Chapter Twenty-One
As Ichigo explained the current 'happenings' to Gaara and his siblings, Sakura watched in fascination as she dipped her feet into the pool of water. It was rather amazing to think of her little cousin in love with this strange boy. Not strange as in weird mind you. To her this redhead and company were complete strangers even though Ichigo insisted that she'd met them before. Quite extensively if her cousin were to be believed; not that she had any reason to not believe her.
"First things first," the blond girl—Temari?—said. "We need to find Shikamaru and the others. Knowing that cry-baby, he must have some sort of plan."
"Not a very good one," Kankurou said and yelped as his sister smacked his head. "Hey! I'm just saying that if he doesn't know what we do he might as well be plotting a map in the dark."
"He's smart enough that he could probably manage it." Temari defended and Sakura tilted her head to the side.
"Are you and Shika-san dating?" she asked, only go grow more confused when Kankurou burst out laughing and Temari turned red.
"In her dreams," Kankurou snickered. "She's lucky to get him to look at her after what happened with that Ino chick."
"Ino-chan?" Sakura said in alarm, glancing at Temari warily. "What happened to Ino-chan?"
"Nothing really," Ichigo said. "Ino-chan likes Shikamaru you know? They're dating now but last year they were still dancing around each other. Temari and Shikamaru had become friends but Ino was jealous of her and asked Temari if she was dating Shikamaru—."
"And Temari said yes, the idiot!" Kankurou said, nearly doubling over with laughter. "For a second we all thought Ino would punch her but then Temari mentioned a kiss and she ran off crying."
"Shikamaru found out and hasn't talk to Temari-san since." Ichigo finished. "Except to tell her to stay away from him and Ino."
Temari sniffed haughtily and lifted her nose in the air. "A minor set back. He'll realize eventually that I'm the better woman. I'm older after all."
"That just means you'll wrinkle faster." Gaara said and everyone but Sakura (because she didn't understand the shock) gaped at him. "Now if you're finished gossiping, we need to find the others."
"I know where they'd be," Sakura said softly, rubbing her suddenly throbbing head. "On the roof of the academy. That's where we were introduced as a team."
"You sure?" Kankurou said and Sakura nodded, tears forming in her eyes from the growing pain.
"N-no one goes up there a-ny…way…" Sakura had barely finished before her eyes rolled back in her head and she passed out. Gaara almost wasn't fast enough to catch her with his sand before she fell, head first, into the Crystal Pool.
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The meeting with Yotaro was no good since no one had managed to learn anything useful. Not only that, but news had gotten out earlier that Ino was in some sort of coma and the hospital couldn't understand the reason why. Shikamaru was nearly beside himself with worry but Kiba managed to snap him mostly out of it, much to everyone's surprise.
"She's obviously like this cause she was helping Haruno somehow," Kiba said, and Akamaru barked in agreement. "Acting like some crybaby won't do anything to help her if anything it would just make her mad! You wanna do something for her then figure out what happened to Haruno and why the Uchiha was blamed for it."
Shikamaru instantly went to work with what they'd managed to learn, but it wasn't much. Meanwhile, Shino and Kiba had been given orders by Yotaro not to let Hinata out of their sight. It seemed that whoever was behind this was targeting the girls in their group, whether intentionally or just by happenstance, and he didn't want Hinata to be next.
"What about at night?" Kiba said. "It's not like we can follow her to her house and stand outside the door or something."
"It's the Hyuuga manor," Naruto said. "How unsafe could it be?"
"For general threats, not very," Shino said. "But for one person it is possible. It wouldn't be easy, but a single shinobi, trained in stealth, could slip through the defenses and get to Hinata. Especially since this is obviously an inside job."
"So what do we do?" Naruto asked. "Kiba's right, we can't go with her and we can't tell her family what's going on…"
"Neji." Sasuke said and everyone glanced his way. "He's always been especially protective of Hinata. He would help us."
Everyone knew that was true, Kiba and Shino especially. No one was exactly sure why Neji was so protective of his younger cousin but most speculated it had something to do with the fact that Hinata's father had died when she was a little girl.
"Hm," Yotaro said. "That may work. And at the rate we're losing team members, it wouldn't hurt to have a few extra hands."
Shikamaru, Sasuke, and Naruto glared at him for his callous remark but he just ignored them and turned to Hinata.
"Do you think you'd be able to get Gai's team here without raising suspicions?"
Hinata nodded, blushing slightly at being so suddenly put on the spot.
"I'll go with her!" Naruto volunteered before Kiba or Shino could stand.
Yotaro shook his head. "It would be to suspicious Naruto. Kiba and Shino are her teammates. It makes sense for them to be together."
"Yeah well, since we're off duty right now it would make more sense for her to be on a date with her boyfriend instead of wandering around with her team," Naruto said. "Right Hinata?"
It took a full three minutes for what Naruto said to properly sink in, but once it had Hinata squeaked in ultimate embarrassment and passed out, though fortunately Sasuke was close enough to stop her from hitting the ground.
"Oi teme!" Naruto yelled. "Get your hands off my girl!"
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It had been a long time since Kakashi had done any sort of real espionage work but in all honesty it was like riding a bike. Once his ANBU uniform was in place it felt like he'd never even left.
He would have laughed at how easy it was for him to break into Konoha's Shinobi prison but it was more frightening then it was humorous. Yes, the prisoners were equipped with anti-chakra devices but if even one of them managed to get theirs off not one guard in the whole facility would be able to stop them.
Well, maybe Uchiha Natsui. But then the Uchiha clan was always a cut above the rest. Even the most average member of the clan was better then most chuunin. That was one of the reasons they were in charge of the police department.
