Obito-Sensei Chapter 81
Runs Towards The Storm
It was barely past midnight when Team Seven and Jiraiya departed Konohagakure. The world was quiet and lightless, the moon like a dim lidded eye behind thick clouds. Naruto and Sasuke said goodbye to their parents and friends, and all of them to their sensei, but neither of them were sure if Sakura spoke to anyone else before they left; she said nothing one way or the other.
Jiraiya met them at the gates, as had been agreed upon beforehand, and led the way, moving silently through the forests that surrounded the village. None of them had much to say for the first leg of the journey; rising early and jogging relentlessly didn't really lend itself to good conversation, even if the travel was effortless to all of them. The borders of the Land of Frost lay nearly five-hundred miles to the north of Konohagakure, and they all set a mild pace, arriving just after the sun rose around seven.
It was a nice way to start the day, Naruto thought, even if what they were doing was kind of morbid. Running right towards a war zone with only a vague plan of where they were going and what they were doing was against both his instincts and what his parents and the academy had trained into him for as long as he could remember, but they were all filled with a sense of confidence nonetheless. Maybe it was naive, but they were all on the same mission for the first time in a long time, maybe since the Land of Waves… which really wasn't that long ago, now that he thought about it. Time had been stretched out by everything they'd seen and done; it was just like when he'd healed someone for the first time.
He didn't want to think about Kagami, so he chose not to. The closer they got to the Land of Frost, the more Jiraiya veered east.
"Should we go over the ocean?" Sasuke eventually asked shortly before the sun rose, but Jiraiya shook his head.
"My gut says near the coast, but not through the ocean," he said. "We don't want to go through the Land of Springs unless we can't help it, since Cloud's probably sent ninja to watch that border for Rain's reinforcements. But the ocean can be even more dangerous than land during a war: summons, submerged shinobi, mines, it's probably a mess. The coast will be our sweet spot, even if it's probably swarming with Mist ninja."
"They're not Rain's enemy though, right?" Naruto asked, fingering his headband. They'd all retrieved their old hitai-ates, but it felt weird to wear it once more. His Leaf headband was in his pack, but he'd been told not to put it on unless there was no choice; the whole point of the mission was them not being Leaf ninja, after all.
"They're allies of convenience at the moment," Jiraiya said. "But ninja don't fight fair, and even though it's taboo to wear false symbols, that doesn't mean it doesn't happen." He stroked his beard. "In a country at war, most ninja will attack first and ask questions later, if ever. It's just too dangerous to try and talk with someone you don't know most times."
"Then how will we find Konan?" Sakura asked. She didn't say it rudely, but something in her tone still made Naruto narrow his eyes. No one else seemed to notice: Jiraiya shrugged.
"We'll find someone who knows where Rain's leadership might be," he said with a grin. "It'll be boring work; we'll probably get ambushed. Hope you're ready for that."
"Why don't we just ambush someone instead?" Sakura said.
"If you want to, be my guest. But I'm here to keep you safe, not to spook some mooks we happen across," Jiraiya said lazily. "Trust me, my way will be safer. People are a lot more willing to talk when they think they have the advantage."
Sakura seemed satisfied with the answer, and it made enough sense to Naruto that he didn't have anything clever to say. Konan was made of paper, after all; wherever she was, there would be stories. Even if ninja tried to be stealthy, stories always spread around them quicker than fire. He'd learned that for himself in the Land of Rain, and again in Konoha after the invasion.
The forests and the air grew thinner the farther they went north, and eventually Naruto started to hear the steady rhythm of the sea. The grass and ferns gave way to rocks and dirt, and before long the trees opened up fully and the ocean stretched out beyond the horizon to the east, the rising sun painting the churning waters red and gold. He glanced over and saw it and Sakura running beside him and for a moment forgot how to breathe as they skimmed along the seashore, bounding down and across craggy black cliffs and heavy dark sand that the ocean constantly beat against.
"Oho," Jiraiya said suddenly, holding a hand up. "Let's head in a little," he said, gesturing west. "Don't want any of that."
"Any of what?" Naruto asked, craning his head and scanning the beach. He couldn't see anyone lying in ambush, no signs of traps: just a half dozen huge, smooth and round rocks about a hundred feet away, covered in sand and bird poop and lying scattered along the coast. His teammates were equally confused.
"You don't see them?" Jiraiya asked, cocking an eyebrow; he wasn't making any attempt to conceal himself, so whatever had worried him wasn't an active danger. He jerked his head towards the rocks, and Naruto frowned.
"The rocks?" he said, but as Jiraiya turned and started making his way away from the beach he and his teammates followed, pushing into the rocky dunes and grasslands that surrounded them.
"There's a reason this place is less developed than the north coast," Jiraiya said as the sound of the ocean receded and whispering grass and shuddering trees replaced it; the wind blowing in off the ocean was fast and cold. "No resorts down here; too dangerous, obviously."
"Too dangerous?" Now it was Sasuke that was asking; he'd always been just as curious, but Naruto knew he didn't like to show it. "Because of the rocks? Are they some kind of creature?"
"You're close." Jiraiya smiled. "The Uchiha still do their hunts, right?"
"Only for animals that get too close to the village," Sasuke said, Naruto nodding along. He remembered this from when they'd been kids; how Sasuke had been brought on hunts for wild animals, the kind that chakra had made huge. Dealing with that sort of thing was one of the main reasons ninja had even started existing in the first place, as far as he knew.
"Well, boars and tigers are small fry compared to some of what's out there," Jiraiya explained, an amused gleam in his eye. "Those were eggs: island turtle eggs, unless my eye's wrong. Normal turtles will just lay a hundred or so and hope that a couple of the kids make it, but island turtles are as big as you'd guess, and territorial. If anyone touched those things, they'd make it everyone's problem."
