Hello hello
How's your day going?
This chapter continues from where we left off with Mikoto in Hidden Chill.
Enjoy…
CHAPTER 15
"This is odd," Yumi said under her breath, looking out into the vacant train station. She glanced at the Hokage, saying in a discreet voice, "The station is never empty."
Mikoto's ears caught this, standing in the middle of the delegation, holding Hinata's hand in an iron grip. She shot a look over her shoulder, around Kakashi to the Sand trio lingering by the sliding doors of the train with their team sensei.
Gaara was staring at her.
The artificial lights of the underground train station hummed soundlessly, casting light on every corner of the large station, reflecting its white light off the waxed grey-white marble floor.
A hand suddenly grabbed her shoulder and her head jerked around to the person, relaxing her guard when she saw that it was Sasuke. He nodded to the edge of the cluster of Genin, and Mikoto followed, pulling Hinata along till they were outside of the group.
Gaara's eyes trailed her.
When they were some distance from the group, within sight of the Jounin as they threw cautious looks to the three of them but far enough to not be overheard, Sasuke dipped his head and gestured for his former teammate to do the same, flicking a look to Hinata as Mikoto drew her into their circle.
"Was he really serious about fighting you?" Sasuke asked without further delay. Mikoto pursed her lips and nodded, and Sasuke's eyebrows rose, incredulous. "Right there on the train?"
Mikoto's tight silence answered his question.
He crossed his arms, puffing out his chest and flashing a slight smirk when he saw Mikoto momentarily look at his Chunin vest. "If it comes to that, will you be able to defend yourself? At least, until I arrive."
Mikoto frowned. "Since when have you ever been worried about me?"
"I don't," he corrected her. "But it'll look bad if my future mentor's sister dies while I'm around. It's a matter of pride for me and Naruto-sensei."
" My hero," Mikoto sneered sarcastically, looking over her shoulder and meeting Gaara's fixed stare. "And don't call him 'sensei'. He hasn't agreed to train you, remember?" that made Sasuke deflate a little, and Mikoto's expression brightened up at that. "Besides, I still owe you a broken arm."
Sasuke groaned, palming his face, "It was a fair match—"
Mikoto snorted, parroting his former words, "It's a matter of pride for me, and my big brother." Losing in front of him, and the rest of her family, was a stain on her perfect record that Mikoto doubted she could ever wipe away.
Still, there was a stark lack of venom in her words, shooting another look to Gaara, chewing on her tongue.
"Look," Sasuke brought her attention back to him. "As crazy as he seems, wanting to start a fight on a moving train on allied soil," Mikoto's brows lowered at Sasuke not-so-subtly flexing his diplomatic awareness to her. As a Chunin, he had gone on a handful of diplomatic missions with other Chunin, that much she knew. "I don't think he's looking for a fair fight, like the Chunin exams."
"He wants blood," Mikoto said resignedly, her shoulders wilting. Sasuke nodded.
The Chunin looked at Hinata and his lips straightened at her pale face, and her trembling, glazed eyes stared down at the floor.
Understandable, since some minutes ago she was a hostage.
"Will you be ok, Hinata?"
Mikoto's apprehension of her situation evaporated and her jaw dropped at Sasuke's question.
He hmphed, lifting his chin and sneering at his former teammate, "I couldn't care less about you, blockhead, but Hinata didn't have to be brought into your mess." He gestured to the unspeaking girl, at her raised shoulders and her low-hanging chin. "She might not be used to the chaos that seems to revolve around you."
" Awww," Mikoto cooed, pouting patronizingly and teasing the stubborn Uchiha. "Does lil Sasuke have a heart?"
" Tch." The boy walked around her back to the crowd, away from Mikoto's tittering laughter.
Mikoto grinned, adjusting her backpack as she ribbed Hinata, "Times like this, you forget that Sasuke's still a self-centred bastard." Hinata's glassy eyes stuck to the ground and her small lips were somewhat parted, adding to the hollowness of her stare. Mikoto's lips tightened and she checked her neck again, confirming that Gaara's claws hadn't nicked her skin or drawn blood. She sighed, bringing Hinata to her front and backing the crowd, "Hinata."
