Chapter 27: Sasuke Retrieval Mission: Part 1
"You look like you slept in a dumpster."
"Just because you used to do that doesn't mean I have such low standards."
"This coming from the guy who used to fall asleep in control of a clone when he was on buildings, wake up when he rolled off, and dispel as he was shrieking and hitting the ground and therefore wake me up when the memories and you came slamming back into my head."
Kurama crossed his arms, glaring out the window. The evening sun filtered in the windows and cast an orange tint over everything, making the tomato design on the booth seats look pinkish. "I figured I'd let you run around for the day to have some fun instead of bothering you to stay cooped up in my body or stuck following me around, but you look like you've been doing nothing but sleep," Naruto said, amused. He leaned back in the booth and stretched his arms above his head, yawning.
"Yeah, well, maybe your village is just boring." Kurama decided to keep the visit from what he'd started to call "Naruto's Friend Collection" to himself.
Naruto rolled his eyes at him. He made another change to the notepad in his hand; the page he was working on featured a new seal meant to prolong food's shelf life.
While the fox grumbled and let himself slump into the cushions, Naruto worked on his fuinjutsu at a leisurely pace, having nothing better to do. Technically he did have paperwork piling up in the planning room that Sasuke yelled at him about, but he was studiously ignoring it- he took after his second cousin (and great aunt as well, but he didn't know that) the Hokage in that sentiment.
A pull on his chakra made him pause. "The foxes are reverse summoning me to the den," he said, making Kurama open one eye. He tore off a piece of notebook paper and wrote out a quick note to Tsunade, shoving it into Kurama's hand. "Take that to baa-chan then dispel, yeah?"
"Sure, whatever, brat."
Naruto disappeared in a puff of smoke.
"All right, so you'll come in every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday for normal medical jutsu practice with the other students in the examination rooms, and I'll send a messenger bird for you when I have time at the hospital to tutor you. After you pass the first two-week training course and show consistent mastery of the most basic medical jutsu, we'll work out the shifts you'll take doubling as a nurse and helping in the ER. After that it's mostly just hard work until evaluation."
Sakura stared at the papers in her hands, feeling like she'd stepped into the Twilight Zone. Who knew she'd be teaching Ino of all people? Her self-proclaimed "rival in love" for years before, a loudmouth who used to like bashing one of her best friends over the head. Her first friend in the Academy who she'd had a falling out with over a boy that she hadn't even really liked.
After an awkward pause, she cleared her throat, shuffling the papers. "Any questions?"
"Oh! Uh, no," Ino replied.
"All right. Study these once you get home." Sakura took out three booklets from a shelf behind her. They were in a room full of paperwork on the second floor, surrounded by bookshelves. "They're basic overviews of the human body, its systems and their functions, common ailments and remedies, basic medical ninjutsu and how to perform them, and exercises you can do at home to help your training here." She pulled a pamphlet from a stand next to the shelf. "These are career opportunities and a little bit of information on what those careers will be like. Some medic nin choose to exclusively use their talents in the field; some choose to stay in the hospital for the rest of their career. We have some working with the Nara developing medicine or studying diseases and there are medic nin who specialize in animals or insects as well. Some specialize in a certain field, such as childbirth or heart ailments."
"Th-thanks," Ino stammered, giving the stack in her arms an appraising look. She hadn't known what to expect when she enrolled- and her parents in particular thought it was a mistake. She knew they wanted her to train more with Inoichi and specialize in their family's techniques. She did plan on doing that- but she was just so… useless when compared with Sakura. Sakura was able to take care of her teammates. Ino wasn't a genius strategy maker like Shikamaru, or a heavy-hitter like Choji. If she could take care of them like Sakura took care of hers, she would be content.
"If you need help, feel free to visit," Sakura said, rubbing her neck. "You can come over to my apartment, too."
"Apartment? You moved out?" Ino asked, stunned.
"Ah…yes…" Sakura's smile became more strained. In truth, that little conversation hadn't gone well with her parents at all. Her mother was particularly upset. She supposed they must have felt like their time to be parents to her like parents were to their civilian children was getting cut short.
In reality, it was just more convenient. She could come and go as she pleased, do as she liked to wind down from missions, and not worry about waking them. She could leave kunai on the table and shuriken on the couch; have cereal in the middle of the night after returning from a mission and leave it on the counter and not be chastised the next morning.
