Chapter 25 – Catching Up Volume II
1.
Yoshino lurched back and forth anxiously in the old Nara family rocker with her baby rocking wildly with her; the convulsive jolting doing little to deter the drowsy yet apparently hungry Shikamaru from continuing to suckle at her breast. Her own mood had never effected that of her child, and now was no different, even as she was ready to claw down the walls and pull out her hair with worry, he remained passive and calm.
She smiled down at her apathetic offspring and thanked Kami for his docile behavior; apparently poor Iku's baby was quite a handful and none of the Yamanaka's had gotten any sleep in weeks as baby Ino made demands for constant attention by the loudest means available. Not Shikamaru though; her son could sleep through a village invasion and always slept through the night, in fact she often had to wake him to feed him for fear he'd sleep his way to poor nutrition.
Currently Yoshino was beside herself. With Shikaku away on such a dangerous mission, which she was reminded of daily by the well meaning old biddy two houses down every morning when she collected the mail, she felt helpless and stir crazy. Sill on mandatory maternity leave, she was forbidden to help her husband and being cooped up in the village had her restless, fortunately Shikamaru had inherited his father's soothing presence and holding and cuddling him daily kept her from going insane. Every day Yoshino lit a candle in thankfulness to the will of fire that her boys were safe; without them she'd be a boat lost at sea. If Shikaku was her rock, the land at which she docked, than Shikamaru was the anchor that kept her from floating away in his absence.
2.
Rin sat in awe of Shizune. The young woman before her had managed to accomplish something that even the great Tsunade-hime had been unable to do. She had single handedly diagnosed Mitarashi Anko's condition and with a bit of help brought the young kunoichi back from the brink of death, simultaneously saving the lives of two of Rin's most precious people, as well as the little Uchiha boy, and she'd done it all without even breaking a sweat.
If she was being honest with herself, which she was, Rin would have to admit she was a bit jealous of her sempai. How could she not be? Shizune was everything Rin aspired to be and more. And when the very handsome Morino Ibiki swung by the hospital to pick up his girlfriend she knew her envy was out of control.
Rin wrinkled her nose as she tried to squash the green eyed monster before it got out to play and consumed her, but it was hard even if he hadn't gotten out, his thoughts now ran through her head. How could she ever live up to that? Shizune was the shining example of what an apprentice should be, and what an apprentice of Tsunade should accomplish. While she contemplated how hard it would be to hold a candle to Shizune, she failed to notice Tsunade's arrival.
Just than a comforting hand appeared on her shoulder, and looking up Rin saw Tsunade-hime's warm chocolate gaze as she offered an encouraging squeeze and reassuring smile.
"Don't worry about it Rin, one day soon that will be you. I don't want to take anything away from Shizune's accomplishment, she is an amazing young woman, but you're going to surpass her one day and then go on to surpass me as well. You're better than both of us were at your age. I can see you're worried about getting out of Shizune's shadow, and don't try to deny it, I know what that look means, because I once saw it on Shizune's face. Now try to imagine the shadow I cast."
Rin looked abashed; she hadn't even considered that Shizune had been in her shoes at one point as well. Smiling she nodded her head in understanding to her mentor.
"Just have some patience Rin, learning to heal takes a lot longer than learning to kill. Now why don't you go tell your friends that Anko's woken up?"
3.
Still trapped in a jail cell an unable to mold chakra or resume his training, Uchiha Itachi scowled deeply. He was almost positive he'd awoken his sharingan in battle right before he lost consciousness, but since he'd woken up he'd been stuck with the chakra draining shackles of Konoha's enemies, and without chakra there was no way to test his eyes and know for sure.
Deep in his heart he knew he'd done it and he was proud of himself. To have done it at such a young age was unheard of and Itachi hoped that when Fugaku found out he'd be proud, and maybe even impressed enough to forgive him this embarrassment to the clan. Though he highly doubted it Obito had taught him to be more optimistic and hope for the best.
Despite the fact that they had been labeled as treasonous criminals and denied any contact with anyone outside their cells, the Uchiha clan leader had managed to get word to his eldest son that he was by no means pleased with the manner in which the Uchiha name was being dragged through the dirt by his actions. Fugaku expected this from Obito, and in fact hadn't minded the older boy's involvement in the incident at all. Since the traitorous teenager had already been excommunicated from the clan his connection to the mutinous plot served only to prove the clan leader correct in his actions. With Obito on trial for treason his naysayers were quickly quieted down and get out of his way. Unfortunately Itachi's own embroilment in the seditious act left the clan's allegiance up to debate; something his father was most unhappy about.
