"Suna no Tamako, you are hereby arrested by the Joint-Committee of Konoha and Suna for conspiring with an S-Ranked Missing-nin Yuga no Hidan and Iwa no Deidara."
Tamako's heart stopped beating when those exact words slipped out of Kakashi's mouth. Ice cold water seemed to douse her from head to toe at his words. "W-what!?" Two voices echoed, disbelief and a shift of clothing. She couldn't tell from the way her head was angled into the ground.
Kakashi sighed, shaking his head, "To think that someone of your standing would conspire with S-Rank Missing-nin... betraying your village." The gray-haired man trailed off in disdain. "And for what? Distrust?"
She struggled against his hold, beaming a smile. Okay, act cool. Probe for information, I can always go back to a previous save.
"Taicho! Surely you jest." She tilted her head to the side, keeping the beaming smile up, "Please unhand me and we can talk. Who's Iwa no Deidara? I haven't met anyone named that."
She wasn't lying, she really hadn't met him, yet.
Kakashi eye-smiled back, not flinching when he detected her words' as truth by the touch of her heart-beat. "Mission oh-oh-five-six. Six months ago, you took a mission to Yugakure in hopes of discovering information about the massacre that took place seven years ago. You managed to find Hidan, instead of attempting to kill him or flee, you talked him into a deal, while the vast majority of details were left unsaid, the spy planted on you got the gist. You planned to meet with Deidara in a few months."
She did not sense that spy. Glancing over to her save files, she groaned. That was almost five months ago, it's not like she can just go back to undo! Then she paused.
This could be a good thing. Leaving the village.
She dropped her candy smile and glanced at her former taicho. "Then tell me this, Kakashi." She paused, gathering her words and forgone her nickname of taicho, "How long?"
The man sighed, recalling details. He would tell her, he was fully confident that she couldn't escape. People in power loved to monologue, and no doubt he was doing this in front of his students to teach them a lesson. A lesson to not trust anyone.
"According to your files, you were marked after your answers in the Academy Test." He narrowed a single eye. "They had S-Rank secrets. You were then put on the watch-list after a particular series of answers on Kirigakure. Finally, you landed yourself at the top of the flight-risk list due to your actions during the Konoha Invasion."
Her blood turned to ice at his words. The Academy gave her away? She cursed at her low INT and WIS of her childhood. Of course her answers were suspicious. They think she's a planted spy! It adds up, now that she has the INT and WIS to fully compute everything.
A stupid one at that. They probably think she's the one who was feeding Orochimaru information from the inside, killing the Kazekage.
She curses, "Shit."
"Hyuuga Affair, Kirigakure's inner workings— that wasn't something you should have been privy to. Tell me, who's been feeding you information."
Oh great, Konoha thinks she knows their spy. The spy snuck in Orochimaru and killed the Hokage.
She has a deep feeling that if she stays here any longer, he'll knock her out.
"Kaka-sensei!" Naruto finally snaps out of his stupor, "Tamako's weird, but she's not a spy!" He takes a step forward with a clenched hand, "She helped us take down Gaara. There's no way!"
Her years at slaving away at the Kazekage, trying her best to show her worth and over exerting herself to say, hey! Don't send me out as canon-fodder! I'm important!
She thinks of the Sand Siblings, her orphanage and Matron Yoshina. They would be okay without her, they were fine in canon.
Then out of curiosity, because this would be her last time to get away with angering Team 7 without being murdered, probably.
She opened her mouth, grinning, "Ten years, huh?" She relaxed into the hold, "It took you guys ten years to finally do it." She smirked, "Kakashi, you must understand, no?"
His eyes narrowed, Sharingan spinning.
"Prodigies like you and me, we have to show our worth. Tell the village that we just important enough to let us stick around and not throw us in suicide missions." She pauses, her eyes swimming with doubt. "Rasa wanted so badly to graduate me early, you know. He wanted to show me off to the world, tell them that Suna wasn't failing. Paint a picture on my back, I didn't want that."
Her head turns to Sasuke, ignoring the shell shocked looks, "There's a burden in life when you discover secrets that villages try to hide so desperately. Covering their tracks to look good for themselves. It's a pity, really."
His eyes are pulled into a squint, Sharingan spinning dangerously, "What do you mean?"
She laughed, "Do you really believe the Massacre wasn't predetermined by forces you couldn't even begin to imagine?"
