What (Not) To Do While Extracting A Bijuu

by Nika_Kitohana

Summary:

Obito Uchiha got knocked out while extracting the Six-Tails.

Now he has two new rules:
1. Pay attention what everyone does.
2. If some strangers suddenly appear: Kill them.

It would have been good to know these rules back then.
He hoped it was not to late to reach his goal.

Chapter 1: What should not happen

Nearly all members of the organization Akatsuki were assembled with the Jinchuuriki of the Six-Tails, Utakata, in a big cave in the Land of Rivers.

 

The official leader of Akatsuki and his partner had captured the Jinchuuriki of the Six-Tails and after securing him in front of Gedou Mazou, got some distance and waited. Both Shinobi knew that Tobi was just a persona played by Madara. Over the last two extractions, the two Shinobi got some doubts about Madaras goal. Something did not add up and after the extraction of the Six-Tails, Konan and Pain would plan an investigation.

 

Obito was satisfied, as he watched the Jinchuuriki of the Six-Tails through the little eye hole of his orange mask. Everything was ready for the extraction of the Bijuu and so far everything went as it should - beside the Six-Tails, they already extracted the Two, Three, Four, Five and Seven-Tails. As soon as they extracted the Bijuu before him, there would only be three more left.

 

The One-Tail was sealed in the newly appointed Kazegake of Sunagakure. After this extraction, Obito would order Pain to send out Sasori and Deidara to capture it. Sasori was a Nukenin from Sunagakure, therefor he knew the terrain and would do this mission fast and without much difficulties. After that, he would send out Kakuzu and Hidan to Kumogakure to get capture the Eight-Tails.

 

The only hindrance in his plan, was that he had no information about the Nine-Tails. Obito knew, that the Jinchuuriki of the Nine-Tails was Naruto Uzumaki, a Genin from Konohagakure. Itachi and Kisame were there some weeks ago, but the Uzumaki brat was not! Wherever the brat was, Akatsuki would capture him and extract the Nine-Tails. Obito was sure of that. In his Tobi persona, Obito decided to jump around and annoy the other members till the last team, Hidan and Kakuzu, arrived.

 

Itachi leaned with closed eyes on the cave wall on the opposite side from Pain and Konan. He really hoped, that this extraction would be over fast, because his lungs and eyes were hurting. Itachi Uchiha was a stubborn and proud man, he would not start to get in to a coughing fit in front of a group of Nukenin. There were only two other members of Akatsuki that knew about his health: His team partner Kisame and Konan.

 

Near Itachi sat Kisame, on a little bolder and while he re strapped his sword Samehada with new white bandages, he also sent his partner some concerned looks. If you work long enough together with a person, you know them and the swordsman knew that Itachi was not in the best mood. He struggled with whether he should say something or not but a loud whining Tobi distracted him. The blue-skinned man sighed and dedicated himself again to wrapping his sword.

 

As usual the art duo of Akatsuki had a discussion about the true meaning of their creative calling: Was art eternal or for the moment? The blond artist was louder then the red haired one and while his red headed counterpart was quieter, his tone got colder with every word he said. If Tobi would not have decided to try to argue with them and Deidara would not have retaliate this interruption with a fist to Tobis head, Sasori would probably have thrown some poisoned senbon at his team partner.

 

As Tobi whined, Zetsu complained that he was getting hungry before half merging with the cave floor and rambling to himself about tasty human flesh, Kakuzu and Hidan entered the large cave.

 

Kakuzu was a man, that rarely cared about anything besides money. Maybe it was the fact, that Hidan was acting weird since they left their camp this morning. It began, as Hidan was awake earlier than every other day followed by doing his daily prayers to Jashin quietly and then he, for some reasons unknown to Kakuzu, didn’t say a word the whole time they needed to reach the other members. Even now, he was quiet. Kakuzu decided to observe the silver haired Jashinist and enjoy the silence but somehow, it felt… off.

 

Of course, there was a reason for Hidan's silence and this reason was his god, Jashin. The previous night, when Hidan slept, Jashin blessed him with a vision. His god was not a deity, that interacted often with his followers, so Hidan was over the moon, when he woke up. There was just one problem. Hidan did not understand the visions meaning and that was bad. How should he fulfill his gods wishes, when he did not understand them? Therefore, the first thing he did after waking up was doing a ritual. It did not help.

 

Hidan said it himself, he was not the fastest or the most intelligent of their organization and that was okay. He did not need to be the best or the smartest, all he needed was to serve his god. There was just one thing he needed at that moment and that was to understand his gods task for him and if that would mean to do ritual after ritual and thinking about every possible meaning of the vision after this extraction, he would do it! To miss the extraction was not an option. Pain would skin him and Kakuzu, that bastard, would gladly help him. Not him, his team partner oh no, he would help that orange pincushion. What ever he did to annoy Kakuzu today, he saw the looks thrown his way!