If only he could prove he'd activated his kekkei genkai than maybe the severity of his punishment would be lessened. Itachi closed his eyes and willed chakra to his ocular passageways for what seemed like the millionth and like all the times before he felt the cuffs on his arms leach all of it away before it even reached its target. Breathing an exasperated sigh he collapsed heavily on his bed and slouched against the wall, taking solace in the fact that if Anko ever woke up, his constant attempts to mold chakra would not have been in vain; though unable to use the blue life blood of a ninja, he could still feel it within his bodies chakra coils and his own had expanded exponentially since his incarceration. Just about to lay his weary head down for a nap, he snapped back up to full alertness at Obito's shout from across the room.
"Anko's awake!! Hell Yeah!!! I knew she would be! That's our girl; we'll be out of here in no time!"
4.
Watching Kawano Teruo's back as her squad moved to intercept the Kyubi-no-Yoko, Uchiha Mikoto squashed the urge to smack the diminutive shinobi up the back of his giant head. With Namiashi Raido's heroic yet foolish stunt removing him from battle, Attack Squad 1 was being extracted from combat until his replacement could arrive and Attack Squad 2 was moving in to take their place on the front line. They would be facing an enraged demon fox so powerful its chakra could harm you long after it touched you, and her idiot of a teammate was wasting precious chakra on a vanity jutsu. She could not fathom the stupidity it took to exhaust one's most valuable resource during what was sure to be the fight of their lives on a henge that made the man taller. She had inquired as to the value of said jutsu hoping he had a plan that somehow utilized it, and might restore some of her faith in his ability as a ninja, but the moron had shaken his head and pretended he didn't know what she was talking about; as if her sharingan was incapable of picking up on his poorly done genjutsu.
To be honest Mikoto had no idea how this man could have gotten such an important assignment and she prayed to Kami his foolishness didn't get her killed. Meeting Fugaku and Hyuga Hiashi at the rendezvous point she noticed her husbands' almost permanent scowl deepen and Hiashi's eyes widen in disbelief while he did a double take, as if he couldn't actually believe what he was seeing, as they too took in Kawano's absurd squandering of chakra during an extremely life threatening skirmish. Her third squad member, Koto Tadeshi, shrugged when they all looked at him, sure he had noticed it too, but if Kawano refused to acknowledge it there was nothing they could do.
After exchanging critical mission information however, Fugaku apparently felt otherwise. Grabbing the smaller jonin's arm in a vice-like grip while the others walked past, his eyes spun red with menace and he growled threateningly, "If my wife's safety is put in jeopardy because a short, stupid idiot was wrongly assigned to watch her back I will end you."
Kawano looked stunned, but still chose not to drop the jutsu, and despite herself Mikoto smiled at her husband's overprotective nature. She knew Fugaku didn't want her out on the battlefield, he'd been angrier than a riled rattlesnake when Minato had named her for the second Attack Squad, and accused the Hokage of trying to eliminate his branch of the Uchiha clan. The young Hokage had stood his ground though (as she thought he should) and informed her husband that it was not his fault that Fugaku had married the most powerful kunoichi in the village and he would not take any more objections to his use of Konoha's finest shinobi in defense of their common home. Though the Uchiha clan leader was livid and tried to convince her to retire, saying the hokage viewed her only as a tool, Mikoto had taken it for the compliment it was and hadn't batted an eyelid. She worked hard for the power she had, and every bit of her strength had been hard won; she had no intention of giving up her status as an active shinobi. She loved her son's beyond reason (just the thought of sweet Sasuke asleep in his crib brought a light to heart, a spring to her step, and a reason to fight all the harder), and though she didn't want them to grow up without her, there was no way she was going to give up her right to keep that damn demon fox away from her precious boys.
After years of marriage she was fairly certain that Fugaku had thought her even temper and serene demeanor a sign that she would be weak and docile, forever bending to his whims when he'd asked his father to arrange their marriage. Unfortunately for him, her quiet poise and tranquil bearing hid a spine of steal and love of battle. Uchiha Mikoto would never be the bowing and scraping brood mare her husband desired, and that was just fine with her; a kunoichi of Konoha should always defy expectations.
