Here's the new chapter.


It was time. They were tracking the Akatsuki members through the use of Morio's jutsu. It took the form of a map. Once Morio had memorized a person's chakra, he could add it into the map. It then updated real time to track the targets. It's weakness was it's limited precision. Unfortunately Morio couldn't get a hold of Tomoe's chakra before he died, but this map would be enough. He took a little bathroom break outside while they were leaving. One of the problems with the location of the Chishiki no hoji-sha was that they couldn't really have bathrooms deep underground. Well they could, but the plumbing costs would be ridiculous. So they had all bathrooms on the outside. Which meant he had to walk all the way outside just to take a piss. They also had the option to do it in a bucket, but he absolutely refused to do that. He was lazy, but he had standards. While inside, he calmed his nerves and focused on the mission. Then, he rejoined his group as the my headed out.

They found the Akatsuki members soon enough. The two S rank criminals didn't seem to be putting much effort into hiding. They were located close by. Kakuzu was standing out in the open, his masks already out. Hidan was wielding the scythe they'd been informed about. While Hidan was likely the wielder of the blood based curse jutsu, they decided to just try to not get it cut. It would be tough. But again, Tomoe wasn't there. It was strange, just where was she ?

But they'd had time to plan. They'd assigned roles already. Temari was a wind type, so she'd deal with the lightning mask, while also providing aerial support while gliding on her fan. Maki used a binding cloth in combat, which seemed like a decent tool to use against Hidan. So she would help there. Kankuro was a mid range support, using multiple puppets to support against both targets. On his team, Aoba would use his crows to provide cover and distractions for all fights, while using his special paralysis jutsu to slow Hidan down. Lee, their close combat specialist, would go up against Kakuzu himself. Sakura would handle the Suiton mask and would help against the lightning mask. He himself would have to coordinate all the fighters while supporting where it's necessary.

It was going well enough. They got into a bit of trouble when blood was drawn from Maki by Hidan, who was able to use his jutsu to link to her and hurt her. But Hidan was a sadist who didn't immediately go for the killing blow, and he was able to figure out that the symbol was key. And so once that was made clear, they chose to shift tactics regarding Hidan to breaking apart the symbol, thus preventing the usage of the jutsu altogether. Temari even managed to destroy the lightning mask with Sakura's help. But then he heard Hidan say "How much longer, Kakuzu ?" The gruff reply of "Just a short while. Shut up and go us for now."

The gears turned in his head. Who were they waiting for ? Tomoe was the most likely explanation. But Tomoe was supposed to be outside. Unless...

Shit, he'd been an idiot. He'd assumed Tomoe was outside since she was reported to have left during the initial attack. Moreover, the trick the Akatsuki were using needed Tomoe to be on the outside. They were using the blood link of Hidan's jutsu to link to a body whose blood was taken, and then quickly killed him. Then, Tomoe activated a seal she'd placed on Hidan's body through which she used her jutsu. Because of the link, the effect of Hidan's jutsu would rebound to the linked victim. Because the victim was a corpse, the effect of the seal allowed Tomoe to control their body. Then, when the timing was right, Hidan's body would be set on fire by Kakuzu. The effect would be transmitted. Since the victim wouldn't have Hidan's regeneration, they would be burned thoroughly. The fact that her rats were present when the Iwa team went up against the Akatsuki seemed to indicate her presence outside as well. But Tomoe was a master of deception. It would be easy for her to create a clone to make it seem like she'd left, while secretly taking out someone on the inside and replacing them. She'd probably arranged for the rats to attack before hand. The fact that she had to leave was one of the reasons he'd originally dismissed the idea. There were guards at the exit. But there was one loophole he'd missed. The bathroom break. She could have simply taken a bathroom break, gone out, met with the Akatsuki, placed the seal and shared blood if they needed it, and then quickly gone back.

A few seconds had gone by while he was realizing the truth. He was brought back to reality by a water jutsu headed straight for him. It was blocked by Temari, who yelled "What the hell are you doing ?" Shit, he had to head back. "I need to go back!" he yelled, voice frantic. "Take care of things here till I return."

With that, he quickly ran back, though he made sure to activate the seal he had. It was the only backup plan he has, which went straight to the Iwa shinobi. Unfortunately, it was just an alert, and couldn't be used for proper communication. He would have to hope that the Iwa shinobi could figure out what had happened.


