- Location
- Versailles
God, I just love this Orochimaru. The fact that he seems to believe his whole speech (even if it is only indoctrination), just makes it better
The Need to Become Stronger
- Thread starter Sophronius
- Start date
RazorSmile
ROB Used To Be A Knife Missile
This version of Orochimaru is hilarious. Very self-aware.
Chapter 53: The Temporality of Pointless Things
- Location
- Netherlands
I'm glad you guys like Orochimaru! I spent a lot of time trying to get his character just right - I love writing him, but was a bit worried I might end up making him too over the top.
One thing I think is genuinely great about Naruto is the wealth of antagonists, all of whom have their own motivation and character. In general I think Kishi went a bit too far in trying to redeem all his villains, but that's also what makes Oro unique: He is that rare example of a card-carrying villain who remains evil even after you learn about his backstory and motivations, and that makes him all the more interesting to write. I think a lot of modern authors make the mistake of thinking that in order to make a villain 'realistic' you have to make them the hero of their own story (e.g. Thanos), and I just don't think that's true at all.
Anyway, new chapter!
Chapter 53: The Temporality of Pointless Things
"We need to discuss how to move forward in our relations with the Leaf," one of the Sunagakure council members declared. "Our alliance with them may technically still be in place, but we'd be fools to think that our relationship has not changed. It would be best to assume the worst and move our troops to the border in preparation for war."
There was a general murmur of assent at this proclamation.
Temari gazed through the veil of her Kazekage hat and looked at the man who had spoken. Like most members of the Sunagakure Honoured Opinion Watch, Sajō was an older ninja, having retired from front-line duty a long time ago, and like nearly every single person in that room other than herself, he was male, wore a white turban, and was completely useless.
"We do not have the military strength to win a war against the Leaf," she explained as calmly as she could. "It was already a mistake to engage them in the first place, and now with father and Lady Chiyo gone it's even more hopeless." She remembered Uzumaki Naruto's final words to her back in the Leaf. He had warned her that they were being manipulated by Akatsuki even as Kankuro was trying to kill him. He had told her that Gaara's death was the fault of her own refusal to acknowledge reality, and that her father and brother would die soon after if she did not learn from her mistake.
And now her father was dead, her brother was captured, and it was all the fault of...
"I agree," said Yūra, tugging absently on his black goatee. The hated traitor was sitting right next to her at the oval council table, as if he were her trusted security advisor and not the person she wanted to strangle to death more than anything in the world. "In fact," he continued, "our perceived weakness could turn out to be a hidden strength if it makes the Leaf less inclined to see us as a threat. It's the Akatsuki who we should be focussing on."
"That's right," said Baki, completely oblivious to the fact that he was agreeing with the enemy. Temari's former teacher was the closest thing she had to an actual friend on the council, but he had an unfortunate tendency to defer to the views of more senior members. "Forget the Leaf: I want to know what we're going to do about the man who killed our previous Kazekage!"
"We don't know where Sasori of the Red Sand is hiding," Temari said, her voice barely a whisper. "We cannot move against them until we do." The fact that Yūra was the one pushing them to make peace with the Leaf did not escape her. Rule wisely and act to preserve the peace. Those words from Sasori kept running through her mind as she tried to make sense of it all. It could not actually be the case that Akatsuki was genuinely trying to make the world a better place, could it? No, it had to be a plot somehow, a means to an end she could not yet foresee.
It was all she could do not to keep staring at Yūra. In her mind's eye, she once again saw him thrusting that dagger into her father's neck. The look of shock in Rasa's eyes as he could not quite comprehend what was happening to him. The blade, twisting in his spine...
Beneath the table, Temari's knuckles whitened.
There was a cough from the opposite end of the table: It was Jōseki, a man who looked almost like a clone of the first council member who had spoken, except he was even older, wore an even bigger turban, and was even more obnoxious. "With all due respect," he said in a tone that made it clear he intended none, "are you saying that you do not intend to strike back against either the Leaf or Akatsuki? That we should simply lower our heads and permit our enemies to assassinate our Kage with impunity whenever they feel like it?"
Temari ignored the murmurs of assent from the other council members and narrowed her eyes at the one who had spoken. "That Kage was my father. Do you think I care less about his death than you do?"
Jōseki raised his hands in a soothing gesture. "Forgive me, Princess Temari. We understand of course that this is a difficult time for you emotionally, but you must remember that you do not have to face this terrifying enemy alone. If you do not feel ready to pursue the necessary course of action at this present time, then you can always lean on the rest of us to do what must be done. I think I speak for everyone present when I say that we are all prepared to support you and the Sand every step of the way."
Several of the other council members were nodding rather strongly at this, and some even looked like they wanted to burst out in applause, seemingly oblivious to what the old politician was really saying.
"That's enough!" Yūra rose from his seat, brushing his black bangs out of his eyes in a perfectly feigned angry gesture. "Temari-sama is not a princess, she is the Kazekage, and she is fully prepared to lead this country in its hour of need. Don't forget that it was this very council that appointed her in the first place." Some of the other council members looked embarrassed as he said this.
"Of course not," Jōseki said, somehow managing to sound even more obnoxious than before. "But you must also remember the unique circumstances in which she was appointed." He folded his hands together as he cast his gaze around the table. "It would not be inaccurate to say that Temari-sama was not merely the best but also the only candidate for the seat, after that terrible attack which left her father and Lady Chiyo dead and her brother missing, and only the two of you found wounded but alive in the wreckage of that battle..."
His voice trailed off, and this time there were no nods or cheers at all, only stares directed at Temari and Yūra from across the table, stares which increasingly held a trace of suspicion.
"How dare you," Yūra whispered. His young eyes were full of quiet fury, with a sincerity so intense that it almost made Temari forget that it was all a lie. She could easily see how even a cynical and jaded man might be taken in by eyes like that, imagining that he at last had found someone amongst the younger generation who could be pushed to a position of leadership despite his low birth. A promising young man who he might take a chance with in defiance of the council, even at personal risk to himself...
"I can understand your criticism of me," Yūra continued, gritting his teeth. "The fact that I was only able to save one of the Kazekage's children is a shame I will never be able to erase. But the idea that you would blame Temari-sama for being unable to sacrifice herself to save her father, when after all I was the one who forced her to hide despite her pleas... that's unforgivable!"
"Yūra," Temari said, very softly. "If you don't stop talking, I will kill you."
The head of security turned to look at her, seemingly dumfounded. "Kazekage-sama? Forgive me, I did not mean to speak out of turn. Only, I cannot bring myself to stay silent when your honour is being impugned by-"
Temari exploded out of her seat, her hand flying towards Yūra's neck before she even knew what she was doing. She felt her fingers clasp around his throat and then she was slamming his head down onto the table with a loud and satisfying crack. The next she knew she was straddling his chest, her knees digging sharply into his ribs as she squeezed his throat with both hands. There was a look of sheer terror in the young man's eyes, though for all she knew that was feigned as well.
"People like you always think that this world is run by rules," she said, ignoring the looks of abject shock from the rest of the council. "You think in terms of logic and cause and effect and consequences, of principles and regulations and incentives as if they're an actual physical thing. But none of those things are real. They're just make-believe, stuff you made up to help you make sense of the world." She leaned down to whisper into Yūra's ear. "Right now you're thinking that I can't kill you because it wouldn't make any sense for me to do it, but that's just another lie. There is nothing stopping me from killing you, do you understand? Nothing. If I let you live, it's because I choose to, and that's all there is to it."
Yūra's entire face was swollen red, and he just barely managed to choke out a few words. "Yes... Kazekage-sama."
"Good." Temari let go of the traitorous advisor, allowing him to drop to the floor. She got off the table and straightened her white Kazekage robes, suddenly feeling a lot better about herself. She stared Jōseki in the eyes, who looked visibly rattled. "You must forgive me, esteemed council members. I am only a young woman after all, and we are known to act on emotion and impulse rather than reason. It tends to make us a bit... unpredictable." She smiled at him, showing teeth. "We'll still be able to work together in the future though, won't we?"
"Yes," Jōseki said, swallowing thickly. None of those old dotards had trained or fought as real ninjas in over a decade, Temari reminded herself. Compared to Sasori of the Red Sand, they were nothing. "Of course, Kazekage-sama."
"I'm glad to hear it. In that case, this meeting is now adjourned." Temari strode out of the council meeting, ignoring the stares that followed her, ignoring the four green Kazekage statues in the back of the room which she imagined looking down at her with disapproval. I don't care what you all think, she thought to herself. I'm going to find a way to save my brother, and I can't do that from a position of weakness. She remembered sitting in that torture-puppet alongside Kankuro, all her bravado leaving her the moment those spikes were pointed at her, only to be replaced by mind-numbing terror. I refuse to feel that way ever again... I refuse! I'm a person, not some animal waiting to be butchered.
As she traversed the winding beige corridors of the Kazekage tower she could hear footsteps approaching behind he. She did not need to turn around to know who it was.
"You certainly are your father's daughter," Baki sighed as he caught up to her. "I don't suppose there's any point in asking you what that was all about?"
"None whatsoever," Temari said, smiling slightly as she walked.
She felt his hand on her shoulder, but there was no force there: Only the gentle yet firm suggestion to stop. She sighed and turned around. Her former teacher had taken off his veiled turban, and the lines on his face made the gruff jōnin look like he had aged several years in the last few days.
"I know I'm not very good at this," he said, looking distinctly uncomfortable. "I've never had any skill at politics, and I've always suspected that your father liked that about me more than anything else." He was fiddling with the turban in his hands, looking almost like an academy student who knew he had done something wrong. It was oddly endearing, somehow. "I don't really know how to advise you on anything that matters right now, but in my heart I'll always be your teacher, so if you need to talk..."
"Oh Baki," she sighed. Before she knew it she had wrapped the older man in a hug, and the jōnin commander stiffened in surprise, not quite knowing how to respond. "You're a good person," she said. She burrowed her head in his chest for a moment, taking the time to savour the feeling of another heart beating along with hers, before pulling back with a wistful smile. "But right now, I'm glad I'm not."
Baki scratched his head. "I don't think I'm that good either. I'm still an assassin, you know. I kill people."
"I'll remember that for when I need someone killed," she said, still smiling. "But right now I need a moment to myself, okay?"
Baki nodded, and she retreated to her chambers. She noticed as she closed the door behind her that Yūra had been following her from a distance, but she ignored him. What was he going to do - set off the explosive needle in her brain and lose the puppet-Kage his master had taken such pains to install? Kill her brother and lose his only other bargaining chip? He had something she wanted, yes, but so did she.
