Xanatos speed chess...
C&A Productions Presents
A Work of Blatant Self-Insertion
Go! Unashamed Reincarnation Protagonist Sakura
Chapter 15
Spycraft
This is a story.
Once there was a boy, who did not know his name.
The boy was very kind and very smart and very brave.
The boy had a brother. They loved each other very much.
The boy drew pictures. He showed his brother every one. This made his brother smile and the boy's heart was warm.
The boy and his brother met a man. The man was keen to meet the boy and his brother, as both were brave and smart.
He did not care so much about 'kind.'
Both boys went with the man. He taught them many things. They grew up to be strong as well as brave and smart.
He gave the boy and his brother a test. They both passed the test. The boy drew a picture of this test for both of them. Yet he could not show it to his brother. The man did not like useless pictures.
So he hid his pictures. He would show his brother one day, he vowed.
The man gave the boys many tests. They passed them all. The pictures continued.
Each test was harder than the last. On the eve of the final test, the boy and his brother wished each other luck.
In the place where the tests were taken, the boys were left alone. They did not know what to do. The test had always been with another. The tests had never been together.
The man was above them. He gave them each a knife. The man told them about the test. The man told them what would happen if they failed.
The brother did not pick up his knife. The boy did not pick up his.
The man told them about the test. The man told them what would happen if they failed.
The brother picked up his knife. He gave it to the boy. He closed his eyes and smiled.
The boy cried.
The man told them about the test. The man told them what would happen if they failed.
The boy passed the test. The boy never cried again.
This was a story.
*
Naruto did not like this tunnel. He hadn't liked it when Neji had told them where it was. He hadn't liked it when Sakura conjured a hole leading down into it. He hadn't liked it when Sakura had conjured lights which glowed from their hitai-ate. The tunnel was only wide enough to let them move two by two. Neji and Shino moved at the front. Naruto and Lee were next. TenTen was behind him.
Sakura was at the rear. The hitai-ate on her neck was the only one not glowing.
"I don't need the light like you guys do," she had said with a smile that didn't reach her eyes.
Neji flashed the hold code sign up and the parade jerked to a halt. He signalled silence and then made a release hand seal with both hands. Shino knelt and ran his finger along the ground. He held up the red stained tip and showed it to Naruto and Lee, who both nodded grimly. One good sign that they were at least on the right track.
"No one in hearing range," Neji said after a moment. "The tunnel definitely continues into the village and beneath the walls. I can see them only a short distance from us."
"I never imagined there was such an entrance into the village," Lee said somberly.
"It only make sense. Why? The village would need a way to move Anbu and other black ops element in and out without anyone with an eyeline on the village seeing."
"Shino's right," Sakura said. "There is far too much trade at the main entrance to possibly vet every single merchant and traveller. If the Hokage, or anyone else, wanted to move ninja in and out without being seen the only option are tunnels like this or using earth jutsu each time."
"...which may not be available for every team," TenTen said with a nod.
"The problem is recent additions," Neji said.
"Traps?" Sakura asked, frowning down the tunnel.
"Yes, and a lot of them. In this narrow confines there is no way to avoid them all, it's a-"
Sakura gestured sharply and eight copies of her appeared, each with a circle of pink light passing from head to toe before vanishing. The Sakuras rushed forward down the hall.
A fraction of a second later the explosions began. Naruto held up his hand over his nose and squinted as a cloud of dust approached them but Sakura only gestured and a great pink mandala formed in front of them. The dust piled against the barrier and Naruto lowered his hand.
In the distance, the last echoing sounds of explosions faded away. Neji frowned.
"You could have ended up collapsing the tunnel!" TenTen said harshly.
"She did," Neji said. "In at least four places."
"It doesn't matter, I'll get us through those cave-ins just like I got us into the tunnel." Sakura gestured again and her mandala shot forward, the dust vanishing in its wake.
Naruto shuddered as he remembered that brief moment of transition when Neji had identified the underground tunnel. The sensation of
twisting as he stepped through the softly shimmering rectangle had caused all his hairs to raise up. The moment he'd dropped out of the doorway in the ceiling into the tunnel he'd felt a cold sensation in his guts and a faint ringing in his ears that still hadn't gone away.
He could see a similar feeling in everyone else's eyes as well. There was something intimidating and aloof about Sakura now, an intensity that had never been there before. Her goofy exterior had seemed to melt away once forced to confess her plans. Now all that was left was a cold determination.
"Right," Neji said and then turned and started sprinting down the tunnel again. "So, what is the plan for when we get to Hinata?"
"I need her exact coordinates. That's why Neji is here." She fell into the back of the pack again as they moved. "Then I use
Ianuae Magicae to move us in next to her. After that I need..." She paused. "I'll need seven seconds to recover and cast the next Gate. We grab Hinata and get out of there. I just need you to hold off the enemy for those seven seconds."
"So we fight off five shapeshifting super mutant ninjas and however many Anbo Root for seven seconds," TenTen said. "A cakewalk."
Sakura nodded grimly. "Ideally I'd have direct visual contact with her. Barring that, we take down whatever jutsu they're using to jam my tracer nanobugs and I can pull the information from the PAN in her nanosuit. If I can get an
oculi divinos close enough to her, that will work as well."
"Ocuro-ri di-wi-nu?" Lee said, struggling with the strange words.
Sakura gestured again and a tiny pink circle appeared next to her head. Out of it popped a small eyeball with green iris. "One of these." She gestured again and it dissolved into rainbow sparks.
"You can just do that..." Naruto felt some strange sensation in his gut. They were coming up on one of the cave-ins now. Maybe it was anticipation of the journey? "Just... grab people and move them anywhere you want?"
"Time-space manipulation is handy like that," Sakura said. "I just wish chakra didn't hard counter so much of my Ars Magica. It would make things much simpler." She sighed. "So remember not to resist when passing through the portal or you'll reject it."
Naruto got the impression he was forgetting something, something important, but then Sakura was conjuring another of her shimmering doorways and he clenched his teeth for the journey.
Only four of these, he told himself and then plunged through.
*
Akimichi Choji did not really have an ambition. To tell the truth he was kind of jealous of ninja like Naruto and Lee, those who had a dream they pursued with all their hearts. Choji grew up to be a ninja less because he dreamed of being a ninja, and more because it was expected of him. The first son of a major clan didn't not become a ninja.
Even as a child, his hereditary weight had kept him out of the games of ninja most kids in the village played with each other. Only Shikamaru had ever really been there for him, making certain he got to play with the other kids or hanging out with him when they refused to let him.
Ino told him once that was just an excuse for Shikamaru to be lazy, but Choji never believed that. The girl had never been close to him, despite how close their families were. She was too busy acting like a princess and lording it over the other kids at the academy (and competing in her one-sided rivalry with Sakura) to much notice Choji's problems. Plus, he was unpopular and she wanted to be popular. Hinata had always been the one with kind words out of all the schoolkids of his year.
For Choji, Sakura was a vague memory. A girl only important for how much he had to listen to Ino complain about her in school. Nor was there much reason for Choji to think about Sasuke, who was just another one of those depressingly motivated young ninja that put his own dreams to shame. He thought about the boy as little as possible except when Ino was speaking of him in terms almost as sweet as her words for Sakura were salty.
He had been glad when Shikamaru had been assigned his team and resigned when Ino had. It had been inevitable, given the realities of the Ino-Shika-Cho combo. Yet he had dreaded working with her.
Then... things had begun to change. Sure, Ino was bossy and abrasive and ranted about Sasuke and Sakura too much. But she also wouldn't let Choji just coast along, either. Whereas Asuma had seemed content to play endless games of shogi with Shikamaru it had been Ino who had seemed to take his training in hand.
"You think I'm going to let my team embarrass me?" She had stood at the top of the tree, standing horizontally against the trunk with her arms crossed and her long hair hanging down over her shoulder. She had looked down at Shikamaru and Choji who both had sat at the bottom of their trees, not even having gotten ten steps up it each.
She had succeeded on her fifth try. Choji had glanced over, seeing Asuma sitting beneath the shade of a nearby tree. Smoke had risen from his lips and he had been watching with casual disinterest. His demonstration of the tree walking had been simple, then he'd explained the mechanics, then he seemed content to let them figure it out on their own.
"Get on your feet! Both of you! Are you not ninja?" Her eyes had been fierce. "Have some pride!"
Ino was a pain in the ass, and bossy and had more pride than any ten other ninja. Yet during their time as a team, with her kicking him in the ass whenever he tried to do less than his best, he had grown more as a ninja than all his father's gentle encouragement or Shikamaru's laid back acceptance or Hinata's warm smiles had managed to accomplish in years at the academy.
Then she had vanished into the hospital, caught in some horrible genjutsu backfire in Sakura's head. He had been surprised to find that he
missed her. That when he and Shikamaru and Asuma got together to 'train' he had been looking around for that commanding presence to start making demands, to grab his chips and run up the nearest wall and hold them literally over his head until he
took them back himself.
That feeling of something missing had turned to worry. His father was tight lipped. His sensei only frowned and smoked twice as much.