Before the boy can retort, she turns to Naruto this time. "And you, holding a secret larger than yourself." The boy's eyes avoids her gaze. He knows what she's referring to. "You're just like Gaara. A container for a bloodthirsty beast."
Kakashi presses more of his weight into his knee, her ribs groan in protest. "How do you know that?"
She sighs, "Kakashi, I wish I knew the answer to that." Why was she sent here? With her past memories?
"Tamako, if you're being threatened, we can help you. I know you're a good kid. You care for your comrades— you helped my team take down the Ichibi."
"Help?" She raised an eyebrow at the gray-haired man before cracking a wild smile. "You can't help me any more than your help with your old team."
She's not Team 7, how can he help her?
He lost Sasuke, gave Naruto to Jiraiya and left Sakura. Maybe she should be thankful she wasn't in Team 7.
She so desperately wanted to tell Sasuke about the truth of the Massacre. She desperately wanted to tell Kakashi about Obito's wellbeing. But if she didn't know the future's enemies, who knows what other monsters would be born. She needed this future to be as predictable as possible.
So she opens her save, selecting the right one and closes her eyes. The vertigo is manageable after doing this so many times, and she opens her eyes at the rainbow in the sky.
What a perfect ending to this lie she'd been telling herself!
To her left, Sasuke and Sakura have small smiles and Naruto is grinning so bright.
She replaces herself with an extensive chakra clone. Kakashi wouldn't be able to tell the difference for a bit, and that's all she needs. She suppresses her chakra to a squirrel and shunshin away, making haste out of this country.
She bites a chakra capsule with her molars, groaning at the chakra entering her reserves. She unties her hitaiate and slashes it. As she runs across the open country, she gazes at her forehead protector.
Tamako has no love nor hate against Suna. But this is the best course of action.
She can only blame the stupidity of her past.
The young girl ties the hitaiate around her neck, the metal gleaming against the sun.
[-3000 Fame!]
"Uzu no Kuni, here I come."
. . .
She crosses two more minor countries before she stops. The Land of Hotspring's is a quiet country, as long as you acted not act so suspiciously, it was a good hiding spot. Although the minor country borders the Land of Fire, they wouldn't send out ANBU for a chunin traitor, right?
And the Land of Wind was almost the other side of the continent. She should be safe, for now.
Her pitstop of choosing was an equally quaint inn with a small hot spring. It would have to do. It's not like she could go to the main spring by the Village, no, she might bump into Konoha Shinobi.
The Inn was a little rundown, and after inquiring about the rooms, she was left disappointed at the news of a full house, but that didn't stop her from paying a little to use their hot springs. She needed a soak.
Cross-country running with no rest has left her legs almost falling apart, and she really needed to think about her future. Her back-up plan with the Akatsuki now seemed like a lifeline. There's no telling what sort of bounty Suna would put on her.
Dead or Alive?
Who knows, but one thing she knows for sure is that they'll be ANBU, sooner or later. It was one of the downfalls of having such a rare Kekkei Genkai, added on the fact she had no allies, she was easy pickings to any bounty hunter interested in a quick cash grab.
She entered the female section of the hotspring, quickly stripping and rubbing her arms together. She still felt the chill of Yuki no Kuni.
Before she fully stripped, she checked out her surroundings before she put herself in a compromising situation.
'Observe'
Bamboo Lockers
- Good quality lockers, maintained daily
- Could be used as a weapon if needed
Kunoichi Clothing - Common
- A little skimpy, maybe that's the point?
- Made from local cotton and fiber
- Good quality, for something that's easily flammable
Tamako blinked, she should stop before she finds a condom or worse.
She dumped her clothing into her inventory, wrapping herself in a towel and descended into the hot water.
The chill that never seemed to disappear from Yuki no Kuni was quickly chased away, her muscles relaxing. Her legs burned, but it felt good.
[Buff! 10% EXP boost! 20 minutes]
Well, she's never found a hot spring with that unique buff. Her hands rose from the water, droplets dripping at the movement.
She needs a plan. A fucking good one too, if she wants to stay alive. Should she try her luck with the Akatsuki?
There's only so much you can bullshit against the strongest terrorist group in the Elemental Nations. Her Info-Broker dreams were chased away with worries surfacing. It wasn't like she was strong enough to join either, she was good but not that good.
She's going to need a training arc, soon and fast.
Although, she does have one thing. Her relationship with two tailed-beast containers. It was her greatest card, although, she wasn't sure if it was such a good card anymore after cutting ties.
