A/N: Sorry for being away soo long. Life has a way of keeping you busy.
Also, a few of you were very disappointed that Hiruzen and Kimimaro didn't duke it out. I get the blood-thirsty preference, however, that would be bad for several reasons.
One, Orochibastard wants to kill the old geezer himself so that means he's off-limits to anyone else. Even if Kimimaro could have killed him (and I don't think he would have been able despite the guy's advanced years), Snake Face would have been deeply pissed after all of his plottin' and schemin'. Bonehead is far too loyal to do something like that.
Two, his job wasn't to wipe out the Sarutobi clan but to cause mayhem and give the old teacher a little pain. He was a distraction and he performed his job splendidly. Why take unnecessary risks?
What was that about looking "underneath the underneath?"
So, without further ado…
~Siva'a-tasi
~III~
DISCLAIMER: Nope, still doesn't own Naruto.
Chapter 32: Once Upon a Time in Hanikamu
~ Office of the Sandaime Hokage, Konohagakure no Sato ~
"Send him in," Hiruzen answered back through the intercom, his pipe settling back into his toothy grip. Before the voice box clicked silent again, the door swung open to admit the Copy Nin with orange addiction firmly in hand, an action that jogged the memory of the third shinobi perched comfortably on the office couch having displaced the previous occupant – the now grumpy Neko-chan.
"That reminds me…" Jiraiya began from his lounging position on the rather comfortable furniture piece. Reaching into his battle kimono, the thick hand of the Sannin author retrieved and frisbeed across the room two freshly-minted copies of his latest release. You would have thought it someone's birthday once three eyes disappeared behind equal crinkly-eyed smiles.
Everyone studiously ignored the rapid drop in temperature near the bookshelves and at the end of Jiraiya's shared perch. At least two of the bookshelf lurkers identified themselves when Dragon and Lynx slowly faded into view.
"Must be a freaky ANBU thing," Jiraiya mumbled trying not to be unnerved by the ghoul-like masks staring in his direction. Instead, he turned his attention to the old man clearing his throat in an effort to move the conversation along and avoid another beating.
"It will be another day or so before the prisoner from the compound raid will be able to survive interrogation. Doctors want to keep him for another day of observation before his guard can bring him back to ANBU central," Hiruzen opened up.
"I still think we should close up those tunnels," Jiraiya opined. "Leaving the snake bastard with open access to the village is just asking for trouble. Who will he attack next? How many innocents will he kidnap for his next batch of lab rats?" While not intending to, his bitter tirade forced a painful wince from the old man that could have ended it all over a decade before if he'd just done the right thing when the first lab had been found. Lynx took the opportunity to respond while the old man lamenting poor past decisions.
"Closing the tunnels now would force the traitor to void his plans and start over. As risky as it is, we need him to keep moving according to plan while we have most of the pieces to it."
Everyone's eyes were locked onto the smaller ANBU standing next to the Great Dragon Commander wondering why Dragon wasn't speaking instead, everyone except the speaker and the old man whose eyes glanced woefully at the still angry woman beneath the decade-old disguise. He couldn't but hope that someday she'd forgive him. That would have to come later since he had a village to protect first and foremost.
Instead, the old man turned to Jiraiya. "What about the spy?" he asked catching the man's unhappy grimace.
"The trap worked even if it took them a while to figure it out. I don't know how many more of Anko's piss poor acting sessions I can take." Hiruzen raised an eyebrow in question forcing the Sannin to respond with, "She doesn't do scatterbrained girlfriend very well."
That comment brought a round of sweatdrops throughout the room.
"I still say it's too great a risk." The thick eyebrows on the kabuki-faced nin bunched together in worry. "I was able to confirm through residual chakra detection which jutsu the snake bastard is after and it's not looking good for the home squad."
"You made the modifications though, yes?" came Lynx's almost immediate response.
"Of course, I did." Jiraiya seemed almost insulted. "I am Konoha's foremost sealing master, aren't I?"
A derisive snort from the masked ANBU Commander was the only response he received but it was enough to give him pause, one of his bushy eyebrows rising as he looked to his former teacher for clarification. None came unfortunately so they moved on to the remaining discussion of planning for the invasion.
Naruto's platoon of clones, each garbed in the black-maned shinobi henge he developed in Istoria, swarmed the sleeping town of Hanikamu. Over the course of four hours, they cataloged what they could of its inhabitants, not so much faces and names but chakra users and non-chakra users. What they discovered left three equally frowning faces as Naruto shared the night's revelations with his teammates and sensei the following morning.
Five clans were fighting for commercial dominance despite their interdependence on each other, their subservient guilds providing the raw manpower to manage commerce while the clan families scrabbled for prestige and power in the walled mud pit of a village.
Moreru Ueno headed the Farmer's Consortium, their primary crops consisting of assorted fruits, rice, yams, daikon, and adzuki beans. Grizzled and just starting to grey around the edges of his beard, Moreru was a family man from what the clones could see, his last act for the night consisting of telling bedtime stories to his five children as he tucked them in. A simple man with a simple home life made in a modest one-story house, there was nothing flashy or overly ambitious about him. While firm with his workers, he was fair judging by the familial interaction he held with everyone he dealt with.
The second person of note, Jigoku Kinoshita, wasn't really a man of family or prestige. He was a passionate young man elected to represent the three or four fishermen that deferred to his drive more oft than not, his name more of a nickname gifted to him by the older men that shared his early morning routine on the fishing flatboats that prowled the river feeding the local fish market. No one even remembered the young man's real name anymore and he saw very little reason to correct the people he loved with a burning passion. The moniker suited him almost like a badge of honor, so he kept it.
Jinsei no Nagare, or Life's Flow, was the name given to the river that fed the tightly packed cluster of humanity, the name taken from Jinsei Kubo, the construction magnate that lived in the northeastern homestead across the river from Hanikamu. His family was one of the first to carve a home out of the rugged northern forest of Hi no Kuni. His family led the fight against man and beast to build the village up to what it was today and the no-nonsense Jinsei led his clan like he ran his business; the strong survived and the weak stepped to the side to make way for those that could. While no one would ever nominate the man for "Father of the Year," they couldn't deny that he got results. What worried Naruto more than the hard-nosed lifestyle of the family patriarch was the grizzled samurai that served as his head of security and the twenty retainers that reportedly trained with him every dawn. They would be trouble as made evident when the old soldier managed to pop one of Naruto's clones with a small throwing knife. The remainder made sure to give the silver maned warrior a wide berth afterward.
Unfortunately, Jinsei had a rival in one Yari Takagi, also known as Tengu no Yari after he legally changed his name upon successful takeover of his first gold mine in his late teens. The baby-faced financier was the real coin behind Hanikamu and made sure to let everyone within earshot know it every chance that he got if the sake-soaked gossips at Chihiro's tavern, The Farmer's Rest, were any indication. The portly matron's watering hole remained stuffed full of sweaty laborers to the early hours of the morning and that included men from Yari's camp. Yari was anything but liked but that didn't matter as he employed a squad of bruisers to help keep the peace (it was rumored to have been two squads before the on-going feud between the Takagi Clan erupted with the Kubo dynasty).
Also, unfortunately, Naruto's clones saw no sordid secret love between the two warring factions through disillusioned children, just a bitter rivalry made even worse by the Takagi family trying to muscle in on the export business. If there was more to that rumor, the clones couldn't find it in a single night, and this only added to the sense of frustration as no one else in the village seemed to know what the younger Takagi was up to either. This led to the fifth and final person in the power deadlock.