The most direct route to the high-risk prison cells was to use the elevator but it was chakra locked and only certain guards were able to operate it. As it stood, Kakashi only knew of one: Natsui. Since Natsui's family had always supported Sasuke and Itachi he figured it wouldn't be bad where he to simply ask for help but he didn't want to leave a trail, and getting Itachi's guard's permission to break into the high-risk area was definitely a trail. Instead it seemed he would either have to catch the younger boy by surprise and knock him out or just not get caught while following him.
The Uchiha boy wasn't that hard to find. Since it was the change of shifts he'd only just arrived at the prison and was making his way to the elevator. Kakashi hovered on the ceiling as Natsui went through the motions of activating the door to get inside. Once the doors slid open, Kakashi snuck into the elevator shaft and rode on top of the car as it went down. The ride was uneventful and he waited a full thirty seconds after the car reached its destination before he exited.
It was surprisingly easy to shadow Natsui through the maze of halls and for half a second Kakashi almost suspected a trap, but the idea that Natsui would know that he was being followed was slim. Kakashi had learned how to hide his chakra presence from both Kyo and Ishikawa Nanami, Shishini's mother.
Natsui paused at a single door, outfitted completely in metal, and glanced around before he pulled out a set of heavy iron keys. He fitted one into the lock and Kakashi mentally catalogued which one it was. Once inside it was impossible to hear what, if anything, was said and so his only option was to stay hidden against the ceiling and wait for Natsui to come back out.
Almost an hour later the Uchiha did finally emerge, an annoyed scowl on his lips as he relocked the heavy door and hung the keys on his belt. A light breeze blew through the hall and he paused at the soft chiming sound that came and went so quickly it almost didn't exist. Instinctively his hand went to his hip where the keys hung and he relaxed just a bit when he felt them where they always were.
One Natsui was gone and the elevator was all the way up to the main floor, Kakashi dropped from his place on the ceiling and pulled the keys from his pocket. It was amazing what a genjutsu and a sense of over confidence could do for a successful pick pocketing.
Kakashi had barely pulled the door open when a low growl floated out to him.
"Back so soon?" Said a voice he recognized as Itachi's. "You're wasting your time Natsui. I'll tell you nothing."
"Natsui?" Kakashi said, pushing the door open fully. His eyes widened in shock when he took in Itachi's bound, bruised, and bleeding form as he glared almost blankly at the door. "Itachi? What happened—!"
"Kakashi?" Itachi said, his voice surprised. "Is that you?"
Kakashi's brow wrinkled as he pulled back the hood covering his hair and crossed the room to crouch next to Itachi. "Of course it is. What happened here?"
Itachi squinted in the dark, his eyes unfocused. "Where are you?"
Fear trickled down Kakashi's neck and he waved his hand just in front of the younger boy's face.
"It's Kenta," Itachi said, not reacting to Kakashi's movements at all. "He's planning a coup and he wants to know who all would be on 'my side' besides the clan members they'd already singled out. I was put here so Natsui could 'get it out of me'." He smirked. "He obviously doesn't know who he's dealing with."
"Itachi," Kakashi said, his voice stern. "Can't you see my hand?"
"No? It's too dark in here to see anything."
But it wasn't. Light from the open door streamed into the cell and fell directly across Itachi's bloody face. The boy was blind, Kakashi realized, but hopefully it wasn't permanent.
"Come on," he said, using the keys to unchain Itachi from the wall. "I'm getting you out of here."
"How's Hikari?" Itachi asked and Kakashi half smiled as he pulled the boy to his feet.
"She'll live."
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Arai was going to get into Hikari's room if it was the last thing she did. Though she knew it wouldn't be. She had a plan.
It wasn't hard for the Uchiha girl to realized that the falcon ANBU had some sort of soft spot for her and she figured that as long as she could exploit it to see Hikari then she was more then happy to fuel the man's infatuation.
This time around Arai had made the bento herself and she was actually rather proud of it. She headed off to the hospital just before dinner time, absently thinking about Yotaro was planning to do. He said he'd promised Itachi results in forty-eight hours but that dead-line was rapidly approaching. There was only the night left before the time limit was up and she knew for a fact he didn't have anything solid. She could only imagine how badly Itachi would react upon receiving the news.
Before she could think on it any further, Arai had reached Hikari's floor and plastered a convincing grin on her face which only widened when she realized Falcon was the only one still in the hallway.
"Hello again," Arai said cheerily. "Where did everyone go?"
"Kenta-sama lowered the guard number. He said that the threat to Haruno-sama has been minimized." Falcon responded, though his tone seemed rather unconvinced.
"Really…" Arai said, the gears in her head turning. "Well, that's good then. Has she woken up yet?"
Falcon shook his head. "Not yet."
"I see." Arai sighed and pretended to deflate. "And I made this bento specially myself. Such an ungrateful friend…Oh well…Do you want it Falcon-san? I've already eaten and it would be a waste to just throw it away…"
The masked ANBU hesitated only a moment before he nodded. "Thank-you Arai-san."
"You're most welcome," Arai said with a grin and a wave. "I guess I'll try again tomorrow. Good-night Falcon-san."
She looked back only once as she left the hallway and couldn't help but smirk as she saw him open the bento box. She'd come back in fifteen minutes to check on him and if her calculations were right, by then he'd already be sleeping. She hummed absently to herself as she skipped towards the elevator and went down to the cafeteria to grab something to eat.
End Chapter Twenty-One
Kaliea: Sorry about the wait guys. I've been plotting out Shades of Gray, putting in applications for school, reworking my book, writing another book, planning out the rest of Holding out for a Hero and babysitting full-time. Lots of fun let me tell you. Anyway, don't forget to review and until next time, ja ne!
Ps. Sorry to any Temari lovers. I like her too, just not with Shikamaru ;P
