The Best Laid Plans

Arun

Chapter 23: Sauté à la Akatsuki

Disclaimer: What happens when an UN worker meets an alien? He sells the Earth for a luxury retreat and a pension for his family.

Note: Not proofread.

xxxxx

"Commander, the telegraph stations are not responding," the technician on watch reported to his watch officer.

The watch officer – a shinobi holding the rank of special jounin – of the station approached the technician's desk, a serving of sushi in hand and a blank look on his face.

All elemental countries had a small but rarely used telegraph network connecting the capital and the largest few cities and towns. The network was fast, but wasn't as secure as messenger birds or shinobi carriers. In Wind's case, the casualties caused by the Yondaime Kazekage's ill-advised adventure in Fire country were compounded by the havoc subsequently inflicted by Danzo's peacekeepers, weakening the shinobi corps too much for them to guarantee effective internal lines of communication while pulling their myraid of other duties. The pressures on Suna had thus forced the Daimyo to expand the telegraph network on a temporary basis despite the fact that it was more open to outside interference. But when Danzo's goons ignored the wires month after month even as Sand shinobi running those communication lines were pulled somwhere, some bright soul somewhere decided that the tree-hugging idiots did not realize the network's significance and significantly expanded the scope of the program. Now, three years into the "occupation", while the most sensitive communication was carried by messenger birds and ninja, pretty much everything else was relayed on the wire. Those same relaying stations were not responding to status checks now…

"You don't think it's accidental?" he asked.

The technician shook his head.

"Not so much of the network at once, Sir."

The commander nodded. The bright soul sitting behind some desk who'd made the decision to depend on the network so much had not realized that while you could rob Peter to pay Paul and make as if things were fine for a while, eventually you had to pay the bill. And the special jounin's gut was saying that it was happening now on his watch, which just sucked camel cock.

"Keep trying to re-establish connection. Meanwhile, send maintenance parties escorted by teams of two ninjas chuunin-rank or above along the lines to check for sabotage and make repairs. Inform me if there are any further developments."

"Yes, Sir."

The commanded turned away from his subordinate's station and summoned five vultures. He murmured his report to the birds and sent them away to report higher up. Then, because he was a commander and had to act composed before his subordinates, he sat down and pretended to enjoy his sushi. He consoled himself with the fact that there was nothing more he could do to influence events further except carry out his duties to the best of his ability.

Up in the night sky, two of the birds headed for the capital and three flew straight for the units guarding Danzo – incase the idiots hadn't noticed the failure of the telegraph network and failed to prepare for whatever the cripple had planned for them.

xxxxx

"We've been walking for hours and have yet to encounter a single tree hugger. You'd think that the one-eyed prick Danzo would grow more security conscious after the events of the recent past and increased the patrols or something."

In the morning twilight, Kakuzu stopped in his tracks and glared at his partner. The fact that Hidan's complaint echoed his own thoughts a few minutes earlier did not lessen his irritation at the freak. He would kill the fair-skinned death-worshipper as soon as this mission was over and they'd communicated its successful completion to the Akatsuki leader.

It shouldn't be long now, he thought as he sensed improperly suppressed chakra less than a kilometer away. He hoped it was a reinforced partrol becaue then they'd have wiped out two large teams and fulfilled the mission objective to weaken Danzo's garrison in Wind. Kakuzu burst into a smile then. He would use the death fetishist to whittle down the Leaf shinobi numbers and then hit the psychopath from the rear. Kakuzu's smile positively lit his face as he imagined walking into a pig sty to serve minced Hidan.

Hopefully, the next idiot the higher-ups foisted on him would be less irritating than the Jaishin worshipping scumbag and his predecessors.

xxxxx

The stars in the sky were partially occluded by light clouds and the smoke from the nearby city. There was some light traffic already on the merchant highway to the capital of Tea even though daybreak was a few hours away. It spoke much of the health of the insurgency and how well the Tea was integrating itself into Fire that the merchants were accompanied by a very small security contingent. And except for a few pockets here and there, pretty much the whole of Tea country was like this. The sight reinforced what Pain knew already. The insurgency in Tea was dying if not dead already.

Still, it grieved Pain's heart to do the thing he was about to do, but divine will could not be stymied by so human an emotion as grief. The path to everlasting peace awaited just out of reach and today, he would push the world the first step towards it with the capture of retired Sandaime Hokage.

