Olá, meus queridos leitores!

Shout out to my beta reader, DoctorNiklaus, for being awesome.

Fair warning: this chapter contains graphic depictions of suffering and death.

Enjoy…

CHAPTER 7

Mikoto groaned, fidgeting in her place on the line.

"Can't we just sneak in?" she asked, not so quietly.

Yugao apologized to a Hot Water ninja passing by them, who had whipped a sharp look at them at the audaciously blatant question. "Kids." Yugao remarked, smiling.

Staring for some more seconds, the ninja strolled down the line, sweeping his eyes on those on the line vying for entry into the village. Mikoto and Sai stood side-by-side, with Yugao at their back.

Yugao palmed her face, shooting a glare down at the sheepish girl. "No, Mikoto, we can't just sneak in."

In a rare show of comradery, Sai joined his impatience with Mikoto's. "Why not, senpai?"

The three of them took a step forward.

"This is a legal retrieval," she lectured shortly, fingering the letter stamped with the Hokage's seal inside one of her Jounin vest pockets. "It's within our rights. Why sneak in and have to look over our shoulders when we can go in nice and easy?"

Sai was pacified, but Mikoto didn't look appeased. Yugao crossed her arms, looking up to the front of the line. "We're going in the normal way, Mikoto. That's that."

They took two steps forward.

Nearing the border security building, the rushing sounds of the city filtered outside. Concert goers hooted and carriages trudged noisily on the cobbled roads, being beckoned by eager vendors at the side of the road and yelling, in turn, for them to back away from their carriages.

Mikoto's eyes sparkled at the sights lying in wait on the other side of the wall, glittering tall buildings made of glass and metal, delicious food made by the continent's best chefs, and prime and properly dressed men and women strolled the streets.

Even she knew how strange that last part was; Konoha was a vast but practical village, it didn't have the kind of sights Sai had described to her.

When they reached the front of the line and entered the border security building, the interior was narrow and colored a bland shade of cream. The three of them removed their weapons and their luggage, dropping them into a plastic bin and strolling through a metal detector with their hands up. On reaching the end, Yugao collected her weapons from the bin and stepped ahead of the Genin to the desk at the end of the narrow room, which had a white painted door on its left side.

Flagging a wave over her shoulder for Sai to help his one-armed teammate reattach her weapons, Yugao presented the shinobi at the desk with the Hokage's formal letter.

"Retrieval, huh," the bored man finally asked, done analyzing the letter. "I hate retrievals."

"Just business," Yugao replied. Her opinions of retrieval missions were much the same; why drag someone back to the village alive when she could execute them and claim their bounty? She didn't speak about her sentiments, though, not wanting to validate this man's feelings, and was not in the mood to waste her breath.

"Who are you here to retrieve, Konoha ninja?"

"Classified."

"Alright…can you verify if your target has been in or still is in Zyouki?"

"I cannot."

"How long do you plan on staying?"

"Who knows?"

Losing patience, the Hot Water ninja wrote in a book. "I'll put you down for one week."

Yugao's shoulders lifted and dropped. "If you want."

Sniffing at her short answers, the man sat forward on his elbows. "Don't go causing trouble in there, Konoha ninja." He strayed a look around her, to the two Genin with her; one with her right arm in a sling, and the other wearing a sickly smile, eyes vacant of emotion. He looked back at Yugao. "Watch your Genin; you know the rules."

"No drawing weapons," Yugao repeated, tired of this back and forth. It wasn't her first time in Zyouki; she had her eighteenth birthday in Zyouki city, suppressing a shuddering memory of the reprehensible things she did that night. Mentally righting herself, she said. "No causing fights. Cooperate with Zyouki police. Am I missing something?"

"Brochure," the man gave Yugao. "Don't forget to have fun," he said in a tight voice, eyes twitching.

He nodded to the door on the left of the desk, and Yugao opened the door for the Genin to pass through, warning them when she closed the door after herself. "Watch your wallets."

Sai and Mikoto squinted suspiciously, turning from the Jounin and summarily balking when they were mobbed by a group of people the moment they exited the security building.

"You looking for a place to stay?!"

"Trinkets n' charms! Ah got yo trinkets n' charms!"

"Here's a massage coupon! Firs' one on the house!"

"Hey miss! My dad's got the best bakery in the whole city!"

