The Pathless Sage
A/R: Wow, I have no idea what happened, but in two and a bit days, chapter 17 had the most reviews of any of my chapters with a whopping 28 reviews. I must admit, I was kinda scared to see a total of over 30 reviews after the last update.
Zaraki poll is still up, still reminding you guys and telling you to vote.
Plot wise, this is the chapter where we move onto the next arc of the story and I hit a very minor writers block about how I want this arc to play out and how I want it to affect the story, but I will figure something out.
The concept of the Roku Kyoshu is from another story. If anyone knows where it comes from, please let me know and I will credit whoever created this. I am borrowing this from a story I read, who in turn had borrowed it from a story they read. I forgot which story it was that I got it from, so if anyone knows, kindly remind me.
On with the story!
With the bridge completed, Team 7's debriefing over and their possessions packed, the ninja decided Wave country was secured well enough for them to leave. They got up early in the morning, hoping for a quiet leave. Unfortunately for them, Tazuna had somehow heard of them leaving early at daybreak, and their leave was anything but quiet.
Kakashi, Zabuza, Haku, Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura and Zaraki were standing at the mouth of the yet unnamed bridge, trying to sneak past a massive crowd to try and return to Konoha. Unfortunately for them, it seemed like the entirety of Wave country had come over to get their chance at thanking and congratulating their heroes.
"We appreciate your gratitude, but we really should be going back to Konoha now. Our mission has taken far longer than any normal C Rank should have taken so we are kind of behind schedule," Kakashi said, looking like he was anything other than appreciative of the populace's gratitude.
"I see. Well then, you guys best be on your way. I will go over to Konoha myself to set up the payment we agreed. As much as I would love to, I won't back out of our deal after all that you have done for us," Tazuna said.
After a long, long while the shinobi were finally left alone long enough for them to sneak away. Even then, Naruto was under the impression that they only got away because Tazuna distracted them long enough for them to ungracefully run past.
"Jeesh, that took way longer than it should have," Naruto complained. He was rather tired of the near celebrity status that they gained. As much as he wanted to say otherwise, he preferred the near anonymity in Konoha over the lime light on such a scale. He never wanted to be in Sasuke's position.
"Well, at least now you know how it feels like to have fangirls," Sasuke piped from his right, eliciting a shiver from him. Honestly, fangirls were probably another species altogether and nobody that had them, wanted them.
"I don't envy you. That was the single most terrifying thing I saw in my life," Naruto said, still hugging himself while he walked. They had decided to walk at a leisurely pace rather than run back, they wanted to be in training condition right after they returned.
"I don't get what's so scary about them. They are some girls that throw themselves at your feet," Zaraki said, standing to Naruto's left. The three boys were walking a little behind everyone, hanging back to talk amongst themselves.
"That's because they avoided you like the plague. Something about you looking like a scary monster. Honestly, their reaction over your appearance was pretty funny."
"Yeah, yeah. I still don't get why both of you are terrified of them. You could obviously snap them in half whenever you wanted to, so why so scared?" Zaraki asked, not understanding the terror that was known as fangirls.
"You will never understand the horror," Sasuke said, now also hugging himself and shivering like Naruto.
"Speaking of which, why are you not fainting at the mere notion of fangirls? And why the hell is Sakura not throwing herself at you?" At the mention of Sakura's name, Sasuke's shivering got more violent.
"I don't know. After our talk yesterday, my crippling fear of 'those' have lessened a bit," Sasuke said.
At that moment, the stretch of road that they were about to walk through slowly became blanketed in a thick mist. It wasn't as big as Zabuza's Hidden Mist Jutsu but it was large enough to block their view of what was ahead.
-TT-
After the entourage of ninja had left, the civilians of Wave country stood around debating what the name of their new bridge should have been. Many suggestions were fired off, but none of them sounded just right.
"I know what we should call it. Since I built it, lets call it the Great Super Duper Tazuna Bridge!" Tazuna said happily. Everyone, including his own family, looked at him like he was crazy.
"Just what the hell are you on about you stupid old man?" Some civilian shouted from the back of the crowd. Similar angry shouts followed. It was more than obvious that nobody shared his sentiments about the name of the bridge.
"Since it was Naruto that killed Gato, why not call it the Great Naruto Bridge?" Inari asked timidly.
"Sure, as long as we call it the Great Super Naruto Bridge!"
"HELL NO!" Came the collective shout of the entire crowd.
-TT-
"Hokage-sama sent me to give this message to you and accompany to your next mission," came a voice from the thick mist in front of the group.