When Ino had come back he had felt relief. Then the strangeness returned only worse. Ino had changed. She was distant. Her eyes constantly looked at things only she could see. She didn't seem to notice when she touched things, and didn't even flinch in sparring anymore (in fact punching her was like punching a metal wall, and at least the wall had the grace not to punch back). She had conversations with people that weren't there. She could do things, powerful ninjutsu that didn't require hand seals. She seemed to know things. She would look at Choji as if looking past him then casually tell him he needed to be careful on his ankle or avoid straining that muscle that had been bothering him for days but he hadn't told anyone about. Her expression was more guarded and her demeanour was friendlier.
She was
nice. What had happened to the girl who ranted about the unfairness of the world? Or giggled lewdly while talking about Sasuke? Where was the teammate who had dragged him kicking and screaming (mainly her kicking and him screaming, granted) through every daily workout and refused to ever let him give up? What had happened to the girl who had enough pride and ambition for Choji
and Shikamaru
and Asuma and then some?
Now her body was saging, her eyes terribly empty, her body horribly limp. The white snake that had sprung from Kabuto's sleeve was wrapping around her neck. She didn't even yell in pain. She just collapsed, like a marionette with its strings cut.
Crunch.
If smell was the sense of memory, then taste was the sense of the present. The flood of spinach flavour in his mouth brought him back to the moment. He saw Ino falling as if in slow motion. He saw Mrs Nara sprawled on the ground, exhausted and unconscious. He saw Kabuto, caught in Shikamaru's jutsu but entirely unworried. He saw Shikamaru, face caught in a rictus of indecision as for once he was faced with a situation where all options seemed horrible.
"Partial Baika no Jutsu!"
Chakra flooded Choji's system which he immediately molded into yang chakra. Unleashing it through his good arm the arm expanded massively, easily six times its normal size. He barely had to swing to smash Kabuto in the side and send him flying away.
Shikamaru glanced at him. "Choji! Your coloured pills?"
"There's no way that stopped him," Choji said, standing up as the chakra continued to flood his system. His massive hand slide down deceptively fast, cradling Ino's falling body gently and pulling it to him as it shrunk. The rush of energy was intoxicating. He felt amazing. Even the burns up his other arms and side seemed suddenly trivial.
It was a lie, of course. Every second his body was uncontrollably converting more and more of his stored fat into stamina and flooding his chakra coils with it. Calorie control, the secret jutsu of the Akimichi clan produced insane amounts of energy. Yet the pills produced that same effect but didn't slow down. If he didn't take the antidote in time, the process would work past all his fat and start on his muscles and connective tissue.
Crunch.
"Choji, no!" Shikamaru shouted. Choji ignored him as the taste of chile flooded his mouth. There was no way he was going to defeat someone like that guy with only the green pill!
As if summoned by his thoughts three figures appeared, jumping out of the shadows at him. He recognized the one with the missing arm. The other two he could only guess at based on their shredded cloaks. With a ferocious cry Choji spun, swinging his fist through the air. His forearm expanded to the size of a woodshed as he swung, catching all three of the figures in mid air and smashing them across the landscape.
Choji felt fantastic! It was like he had so much chakra his coils would burst unless he spent it freely and fully!
"Get out here!" Choji slammed his giant palms into the ground, causing the earth to splinter and shatter into a field of ragged rock and flying soil. Kabuto burst from the earth moments before the cracking earthquake reached him. "I still owe you one for back at the forest!"
The taste of that day had been bitter in his mouth. The only genin to not only do nothing, but to be injured as well. If he hadn't been caught flat-footed this guy might never have gotten away!
Kabuto landed on the peak of one of the overturned stones that used to be the Nara property. He adjusted his glasses with two fingers. "The Akimichi clan Three Coloured Pills. How long before they begin to break down your body entirely? I hear that each pill is an order of magnitude faster acting than the one before it. So with two pills, you'll kill yourself ten times faster, right?"
Choji's answering roar and Shikamaru's cry to 'stop!' was drowned out as the Nara household shattered as a wall of water swept through it. Choji grabbed the earth with his chakra, resisting the push of the massive flood that tore open the privacy wall and then crushed the next house over like it was made of paper.
The water was up to Choji's chest when he felt two needles sink into his shoulders. They immediately began to burn.
Poison! he thought. Yet he grinned. No poison would kill him faster than his own secret pills at this rate. And the pain was nothing to this incomparable surge of chakra. Choji crouched forward, slapping the ground with two hugely enlarged arms and adhering his palms to it with chakra. With a great roar he clean jerked up, sending a wave of water and earth flying in front of him.
Kabuto surfed backward on the wave, deftly weaving between the fridge sized chunks of stone and soil that rained around him. But for a moment, his vision was blocked. This was the only chance Choji had.
"Super Baika no jutsu!"
Water erupted outward in a great wall. The shattered stone ground crunched under his massive feet. His head scraped the bottom of the ominous cloud that had grown over the neighbourhood. He could see forever! He had done it! For the first time, he had actually done it! The world was like a child's toy spread out around him, but in reality it was his body that had grown to the size of a giant.
No time for that! His massive fists came down. Kabuto leapt away, dancing along the foam of the spraying water. Choji opened his palms-
-and snatched everyone up and
leapt.
His first jump carried him five houses away. His foot came down in what he thought was the Gekko's living room, crushing it like cardwood. The flood swept over his foot, rising to his thighs as he moved.
Where is it? Choji took another massive stride, and another. He was wading through water up to his waist now. How could this much water exist? He was three times as tall as any of the houses!
Where? He could feel the energy, that massive rush of power, leaving him. is vision waved. His shoulders throbbed from whatever poison he had been injected with. It was having a hard time moving through his massive body, but that would not last. It was like the water itself was eating not only his momentum, but his chakra as well.
Where is the hospital? He grimaced.
"Your left!" A quick glance showed Shikamaru clinging to his shoulder. "That way!" he pointed.
He could see it! With a literally titanic effort he leapt, clearing the water and sending a huge spray up in his wake. He landed partly in the side of a building, knocking the top story off.
Five more steps! The ground shook under his thread as he ran up the street.
Four more steps! He could feel the world wavering, his vision seeming to double as it shrank and expanded. He needed to hold on!
Three more steps!
He was just pushing off that step when his jutsu failed. The world was filled with the haze of chakra smoke and a loud
bang as air rushed in to fill the void left by his absence. He was in mid-air, spinning end over end. His shoulders wouldn't move. His gut felt like someone had lit a furnace in it. He looked through half-lidded eyes at the rapidly approaching ground. There was no way he could land on anything but his head.
There was a metallic whirr and then he came to a abrupt stop. There was a loud pop and a scream of pain. He looked up groggily.
Shikamaru hung from a web of ninja wire, four kunai anchoring it into the surrounding buildings. His shoulder was stretched in a way no human shoulder was meant to, and the hand attached to it was clutching the end of the wire that was wrapped around his mother, Ino, and Choji.
With a cry of pain Shikamaru grabbed at the slack of his wire with his teeth and began to lower the three of them to the earth. Choji managed to land on his feet. Mrs Nara was still unconscious and Ino-
Her body was convulsing in some sort of fit. Spittle foamed from her mouth. Blood flowed from her eyes and ears. Some hideous black marks were crawling up her flesh, pulsing red every time they expanded. That awful white snake was still twisted around her neck possessively, but seemed to have shrunk. Then Choji realized that about half of it had
burrowed into her.
Shikamaru landed in a heap next to Choji. His arm was limp. The good one seemed to move only slowly. He glanced towards the hospital, still three blocks away. His hand came up, clutching a kunai. "How long do you have left at this rate? Before you need the antidote?"
"A minute... maybe less..." Choji wasn't trained enough to be more precise than that.
"I'm almost tempted to watch." The boys stared as Kabuto walked up the street towards them. "But I'm in rather a rush, so I'll take my property." His clothing was soaked and torn, and now that most of his top was missing you could see fuinjutsu seals carved all over his torso.
Choji's arms moved. Despite the pain. Despite the poison and the exhaustion. He felt the cayenne pepper pill. "I'm sorry, Shikamaru." Each pill was a ten fold boost in chakra, but also a ten fold cut in time before his body ate itself alive. That gave him what? Six seconds. Maybe less.
More than enough.
Snap.
Choji blinked as his teeth clapped together on empty air. He looked up at the fist currently holding the red pill casually away from him. He followed the arm-
"Sensei!"
Asuma glanced over his shoulder and smiled. "Choji, Shikamaru. You both did well." His head snapped back to Kabuto, who was watching warily now. He raised his other hand and tossed something back to Shikamaru. "The antidote. Make certain he eats it."
"Yes, sensei!" Shikamaru said with obvious relief.
"No," said Choji as he tried to push Shikamaru away ineffectually. "If I take that I can't use chakra for days..."
"Shut up and eat it!" Shikamaru slammed it into Choji's mouth and held his mouth and nose closed until he was forced to swallow. Almost instantly Choji felt the rush of energy cut off like it slammed into a wall. He was sinking into darkness as Asuma approached Kabuto slowly, hands up and trench knives held ready.
"These students are my responsibility, you won't hurt them without going through me," Asuma declared.
"So much busy work today," Kabuto said with a sigh and adjusted his glasses. He grinned. Behind him, in the near distance, a great dome of water covered most of the civilian districts. Choji slipped away into darkness.
*
"If we never do that again, it will be too soon," TenTen said with a shudder as they emerged from the last of Sakura's portals. Sakura came just behind her and the shimmering rectangle winked out behind her.