"Konan, we strike at dawn."

xxxxx

Team 7 left Danzo's camp in the wee hours of the morning with the first scouting party. The scout's primary mission was to screen Danzo's soon to depart main body of troops from ambushes. Their patrol course for the first hour matched Sakura's own for Team 7 closely enough that she'd elected to link up with them for part of the march. There was still the other team of killers hunting Leaf shinobi out there and it was only common sense to lend as much help to the scouts as possible.

The party of ten – six scouts, Team 7 and their newest appointed Liaison (Though he didn't say it, Danzo still needed firsthand report of Team 7 in action for his own purposes and there was also the political mileage he would gain from having one of his men participate in the assault on Kaze no Kuni's capital back in Fire country) – headed out in two columns a hundred yards apart with the scout team's two trackers leading the columns. As expected of one of Danzo's own secretly trained killers who'd been carefully hidden from Konoha's cognizance, Liaison did not have any name other than what was given him for the duration of the mission. In this case, he'd been named after the role he performed. Knowing that Danzo was testing their loyalty when he unveiled one of his personal shinobi before him, Team 7 hadn't reacted to the revelation as the terms of Danzo's banishment demanded.

The scouts kept their chakras firmly suppressed from long practice, but Sakura intentionally let her chakra leak as bait. If the killers were nearby, she wanted them to hone in on her location so that they could be dealt with while the scouts were under Team 7's protective umbrella. For this reason, she and her teammates, along with the liaison were on the outer, exposed column.

The anticipated attack happened on the fifty seventh minute of their march. The fact that it caught four experienced, chakra sensitive shinobi almost unawares was a testament to the skill of the ambushers. But then, seeing as how the ambushers were Akatsuki, it was unsurprising.

xxxxx

For reasons that Hidan did not understand, Kakuzu offered to let the death-worshipper spring the ambush in the morning twilight, unlike the other times when they'd faced two or more separate units of even fairly weak enemy shinobi. If Hidan had been of sound mind or tactically inclined, he would have thought to question Kakuzu on the wisdom of the decision and accuse him of gross stupidity – there was no point in giving an enemy any breathing space in any engagement, much less an ambush, and in any ambush, one started with one's deadliest weapon, which in this case, meant Kakuzu as he was the long range ninjutsu specialist of the two – but since the Jaishin disciple was neither, he did not.

While Kakuzu watched from his own hiding place, Hidan, being a close range fighter, waited until the last member of the Leaf patrol crossed his position before he attacked with a textbook slash aimed at decapitating Sasuke. Since Sasuke had kept his chakra suppressed unlike Sakura and the Jashin-worshipping maniac from Yugakure did not know his target was an Uchiha trained for speed, the coup de grace did not quite go as planned.

Having sensed Hidan as soon as the later cleared his hidey-hole, Sasuke swung around to face his executioner and in a movement so smooth that even Leaf's own taijutsu experts Gai and Lee would have had trouble executing it, grabbed Hidan's weapon just under the blade, killing its swing. A fraction of a second later, before Hidan reacted to the unexpected action, a lance of lightning carved Akatsuki's sole death-fetishist from left hip to just under his right shoulder.

A look of utter incomprehension on his face, Hidan fell to the ground in four pieces – a hand, an arm wielding a blade, part of the torso with two legs and the rest of the torso with the head.

Sasuke did not get time to savor his first Akatsuki kill, however. As things stood, Sakura had to kawarimi him out of the way of Kakuzu's zukoku and a river of fire hot enough to melt sand to glass roared through his position.

Meanwhile, as Sasuke escaped a horrible burning death by a whisker, the scouts retreated further back while Naruto and Liaison charged Kakuzu. They were both Leaf ANBU – though one was a bastardized caricature trained by the banished Danzo - and it was ingrained into their souls to always go for the kill.

Naruto reached the Akatsuki member first, recklessly chasing the masked man as he cut his fire technique and retreated. As punishment for the blonde's incaution, a dozen appendages sprung from the sand, grabbed his left leg and tore it to ribbons. Without his leg, Naruto crashed to the ground a bleeding mess and exploded into smoke.

Realizing he'd been duped, Kakuzu turned just in time to block another Naruto's attack. He was doomed to fail, however, as the blonde exploded when his fist was inches away from Kakuzu's block. The blast threw the Akatsuki member some thirty yards, allowing the bolt of lava Liaison shot at him to pass through empty air.

