Interlude One
The forest is a quiet place.
It is a kind of expectant silence: the silence that lies in wait, hidden in a dark corner. The silence that others stumble upon.
A silence that denotes significance. A silence that's significance is always realized too late.
So while the brook babbles and birds chirp and the leaves of the trees whisper to each other in the wind, there is nevertheless a silence.
The silence, however, soon begins to retreat.
It starts with simple sounds. Grass, being crushed underfoot. The muted squeak of sandals gripping to moss. The slow, nearly silent pattern of breathing.
A boy, dressed in a loose fitting blue kimono, into which is tucked a strange flute-like instrument, steps onto the low bank around the brook.
He stands there for a moment, taking in the stream. A single bright brown eye scans across the trees, flitting from one to another. His long, shaggy hair hides the other. It is just as brown.
He looks rather bored.
One of his hands involuntarily twitches as he finally finds what he is looking for. A kunai, stuck fast in the bark of a tree, with four lines on its side.
"There it is," he mutters to himself. He reaches down, and pulls the instrument from his kimono. Bringing it up, he presses his lips to it and blows.
A bubble, ephemeral and quivering, emerges from the other end. It floats into the air, bobbing in front of the boy. He bends forward, his lips inches from it.
He whispers, his voice soft. "Hotaru. Come meet me."
The bubble floats up into the sky, away from the oppressive silence. The boy in the blue kimono watches it go for a second, an unsure look on his face, before looking back at the kunai.
He sighs, and leaps from his side of the brook to the other. Landing smoothly, he ambles forward. He reaches the tree, and grasps the kunai in one hand.
He yanks it free.
For a moment, the silence grows more oppressive than ever… and then it vanishes entirely.
At the same time, there is both a puff of smoke, a splash, and five men appear around the boy in the same moment. One forms from beads of mist caught in the grass. Another showers from the tree above. One strides out of the river, as if he'd been there all along. Yet another steps out of the tree, where the kunai had been planted, melting away from the wood.
The last is simply there, when he hadn't been before. The boy's visible eye widens slightly. The man has moved so fast that he barely noticed his arrival.
The three men who have formed of water are all wearing masks, along with the one who had stepped out of the tree. All of their masks are uniformly white, with four lines on the forehead, but each has a unique marking.
One has a green curve under each eye slit. Coloring cut another diagonally: half white, and half yellow. The third has particularly slanted eyes, and red, wave-like decoration along the bottom. The fourth is simple: merely two slashes of dark blue, moving from the temple past the eyes.
The last man, the one who has appeared without warning, wears no mask. He looks to be in his late thirties, and has a craggy face, dark eyes, and a neatly trimmed goatee. A straight scar runs across his left eye, from underneath his hitai-ate, nearly to his mouth.
He speaks, his voice hard, but not demanding. "Utakata," he says. The men in masks stand completely still, tensing.
The boy in the blue kimono, Utakata, nods. "Tsuguri," he says, and he somehow makes the sharp name rolling and blunt.
"Are you ready to come with us? Back to Kirigakure?"
"In a moment," Utakata says, his features once more set in a bored expression.
Tsuguri, the man without a mask, the leader of the group of hunter-nin, raises an eyebrow. His scar twists in a manner that Utakata finds mildly fascinating.
"A moment?" he asks.
Utakata nods. "I'm waiting for someone." His voice is flat, but there is a hint of something warm in it; appreciation, perhaps.
The scarred man is silent for a moment. He doesn't stare at the boy in the blue kimono, but he doesn't take his eyes off of him either.
"Someone?"
Utakata's mouth curves up into a small smile. "My apprentice," he says.
Tsuguri makes a thoughtful noise. "That girl?"
The boy pauses for a moment, before nodding. "Yes."
"I thought you didn't want to be her master," the other ninja prods.
"I changed my mind," Utakata drawls.
"Any particular reason?"
Utakata turns away from him, looking out into the forest, and also presenting his back. It is a trusting gesture.
"Yes." He does not elaborate, and Tsuguri does not press further.
They wait in silence for a moment, before the hunter-nin speaks once more. "You aren't as angry today."
Utakata turns back to him and gives a wry smile. "You noticed?"
"It would be hard not to."
The boy in the blue kimono shrugs. "My mind wasn't the only thing that changed since our last meeting."
"So I see," the man with the goatee says. He smiles warmly. "I really am glad, you know."
"For what?" Utakata asks, puzzled.
"That you have decided to return. Your presence in the village will do much to stabilize it. You don't realize the uncertainty losing our last Jinchūriki inflicted upon the people of Kiri. At first, we feared you had been taken."
"Taken?" Utakata asks again. The way Tsuguri had said it; he made it sound more like a curse than a statement.
"Jinchūriki have been vanishing, you know. The other villages try to hide it, but there aren't many left. Only Kumo's and Konoha's are still active," Tsuguri says.
"Hmm." Utakata makes a noise that somehow manages to scream non-commitment. A moment later, the other hunter-nin stiffen, and there is a shout.
"Master!"
A girl, the same age as Utakata, with flowing blonde hair and teal eyes, bursts out of the forest. There is a bubble floating in front of her. She has been following it.
"Hotaru," Utakata sighs. "Please don't call me that."
"Oh, sorry master. I forgot. Are we going now?" She pauses, taking in the masked men surrounding the boy in the kimono. "With them?"
Utakata kneads his head with his hands, but underneath it he is smiling. "Yes, Hotaru. We're headed for the Village Hidden in the Mist. I'll be training you there."
"Great!" Tsuguri silently wonders how this girl could be so enthusiastic about traveling with men who only a couple days earlier had held her hostage.
Utakata turns to him. It is an unspoken signal. Tsuguri nods in response, and the masked men take to the trees, vanishing in a moment. Tsuguri himself turns, and begins walking north.
Utakata looks back at Hotaru, smiles, and then follows the scarred man.
Hotaru grins, lighting up the whole forest even as twilight falls upon it, and runs after him.
Not chapter six, I know. Sorry about that if you were looking forward to it.
As you can see, Itachi's health has already changed far more than what is obvious. Utakata, the container of the Rokubi, was never captured by Pain (who was busy getting shown up by Hinata). This is just the first ripple.
More are to come.
Serendipity, out.
EDIT: I've decided to make this chapter "present tense", to further differentiate Interludes from normal chapters. So if you read it before: don't worry. You're not crazy.