"Like whales?" Naruto asked, remembering an old conversation from a simpler time, and Jiraiya gave him an impressed look. "Like the whales that learned to use chakra."
"Hey, look at you. You really are your father's son. Yeah, like whales," the Toad Sage said with a grin. "But island turtles don't even need that; they're proper monsters, can grow miles long." He sobered up a little. "It's just as well we stumbled across them and not someone else. If those eggs are messed with, well, it wouldn't help Frost much. Though, I've heard that both Water and Lightning have contracts with some island turtles, so maybe they're safer than you'd think."
"They're intelligent, then?" Sasuke asked, and Jiraiya nodded.
"Very. The line between chakra-infused animals and what people call "summons" is a lot thinner than most ninja would admit," he said. Despite his dad's contract with Myoboku, summons weren't a thing Naruto had ever put much thought into; he'd just accepted that sometimes his dad talked to toads, but never asked why it was just those ones and not any other animal (or other toads, for that matter). Because of that, and because he could tell Sakura was quietly but intensely absorbing everything Jiraiya was saying, Naruto paid full attention as they marched deeper into Frost.
"Summons," as Jiraiya put it, were creatures that had grown to understand human culture and speak their language, like the toads of Mount Myoboku, the snakes of Ryuchi Cave, or the slugs of Shikkotsu forest. Those were the summons that the Sannin had chosen and grown famous with, but there were dozens of others, all species that had been given sapience by chakra and intermingled with humans through communal living, worship, ritual sacrifice, or simple symbiosis. But they weren't the only animals who were intelligent and had learned ninjutsu: there were creatures like the island turtles, the blue whales of the southern seas, or the feared Baku from the Land of Demons. However, those creatures wouldn't form contracts with ninja, either because of ancestral grudges or their own pride, and so were mostly ignored with few daring to try and contact them.
"So…" Naruto eventually said, after Jiraiya had lapsed into a thoughtful silence when he'd finished regaling them with tales of how the Sarutobi clan had lived alongside monkeys and their warrior kings for decades before Konoha had been established. "Isn't that, just like, Ninshu?"
"Precisely," Jiraiya said. Sakura gave Naruto an admiring look, the first real expression he'd seen out of her all day, and he blushed. "The Sage taught all manner of creatures how to use chakra, is how the legend went. The history of Myoboku goes far enough back that their ancestors may even have been uplifted by him, for lack of a better word."
"Well, it didn't work out in the same way ninjutsu did then," Sakura noted. "Considering how many dangerous animals there are out there."
"They were infected in the same way humans were," Jiraiya said, "though maybe in a more primal sense. An animal glutted on chakra could grow to huge size, and outcompete their neighbors. So you're right that they had the same principles as ninja in that way, Sakura."
"But humans don't get big because of chakra. How come animals do?" Naruto asked, and Jiraiya shrugged.
"Some humans can, though they're uncommon, obviously. Others can use it as a technique, like the Akimichi. It's definitely not as often seen as it is among other animals. If you could figure out why, you'd be solving a question that's been asked for a thousand years," he said. "Anyway, the Ninshu comparison is good. Harmony with others comes from understanding, and being able to speak to animals makes dealing equitably with them beyond husbandry possible. It's no wonder the Sage tried it out, even if it ended up being an even more incomplete experiment than the rest."
"Were there a lot of those?" Sakura asked. "Incomplete experiments?"
"Tons," Jiraiya confirmed. "There's traces of the Six Paths all across the world; old legends, tools and half-finished work left behind, temples erected in his wake. That may be part of why we're here, actually."
"In Frost?" Sakura asked. "Does it have many temples?"
"No, not quite like that. But the Land of Lightning does," Jiraiya said. His tone was mild, but Naruto could detect a bit of derision under it. "Part of why Lightning has expanded so aggressively over the last century is because there's a significant number of people, ninja or not, that believe the country was a direct inheritor of the Six Paths. Most people may not know exactly what that is, but people will believe in anything if it justifies giving them more power."
"Are they?" Naruto asked.
"No. But a lot of relics of the Sage have made their way into the government or Cloud's hands," Jiraiya said. "Due to those old cults, or probably as war trophies. Lightning revanchists will look at that and claim that obviously, Lightning always had such things, even before the country proper formed, but in this world nothing stays in the same place for millenia. Things get lost, found, or stolen. I mean, that even applies to the Tailed Beasts, and if there's anything that could determine the Sage's real legacy it's them."
Naruto pondered that, wondering what exactly Jiraiya meant by 'relics' but not quite sure how to ask without sounding ignorant and wanting to hold onto the bit of praise he'd already gotten. That was another thing he'd never really had a reason to think about, but was suddenly deadly important considering where they were. Countries inevitably expanded and contracted as they gained or lost territory; the Land of Fire "growing" had always been a good thing as far as he was concerned, but of course there wasn't a lot of land left anywhere on the continent that was truly unexplored or unowned, even if some of it was by, say, giant territorial turtles. So whatever Fire gained, it took from someone else.
Then again, what was the difference between a giant turtle and a government, Naruto wondered? They'd both smash your home apart if you messed with them.
He wandered off on that line of thought for some time, listening but not speaking as Jiraiya, Sasuke, and Sakura talked about Lightning's expansions and what it meant for Frost. However, as the sun rose higher and they made their way deeper into the country, their voices grew quieter, and their pace much slower.