In midair, Kazuku cursed his own stupidity and shortsightedness for his current predicament. It was clear to Kakuzu that he had misjudged the nature of the threat. As a result, that loser Hidan was effectively removed from the battle until he could be re-stitched. Since the mercenary knew it wasn't likely to happen before he dealt with the Konoha nin, he was left with the task of facing not only four skilled shinobi, but also had to contend with the fact that six others with unknown abilities were keeping themselves in reserve. His only consolation was that he'd faced such long odds countless times before and he was still alive. The same could not be said of his enemies, however.

"This just isn't my day," he muttered still as he landed on his feet, anchoring himself with his left hand. His anger rising, he released all four of his heart-wraiths. He was going to enjoy killing these puny fuckers almost as much as he was going to enjoy feeding Hidan to pigs.

Only, a bare second later, a ball of compressed chakra shot at high speed blew apart Kakuzu's true chest, pureeing his heart in the process. Still, even before the Akatsuki agent could fall, one of his wraiths re-emerged with him, lending him the gift of it's heart.

xxxxx

"Did you see that?" Naruto was flabbergasted as one of Kakuzu's wraiths reunited with him and he stood up, shrugging off a hit that would have killed any man. What was happening to this world that a good old Rasengan through the heart did not kill a motherfucker?

Fortunately, the blonde wasn't so stymied that when a heart-wraith shot the high-powered lightning attack, Gian at him, he did not sense it. A shunshin later, he was within knife-range of another of Kakuzu's wraiths that was wandering around like a drunk caught in one of Sakura's illusions. He tried stabbing it in the chest and was immediately rewarded with a big wave of water that shot out of its mask and which, he barely escaped.

"So, the stupid things can feel pain," he muttered, creating kage bunshin and sending them to facilitate sharing the data with the others. He recognized the enemy as Kakuzu, a longtime Akatsuki member from one of Kabuto's debriefs, but the file had been sparse on information about the missing nin's abilities. Now that they'd run into the guy, it was clear that he was some unique abilities and too powerful to face alone or in a team if they could not find out his vulnerabilities fast.

Just then, one of Naruto's clones swapped places with Sasuke and the Uchiha appeared next to the real Naruto. They were quickly joined by Sakura and Liaison.

"What is it, Naruto?" Sasuke groused. He'd killed his first Akatsuki, damnit and wanted a piece of the second before the scumbag got away. "I was in the middle of a fight."

"So are we all," Naruto replied calmly. "And my clones can handle things for a little while. I wanted to pool intel on this bastard. So, what have you got?"

"Aside from you took him out already and he isn't down for the count?" Sakura mused. "Well, let's see… He's vulnerable to genjutsu, is able to split his body into multiple parts and I've seen the bastard use high level fire, lightning and water attacks. The efficiency with which he executes them leaves me to conclude he has a natural affinity with all these elements."

"That's bullshit. Multiple natural affinity is a pipedream," Naruto retorted hotly just as a huge blast of wind and fire exploded out of the battlefield. He formed more kage bunshin and sent them in to take Kakuzu from his flanks even as he processed the knowledge from his clones. "Okay, maybe not. He uses wind as well. Anyways, inflicting pain breaks the wraiths out of genjutsu like it would a normal human. Unfortunately, stabbing them in the heart does not kill them. I found out when I stabbed the one that uses water."

"Assuming their anatomy is the same as ours, which I highly suspect," Sasuke noted. "The enemy had five independent chakra circulatory systems at the start, which may signify five hearts, but Naruto's Rasengan took one out. Now, he's got four with one for each of those things and one of the real one."

"Too bad we don't know where the hearts are on the wraith. I guess we can kill him if we take out the other four," Liaison opined.

"That sounds very much like a plan. We may not know how to take out the wraiths, but we already know how to take out the chakra circulatory systems one at a time. It'd be better to take them all out simultaneously, but what we have is what we have," Naruto said, "Are we agreed?"

The three nodded at him.

