Chapter 4: Journey to the Leaf
It was 1 a.m. midnight. In the desert of the Land of Wind, nearing the borders of the land of Fire. Kakashi and Guy were leading the Konoha 12 escaping from the pursuit of the Hidden Sand Ninjas. They are running at full speed towards the Land of Fire...
*Flashback to the meeting on the Kazekage office rooftop
"Infiltrate Konoha? So you want us to spy on our own home?", says Ten Ten. "Your village are now potentially at the enemy's hands, your friends and loved ones inside that place are potentially in grave danger, not only them, but the entire world is at stake", says Gaara. "For the sake of the world, I implore you to accept this mission", Gaara asked sincerely. "Assuming that we are on board to this mission, how do we get back into the Hidden Leaf in the first place? After being away for such a long time, a government as secretive as the current Hidden Leaf would not allow us to get close", says Neji.
"I supposed you all knew that the Hidden Leaf had recently spread the word that they welcome all of the exiled Leaf shinobi under Danzo's reign to return to Konoha. The only problem is that you were all some of the most important ninjas in the Hidden Leaf prior to Danzo's usurpation, and you all have unofficially served as Hidden Sand Ninjas for the past two years, to suddenly go back to Konoha would inevitably raise some suspicions. That's why you all will cut ties with the Hidden Sand once your mission begins. I will have my men to pretend to hunt you all down and chase you back to Konoha. Creating a smoke and mirror that you are siding against us. The reason of why the Hidden Sand turning against you all would be the Kazekage is too paranoid due the series of events occurring between the Hidden Leaf and the four Great Shinobi Villages, you Hidden Leaf shinobi are simply too untrustworthy. Then you will successfully escape us and return to Konoha. One other thing, Lady Tsunade will be staying secretly in the Hidden Sand, you will need to spread the word that she's been imprisoned by us, in fact she act as a bridge between you, the infiltrators and us, the outside world. She will be the overall leader of this operation", says Gaara.
"This mission is a 15 men op, Yamato will be joining us later. This operation will have me, Guy and Yamato as co-captains. We will split into two teams, one called the Inner, the other will be called the Outer. The Inner will be mainly doing the infiltration job, retrieving intel, spying and investigation. The Outer will mainly be serving as the muscle, you will be ready at all times to assist the Inner should they require your service. Most importantly, when things go south, Outer you're our way out, you will serves as our main combatants against potentially the entire Leaf. I have arranged each individual into their specific teams.
Inner members: Sai, Ino, Sakura, Hinata, Tenten, Neji, Shino, and Shikamaru.
Outer members: Naruto, Lee, Choji, Neji, and Kiba", says Kakashi.
"Wait, why is Neji both in the Inner and the Outer?", Naruto asked. "Neji has a calm and collected mind, he has qualities suitable to be a spy, at the same time, I think his mastery over the Gentle Fist needs no introduction, and he's Hinata's guardian, so he's suitable to be an Outer as well.", says Kakashi.
"I will be the team leader of Inner, Guy will be team leader of Outer, Yamato will switch between Inner and Outer from time to time. Any more questions?, says Kakashi. The group stays silent. "Good, then the Konoha infiltration unit is officially formed", says Kakashi.
"I received intel that the chief treasurer of the Hidden Leaf will appear on a town near the border of the Land of Fire a few days later to have a meeting with the Land of Fire's national bank's chairman. Maybe you can get back to Konoha through him, but the details, like his name or face, that's up to you to find out, we have no intel in that regard", says Gaara.
*Flashback ends
Kakashi, Guy and Yamato, as well as the Konoha 12, finally made it through the borders of the Land of Fire. The Hidden Sand followed through, but they pretended to lose the Konoha ninjas, and stay hidden until the infiltrators identified the treasurer. The 15 Konoha ninjas then entered into a small village. They decided to look for a shelter to stay the night. But it's midnight, the villagers have all gone to sleep. "Looks like we aren't gonna get a shelter in this village any time soon, I'll just make a house for us tonight", says Yamato as he prepares to make a shelter using his wood style jutsu. Suddenly, a door opens, out came a man in his late 20's, he has long black hair, and wears a glass, wearing a blue kimono inside and a black haori on the outside, he carries a lantern. "What are you folks doing out here in the midnight?", says the man in a manner that he just woke up from sleep. "Sorry to bother you, but we are looking for a shelter to stay the night", says Guy. The man looks at the Konoha ninjas, then he looks around the village. "Alright, come on in, you guys will stay the night in here", the man says lazily. After the Konoha ninjas followed the man inside, they saw another man barely woke up from his bed. "Tetsuo...who are these people?", the other man asked. "These people needed shelter, so I gave them one", the man in glasses said.