The Land of Frost was being devastated. Naruto had assumed that would be the case, but it was another thing to see. They found forests stripped of leaves, sand dunes blasted into glass, artificial fissures where the earth had been split apart or raised up. The country was more mountainous than the Land of Fire, and there were signs of rockslides covering the sides of many hills, obviously leftover from Earth jutsu. There was no birdsong; here at least, the wildlife had long since fled.
They passed smaller towns as the day dragged on, but Jiraiya didn't lead the group near them. It didn't take much thought for Naruto to realize why. This was what Obito had told him about long ago; ninja were a sign of danger, and people didn't care what village they were from. The one time someone in one of the towns noticed them bounding across the ridge nearby, he turned and ran, hiding in a nearby shack.
At one point, Sakura stopped at the entrance to a valley, looking down on the town within. Jiraiya stopped as well, giving her a curious look as Naruto came to her side.
"There was a fight here recently," she said, staring down at the long half-paved street with buildings and warehouses on either side that ran about a mile through the valley alongside a wide river. There was a dock, but it had been smashed to pieces, and several of the buildings were smoking or collapsed.
"Yeah, but it's over now," Jiraiya said.
"We should go help them." There were people down there, cleaning up rubble. Naruto saw one digging through the ruins of a home with frantic energy, their desperation obvious despite the distance.
"If we do, we'll just make them a target again," Jiraiya said. "Battles like this don't happen because one side felt like picking on civilians; there were ninja here, from Mist or Cloud or Rain or somewhere else, and someone found them and attacked before they could get away. If we try to help… in all likelihood we'll just make it worse."
They were terrible and cynical words, but Naruto couldn't help but think Jiraiya was speaking from personal experience. It was easy for him to see that exact thing happening in the Land of Rain in the Second War, before the Akatsuki, before Jiraiya had found the kids who would become the Amekage. It only took one person to start a disaster, and the help they could offer could be far outweighed by the harm they could cause.
Still, he didn't want to walk away. Sakura had to turn away first for it to be okay, and eventually she did, grinding her teeth as water flickered around her hands.
"We should find them," she muttered, so quiet that he was sure it was meant only for him. "We should kill whoever did this. It's horrible."
"If we do, we will," he promised, finding it easy at that moment to say he'd kill people whose names he didn't even know.
They traveled north for about another hour, moving slowly and keeping an eye out for any shinobi, before Sasuke stopped. They were in the midst of a white woods, surrounded by pale yellow trees and bright green lichen that had overcome everything on the ground level.
"You feel that?" he asked, and Naruto gave him a confused look. Sakura looked just as perplexed, but after a moment she slowly removed a knife from her vest. Jiraiya stood up straight, nipping his wrist and summoning a toad in the blink of an eye. It was a little yellow thing the same color as the trees, and it sat in his hand smoking a cigar that was way too big for it.
"Ayup," it said after a moment, as if it could read Jiraiya's mind. "They're coming fast. You should probably run."
"Thanks," he said, and dismissed it in a puff of smoke just as quickly as he'd summoned it. He sighed and sat down. "You've got good instincts, Sasuke. Wanna make yourself look non-threatening?"
"I'm good," Sasuke said shortly, and now Naruto could feel what his friend had. His neck prickled and his hair stood on end as the overwhelming feeling of being watched coursing through him, and he smelled distant ozone. Someone, or a couple of someone's, was channeling chakra and coming right for them at speed. Some kind of sensor had picked them up and was going to check them out.
Naruto decided he was good too and stayed standing, putting his back to Sakura and Sasuke as they formed a triangle around Jiraiya. His hands itched, chakra rushing to them in preparation for ninjutsu, but he tried to keep his breathing even and calm. They were hoping to talk, not fight.
He spared a glance for his friends. Sasuke was tense, but not too much. But Sakura… she was calm, he saw. Calm like an undisturbed pond; he couldn't sense a hint of chakra or intent from her. Of them all, even Jiraiya, she was by the far the best at controlling herself.
All at once, the sensation stopped; the forest went still. Whoever had been approaching had suddenly concealed their presence. It probably would have worked on ninja who had been through less, Naruto thought. Whoever had found them out was good, and dangerous for it.
Jiraiya called out from his seated position, leaning back on both his hands in a supremely unconcerned pose. "We're not looking for trouble," he said, his booming voice projecting throughout the forest. "So if you are, I recommend you just turn around and save yourself the hassle."
There wasn't an immediate response, and Team Seven tightened their formation. Naruto scanned the treeline, but couldn't pick out anything in particular.
Then a man stepped out of a tree about twenty feet away, melting out of it without a sound. It was a pretty cool jutsu, Naruto had to admit, but he was mostly too busy shifting to put himself between Jiraiya and the ninja to admire it.
"That seems unlikely," the ninja called out. He was a severe looking man with spiky gray hair and a blue turtleneck, and wore a headband of the Hidden Mist. One of his eyes was covered by a utilitarian black eyepatch, a coincidental mirroring of Jiraiya. As he revealed himself, Naruto became aware of other shinobi; five or six, he was pretty sure, in the trees and the ground around them. The Mist team had surrounded them, but were waiting to move in until their apparent leader made the decision. "It's not every day a Sannin wanders into a contested country."
"Oh my," Jiraiya drawled. "But what are the chances that two celebrities like us meet? It's no wonder you found us, Eyestealer Ao."
It wasn't a name Naruto or his friends had ever heard, but Ao frowned and tensed up. The atmosphere grew thicker, and Naruto got ready for a fight.
"C'mon now," Jiraiya said, still completely unconcerned. "I'm not with Konoha anymore, and neither are these cute little ninja." He sat up straighter, gesturing at them with one hand. "Look closely. Does that look like a Leaf hitai-ate to you?"
