Chapter 9 – Tangles
Yawning loudly, Minato stretched and swung his feet up onto his desk where they landed with a loud thump, luckily avoiding knocking down the paperwork piled up all around him. With more waiting for him over on his conference table, and the imminent arrival of fresh pieces that were currently hiding from him and just waiting for the opportunity to strike, Minato knew that he would never ever be done with all the paperwork. Hiruzen-sama had failed to mention the mountain sized pile of documents that never ceased to stop growing, all of which demanded his own personal attention. Minato may have very well turned the old man down had he been aware of how boring the job was, which was why he was sure the pertinent information had been concealed or omitted until it was too late in the process to turn back.
As far as he was concerned, paperwork was a tool of evil; useless and counterproductive, there was no need for it. The ridiculous number of forms needed for even a simple genin level mission was mind boggling to the newly appointed Hokage. Minato was already sick of all the red tape that held up and back logged missions for weeks, and he'd barely spent any time in the office. He decided right then and there that he was changing policy; effective immediately he was abolishing it all. Well, he would still insist on preliminary briefings and post mission reports and debriefings, but all the rest of the crap was out. No wonder missions for the Leaf were drying up, who wanted to fill out the SF 356, a hulking 18 page monster detailing the mineral composition of your soil, and the soil in the surrounding areas just to have some genin come pull your weeds a week later, especially since the Grass village would do it right away, sans 356, for half the price? It was bullshit, and now it was out with the trash. Minato smiled at how much easier things would be now.
His smile fell slightly when he remembered Obito would be coming in soon. His most excitable student was sad that Rin was leaving, confused as to why he couldn't leave the hospital yet, and pissed that he hadn't been able to start his training again. Konoha's newest Hokage sighed, this wouldn't be easy. Obito would make it as difficult on his sensei as he possibly could, it just wasn't in the Uchiha's nature to go down without a fight and Minato knew one was coming. On the other hand, Minato had one hell of an ace in the hole with which to distract him and possibly push him in a different direction, he just wished his whole team was there. If there was anything Minato regretted about becoming Hokage (other than the whole paperwork debacle) it was that he was barely able to spend time with the members of Team Yellow Flash, and to him that was a travesty of the highest level. He often found himself missing Obito's enthusiastic babble, Rin's tendency to fuss over all of them like a concerned mother hen, and even Kakashi's entirely too serious demeanor and caustic eyebrow raising. He jealously wondered if their new mission partners appreciated it all as much as he had.
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Tree branches flew by in a blur as Shikaku and his team raced back to Konoha. They had been running at their top speed for hours now and Shikaku wondered how his chunin counterparts were holding up. You just never knew when one had had enough; they tried so hard to impress him that often times they failed to think about their own health. Just as the thought crossed his mind he noticed Asuma stumble, the weight of the girl on his back becoming too much for the stocky teenager to carry. Fortunately, his teammate Ebisu noticed it as well and had the girl transferred to his own back almost instantly. In the meantime Kurenai had steadied their teammates' footing while slipping him an Akamichi soldier pill, an act he was sure she thought had been on the sly, and they were back into formation practically seamlessly. Shikaku smirked, proud of the teamwork demonstration. Kami knew it had been a long time in coming.
As genin they hadn't been much to look at. Asuma's cocky attitude and overly arrogant demeanor had worked amazingly with his lack of respect for authority to make him the least desirable student graduating from the academy that year. Kurenai had reminded Shikaku of a hamster on speed; ridiculously tiny and always on the move, she talked to fast and never shut up about how she was going to be the greatest kunoichi Konoha has ever seen, unfortunately her plan for becoming the "greatest kunoichi Konoha has ever seen" did not include either of the two boys included in her cell. Yet in Shikaku's humble opinion, Ebisu had actually been the worst and biggest obstacle to achieving good teamwork. Always reading procedural manuals and constantly hung up on the correct way to fill out paperwork, his snotty nose had always been raised at something and regardless of who they were teamed up with or where they went, the brat always managed to start some kind of argument that would predictably escalate to physical attacks. As their jonin sensei Shikaku had found training them entirely too troublesome. He'd even tried to pawn them off on Inoichi, but fortunately the Hokage had refused his request, and while he'd been extremely angry at the time, now he couldn't imagine his life without them in it.