The air down here was stale and reminded Naruto uncomfortably of the tailed beast's sewer. It had that same ominous feel and that same sense of dread seemed to hang over everything. He scratched at his ears and frowned. The more of those portals he went through, the worse he felt. He could see it in the others as well. Only Sakura was unaffected.
"We have to keep moving." Sakura gestured towards a an opening in the tunnel beyond. Now that he looked Naruto could see it opened into an actual sewer.
"You bring us to all the most wonderful places," Neji said with a frown.
"If you want a proper date, ask next time?" Sakura said in a joking tone that just came off mean-spirited and spiteful. Naruto frowned at her. Teasing Neji about his feelings was going a bit far, when his cousin was in danger, wasn't it?
"The thing which I do not get is why you forced Hinata into the role of bait. Why? You could have used any of your family. Your mother and father are both chunin, are they not?" Shino asked.
"I never
forced-" Sakura cut herself off with some effort and calmed her expression. "My mother and father are unexceptional ninja. I'm certain they wanted to love me very much, but in the kind of world where I am destined to walk they would only be a liability." She walked up to Shino. "So I kept them out of my heart and myself out of theirs. It's better that way.
"
Shino stared at her a moment. Naruto felt his stomach clench and his fists tighten.
'I kept them out of my heart'. He began to shake, but he pushed the feeling down. The important thing was to focus on Hinata, not how much Sakura was
pissing him off.
Sakura looked around the others and seemed to read the mood. She relaxed and smiled. Naruto took a deep breath and immediately felt... better. It was like some of the tension drained out of him. He shook his head. He had almost felt ready to punch Sakura.
He heard a sneeze and looked behind him, but there was no one there. He glanced back to Shino as his body began to buzz softly. Shino looked down, holding up one hand on which several of his beetles crawled in lazy circles. "I see. That explains it." He looked up at Sakura. "They took Hinata down the left hand fork."
"Neji?"
"I can see blood trails down both tracks, but I think Shino is right. The right fork is probably a false trail. The droplets are just a little
too regular."
"Good we..." Sakura paused and looked up. "Something..."
"What is it?"
"Something's wrong." She held up her hand to her ear. "Ai, status report." She looked in air. "What? How can-" She frowned. "Audio-visual playback from time of second warning to signal loss, double speed."
Naruto shuffled his feet as he watched Sakura stare into mid-air for a moment. He was beginning to feel annoyed again. After pushing them so hard she just stood there doing nothing? What was going on-
Sakura blinked and froze. "No way." Her hand dropped from her ear. "I..." She ran a hand through her hair. "I have to go."
"What? Go?" Neji did not look pleased.
"I..."
"What happened to 'do not split the party'?" Lee asked forcefully. "Even in our weekly tactical training, that was an important element!"
"I have to go now! When you find Hinata, let me know through this." Sakura waved her hand and a floating eye appeared from a mandala next to her ear. Then she looked up.
"Ianuae Magicae." With that, her body vanished into a circle of pink light and rainbow sparks.
*
"Oh quit whining," Kidomaru said as he and Sakon carried the large frame of Jirobo between them on a frame of webbing. "It's just a leg."
"How about I tear off one of your arms?" Jirobo said stiffly. His forehead was covered with sweat. His leg was bleeding profusely. "You have spares."
Tayuya looked like she wanted to say something, but after a glance from Kimimaro she continued to play the low discordant melody on her flute as they moved rapidly through the sewers.
"What did you expect?" Sakon asked. "Your level two cursed seal blocks out the pain of your injury. You should have known better than to let them get you like that."
"I'd never seen anything like that cannon before," Jirobo said, sweating.
"Please. I can help him."
Everyone looked at Hinata. She clutched her hands in front of her chest. She kept her expression serious and unafraid, despite the rapid beating of her heart.
"Are you serious?" Kidomaru asked.
"He's in pain," Hinata said. "The least I can do is help him and stop the bleeding."
"He's your enemy, and your kidnapper," Sakon said in genuine bewilderment. "If he bleeds to death, that's one less obstacle for you."
"I know that, but I can't stand seeing him suffer like this," Hinata insisted.
"You think we're going to trust you within arm's reach of him..." Kidomaru trailed off ominously.
"Yeah, you could try to take him hostage," Sakon said.
"Then we would kill him," Kimimaro said, crossing his arms. "As it is, he's slowing us down anyway." He glanced at Hinata. "Let the girl try. If nothing else, it will shut up his moaning, one way or another."
Jirobo stiffened at that, then flinched as he was dropped unceremoniously by his 'friends' and they backed away. The six-armed one dramatically flourished with all his arms for Hinata to go ahead. She stepped up, pulling a vial from her coat.
All too aware of the eyes on her, Hinata spread the salve until she had covered the whole wound and then expertly bandaged the wound. With a flick of her wrist she placed her hand over it and black marks appeared in a flash across the bandages.
There was a series of sharp noises behind her.
"Be calm," the faceless nin said. "It is a standard medical fuinjutsu practised in Konoha. One of Lady Tsunade's designs. It sterilizes the area to prevent infection."
The tension behind her eased and Hinata stood up.
"Well?" Kimimaro asked.
"I... do feel better," Jirobo said as if he couldn't believe it. "The pain is a lot less. I can probably walk with a little help now."
Kimimaro gazed at Hinata for a long time. "Useless compassion," he said with a snort. "Sakon, help me. We're picking up the pace."
Hinata looked at the masked nin's ever-shifting visage and nodded her thanks. Almost imperceptibly, he nodded back.
*
Kabuto considered his options carefully. He had used up more chakra than he wanted to admit so far today. That unexpected force attack from the girl, and then being forced to take a full force blow from an Akimichi had drained his reserves to the point where he was on fumes. Creation Rebirth was all encompassing in its healing power, but also equally costly.
On the other hand, Asuma did not look much better off than him. From the poorly treated scratches across his body he guessed Asuma had fled the medical nin in the middle of being treated for wounds from Kisame's chakra eating sword. Normally he would have considered the two of them about equally poor off, and he could have risked a confrontation on those grounds.
His eyes raised slightly, looking over Asuma's shoulder. The Konoha hospital, where he had spent so many hours acting as orderly or errand boy and quietly gathering intelligence on all the various ninja was in full view. A drawn out battle here was sure to draw the attention of reinforcements.
If a giant pre-teen stomping down the street and ripping down signs and powerlines in his wake hadn't already, of course.
Asuma grinned. Kabuto narrowed his eyes. His opponent knew he had the upper hand here. There was nothing more Danzo could deploy to help Kabuto without overplaying his hand too much. Not that Kabuto wanted Danzo to be aware of exactly what he was up to and why they
really needed the Yamanaka's girls augmented body.
"A double bluff?" Danzo shifted forward on his stool.
"Yes. We draw in the Akatsuki as you propose to draw attention away from the Sound Nin kidnapping the Hyuuga heiress. But we also lure them straight to the Yamanaka girl."
"Why?"
"Reread the debrief on Haruno's tools. They work on a power transmission feature that has an extremely short range from her body. She has some kind of reactor inside her, sealed away in a manner similar to a storage scroll but somehow still functioning despite being so. It's a fascinating idea-"
"Be brief."
"Of course. The trick is, that Haruno isn't the only reactor anymore.
"
"So we truly don't need to risk a confrontation with Haruno if we can secure the Yamanaka." Danzo leaned back. Kabuto could tell he liked the idea already. Anything that reduced his own risk. After all, this was a ninja paranoid enough that he had killed an entire clan... just so that he could cheat death eight times.
"Then once we've lured our test subjects in, we can transform them and experiment on their bodies to our hearts content."
"And the Hyuuga?"
"Once we no longer need her to give an excuse for the Sound Nin to walk right into our hands, what further use is she? Her death can be blamed on the Akatsuki and Sound Nin revenge attack against Konoha. Very sad, I'm certain the Hyuuga will hold a funeral."
Danzo smiled thinly. "And Haruno?"
"Well... somebody
had to leak our new security arrangements to our enemies. Who better than the person who basically told us how to rebuild them from the ground up? Such an untrustworthy girl, especially to a grieving father or two."
Kabuto glanced back at the girl's body. Her body was breathing arhythmically as it went through a seizure. He had never actually witnessed Orochimaru's reincarnation jutsu so he had no idea if this was normal, or good, or something was horribly wrong.
Because so much could go wrong. Especially as Orochimaru had been weakened so much and was still only fighting off the 'SnakeDie'. Which also meant that every second Kabuto stood here, trying to work out a strategy he was losing chakra while Asuma was recovering.
He should retreat. Yet he couldn't. If he left, there was a chance Orochimaru would die. And then-
There was nothing after that thought. The idea was inconceivable. Orochimaru had given Kabuto everything. Without Orochimaru, who even was Kabuto?
There was a crunching sound. Kabuto glanced to the side.
The confrontation between the two ninja had occurred on a block with a pair of restaurants, one of which had a sidewalk cafe set up. Sitting at one of the tables, feet kicked up on the next nearest table was a certain man in a dark suit and small brimmed hat over his green hair. He had a bag full of fluffy white balls and a large glass of amber liquid on the table.
As Kabuto watched he grabbed a handful and threw them into his mouth with a crunch.
"Do you mind?" Kabuto asked. That man was growing increasingly infuriating, even if he always showed up with some fascinating glass and metal device for Kabuto to examine and decipher.
Without his help, none of this would have been possible.