She tossed off her white Kazekage robes and headgear, dumping them onto the floor in a moment of almost childish pique. She took a moment to investigate her chambers, making sure that nobody had tampered with her privacy seals. There were no windows in her office for much the same reason, but that was fine since the gas lamp was always on. It was not as if she did not know what the view outside looked like, anyway. A part of her had thought that upon becoming Kazekage some newfound patriotic love for the Village would awaken within her, but it all still looked drab to her. Endless shades of brown and beige buildings, followed by an endless brown cliff and beyond that an endless brown desert...
Was it treasonous to think that she liked the look of Konoha better?
She sat down on the floor in the centre of the room, once again acting without quite knowing what she was doing. Common sense said that she should just play it safe and do as Yūra told her, as Kankuro had begged her to do, but she also knew that she could never win against someone like Sasori unless she surprised him somehow. If I am rash and unpredictable, then let it work to my advantage. You won't see this move coming, Yūra, I can promise you that.
A thin blade of wind cut her thumb, and a single drop of blood fell down onto the wooden floorboards. Then she formed the seals for her technique: Boar, Dog, Bird, Monkey and Ram, in that order. She focussed her mind on the contract she had signed, not with the beloved spirit companion she had lost to Uchiha Sasuke during the chūnin exams, but the one she had signed with the blood of those she had fought shortly after, so that she could summon them as living puppets for Kankuro to use.
She felt the technique take hold, but of course nothing happened, as this time the target's chakra was not suppressed and so the boy instinctively resisted the attempt. She waited a moment, then cast the technique again. She waited two more moments before the next casting, then one more, then two, then two again...
Long short long long short long...
She spelled out the message in her mind, and so focussed on her task was she that she almost jumped in surprise when the figure suddenly appeared in front of her. Right there, in the midst of the Kazekage's chambers inside the most secure location of Sunagakure, sat the slouched form of Nara Shikamaru.
He glanced around the room. "Huh, so this is where the Kazekage lives. Smaller than I thought." He noticed the white formal robes which lay discarded on the floor. "What, don't like your job?"
"What - what are you doing here?" Temari stared at the sharp faced Nara clan heir, not quite believing her eyes. "I was just sending a message; you weren't supposed to actually let the summon happen!"
"Translating Morse is a pain," the leaf chūnin sighed. He looked at her with a lifeless expression, as if he was half expecting to be killed but could not quite muster up the energy to care. "This is faster."
"But how did you-" She suddenly noticed the insects which had come along with her summon, some of which still clung to the boy's skin. "But then how are you are going to..."
"Naruto will just summon me back in a few minutes." He yawned. "Is this going to take long? I was kinda expecting you to get to the point faster, and I hate getting caught making bad predictions."
"Are you insane? You're in the middle of..." She trailed off, looking at the door and the sealing network which surrounded them. "All right, fine, then here's what we're going to do," she said, thinking quickly. "The moment you're back in Konoha you'll take some blood from either Uzumaki or Uchiha Sasuke – or better yet, your father or Jiraiya of the Sannin. Just drain the chakra from their blood and it'll come along with you when I summon you again. Then I'll sign my contract with their blood so I can-"
"Nope," said Shikamaru. "What, you think they're stupid? None of them would let themselves get summoned into the middle of a hostile Village, not even if it's just a shadow clone."
"But," said Temari, "you're..."
The Nara clan heir sighed. "Fine, I'll spell it out for you." He raised a finger. "Your brother killed Kiba's dog, which means Team Eight would gladly watch you die and not do a thing." He raised a second and third finger. "You killed Lee and Tenten, which means Neji wouldn't give anyone else the time to kill you because he'd do it first." He raised his final two fingers. "Hatake Kakashi and Haruno Sakura died and went missing respectively, and since you guys are partly to blame for that too Team Seven doesn't exactly care for you either."
He lowered his hand. "Basically, everyone in the Leaf hates your guts. The only exception is me, because you didn't kill anyone I cared about. And I was feeling pretty friggin' useless after you guys captured me and used me against Naruto, so I figured I might as well just let myself get summoned here to see if I could make myself useful for once. That's pretty much all there is to it." He shrugged.
Temari gaped at the boy. She could not tell if he was actually that suicidal or if he was just throwing the world's biggest pity party. Either way, she would just have to find a way to use it to her advantage.
"All right," she said, gathering her thoughts. "Here's the situation..."
Kankuro had been walking through the desert for hours now, with no sign of reprieve. The sand stretched endlessly around them, only the occasional rock formation offering the barest of shade against the unrelenting desert sun. Kankuro tried to walk in the shadow of the puppet army which floated above him, but they seemed to drift away each time. It was almost as if their unliving master was doing it on purpose, but Kankuro could not imagine that someone as powerful as Sasori of the Red Sand could possibly be that petty.
Could he?
Kankuro stared at the child-like figure who marched in front of him, though in truth he was not sure if that was even Sasori's real body. For all Kankuro knew the real Sasori was hiding inside that large scorpion-like puppet which always seemed to be floating close to him. Perhaps the famous rogue ninja had never turned himself into a puppet at all, and was only putting on a show for credulous onlookers like Kankuro, laughing and giggling to himself all the while.
After all, the alternative, that he had been captured by a ghost-like apparition, an immortal being whose spirit still haunted the shells of his former creations and drove them on in an endless quest to seek vengeance against the living world which had spited him... that was simply too terrible to consider.
He stumbled through the unending dunes, his tired feet kicking up sand as the sun beat down on him mercilessly. He had his hood up to shield him from the sun, but that did little to make the sweltering heat more bearable. Why oh why did I decide to make my outfit black? I live in the desert! He remembered how Temari had made fun of him for insisting that it would make them look cool and mysterious to the people of Konoha, and the thought brought an altogether different pain to his chest.
"Why," he croaked, when at last he could keep silent no more, "why are we walking?"
The Akatsuki member in front of him turned around, a curious expression in his baleful, haunting dead eyes. "Now what could make you ask such a pointless question? And in direct defiance of my orders not to annoy me... Could it possibly be that you have already grown tired of life and now wish to renege on the verbal agreement you made with me?"
Kankuro blanched. "No, not at all! I was just... just curious, that's all."
"Curiosity is a fine trait to have," Sasori said, his ethereal voice both soothing and terrifying. "As long as you do not let it get the best of you. I so loathe it when people forget what truly matters in life."
"Actually, the kid has a point." The other Akatsuki member, Deidara, swooped down on his white clay bird, and Kankuro breathed a momentary sigh of relief as its massive wings brushed slightly-less-warm air against his face. "Why are you walking? We've got places to be, hm."
Sasori sighed deeply. "Deidara, you need to learn to take the time to appreciate the finer things in life. Take this desert, for example, stretching on forever – does it not bring to mind thoughts of eternity?"
His companion adjusted his broad straw hat to better shield himself from the desert rays, and brushed some of his long blond hair out of his eyes with a huff. "That's funny coming from a man who insists that he hates waiting or making people wait." He pointed at the lone rock spires which dotted the desert landscape. "Your eternity is an illusion, un. Look how the passage of time has weathered those rock formations down to nothing. Don't you think it's poetic how temporality has given them the shape of an hourglass, master Sasori? And when their time is gone, those rocks will fade and turn into the sand around us, just as we will one day fade and turn to dust."
"I suppose it takes a Rock ninja to glean the necessity of death from the shape of stone pillars," Sasori said sardonically. "And I'm not making you wait, I'm trying to get you to slow down and appreciate the beauty of life. Young people like you are always so eager to get to your destination that you don't pay attention to the road you travel."
Deidara scoffed from on top of his white bird. "This is why immortality is a mistake, hm. People need the finality of death to give them that sense of urgency to actually go out and do something, to create art and live a life of excitement and beauty. Your puppets might technically be alive, but there's nothing left of them except hollow shells. Seems to me you took something precious and made it ugly."
It was difficult to read the expressions of Sasori's puppet body, but even so it was hard to miss the dangerous look he shot his companion. "This is exactly why you need immortality, Deidara. Someone like you would need at least a century to learn some wisdom... and you're unlikely to last that long."
Kankuro looked from one Akatsuki member to the other, not daring to say a thing. It was too much to hope that the two of them would fight and kill each other, but he was not about to stop them if they did.
"Hey, what's your opinion, kid?" Deidara looked down at Kankuro to address him. "Who do you think is right, me or master Sasori?"
"Good idea," said Sasori, his voice sounding more ghostly and ominous than ever. "What do you think, apprentice? Does true beauty stem from the temporality of death, or is it found in eternal life?"
Kankuro froze in terror, and not just because the two Akatsuki members were looking at him: In the air above them, every single puppet had turned its head at the same time as Sasori, and their haunting eyes were all staring at Kankuro with a deathly, vacant expression. "I..." he said. "I mean... I don't want my sister to die, and she doesn't want me to die, so I don't see why either of us would want to do that to the other. When people disappear and forget about each other, I don't think that's beautiful at all – I think that's ugly. Real beauty is when people stick together, even when the world dies around them."
The blond Akatsuki member frowned at him from atop his bird. "You're only saying that because you're afraid master Sasori will kill you if you agree with me."
"Of course he is," the puppet master purred, his ethereal voice gaining in vibrato as a hundred haunted puppets spoke along with him, echoing his voice. "Thus proving my point precisely. What a clever lad."
Kankuro gulped. His master seemed to be pleased with him right now, which meant that this might be his best chance for making a request. "Master Sasori," he said, hesitating. "May I ask you something?"
The living puppet raised a single, wooden finger. "One question. No more."
Kankuro swallowed. He should probably have thought about it more carefully, but he could no longer contain himself. "Master Sasori... why did you do it? Why did you kill father? Why join Akatsuki, why make us attack the Leaf, why kill the Third Hokage. Just... why?"
The red haired boy-puppet looked at him with a mildly annoyed expression. "Really - that is your question? You don't want to ask for water, or a straw hat to shield yourself from the sun? Why waste your one favour on something pointless that won't change anything anyway?"
In the air above Sasori, his blond companion shook his head. "It's because his thirst for wisdom exceeds his thirst for water. You would never understand such a wondrous thing as a teen boy's quest for purpose as he comes of age, master Sasori."
Kankuro and Sasori both turned and shot Deidara a death glare, although for different reasons. Shut up! Are you trying to get me killed?