"Casino Sundew! Best casino in Zyouki!"

Sai and Mikoto's eyes swirled, stammering and dizzy at the crowd of faceless solicitors that suddenly swarmed them. Yugao grabbed them by their collars and hefted them through, glaring the crowd back. The Hot Water ninja on the other side of the security building chortled at them, arms crossed and leaving them to their own devices.

The team shoved out of the perimeter of the building. Yugao didn't release the Genin until she was sure they were steady on their feet. She couldn't blame their confusion; the manner of missions they had previously gone on didn't involve getting ambushed by civilians.

Safely away from the people pushing their offers on them, they got a good look at the city.

It was as bright and noisy as the two Genin imagined; tall buildings reflected the rays of the sun, illuminated further by neon lights, lighting up names of casinos and hotels, smaller buildings dotted here and there, between and behind the skyscrapers, not so prominent and not so noticeable. While the roads were relatively clean, it was filthy in places with wrappers and cans overflowed with rubbish and alleys oozed odd smells. The alley the team gathered in front of certainly smelt weird; like sweat, saliva and squid.

There were casinos wherever they looked and hotels wherever they could fit.

The city was full,the largest congregation being before the hotels and casinos,where smartly dressed people strode inside and out, walking along the side of the road with clipped yet proud steps. On the road, dignified carriages rolled and humble carts hustled to their destinations, carrying on their wares.

Yugao passed Sai the brochure and the boy opened it, finding a map of the city inside one of the folds.

"Start looking for our target. I'll find us some accommodations," the Jounin proposed. Mikoto leaned in to look at the map. Yugao marked some spots with her finger, bringing their attention to the casinos. "Look into every one of the casinos. Lord Hokage also advised us to look into bars and lending houses. With luck, we can find her this week before our Visitors Pass expires." Before leaving, she checked back with them to confirm. "You know what our target looks like, right?"

Mikoto scoffed. "Of course. Blonde hair, brown eyes, and with a gem on her forehead."

"And our secondary target?"

Sai spoke up, not wanting to be outdone. "Black hair, black eyes, and carries a pig."

Yugao left them after that and the Genin left the rotting alley, just as two men exited the very same alley a few seconds later; one wore a shabby suit and differently sized black shoes, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and picking at his messy blonde hair, while the other was in a formal kimono, just about done arranging the front of his clothes and dismissively walking off.

Unable to stop herself, Mikoto asked Sai, who also noticed the strange interaction and stepped back with his fellow Genin as the kimono wearing man passed them into the casino. "What were they doing…?"

A strange elation lifted Sai's brow. "You don't know?"

Mikoto busily observed the suit wearing man, who rubbed his hands together and smoothed down his unruly yellow hair, leaving in the other direction of the other man.

The girl's temple was creased with confusion, and Sai gaped. "You seriously don't know?" Mikoto shrugged, wincing a little and gripping her right elbow. Sai chuckled, throwing an arm over Mikoto's shoulder and leading the confused girl to the first casino. "Sweet, innocent Washboard."

Even he wasn't so heartless as to destroy his teammates' innocence.

"I'll tell you when you're older."

Sai tapped his forehead protector and the doormen pointedly looked the other way at their approach, opening the doors for them, doing so as if this was scripted ahead of time; minors that were ninjas could be allowed into the casino if they proved that they were on an official mission, and apparently touching his forehead protector was more than enough for the doormen.

The first thing to hit the two was tinkering sounds of machines singing and the warbling crows of groups surrounding tables. The two looked up at the cloud of smoke hovering above them, inhaling thin tendrils of smoke that wafted about the entirety of the casino. The red carpeted floor was littered with cigarette buds and ash from accidently toppled ash trays.

Women in tight, short red dresses strutted the area, their movement neat and smooth in spite of the uncomfortable heels they wore, picking emptied bottles from gambling tables and deftly refilling glass cups with sake.

What disturbed Mikoto was that they had the same fake smile Sai wore.

Over to the left of the main area was a bar, stretched in a wide semicircle and manned by four bartenders, taking and dropping bottles of whiskey and rice wine from the racks at their back, filling tall glasses with drafts of beer from gleaming metal taps. Opposite of the main entrance of the casino was an elevator and a stairwell.

"Take left, I'll go right," Mikoto said, shrugging off Sai's arm from her shoulders.