The Hyuuga licked her lips, looking at Mikoto's shoes, tracing the light blue running shoes her friend wore with her pale eyes.
"It won't happen again," Mikoto promised, tilting her head down, and forcing Hinata's eyes to meet hers.
"I-…" Hinata stammered airily. "I…I wasn't expecting him to do that." Her listless eyes rose, moving to look past her shoulders to Gaara. The jinchuriki slowly smirked, and Hinata tore her gaze away from him. "Mikoto," she whispered, and the other girl stepped closer, giving Hinata her ear. "I…think he wants to kill me."
Mikoto chewed her tongue again, leaning back to look at her friend's unsteady eyes. She knew what Hinata was going to say next. She said so on a few occasions before, and Mikoto never liked hearing it.
"And I'm not afraid of dying. I'm really not." Hinata's hands held Mikoto's, and the girl stonily stared at her. "I'm scared about what you'll do when that happens."
The two friends had had many sleepovers, and they had spoken about many things.
Things others their age would never discuss.
Like mortality.
Kyuubi craved death. Glorious death. This thirst for grim fulfilment filtered into Mikoto, as hard as she tried to stand against dying. Confiding in Hinata, she found out that the Hyuuga had similar thoughts on death.
Grim fulfilment.
Glorious death.
Mikoto spoke scathingly, keeping her voice low, "I won't let you die."
A whisper of a smile lifted Hinata's pallid face, and she gently squeezed Mikoto's hands. "I won't let you die either."
Yumi clapped her hands for their group's attention, and the two friends standing away from them turned to look at her. Mikoto narrowed her eyes when her father pointedly looked at her.
He nodded.
A message was sent.
There was something wrong, and he wanted her to be on guard. But he didn't want the other Genin to panic.
The Jounin in their midst, Suna, Konoha and Chill alike—including Sasuke—received this message as quietly as the Hokage's daughter. Ever so carefully, they wandered out of the group and stood guard around them. Gai marched to Mikoto and Hinata, standing at their back. He winked at Hinata when she turned to him.
"There seems to be a slight issue. Nothing at all to worry about." Her allure wafted off her pores as an invisible fog, softly blanketing the Genin and calming them down. She did this without hand seals, smiling gently and beckoning her to follow as she unhurriedly trotted to a set of five turnstiles; they were as tall as her waist with two short, transparent doors for each of the stiles. It looked almost too pointless, as anyone could easily vault them. "If you'll follow me, I'll show you more of Hidden Chill's Medical Institute."
She swiped a key card on a turnstile and it blinked green twice, unlocking with an opening swish. She did the same for two other stiles, throwing them open for the group to walk through them.
They moved in relative noiselessness to a long flight of stairs shooting upwards to the street.
Halfway up the stairs, all of the artificial lights flicked off, delving them into darkness. Mikoto's ears caught the distinct sounds of weapons being unsheathed, hands clenching into tight fists, and jaws gnashing. Five seconds later, red emergency lights softly pulsed on, flooding the expanse of the train station, and what felt like the entirety of Chill's northernmost axis, with red lights.
Mikoto saw that any weapon-wielding Jounin had their weapons out and ready. Tenten, a member of Team Gai, was brandishing a silver hatchet in her right hand while her left was set on top of the large scroll slung at her lower back. Neij, at Hinata's other side, had his byakugan activated and was glaring down the stairs, and Lee was at the front of the group, near the Hokage, the Kazekage and the Leader of Chill, clenching and unclenching his fists as his eyes looked up at the street exit ahead.
"Stay where you are. Don't get separated," Asuma ordered them, brandishing his trench knives.
A shadow eclipsed the group, standing at the very top of the stairs.
The person was humming a song, gaily swinging a slender weapon with three blades jutting out from the end.
