Chapter 16: The Search

In which Yamato finally learns of Hana's disappearance.


Tenzo stood before Kakashi, completely silent. The air inside the room was dead. The air outside was also stagnant, or else the open windows would have carried some breath of life. Kakashi didn't speak either, but sat completely still, letting Tenzo process the information he'd just received. Information about Hana's abduction.

For Kakashi, the room didn't feel quite dead. As soon as he finished speaking, an ominous sense of chakra permeated his office, simultaneously growing along with the shadows on Tenzo's face. The room was descending towards death. It was not a good sign.

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" Tenzo finally voiced, sounding disconcertingly calm despite his facial expression. "I gave her a tracking seed."

"And you know exactly where that tracking seed is," Kakashi replied evenly, remaining equally calm.

In Konoha, where I mistakenly believed she was safe, Tenzo thought. "Does her grandmother know?" he asked.

"Yes," Kakashi admitted reluctantly. "We've maintained contact with her since Hana's disappearance. Ruike Kame-sama is the girl's only family."

One of Tenzo's hands balled up into a fist. He knew Kakashi was making the distinction clear, but it didn't matter. Tenzo was shaking. It was subtle, the response starting in his fingers, but he could feel his whole body start to shiver involuntarily. "Why didn't you tell me sooner?" he repeated.

Kakashi interlaced his fingers. He was finding it difficult to navigate Tenzo's anger. Truthfully, he had not expected this response from the typically unflappable captain. The man's concern was rightfully motivated, but if Tenzo ever got upset, his frustrated outbursts lasted for a second, and then he was calm again, ready to focus on the task at hand. Tenzo could always be reasoned with. The man who stood before him now? Kakashi wasn't quite sure where this man had come from.

"You were already on an assigned mission," Kakashi said, but these were the wrong words to utter.

Tenzo's face grew darker, if that was even possible. He reached into his bag and pulled out a stack of meticulously written notes.

"What was all of this for, if not for her?!" he shouted, and he hurled the stack at Kakashi. Hundreds of pages, copied stroke for stroke from Orochimaru's notebooks fluttered around the room. Each was filled with details Tenzo had been happy never knowing, except that it gave him hope for Hana. And now, she was gone, and the man he respected most in the village had not bothered to tell him about her disappearance. "You sent me on this mission, damn it, knowing it was for her!"

Kakashi watched the pages settle to the ground. With it, the room descended into an ominous silence. He didn't say anything.

"I put up with so much from you," Tenzo said, his voice shaking just like his body, "I do everything you ask, without complaint, so why, Kakashi? Why would you keep this from me?"

Kakashi's voice was stern. "Had I called you back sooner, your worry would compromise our efforts to find her."

Tenzo's eyes opened wide.

Compromise our efforts to find her.

Compromise our efforts to find her.

Stunned momentarily out of his anger, these words echoed through his mind. He dropped his head, realizing there was truth in Kakashi's admonishment. He was a shinobi.

Shinobi always put their missions first. Had he learned about Hana earlier, he would have walked away from his assigned mission tailing Orochimaru, whether he had permission to or not.

Shinobi must follow their commander's instructions. He would have disobeyed Kakashi's orders and gone searching for her instead.

Shinobi must never show any weakness. Even, and especially, their anger.

Tenzo would have broken each of these rules. It did little to quell his anger at his senpai, but he could follow Kakashi's reasoning. It wouldn't have been the first time his emotions overcame his duties. Kakashi's voice pulled him from his thoughts.

"I was wrong," he said, more quietly.

What? Tenzo looked up again, meeting the Hokage's eyes.

"Forgive me, Tenzo. I had hoped for better news before I called you home."

Kakashi opened a drawer and pulled out a file, sliding it across his desk. To Tenzo, this moment felt like deja vu.

"Everything we know, all the information we extracted from her kidnappers, is there. It's incomplete. We have her location - an outpost near the Land of Volcanoes."

Tenzo picked up the file, feeling hesitant to open it. "Why her?"

"Her mind and her talent. Ibiki-san learned that she's there to build a structure…perhaps a cloud scratcher…we're not sure…but the purpose is still as yet unknown. The person behind her abduction is more crafty than we expected."

"Who?"

"The man whose name is on the box building in the center of the village," he said drily.

Tenzo's eyes grew wide. "Kaede?! He's been in the village for months!"

