, a member of a now defunct clan had claimed Kumo shinobi had wiped them out, the Hokage was prepared to send the man packing, but not before he heard what he had to say.
"Hokage-sama," the man began with a bow, "I am Ryouko Hiroto, and I have come to offer information to help ensure the safety of the two orphans who entered your village ahead of me."
That put Sarutobi on his proverbial heels. Here stood a member of a village accused of wiping out an entire clan, and he was trying to aid his accusers. What, then, was going on?
"Tell, me, Hiroto-san, why are you seeking to help these alleged orphans?" the Hokage asked.
"To atone," he said simply, "and to honor the last wish of a desperate and dying woman."
The Hokage gave a deep sigh. Those children had definitely brought him trouble, "Start from the beginning. I will decide on a course of action after I have heard you out."
XxXxXxXxX
It had been seven long days, but they were almost through. A twelve man team, all with earth tunneling techniques had quietly and slowly pushed their way through the peak of a mountain above the Sakibou's clan hold.
The Sakibou had chosen their land well. The whole complex sat on tiers carved high on one side of a valley. The bottom of the valley was heavily forested, but filled with the clan's pets and scouts. The Sakibou had destroyed all the other spots in the valley where someone might have been able to safely build, making it impossible to lay siege to them from a distance. Many had believed that attacking the clan was impossible.
Now all that lay between them and their quarry was about a foot of rock. Their leader checked his notes and the time and chuckled.
"Congratulations boys," he said a little mockingly, "We're half a day ahead of schedule. Everyone get some rest."
The group of Kumo shinobi obliged by laying where ever they could find space and dozing off.
One lay awake, however, nervously fiddling with a kunai.
Hiroto had earned the nickname Bonjin for his average... well... everything. His looks that let him melt into crowds. His academy scores that had him sitting in the middle of the pack. His middling ability with the primary ninja skills. The only thing he excelled at was drawing. Many claimed his sketches could be mistaken for black and white photos when complete, and he had often been used as a scout for his photographic memory and his ability to recreate what he saw with his sketch pad. It hadn't been until real combat that anyone realized he was good at anything else.
He had dumbfounded his superiors with amazing speed, grace, and a pension for blending his taijutsu, ninjutsu, and genjutsu to devastating effect. None of his individual abilities were very complex or advanced, but used in concert, they bewildered his enemies. Those skills earned him a promotion to chunin and a place in the upcoming assault.
The attack that was about to go down had been years, almost generations, in the making. Their team was supposed to provide an initial distraction by blowing a hole in the mountain. Specialists had determined that this peak was unstable and had a very good chance of avalanche when the explosives went off. That would provide the lower strike force, who would be coming up the Sakibou valley wall a chance to push into the compound.
Two hundred shinobi had been hand picked for this mission, fifty jounin with three chunin apiece. It was the greatest showing of Kumo strength since the Third Shadow War.
There were three priorities for the attack. Wipe out the Sakibou, secure their scrolls and instructional literature, and secure the Nibi no Nekomata.
Wiping out the Sakibou seemed foolish and wasteful to Hiroto. He supposed that the Raikage had taken umbrage with the way Sakibou leaders constantly rebuffed his offers to let them join with Kumogakure. The Sakibou had made plenty of offers of alliance themselves, but flat out refused to give up their autonomy. That and the Nibi; which was what the Raikage really wanted.
Not that Hiroto would ever tell any of his comrades, but this attack felt like a betrayal to him. Sakibou had declared long ago that would aid Kumo in defense of the Land of Lightning, and had made good on that claim in the last war. Hiroto could remember stories from his now deceased father of the mighty cats at the Sakibous' command.
Eventually, despite his misgivings, Hiroto managed to doze off, and soon he was nudged awake by his team leader, a hulking man with more scars than skin.
They set up their explosive tags as directed, then backed out of the tunnel shortly before detonation. The sound was deafening, but after the explosion a constant roar could be heard.
They had started the predicted avalanche.
Moving back through the tunnel, they found their explosive expert to be worthy of his title. The exit had been blasted out without collapsing the way through.
Years of training in Lightning's mountainous land allowed them to quickly descend across the dangerous terrain with relative ease. As they worked their way down the slope, they saw that their avalanche had destroyed a fair portion of the clan's upper tier where many of the shinobi and guard forces were housed. A few muted screams could be heard from the rubble, evidence of the successful initiation of the plan. The sounds made Hiroto uneasy, but he focused on the mission at hand. His four man team split off and headed for a larger building near the center of the compound. It had been marked as the clan's library, and his team had been designated to raid it.