"Fine," said Sasori, and this time it was only his own voice that spoke. As he gazed out across the endless desert, some of his humanity seemed to return to him, and he no longer sounded so ghost-like when he talked. "It's because... I wanted to make this world less painful to look upon."
Kankuro stared at him, waiting for the rest of the answer, but nothing else seemed to be forthcoming. Then the puppet master started walking again, and Kankuro rushed after him, kicking up sand in his effort to keep up. Above him, Deidara's great white bird seemed to be providing him some shade, though whether the rogue Stone ninja was doing it on purpose he did not know.
Kankuro's throat was still as dry as the desert sand, and he began to fervently wish he had just asked for some water instead, but there was a part of him that did not care. Something was pulling faintly on his stomach, like someone trying to tug on him, calling him home. There was a wait, followed by two more pulls, then one, then two more.
Long short long long short long...
In the corner of Kankuro's eyes, a small tear formed, precious water spilling out and dropping down onto the desert sand. It was a very human, pointless thing.
Hey sis.
One thing I think is genuinely great about Naruto is the wealth of antagonists, all of whom have their own motivation and character. In general I think Kishi went a bit too far in trying to redeem all his villains, but that's also what makes Oro unique: He is that rare example of a card-carrying villain who remains evil even after you learn about his backstory and motivations, and that makes him all the more interesting to write. I think a lot of modern authors make the mistake of thinking that in order to make a villain 'realistic' you have to make them the hero of their own story (e.g. Thanos), and I just don't think that's true at all.
Anyway, new chapter!
Chapter 53: The Temporality of Pointless Things
"We need to discuss how to move forward in our relations with the Leaf," one of the Sunagakure council members declared. "Our alliance with them may technically still be in place, but we'd be fools to think that our relationship has not changed. It would be best to assume the worst and move our troops to the border in preparation for war."
There was a general murmur of assent at this proclamation.
Temari gazed through the veil of her Kazekage hat and looked at the man who had spoken. Like most members of the Sunagakure Honoured Opinion Watch, Sajō was an older ninja, having retired from front-line duty a long time ago, and like nearly every single person in that room other than herself, he was male, wore a white turban, and was completely useless.
"We do not have the military strength to win a war against the Leaf," she explained as calmly as she could. "It was already a mistake to engage them in the first place, and now with father and Lady Chiyo gone it's even more hopeless." She remembered Uzumaki Naruto's final words to her back in the Leaf. He had warned her that they were being manipulated by Akatsuki even as Kankuro was trying to kill him. He had told her that Gaara's death was the fault of her own refusal to acknowledge reality, and that her father and brother would die soon after if she did not learn from her mistake.
And now her father was dead, her brother was captured, and it was all the fault of...
"I agree," said Yūra, tugging absently on his black goatee. The hated traitor was sitting right next to her at the oval council table, as if he were her trusted security advisor and not the person she wanted to strangle to death more than anything in the world. "In fact," he continued, "our perceived weakness could turn out to be a hidden strength if it makes the Leaf less inclined to see us as a threat. It's the Akatsuki who we should be focussing on."
"That's right," said Baki, completely oblivious to the fact that he was agreeing with the enemy. Temari's former teacher was the closest thing she had to an actual friend on the council, but he had an unfortunate tendency to defer to the views of more senior members. "Forget the Leaf: I want to know what we're going to do about the man who killed our previous Kazekage!"
"We don't know where Sasori of the Red Sand is hiding," Temari said, her voice barely a whisper. "We cannot move against them until we do." The fact that Yūra was the one pushing them to make peace with the Leaf did not escape her. Rule wisely and act to preserve the peace. Those words from Sasori kept running through her mind as she tried to make sense of it all. It could not actually be the case that Akatsuki was genuinely trying to make the world a better place, could it? No, it had to be a plot somehow, a means to an end she could not yet foresee.
It was all she could do not to keep staring at Yūra. In her mind's eye, she once again saw him thrusting that dagger into her father's neck. The look of shock in Rasa's eyes as he could not quite comprehend what was happening to him. The blade, twisting in his spine...
Beneath the table, Temari's knuckles whitened.
There was a cough from the opposite end of the table: It was Jōseki, a man who looked almost like a clone of the first council member who had spoken, except he was even older, wore an even bigger turban, and was even more obnoxious. "With all due respect," he said in a tone that made it clear he intended none, "are you saying that you do not intend to strike back against either the Leaf or Akatsuki? That we should simply lower our heads and permit our enemies to assassinate our Kage with impunity whenever they feel like it?"
Temari ignored the murmurs of assent from the other council members and narrowed her eyes at the one who had spoken. "That Kage was my father. Do you think I care less about his death than you do?"
Jōseki raised his hands in a soothing gesture. "Forgive me, Princess Temari. We understand of course that this is a difficult time for you emotionally, but you must remember that you do not have to face this terrifying enemy alone. If you do not feel ready to pursue the necessary course of action at this present time, then you can always lean on the rest of us to do what must be done. I think I speak for everyone present when I say that we are all prepared to support you and the Sand every step of the way."
Several of the other council members were nodding rather strongly at this, and some even looked like they wanted to burst out in applause, seemingly oblivious to what the old politician was really saying.
"That's enough!" Yūra rose from his seat, brushing his black bangs out of his eyes in a perfectly feigned angry gesture. "Temari-sama is not a princess, she is the Kazekage, and she is fully prepared to lead this country in its hour of need. Don't forget that it was this very council that appointed her in the first place." Some of the other council members looked embarrassed as he said this.
"Of course not," Jōseki said, somehow managing to sound even more obnoxious than before. "But you must also remember the unique circumstances in which she was appointed." He folded his hands together as he cast his gaze around the table. "It would not be inaccurate to say that Temari-sama was not merely the best but also the only candidate for the seat, after that terrible attack which left her father and Lady Chiyo dead and her brother missing, and only the two of you found wounded but alive in the wreckage of that battle..."
His voice trailed off, and this time there were no nods or cheers at all, only stares directed at Temari and Yūra from across the table, stares which increasingly held a trace of suspicion.
"How dare you," Yūra whispered. His young eyes were full of quiet fury, with a sincerity so intense that it almost made Temari forget that it was all a lie. She could easily see how even a cynical and jaded man might be taken in by eyes like that, imagining that he at last had found someone amongst the younger generation who could be pushed to a position of leadership despite his low birth. A promising young man who he might take a chance with in defiance of the council, even at personal risk to himself...
"I can understand your criticism of me," Yūra continued, gritting his teeth. "The fact that I was only able to save one of the Kazekage's children is a shame I will never be able to erase. But the idea that you would blame Temari-sama for being unable to sacrifice herself to save her father, when after all I was the one who forced her to hide despite her pleas... that's unforgivable!"
"Yūra," Temari said, very softly. "If you don't stop talking, I will kill you."
The head of security turned to look at her, seemingly dumfounded. "Kazekage-sama? Forgive me, I did not mean to speak out of turn. Only, I cannot bring myself to stay silent when your honour is being impugned by-"
Temari exploded out of her seat, her hand flying towards Yūra's neck before she even knew what she was doing. She felt her fingers clasp around his throat and then she was slamming his head down onto the table with a loud and satisfying crack. The next she knew she was straddling his chest, her knees digging sharply into his ribs as she squeezed his throat with both hands. There was a look of sheer terror in the young man's eyes, though for all she knew that was feigned as well.
"People like you always think that this world is run by rules," she said, ignoring the looks of abject shock from the rest of the council. "You think in terms of logic and cause and effect and consequences, of principles and regulations and incentives as if they're an actual physical thing. But none of those things are real. They're just make-believe, stuff you made up to help you make sense of the world." She leaned down to whisper into Yūra's ear. "Right now you're thinking that I can't kill you because it wouldn't make any sense for me to do it, but that's just another lie. There is nothing stopping me from killing you, do you understand? Nothing. If I let you live, it's because I choose to, and that's all there is to it."
Yūra's entire face was swollen red, and he just barely managed to choke out a few words. "Yes... Kazekage-sama."
"Good." Temari let go of the traitorous advisor, allowing him to drop to the floor. She got off the table and straightened her white Kazekage robes, suddenly feeling a lot better about herself. She stared Jōseki in the eyes, who looked visibly rattled. "You must forgive me, esteemed council members. I am only a young woman after all, and we are known to act on emotion and impulse rather than reason. It tends to make us a bit... unpredictable." She smiled at him, showing teeth. "We'll still be able to work together in the future though, won't we?"
"Yes," Jōseki said, swallowing thickly. None of those old dotards had trained or fought as real ninjas in over a decade, Temari reminded herself. Compared to Sasori of the Red Sand, they were nothing. "Of course, Kazekage-sama."
"I'm glad to hear it. In that case, this meeting is now adjourned." Temari strode out of the council meeting, ignoring the stares that followed her, ignoring the four green Kazekage statues in the back of the room which she imagined looking down at her with disapproval. I don't care what you all think, she thought to herself. I'm going to find a way to save my brother, and I can't do that from a position of weakness. She remembered sitting in that torture-puppet alongside Kankuro, all her bravado leaving her the moment those spikes were pointed at her, only to be replaced by mind-numbing terror. I refuse to feel that way ever again... I refuse! I'm a person, not some animal waiting to be butchered.
As she traversed the winding beige corridors of the Kazekage tower she could hear footsteps approaching behind he. She did not need to turn around to know who it was.
"You certainly are your father's daughter," Baki sighed as he caught up to her. "I don't suppose there's any point in asking you what that was all about?"
"None whatsoever," Temari said, smiling slightly as she walked.
She felt his hand on her shoulder, but there was no force there: Only the gentle yet firm suggestion to stop. She sighed and turned around. Her former teacher had taken off his veiled turban, and the lines on his face made the gruff jōnin look like he had aged several years in the last few days.
"I know I'm not very good at this," he said, looking distinctly uncomfortable. "I've never had any skill at politics, and I've always suspected that your father liked that about me more than anything else." He was fiddling with the turban in his hands, looking almost like an academy student who knew he had done something wrong. It was oddly endearing, somehow. "I don't really know how to advise you on anything that matters right now, but in my heart I'll always be your teacher, so if you need to talk..."
"Oh Baki," she sighed. Before she knew it she had wrapped the older man in a hug, and the jōnin commander stiffened in surprise, not quite knowing how to respond. "You're a good person," she said. She burrowed her head in his chest for a moment, taking the time to savour the feeling of another heart beating along with hers, before pulling back with a wistful smile. "But right now, I'm glad I'm not."