 

The Jashinist got determined and seconds after seeing the Statue, he got on his position for the extraction and bellowed: “Come on, motherfuckers! I have some rituals to do afterwards, so let us extract that stupid Bijuu now!”

 

Silence. For two seconds, there was pure silence in the cave and then Tobi squealed and with a loud “Oh yes Hidan! Tobi is a good boy!” he jumped to his position. This seemed to get movement into the gathered Shinobi because Pain followed, Konan shortly after and with that the rest of Akatsuki. Pain and Konan did a good job knocking Utakata out because he only got conscious again as the chakra of the Six-Tails first cloaked him and then it was forcefully ripped from him.

 

The Jinchuuriki screamed and screamed. It was so painful!

 

As a Jashinist, Hidan sacrificed living beings - normally humans - in his rituals for his god. He knew screams, knew how to goat them from his victims throats, knew how to enjoy them, knew how to ignore them and concentrate on other things like his rituals. This scream was annoying! He was not able to concentrate on this stupid extraction and more importantly to solve the mystery about his vision! So the chakra he sent to the statue was restless. Kakuzu who was still observing his partner, was shocked. You can say about the silver haired man what you want, but loosing control over his chakra was not a Hidan thing to do! Not while doing something simple like pushing chakra to a statue and now Hidan did it, he got him, Kakuzu, to worry and with that… Kakuzus own chakra got restless. Just for a second, but it was enough.

 

The blue-skinned swordsman was also starting to get more worried about his team partner. Extractions for Itachi and Kisame usually follow one schema: Both get to their positions, sending chakra to the statue and afterwards, they would book it out of the cave as soon as possible. Get away from the lingering echos of the screams, make camp somewhere and rest to fill up the chakra that they used. Nowhere in that schema was Itachi, at least for him, visibly in a bad mood and definitely did it not include for Itachi to open his eyes with active Sharingan! Kisame knew that the Sharingan took also from Itachis chakra, why would he do that know? It was, like with Kakuzu, just a short moment but the moment Kisames chakra was restless was again enough.

 

From this moment on it was like a domino effect that happened to three other Akatsuki members.

 

As mentioned above, Itachis lungs and eyes hurt, he was in a bad mood from the beginning and while he focused on his chakra flow, something suddenly started to feel wrong. He couldn’t stop himself, he activated his Sharingan and saw the restless chakra from Hidan and the short moment of chakra spikes from Kakuzu and Kisame. What happened? His own focus was broken and Itachis chakra flow was uneven. God, did his eyes hurt!

 

Konan had to give it to the black haired Shinobi. Itachi Uchiha was able to put his emotions behind a uncaring and disinterested mask that was hard for her to break but call it women intuition: As soon as he and Kisame entered the cave she just knew something was up. Was he in pain again? Was performing an extraction too much for him today? Could, or better, should she even say something to Madara or Pain? Pain would listen to her concerns, but Madara… Madara would draw a fit if she even hinted to postpone the extraction and she really did not want to fight him. As she observed Itachi, her instinct told her again that something was wrong. She stood straighter at her position and looked around. Suddenly some of the chakra flows of the other Akatsuki members become restless and uneven.

 

Concerned she looked to Pain at the same moment that Pain looked concerned to her.

 

So in tune with his long time team partner, Pain opened his eyes as soon as Konan started to stand more in attention and looking around. With his Rinnegan he scanned his surrounding and his members. The fluctuation of some chakra strings were like signal fire for him and he just had to look to Konan.

 

As soon as their gaze met, both felt the feeling of foreboding that something big would happen and the next two Shinobi of Akatsuki, even if it just was for a mere second, lost control of a steady chakra flow.

 

If the whole situation would have happened for one moment longer, surely the other members would have recognized too that something was happening. We will never know, if the rest of the Akatsuki members would also have lost control of their chakra or if Obito who had his eyes closed and was going through some plans in his head would have seen it with his Sharingan.

 

As soon as the sixth chakra flow was different something unknown in the Gedou Mazou was triggered. Obito, who summoned Gedou Mazou, was flung away with an immense chakra push, crashed in the cave wall behind him and landed unconscious on the floor while the other members of his organization were paralyzed where they stood. They could not even move one millimeter and were forced to watch the unknown jutsu to revile itself.

 

The Jinchuuriki of the Six-Tails was hovering in the air and screamed even louder than anyone of the assembled Shinobi ever heard. Utakatas body was so much covered in his Bijuus chakra, that if anyone entering the cave would only see a massive chakra ball hovering in the air.

