serialkeller: It was a gamble for Menma that paid off. He didn't know if Zabuza had seen them fight previously or not. If he had, it wouldn't have been as effective. I tried to show a little more of his other skills this time around. He still uses his clones, of course, but he does a little more work.
Chapter 5
It only took them about 15 minutes to reach Tazuna's house.
"Tsunami, Inari, I'm home!" Tazuna threw the door open with a shout.
A woman came walking out of the kitchen with a relieved look on her face. "Father, you're alright!"
"Yep. These are the ninja I hired to protect me. They're not half bad!" He said with a grin while waving a hand at team 7.
"I'm Hatake Kakashi and these are my students, Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura, and Menma."
A young boy chose that moment to walk out, give them a death glare, mutter "You're wasting your time." and stomp off up the stairs.
"All he needs is to claw at us and it will feel like we never left Konoha," Menma said. "Well, and a ribbon on his ear."
Sasuke smirked while Sakura giggled.
Tsunami gave them a strained smile. "Ah, I'll show you to your rooms, please, follow me." She led them up the stairs before stopping in front of a room. "You can use this room," she motioned to the one in front of her, "and that one over there," she pointed to another.
"Sasuke, Menma, you two take this one. Sakura and I will take the other. All of you drop your stuff off then meet me downstairs, we need to talk," Kakashi told them as he walked back downstairs.
Menma didn't see the need to 'drop off' his scroll and immediately walked back downstairs. The other two set their gear in their rooms and hurried downstairs.
"As I'm sure you've all figured out, that hunter-nin was a fraud," Kakashi started. "The moment he found out the Demon Brothers were clones and took off with Zabuza he tipped his hand. He's working with him."
"Even if the clones 'died' the moment those needles struck? I noticed the other one falling apart without being touched," Menma said.
"Yes. Senbon aren't normally used by hunter-nin. They're more often used by medics. It's possible to put people into death-like states with them. If that's what he did, we're in luck. It will take Zabuza some time to recover from that. His partner, however, won't have that same problem," Kakashi paused there to let it sink in.
The three genin looked sober at that.
"We'll stick to pairs until we've dealt with them. Sakura and I will be one, while Sasuke and Menma will be the other," he told them. "I realize there will be some situations where you'll want privacy, but otherwise, try to keep together."
"Good. I wasn't exactly looking forward to holding Sasuke's hand while he used the restroom," Menma said with a smirk.
The Uchiha smirked back at him. "Wouldn't it be the other way around, second place? Since you can never beat me do you need me to show you my technique?"
Sakura stared at Sasuke with a look of horror on her face. Menma scooted away with a shudder.
Sasuke blinked before he realized what he said. "Wait! Not like that!"
"Anyways!" Kakashi cutting him off caused him to sulk. "Even with the other one being fine, we'll likely have a day or two before he begins to move, because he'll have to patch Zabuza up first. That means we train tomorrow. Make sure you're well rested for it."
The spent the rest of the day resting from their battles. Dinner was relatively quiet, although the brat Inari seemed determined to make them all burst into flames through glares alone.
That night as Menma sat on the roof reading through the original book Mizuki gave him, Sasuke decided to join him. Menma decided to ignore him until he spoke. It wasn't that he still needed the book, on the contrary, he had advanced beyond it. He was simply using it to fuel his nostalgia.
"Who was your first kill?" Sasuke asked abruptly.
Menma sat staring at the book blankly for a few minutes before closing it and turning to look at him.
"Do you remember our last day at the academy? When we were assigned our teams?" Sasuke nodded. "Did you even notice Mizuki-sensei was missing?"
Sasuke looked at him in shock. "You killed Mizuki-sensei?"
"No!" Menma snarled. "He was like an older brother to me, I would never harm him. No... he was killed by a traitor to the village. A spy for someone else."
"Who?"
"I never found out. Mizuki-sensei... had been backed into a corner and thought he had to flee the village. When I was trying to convince him to stay, that bastard stabbed him in the back and killed him." Menma clenched his hands in anger. "Hewas the one I killed."
