Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of the characters, except for original characters created by me.
A hadn't expected the day to go like this. Today was supposed to be a good day. A new milestone for him and Kumogakure, after claiming the third bijū. A day of triumph, glory, and celebration.
Not…this…
"PLEASE TELL ME SOMEONE HAS AN EYE ON THAT LITTLE DEVIL!" he bellowed into the microphone, ignoring the sharp noise that followed.
"Apologies, Raikage-sama…we are trying to pin him down…but he's too fast…" Dodai's voice came through. "And if he's cornered, he has no trouble escaping into the rooms…or breaking through the walls and floors."
"SO Y'ALL ARE PLAYING TAG WITH HIM?" A screamed. "Don't let me come down there or I will level that building down, with everyone inside it if I have to!"
"We are trying to contain him as soon as possible, while making it safe for the staff to evacuate themselves and the patients."
A threw the headset on the floor with full force, shattering it. This was a shitshow. He could practically feel the disapproving glares on his back, with half of the shinobi council now standing in the office. He knew that they knew better than to speak out loud. But it didn't mean there wasn't palpable disapproval in the air.
"What's the status on C?" He tried to say in a calmer voice.
"He'll live Raikage-sama. His ribs and limbs have had a lot of damage, but nothing life-threatening. Burns will probably disfigure him badly, but…" the chief medic stopped for a moment, contemplating his choice of words. "He might not be fit for field duty for a long, long time…if ever."
A scrunched his eyes shut.
"And where is Darui?" he asked.
"He is coordinating the evacuation efforts."
"Tell him to stay out of this fight. Pull back immediately after civilians are escorted out. Mabui, be ready to drop me at the hospital the moment that happens. B too." He growled. "This has gone on for far too long."
Jiraiya stared down at the landscape.
Valley of the End, and the plateau leading to it had its rugged beauty. It could make one forget the place was in Fire Country, so different the landscape was. Jiraiya had his time in the region, during and after the Second Shinobi War. He had memories of too many carnages associated with this area to be mesmerized by the natural beauty alone.
Like the one he was looking at.
This whole business seemed fishy to him.
He had information from multiple reliable sources that the Kumo contingent left with no more than four members. The exact number was a bit iffy, which was suspicious anyway. The official delegation was supposed to have three members, and three people actually walked into Konoha, but his sources in Hibachi port swore that there were four men in the party from Lightning that got off the ship. Where had the fourth one gone then?
But either way, this was nowhere close to the number suggested by the Inuzukas' and other sensor-nins' observations.
That many people hiding in the Land of Fire's hinterlands and being completely undetected by regular patrol, Anbu patrol, Root patrol, teams going in and out of the village, and finally, trade settlements or caravans was just, impossible. Even after accounting for absurd levels of corruption and/or incompetence and negligence, this was just not possible. After some more reconnaissance, Jiraiya had to give up on the idea's credibility.
There were no more than four Kumo shinobi. The rest were just a third party, who also tailed the Kumo shinobi running with their precious booty.
That begged the question : Who were they?
They could not have been foreign shinobi. Jiraiya had eliminated that possibility earlier. Leaf troops and Anbu patrol squads were all accounted for. Not backup, not foreign shinobi. That left only one possibility.
Root.
Jiraiya regretted not murdering that one-eyed warhawk when he still had the chance.
From that moment onwards, he had given up on any hope of finding any further clues. Root wasn't black ops for no reason. They were extremely meticulous and clean. You only see what they want you to see, when they want you to see. They rarely left behind anything, and when they did, it was a misdirection.
So he was surprised to find the dead bodies strewn about in the valley after following up on his hunch.
Jiraiya took his time examining each dead body. He needed solid proof, even though he knew no proof was solid enough. Planting corpses dressed as enemies was a known tactic, in use since the Second Shinobi War. But the scene seemed untampered. No one had visited this place since the massacre, except for scavengers.
And what a massacre it was.