 

Suddenly the screams went quiet, the wild chakra ball stopped moving and for one short moment there was pure silence again in the cave. Then the chakra ball exploded with a loud bang and a bright light.

 

When the group of Nukenin were able to open their eyes again, nobody knew what to say.

 

Utakata was lying on the floor, in front of him laid two strangers with their back to the Akatsuki members. One with light brown hair in a messy bun, the other with short, black hair. Behind Utakata sat a young woman in strange clothes. She had strawberry blond hair, in a neat, tight bun and big, round sky blue eyes. Eyes with tears in them, some even rolling down her cheeks.

 

The young womans gaze went over each Shinobi and stopped at Hidan. With a quite and shy voice, nearly a whisper, she said: “Hidan? Träume ich?” A small, shy smile entered her lips and then she lost conscious and her body fell to the side.

 

A wave of calmness waved over Hidan as soon as his and the strangers gaze met. Then she spoke and the Jashinist sprang into action.

 

Her eyes and her voice were exactly the same as in his vision.

 

He caught her shortly before she hit the floor. The language she spoke was unknown to him, but he understood his name. She knew him and the she was in his vision. He would successfully do the task that he got from Jashin and this woman would help him.

 

Hopefully he could learn her language easily. Or she his.

Notes:

Träume ich? (german, translated: Am I dreaming?)

Chapter 2: strange items and stranger people

There is one common language in all countries. From big to small, it doesn’t matter where you are, besides some dialect words, you understand each other. This language exists since the beginning, it was simply just there. Then, a long time ago the first people started to develop chakra The people without chakra got scared of the others, of their power and soon both parties started to get some distance to each other.

 

Soon, the people with chakra invented a new language and so both parties lived their lives for many, many years. While the party with no chakra led a normal and peaceful life, the other party started to fight. First it was with each other, to see who could use their chakra best. More often then not it was about some new technique, or some were better in manipulating fire than wind. Sometime, between seeing who knew more about different techniques or who was faster, who could jump higher, people started to kill.

 

One day, a person fled from an attempted killing and landed at the other parties land. While tending to his wounds, they fell in love with a member from the other group, who offered their help. This love was not returned and the slighted person killed the other in rage. Thus both parties were again involved with each other. While the group with chakra was mostly fighting against each other without concern for others, the other party started to hire the ones that that needed money, for their own revenge and tasks. Some started to move away and build new villages, but the arrangement, power for money, was never forgotten.

 

So Shinobi and civilians were born, the first with a second language. In daily affairs like shopping, having a conversation or reading a book, you would use the common language. Especially if civilians were involved.

 

Kakashi Hatake was surprised. He finished a mission in the Land of Rice and only a quarter of his way back to Konoha, he found a book laying on the floor. A simple, black book. A book with the title “L’Amour De La Lune 4”, a title he could not read and when he opened the book on the first page, that book was written in the Shinobi language. Now Kakashi was curious. To whom belonged the book? What did the title mean? The book seemed to lay on the floor for quite some time now and all lingering smells were long gone, so he could not find out who it belonged to.

 

He did finish his mission fast, there was time. Kakashi, one of Konohas elite ninja, decided to take a break and read. Once he started, he could not stop. It was similar to his favorite book, Icha Icha! The difference was that the author was definitely not Jiraiya, and as far as he could tell from the first two chapters, the characters and places had strange names - names that you would definitely neither use in the Land of Fire nor in its surrounding area. The characters were well written and their interactions really sweet. He could not help himself and imagined how he would interact with a partner one day. Would they be as cute as the characters from this unknown author or from Jiraiya? With a red face - even if he was on a solo mission and sitting high in a tree, Kakashi was happy about wearing a mask - he closed the book and tried to calm himself. He would need a bit of time to complete the rest of the way. At least this was the plan, though the setting sun told him, that he was late. very late. Tsunade, unlike Hiruzen, the former Hokage, was not as easy going. With a sigh, the gray-haired Jonin started making his way back to Konoha. If he had a black book in hand instead of the usual orange one, nobody said anything when he entered the gates.

 

He would find out who the author was. Jiraiya had a hard competition, because Kakashi Hatake needed the other books from this unknown author. As soon as possible.

 

The Nara compound was one of the biggest clan compounds in Konohagakure and at least one quarter of it was a forest. The numerous deer that called this forest their home, were protected by all members of the Nara clan and in exchange, the deer let Naras forage and roam around freely.

 

Seldom does a deer leave its home and wander to the humans in the compound. On this particular morning one brave doe did it and she had one certain human in mind. There was a young human that she liked and she wanted to find it.