"You got revenge?" Menma nodded. "How does it feel? To get revenge?"
"I was still angry," he told him. "I wanted to know why Mizuki-sensei had to die."
Sasuke stared at him for a minute before asking quietly, "Did you ever find out?"
Menma frowned. "The traitor had convinced Mizuki-sensei to steal the Forbidden Scroll. I figured, if he had to die for it, I should put it to use and learn something from it. Sort of a... a tribute, I guess. Learn some all-powerful technique so I could use it to kill the bastard the spy worked for."
Sasuke seemed interested at that.
"Don't get your hopes up," Menma sneered. "The Forbidden Scroll was full of those trashy novels Kakashi-sensei reads." Sasuke stared at him in disbelief. "That's right. The whole damn thing was filled with Icha Icha."
"You're joking," he said.
Menma shook his head. "That was when the Hokage and the ANBU showed up. I asked him why Mizuki died." Menma's face contorted in rage. "Do you know what he told me? He told he me died for the village! What bullshit!"
Sasuke frowned at all he had heard. 'That's... I don't even... he got revenge and he doesn't even seem happy. Is what I'm doing wrong?'
Menma grit his teeth as he stood. "I need to go blow off some steam."
"Wait! Kakashi said we're supposed to stay together."
"He also said we'd be fine for a day or two," Menma said. He jammed his book into a pocket before dropping to the ground and stalking into the forest.
Sasuke watched him go. 'If I kill Itachi and find out the clan died for nothing... will I turn out the same?' How would he revive his clan if he was stuck in the past just like Menma?
Menma had managed to wear himself out and fall into one of his short and restless slumbers. It was shortly after dawn when a snapping twig in the nearby woods woke him with a start. It took him only an instant to realize it was in the opposite direction from the client's house. He quickly created a mud clone and used a kawarimi with a random rock in the woods nearby.
When a person dressed in a pink kimono entered the clearing he relaxed and nearly revealed himself. It was only seeing the figure instantly tense and reach for its basket upon seeing his clone that stopped him.
'One of the Konoha nin.' The figure cast a glance around the clearing. 'Is he alone out here? This would be the perfect opportunity to deal with him.'
Menma watched the figure glance around the clearing with narrowing eyes. Suspicious. He snuck around to get behind the figure as it slowly walked towards his clone. He carefully and quietly followed the person as they walked across the clearing. When the figure pulled out senbon Menma pulled out a kunai.
'Is this that hunter-nin working with Zabuza or just some overly paranoid semi-trained villager?'
When the figure seemed to visible steel itself just like yesterday and stab the senbon into the clones neck he was convinced. He brought the blunt end of the kunai down in a blur, knocking the person out.
"You're not supposed to be active for another day or two," he said with a frown. "Kakashi will know what to do with you." He quickly tied the ninja up and slung him over a shoulder. He paused to withdraw the senbon from the rapidly decaying clone before walking off to Tazuna's house.
He was greeted by an upset Kakashi when he arrived.
"Menma you're supposed to be - who is that?" Kakashi's brow raised at seeing the person slumped over his shoulder.
"I think it's Zabuza's partner. He came across me in a clearing and tried to kill me. He didn't realize he was killing a clone." Menma held up the senbon that killed his clone.
"Right, well let's find out." Kakashi tied the boy up, plopped him in a chair, and passed some smelling salts beneath his nose. With a groan he woke up, blinked and looked around. The boy noticed Menma standing nearby and frowned. "I put you in a false death state. How long have you kept me unconscious?" He asked glaring at Kakashi.
"However long it took my student to carry you here." Kakashi stood and stared at him. "That was a clever trick, pretending to be a hunter-nin to save Zabuza."
The boy frowned. "I still lack strength if you managed to capture me."
Kakashi's smile reached his eye. "Well that proves it then. Thanks for clearing that up for us."
The boy blinked and sighed. "You didn't know I was working with him until just now, did you?"
"Nope," he said, still smiling. "Why don't you tell us your name and what you were doing in that field."