Their first real contact with the enemy had them faced off against a handful of normal guards. The men didn't stand a chance against the concerted efforts of a team of prepared shinobi. After that fight, they made use of narrow alleys and dark shadows to make their way. It was slower, but much stealthier.
The problem was Sakibou eyes mimicked those of a cat, and could pierce darkness easily. A pair of the clan's shinobi caught up to them just outside their target.
The first immediately engaged their jounin leader while the other let loose a hail of kunai to split up their tight formation. A few flashes of light and some sizzling from the locked combatants indicated ninjutsu had entered into the equation. The result was the Sakibou ninja flying back to bounce off a wall.
"That the best you got, cat man?" his scarred leader scoffed.
"Not by a long shot," the man grunted.
As if on cue, a large shadow detached itself from a wall to come flying at the jounin. The speckled cat must have been twice his size; Hiroto wondered how such a big thing could manage to hide anywhere, then remembered the size changing powers of the cats from his father's stories. Before anyone could react, the dark furred monster had gotten its jaws around the jounin's neck. A moment later and a resounding snap was heard. His leader's limp body dropped from the creature's maw.
"Kill them," it's injured master ordered, but the thing turned its yellow eyes on him.
"You let him have too much!" his partner yelled, glancing from his fight with one of Hiroto's teammates. The act proved his undoing as he received a kunai in his eye as he turned back.
"Everyone inside," Hiroto called, wanting to get his team out of sight before the great cat decided there was more sport in three healthy ninja rather than a single injured one. He resolved to consider the puzzle of the cat turning on its master later.
His team acted on his orders without hesitation, running inside the building they had been sent to loot. Shutting the heavy doors behind him, Hiroto found himself face to face with the milky-eyed visage of an old, blind man. The codger looked like a wrinkled bag of leather stuffed into a night gown.
"Wha's goin on out thar?" the old man asked, far louder than necessary with his lack of teeth slurring his speech, "Souns like fireworks an all that hooplah. We celebratin sumtin?"
"Sure thing gramps," Hiroto answered loudly so the old man could hear him.
"Well keep that mess from ma libary," the man replied, "Them pop-fizzlin boom toys'll set tha whole place ablaze."
"Don't worry gramps," Hiroto assured him, using hand signals to direct his men to start collecting everything they could, "No harm will come to your books and scrolls."
"All righ den. Don stay up too late readin, hear?"
The old man hobbled off, tapping his cane to find his way. He left Hiroto frowning as he watched his fellow ninja plunder the Sakibou archive; more and more he felt this wasn't right, but his place was to hear and obey, not question.
The library wasn't huge. Kumo had one nearly four times its size, but this one held many one of a kind tomes and instructional scrolls. Rumor had it, the clan held the Cat Summoning Scroll here too. Hiroto set himself the task of finding it to keep his mind from more troubling thoughts. He could hear the battle rage outside as he searched, though, and the more he heard, the more agitated he got.
After a few minutes, he hit some luck and found a bookcase askew. Pulling it out of the way revealed a blank wall, but Hiroto knew better. A quick search of the wall and he found numerous small holes in it, as well as a section of stone that had almost imperceptible seams around it.
He reached into his pack and pulled out a rod the length of his forearm, and a quick flick extended it to over his height. Standing off to the side, he pressed in the suspect stone and was awarded with a click and several small darts flying past him. A moment later, and the wall swung open. Inside was the prize he sought. The giant scroll looked cumbersome, but had a handy strap for slinging it across the back.
Turning back to check on his team brought him a horrid sight. On the ground was the old man from before, lying in a spreading pool of blood. His teammates were taking turns slashing light cuts into the codger's flesh as the old man whimpered pitifully.
"What the hell are you two doing?" Hiroto demanded, aghast at their actions.
"Orders were to eliminate the Sakibou," one answered.
"Yea," the other agreed absently as he cut the old man again.
The look in their eyes disturbed Hiroto deeply. Something was terribly wrong here. Kumo shinobi weren't anywhere near kind or warm, but they weren't cruel. They were professionals that killed quickly and cleanly.