Her father had been friendlier about the whole thing, even if her mother had sulked as Sakura packed up her things. At the very least, he'd given her a hair ruffle as she left, naturally gravitating towards the apartment building that housed Kakashi's own apartment- the owner gave lower rates for shinobi, knowing they sometimes went periods without getting paid or didn't take many high-paying missions. The apartment she'd toured was small, but that was what she could afford.
Fittingly enough, she was four doors down from Kakashi himself, and had taken to badgering him whenever she saw him in the hall about the dishes that piled up in his sink at times.
Sakura took a pen from her lab coat's pocket and scribbled on the pamphlet. "That's my address," she said with what she hoped was a friendly smile, "come over if you need anything. Or just want to, um, talk or something." She shrugged awkwardly.
"S-sure," Ino replied, glancing at the address several times as if to make sure it had really happened. "I'll do that."
They both nodded. "Well, it's getting late. You should probably head home," Sakura said, glancing out the window.
"Yeah. Thanks, Sakura."
"No problem."
Sakura had opted out of taking a late-night shift to catch up on some sleep, as she had a mission early the next morning, instead planning on spending the night lounging around in her room doing nothing but read the copy of Jiraiya's book Naruto had (secretly) given her. She didn't know how he'd acquired something so hard to come by- as it apparently never got a second printing- and he hedged around answering that question. She suspected he had a lot more copies than he would admit to.
She kicked her boots off on the mat by the door and hung up her jacket, placing her keys on the ring by the light switch beside the door. The place wasn't built for more than one person; in fact, the building was mostly full of bachelors and bachelorettes. The kitchenette was small, with an oven too small to cook a turkey in and a fridge half the size of Sasuke and Naruto's. A small microwave, one of the few purchases she'd made, sat in an alcove above the stove; only three cabinets sat between it and the fridge. A small breakfast bar for only three people separated it from the living area, where a nice quality but aged coffee table sat amidst a sofa and two chairs. The door let one enter with the kitchenette to the right and sitting area to the left, and her bedroom at the end; the front wall was full of windows and had a fairly nice view to the village.
It was odd to live alone. There wasn't the familiar sense of security of her parents' chakras in the other room, even if they couldn't do much to fend off an actual attack. The room was quiet, save for the occasional shuffle of movement from another occupant of the building. Most shinobi were quiet by nature.
She opened up a drawer in the kitchen and pulled out a box of pocky, walking over to her sofa and plopping down. She pulled The Tale of the Utterly Gutsy Shinobi from her tiny bookshelf, the only fiction book she owned; the rest were all medical texts.
Initially, she hadn't been expecting much from Jiraiya's writing. Not that she thought he was dumb; she knew he was quite intelligent. Still…he'd always seemed to spend more time "researching" than refining his writing skills… but Naruto's favorite was his favorite for a reason. It was actually quite good.
She would have to thank him when she saw him the next day.
Unfortunately for him, the girl seemed quite adept at genjutsu as long as she had that flute in her hand. The large one hadn't been in his tree binding for long- two of his teammates attacked Sasuke himself while the other broke him out of it.
The redhead hadn't actually been able to put him under a genjutsu, but he didn't have time to get her under one either; the way they attacked made genjutsu out of the question completely. As long as there was more than one standing, they could just break each other out of it.
That left taijutsu and ninjutsu. He'd set a small portion of the forest on fire, but the large one had appeared from the midst of his flames with strange markings all over his body.
"You should pay attention to what's behind you!" Something hit him hard in the back. He stumbled forward, nearly right into the two-headed one's fist. Ducking under the boy's arm, he jabbed him into the redhead who'd hit him, hooking an arm in the purple rope around the boy's waist as he went. He turned and swung hard, knocking the girl down and the two-headed freak into the one with six arms as he charged.
A moment later the orange-haired shinobi dropped down, making Sasuke hastily duck and roll to the side. The ground shook as a crater formed beneath his feet, making Sasuke give him an appraising glare.
"On your right, child!" Sasuke, of course, couldn't hear Tobirama, but the Nidaime was only trying to guide him out of habit from spending time with Naruto. Hashirama had taken off at the speed of light to find the Jinchuriki himself, leaving his brother to keep an eye on the Uchiha.
