A/N: Day twenty-three. Holy shit, guys. I accidentally reuploaded my other story and I am so sorry.
It must be strange to see a parliament of owls soaring through the sky, but she doesn't have the time to waste her chakra on placing a genjutsu over them all. She knows it wouldn't impact her all that much, but she still likes to conserve her chakra because there's no telling when she's going to need it the most.
They should be arriving at Sunagakure in a few minutes, since her summons are quite the swift flyers.
The Fourth Kazekage had been thrown off his throne back when she was thirteen or so, but they've yet to really decide on whom they want to officially take the position. It honestly sounds unorganised, but she knows that the woman known as Chiyo has been temporarily put in charge. They probably want someone younger, despite how skilled Chiyo is. Someone less likely to die of old age.
"There." she states, her eyes following as a gigantic hand made of sand swings at the bird made from clay. She raises a hand as the one whom she recalls to be Deidara dodges and retaliates with explosive clay animals. Eagles made from Sai's Chouju Giga soar past her and towards their designated enemy to intercept the missing nin.
Gaara looks over to her, his eyes widening in mild surprise as she draws closer and reaches out a hand. He catches her hand in time and he swings onto the back of Mamoru with her. His sand follows like a trail.
They circle around as her brothers engage Deidara in a battle of flight, with the others standing by whilst Karin searches for the other one of the pair. Sakura hears Deidara cursing and flinging explosives everywhere, with Naruto and Sasuke making sure that none of them fall to the village below. They'll have to change the setting so the attention isn't split.
She didn't want Naruto here, not when it would seem that the Akatsuki's goal is to gather the jinchuuriki. But it would seem that Naruto's somehow got Tsunade under his thumb as well, the bastard.
"Murasaki!" the bespectacled redhead calls her, prompting Mamoru to move closer. "He's by Sunagakure's gate, but there's something off about his chakra!"
She frowns, glancing over to her brothers. She'll leave them to defeat Deidara, as they're the most suited for fluid aerial combat. She'd like to keep Naruto and Sasuke together since their cooperative combat is spectacular. She has to keep in mind that a somewhat fatigued Gaara is behind her as well.
Mamoru flies over to Naruto and Sasuke whom are currently hovering above the battle, her brothers slowly making headway into leading the missing nin away from the village. The blonde meets her eyes as she approaches. "You and Sasuke will stay to support Ao-Iro and Ki-Iro. Meet up with us when you're done." she relays to him, and he nods before glancing over to Sasuke. The Uchiha give a slight nod in response.
They set off, and she returns to Datsuji and Karin. "You two, follow me." she commands, then glances behind her the back of her neck tingles. Gaara's staring, as well as bleeding from his forehead.
"You alright?" she queries, reaching back to press her glowing fingers to his temple. It's just a cut that's looks worse than it is, she quickly notes.
Gaara stares at her, before eventually nodding. "Yes." he appears to be scrutinising her, which makes her realise that he's never seen her in ANBU gear before. Her mask conceals her face and modulates her voice, with her wig a completely different shade from bubblegum.
He looks to the higanbana atop her head, then blinks in realisation. She's surprised to see an actual smile form on his lips, rather than the weird twitching that she remembers.
"It's good to see you again, friend." he murmurs, even as the world shakes a little with the larger explosion behind them.
She nods, then turns back ahead as she leads them to Sasori. "Yeah, it's nice to see you too."
After healing the wounds of her comrades, she steps back to assess them all. They're all exhausted, but she thinks that it's been a pretty good night so far. Despite her doubts about Tsunade's leading capability, she has to admit that toad Sannin's been doing a good job on improving the speed of communication between allied villages in cases of emergency.
If they hadn't been deployed as soon as they did, it's likely that Gaara would have been taken by the take they arrived. She knows that they've already taken at least three of the bijuu so far.
"That Deirdara was a fucking pain!" Naruto exclaims in annoyance as he flops back onto his bed, groaning both in irritation and pain. "The hell was with all the damn explosives and the clay? And those freaky mouths on his hands."
Sakura grins, taking a seat. She and her brothers have to keep their masks on, as they're still on duty. "I wonder if he had another purpose for them." she comments, then laughs when Naruto shoots her a knowing glance. Sasuke's gone off to get them all food, so he's not around to make some interesting and probably perturbing comments.
"Do you think he cleaned them? Like brushed them to get rid of all the clay that got stuck in there?" he replies in question, sitting back up. He then frowns in thought. "Do you think he had them on his feet? Because he had that giant one on his chest. You know, the one that he was going to use to blow everything up."
Luckily, Sai had gotten the killing blow before that happened at the cost of a few burns from small explosives. It's both alarming and exciting to know that just one of the Akatsuki could take on her brothers and the other duo for as long as he did. She supposes it's probably because it was aerial combat and neither Sasuke nor Naruto have much experience in that. That, and the fact that the Akatsuki are really as strong as Itachi had implied.