"Nope," the man said with a pop in his voice. "You two can proceed." He took a drink and looked at the glass. "Wow. Usually these kinds of places only have that pissy Japanese stuff. I wasn't expecting an actual decent ale."
"Who are you?" Asuma demanded.
Hazama tilted his hat up with one finger and sighed. "You people are so obsessed with names around here. Call me Hazama, if it makes you feel better."
"How do you know this traitor?" Asuma continued, ignoring Hazama's irreverent attitude.
"Are you going to fight or not?" Hazama pointed behind Kabuto. "I'm missing the main event while you two stare meaningfully at each other. Next thing you know you'll start grunting and screaming about power levels for the longest five minutes
ever."
"You dirty..." Asuma began to make hand signs and Kabuto instantly saw the utility of those trench knives. They left him just enough flexibility to make signs while keeping him armed at all times. He drew a deep breath as Kabuto tensed his legs.
"Katon: Ash Pile Burning!"
Asuma exhaled, blowing a cloud of black ash out and filling the street. Kabuto jumped back twice, barely keeping out of the cloud. There was a click from behind the black mass and then the entire thing went up like a bomb. Fire burst up the street and across the storefronts. Kabuto jumped back again and hissed as waves of heat and smoldering ash burned across his arms. He managed to shield his face from the worst of it.
He landed in a crouch as the fire died down. Tiny fires burned here and there, but for the most part the sheer force of the explosion had kept the jutsu from igniting anything major. Kabuto cursed himself. He was getting sloppy as his chakra drained away. He never expected the Leaf Nin to use such a destructive jutsu in his own village, much less one that burst even further than its initial area suggested.
It took some freakish awareness of the air currents to keep that blast from burning down half the district.
Which made it all the more amazing that Hazama sat with his legs still kicked up, both himself and his place setting apparently entirely untouched. The man threw some more snacks into his mouth.
"How the- I know I caught him!" Asuma said.
"Sensei, we should retreat!" Shikamaru called from behind his teacher.
"Some sort of genjutsu?" Asuma said, shifting his stance back a pace.
"Over already?" Hazama took a drink and looked at Asuma with a slightly offended expression. "Okay, bored now."
The man reached out one hand lazily and snapped his fingers. A half dozen green portals blinked open around him and chains shot out of them. Asuma cursed and dodged, swinging his knives up in wides arcs. Loose chain links scattered around him as his knives carved the projectiles to pieces. Two of the chains were shredded by his knives and the next two he managed to avoid.
The remaining two whirred and clanked as they wrapped tightly around the man, pinning his arms to his side. There was a pair of cracks as the heads of the chains, each shaped like a snake head, buried into the street. Hazama gestured sharply and the ends of the chains emerged from the portals and whipped around to bury into the opposite walls of the buildings lining the street. The eye-like portals blinked closed as if winking sarcastically. Hazama hadn't even put down his drink.
"Sensei!" Shikamaru shouted. He tried to stand, but winced and fell to one knee. His hand clutched at his dislocated shoulder.
Hazama kicked himself to his feet, his chair clattering behind him. He walked forward, one hand holding his hat to his head and the other clutching his drink. "Sorry kid, but the girl is coming with us."
"Leave her alone!" Asuma shifted, the chains holding him rattling ominously, but wasn't able to get any leverage. Kabuto walked up to him and held up his hand, forming a chakra scalpel with some of his rapidly draining chakra. Asuma stared at the hand, his eyes narrowing.
Hazama grabbed Kabuto's wrist. "We shouldn't leave any of them alive," Kabuto said.
"Why?" Hazama's grin was mocking. "You're concerned about your reputation with these people? Or those of your so-called boss?" His smile grew deeper. "You plan on leaving a spider like Danzo alive at your back after betraying him like this?"
"Danzo?" Asuma said with a hiss.
Kabuto considered it for a moment and then shrugged and allowed his scalpel to dissipate. The two of them walked towards the cluster of genin (and one middle aged woman). Shikamaru struggled to pull himself up between the two of them and their target. Hazama reached out, rubbed his hair and pushed him aside; the boy stumbled over before falling against a wall with a cry.
"Nice kid, bit too smart for his own good," Hazama said they strolled over to the Yamanaka's body. He crouched down next to her, running a finger along the length of the remains of Orochimaru's body. The girl was twitching, her eyes rolling sightlessly. Creeping black curse marks grew and shrank across her body like ebbing tides.
"This should be over by now," Kabuto said. "Is the augmentation interfering with the jutsu?"
"Nope," Hazama said easily. "The problem is that you picked the wrong girl." He placed a hand on her forehead and winced so dramatically it was obviously a put on. "The original test run on these curse marks had a survival rate of one in twenty. You rolled the dice and didn't beat the odds."
"You're saying she isn't compatible," Kabuto said with a frown.
"I'm saying she'll probably die before the jutsu is complete."
Kabuto frowned. Well, there were five spares available now that he could use if worse came to worse.
"Of course, you used up so much chakra that trying to separate them now means the snake will die, too." Hazama stood up and shrugged. "Kinda makes you want to turn to drink, right?" He took a long swallow. Kabuto's mouth went dry. He would not, could not let that happen. "Wow, that face of yours. That is some top quality despair. Tell you what, just this once, I'll do you a favor." He tilted his hat up with one finger and his normally squinting eyes opened slightly. "But you owe me one, okay?"
"Yes," Kabuto said quickly.
"Deal!" The man snapped his fingers again and in a burst of green light the world seemed to vanish-
*
Hinata entered the room first. It was a long cylindrical well, extending far up above them and even further below them. The ceiling was lost in shadow and the floor was far enough below that only the faint echo of lapping water could be heard. Up the length of the well were entrances to tunnels like the one they had just exited, each pouring a waterfall of grey water and other effluence into the darkness below. Wooden bridges connected each other at every level, forming rotating cross shapes both above and below them.
A platoon of masked and cloaked ninja were spread out on those bridges, above and below, to create a killing field on the bridges Hinata walked out onto. She forced herself to untense, although she could feel the phantom of a kunai buried in her Byakugan's blind spot driving deeper with every step into the open.
And there, ahead of them, was the man of the hour.
He was an image of helpless dotage. His body covered with bandages entirely up one side and his clothes hanging loose on a slim frame that concealed his fitness. He had a cane which he leaned on with his unbandaged hand. Behind him two figures lurked, an Aburame and a Yamanaka from the looks of them.
For a moment Hinata wondered why he bothered to come in person, than she smiled slightly as she realized why. With her Byakugan she would be able to see any place he would be hiding nearby, and there was no chance he would let something this important occur without eyes on it somehow.
Which meant that he didn't intend her or anyone else to walk out of this well alive.
She stopped on the section of bridge where both crossed. The ink-mice parked themselves on the posts at each corner of the intersection. Danzo stood at the far end of the bridge in front of Hinata, still partially within the protective cover of the tunnel. Her 'party' was behind her, also within the tunnel. Jirobo had created a crude stone crutch with earth release so he stood with the others. There was a shift in shadows behind Danzo and the ink-masked boy appeared behind the man. Danzo glanced at him and nodded once, sharply, before turning back to face Hinata and her kidnappers.
"The girl is using a genjutsu," the Yamanaka to Danzo's right said.
"We're messing with the genin pursuing us," Sakon explained.
"You will stop. If the genin arrive, we will deal with them." That was the Aburame to Danzo's left.
Tayuya looked at Kimimaro, who nodded slightly. She dropped the flute from her lips.
"No, keep up the piping!"
Everyone in the room stiffened as the voice came in from above them. The platoon of Root Anbu pulled out kunai and shuriken, those that didn't begin hand signs as soon as the words broke into the well. There was a flash of green light and a trio of people appeared hanging upside down from the intersecting bridges directly above Hinata.
One was a stranger in foreign black clothes, crouched upside down with his long black coat falling down around him and one hand holding on his shirt-brimmed hat. Next to him crouched Kabuto, his grey hair messy and his clothes torn. In Kabuto's arms was-
"Ino!" Hinata gasped.
She did not look well. Her body was limp, but the limbs twitched arhythmically. With each seizure the movement grew weaker. Across her exposed skin black marks seemed to seethe, shifting places and patterns under increasingly frequent flares of red light. Her eyes stared unseeing into the darkness, her mouth foaming and blood flowing from her nose, eyes and ears.
"Kabuto! What is the meaning of this?" Danzo ask with a dangerously level tone.
"Come on, play us a tune," the strange man said. "It reminds me of home."
Kabuto dropped Ino and Hinata shifted, catching the deceptively heavy girl in her arms. A quick scan with the Byakugan showed that inside was even worse than outside. Entire sections of her body were being converted, steadily, into natural chakra. She was literally turning to stone from the inside out. There was also a foreign parasite wrapped around her spine with its head driven into her brain.
"Be quiet unless spoken to," Danzo said to the black-clad man. "Or my men will kill you before you can so much as twitch."
"Oh my, my... we wouldn't want that," the man said, grinning indolently.
Kabuto landed, he now stood part way down one of the cross bridges that placed him midway between Danzo and the Sound Nin. "I apologize for my unconventional appearance, Lord Danzo." Kabuto knelt and bowed his head towards the man. "Retrieving the Yamanaka was harder than I thought so I had to draw in extra help." The black-clad man wiggled his fingers from where he was still crouched upside down. "This man, Hazama, was instrumental in my success."