Baki scratched his head. "I don't think I'm that good either. I'm still an assassin, you know. I kill people."
"I'll remember that for when I need someone killed," she said, still smiling. "But right now I need a moment to myself, okay?"
Baki nodded, and she retreated to her chambers. She noticed as she closed the door behind her that Yūra had been following her from a distance, but she ignored him. What was he going to do - set off the explosive needle in her brain and lose the puppet-Kage his master had taken such pains to install? Kill her brother and lose his only other bargaining chip? He had something she wanted, yes, but so did she.
She tossed off her white Kazekage robes and headgear, dumping them onto the floor in a moment of almost childish pique. She took a moment to investigate her chambers, making sure that nobody had tampered with her privacy seals. There were no windows in her office for much the same reason, but that was fine since the gas lamp was always on. It was not as if she did not know what the view outside looked like, anyway. A part of her had thought that upon becoming Kazekage some newfound patriotic love for the Village would awaken within her, but it all still looked drab to her. Endless shades of brown and beige buildings, followed by an endless brown cliff and beyond that an endless brown desert...
Was it treasonous to think that she liked the look of Konoha better?
She sat down on the floor in the centre of the room, once again acting without quite knowing what she was doing. Common sense said that she should just play it safe and do as Yūra told her, as Kankuro had begged her to do, but she also knew that she could never win against someone like Sasori unless she surprised him somehow. If I am rash and unpredictable, then let it work to my advantage. You won't see this move coming, Yūra, I can promise you that.
A thin blade of wind cut her thumb, and a single drop of blood fell down onto the wooden floorboards. Then she formed the seals for her technique: Boar, Dog, Bird, Monkey and Ram, in that order. She focussed her mind on the contract she had signed, not with the beloved spirit companion she had lost to Uchiha Sasuke during the chūnin exams, but the one she had signed with the blood of those she had fought shortly after, so that she could summon them as living puppets for Kankuro to use.
She felt the technique take hold, but of course nothing happened, as this time the target's chakra was not suppressed and so the boy instinctively resisted the attempt. She waited a moment, then cast the technique again. She waited two more moments before the next casting, then one more, then two, then two again...
Long short long long short long...
She spelled out the message in her mind, and so focussed on her task was she that she almost jumped in surprise when the figure suddenly appeared in front of her. Right there, in the midst of the Kazekage's chambers inside the most secure location of Sunagakure, sat the slouched form of Nara Shikamaru.
He glanced around the room. "Huh, so this is where the Kazekage lives. Smaller than I thought." He noticed the white formal robes which lay discarded on the floor. "What, don't like your job?"
"What - what are you doing here?" Temari stared at the sharp faced Nara clan heir, not quite believing her eyes. "I was just sending a message; you weren't supposed to actually let the summon happen!"
"Translating Morse is a pain," the leaf chūnin sighed. He looked at her with a lifeless expression, as if he was half expecting to be killed but could not quite muster up the energy to care. "This is faster."
"But how did you-" She suddenly noticed the insects which had come along with her summon, some of which still clung to the boy's skin. "But then how are you are going to..."
"Naruto will just summon me back in a few minutes." He yawned. "Is this going to take long? I was kinda expecting you to get to the point faster, and I hate getting caught making bad predictions."
"Are you insane? You're in the middle of..." She trailed off, looking at the door and the sealing network which surrounded them. "All right, fine, then here's what we're going to do," she said, thinking quickly. "The moment you're back in Konoha you'll take some blood from either Uzumaki or Uchiha Sasuke – or better yet, your father or Jiraiya of the Sannin. Just drain the chakra from their blood and it'll come along with you when I summon you again. Then I'll sign my contract with their blood so I can-"
"Nope," said Shikamaru. "What, you think they're stupid? None of them would let themselves get summoned into the middle of a hostile Village, not even if it's just a shadow clone."
"But," said Temari, "you're..."
The Nara clan heir sighed. "Fine, I'll spell it out for you." He raised a finger. "Your brother killed Kiba's dog, which means Team Eight would gladly watch you die and not do a thing." He raised a second and third finger. "You killed Lee and Tenten, which means Neji wouldn't give anyone else the time to kill you because he'd do it first." He raised his final two fingers. "Hatake Kakashi and Haruno Sakura died and went missing respectively, and since you guys are partly to blame for that too Team Seven doesn't exactly care for you either."
He lowered his hand. "Basically, everyone in the Leaf hates your guts. The only exception is me, because you didn't kill anyone I cared about. And I was feeling pretty friggin' useless after you guys captured me and used me against Naruto, so I figured I might as well just let myself get summoned here to see if I could make myself useful for once. That's pretty much all there is to it." He shrugged.
Temari gaped at the boy. She could not tell if he was actually that suicidal or if he was just throwing the world's biggest pity party. Either way, she would just have to find a way to use it to her advantage.
"All right," she said, gathering her thoughts. "Here's the situation..."
-o-
Kankuro had been walking through the desert for hours now, with no sign of reprieve. The sand stretched endlessly around them, only the occasional rock formation offering the barest of shade against the unrelenting desert sun. Kankuro tried to walk in the shadow of the puppet army which floated above him, but they seemed to drift away each time. It was almost as if their unliving master was doing it on purpose, but Kankuro could not imagine that someone as powerful as Sasori of the Red Sand could possibly be that petty.
Could he?
Kankuro stared at the child-like figure who marched in front of him, though in truth he was not sure if that was even Sasori's real body. For all Kankuro knew the real Sasori was hiding inside that large scorpion-like puppet which always seemed to be floating close to him. Perhaps the famous rogue ninja had never turned himself into a puppet at all, and was only putting on a show for credulous onlookers like Kankuro, laughing and giggling to himself all the while.
After all, the alternative, that he had been captured by a ghost-like apparition, an immortal being whose spirit still haunted the shells of his former creations and drove them on in an endless quest to seek vengeance against the living world which had spited him... that was simply too terrible to consider.
He stumbled through the unending dunes, his tired feet kicking up sand as the sun beat down on him mercilessly. He had his hood up to shield him from the sun, but that did little to make the sweltering heat more bearable. Why oh why did I decide to make my outfit black? I live in the desert! He remembered how Temari had made fun of him for insisting that it would make them look cool and mysterious to the people of Konoha, and the thought brought an altogether different pain to his chest.
"Why," he croaked, when at last he could keep silent no more, "why are we walking?"
The Akatsuki member in front of him turned around, a curious expression in his baleful, haunting dead eyes. "Now what could make you ask such a pointless question? And in direct defiance of my orders not to annoy me... Could it possibly be that you have already grown tired of life and now wish to renege on the verbal agreement you made with me?"
Kankuro blanched. "No, not at all! I was just... just curious, that's all."
"Curiosity is a fine trait to have," Sasori said, his ethereal voice both soothing and terrifying. "As long as you do not let it get the best of you. I so loathe it when people forget what truly matters in life."
"Actually, the kid has a point." The other Akatsuki member, Deidara, swooped down on his white clay bird, and Kankuro breathed a momentary sigh of relief as its massive wings brushed slightly-less-warm air against his face. "Why are you walking? We've got places to be, hm."
Sasori sighed deeply. "Deidara, you need to learn to take the time to appreciate the finer things in life. Take this desert, for example, stretching on forever – does it not bring to mind thoughts of eternity?"
His companion adjusted his broad straw hat to better shield himself from the desert rays, and brushed some of his long blond hair out of his eyes with a huff. "That's funny coming from a man who insists that he hates waiting or making people wait." He pointed at the lone rock spires which dotted the desert landscape. "Your eternity is an illusion, un. Look how the passage of time has weathered those rock formations down to nothing. Don't you think it's poetic how temporality has given them the shape of an hourglass, master Sasori? And when their time is gone, those rocks will fade and turn into the sand around us, just as we will one day fade and turn to dust."
"I suppose it takes a Rock ninja to glean the necessity of death from the shape of stone pillars," Sasori said sardonically. "And I'm not making you wait, I'm trying to get you to slow down and appreciate the beauty of life. Young people like you are always so eager to get to your destination that you don't pay attention to the road you travel."
Deidara scoffed from on top of his white bird. "This is why immortality is a mistake, hm. People need the finality of death to give them that sense of urgency to actually go out and do something, to create art and live a life of excitement and beauty. Your puppets might technically be alive, but there's nothing left of them except hollow shells. Seems to me you took something precious and made it ugly."
It was difficult to read the expressions of Sasori's puppet body, but even so it was hard to miss the dangerous look he shot his companion. "This is exactly why you need immortality, Deidara. Someone like you would need at least a century to learn some wisdom... and you're unlikely to last that long."
Kankuro looked from one Akatsuki member to the other, not daring to say a thing. It was too much to hope that the two of them would fight and kill each other, but he was not about to stop them if they did.
"Hey, what's your opinion, kid?" Deidara looked down at Kankuro to address him. "Who do you think is right, me or master Sasori?"
"Good idea," said Sasori, his voice sounding more ghostly and ominous than ever. "What do you think, apprentice? Does true beauty stem from the temporality of death, or is it found in eternal life?"
Kankuro froze in terror, and not just because the two Akatsuki members were looking at him: In the air above them, every single puppet had turned its head at the same time as Sasori, and their haunting eyes were all staring at Kankuro with a deathly, vacant expression. "I..." he said. "I mean... I don't want my sister to die, and she doesn't want me to die, so I don't see why either of us would want to do that to the other. When people disappear and forget about each other, I don't think that's beautiful at all – I think that's ugly. Real beauty is when people stick together, even when the world dies around them."
The blond Akatsuki member frowned at him from atop his bird. "You're only saying that because you're afraid master Sasori will kill you if you agree with me."
"Of course he is," the puppet master purred, his ethereal voice gaining in vibrato as a hundred haunted puppets spoke along with him, echoing his voice. "Thus proving my point precisely. What a clever lad."
Kankuro gulped. His master seemed to be pleased with him right now, which meant that this might be his best chance for making a request. "Master Sasori," he said, hesitating. "May I ask you something?"
The living puppet raised a single, wooden finger. "One question. No more."
Kankuro swallowed. He should probably have thought about it more carefully, but he could no longer contain himself. "Master Sasori... why did you do it? Why did you kill father? Why join Akatsuki, why make us attack the Leaf, why kill the Third Hokage. Just... why?"
The red haired boy-puppet looked at him with a mildly annoyed expression. "Really - that is your question? You don't want to ask for water, or a straw hat to shield yourself from the sun? Why waste your one favour on something pointless that won't change anything anyway?"