"Keeping watch over us and our movements, badgering Hana for her designs…it seems like he got tired of her continuing to say no and decided to take the source of the material instead." Kakashi shook his head. "The steel shortage, these dangerous chakra blades…it's all pointing in one direction, and that's the Land of Volcanoes, where Hana is."

"So…" Tenzo began, his eyes darkening again. "The mission is to take them down."

"No," Kakashi replied. "Your mission, and your only mission, is to rescue Hana. I've already sent a message to Naruto. He's on his way back from his honeymoon. He'll be joined with a few others, and they'll bring you backup to determine just what's going on in the west."

"I hope you at least assigned me a decent team?" Tenzo asked, his voice sharp.

Kakashi sighed, still not used to this attitude from his kohai. "All jonin, all familiar with some aspect of the task at hand. I'm sending you with Raido and Genma…they're both familiar with the steel shortage and the chakra blades."

"We'll need a medical specialist."

"Of course. I'm sending Seika."

"...Seika?" It was an odd choice. Tenzo had not been on missions with her before, she wasn't one of the medical ninjutsu specialists he was familiar with, and she wasn't a Konoha native.

"Seika," Kakashi repeated firmly. He did not offer an explanation as to why.

While Tenzo normally would not question Kakashi's judgment, today's news was just too much for him.

"Why Seika? Why not Sakura, or Shizune?" He demanded.

Kakashi remained quiet for a moment before repeating a question Tenzo was now intimately familiar with. "Do you trust me, Tenzo?"

He stared at his senpai, dark anger rising inside of him as Hana's absence ate away at his heart. "I'm beginning to question why I do," he replied coldly, and then he left the office without so much as another word.


Before dawn the next morning, the rescue team gathered at Konoha's western gate. Seika arrived first, although she was joined shortly thereafter by Yamato. The two nodded in greeting of the early morning, but did not speak. Raido was the next to show up, and then Genma came with Yuna. She was carrying a long leather bag across her back.

"Is Kakashi-sama here yet?" Yuna asked.

Yamato, not meaning to, gave her a dark look. "No."

"He'll come before we leave," Seika added, eyeing Yamato warily. "Do you have the swords?"

"Yes." Yuna dropped the bag from her shoulder and untied it, sliding out four brand new blades in newly made scabbards.

"Raido, this one is yours," she said. "No poison, but it's the same length and weight as Kokuto…so it should feel familiar. You can dual wield it if you wish."

Her brother's eyes grew bright with anticipation. "Thanks, Yuna. You think of everything."

She smiled. "Seika, this one is yours. It's shorter than the others, but that's because of your chakra affinity. Typically those with affinity for wind use shorter chakra blades…it makes it more versatile for close combat and mid-range combat."

Seika took the blade from her and studied it. "You do think of everything…" she said quietly, noting the symbols for water and wind on the scabbard.

"Yamato," Yuna continued, "this one is yours. Kakashi told me you don't typically use swords because your wood release can really do everything, but he said something about you preferring a katana blade when you were a part of Team Ro…so I made you a katana."

Yamato took the blade from her, memories of his time in ANBU with Kakashi sweeping back over him now. He still felt hot anger at his senpai deep in his core, so he shuttered the memories. He pulled the sword from its scabbard and saw roses around the hilt guard, decorating the tsuba and the fuchigashira.

"Roses?" he asked.

Yuna met Yamato's eyes. "For Hana."

Before she could cry, Genma reached down and picked up the last blade. "That means this one is mine, right, pipsqueak?"

"Yes…" she said. "That's the first one we made, the Shiranui steel original."

"Shiranui steel…" Genma muttered, still a little bewildered as to why Yuna would name her swords after him.

Yuna saw the frown settle on his face. "You know–" she began, but she was cut off by the sound of footsteps.

They all turned to find Kakashi walking towards them, flanked by Ayame. The girl held her hands close to her heart, as if carrying something dear to her.

"You're late," Seika observed lightly.

"I slept in," Kakashi replied, equally nonchalant, and everybody knew it was a lie but nobody questioned the real reason he'd chosen to appear tardy.

The tension in the group seemed to rise at his appearance. Yamato turned his face away while he shouldered his pack. "We should go. There's no need to delay our departure."

"Yamato-sama…" Ayame's voice came, pulling him back to the group. "When you see Hana will you–" she swallowed, trying not to choke up, "–give her this?"

