I went blank for good title names for this chapter. >_> Like TOTALLY blank. >_>
A day after the battle, surprisingly only a few lower ranked ninja as well as Inoichi Yamanaka, who was apparently on missions before and missing with the Mind Transfer jutsu had done a deal of damage to him, the three of them walked into the Hokage’s office. Riku, Reina, and Raiden, Deirous preferring to stay asleep, as expected, walked through the doorway, Raiden holding the door open for the other two to go through.
The Hokage’s office was pretty basic, nothing flashy or exceptionally standing out. There was a long desk that was positioned so that whoever sat at it was facing the door, cluttered with papers and files. The desk seemed to subtly curve backwards, almost making a slight crescent shape. Besides that, it seemed pretty empty, devoid of anything else besides three chairs that were in front of the desk, likely only there for this particular day. Behind the desk was a large window, which seemed to curve as well so that it covered the entire back wall of the room, from which the Hokage would have an exceptional view of Konoha.
Kakashi sat at the opposite end of the desk that they were at. Looking over his shoulder with both hands on the desk was a younger ninja. He had black hair that ran down his back and wore a long white kimono, very different then what you’d usually expect to see on a Konoha ninja. His eyes were... white. Not gray, nor a light version of another color such as blue, but dead white, his pupils not visible at all from where the three were standing. He wore a Konoha headband, as expected. Meanwhile, seeming to absently look out of the window, Naruto stood, though rather than wearing his Sage cloak, he now simply wore his normal, orange Konoha gear.
“Neji, I told you, it doesn’t have to be exact,” Kakashi said, two fingers on his head that slowly rotated on his forehead, openly showing his growing annoyance as he looked on the paper.
“And I’m telling you it does,” Neji said, calmly countering.
Kakashi sighed and mumbled to himself, “Don’t even know how the messenger bird is going to carry-” he suddenly looked up, hearing the door close and seeing the three of them, “Ah, you’re all here. Well, I suppose we should get down to business,” As he finished, he motioned to the chairs in front of his desk.
“What’re you writing about?” Raiden said, walking up to sit in the chair that faced Kakashi directly, apparently wishing to do most of the talking.
“Rather curious are we?” Neji said, rather condescendingly.
Kakashi waved his hand towards Neji, “Can’t hurt to tell them, I mean, it does involve them after all. We’re writing a letter to the Kazekage. Whatever you’re about to explain, it can’t be good news if it involves Akatsuki, so I’m requesting for the Kazekage to come to our village so that we may discuss matters privately,” he said, “Anyway, the floor’s all yours. Naruto, perhaps you’d like to pay attention?”
Naruto turned suddenly, seeming to have been awoken from a trance with the sound of his name, and then he calmed down, “Oh...” he said, scratching the back of his head with a goofy smile, “Sorry.”
Raiden started, “Akatsuki’s back, that’s apparent enough to you by now I would assume. We don’t know much more besides that... actually. All we know is that for some reason, they’re after Riku here,” he said, indicating Riku who waved awkwardly, “And that they’re apparently going for bijuu as well, they’ve already gotten their hands on Kirabi.”
Kakashi was taken aback by the last statement, “Kirabi? They must’ve gotten a bit tougher then. So I would assume that you’ve already spoken to the Raikage?”
Raiden shifted to the side, getting out of his chair and gesturing for Riku to stand up and take his place in front of the Hokage, “I haven’t. But he has.”
Riku took Raiden’s seat in front of Kakashi, who began to speak, “So I would suppose that the Raikage directed you here then? Not a very odd choice, as we have had quite the... experience with Akatsuki in the past. So what were you doing in the Raikage’s in the first place? You don’t even have a Kumogakure headband. As a matter of fact... the only headbands I’m seeing are Raiden and Reina’s Konoha ones.”
“Shinru, my sensei, was ‘kidnapped’ by Akatsuki. Before he left, he told me to go to Kumogakure, and the Raikage told me to come here.”
Kakashi’s eyes... or the one visible eye, widened again, “You were the apprentice Shinru mentioned before? This is a bit of a disappointment.”