Regardless, he saw Sakon coming anyway, dropping into a handstand and bringing both feet down on Sakon's guard in tandem. He contorted his body so the redhead went flying over him, but couldn't dodge multiple strikes from Kidomaru. Gritting his teeth as a wave of pain overwhelmed his back, he flipped and slammed his feet into the teenager's chest, sending him barreling into a tree.
"Katon: Hōsenka no Jutsu!"
He leapt onto a higher branch and spat out flames, hiding shuriken within. The four dodged and leapt about the forest floor, while Sasuke ducked under the branch behind him and ran for the village.
"Nuh-uh-uh," Sakon said with a sickening smile, appearing in front of him with a malicious aura about him. "Honestly, I don't know why Orochimaru-sama wants you. You're so weak."
Sasuke's eyes narrowed. The fight had been going on half an hour, with both the redhead and orange-haired ones using the strange designs on their bodies. Still, he hadn't been able to slip past them for the village- they were toying with him, drawing the fight out for their own amusement.
If it were only two, he knew he could make it.
The worst thing was, they were pushing him farther and farther away from the border of the village.
"Can we hurry it up?" the redhead asked, irritation lacing her growl.
"Just be patient, Tayuya."
"Patient my ass."
"You shouldn't use such coarse language," the large one chastised.
"Oh, shut your mouth, Jirobo."
Sasuke scowled. He pushed hard off his branch, sending him spiraling into the air above the trees. "Oh? What's he doing now?" Sakon asked, amused. He placed one hand on his hip and watched from his own branch, smirking.
Sasuke summoned two scrolls from the storage units on his wrists, throwing them open and letting them wrap loosely around his body. A handful of kunai appeared in a puff of smoke in both hands, while a variety of weapons appeared in midair around his body; he threw the kunai in a hard arc towards the trees, grabbing the others at lightning speed and sending them barreling down one by one. "Sōshōryū!"
"Shit!" Tayuya hissed, dodging a blade that came her way and lunging behind a tree. A nick on her arm made blood trickle down, making her give Sasuke a scowl. Jirobo yanked a kunai out of his shoulder and ducked into cover, while Sakon twisted and contorted his body further up to avoid the storm of weapons.
"This kid's getting annoying," Kidomaru called out from below, practically growling. "Let's just get him to Orochimaru-sama already."
"Agreed," Tayuya glowered.
As one, their Curse Marks activated, growing across their bodies like serpents wrapping around their prey.
Sasuke grabbed the end of his scroll and spun it in a hard loop, causing it to spiral around him as he landed on a branch and began running towards the group. He kept up the barrage of weapons, his Sharingan watching their forms morph and transform into something hideous.
What the hell?
He startled when something grotesque appeared next to him, slamming into him hard and knocking him to the ground. Almost immediately, two more of the monster shinobi were on him, leaving him little room to even catch his breath.
"Tobirama!"
Tobirama let out a curse under his breath and wheeled around. "Did you find him?"
Hashirama came to a stop beside him on the ground, looking panicked. "I couldn't find Naruto anywhere. I have the rest of the ghosts looking for him. How's Sasuke doing?"
Tobirama grimaced. "See for yourself."
Sasuke slammed into a tree directly beside them hard enough to break the bark.
"This is bad," Hashirama said worriedly, glancing at the Sound Four as they closed in on the chuunin. "What's happened to them?"
"The work of that brat Orochimaru, no doubt. They aren't using their own power anymore."
Sasuke spat out blood when Sakon decked him hard in the ribs. He stumbled further in the direction opposite of the village, wiping the blood leaking from a cut on his forehead away from his eyes.
Through bleary vision, he saw them letting their forms recede. "Let's hurry it up," Tayuya snorted, hands on her hips. He squinted and grunted when Sakon appeared in front of him with a hard uppercut to the jaw, making him slam into a tree behind him and slowly slide to the ground.
A hand wrapped around his ankle and yanked him into the air upside-down. "What Orochimaru-sama wants, Orochimaru-sama gets, I guess," Kidomaru sighed, shrugging.
Sasuke shot them a glare, biting down on his lip to keep himself from revealing how badly his ribs were throbbing. One of them set down a round coffin in front of him, flipping open the lid.