Ayame reached out her hands to reveal the small wooden locket that had been Yamato's gift to Hana. Yamato's eyes softened at Ayame's request, recognizing that he was not the only one hurting over the architect's absence.

"Tell her…" Ayame continued, wiping a tear from her eye, "Tell her she needs to stop being so careless with her things."

Yamato took the locket from her. "I promise you," he said, "we will bring her home."

Ayame surprised him by throwing her arms around him and wrapping him into a hug. "Thank you," she said. "We'll be waiting for your return."

"As patiently as we can be," Yuna added. She also took the opportunity to hug her brother goodbye, and then she turned to Genma.

"Stay safe," she said, "and come home."

Genma put a hand on her shoulder and gave her a smile. "I can't guarantee safety…but I always come home, don't I?"

Kakashi took a step towards his kohai. "Yamato–" he began, but his kohai only turned away.

"Save it for when she's home, Kakashi." Yamato turned to the other three. "Let's go!" he called, and then he disappeared.

Raido and Genma took off after him, but Seika lingered a moment longer, gazing over her shoulder at Kakashi. She gave him a gentle nod of her head in parting, and then she, too, was gone.

In the void of silence left behind, Ayame gave their Hokage a troubled look. "Is Yamato-san okay?" she asked.

Kakashi sighed. "He hasn't been himself since meeting Hana."

Yuna smiled at that. "Love makes fools of all of us," she said quietly.

Kakashi's eyes shifted to the Namiashi girl. She was staring in longing towards the gate, into all of the unknown that fell to the west. "I suppose so…" Love… he thought. Such strong emotions had the tendency to change people.

He felt a strong urge to go with the team he'd just sent out, the desire to fight alongside them, but he was relegated to the village now, and instead he'd sent out people precious to him to face danger he wished he could keep them from.

Today though, he had other important tasks to do in the village. He bid the two women goodbye and went back to his office, taking a look at a new pile of papers on his desk. After Tenzo left his office the day before, Kakashi painstakingly collected all of the paper that littered the floor and organized it. Then, he'd spent the night reading.

He read everything that Tenzo had copied from Orochimaru's notebooks. Tenzo's meticulous handwriting was pristine, not missing any character. The man had also peppered the margins of the page with his own thoughts, and Kakashi now saw deep into his kohai's mind. The 'what ifs', the disappointments, the possible hopes. Between the lines, he read of Tenzo's care for Hana.

Kakashi remembered when he first met Tenzo, back when Tenzo had chosen his name. He'd been so adamant about protecting the Iburi girl back then. Meeting her transformed him. Now, Kakashi considered that he had just gotten a glimpse of that same Tenzo, except there was a difference. Now, they weren't children anymore, and Tenzo understood fully the lines between duty and love, where they remained separated and where they blurred.

Maybe Tenzo even understood where it was acceptable to blur those lines more than Kakashi did. Or maybe, they were both just fools trying to make it in a harsh world. Tenzo had found something beautiful amidst the ashes, and he was chasing after it. Kakashi had done the same thing, hadn't he? Kakashi still didn't know if he deserved it, but he knew that Tenzo did.

He flipped back through the stack of papers. There were certain pages he'd dog-eared, ones particularly important to the genetic lineage of Hashirama's cells. Then, he picked up the stack and set out for the hospital, intending to find Tsunade, Shizune, and Sakura. At least one of them would be on shift this early in the morning. He had a new mission of sorts for them, too.


The sun was nearly setting, but Yamato had not slowed the pace of travel. He stayed well ahead of the other three. Genma and Raido glanced at each other. Yamato had set a grueling pace. Normally, it would take five days to reach the Land of Volcanoes, but on their current trajectory, they would make it in less than three.

"He's traveling like Guy…" Genma muttered. His old teammate was known for enthusiasm and gusto, but somehow those adjectives did not describe the way Yamato was acting now.

"Yamato-taicho," Seika's voice called out. "How much longer do you intend to go tonight?"

She only said what Raido and Genma were already thinking, but the look that Yamato gave her made the two men shudder. Seika, for her part, did not flinch.

Seika propelled herself forward such that she matched Yamato step for step. "I don't mean to suggest that she's not important. But we won't be effective in a battle if we don't have at least some rest."