Their student teacher bond once again gave him pause as he thought about their current cargo. His team had been one of those given the task of searching out clues to the whereabouts of the recently named missing-nin Orochimaru and his promising young protégé, Mitarashi Anko. Team Shikaku had been assigned to explore the Sea Country, and at the start Kurenai had been excited about it, claiming there was a rumor that the sneaky bastard had labs located in the ocean carved caves at the base of Sea Country's Kashi Zeppeki, the precipice of death. A fall from those cliffs would not be survived, if the fall itself didn't do the job, the rocky coastline and murderously rough waves would certainly finish it. While it was entirely possible that the snake Sannin did have labs in the caves, Shikaku rarely put stock in gossip and rumors. If he was being honest, the Nara jonin would have to say a lab hidden in caves only accessible during low tide, that trapped its occupants inside during high tide was just impractical, so he had assumed their search would be fruitless and his team would find nothing, which suited him just fine, the reality of the mountain of paperwork they would have to complete if they actually did find something made his brow furrow and his face pale slightly.
Shortly after their arrival in Sea Country it became quite obvious that his own assumptions were wrong, the heavens had conspired against him and his team would in fact be finding something. The relevant information had come from Ebisu, which meant that it came packaged with a giant load of irrelevant information. The spectacled shinobi had questioned a young boy about whether anything strange had occurred or if he had seen any unsavory characters milling about the island.
"The boy said he'd heard the sound of a monster eating people down at the caves by the beach and then crying about it in remorse. When I asked how he knew it was the sound of people being eaten, he said that he had seen it. However, once pressed he admitted that was a lie, but he knew the sound for what it was because he'd distinctly heard the sound of breaking bones, which he knew because last summer he broke his ankle in a shark wrestling contest. I also found out this was another lie, while he had broken his ankle, it was actually due to slipping on a seaweed covered dock, and he had not actually participated in any shark wrestling contest. ("Well that's just totally shocking," Asuma remarked snidely.) Due to his ankle injury taking 8 weeks to heal, he was laid up in his parents' house down in the fishing village and could not make it out to his favorite restaurant. They apparently make the best Usu Zukuri in town, which he believes is due to the way they make their ponzu sauce. The establishment actually makes their own rice wine vinegar solely for the ponzu sauce, which they put more—"
"Does this have a fucking point Ebisu?" Asuma angrily growled over the droning chunin, having run out of patience long before he'd even got to the ponzu sauce portion of his ridiculously long story.
"Shikaku-sensei, he should not be permitted to speak to me using such vulgar language. I am relating the information just as I received it so that perhaps you will see things in a different light then I have," Ebisu spoke directly to the jonin, not even glancing at his steaming teammate. Shikaku sighed, he thought they had outgrown this; it seemed he'd been wrong about that too.
"Well maybe if you cut out all the bullshit and only gave us the information that is fucking useful I wouldn't have to use vulgar language on your scrawny ass!" Shikaku saw Asuma's face redden slightly at his own outburst when Kurenai rolled her eyes at the two of them. Well that could turn out to be an interesting development he thought, however right now wasn't the time for him to be thinking about it, right now it was simply a distraction because he didn't want to deal with the nonsense his idiotic team always seemed to be slopping around in.
"Ebisu, did he say anything else to indicate that their might actually be something in the cave? Based on your opinion of the witness was it all an imagined fairy tale or should we look into it?" Kurenai calmly questioned her ludicrously detail oriented teammate while inconspicuously sliding between the two males and diffusing the situation. Shikaku breathed a sigh of relief; maybe there was hope for his team yet.
"Hai, Kurenai-san. The boy mentioned that he'd heard screams coming from the cave when the tide was high and crying when it was low. While I do note that the boy did lie on several occasions, when he did so it was to embellish his own physical prowess, as such I believe his testimony to be mostly true and I suggest we search the caves while exercising extreme caution."
Luckily when they arrived at the cave in question the tide was out and the entrance was exposed. A low sobbing could be heard as they entered the naturally formed winding corridors, which further corroborated the boys' tale. Deeper in the cave, heavily shackled to a metal table, sat an emaciated Mitarashi Anko. Blood seemed to cover her skin from the top of her head, where it was thickly matted and clumping in her hair, to the bottoms of her feet, which were curled up beneath her. The skin on her wrists and ankles where the rusty manacles ground against her flesh was rubbed raw and dark bruises could be seen through the blood currently coating her body. At their approach her sniffling calmed and she looked up through her blood soaked hair. Anger and hatred clouded her grey eyes for a moment before the emotions were subdued and replaced with a look of pain and resignation; a gasp escaped her lips before she rasped, "Please just kill me quickly. Finish it."