Hinata turned her attention to the man. Her eyes looked into his chakra... and saw only a thin film of 'mahou' chakra over emptiness.
Not really there? Just like Sakura's illusions?
"Hazama?" Danzo looked at him with narrowed eyes. "Who do you work for? How did you use that transportation jutsu?"
"I'm more of a free agent." The man's smile widened. "I'm really just a messenger, when you get to the heart and soul of the matter. As for my jutsu? Well, did you really think Haruno was the only one who had ever uncovered the art of
mahoujutsu?" He added an excessive level of disgust and sarcasm onto the last word.
Danzo stared up at him. "No. I don't believe you."
"You can believe whatever you want, Mr. Shimura," Hazama said with a chuckle. "But I don't have time to stick around. I have another investment to protect so..."
"You're not going anywhere!" Danzo snapped forcefully.
The well filled with steel, kunai and shuriken whirring through the air. Hazama jerked dramatically, clutching at his chest as he writhed. Ripples of colourless light passed up his body. "You got me!" he said with a theatrical gasp. "Right in the nothing at all important!" He stopped writhing and began to laugh. He threw his head back and the laugh echoed around the room. His body disappeared into a swirling cloud of colourless sparks, leaving a single eye floating beneath the hundreds of weapons buried into the bridge he had been hanging from.
Then it winked and vanished.
*
"In this place, I control every-"
"Four," Sasuke hissed out. The crimson tinted shadow negative world cracked and shattered around him for the second time. The first time, Sasuke had tried to endure it as long as possible but had lasted barely a few subjective minutes under the torturous memories.
"Even the Tsukiyomi is subject to that jutsu which protects you," Itachi said as he loomed over Sasuke's panting form. "But you only have one use left. You can not resist forever, foolish little brother."
"Damn you," Sasuke growled, trying to look down. Beneath them, the battle between Kisame and Might Guy had escalated again. The whole thing was obscured by seething bubbles and steam. Dozens of shark-shaped currents flowed through the water, arcing into the bubble of seething water. The top of the great water dome on which he and Itachi stood was beginning to bubble and steam itself.
Then with a great thunderclap the water exploded, sending great waves flying into the air in all directions. The sound of rushing water was almost drowned out by a great voice roaring in anger. There was a flash as something flew across the city towards the wide bluff upon which the Hokage Monument was carved.
Sasuke tumbled through the air, the wind snapping his clothes as he fell towards the earth. The sudden loss of his foothold had given him no time to recover. He was just kneeling, looking in horror down at his sensei sinking into the giant water dome - then the water dome was gone, bursting like a balloon and he was several stories high and entirely out of stamina.
Just when he thought he would plunge into oblivion he felt a strong arm yank him to a halt. He gasped as his body jerked at the sudden pressure and he felt one of his ribs crack under the pressure. He coughed, spitting blood down onto the ground only a meter below him.
He looked over and saw that Kakashi was tucked under his rescuers other arm. A glowing aura of chakra flowed from his rescuers body - no, not chakra, his eyes saw no chakra at all, just raw heat and boiling sweat. The stench was intense. Sasuke fought the urge to screw his eyes tight against the eye-watering cloud enveloping him.
He was placed gently on the ground next to Kakashi and then Might Guy stood up, his skin seeming to glow, his eyes almost invisible behind the waves of heart distortion that came off his flesh.
"Rest," Guy said. There was none of the almost self-mocking bravado in his voice now, just a dreadful seriousness. He turned to face the only remaining enemy ninja.
Houses had been flattened by the sudden flooding. Beyond that, a great crater had been blow through the ground and a long gouge had been torn in the earth leading from it until it stopped at the edge of the Hokage Mountain. A crack ran up the great rock from the point of impact.
Sasuke blinked as Guy and Itachi faced each other across the devastation. His vision doubled, then faded. When he blinked again he realized he had lost his Sharingan. The world had lost that hazy foreimage and the colour of chakra had added from sight. He tried to keep his eyes open, even as shadows crept at the corners of his vision and the occasional black flower bloomed and faded.
"You are at the end of your stamina," Itachi said in the same hollow lifeless tone which he spoke everything.
"If I must, I will go even further beyond!" Guy shouted. "You will not escape!"
"Escape is the last thing on his mind."
Everyone's gaze shifted to the side of the crater in which they stood. Hazama stood on the very edge, hands in his pockets and his coat flapping behind him in the rising heat mirage. He grinned.
"You two are really scary," he said with flippant amusement. "Most of the ninja are just so much garbage. It's disappointing."
"Who-" Guy began.
"Tch!" Hazama gestured sharply. "I'm getting sick of that question. Ask the boy if you want introductions."
"Sasuke?" Guy said over his shoulder.
"His name is Hazama," Sasuke said. "He's... an ally."
A howl of pain filled the air and Sasuke snapped his attention back to Itachi in surprise (and, he admitted, some delight). The man was bent over, clutching at his eyes. Red drops dipped between his fingers. He shuddered and staggered back.
"Oops. Looks like someone looked too deeply and didn't like what was looking back at him." Hazama hopped down the slope easily and landed between Guy and Itachi, one hand balancing his hat and the other still in his pocket. He was hunched slightly forward. "Try to stay on your little island of ignorance, kid. You won't like what you find if you sail too far out into the darkness."
"Wh-
What are you?" Itachi snarled as he pulled his hands away from his eyes. They had reverted from the bloody red of Sharingan to the achingly familiar black of Sasuke's childhood memories. Blood dripped down from his lower lids, forming tear trails down the lines of Itachi's cheeks.
"And
somebody finally asks the right question!" Hazama said, throwing back his head and laughing. It was a cruel and vicious sound.
The air cracked as Itachi appeared behind him, his sword swinging up towards the man's neck. Sparks flew as the blade was intercepted by a butterfly knife that Hazama had drawn out of his pocket with stunning speed.
Itachi threw himself back as Hazama kicked out, a rising crescent kick that split the ground in front of him with the force of its passage. Itachi landed and Hazama gestured sharply. Green circles blinked open around him. Black chains shot out.
Itachi wove through the chains, cutting aside those he could not dodge. He moved with liquid grace, even without Sharingan and escaped the field of metal links moments before they spun about and formed a web where he had been.
"You are the one who enhanced Sasuke," Itachi said.
"Scary smart on top of just scary," Hazama said, putting both hands into his pockets again. "Of course, I had better hopes. I gave him two full months of training
and all sorts of magic on top of that and the best he could do was stall." Hazama tilted his head towards Sasuke. "Looks like next time if you want my help, we'll have to do more extensive augmentation."
Sasuke shuddered at the memory of the two months he had spent in 'Hazama's' outside time world, training to perfect his one handed seals. The escape from that horrific world where everything beyond a dozen meters became nothing but empty darkness had been almost enough to drive his hatred of Itachi aside. Almost.
Even so, the thought of going back in there was something he didn't want to contemplate.
"I think not!" Itachi clutched his hands over his eyes and then when he pulled them away they had twisted into the pinwheel shape of the Mangekyo. "Amaterasu!" For a moment it looked like Hazama's entire body was outlined in black flames, then Sasuke saw it was only a man shaped shadow against the wall of the crater that was burning with flickering darkness. Hazama stood just to the left of it, holding his hat and whistling. "I missed?" Itachi said in surprise.
"So that's the divine flames of hatred," Hazama said. "I heard these things never go out until they consume whatever they're attached to. Man, you guys really like to beat home the metaphors here, don't you?" Hazama grinned. "So since you technically hit the earth, does that mean eventually the whole planet will be consumed?" He glanced at Sasuke and Guy. "Who wants to do an experiment?"
Sasuke glanced over at Guy, to see he was still standing there. His body still seemed to be glowing with that heat mirage, the sweat steam rising from his body tainted blue. Yet he was not moving. His teeth were clenched and his body was rigid.
Sasuke understood. The man really was at the end of his endurance. He was holding back, hoping for an opening. More likely yet, he was trying to figure out how Hazama fought and whose side the man was really on.
"Well, maybe later." Hazama looked back at Itachi, whose face had grown more haggard. The bloody tears flowing down his cheeks seemed thicker. "I have great expectations when it comes to the Uchiha clan. What do you say, Itachi? Can you see your way to victory here?" Hazama let out a jackal-like laugh. "Can you even see at all, anymore?"
"This is no longer a winnable battle," Itachi said. He stood up. Hazama only grinned. Guy flashed forward, shouting and punching out. His fist exploded through Itachi's body-
-which separated into a cloud of ravens which flew up into the sky before scattering in all directions. Sasuke allowed himself to collapse to his knees.
"A genjutsu?" Guy asked.
"No, something else," Sasuke said. Or at least not one that affected Sasuke directly, if how Hazama had explained the jutsu he used was true.
"And you!" Guy turned and pointed at the man in the hat. "Don't you move, either!"
"Oh, super scary face." Hazama's smile was unperturbed. "I'd really loved to stay, but sorry, not sorry."
Guy flashed forward again but Hazama vanished into a cloud of green sparks as Guy's hand snatched through his form. There was a rip and he pulled his hand away, holding a length of grey-black cloth. His body tensed as he looked around for other threats, then he fell to one knee and the cloud of haze around him faded.