"Who put you in charge?" Sai bit, smiling.

"I did. Now, get going. We don't have all day." Not waiting for a retort, Mikoto went to the right side of the wide casino.

Eyes closed, lips turned up and hands closed into fists, Sai grunted and turned left.

Elsewhere in Zyouki, Haku exited a casino and crossed it off his brochure map. He looked to the sun, confirming the time and squaring his shoulders to reignite his determination, he pushed through the glass revolving doors of another casino.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

The Wave Strait

The boat gently rocked on the calmed down waters, and the atmosphere on the vessel was that of shock.

Rin's eyebrows hadn't yet come down while Naruto's lips were screwed down in a thoughtful frown, crossing his arms and looking down on the corpse.

The captain of the boat had been nice enough to chase away the four eager fishermen that worked on his boat, curious to see what monster had been causing the hurricane, and to also get a better look at who they now called The Red Hurricane.

It was a unanimous moniker, apparently, but that was beside the point.

Kisame Hoshigaki, wielder of the most terrifying sword of the Seven Swords of the Mist, Samehada, and infamously renown as the Zero Tailed Beast…was dead.

Rin bent down on one knee, careful of the impatiently writhing shark sword growling at Kisame's head, clicking its purple scales up and down its body and grinding the rows and rows of teeth inside its mouth. Free from Naruto's water prison, the sword knew not to attack either of the two ninjas or else risk being trapped again in that prison.

In some primal level, Samehada understood that the person that captured him and the female accompanying him wanted to know what had happened, and maybe help somehow.

It seemed redundant, seeing Kisame's pale body laid out on the boat, unbreathing with his jaw lolled open, eyes almost rolled all the way into his head, and visibly unresponsive, but Rin wanted to confirm.

She touched her pointer and middle finger on the pulse of his wrist.

She focused, searching for even the smallest bump of blood rushing under the skin.

Naruto raised an eyebrow, and Rin looked up to him, a slight shake of her head.

Neither of them had any usable medical knowledge outside of first aid, but it was clear that Kisame's heart wasn't beating. She could feel, though, that his death was recent since the activity of his chakra was gradually losing energy; much like the brain and the heart, a person's chakra didn't stop functioning–not unless the person was dead.

Without needing to be prompted, Naruto knelt on Kisame's other side and used his pointer and middle finger to touch Kisame's chin, gently turning his head left and right, noting the stream of blood leaking from his ears, nose, and gills–as well as the sides of his mouth.

The clothes he was wearing, a black cloak with red cloud designs, average black shinobi pants and blue ninja sandals, were more or less intact, except for the slight cuts at his shoulders and arms, which could be chalked up to Samehada accidentally grinding his teeth on them. A quick look at the shape of the sword's bared teeth confirmed this guess.

Samehada snarled, flopping restlessly on the ship, biting and snapping, the clicking of its scales becoming harder.

Naruto raised an even look and a fractional frown. It was more of a warning stare if anything else.

Samehada hissed, retreating a little, shuddering expletives to itself.

"Hm," Naruto grunted, looking back to the corpse.

The cold wind blew, not strong enough to raise another storm but was enough to ruffle their waterproof caps and rain ponchos.

Communicating a wordless message to his sister, the two ran their hands down Kisame's arms and torso, checking for fractures and dislocations. Not so much as a scratch was found.

"Let me try something," Rin mumbled.

Naruto nodded. Knowing Samehada wouldn't be too pleased with what she wanted to do, he sent Samehada another hard look for it to calm down.

She placed her right hand on Kisame's chest and over his heart, spreading her fingers and joining her right hand with her left, setting the hand over the right and gingerly sitting up on her knees.

She pushed down on his chest and thin blood coughed out of Kisame's mouth, dribbling down his cheek as the corpse's head slumped to the left, blankly looking at everything and nothing.

"Internal wounds." Rin said, pursing her lips. "Poison."

Samehada's purple scales trembled loudly.

Kisame was weakened by poison and died from his internal wounds.

"Check this out," Naruto said, holding up Kisame's right hand and showing his sister the ring fixed to his index finger. "It might have something to do with why Kisame's been more active lately."

Rin nodded, squinting at the ring. "I heard some people saw him kidnap the Six Tails Jinchuriki last week." She turned to Samehada. "When did this happen? Who did this?"