What they were doing now was as unprofessional, and depraved, as could be. Hiroto strode over to the old man and, with a quick motion, slashed his throat to end his suffering.
"The hell is wrong with the two of you?" he asked, angry confusion evident in his voice.
"We were just having fun, Bonjin. Calm down."
A closer look at the man had Hiroto convinced that something wasn't right. The man's eyes had a crazed look to them. Hiroto had seen something similar before, and the thought of it happening again left a chill in his gut.
His last team had run into a masked ninja that had performed some sort of genjutsu on them. It had driven them mad, and Hiroto, the only one to resist it, had watched in horror as they butchered each other. If they had not been as violent towards one another as they had been towards him, he would have died that day. The worst part had been the masked ninja's comment, 'that didn't go as expected.' He had sounded like a researcher observing mice in his lab.
These two had the same look in their eyes as his old team, one of bloodlust and immense cruelty. Hiroto gave one a flying knee to the forehead and the other an elbow drop to the base of his skull. He shouldn't have been able to drop them so quick, but like his old team under that genjutsu, their reactions were somewhat sluggish. After knocking them out he collected the scrolls they had used to store the now bare library's knowledge.
When he made his way back outside, the sights that greeted him were horrifying. Kumo shinobi had gone mad with bloodlust and were meting out death in cruelly creative ways.
He saw more than one Sakibou child missing an arm or leg, some still screaming as they bled to death from their stumps. He saw one man whose eye's had been carefully extracted from the sockets and left to dangle from intact optic nerves. The worst one was a young woman who'd been stuffed with chunks of her fellow clan members' flesh until she choked.
Hiroto didn't realize he was running until nearly a minute later. He had veered down a less used path through some trees to escape the hellish sights and sounds.
He pulled to a stop to get his bearings, and through his ragged breathing he heard voices.
"Ren... I said GO!" a woman's voice called out.
Hiroto heard the scuffling of running feet, then pursuit, followed by someone falling.
"Oh dear," he heard the woman say, "You need to be careful running on these mountain paths. You could trip and hurt yourself."
"You BITCH!" a man yelled.
Hiroto hurried down the path as the sound of fighting broke out. He came around a bend in time to see a slender woman with wild golden hair gut a man with the kunai he was still holding. Another man was buried under what looked like a mountain lion giving off muffled screams. The last one tried to bowl the woman over, but caught Hiroto's kunai in his temple and dropped like a sack of rocks. Hiroto looked down at his hand like it had betrayed him. His instinct to protect others from the depravity he had seen had gotten the better of him.
The woman turned to him, her eyes wide at seeing one Kumo shinobi kill another in her defense. Then she doubled over in pain. The mountain lion, finished with its savage business, padded over and gently nudged her on the cheek.
"I won't make it..." she gritted out. Her luminous gold eyes shot up to capture Hiroto's, "Your aura has no taint... I do not know what has come over your people for them to kill in such despicable ways, but you are free of it."
"I...I...what?" was all he could come up with.
She managed to stand, and he saw what was killing her. Her whole front was covered in blood from a wound in her belly. She threw herself at him, and would have fallen had he not caught her.
"You have committed a grievous sin against your village," she whispered hoarsely, her hands gripping his shoulders like twin vices, "You cannot go back there. You helped in this atrocity... but also tried to save me."
"I... I don't..."
"Atone for your wrongs, former Kumo shinobi," she gasped out with tears clouding her eyes, "You could not save me, but you may still be able to salvage a remnant of my clan. Follow my children... protect them... please..."
As she slipped to the ground, she repeated that last word over and over. Her cat began to shrink from its massive size down to a gold furred house cat. It lay by her as she breathed her last and seemingly joined her in death.
A moment later, Hiroto snapped from his paralysis.
What she had said had hit very close to the mark. He had killed a fellow shinobi in defense of a declared enemy. His borderline traitorous thoughts had quickly escalated into overtly traitorous action. He could not return to Kumo, and he felt a growing disgust for his own part in this travesty. He resolved to do as the woman asked. That, at least, might allow him to wash away some of the guilt that was beginning to weigh him down.
He took off down the path and burst from the tree line to see a girl caught by the hair in the hands of another of his crazed fellows. He quickly surmised, despite the difference in appearance, that this was the woman's daughter. He bolted in and sliced his kunai through her black hair, then planted the thing in her assailant's heart while he was still surprised. He looked down to see her staring at him in a stupor.