At the top, Governor Irumoa handled the daily politics of the up and coming elites. Outwardly he seemed to be well-liked and straight forward, a man of gentle demeanor and neatly kept appearances. His black hair was beginning to gray at the temples and his tanned face was square of jaw with stately wrinkles just now forming at the corner of his eyes. A sharp nose centered a face anchored by steel-gray eyes and a clean-shaven chin, his hair pulled back into a short ponytail stopping at the base of his neck. Yet something didn't seem right about the stately politician as a clone observed him working late at his desk battling his own stack of ruthless paperwork.
The man seemed too calm, too well-heeled.
He was too perfect, and Naruto's instincts screamed that the man needed to be watched. Good shinobi learned to listen to those instincts if they wanted to continue being living shinobi.
Asuma nodded at the end of Naruto's report as he hefted the medium-sized cask bearing the kanji for Ishi Saru no Mitsu, meaning the Nectar of the Stone Monkey. Setting the wicker amigasa on his head, Asuma looked over his fellow actors as they readied themselves for their first trip into the town of Hanikamu and smiled. Having mastered the chakra masking technique, they would be hard to sort out as shinobi. Even Naruto barely registered above a very strong Genin lately, a very happy improvement to their infiltration operations.
Asuma's normally tanned face, with appropriately applied makeup to form sun lines and freckles, completed his disguise with a light dusting of grey to his now chest-length beard and scraggly mop of hair framing his head and neck. His worn, monk-like robes and ratty sandals gave the impression of a well-traveled man with little money. The thick callouses of his hands and thick wrists (all formed from years of rigorous training) gave the impression of a man at the end of a life filled with hard work. All he needed to complete the look was the cask now resting on his back and a hunched posture, his legs and feet bowed outwards to make his stoop all the more pronounced.
Shikamaru and Ino, her hair dyed a luxurious black color that made Naruto drool briefly, dressed the part as his children, Samādi and Kōgō. Naruto, his hair dyed an earthy brown, wore a sleeveless peasant's kimono and monk's trousers wrapped in the traditional temple fashion, his feet wrapped in cloth shoes with thin soles also in the temple style to match his Gyōja identity as the laymen helper to the great vintner, Kurokuru. Clearly not wealthy enough to afford sturdy leather gloves to protect his hands from hard labor, his fists, wrists, and forearms were wrapped in strong linen to minimize wear and tear (and hide most of his seals). All of his shinobi gear he kept sealed away within easy reach if needed.
Given his dense, muscular build (it was a simple matter to beef up his physique with bulging muscles to provide an almost Quasimodo build), his shoulders stooped as he rolled them forward to round out his back and shorten his normally lean body. And just like that, Ino found herself drooling at the knotted muscles on her boyfriend's exposed arms and shoulders.
They were finally ready to start the hard work.
They were at it again. Taifū never understood why Umi and Sandā felt the continuous need to out-boast one another but there it was once again on full display. She could never understand it any better than she could understand why all of their respective sects gave them the ridiculous elemental monikers that they did.
Everyone was well aware of their individual elemental affinities. Halfkin only ever developed one anyway no matter how hard they tried to manifest a second. It was nature's law, inviolate. Unbreakable. So why advertise it in a silly nickname?
"I bet he'll be three meters tall, two meters abreast, and spew lightning bolts from his arse!" came the latest claim of impossibility, this time from the equally stubborn Thunder Sect Blademaster. Did they know how silly she thought them to be? Did they even care?
"Pathetic! Your pitiful sparks will disperse before the strength of his Tsunami Strike!" Umi countered, his latest boast equally ignored by the gold-skinned Raiton user.
The smaller female scoffed silently. It felt good to see them jesting and verbally sparring after more than a decade of sulking. It reminded her of a better time when all six of them-.
Taifū gently shook her head to brush away those thoughts. They were hopeless without a Walker's pardon. The Clutch was broken, just as broken as the Clan now and unlikely to mend if the Wave sect had their way. She almost scoffed aloud with that thought, the hypocrites.
"I've not seen them this animated in years." That was Ishi, the quiet one. He tended to observe more than speak so comments from him were usually worth paying attention to.
Taifū stopped in the middle of the rocky path leading away from the training grounds, her ears drawn to the deep voice rumbling in the chest of an identically-dressed halfkin paused three steps behind her on the same trek back to the caverns. All Halfkin were the half-breed children of the great wyrms, the product of mating with a human, charged with the defense of kith and kin. Everyone knew the lies told to the summoners by their linked wymrkin but it was a lie built out of necessity; full wyrms and halfkin sold for ridiculous amounts on the human black market.
Kept in the shadows and covered (for the most part) to hide their unusual skin tones, halfkin trained to be the guardians of the clan and, when necessary on the rare occasion, the hunters sent to retrieve stolen eggs or serpents. Seeing as they could live upwards of three hundred human years or more, each could amass great strength and skill in taijutsu, kenjutsu, and elemental manipulation. They could become incredibly dangerous to fight.
The best of them earned the top rank of each sect and a place at the side of the Walker as personal guardians and trainers but the last one was so long ago. It was before The Breaking.
Most of the Kin simply chose to forget than face the horrible truth. It was easier that way if not terribly lonely.
For the most part, it was an honorable life if not an extremely dull one, that is until he was discovered and things began to pick up; the great wyrms were, for lack of a better term excited not that it meant anything to the small group of bipeds strolling near the cliffs.
Halfkin weren't quite human but they weren't quite serpents either. Whether male or female, they were stronger and faster than humans based on their body composition. Muscles were denser beneath a tougher skin even if it wasn't scaled. Females, although fewer in number, tended to be taller and stronger than the average human woman. Males were larger and stood out among any crowd, hence their particular mode of dress.
Regardless of gender, all halfkin wore baggy trousers wrapped from knees to shin in dark strips of cloth, all of it a slate grey color. Their sandals were heavy-duty and strapped up to their calves with built-in metal strips to protect their shins, also died a dull dark grey and stamped with the swirl of the Clan. Their battle kimonos were sleeveless and made of scaled material that formed a hooded cowl to cover their heads and hung just past their knees in four heavy flaps that covered all four sides of their bodies.
Halfkin generally didn't worry about stealth; they were front line troops.
Beneath the heavy garment, most wore either short-sleeved or no-sleeved shirts that came up into a half mask covering their lower face. Matching wraps covered their forearms and hands with the only obvious armament being the custom-sized zanbato's strapped to their backs, the heavy blades toned down a bit for the slimmer females. The only real differentiation came in the red ink tattoos on their right shoulders identifying their respective sects. Frost came from the wind sect, her pale skin and white hair a dazzling match to the ice blue orbs hovering above her dark mask. Curvy, muscular, and lithe of body, the female halfkin were as svelte and dangerous as the males were walking bruisers, their thick muscles bulging as heavily slabbed arms swung lazily along the morning trek.
She was turning back to look at one of her larger kin now, his own back to her as he glanced out over the rocky cliffs to the churning waters below where a score of larger Kin danced among the waves. They were celebrating his coming. There was hope once again among the clutch.
Taifū found it depressing that they couldn't rejoice with them but their lot in life was to serve and protect. The halfkin never mingled among the great wyrms unless invited. It was not the way things were done.
Taifū's rounded chest expanded as she sucked in a deep breath of air to address her distracted brother in blood before she was cut off.
"Oi! What are you doing back here?! I thought we settled this already!" That was Umi and he sounded very annoyed, not an uncommon occurrence during the best of times. This time he sounded truly annoyed which was saying something.