The sword bared its teeth, opening and closing its maw to display some of the deadly rows lining inside, growling gutturally and rapidly clicking its scales.

"Says it happened an hour ago in…Ame?" she asked Samehade, and the sword hummed. "Ame. Kisame became sick all of a sudden and blood was pouring out of everywhere," she roughly translated, pointing to the tapered streams of blood from Kisame's ears, nose, mouth and gills.

Samehada grated, thrashing a little to the right and banging its handle against the side of the boat.

"He doesn't know what did this, but he's sure the person had Water and Wind affinity chakra. And lots of it." Samehada grumbled, squealing. Rin gestured with her arms far apart, wide enough to appease the restless sword. "About this much. Around Uzumaki Jounin reserves."

As unusual as it was, Naruto put aside how Samehada could differentiate Uzumaki Jounin chakra reserves from others. Kisame wasn't Samehada's first wielder and it was entirely possible the former holders of the sword had battled Uzumaki before. That wasn't the issue, though.

Naruto faced his sister with an incredulous look. "You understand what it's saying?"

"Sort of," she shrugged, dropping her hands and rising to her feet with her brother. "It's like…using a broken two-way radio. Too much static to make much sense, so I take personal liberties and fill in the gaps myself."

"I–" Naruto stammered, blinking rapidly. "That…doesn't explain how you understand the sword."

"As for how?" Rin shrugged again, holding up her hands in acceptance. "Bro, I have no idea."

Shaking his head, Naruto put his palms together and moved them to his right side. "Alright. Putting that aside." His twin copied the motion, moving her own hands to her left. "Ask how it was able to get from Ame to the sea."

A justified question since Hidden Rain was landlocked and hundreds of miles due west of their current location on the Wave Strait.

At the question, Samehada jolted, shifting as if it was recalling something.

Its scales quivered harder and faster, gnashing its teeth and twisting left, pointing in the vague direction of Hidden Rain.

"He says that the person that attacked threw him away." Even Rin gave Samehada a largely skeptical look, as well as Naruto.

One single person threw Samehada away?

Samehada squealed, jumping indignantly and snapping, and Rin's jaw dropped.

Naruto turned to her. "What is it? What did it say?"

"He says the person…the Water/Wind affinity guy…is a Jinchuriki," Rin continued, speaking to her brother without breaking eye contact. "Before he died, Kisame called the person…Yagura."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Meanwhile in Ame

"Monster among Monsters" Black Zetsu croaked weakly, his mouthless black face trembling with fear at the monster bearing down on him. He held out his hand for Yagura to stay back, to stay away from him as he was backed into a corner of the Akatsuki's meeting hall. "No…not you…"

Yagura easily propped up his heavy hook staff on his left shoulder, the bottom end dripping with Kakuzu's blood and brain matter, as well as the blood and innards of the other Akatsuki members that tried, and failed, to resist the lethal nerve agent.

The black creature could not die from the man-made poisons, fatal as it was to even Kisame Hoshigaki, but Black Zetsu was weaker than he had ever been in his entire existence.

And very much vulnerable.

So weak and so vulnerable that he was unable to liquify himself and melt into the earth in order to escape.

White Zetsu was dead, withering away in the mud outside the building as he tried to flee Ame with a sliver of Black Zetsu's chakra, a failed attempt Black Zetsu orchestrated to allow his mother's plan to live on.

The dark shadow of Yagura loomed over Black Zetsu, his clothes relatively clean but his brown shinobi boots squelched, dirtying the formerly neat meeting hall with blood, approaching Black Zetsu with hauntingly emotionless eyes. His boyish face–marred by the stitched scar running from his left eye to his chin–and childish frame did nothing to diminish the image he projected.

Monster among Monsters.

Pupilless pink eyes twinkled with curiosity; pondering the swirl-masked man that escaped in the vortex and the–now second–'person' who was not deathly affected by his lethal nerve agent.

The first person's Heart was splintered under his boot and their puppet body was strewn across the floor.

Yagura hummed, lowering down into a squat to get a good look at the black creature feebly pushing into the wall, unable to escape. All the while, the Mizukage managed the weight of his uneven hook staff on his shoulder with expert effortlessness.

"Hmm. Curious. Truly…curious." He set his chin between his left thumb and pointer finger, mumbling audibly in a deep yet trailing tone. "Now, what…are…you…?"