She stared at the seal Shikamaru had left with her, that was now glowing bright red. So something had gone sideways, and the issue was here. So she showed the seal to get her and her dad Kitsuchi out confinement, and they moved around to get an idea of what the problem was. She spotted Shita, who'd been a decent source of information. But as she approached, her eyes narrowed. Something was off. She couldn't put a pin on it, but if was the same sort of feeling she'd has when saw Morio walking to Shita last night. She hadn't reacted properly then, but she would now. She could see Shita holding a scroll. If her hunch was right, it was what Tomoe was after from the beginning. So just as a test, she tried to send her chakra into Shita. She was somewhat familiar with the Dead Soul jutsu. She knew that a dead body lacked the natural defenses of the body against foreign chakra. She found that she was a le to send her chakra in with ease. Bingo. She charged the corpse of Shita as she called for her dad. He promptly raised a wall behind the corpse, thus cutting off any escape. But then it threw a smoke bomb.

She stood alert, but nothing happened. But then she noticed the corpse lying on the ground, with the scroll missing, and turned around. She saw a rat scampering with the scroll in it's mouth. They turned around to give chase, and saw the rat reach a woman who was using some sort of cloaking jutsu on her face, making it unrecognizable. So it was an inside job. They immediately gave chase, but the bitch brought out the giant pot from the scroll. The cloaked woman then turned and said to her father, "So this is the great Kitsuchi ? Looks like you're as useless as that senile old geezer you call a Kage." Her father yelled in rage, but as he did, a flash of light surrounded his body, and he was dragged into the pot, completely sealed. The bitch then tried taunting her to force her to respond, but she kept quiet as he charged. She noted that the pot, while powerful, drained a lot of chakra. Tomoe was clearly exhausted. Tomoe then quickly sealed the pot back into the scroll, and ran.

She gave chase, but the bitch was wily, if nothing else. Tomoe used diversions, rats and all sorts of tricks to run, but in the end she was cornered. Tomoe threw a smoke bomb into a room she recognized as the medical room in the first section. When she entered the room and the smoke had dissipated, she asked the room, "who entered the room just now ?"

But the head medic just shook her head and said "I saw someone come in, but the room was filled with smoke. There seems to be the same number of people here and there were before."

Dammit. This must have been the place where she'd infiltrated into and had been hiding this whole time. She'd replaced herself with a clone for the past few minutes. What now ? Before she came to a decision, Shikamaru rushed into the room, panting hard.


Stuff had started going sideways soon after Shikamaru had left. It wasn't all bad. She'd managed to cut off one of Hidan's arms. While Hidan had strong regeneration, he couldn't heal those kind of injuries very well. Lee had managed to destroy another mask, but he'd had to use the first 5 gates to pull it off, and so was now fatigued. Kankuro was down to his last two puppets, Kuroari and Karasu. Maki had been injured early on in the fight, and they couldn't get the time to heal the injury properly. Aoba was doing well enough, but he didn't have the kind of attacks that could do much damage in this situation. Temari had been supporting from the air throughout the fight while taking over Shikamaru's role as commander. It was clearly starting to take it's toll. Kakuzu was using the fire mask in combination with the wind mask to completely overwhelm Temari. She herself was dredging up what remaining chakra she had. She'd limited herself to two stone hands, but was still struggling chakra wise.

Hidan had managed to get his hands on a drop of her blood and now was heading to the symbol. Kakuzu had used an earth jutsu to carve symbols into the ground for Hidan's use, so their previous strategy wouldn't work. And then Hidan reached one of them. She could try forcing him back again, but there was no time to waste. She had to make a decisive move. Just as Hidan raised a spike to deal a finishing blow, she shot towards him with a chakra enhance kick off the ground. She'd overloaded the move, so her right leg was now a mess, but it didn't matter. Hidan barely blocked her swing with her tanto, but she'd expected it. She quickly brought her right palm to Hidan's chest and released the seal on it. A tremendous blast of wind erupted, launching Hidan straight towards Kuroari. It's stomach quickly swallowed him up, and several blades from Karasu stabbed into it to ensure that Hidan trapped. She grinned through the pain. It had worked. The seal on her palm was pretty simple. All it did was passively seal a certain amount of air till it was full. When it was activated, all the air is released in an instant, creating an incredibly powerful blast of wind. It still hurt her hand a little, but it was good enough.

Then, she quickly followed up to support Lee, who'd opened the 6th gate in an effort to finish things off. She grabbed onto the water mask body with her stone hands to hold it for an instant. And an instant was all Lee needed. And now there were just two masks left. Just then, a woman she'd never seen before landed on the field. Given that she was next to Kakuzu, it was likely Tomoe. But Shikamaru and Kurotsuchi arrived soon after. This would soon end.


He'd arrived just in time it seemed. Kurotsuchi quickly explained the situation. He calmly walked over to the log book and took a look. Now he had everything he needed.

"Maya,. I know it's you. Or should I call you Tomoe ? Just show your true self. It's time for you to take the traitor's punishment."