Riku’s eyes arched downwards, “What’s that supposed to mean? And you knew Shinru?”
Kakashi slightly chuckled before answering, “No offense intended but... never mind. And yes, I knew your master, heck, I got my butt handed to me by him quite a few times,” he said, laughing again and scratching his head, “Anyway, you don’t know anything else about Akatsuki? Plans? Locations? Members?”
“Well, they just recently kidnapped another person from his village,” Riku said, pointing a thumb towards Raiden, “Members... actually... I only remember Tenzu, the one you just saw, and another one... The one who kidnapped Kirabi. I wasn’t there long enough to see anything, but he seemed to be able to suppress the bijuu within Kirabi,” Riku said.
Kakashi stroked his chin thoughtfully, but it was Naruto who spoke this time, “So if they’re going for bijuu again, and if they still have the bijuu statue they never found, and they just went for Kirabi, the 8 tailed bijuu...”
“They’ll be coming for either one of you soon enough,” Neji finished, summarizing Naruto’s thought.
The room was silent for a moment, Kakashi still deep in thought, and all but Naruto, who actually seemed more eager than afraid, were taken aback by the sudden realization. Kakashi finally broke the silence, “One more thing... that jutsu that the... Tenzu did you say? The jutsu that he escaped with, did you ever hear him say the name of it?”
Riku thought for a moment, and then answered, slowly speaking so that he had time to interrupt himself should he remember in mid-sentence, “No... I don’t remember hearing anything for that particular jutsu...”
Naruto’s eyes widened as he realized what Kakashi was talking about, and his head turned quickly to Kakashi, “Didn’t you use-”
Kakashi nodded and cut Naruto off, “During our mission...” he thought for a while longer, and then decided to dismiss the notion, “Anyway... There’s more that I’m curious about, but since you guys don’t seem to know much more than you’ve told us already, it seems as though I’ll just have to make sure everyone’s on guard,” Kakashi said, and then he looked towards Naruto, “Naruto, please do stay in the village. At least until we can find more about them out.”
Naruto scratched his head, “No promises.”
“Uh... dismissed I suppose. Though don’t be surprised if we request for you to come back a few times.”
Riku and Reina pushed themselves out of their chairs, while Raiden simply turned around as they followed him to leave.
When they were out of the hallway, Reina had finally spoken, “Was there even a reason for me to come?”
Riku shrugged, “Morale support?”
~
Tenzu appeared near Akatsuki’s tower days later, clutching at his side heavily with deep, heavy pants occasionally escaping him. He clutched the area where the Rasengan had hit; while Naruto had aimed at his back, the jutsu slid off as Tenzu tried to dodge it the first time onto his side. His other arm was limply by his side, having taken a nearly direct hit from the Raikiri, and worst of all, both hits were delivered by masters of their respective jutsu, making them even more devastating. Normally, he’d appear only moments after he was finished, but he couldn’t risk teleporting on such a large scale. He walked into the tower, it’s large, arched doorway still incomplete, meaning that, thankfully, he didn’t have to move his aching arm to open any doors.
He continued inside of the tower, trudging through it as it gently sloped upwards in a spiral formation, though instead of stairs, there was only a ramp. On his right, the side that would be the tower’s outside wall was lined with cages, various creatures in it, mainly countless people who had been experimented on by Kabuto. Some had wolflike jaws accompanied by claws as well, or perhaps scaly skin that made them almost impenetrable, though a few still kept their human forms. As he went farther up the tower, the people in the cages were more and more mutated, to the point where when the ramp stopped and made a long hallway, he had run into creatures that were simply wolves, lizards, and the like standing on two feet, gripping their cages and gapping their mouths. The spiral ended with a long hallway, and other cages were on either side of it. This was the level for the more dangerous prisoners, and because of that, he walked as quickly as he could to avoid hearing anything from one in particular.
These last few days weren’t exactly his luckiest though.
He walked past a few cells, when he heard a slight chuckle, and then a voice, “Limping and without even having your target with you? I must say, I’m rather disappointed.”