 

Members of the Nara clan could not believe their eyes, as they saw this doe and some followed her, while two other clansmen searched for Shikaku Nara, who was their clan chief. When they came back, it was a miracle how every Nara in attendance didn’t laugh loudly. Oh Shikaku would grill his son later during a shogi or go match. He wondered if his wife would believe him.

 

The young Nara heir was on his way to his favorite cloud watching spot in the forest as he thought he would dream. There, some meters away, was the doe that often gave him company, alongside her fawn, while cloud watching and she walked directly towards him. Confused, he stopped and waited, curious what she would do. Said doe stopped in front of him, bleated and walked two meters away again, before she stopped and looked at him expecting. “Do you want me to follow you?”

 

The doe wondered, why this human did not come, so she decided to make him. Annoyed, she bleated at him again before she bit softly in his funny leg pelt and pulled.

 

“How troublesome”, sighed the young man and he started to follow the deer. Deep in the Nara forest, not so far away from his usual spot, the Shinobi yawned and closed his eyes for a moment - what ever this deer wanted, afterwards he would take a nap - before he stumbled lightly. Curious he looked to the dirty floor beneath his feet and found a ball with yellow, white and blue stripes. With narrowed and focused eyes he looked around. There, beside one of the bigger trees of the forest, was a huge buck and a young fawn. Probably his deer companions family. Both animals seemed to watch something behind the tree and as he came closer, the buck just glanced at him before focusing back to whatever hold his attention.

 

Two minutes later, Shikamaru Nara sighed and with a mumbled “Troublesome”, he made some clones of himself. He sent one of to find his father, one to fetch the ball he stumped over, one he sent to the Hokage, one to carry the stranger to the hospital, who somehow ended unconscious with a head wound in the Nara forest and one to carry the strangers bag. With a sigh, again, he followed his clones and the stranger, better to be cautious.

 

Still, while watching his surroundings, Shikamaru Nara could not help himself and watched the stranger probably more often then he should. The unknown man wore clothes he never saw before. How curious.

 

Tsunade Senju was the Fifth Hokage of Konohagakure and currently in desperate need of sake. Her assistant Shizune had confiscated it for the day till she managed to work trough all the paperwork on her desk - a task that Tsunade was sure she is not possible to manage because of all the new papers every other second. Especially if she was, like most of the time, at the hospital.

 

Earlier that day, an Anbu team of two brought two unconscious strangers to her and she ordered them to bring them to a special part of the hospital, after she could not wake them with her medical jutsus. This was worrisome as the blond kunoichi was known to be the best medic out there and to wake someone from a unconscious state should not be hard.

 

What also worried her was the fact, that this two were totally unknown and Jiraiya - she was never more glad to have him lead Konohas spy network - had reported two days ago, that the other Kage were getting worried about recent kidnappings. It seemed, that some villages had some Shinobi missing, but a betrayal was not an option, so someone captured them. The villages did hush that up and Jiraiya mentioned that it was hard to get that information, but something was happening right under the nose of all Kage.

 

If this two strangers truly were some of the missing Shinobi of the other villages, Tsunade had a problem. The young, black haired woman had a lot of colorful bangles on her arms and the man with light chocolate brown hair was dressed in black. Both were Shinobi, because the Fifth Hokage was sure, no untrained human could have so much chakra in them. If she did not inform their village in time and they find out they were here… no, the blond woman would not think further about what could happen. She would find out a way to bring them to a conscious state and if this was not possible with her medical knowledge she would wait. They had to wake up sooner or later and she would get her answers.

 

Two hours later and she still researched medical jutsus that could help them, Shikamaru Nara brought a third unknown man with him to the hospital. This time at least she could do something practical instead of researching. The stranger had, like the other two big chakra reserves: Another one of the missing Shinobi perhaps? She cleaned his head wound, mindful of his blond hair and started to heal him with a basic medical jutsu when he opened his eyes for a few seconds. Startled blue eyes seemed to recognized her.

 

At that moment, with the strangers blond hair and blue eyes, she was strongly reminded of Naruto. An also startled inhale of air from the wall of her left right side, reminded her of the Nara heir who was still present.

 

As soon as she finished healing the strangers wound, she ordered the Chunin and two Anbu to watch the room with all three strangers before hurrying out of the room.

 

Tsunade Senju, Fifth Hokage of Konohagakure, needed her sake. Now.

