It turns out that Obito and Kakashi can be relatively on time in some circumstances. And when I say relatively on time, I mean ten minutes late. "Sorry, guys," Obito says with a sheepish grin as Kakashi just curves his visible eye into an eye-smile.
Ryu-Sensei, who is the only Responsible Adult™, just sighs and hands out a seal to Hana, Itachi, and I. "Channel Chakra into these if you need help, it will send your coordinates to Kakashi's team," then louder, "Come on, we're leaving," he grumbles. We exit the village, then take to the towering trees that surround us. Kakashi and Obito's teams stay behind.
"Hana," Ryu-Sensei begins, "When we get to the area, you're going to need to start tracking Orochimaru's scent. But don't be too blatant about it. We don't want him realizing until it's too late."
Hana nods as the Haimaru brothers yip their affirmative. We take off. Green passes by as we jump from branch to branch.
Hours pass and the trees get sparser. We have to go to the ground. All three Haimaru brothers freeze and sniff the air. Hana stiffens. "It smells like death, decay, and snakes." She gags. "That's so gross!"
Ryu-Sensei tenses at the description and activates his Byakugan. Itachi sees this and activates his Sharingan. I channel chakra to my ears like the Lynxes have taught me and tilt my head, trying to pick up any unnatural sounds.
The grass rustles with the wind, except... it's completely still. I stiffen. "We're not alone," I whisper.
Ryu-Sensei looks concerned. "I don't see any chakra signatures," he mutters.
As if jinxing us, the ground erupts. We're knocked back as the debris floats up and begins forming a body the size of one of the smaller Hashirama Trees around the village. "What the hell?" Hana calls out.
Ryu-Sensei growls. "That's an animation fuinjutsu Orochimaru created before he left the village. If I remember correctly, he called it a Gollum."
The Gollum swings at us, and I jump up. I lose sight of my team as I land on the Gollum's arm. I run up to his shoulder, running through the handsigns for Lighting Release: Discharge. I release it straight into its head. The Gollum's head explodes and the thing collapses.
"Well," I say as I jump down, "that happened." I brush a bit of dirt off my jacket.
"Uh, Yoruka..." Itachi starts, looking over my shoulder.
I sigh. "It's reforming isn't it." At Itachi's nod I turn around. "Ryu-Sensei said that was fuinjutsu, so we should probably find and destroy the seal." I eye the hulking mass of dirt and stone. "The question is where is it?"
"The better question," Itachi draws, "Is where Hana and Sensei are."
I freeze, "Shit, this is a trap. Separate the bait, draw out the backup, and then draw out the backup's backup. We have to find Hana and Sensei now."
Itachi nods. "It was smart separating us like they did, neither of us are trackers so we'll have a harder time finding them."
"We'll see about that," I growl as I bite my thumb hard enough to draw blood. "Summoning Jutsu!" I call out.
Arashi poofs out of a cloud of smoke. "Can you lead us to Hana and Sensei?" I ask.
Yawning, Arashi replies, "Sure kid," and takes off toward the east. The Gollum tries to stop us, but Itachi throws a Lightning Jutsu he stole from Cee at it, destroying it once again. I send up a silent "thank you" to Cee.
Itachi and I follow Arashi for a while. "How far away did Hana and Sensei get lured, anyway?" I question irritably. Then I quickly dodge to the side as a tree goes flying past my head. "Hey, Itachi! I don't think our Gollum friend stayed dead for very long," I call.
"No shit, Yoruka!" He snaps back.
I see Hana and Ryu-Sensei on the horizon fighting, wait for it, another Gollum. "Thanks Arashi!" I call as I unsummon him.
"Sensei!" I call, "where's the seal? If we destroy that, we can't destroy the Gollums for good!"
Ryu-Sensei groans, "why didn't I think of that?" He grumbles. The veins on his face bulge as he activated his byakugan. He flew forward and punched through a Gollum's sternum. His fist came back with a seal in it that he tossed to Itachi. "Burn it," he commanded.
The first seal went up in flames as Ryu-Sensei did the same to the Gollum that followed us. Both Gollums grumbled to dust. Hana slings an arm over my shoulder. "Good thinking, Yoruka. I can definitely see why your uncle wants you to be Jonin Commander." She shoots me a wink.
"Hana..." I groan playfully and pushed her off my shoulder.
A slow clapping sound starts from behind them. I whirl around to see a pale androgynous person with black hair. "Magnificently done! Really, it's good to see that Konoha has competent Chunin," he mocks.
Ryu-Sensei scowls. "Orochimaru, how wonderful to see you." I begin to saturate the shadows around us with chakra, ready to strike when Ryu-Sensei gives the signal.
A raspy laugh comes from Orochimaru's throat, "You have me at a disadvantage as you obviously know me, but alas I have no idea who you are."