Sasuke and Sakura entered the room at that point and looked at Menma questioningly. He just shrugged and nodded towards the boy.
"My name is Haku. I was gathering herbs to help Zabuza-sama recover," the boy replied.
Sasuke glared at the boy while Sakura let out a gasp.
"Alright. You're going to take us to Zabuza now," Kakashi told him reaching to untie him.
"I will not! I will never betray Zabuza-sama!" Haku cried out.
"Hey, hey, we just want to talk. Maybe we can work something out." Kakashi told him as he finished untying him.
Haku glared at and let his gaze wander over the four. He sighed. "Fine. It's not like I have a choice. I can't take on all four of you and survive."
Zabuza lay bandaged on a bed as a midget and two other men entered the room.
"Zabuza! What is this?" The midget yelled.
"What do you want, Gatō?" Zabuza spat out.
"You told me you had this handled! Demon of the Mist? Bah, you couldn't even kill those tree-huggers Tazuna hired!" The midget stalked closer to Zabuza.
"They got lucky. Next time they won't."
"They had better! If you know what's good for you you'll do it right this time!" The midget said reaching for the man.
A kunai flashed out and stabbed the midget's hand. With a shriek he stumbled backwards. The two meat-heads with him drew their swords.
"You two think you can take me? Even like this you're not match," Zabuza threatened.
"I'll remember this, Zabuza! You'd better watch your back!" The midget cried before signalling the men to withdraw.
Zabuza could hear him talking again once they thought they were out or hearing range.
"Get me a bingo book. I want to know how much I'll get for his head!" He could hear the midget rant.
'So, you're going to betray me, huh? We'll see who claims whose head, Gatō.'
A few minutes later Haku and team 7 arrived at the hideout.
"Haku? It's about time you-" he cut off as team 7 showed up. "What is this?!"
"Relax, Zabuza, we caught Haku and forced him to bring us here. We want to make a deal." Kakashi waved his hand dismissively. "Our mission is to protect Tazuna until his bridge is finished, but you and I both know if Gatō is still around when it's done he'll just take control of it too."
He pointed to his team. "We work for a ninja village, while you two are missing-nin. We have a reputation to uphold. If we let Gatō take control of the bridge our reputation will suffer. You're both just after money, right?"
"Yes," Zabuza narrowed his eyes. "What of it?"
"Gatō has a lot of money. Who says you have to get it by working for him?"
"Get to the point Kakashi," Zabuza growled.
"You help us take care of Gatō. We return what he stole from Wave, and you take a cut of the rest. It will probably be a lot more than he's offering to pay you anyways," Kakashi said.
Zabuza lay quietly for a minute thinking it over. "You're lucky the little bastard was planning on betraying me."
"Great," Kakashi said. "How long will it take you to recover?"
"He'll be back to full strength in a week," Haku responded.
"Then Gatō will die in one week," Kakashi stated grimly. "Can you tell us where he stays? I'd like to scout the place out so we can plan."
"I'll send Haku to show you his mansion. He keeps roughly three-quarters of his men there. The rest we don't know where they are, we just know that they're out there. Some other camp with the slaves Gatō doesn't keep for himself or throw into the brothels, probably," Zabuza said.
"Until we meet again." Kakashi and the rest of team 7 followed Haku outside.
Once outside Kakashi created a shadow clone. "Alright, you guys are going to go with my clone here and train. Just because we're fighting thugs instead of Zabuza and Haku is no excuse to slack off."
"What will we be learning?" Sakura asked.
"I'm going to teach you guys tree walking," Kakashi told her.
"I can do that already," Menma said.
Kakashi created a second clone. "Then you'll work on the next step."
"I can water walk too," he said flatly. "It's safe to be alone now that Zabuza and Haku aren't trying to kill us, right? How about I go scout the village and watch the thugs. I might pick something up."
With a nod from Kakashi the clone and three genin took off. He turned to the other clone. "You can guard Tazuna and tell him he won't have to worry about attacks from ninja anymore." The remaining clone took off leaving Kakashi and Haku to continue to Gatō's mansion.