Yamato did not answer her, but instead stayed his course. He knew this area well, having gone on many missions west during his ANBU days. There was a water source ahead of them, perhaps another hour's journey, in which he'd left a structure. If it were up to him, he would travel throughout the night to reach her, but he knew Seika was right. He knew his team was already pushed to the brink.

Yamato was still tired from his journey home, having had no rest since he returned from Orochimaru's hideout. Genma was operating on little sleep, and likely still replenishing his chakra since assisting the Namiashi girl with the blades. He knew Seika and Raido had both been on watch missions, trying to pick up any trace of Hana and work out what they could about her abductors. None of them were fresh for this mission.

It was far from the ideal, but Yamato knew Kakashi did not send him with this team of three other jonin lightly. It was a calculated move. He was still angry at his senpai, but it was not hard to see that Kakashi had used every resource at his disposal to find Hana, despite not telling Yamato about her disappearance. Not even shinobi who went missing on missions got this kind of rescue treatment, let alone civilians. Hell, when Ayame was kidnapped, a team of genin went after her.

"In about one hundred kilometers, there's a freshwater lake," Yamato finally said to Seika. "We'll stop there for the night."

True to his word, Yamato turned off and slowed his pace. The other three found him in a clearing at the edge of a rather large lake. At the shoreline, an old, decrepit structure overgrown with vines stood watch.

"It's been a while since I've stopped here," he said, "but this is where we'll make camp. Raido, set the perimeter. Genma, stoke a fire. Seika," he paused, thinking. "It's late, but can you fish?"

"I can do more than that," she said, setting down her pack and walking towards the edge of the water.

While the three went to work on their tasks, Yamato took stock of the debilitated building. Perhaps it had been much longer than he remembered since he'd been at this particular location. He formed his familiar hand seals, water in one hand and earth in the other, and watched as the ground moved at his beck and call. The overgrowth pulled back, broken boards and support beams in the house shivered, and all took shape as the wooden structure repaired itself into their shelter for the night.

Soon, the perimeter was set, the fire was roaring, and Seika had prepared a fish stew using root vegetables she'd managed to forage as well. The four sat and ate in relative silence, each feeling the weight of exhaustion.

"I'll take the first watch," Yamato said as the fire died down. "Seika, you'll take second, Raido third, and Genma, fourth." In this way, the two most exhausted members of the team would have the longest uninterrupted period of time in which to sleep.

The three retreated to the structure while Yamato remained by the dying fire. This was his first moment of real peace since he'd found out about Hana, but the cold glow of the moon and the stars made his heart ache in an odd way. She'd been gone for what, two, three, maybe four weeks? And he'd been none the wiser. Now, that space of time collapsed onto him, and he mourned for all the ways he could not protect her.

The sense of loss he felt was profound, somehow making him feel smaller and emptier than he'd been in his childhood. To him, Hana was a glimpse of something good and wonderful and beautiful. In their short time together, he'd found a place where he belonged, more than he had in ANBU, more than he had with Root, hell, even more than he had with Team Seven to some extent. She created a space for him in which he could comfortably fit…a home the likes of which he'd never had before.

Yamato had always searched for this belonging. It was what he'd dreamed about…it was his deepest desire. And yet, it had not been met in Naruto, Sakura, and Sai, the way he'd seen in his Tsukuyomi…but it had been met in Hana.

Perhaps that was why his heart ached so much.

Or maybe, his heart ached because he hadn't accepted this place of belonging in the first place. He hadn't allowed himself to take up the space she'd made for him, because he didn't want to ruin it in the first place.

This beautiful little rose extended herself to him, but he was loath to pluck her, and in his hesitation, she'd been plucked by someone else.

He groaned. He'd wanted this, hadn't he? For others to see Hana for who she was. But this was not the outcome he anticipated.

He'd been fine fighting his own battle, facing the monster inside of him, but the thought that he'd be fighting this type of battle had never occurred to him. Why would they take her, of all people?

But he knew exactly why.

They had taken Hana because of her mind. Her beautiful, complex mind, the one he found himself enthralled and entranced by. She'd been taken by Kaede, who slipped in and out of Konoha like a weasel. It disgusted Yamato, the way Kaede saw Hana as a tool, something to be gained rather than something to be treasured. Yamato would be damned if Kaede mistreated her in any way.

The intel Morino Ibiki extracted told them that Kaede excelled in genjutsu and mind-control, which honestly made so much sense in retrospect. Why else would his abysmal box buildings be present in every village around the world?