In the air above Sasori, his blond companion shook his head. "It's because his thirst for wisdom exceeds his thirst for water. You would never understand such a wondrous thing as a teen boy's quest for purpose as he comes of age, master Sasori."
Kankuro and Sasori both turned and shot Deidara a death glare, although for different reasons. Shut up! Are you trying to get me killed?
"Fine," said Sasori, and this time it was only his own voice that spoke. As he gazed out across the endless desert, some of his humanity seemed to return to him, and he no longer sounded so ghost-like when he talked. "It's because... I wanted to make this world less painful to look upon."
Kankuro stared at him, waiting for the rest of the answer, but nothing else seemed to be forthcoming. Then the puppet master started walking again, and Kankuro rushed after him, kicking up sand in his effort to keep up. Above him, Deidara's great white bird seemed to be providing him some shade, though whether the rogue Stone ninja was doing it on purpose he did not know.
Kankuro's throat was still as dry as the desert sand, and he began to fervently wish he had just asked for some water instead, but there was a part of him that did not care. Something was pulling faintly on his stomach, like someone trying to tug on him, calling him home. There was a wait, followed by two more pulls, then one, then two more.
Long short long long short long...
In the corner of Kankuro's eyes, a small tear formed, precious water spilling out and dropping down onto the desert sand. It was a very human, pointless thing.
Hey sis.
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RazorSmile
ROB Used To Be A Knife Missile
Brilliant.
- Sasori isn't omnipotent and Temari isn't giving up. Love it
- and she owes Naruto BIG-TIME for the summoning trick
- pretty cool how she turns it into Ninja!Morse Code though (in canon, she was supposedly in the same ballpark as Shikamaru smarts-wise so this checks out)
- Kankuro's intelligence is remarkably boosted by the nearness of imminent death lol
- Sasori isn't omnipotent and Temari isn't giving up. Love it
- and she owes Naruto BIG-TIME for the summoning trick
- pretty cool how she turns it into Ninja!Morse Code though (in canon, she was supposedly in the same ballpark as Shikamaru smarts-wise so this checks out)
- Kankuro's intelligence is remarkably boosted by the nearness of imminent death lol
- Location
- Netherlands
Yup, I always thought that she -much like every other female character in Naruto- was underused, so I love highlighting canon qualities like this without making it too explicit. For some reason a lot of writers think that the key to writing strong female characters is to randomly make them bad people (though Temari arguably qualifies
). For example, I was just reading the Rules for Wishing plus another rational!Alladin rewrite on Spacebattles, and I kept rolling my eyes at how the story would go "omg Jasmin is so much better than Alladin, wow she's so scary she just went and poisoned that dude".If you want to emphasize underappreciated characters, highlight their canon qualities! Don't rewrite them from scratch. E.g. Kankuro and Temari in canon are both bullies who needlessly torment their enemies because they are scared of their little brother and are desperate to feel strong, and since they were raised to be killers violence is the only way they know to express their frustrations. On the other hand, the fact that they share the same struggle also gives them a very strong bond. There's so much potential there! If you want to highlight their bad side, put them in a situation where they are frustrated and have a chance to torment others. And then if you want to show their good side, put them up against *real* villains and force them in a desperate situation where they have to protect each other. The story writes itself.
This also reminds me of my other big writing pet peeve, "developing" characters by having them start out with a unique bad trait, gradually removing the very thing that made them interesting and then forgetting all about them. Kishi does this with nearly every side character: "ooh, look how cool Neji is, he's so edgy! But then Naruto convinces him that being edgy is bad. Okay, now he's just a regular Nakama so I guess his character is done and I can just forget about him." Ugh!
tl;dr: If you want to write strong characters, don't force them into an existing mould, highlight what makes them special. /end rant.
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Chapter 54: Cryptic hints and criminal investigations
- Location
- Netherlands
Chapter 54: Cryptic hints and criminal investigations
Naruto leaned over the balcony railing of his apartment and squinted against the bright morning sun.
Slowly, despite everything, a smile started to form on his face. As much as it stung to find out that Sasuke had betrayed him once again, he had at least managed to regain his memories. Meanwhile Jiraiya had taught Naruto the five-element unsealing technique so he could talk to Kurama whenever he wanted, and their shadow clones had practiced summoning chakra-depleted versions of each other so that the Toad sage would always be on hand to save the day during the next crisis.
Finally, Ino's team had convinced their respective fathers to give them greater information on the Council's workings and investigations, all under the guise of preparing them for the day when they would become the heads of their clans.
They were still no closer to finding Sakura, but still. It felt good to have a plan.
He vaulted over the balcony railing while yelling at the top of his lungs. "Watch out, world! Here comes Uuuuuuzumakiiiii…" He plummeted down the five-story tall apartment building, summoning a shadow clone and vaulting off its back at the last second to propel himself to the nearest walkway connecting two rooftops instead. "…Naaarutooooooo!"
"Careful, brat! Do not forget that that's my vessel which you're risking so casually. You would not be the first powerful shinobi to meet his untimely death by mistiming a jump and falling flat on his face."
Aww, Kura-chan, you almost make it sound like you care! Naruto kept running across the ramshackle rooftop walkway, summoning several more clones to run off in different directions while he darted into a shadowy alcove nested in between two buildings. It always paid to have at least one version of him be as loud and visible as possible so that the rest of him would attract less attention, or so he figured.
"Call me that again and I might yet make you regret loosening that seal on your stomach for me."
I'm regretting it already. Now shush, I need to focus on getting to the Hyūga compound without anyone seeing me. Sasuke had specifically told him to investigate the hospital and had somehow neglected to assign anyone to investigating Lord Hiashi's death, which was reason enough for Naruto to go there first. He vaulted through the open window of an old unused hotel before sliding down the garbage chute to land in a dark trash-filled alleyway that nobody ever used because it did not connect to anything.
"Careful, kit! We're being followed."
Followed? What? Naruto glanced behind him, but the alleyway was completely unpopulated except for a single emaciated rat digging through some month-old trash. How can you tell?
"I am an ancient being of inscrutable wisdom, created by the Sage of Six Paths himself to bring enlightenment to the world. I can intuitively sense the malign intent of lesser beings such as shinobi."
There is no such thing as killing intent – do you mean you can sense chakra? I guess that makes sense, seeing how you're a being of pure chakra and you have to absorb it from the air to survive and all… Naruto leaped over a pile of trash as he activated the flash seal on his palm, emitting blinding light in all directions before wrapping the light around him to make himself invisible. At the same time he created a shadow clone to keep running in the same direction while he himself sunk into the earth with his hiding-like-a-mole technique. After several tiresome minutes of digging through the dirt soil he emerged gasping for air in a parallel street. He immediately ran up the nearest wall, still invisible, before landing at the edge of a rooftop between a pair of giant water tanks. There, I'd like to see the ninja who can-
"I have been watching you, Uzumaki Naruto."
Naruto nearly stumbled and fell from the rooftop in his haste to turn around, cursing under his breath. Standing behind him, standing way too close to him, was a member of the Anbu. Black cloak. White mask. Thin lines engraved on the metal mask to give the abstract impression of a whiskered cat.
Naruto did not think that was cute.
"Who," he said, "who are you?"
He could almost hear Kurama scoff. "A better ninja than you, by the looks of it."
The slim, shadowy figure tilted its head, and Naruto realized in surprise that he was looking at a female member of the Anbu – he could see the slight curvature of her grey chest armour. "You have been making inquiries about the unexplained events that occurred during the attack on Konoha. Why?"
"Why?" Naruto felt a strong urge to crawl backwards, but with the edge of the roof behind him there was nowhere left for him to go. His hand involuntarily moved towards his sword. "Because… well, because my teacher is dead and my teammate is missing, of course! It only makes sense that I'd wanna figure out what really happened."
"Yes," the Anbu member whispered. "When one loses someone they love, their perspective irrevocably changes. Even having anticipated the loss, the world can never appear the same again." She tilted her head up to the sky, causing a single strand of unkempt purple hair to slip from behind her mask. "Look, the full moon is shining…"
"What?" Naruto looked up, blinking, though of course the moon was nowhere to be seen against the bright morning sun. "I don't see anything."
"Just because you cannot see something does not mean it isn't there. The moon is always full, even if a part of it is hidden. The moon is the moon and a promise a promise – that will never change." The woman suddenly moved her masked face closer to Naruto, and he tried to draw his sword on instinct, only to realize that it was gone. He looked down and saw that she was holding his chakra blade in her hands. "You know," she whispered, "there are other places to hide than in the shadows."
With those words she vanished, Naruto's sword clattering to the ground. He immediately grabbed it and spun around, looking for his target. Kurama, where-
"Down the alley. Be careful kit, this one is dangerous."
No kidding. Naruto leaped down the rooftop towards where the figure was running. He body-flickered to his target and could just barely make out the tail of her black cloak before it vanished around a corner and he was forced to body-flicker again.
"You know, I imagine her speed would prove no obstacle if you loosened that seal a little more…"
Shut up and let me focus. Naruto body-flickered a third time, the world seeming to bend around him as he was hurled forward by what was essentially a continuous series of infinitely-short teleports. A distant part of him remembered the pointless argument he had had with Sakura over whether it was a true space-time technique or simply enhanced movement, only to realize that it was essentially a combination of both. The use of such categories had only made understanding more difficult.
He shook his head, stowing painful memories of Sakura away as he focussed on the chase. He landed in front of an expensive eatery which he recognized as Ichiraku's, the white hanging curtains of the deluxe noodle restaurant hiding him from the civilian customers that were eating and chatting away on the other side. He turned and looked down both sides of the street, confused.
"Where did she…"
His question was answered by the blade that was pressed against his throat from behind, and he could not even bring himself to act surprised anymore. "One last word," the masked woman whispered directly into his ear. "Do not trust the man known as Shimura Danzō."
The dagger vanished and Naruto spun around, but of course there was nobody to be seen. He kept standing there for several moments, staring at the white curtains of the noodle restaurant, as his heartbeat slowly returned to something resembling its normal rate.
You know… you could have warned me she was behind me.
He could practically hear Kurama shrug. "Well, you are the one who told me to be silent. Perhaps it shall serve as a valuable lesson to heed my sage advice next time."