 

Notes:

L’Amour De La Lune 4 (french, translation: The Moon’s Love 4)

Chapter 3: Be careful with your wish

Notes:

Hi!
This chapter is a bit longer, but I felt like we all want to go back to our favorite Shinobi as soon as possible. Have fun with this chapter and the brief glimpse into the OCs normal lives. :)

As an opera singer, Rosalia was happy about a sold out show. She loved it, when people could enjoy her singing and most of the time, after a show, there was the possibility to talk with the audience. The only bad part in this opera was, that she had to wear the most uncomfortable high heels, which pinched and her voice started to feel strained. She really should not talk much over the day. Luckily, she had some days off now and could relax a bit.

 

With a sigh, she wiggled her toes in her favorite black, fluffy socks. They were warm and perfectly comfortable, exactly what she needed after a long evening, the day before. The black haired woman wiggled her toes again and smiled, before she headed to the kitchen. A good, hot Italian coffee would wake her up fully. About six minutes later, with a mug of coffee in her hands, closed eyes and leaning against her fridge, Rosalia started to plan her day.

 

First, writing a shopping list, then do some groceries. Second, starting on her lasagna and get it in the oven - cooking took time, but she loved it. Third, paying the bills. Sweet, just three things to do, she would be finished early with her agenda and then she could chill with a manga on her sofa the whole day. With a smile, Rosalia inhaled the smell of her coffee, opened her eyes and froze.

 

“Don’t do that, you scared me”, she sighed, drank the last of her coffee and placed the mug, with a light tremble, on the kitchen counter. With crossed arms, Rosalia turned back to the person in front of her. A shy and embarrassed smile appeared on the other woman’s lips. “I am sorry, I just wanted to get the last two boxes. The apartment key is on the sideboard in the hall, sorry, that it took so long. Bye.” The other woman lifted the mentioned two boxes in her arms a bit, like demonstrating that her words were true. Then, another shy smile and she left, didn’t even wait for Rosalia to say something.

 

Whatever Rosalia expected from this day, it was not a surprise encounter with her little sister. Her little sister slept in her guest room for about six months, after an ugly breakup with a total jerk. Rosalia was glad, that the other woman had found a new apartment and started to get back on her feet.

 

With a smile, the black haired woman reached for her phone. She had a shopping list to write, but as she touched the phone in her pocket, she started to feel weird. Suddenly exhausted, Rosalia went back to her bed.

 

A little nap would surely help.

 

Two countries over, in Spain, another black haired woman was on her way home from tutoring an elementary student. It did not matter which grade, apparently math was a problem everywhere. While she waited at a crossroad, she thought about her jobs - tutoring and babysitting. She would love to be a teacher one day, but to achieve that, she needs to save more money, hence the need for additional jobs.

 

Her hair, that reached her hips and was braided, swayed with every step. Sofia thought about the next job for this day. After arriving at her small flat, she would eat real quick and then walk to the neighbors three houses down the lane. Their little girl was to young to stay home alone and the parents needed to visit an ill family member for two hours.

 

As she turned into the correct road, other neighbors greeted her friendly. With short greetings, the Spanish girl rushed to her flat. Walking into her abode, Sofia looked around and was proud of herself. It was her first, own flat and she loved how she decorated it. The walls were painted in pastel colors and adorned with pictures. Beside the couch, there was a small bookshelf that held her manga collection.

 

Without noticing, she started to hum an old melody. Her mother used to sing that melody to her whenever she was stressed. Tossing her bag down on the kitchen table, she grabbed a yogurt from the fridge and an apple from the counter.

 

She quickly finished her meal, grabbed her bag again, and left the flat - all under ten minutes. Four minutes later, she knocked at her neighbors door. The babysitter job was enjoyable, it was a delight for Sofia to watch the little girl. They played with dolls for at least half an hour and after that, Sofia gave her a coloring book. As the parents returned home and the black haired woman said her goodbyes, the latter realized she was really hungry.

 

The first thing she did, as she walked into her flat, was tossing her bag on the couch and grabbing the screw-top jar from her bedroom. She had this jar since she was a little kid and it was decorated with a lot of stickers, mostly from Naruto. She put her earnings in this jar and slowly, it got full. A grin spread on Sofia’s face- soon, with a bit more money, she could pay for entering university. As she reentered the living room, she felt somehow off.

 

Sitting down, she instantly fell asleep and the jar dropped to the wooden floor, cracking open on the side.

 

There was also a cracking sound, echoing through Léo’s apartment in France, as he dropped his glass bottle. All he wanted to do was fill it with water and bring it along to his meeting with his publisher. With a monotone gaze, he looked at his trembling hand, then to the shards on the floor. “At least it wasn’t a mirror”, he joked quietly to himself. Taking a deep breath, he tried to calm down. His day was already terrible when he woke up - not even jogging in the morning helped him. The call with his mother afterwards didn’t make the day any better. As always, especially at this time of the year, she spoke with a cold tone, devoid of love in her words. The man with the chocolate hair wondered if he should do as she ordered or ignore her. His right, still trembling hand automatically reached his throat. Or, more precisely, to the silver ring that hung there on a chain.

