AN: Kept you waiting, huh?
"Thank you for your patronage!" A cute brown haired server said, bowing slightly as she handed a bag of dumplings to her latest customer. The man had been a touch awkward after entering the store but seemed to relax after a few moments, and the two had shared a bit of small talk while the cook had prepared his order.
"No, thank you. I appreciate it." Yamada told her, making sure his hat were properly fixed atop his face. He waved goodbye as he exited the store, dumplings in his other hand, and began walking down the busy streets of the Fire City Capitol. A smile came to his face, reflecting Naruto's own happiness as he controlled Yamada over the link they shared. Everyone was just so nice to him when he controlled Yamada, and his social inexperience was slowly being worked on.
Part of him wished he could leave the abandoned warehouse he had turned into his hideout and walk around the streets openly, but he knew it would be foolish beyond belief. While it had been several weeks since he had arrived at the Capitol and he hadn't yet heard of any search for him going on, he was smart enough to know it may only have been because he hadn't actively tried to catch word of it. Naruto himself wasn't the stealthiest ninja; he was decent for someone who wasn't a Genin, but he could hardly be expected to track down any Leaf ninja hiding out in the city, find out their mission, and work to subvert them covertly. Yamada was just a buffer to keep himself away from the world at large, and his control of him could only do so much. The former mercenary had been a swordsman, not a ninja, and trying to make his body do techniques it wasn't trained to do in life just didn't work. Another flaw to the Edo Tensei, he supposed, and one he hoped to work out if he ever became skilled enough in the jutsu.
He could feel Yamada continue making his way to the warehouse, and he began slowly lessening his control over his puppet's actions. He kept focus just in the back of his mind, just to make sure Yamada didn't inadvertently lead random people back to their little base, but Naruto focused more on his real body. He had ditched his old clothes a while back; as much as it pained him to part ways with his orange jacket, he knew it had to be done if he wanted to remain incognito. Now he just wore a plain white T-shirt and blue shorts, purchased by Yamada using the funds acquired from the deceased bandits. He walked through the old warehouse until he reached a room that had been what he could only surmise was the staff kitchen, and picked out a cup ramen from the pantry. With some water from a water bottle to fill it up, he stuck it into the (thankfully) still functioning microwave and set it to begin cooking, tapping his foot as he checked back in on Yamada.
His heart seemed to fall to his feet as he began to run, his ramen left behind.
"Mr. Yamada, is it? We have a few questions for you." Kakashi asked casually, standing in front of the man he knew to be an imposter. The real Yamada was a corpse, and his landlord had reported that he hadn't been seen for weeks. Whoever the man in front of him was, he seemed to have put no effort in studying Yamada's past, current place of residence, or even his personality. All the people Kakashi had interviewed claimed Yamada was a rather no-nonsense man who typically grunted his greetings to a few people and blatantly ignored everyone who wasn't currently hiring him for a job.
But the Yamada Kakashi had tracked down was walking around with a cheerful smile, greeting everyone who passed by. A very sudden change in personality.
"Y-yes?" Yamada said after a bit of a pause, where his face became eerily emotionless before shifting to worry. "I'll happily help a Leaf shinobi, though I don't know how useful I'll be. I'm just a civilian with a bit of training in the sword, not even a samurai." Yamada told him, his free hand clenching and unclenching nervously.
Kakashi kept his gaze on Yamada, though he made note of his team getting into position should things turn ugly. "Don't worry, I'm sure you'll be of great help to us. You went on a mission a few weeks back, yes?"
"Yes, yes I did!" Yamada confirmed quickly. "Simple escort mission, you know. Nothing noteworthy." He laughed nervously, tapping a finger against his side.
"Of course." The Jonin replied, looking nonchalant. "Where do you live, Mr. Yamada?"
Yamada stilled, and despite the man's hat covering his eyes Kakashi knew he was looking for a way out. "Th-that, I mean, what is this investigation for? I've done nothing worth investigating!"
His team was in position, and 'Yamada' was clearly going to make a break for it. Time to put him down quickly and end the transformation jutsu. "I think we may have to disagree...Naruto."
