Chapter 31 – We Only See It Go

1.

Bringing their captive back to Konoha was proving to be much more aggravating than Asuma had thought it would be when they captured the Sand ninja. It was true that the guy had been very forthcoming with his reasons for being within Fire borders and since he'd been apprehended he'd been respectful and cooperative; in short he was the most perfect prisoner anyone could have hoped for. Even the kids were proving to be less of a hassle than he'd thought they would be. As a general rule, Asuma was not a fan of children in any capacity. His opinion of the tiny sub-humans was that they were whiney, icky, sticky messes, that threw up and pissed and crapped their pants far too often for his liking, and those who were beyond the diaper stage of their lives could be counted on to have entered the annoying chattering stage of life, wherein they asked the most inane and useless questions one could think of. Asuma could honestly say he liked the chattering stage of life even less than he liked the shitting and pissing stage, at least when they filled their diaper all a person needed to do was change it and throw it out, and consider the problem solved. If the thing was babbling away about why the clouds looked like fluffy cotton balls or asking why potatoes didn't grow on trees the way apples did, it was infinitely harder to get it to shut up and consider the problem solved, because most of the time even if you solved the problem and told them why potatoes grew in the ground than they just came up with a new and different, yet equally absurd, question and you were never done. These Sand siblings though had yet to irritate him in any lasting manner.

The red headed baby just continued to curl tightly against Ebisu's chest, happily gurgling away and grasping his shirt close as if the glasses wearing shinobi might suddenly drop him (which Asuma was sure would never happen, the whiney little turd loved children as much as he himself despised them). The girl was walking quickly beside Kurenai saying little but staring in awe at the young ninja. Her big green eyes filled with admiration never left the kunoichi; drinking in every aspect of Kurenai's countenance. She drank in every word the older girl said and listened aptly to story after story of Konoha's powerful kunoichi and said very little other than to ask about weapons of jutsu. It was enough to make Asuma think she might not even be a real child, maybe it was a genjutsu and they were being fooled. He'd actually even stopped his flow of chakra at one point just to be sure it wasn't. The third child's name was Kankuro and as far as Asuma was concerned this kid was aces. The boy was only two years old and as such his vocabulary was very limited, however he managed to get his points across just fine and Asuma found him quite amusing. When they had decided Baki was no longer a flight risk, Kurenai had announced she would no longer be responsible for both kids and passed the boy over to Asuma, where he'd than made it clear that while Asuma might be a cool ninja he would much rather be carried by his teammate.

"No," Kankuro had stated as Asuma held him on his hip. Pointing back at Kurenai he'd told him, "I want pretty girl carry me. Not you."

Asuma had laughed and told him he was out of luck, and stuck with him. At this point the little guy had indicated that he would like to ride on his transporters shoulders; Asuma had obliged and the older sand ninja had explained that Kankuro only let girls hold him on their hips, with men he rode on their shoulders.

"He likes to be close to the ladies," Baki had shrugged.

Sitting upon Asuma's shoulders and knowing they were discussing him, Kankuro simply clapped his hands loudly and shouted, "Boobies!"

Asuma's aggravation with the task at hand lay not with their captives, but with his own team. Before the capture of the Sand ninja Kurenai had been either ignoring him or being rude to him, while Ebisu catered to her every whim and failed to intercede and stop the nonsense. It was a known fact that Ebisu was a "by the book" kind of ninja, he always followed protocol and frequently quoted passages from the ninja handbook, however on this trip the bastard had refused to mediate the dispute between his teammates as was specifically outlined in the damn thing, instead stating that he'd forgotten the book at home and could not recall anything on that particular subject. Asuma knew it was complete bullshit and Ebisu was doing the exact opposite of what the rules required, which was that he remain impartial and refuse to take sides against a teammate, but there was pretty much nothing he could do about it. To press the issue he would have to get Kurenai to help him call out Ebisu on the lack of protocol, which was impossible because she wasn't talking to him and the reason why it wasn't being followed in the first place. To that effect Asuma had sucked it up and marched silently along with his team while they attempted to collect survivors. Then they had come upon the sand refugees and suddenly everything got worse. Now instead of simply ignoring him, which both Ebisu and Kurenai continued to do most of the time(they had not even considered his opinion when they decided Baki was not a flight risk, Asuma had been of the mind that they bind the ninja and gag him so he couldn't call for any summoning if he'd had them, and upon hearing that Kurenai had laughed mockingly and told Ebisu to untie the man but leave chakra shackles on him), but they were openly disrespecting him in front of the prisoner and allowing the enemy to know the team now lacked cohesion. On top of that, Kurenai was openly flirting with the Sand ninja.

Walking beside her as they returned to Konoha, Baki chatted with her amiably and listened to her stories almost as raptly as Temari did. Asuma knew all her stories, and could tell you that there was no way they were that interesting, especially to a grown ass man; the guy was simply trying to get in her good graces so she would stick up for him during his meeting with the council when he requested asylum for himself and the children. In the meanwhile Kurenai was laughing and smiling at everything the overly tanned teenager said, and Asuma was sure the guy was not that funny. Kurenai was making a fool of herself over the foreign ninja and he couldn't wait to get home and call her out on it.

