Lost on the Road of Life (An AU Naruto Quest)

What should we do?

Kakashi pondered the question for a moment, eyeing the approaching cloud front with a bit of trepidation. He would really rather not fight any of these Snow Element users in the middle of a blizzard. That sounded like a rookie mistake. Still, if they had to pursue her…

Hmmm, maybe not. Kakashi paused. He turned to the other two.

"What would I do if I was a ninja from an actually-hidden village that was running low on manpower and I was being pursued by a few ninja of unknown capabilities?"

Yaganita and Watari looked at each other for a moment, before shrugging and turning back to him.

"Run away really fast?" Yaganita asked lamely.

"Give you the slip before getting out before the fall?" Watari asked, a fraction of a second later.

"Mhm," Kakashi nodded. He reached inside his coat and unsealed a red and green colored scroll from a seal tucked inside his flak jacket. He did the same for his calligraphy brush and an inkwell.

Kakashi unfurled the scroll and started scribbling furiously down its length.

"I would probably try to throw them off my trail for a while before retreating to my secret base," Kakashi said. He grabbed his map of Snow Country, marked a few locations with a couple distinct squiggles, and tucked it away with the scroll. He paused at the bottom of the scroll for a good minute, thinking.

Who should I be choosing? Someone with tracking or reconnaissance abilities is a must, but they'd need to be powerful as well…

As he thought he felt a sinking feeling in his gut. Hopefully he'd be able to get out of the country before the strike team—the one he had just sent a priority request for— would show up. If he was ever captured by Glacier, he'd want about twenty storage seals of ass kicking to be coming for him, with the abilities to definitely do so no matter the obstacles in the way.

He probably had two weeks, tops. Regardless of who he put...

After a few more moments of indecision, he filled in the blank section with a call sign and furled the scroll up, before sealing it away in a storage seal that he promptly handed over to Yaganita.

"Head to the Land of Iron as fast as you can manage. Take a ship directly there, commandeer it if you have to. Get to the capital, and go to the Bramble House Inn in the merchant district. Deliver this to Nakano, the innkeeper. He'll know what to do with it."

Yaganita took the scroll and shuffled uncomfortably.

"If you don't mind me asking, what is it?" he said.

Kakashi waved the man off. "Leaf Village stuff. It'll get us some resources that will put us in a better position on this mess. More leverage, at least."

"And what's in it for me if I —"

A sack of ryo was quickly thrust into the young man's arms.

"Well, get going then," Kakashi said. Yaganita vanished in the direction of the town a few seconds later. The Copy Ninja turned to Watari. "You should head back into town as well. I'm going to need to move fast. Make sure that the Nadare hostage we have is still under lock and key until I get back. If he escapes, we'll have some problems."

The ranged weapon specialist gave him a curt nod, before turning away and sprinting after his comrade.

Kakashi glanced at the direction the Glacier ninja had supposedly fled, before glancing up at the stars. He spent a few seconds taking some rough measurements, before making a quarter turn to the left and breaking into a dead sprint.

I'll skip the part where you lead me around for an hour or two and just head to where I think you'll be going, thank you very much.






After a few miles, he spotted a peculiar snowdrift in the distance. From far away, it looked like a rock covered in snow, but as he got closer it looked a little stranger. He struggled to see clearly with only the stars for light, but he could just barely make out the sheen of glinting ivory.

Some form of ambush predator, maybe, Kakashi thought. Big though.

He altered his course slightly, to give it a wide berth. He made it a dozen feet past the thing when he saw it move.

Kakashi's body moved on its own. Old reflexes triggered and his body tried to throw itself into a tumble to dodge whatever was moving to strike him. He wasn't used to changing direction so fast on the slick ground in Snow though, and he half-stumbled as his left foot slid just a bit longer than it should have.

The chakra beast clipped him in the side, sending him spinning. The blurry white form skidded to a halt, and he could see that it was some white-furred beast with jagged green claws and a wicked set of fangs to match. It looked like a bear and a wolf had some sort of crazy bastard offspring. Strange crystalline growths protruded from various parts of its body. Huh. Some form of crystallized earth chakra, maybe?

The snow monster snarled, and lunged for him again. This time he was ready, and he jumped right over the charge, landing in a perfect stance before running away as quick as he possibly could in the direction he was supposed to be going because he had ninja to catch, damnit!

Sorry big guy, not today.

Kakashi could hear the snow monster's frustrated roars fade into the distance behind him.