Naruto ignored him, continuing his track towards the Hyūga compound in silence. He had definitely seen that member of the Anbu somewhere before. How many people where there in Konoha with purple hair, anyway? That sort of thing was usually the result of a recessive bloodline-limit, like how Hinata's teacher had red eyes from her distant Uchiha ancestor, or how Sakura had pink hair from…
Naruto shook his head, turning away from thoughts of Sakura. He had gone down that road before, and it only ever ran in circles. It began with regret and worry, followed by predictions and calculations of where she could conceivably be, and then his wonderfully imaginative mind would begin to simulate in extremely vivid detail all the horrible things that might be happening to her at that very moment.
Purple hair. Purple. He had seen her at the chūnin exams, he realized. She had been one of the Anbu summoning him to see the Hokage afterwards. And way further back, in the forest with Mizuki-sensei. She was always at Ibiki's side, which meant she belonged to the torturer's faction of the Anbu. Was that why she had warned him about Danzō? Was she acting on Ibiki's behest, or had she turned rogue?
"We're nearing the Hyūga compound. Be careful, Kit. Their eyes see much, and from what I remember their kind does not think much of clanless outsiders such as yourself."
Speaking of things I shouldn't let them see, demonic chakra probably ranks pretty high up there. He lifted up his armoured chūnin vest, revealing his bare stomach, and began to form the five-element seal with his right hand.
"Now hold on one moment! I am not some mongrel pup that can simply be dismissed at one's convenience. I am-"
Naruto pressed the fingers of his right hand into his stomach and twisted, and at last blessed silence returned to him. He lowered his chūnin vest again as he gazed at the colonnade of pristine white buildings rising up before him.
Now if only the Hyūga were as easy to deal with as thousand-year-old vengeful demons…
He cancelled the transformation technique which he had been using to mask Kurama's chakra: In the sight of the Byakugan it would only make it look like he was trying to hide something, and it was probably better to come in the spirit of openness. He sighed and began to approach the gates to the Hyūga compound, already preparing himself for the blunt dismissal he was bound to receive.
The Hyūga guard on the other side of the metal bars looked young, probably in his twenties, and was dressed in a black kimono. "What are you doing here?" He gave Naruto an annoyed look. "Scram, the Hyūga clan is in no mood for visitors."
"My name is Uzumaki Naruto," he said, holding up his hands. "I'm here to see my friend, Hinata-chan-sama, I mean Hinata-sama-chan… uh." In retrospect, he probably should have prepared his lines in advance.
The guard glowered at him. "Didn't you hear me, kid? I said scram. Lady Hinata has no interest in talking to the likes of you."
"That's enough, Kō." A ghost landed behind the Hyūga guard, flowing white robes billowing in the air like a wedding dress as she descended from the air, a long veil hanging in front of her pale white eyes. "Naruto-kun is a dear friend of ours. And even if he was not, we do not talk to visitors in that way."
"Hinata-sama!" The young Hyūga spun around in panic. "My apologies. I was only…"
"It's all right, Kō." Hinata placed a pale hand upon his shoulder. "I'll take it from here. Why don't you go see if brother Neji needs your help with the planning?"
"Yes, I… of course." The Hyūga guard bowed hurriedly before disappearing, shooting only a brief worried glance at Naruto and Hinata as he vanished back to the white marble buildings behind him.
"Hinata-chan," Naruto said, swallowing hard at the sight before him. "I…"
"You must forgive Kō. He has been my assigned guardian since birth, and he's very protective of me." The Lady Hyūga lifted her veil so that Naruto could see that she was smiling, though it was a forced, painful smile. "It's good to see you, Naruto-kun."
Naruto stammered, unsure of what to say to this unfamiliar person at the other side of the gates. "You look different," he said at last, his voice sounding strange to his own ears. "I mean good. You look good."
She gave a wistful little smile. "Thank you, Naruto. You look good as well."
Naruto hesitated. He wanted to offer his condolences, but he was not at all sure what to say. To the rest of Konoha the Lord Hyūga might have been this great leader, but all Naruto could remember him for was the way he had emotionally abused Hinata when she was younger.
"I'm sorry this happened to you," he found himself saying, only realizing how terrible that sounded as the words left his mouth.
Her face fell. "Yes," she said. "Me too."
Naruto gave up on trying to be diplomatic. "I guess he never did replace you as his clan heir, huh?"
"No." She stared at the ground, and for one moment she looked so much like the old Hinata that it was physically painful. "I think… I think he was holding out hope that I would prove him wrong, until the very end. That I would change, somehow." She began to fidget with her hands, but she stopped herself when she realized what she was doing. She looked him in the eye. "Why are you here, Naruto?"
Naruto stepped back, surprised, and for a moment he was so flustered that he almost could not remember. "I need to ask you about what happened. About what you saw." He felt a flash of guilt at the fact that he really had not come here just to see her.
She nodded. "Sasuke told me you might come here." She glanced briefly behind her, towards the large white building in the centre of the compound which Ko had run off to. "There is not very much to say. There was a… shadow. Father said he recognized it from-" she hesitated, "from stories. It ran past our branch-house guards and knocked them out as if they weren't even there. Father told us to seal ourselves inside his chambers, and we did, but… it didn't matter. It got in anyway."
Naruto frowned. "But if you were all locked inside the same room, how come you and Neji survived?"
Hinata began fidgeting with her hands again, and this time she made no attempt to stop herself. "I… I hid. Brother Neji shielded me with his body, and I think he'd have died to protect me, but when the shadow came in… everything just turned black." She shrank in upon herself until she was almost as small as she was back then, on the training grounds of the academy, when the two of them practiced throwing shuriken together. "When the light returned, father and grandfather were already on the ground." She swallowed thickly, her eyes glistening. "They died because of… because of me."
Naruto stepped forward instinctively, reaching through the metal bars to clasp her hand, and she let out a yelp of surprise as he did so. "It's not your fault," he said, putting all of his conviction into his words. He had never been any good at lying, so he prayed that Hinata would believe him if he just stated the truth strongly enough. "This is all the fault of the monster that did this. And I promise you we'll find him, Hinata-chan, and I'll beat him if it's the last thing I do. You know I never go back on my word."
Hinata pulled her hand out of Naruto's grasp, turning away so he could not see her tears. "You don't know what you're saying. You don't understand." She shook her head, taking a deep breath. "It looks like brother Neji is picking a fight with the other branch members again," she said, a sheen appearing in her white eyes. "I should… I should probably head back."
She started to pull away, and Naruto would have squeezed between the metal bars to follow her if he could. Instead he was forced to rely on his words once more. This time, a half-remembered passage from a book he read a long time ago came to him. "You know," he said, "people always think they don't have a choice. They find themselves on some path they're set on, and since it's all they can see before them they tell themselves it's the only one. But just because you can't see something doesn't mean it isn't there. If you don't like the way your road is leading, you can always just… choose again."
Hinata stopped. "That's from one of your father's novels, isn't it?"
"Yeah! I'm not really sure why I said that, but I guess it felt appropriate. Wait – you read Make-out Tactics?"
She turned around and raised an eyebrow. "The Lady Hyūga, reading vulgar erotica? I suggest you keep such disgusting thoughts to yourself, Uzumaki-san. The Village elders would be scandalized." She smiled slightly. "Besides, the plots are rehashed, the characters are one dimensional and the writing is terrible."
"It is," Naruto said, grinning. "Just awful. Can't imagine why anyone would read that stuff."
She shook her head, still smiling sadly. "I really don't deserve you." She reached between the metal bars, clasping Naruto's cheek, and for one moment Naruto thought something else was about to happen, but then she pulled away. "I need to go. It was… good seeing you, Naruto."
"Yeah," said Naruto, feeling his heart break once more. "Sure."
He stayed there for a while, watching Hinata leave, and then he began to amble back in the direction of his apartment. As he wandered, he found himself thinking back on the female Anbu member's words.
What were you trying to tell me, strange lady? She had clearly been distraught over somebody's death – could it be that she had known Kakashi-sensei too, somehow? Regardless, Naruto had long ago learned not to dismiss people's words just because he had an excuse to do so.
There are other places to hide than in the shadows… What did that mean? That Naruto should look underneath the underneath and consider the obvious? That the enemy could be hiding in plain sight, maybe?
The moon is always full, even if a part of it is hidden…
The Anbu lady had been using the shadow-clone technique, Naruto decided. That was how she had managed to vanish like that while leaving his sword behind. And combined with a sensing ability, it explained how she had managed to get behind him so quickly. In fact, if she had disguised herself as one of the customers at Ichiraku's and suppressed her chakra, then it was entirely possible that Kurama had not noticed her presence at all, and had only pretended to stay silent on purpose out of stubborn pride.
If I can be in two places at once, then there's no reason to think the enemy can't do the same. Naruto nodded to himself. If that was the lesson the lady had intended to teach him, then she could consider it well-learned. And if he applied that lesson to what Hinata had told him…
The shadow had breached Lord Hiashi's sealed off chambers without any apparent difficulty, and that part really bothered Naruto. There had to be some limit to the enemy's ability, or there would be no need for all this subtlety. If it really was possible to just casually assassinate a powerful shinobi leader while they were in their most secure location right in the middle of a hostile village, then why not just do that to every single person in their way and be done with it?
One the other hand, if they were capable of being in multiple places at once… well, the easiest way to break into a sealed off room was to already be inside it. That way, the Lord Hyūga would effectively be sealing himself off from any outside help. In fact, the seals would prevent anyone else from using the Byakugan to even see what was going on inside. So if the enemy had snuck a shadow clone in beforehand, and disguised it as an object or something… No, Hiashi's Byakugan would surely have spotted that the moment he entered the door. But if the enemy had disguised his clone as a person, or…
No wait, what am I saying? I already know he has the ability to control people's minds with Kotoamatsukami. All he would have to do is find a weaker member of the Hyūga clan and plant a suggestion in their mind while they were secluded from the rest of their clan. And then, when the moment came, that puppet could be used to open Hiashi's chambers from the inside.
Naruto stopped. His thoughts were leading in a direction he did not want them to go. He had trained himself to notice that discordant feeling, of his mind saying stop, don't go there, and he had resolved to always push through it. No good could ever come of not thinking about something painful, of refusing the truth that was in front of him. And yet…
There was a slight shift in the air behind him, and Naruto spun around, his hand already reaching for his sword. He stopped when he saw the black cloak and white mask of the Anbu, though this time the grey chest armour beneath it was not curved like that of a woman. Naruto craned his neck to stare up at the giant assassin looming over him, his hand slowly falling away from his sword. "Who…"
"Uzumaki Naruto. Your presence has been requested by the Hokage."