5.
Lost to the crimson blood haze of battle, Maito Gai had long forgotten the purpose of his brutish onslaught. He, Mizuki, and Suzume feverishly continued their three man assault on everyone that moved with no thought whatsoever as to what had motivated them to do so in the first place. At this point the only things relevant to their actions were the locations of their next targets.
Adult civilians had become nothing more than prey for the three enraged and blood thirsty shinobi, even if they could no longer recall what it was they were enraged about to begin with. That there was no longer any rhyme or reason for the unrelenting barrage didn't make it any less devastating to those who fell to the assault.
It was at the moment he launched a middle aged woman across the street to crash into a brick wall with a roundhouse kick to her body's core, that something began nagging at the back of Gai's mind. Far removed from the situation at hand was an outlying idea that maybe he'd used far too much force for the purpose of subduing a civilian, and as he pulverized the skull of a forty-something or other blonde man it needled its way out of the obscurity of his subconscious and nudged its way to the forefront of his thoughts.
Stopping what he was doing for a moment Gai looked around at the carnage he and his team had wrought and almost vomited in the street. Bodies filled the town square as blood flowed like rain down the streets drains and barely a soul remained breathing. Around him, Mizuki and Suzume continued their aggression, heedless of the fact that they were almost out of their precious quarry.
Shouting at his friends to stop, Konoha's beautiful green beast tried to figure out why this had happened. He distantly recalled walking into the town in search of survivors but his memory was foggy as to why Rescue Squad C had turned into a three armed killing machine. In the mean time, Mizuki and Suzume stumbled over to where he stood, both looking as dazed and confused as he felt.
"What happened here?" Suzume asked sheepishly.
"I've got no idea," Mizuki answered. "Why would we open up on civilians like this?"
"I can't remember," Gai said despondently. "We've broken with protocol completely. Not only did we use extremely unnecessary force, we failed to subdue a single civilian, instead maiming or killing almost all of them."
"We couldn't have killed all of these people. Could we?" Suzume's voice rose in pitch as she attempted to take it all in.
"I don't think…." Mizuki began to deny their involvement guiltily, before sighting something and shouting in a clear voice, "Fuck no! We didn't kill all these kids! Look around; there are more kids than adults in the street. That's why we attacked! It's all coming back, we were on that roof over there, don't you remember?"
"That's right," Suzume confirmed, joining in his excited fervor. It felt good to know they'd had a reason for their radical event. "They were slaughtering all of their children. We had to stop it. I was so angry."
They had just about pieced everything together when a feminine shriek pierced through the air, quieting the ninja in an instant while they searched out the sound.
"There were five kids left on the podium," Mizuki said. "Where are they now?"
Another scream followed by a sob cut through the silence and Mizuki and Suzume began racing toward it. Gai had disappeared like a bullet shot from a gun at the very start of the scream. Rounding the bend of the town's main square he saw a playground hidden in the shadows of a large temple where three men held four children at knifepoint.
"No! Please!" a scared toddler's voice rang out from the back of the building just as his teammates came into view. Nodding to him that they would take care of the situation, Gai left the four kids in front of him to their more than capable hands and raced around the temple to find an obese hairy man with his pants around his ankles about to force himself on a small girl who couldn't have been more than four. Previously resigned not to kill any more civilians, Gai saw red, and as the man leered disgustingly at the child he decided one more civilian wouldn't make a difference.
Dragging the man out of sight he made quick work of the scum and returned to cradle the poor little urchin in his arms.
"Are you going to hurt me?" the girl sniffled as she looked up through long tangled black hair with crying blood shot eyes, and Gai's heart broke for her.
"Never," he said soothingly, pushing her hair out of her eyes. "My name is Maito Gai, I'm the Beautiful Green Beast of Konoha, and I promise on the will of fire that I won't let anyone else hurt you either."
"Really?" she asked with wide eyed trepidation.
"Really," he affirmed.
A small half-smile tentatively crept across her face, and while it was by no means a real smile Gai figured that after what she'd been through it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. Offering him a shaky hand she introduced herself.
"Thank you for saving me Gai-kun. I'm Tsuchi Kin and we'll be best friends forever."
A/N: Please review. They make me happy and a happy me is a productive me.