Strange. Typical chakra beasts aren't usually that dangerous.






Kakashi was on top of a rocky crag with good elevation, eyes scanning the horizon. The snow was falling gently from the sky now, making it difficult to see more than a few miles in any direction. He had chosen a spot that overlooked the pass that the ninja would have to traverse to get to the region of icy valleys and twisting canyons that Hidden Glacier was supposedly hidden away in.

It was getting colder, and the moisture of the falling snowflakes started to seep into his clothes, wetting the cloth fabric of his mask and making it more difficult to breathe. He was almost tempted to pull it down so that his nose had some clearance, but there would be little point in wearing a mask at all if his nose and mouth weren't covered.

A soon-to-be-legendary (missing) ninja had to be principled about these sorts of things.

Kakashi had no idea what he would do when the Glacier ninja (hopefully) arrived. He had three main plans for this sort of situation. Plan A was "Be spooky, insane, and charismatic at her until she played into his hands. Threaten terrible destruction accordingly" or something like that, which sounded like a good option for dealing with the overall situation. Plan B was "Kick her ass into next week. Take a vacation until asskicking can resume" which… hadn't quite been working out so far on the "find the location of the hidden ninja village" front, admittedly.

Plan C was "Start improvising and dodge the blast radius" which he really hoped he wouldn't have to resort to.

Plan A looked to be the winner, then. Politicking wasn't his strong suit, unfortunately. Still, he had to give it a shot. Though it might be more helpful if he tried to tackle the problem from a different perspective…

"Hmmm," Kakashi said aloud, to no one in particular.

How would sensei have done it?

Minato-sensei probably would have wrapped this mission up in a few days after obliterating their entire village single-handedly. Just another epic feat to add to the list.

Hmmm, how would Gai handle this?

Kakashi snorted. He threw a fist up in the air and struck a pose.

"Alright, villainous Glacier shinobi!" Kakashi whisper-shouted, "Your reign of terror is at an end, for the power of YOUTH is here to dispense your just desserts!"

…

Kakashi dropped the pose.

"Heh. That is kind of fun."

How would Sarutobi Hiruzen, the Third Hokage, the God of Shinobi, and the master politician of the Leaf village handle this? What would he do in my position here?

…

…

…

The answer was a bit clearer now. Hmmm.

Immediately, Kakashi noticed some specks moving on the horizon, something that was too violent to be normal snowfall. Snow flying up in response to a ninja with poor stealth moving at quick speeds.

"There you are."






The two were in a standoff.

Kakashi had flagged her down with a white towel he stole from the Woolly Yak. She had approached cautiously, seemingly ready to bolt at any moment. The Glacier ninja had probably used quite a bit of chakra earlier and during the "pursuit" that had been anything but. Either that, or she was just twitchy and paranoid.

Kakashi, as always, made the first move. The Third would probably have opened up by establishing some immediate leverage, so that's what he would do.

"You know, I have some hostages back in the city," Kakashi quipped. "Friends and family of yours, I'm guessing? They were really friendly. Told me a lot about your brother, even. I'd be willing to hand them over to you if you— "

"Take a hike," she responded, immediately. The ninja adjusted her footing.

Hmmm. Nervous? That tactic could be getting somewhere. I should press that.

"Wow. How rude of you. Well, in that case," Kakashi said, "Would it help your decision making abilities to know that I requested backup in the form of an ANBU strike team heading towards the rough location of your hidden village?"

Nadare blanched at that. Worry and concern washed over her face for a couple of seconds before she managed to get herself under control.

"They should get here in a week or two, tops." Kakashi said, cheerfully. She was clearly worried about that one. Alright, that works. Now, the God of Shinobi would probably try to wet their appetite by giving them something they would want.

"Let them come," Nadare said, lips turning up into a sneer. "We'll bury them all under a mile of ice and snow. Your comrades will die cold and alone."

Oh. She's just completely delusional then, Kakashi thought. The death threats to his fellow(?) Leaf ninja were still irritating, unrealistic though they may be.

"I also have this," Kakashi said, pulling out the Kazahana heirloom.

His opponent gasped, eyes widening for an instant before her expression froze back into one of calm indifference.

Bingo. Now we should start getting ideological.