"Good. Sasuke and I are going to jump into the fray now. Sakura, you and Liaison will hit the bastard from the flanks while we engage him closely. The plan is to isolate the real one over and over again and stab his heart four more times. I would like to take an Akatsuki prisoner, but right now, the primary mission is the Wind capital. If it looks like it's not working, on my word, you'll all retreat and I'll nuke the place. Hopefully, that'll kill the bastard, though it might leave me a little low on chakra for the primary."

xxxxx

Kakuzu was starting to really hate today. He realized now that he was facing Konoha's jinchuuriki and his teammates along with other odds and ends – some if not all of whom were skilled. This put him in the unenviable position of being buried in smelly shit, a position he'd never been in before. He'd debated whether to throw pride to the wind and run like hell, leaving his other three surviving hearts as a sacrifice, but there were too many freaking blonde bunshins running around – and god knew how many of them were the exploding kind – for that to work and even if it did, he doubted if he would run faster than the jinchuuriki and Itachi's brother. Which meant, either he came up with a plan to defeat these children himself fast or possibly faster still, became dog food.

The trademark screech of yet another of Kakashi's infamous technique, the chidori, at close quarters was all the warning he needed to drag him out of that train of thought and fling himself out of harm's way. Or so he thought until a ninjato arcing with electricity ran him through his heart at that very moment. As lightning bolts coursed through him and the smell of burnt pork filled the air, his assailant released the ninjato and swapped places with a clone. The clone was crushed by one of Kakuzu's wraiths that jumped to its owners rescue too late. Still, it merged with Kakuzu and brought him back from death's threshold.

Kakuzu immediately put his threads to good use, forming tentacles and swatting at all the neighboring clones. His last two surviving wraiths closed ranks with him to guard his back. With fire, wind and lightning, he cleared the neighborhood, which was getting a little too crowded for his taste. It was clear now that the jinchuuriki and his teammates made extensive use of bunshins to anchor their enemy's attention while the real ones took potshots from the sidelines. Two of them were ninjutsu and taijustu experts while the third used Iwa molten rock techniques and the last was a genjutsu user and a close range fighter as a punch he'd received in the initial stages of the fight proved. Well, he was their better by a hundred years and he could play their game far better than they could.

Creating several hundred ordinary bunshin and masking his wraiths appearance, the aged Akatsuki member swung into action. The bunshin charged everything in sight and a wave of explosions swept the landscape as Naruto's clones blew themselves up, taking out many bunshin with them.

Kakuzu used the chaos to make his way slowly towards Hidan. When he was fifteen meters away from the maniac, two bunshin ran beside him. Thinking they were his own, he let them approach only to have the left one explode in his face not five feet away. Shielding himself from the blast with his tentacles, he barely had time to consider that the other one might also pose a danger when a kunai punctured his heart.

The clone henged as Kakuzu was immediately set upon by Kakuzu's wraiths. It blew itself up as the wraiths drew close enough to engage it hand to hand. One wraith stumbled from the explosion and was immediately hit by molten lava from the flanks that set its mask on fire. The last wraith made it to its actual target, Kakuzu's body and merged with him only to have Sakura appear kawarimi behind and smash him hard – by her terms – in the ribcage. Bones shattered at the raw power manifest behind her blow and Akatsuki's comptroller hit the desert ground so hard that there was a small explosion of dirt and dust.

xxxxx

Immediately after punching her target in the back, Sakura shunshined out. She did it not because she was afraid there might be other threats around, but because it was a reflex to her. She was and always would be an ambush fighter who exceled at using the element of surprise to backstab her unsuspecting quarry and retreating before anyone caught her. In this case, with Kakuzu lying dead in a broken and bloody heap, there was no enemy to fear, but habits in a battlefield saved or lost lives. And this was one good habit she intended to carry till the day she died.

"Great shot, Sakura," Sasuke complimented his teammate from afar, locking eyes with her.

Sakura shot a smile at him. It felt very good to have smashed the Akatsuki agent's chest to mush. Even if she wasn't positive that he and his friend were responsible for the massacred team, their group was interested in securing jinchuuriki and anyone who wanted to kill Naruto deserved whatever comeuppance they got.

Naruto, watching the little exchange a little further away, turned to Liaison, who stood closest to him.

"You too, Liaison," Naruto complimented the man. Then, spotting the scouts, he signaled the all clear to them. They'd stood in the sidelines and observed the battle, ready to intervene only if things went really awry, per prior agreement. He waved to their leader and said, "I think that takes care of the local vermin problem. Your team can move out now. We'll bag these corpses and send them to the intel group in Konoha."

The scout leader nodded from afar and set about chivvying his team into a job. Once they'd moved some hundred yards away, Naruto grimaced and set after Liaison who'd already started the search for the first Akatsuki agent.