 

Léo took another a deep breath, then cleaned up the mess he made, grabbed his black messenger bag, put on his shoes and suit jacket. He would just buy a plastic bottle on the way, fewer chances of making a new mess. As he picked up his apartment keys, he was pleased to note, that his hand didn’t tremble anymore.

 

While walking, he tried to figure out what to do with his mother. It was not fair! She knew it, he knew it, hell, everyone in the family knew it! No, he did not care about his remaining family - he said it some years ago and he would say it again, as often as needed to get it through his head.

 

He felt a bit dizzy, the beginning of a headache, and he hoped that he could buy some water soon. Léo tended to forget to drink on some days - maybe he should set a timer on his phone, or download an app.

 

Léo decided to take a short break and leaned against a street light. He hated being late for appointments, so he tended to arrive a few minutes earlier than necessary. He still had a some time left.

 

As he failed to show up to his appointment, it was his publisher who was concerned. Not his mother, who had forgotten to tell him something during their earlier call and couldn’t reach him for the rest of the day.

 

No, she was not concerned, never.

 

Another person, who was usually punctual, was Alexander. He was a young German man, a volleyball player, and for the first time in months, he was late to training. An incident involving his father, specifically his father complaining about Alexander’s three-day beard, had caused the delay.

 

Never mind, the discussion was over. Alexander got his beard shaved and running with his sports bag in on hand and a volleyball in the other to the volleyball court. On his way were four intersections - all of them with traffic lights and of course, Alex stood and waited at everyone of them. As he stood, impatiently jogging at one place, at the last intersection before the volleyball court, the blond haired German checked his phone annoyed. Great, just ten minutes left. As soon as the light turned green, he sprinted down the street.

 

With four minutes to spare and breathing heavily, he managed to enter the changing rooms. Finally, with one minute left, he entered the volleyball court and greeted his team. Some of his friends joked about the close call of coming late, the coach sent him a cold and irritated look. “You come twenty minutes early tomorrow, or we will have a problem, Mister Wolf” - “Yes coach!” With a last, scolding gaze, his coach divided the team and let them play against each other. It was the last training, before they played against their rivals the next day. Because of the match the following day, they did two extra hours of hard training.

 

This was the reason, why Alexander was totally exhausted at the end of practice. The game was won and the blond man turned to his coach. If he were not be so exhausted, he would have at least heard his teammate on the other side of the net serving straight to him. The others shouted, but he was to slow and the got hit with the ball, straight to his head. Everything was moving and with a step to the side, dropped to the side. His coach caught him, helped him to the floor and seemed shocked. He moved his mouth, but for the young German, the ringing in his ears was to loud to understand him.

 

The coach was shocked, shouted at the other team members. The man sent the others away and told the blond man on the floor, that he would grab his phone from the office and call an ambulance. That he would be back shortly.

 

Alexander, still laying on the floor, tried to understand him. His ears were still ringing though, the ceiling was moving and something wet ran down his head. Scared and with tears in his eyes, Alexander Wolf watched his coach’s back, as he left the room.

 

He was alone, as he closed his eyes.

 

In London, in a quite side street near the Themes, was a little, cozy tea room. It was a small tea room, just a few tables and a bookshelf on the backside were the interior. The chef made the best scones Charles had ever eaten and the waitress smiled every time, when he saw her. Charles like the place and was a frequent costumer, so it was no surprise to the staff, as he walked into the tea room on his free time.

 

With a soft smile, he greeted the other customers and the waitress, told her his usual order, before sitting down at his favorite table. Said table was in a corner of the tea room and gave him a perfect view through the windows to the street outside. He snuggled into his blue wool cardigan as he watched the people passing by the window.

 

As a medical student and part time employee in his families clinic, his free time was spare. His normal day followed usually a certain schema. Waking up and going for a little run, eating breakfast, working or attending university, with a lunch and dinner break, then studying afterwards.

 

“Here deary”, said the older lady, as she put a hot black tea and scones in front of him on the table and getting him out of his thoughts. “Thank you.” She left him alone and after taking a sip of his tea, he took a medical book out of his back bag. Leaning back against his seat, he lost himself in his book. He was glad, that he could learn in his parents clinic since he was little, so the most medical texts were easy for him to understand. Some months ago, he started to study medicine at the university and it was astonishing, how many people dropped out because of the workload and the “difficult” texts.

 

It must have been over an hour, when he looked up from his book again. After paying the bill, he decided to walk along the Themes for a while before going home for some more studying. The weather was sunny instead of the normal rain in London at this time of the year. He would make use of it.