"All right, let's hurry it u-" Sakon suddenly spasmed, head snapping to and fro so quickly it sounded as if he was breaking his neck.
Tayuya leapt away from him. "What the hell?!"
Hashirama grimaced when Tobirama stumbled out of Sakon's body, leaving the Sound nin to catch his breath and sit on his knees for a minute. "Damnit," he hissed.
"If only Izuna were around. We aren't skilled at possessing people." Hashirama rubbed his forehead, dread building in his chest.
"What the hell was that?" Kidomaru demanded.
"I don't know," Sakon panted, shooting Sasuke a glare. "If that was some genjutsu you tried to pull, it won't work."
Sasuke had no idea what the hell was going on, but it was getting harder to stay conscious. Crap…Naruto…Sakura…I can't-
Sakon struck him hard on the nape. Everything bled out of focus until only darkness remained.
The night dragged on.
"Stupid foxes can't even deal with a snake infestation on their own," Naruto sighed, rolling his shoulders as he walked down the street. Kurama snorted, drumming his tail on the boy's shoulder lazily.
"-ruto! Naruto!"
"Eh?" He paused and shaded his eyes against the morning sun, covering a yawn.
A moment later his eyes went wide, and he burst into a sprint to reach the next street over.
Disarray and chaos. Everywhere he looked, ghosts flew or sprinted in every direction, shouting his name over and over. "Hey!" he thundered, rushing for the nearest one. "What's going on?"
The woman whirled around, eyes wide. "It's- it's Sasuke-san!" she said as they gathered around him in a mob. "He's in trouble!"
"What? What happened to him? Tell me!"
"People from Otogakure abducted him!" A different voice cried out.
"Orochimaru took him!"
"We've been looking for you all night!"
A cold pit formed in Naruto's gut. "Crap," he breathed, whirling around with a panicked expression. "Everyone scram!"
They parted before him like the subjects of a ruler, and he set off for the Hokage Tower faster than he'd gone in his life.
"Baa-chan!"
He burst into the office and slammed the door into the wall, taking no heed of the papers that flew off her desk. She twitched, looking up at him with a scowl, but stopped cold at his expression. "What happened?"
"Orochimaru sent his goons after Sasuke last night. They took him out of the village," Naruto said in one breath, panting. "I need a team right now to go after them."
"Damnit." She stood up, nearly overturning her chair. Smoothing one hand over her face, she quickly grabbed for a paper on her desk, frowning. "I'm afraid most of my jounin are out on missions right now. Normally I would send a squad composed only of jounin for a clan head."
"Give me chuunin, then. Where's Sakura?"
"Out of village. Damn. All right," she crossed to the door and poked her head out, addressing the secretary, "send for Nara Shikamaru."
"Is Karin here?" Naruto asked as he undid the bandages wrapped around his arm. He'd received several snake bites during the night, hacking and slashing through the foxes' forest to get rid of the damned things, but couldn't afford to leave his storage units covered.
"She's at the hospital right now. She'll be your medical support."
"I'd like Team Gai, preferably."
"You'll have to see who's around. You can't afford to dawdle." Tsunade looked up when someone knocked on the door. "Enter!"
Shikamaru entered with a yawn, one hand rubbing the back of his head. "Reporting in, Hokage-sama."
Naruto twitched. He was high-strung with tension, feeling like every single nerve was awake and humming; normally Shikamaru's laziness didn't bother him, but anything could irritate him at the moment. "Last night, a team of Sound nin abducted Uchiha Sasuke from the village. You'll be leading the retrieval squad," Tsunade said, making the boy's eyes go wide.
"Holy crap, he actually got kidnapped?"
"Get it through your brain," Naruto snapped. "We have to assemble a team now. Who are we going for first?"
Shikamaru paused. "I have just the guy."
Naruto tapped his foot impatiently, watching Shikamaru eat chips as he sat cross-legged on the ground. Are you freaking kidding me?
He could sense Choji's chakra in his home. He knew the Akimichi was there. "Don't worry," Shikamaru said, "he'll come out-"
"Do you not realize someone's life is at stake?" Naruto growled, shooting the Nara a scathing glare. He jumped, but Naruto ignored him, walking towards the door and raising his foot.