Limbs had flown off yards away from the bodies. Bodies wearing the standard Konoha Anbu gear, or tattered remains of it. Whatever attacked them, did so with power and ferocity of a wild beast. Bodies were already half eaten by vultures and crows and wolves and the other half had started to rot and wither. But Jiraiya could see wide gashes in the armors, not unlike Fūton or Suiton clawing attacks would leave. And the ground looked like it had gone through a battle of epic proportions. Cracked rocks, scorched and singed earth, with deep scars here and there.
Jiraiya's brows furrowed when he saw the withered vegetation along the edges of the battleground.
A summon confirmed his doubts.
"That is bijū chakra alright, or I am not a toad, which I am!" The summon harrumphed.
"Thought so too. Would you perhaps be able to tell me which one of the nine it was?"
"Be able? Able? Jiraiya-chan, how could you?" The toad sounded dramatic. "What do you take me for, a tadpole? That's Kyubi no Yoko without a doubt! I can smell his anger right off! But…isn't he supposed to be sealed? By that golden-haired tadpole of yours?"
"Indeed." Jiraiya said gravely.
With one punch from A, the roof caved in, letting him and Killer B land on the top floor of the hospital.
The patients and medic-nin had been evacuated just now, leaving the building mostly empty. Dodai was coordinating between three Anbu squads who were trying to chase Naruto out in the open. But the brat seemed to be having fun, running about inside the building. A would be impressed, had he not been seething.
He was looking at men he had known from childhood. The remains of them.
One of them was lying at his feet. Or rather, his head, shoulder, arms, and chest were. The rest was about 10 feet away, a pool of dried blood connecting them.
"B, split up. We'll do a pincer movement. Don't hesitate to kill him if you see him. He probably won't die anyway, so there's no point in holding back."
His blood-brother said something, but A ignored him, taking large steps, crunching gravel under his feet.
There was a scream somewhere downstairs, followed by an animalistic sound that was a mix of laughter and wailing.
A finally found Dodai on the third floor.
"So where's that demon child?" he demanded.
The one-eyed old guard acted respectfully but didn't cave under his glare. "Sorry Raikage-sama, I still haven't made any contact with the thing. It's bloody agile, and seems to be enjoying it. And narrow corridors aren't exactly helping. And there never were a lot of men who could take on a rampaging Jinchuriki's attack in Kumo. It's...got an instinct for picking out the weaker ones, I am afraid."
"What exactly are you trying to do then? Waiting for everyone else to die?" A bristled.
"The plan is to force him into the basement...or outside. But…he keeps leaping through the floors and ceilings…the building will probably collapse first at this rate."
The animalistic roar came again, this time from the floor right above them.
Followed by debris.
A and Dodai leaped back, the latter preparing to mount a defence. A hole had opened up in the ceiling, dropping a pile of debris in the middle of the corridor they were in, and a wispy of orange chakra stuck out of it. It rose as the child picked himself back up and faced upwards. He was caked head to toe in blood and gore, along with dust. He again roared at the tentacles pouring out of the hole in the ceiling.
"Yo yo yo, Kyūbi-sama isn't that cool, to think he can wreck stuff and get away, he must be a fool~"
The kid took not a second to dash down the corridor away from them on all fours, his long tail of chakra trailing behind like a flaming orange scarf.
"COME AND FACE ME, YOU COWARD!" A roared giving chase. The beastly child ran fast, but not fast enough for the world's fastest Shinobi. He soon caught up to the child, grabbed him by the leg, and thrashed him on the wall beside. The thing seemed to give a genuine cry of pain before falling back, with chunks of the wall, out into the yard.
"Suiton: Suijinheki!
The courtyard was flushed with water, just mere seconds before the kid landed, creating a splash. A watched from above as a familiar white-haired boy channeled electricity into the water, making the kid thrash and scream. It was music to his ears.
"Darui!" he shouted. "I gave you a direct order to stay out of this!"
"Sorry Boss, but I owe C this much!" Darui shouted back. The water evaporated fast with all the electricity and raw chakra emanating from the child's body. He was still on the ground, writhing. His chakra cloak was mostly gone, only orange flames flickering about.