But that worried Yamato. What kind of damage could Kaede do to Hana's mind? In just a few days, he would hopefully reunite with her, but what state would she be in? The two ninja they'd interrogated in Konoha had not had that kind of intel.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the rose-shaped locket he'd given her, flipping it open to find his seed. Had she been separated from this by accident? Or on purpose? Why had she not swallowed it? Had she been afraid?

The hours passed while Yamato remained deep in his thoughts, absentmindedly opening and closing the locket in his hands.

"Yamato-taicho? It's time to change the watch."

He hardly heard her behind him, and Yamato realized how poorly he'd been keeping watch in the first place. Still, he knew this area was relatively safe. The nearest town was kilometers away, and judging by the state of his structure when they'd arrived, the area around the lake was nigh abandoned.

Seika settled down next to him, but Yamato did not get up. They fell into silence, watching the stars reflecting off of the still lake.

After a while, Yamato voiced a question that was still on his mind. "Why did Kakashi send you?"

He asked the question quietly, rhetorically, and did not necessarily expect her to answer. But she surprised him by looking straight at him and replying, "Because he cares about you," as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Yamato stared at her for a moment and then scoffed and shook his head.

"Why do you think he sent me?" Seika asked.

"It's the way his guilt works. He's punishing himself. He's separating himself from you the way I've been separated from Hana."

Seika raised her eyebrows at him, appearing entertained by this thought. "Ahh…so you think he sent me as collateral?"

"It would have made more sense if he sent Shizune, or Sakura, or even Ino. I've worked with all of them before, as have Genma and Raido. By comparison, you're practically unknown to me."

"But I'm not unknown to Kakashi," she said quietly.

Yamato opened his mouth, but he didn't know how to reply to that. He just shook his head again. "It doesn't make sense."

Seika smiled. She pushed her toe in the dirt, rubbing a small divot into the ground. "Do you love Hana?"

Yamato turned towards her and frowned at this non-sequitur, and then he looked back out over the lake. He did not answer for a long time, but finally, he said, "More than I thought was possible."

Seika nodded in agreement. "It's strange, isn't it? The hold someone can have on your heart."

"You're talking about Kakashi," Yamato observed.

Seika rested her head on her knees. "I fell in love with him by accident. I couldn't stand him at first, for all the reasons you're angry at him now. But his mind operates under veils and shadows, through mazes and behind locked doors. Somehow, I followed him in, and once I was there, I found I didn't want to leave."

They sat in silence for a few more moments.

"What made you fall in love with Hana?" Seika ventured.

Yamato stared at the water, not knowing how to put it into words. He'd just spent the past couple hours dissecting the answer himself, and yet the explanation evaded him. He didn't know if he should talk about it, especially with Seika, but the cool and the quiet of the night combined with the dull ache in his chest made it difficult to say nothing at all.

"Meeting her," he began, "was like finding an answer to a question I never knew I had. She just…she sees all of me. All of the parts that other people don't like, and all of the parts that I don't like, and all she sees is something worth caring for."

"Hmm…" Seika said knowingly. "I didn't think I was worthy of someone else's care, either."

"Do you really think he loves you?" Yamato asked the question, not knowing if he should, but he was spurred out of curiosity of what Seika truly thought of their Hokage. For all the years he'd spent with his senpai, he still questioned Kakashi's capability to love someone the way Seika described. Even with those closest to him, the man always maintained a certain distance.

To Yamato's surprise, she laughed, her voice ringing out over the stillness of the lake. "I've never heard the words from his mouth, if that's what you're asking, but that's also not the way he operates, is it?" She grew more serious. "He doesn't have to say it for me to see it."

Yamato knew that was true, at least. Kakashi showed his care in rare, subtle ways. He preferred not to be seen or acknowledged.

"I never told her that I loved her," Yamato admitted. In saying it out loud, he realized this was part of his pain…he'd never told Hana what she meant to him, and now he wondered whether he'd ever have the chance.

"She knows," Seika told him. "And if she doesn't, she'll know the moment she sees you. I get the sense that you've shown Hana what you haven't yet said in words."

"But I want to say the words," he said, his voice straining. "And I want her to hear them."

"Yamato," she said quietly, imploring him to meet her eyes. "I'll make sure you get the chance."

He let out a wry laugh. "That's something Kakashi would say."

"You know," Seika said, "if he weren't Hokage, he would be here himself."