Mikoto's eyes bugged wide and she whirled around to Gaara, who seized this opportunity with both hands and a creeping grin.
The girl dragged her friend behind her, but that wasn't enough.
It all happened in an instant.
The shadowed person lunged down from the top of the stairs, cackling madly.
A sand clone speared an arm into Hinata's back, exiting her chest and stomach in a burst of blood and viscera, and Mikoto tackled the real Gaara down the flight of stairs.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Gaara landed at the bottom of the stairs with a jarring crack, rolling with the momentum and kicking Mikoto off him, unhooking the nails she had in his face and neck, and propelling her a short distance away.
The boy rose with a deranged grin, swaying on his feet. Sand trickled off his face from the thin lines cracked in his Ultimate Sand Defence. He slouched forward and stared at the girl across from him, leaning forward in a low, crouching stance, her long nails digging into the ground.
Her whisker marks were deeper and thicker, her nose was somewhat elongated and her canines were sharpened into fangs. Her iris were elongated and red, with the whites of her eyes now black and manic. Her white hood had been blown off from the fall, and her straight red hair, tied into a loose ponytail, swayed erratically at her back.
A sheen of red chakra vibrated off her skin, covering her like a shell. A slight fog of heat and energy ebbed off the girl, visible even in the red lighting.
The girl exhaled smoke from her bared teeth.
"Do you want to fight me now?" Gaara asked with a large grin, opening his arms.
The sand gourd at his back roiled and a wall of sand shot up at his back, separating them from those in their group that was barrelling toward them, blocking them off completely.
Gaara snarled, "You're dead."
Kurama hummed, sitting back on its haunches and saying in a cool, rumbling tone, "As much as I want you to squash that diseased rodent, you need to show restraint." It peered out of its cage, seeing through its jinchuriki's senses. "I doubt this place was built to withstand a battle between two inexperienced jinchuriki."
Mikoto wasn't listening, drawing in more and more of its power with each ragged pant.
"Or would you like any more people to die—"
Hinata's not dead, Mikoto echoed in her mind, her blistering words as doubtful as the Kyuubi was certain of her friend's demise. She collected a tails-worth of chakra from Kyuubi, and an ethereal tail coiled out from her tailbone, swaying hypnotically in the non-existent wind. The ground cracked under the magnitude of her chakra, scorching at the volcanic heat.
Kurama rolled its eyes. "Either you're in denial or you didn't see what I saw." It spoke with a recognizably pleased lilt in its deep voice, smirking ever so fractionally as its jinchuriki fell further and further into the pits of despair. "Frankly, the latter is impossible, because I see what you see. I sense what you sense." It spat, mockingly articulating its next words, as if Mikoto was a child, "And what I sense is that your weak little Hyuuga pet is dead—"
She said out loud, pushing hard against Kyuubi's disdain, "I just need to get this psycho away from her. Take him down a couple pegs."
"Is the pot calli ng the kettle black?" Gaara asked, his tone regressively darkening as he covered himself with beast chakra, surrounding his body with sand. His frenzied yellow eyes sparked, receding into his skull, and his enlarged lower jaw gnashed, outraged, "Psychopath!"
His lean frame swelled up and his legs became shorter as his stomach filled, his arms lengthened so much so that his knuckles dragged on the floor and his fingers became longer, sharper. The sand covered his shoes and artful black drawings were etched over his entire body, leaking red beast chakra. He hunched forward as seals rigorously etched on his sandy body.
Storage seals, Mikoto realized, watching as more sand rapidly poured out from the seals, adding to Gaara's frame.
The sand wall at his back hardened.
Hard thumps and explosions slammed into the impenetrable wall.
Gaara's stance was loose, different from Mikoto's wary crouch; his legs were apart and his knees were bent, with his left foot marginally at the front. His back slouched low and his hands opened, splayed on the ground and keeping him stable. A shell of red chakra bubbled from the markings on his body, and a thick tail materialized from his tailbone, long and prehensile like Mikoto's.