The man glared at them, veins crawling out around his temple near his eyepatch. It only took Naruto a second to realize what was happening, and what exactly the man's name meant. There was an eye under that eyepatch; it just wasn't originally his.
"Rain," he muttered. "You three… you're the Hokage's son, and his teammates, aren't you?" He stared at Naruto, who did his best to meet the older man's terrifically intimidating gaze. "Naruto Namikaze. What are you doing here?"
"We're here to join the war," Naruto called back, doing his best to keep his cool. "We know Rain's here somewhere, but when everything started we were recaptured by the Leaf. We're here to help our village."
Ao raised an eyebrow. "You're helping them escape the Leaf?" he asked Jiraiya, who shrugged.
"I have friends on every side of this war… except Cloud's. If Konoha's not going to contribute, I figured I'd help whoever would." He stood up, dusting himself off, and Naruto couldn't help but find it funny that that innocuous action was what made Ao tense up the most. Jiraiya really was a legend, even if most of their experience with him discussing strange ancient philosophies made it easy to forget. "So I'm shepherding them to their allies. I figured it was the least I could do. This is some good fortune for the both of us, you know."
"How would you imagine that?" Ao asked, crossing his arms. Jiraiya smiled magnanimously.
"You're a well informed guy, I'm sure. You probably have a clue where Rain's main force is active right now," he said, spreading his arms in the opposite of Ao's pose. "And for giving away that, frankly, to you, mostly useless information, you get to report to the Mizukage about the location of one of the Sannin, and the Hokage's son and his team, not to mention you get my extremely long-lasting and generous gratitude."
Ao took a moment to think it over, his brow furrowed. The Byakugan's veins crept away, leaving his face unmarred. "You're serious?"
"Dead," Jiraiya said, his whimsy vanishing instantly. Ao sighed.
"Rain's been trying to liberate a couple cities to the north, mainly Kushiro," he said, and Jiraiya nodded, like he knew exactly where that was. Maybe he did, Naruto thought. Memorizing major cities of the various countries wasn't exactly a bad idea. "If they're looking to make themselves useful, that'll be the place to stick them."
"And how's the rest of the country doing?" Jiraiya asked. Ao grunted.
"Tch. You've seen it, you probably know. Cloud's got the numbers, and their chakra weapons make things tough. Even the most gormless ninja can make a mess with one of those Iron Wrists." He gestured, and one of his subordinates made themselves known, a willowy woman with long blue hair. She held up her arm, revealing the spider-like metal contraption affixed to her wrist.
"Don't trifle with them if you can help it," Ao said with a grimace. "It fires a bolt of chakra, like a bomb. Don't think there's many shinobi who could take a direct hit and survive."
"But I'm sure the Hidden Mist is giving all they can," Jiraiya said, sounding just sincere enough that Naruto felt sure it was sarcasm, but Ao didn't challenge him on it.
"We're bleeding them. But there's only so many of us," he said after a moment, which Naruto figured was shockingly honest. "Right now, they're massing forces in Hakoda, on the eastern coast. The Mizukage believes they may be preparing to attack the Hidden Mist directly." He cupped his chin with a frown. "We were planning to send word to Rain, to see if they could provide support to the counterattack. It's a fool's errand, but maybe you could save us a messenger."
"Seems fair," Jiraiya said to Ao's obvious surprise, and from his still bleeding hand he produced another summoned toad fast enough that the Mist ninja flinched. He whispered to it, and then it hopped from his hands towards Ao. "Give him the Mizukage's exact words, and he'll see they find the Amekage's ears," he said, and Ao bent down and picked up the toad with a vaguely disgusted frown. "Though of course, I'll pass on the message myself as well."
"That's… appreciated," Ao said, so obviously off balance that Naruto almost laughed. He seemed ready to vanish into the woods, but Sakura spoke up before he could disappear.
"Cloud hasn't used their weapon again, have they?" she asked, and Ao paused mid-movement. Naruto was surprised too; her tone was decisive, and she sounded twice her age. "The thing they attacked Rain with."
Did Ao know about the cannon? Judging by how he shifted, he must have.
"There's been no sign," Ao said after a moment, seemingly compelled to answer despite his better judgment. "Though it's obviously a concern."
"They're preparing to attack your village," Sakura pointed out. "Instead of using it. Why?"
That was a good point, Naruto thought, and something he hadn't thought of. The cannon had been devastating, and nearly leveled Rain. Why hadn't Cloud just used it to obliterate the Hidden Mist, if they were giving Cloud so much trouble?
"Who's to say," Ao said, and Naruto couldn't help but think he was being annoyingly cagey. "Now that we know it's a possibility, it can be defended against. Maybe they just don't want their wonder weapon to fail twice." He sneered. "At this rate, Cloud will die an embarrassment before the world. Let that be your takeaway."
"Mist could defend against it?" Naruto asked, and Ao gave him a pitying look. "How? It's-?"
"That's enough," Ao said shortly. "Quick and quiet journeys. Let's hope we don't meet again."
And then he left without another word, leaving Naruto kicking lichen with a huff of frustration.
"Seriously though, how would they?" he asked, looking back at Jiraiya, who shrugged.
"Every village has secrets," he said, which was even more annoyingly vague. "But more likely, Mist has a well-trained Jinchuriki of their own, and your father did go through with returning the Sanbi to them before the assault on Rain. I'm sure they have something planned."
"That guy had a Byakugan," Sasuke said, and Jiraiya nodded. Sasuke looked angry: he must have been thinking of Hinata.
"Stole it in the Third War," Jiraiya said. "Not common knowledge. If you guys were here as ninja of Konoha, you'd probably be obligated to try and take it back."