Instead of drawing Ishi's attention from the cliff it was done for her by their usually irate brother of the water sect. Her eyes, along with the other three hooded pairs of eyes turned to Umi, his hunched shoulders leaned forward even as his arms rose at his side, his hands curled upwards into claws.
Kneeling on the far side of the bridge leading back to their caverns was the seiza'd body of another female halfkin, her sword laid out on the ground in front of her knees, her face shrouded by flowing locks the color of blood. Head bowed, she made no move to relocate from the center of the bridge leading home nor defend herself from the large half-blood descending angrily upon her unprotected back.
'Oh, bloody hell,' Taifū thought to herself. This was all they needed as everyone frantically prepared to receive the Walker. 'All we need now is for her to see this stupidity and-.'
"What is the name of all that is unholy is going on here?!"
The five halfkin froze be it mid-stride, thought, or action, their heads turning as one to face the snarling maw of Ellamus-sama in her fully-scaled glory. Unsurprisingly, she was less than pleased.
Asuma swaggered as he walked, a handheld wine gourd in his right hand as the left firmly gripped the rope strapping the keg to his back. He made sure to kick out his feet wide as he strolled along in the most un-shinobi fashion he could manage, his voice rumbling out a raucous bar tune that Ino had to work to keep from blushing in response to. They all had to affect an attitude of indifference but a maiden such as her found shameless tunes about some tavern wench's "assets" tough to ignore when those body parts were compared to building fixtures.
Naruto unconsciously slouched just a hair more as he slapped out a steady rhythm on his thigh, his own straw hat resting comfortably on his head while he lugged a medium-sized chest strapped to his back. He was the apprentice and, as a result, was left to do the heavy lifting, so lift he would while remembering to slow his movements enough to make himself seem marginally encumbered.
In reality, he barely felt the weight of the reinforced box on his back as his heavily lidded eyes pretended to slide off of anything substantive even as his mind logged everything he saw.
Of them all, Shikamaru had the easiest time portraying lazy indifference. It was his natural state after all. The hardest part of it all was carrying the walking stick with the spare wine gourd tied to it in bright red silks. If it came to a fight, he was to toss the bamboo staff to Asuma and move to where he could stand out of the way, both he and Ino switching to observation mode while Asuma and Naruto dealt with any nuisances.
"Halt!"
Asuma staggered to a semi-drunken stop as one of the gate guards sauntered out to question them, his eyes lingering on the curves of the dark-haired female standing behind the older man. Ino tried to suppress the shiver that ran down her spine as the man all but undressed her with his eyes. From where he was supposed to stand at the back of the formation, Naruto could do nothing but clench his jaw and keep his eyes lowered but he wanted nothing more than to pound the man to a bloody paste.
Some quick talking (and great acting) by Asuma got them past the guards with minimal incident despite both guards loitering their gazes on Ino's shapely hips and backside.
Naruto gritted his teeth and did everything he could to suppress his rising KI and outrage despite knowing she could dismantle any of the leering fools without his help. He could not help the feelings eating away at his gut like acid, so he pressed on.
It took them all of ten minutes to find two rooms at The Farmer's Rest, Asuma gathering his team stating that they'd take their evening meal in the pub as it would be the best place to sift through the town's gossip. It was the only drinking hole and the dim interior played well into Naruto's enhanced senses. Beyond that, their first stop would be the Farmer's Market; Asuma reasoned that others might be more amenable to speaking with them if they presented themselves as legitimate business folk than just nosy window shoppers. They'd visit the paper vendor's shop in the late night and keep their snooping activities under cover of darkness, but, for now, they trudged back out into the city in search of information.
It didn't take long to find the market centrally located as it was. Since the day was still early, the stifling humidity hadn't quite turned the walled city into a sauna yet, something Ino was secretly thankful for. Asuma led most of the talking while the three kept their eyes open communicating by nodding or shifting their eyes in a direction that caught their interests; Asuma had forbidden hand signs given their cover and the probability that either Takagi's thugs or Nagare's ronin might recognize the gestures whether they could decipher them or not.
They were to take no chances.
It took two hours of shameless socializing and brown-nosing before the group started to make any progress, the female vendors being more sympathetic to the single father traveling with young children, especially the lovely young Kōgō. Several even whispered that he should wrap up his business quickly and flee if he wanted to keep the young maiden's chastity safe from the trash of Hanikamu, a very chilling warning that narrowed the jovial actor's demeanor as he bowed a grateful thank you.
Having purchased several batches of produce "to use in his latest brews," Asuma paused when Naruto's fingers tapped out a quick five-beat before taking the batch of Asian pears to stow in his wicker storage box. Asuma's rich voice rose as he thanked the kind mother for her recommendations and promised to take his children away as soon as he could find a parchment vendor to help him make new labels. He was still bowing as the suddenly ashen-faced fruit vendor backed away frantically waving off his gratitude while trying to hide in the very back of her stall, her legs lowering her body to the ground as she tried to make herself as small as possible.
"You fine gentleman wouldn't happen to know where I could find a washi seller, do you?" Asuma's wicker hat turned slightly to look past his right shoulder at the five men Naruto earlier indicated were lurking nearby, his back turned to them since his body still faced the stall.
"Oi! Old man! You should be more worried about whether or not we leave you with all of your teeth after we take those packages and your whore of a daughter back to our hangout."
The youth speaking couldn't have been more than seventeen, a tall gangly thing with faded clothing stretched and worn with age and use. The gray tank top was more dark grey blotches than anything else, his short pants frayed and cut off just below the knees. Like his friends, he clutched a weapon of some sort, in his case a solid wooden stick he was using to waggle threateningly while pointing to the basket on Naruto's back as his friends clutched similar weapons or cleavers.
Asuma felt they were being watched but these would-be thugs radiated threadbare intent, more of a risk of spreading filth and infection than actual harm to the squad of lethal shinobi. Luckily for them, Team Asuma needed to preserve their cover so none of them would die since he could count another half dozen or so sets of eyes intensely watching the standoff happen in the middle of the street. Ignoring the pair of city guards idly leaning against the front posts of a dye house (proving they would make no move to interfere), Asuma threw back his head and laughed. He laughed long and loud much to the growing unease of the five youths looking back and forth at each other wondering if the old man was insane.
They were outnumbered. The street toughs had weapons and only one of them seemed to have anything resembling an item of self-defense. They blanched in even greater confusion once the thick-muscled hunchback doffed his wicker basket and stretched his torso with a sickening crunch, his walking stick going the same way of the basket ending up in the still chuckling man's hand, the basket now laying on the ground at his feet.
"Do not kill them, Gyōja-kun. We still need to buy more brewing supplies and cannot afford to bail you out of jail like last time."
This comment made several of the boy's holding weapons flinch and several of the onlookers raise questioning eyebrows. Even the woman hiding behind her cart counter rose high enough to sneak a peek at the brewing confrontation.
Naruto, for his part, merely nodded in exaggerated bowing motions as he made a jerky half bow before the dark-haired beauty who, in turn, handed him a pottery gourd from her own shoulder satchel. With an even deeper bow, he accepted the full gift and took a few hunched-over steps, his shoulders rocking side to side in an almost monkey-like fashion, into the middle of the now-vacant open space of the market.
In one swift move, he ripped the cork from the bottle and chugged its contents in one breath.