Menma walked around the town for a couple of hours without much luck. Most of the villagers look on the verge of death, either physical or spiritual. 'That Gatō sure has crushed these people.' He looked at the food stand next to him. It was full of rotten and spoiled vegetables and fruits. 'Even the food looks dead.'
As he examined the ruined food he spotted a pair of thugs that seemed to be going from shop to shop collecting 'protection' money. Their next stop was a rather large store with an alley right next to it.
Buying the oldest nastiest bit of produce the stall had, a rather rotten head of lettuce, he jogged over to the store. Looking down the alley he noticed it was nice and dark. 'Perfect.'
Creating a clone, he handed it the rotten lettuce. "Make sure to hit one of those thugs nice and good with it, then run down the alley here." The clone nodded and settled down to wait for the pair.
Menma jogged halfway down the alley to the darkest section and crouched in the shadows. He pulled out a paralysis seal and waited.
The clone didn't have to wait long before the two greasy-looking thugs came out the door. He wound back and hurled the head of lettuce and watched as it exploded on one thug's face beautifully. The thug cried out and started choking and gagging. His friend turned to the clone with a look of fury and charged him with a wooden bat filled with nails. Menma watched calmly as the clone and first thug ran by before casually slapping the seal on the ground and waiting for the second thug. A few seconds later the second thug came trotting along still trying to clean his face off. As soon as he stepped on the seal Menma had him tied up and gagged. He had gotten a good enough look at him as he approached the alley, so he henged into him and dropped him down where he had just been hiding.
Walking towards the side of the alley the clone and first thug had gone he saw his clone again. "Lost him already? These guys are pathetic. The other one is bound back where I was hiding, go take him to Tazuna's so Kakashi can interrogate him." The clone nodding before running into the alley and out of sight.
It didn't take Menma more than a couple of minutes to find the other thug. He approached him while feigning illness. "Ugh, I think that rotten food did something to me. I don't feel good," he groaned out.
"Quit yer bitchin'," the other thug snarled. "Damn locals. Let's just go grab that stupid whore we were sent to get and go."
They travelled over to a poorer section of town to a house that looked like a strong wind would blow it over. The thug kicked the door down and entered. The thug exited shortly with a rather young and beautiful looking girl bound and hung over his shoulder with an old man hanging on his arm.
"Please, no! You can't take-"
CRACK. The old man staggered backwards and slumped to the ground with a groan.
"Shut up! You know the rules! You don't have any money, we take other kinds of payment. Don't worry though, we'll take realgood care of your granddaughter." He leered and roughly grabbed the sobbing girl's chest.
Menma frowned and followed after the thug as he slung the girl over his shoulder and carried her off.
"Sucks that Gatō gets all the pretty ones," the thug sneered, pinching the girl's butt.
"So why let him?" Menma asked. "We take her to the other base and tell him she wasn't there."
The other thug looked at him like he was crazy for a minute before cackling. "I like the way you think!"
"We can always hand her over when we're done. Tell him we went and hunted her down. He might even reward us for doing a 'good job'," Menma continued.
The thug laughed harder. "Hear that, girlie? You're gonna spend some quality time with us tonight!" The girl sobbed harder.
Menma narrowed his eyes. "We'll want to sneak her in, though. Wouldn't want anyone else to know about her before we're done."
The thug waved a hand. "Don't worry. The guards are lazy as hell over there anyways. We'll find a nice quiet tent in a corner somewhere." The thug pulled a filthy rag out of somewhere to shove in the girl's mouth. "Now, you be quiet. You stay quiet and we'll be gentle. You mess this up for us and, well... you won't like it."
Half an hour later they were approaching a camp.
"Alright, we'll just sit and wait here. Sooner or later one of them will get bored and wander off," the thug said. Sure enough a few minutes later one of them wandered off.
"Now we just have to do something about that one," the thug grumbled.
Menma stared at the guard. "No, we don't, he's asleep."
"Eh? You sure?" The thug asked.
"Watch," he said before casually walking up in front of the guard and waving a hand in his face. He then turned and waved the thug with the girl over and they strolled right in through the gate.