Yagura sealed Black Zetsu into his staff and took him to Kiri.

Chojuro followed the Mizukage, lugging on his back a large container bound in sealing chains and tough ropes. The container breathed, calm and peaceful, puffing out and inhaling every so often as if the creature inside was asleep.

Inside of the container was the Six Tailed Beast.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Hokage's Office

Konoha

Pa chewed on his pipe, squinting his eyes on the paper and feeling the texture in his hands.

Minato watched, anxious. "Well? Is it Jiraiya?"

The toad elder shook his head. "Certainly not." He tossed the paper to Minato. "The chakra on the paper reminds me of one of those children Jiraiya boy trained in Hidden Rain. The girl." He closed his eyes, looking for a description. "Pale, with purple hair. Quiet. Very reserved, and very curious."

Minato sat forward, aware of his teacher's first three students in Ame but not familiar enough to know them in person or their descriptions. Last Jiraiya spoke of them was when he told Minato that Ame's war was over, reminiscing about one of his first students in particular and his powerful doujutsu.

He looked out of the window, where the paper had fluttered into the office, and his face lowered in contemplation.

Jiraiya was another of Konoha's three finest spymasters that had recently disappeared off the face of the earth.

Crow's Feet, Minato's spy in Kiri, was the first to go dark a month ago, coinciding with the supposed end of the Kiri civil war. This could mean that he was laying low, for Minato didn't even entertain the thought that the spy he personally trained so masterfully could be snuffed out quietly, without even getting something back to Minato.

His loyalty could not be questioned.

Jiraiya was another spy that vanished, happening two weeks ago while on his mission in Demon country. The toads couldn't locate their summoner, but they were sure Jiraiya was still alive.

His disappearance was kept so quiet Minato didn't even inform his oldest children, Naruto and Rin.

"Boy."

Minato turned to the toad elder.

"This isn't Jiraiya," he pressed with more certainty, "but this is an angle that needs to be explored," the toad explained, stressing each word to show the severity; when a summoner was alive but the summons had no way of locating them, it was a unfathomably big problem. This was the case with Jiraiya and his Toad summons. "Those three brats never ask for outside help. Never. And Ame's ninjas aren't the least bit defenseless. The situation there must be incredibly dire enough for the girl to ask for your help."

Your help didn't mean Konoha's help.

It meant Minato's.

Minato summarized, slowly rising to his feet. "If this student of Jiraiya's needed help, she would have tried him first, but she came to me instead, meaning she doesn't know where he is either." He strolled to his coat rack and pulled on his white with red flames cloak, walking with curt steps to the window. "Let's see what she wants. Tiger."

ANBU Operative Tiger stepped out of a corner of the room, the illusion hiding his presence dropped as he hurried to his Hokage, falling to his right knee and bringing his right fist to his heart with a bow.

"Get your team ready. We're leaving."

And with that said, Minato blurred out of the window and ran to Hidden Rain.

He boosted his steps with his Flash Step Release.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Ame

The first thing Minato noticed when he arrived at Hidden Rain's border was that it wasn't raining.

The ground was still soggy with water, blazing closer and closer into the secluded shinobi village. Yellow lights popped off his body with each fleeting step, vanishing and reappearing every so few yards, until he reached a small settlement outside of Ame.

The second thing he noticed was the eerie silence.

The hamlet could not have housed more than fifty people, living in bamboo buildings held five feet off the marshy earth by strong stilts and connecting most of the huts of the village together by the same tough bamboo, clearly meant to bridge each house to their neighbors. Homes in Hidden Marsh were built in this same style, holding houses off the marshes by bamboo stilts and concrete supports, except the houses in Marsh were clearly more modernized.

The area outside of Ame consisted of unwalkable thin mud, making it difficult for those that hadn't been specially trained to walk on mud to traverse the ground. With the exception of the roads leading into and out of Ame, the entirety of the outside of Ame was waterlogged.

Minato hopped onto one of those bamboo bridges, his blue eyes cautiously flicking left and right. He walked with a careful dip in his posture, hands open and ready to defend himself, not making so much as a noise on that bamboo bridge.

The silence was stifling.

Minato came to the house at the end of the short bridge and frowned when he saw that it was slightly ajar, exhaling slowly and pushing his right pointer finger on the door, rolling his left hand and gripping the tri-prong kunai that blurred into his palm.