Kyuubi stroked its chin. "Seems I'm not the only one teaching my jinchuriki." The deep snarl rising from his chest rankled Mikoto's senses, driving her further and further over the edge. "But that mangy racoon will never be superior to me. The same goes for his lessons and his jinchuriki." He sat down on his belly with a huff, relaxing as Mikoto drew more of its chakra, struggling to maintain a balance between hers and the beast. Kyuubi remarked with finality, "This is not how I perish. Mikoto."
The swell of chakra and emotion reached its climax, and the two jinchuriki collided.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Zetsu didn't anticipate this.
It winced as Gaara's clubbing blow connected with Mikoto's cheek, and the girl's left hook slammed into the side of the boy's head, denting the ground and releasing shockwaves.
The girl shook off the ringing she was undoubtedly feeling and swung an uppercut into Gaara's engorged chin. The boy's sand guard cracked deeper, splintering from a right hook crossing the other side of Gaara's face. The boy spun his massive body with the heavy blow and whacked his elbow into Mikoto's forearm guard, losing a chunk of his arm when the girl punched her fist clean through the elbow.
Her hand stuck inside the sand and Gaara's bellowed, his roar a mix of agony and triumph, collapsing backwards into Mikoto and dragging her into a tidal wave of sand, swallowing her whole.
"Coffin of Crushing Sand!"
More and more sand rushed down the train station, stopping half a mile wide yet filling the general area Gaara and Mikoto were in, like a tap pouring water into a glass cup. It twisted and coiled, rising and falling in undulating waves, a close imitation of the sea.
Yagura planned to rattle the Fourth Hokage in anticipation of the Five Kage Summit by releasing the immortal jashinist, Hidan. Prove to the Namikaze that if he so wanted, wherever he hid and however fast he ran, Yagura Karatachi could and would get him.
Whether or not Hidan stood a chance against the Fourth Hokage wasn't up for debate; Zetsu could already hear the Konoha/Suna delegation battering against the sand barrier blocking them off from reaching Gaara and Mikoto.
One of Mikoto's hands reached up through the sea of sand, grazing the ceiling, and her face pushed out of the lapping waves of sand. She panted twice, breathing rapidly until she inhaled a large breath of air, filling her lungs before she was forced back under.
Gaara's disembodied voice screamed, everywhere and nowhere, spread across the length and breadth of the sand-flooded train station. "I have you, Namikaze!"
The Hokage' rasengan broke through Gaara's sand barrier, gushing sand over him and the rest of the battered delegation.
Gaara was undeterred, even as he felt his father's iron sand push back against his sand, sparing the group from being drowned by pouring more and more of his influence into each grain of iron sand. Silver gradually overpowered brown.
Bogged down under the sightless sand, Mikoto grabbed Gaara's throat and encircled her clawed hand around his neck. The boy choked, sinking his sharpened fingers into the girl's face and grinning hysterically.
"Gaara!" Rasa roared, his furious voice like lightning striking an icy lake.
"Imploding Sand Funeral!"
Zetsu just barely escaped as the world went up in blinding light.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
The Next Morning
Uchiha clan compound
Konoha
"Scratchy, have you seen my toothbrush?"
"If you kept it at the sink, like I kept telling you, you won't be looking for it now," Itachi said with a slow blink, zipping up his Jounin vest and hiding his smirk when Izumi glared at him, shrugging. "I'm just saying."
She perched her hands on her hips. "Have you seen it or not?"
The boy ran a hand through his unruly hair, checking his reflection in the mirror on the dresser. "Kitchen."
" Scratchy." Izumi raised her eyebrows. She leaned against the frame of their bedroom door and crossed her arms. "You seem tense."
He glanced at her through the mirror, patting down the front of his flak jacket and checking the kunai pouch attached to his lower back for the seventh time that morning. "I'm not tense."