Her brothers are resting at the moment, since they've acquired quite a few wounds here and there. Neji's a little worse off, since he doesn't really have much in the way of ranged techniques. Taijutsu's always been his speciality.
"How did you guys defeat that puppet dude?" Naruto asks her, and she glances to the side even though he can't see her expression. He's said before that it weirds him out a little, but she supposes that's the purpose of the eerie lynx designs. It would probably be more disturbing of they were cute and endearing, with blood splatters staining its surface. She can imagine Shion having a mask like that.
She tilts her head, glancing over to an unconscious Karin and Datsuji. Datsuji had been poisoned by Sasori's own unique poison, which brought a lot of stress to Karin and that just turned into a little bit of chaos. She put him in a storage scroll that's been fully modified to hold living tissue, since she didn't have the time to heal him and he'd probably be dead by the time they're done.
He should be fine now, but she'll have to monitor his status. Unless one of the Suna medic nins do it, but they're going to return to Konoha pretty soon.
It brings a smile to her face, when she remembers her theory that Karin and Datsuji would develop something over the years.
"Popped out the core from his main body." she replies, recalling the event and chuckling when she remembers how hysterical she felt at that moment. It was probably the sound it made, and the adrenaline. Maybe the insane sort of shock that had appeared on his face as well. "I plan on getting a weaker, less versatile puppet for him to inhabit. I want to study him and see his unique perception of the world. If I figure it out, I might be able to get inside that core of his since that appears to be his entire existence at the moment. It'd be useful for interrogating."
The blonde nods in understanding, leaning forward again. "Hey, Sakura." he murmurs, looking up and meeting her eyes… or at least the eyes of her mask. "You said you had something to tell me, before I left."
She blinks, realising now that she's forgotten about it for the most part. "I'll tell you when we go back." she replies. Since putting up seals here would be suspicious.
"Maybe we can go into his mind, yeah?" Shion suggests with a scratchy yawn. "It's not all that different from jumping into others' minds, it's just that you'll be meeting his own resident."
Sakura thinks she might as well try it, if he allows her. "Or, if you want… I can tell you in your mind."
Naruto's eyes widen as he takes a few moments to process this. Then, his eyes narrow in assertion and he gives her a decisive nod. She stands, walking over to him and preparing to dive into his mind. It's not often that she delves into the mind of a jinchuuriki after all.
The thought of going into Gaara's mind isn't all that pleasant to think about, she believes.
There's water under her feet and a giant fox behind bars, with Naruto standing in front of it. His eyes go from her, then to the figure that has also appeared with her. She turns, then blinks when she finds the cracked form of Shion crouching down and yawning.
The fox shifts, pressing against the bars and its eyes narrowing at Shion's unique form. "Shion?" it booms in snarling question, appearing to be both surprised, suspicious and perhaps a smidgen of something positive. She's not sure though.
Naruto appears to be imitating a statue, staring at Shion both in wonder and a large amount of confusion. His fingers twitch, and she realises that she doesn't actually have to say that much now that it's already out in the open. Mostly, anyway.
Shion groans, then scowls as she attempts to stand. Her movements are stiff and rigid, unsurprisingly as she looks and sounds like she's made of porcelain and glass. "Fuck me, lord Jesus! I don't need this old man shit, yeah!" Shion exclaims, abruptly forcing a quick movement to crack her back.
Shards splinter off, but remain afloat rather than falling to the water.
"Sh ̶ … Shion-nee?" the blonde stutters, taking a tentative step forward. He looks like he's about to cry, but he also likes like he's afraid. Of Shion and her general unsettling existence, or because he's not sure if it's really her or not. Sakura's not entirely sure.
Said blonde's aunt tilts her head as she turns towards her nephew. Shion blinks, even though the eye sockets are still empty. Then she grins. "Hey, sun lolly! Hi to you too, you giant orange blob. Been a while, you know, since I died. Then Kushina died, and you got transferred over to Naruto, you know?" her movements are steadily becoming more fluid, even as the sound of grinding glass doesn't cease and shards continue to splinter off.
"How are you here?" asks the giant orange blob, pushing against the bars again although to no avail.
Shion juts a thumb to Sakura in answer. "Some shit happened, not sure what. I somehow got myself tied to this sugar plum when she was born, yeah." she grins up at the fox, whose paw pushes between the bars. "I bet you were bored without me, yeah?"
Naruto comes back to his senses, whirling around at his own mental resident then back again to Shion. "So it's actually you?" he tries again, meeting Sakura's eyes for a moment before returning his gaze back to Shion. "I mean, Kurama said that you were a deranged genius and you'd probably come back to life… but I didn't actually think it'd… Holy shit, this all makes sense if you've been in Sakura's head this whole time!"
He holds his head, like his mind's about to explode. It's probably a little much, considering that his former teammate has been housing his aunt and the said aunt knows the giant fox the Naruto houses himself. Yeah…
That's pretty absurd.