Always empathetic, Kurenai was at the younger kunoichi's side in a comforting gesture before Shikaku could warn her against it.
"What happened to you Anko-chan? We'll get you out of here, don't worry we aren't going to kill you," soothed Kurenai's voice.
"Don't touch me!" the younger girl raged, slapping Kurenai's hands away from her. "Kill me or get out of here! It's not safe here for you. I can't control it, and the chains aren't going to be any help to you if you don't get out of here now! You need to leave. Go! Now!"
Shikaku looked at the girl again. Her small form had an air of defeat, something never before seen on Mitarashi Anko. This girl was just as cocky and arrogant as Asuma, maybe even more so, but she actually had the skill to back up. There was a reason the girl was Orochimarus' apprentice, he'd poured over pages and pages of genin lists before choosing Anko as his only student and forgoing the usual three man cell in favor of imparting all of his knowledge to her, she was a genius. However, the screaming kunoichi chained to the table was a far cry from the egotistic Mitarashi they had previously known. Where she had previously been calm and collected she was now emotional and completely crazed, and there was something new in her stare. Too late he realized what it was. Anko was afraid, and from what he could tell before she released a bone chillingly maniacal battle cry, she wasn't scared at all for herself.
"I told you t-to goooooooo!" She screeched again before a twisting black rash exploded from her neck, covering her entire body in the writhing black marks. An angry, evil chakra spilled from her pores so strongly that she bore a faint purple glow. Once Kurenai jumped back from the table Team Shikaku were all in attack formation. The three chunin spared him a glance; waiting for orders on how he wanted them to proceed.
"Stay back!" he shouted. "She told us the shackles won't help!" As if to reiterate her point, Anko's hands shot out, extending from the wrist below her handcuffs, catching Asuma around the throat. Before he could give another command Anko's arms ignited in flames as Ebisu's fire release charred her flesh and Kurenai pulled Asuma out of her death grip.
"Do not kill her. Incapacitate her. We have to get her back to Konoha!" Shikaku shouted above the ensuing chaos.
When the smoke began to dissipate Anko could be seen clutching at her arm, black swirls danced across her glowing skin, and she giggled insanely; her flesh was undamaged. Suddenly Asuma's chakra enhanced trench knives launched across the room from behind the kunoichi catching the chain links in their path and slamming into the cave walls behind them while pulling the kunoichi with them, effectively pinning Mitarashi to the wall, where a chakra laden punch was delivered to the back of her skull knocking her out cold, courtesy of Yuhi Kurenai. That was when their run through the treetops had begun. None of them wanted the adolescent girl waking up again before they were back in Konoha.
Shikaku knew from Asuma's expressions and body language that he'd wanted to kill the girl, just as she'd asked them to. This to Shikaku's way of thinking, was the very reason that they shouldn't. Something was wrong with the girl to be sure, but before the transformation she'd tried to protect her fellow Konoha shinobi, and really, wasn't that the most important thing? Again, he thought about how much he cared for his students, and the bonds they had created, and how he would never want any harm to come to them, and then he looked at the blood soaked little girl knocked unconscious being dragged through the woods, and wondered how Orochimaru could have let it happen to her.
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Exiting the fourth shop in a row from which she hadn't bought anything Rin felt her stomach growl loudly. She was getting pretty hungry but she wanted to get gifts for her old team before she ate lunch. The problem was she couldn't find anything worthy of them, and without someone to help her shop she never would. She only ever found good gifts when she went shopping with someone else. Unfortunately everyone she could shop with, she was shopping for. The day was slowly going downhill and she could tell her shopping was going to be a bust. She knew she was being silly by trying to find something worthy of the men on her team. Nothing she could ever buy, no matter how expensive, could be good enough for her boys. Good enough for her family. They were everything to her and she didn't want to leave them, unfortunately training with Tsunade-hime was the greatest opportunity to come her way in a long time, and her boys could only benefit from the skills she would pick up from the legendary Sannin.
Letting out a deep breath as her stomach growled again, Rin turned, defeated, toward the food bazaar. As she stepped out into the street she was bowled over by a bright green blur. Then just as she was about to hit the ground, the same previously mentioned bright green blur caught her in his arms, picking her up bridal style in the process.
"I am so sorry beautiful flower of Konoha! In my youthful pursuit of springtime I failed to look where I was going and almost uprooted the most beautiful bloom of them all!"