A slow smile lifted Izumi's pale face and she strolled into the room, plopping down on their bed and crossing her right knee over her left. The simplicity of her white t-shirt and black boxers complemented her light skin tone. Her lighthearted smile became teasing and Itachi immediately rolled his eyes.
"I'm not tense," he repeated.
"Is it because you're going with Rin on the mission?"
"Izumi," Itachi exhaled tiredly, falling back onto the bed and lying on his back. "Why are you like this?"
The girl laughed, harmlessly shoving his shoulder as he lay next to her. She propped her arms behind her to keep her upright, casting a brief look over her shoulder to Itachi. "I'm just saying," she casually lifted her shoulders and winked, saying, "She's kinda hot, though."
Itachi snorted and pursed his lips.
He was still getting used to Izumi's little jokes, where she would say to try to hook him up with another girl, but not mean it. He knew for a fact that Izumi would sooner bite off her arms than be his wingman.
He sat up and shifted near her, close enough for their thighs to be pressed against the other. He smiled and poked her gut, eliciting another teasing shove. "Now, why would I go after someone else's girl?"
Izumi batted her eyes. "Because this girl doesn't want to miss her TV shows." Itachi pursed his lips again, suppressing his scoffing laugh as the girl smoothed down her long, messy black hair, saying with a pout, "She could do the dishes while we watch TV."
Itachi's eyes widened comically and he exclaimed in his low, tired tone, "That's genius, Izumi." He slapped his forehead and rolled his eyes. "I should have thought of that."
The girl puffed her chest, proud, and said with a flutter of her eyelashes, "I keep telling you, Scratchy, let me do the thinking. Don't hurt your pretty head." She smiled as Itachi leaned in and kissed her, breathing out softly afterwards and pressing her brow against his. Her eyes were closed, collecting herself, speaking in a quiet voice, "You're…lunch is downstairs."
"You didn't have to," Itachi said with an inaudible breath. "I shouldn't even take that long."
"I was bored," she said with another heavy lift and drop of her shoulders, lingering another kiss on Itachi's lips before she pulled away, getting off the bed and tugging at the ends of her shirt. The boy saw the telltale signs that she was holding herself back. She noticed his persistent gaze, glazed over, and her eyebrows steadily rose, her fingers curling at the end of her shirt. "Is there still time?"
Itachi hopped off the bed with eyes glittering with amusement. He tugged her shirt off over her head and yanked her to him as she crowed with laughter, falling with him onto the bed.
The pair groaned as the doorbell rang.
She laid on top of him, her brow on his and smiling saucily to his small smirk.
He joked, "I'll tuck it under my belt, it's fine."
Izumi laughed breathily, her ears flushed pink and her breaths hotly washing over Itachi's face. She slapped his chest and slowly, suggestively slid off him, dragging her hands down his chest, smoothing them over his stomach and passing down each thigh before she rose from the bed.
He glared at her and she smirked, victorious.
"You're evil."
She fled as he threw a pillow at her, deftly dodging it and snagging her shirt off the floor at the same time. She flew out of the room in a blind tangle as she hastily threw on her shirt, cackling down the stairs when he appeared at the door of their bedroom using a body flicker jutsu, tracking her as she jumped down the last few steps and scrambling on her hands and feet away from Itachi's grasp as he blurred down the stairs, tucking into a nimble roll when he lunged at her again. She zigzagged to the front door and caught the door handle as he caught the back of her boxers, throwing the door open before he could push his hand into her boxers.
"Yes!" she hastily screamed at the person on the other side of the door, and Itachi chuckled, keeping his hand on her behind. She sniffed, trying not to pant and acting as casually as possible. "Rin, hi, how's it going?" Her fizzling glare and the blush on her face didn't dissuade him, hiding his arm between them as he answered the door with a stoic, professional nod.
"Rin, good morning."
Rin looked at him, then at the flushing Izumi. Her hand went between the two, at the arm Itachi was hiding that was cupping Izumi's backside.
