Chapter 74: A Thorough Disguise

Arc: The Uzumaki Clan

Disclaimer: I do NOT own Naruto. Naruto is the work of Masashi Kishimoto, please support the original work.

"Let's go… and see if we can infiltrate Orochimaru's hideout," Gaara said as he dissolved the sand cocoon around Temari. Temari had fallen asleep, though her ears were bleeding. Seeing her condition, Kankuro didn't dally and took out a first-aid kit.

"Hmm. Let's wait for Temari to wake up," Gaara said after Kankuro finished cleaning Temari's wounds and tending to them. "Alright," Kankuro agreed.

By dusk, Temari finally awoke. "What… happened while I was unconscious?" She asked and glanced at Kankuro. Kankuro shrank a bit after meeting her gaze and sighed in relief after she averted them.

Gaara glanced at Kankuro and Temari before speaking, "We found another Uzumaki, though she seems to be by Orochimaru's side. Our mission is to find other Uzumaki, no matter their allegiance, so we will try and infiltrate Orochimaru's hideout."

"What? That's ridiculous! It's Orochimaru of the Three Sannins, okay?" Temari waved her hand, though the action was forced to halt midway. "Well… hmm, never mind."

Kankuro nodded after Temari took back her words. Then, he glanced at Gaara, who didn't seem to mind the slight outburst. 'We have Gaara, after all.'

Not only was Gaara their source of infinite courage and hope, but he was also the jinchuriki of the one tails.

"So, are you ready?" Gaara asked as he turned to his siblings. Kankuro nodded, though Temari seemed to be hesitating. "What is it?" Gaara asked. "Well, I don't think I have enough chakra," Temari said. Gaara nodded after hearing her troubles.

"We'll proceed tomorrow night, then."

The next day…

Gaara and his siblings moved slowly through the streets of the Hidden Sound Village. They were disguised as traveling merchants and behind them were carts. Empty carts.

"Brother, where to now?" Temari asked. Her hair was undone, making it look puffy and unkempt, and her face looked a little darker from dust and dirt. Similarly, Gaara and Kankuro looked similar to her. Gaara simply wore worn-out clothes… his thick eye bags were enough to disguise him as tired or weary.

Kankuro… just rubbed his "war paint" all over his face.

"Let's go to… sister, are you hungry?" Gaara asked. He didn't finish his first sentence because he already saw what he was looking for.

"Yeah," Temari replied. She discretely glanced in front of them and entered a small alleyway with a humble street-food vendor. Kankuro tried to look at where they were looking, but his siblings had already looked away. HE scratched his head, not knowing where to look.

"Well, let's just eat," Kankuro shrugged and entered the alleyway, only for him to be covered in a thin layer of sand. Kankuro's soul jumped before he heard Gaara's voice behind him. "Kankuro. Let's go, we found a sound-nin."

Kankuro tilted his head when he saw Gaara vanishing in the sand. "But… aren't we acting too recklessly?" He mumbled when the sand cocoon around him crumbled. After seeing that he was now inside a dark and damp tunnel, his lips flattened.

'What the hell. When did we change locations?' Kankuro looked around and saw Temari standing idly by herself. He pondered whether or not to approach her when a sand pillar suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

"Here," Gaara said as he came out of the sand pillar and carelessly threw something on the floor.

THUD.

The "thing" was a ninja from the hidden sound village and he was currently unconscious. Kankuro clicked his tongue when he saw sand coming out of the ninja's mouth. "What's he for?" Kankuro asked.

"You'll be him, Kankuro," Gaara said and threw Kankuro a note before disappearing. Temari somehow vanished with him. Helpless, Kankuro looked at the note and read it aloud. Not because he had the habit of doing so, but because he was dumbfounded.

"Get every personal information and life event from him…?" Kankuro scratched his head. 'Why does Gaara want the life story of a random ninja? I thought we were infiltrating Orochimaru's hideout?' Kankuro thought, though he didn't dally and complied.

Firstly, he tied up the ninja. Then, we went off to get a bucket of water. When he returned…

CLANG! SPLAAASH!

He didn't even care that the bucket of water spilled all over him as his mouth gaped open.

"Fuck! He got away!"

Kankuro panicked for a hot minute before he saw a caterpillar… No, it was a human. A ninja, to be exact, trying to crawl away like a worm.

Kankuro didn't know whether to laugh or cry when he saw the ninja. After regaining his focus, he dragged the ninja by the foot to his previous position and didn't care when the ninja shivered from being placed on the cold and wet floor.

"Now, speak up or I'll cut off a finger each time you refuse," Kankuro said, his face solemn. The ninja also tensed up with a determined face. It was not the best, but the village hidden in sounds was his home, and he would never betray it.

"Tell me, what is your name?" Kankuro said.

The ninja kept his mouth closed like he'd always done since he woke up.

"How old are you?" Kankuro didn't mind his silence.

The ninja raised one of his eyebrows.

"What is your favorite food?" Kankuro kept going.

This time, the ninja leaned forward. If he wasn't tied up, he'd like to clean his ears to see if he was hearing correctly.

"What's your favorite color?"

"What the hell are you doing?" The ninja finally spoke.

Kankuro had a hard time extracting information out of the sound ninja and when he finished, Gaara arrived with two more in tow. Kankuro repeated the process two more times before he heaved a sigh of relief.

"Why did you want to…?" Kankuro didn't even get to finish when Gaara stopped him.

"We will use them as a disguise. Memorize your scripts," Gaara said and left. He was holding a scroll with one hand, and a ninja with another. The scroll contained all of the ninja's personal information. It didn't omit anything from his first love to his last heartache.

Temari didn't speak to Kankuro and merely dragged a kunoichi into the distance while also holding a scroll. Left alone, Kankuro looked down on the ninja he was left with.

It was the first ninja he interrogated.

Coincidentally, it was also the ninja with the most confusing life story with various highs and lows.

After they memorized the scrolls, Gaara killed all three ninjas via suffocation while they were unconscious. Then, they wore their ninja clothing and headed out to the village.

They separated so they didn't come out at once.

After blending in with the people of the village, not even the ninjas suspected them as they all memorized not only the ninja's personal details but also their habits and personality.

Gaara acted like a lone wolf. Temari acted all haughty. Kankuro acted like a bored ninja.

Despite all three of them heading out in different directions when they regrouped, they arrived at the same time without missing a beat.

"So this is Orochimaru's hideout? It doesn't look like it at all. Wow!" Kankuro praised. They were currently standing in front of a tree. The tree looked average in all directions and below it, a supposed trapdoor was in place…

Though all the sand siblings saw were grass, some gravel, and some insects. There was no trace of human intervention at all, and even Gaara suspected that they were at the right place.

"Let's open it first," Gaara said and used his sand to feel around the soil.

After a few seconds, Gaara felt a minuscule groove on the ground and poured his sand into it. After penetrating around one foot into the earth, his sand finally felt no resistance and Gaara manipulated his sand to push the trapdoor open.

Before doing so, he made sure to cast his Third Eye jutsu to create an eye made of sand inside the hideout.

It'd be bad if someone saw him trying to open the trapdoor after all the effort they've put in.

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