I wince. Ryu-Sensei is an A-rank Jonin and had a kill on sight order from both Iwa and Kumo during the third war. It's not like he's not in the Bingo Book. He's a big deal. Orochimaru is purposely trying to rile Sensei up. Fortunately, Ryu-Sensei doesn't take his bait.
"I think I'd like to keep my advantage, if you don't mind," Ryu-Sensei replied coolly as he locks eyes with me. I run through the handsigns for the Shadow Sewing Jutsu one-handed while Ryu-Sensei keeps him distracted.
Shadows erupt from the surroundings and pin Orochimaru in place. A surge of Chakra overpowers my jutsu and Orochimaru is free. He makes to go after Itachi but tree branches wrap around his body. He cuts away the branches and Gai and Shisui are there, ready to match him in taijutsu.
"Team Ryu, get out of here," Kakashi says as he steps out of his Kamui. Ryu-Sensei nods and then we run back toward Konoha. We get to where the Gollums ambushed us originally, before I hear the sound of pursuit.
I hear a sound that sounds like a whip cracking, and it's moving in the direction of Itachi, Fuck! I leap, tackling him to the ground as, is that a fucking tongue?, flys over our heads. The tongue hits a tree, and the impact splinters wood. "I'm glad we didn't get hit by that," Itachi says shakily.
"Well, well, well," Orochimaru says as he stalks into the clearing. "Who would have thought that the little shadow girl has a couple tricks up her sleeves."
Itachi and I get to our feet. "You know," I draw, "mocking a 14 year old really brings down your whole imitation factor."
A spike in Itachi's chakra makes me turn to look at him in surprise. His Sharingan spin into an entirely new design. Fuck, when did Itachi get his Mangekyo? Wait, the spike of chakra when I got stabbed by Zetsu is definitely reminiscent of the spike now. Black fire erupts erupts from around Orochimaru. He dodges it, but only barely. Ryu-Sensei moves to engage.
"Yoruka, Hana," Itachi whispers, "get him to look into my eyes. I can put him into an unbreakable genjutsu." We nod in unison as we hear the shrieking of what sounds like birds.
Kakashi bursts out of a tree, Mangekyo Sharingan blazing, with the Chidori sparking in his hand. The spear of lighting goes through Orochimaru's chest, but before we can celebrate the body disintegrates into snakes. "Fuck, a snake clone," Kakashi swears.
The same whip sound from before is behind me. I summon a shadow blade and step behind Itachi. I sliced through the tip of the tongue, and Orochimaru looked annoyed. Itachi whirls around behind me.
"You know what," Orochimaru snarled, "I'm tired of you interfering." Then he's in front of me, and shit he's fast. A sword is in my hand and it's all I can do to bring my own up in time to block. His blade slices clean through my own, and I freeze as it disperses. Orochimaru goes for the killing blow, but stumbles. I look to see Hana with her palms on the ground, she smirks at me.
I swish of wind flys past my ear and Shisui punches Orochimaru in the face. Yamato's mokuton binds him, and then Gai is there punching and kicking so fast that he's basically a green blur. Orochimaru explodes into a million tiny snakes. Hana shakes me out of my daze. "Yoruka, we need to go! He's obviously targeting Itachi."
I nod. "Right..." I mutter. Something is off about this whole situation.
As my team retreats, I hear the sound of Obito's voice. Kakashi must have called for backup.
My team waits anxiously in the Hokage's Office. He's letting us stay because in his words, "You were on that mission too. You deserve to know the outcome!"
Minato is happily doing paperwork, also what? who actually likes paperwork?, when a heavily pregnant red haired woman barges into his office dragging Naruto by his ear. Naruto looks... singed. Minato jumps up excitedly. "Kushina!" Well, I guess that answers the question of what happened to her, then.
"Owww, Mom!" The blond boy complains. She shoots him a glare, and Naruto automatically shuts his mouth.
"Your son," Kushina bites out, "decided it would be a great idea to experiment with explosive seals in the house." Minato pales.
"I'm assuming we no longer have a house?" His voice comes out sounding choked.
Kushina's frown deepens. "You'd be correct, and I'm too pregnant to deal with this."
Minato laid his head down on his desk with a groan.
The other teams get back just as the sun is sinking past the horizon. They don't have Orochimaru, and Kakashi is not with them.
Obito gives the report. "Orochimaru retreated when my team showed up, we pursued until he lost us. Kakashi passed out due to Chakra exhaustion, everyone else only suffered from minor wounds due to the sheer amount of people Orochimaru was fighting."
Shisui raises a hand. "Well, Orochimaru did try to steal my eyes, but that didn't happen." He gestures to his still in place eyes. "Obviously."
Minato rubs this bridge of his nose. "Why does Kakashi always do this," he groans under his breath.