Tamako groaned loudly, shaking her head and covering her face with a palm. It's so over.
The only way she'll ever get onto the Akatsuki bus was to become an Info-Broker. Orochimaru was one, so was Sasori.
Should she wait until Sasori dies?
How would she even start a spy network? She's never raised shinobi before, never tortured any to do her bidding.
She had to look at her key skills. What did she have that made her unique.
Her eyes snapped open, palms up and formed crystal. Her Kekkei Genkai was her biggest card, so how can she twist it?
Her clones were good, but it's not like she can make a bajillion of them and make them roam around. She doesn't have Naruto-level CP, and they would just get hunted down. She'll have to create a different form. A forgettable one.
A butterfly dances by, attracted by the chakra-rich water. It lands by the rock near her, sipping.
Her fingers dance in the air, chakra following each weave before a similar butterfly forms. It's small, but beautiful. It dances lazily above her, doing small tricks at each gesture. It would be nice if something so small could just roam for her.
Then she pauses.
Why couldn't she let it roam for her?
It's small, and could easily be wiped out with the smallest touch. But it was so small that many wouldn't even glance twice.
She takes advantage of the buff, obtaining several skills that allowed her to create these small little insects who's capacity was focused more on durability rather than appearance. If one took a closer look, they would immediately figure out these strange little bugs were, in fact, not real bugs, but that was okay.
She's always wondered how to take advantage of the leftover chakra that dispersed into the air after her shouton disappears. Tamako was getting close to Nature Chakra, but didn't dare to venture forth. She knew what it'll do to an untrained mind and body.
So she experiments at the springs. Forming her butterfly and releasing it's form, trying so desperately to reabsorb that chakra back into her.
It's harder than she thought, and by the time the buff ran out, she still hadn't gotten it patented down. So she tries again.
This time after dispersing its form, she let's the leftover chakra, that she barely has grasp over, and forms another form. This time, it works, but the clone is weak. Fluttering weakly before disappearing just as fast as it was born.
She grins.
. . .
A month passes, and she has it figured out. It required concentration, but it wasn't like she could constantly uphold this jutsu, so she delegates that to her clone.
It's a stronger clone than normal, and it took nearly all of her chakra to create her. Capable of maintaining a stern hold over the network and required no food until her chakra ran out. Tamako would have to supply the clone with Chakra every few days, but after practicing so many times, her clone learns how to conserve chakra, cutting that that few days to a few weeks.
She forms a second clone after her first round of testing. The onslaught of each crystal insect dispersing and giving information overwhelms her so much that she passes out in the cave.
When she awakens, she finds her clone, no longer concentrating on the jutsu and hovers over her with panic. She learns from her mistake and regenerates her chakra naturally. When it's full, she forms that second clone, delegating the role of sifting through the knowledge the insects gain.
This time, it works.
The second round of testing, she watches her first clone, Tama, form the boar sign, eyes closed in concentration to maintain the spiderweb of info-net. Her second clone, Ko, sits in lotus, her hands perpetually in the rat sign, eyes squinting at the overload of information, but sifts through successfully. After a bit, she receives information in her main body.
Since the test was still in its early stages, she received mundane information. The weather, the color of the sky, sorts like that. Nevertheless, it's a success.
But she hasn't figured out her chakra problem. While her clones constantly required a shot of chakra every few days, it wasn't practical to stop by this secluded hidden cave to do so. What if she's busy? Not in the area?
That load of information would blow up on her and she'll pass out.
So she turns to seals.
Tamako has never really experimented with seals, only going so far as trying to reverse-engineer her own explosive seals after being scammed back in Suna for shoddy ones. So she studies her standard one once again.
It has the Kanji, 爆, meaning explode as the main intent, circled at the center in six strokes. There's outward scribbles that have lesser meaning, but they are kanji. Each stroke has sub-intents that are two kanji-characters. With a little squinting, she could make out the kanji for depth followed by size.
That's one out of six.
And so she spent another month reverse engineering the explosive seals. Using all the books of fuinjutsu she could find, which wasn't a lot, and pure creativity.
The first time, she blew up and offed herself.
The second, she reverse blew up and offed herself.
The third, she teleported underground after she miswrote the kanji for depth with the hidden intonation of terrain and died after her organs fused into the stone hard ground.
The fourth, the seal went off after her surge of chakra. A success.