About five miles from home Kankuro knocked on his head, "I go potty."

"You need to go to the bathroom?" Asuma asked, reaching up to lift the boy off his shoulders and realizing that he was wrong.

"No! Hahaha… I GO potty!" The boy Asuma had once liked laughed hysterically as Asuma felt the flow of warm urine flowing down his back.

Up ahead of them a few paces Temari turned around.

"Eeewww! Konky is gross Baki! He did it again, and you told him that was bad," she shouted. "He gets punished now, heeheehee," she giggled viscously.

"Damn it Kankuro!" Baki reprimanded the boy, who had now been unceremoniously dropped to the ground. "What did I tell you? You are supposed to let us know when you need to use the bathroom."

Looking up sheepishly the brat answered, "I did."

"You are supposed to tell us BEFORE you go to the bathroom now that we ran out of your diapers."

"Hehehe… I forgot," the little devil looked up at his caretaker grinning wildly.

"I'm sorry," Baki said sincerely to the Konoha ninja, hoping the Fire ninja wouldn't injure the boy. "I've been working on getting him to tell me when he has to go, but as you can see he doesn't always remember, and sometimes he remembers and thinks it's funny to pee his pants. He's gotten me several times as well."

Asuma was mad enough to spit. The boy was still giggling madly at his feet, completely unaware of the fact that he was about to be throttled soundly and buried in a shallow grave, while Ebisu openly laughed right alongside him, and Kurenai smirked at him condescendingly. That was it, he'd kill them all, nobody would suspect him, he was their teammate after all and then he could blame it on the foreign ninja, whom he had to kill in self defense after the rest of his team had been murdered. He'd just make sure not to use any of his signature jutsu and nobody would be the wiser. They all deserved to die; he was going to bury the kid's right next to Kurenai and Ebisu right after—

"Ewwww, you stink, P.U." Temari loudly interrupted his thoughts. "Asuma-san you need a bath. Konky's pee stinks and now you do too."

Asuma closed his eyes and tried to will it all away. Of course he couldn't kill his team or the children but damn it he wanted to. They were all little shits.

"Here you go Asuma-san," Temari practically sang at him. "This will help; it's what Baki and I use when Konky gets us."

Calming himself down and opening his eyes, Asuma saw Temari holding up a bar of soap for him and smiling brightly. Behind her standing proudly was Kankuro, grinning boldly and completely sure of his own safety despite the fact that he'd just urinated on a foreign ninja who could easily have ended his life. If Asuma had been a Mist shinobi or even a Grass shinobi the boy would have been dead instantly, and suddenly Asuma was glad that he was a Leaf ninja. As angry as he was, he liked that the little bastards weren't cowering in fear, he liked that they hadn't once thought he would hurt them, and he even liked that Kankuro had thought it was a funny joke to pee on him; to him it meant that even though he was trained to kill he was still one of the good guys.

"There's a lake right through those trees, I'm gonna go get myself cleaned up," Asuma said.

"If you don't mind I'd like to come with you, I haven't been able to clean up really well since he got me last," Baki confessed.

Kurenai grimaced and Asuma chuckled, "Sure, come on down."

Asuma left his weapons up with Kurenai and Ebisu, as much as they were trusting Baki they couldn't do so completely until he'd been investigated and granted sanctuary by the Konoha council, and took Kankuro's dirty pants with him as Kurenai changed him into clean pants. While he would be unable to use jutsu as long as he wore the chakra shackles, there was no way to be sure he wouldn't pick up a sword and chop of Asuma's head when he was washing off. Down at the water both men stripped down to their underwear and began rinsing their clothes out in the water while using the soap to clean their bodies of the urine smell.

"Do you think I've got a shot at asylum?" the Sand ninja asked Asuma with honest concern.

"If everything you've told us is true than I'm pretty sure it won't be a problem. Konoha is pretty good at taking in strays," Asuma joked good naturedly.

"What will happen if they don't? Will we be imprisoned? Or extradited back to Suna?"

"I really don't know. I guess it depends on why they decided not to let you stay in the first place. If returning you is important for diplomacy with Suna than honestly you may be shit out of luck. Right now we're kind of in a bind, what with the Kyubi and all, so war with Suna is pretty much out of the equation. You could argue it the other way too though, we could use some more ninja right now and if we keep you around, in a few years we'll have four more. I'll vouch for you at the trial though, Ebisu probably will too, and it looks like you'll get Kurenai's testament too," Asuma said with a wink at the Sand shinobi, with all this bonding he was pretty sure Baki would tell him how annoying Kurenai was. Finally he'd have an ally on this trip.

"Yeah, I hope so," Baki said with a smile. "So what's her story? Is she single? You think if I get to stay I've got shot?"