 

He really had hoped, that taking a walk would help his headache, but that was not the case. Stopping at a bench, he sat down and closed his eyes.

 

Without his notice, he became unconscious.

 

With tears in her eyes, Eva looked at herself in the huge mirror on her closet door. Her strawberry blond hair was in a tight and neat bun, exactly as her mother had taught her. Her dirndl, traditional clothing in Austria, was straight, no creases, no stains.

 

Was it really so wrong for her, to shorten the dirndl to end under her knees and sew some beautiful Akatsuki clouds on the black, satin apron? They looked beautiful on the apron and matched the rest of her attire. Or was it the fact, that she put the knot of the apron on her left side and not in front of her? It definitely wasn’t the dirndl blouse, because she specifically decided to wear one with not much decolleté. Whatever it was, she would never know it. Her mother saw her, called her a disappointment, and sent her back to her room to “fix” her clothes. Her order was to “fix her clothes”, no specifications. Eva had no idea what needed fixing.

 

A determined glint entered her eyes. She had no idea, what was wrong with her outfit in her mothers eyes, but she would not change a millimeter of it! Eva liked it and she shortened and sewed everything by hand, she was proud of it! Who knew why her mother was angry today, she was often angry and mean words were nothing new.

 

Today, Eva’s family was invited to an event at the rectory garden of the local priest. Her parents, especially her mother, was a strict roman catholic woman, so she spoke about this event for ages. For two weeks straight, Eva did her best to not step on her mothers toes, so to speak. Did her chores, spoke the meal prayers when ordered to. Maybe she should not have shorten the dirndl and sew on the apron.

 

With a bang, her mother slammed the bedroom door open and watched her. The others eyes moved over the young woman’s body. “Didn’t I tell you to fix your dirndl? Get rid of this stupid, red clouds and reknot the apron. It is bad enough, that is so short”, she shouted suddenly. Eva twitched and took a step back. With a swallow, she straightened her posture and looked her mother in the eyes. Sky blue met sky blue. “No.”

 

Shocked, both women looked at each other, before the older one leaped forward. The slap echoed through the room. “Watch your tongue, young lady. I have enough of you and your attitude over the last days. You are grounded and do not even think about leaving this room!” She shoved Eva, then marched out of the room. Eva heard the click of her bedroom door lock and fell to her knees.

 

The tears finally fell, Eva didn’t even try to wipe them away. For the first time in years, she prayed willingly and from her heart. Maybe it was to spite her mother, but she didn’t pray to the woman’s god. Even if he was the imagined god of a mangaka, for Eva, Jashin was more real than the god from her mother. She prayed for herself and everyone, who felt like her.

 

Eva had a wish, and with all her being and feelings, she prayed to Jashin. She felt an unknown warmth in her body, an energy never felt before. Then she opened her eyes and paused. She must be dreaming! In front of her stood Hidan!

 

Without knowing it, she spoke something, before falling unconscious.

Chapter 4: Time to talk?

Notes:

Hi, hope you like the new chapter!
Have fun reading! :)

Please tell me, how you find it and how you like the title. I think, I changed the title three times.
I am hyped and already working on the next chapter. :)

Pain was confused. Yes, confused was the right word. During all the extractions Akatsuki did before, not once did one of his members have troubles to control their chakra. Now it were six? Whatever happened, did activate a hidden jutsu of the Gedou Mazou. A chakra explosion latter, Madara and the Jinchuuriki of the Six-Tails were, alongside three strangers, clearly Shinobi with their amount of chakra reserves, unconscious. He felt a headache coming and the chatter among the other Nukenin was not helpful.

 

“Zetsu, take Tobi and bring him to his room at our base, check for any injuries.” - “Yes Pain.” - “The rest of us will follow with this unknown Shinobi and the Jinchuuriki. For now all strangers are our prisoners. Hidan, as you are already holding the girl, you will carry her and bring her to my office. I want to hear from both of you, how you know each other and why she dares to wear our clouds. Kisame, Deidara, Sasori, you will carry the other prisoners.” With his orders given, he watched his members with a cold gaze.

 

Hidan wanted to say something, but closed his mouth as soon as he raised his head and saw Pains dark gaze and narrowed brows. With a single, small nod, he rose from the floor and carried the young blond in front of him. “What, old man?”, he snapped at Kakuzu who, again, leveled him with a thoughtful look. Still, the bounty hunter regarded him a bit longer, without a word. In the background, Deidara grumbled quietly to himself. Especially after Kisame grinned at him.