How many obligations like that were there, Naruto thought? Thefts that had to be recovered, or murders that had to be avenged, across all the villages? Was that why war kept happening, and if so, how could you ever stop it? But here, now, they were bucking that trend, coming to Rain's aid even after their home had been savaged by it.
"The Hidden Leaf has done terrible things to Mist," Sakura said quietly. "Nonō told me that. I guess it goes both ways."
"Everyone has done terrible things to each other," Jiraiya said bluntly. "There's not a village or country in the world that hasn't committed a crime against Konoha at this point, or vice versa. No point in dwelling on it here."
Sakura didn't seem to have an answer to that despite her cold confidence, and so Team Seven continued north in quiet contemplation.
###
When the sun set, they made camp in an empty creek that had been dammed by explosives. In the night, there were distant crashes, and a scream, but no one approached. Team Seven slept in shifts, Naruto taking the last, and it was difficult for him to accept both the beautiful sunrise that peered over the mountains to the east and the surety that people had died nearby in the middle of the night.
They had a breakfast of jerky and vitamins and stale water from their canteens, and then were off again. The farther north they went, the thicker the air grew, filled with the smell of ozone and blood. Battles had been fought across the Land of Frost, but they were the hardest fought in the north, and the signs of it were everywhere; devastated landscapes, gutted towns, and the occasional corpse. The bodies were usually not ninja; Naruto wasn't a stranger to that by now, but he still didn't like to look at them. Jiraiya steered them around most, warning them that if they had been left out in the open and ignored by scavengers, they were probably trapped. Once, Naruto spotted a glint of wire and a muddied explosive tag that proved him right.
Whether it was by luck or Jiraiya's superb instincts, they didn't wander into any active battlefields. The lack of life made the whole country seem dead or abandoned, but being creeped out was definitely better than being attacked by Cloud ninja. They crossed a high mountain ridge and a wide raging river, ate a short lunch on the go, and the sun was past its apex and heading west when Jiraiya stopped and pointed up.
"That's new," he said, and Naruto squinted, following Jiraiya's finger. There was something up in the sky, he saw after a second, concealed by the setting sun and the low dark clouds that drifted across Frost on the chill wind. Some sort of huge bird with a stubby tail was his first thought, but it was too pale against the red sky to be an animal, even if it was circling like a hawk.
"A summon?" Sakura asked, but Sasuke shook his head. They had all stopped, taking cover in the shrubs and short trees that dotted the mountainside.
His Sharingan was active, locked on the circling bird. "It's a construct," he said. "Looks like we found Rain."
"Well, that's some good luck then," Jiraiya said. "Someone worth signaling?"
"His name is Deidara," Sasuke said. "S-ranked ninja. If he doesn't recognize us right away, it could be trouble." They watched the bird circle a while longer while Sasuke mulled it over. "He's patrolling. There must have been some Cloud ninja here recently. It's dangerous."
"He knows you?" Jiraiya asked, and Sasuke nodded. "Send a clone, then. We'll see how it goes."
Sakura and Naruto both nodded in agreement, and Sasuke ran through several hand-signs, producing a shadow clone in a burst of smoke. The clone moved slowly at first, until it was about a hundred feet away, and then without care, obviously trying to get Deidara's attention as Team Seven and Jiraiya patiently watched and waited.
The bird locked onto Sasuke's clone almost immediately, but to Naruto's relief it didn't attack. Its patrol shifted slightly, but Deidara obviously wasn't stupid; making a decoy to reveal the enemy's capabilities was a basic shinobi trick, and the Rain ninja took time to observe Sasuke's clone from a distance as the bird circled the wide ravine that Naruto and his team had concealed themselves along the side of. After a long two minutes, it swooped down, staying about twenty feet above the ground and out of the clone's reach. The Rain ninja spoke, but he was too far away for any of them to hear; the clone responded, and gestured in their direction, with Deidara turning towards them. The bird landed and the ninja dismounted, and Sasuke's clone disappeared in another puff of smoke.
"We'll meet him halfway," Sasuke decided, standing up and moving out of cover. Naruto and Sakura followed after him, and Jiraiya stayed in the back, his face unreadable. They skidded down the ridge and made their way through the mountain brush as Deidara moved towards them, and met the man under a pale tree as he gave them all a wide smirk.
"What a surprise," he said, and Naruto couldn't help but roll his eyes. "The lost kids, and a Sannin." He crossed his arms, and Naruto couldn't help but notice that it put his hands right next to the obvious bulges of hidden packages beneath his vest; weapons of some sort that he could grab in an instant. "You're seriously wanting to come back?"
"If you didn't think we were serious," Sakura said without hesitating, "you wouldn't have come down."
"Maybe." Deidara was wearing an eyepiece, obviously made to enhance his vision, and it whirled a little as he looked between each of them. "Maybe. But it's hard to believe you show up and offer help after what happened to Konoha."
"Rain's on the verge of splitting," Jiraiya said, and Deidara refocused on him with a faint frown. "Konan wasn't aware of the attack; we're here to speak to her, not to the village as a whole."
"She didn't know?" Deidara said, sounding faintly impressed. "She didn't know?"
"No," Jiraiya said. "And you know that's how they liked to operate from the beginning, I'm sure."
"Yeah, but not knowing about that is a different kind of thing," Deidara said, uncrossing his arms and growing a bit more relaxed. "So what? You're just here to kill Cloud?"
"We're here to fix what Yahiko broke," Sakura said bluntly. "Do you know where Konan is?"
"Sure," Deidara said lazily, scratching the back of his head. "Want me to take you there?"
"Simple as that?" Sasuke asked, obviously wary and right to be. Deidara smirked.