"Damn, let myself get a bit out of shape there..." He coughed, blood flecking his lips. "Or am I getting old? No! My youth burns just as brightly! I will train five times as hard to prove it!" Sasuke didn't even have the strength left to roll his eyes.
"Sasuke! Sensei Guy!" Both of them turned their eyes as a figure ran over the edge of the crater. Her pink hair flew behind her and her leather armour seemed soiled. She skidded to a halt. "What the hell happened here?" she said, looking around in horror.
"You know, I never did get their names..." Guy muttered to himself.
"Nevermind, I think I figured it out," Sakura said as she looked at the black flames steadily eating away at the crater wall. She walked over and crouched next to Kakashi. "Damn, they really did a number on sensei." She placed her hand over his shoulder. "
Magna cura." Pink mandalas flowed over his body, leaving trails of rainbow sparkles in their wake. She rested her hand on his brow and frowned, then carefully pulled his hitai-ate down over his eyes again.
"Tsukiyomi," she said with a snarl. "Astral integrity damage. We'll need a skilled psychic surgeon to repair the damage inflicted." She looked up at Guy, who was waving unsteadily on his feet. "And you? How many Gates did you open?"
"...seven," the man said slowly. Sakura stood up and inexorably marched towards him. He screamed as she placed her hand on his shoulder, flinching under the gentle pressure.
"You shredded every muscle in both arms and most of them in your legs, how are you even
standing?" Sakura shook her head. "
Magna Cura." Sakura seemed to slump a little as the jutsu healed Guy's injuries. The man stretched up and grinned.
"A most youthful jutsu!" He grinned and gave her a thumbs up, light glinting off his teeth.
"Yes, well, every time I use it on the same person it gets harder," Sakura said as she steadied herself. "And it does nothing about the damage opening that many gates did to your chakra system. So if you try to open even one for the rest of today, you'll probably die."
"Remarkable!" Guy began to bounce in place and shadow-box, his fists snapping through the air so fast they made soft bang sounds and half of them Sasuke couldn't even see. "Truly an amazing power. To have developed your mahoujutsu to aid others is a wonderful thing!"
Sakura waved the praise aside as she walked over to Sasuke and helped him to his feet. Her eyes traced along his body. "Fatigue toxin buildup and repetitive strain injuries. Nothing major. Chakra exhaustion, I take it?"
Sasuke frowned at her, wondering what her game was. "Of course," he said.
"Not much I can do about that," she said. There was a flash of pink light that traced down his body and as it faded he felt marginally better. Again, she seemed to blink and waver a bit. "I've cleared the toxins from your system," she explained. "Your chakra system will need time to convert more metabolic energy into chakra. That's beyond my ability to speed up and I'd not want to anyway."
She looked at Guy. "Sensei Guy, I need to find Ino, right away."
"Ino." Guy rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I'm afraid I haven't seen her since her most youthful rescue of her comrades from the fight with the enemy nin."
Sakura clutched her hands into fists and her hair seemed to wave in an unseen breeze. "I lost her signal. She's in a lot of trouble and we need to find her!"
"Perhaps the enemy nin knows?" Guy pointed at the crack running up the Hokage mountain. "I left one of them over there, but the other got away."
Sakura opened her mouth.
She closed it.
"You don't do things by half measures," she said finally. "Somebody ought to go check on Kisame to make certain he didn't escape. That guy is tough and not to be underestimated."
"Ah!" Guy smacked the bottom of his fist into his palm. "Good idea! Might Guy, away!" He vanished in a flicker of pseudo-motion.
"What's your game, Sakura?" Sasuke said. He felt better after her treatment, but still unnaturally weak. It wasn't quite as bad as after confronting the One Tail, but still his body felt like it could barely move.
"Game?" she looked at him. "Listen, I have to go find Ino. I'm not kidding when I say she's in a lot of danger right now."
"Danger?" Sasuke narrowed his eyes.
"Kabuto did something to her. I think he infected her with a cursed seal of some kind."
"Cursed seal? Like that thing Orochimaru was supposed to try and put on me in the Forest?"
"Yeah, now, unless you can track her down with-"
Sasuke grabbed her wrist. "Don't play ignorant with me!" Sasuke snapped. "What are you playing at? You think you can humiliate me by dealing so casually with Itachi? And what do you mean by further augmentations?"
Sakura's eyes widened. "Sasuke... I have no idea what you're talking about. I've been trying to track Ino down for the last five minutes. I certainly am not suicidal enough to take on your brother by myself. Heck, I'd be hesitant to do it with Kakashi, Guy and the Hokage at my back."
"Because he's scary?" Sasuke said.
"...not the term I'd use, but sure."
"Enough. I don't care about getting in trouble with the Hokage. You show up, pretending to be some man in black, train me for two months in your no time zone-"
"Woah, slow down? I what?" She was gazing at him again. Her eyes widened. "You really are... almost two months older?"
"I went through hell, all by myself in that abyss and it
still wasn't enough to beat Itachi!" Sasuke pulled her closer. "So tell me, what I need to do to defeat him!"
"Sasuke!" She pulled away, yanking herself free with disturbing ease. It was easy to forget that despite her slight frame she was freakishly strong. "I didn't do any such thing today. Trust me. I couldn't even if I wanted to. I can't leave people 'alone' in my Time Out zone even if I wanted to. Plus, if I go into Time Out every single mahoujutsu I'm maintaining outside of the zone ceases to function instantly, and right now the last thing I can afford is losing access to all those spells..."
Sasuke stared into her eyes, but he couldn't read any deception there. Then again, she was
very good at lying. She had fooled him and everyone for over a decade about her true nature. Yet... when he had looked at that other man, even after he had been given the ability to see and dispel genjutsu...
"Sasuke, who helped you?" Sakura asked softly.
"He called himself Hazama," Sasuke said, lowering his hand to his side. "He wore foreign clothes, all in black and a small brimmed hat..."
"A fedora..." Sakura said, shaking her head slightly. "No, that's impossible. He's a
fiction."
"Sasuke, Sakura!" Asuma landed beside them with a crunch. "Are you both okay?"
"Sarutobi," Sakura said. "We're okay."
"Kakashi?" Asuma crouched next to him.
"Physically fine, but severe mental damage. He needs a genius psychic surgeon," Sakura said with some bitterness. She looked around. "Where are Ino and her team?"
Asuma grimaced and stood up. "I was hoping either of you knew about her. Her team is at the hospital." He winced and flexed his shoulders. "It took a few minutes for Shikamaru to cut me free from the chains so I lost track of Kabuto and that other guy."
"Other guy?"
"Black clothes, small hat, green hair." Asuma frowned. "Bad attitude."
"Hazama..." Sakura said softly.
"You know him?"
Sakura looked at Sasuke. Sasuke looked at Asuma. "He helped us fight off Itachi."
"Helped you?" Asuma stared at him for a moment then shook his head. "Whoever he is, he's an enemy nin. He kidnapped Ino right in front of me!"
Sakura grit her teeth and looked down. Then threw back her head. "What the fuck is going on!" She lashed out, smashing her fist into the side of the crater hard enough to send a crack up the earth. "He can't be real... he can't be..."
"Sakura, do you know this man?" Asuma asked seriously. "His jutsu... it was disturbingly similar to yours."
"He's a fiction, a made up character, no more real than a character from a story!" Sakura slashed her hand through the air. "Someone is fucking with me. Itachi? He was able to get into the database or a moment... no, not his style." She rubbed her chin. "Who else? Nobody else should even know that name..."
Her head snapped up. "Okay. This is getting out of hand. It's time to cut our losses and regroup."
"Cut your losses?" Asuma asked.
"First Hinata and now Ino and the appearance of 'Hazama'? Somebody is playing me. I have to get the both of them back, now."
"I'm going with you," Sasuke said.
"You're going nowhere," Asuma said. "Neither of you are."
"He's right. It's time to drop the Hokage on this. I'm pulling the other genin back. This isn't a game I want to play."
"Genin?" Asuma asked.
"In pursuit of Hinata's kidnappers," Sakura said. "But that isn't important now."
"You're abandoning Hinata?" Sasuke asked.
"Oh no. Hinata was never really in any danger. I just hate playing one of my trump cards so quickly." She walked away, placing a finger on her ears. She took a deep breath. "Sai, hard abort. Get me a location, now."
"Who the hell is Sai?" Sasuke asked in frustration.
*
This is a story.
Once there was a boy, who was raised by an unkind man.
He was forced to do a bad thing to his brother. The man thought it killed the boy's heart.
Yet in the depths of the night, when the nightmares came, a girl arrived.
She told the boy that she had been watching. She told the boy that his brother was not dead. The boy's brother had been saved in a sleep that was like death. One that even the man's many servants could not see through.
She took the boy to his brother. The boy wept as they embraced.
The girl told him that she needed his help. He could leave if he wanted. She would get both of them away from the bad man.
But the man would trust the boy now. He would depend on the boy's dead heart. If he helped her, then no boy or his brother would ever go through the same thing again.
The boy would have to pretend. The boy would have to act like his heart was dead. It was a great task, and very dangerous.
The boy owed her everything. He agreed.
So he told the man a story, every day of his life.
That was the thing about stories.
They weren't always true.
*
Hinata snapped her head up from her examination of Ino's body. Her Byakugan was still active and she could see beyond Danzo. Nobody else was paying attention to the boy with the shifting images on his porcelain mask. Danzo and everyone else were too busy trying to find where 'Hazama' had vanished to. The images on the boy's mask had changed from random patterns to simple kanji.