Everyone watching, including the five street bullies, was watching with their mouths wide open, the threat of impending violence temporarily forgotten. With an enormous belch, an exaggerated wiping of his mouth on his forearm, and a gently swaying upper body that left him leaning backwards, the muscular hunchback corked the bottle and tossed it to the dark-haired male of their small group, his right leg lifting to counterbalance his over-leaning body before he pivoted precariously in a complete circle. Many of the onlookers cooed and oohed as if the sound of their voices could keep the red-faced boy from falling all the way over, his glazed eyes settling onto the five boys waving weapons in his direction as if noticing them for the first time. Once he could focus on them, his face broke into a wide smile which seemed to force a small hiccup from somewhere deep in his abdomen.
The five boys laughed and, with their newfound courage at their staggeringly drunken opponent, boldly stepped forward to deliver him the beating of his life.
~III~
Team Asuma, between Asuma's experience, Shikamaru's brilliance, and Naruto's prankster genius, had worked out a fairly detailed cover story for all of them using Ino as the sanity check to critique their work. Asuma had to admit he liked this squad, their quick minds reminding him of why he found infiltration so exhilarating during his time with the Twelve Guardians.
Asuma gave them the general genus of his Kurokuru character, the drunken vintner, and they ran with the rest. Using the few manuscripts he'd gathered from his travels mixed in with his own family's close ties to Enma, the Monkey King summons, Shikamaru and Naruto almost seemed to enjoy building an entire life for the four characters.
Part of it included how they would deal with threats in the open knowing that all bets were off if it came down to a full-shinobi battle with nukenins. The dye jobs and method acting were easier to hide than maintaining henges, the exception being Naruto's physical shape change which was harder to dispel. That was their first line of defense: anonymity.
No insignia.
No distinguishing features.
Knowing that they couldn't hide Ino's sexy body unless she used a henge, Asuma and Naruto would form the first lines of defense with the cover that the entire family would have varying levels of fighting skills. Asuma, having trained with monks, could mimic the temple fighting style easily enough to pass for a former monk. Ino's style lent itself to a temple martial art if you looked at it long enough meaning that Shikamaru would be hard-pressed to deliver a credible performance given his lack of physical motivation. Naruto, being the natural fighter that he was, had watched enough movies that he managed to cobble together a believable style the night before with Asuma and a few hundred clones, his high level of physicality letting him pull off a credible monk's apprentice deadly enough to handle most street punks, bandits, and yakuza thugs.
Even better was his crowning skillset of drunken boxing, something he'd always wanted to learn since the very first movie the Hokage ever took him to see beginning his life-long love of the genre.
Spinning lopsidedly into a wavering stance, both hands held out before his chest in the stylized "drunken cups" while his body leaned backward as if defying gravity. He tried not to smirk as he witnessed several citizens leaning right along with him. Then one of the toughs charged, his hand reared back to strike with a roughed-up stick.
As the boy swung his arm in a sweeping arc with the intent of taking off his head, Naruto raised his left hand as if taking a drink, his body finally tipping backward enough to overbalance his body and (most likely) land him flat on his back. The boy's stick sailed over the space where his head once was not seeing the tip of Naruto's foot (clearly not a trained fighter as his eyes were nearly closed) as his right leg shot out, his toes shooting upwards to catch the unnamed boy under his chin. Naruto's body paused in the horizontal position as the thug's feet left the ground, both males ultimately landing flat on the dusty earth at nearly the same time. Only one of them swung his legs in a wide circle to help spiral up to his feet before continuing his spin to corkscrew back down to the dusty ground in a cross-legged crouch with one hand in the "drinking cups" pose and the other arm bent out wide as if holding a jug of wine. Several people gasped as the seemingly drunken boy's head lolled about, his eyes squinting as if trying to focus on the now unconscious boy lying spread eagle on the ground.
As two more of the would-be robbers dashed forward wielding almost identical cleavers, they had no way of knowing that Naruto was slowing down his movements because he'd increased his resistance seals, seals cleverly hidden by his clothes and arm wraps. They also had no way of knowing that it helped weigh his blows making them seem harder like bricks or metal hammers. He was still a trained close-quarters combat shinobi, so the threat represented by these untrained boys was not enough to normally give him a good warm-up.
Naruto, or rather Gyōja-kun, dodged the first wild swing from the youth on his left by reverse spinning back to his feet and slapping the stocky boy's hand across his body with his left palm, the boy's wide arc slicing open his partner's shirt barely missing flesh. The downward swing of the taller gang member, most likely a brother of the leader looking on with worried eyes, he avoided by drunkenly spinning to his right, his feet pivoting to place him behind the now off-balance attacker, a state he made worse when Gyōja thrust out his rear end knocking the boy further off-balance to slide across the dirt.
The stocky one, once shocked at nearly hacking his partner to pieces, charged with an enraged scowl and his own overhand swing. It never connected as Naruto leaned forward on one foot with both arms out wide and his right leg shooting out directly behind his body, the heel catching his attacker square in the chest driving the air from his lungs and the ground out from under his feet.
The stocky one snatched up his cleaver and jumped back to his feet with an angry grimace as he roared out his next charge. Naruto spun around to push his back into the chest of the charging teenager stopping him cold, the boy's arm resting limply on the Genin's right shoulder. Having stopped the reckless attack, Naruto then proceeded to drive first his left elbow into the gut of the fighter at his back followed by spinning in place while driving the wrist of his right "cup holding hand" into the boy's chest sending his third attacker staggering backwards before finishing with another wrist to the boy's chin knocking him unconscious before the ground rushed up to meet his body, the thug sliding to a stop underneath a trinket vendor's cart.
"Gyōja's" extended strike led to his body slowly tipping forward enough so that he fell to the dusty earth once again. It was clear that the longer the fight went on the greater the alcohol was beginning to take effect; the boy's movements were becoming increasingly loose as he staggered and staggered about worse than before, something Asuma pretended not to notice as his whiskered face twisted up briefly with concern.
Everyone watching with their mouths wide open turned from the unmoving boy back to the drunk brawler now lying flat on the ground, his chin propped up by his palms while he smiled sloppily in a drunken haze. Some whispered openly in disbelief as he'd just fallen after striking that last blow never taking a single hit himself during the scuffle. He'd just flopped onto the dirt too tired to care.
Before the last two boys could charge, he rolled onto his right side, swung his left leg up and over his body followed by his right, then used the spinning momentum to spin his whole body around and onto his shoulders while simultaneously twisting and kicking upwards from the dirt until his back left the dust and his feet slapped down at almost the same time. Unlike the movies where the drunken hero would stagger about waving his arms around muttering strange stance names and rolling through stumbling katas, Naruto had seen hundreds of angry drunks staggering from The Blossom, most standing bleary-eyed and incoherent. He understood the role Asuma wanted him to portray and just stood there with his arms hanging limply at his sides, the fists still curled into drunken claws as his (now) black pupils stared off into space.
Many, many pairs of stunned villager eyes blinked stupidly at the drunken acrobat and then back down to the three still unmoving toughs. Then the whispering began.
Naruto drunkenly whipped his head around to glare at the last two boys standing over by the far end of the market. They both flinched before turning to flee into the back streets and away from the crazed drunkard with the heavy hands, running from certain pain and the jeering laughs of the market stalls.
Beneath his wicker helmet, Asuma smiled as he observed no less than five figures slinking away to inform their respective masters.
Ino understood her part in what was to come next and tried not to smile. It was hard to do. Naruto was always, in her opinion, an incredible prankster despite how much she hated his antics at the academy. That meant he was a brilliant actor at his best as displayed by the surly drunkard he was portraying, and her heart melted as she stepped into the healing angel role needed for the sham to work properly.