"I'll help you with this one," he said aloud as he caught up with Danzo's trained killer. He found it interesting that the man knew the molten lava techniques from Iwa. There weren't too many people around who could use it and Naruto was sure that ANBU intelligence would be very interested in learning how the old cripple had caught hold of even one.

xxxxx

"I'll kill you all and drink your blood," the Akatsuki member's head threatened. "I'll gnaw your bones and bask in the sweet oblivion of your death agony. I'll…"

It had not taken Naruto and Liaison long to discover the body of the first attacker whom Sasuke had neatly chopped into four pieces. But where they'd expected to find a bled out corpse, they'd encountered animated body parts, which was really, really creepy. Even worse, the minced meat kept making annoying threats. Naruto could only imagine what a serious pain in the ass the "thing" – he refused to call it a man – must have been before being chopped up to be so annoying after the fact.

"What the fuck is wrong with these fuckers?" the blonde complained aloud, stuffing a rock into Hidan's mouth and breaking a few teeth in the process. As Hidan mumbled threats, Naruto stood up, kicked the bastard's still animated hands away and ranted. Yeah, he and his teammates knew Akatsuki were ninja bogeyman, but reality was even the greatest ninja were mortals who had to die someday. These Akatsuki seemed to be the exception to that rule and Naruto was seriously annoyed. There were plenty of folks like the old perv Jiraiya, the old Hokage Sarutobi and their own master, Kakashi who could be said to deserve immortality. But they were not, whereas the murderous scumbags in a mercenary group bent on world domination were. "I mean, Sasuke cut you into four pieces, asshole. Can't you take that as a hint and die? How the fuck are you even alive, much less talk? And why are your hands moving? What the fuck is wrong with your fucking hands and what the fuck is wrong with this world? Arghh!"

Glaring anger at the world at large, Naruto shook off the freak's left hand, which was once again trying to grab onto his legs. For a piece of flesh and bone that was scarcely more than a palm and five fingers, it sure was annoying. He stomped on it for good measure and kneeled next to the head so that he could look the thing in its eyes.

"I don't know what you are, you freak, but in a way I'm glad you're able to talk. I'm sure Konoha ANBU would be even gladder when they get their hands on you. Hopefully, you have a lot of beans to spill, but if you don't they'll accommodate you just fine. Freak!"

"Naruto-san, do you want the body parts to be bagged separately?" Liaison asked.

Naruto nodded.

"I do. Wouldn't put it past the freak to rejuvenate or something after the rebirth mojo his partner did."

Liaison nodded and set to work. Naruto went after Sasuke and Sakura to share the good news with them and to check on their progress. Almost half an hour had passed since sunrise and he wanted to reach the Wind capital by mid morning at the latest.

xxxxx

A lone rooster's crow echoed through the gates of the Tea capital, waking a few light sleepers. Of those souls roused out of their sleep, a few started their day by gazing out into the bleary morning light. Of those few, a bare handful focused their sight on the great walls surrounding the city. These became the first civilian witnesses to the Akatsuki leader's lone assault on the city as they beheld the vision from hell of a huge crab with weird eyes smashing part of the fortification to smithereens. The militiamen manning that particular section of the wall were the first casualties of the attack. They were by no means the last and by the end of the day, they would be joined by a great many more.

xxxxx

Author's notes:

You know, I worried and worried about how the first battle between Akatsuki and Team 7 would go, but in the end, I realized that there was no way a single S-rank nin could face Naruto and his friends who'd been specifically trained to hunt and kill such. It was not simply a matter of power though Kakuzu was outmatched by many leagues there, but it also a function of the numerical superiority that Team 7 had on their side with Naruto further compounded by the fact that Naruto literally had an army of clones that weren't afraid to commit suicide. Factor in Naruto's chakra sensing abilities in Sage mode, Sasuke's sharingan's own chakra sensing abilities and Sakura's own senses and throw in even a bit of extra help and there simply wasn't a chance when Kakuzu faced them alone. I could have made it interesting by not having Hidan chopped up so easily, but I wanted him for Konoha's ANBU and this looked like a sensible path to me.

That said, I hope you liked my treatment of the battle. Anyways, Sarutobi faces off Pain in the next chapter in the middle of a city. Can the Tea capital fare any better than Konoha in canon? ^_~

Also, French speakers who read this story, I hope the chapter title is proper. If not, I'd be much obliged if you'll correct me. Thanks.