Yamato grunted, annoyed to be reminded of this fact. "I know," he said reluctantly.

She continued. "Every decision he's made was a decision he thought best for you, and for Hana. Sure, he miscalculated by not telling you about her disappearance sooner, but he didn't send me because he feels guilty. He sent me because he cares about you. More than he'd ever admit."

"I'm still not so sure," he muttered.

"Let me ask you something," she said. "Would you have a conversation like this with Sakura, Ino, or Shizune?"

Yamato thought about it. Sakura, maybe, but they'd never had a conversation quite like this on a mission, no matter the context. No, Sakura would not ask the same questions Seika was asking, nor did she have the same type of rare insight into Kakashi as Seika did. "No," he answered.

"Would you have a conversation like this with Kakashi?"

Yamato glanced at her, finding her blue eyes watching him, like she saw right through him. It was the same uncanny look Kakashi gave him when he was being cagey. He let out a defeated sigh. "Yes." A conversation with Kakashi wouldn't look the same as this, but it would reach deep into Yamato's core the same way. That, he was certain of.

He sat in silence for a while longer, ruminating over his senpai's decisions, and then he got up.

"Yamato," Seika called after him, "if you want to be angry, be angry at the people who took her."

"Oh," he said as he stalked away, "I am."


Over the next couple of days, Yamato kept the pace of travel as grueling as on day one, but the first night's sleep had done everyone wonders. Yamato's mood only seemed to grow darker the closer they came to their final destination, but he did not neglect the needs of the team.

They reached the border of the Land of Volcanoes on the third day and stopped near a series of caves to make camp. This was yet another location familiar to Yamato, albeit without a pre-built structure. The caves provided what they needed in terms of shelter, had a good vantage point, and were easy to defend in case of attack.

That evening, while rabbit, root vegetables, and some sort of edible greens were cooking by the fire, Raido and Genma pulled out their new blades, intending to get a sense for the steel before they would need to use them in battle. Seika sat next to Yamato and watched the two, but their captain only pored over the scroll of intel carefully, scrutinizing every detail and forming a plan.

"Shiranui steel, huh?" Raido asked, eyeing Genma carefully.

Genma shook his head and rolled his senbon back and forth in his mouth. "I don't know why she named them after me."

Raido laughed. "Yuna is a mystery to us all," he said, "but this? It's not a mystery. She named these blades after you because you believe in her."

"Don't know why that makes me so special…" Genma muttered in reply. He pulled his blade from its sheath and inspected it. Yuna had polished it and sharpened it for him, and it gleamed brightly in the firelight.

Something on the blade by the hilt caught his eye, and he took a closer look.

"Damn it, you sage," he said to his best friend.

Raido peered over Genma's shoulder to see what he was looking at. He smirked. "See? I know my sister pretty well."

There, near the hilt, was the unmistakable character for 'faith.'

"When the hell did she have time to engrave this?" Genma wondered. "I was with her the entire time…"

Seika appeared over Genma's other shoulder, and she smiled upon seeing a single kanji etched in the swirling metal.

"Seems like maybe you need more sleep than she does after all," she teased, and then she picked up her own short sword and pulled it from its sheath. A moment later, a strong blue chakra flowed through the sword, extending it far beyond the edge of the cold metal. "She has a gift, that one."

"Which is why she should have named the swords after herself," Genma protested.

"Maybe it was foresight," Raido said with a wicked look in his eye.

Genma narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean?"

"Well…if you marry her she might take your name after all…"

Genma knew Raido was trying to get under his skin, but tonight it wasn't going to work. A year ago? Genma would have scoffed at the idea of marriage, and he still certainly wasn't in any rush. But, his perspective had shifted over the last year, and life after being a shinobi held a different sort of promise now.

"You know," he said calmly, "I might just do that."

Raido, caught off-guard, just stared blankly at his best friend for a moment. "You're serious."

Genma shrugged and flashed a grin. "Well…yeah. I recall you saying once that you'd make a good uncle to our strong-willed children. And that got me thinking, you'd make a pretty good best man, too."

Raido's face flushed pink as he considered the honor, and then he mumbled something that Genma could hardly hear.

"What?" he asked.

"Just…that'd be better than receiving any kind of war medal for our duties."

Genma laughed at his sheepish friend and clapped him on the shoulder. "Don't worry about that any time soon. We gotta survive this mission first."

