Weakness

Dairuko and Natsuki stared at Ren's body for a moment before Natsuki told Dairuko to carry him to their spare room. As much as Dairuko wanted to argue, his brother's life was on the line so he obliged and carried Ren to the room.

"Natsuki, what are you planning?" Dairuko asked.

"Dairuko, get Tsunade here." Natsuki said.

"Why?"

"We have a fugitive in our home. I believe the Hokage should know about it."

"What will you do in the meantime?"

"I have to examine him and hopefully keep him alive until you get back."

"You'll do fine… you're part of the Senju clan now." Natsuki sighed "Thanks, Dairuko." she said as Dairuko left then examined Ren's wounds. 'I wonder who did this to him…' Natsuki thought to herself.

Tsunade felt like she was drowning in paperwork when she heard the unmistakable sound of Dairuko.

"Kaa-san!" Dairuko exclaimed as he walked in.

"Dairuko, what is it? I'm busy trying not to hang myself."

"It's Ren he's- just follow me." Dairuko- not waiting for an answer- grabbed Tsunade's wrist and leapt out the window.

Natsuki had examined Ren's wounds and noticed that they weren't consistent. Some were made by a sword and the more serious ones were made by pieces of wood. There were still burns across his body.

"If I didn't know any better I'd say Dairuko, Itachi and I did this." Natsuki said and gave a light, nervous laugh. "Ugh I'm a bad person."

"Don't be so hard on yourself." Dairuko said.

"What's the situation, Natsuki?" Tsunade asked as she walked into the room.

"Tsunade-sama, yes Ren's wounds aren't consistent with any one type of attack. My educated guess? He was ambushed… Tsunade-sama, he needs surgery to extract the pieces of wood lodged inside him."

"Right. I'll need both of you to help me." Tsunade said and the two nodded.

"What d'you need from us?" Dairuko asked.

"Dairuko, hold Ren down. Natsuki, use your chakra strings to pull out the shrapnel and I'll heal him as you do it."

"Right." Natsuki and Dairuko answered.

Dairuko created wood restraints around Ren's wrists and ankles while Natsuki prepared her chakra strings. Tsunade gave Natsuki a nod and the latter sent her strings into Ren's wounds, once she began pulling them out Ren screamed in pain and began thrashing around violently, but Dairuko's restraints were holding him in place for the most part... until the pain caused Ren to sub-consciously activate his curse mark.

With his curse mark active, Ren broke the restraints on his wrists but, before he could hit Natsuki or Tsunade, Dairuko grabbed hold of him and held him place until the surgery was complete.

"What now, Tsunade-sama?" Natsuki asked after the surgery.

"We wait." Tsunade replied.

"Wait for what?"

"For Ren to wake up and tell us what happened to him, whoever did this might pose a direct threat to Konoha."

"I understand but... what if he's laying a trap for us?" Dairuko asked.

"Dairuko, someone or something did that to him and we both know how strong Ren is. Whatever did this is a serious threat."

"I suggest we wait." A voice said causing everyone to turn around.

"Your ability to appear out nowhere never seems to get old does it, Itachi?" Dairuko said.

"As I was saying we should wait. If there indeed is a greater threat than Ren, we need to identify it and if necessary eliminate it, but should this be a trap we have the advantage that Ren has never fought all three of us at once, which gives us an edge."

"Itachi, you haven't fought him either." Natsuki said.

"But I know how he fights thanks to you and Dairuko having fought him before."

"There's no point in stressing about this now. Let's wait until Ren wakes up before we make any final plans." Tsunade intervened.

"Agreed." Itachi said.

"Dairuko and Natsuki, you two stay here until Ren wakes up… Itachi I need to speak with you, so walk with me." Tsunade said and Itachi followed her as she left.

"Yes, Hokage-sama?"

"Are you okay with this, Itachi? Helping Ren?"

"Honestly, I don't trust him, and I'm willing to burn him alive while he lays there but, for the village, I'm willing to set aside my personal feelings if that is what is required."

"I appreciate your honesty, Itachi."

"I didn't think you actually cared." Ren said as he woke up.

"As your brother I'm only going to save your life three times." Dairuko said.

"And here I thought we were bonding."

"What happened to you, Ren?"

