A/N: I would like to thank Kaori for being a wonderful beta. As this is the first betad chapter you may notice that suddenly my noun/pronoun usage has improved. I assure you that this is not the case, I owe her my correct grammar. Sidenote: She did not beta this author note so all errors within it are mine and mine alone.
Chapter 16 – Small Lights in the Dark
Carrying Obito's prone body through the woods was a cumbersome task, one that Anko did not relish in. Yet carry him she did, and upsettingly enough, even with her added cargo she was making better time than both of her injured companions. Kakashi was completely worn out, using the sharingan for such a long period of time had sapped him of all his chakra; she doubted he could even hold a kunai at this point. Itachi was injured severely, a direct consequence of her actions but she'd had no other option, if she hadn't done what she did he'd have been sucked away with Madara. With proper medical attention he would be fine, but he still seemed to be bleeding heavily and she just hoped they could get him to the hospital in time.
Bumbling through the forest trying to move as quietly as possible away from the escaping demon, Anko's drastically depleted four man cell was far too focused on what lay behind them. So much so in fact, that they'd forgotten what lay in front of them; it wasn't until they'd stumbled into the camp itself that they remembered the group of 1000 lodged between them and their escape. Much to Anko's horror, by the time they noticed where they were it was far too late to begin evasive maneuvers.
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Thunderous snores filled the night air, signifying to all in hearing distance that Kamizuki Izumo was indeed deep in slumber. The rise and fall of his chest came at even intervals even as he rolled from his back to his side languidly, taking a break from his snoring to sigh contentedly and murmur unintelligibly. Akasha watched from the window, determining her best mode of entry.
While breaking the glass and simply slithering through the remaining frame would no doubt be the most direct, Akasha knew in a house of ninja the sound of breaking glass would bring everyone running; a scenario she hoped to avoid. Instead she opted to slink around front where she'd earlier seen an open window. Entering into what she assumed was the living room she slipped through the darkened house and down the back hallway leading to the boy's room. Nudging the door open with her head she glided up next to his bed.
Observing the teenager deep in sleep she could feel no great chakra reserve, nor sense any inordinate power in him, making her question the wisdom of her master. How was this boy going to help in a fight against that evil chakra emanating from the forest? As foolish of a choice as she believed this to be, Anko had told her this boy would understand the importance of the secrecy she required and would definitely offer his support. Discerning the name of her master mixed in with the boy's sighs and moans, in addition to the near deafening snores he frequently released, she figured she knew the reason why, and decided it was time to wake him.
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Izumo sat up suddenly, trying to figure out what had woken him from his Anko laden dreams. If he'd believed thoughts of the violet haired kunoichi had filled his head a month ago, before he'd gotten the opportunity to train with her, he'd been sorely mistaken. Now that he had, visions of the sexy vixen permeated his every thought; saturating his brain with all things Anko.
Training with her had to be, in his opinion, the best day of his entire life. True she'd handed him his ass all day, and he'd spent most of it knocked flat on his back, but it had all been worth it. Many of the times she'd smashed him into the dirt had been followed by her straddling him and putting a kunai to his neck in signal of his defeat. And while that was not the optimal circumstances in which he wanted her to mount him, he'd take what he could get. Not to mention that when she was sparring with him she was often touching him, and he'd even managed at one point to cop a feel of her well toned derriere (though he was pretty sure she'd noticed because she had immediately called an end to their training). Unfortunately, being up close and personal with the girl of his dreams clothed only in a fishnet body stocking, miniskirt, and dangerously low half buttoned chunin vest also made it nearly impossible to think of anything but her. Tonight's dream was evidence enough of that, and also one he'd like to be getting back to.
"Kamissuke Isssumo?" a voice hissed in the darkness of his bedroom.
"Who's asking?" he demanded while simultaneously flipping on the light on his nightstand and fisting the kunai he kept hidden under his pillow.
Lightly illuminated by the sparse light his small lamp let off a bright green snake stood next to his bed answering him in a near whisper, "I am Akasha. Anko-sssama hasss sssent me to requessst your help."
Izumo leapt from his bed in response. Quickly suiting up and equipping himself for battle, despite the fact that he had no idea what Anko needed. That she needed anything from him at all was enough to get him out the door.
"What does she need? Is she okay? Where is she?" he bombarded her emissary with questions. If Anko was really in trouble there was no way he could refuse to help.
"Calm down baka, and I will tell you."
