Uh, I was not expecting for it to be this long, especially as I've had this done for a while. My assignments have me distracted so any updates will be sporadic at best, I also have a trip to Philadelphia at the end of March so don't expect anything until April.
The best time to infiltrate the village again was not at night. Night time was expected to be quiet with little to no people moving around. The best time was at the end of the normal working day, just add a tired or annoyed expression and it easily blend with the people going home from work.
Max had several clones doing this, she needed to know as much about the situation as possible. None of her friends were in the village and her picture on wanted poster was not really flattering.
The evening rush was just coming to an end when she felt what she had been waiting for. Every evening the prison guards switched, allowing the possibility of a latent chakra signal to be sensed. It was the weakest signal due to the properties of the prison but it would be enough for her to identify at least the strongest person in there.
It shocked her to find out Tsunade was in prison. Why did things have to be complicated? As the only person she could get a sort of reliable story out of she would need to talk to the woman who had used her. That in itself would be difficult. Laura was too good at inventing things and to prevent ninjas from infiltrating the prison to get people out had created a scanner, if the chakra level was over a certain point and not recognised then it would automatically lock down the checkpoint. By now here chakra id would be in the system as 'not welcome'.
Even suppressing her chakra wouldn't help. Laura was thorough in her work, her goal had pretty much been 'Make it Max-proof' and she had succeeded. It had every Goblin ward available protecting it.
She did however have a brother who wouldn't even ping the chakra detector. She established a stronger mental connection with her clone to talk to her brother and explain the plan. It would be dangerous and could go wrong in so many ways but she put some faith in her brother. They were alike in their resourcefulness. After her clone finished relaying instructions it apparated her brother close to the village and dissipated, all it energy used up, she couldn't make a new one to follow him, it would be noticed by one of the Shinobi watching.
It was what felt like a long wait for Max, she hated not being able to do anything. Max hoped to any deity that existed that her brother did not mention or stare at Tsunade's boobs.
Finally her brother appeared at the meeting point.
"I thought you said you lived in a village, this place is huge. People were jumping from rooftops. This place is crazy." Max waited for him to finish his ramble, she knew this place was a bit of a culture shock and had hoped to be able to introduce it to him slowly instead of shoving him in with a mission.
"Your boss explained what happened. Some guy called Shisui infiltrated something called ANBU with his own team and took out a fair amount, the others apparently on missions or avoided due to their notoriety. Apparently this guy had sleeper agents in most ranks, like he'd been planning this for years, when they staged a coup the ANBU called to protect your boss were his agents and so it was a short coup. One of you friends managed to see this and warned the others, agreeing they needed to regroup. Your boss doesn't know where they went so they couldn't get the information from her." This was not what Max wanted to hear, it could have been worse but it could have been a lot better.
"We need to go to Suna, it's another village, the one Gaara comes from. We're allied with them, or at least we were last time I was here, but that's where they would go."
"I also was told to tell you code 12 grey." Max groaned, that was not a nice protocol to have to follow. It also meant Tsunade hadn't been able to implement it before being subdued.
She asked Tony to leave by the west gate and just keep following the path, keeping his gun at the ready, getting out of the village after this stunt could be difficult. She cast a quick spell to make people ignore him unless they really focused to help him leave unnoticed.
It was annoying having to travel around like a civilian, so slow and boring to avoid being detected. The second she thought she wasn't being watched she turned invisible, grateful for the freedom it gave her. She leapt up the side of the Hokage's tower and crouched on the windowsill ready for some mischief.
The look on Shisui's face when a section of the wall burst started glowing was amusing at the very least. The look on his face when he realised what was going on was beyond priceless. Max was sealing the hidden vault. Only a combination of two of three people could now open it. One was in prison, one was crouching on his windowsill, completing the spell, the third was hopefully far away.
He turned to the window, Sharingan blazing and his eyes narrowed, Max's invisibility obviously had a weakness against his bloodline. Max knew she'd been caught, she rushed through the last sequence to finish up, she needed to get out of there soon. She switched to FA mid spell and screwed her eyes closed, her hands were too busy to grab a bandana. Shisui watched in confusion but quickly regained his composure.
"I knew you would come, you're late but all the more time to plan for your arrival." Lovely words she always liked hearing. "You could always pledge allegiance to my cause. You would make an excellent addition, my strongest warrior, answering only to me. Your name would be known in every town, feared by all." Max snorted, her name had been in the bingo books for over a decade and she was feared by anyone who knew it. She finished up the sealing, but was unable to resist trading a few taunts.
"Power must make you delusional, there's no way I would willingly join your side."
"Then I'll take unwillingly." Shisui muttered, he held up a hand and two ANBU appeared each side of the window, threw powder at her to make her more visible and grabbed at her. Max had anticipated this from the beginning of the hand movement and had already leapt off. Various projectiles followed her along with a net that unfurled looming over her. Max twisted in the air and threw a large shuriken that caught up in the net and stopped it from getting to her. She landed heavily on the roof, not managing to escape all of the weapon shower.