"Samādi" was trying, and failing spectacularly, to corral the belligerent drunk so that they could regroup at the vendor's stall "Kurokuru" was lingering by, their sensei just staring at the "act" with his ever-present smirk. Naruto was laying it on thick, alternating from leaning too heavily on his adopted brother figure making it impossible to do anything but help the drunkard stand, to swatting away the boy's "helpful hands" and manipulating Shika's reaches and grabs enough to make him miss or stumble. Mixing in a bit of drunken slurring, pointing at shiny objects, snarling drunkenly as he shadowboxed the air (while Shika ducked and covered), began to produce chuckles as it became obvious the drunken brawler still recognized the familiar face of his darker-haired master's son yet was still spoiling to fight off the "bad people wanting to hurt his 'precious Kōgō.'
That became Ino's cue.
Stepping forward as Naruto dodged a choreographed lunge by Shika only to trip him and land on top of him in a side-resting lounge, Ino stepped forward slowly to the gasping surprise of several onlookers, mostly women. Several wanted (and started) to warn her away whispering for her to wait for the boy to sober a little or pass out so as to not hurt the delicate flower of a girl. Instead, she deliberately stepped to within three paces of the beefier boy resting atop her still struggling sibling and called out softly.
"Gyōja-kun," she called out barely above a whisper. The effect was instantaneous as the drunken boy rolled from Shika's back and up to his drunken feet, his arms twirling about as his head spun around trying to find the source of that soft voice calling his name.
Ino repeated it.
The enigmatic Gyōja spun completely around before his knotted eyebrows found "Kōgō's" gently smiling face and all of the tension seemed to leave his body. He straightened and the frown immediately left his lips to be replaced by a brilliant smile with the power of the sun. Ino did not have to fake the blush that flushed up from her kimono to cover her cheeks.
He just had that effect on her when he smiled at her like that, like she was the source of all joy in his life.
Gyōga wobbly staggered forward until the girl's hands cupped his cheeks, her eyes closing as she blew out a heavy breath to clear the fumes from her face. Gyōga gurgled like a toddler as he leaned into the girl's embrace, his arms swinging limply between them since he had to lean down enough to keep her from reaching above her shoulders.
"Stop playing in the dirt, Samādi. Father wants to find the washi vendor before nightfall," she chastised. The boy, still laying sprawled out in the dust, merely grunted in infantile rage as he staggered up to his feet and stormed along after the now docile tank of an apprentice to their "father" grousing the entire way about having to wrestle troublesome baby gorillas.
Even as the now freely-chattering women running the vendor carts began pressing extra samples into the now smiling (and furiously bowing) hands of the sake peddler, each switching seamlessly between homemade hangover remedies and better ways to protect that precious daughter of his, Kurokuru's eye noted the final onlooker slinking away into the shadows.
His smile took on a dangerous glint none of the women noticed, their hands waving about as they focused on the haggard man and his three charges in full hen mother mode, as he noted one gawker taking to the rooftops in the direction of the northwestern section of town.
~III~
Ten wobbly minutes later, Asuma and his sober team members were standing around one of the lumpy beds in their cramped room, all three with their arms folded across their chests in bewilderment. Three pairs of eyes were staring in utter confusion at the drunkenly waving arms of the blond Genin singing raunchy taverns songs off-key, his body splayed out bonelessly on the mattress he normally shared with the other blonde.
"I don't get it." Ino's voice sounded as confused as her face indicated. One eyebrow was slightly higher than the other as her lips pursed and contorted.
"Shouldn't he be, I dunno, less drunk by now?" She turned to their sensei who was standing there with his head leaned to one side, shoulders raised in an uncertain shrug.
"I know less than you do about this. He's never been this drunk, at least not during any of our previous infiltration missions where we used alcohol." Come to think of it, he'd never seen the bijū vessel drunk before assuming the boy's passenger treated alcohol like it treated poison. Asuma was definitely in uncharted territory as the jinchuuriki began the next round of a particularly bawdy tune involving a sailor and his mermaid.
All three of them watched as Naruto tried to clap in time to his own song, his hands missing each other more often than not. Three verses into it, his arms fell limply to the bed and his head lolled to one side. Ten seconds later and the snores began chasing the drool leaking from his open mouth.
Asuma was floored. They'd pulled a similar stunt with "the rowdy drunk" at least once and the boy shook off alcohol as if it were weak tea. On more than one post-mission celebration, Naruto drank him under the table much to Kure-chan's great displeasure once he woke up the next morning on the couch. He couldn't figure out why his "tenant" wasn't purging his system of residual sake.
Naruto had mumbled before this mission began that he was on the outs with the fox. Sad as it was, the Jounin hoped they could work out whatever problems were going on soon. Team Asuma needed their heavy hitter back and quickly and they were all silently hoping he wouldn't die from alcohol poisoning.
There was a LOT of sake in that gourd.
Shrugging it off, he turned to finish removing his disguise. Because of this discovery, they were in for the night now and Shika would be able to bring food up to the room for the group. Whatever the case, he didn't envy the headache the boy would have when he awoke.
Speaking of said drunken boy…
"Ugh!" His groan of agony sent out ripples from the water flowing around his body and into the draining pool of his mindspace. His head was pounding, and his mouth felt like someone lined it with bad rugs. Both hands rose up out of the water to cradle his throbbing forehead but to no avail. The pulsing pain of his own heartbeat continued to rattle the inside of his skull.
Was this a hangover? He'd heard about them but never experienced one before. Could a mental projection of yourself even get a hangover? He'd been in his mental fortress before after particularly brutal beatings appearing none the worse for wear, but this was horrific.
With a heaving grunt, he rolled over with one hand propping his upper body above the murky water sloshing past him. Even the normally docile blue and purple lighting of his mindscape were painful to his sensitive eyes forcing them closed. He cursed his enhanced vision and promptly wrinkled his brow at the harsh level of his own voice.
Quieter. Definitely.
A subdued snort from across the chamber only added to the discomfort but forced him to raise his head in time to see the dour muzzle of his tenant rising to sulk outside the den once again. Knowing more pain was headed his way, he staggered to his feet and tried to stall her departure.
"Wait!" Another wince. "You promised…" he swayed dangerously, one hand raised out to her retreating tails and the other clamped to his brow, "promised… that we could talk," a painful grimace, "…t-talk if it was important."
Silence. The enormous nine-tailed fox paused but did not turn around. When it appeared that he was waiting for a response, she resumed her sudden urge to go for a walk outside. The sun was still gleaming down, and he knew he wouldn't be able to catch her in his condition if she got away.
"You were right!" he blurted out, his eyes clamping shut at the volume of his own voice echoing off the dark cavern walls. This time she stopped dead in her tracks, the fox's muzzle just beyond the entrance.
Oh my, he felt dizzy. And nauseous. Could an avatar puke from alcohol poisoning?
"You," *BURP* "were right."
The fox slowly turned around and walked casually back into the den sitting just as calmly on her haunches with an expectant look on her face. A sudden wave of sickness bent him over until his palms slapped to his knees.
"I'm sorry, but is there something you can do," he wobbled but didn't fall, "about this so that talking (another rancid burp followed) is a bit easier?" A ridge over the fox's left eye rose but nothing changed. No tails moved, no youki flowed, and he felt as disgusting as ever.
"No, of course not." Taking several deep breaths, he fought to a kneeling position before the bars of the massive den and struggled to sit upright.