"Simple as that," he said. "I'm not gonna turn down the help, and if you guys are assassins, well…" he shrugged. "We'll just kill you. But you've all been in Amegakure before; this reads to me as a stupid plan instead of a dangerous one." He gestured back towards the bird, an enormous pigeon made of clay. "Get on. It was time I headed back anyway."
The clay bird was soft, but not soft enough to sink into, and Naruto could see how cautiously Sasuke regarded it; it was obviously a weapon of some sort, but with Deidara riding it too they all felt confident enough to board it. It took flight with supernatural lightness, pushing up into the sky on massive wings.
Naruto had only flown twice before; once on top of Fuu in Waterfall, and again when they'd first arrived in Amegakure. Those had both been before big changes in his life, so it was easy to believe he was about to experience another once as the ground fell away. In moments they were tracing among the clouds, doubtlessly blending in with them as Deidara pushed them west.
"You were there for it, huh?" he asked after a minute, looking at Sasuke. Naruto was happy to let his friend take the lead; he'd been a Jonin in Rain, after all. "The attack on Konoha, I mean."
"We were," Sasuke confirmed without emotion. Naruto tried to suppress the surge of hatred he felt in his gut for the nation. That wasn't going to be helpful here, and it might have been what Deidara was poking at.
"What a mess," Deidara said with a little grin. "You're not wrong that Rain's on the edge of splitting, Toad Sage. Konan told us to consider any Konoha ninja that showed up potential enemies, but she didn't tell us that she hadn't given the go-ahead on the attack. We all figured she must have known something we didn't…"
"We're not your enemies," Jiraiya said patiently. "Konoha may be; the village is filled with hatred after getting sucker punched. But we all came here precisely because none of us are shinobi of Konoha." He gestured at Team Seven's Rain hitai-ate, and his own custom one.
"Hmm." Deidara frowned, and Naruto realized this was another test. Judging by Sasuke's tension, they were maybe in a lot of danger all the way up here on a bird of Deidara's creation, but after a second the man shrugged and turned back towards the head of the bird, focusing on guiding it. Whether his suspicions had been dealt with or not, he seemed happy to leave it alone for now.
They flew in silence for nearly twenty minutes; a glacial pace as far as it went for ninja, but Deidara was obviously taking his time, circling to throw off any potential observers and changing altitude frequently. When they reached their destination, he threw the bird into a sudden dive, plummeting into the woods on the side of a mountain in seconds and stopping just before slamming into the ground. It might have been a final stupid test, but Team Seven all clung to the bird without issue despite the lack of warning, locked in place by their chakra.
"Nice," Deidara said with a laugh. He hopped off the bird and it began to melt; Naruto felt a twinge of disgust and fascination and two small mouths on Deidara's hands devoured the compressed clay and chakra and stuffed it into his pockets. "Now the funny part."
As if one cue a half dozen ninja had surrounded them, a patrol of Rain ninja that had obviously been expecting Deidara's return. Naruto didn't recognize any of them, but they obviously did him; there were uncertain looks and incredulous mutters as the leader, a Jonin with long red hair spoke to Deidara.
"You can't be serious," she said, and he laughed.
"He's here to speak to Konan," he said, gesturing to Jiraiya. "What, do you want to fight him instead?"
There was a brief internal struggle, but the woman backed down, narrowing her eyes at Jiraiya. "What do you need to say to her?" she said, and Jiraiya shrugged.
"We're here to offer our services," he said, gesturing to Team Seven and himself. "As allies and ninja of Rain. You wanna run that back to her?"
The Jonin blinked. "No," she decided after a moment, and for a second Naruto's heart sank. "You can tell her yourself, Sage."
It wasn't resignation, Naruto realized; just trust. Jiraiya had built a reliable reputation in Rain, visiting the Amekage as much as he did and having trained them in the first place. They couldn't have known he'd been in Amegakure just a few days before helping his dad try to kill Yahiko. To them, Jiraiya visiting his students was normal.
"Lead the way, then," Jiriaya said with a mock bow, and Team Seven followed silently behind him as the Jonin did just that. They wound through the woods and into a concealed cave, burrowing under the mountain. It wasn't the best location for a camp, Naruto thought. A decent earth jutsu could bring down a chunk of the mountain on top of it and bury everyone alive. But making camp anywhere in a ninja war was treacherous; in the open, near water, under or above the ground, there were ninjutsu that could make any location a death trap. Concealment was king, and this place was definitely well concealed.
The cave had obviously been expanded by jutsu, worming off into several other passages. It was dimly lit by electric torches that filled the air with a quiet hum, and most of the caverns were filled with supplies; food, weapons, medical equipment, beds. Ninja had to be self-reliant, but this was obviously Konan's main camp, and there were quite a few people here, Naruto estimated. Maybe two-hundred, though he only saw a fraction of that. There was only so much scavenging even shinobi could do, and it would risk betraying their position to the enemy anyway. Still, the camp was obviously temporary; Naruto knew from his lessons that staying in one place for more than a couple days would be tempting fate.
They eventually came into a large main chamber that had several pits dug in it, small dugouts that granted privacy for important conversations. Most had a stone table in the center, and several familiar faces were gathered around one of them near the entrance, speaking quietly to one another. They all looked over at their unmasked footsteps, and despite thinking he was prepared for the moment, Naruto stopped and stared.
Konan, he had expected. The Amekage looked as flawless as ever, no doubt or exhaustion obvious on her severe face. She didn't give any sort of readable reaction to her master's entrance, nor Team Seven's; her amber eyes just flitted between each of them in turn, assessing them. To Naruto, it looked like a purely utilitarian calculation.