Tenzu turned his steely gaze towards Shinru, who, as usually, leaned against the cell’s wall. He looked away quickly, though, and walked away more hurriedly, trying to walk as straight up as possible, but still being unable to do so without at least a slight flinch every few seconds.
Shinru slowly inched near the door of his cell so that Tenzu could still hear his taunting voice, “Ya know, I’m starting to wonder if you’re even worthy of having captured me!” he yelled after the annoyed Uchiha.
~
Kakashi stood at the very top of the Hokage’s mansion, where an open aired area was. The area was flat on top of the mansion, a circular platform with some small greenery on it and a bar going all the way around it, while several curved pillars went upwards and inwards from the edge of the platform.
He leaned over the railing, having a moment of wistfulness, already knowing that Konoha would possibly go through the near-exact thing twice. That much was inevitable, and obvious to anyone who saw what happened days ago, which was the greater portion of the village.
Something, though, caught the top corner of his eye. It was a bird, but something about it drew his attention. As it came closer, it revealed itself to be a hawk, of generally normal size, no larger than half of Kakashi’s own body. It didn’t take him long to realize that this hawk held a message in it, having two straps across its chest with a scabbard-like case on its back that held a rolled up piece of paper. Taking the paper out, he looked at the hawk more curiously. It was much to calm, even form a messenger hawk, and its eyes... something about them seemed almost... human. The hawk was almost perfectly still, and when Kakashi reached for the message, he took to note that it had even moved to allow him to reach more easily.
The hawk seemed to notice that Kakashi’s curiosity was getting the better of him, and quickly took flight, flapping its broad wings slowly and soaring gracefully.
As difficult as it was, Kakashi dismissed the thought, seeing that the letter should be his immediate focus. He unraveled it, having to first untie a band that was coiled around it, and flicked his wrist as it opened up. He looked closely, and flipping the paper over, he could only see one word on it. Just a simple word, no explanations, and either whoever wrote this was a horrible communicator, or something very odd was going on. He guessed it was the latter, and continuously read the word on the paper:
The Hokage
A day after the battle, surprisingly only a few lower ranked ninja as well as Inoichi Yamanaka, who was apparently on missions before and missing with the Mind Transfer jutsu had done a deal of damage to him, the three of them walked into the Hokage’s office. Riku, Reina, and Raiden, Deirous preferring to stay asleep, as expected, walked through the doorway, Raiden holding the door open for the other two to go through.
The Hokage’s office was pretty basic, nothing flashy or exceptionally standing out. There was a long desk that was positioned so that whoever sat at it was facing the door, cluttered with papers and files. The desk seemed to subtly curve backwards, almost making a slight crescent shape. Besides that, it seemed pretty empty, devoid of anything else besides three chairs that were in front of the desk, likely only there for this particular day. Behind the desk was a large window, which seemed to curve as well so that it covered the entire back wall of the room, from which the Hokage would have an exceptional view of Konoha.
Kakashi sat at the opposite end of the desk that they were at. Looking over his shoulder with both hands on the desk was a younger ninja. He had black hair that ran down his back and wore a long white kimono, very different then what you’d usually expect to see on a Konoha ninja. His eyes were... white. Not gray, nor a light version of another color such as blue, but dead white, his pupils not visible at all from where the three were standing. He wore a Konoha headband, as expected. Meanwhile, seeming to absently look out of the window, Naruto stood, though rather than wearing his Sage cloak, he now simply wore his normal, orange Konoha gear.
“Neji, I told you, it doesn’t have to be exact,” Kakashi said, two fingers on his head that slowly rotated on his forehead, openly showing his growing annoyance as he looked on the paper.
“And I’m telling you it does,” Neji said, calmly countering.
Kakashi sighed and mumbled to himself, “Don’t even know how the messenger bird is going to carry-” he suddenly looked up, hearing the door close and seeing the three of them, “Ah, you’re all here. Well, I suppose we should get down to business,” As he finished, he motioned to the chairs in front of his desk.