"P-put me d-down, please," Rin stammered; she was completely flummoxed by the exceedingly loud teenager currently holding her up in the middle of the street declaring her beauty to the rest of the village.
"Why of course my youthful blossom! I should have known that a bloom as lovely as you would not want to be carried in the springtime of youth. I shall acquiesce to your request." He returned Rin's feet to the ground, immediately jumping back and giving her a thumbs up, wearing a smile so bright the sun glinting off his front tooth temporarily blinded her.
"Thank you… umm… I'm sorry; I don't know your name."
"Oh, how rude of me!" he exclaimed. "I am Maito Gai! Konoha's Noble Green Beast!"
"Nice to meet you, Maito-san. My name is Rin, and thanks for your help. I guess I'll see you around."
"Rin-san! What a beautiful name for a beautiful flower. Would you like to be my girlfriend?"
Rin's jaw dropped. This guy had to be kidding, didn't he? She barely knew him, why would she be his girlfriend? Not to mention the fact that he was wearing a bright green leotard with orange legwarmers and had a bowl haircut, the boy was a walking fashion disaster, and there was no way she was going to be his girlfriend. Why did she always attract weirdoes? Couldn't any of the boys she liked declare her beautiful? Like maybe Kakashi or Iruka? Why did it have to be this crazy guy?
"Umm… I don't think that would be a very good idea, Maito-san."
"Please, call me Gai. I will one day win your heart, so you might as well be my girlfriend now!" As he declared his intentions at the top of his lungs he stuck out his arm for Rin to give him hers.
Blushing profusely, as everyone in the street watched his shenanigans; Rin had never been so utterly mortified. There was no way she was dating this idiot, she just hoped he'd go away soon.
"Gomen, but I don't think I should be your girlfriend Gai-san."
"But why my flower? My love for you is bursting out of my skin! And please, notice my handsome manly features. Why don't you want to be my girlfriend?"
Rin gaped; she didn't know what to say that wouldn't sound completely mean, and who knew when she would see this guy again. He was also a shinobi so she could be put on a mission with him at any time, if she was cruel to him it could jeopardize a mission. Why couldn't he just take a hint, she wasn't interested. What was wrong with this Gai? Why couldn't he just take her first answer?
"Well… umm… I… uhh… I just can't."
"You can't?" Gai asked loudly. "Buy why? Our love is like a rose bud Rin-san. Without proper care it won't bloom. You need to by my girlfriend so we can turn this bud into a giant rosebush of love!"
"Sorry Gai, I can't be your girlfriend," Rin said again, this time in her most authoritative voice. "I already to—"
"—have a boyfriend," finished a distinctly male voice from behind her as a soft warm hand took her own.
"Oh, I see! Well in that case we will battle for the affections of Rin-san. One day she will see what the power of youth can do and then she will choose me. Until then I wish you the best of luck my worthy opponent. Let the power of youth explode!" With those words of encouragement Konoha's Noble Green Beast disappeared in a green blur.
Already completely embarrassed over Gai's antics, Rin was afraid to turn around and see her savior. Would she now be further embarrassed or need a savior from this boy as well? Contemplating her next move, Rin felt her "boyfriend" give her hand a comforting squeeze.
"You don't have to be my girlfriend. I just said that to help you out. Of course if you wanted to by my girlfriend then… umm… well if you wanted to be… I would… umm… I would really be happy."
Softened by his shy but sweet words Rin turned to see Iruka. A smile lit up her face and she placed a chaste kiss on his cheek. "I would like to be your girlfriend, but I'm leaving in 3 days for my training."
Iruka smiled warmly at her. "That's okay, you can be my girlfriend for the next three days then, umm… just try it out until you leave, and then if you decide to you can be mine while you're away."
Rin smiled back at him, "Okay, would you like to come shopping with me?" Maybe today would be a good day after all.
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A/N: Well here's another chapter, I'm not completely happy with this, and I think the third section might be a little too corny, but it was valentine's day when I wrote it so I thought it should have a little sweetness. Also, currently in this story Rin is 13 to Iruka's 11, so there will be nothing sexual, beyond a kiss on the cheek and holding hands. I just wanted to clear that up so nobody would think I was going to go there.
Please review if you liked, and even more so, please review if you didn't like it, that way I can figure out where I am going wrong. Thank you so much just for reading I'm happy for every hit I get.