"Hey, wait-"
Naruto kicked the door down, storming into the house and zeroing in on Choji's chakra. He found the boy face-down on his bed, snoring away.
"Wake up," Naruto hissed, grabbing the back of Choji's shirt and tossing him bodily to the floor.
"Gah! Wait!" He flailed comically, while Shikamaru entered behind Naruto with a sigh.
"What a drag."
"What's going on, Shikamaru? Why're you in my house?" Choji squeaked.
"Every single second we waste is a second Sasuke gets further away from the village," Naruto seethed. "You." He pointed in Choji's face, making him blink at his finger. "Sasuke. Kidnapped. You're on the retrieval squad. We have a mission in twenty minutes, front gate, get dressed, do not be late." He whirled and stormed back out the door, leaving two-thirds of Team Ten to stare after him in confusion and sigh in his wake.
"You didn't have to break my door down," Choji muttered sourly.
Naruto's scowl deepened. His hands tightened on his biceps, crossed in front of him like a shield. "If you complain about that one more time-"
"Naruto is right. We cannot afford to waste time," Neji cut in smoothly. He stood beside Naruto at the gates, arms crossed in a calmer mirror of Naruto's position. They hadn't been able to find TenTen or Lee. Naruto had gravitated towards him like a moth to a flame, some of the anxiety in his gut quelled by the boy's stoic demeanor; Choji and Kiba were just making him twitchier.
"Aw, come on, chill out. We'll get him back," Kiba said; Akamaru yipped in agreement.
"All right, everybody, quiet down. We need a game plan," Shikamaru said, unusually serious. "He's right. We need to be serious. I know I'm usually a pretty lazy guy, but not today. Sasuke's one of our comrades, and if we don't do this right, we could all die."
Choji went tense; Kiba gulped, and Karin took a deep breath beside him. Shikamaru bent down and drew a diagram in the dirt with a stray stick. "Kiba's going to spearhead our formation. His sense of smell and Akamaru's nose will lead us and allow him to detect any threat coming from the front. Next will be me, the squad leader. After that, Naruto; he's the best suited to defend from the center of the line. Karin will be behind him, the best spot to protect our medic, and after her Choji; Neji will come up from behind to keep an eye out for any rear attacks. Got it?"
The squad nodded as one. "Now, show me your gear."
Everyone but Karin and Naruto held out their pouches, counting off their kunai, tags and wire. "What about you, Naruto, Karin?"
"Two hundred kunai, two hundred shuriken, seventy-five feet of wire, forty smoke bombs, twenty poison smoke bombs, two hundred explosive tags, four bottles of sealing ink, five brushes, a tantō, and a scythe. I also have roughly fifty poison senbon."
"Three hundred kunai, three hundred shuriken, two hundred feet of wire, fifty smoke bombs, twenty poison smoke bombs, seven hundred explosive tags, ten bottles of sealing ink, ten brushes, two tantō, and roughly two thousand bombs in my arsenal," Naruto rattled off.
The others watched them with wide-eyed expressions, sans Neji, who only hid a smirk.
"…all right, then," Shikamaru said, voice slightly weaker than before. "Let's move out, then."
Karin nodded and shrugged off the purple jacket she wore. Beneath she wore an armored vest, with lean, muscled arms covered in seals similar to Naruto's, if less elegant and practiced.
Kiba gave her a slightly bug-eyed look before ripping his gaze away, shaking his head. Must be an Uzumaki thing.
They lined up in front of the gate, ready to leap into formation. "…by the way, where's Shino?" Naruto asked in pure confusion.
Sasuke gritted his teeth as his head knocked into the lid of the coffin again, wincing. The space was cramped and tiny, not to mention suffocating. The air was stale and cold, practically freezing.
Every motion jostled him about, making his injuries throb. Nothing life-threatening, but they were bad enough it made the unwilling ride uncomfortable. He'd tried to break out, but the coffin wouldn't budge.
Rubbing the swelling that had started up beside one eye, he tried to rearrange himself so he wasn't bent in half like a folding chair. He couldn't believe he'd let this happen- that he was weak enough to let them take him.
Naruto…Sakura. I'm sorry.
This was unplanned for. This- wasn't supposed to happen.
He couldn't leave them behind like this. Not alone.