Shion frowns down at her nails, although there's only three and all of them are cracked. "Just go with the flow, babe. Man, it'd be a fucking riot if Kushina was here. You'd be bawling, sun lolly. Fucking bawling, yeah!" she cackles, but what really shakes their surroundings is when Kurama too, laughs.
Sakura meets Naruto's eyes, and she shrugs because she's not sure herself. As Shion said, just go with the flow and everything will be easier to deal with. "Does that mean that you, Kushina and Kurama were all friends?" she queries, alternating her gaze from Kurama to Shion.
Naruto's still trying to process it all. "I thought you hated humans?" he comments, looking to Kurama who abruptly stops laughing.
The fox then grins, leaning down so that his head is closer to where all the tiny people are. "For the most part, yes. But if you look at Shion here, she's not human at all." they glance to Shion, who yawns again then sluggishly blinks. Her hair billows around her in a rather ethereal and sinister manner. "Deplorable, terrible, manipulative, cruel and selfish is what your aunt is. Inhuman and despicable, but fun. Definitely fun."
Shion grins. "Look at you, flattering me, you piece of shit. You just adore me because of how I mindfucked Kushina that one time and let you take control of her body." she replies, which is actually rather alarming, because what and how?
"Hold up, you did what to kaa-chan for this bastard?" Naruto whirls around, feeling as confused and lost as she does. "When, how and most importantly, why?"
His aunt gives him a dismissive wave. "It's nothing, man. Only lasted for an hour and he couldn't do much anyway, since it was an experiment. Good fun though, Kushina enjoyed sploshing around in the water here." she grins, before it quickly falls and the particular emptiness of her existence returns for a moment.
Kurama growls, apparently understanding. "You know who it was." he… accuses? Sakura's not sure what he's referring to, but Shion seems to.
"They'll get fucked up, my darling blob. We just have to wait a little longer." and the two inhuman friends cackle together once more.
Sakura had been expecting… well, it certainly wasn't this and she doesn't think that Naruto disagrees in that regard.
Naruto holds his hand in his hands, looking somewhat traumatised. She hopes that he'll snap out of it soon, since they've got to return back to Konoha in a few hours. Or… well, he could just sit atop one of her owls.
"My mind is blown…" he whispers, in both awe and horror. She can't help but pity him, so she pats his head and enjoys the fluffiness. "So blown. This bastard fox in my stomach is friends with my dead aunt, who's actually in your head and she's straight up fucked both in mind and body."
"That about summarises it." she agrees, removing her hand once he lifts his head to look at her. "You shouldn't worry about it too much."
He frowns at her then. "Why didn't you tell me sooner?" he inquires, almost demands. He sounds accusing, hurt even and that somewhat irritates her. Her gaze cools as she stares down at him.
"Because then you'd see only Shion and forget that I'm here. You were already fixated on how I looked like her, what would happen if you knew that she was actually here? You'd want me to let her take control, or at least relay messages from her to you. You wouldn't be talking to me, because I'd only be the messenger and like I'd ever want that."
The blonde flinches, before lowering his head once more. "Yeah… you're right. It's just so… out there, you know?" he chuckles, albeit with less amusement. She understands.
Sakura sits by him on the bed. "You know now, at least." she sighs, then turns her head when Gaara enters the room. The others are scattered around somewhere, but she's not too worried at the moment since they'll be coming back soon enough anyway. Datsuji is probably getting checked on and Karin's with him. Not sure about her brothers and Sasuke.
"The council believe that it's best if I accompany you back to Konohagakure." he tells her, his eyes shifting to Naruto. The blonde turns, meeting his gaze. There's a gleam in Gaara's eyes, and she knows that that means he likes Naruto's eyes. Not surprising, Naruto's eyes are pretty dazzling. "Though we've improved in our military and medical stature over the years… they don't think it's efficient to keep me here, as I'm one of their first forms of defence but I'm also the one these people seem to be hunting."
That's smart of them. Konohagakure is more qualified to protect him, but that would also mean that attacks from the Akatsuki have a higher chance of occurring within the village. Unless they need to recover from the loss of their two operatives. Sunagakure at least, would have less chance of being targeted again.
"You're like me then, huh?" Naruto murmurs, before laying back and heaving a heavy sigh. "I need to sleep on this. I can't deal with this shit right now."
Sakura laughs, because she's been dealing with it her entire life.
Chapter Word Count: 2,936
Total Word Count: 75,124
Targeted Word Count: 0
A/N: I really rushed through this chapter, because I lost a lot of sleep and time to breed pokemon. I thought wouldn't make it in time, but surprisingly I'm earlier than I have been of late. It's still not up to par, but eh.
Fun stuff though, is that I have like thirty Beldums now with a bunch of Cyndaquils, Popplios and Bagons now. I'm most proud of the Beldum thing though, since they have the same catch rate as a legendary and I haven't even finished the main story yet. I'll most likely just trade them off randomly.
But yeah, I have no idea how I'm going to end this story, but I know it's direction at least. So... yay for that.
Reviews are love. Reviews are life. It's never ogre.