Naruto couldn't put his finger on it, but for some reason the voice sounded really familiar to him, even though it was ringing from all around him. It sounded like something he heard everyday, shouting at him in the morning to get up. Then it clicked.
"GOD DAMMIT KISAME! STOP USING THAT RETARDED SHUNSHIN OF YOURS!" Dark chuckling came from the mist in front of them, before the tall frame of Kisame emerged from the mist. He was wearing the normal Jounin outfit for Konoha, but his sleeves were missing.
"Oh, Zabuza, you still after guys of your own gender?" Kisame asked, seeing his fellow Swordsman of the Mist for the first time in a long while.
"Kisame, nice try, but gay jokes don't work on me anymore," Zabuza replied, looking Kisame straight in the eye in defiance. If he was still the trainee he was while Kisame left, he would have blushed crimson in anger and lashed out at Kisame, only to be beat back down.
"I see," Kisame looked over to Haku. "It seems like not only are you gay, but you seem to be a paedophile too."
This time, Zabuza couldn't handle the jibe, and attacked his fellow swordsman in unadulterated rage.
-TT-
"Okay, now that the two of you are done trying to kill each other, what is the mission Kisame?" Naruto asked, standing between the two old rivals. It was irritating to watch two grown men running at each other just because of some weird jokes.
"We are going to the old ruins of Uzushiogakure, where a client asked us to retrieve some scrolls from a building. Team 8 was sent, but they are having troubles getting through the guard. So yeah, we are getting sent as reinforcement." Kisame explained. Naruto knew perfectly well that he was going to be visiting the ruins of his Clan's village, but he didn't vocalise any complaints.
"So, what does this have to do with Team 7 and me?" Kakashi asked, trying to get out of doing more work than he already had to.
"Team 7 is being sent along with my Team, so yeah. You guys got this mission as well." Kisame said.
"So, what do we do? Do we head straight to Konoha, or do we come with you?" Zabuza asked. He really didn't want to do more travelling after being a missing nin for so long. He was looking forward to finally settling down in a village.
"It's best if you come with us. Who knows what kind of crap the Council will pull if you go there without me around," Naruto said.
"What does you going there have to do with us getting a place in the village?" Haku asked, curious.
"Don't ask. The Council makes laws that they don't obey, and the Hokage forgot most of them himself, so I will be going with you to bail you out when I need to." Naruto said.
"I see, well, we will head to Uzushio with you I guess," Zabuza said, preparing to change course to head towards another village.
-TT-
The journey to Whirlpool country took a couple days, but was mostly uneventful. They were about a mile out from where they were supposed to meet with Team 8 when Naruto decided to strike up a conversation with Kisame.
"Oi, Kisame. If we go on a mission now that may take more than a few weeks to do, what would we do about the Chunin Exams? I thought they were starting in a couple of weeks?" Naruto said, looking expectantly over his shoulder at Kisame, while they were tree hopping closer to their meeting place.
"Oh, you don't have to worry. There was something about getting a treaty with Kumo so that their ninja could participate as well, so the Exams are getting delayed. It's probably going to take a couple more months of negotiation before the Exams are ready to go," Kisame said, not looking over to his student and just carrying on in his journey.
"That makes life easier. Now I can actually train properly to get ready for the Exams. I got some stuff I want to try out," he said. He would say more, but that was when they ran into the clearing that Team 8 were waiting for them in.
"Where is the client? I want to get this mission over with as fast as possible," Kakashi said, as soon as he neared Kurenai. He wasn't in the mood to do another extended mission after just completing a mission that took so long.
"The client is in a tent a bit further South. The problem is our opposition, I don't think my team had a hope of taking him down," Kurenai said.
"Well, lead the way," Naruto said, sharing Kakashi's sentiment in wanting to get the mission over with as fast as possible.
The entire group, composed of Team 7, Team 8, Kisame, Naruto, Zabuza and Haku, walked towards where the tent was supposed to be. What they found was less like a tent and more like a mansion made of fabric.
A portly, bald man walked out of the 'tent' wearing what looked to be his silk pyjamas. He walked slowly up to the group of ninja to find out who the new group were.
"Kurenai-san, who are these new people?" The man asked, playing with an imaginary beard as he did so. He seemed like one of those stereotypical rich men that didn't ever see hardship in their lives.
"Tsubasa-san, these are reinforcements. We can't force our way through the gates without more troops," Kurenai said.