The building was rapidly collapsing, so A also jumped down, flanked by Dodai and B. B had already unleashed four tails, hovering it over his and Dodai's heads to shield them from the collapsing building, and also as display of intimidation. More shinobi, mostly Anbu had now taken position all around the courtyard, making a loose cordon. Yugito was among them, and she walked up to Darui, signaling him to fall back.
The boy gave another animalistic roar, turning his head around, trying to figure out the weak link in the cordon.
Dodai shuffled through a series of hand signs, and spat out a massive load of his sticky Lava Release, trapping the little Jinchuriki in rubbery muck.
"Sealing team is ready, Raikage-sama. Shall we begin?
A looked once more at the feral child, so caked in blood it was hard to tell what he was wearing.
It would now be a child's play to subdue the Kyūbi jinchuriki. Too easy on him.
Or…
A rushed in with a burst of Rāiton chakra.
The feral child had barely enough time to turn its head to him, before A decked him hard with his fist, coated with Rāiton chakra, sending a shockwave around.
Legend says a Kage was one who could fight a bijū and come out on top.
His own father, the third Raikage, had wrangled with Hachibi countless times himself, proving that legend.
And he had also died, holding out for five days against a barrage of shinobis, to buy his men time to flee.
Now what kind of son would A be if he didn't uphold that legacy?
What kind of a leader would he be if he didn't even avenge his fallen men?
His fifth punch made the child cough up blood and a broken tooth.
He didn't stop there.
Hiruzen found Kakashi in the Anbu break room.
"Hatake." He said softly.
He didn't show any sign of having heard him.
"Hound."
The mop of silver hair lifted up, showing the teen's face.
Hiruzen felt sad, seeing Kakashi's haggard face, which was not quite obscured even by his cloth mask. Red eye, dark under the eyelid. He looked like the shell of a man.
"Hound, I ordered you to go get a psych eval."
The boy looked straight at him.
"I don't think offering your doctor a bribe for a fake report is something I can condone."
Kakashi still said nothing.
"Kakashi, I know what you're going through. I also lost team members. My sensei. My relatives. There are proper ways of handling grief. It's certainly not assaulting senior Jōnins, nor is it trying to internalize it."
Kakashi gave no indication of registering a single word.
"Konoha has a team of specialists equipped to help people with such trauma. They are there to help, Kakashi. Let them help you. You are among the best Konoha has. We can't afford to lose you now, on top of everything."
Kakashi finally stood up. Then he spoke.
"I will renew my appointment with Inaba-san."
Hiruzen would have felt better had the words not sounded like they were coming out of a puppet Sunagakure specialized in.
"Please do. I am putting you on mandatory downtime now. Please do what's necessary. Don't let yourself succumb to grief. Minato and Kushina wouldn't want that for you, Kakashi-kun."
Hiruzen could have sworn Kakashi gave a full body twitch, before he pulled on the Anbu mask over his face.
"Hai, Hokage-sama." He replied then.
Inside the mission control office of Konoha, a toad croaked.
The kunoichi on duty, who was too busy rubber-stamping reports, looked up startled.
"Jiraiya-sama!!"
"Hello." Jiraiya's smile didn't reach his eyes. "I can see you are busy, but I absolutely need to see the mission reports of Chūnin Hideki Yura. This is top priority, I am afraid."
The killing intent was so dense that the kunoichi even forgot to fangirl. Hurrying to the shelf, she pulled down a pile of scrolls.
"Here you go, Jiraiya-sama. The last 3 months of mission records of Hideki Yura. I will have to check the archives for older ones."
"This will do." Jiraiya said, taking the scroll she had offered and stuffing it inside his sleeve after glancing through it.
"Jiraiya-sama… that scroll is not supposed to leave the office…" the kunoichi tried as he was almost at the door.
"Make an exception for this old toad, will ya?" Jiraiya said nonchalantly as he walked out.
He was beside himself in rage.
The guard outside didn't even have a chance to speak before he slumped forward unconscious.
The picture was becoming clear to him now.
There were at least two Root squads, following the Kumo escapes almost right off the gate. Two full strength Anbu squads, capable of destroying entire platoons, or holding off a standard four-man Jōnin team.