Blue eyes peeking into the house, he called. "Hello?"

Minato found a man on the ground, gripping his chest with his fingers, convulsing with foam pouring out of his mouth and iris shrunk to pinpricks. His legs and arms were locked together, painfully stretched out and immobile. His teeth clenched and shuddered in the throes of wordless death.

The man's neck popped audibly, and he forced his hazy eyes to the person at the door, finding a horrified blonde man standing there. He tried to wrench his jaw open, his bared teeth glistening and his chin wet with foam.

Minato's weapon hand dropped and he stood upright, a small frown on his face.

The dying man's eyes flicked to his feet, doing so twice, and Minato looked there, aware of when the man breathed his last.

Two children and a woman were strewn out on the floor of the small hut.

Dead.

"Well, damn," Minato remarked.

Tiger sped to the door of the hut Minato was inside, panting and trying to get his breathing back under control.

Minato spoke as he turned around, making his way into Ame. "Find out what happened. See if there are any survivors. Horse, you're with me."

Horse dutifully obeyed, pacing quickly after him to Ame.

Along the road, they saw dead horses and unmoving carriages.

A look inside a few told them that the people, coach and all, were dead; foaming saliva or blood through clenched teeth and locked jaws, iris tiny like pinpricks, and limbs locked in uncomfortable positions.

Men, women, and children.

Even animals–pets and workhorses.

There were more corpses, fleeing Ame but falling to the muddy road, dying with wordless agony.

Minato's eyes became darker and darker, turning a body on their back and seeing that it was a young woman in her early thirties carrying a newborn.

Both were deceased.

Out of respect, Minato closed their eyes, compassionate to their former suffering.

Nearing Ame's gates, they found someone slumped against one side of the gate.

It was a pale woman with purple hair. She wore a black robe with red cloud designs.

Minato knelt on one knee in front of her, cautious of her painfully locked fingers curled into the muddy ground, sandaled feet arching in a grotesque semicircle.

"Minato?" she coughed, speaking through grit teeth, shuddering blood from her nose. She breathed, sounding almost relieved in her anguish. A short convulsion hit her, beginning to fall but was kept upright against the wall by a grim-faced Minato. "Everyone's…dead."

"What happened here?" he asked, going straight to the point, seeing blood leak into her eyes and her iris slowly shrinking to tiny dots. "Who did this?"

"It was…in the water…in the rain," Konan choked, sobbing as another wave of burning juddering ran into her. Her jaw screwed shut harder, opening it even a little tore jaw muscles. "He killed…everyone…that didn't…die."

Minato grabbed her shoulders, speaking harder and looking into her reddened eyes with urgent cerulean eyes. "Who did this?"

A panic set in and the woman cried openly, tears mixing with the foam dribbling down her chin, afraid to even call the man's name. As if, the mere mention of him would cause him to reappear.

She voiced his moniker and her heart stopped beating.

"Monster…among…Monsters."

And Konan's eyes rolled to the top of her head and her taut limbs froze.

Inside Ame, the carnage was of a different kind.

Heads were crushed and torsos were split open, legs were cut off and arms were pulled out of their sockets, letting the victims either succumb to the poison or their wounds.

Whichever came first.

These people were notably shinobi; Jonin, Special Jounin, Chunin, and even Genin.

Minato found some plain-clothed people, likely ninjas on leave or retired shinobi.

All of these bodies, although looking scattered and unorganized as they suffered death, led up to the largest and tallest building in the village.

Blood mixed with mud and red puddles spotted the village.

A large Hidden Rain symbol hung at the front of the building, so Minato assumed it was Ame's administrative building. The seat of power for Hidden Rain's Amekage.

Minato stepped over the corpse of a pair of headless Genin, frowning tightly as he looked about the ground floor of the building. Everyone there suffered the same fate as those outside of the building, dead or currently dying from their wounds, too blinded by their pain to notice him strolling past them and jogging downstairs, following the trail of bodies and body parts.

At the bottom was a wide room.

The long table at the center of the room was split in half, and Minato furrowed his brow to recall the identity of the person that had been broken through the table, though it was difficult when their face was crushed beyond recognition. Shaking his head when he couldn't find clues on the person's identity, Minato noted, among others, that the five bodies inside this room wore the same black robe designed with red clouds as Konan.