"You know," Kakashi said, "it's really fucked up. That your clan head can just decide to start a civil war, and everyone else had to deal with the consequences. Pretty much none of the ninja I captured had anything nice to say about him. In fact, they all seemed to hate his guts enough to sell him out to me with just a little bit of pushing on my end. He must be a good leader. "

"Traitors, the lot of them," Nadare said. "Rōga acts in the best interests of the village."

"Easy words to say."

"I could say the same to you," Nadare said. "What do you know of us, foreigner? What do you know of the struggles we have faced? The lessons you've learned in your pampered life down south will not serve you well up here. I've used the bodies of good friends as bait for fishing, purely so that the village will have enough food to survive. Can you say you've gone to the same lengths to protect your own?"

Kakashi's blood boiled at that, but the neutral expression he adopted was the only trace of it visible on his exterior. The snow was picking up, he would be in a bad position if they carried this conversation on for much longer. Better to finish it up.

"There's a saying I'm fond of," Kakashi said, almost absentmindedly. "It goes something like this: those folks who abandon the mission are garbage, but the people who could abandon their comrades are even worse filth than that.

"So, isn't that what your brother is, then? Worse than garbage? I've bet he's had all kinds of flimsy justifications for doing the things he's done, but at the end of the day your village seems no better off for any of it. Do you disagree?"

"Of course that's not true," Nadare shook her head, "it's obvious that —"

She's rationalizing. The Third always pointed out when anyone was doing that.

"But you don't really believe the words that are about to come out of your mouth," Kakashi said, shaking his head. "You don't. You're just justifying to yourself the decisions you've made that led you to this point. Your own failure to act, or your own failure to be strong enough to make a difference. If you actually believed what you're saying, you wouldn't be standing in the middle of a blizzard arguing with me about it.

"I'm nothing to you. Nobody. If you didn't have doubts? You would have tried to kill me and rip this shiny gemstone from my corpse five minutes ago. You didn't."

Nadare's mouth opened. No sound came out. Her jaw clenched shut and she shook her head weakly.

"Here's my ultimatum: you'll bring your brother and whoever the hell your other jōnin is to the daimyo's castle in three days' time, on the eve of the new year. I'll bring the hostages and this shiny little rock that you want so much. We'll talk it out and come to some arrangement that we both like. Consider for a moment that the one solid option you have right now is the option where you meet with me at this location and at least pretend to play by my rules. Isn't that nice?"

Nadare grimaced. "You expect me to believe that?" she asked. "Why would I do that? You just threatened to murder my whole village to my face. How could I trust you?"

"Ah," Kakashi laughed. "Well, that's all true. On the other hand, I'm a busy ninja, and this was supposed to be a quick vacation for me. Your brother might be worse than garbage. You might be too. But it's hardly my job to take care of all of the problems I run into in this country. I could be convinced otherwise, so long as my mission is satisfied and people are generally reasonable."

Kakashi smiled coldly.

"In other words: If I busy myself with every little bit of trash I see lying on the side of the road, I wouldn't get anything done at all. Imagine someone who did that? They'd be late to everything. Tsk tsk."

I doubt you know enough about me to pick up on the threat there.

Kakashi let those words hang in the air for a moment longer, before turning to leave.He waved a hand at the Glacier shinobi in the most dismissive fashion he could muster. If she made any attempt to speak, it was drowned out by the howling wind. He let the gust of wind run its course for a few seconds before giving a parting quip.

"That doesn't sound like me at all. Oh, and your mighty leader will probably want to make the decision on what to do with this one. I would suggest you get going now."

He glanced back, but nobody was there. A cold wind blew. Snow poured down from the sky.






Kakashi stood atop one of the fortified towers at the castle gates, surveying the land below. The dawning light caused the white walls of Castle Kazahana to gleam and sparkle. While the size and scope of the architecture paled in comparison to Leaf's great walls, the castle's defenses were nonetheless impressive in their own right. Kakashi had no idea how you would go about constructing something of this size with the meager amounts of manpower and resources that were available around here. Ninjutsu, probably?

It was a shame that these "negotiations" he set up would probably end with half of the castle grounds a smoking ruin. Like hell he was inviting a pile of elite ninja to meet up for a calm chit-chat over tea and a side of sudden-but-inevitable betrayal, without stacking the deck first. Playing fair was for people with a death wish.

Daimyo Kazahana and his family were already on their way towards a safe house. There had been a lot of one-sided arguing, complaining, and the sort of general nonsense you'd expect from the rich nobility, but after a minute of ignoring the back and forth from the daimyo and his family, Kakashi had gotten tired of it and put his foot down.