"Ambushed while I was visiting an old friend."

"I'm surprised you even have a friend… why'd you come here, Ren?"

Ren let out a heavy sigh before answering.

"As much as it pains me to say I… need your help."

"And why would I help you?"

"Because you could've killed me but you didn't and also there's an innocent person involved."

"Your friend?"

"Yes."

"I hate to say it but a friend of yours will most likely not be innocent." Dairuko said before walking away.

"Dairuko, she is innocent… I'm the evil one."

Dairuko stopped.

"She? Your friend is more than just a friend to you isn't she?"

"It doesn't matter anymore since you won't help me." Ren stood up and began limping past Dairuko to the door when Dairuko grabbed his arm to stop him.

"If you want my help, tell me exactly what happened to you."

Ren smiled deviously but made sure to drop it when he turned to tell Dairuko his story.

Flashback

Ren walked through the forest, with a little extra speed today now that he finally had the cure for Luna's illness, but his pace quickly decreased once he reached her cabin where he saw the cabin door had been forced open. Ren looked around for any signs of an ambush before entering the cabin.

"Luna?" Ren called out but there was no response. He heard something like a wire snapping and before he knew it, the door had shut itself behind him and the cabin blew up.

The explosion seriously damaged Ren, there were a few large pieces of wood sticking out of his body. As he struggled to recover, someone came at him with a sword and impaled Ren's shoulder. The impalement did some damage to Ren but it also snapped him out of his haze.

"Is that all you got?" Ren said as he stood up and broke the sword in his shoulder. He pulled the remaining piece of the blade out when more men showed up and surrounded him.

Ren was in serious pain and was losing blood fast. He knew his best chance at surviving would be to intimidate his attackers into submission.

"KILL HIM!" one of the men ordered and the rest charged toward Ren.

"Sloppy." Ren said as he jumped over several men and activated his chakra blades. "Who wants to die first?" when no one stepped forward Ren spoke again. "Too scared? Fine, I'll make the first move." Ren charged into the crowd.

Ren deflected two separate attacks with his chakra blades then did a back-flip kick on a third guy and did a ground pound, which didn't shatter the ground like it normally would, but it did give Ren- with the help of a smoke bomb and teleportation jutsu- some time to escape.

.

.

.

"And so I escaped and managed to sneak into Konoha. Oh, you might want to wake up that guard on duty by south wall." Ren said.

"Quite the story." Dairuko commented.

"The ambush was too well planned to be the work of some normal bounty hunters… someone set me up and took Luna, probably going to use her as bait for me."

"I'm still not seeing why you need our help."

"Because the people who ambushed Ren will be expecting him, but they won't be expecting him to bring back-up like us- if they expect him to bring any at all." Natsuki said as she entered the room.

"And they sure as hell wouldn't expect you to reach out to your estranged family who you've tried to kill, for help." Dairuko ended the idea.

"Nice to see that you're not all brawn, Dairuko." Ren commented.

"Fuck. You. Ren." Dairuko said as he flipped Ren off.

"Let's hear your plan, Ren." Natsuki continued.

"We go in and kill every single one of them. Then burn their hideout to the ground." Ren said flatly.

"Simple… I like it." Dairuko added.

"Simple, but we don't even know where we're going." Natsuki pointed out.

"We'll know in a day or two."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Trust me, I'm smarter than you." Ren smirked.

"Fuck you, Ren."

"I wouldn't mind if you do." Ren retorted causing Natsuki to grit her teeth because, although this may only be the third time she's seeing him, there was something about him and his comments that got under her skin. "Now if we're done here, I'd like to be alone with my thoughts while we wait for a location." Ren said.

Dairuko and Natsuki sat on a bench in the park the next morning, while Ren stayed in the Hokage's Tower with Itachi and Tsunade.

"I hate babysitting." Dairuko complained.

"Me too." Natsuki agreed when a certain green clad ninja and double-bun haired, ninja-tool expert appeared.

"Ohayo." Both the ninja greeted Dairuko and Natsuki who waved in acknowledgement.

"'Sup, you two?" Dairuko asked.

"We had hopes that our two Hot-Blooded senpai's would care to spar with us?" Lee asked.