Then, she got to a self-replenishing chakra storage seal.
Yes, very high expectations, but how else would she learn this dead art? She had infinite tries because she didn't need to fear death.
. . .
Her final seal wasn't perfect. It was inefficient, really. But it did what she wanted. Absorb the chakra in the air, Nature Chakra, and inefficiently store only fourteen percent into clean, usable, chakra. Then, it funneled into her clones.
This decreased her need to give her clones chakra shots from every few days, to every few months, but she'll improve on her seals at a later date. It took her sixteen months to figure it out. Every time her deadline with the Akatsuki passed, she would memorize her progress and reset her save.
Sometimes she doesn't even bother and lets months pass.
She stuck the seal on to the core of her clone's body and clapped her hands. She was going almost stir-crazy from this project and really tested against her patience, but she had done it.
With a crazy grin staining her face, she trapped the cave with insane traps before shutting the cave with a quick doton, covering the rock with grass in hopes that grass would naturally grow over it in a more cohesive way.
As long as no one was looking for it, it should stay hidden. She even wrote a chakra-suppressing seal around the cave so no one could detect her clones unless they had Byakugan.
Thankfully, the Land of Hotsprings bordered the Land of Eddies, or Uzu no Kuni. With quick steps, she rushed towards the land, each step creating small ripples of water.
She's got this.
. . .
"I didn't think an Akatsuki member such as yourself, would be on time." Tamako spoke, dispersing her crystal platform she had sat on.
Deidara gave the girl a nasty look and huffed, "Hmf! As if I have a choice. I have an engagement later."
The girl grinned, "Your Sasori no danna, no? He's at Cha no Kuni, no doubt waiting for you as we speak."
Deidara froze, his hands itching to his clay pouch. "How do you know that?"
Tamako held a hand towards the blonde Akatsuki member, "I know a lot of things. Things that I think would be useful." She grinned. "Things that the Akatsuki might find useful."
He raised an eyebrow, "Leader-sama ran a background check on you. You're nothing too special, not too strong either." Deidara's face seemed to convey, so what can you do?
"This morning, you played a fun game of catching rabbits and implanting your C2 bombs in them." She held her hand up, closing one finger, "Then you shouted, katsu! And ate the remains into a rather sad stew." Another finger closed. "After receiving the message from your leader, you took your clay bird all the way to Uzu no Kuni so you wouldn't be late to meet up with Sasori at Cha no kuni." She titled her head, the nodded, "After this, you and Sasori will meet up with a spy back near Oto no Kuni."
Deidara's mouth slacks open.
"Have I missed anything?"
He stays quiet.
"Deidara, I quite like your little rag tag group of missing-nin." She starts, her arms wrapping behind her back. "I, too, also want peace." With a sweet smile, she leans forward, "And I'll do anything to achieve it. Even if it means threatening all the Elemental Nations."
She raised a hand to the sky, motioning her crystal to weave around her, forming the nine Bijuu. "I think having all nine Bijuu is an effective threat." Then, with a pause, "That is what you're doing, no?"
Deidara's mouth opens and closes, mirroring a fish in water. He raises his voice before pausing, as if he were communicating with something. Someone.
"My Village wanted to weaponize me because of their low standing and poor economy. I nearly broke my back working for them, but after I do a little digging they now want to kill me just because I know a little too much." She pats a hand onto her chest, "I want to make a world where orphans like me, orphans who have just a little potential don't need to serve their country as a weapon." She paused, "Perhaps we can help each other. You scratch my back, I scratch yours."
Character Status
Name: Tamako
Class: The Gamer
Age: 12 Years Old
Title: Momma's Little Gem
Status: Happy
Level: 124
HP: 5,579- HP Regen: 3.5 per 5 seconds
CP: 5,928- CP Regen: 3.5 per 5 seconds
Strength: 140
Vitality: 141
Wisdom: 136
Intelligence: 136
Dexterity: 144
Agility: 142
Luck: 125
Fame/Infamy: -2600
Sunagakure no Sato acknowledges you and hunting you
Konohagakure Genin acknowledges you and hunting you
Yukigakure no Sato Appercients you
Money: 173,290 ryo (17,329 USD)
Unspent Points: 156
Author Note
that finishes the naruto arc! up next is a growth period, some plotting and then finally shippuden!
from here on out, it'll prolly be original. we wont' be following the main cast as our OC will be doing her own things.