He could identify them.

Sasori of the Red Sands, whose puppet frame was split open and cast about the room.

The Mad Bomber, Deidara, was nailed to the wall by a tri-bladed scythe. A tapering drip of blood leaked from his boots, limp and dead. One of the scythe's three blades was broken halfway.

Rai, the Lightning Holder, was just about to expire when Minato noticed her; her right hand fell to her lap and her intestines spilled out from her stomach. Her legs were mangled, bending in odd and clearly excruciating angles.

The Immortal Jashin Priest, Hidan, had his right leg lopped off and his foot was pushed deep into his mouth till the shin, strung up to the vaulted ceiling of the room by his black robe. He was still alive, in spite of his current situation, and cursing up a blistering storm despite the foot in his mouth.

Minato looked at the person smashed through the table, spotting some lifeless black threads shivering from the mashed remains of the person's mouth.

Another thing his attention was drawn to was a horrendous statue looming at the end of the room, seated with its legs and arms crossed, spiked, gnarly protrusions jutting out of his back and connecting with the throne placed at its front. There was a white blindfold over its eyes. He walked to it, keeping his guard up and his eyes sharp, nearing the still person seated on the throne.

The missing half of Hidan's scythe was discarded close by, bloodied.

The person on the throne had his hands broken, slumped on either armrest of the throne, and his throat had been cut open, presumably by the broken blade on the ground. Some black rods littered the ground around the man on the throne, making Minato aware of the largish holes on the dead person's torso and neck.

His eyes were gone.

Minato's thoughtful frown deepened at the sight, his blue stare looking down on the eyeless gaze of the red-haired corpse.

"Well, damn," he repeated.

The Rinnegan was gone.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

The Wave Strait

"This is a bad idea," Naruto shook his head, motioning to Samehada."Letting that thing swallow us is a bad idea."

Finished sealing Kisame's body inside a scroll and giving it to Samehada to swallow, Rin held up her hands for her brother to calm down. "Ok, hear me out–"

"You have to be insane to trust this thing," he spoke in hushed tones, turning himself and his sister away from the eerily silent sword and the ever-curious glances of the fishermen on the boat. "I don't care why Kisame's dead; Yagura might be killing Kiri missing ninjas, for all we know."

"Something big is going on in Kiri and Yagura is at the head of it all. You feel it too. Don't deny it."

Naruto pursed his lips, unable to contradict her point.

Rin whispered her point, more and more determined. "I'm not saying we get sidetracked from the mission–I'm saying that we use this path to sneak into Kiri and meet up with Crow's Feet. It has to be easier than going to Hidden Marsh and sneaking in from there."

"I'm just saying that it's the height of insanity for us to willingly walk into that sword's mouth."

"I totally agree. But chances of us being discovered are slim," Rin pushed harder. "Samehada knows an underwater cave in Kiri Kisame used to hide in. It's as hidden as hidden can possibly get!"

Fixing his purple eyes on his sister's own, their souls touching and their minds communicating.

'How can you trust the sword?'

Rin smirked and shrugged airily. 'My gut's never wrong.'

Naruto conceded.

Her gut was never wrong.

He hoped this wasn't the first time it was.

They stood on the gently rocking boat, their hands grasping each other's shoulders. Naruto stared at his sister's burning purple eyes, absorbing her energy and resolution, mirroring it back to her to psych her up more.

They did this, bouncing invisible energy back and forth, hyping themselves for what they were about to do.

Finally, Naruto walked into Samehada's gaping mouth, its rows of teeth retracted so as not to graze the boy. Naruto took a moment to acclimatize himself to the rubbery feeling of Samehada's claustrophobic insides, politely holding out his hand to his sister and helping her in.

Samehada purred, its scales shuddering.

Naruto followed his sister's lead, lying down straight with their hands at their sides, their feet pointed further into the deadly sword's inside.

Rin found Naruto's hand, saying, "Alright, let's go."

Samehada slowly eased its maw closed and wriggled overboard.

In a burst of water and wind, the shark sword rushed toward Kiri.

Author's Note

That's about it.

What do you think of this chapter?

What do you think of the story so far?

Let me know how you feel, would you so kindly. Please stay safe, wherever you are in the world, and I will see you when I see you.

Stay safe.

Foy.