"You were saying?"
He flinched slightly at the sound of the fox's booming voice. 'Did she… did she just smile?!' Naruto grimaced but pushed on anyway.
"I was saying that you were right." The air was cooler closer to the floor and there was a small breeze. It made talking less painful. "I am afraid of something."
The enormous fox did not move, nor did she twitch a muscle.
"Not to sound too emo but I'm afraid," he took a deep breath, "afraid of losing my best friend."
This time the fox scoffed. Loudly.
"Just hear me out." One hand came up in a placating fashion.
"You've been with me since the beginning, since the first timeline. When Konoha was at its worst and even though you hated me more than any other fleshbag, you stood by me." It was getting easier with something to focus on.
"You might not have liked it, but you helped me." He was beginning to sweat less which was a good thing. "You healed me when they poisoned me. You healed me when they attacked me. You pushed me when I started to give up. You challenged me when I got complacent. You were… are… my best friend, my first real friend."
The fox's passive muzzle seemed a hair less adversarial.
"The first time I won your friendship, I felt indestructible. There wasn't anything we couldn't do together." He actually chuckled. Images of fighting on the moon and in the Fourth War flickered across his very warm brain.
His entire head pulsed painfully forcing out another wince.
"Then we did the first slide and I had to win you back all over again except it was harder to do because I kept rushing things making it worse." A funny memory struck him, and he chuckled only to wince again at the pain in his head. "I almost botched it instead, but you gave me another chance." This time he did laugh just a bit.
"Without you, I wouldn't even have half of the facts I need to pull this off in the next slide." His eyes finally worked their way up from the cavern floor to lock with the fox's fiery orbs. "I guess that's when I started to actually get nervous."
The fox's eyes narrowed in confusion.
"Next slide is the last slide and I always keep my promises. I promised that I would let you go if I found a way to do it without sending you to the Shinigami and now I have it." This time the eyes of the great Kyuubi shot open as he held up his left hand and a Royal blue journal appeared in it.
"Mito's journal! How long have you had that?!" The force of her voice made him flinch as if it were a physical blow, his body curling over as his eyes clamped shut."
"Shhhhhhh!" he tried to placate the angry bijuu but failed.
"Do. NOT. SHUSH. ME. MAGGOT!" Naruto held the journal to his forehead as if it could block the angry sound of her voice and prevent him any more pain. It didn't work.
It took Naruto longer to recover, especially since the Great Youko needed several minutes to stop yelling at him. He didn't even recognize some of the new ones in the next barrage of curses.
"I got this from the Umihebi once I signed the summoning contract on my last visit," he answered sounding exhausted, his eyes barely open. "Mito didn't trust the treasures of the clan to survive on the island with the survivors scattered to the winds. So, she hid it all with the clan summons." He opened his hand as the book disintegrated into motes of light. None of it was real inside his mindspace anyway.
"At any rate, there is a way," he paused to correct himself, "there will be a way to free you during the next slide." He needed to take slow, steadying breaths to ease the increased pounding in his head. "We need to make sure the jumpers deliver the correct messages first and that they're strong enough to deal with high A to low S-ranked threats."
The fox had resumed her stoic pose after having jumped up to yell at him for not sharing the discovery with him. It didn't matter that she voluntarily and routinely severed their connection to avoid the stench of "rotten fish and whiny lizards" as she called it. He was her jinchuuriki and should have known better to keep such a thing from her. Their entire strategy hinged on discovering who the Uzumaki spy was and he knew how much she wanted to find the traitor and avenge the clan. The great bijū wanted that almost as much as she wanted…
That's when it sunk in.
"You're afraid I'll leave right away." Kurama's voice was unusually subdued but his sad smile confirmed her guess. The surprised look melted almost immediately into anger again. "It does not change the fact that you should not have kept this from me!"
Naruto nodded once, his head now bowed in guilt.
"We pledged to help each other avenge ourselves against those that wronged us! You with your clan and me with the one-eyed bastard!" He nodded again but said nothing. "Did that mean nothing to you?" No answer. "Did you think I would leave you before keeping my word?!" Again, nothing. "Answer me." It was an angry hiss this time.
"At least LOOK AT ME!"
He winced again but forced his eyes up from the floor.
"What was the meaning of all this?"
Naruto appeared sheepish, an image the great bijū discovered she disliked immensely. "I wanted to keep you around as long as I could." The fox's eyes narrowed dangerously. "I knew you'd be free on the next slide and I always keep my promises, but I wanted to keep my best friend around a little longer this time since it would be the last time." He took a deep breath. "I was being selfish."
"You also promised not to get emo on me."
Outside she was her normally bitter and sarcastic self. Inside Kurama was stunned. The only person that ever wanted her around was the Sage. Even Matatabi, the only sibling she had any semblance of a familial relationship with, tolerated her in sparse bursts. Movement from her vessel's avatar broke the bijū's wandering thoughts.
Rising from the water sluggishly, he bowed at the waist.
"I'm sorry that I betrayed your trust in me and I promise all the games and delays will end. I just have two loose ends to wrap up in this timeline and, as soon as my blood clones are strong enough, we'll make the last slide." He straightened up with a wobble as the spark left his eyes, then turned to stagger away, his body starting to fade from view.
She let him go without another word as their situation got turned over and over again in her mind. If he kept his word and released her as he promised, there really wasn't much to be angry for. Oh, the misdirection was infuriating but his admission was touching no matter how much she would deny it. It came down to the fact that he would miss her, something no other human would ever sanely admit to.
He had to be suffering from brain damage somewhere. The alcohol poisoning probably wasn't helping much either.
Shrugging away his subterfuge (as what was a few years to an eternal force of nature?) she resolved to at least withhold judgment until he outright refused to keep his word. She might give him another chance to prove his worth. In the meantime, there was one thing she could do since he made the effort to apologize for being woefully human.
A great rush of red-tinged water flowed from the sluice gates of her raised platform and into his system and the great bijū chastised herself for becoming soft-hearted as she stared momentarily at the spot where his back finally faded away into nothingness.
In the real world, it was a very groggy Naruto that slowly sat up from the bed, his body reeking of alcohol as it oozed from his pores. Shikamaru's head looked up from the scarred table of rotted wood in their room, his chopsticks halfway to his mouth and his eyebrows perched high atop his forehead. Across from him, a platinum blonde matched his curiosity as the groaning team bruiser struggled to sit upright.
He'd only been out for an hour.
"Hungry?" the softer voice of the two called out.
Despite the raging monkeys finally packing up their drums and leaving their temporary jam session in the front half of his brain, food did not sound appealing at that exact moment. Eyes clamped shut, one hand waving in their general direction as he exhaled with fluttering lips, Naruto tried not to taste the fur carpet lining his entire mouth.
Someone grabbed his hand and placed a cool glass in it, his overly sensitive hearing catching the gentle sloshing of liquid as he held it to his forehead.
"Welcome to the land of the mortal, Naruto."
He promptly ignored his male teammate but resolved that the next batch of props would be watered down. It would be very watered down.
"Asuma-sensei?" he croaked out, both eyes still clamped shut as his rebelling stomach fought against the greasy smelling food just three paces away. An enhanced sense of smell could really be a kick in the nuts sometimes.
"Called away… should be back soon," came the intermittent response between mouthfuls. "Since you're not dead anymore, you need to eat something before we head out tonight. No telling how long it's going to take."