The whole lot of them were going to hide out in that small cottage Dotō had been staying at, and that was that. Nobody would bother looking for them there. It had a massive hole blasted in the side, and the evil villains already knew exactly where it was! It was perfect. He had no clue what all the fuss was about. So what if it was a little on the small side and was a little bit drafty?

Kakashi shook his head.

You'd think these people would be more reasonable. I'm trying to stop them from being killed in their sleep, after all.

Kakashi eyed the courtyard. A few dozen civilians were doing their level best to shovel away the snow that was still steadily falling from the sky.

I could have the soldiers and some laborers clear the snow out beforehand on the day of, might make it difficult for Rōga to use any of his techniques. Probably be a good idea to do something with those hostages too. Mieko probably isn't a factor, but the Koyasu and the Nadare are probably worth some amount of leverage. Maybe a trap rigged to take them out, or a firing squad of archers…

Kakashi panned his vision over the roofs and parapets, and the half-forested, half-mountainous terrain that surrounded them. He reached up to scratch his chin thoughtfully. The terrain could be a problem if they brought significant reinforcements to lie in wait. With Yanagita gone, the only backup he had was Watari. As far as he knew, there were no other ninja in the city, besides that one missing-nin that the Snow Oyabun had seemingly hired.

Hmmm. She might still be around. Worth looking into?

Kakashi scratched his chin some more.

What if I just spend a day or two rigging the whole castle to collapse or explode? Would take a lot of time, but could be effective if I lure them inside and time things right.

Kakashi dug his nails into the fabric of his mask and clawed at a particularly itchy spot under his jawline.

"Damn mask. I should probably shave…"

For now though, there was work to be done.

---

AN: Aaaaaaaaaaa more delayed updates on my end. Unfortunately my spoon drawer was ransacked this week. I will hopefully make up for it by getting those flashbacks and some more interludes done at the start of next week.

Could use another jar of polish, but this is as good as it'll get. Thanks to @Paperclipped for the last minute edits. You rock!

Kakashi used 4 FP and one of the tags on the heirloom during the social combat. He gained +1 from accepting the compel beforehand, and +3 during the update, one from managing to actually run her down successfully (the dice gods decided to be extra kind there, believe me) , one from winning the social combat, and an additional +1 because @Shrooms wrote up a nice plan that served as good dialogue scaffolding for the social confrontation, and I can exercise my fiat powers to be nice. : )

Kakashi now has 3 FP.

Significant Decision:

Who did Kakashi request for the backup order? Pick one of the following codenames:

[] Dragon (+3 FP), the ANBU Chief.
[] Owl (+2 FP), captain of the recon division.
[] Cougar (+1 FP), captain of the tracking division.

Whoever you send for should arrive in about 14 days, which puts a hard deadline on the amount of time you'll be staying in this country. The FP awarded correlates to projected short to mid term complications should you choose that particular option. You can assume that Kakashi knows no absolute specifics about these individuals besides "Dragon is very scary and has a ridiculous mission record, Owl is old, very competent, and exceedingly good at his specialization, and Cougar is an Inuzuka (though he doesn't know which)."

Kakashi thinks the following preparations would be useful. You may vote for any number of them (approval voting, as per the usual), but the top four will be chosen:


[] Spend a significant amount of time trying to track down that other missing-nin that you know was in the city.
[] Go collect a pile of chakra beasts, cage them up nearby the castle to be released later.
[] Place the Koyasu and Nadare hostages in the immediate vicinity of the meeting. Ready all manner of deadly things to obliterate them at a moments notice.
[] Spend a few hours meticulously shaving all your stubble away.
[] Use earth ninjutsu to make portions of the building structurally unsound and ready to collapse at a moment's notice.
[] Make sure there's a multitude of well-placed escape routes that you can get to at a moment's notice.
[] Attempt to convince Mieko that it is in her best interests to sit on top of one of the castle towers and spam fire ninjutsu at any snow constructs during the inevitable confrontation. Why not, right?
[] Run down to the port city you arrived at, and come back with a couple dozen storage seals of pitch or whale blubber or something else that might be really flammable. Apply flammable material liberally to all surfaces as needed.
[] (write-ins, though try to keep any write-in plans on the short side of things)

As always, feel free to ping me or @Paperclipped here or on Discord for questions.

Voting will close 9am PST on Sunday, January 31st.