Not-Maya laughed as she said "Traitor ? Oh yes, that's what they claimed. The truth is, they betrayed me, out of fear that I'd take my services and my knowledge elsewhere. Of course, I might have eventually." She then threw a smoke bomb. When the smoke cleared, Tomoe stood in place. She was a tall and fair woman, with pale green eyes and long brown shoulder length hair. She had a large pot in front and a fan in her other hand. Tomoe quickly said "Release, Kitsuchi." And Kitsuchi was immediately released into existence, though he seemed to be unconscious. Tomoe immediately held a kunai to his neck, warning them to stay back. He was tempted to charge ahead anyway, but Kurotsuchi would kill him for it, so he restrained himself. Tomoe sealed the pot into the scroll, and then hefted Kitsuchi up, knife still at his neck. Then, in a fluid motion she threw the body straight at him. Clever. Kurotsuchi leaped in front to grab it, and now she was blocking him. When he leaped over to charge Tomoe, she'd taken the fan and swung it hard, releasing a blast of wind. When the dust cleared, Tomoe was gone. He and Kurotsuchi quickly followed.

Shortly after they'd arrived on the scene, Temari swooped down on Tomoe in a bold move. Temari got a blast of lightning to the face, but wrested away the dangerous fan in the process. Tomoe turned to Kakuzu and said "Well that was unfortunate. But the odds here aren't great. Shall we leave ?"

Kakuzu simply nodded, and before anyone could stop them, the two body flickered away, leaving behind Hidan.

The recovery period was long. The Chishiki no hoji-sha was in shambles, having lost their most powerful weapons. Though Temari had discreetly kept the fan she'd stolen, he didn't really care to step in against her. In the end, they'd failed. All they'd gotten was one lousy Akatsuki member, while giving away multiple powerful tools and allowing the Chishiki no hoji-sha to be severely weakened. But in the end, what was the point ? The world was not black and white, and the mission wasn't to punish a traitor. In the end, all that mattered to him was that his team, his fellow shinobi, were safe.


A/N

I hope you enjoyed that. I honestly forgot to mention the bathroom plot point earlier, so it comes off as a little shoehorned. Overall I don't know if this arc really worked. I was going for a mystery detective vibe, but I don't know if I wrote it well enough. Anyway, that's the end of this arc. I didn't keep Hidan past this arc since his abilities are gimmicky. He might or might not be involved later on, but he won't a major villain anymore. Kakuzu works as a villain for later cause he's strong enough to be a threat even with higher power levels. What did you think of Tomoe ? I wasn't sure about making an OC a major antagonist, but I think she's interesting. I'm still deciding on what to do next. I'm thinking of either showing a little of Naruto or doing the sol thing with Tenten I've mentioned before. Anyway, add your thoughts in the reviews

Hidan

Ninjutsu: 3.5

Taijutsu: 4.5

Genjutsu: 3

Intelligence: 3

Strength: 4

Speed: 3.5

Stamina: 5.5 (A+)

Hand Seals: 3.5

Total: 30.5

Kakuzu

Ninjutsu: 6 (S)

Taijutsu: 4

Genjutsu: 3

Intelligence: 4.5

Strength: 4

Speed: 4

Stamina: 4.5

Hand Seals: 3.5

Total: 33.5

Tomoe

Ninjutsu: 4

Taijutsu: 3

Genjutsu: 3

Intelligence: 6 (S)

Strength: 2.5

Speed: 4.5

Stamina: 3

Hand Seals: 4

Total: 30

Kitsuchi

Ninjutsu: 4.5

Taijutsu: 4.5

Genjutsu: 3

Intelligence: 4

Strength: 4

Speed: 3

Stamina: 4

Hand Seals: 4

Total: 31

Kurotsuchi

Ninjutsu: 4

Taijutsu: 3

Genjutsu: 2.5

Intelligence: 3

Strength: 3.5

Speed: 3

Stamina: 3.5

Hand Seals: 3

Total: 25.5

Morio

Ninjutsu: 4

Taijutsu: 2

Genjutsu: 2

Intelligence: 3

Strength: 2.5

Speed: 2.5

Stamina: 2

Hand Seals: 3

Total: 21

Temari

Ninjutsu: 4

Taijutsu: 3

Genjutsu: 1.5

Intelligence: 3.5

Strength: 3.5

Speed: 3

Stamina: 3

Hand Seals: 2

Total: 23.5

Kankuro

Ninjutsu: 4

Taijutsu: 2.5

Genjutsu: 2

Intelligence: 3.5

Strength: 3

Speed: 2

Stamina: 3

Hand Seals: 3.5

Total: 23.5

Maki

Ninjutsu: 3.5

Taijutsu: 3.5

Genjutsu: 3

Intelligence: 3

Strength: 3

Speed: 3.5

Stamina: 3

Hand Seals: 4

Total: 26.5