"Speaking of fighting, who are we fighting?" Naruto asked. He didn't know why, but his gut was telling him that there was something seriously wrong with this mission. His instincts were telling him to run the hell away and hide in a hole far, far away from where they were right now. His gut instincts were never wrong, so he prayed it was wrong for once.
"Some middle aged man with a sword. The odd thing is, by his Chakra levels, he seems like a civilian." Kurenai replied, scrunching her face a little in confusion. It really made no sense. It was common knowledge that Chakra was power in the world, so how was a Chakra-less man like that so damn powerful?
"Well, whatever. Let's get the client to the destination so he can point out what scrolls he wants." Naruto said. He was doing what he always did best, deceiving people. He was doing a good job, but Kisame knew something was wrong about his student's tone of voice.
The group walked at a leisurely pace, walking towards what was probably the ruins of the old Uzushiogakure. Nobody talked much on the way. The Gennin tried to make small talk among themselves, but they quickly found out that nobody really got along that well, what with Kiba and Sasuke clashing over the 'alpha male' position as Kiba put it.
Naruto moved away from the shouting Inuzuka and the brooding Uchiha, preferring to walk next to the quiet Shino and Hinata. Shino, knowing about Hinata's crush, moved discretely away from the pair of them.
Seeing Naruto so close and the fact that they were now relatively alone, Hinata started to get nervous. Naruto, as observant as he was, noticed this immediately. He knew of her crush on him, and he frankly didn't know what to make of it. On one hand, Hinata was a nice, kind-hearted girl that didn't have a shred of Hyuga arrogance in her, but on the other hand, her father was rather insistent of boys staying away from his daughter, not wanting to taint the Hyuga name, no matter how weak and worthless he thought his daughter to be.
"Ne, Hinata, why are you always so nervous around me?" Naruto asked quietly, not wanting the sensitive ears of the Jounin to pick up on their conversation. Not that they were eavesdropping, and it was rather hard to hear things when there was such a gap between the group and the pair.
"It's be-because I h-have a c-c-c-c-rush on y-y-ou, remember?" Hinata said, her stuttering getting steadily worse as her nervousness increased.
"I know you have a crush on me, and I am not going to give you an answer to your confession just yet, but why the nervousness? I know you don't have much confidence, but why the sudden increase?" Naruto asked, genuinely curious. Hinata was getting way more nervous than she usually did, so Naruto instantly became suspicious of the reason.
"It's be-because I ha-have to be-become a C-c-c-c-hu-nin this c-coming ex-xams." Hinata said quietly.
"So what? Jeez, have some more confidence in yourself. You are a lot stronger than you think, just lose the nervousness and a bit of the softness, and I am sure you will be knocking Hanabi and Neji around like ragdolls," Naruto said confidently. The pair had to stop talking though, because the group had stopped in front of a large building that looked to be surrounded by miles of barren land.
"So this is the destination?" Naruto asked.
"Yes, this is the library of Uzushiogakure. What I want you to retrieve are Jutsu Scrolls. I am a collector, so I want to collect these invaluable Jutsu," The client said.
Before the conversation could go any further, a man walked towards them.
"So you are back and attempting to steal from my old master's vault," The man said, addressing Kurenai.
The man looked to be about Kakashi's age, with sandy blonde hair that fell down to his back. He had a white coat that was draped over his shoulders, fluttering in the wind. He wore a full sleeve white tee, with the word OSAMURAI imprinted on the right breast and a dull blue coloured jeans that looked old and faded. The look was completed with a white leather belt tied around his waist and the ends hung limply down his front.
(A/N: Google search Mifune Soul Eater Modern Look and the fourth picture in the top row is what he looks like.)
"We are only here to complete a mission. Let us past," Kurenai said.
"Even if you are here for a mission, I cannot allow you to take what is in this vault." The man said evenly. "Besides, there is a blood seal in place that prevents anyone not worthy from going inside."
"I see," Naruto said, talking before Kurenai could. He turned towards the client. "Be honest, what are your intentions for the scrolls after you get them?"
"To sell them to Kumogakure no Sato," the man replied honestly.
"I see," Naruto stood in a ready stance in front of their client. "In that case, I cannot allow you to lay your hands on the scrolls within this vault."
A/R: Cut. That is a decent sized chapter.
I don't know why, but the chapter felt really awkward to me, anyone else get that feeling?
Anyhow, please leave a review. A single anonymous review saying Good job lifts my spirits and takes less than 30 seconds, so please don't hesitate to leave a review.