Five... four...
Hinata blinked and then pulled Ino up into her arms. Just as she finished, there was a series of explosions around her. The ink-mice detonated all at once. The fuinjutsu seals carried on their backs were shredded.
To his credit, Danzo reacted quickly. He barely twitched when the air filled with kunai and shuriken, all aimed at Hinata this time.
"Kaiten!" The heavenly spin expelled chakra from her body as she rotated, deflecting all attacks. Doing it was difficult at the best of times. She didn't have her cousin Neji's natural genius. It had only been after years of grueling effort she had ever managed to pull of the jutsu.
"I can't make you a keep struggling," Sakura had said as she knelt next to Hinata during one of those many, many times she had been on the verge of giving up.
"The only one who can make you stand up is you. So if you want to stop here, I'll never hold it against you."
And then every time she had laid on the floor, her body feeling like lead and her lungs burning like acid, she had remembered blond hair, blue eyes, whisker marks and that he
never gave up. If he, who couldn't even do a simple clone kept struggling? How could she do less?
So when she tried to do the Kaiten when carrying another body, a jutsu that even Neji should not have been able to pull off, she knew she could not fail. At best, the pulse of chakra should have sent Ino's body flying away from her. At worst, it would rip it to shreds if she held on too tightly.
So when failure was unthinkable, the only choice was success.
The bridge beneath her feet was shredded and she was now in free fall. Somehow, she had managed to eject the chakra only from her back. The effect was less powerful than a full strength Kaiten, but enough for a bunch of mundane weapons.
"System; activate," Hinata said breathless in the heartbeat before she landed. She felt her bulky jacket shift and melt, before snapping back into place. She never liked this activated suit. It was far too revealing for her tastes, but there was a time for modesty and this wasn't it.
She landed in a crouch over Ino and there was a series of cracks as more weapons bounced off a field of overlapping glowing hexagons that formed between her and the attacks.
"The shield was repaired?" Danzo said, turning to the Yamanaka beside him in a fury.
"I... the report said..."
Danzo backhanded him. "Get her, get them both!"
Then the air filled with flashes of pink light and three figures dropped out of circular mandalas to form a perimeter around Hinata. Sakura, Sasuke and Asuma crouched. Anbu on the bridge rushed their formation and Asuma and Sasuke moved. Asuma slid to guard two bridges while Sasuke and Sakura took one each. The sudden press of ninja all around her created a din of metal on metal.
"Hinata, switch!" Sakura called over her shoulder. Hinata slid off Ino and skated across the wooden planks. Sakura backflipped over her and landed next to the girl, dropping to one knee and placing a hand on her back. Hinata pushed up, driving out one hand which caught one of the Root in the gut. He staggered back, clutching the gentle first wound.
Hinata should have been no match for four Anbu, but with the nanosuit and force field augmenting her strength and speed geometrically and allowing her to ignore all but the most dangerous jutsu she could afford to concentrate entirely on attack, overwhelming her opponents with sheer speed and letting their blades deflect off the rapidly appearing hexagons of the exofield belt.
"No, damn... her body is rejecting the natural chakra!" Sakura said. "It's going to turn to stone unless we can draw it out!"
"How do we do that?" Asuma grunted. He made hand seals and a burst of wind exploded in front of him, sending the masked figures on the two bridges he was holding back staggering and bouncing kunai and shuriken out of the air.
"We can't. I'll have to bring in the others." Sakura looked up, eyes locking on the passageway which the Sound Nin were standing in. They seemed content to just watch for now. The remains of the bridge hung from the end of the passage and waved down in the well. Sakura pointed at them.
They tensed but were entirely unprepared as a shimmering rectangle appeared behind them. They were even less prepared when a white clad figure burst out of it, already spinning. "Kaiten!" Neji called. In a flash the sound Nin were smashed against the walls of the passage. Neji came to a stop, one foot sliding precariously over the edge as he swayed drunkenly.
Four of the Sound Nin groaned as they began to push off the walls just as a blonde and orange army poured out and began to swarm over them. There was a white flash as Kimimaro landed upside down on the bridge two levels up. Kabuto was with him.
Something passed between them. Hinata was too distracted to see exactly what.
The army of Naruto began to vanish in clouds of smoke as the Sound Nin overcame their surprise and began to fight back. Neji leapt down, landing behind the crowd that Sasuke was fighting. Suddenly fighting on two fronts, the Anbu split their attention. Sasuke breathed a sigh of relief as his pressure halved.
A green missile launched out of the portal, flying across the well. "Konoha Hurricane!" he cried as he dropped into one of the groups fighting Asuma with a flying sweep kick. The Anbu scattered back and Lee rose to his feet, one hand behind his back and the other held up in a taunting gesture.
Two more figures emerged, running to the edge. TenTen staggered a bit, looking woozy, but seemed to force the feeling aside. Shino didn't show any reaction. The two reached the edge and leapt out into the void of the well.
"Shino!" Sakura cried out. "I need your kikaichu!"
He nodded and spun in place. He landed on the far side of the well and pushed off towards her. The ninja above rained kunai down on him, having recovered enough from the unconventional entrance to bring them back to the attack. The air filled with metallic clashes as TenTen spun, one of her scrolls unfurling and sending out dozens of weapons that somehow intercepted most of the attacks.
Shino landed next to Sakura, clutching one of his shoulders which was bleeding slightly. Hinata could see another half dozen shallow wounds.
"You need to draw out the natural chakra from her system, can you do that?" Sakura said, grabbing Shino's shoulder. Pink light and rainbow sparks emerged between her fingers as his wound vanished.
"Natural chakra..." Shino adjusted his glasses. "If my kikaichu absorb that..."
"You'll petrify a lot of your swarm," Sakura said grimly. "But if you don't, Ino will
die." Sakura took a deep breath. "I can't affect chakra directly. You're the only hope she has." Without saying another word Shino hovered his hand over Ino's body. "The neck," Sakura said.
A black buzzing cloud descended out of Shino's sleeve and clumped over Ino's neck, forming a growing black bubble that seethed grotesquely as Hinata watched.
There was a loud woof of pain as Naruto went flying out of the passage above. "Naruto!" Hinata cried but need not have worried, as the boy managed to recover in mid air. With a frantic hand sign he summoned a chain of clones which dragged him onto the bridge. Four Root Nin stood between her and him and Hinata frowned, wondering how quickly she could carve through them to get to his side.
"Enough of this," Danzo called from above them. "You think a handful of genin and a exhausted jonin are enough to save you?" He stared down at them disdainfully. The Sound Nin in the passage had recovered and were now looming dangerously. The portal Sakura had created still shimmered behind them, but they acted like they knew no more help was coming from that direction.
"So, I drew you out after all," Sakura said as she rose to her feet. Beside her Shino's swarm was ejecting small pellets which Hinata realized were petrified bugs. "I guess luck is on my side for once."
"I have forty special jounin level ninja here," Danzo said placidly. "Not to mention myself and my bodyguards. If you fight I am sure you and your little friends will put up a valiant struggle... and then you will all die."
"You're right," Sakura said, smiling up at him. "Even I can't change odds that dire."
"So why throw away your life?" Danzo's smile was thin and venomous. "Whatever foolish scheme you have concocted to try and turn these genin against the village is nothing more than paranoia. I have no wish to kill any of you. You could be a valuable asset to Konoha. Properly controlled, focused, directed... you would be an exceptional ninja. You don't need to die here. It would be a waste. Of course, we would have to take precautions that you wouldn't make a habit of trying to turn against your fellow Leaf nin again."
"And if I surrender to your tender mercies, what happens to my friends?" Sakura asked in a mocking tone.
"It's obvious that they've been manipulated by you. Even the Hokage's own son... such a shame. You seem to have some almost unnatural influence over them all."
Sakura's fingers curled and uncurled as she spoke. "And the Sound Nin?"
"I was in the middle of negotiating Hinata's release when you blundered in so clumsily. Of course my men reacted violently."
"Now why don't I believe you?" Sakura asked in obvious disbelief. "I don't think you have any intention of letting any of them live. Especially Hiruzen's son." She chuckled and Danzo's frown twitched. "I must admit, you're a crafty old dodger. I never imagined you'd use your connection with Uchiha Itachi to draw him in as a distraction for your actual plan. Nor that you'd sacrifice the Oto military to tie up Konoha's military force outside the village."
"Connection?" Sasuke said, snapping his eyes to Sakura. The fighting on the bridges had paused, everyone waiting to see what would happen next. "To Itachi?"
Sakura smiled. "Yes. You didn't really think your brother did the massacre all on his own, did you? Someone in Konoha had to keep the rest of the Anbu from noticing all night." She pointed. "Meet the co-conspirator in chief. The man really behind what happened to your clan."
"Is this true?" Sasuke shouted.
"Danzo, you can't really..." Asuma said softly.
"Fancies and cobwebs," Danzo said evenly. "She's clutching at straws now to justify treason."
"If that's true, why don't you show us what is under those bandages?" Sakura crossed her arms.
"I think I have had enough of this." Danzo frowned down at her. "I've been more than generous considering you attacked high level Leaf nin as nothing more than a genin, but if you do not throw down your weapons now, I will be forced to make you."