Yamada didn't disappoint, flinging his bag of dumplings at Kakashi and running away. Hana and her hounds leapt after him, and his attempt to draw his sword was easily thwarted by Hana gripping his wrist and twisting. Kakashi slightly winced. He didn't want to hurt Naruto, but it was best to take him down quickly so they could work everything out without Naruto getting another charge added.
'Yamada' didn't let go of his sword, despite his broken wrist, and turned with surprising speed, almost managing to cut Hana who had to let him go. Before their very eyes, 'Yamada's' wrist bent back into shape with a nasty crack, and he held up his sword in a defensive, but obviously untrained, posture. His worried expression slowly faded, as he shifted into a far more professional, though still amateur in the eyes of Kakashi, defensive position.
"Take him down quickly, but avoid permanent injuries." Kakashi said with a narrowed eye, wondering how Yamada's injury had healed so quickly. It had to be Naruto under some sort of disguise-why else would he react so harshly to Kakashi referring to him as such?- but his transformation hadn't dropped even after being injured, and that sudden healing...It wasn't natural.
"Kakashi...When I was close to that guy, I got a good whiff of him. The scent of ashes, and burnt paper." Hana confirmed to Kakashi. "This is the guy who took Naruto from the clearing."
"In that case, we'll have to interrogate him in-depth." Kakashi noted. The team moved, easily overpowering Yamada's defense; Hana's hounds bit into his arms and one of his legs, while Hana forcefully removed his sword from his hand. Kakashi held a kunai to the man's neck, and spoke slowly and clearly to the man who looked completely unphased at being defeated in less than a second. "You're no match for us. Tell us what happened to Naruto, and we'll let you go."
The man was silent, and Kakashi pressed his kunai close enough to draw blood...but no blood came out. The wound merely healed, pushing the kunai back out, giving off the faint smell of ashes.
"What the...?" Kakashi wondered, when he felt a small, pitiful surge of chakra coming from the civilian in front of them. His eye widened, and he quickly yelled. "Get off him, now!"
Hana and her hounds thankfully listened, as a small spark went off on Yamada's chest, followed by an explosion. Kakashi leapt through the smoke, kunai drawn, not ready to let the man escape...and not prepared for the sight before him.
Swirls of ash and scraps of burnt paper were coming together, reforming Yamada's body, clothes and all. Yamada stood there lifeless like a statue, but looked up when he noticed Kakashi's presence. "I think..." Yamada said, sounding much more confident. "I may turn out to be a match for you, after all."
Naruto slipped out of the city gates unnoticed, quickly running down the road. He thanked every god he could that the Konoha team hadn't detected him; the one-eyed man had made it pretty clear they were looking for him, and surely if someone had seen him they would have already struck. They had attacked Yamada in the city proper, after all, so he doubted they'd feel hesitant attacking him here.
His head was ringing with every step he took and every blow Yamada took. He was quickly learning how difficult the Edo Tensei really was when it came to performing simultaneous actions between a summon and his own physical body. He couldn't sit down to focus solely on Yamada; He had no illusions that Yamada could win against two trained ninja and some huge dogs, and he'd need to get as much distance between him and those ninja as he could. Likewise, he couldn't just ignore the fight to focus on running. Yamada was decent for a civilian, but he had never fought ninja before. Naruto was put in the strange position of needing to let Yamada do all the actual trained maneuvers while tugging at his control to dodge ninja tricks that were clear to him but well-hidden to the untrained Yamada.
It was tiring, and would be doomed to failure...if not for the supplementary jutsu Naruto had read while learning the Edo Tensei. The Mutually Multiplying Explosive Tags technique, a jutsu that turns the user's own body into a series of powerful explosive tags. It was developed specifically for those reincarnated with the Edo Tensei, making use of their immortality to devastate the opponent.
Unfortunately, it drained chakra like a vacuum, which meant Yamada couldn't use it. While the zombie supposedly had 'infinite chakra', Yamada's body-immortal as it now was- still lacked the ability to channel large amounts of chakra. He could force enough through to pull off one explosive tag, but he couldn't summon the apparent hundreds the jutsu was actually designed for.
'An explosive tag I can use any time I want with zero consequences, a sword, and a weird mash of sword training and my own awesome skills.' Naruto thought to himself as he continued to run, while Yamada faced Kakashi in the back of his mind. 'Let's hope it's enough...'
AN: Expect more frequent updates.