Here's the new chapter.


He'd arrived in the room a couple minutes before the meeting time to see his teammates already present. Wow, of all people, he was the one who'd spent the most time working on the investigation.

Aoba nodded at him as he entered the room and said, "Good, you're here. It'll be a couple minutes before we planned, but I think we can start the meeting now." Aoba walked around and placed a couple of seals on the four walls of the room, and then had Sakura start the meeting by sharing her discoveries.

He sat back and relaxed as he learnt the results of the investigations carried out by Sakura. He spun the pen he'd been given by his sensei as a gift around his fingers as he slotted the information into the right place. It seemed to be coming together.

If he combined what Sakura had learnt with his findings, he could deduce that the initial attack was done to place the seal she'd discovered on several people, or at least set up a way to place the seal. The fact that the body was dead before it burned meant that it was likely being controlled by Tomoe beforehand. And the fact that Tomoe had teamed up with the Akatsuki members to carry this out meant that one or both of them were directly involved in the trick being used. There were a couple other ideas he had, but he put he paused his thoughts momentarily as he focused on sharing the information he'd gathered. He also shared a couple of his conclusions.

Aoba nodded and said "The main info we gathered was about what happened on the day of the initial attack. From the descriptions we have, it seems like we're up against Kakuzu the bounty hunter. There is another, but his identity is unknown. During the attack, there were these masked creatures coming out of Kakuzu. He apparently used different high-level elemental manipulations through them. We've confirmed Fire release and lightning release, but it's possible that there are other elements he can use. The other was only seen wielding a weapon, a three-bladed scythe. The only thing that was seen of that one was that he had some healing abilities. He was hit a couple of times, but recovered quickly. Curiously, the missing nin who caused this mess wasn't really seen during the fight. They completely lost track of her."

Aoba paused there, letting them process the information. Then he continued, "Well, I think it's about time for the attacks from inside to begin. From what I heard, those start at night with about this time."

"Does that mean that they can use whatever is causing it only at this time ?" asked Sakura.

"Not necessarily. The other options are that they want us to believe that they can only use it at a certain time, or that there is some other factor that affects the timing. Which is true isn't quite certain, but we can narrow down the possibilities if we see it in person."

On the way to the barrier of the second section, which was where the attacks had taken place, he asked Sakura if she could sense. He vaguely remembered Ino bragging about having beaten Sakura at a 'sensor showdown". Sakura frowned as she answered "Yes, but I'm not very good. I can only roughly tell if someone is close. It's good for dodging sneak attacks, but not much more. I can give more precise details if I really concentrate. But I can't really move around or attack while doing that."

Well that was good enough. He said, "Okay then concentrate on sending then. Tell me the moment you feel a chakra signature fade. If my deduction is right, then that moment is when Tomoe takes control. I can stop the controlled Shinobi at that instant, so we can reduce the damage done."

Sakura's eyes widened, but she nodded in assent. The other two teams were present when they arrived. The Iwa team seemed worn out, and Morio was injured, so he guessed that they'd encountered the Akatsuki members, or fell for a trap while looking for them. Given their glum expressions, they probably didn't have much luck. The Suna team seemed fine, though Temari looked a little tired. They greeted the two teams, and then he asked Kurotsuchi "From Morio's injuries, I guess you found them ?" Kurotsuchi gave a harsh laugh as she said "Yeah, fat lot of good that did us. They beat us back with relative ease. We injured both, but it barely fazed either of them. We didn't even see the traitor bitch that caused this whole mess. I'll never look at rats the same way." She then glared at Shita and said "Nobody mentioned the rats." Shita simply shrugged and said "My apologies. I knew Tomoe used a rat as a messenger on occasion, but I didn't know that she could use so many of them."

A short while after, Sakura opened her eyes while staying in the meditating posture she was in, and whispered "There." while pointing to the left end of the guard formation. He noticed one of the guards there standing a little slack, and sent his shadow out immediately. He barely made it in time as the now dead and controlled guard swung his blade out at the guard next to him. The blow still landed, but he stopped it before it was lethal.

The guard struggled under the jutsu, but then went dead still. Then all of a sudden the corpse started burning to ashes, except there was no fire. It was horrifying, but he couldn't look away. He let go of the jutsu, allowing the body to fall to the ground.

Nobody said anything, until Shita walked up and said "Well, the death was unfortunate, but it seems you managed to stop any more needless deaths. Well done."

Multiple questions erupted from all around. Before he could answer any of them, he noticed Morio walk up to Shita. He heard Sakura yell his name while running towards Morio. But Morio was further from her than to him. By the time he realized what was going on, Morio had swung a sword at Shita. He couldn't stop the blow from landing, but he was able to catch him in the shadow paralysis. Sakura quickly tackled Morio to the ground, with Aoba and Lee, who'd realized what was going on a few seconds late, reaching there available for support. But it wasn't necessary as Morio's body began burning to ashes, and just like last time, there was no flame.


It took a while for the situation to settle down. The Chishiki no hoji-sha were calling for the blood of the remaining Iwa Shinobi, but he was able to calm them down by explaining what had caused it. His observations of the guard whose corpse was manipulated had led to to figure out a requirement of the conditions. He'd noticed that the guard whose corpse had been manipulated earlier had been wounded. Following that hunch, he was able to confirm that the first 3 guard victims had been hurt during the direct attack on the first day. Morio had been wounded during the Iwa team's encounter with the Akatsuki. And so, everyone who'd been injured by the Akatsuki was quarantined. The remaining members of the Iwa team were also included in this list, though according to Kurotsuchi and Kitsuchi they hadn't been injured. But the distrust of the Chishiki no hoji-sha won over, and they were forced to stand down and stay quarantined. But he could still talk to them, so he asked them for any information they could offer on the abilities of the Akatsuki. They'd negotiated hard and in the end he'd had to pay a significant price for the information, but it seemed fair considering their losses.

With all the necessary information in hand, he could begin the final step. They would have to drive out the Akatsuki. The Iwa team had managed to come up with a way to track the Akatsuki duo. It was apparently the late Morio's jutsu. Unfortunately it had a time limit, that would end in 2 days. He also enlisted the Suna team's aid. They'd have to share the credit in the end. Overall, the situation seemed to be under control, but there was one thing that kept bugging him. Why was Shita attacked ? It's not like Shita was going to go out, so there was no way for them to collect his blood to do anything. He was sure that blood was the key. According to Sakura, curse type jutsu like these needed a solid link. Blood was the only common link that could be used in all cases. So why waste a golden opportunity in the injured Morio on injuring Shita ? Was it done to get back at the organization ? Was it to sow distrust into the organization and hurt the standing of the Iwa Shinobi ? Both seemed like plausible reasons, but neither felt right to him. With this irritation in mind, he went to sleep, hoping that his doubts were pointless. Either way, they'd have to bring it to an end tomorrow.


A/N

I hope you enjoyed that. Next chapter is it. The grand conclusion to this arc.