Naruto leaned over the balcony railing of his apartment and squinted against the bright morning sun.
Slowly, despite everything, a smile started to form on his face. As much as it stung to find out that Sasuke had betrayed him once again, he had at least managed to regain his memories. Meanwhile Jiraiya had taught Naruto the five-element unsealing technique so he could talk to Kurama whenever he wanted, and their shadow clones had practiced summoning chakra-depleted versions of each other so that the Toad sage would always be on hand to save the day during the next crisis.
Finally, Ino's team had convinced their respective fathers to give them greater information on the Council's workings and investigations, all under the guise of preparing them for the day when they would become the heads of their clans.
They were still no closer to finding Sakura, but still. It felt good to have a plan.
He vaulted over the balcony railing while yelling at the top of his lungs. "Watch out, world! Here comes Uuuuuuzumakiiiii…" He plummeted down the five-story tall apartment building, summoning a shadow clone and vaulting off its back at the last second to propel himself to the nearest walkway connecting two rooftops instead. "…Naaarutooooooo!"
"Careful, brat! Do not forget that that's my vessel which you're risking so casually. You would not be the first powerful shinobi to meet his untimely death by mistiming a jump and falling flat on his face."
Aww, Kura-chan, you almost make it sound like you care! Naruto kept running across the ramshackle rooftop walkway, summoning several more clones to run off in different directions while he darted into a shadowy alcove nested in between two buildings. It always paid to have at least one version of him be as loud and visible as possible so that the rest of him would attract less attention, or so he figured.
"Call me that again and I might yet make you regret loosening that seal on your stomach for me."
I'm regretting it already. Now shush, I need to focus on getting to the Hyūga compound without anyone seeing me. Sasuke had specifically told him to investigate the hospital and had somehow neglected to assign anyone to investigating Lord Hiashi's death, which was reason enough for Naruto to go there first. He vaulted through the open window of an old unused hotel before sliding down the garbage chute to land in a dark trash-filled alleyway that nobody ever used because it did not connect to anything.
"Careful, kit! We're being followed."
Followed? What? Naruto glanced behind him, but the alleyway was completely unpopulated except for a single emaciated rat digging through some month-old trash. How can you tell?
"I am an ancient being of inscrutable wisdom, created by the Sage of Six Paths himself to bring enlightenment to the world. I can intuitively sense the malign intent of lesser beings such as shinobi."
There is no such thing as killing intent – do you mean you can sense chakra? I guess that makes sense, seeing how you're a being of pure chakra and you have to absorb it from the air to survive and all… Naruto leaped over a pile of trash as he activated the flash seal on his palm, emitting blinding light in all directions before wrapping the light around him to make himself invisible. At the same time he created a shadow clone to keep running in the same direction while he himself sunk into the earth with his hiding-like-a-mole technique. After several tiresome minutes of digging through the dirt soil he emerged gasping for air in a parallel street. He immediately ran up the nearest wall, still invisible, before landing at the edge of a rooftop between a pair of giant water tanks. There, I'd like to see the ninja who can-
"I have been watching you, Uzumaki Naruto."
Naruto nearly stumbled and fell from the rooftop in his haste to turn around, cursing under his breath. Standing behind him, standing way too close to him, was a member of the Anbu. Black cloak. White mask. Thin lines engraved on the metal mask to give the abstract impression of a whiskered cat.
Naruto did not think that was cute.
"Who," he said, "who are you?"
He could almost hear Kurama scoff. "A better ninja than you, by the looks of it."
The slim, shadowy figure tilted its head, and Naruto realized in surprise that he was looking at a female member of the Anbu – he could see the slight curvature of her grey chest armour. "You have been making inquiries about the unexplained events that occurred during the attack on Konoha. Why?"
"Why?" Naruto felt a strong urge to crawl backwards, but with the edge of the roof behind him there was nowhere left for him to go. His hand involuntarily moved towards his sword. "Because… well, because my teacher is dead and my teammate is missing, of course! It only makes sense that I'd wanna figure out what really happened."
"Yes," the Anbu member whispered. "When one loses someone they love, their perspective irrevocably changes. Even having anticipated the loss, the world can never appear the same again." She tilted her head up to the sky, causing a single strand of unkempt purple hair to slip from behind her mask. "Look, the full moon is shining…"
"What?" Naruto looked up, blinking, though of course the moon was nowhere to be seen against the bright morning sun. "I don't see anything."
"Just because you cannot see something does not mean it isn't there. The moon is always full, even if a part of it is hidden. The moon is the moon and a promise a promise – that will never change." The woman suddenly moved her masked face closer to Naruto, and he tried to draw his sword on instinct, only to realize that it was gone. He looked down and saw that she was holding his chakra blade in her hands. "You know," she whispered, "there are other places to hide than in the shadows."
With those words she vanished, Naruto's sword clattering to the ground. He immediately grabbed it and spun around, looking for his target. Kurama, where-
"Down the alley. Be careful kit, this one is dangerous."
No kidding. Naruto leaped down the rooftop towards where the figure was running. He body-flickered to his target and could just barely make out the tail of her black cloak before it vanished around a corner and he was forced to body-flicker again.
"You know, I imagine her speed would prove no obstacle if you loosened that seal a little more…"
Shut up and let me focus. Naruto body-flickered a third time, the world seeming to bend around him as he was hurled forward by what was essentially a continuous series of infinitely-short teleports. A distant part of him remembered the pointless argument he had had with Sakura over whether it was a true space-time technique or simply enhanced movement, only to realize that it was essentially a combination of both. The use of such categories had only made understanding more difficult.
He shook his head, stowing painful memories of Sakura away as he focussed on the chase. He landed in front of an expensive eatery which he recognized as Ichiraku's, the white hanging curtains of the deluxe noodle restaurant hiding him from the civilian customers that were eating and chatting away on the other side. He turned and looked down both sides of the street, confused.
"Where did she…"
His question was answered by the blade that was pressed against his throat from behind, and he could not even bring himself to act surprised anymore. "One last word," the masked woman whispered directly into his ear. "Do not trust the man known as Shimura Danzō."
The dagger vanished and Naruto spun around, but of course there was nobody to be seen. He kept standing there for several moments, staring at the white curtains of the noodle restaurant, as his heartbeat slowly returned to something resembling its normal rate.
You know… you could have warned me she was behind me.
He could practically hear Kurama shrug. "Well, you are the one who told me to be silent. Perhaps it shall serve as a valuable lesson to heed my sage advice next time."
Naruto ignored him, continuing his track towards the Hyūga compound in silence. He had definitely seen that member of the Anbu somewhere before. How many people where there in Konoha with purple hair, anyway? That sort of thing was usually the result of a recessive bloodline-limit, like how Hinata's teacher had red eyes from her distant Uchiha ancestor, or how Sakura had pink hair from…
Naruto shook his head, turning away from thoughts of Sakura. He had gone down that road before, and it only ever ran in circles. It began with regret and worry, followed by predictions and calculations of where she could conceivably be, and then his wonderfully imaginative mind would begin to simulate in extremely vivid detail all the horrible things that might be happening to her at that very moment.
Purple hair. Purple. He had seen her at the chūnin exams, he realized. She had been one of the Anbu summoning him to see the Hokage afterwards. And way further back, in the forest with Mizuki-sensei. She was always at Ibiki's side, which meant she belonged to the torturer's faction of the Anbu. Was that why she had warned him about Danzō? Was she acting on Ibiki's behest, or had she turned rogue?
"We're nearing the Hyūga compound. Be careful, Kit. Their eyes see much, and from what I remember their kind does not think much of clanless outsiders such as yourself."
Speaking of things I shouldn't let them see, demonic chakra probably ranks pretty high up there. He lifted up his armoured chūnin vest, revealing his bare stomach, and began to form the five-element seal with his right hand.
"Now hold on one moment! I am not some mongrel pup that can simply be dismissed at one's convenience. I am-"
Naruto pressed the fingers of his right hand into his stomach and twisted, and at last blessed silence returned to him. He lowered his chūnin vest again as he gazed at the colonnade of pristine white buildings rising up before him.
Now if only the Hyūga were as easy to deal with as thousand-year-old vengeful demons…
He cancelled the transformation technique which he had been using to mask Kurama's chakra: In the sight of the Byakugan it would only make it look like he was trying to hide something, and it was probably better to come in the spirit of openness. He sighed and began to approach the gates to the Hyūga compound, already preparing himself for the blunt dismissal he was bound to receive.
The Hyūga guard on the other side of the metal bars looked young, probably in his twenties, and was dressed in a black kimono. "What are you doing here?" He gave Naruto an annoyed look. "Scram, the Hyūga clan is in no mood for visitors."
"My name is Uzumaki Naruto," he said, holding up his hands. "I'm here to see my friend, Hinata-chan-sama, I mean Hinata-sama-chan… uh." In retrospect, he probably should have prepared his lines in advance.
The guard glowered at him. "Didn't you hear me, kid? I said scram. Lady Hinata has no interest in talking to the likes of you."
"That's enough, Kō." A ghost landed behind the Hyūga guard, flowing white robes billowing in the air like a wedding dress as she descended from the air, a long veil hanging in front of her pale white eyes. "Naruto-kun is a dear friend of ours. And even if he was not, we do not talk to visitors in that way."
"Hinata-sama!" The young Hyūga spun around in panic. "My apologies. I was only…"
"It's all right, Kō." Hinata placed a pale hand upon his shoulder. "I'll take it from here. Why don't you go see if brother Neji needs your help with the planning?"
"Yes, I… of course." The Hyūga guard bowed hurriedly before disappearing, shooting only a brief worried glance at Naruto and Hinata as he vanished back to the white marble buildings behind him.
"Hinata-chan," Naruto said, swallowing hard at the sight before him. "I…"
"You must forgive Kō. He has been my assigned guardian since birth, and he's very protective of me." The Lady Hyūga lifted her veil so that Naruto could see that she was smiling, though it was a forced, painful smile. "It's good to see you, Naruto-kun."
Naruto stammered, unsure of what to say to this unfamiliar person at the other side of the gates. "You look different," he said at last, his voice sounding strange to his own ears. "I mean good. You look good."
She gave a wistful little smile. "Thank you, Naruto. You look good as well."
Naruto hesitated. He wanted to offer his condolences, but he was not at all sure what to say. To the rest of Konoha the Lord Hyūga might have been this great leader, but all Naruto could remember him for was the way he had emotionally abused Hinata when she was younger.