"You know the difference between me and you, Danzo?" Sakura sounded playful. Danzo didn't respond, but his men were shifting in place, preparing weapons and jutsu. "We're both manipulative bastards who cheat like crazy to win no matter the odds." Naruto seemed to flinch at that and even Hinata gave Sakura a brief double take. "But you've been plotting against me for, what, a month?" Sakura smiled. "I've been planning for this moment for
ten years."
"Your point?" Danzo said with forced nonchalance.
"My point is that you think you have control over all your faceless drones. So faceless you don't even notice the differences between them anymore." Sakura grinned. "They walk around everywhere. They guard your bases, your weapon dumps, your labs... your food."
Danzo spun around, but of course the faceless boy was no longer behind him. "Stop her-" he began but Sakura cut him off by snapping her fingers.
One by one the blank-masked Anbu began to fall to their knees. Many clutched their stomachs. Others grabbed at their heads. Some cried out in pain. Within seconds forty elite ninja were piled up on the bridges, their bodies prostate.
A black flicker appeared behind Sakura. The ink-masked boy, kneeling with one fist on the ground. "Mission complete, mistress."
"Sai, how many times have I asked you not to call me that?" Sakura said with a sigh. "And take off that mask."
"Yes, mistress." The boy removed the mask, revealing his unnaturally pale but very pretty face. "Did I do well?"
"Perfect. He never suspected a thing," Sakura reached out and ruffled the boy's hair. He smiled slightly at the treatment.
"Sakura, all those men..." Asuma asked with an aghast look.
"Alive." Sakura looked at him. "Unlike SnakeDie, the nano venom in their food supply only disrupts their neurotransmitters. They'll wake up in a few days with
massive hangovers." Her grin grew viciously amused.
"YOU!" Danzo whirled to look up at Kabuto, who was still standing underneath the bridge two levels above Hinata. "You examined all my men and told me nothing like this could happen!"
Kabuto grinned and adjusted his glasses. "I'm a ninja. I lied."
Danzo glanced around at the forces arrayed against him. Perhaps wisely he began to turn, his two bodyguards (the only ninja he had still standing) began to form up around him.
"He's getting away!" Sasuke shouted.
"No, he isn't," Sakura said with a smile.
"Gatsuga!"
The darkness behind Danzo exploded into a swirl of rainbow sparks. Two figures emerged from those rainbow petals, already spinning up. Clouds of chakra smoke trailed them as they drilled through the air. The two ninja leapt away, deflecting the blows upward. Even they couldn't stop the momentum of the strikes and were forced to leap away from Danzo or go plummeting into the well.
Danzo turned as two images of Kiba came out of their spin and landed on all fours against the walls of the well. He dropped his cane and reached for the bandages covering his face. Then a kunai slid up under his chin and pressed against his carotid.
"Sensei!" Shino called out.
"Kurenai!" Asuma gasped.
"No way! I broke her neck!" Jirobo shouted.
"We're ninja-" Sakura began.
"-we lie," Kurenai finished.
"Hidden in a genjutsu all along," Kimimaro said. "Clever."
The bodyguards were standing on the wall as well, readying attacks. The gate behind the Sound Nin pulsed and a white streak flew out of it and landed between them. With a double chop to the back of their necks, both men went limp. Hiashi grabbed them before they could plummet and tossed them onto the pile of unconscious Anbu.
"Sloppy," he said. "These two never ate your poisoned rations."
Sakura shrugged. "I can't get at the ones who are seeded in the general population without also knocking out half the village."
"Daughter," Hiashi said, looking at her.
"Father," Hinata responded.
"You did well." He looked at Sakura and threw her a scroll. "It looks like you hardly need it, but the Hokage said you could have this."
Sakura caught the scroll and passed it to Hinata. "Unseal those, would you? I'm bad at fuinjutsu."
Hinata smiled and unfurled the scroll across a large section of unoccupied bridge. She made the release seal and a massive sword, a cloak and a harness appeared on it. Sakura knelt and began to put on the harness, whistling to herself.
"I wouldn't so much as twitch if I were you," Kurenai said to Danzo. "None of us are going anywhere until the Hokage arrives and settles this matter."
"The girl is playing you all," Danzo said. His chin tilted up as Kurenai shifted her blade. "She arranged everything, she arranged all this!"
There was a snap as Asuma lit a cigarette. "You know, Dad always told me you could wriggle out of any hole you were buried in. It's amazing seeing it up close." He glanced up at Kimimaro and Kabuto then at the four Sound nin waiting in the passage where the portal had finally blinked closed. "The only question is, what happens to these guys. Technically, we're at war."
"And they did attack us unprovoked," Kurenai added.
Kimimaro and Kabuto flickered and appeared with the other Sound Nin. "We are going nowhere without that girl," the pale-skinned and noble-looking ninja said as he pointed at Ino. A small pile of grey pebbles was growing around the girl's head as Shino's swarm continued to buzz, now covering most of her head and shoulders like some disturbing egg sack.
Sakura threw her cloak over her shoulders and pulled up her sword with one hand, running one hand lovingly down its length. "Let's never part again," she said to it. Then she pointed the blade at the Sound nin. "And none of you are going anywhere until I find out who this Hazama is!"
"Why not just ask me?"
Everyone looked up. There was a man leaning over the bridge two levels above them. He was really there this time, Hinata could tell. She gazed at him with her Byaku-
-
Outside. She was Outside-
-a vast and tenebrous gulf of time-
-a silver cord running out behind her-
-some hideous shore ahead-
-the world small and twinkling as it receded-
-an the piping of the flutes-
-it was so close, so huge in her vision-
-that writhing dancing revel-
-not close. Not close at all. But huge-
-larger than the world-
-larger than everything-
-and from it came a messenger-
-crawling towards her-
-the silver cord was frayed and breaking!
-crawling-
With a snap Hinata felt herself slam back into her body. She screamed and clutched her eyes, trying to block out that final vision. She curled up and sobbed. She could hear two more voices crying out as well.
"Hinata!" Sakura grabbed her, pulling her into an embrace. "Hinata, what's wrong? What did you
see?"
Hinata gasped and sobbed, refusing to open her eyes. That hideous shore. That mad revel. The crawling
thing. There were no words for it. It was madness! She could only try to bury it, bury it deep.
"Her hair, what happened to her hair!?" Kiba was shouting.
"It's... gone white..." Naruto said softly. He was kneeling beside her, but she could take no joy in his concern.
"Neji? Hiashi?" Sakura asked.
"I have Neji," Lee said. "He's... not well."
"I... am okay..." Father said stiffly. "I cut off the Byakugan before..." He trailed off. "But what I saw."
"So many interesting eyes on this world," Hazama's voice was full of false sweetness. "And nobody ever likes what they see."
Hinata managed to force her eyes open. Sakura was leaning over her, concern on her features. Naruto was slightly back, glancing between her and Hazama. And Hazama...
He was walking away from the bridge, stepping on small green circles of light as he floated in mid air. No, not walking. He was dancing. Dancing to some unheard sound. Like piping. Hinata grabbed her ears and whimpered.
"What did you do to her!?" Sakura roared, turning to face the man.
"I just showed her the truth. That's what those eyes were meant to see, right?" He chuckled darkly as he continued dancing down a phantom staircase. "You're not going to ask me who I am? That's what everyone around here is obsessed with. Names. What a farce."
"You can't exist," Sakura said. "You're a figment of the imagination, nothing more!"
"Says the girl clutching another figment to her chest so preciously," the man said with mock sadness. "Face it, everyone here is nothing more than a figment of your imagination. Why can't I be just as real as the rest of them?"
"Because you're a story!" Sakura shouted back. "There is no way this world and that one..."
"Oh really?" He grinned and doffed his hat, opening his eyes a fraction to show mad green orbs beneath. "You know
everything that can be, do you?"
Sakura bit back a response and then rose, pulling her sword up with her. "Why appear in that face? Why show yourself now?"
"Well, new town, new suit." He adjusted his lapels sharply. "What do you think, stylish, right? I mean, I myself prefer an Egyptian one, but nobody here even knows what that is. So first time visiting I have to pick a new look. And since you invited me in, I had to pick an outfit from your selection.
"And when it comes to the most manipulative bastards you can imagine it was either this or Ohtori and I don't think either of us wants to deal with the implications that has between that look and underage pink haired girls."
Sakura's grip on her sword tightened. "Egyptian..." Her skin went pale and her body began to tremble. Hinata had never seen Sakura tremble before. She didn't even know the girl
could.
"Oh, oh, I think she's figuring it out, ladies and gentleman in the audience." He spun in place and danced down the last few steps to the bridge. "Oh, please allow me to introduce myself..." he sang as he landed. "I'm a man, of wealth and taste. Been around for a long long year, stole many a man's soul and faith..."
Sakura stepped back, her jaw opening. Hinata and the others could only stare, the words of the song seemed to be some other language, but she understood it perfectly.
"I was round when Jesus Christ had his moment of doubt and pain, made damn sure that Pilate washed his hands and sealed his fate." He spun with one final flourish and bowed, hat held to the side.
"Pleased to meet you, hope you guessed my name. But what's puzzling you is the nature of my game."
*
As usual, thanks to
@Robo Jesus for the beta work and idea bouncing. This chapter went through multiple rewrites. Time to see
exactly how much bullshit people are willing to put up with is. The plan is to have the last chapter of this arc out by new years.