Naruto sparingly grunted an incoherent acknowledgment before sliding the glass along the side of his face and towards his mouth. It was the best liquid he'd ever tasted next to miso broth. Who knew water could taste like heaven?
But that would have to wait. For now, Kurama was willing to work with him again and that was a step in the right direction as he felt the bijū's chakra burning away the fog in his head and the acid churning in his gut.
Now he just had to not screw it up on her again.
"Tea Mister…?" The man's voice was as impeccable as his style of dress and immaculately-streaked haircut, his oiled locks pulled taut in the samurai fashion. If at all possible, the small patches of grey around his clean-shaven face made him seem more dignified. Asuma wasn't fooled, however, his sharp eyes taking in the thick wrists and calloused hands, most likely from hours and hours and hours of kenjutsu practice.
'Wait, that wasn't right… samurai called it something else.'
"Just Kuro if you please." Asuma bobbed his upper body in the stooped fashion familiar with his vintner persona. "Hai, Kubo-sama. Thank you for the tea." Asuma applied nervous energy to his hands and worked the edges of his straw hat a bit more as he slowly widened his focus around the posh room the two men were talking in.
"I was hoping to meet your apprentice."
Asuma hid the narrowing of his eyes behind a toothy grin that made them disappear altogether. News apparently traveled fast in the small village, but he wasn't too surprised; one of the five slinking away from their street brawl very easily could have been one of Kubo's toadies.
"Ah, sorry but he needs to recover a bit." Asuma tried to seem properly ashamed. "I've told him before to not drink soo much but the young today…" He left it open-ended as if to imply it was a lost cause, the two men sharing a knowing chuckle before the disguised Jounin went back to mentally cataloging the room's contents.
The sitting room was filled with rich cherry wood. Furniture, floors, walls, arched ceilings all reeked of oils. The rich carpets and tapestries provided color contrast to the darker hues but did little to lighten the severe mood of the room. Motioning towards the monogrammed chabudai, both men folded their legs beneath their bodies as they settled onto matching cushions embroidered with the Kubo Clan crest. Asuma politely ignored the servants scurrying around them with trays as he adjusted a leg on the soft zabuton and instead focused on his host.
'A place for everything and everything in its place,' the Jounin silently commented.
Clothes clean and immaculately pressed. Nothing out of the place, the earthy beige and browns of his haori and kimono spoke of his clan's affinity to the earth for their sustenance. The dark green hakama with beige pinstripes tied it all together nicely.
Asuma's eyes flickered briefly to the broody samurai kneeling being and to the left of his master, the man's eyes never leaving the smiling vendor as he sipped his tea.
'That one will be a problem.' The Jounin knew a seasoned campaigner when he saw one.
"Tell me, Kuro-san," the Lord began. Asuma glanced up from his cup expectantly trying to make his eyes as expressive as possible. He always had a problem with that back with the Guardians. "Have you found what you need to establish long-term trade with Hanikamu?"
Asuma tried to widen his toothy smile, even more, to make him seem less threatening. "Almost. We seem to be having trouble finding the owner of the washi store."
The stately clan leader smiled but Asuma found no warmth in it. "Have you tried the Takagi estate yet in your search?"
It was almost an innocent question but the sinister tone just beneath the surface forced one of Asuma's eyebrows northwards all the same.
People were scurrying to clear a path deep in Iwagakure no Sato as a young woman stormed her way through the busy streets of the Stone Citadel. Pink eyes aflame with her latest passion, most knew by now to avoid the girl in one of her "moods."
Large though the city was, it only took her little over ten minutes to cover the distance she needed to storm into the Tsuchikage's manor, her legs never stopping their determined stride as she pushed past the two nameless guards standing sentry at the front door. She never bothered to learn their names as she most likely wouldn't see that particular pair again for at least a month. Besides, they were beneath her station anyway.
Through the door, she nearly ripped off her sandals with a huff and hung an immediate right into the kitchen. Within minutes the sounds of cupboards banging closed, glasses being roughly set down on the counter before being filled with water echoed through the lower section of the house.
"Kurotsuchi? Is that you, my little kabutomushi*?" It was the voice of an older male, her maternal grandfather, Gekido.
Mid gulp she paused long enough to take the glass from her lips and huff in the general direction of the small garden at the rear of the large house.
"Come share your day with me." With another huff and a brief shake of the head, she plodded through the house and out into the rear courtyard. Another quick gulp from the glass and her eyes took in the hunched form of the one member of her family that didn't belittle or talk down to her although he did frown slightly when he looked up to see the childish pout on her face.
"Come now, it can't have been that horrible today," the white-haired hermit joked. She liked his voice - unlike the Tsuchikage his wasn't rough and gravely but a smooth baritone that used to rock her to sleep when she was little. Tan of skin like most of Iwa's citizens, his flowing mane, mustache and beard of white hair stood out against his burgundy robes framing his face like a halo. Unlike the Tsuchikage, this old man kept a full head of hair that felt like silk when he'd let her braid a few strands of it for his dates with Madame Sekitei.
Unlike the Tsuchikage, she trusted him unreservedly.
"Tell me my little Mushi-chan," the girl scowled petulantly at the nickname, "did the old fence-sitter give you the mission like we thought he would?" The old man's hands never stopped working the earth as he added new plants to the closest garden section to the house. She hoped he was finally planting tomatoes like he promised last summer.
She nodded but said nothing aloud.
"Come now, Mushi-chan, I can't hear your thoughts rolling around in your head. Old men tend to lose their hearing as the years go by." Finishing with his current plant, he reached over to grab another.
"Yes, Ji-san. We leave in three days to head south to that place," she nearly spat out. It was clear she wasn't looking forward to the trip and her venom caused the old man to look up and take in the girls red uniform accented with a brown unranked flak vest, her Iwa forehead protector framed nicely by the black mane of hair haloing her face.
"Mushi, Mushi..." he intoned, his head tilting a little to the side. "This is a big honor for our family." He needed her to give her all for this so they could finally be free. Their allies deserved better than they got after Gekido fled to Iwa.
"I know, Ji-san. I know." His questioning gaze forced her to drop the pout and reply earnestly. "I will give my all for this!" To emphasize the point, the girl drew a kunai and slashed her palm before making a fist and pouring her blood into the garden's soil.
"I will make sure this false Uzumaki dies during the Chunin Exams!" Her pink eyes hardened showing no trace of the moody young girl. She had been replaced by the tested Iwa kunoichi now standing in her place.
"Good, Mushi-chan. Now! I think you should get that wound tended to so that you are one-hundred percent before it's time to go."
She turned to leave before spinning around one last time.
"Ji-san. If, and this is a big IF, but if he is a real Uzumaki, will I be able to use Lampades?" The old man actually paused in his busy gardening as his hands settled on his seiza'd thighs, his head pointed upwards as he considered her request. Kurotsuchi's breath caught in her throat as she waited impatiently for his response which seemed to take forever to come.
"IF this pretender is an actual member of the Uzumaki Clan, then you will need her help to overcome his summons." Her face began to break out into a very happy smile. "I will see if she is willing to join you, however, I would not get your hopes up if I were you." The old man turned to her with a weathered smile on his face. "She likes her peace and quiet."
Kurotsuchi didn't care. She darted across the courtyard and fiercely hugged her grandfather for several minutes almost dousing him with what was left in her glass. Stoked at the chance to redeem her Ji-san, she darted back into the house to begin her final preparations.
She would do whatever it took to kill the last Uzumaki heir and bring peace to her beloved grandfather. Gekido Terumī would know happiness in his final days or she would die trying.