The Konoha ninjas all found their own spot in the house and rests. The two resident of the house has woken up and couldn't get back to sleep so they got into a conversation with our Konoha shinobis. "So tell me, what is a group of Konoha ninjas doing in a small village in the middle of the night? I saw those headbands you're wearing", the man on glasses asked. "We were just escaping the pursuit of Hidden Sand Ninjas. We had a heated battle in the Hidden Sand. Sunagakure wanted to arrest us due to the paranoia caused by the strained relationship between the Hidden Leaf and the Four Great Nations. They imprisoned our Fifth Hokage, we barely got out", says Kakashi. "I see...", the man with glasses said. "What's your name?", the man without glasses asked. "I am Hatake Kakashi, this is Might Guy, Yamato, Sai, Yamanaka Ino, Haruno Sakura, Uzumaki Naruto, Nara Shikamaru, Akimichi Choji, Rock Lee, Ten Ten, Hyuga Neji, Hyuga Hinata, Aburame Shino, and Inuzuka Kiba. We are all shinobi of the Hidden Leaf", Kakashi introduces himself and his teammates. "I know you, you are Hatake Kakashi of the Sharingan, everybody knows who you are. And you are Uzumaki Naruto, the hero that defeated Pain during his invasion of the Hidden Leaf", says e man without glasses.
"Takahashi Kaito(高橋奏海), chairman of the national bank of the Land of Fire", says the man without glass. The group instantly turn their attention to the man with glasses. He must be the one they've been looking for. "Kimura Tetsuo(木村鐵雄), businessman, as well as...treasurer of the Hidden Leaf", says the man with glasses. "Ah! You're from the Hidden Leaf! Oh, how lucky we are!", Sakura pretended to be happy and surprised. "Well you're in luck indeed, like you guys, we're just guests for the night, I'm heading back to the Hidden Leaf tomorrow, you guys can come with me. Everything's changed in the Land of Fire these days, you can't go to the Hidden Leaf like you used to. I can be your guide", says Tetsuo. "We appreciate your help, but we must be careful of the pursuers from the Hidden Sand, they could still be out there", says Kakashi. "Oh don't you worry about a thing, and don't mind watching out for old Tetsuo here when on the road, he can handle himself. The guy used to be a samurai from the Land of Iron, he can kick some serious ass, hahaha!", says Kaito. "Well, that was a long time ago...", says Tetsuo. "A samurai huh?", Kakashi thought to himself.
"Alright that's enough talk for one night, it's getting late, go to sleep, we will move at dawn", says Tetsuo.
*The next day...
Everybody has woken up and ready to go. "Where's your friend?", Kakashi asked. "Kaito have gone his separate ways and back into the capital city, he's going to have an appointment with our Daimyo, Lord Ashina, in this noon. I guess we best be on our own way then", says Tetsuo. Just when they are preparing to leave, the Hidden Sand Ninjas suddenly appears, they planned to fight the Konoha ninjas in front of Tetsuo in order to make the act more convincing, after a short battle, they will fake their defeat and retreat back to the Hidden Sand. "Damn the Hidden Sand Ninjas still hasn't give up!", Yamato pretended to be frustrated. "Team, ready for battle!", says Kakashi.
"Wait", says Tetsuo as he puts his hand on Kakashi's shoulder. "Allow me...", says Tetsuo as he slowly pulls out a katana from his luggage. As he unsheathed the sword, he moves with a blinding speed faster than the eye can follow. Wherever his blade lands, the sand ninjas that directly felt his blade were chopped into minced meat in a split second, others that were out of the blade's range were decapitated by an invisible energy in the form of swords, although this energy cannot be seen, everyone can feel its lethal edge. The entire Hidden Sand Ninjas, 20 men in total, all were killed under 5 seconds.