“What’re you writing about?” Raiden said, walking up to sit in the chair that faced Kakashi directly, apparently wishing to do most of the talking.
“Rather curious are we?” Neji said, rather condescendingly.
Kakashi waved his hand towards Neji, “Can’t hurt to tell them, I mean, it does involve them after all. We’re writing a letter to the Kazekage. Whatever you’re about to explain, it can’t be good news if it involves Akatsuki, so I’m requesting for the Kazekage to come to our village so that we may discuss matters privately,” he said, “Anyway, the floor’s all yours. Naruto, perhaps you’d like to pay attention?”
Naruto turned suddenly, seeming to have been awoken from a trance with the sound of his name, and then he calmed down, “Oh...” he said, scratching the back of his head with a goofy smile, “Sorry.”
Raiden started, “Akatsuki’s back, that’s apparent enough to you by now I would assume. We don’t know much more besides that... actually. All we know is that for some reason, they’re after Riku here,” he said, indicating Riku who waved awkwardly, “And that they’re apparently going for bijuu as well, they’ve already gotten their hands on Kirabi.”
Kakashi was taken aback by the last statement, “Kirabi? They must’ve gotten a bit tougher then. So I would assume that you’ve already spoken to the Raikage?”
Raiden shifted to the side, getting out of his chair and gesturing for Riku to stand up and take his place in front of the Hokage, “I haven’t. But he has.”
Riku took Raiden’s seat in front of Kakashi, who began to speak, “So I would suppose that the Raikage directed you here then? Not a very odd choice, as we have had quite the... experience with Akatsuki in the past. So what were you doing in the Raikage’s in the first place? You don’t even have a Kumogakure headband. As a matter of fact... the only headbands I’m seeing are Raiden and Reina’s Konoha ones.”
“Shinru, my sensei, was ‘kidnapped’ by Akatsuki. Before he left, he told me to go to Kumogakure, and the Raikage told me to come here.”
Kakashi’s eyes... or the one visible eye, widened again, “You were the apprentice Shinru mentioned before? This is a bit of a disappointment.”
Riku’s eyes arched downwards, “What’s that supposed to mean? And you knew Shinru?”
Kakashi slightly chuckled before answering, “No offense intended but... never mind. And yes, I knew your master, heck, I got my butt handed to me by him quite a few times,” he said, laughing again and scratching his head, “Anyway, you don’t know anything else about Akatsuki? Plans? Locations? Members?”
“Well, they just recently kidnapped another person from his village,” Riku said, pointing a thumb towards Raiden, “Members... actually... I only remember Tenzu, the one you just saw, and another one... The one who kidnapped Kirabi. I wasn’t there long enough to see anything, but he seemed to be able to suppress the bijuu within Kirabi,” Riku said.
Kakashi stroked his chin thoughtfully, but it was Naruto who spoke this time, “So if they’re going for bijuu again, and if they still have the bijuu statue they never found, and they just went for Kirabi, the 8 tailed bijuu...”
“They’ll be coming for either one of you soon enough,” Neji finished, summarizing Naruto’s thought.
The room was silent for a moment, Kakashi still deep in thought, and all but Naruto, who actually seemed more eager than afraid, were taken aback by the sudden realization. Kakashi finally broke the silence, “One more thing... that jutsu that the... Tenzu did you say? The jutsu that he escaped with, did you ever hear him say the name of it?”
Riku thought for a moment, and then answered, slowly speaking so that he had time to interrupt himself should he remember in mid-sentence, “No... I don’t remember hearing anything for that particular jutsu...”
Naruto’s eyes widened as he realized what Kakashi was talking about, and his head turned quickly to Kakashi, “Didn’t you use-”
Kakashi nodded and cut Naruto off, “During our mission...” he thought for a while longer, and then decided to dismiss the notion, “Anyway... There’s more that I’m curious about, but since you guys don’t seem to know much more than you’ve told us already, it seems as though I’ll just have to make sure everyone’s on guard,” Kakashi said, and then he looked towards Naruto, “Naruto, please do stay in the village. At least until we can find more about them out.”