"What's in the coffin, hmm?"
Was that Genma?
For a moment, Sasuke breathed a sigh of relief.
"I'm warning you…you don't want to tangle with shinobi of the Leaf."
Unfortunately, the ensuing battle did nothing to ease his nerves; it only left a cold feeling in his chest as he wondered if two of his comrades lay dead behind as the Sound Four carried him off.
Uzumaki Databook
[Book 2: Spirits and the Supernatural]
[Section 3: The Powers of a Ghost]
Ghosts are not normally that powerful. That's just how it is. They don't have much spiritual energy to be throwing around, unlike a poltergeist, and are usually sent on to the next world quite easily by one.
However, certain rare ghosts can fight on their plane, specifically against poltergeists- this requires a strong spirit during life that carries over into death. A stronger spirit gives them more protection- or resilience, to be more accurate- against attacks, and more power to use. The Senju, Uzumaki, and Uchiha in particular produce ghosts that have a better chance of being able to hone their energy to use effectively. Although some from other clans, or no clan at all, have done it, the Sage's line are still the frontrunners.
Although not every Uchiha can activate their Sharingan after death, many still can, although sometimes it is a weaker form. Many only gain one tomoe. It still requires spiritual energy, but it was a literal feature of their body- it would be like being unable to use their hands or feet or even see at all just because they were a ghost. It seems a ghost's Sharingan can see chakra and spiritual energy as well as souls, and use a ghost version of all the powers of the Sharingan available in life as long as the ghost is powerful enough, such as Amaterasu. An affect such as this is still very draining, however.
In case you're confused, a ghost's spiritual energy is different from a live human's- we use both yin and yang chakra to use jutsu, but a ghost is no longer on the living plane and cannot access the chakra meant for the living. From my experience their spiritual energy seems to come from their soul, hence why it's tied so closely to how strong they are.
Some ghosts with a strong energy, or "ghost chakra", so to say, can easily possess people without any harm to the host. Some use that same skill to harm the host on purpose. The body naturally rejects a ghost as an intruder, but a ghost can "harmonize", so to say, and either repress that reaction, lessen it, trick the body into thinking it isn't an intruder, "convince" it that he or she won't do it harm, or, most effectively, work with a willing host and experience no backlash on either side.
Nothing a ghost does will ever hurt or have any effect on a human being or anything else in the living realm. By that, I mean jutsu: let's say a ghost is strong enough to use a water dragon jutsu. The water dragon won't flood the area and drown people. It will just pass through everything like the actual ghost. A ghost's powers primarily affect its own realm, not that of the living; so the water dragon will affect other ghosts, but not anyone actually alive. It would take an impossible amount of power and concentration to focus on making even part of an attack tangible; it's hard enough as it is to make even part of the hand tangible to a ghost.
What can a ghost do in a person's body, you ask? I haven't yet found the limits of that. Izuna, when possessing Iruka-sensei (he lets him sometimes since they have such similar goals…damn those lectures…) can use Iruka-sensei's chakra to perform jutsu. A ghost powerful enough to possess someone at all can usually override any trouble the host body gives it, but if the host himself/herself is powerful enough, they can eject them forcefully.
Iruka-sensei has ejected Izuna-nii before, although not for any reason that involved them fighting. The last time it happened he did it unconsciously in a fit of rage at a prank I pulled. It seems a host is aware of what's happening if the possession is consensual; they may or may not be in a possession that isn't. Breaking out of possession is similar to breaking out of a genjutsu; you may or may not be aware it's happening, but you can free yourself with enough strength of will if you notice what's going on.
The host automatically has the advantage in a battle of wills. It is, after all, their body, and the ghost is intruding in a realm they already don't belong in. Although it's possible for a ghost to overpower somebody, it's just as possible for them themselves to be overpowered. It comes down to the individual.
Although I used a water dragon jutsu as an example, I have only actually ever seen one ghost use a jutsu. Jutsu are extremely taxing and difficult to use. That being said, I'm sure Hashi-jii-chan and Tobi-oji will figure out a way to do it sooner or later. (A note, from a few years after I wrote this section: they totally did, and it's very annoying.)
Notes:
Canonically, Sakura's parents are both shinobi. For the purpose of this fic, however, they're civilians.