The Konoha ninjas were shocked by what they just saw. They never thought this gentle man with a laid back attitude is such dangerous individual. "Didn't practiced for half a year, looks like I still got it", says Tetsuo. As Tetsuo is wiping off the blood on his blade, Kakashi felt that Tetsuo is emitting an aura of a cold blooded killer, it sends chills down to his spine. The villagers saw the bodies, then they saw Tetsuo, it seems that they shown no signs of fear. Tetsuo walked towards them, he handed a handful of money to the head of the village. "Sorry to bother you", says Tetsuo. "Not a problem, my lord, we will clean this mess up, you can go as you please!", says the head of the village in a polite and respectful manner. Tetsuo nodded. "Alright, let's go", says Tetsuo.
As the Konoha ninjas were following Tetsuo. "So...the current chief treasurer of the Hidden Leaf is a former samurai from the Land of Iron huh? What a deadly swordsman, his skills might be even greater than General Mifune. What he did just now, that's something hard to achieve even for a ninja. If a mere treasurer of the current Hidden Leaf is this dangerous, I can't imagine how many of these men that's even deadlier are inside the Hidden Leaf right now", Kakashi thought to himself.
A few moments later...
"So...where are we heading exactly? The Hidden Leaf is that way...", Naruto asked while pointing to the opposite direction of where they're walking. "A train station, located at Tonika Village, we're boarding a train to the Hidden Leaf. Since Lord Ieyasu rose to power, he's been collaborating with Lord Isshin to build a network of railroad systems throughout the Land of Fire. Now if you wanna go anywhere within the Land of Fire, just buy a ticket and board a train, it's that convenient. Not just good for travelling, but good for business too. Later on the train I'll show you what I meant", says Tetsuo.
After a 10 minutes walk, they arrived on the train station. The group boarded the train. Two minutes later, the train starts moving. As the group was on the way to Konoha. They saw that many villages and towns have undergone rapid development and grown bigger. Many new settlements were established.
"These must be new to you guys huh? The Land of Fire have gone through some serious development for the past two years, it has surpassed any country in history in its economic growth. Our people's lives kept getting better and better. You would think it's impossible to have this result in two years, but no, this is in fact, really happening. What makes all these possible are the railroad systems. Lord Ieyasu understands the importance of railroads, it made travelling and transportation convenient, perfect for transporting raw materials and human resources resources. This is why our economic growth gets such a huge boost. The Hokage is the number one supporter of this project. He too understand what benefits this project can bring to the Hidden Leaf", says Tetsuo. "It sounds to me that our Hokage's influence extends beyond the boundaries of the Hidden Leaf", says Kakashi. "Although Lord Isshin's title is that of a Hokage, but in my opinion, he's so much more. You know what makes him earn my respect? It's not his skills in ninjutsu, his fighting skills or his devotion to serve his people. It's his ability to "build", to build essentially an empire, to build from practically nothing to the most powerful city in the world. And not just building, but maintaining it, how he runs things. I'm a businessman, I love looking at numbers. My hobby is botany, and carpentry. I love the feeling of watching something grow from nothing, or witness an raw piece of wood/stone being carved into a piece of art. In this case, the Hidden Leaf, and in extent, the Land of Fire, is that raw piece of wood and Lord Isshin is the master carpenter. He is an excellent statesman. One of, if not, the smartest man I knew. His talent for statesmanship is far too great for tending only the Hidden Leaf. Just look around you, the changes that the Land of Fire has gone through, many of these actually had Lord Isshin's involvement, and wait till we arrived to the Hidden Leaf, and you'll see. Combining Lord Ieyasu's vision, political power and Lord Isshin's intellect, I cannot think of a better leadership for our country", says Tetsuo.
This is the first time the exiled Konoha ninjas heard someone inside the Hidden Leaf giving his opinion regarding Tokugawa Isshin. And by the looks of it, it seems that the new Hokage is a great leader. "At least one of them seem to be following the Hokage out of pure respect and admiration judging by the genuineness of his speech", Kakashi thought to himself.
As they continued to look outside the window of the train, admiring the positive changes of their own country. The train gets closer and closer to the Hidden Leaf as every second passed by...(to be continued...)