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With an earth wrenching roar the Kyubi no Yoko finally managed to tear herself free from the doorway that had threatened to pull her back to the hell dimension. Flailing her tails in victory over her would be captor she shattered the ground around her, uprooting almost half of the forest in her sadistic glee. Fires burned uncontrollably everywhere her extremities met the unsuspecting foliage bringing a sinister red glow to the already terrifying Forest of Death.
She could sense prey in the area but it was weak, and not what she was after in any case. She knew she'd sensed his chakra when the portal opened and her hate for him was all consuming. Expecting to see him and his accursed sharingan standing before her to force her into submission she was stunned to find him suspiciously absent. She searched the area for his sinister chakra, sure he was hatching something sinister from the shadows. He had to be hiding somewhere. She would find him, and this time she'd rip out his heart. She was the Kyubi no Yoko, the nine-tailed demon fox, single most powerful of all the tailed beasts, she could flatten mountains at a whim and she answered to no master; he would pay for his impudence.
Her hatred for Uchiha Madara was engrossing. Blinded by her all consuming rage for the man who had managed to enslave her to do his bidding, she cared nothing for anything other than seeing him destroyed. Unable to find him in the vicinity she turned from Konoha toward the last place she had seen him. The Valley of the End was where she would begin her search, and from there she'd tear the world asunder to bring about his destruction.
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Izumo raced across Konoha's rooftops heading for his teammate Rikku's house. He'd debated heading for the Forest of Death on his own, considering Akasha's demand for secrecy, but ninja or not, he knew taking out 1000 samurai was a task beyond his capabilities. He needed his team if he was going to be able to help Anko.
Plus by recruiting Rikku first he'd be able to cut his travel time in half. Over the past year his teammate had practically perfected her teleportation jutsus. Not to mention, she'd set up a system of seals from one end of the village to the other which allowed her to transport pretty much anything, including her team, to any of the seal locations while expending very little chakra. She had also set up at least one in every village they had managed to travel to during missions, but that was irrelevant to the task at hand. What was relevant was that there happened to be one at Kotetsu's house as well as in the Forest of Death (it was barely beyond the gate, as they'd had to sneak in and hadn't wanted to get caught, but would save a great deal of time nonetheless).
Finally reaching her house, Izumo chakra walked down its right side. Reaching an awning right below Rikku's window he dropped onto it and knocked on it repeatedly; getting louder with each repetition. For crying out loud what was she doing in there? Every second wasted was one in which Anko could be hurting.
At long last Rikku threw open her bedroom window angrily. "What the hell do you want? You do realize its 1:00 in the morning and normal people are fucking sleeping right?"
"Get dressed. Konoha needs us," he responded so solemnly she didn't even question him further. Minutes later the two of them appeared in Kotetsu's room to rouse him from sleep as well. It wasn't until the three of them were standing fully equipped and battle ready that he completely filled them in on the logistics of their task.
"1000 samurai?" Rikku looked stunned. "I hate to say this but I don't think we're enough Zumo. We're only genin."
"We have to be enough. We can't tell anyone else," he answered somberly.
"She's right," Kotetsu argued. "We're no match for 1000 men, even if they're just samurai and not ninja. Maybe 100, 200 even since it's dark and they might be poorly trained, but 1000 is too much."
"Listen to me guys. We have to help her. And it's not just our team, her team is there too. Kakashi is a jonin, that's gotta be good for taking out at least 300. Anko and Obito are both chunin, and everyone knows they'll make jonin at the next exam. If they both take out 200 that's 700, which means we've only got 300 for ourselves. We can do it. I know we can. Anko sent for us, which means she believes we can do it too. Come on, we're shinobi of Konoha, the best ninja village in the world, and they're just samurai, they can't even use chakra. They don't stand a chance."
Rikku looked up at him and the sparkle in her eyes told him all he needed to know about her decision before she even spoke.
"Dammit, your right Izumo. Let's show'em how it's done. Then when they're smashed by just a couple of genin they'll know how completely bad-ass Konoha shinobi can be. Let's kick their asses boys!" she expounded; a blood thirsty grin completely at home on her angelic face.
"Damn straight!" Kotetsu added with verve.
Completely enthused and ready to be Anko' knight in shining armor, Izumo failed to notice the carrier pigeon his teammates let loose before Rikku transported them to the forest.
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Much like every other jonin in Konoha worth his salt, Hyuga Hizashi felt the completely dominating and malevolent chakra emanating from the Forest of Death sweep over the village hidden in the leaves. But unlike those other jonin, he was in a position to do something about it.