Go damnit!" he growled, irritated by her inaction, "More will be coming."
XxXxXxXxX
Tailing the Sakibou girl proved to be more of a challenge than Hiroto had first thought it would be.
The girl was good. Really good. She used her black cat as a scout to check the route ahead, three times avoiding Kumo patrols, and continued to watch for pursuit behind her.
Once out of the Land of Lightning, she was less cautious, and began using the roads. He had a scare when bandits accosted her, but she managed to disable them while still feeding her baby brother with a bottle. Hiroto seriously wondered if she even needed protection.
The days of solitude had given him plenty of time to think, and he did not like where his mind went. Many nights he woke from terrible nightmares where the severed arms of children held him down so their wailing heads could feast on his guts. His sketch pad was soon full of the terrible things he had seen. He looked through it every day, refusing to forget the awful things he had helped make happen. Before long, he had removed his hitai-ate, but couldn't bring himself to mar or discard it.
On one such restless night, he found himself looking through the names on the Summoning Scroll he had pilfered. It wasn't nearly a full list of the Sakibou clan, but it somehow helped him to know the names of a few of the people who died that terrible night. When he reached the end, he stared long and hard at the blank space for new names. Without really thinking, he pricked his finger and signed his name. About an hour of practice later, a small gray tabby with amber eyes sat before Hiroto looking at him with far more intelligence than a normal animal.
"You don't look like a Sakibou..." the cat suspiciously noted.
"I am not," Hiroto confirmed, "The Sakibou... have been wiped out," the misery in his voice must have been apparent, because the cat didn't even seem to question his statement.
The cat's eyes narrowed, "And how did you come to hold our scroll?"
"I was able to flee with it in the confusion of the fight," he answered, truthfully enough, "I am Ryouko Hiroto."
"Well this is rather troublesome..." the cat complained, "The scroll must be protected at all costs. Unlike those damn toads, we cannot keep it."
Hiroto didn't really understand all of that, but he understood that the scroll needed to be kept out of the wrong hands. He was sure this little tabby was only one of the smallest representatives of the Cat summons. His father had told him that, of the various summoning jutsu scrolls, cats ranked on the second tier of power just under toads, slugs, and snakes.
"I will protect your Scroll," Hiroto offered. Why not? The power it offered would more than make up for the responsibility.
"Hmmmmm... I'm not sure," the cat groused, "You did technically steal it."
"Better me, than those that destroyed the Sakibou," the partial lie almost stuck in his throat, but he figured it was pretty much true. The Scroll was better off with him.
"You make a fair point, Hiroto-san," the cat said thoughtfully, "Very well. You may hold the Scroll. In return for protecting it, I will give you three of my best fighters to aid you when you have need. Fair deal?"
"Errrr," Hiroto said, confused, "You will?"
"Of course," the cat said rather indignantly, "I am the Cat Boss, Toraneko... Not all the bosses are the size of buildings like that fatass, Gamabunta... stupid toad."
"Well alright," Hiroto agreed, "You said three of your best?"
"Sure thing," Toraneko answered cheerfully, "The twins, Oodora and Kodora, and their sister, Mouko. They should come the next time you call. I'll warn you, though; they are... competitive with one another. Well then... bye."
With that, the cat disappeared in a poof of smoke before Hiroto could pose anymore questions.
He performed the summoning again and, true to his word, Toraneko sent three mighty tigers. Two were the normal orange and black striped pattern of their species, but looked indentical to one another, right down to their mismatched green and blue eyes. The only difference Hiroto could see was a very slight size discrepancy. The third was smaller than the other two, and had pure white fur between her black stripes and a set of deep violet eyes. All of them were huge by any standard, however. The smallest was the size of a horse, and the twins stood over a foot taller than Hiroto at the shoulder.
"You must be Hiroto-san," the white one said in a feminine voice that somehow didn't seem at odds with her fierce appearance, "It is a pleasure to meet you. I am Mouko and these are my brothers Kodora and Oodora."
Before Hiroto could get a word out, the larger of the twins began to whine, "Why does he get introduced first," though the voice was deep and masculine, the tone was rather childish. Hiroto found it somewhat amusing.
"Because I'm older, idiot," the slightly smaller Kodora told him in a similar voice.