"Told ya, let's go over there, it's usually quiet," the thug told him.
Soon enough they found their quiet little tent. The thug threw the girl on the ground and started pulling off his armor with a lecherous grin. "Now for some fun, girlie. Remember, you keep quiet and we'll be gentle."
Menma discreetly pulled out a kunai and waited until he'd stripped off most of his armor before covering his mouth, turning him to the side, and slitting his throat.
The girl started freaking out and trying to scream through her gag when she saw the blood spray. Menma let the body slump to the ground before dropping the kunai and moving over to her. He clamped a hand over her mouth and quieted her.
"Relax, I'm not going to hurt you," he said and temporarily dropped his henge. "I'm a ninja here to guard Tazuna while he builds that bridge.
"Now, I'm going to cut your binds and pull that gag out of your mouth. I need you to stay calm, ok? I'll get you out of here unharmed." He carefully cut her bonds and pulled the gag out of her mouth.
"Thank you," she muttered.
"We'll probably have to wait until it's dark to get you out of here, ok?" He quickly created a clone. "Henge into this dead guy and go scout the place," he told it. The clone quickly changed and left.
Over the next couple of hours they had several close calls and even added two more bodies to the previous one. The clone appeared just as the sun was setting to tell him everything it had learned. Apparently the camp had gotten busier. More men had come from somewhere but it couldn't find out from where.
Menma frowned. "Trying to sneak back out is too risky. You stay as that guy. I'll henge back into the guy I was before." He looked at the girl. "I'm going to have to tie you back up for a while. We'll walk straight out the gate."
She didn't look too pleased with it but eventually allowed him to tie her back up.
As they approached the gate one of the guards stopped them.
"And just where the hell do you think you're going?" He asked.
"We're taking her to Gatō." Menma said, smacking the girl on the butt.
The guard took a look at the terrified girl's face before realizing who it was. "The hell is she doing here? She was supposed to go straight to him."
Menma shrugged. "Couple of guys thought they could sample the goods first. They're dead in a tent on the southeast side of camp. You know how it is."
The guard sighed. "We need to stop letting idiots sign up. There should be some sort of brain test or somethin' before you join. Alright, get going. Gatō doesn't like to be kept waiting."
With a nod Menma and his clone walked out into the forest. When they were far enough away Menma untied the girl and handed her over to his clone.
"Take her home, then dispel. I need to report to Kakashi." The clone gave a salute and took off with the girl.
The next evening team 7 was back at Zabuza's hideout. Kakashi had just finished going over the information he had about Gatō's mansion. As he was talking Menma had drawn up a rough map of the base he had spied on the other day.
"Did you find any useful information in the village, Menma?" Kakashi asked.
"Better, I infiltrated his other base," he replied, spreading the map he had drawn out on a table for the others to see.
"Entrances are here, here, and here," he said, pointing to the locations. "The slaves are kept in large cages here," he points to another location on the map. "And their numbers were right, for the most part. Near sunset, however, more popped up. I couldn't find out where they came from though."
"Impressive, brat," Zabuza praised him.
"With the distance it is from Gatō's mansion, if we hit it hard and fast enough we can have the slaves out and most of those men dead before he can react and get backup out there," Menma said.
Kakashi nodded. "We've still got 5 days or so until Zabuza recovers. We'll continue training until then. When Zabuza has finished recovering, we'll have one last meeting before our attack."
Kakashi took one last look at the map before putting it and the rest of his information away. 'Putting down a tyrant and liberating a country, these kids will have one hell of a story for their first C-rank.'
End Chapter 5
A/N:
Last chapter I said Wave would wrap up in this one. I lied. Or rather, I was planning on doing the same old boring Wave that everyone has seen a million times with minor changes and decided, screw that. So, I'm changing it and hopefully making it more interesting.
Sorry if you guys catch any words running together. For some reason when I paste the documents in it'll do it randomly. They don't show up in the proofread tool thing, so it's a pain in the ass to find them. Let me know if you find any so I can fix them.