"Hate to break up this sentimental moment," Seika told them, "but if we want to survive, we should probably figure out just what Yuna has provided for us…" and she launched an attack at the two of them.

Sometime later, the clanging of weapons and the banter between the three jonin died down.

"Yamato-taicho!" Raido called, "Do you want to test out your sword? They take a little bit to get used to."

Yamato glanced up, still preoccupied by a few particular details in the intel report. "No," he replied curtly. He wasn't even sure he was going to use the sword. His wood release could take care of tailed-beast chakra, so he wasn't overly concerned about that detail.

The other three glanced at one another, but they put their weapons away and moved back toward the fire. Seika checked on their meal and began ladling out bowls of stew for each of them.

They all dug in, but Yamato did not eat. His nose was still buried in the scroll, and a deep furrow had settled across his brow.

Seika watched him while they ate, and eventually put her bowl down, meal unfinished. "You know," she began, "Ruike Hana is a rather cunning person, when she wants to be."

Yamato glanced up sharply from the scroll, and Seika gave him a rare smile.

"She and I spent time together in the Land of Waves, when she apprenticed under Tazuna, the bridge builder. I can't tell you how many times she was told that her designs wouldn't work, but she proved everyone else wrong every single time.

"Once, when trade was starting to pick up in that region, there was an issue with the speed at which the ships could travel. Crews that employed shinobi often got more jobs and were better off, because they could enhance their ship's speed using chakra. Not every crew had the means to hire a shinobi, and the wealth gap only started to increase. Hana thought that unfair, and spent days developing a brand new rudder system that streamlined the way a boat could cut through the water.

"As you can imagine, there was an incredible amount of pushback from those who were rich enough to have a majority of the trade routes. I never would have thought her capable of it, but she waltzed into a village meeting and demanded that these powerful men step down. Despite her attempt, it didn't work, and that very night someone sabotaged all of her work and destroyed the rudders she'd built.

"Given her disposition, you'd think that would crush her…but not Hana. She went back and redesigned the rudders to look exactly the same as the old ones, but with new capabilities for speed. Every time a ship underwent repair, she would ensure that a new rudder would be installed, and suddenly that ship would be the fastest in the fleet. No one suspected a thing…but Tazuna's repair shop became the most popular stop for damaged ships."

Raido snorted. "That sounds about right. Of Yuna's friends, she's the quietest and the most reserved, but she's by far the smartest. She doesn't care about the spotlight - in fact I think she actively avoids it - but she's always stood up for others."

"If she's as smart as all that, I bet she's giving these kidnappers a run for their money."

This last statement by Genma was met with silence, but Yamato was no longer looking at his scrolls. Instead, he picked up his stew and ate it quickly before retiring without so much as another word.

"What's up with him?" Genma asked.

Seika sighed. "He won't be satisfied until he sees that she's safe," she remarked quietly. "It will take more than words to convince him of that."


In the morning, Yamato laid out their plan of action, expertly describing what he'd learned from the intel. He took the time to outline the map of where they expected Kaede's hideout to be: an outpost near the tallest volcano in the region. The area was dangerous, filled with much volcanic activity such that active lava flows were prominent in the region.

"We'll scope out the outpost first. Seika, you'll provide us coverage. I'll send clones in to assess how many enemy shinobi are present."

Each on high alert, they made their way into the rocky landscape. A couple of hours in, the landscape changed drastically, moving from rocky, uneven earth to something almost extraterrestrial. Although it was early in the day, they descended into darkness the further they went. The sky was soon tinged with an eerie, muted light. Sunlight filtered through smoke and ash, and the sun, which grew high in the sky, was blood red through the haze.

It was not hard for Seika to hide them in mist as if it were smoke.

"Is the volcano erupting?" Raido asked. "It's hard to believe this is typical."

"It's not," Yamato replied, "but the volcano is active. The volcanic activity in this area is constant. Be aware of the ground, it has the tendency to shift and move."

They picked their way past jagged, blackened rock, stealing silently forward toward their fate. The smell of sulfur grew thick in the air, feeling heavy and thick with heat.

"Why here, of all places?" Genma wondered. "It's desolate, and hotter than the Namiashi forge in the middle of summer."

Seika exchanged a glance with Yamato. "My guess?" she asked, "They're using the volcanos to forge the tailed-beast chakra blades. That's one of the methods they used in Kiri. A couple of the islands in the Land of Water still have active volcanoes that generate enough heat for the task."