"You're only older by a few minutes." Oodora turned to his brother baring his teeth menacingly, "And don't call me an idiot,"
"Or what?" his twin asked beligerently, "Idiot," he added.
The two great cats were suddenly rolling about in a giant ball of fur and fury. They rolled towards their sister who neatly sidestepped them.
"I apologize for my brothers," she said in an exasperated voice, "I assure you we are quite capable in combat."
Hiroto smiled for the first time in weeks, "I do not doubt it, Mouko-san. It is good to meet all of you. I will call again when I have need."
The tiger inclined her head respectfully and the three of them vanished in puffs of smoke. After that, Hiroto was able to sleep the rest of the night without being plagued by disturbing visions.
The following week saw the safe arrival of his charges into Konoha. He fretted for their safety after passing through the gates, but could not just follow them in. After a few moments, a plan formed in his mind. He realized that it might mean his death, but he refused to trust his charges to the kindness of strangers.
He approached the gate as an envoy from Kumogakure, and soon found himself before the Hokage.
XxXxXxXxX
The Hokage shook his head in disbelief. He doubted the man before him was lying, but for two hundred shinobi to suddenly turn savage was unbelievable. During a protracted war, Sarutobi had seen a few people do some very nasty things, but not on the level Hiroto had described.
"What is it you want exactly?" Sarutobi asked.
"I ask only for their protection, Hokage-sama," Hiroto answered, "I was charged with that task by their mother, but I have committed serious crimes and do not expect to leave this tower a free man."
Hiroto slung the great scroll off of his back and placed it on the floor, "This is the Cat Summoning Scroll. I would ask that it be given to a worthy guardian... Ren preferably."
He then removed a pair of much smaller scrolls from his belt and placed them on the old man's desk, "These contain the entire contents of the Sakibou library. They should be returned to their rightful owners."
This man's altruistic streak was a mile wide. Not only had he escorted the Sakibou children to Konoha, but had entered the village himself to corroborate their story, essentially turn himself in, and return their stolen knowledge.
The Hokage had every right to lock the man up and even execute him or turn him over to Kumo for a bounty. He found himself considering a different option, however.
"I suppose I would need to send you back to Kumo for trial," the Hokage said idly.
"That would be the most diplomatic option," Hiroto offered, his face betraying no hint of fear.
"They would execute you," the Hokage warned.
"As they should... I am a traitor," the man responded immediately.
"That would be easy, wouldn't it," Sarutobi said, slightly mocking.
"W...what do you mean?" Hiroto stuttered, finally flustered by the conversation.
Sarutobi smirked, he had him, "Just let yourself die to make up for the crimes you have committed."
"What else can I do, damnit?!" the man's calm had finally cracked.
"You can do what you swore to," the Hokage answered, "you can watch over and protect Ren and Osamu."
"Osamu..." Hiroto whispered, "So that's the boy's name."
"Will you do it?"
"Is this the punishment that you would place on me?" Hiroto asked. Sarutobi thought he heard the slightest hint of hope in the man's otherwise grim tone.
"It is," the old man answered.
"I will do it," Hiroto proclaimed as he untied him Kumo hitai-ate and tossed it onto the ground, then knelt next to it, "Hokage-sama. So long as you allow me to live, I will serve as silent guardian to Ren and Osamu. So long as they choose to serve Konoha, so too do I."
The Hokage was pleased with the proclamation, but procedures had to be followed. Ren and Osamu had no ties to any village, and he could insert them in clandestinely. Hiroto presented a very different challenge.
"You will be put on a probationary status of one year. During that time, you will be periodically required to participate in interviews with our interrogators. Should you prove to be forthcoming and loyal, you will be allowed to apply for citizenship," the Hokage explained, "At that point, you may also apply for entrance into the Shinobi Corps. I hope you will. We could use your skills."
Hiroto stood, "I will do as you say."
With that, he was escorted by ANBU to obtain quarters within the village.
The Hokage was gambling with the three newcomers, but he believed that his gamble would pay off. The intel Hiroto could provide on Kumo would be invaluable, and he didn't doubt that Ren and her brother would grow to be assets to the village as well. In the end, the risk of taking them in was rather negligible, anyway. Hiroto could be disowned at any time, and the last Sakibou were easily hidden from those that would harm them.
The Hokage seriously hoped none of that would be necessary.