"Yeah, Neji's running an errand for Hiashi-sama and Gai-sensei is having another competition with Kakashi-sensei," Tenten leaned in and whispered to Natsuki "and Lee has too much hype for me to handle."

"I wish we could, but we're babysitting a high value individual." Natsuki answered and Tenten let out a heavy sigh.

"It is alright! Tenten and I will just spar with each other."

"Hey, Lee, remember. FIGHTO!" Dairuko exclaimed.

"YOUTH!" Lee exclaimed with even more vigour.

"Good luck, Tenten." Natsuki wearily smiled. she knew from experience that a hyped-up Might Gai student is never an easy sparring opponent.

"Why me?" Tenten sighed as she followed Lee.

"That was just evil of you, Dairuko." Natsuki said.

"It's for her own good… hopefully." Dairuko said.

"So you expect me to just trust you?" Tsunade asked Ren as he sat opposite her with Itachi by the door ready to take action if Ren made any wrong move.

"I expect you to understand where it is I'm coming from." Ren stated.

"You are risking the lives of good shinobi."

"Oh don't give me that bullshit, Tsunade. You only care because it puts your dear Dairuko in harm's way!" Ren exclaimed and Itachi was ready to move when Tsunade waved him off.

"You're wrong, Ren. I wouldn't risk any of my shinobi to help you, a fugitive in almost every major village."

"You made that perfectly clear after you became Hokage."

"What are you talking about?"

"Why didn't you look for me?"

"Excuse me?"

"Why. Didn't. You. Look. For. Me?" Ren said and Tsunade looked a bit confused. "You knew I was your son and that I was with Orochimaru and you didn't send a single shinobi to look for me."

"You were with him of your own accord."

"NO! I was unconscious and he took me back with him." Ren slammed his fist on the table breaking it in half. Itachi activated his Sharingan then started moving toward Ren.

"Itachi, leave us." Tsunade said as she stood, locking eyes with her son.

"No, let your guard dog stay. I want a witness when you tell me why you left me in the hands of that snake when you had the chance to stop him and bring me back with you so we could probably all be a happily dysfunctional family." Ren said with tears threatening to come out.

"Itachi, I gave you an order." Tsunade said, barely remaining calm. "NOW!" she snapped when Itachi opened his mouth to argue.

"Yes, Tsunade-sama." Itachi said before leaving the room.

"Tell me… if Dairuko and I switched places, would you ignore him or search for him?"

"Ren-" Tsunade was cut off by Ren.

"Does Dairuko even know who our father is?" Ren asked and Tsunade fell silent. "He thinks his father is that nobody Dan, doesn't he?"

"Don't you talk about Dan-"

"Or else what, huh? I've already felt the worst pain imaginable… knowing that you've been abandoned."

They remained silent for a time but when Tsunade tried to speak Ren stopped her.

"I don't want to hear it anymore. I know where they're keeping Luna now. You can fall in or step aside but don't stand in my way, Tsunade."

Ren walked away while Tsunade sank into her chair and let out a heavy sigh when Shizune walked into the room.

"Are you alright, Tsunade-sama?" Shizune asked.

"Shizune… I need a bottle of sake and a new table." Tsunade said.

"Hai."

Ren walked towards the entrance of Konoha where Dairuko and Natsuki stood blocking his exit from the village.

"We can't let you leave, Ren." Natsuki said.

"I know where they are keeping Luna, she's in one of Orochimaru's abandoned hideouts." Ren said.

"Doesn't change the fact that we cannot let you out of our sights." Dairuko said.

"But if we were to travel with you, then we'd be able to keep an eye on you and stay within the mission parameters."

"That is quite true, Natsuki, smart thinking."

"Thank you, Dairuko."

"So you two are going to disobey Tsunade to help me?"

"You're family… a really fucked up part of the family, but family nonetheless." Dairuko said.

"You really are an idiot… both of you."

"And you're a bastard, but a bastard who can lead us to Orochimaru and make killing him a lot less of a hassle." Natsuki said.

"So you're using me?"

"No, we're helping you so you'll help us in return."

"You are such an impressive woman, Danearys Natsuki." Ren said when Itachi appeared next to the three shinobi.

"I'm going with you." He said in such a way that left no room for argument. They left Konoha in silence.