Asuma almost choked. No way this guy was for real?

"You're interested in her? "

"How could I not be? She's gorgeous, and smart and funny, and I get the feeling she is probably a very strong kunoichi. She seems interested right? She's been laughing at my jokes; even the ones I don't think are funny."

"Pathetic, huh?" Asuma sneered. "Don't you find it annoying?"

"What?" Baki was flummoxed. "No, I don't think she's annoying at all. I think she's interesting to talk to and great to be around. If I get to stay, I'm going to try my best to take her out."

"Hehe, well good luck with that, I hope you have a lot of patience, she can get on your nerves."

"Thanks for the warning man; you know any wind jutsu to dry these clothes?"

Asuma dried out their clothes and the two of them joined the rest of the group for the walk home. Once again Kankuro rode on his shoulders, this time with the understanding that if he peed on him again he was going to have to walk the rest of the way. Ebisu and Gaara led the procession for the last five miles to Konoha, Kurenai, Temari, and Baki walked in the center, and he and the little pee pot brought up the rear. From his place in the chain he could clearly see and hear the conversation between Baki and Kurenai and it was starting to make him feel a bit sick. As he heard her laugh at the Sand ninja's half assed joke he remembered when she used to laugh at his jokes in much the same way, regardless of whether or not they were any good. He knew that when she laughed like that her right eye crinkled more than her left and her smile would be bright. Thinking about it, he missed when she would smile at him; she had a chip in her front tooth from an old training exercise where Ebisu had gotten her in the face with a rock jutsu. She was always self conscious about it but he'd still thought she had a beautiful smile, he was never sure if it was the smile that was so amazing or the fact that her eyes had sparkled when she looked at him and maybe she'd genjutsu'd him into thinking it was. Her bright girly giggle drifted his way and for the first time since kissing Nakamura Takara Sarutobi Asuma realized what an idiot he was.

2.

Orochimaru cursed his luck. Of all the times for the Kyubi to come back into his life it had to be while he was away. His mountain side hideaway was in pieces, his test subjects were dead, his labs destroyed, and his research stolen. Exceptional memory aside, the loss of his notebooks was catastrophic. Years of research had been compiled in them and now all of it was gone.

He had wanted to stop by and restock some supplies for his trip to Hoshigakure but returned to find his most frequented laboratory decimated by the might of the Kyubi and all of his supplies crushed or turned to ash. Now he would have rush to another location for his supplies, on top of which he would have to go to a much "hotter" area to do so. The closest location for what he needed was still on high alert from the last time he'd been spotted in the area and he was sure to run into more Hunter Nin than he wanted to deal with. However he couldn't take the chance that going to a safer location would waste too much time. If he wasn't there, Orochimaru had no doubt that Kakuzu would take his demon protégé and figure out the location of the meteorite on his own, cutting the Snake Sanin out of the equation completely (which wouldn't have really bothered him) and keeping him from discovering Kakuzu's secret to an exceptionally long life (which would have angered him beyond reproach).

What angered Orochimaru most though was not the difficulty of acquiring supplies, or the theft of his most precious data, or even the loss of his longest held laboratory. No, what bothered him the most about was that he knew exactly who had his data; the torched cavern that held project Senju was Jiraiya's calling card. That toad bastard would be back; Orochimaru didn't particularly worry about that, what bothered him was that for all his posturing about what a terrible human being Orochimaru was and how his experiments were immoral and depraved, the bastard had taken all of his work. Sure the man was so righteous and mighty on his high horse, but he still sought to learn from Orochimaru's work, he just wouldn't put the time in for himself. Jiraiya was still piggybacking on the hard work of others, and it pissed him the hell off. If he was as ethical and scrupulous as he claimed his old teammate would have burned it all, instead he took it, which proved he wasn't nearly as noble as he claimed.

Damn that demon for unearthing what he had long ago hidden so well. The loss of his experiments was devastating. The loss of his experiments to the hands of Jiraiya was worse. Judging from what was left of his hideout the fox had killed all of his research subjects except one, which Konoha must have taken after discovering. Subject 895 was a teenage boy with remarkable eyes and an amazing sea of chakra from which to pull. The boy would have made an amazing ninja and though he was loath to admit it, even to himself, could have bested Orochimaru in a fair fight. Luckily for Orochimaru he did not fight fair, and manipulated the boy into surrendering by holding two of his ally's hostage. He'd let the two weaker ninja go and immediately shackled the strongest in the event that he changed his mind. From there he'd run experiment after experiment on those eyes. On closer inspection it was clear to Orochimaru that they eyes had not originally been the boys and after much research his plan had been to steal them for himself once he'd proved they were indeed the legendary eyes he thought they were. Unfortunately it now looked like they were in the hands of his old village, if only this could have waited another week, than he'd have had the eyes himself and been unstoppable.

A/N: Thanks for reading, please review. More reviews equal more motivation, which leads to quicker and longer updates. Thanks again and I hope you are enjoying my story.