Nonō, he had dreaded. He'd wondered if she'd been at Konoha or not: the answer was obviously no. She was seated at Konan's side, her obvious right hand, and though her gaze drifted past Sasuke and Sakura her eyes locked on Naruto. It was obvious neither of them knew quite how to react; what were you supposed to do when the person your son had died for walked into the room?
There were three other shinobi, but Naruto only knew one of them. She was the one he'd never expected to see again.
"Hey!" Fuu said, jumping to her feet and rushing over. "Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke! What're you doing here?"
"Fuu," Konan said mildly, and she stopped short of jumping the three of them. "Hold on for a moment." She stood up, followed by everyone else at the table, and stepped out of the pit. "Sensei. Good to see you."
"And you, Konan," Jiraiya said respectfully. "Quite the setup you've got here."
"It's enough," Konan said. "Why are you here?"
"To help." Fuu was starting to hop from one foot to the other, but Jiraiya barely seemed to notice her. "We're here to do as individuals what the villages cannot."
Konan frowned. "Even after what Yahiko did?" she said, brutally straightforward.
Sakura stepped forward, all of her razor focus falling on the Amekage, and Naruto saw her stiffen. "That doesn't matter right now," Sakura said, and Konan turned all her attention to her. "We're here to deal with the real enemy: Cloud. If we let ourselves get pulled in circles like everyone else, they'll get away with what they did; I can't accept that."
Konan looked at Naruto and Sasuke. "And you two, too?" she said, and they both nodded. Sasuke didn't feel the need to justify himself, but Naruto spoke up.
"My mom got really hurt," he said, and Konan grimaced. "She might still die. But we all figured that if Rain and Leaf keep fighting, more people important to all of us are just going to keep dying for no good reason." He forced out something between a sigh and a laugh. "So, the best thing we can do is come here. Cloud's the one that…"
He grunted, unable to quite get it out, but he saw that Nonō understood what he was trying to say. "So that's that," he finished, and Konan nodded.
"That's that," she said quietly. "Okay. Well, you're all welcome here, then." She gestured to the table. "You can join if you'd like, sensei. We're discussing an upcoming operation."
"That's appreciated," Jiraiya said. As he stepped forward, Fuu rushed past him. She threw her arms wide and jumped onto Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura, drawing them all into a crushing hug in the same movement.
"I can't believe you're here!" she said, grinning from ear to ear. She looked healthy and happy and whole, and Naruto felt a bit of the hatred that had gunked up his insides for the last few weeks dissolve and melt away. "And you guys are all okay! I was worried when I heard what happened with Waterfall and Amegakure! That must have been crazy!"
"It wasn't great," he said. "We can't believe you're here either. After what happened with Itachi…"
"Oh, yeah!" Fuu said, pulling back with a laugh. "Don't worry, I barely remember that year; it's all a blur!" She stuck her tongue out. "I missed my birthday, but it was never that exciting anyway. But ever since Waterfall agreed I could fight with the Nation, it's been great! I've seen so much, you guys! New towns and mountains and the ocean!" Her eyes were sparkling. "It's huge! People told me it was big, but it goes way beyond the horizon! And it's deep! I swam for like, ten minutes and still didn't find the bottom!"
Naruto couldn't help but laugh, and he heard Sasuke let out a chuckle as well. Sakura was the only one who still seemed stuck, staring at Fuu like she couldn't understand why she was here. The bubbly girl didn't seem to mind, just grinning at each of them and obviously delighted to have found her first friends once more. It felt like they had grown up and she hadn't, and that might have been the case if she really had missed a whole year of her life.
"So you've been helping out here?" Sasuke asked, and Fuu nodded enthusiastically. She headed back towards the pit, grabbing by the seat by the corner as the adults discussed the war. "How has it been?"
"It's been interesting," Fuu said, her demeanor getting a little more sober but still overflowing with brightness. "I've never been in a war before; it's scary sometimes, but Konan's a genius. We've been fighting Cloud up and down the country. There's a lot more of them then there are of us, but she's always picked out their weak points every time. Right now-" She gestured back at Konan, who gave her a polite smile. "We're figuring out how to take out one of their big supply depots. It's over in this town called Kushiro; it's as big as Waterfall, but there are tons of them throughout the country! It's crazy!"
"A supply depot?" Sakura asked, and Fuu grinned at her.
"Yeah, like this one really," she said. "But Cloud has some crazy technique that's been a real pain to deal with. We've gotta carry or fly our food and stuff in the old fashion way, or use summoning, but they can just teleport stuff anywhere they need. Weapons, tools, food: pop." She clapped her hands together. "It just appears where they need it. We wanna get into the depot and get a look at the place before Cloud can clean it up to get an idea of what kinda jutsu it is, so we can maybe counter it. That place has been keeping basically the whole northern part of the country supplied for them, so it'd be a big deal if we could pull it off."
"Sounds like a turning point," Sakura said.
"Exactly!" Fuu said, humming for a moment. "It's a big turning point, so you guys turned up at the perfect time. You're all really strong: I bet Konan would love to have you along."
Naruto took that as a given, but Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "What makes you say that?" he said, but Fuu just giggled.
"I can tell, duh," she said. "I mean, maybe other people couldn't, but I've always been good at judging people, y'know. When we first met you all knew what you were doing, but you're top-class ninja now." She smirked and stuck out her fist. "Like me! You might not be Jinchuriki, but it looks like you don't need it!"
Naruto laughed and bumped Fuu's fist, and there was a small shock between them; she jerked back with a look of surprise, and then joy. "Told ya!" she said, fist-bumping Sasuke and Sakura as well. They apparently felt the same shock; Sasuke looked at his hand suspiciously. "This is gonna be great."