Naruto scratched his head, “No promises.”
“Uh... dismissed I suppose. Though don’t be surprised if we request for you to come back a few times.”
Riku and Reina pushed themselves out of their chairs, while Raiden simply turned around as they followed him to leave.
When they were out of the hallway, Reina had finally spoken, “Was there even a reason for me to come?”
Riku shrugged, “Morale support?”
~
Tenzu appeared near Akatsuki’s tower days later, clutching at his side heavily with deep, heavy pants occasionally escaping him. He clutched the area where the Rasengan had hit; while Naruto had aimed at his back, the jutsu slid off as Tenzu tried to dodge it the first time onto his side. His other arm was limply by his side, having taken a nearly direct hit from the Raikiri, and worst of all, both hits were delivered by masters of their respective jutsu, making them even more devastating. Normally, he’d appear only moments after he was finished, but he couldn’t risk teleporting on such a large scale. He walked into the tower, it’s large, arched doorway still incomplete, meaning that, thankfully, he didn’t have to move his aching arm to open any doors.
He continued inside of the tower, trudging through it as it gently sloped upwards in a spiral formation, though instead of stairs, there was only a ramp. On his right, the side that would be the tower’s outside wall was lined with cages, various creatures in it, mainly countless people who had been experimented on by Kabuto. Some had wolflike jaws accompanied by claws as well, or perhaps scaly skin that made them almost impenetrable, though a few still kept their human forms. As he went farther up the tower, the people in the cages were more and more mutated, to the point where when the ramp stopped and made a long hallway, he had run into creatures that were simply wolves, lizards, and the like standing on two feet, gripping their cages and gapping their mouths. The spiral ended with a long hallway, and other cages were on either side of it. This was the level for the more dangerous prisoners, and because of that, he walked as quickly as he could to avoid hearing anything from one in particular.
These last few days weren’t exactly his luckiest though.
He walked past a few cells, when he heard a slight chuckle, and then a voice, “Limping and without even having your target with you? I must say, I’m rather disappointed.”
Tenzu turned his steely gaze towards Shinru, who, as usually, leaned against the cell’s wall. He looked away quickly, though, and walked away more hurriedly, trying to walk as straight up as possible, but still being unable to do so without at least a slight flinch every few seconds.
Shinru slowly inched near the door of his cell so that Tenzu could still hear his taunting voice, “Ya know, I’m starting to wonder if you’re even worthy of having captured me!” he yelled after the annoyed Uchiha.
~
Kakashi stood at the very top of the Hokage’s mansion, where an open aired area was. The area was flat on top of the mansion, a circular platform with some small greenery on it and a bar going all the way around it, while several curved pillars went upwards and inwards from the edge of the platform.
He leaned over the railing, having a moment of wistfulness, already knowing that Konoha would possibly go through the near-exact thing twice. That much was inevitable, and obvious to anyone who saw what happened days ago, which was the greater portion of the village.
Something, though, caught the top corner of his eye. It was a bird, but something about it drew his attention. As it came closer, it revealed itself to be a hawk, of generally normal size, no larger than half of Kakashi’s own body. It didn’t take him long to realize that this hawk held a message in it, having two straps across its chest with a scabbard-like case on its back that held a rolled up piece of paper. Taking the paper out, he looked at the hawk more curiously. It was much to calm, even form a messenger hawk, and its eyes... something about them seemed almost... human. The hawk was almost perfectly still, and when Kakashi reached for the message, he took to note that it had even moved to allow him to reach more easily.
The hawk seemed to notice that Kakashi’s curiosity was getting the better of him, and quickly took flight, flapping its broad wings slowly and soaring gracefully.
As difficult as it was, Kakashi dismissed the thought, seeing that the letter should be his immediate focus. He unraveled it, having to first untie a band that was coiled around it, and flicked his wrist as it opened up. He looked closely, and flipping the paper over, he could only see one word on it. Just a simple word, no explanations, and either whoever wrote this was a horrible communicator, or something very odd was going on. He guessed it was the latter, and continuously read the word on the paper:
Riku