Within seconds there was a squad on the rooftop looking for her, there was no Hyuuga so she was safe. That was until she noticed the kunai that had managed to hit her calf, she was bleeding and that would get her caught if it left a trail, she needed to leave, now.
With a small pop she appeared part way down the trail from the west gate, sending disguised clones in either direction to find Tony. It didn't take long, her estimate had been close. As she waited for her brother to catch up she crouched by a tree and started checking the damage. As well as the kunai in her leg she had a few scrapes from other projectiles and a few still stuck in her flesh. Her shoulder was the worst, it must have been the adrenaline of the situation that had kept the pain from alerting her to the fact there was a tanto going through her shoulder.
Who threw a sword anyway?
That was not going to be enjoyable to remove. Her brother's reaction was not going to be good either. While she waited she removed some of the weapons, the ones not to deep, and bandaged them up. She wasn't sure how to approach the tanto problem, it had gone straight through, the handle sticking out just above her shoulder bone and the tip poking out under her collar bone.
Tony turned up just as she inspected the injury as best she could. To say her brother was shocked at what he saw was an understatement. She had warned him this place was dangerous. He helped her at least immobilise the blade and her arm so it wouldn't cause more damage, it limited Max's abilities but there wasn't much else to do.
It was just as they passed the Fire country border Max's heart skipped a couple of beats as she picked up a familiar Chakra signature, it was faint, it was only because she was so tuned to it she have even felt it. Itachi was around. She informed Tony before dragging him off the path with her good arm, spreading out some clones to scout the area.
They reached a cave, her clones declared the area safe. Max pinged her FA to check it was Itachi and froze before grabbing Tony and charging in.
Inside only just visible in the dim light was Itachi, he didn't look in good shape and he wasn't conscious. In his arms was a baby whose weak cries could only just be heard.
"I was not expecting that," Max mumbled, completely confused, the blood loss wasn't helping. Tony however went straight over to check on the man and child, Max stumbling after.
Itachi stirred, managing to crack open a dark eye, his mouth quivered into a smile and his eye closed again.
"I knew you would be back," he breathed, his voice was no more than a hoarse whisper.
"Not the first time 'home' has declared a kill on sight command on me," Max offered dryly, her partner smiled more.
"The others have gone to Suna. I held them off with Kakashi, forgot I had Hideki."
"He looks fine, you did well. Rest, you look like you need it." Tony ordered, they avoided asking whose it was, that conversation would take place later. Max declared she would watch all night, Tony wouldn't be a huge help, and after seeing the mess his sister had managed he was starting to agree. He did wonder where she had got that many cans of red bull but guessed it was a ninja thing.
At the crack of dawn Itachi groaned back into consciousness and was immediately helped by the siblings. He seemed a bit healthier after whatever Max had given him last night and was definitely more aware. Max grabbed him in a sideways hug, avoiding stabbing him with the tanto, not really wanting to let go. She'd missed him, probably far more than she would ever admit.
"You do know you have a short sword going through your shoulder Max?" Max laughed and let him go to start packing up. They needed to get moving, Tony had protested, the two Shinobi were in no state to fight if it came to it. Max simply summon a couple of clones, one of them helped Itachi stand and the others grabbed their bags as they headed for the mouth of the cave.
"We need to get to Suna as soon as possible. I'll send a clone ahead to check it's safe and get help if possible." Max announced as the plan of action.
The dessert was probably the hardest part of the journey, especially with a small baby. Max was guiding them, Tony had the child while Itachi kept an eye out for potential threats.
It was about half way through when Max took a step and the sand swallowed her foot, causing her to painfully face plant into the sand. Luckily it was loose sand or the tanto in her shoulder would have shifted a lot more. It still hurt, where the wound had sealed up around the metal was now bleeding. Max slowly got to her feet and shook her fist towards Suna.
"Dammit Gaara!" she cursed, it was as if she'd summoned the young kazekage when he rose out of the sand, his usual gourd on his back. He frowned at the blood leaking through the bandages around the short sword, as well as the presence of the short sword in her shoulder.
"Max, Itachi, Tony. It is nice to see you again. I will be personally escorting you to Suna. You will be under the protection of the whole of the Land of the Wind and my personal protection."
"Thank you Kazekage-sama," Itachi croaked, he was still leaning heavily on one of Max's clones. The ground rumbled as a block of sand lifted them up and started moving. Tony was taking this extremely well, being told about this kind of thing and actually seeing it were two different things.
The group took the time to sit down and rest on the jouurney, Gaara even nicely put up a thin layer of sand to block out most of the glaring sun and stray wisps of sand. Max sat next to Gaara, she needed to know what he knew. She was tasking herself with taking back Konoha and for that she needed information and a couple of partners in crime.
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