"I'm sorry this happened to you," he found himself saying, only realizing how terrible that sounded as the words left his mouth.
Her face fell. "Yes," she said. "Me too."
Naruto gave up on trying to be diplomatic. "I guess he never did replace you as his clan heir, huh?"
"No." She stared at the ground, and for one moment she looked so much like the old Hinata that it was physically painful. "I think… I think he was holding out hope that I would prove him wrong, until the very end. That I would change, somehow." She began to fidget with her hands, but she stopped herself when she realized what she was doing. She looked him in the eye. "Why are you here, Naruto?"
Naruto stepped back, surprised, and for a moment he was so flustered that he almost could not remember. "I need to ask you about what happened. About what you saw." He felt a flash of guilt at the fact that he really had not come here just to see her.
She nodded. "Sasuke told me you might come here." She glanced briefly behind her, towards the large white building in the centre of the compound which Ko had run off to. "There is not very much to say. There was a… shadow. Father said he recognized it from-" she hesitated, "from stories. It ran past our branch-house guards and knocked them out as if they weren't even there. Father told us to seal ourselves inside his chambers, and we did, but… it didn't matter. It got in anyway."
Naruto frowned. "But if you were all locked inside the same room, how come you and Neji survived?"
Hinata began fidgeting with her hands again, and this time she made no attempt to stop herself. "I… I hid. Brother Neji shielded me with his body, and I think he'd have died to protect me, but when the shadow came in… everything just turned black." She shrank in upon herself until she was almost as small as she was back then, on the training grounds of the academy, when the two of them practiced throwing shuriken together. "When the light returned, father and grandfather were already on the ground." She swallowed thickly, her eyes glistening. "They died because of… because of me."
Naruto stepped forward instinctively, reaching through the metal bars to clasp her hand, and she let out a yelp of surprise as he did so. "It's not your fault," he said, putting all of his conviction into his words. He had never been any good at lying, so he prayed that Hinata would believe him if he just stated the truth strongly enough. "This is all the fault of the monster that did this. And I promise you we'll find him, Hinata-chan, and I'll beat him if it's the last thing I do. You know I never go back on my word."
Hinata pulled her hand out of Naruto's grasp, turning away so he could not see her tears. "You don't know what you're saying. You don't understand." She shook her head, taking a deep breath. "It looks like brother Neji is picking a fight with the other branch members again," she said, a sheen appearing in her white eyes. "I should… I should probably head back."
She started to pull away, and Naruto would have squeezed between the metal bars to follow her if he could. Instead he was forced to rely on his words once more. This time, a half-remembered passage from a book he read a long time ago came to him. "You know," he said, "people always think they don't have a choice. They find themselves on some path they're set on, and since it's all they can see before them they tell themselves it's the only one. But just because you can't see something doesn't mean it isn't there. If you don't like the way your road is leading, you can always just… choose again."
Hinata stopped. "That's from one of your father's novels, isn't it?"
"Yeah! I'm not really sure why I said that, but I guess it felt appropriate. Wait – you read Make-out Tactics?"
She turned around and raised an eyebrow. "The Lady Hyūga, reading vulgar erotica? I suggest you keep such disgusting thoughts to yourself, Uzumaki-san. The Village elders would be scandalized." She smiled slightly. "Besides, the plots are rehashed, the characters are one dimensional and the writing is terrible."
"It is," Naruto said, grinning. "Just awful. Can't imagine why anyone would read that stuff."
She shook her head, still smiling sadly. "I really don't deserve you." She reached between the metal bars, clasping Naruto's cheek, and for one moment Naruto thought something else was about to happen, but then she pulled away. "I need to go. It was… good seeing you, Naruto."
"Yeah," said Naruto, feeling his heart break once more. "Sure."
He stayed there for a while, watching Hinata leave, and then he began to amble back in the direction of his apartment. As he wandered, he found himself thinking back on the female Anbu member's words.
What were you trying to tell me, strange lady? She had clearly been distraught over somebody's death – could it be that she had known Kakashi-sensei too, somehow? Regardless, Naruto had long ago learned not to dismiss people's words just because he had an excuse to do so.
There are other places to hide than in the shadows… What did that mean? That Naruto should look underneath the underneath and consider the obvious? That the enemy could be hiding in plain sight, maybe?
The moon is always full, even if a part of it is hidden…
The Anbu lady had been using the shadow-clone technique, Naruto decided. That was how she had managed to vanish like that while leaving his sword behind. And combined with a sensing ability, it explained how she had managed to get behind him so quickly. In fact, if she had disguised herself as one of the customers at Ichiraku's and suppressed her chakra, then it was entirely possible that Kurama had not noticed her presence at all, and had only pretended to stay silent on purpose out of stubborn pride.
If I can be in two places at once, then there's no reason to think the enemy can't do the same. Naruto nodded to himself. If that was the lesson the lady had intended to teach him, then she could consider it well-learned. And if he applied that lesson to what Hinata had told him…
The shadow had breached Lord Hiashi's sealed off chambers without any apparent difficulty, and that part really bothered Naruto. There had to be some limit to the enemy's ability, or there would be no need for all this subtlety. If it really was possible to just casually assassinate a powerful shinobi leader while they were in their most secure location right in the middle of a hostile village, then why not just do that to every single person in their way and be done with it?
One the other hand, if they were capable of being in multiple places at once… well, the easiest way to break into a sealed off room was to already be inside it. That way, the Lord Hyūga would effectively be sealing himself off from any outside help. In fact, the seals would prevent anyone else from using the Byakugan to even see what was going on inside. So if the enemy had snuck a shadow clone in beforehand, and disguised it as an object or something… No, Hiashi's Byakugan would surely have spotted that the moment he entered the door. But if the enemy had disguised his clone as a person, or…
No wait, what am I saying? I already know he has the ability to control people's minds with Kotoamatsukami. All he would have to do is find a weaker member of the Hyūga clan and plant a suggestion in their mind while they were secluded from the rest of their clan. And then, when the moment came, that puppet could be used to open Hiashi's chambers from the inside.
Naruto stopped. His thoughts were leading in a direction he did not want them to go. He had trained himself to notice that discordant feeling, of his mind saying stop, don't go there, and he had resolved to always push through it. No good could ever come of not thinking about something painful, of refusing the truth that was in front of him. And yet…
There was a slight shift in the air behind him, and Naruto spun around, his hand already reaching for his sword. He stopped when he saw the black cloak and white mask of the Anbu, though this time the grey chest armour beneath it was not curved like that of a woman. Naruto craned his neck to stare up at the giant assassin looming over him, his hand slowly falling away from his sword. "Who…"
"Uzumaki Naruto. Your presence has been requested by the Hokage."
RazorSmile
ROB Used To Be A Knife Missile
The hell is Anko playing at? Is she trying to hint at Orochimaru being involved without hinting at Orochimaru being involved? Or has she just played waaaaaay too much Bloodborne?
EDIT (March 7 2021) - aaaaaand it's Uzuki Yugao and I am an idiot 🤦🏿♂️
EDIT (March 7 2021) - aaaaaand it's Uzuki Yugao and I am an idiot 🤦🏿♂️
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Pretty sure that's Yugao. Not that I was able to remember her name without googling "purple hair anbu".
What conclusion was Naruto coming to before he was interrupted? (By the way, is it just me or do interesting trains of thought, monologues, and conversations get interrupted way too often in this otherwise awesome fic?) My guess is it's that Sasuke did it. I mean, we know he's capable of mind control, we know he was already controlling Hinata, and thanks to Hiashi's death that means he's now controlling the confirmed clan heir.
And who's the new Hokage? It's gotta be either Ibiki or Danzo, right? Or one of their puppets.
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- Location
- Netherlands
Good eye! Yep, I always thought the Anbu were wasted potential in canon, that female characters were wasted potential and that Yugao's vow to avenge her husband was wasted as well, so I figured... why not kill three birds with one stone? And since she's supposed to be a mysterious side character, it's not really a problem if readers don't remember her name. Heck, she's in Anbu, so it's only in character for her
It's supposed to represent the fact that Naruto is "unthinking", e.g. subconsciously steering away from painful thoughts. I notice myself doing that all the time: even the slightest distraction can be used as an excuse to avoid thinking about painful thoughts.
I didn't think it happens that often in NTBS though. Usually my betareaders go "this segment went on for too long, should have been interrupted earlier". I guess it depends on how interested you are in the more explicitly rationalist aspects of the story.
It's supposed to represent the fact that Naruto is "unthinking", e.g. subconsciously steering away from painful thoughts. I notice myself doing that all the time: even the slightest distraction can be used as an excuse to avoid thinking about painful thoughts.
I didn't think it happens that often in NTBS though. Usually my betareaders go "this segment went on for too long, should have been interrupted earlier". I guess it depends on how interested you are in the more explicitly rationalist aspects of the story.
Admittedly I love those parts of the story. One of my favorite scenes was Kakashi explaining genjutsu and multi-level thinking to the kids.
But what I'm referring to is more generalized than that: It's characters getting interrupted while trying to get to a point. One other time this happened that I recall is when Naruto was explaining the goal and nature of his jutsu-sharing scheme to the other genin, and then he got interrupted by the Sand twins showing up. First, it was annoying, because I wanted to read the rest of his arguments. Second, it broke suspension of disbelief a bit, because the interruption felt like it was timed for dramatic effect.
Anyway, moving on... I can't help but notice that Yugao warned Naruto about Danzo in more or less the same words as Minato did in his letter. I went back to that chapter and Minato wrote, "You must not (...) trust the man named Shimura Danzō." Yugao said, "Do not trust the man known as Shimura Danzō." Coincidence? Also, it's such a weird way to refer to someone... "the man named X", "the man known as X". Why not just say, "Don't trust Danzō!"?
This might be a hint, is what I'm saying.
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Well, that's kind of a necessary narrative device. In real life people will sometimes talk about a subject for ten minutes or even an hour, but most of it won't be plot relevant. So you kind of have to interrupt the scene unless you want to write "and then they talked about the subject for another hour before going home".
Of course, you could also go the HPMOR route and have the main character just go off on long lectures to people without anyone ever interrupting him, but that brought about its own set of complaints
Who knows?
Anko was by far the most common guess, so this is probably just a mix of a less obscure character with purple hair already existing, and fanon reguarly portraying Anko as Anbu (admittedly, I even suggested that possibility in NTBS). If I had done it on purpose I could be fairly accused of deliberately setting readers off on the wrong foot
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