"Morning…" she said slowly, narrowing a look between the two. " Uhm…" she jutted a thumb over her shoulder, looking from the heavily sweating, blushing girl to the sleepily expressionless boy. "I'll just…give you guys—"
Izumi tittered into a shaky laugh, catching Rin by the wrist before she could give the two some privacy. "You're hilarious, Rin. Scratchy's ready." She let go of Rin and sauntered back, planting both hands into Itachi's back and shoving him out of the door. She chirped to the grousing boy, "Have a great day."
"Yeah, you too," he sniffed, hiking his shoulders and scuffing his feet, joking a pout and sulking. "What about my lunch?"
She snapped her fingers in recollection and jogged inside, returning with a bento tin wrapped in a white handkerchief. She handed it to him, saying as he sealed it into a scroll from one of his Jounin vest pockets, "If I'm not home by the time your back, don't forget to tape our show. There's a super special holiday episode coming out this evening, and I think Lady Haruno might want me to stay overtime. I swear, that woman's a mess without me."
"No problem," he leaned down and collected a chaste kiss on the cheek, smirking at the girl's secretive wink. "I might even come by your office, see how I can help out."
"Kami, I'd appreciate that." She patted his chest and stepped back to the door, waving him off. "Now, get going."
"Yeah, yeah," he bobbed his head and began turning to Rin, who was amusedly watching their little conversation, certainly remembering a daily banter she had with her brother. He stopped and added, "Oh, and your shirt's back-to-front."
" Hm?" She looked down, finding the shirt's tag hanging out from the back of the shirt at the front of her neck. She hummed again, shrugging, "So it is."
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Mikoto and Itachi mumbled their greetings to the Uchiha clan head, and the man grunted, crossing his arms at their tardiness. They were at the front of the clan head's house.
"Traffic is terrible, uncle," Rin exhaled, feigning an ache in her neck and scrunching up her face as she rubbed at it. "Sorry we're late."
" Mhm," Fugaku grunted. "Unless I'm mistaken, both of you still live in this compound."
Mikoto, her brother and her younger sister lived in an apartment in the suburbs a short walk from the clan head's house, and Itachi, much to his mother's anxiety, had moved out earlier in the year with his girlfriend to a house at a cul-de-sac close to the Namikaze siblings house.
It was a whole ordeal.
Fugaku, in support of his seventeen-year-old son moving out of the nest, had to pacify his wife with foot rubs and shared bubble baths. The man couldn't deny that it brought him and his wife much closer, as if they were on their first honeymoon. Sasuke spent most of his time outside of the house, so the emptying house was something the Uchiha parents were still struggling to get used to.
"Putting that aside," Fugaku rumbled. "Since the Hokage is not in the village, he assigned me to administer special-case missions." Like investigating the strange Uchiha bonfire at the Valley of End. Special case missions didn't have a class, but at the same time couldn't have just anyone going on them because of how unpredictable they could be. They weren't very common, but the unpredictability of special-case missions made them dangerous. "Have you gone over the mission specifications?"
"Yes, sir," the two chorused.
"With Iwa trying their luck and pushing against our borders, and Kiri's attack on the prison transport last night, the village is hard-pressed to send more capable hands for this special-case mission," Fugaku explained, frowning. He didn't mention how the investigation into the village elders had been transferred into his hands a few minutes after the attack on the prison transport. "In terms of capability, I trust both of you can handle the mission."
"Yes, sir," they said in unison.
"Treat it as a rescue mission; find the Uchiha behind the bonfire and bring them home no matter the cost. Hopefully, alive. You are permitted to use your discretion if you face stiff opposition."
"Yes, sir," the two nodded.
He dismissed them with a sideways jerk of his head, and they sprinted out of the village to the Valley of End.
Meanwhile, Naruto blazed a swift path to Iwa to meet the Tsuchikage's son.
Author's note
The next chapter will be out on Monday :)
What do you think of the chapter?
What do you think of the story so far?
Let me know what you think!
Stay happy and stay safe, wherever you are in the world, and I will see you when I see you.
Foy.