Located at the edge of the Forest of Death the Hyuga compound was the closest thing to it for a reason. With the ability to monitor the wild wood without even entering it, the Hyuga clan had been given the responsibility of safeguarding it way back at the time of Konoha's creation. With the Uchihas being made Konoha's police force, the equally mighty in standing Hyuga had demanded an honor of their own. While many would debate as to whether or not this actually was on equal standing, Hizashi could care less. The only thing that mattered to him was the fact that as a Hyuga it was completely within his rights to investigate the disturbance.
Admittedly, much to his dismay, this probably wasn't the most opportune time, but he was the closest one to the anomaly.
"Hizashi-sensei, what is that?" the female reason for his dismay asked.
"I'm not certain, but we're going to find out. Pack up your things, we're going in," Hizashi informed his genin cell.
Within just a half mile of the Forest of Death's gate Hizashi's team had been out on a survival exercise. The chunin exam was only two months away and despite his initial reservations about his team's capabilities he had to concede Minato-sama's evaluation had been more accurate than his own and he was confident that they would make chunin easily.
He had been pleasantly surprised at the tenacity they had shown toward achieving their goals. Recalling their initial meeting he remembered how honored the three of them had been to have him as their sensei, and how their positive attitudes had managed to effect his own. They had been awed and felt privileged to be taught by Hyuga Hizashi, and it hadn't been because of his Hyuga name, they hadn't cared about his branch member status or the mark on his forehead. They had measured his worth not by his birth order or family rank, but by his own actions and merits and in doing so had opened his eyes and given him hope for the future.
From then on Hizashi had been a changed man, and he'd thrown himself heart, body, and soul into their teaching. After all, if they could accept him as he was, he could do no less for them. He'd originally set unrealistic goals for each of them, with the intention of failing them and sending them straight back to the academy, but they'd shocked him by not only meeting his goals but exceeding them. Now, he was almost certain all three would make chunin before the year was out.
While on paper Hizashi's original commentary on their abilities had been accurate, in reality he'd been far from the mark. It was true that Gekko Hayate was small and lacked body weight, but it was far from the disadvantage he had labeled it as. In fact, the boy's low body weight acted as a catalyst for his signature jutsu. Hayate's small mass combined with nearly perfect chakra manipulation allowed him to move more quickly and with more agility and grace than Hizashi had ever seen from someone his age, and his signature technique, the Dance of the Crescent Moon, was poetry in motion. Able to create multiple clones with minimal chakra wastage, he moved them around at high speed creating confusion in his enemy, which he then exploited by attacking from their blind spots. Hizashi found himself anxious to see his student unveil it at the chunin exam.
Uzuki Yugao on the other hand had very little chakra control. It was exactly like he said, her chakra spiked erratically and behaved inconsistently. Fortunately he'd found the girl to have abnormally large stores of it, regardless of how much chakra she wasted she always seemed to have more with which to practice. Long after both Hayate and Iruka would pass out from chakra exhaustion Yugao would be up and running through the drills. Her single minded focus and desire to get it right had endeared the purple haired kunoichi to him, perhaps even more so than the other two, and he'd taken to tutoring her separately to keep her from falling behind. Under his special instruction they had discovered her affinity for water based jutsu. Wild and without form the personalized water jutsu she created relied heavily on the fact that her chakra behaved inconsistently. The majority of her jutsu relied on large amounts of water coming from multiple directions at varying speeds with irregular force, all performing different functions. Her opponents would find the jutsu unpredictable, and often times were unable to determine what they should be protecting themselves from before it was too late.
Umino Iruka was Hizashi's biggest challenge. While he was repeatedly wowed by his student's physical prowess he continued to worry about his mental capacity for the kill. His most passive and gentle disciple, Iruka had yet to complete a jutsu designed specifically for killing. He knew a variety of jutsu to incapacitate his opponents; he could make them fall asleep, numb their bodies past the point of movement, catch them in genjutsu, and had even talked to enough medic nin's to learn how to sever a spinal cord for paralysis, but that was as far as it went. He knew not even one fatal jutsu, a fact that bothered Hizashi to no end. He had even suggested the boy reserve himself for catch and capture missions only, but Iruka had insisted he wanted to advance to ANBU along with the rest of his squad. The boy was a conundrum that Hizashi had no answer for.
Heading toward the forest gate Hizashi activated his byakugan. Kuso! There had to be 1000 enemy combatants about 5 miles in from the gate and a damn demon about 20 in. Concerned that this was beyond his team's ability Hizashi forced himself to shake it off, as far as he knew there was no one else available, so they would have to be enough.