They sat and chatted for some time, catching up and eavesdropping on the conversation between Jiraiya and the others, before Naruto said something that surprised him.
"Did I tell you my mom is a Jinchuriki too?" he said, and Fuu looked like she was going to jump out of her skin.
"For real?" she asked breathlessly. "No, you didn't! Or if you did, I forgot! She's the Jinchuriki of the Nine Tails? That's the one Konoha has, right?"
"Yeah," Naruto said. "Did Waterfall tell you that?" Fuu nodded vigorously.
"They always said I might have to fight the Nine-Tails one day," she said, "but that's obviously not gonna happen now, since we're teaming up and all. It's super strong, right? Your mom must be amazing to hold it!"
"She is," Naruto said quietly, wondering why he was going down this road. He glanced back at Nonō and Konan took a deep breath, making his decision. "She started talking to it recently. Her seal got really damaged in the invasion, badly enough that it basically took over her body for a bit. Since then…"
"Wow, that's pretty bad," Fuu said. "Though I guess that basically happened to me with Itachi and Kakuzu: they messed up my seal a lot during that invasion."
"It wasn't great," Naruto said frankly. "But Fuu… the Nine-Tails told her all sorts of things, her and our sensei. It told my mom it had a name, and that it had been created by the Sage of Six Paths. All kinds of crazy things."
Fuu paused, watching him but seeming like she wasn't paying attention for a moment. "What name did it say?" she eventually asked, seemingly honestly curious.
"Kurama."
"Huh!" she leaned back, pondering for a second. "So it's like Chomei, then?"
A second passed. Two.
Naruto blinked. "Huh?"
"Oh, yeah, I never told you Chomei's name," Fuu said after a second, looking embarrassed. They were all staring at her, and for the first time she fidgeted under the attention. "That's the Nanabi. She told me her name like, a couple years ago, when I was figuring out how to use her chakra better. We talk sometimes."
"You talk sometimes?" Naruto furiously whispered, and Fuu nodded, bending in to hear him.
"Yeah. I mean, my seal wasn't messed up, but Waterfall really wanted me to start pulling out more Bijuu chakra a couple years ago. So I did, but I kinda went into a coma for a while because there was too much of it. They were worried I was gonna die: they probably would have made another Jinchuriki if I'd been out too long!" she whispered cheerfully. "But while I was asleep, I met Chomei for real for the first time. We talked about what I was doing, and I thought she was just gonna eat me or something, but she said she wanted to see how much I could handle. So like, since then…" She scratched her chin. "I dunno if we're friends, cause she lives inside me and everything. The way I see it, it's our body, not just mine. That's how I can grow wings so easily and stuff, because we're pretty compatible. That's what she said, anyway."
'Chomei! It'll be okay!'
The last words Naruto had heard from Fuu before she'd been kidnapped crashed into him, and if he hadn't been seated he would have fallen over. He'd never wondered what Fuu had meant; the events of the rest of the day, and the truth of the Uchiha Massacre, had completely driven the desperate declaration from his mind. But his friend had done in no time at all what had taken his mother decades. Because of how unbelievably friendly and trustworthy she was, she'd approached her Bijuu as an equal instead of an enemy, and been given so much of its power as her own thanks to her trust.
"One second," Fuu said, listening to something he couldn't hear. "Chomei says Kurama's never told anyone his name before," she eventually said. "Because he's a huge asshole."
"She can hear us?" Sasuke asked, and Fuu nodded, obviously overjoyed that she was allowed to swear.
"I don't tell people about that normally," she said frankly. "Not even the Elders, or Konan. But the seal was always the kind that let her access my senses." The Amekage hadn't noticed their conversation, Naruto saw. Fuu was being unbelievably quiet considering her normal volume. "Chomei said people wouldn't trust me if I did, which made sense to me. The Tailed Beasts are demons, after all. No one trusts them."
"But you trust her," Sakura said. Fuu nodded again.
"She's helped me a lot," she said. "Kept me company. Her voice is quiet, but it's always there. By now I don't remember living without it." She shifted her suddenly intense gaze to Naruto. "I guess that's what it's like for your mom now. But if she's been living without that connection before…"
"She's doing her best," Naruto said, desperately missing her. "She's even trying to befriend the Kyuubi- Kurama. But even if I can't hear what he says, I can tell that…" he laughed. "Like you said, he's a huge asshole."
"Chomei said that," she said, and Naruto wondered what it must be like to talk to such an ancient creature that still used phrases like that. "But maybe your mom can do something about that. If she's anything like you, Naruto, I'd bet she could."
Naruto didn't know how to take that compliment, so he sat quietly for some time. Eventually, he started to catch Fuu up on everything his mom had learned about the Tailed Beast and their origin. She was a good listener, sitting with wide eyes for the duration of the conversation and only cutting in with enthusiastic questions when they were necessary. As they spoke, Naruto noticed Sasuke checking under his cloak.
A crow's head peaked out, and he snorted, having forgotten about the little bird. It was the crow that Itachi had left Sasuke outside of Amegakure; it had followed them into the Land of Frost, and Sasuke had hidden it before their meeting with Deidara. The bird shuffled out with an indignant chirp, settling on the floor and staring around the room.
It might have been observing, Naruto thought, and Sasuke was definitely thinking the same thing. But right now he didn't care too much about that. Let Itachi see all he wanted; if Itachi was really Sasuke's ally now, it might even be a help.
What they needed, what all the world needed right now, was more allies instead of enemies, and so Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura stayed and spoke with Fuu for another couple hours, until the war council broke up and Jiraiya approached them with a serious demeanor.
"Get some rest," he told them. "We're hitting Kushiro tomorrow."