Only they made no attempt to retrieve their previous Hokage's son. That wasn't their mission.
They simply chased the kidnappers, tiring them out, corralling them into a place with no escape.
They were so assured of their victory that they didn't even bother with a rear guard. The idea was to overwhelm the prey, which was probably a lone shinobi, running on fumes for days. All they had to do was kill them, capture the bounty, and disperse. Some were supposed to make it to Konoha...while the actual Konoha shinobi would be busy far away on a wild goose chase, attracting everyone's focus. The others would go back to their assignments, as per the mission control papers.
The following scuffle had led to the unthinkable, Kyūbi no Yoko rising from its slumber, and massacring most of them, if not all.
Jiraiya had the remains of one such man in a storage scroll. Body of one chūnin Hideki Yura, who was still supposedly away on a mission to Degarashi port. Jiraiya had confirmed his affiliation to the village and the Root from his thumbprint, Root tattoos, and hitai-ate. A man on a fake mission, redirected to a black ops mission. Irrefutable proof of Root's involvement, and its clutch on Konoha.
Only two things were left to be figured out.
Did they actually manage to retrieve his godson? If so, where was he now?
And how could a man, twice the genius he was, renowned for his intelligence all over the elemental nations, and his trusted teammate, miss all of these tells, and spend a week chasing shadows?
He was going to find out both before the sun rose tomorrow.
Yugito Nii walked into the room.
It was afternoon. The clouds were painted in shades of purple, grey, and orange. A, B, Dodai, and a few sealing experts and medics stood in a circle, surrounding a gurney.
"His recovery rate is astounding, even for a jinchūriki." One of the sealing experts said, sounding a tad scared as well as excited. "Even with so many chakra inhibitors, look at his cuts closing! Probably has to do with his Uzumaki bloodline."
"Raira said Furui suspected he was Minato's kid. Quite the catch if he is." A said. "I didn't know Minato hooked up with a redhead. That man had good taste."
"Any foreign chakra entering his system seems to trigger his transformation…" the medic-nin spoke again. "As per Raira-san's testimony, she used a strong genjutsu. C-san too tried something similar…we don't know how he'll react to medical ninjutsu, since that also inserts foreign chakra…but he doesn't seem to need any treatment."
"What are you going to do with him, Raikage-sama?" Dodai asked.
"It's not safe to keep him here." A said. "The death toll is already too high. Prepare for transporting him to Genbu."
"We can't leave him there alone! He's just a child!" Yugito blurted out.
"Last time I checked, you are not even qualified enough to talk back to me, Jinchūriki." A levelled her with a cold stare. "Today alone he killed 15 shinobi, 8 Jōnins included. I am not even considering the civilians. He's proven to be a public threat. We didn't have this sort of catastrophe ever since B became the Hachibi Jinchūriki. What would you have me do then? Will you take responsibility when this kid wakes up and goes on his next rampage?"
Matatabi hissed murder into her ears, but Yugito decided to tune her out. "Sorry, Raikage-sama. I spoke out of line."
A turned around without even acknowledging her. "I need a team ready to leave for Genbu by midday tomorrow. Ansi, keep him sedated till then. Make a copy of his seals. If he proves to be as volatile as previous hosts for Hachibi, we have to ready with a new Jinchūriki candidate."
Yugito wondered why she was summoned here in the first place.
She received her answer right off.
"Nii Yugito. You are going along with this party. He's your charge now. It will be your responsibility to shape him into a standard shinobi of Kumogakure and a proper Jinchūriki. Consider this as an S-ranked mission. Your performance will be evaluated by his battle prowess and loyalty by the time the training ends. Prepare to meet the rest of your squad at noon tomorrow. If there is no further questions, consider yourself dismissed."
AN: It's been a while since I updated this story. Things happened, and I left my muse for a while. Imagine my surprise when I opened the app after a while to realise it was still getting views and reviews. Thanks for sticking with me!
Special thanks to DescriptivePessimism_DAA for valuable thoughts and inputs.