Three shadows wrapped in midnight streaked across the evening skyline of Hanikamu, one of them still cursing the foggy nature of his gently throbbing skull. Naruto was sure that Kurama was dragging out the whole "cleansing the poison from your system" routine just to make him suffer.
Black tabi padding soundlessly across clay roof tiles, the three Leaf nin wove their way through the tight-knit multi-tiered homes of the tiny market ward of the over-sized trading post.
Asuma apparently liked Naruto's "Dark Nin" persona so much he commissioned stealth outfits to resemble it and the three figures were currently blending in with the night's chimney stacks or canted rooftops henged to match the masked figure from Istoria.
Pausing about a half block from the paper vendor's shop, the three hunkered down to take in the night's sounds even though their eyes zeroed in on their storefront destination. Inside the small shop nestled between a butcher and candle shop, Naruto's sharp eyes caught the scrawny balding man shuffling about behind the counter, slender hands moving aside books, scrolls, boxed supplies, and stacks of fresh rice paper still made through traditional methods; he was searching for something.
Naruto's clones learned who Giichi Takagi was during their first day of reconnaissance. What they didn't know was why the older uncle of the money miser was babysitting their contact's store day in and day out. Thin to the point of being unhealthy, the pinched face and hooked nose blended nicely with his greasy hair combed back into a matted mullet tight along his egg-shaped cranium. The man was a walking scarecrow, an image further enhanced by the recessed pair of beady eyes hidden beneath his pronounced cranial ridge of a brow and the bulky grey and blue pinstriped robe that seemed to swamp his unhealthy frame.
Naruto wanted to tie the man to a chair and force him to eat ten bowls of Ichiraku. That would sort him out.
Instead, they watched him putter around the store with a lemony scowl on his face before turning off all of the lights and locking up the storefront. Naruto didn't even both trying to decipher the man's unhappy muttering as he stormed off towards the Takagi estate to the northwest. He was too busy trying to figure out why the man had seemingly taken over Tamaguchi-san's store to care.
Ignoring the typical sounds and smells of families settling in for their evening meals and conversations, the three Genin hunkered down behind the building ledge until the coast was clear. They'd slip in one of the upper windows on the second floor and scout the main shop once folks settled down for the night.
"I'm sorry, Kubo-sama. I don't understand why I would ask Takagi-sama about Tamaguchi-san?" Asuma was hoping things weren't as obvious as the Kubo Patriarch was making it out to be.
The sinister smirk on the older man's face indicated that it would be exactly as obvious as Kubo thought it was.
"My men make up the vast majority of the law enforcement arm in this village, but I can only do so much if the Mayor is unwilling to enforce the law on his partner." The wrinkled disgust on his face left no doubt as to Jinei's beliefs concerning his political and monetary rivals but this was nothing Asuma hadn't already gathered on his own.
It didn't take much listening at night in the pub of The Rest to get a handle on the local politics running Hanikamu. The town's folk were like most small communities everywhere he'd been in Hi no Kuni; they kept to themselves a lot and trusted few beyond their intimate circle of friends, that is until you got a few drinks in them. Then the information began to flow like warm sake. Most of Naruto's information gathering on the night of the great clone horde had come from a small group staking out the local watering hole.
It was the easiest INFO OP the team had done in months.
It seemed very few thought well of the Mayor and those that did were tied to him financially in some way. No, Irumoa had very few supporters in the lower income bracket of Hanikamu.
On the other hand, Takagi was in it up to his neck with the less-than-holy leader. The Takagi Family was just better at keeping the dirt from sticking to their greedy hands to hear the local drunks tell it. More interesting was the several really bitter regulars were telling of some large hairy beast working for the "Takagi Bastard" to undercut their farms. In fact, it was all a particularly bitter threesome would talk about once they were four or five beers into their wallowing.
Somehow the greedy bastard was ruining their farms, according to the trio of drunkards, so that he could buy them cheap and start his own side project growing things vice digging them up from the earth.
It would seem that Team Asuma would need to pay an in-depth visit to the Takagi estate in the waning hours of the night. With a quick bow and a muttered "thank you" for the hospitality, he saw his way out with a quick promise to return for contract negotiations once he was ready to discuss breaking ground on a new brewery.
Naruto slid to the side of the dusty window to allow his team to follow after him once the coast was clear. With the gentle sound of the wooden window frame rasping along the sill, the three set about to catalog the apparent destruction throughout every upstairs room before sliding downstairs to the main store.
The second floor of the paper shop was one large apartment suite and, from the looks of it, had been ransacked on more than one occasion. Judging from the sliced open pillows and cushions releasing their feathers over a forest of shattered furniture, nothing survived whoever's wrath had descended upon the place. For the Infiltration and Espionage team led by Asuma, it was an all-too-familiar scene when looking for missing people. More often than not, it indicated that the person being searched for ended up one of two ways; they were either on the run or already dead.
The squad tried not to write off the unlikely spy without proof, but the evidence didn't give much to be hopeful for.
[Nothing.] It was one of the basic signs learned in the academy now repeated twice more by the silent figures ghosting through the residence. No family pictures. No personal items in frames or in places of honor, not that they'd still be there after whoever trashed the place finished up their demolition job. The man lived a Spartan lifestyle.
The few books present, not that any escaped having pages ripped from their bindings, were personal in nature. Never mind that the man only had a dozen or so, at least ten of those were related to the papermaking industry touching on everything from historical resources for making paper to different processes used to create the final product.
Naruto considered it all terribly boring then chastised himself as he remembered the man's dual lifestyle. Their spy was very good at his job.
Twenty minutes later found them all downstairs glossing over the relatively intact shop. It wouldn't do for the Takagi Clan to draw too much attention, so they'd want to keep the very public front of the store untouched. Despite their duplicity, there were telltale signs that someone had been searching the shop after trashing the living quarters.
Three pairs of gloved hands immediately began searching.
Fresh scratches were everywhere along shelves and storage bins. There were large wicker bowls set up near the rear of the shop holding hemp, flax, linseed, and other types of supplies used to create rolls of paper from scratch. Judging from the dwindling rolls of paper in different colors resting on large spools, Takagi wouldn't be able to sell much longer without having to make more and Shikamaru doubted that the Takagi Clan could duplicate Hisa-san's skill at his chosen profession.
A quick glance into the enclosed back yard showed unused soaking tubs, grinding systems, and polishing wheels along one wall with several large vats covered with wooden lids along the other one. Rubbing a finger along the bottom of his nose to help clear the heavy aroma of vinegar and lye, Naruto ventured they were dying vats for the different colors they saw in high-quality stacks and rolls of paper.
Naruto began searching behind the counter while Shikamaru squatted down in a corner to assume his thinking pose, his eyes raking over every other corner of the small store.
The cover was too thorough, too detailed. Shikamaru was beginning to think the papermaker hadn't started out as a spy and said as much. This, of course, painted a very dishonorable picture of the glorious Toad Sage as the three figured the meek paper maker might have been pushed into the spy business by the bullying Sannin and now the poor fellow might be paying the price for such a decision.
Too bad any further musing was cut off by the sound of the front door opening, the chime of its bell drawing attention to the four figures stepping inside to block the front entrance. Three unhappy minds latched onto the same thought.
'Troublesome.'
~III~
A/N: No promises about the update pace since life has a way of making a liar out of people. Contrary to popular conspiracy theories, I'm still alive and still writing. This story still has a few more chapters to go before the end comes.
Until next time!
*Kabutomushi is a stone beetle.