Raido and Genma gripped their blades a little tighter at this news.

As they neared the location of the outpost, they slowed. Yamato sent in a clone to scout, but it returned to him quickly.

The outpost was abandoned.

"Shit," Genma said, as they stepped through the charred remnants of an old building. "It's completely empty. Where would they have gone?"

"This fire was recent," Raido said, touching pieces of charred wood and metal.

"And it looks like it was evacuated before it burned," Seika added.

Yamato had crouched towards the ground, following some hidden trail in the ash left behind. "These tracks aren't that old. I'd say this was an intentional burn, meant to destroy the building. Nothing else."

"And...it looks like Hana was here…" Seika said, lifting a piece of charred wood up from where it lay against a wall. On the other side, protected from the fire, was a diagram chalked out on the wall.

The other three gathered around to take a look. Drawn in white on the wooden planks was a floorplan. A rather large floorplan, with equations and mathematical symbols and something circled that was labeled an 'elevator.'

"Yamato-taicho," Seika asked, "is this her handwriting?"

Yamato had reached out his hand, running his fingers over the drawings on the wall, tracing the strokes that she had made and wondering how long ago she'd made them. "Yes," he whispered, as if in a trance. Hana had been here. And not long ago.

His hands followed her logic, tracing her design, until he found what he was looking for: the location of the structure. It was half burnt, but he could make out the shape of the volcano through the char.

Without speaking, he went back to the tracks on the ground and began to follow them. There were multiple, but one set was smaller than the rest, and he knew it was her. His heart picked up its pace. She was so close.

He stepped out of the burned outpost, and soon, he began to run. The tracks were heading straight toward the volcano.

Raido, Genma, and Seika followed, understanding his urgency.

"She's at that mountain, straight ahead!" Yamato called to them.

"...You mean the one that's smoking?" Raido asked.

Genma tilted his head. "Looks like there's a lot of active lava flows."

"I told you," Seika said. "Imbuing metal with chakra requires massive amounts of heat. This has to be where they're making the blades."

They traveled closer to the volcano, careful to remain hidden amidst the landscape.

"That's a long way up…" Raido mentioned when they reached the foot of the mountain.

They scrambled over loose rocks and dirt, making the ascent as quickly and as stealthily as they could. Finally, they reached the caldera of the volcano. As the crater came into view, each of them gasped involuntarily.

"Holy…" Raido breathed, unable to finish his statement.

"What the hell is that?" Genma asked, trying to comprehend the massive structure that had just come into view, looming above them, just outside of the smoke of the volcano.

"Well, now we know where all the metal shipments from the Land of Iron have been disappearing to…" Seika voiced.

Rising tall was a shining metal structure. No windows, but with smooth, imposing sides that bore no indication of an entrance. A shaft at the bottom led deep into the volcano, and as they peered downwards, they saw that it reached a ledge far below them, where men were moving in and out of another series of structures built into the side of the mountain. But what was most impressive about the whole metal piece is that it looked like it was floating.

"That's…" Yamato trailed off, trying to determine just what to call the thing in front of them.

"A cloud scratcher?" Raido asked.

"No," he said, knowing exactly what Hana's cloud scratchers could be. "It's more like a…"

"Fortress," Genma filled in, finding that the best word to describe the impenetrable structure.

"No…" Seika breathed. "It's more than a fortress…it's a castle."

The more they looked, the more they noticed tall, blocky towers clustered together that had originally been hidden by the gleam of all the metal.

"Yes…" Yamato agreed, in awe of the structure in front of them and the woman who designed it. "She built a castle in the sky."


A/N: Ahhh we're finally here. This one was a long time coming (and ended up being the longest chapter yet, of course...). There was soooo much emotion/angst I was trying to capture, along with exploring this particular team dynamic...so it took a little longer to tune it to a place I was happy with. We'll catch up with Hana next chapter aaaaannnd there may be a bit of action ahead ;)

I appreciate your patience as I finish out this story - I'm finally to the point where I don't have pre-written chapters ready to go (my posting pace has overtaken my writing pace), so updates may come a bit slower. But we're close, and I'm actively working on tying all of these pieces together!

I'll repeat, writing this has been super fun for me, but made so much more fun with the readers and reviewers on this story. All I can say is thank you!