 

This situation was unique and Itachi would have loved to pick it apart piece for piece, but his headache didn’t let him concentrate at all and he hated it. He hoped it stopped soon. “Itachi, are you okay?” Slowly, the black haired Shinobi looked over his shoulder. He was so deep into his thoughts, that he didn’t hear Konan approach. This shouldn’t happen, he needed to rest a bit. “Hn?” The only woman in Akatsuki nearly rolled her eyes. Couldn’t this particular Uchiha answer, like anyone else, normally?

 

As she began to reply, Sasori seemed to lose his patience. He grunted an annoyed question to his team partner, something about how it is possible to be so slow to throw someone over ones shoulder. This started, a new discussion between the two and shortly after, Pain told them off with an cold voice, before the orange haired Nukenin lead the group of eight and their three prisoners out of the cave. With a sigh, the blue haired Kunoichi joined her old friend in the front.

 

At least Zetsu took hold of Madara some moments earlier and vanished into the floor - Konan really felt creeped out with the plant guy.

 

Of the three strangers in Konohagakure, the oldest one was the first to open his eyes. An Anbu with a cat mask left immediately to inform Lady Tsunade and Shikamaru watched the man. The man with the chocolate brown hair didn’t check his surroundings, like every Shinobi learned to do. Instead he grasped something with his right hand at his throat and closed his eyes again with a sigh. Did someone choke him before he fell unconscious? As Shikamaru watched the man - wondering why said man didn’t check the room - the other two seemed to wake up. It began with the only girl in the room as she blinked her eyes open and whispered something to herself in a language he didn’t know. The Naruto look alike moved a hand to his head and said with a strained voice: “Please, I have a headache, if you have to talk, do it in German or English. I do not know Spanish well enough to understand you and it hurts to try to translate the few words that I know.”

 

The girl and the older man twitched and looked to the blond man, before their eyes met. Their gaze swapped from the blond man to each other for some times, before the older man shrugged and said: “Then let us speak English for now, if this works for you two. I am Léo Roux and you two?” He definitely had also a different language, concluded the Nara heir, as he heard the man’s accent. “Alexander Wolf”, was the short replay from the Naruto look alike and Shikamaru really needed to find out, if he was a relative to his friend. If Naruto had a brother, he deserved to know it! The girl took a deep breath before saying in a soft voice: “My name is Sofia García. Where are we and does one of you know, why we are here?” “Isn’t this a hospital? I got a ball to the head during volleyball training”, answered the blond man confused, slowly opening his eyes and met two concerned looks, as he met each of their gazes.

 

Still, not once during this short conversations did one of the three check their surroundings. Shikamaru Nara, didn’t even try to hide or mask his presence and none of the three did notice him! As Tsunade who arrived at the room when Sofia woke up, cleared her throat, all three of the strangers twitched and looked startled to the door. Tsunade looked slowly from one stranger to the next one and back. “You are in Konohagakures hospital, our Shinobi found you each in different places. I am Tsunade, Fifth Hokage of this village. Boy, I will check your head again and then all three of you will answer some questions”, was said in a no-nonsense tone and all three strangers just nodded. Something flickered in their faces, but Shikamaru couldn’t say what it was.

 

As long as Tsunade didn’t send him away, he would watch the three further during the upcoming interrogation. Still standing in the corner of the room, only noticed by Tsunade and the hidden Anbu that also kept watch, he observed the strangers.

 

Shikamaru was sure: These three were no Shinobi.

 

With little mumbling from certain Nukenin, the eight Akatsuki members and their prisoners where back at their base in no time. They used a special jutsu to communicate so normally, every team was doing there own thing till Pain contacted them. It was just for special missions, that they would meet up in person with their leader. Still, even if it was rare to see more than four persons at their base, every member of the organization had their own room - a fact, that Itachi Uchiha really appreciated at that moment. He didn’t pay the other members any attention. As soon as they reached their base, he booked it to his room to take a long nap. Kisame would come and get him, if Pain needed him.

 

“What is wrong with the Uchiha, Kisame?”, asked the blond artist, who watched together with Kisame Itachis back vanishing behind a corner of the hallway. Before the blue-skinned man could answer, Sasori who was some steps in front of the duo, called over his shoulder: “Move it you two!” With a sigh, Deidara and Kisame followed the others. When they entered Pains office, said man ordered to lock Utakata in a room deeper in their base and to lay the strangers on the floor near the door. Then they could leave and wait for further orders, except Hidan, who would not put the girl down. Konan just send Pain a look and took a stand behind him, to his left side. Kakuzu also stayed, said he wanted to know how or better, when Hidan met this girl on their travels.

 

So, when everyone else left the room, Pain started to ask questions. “Who is that girl, Hidan?” - “I don’t know.” - “How does she know you?” - “I don’t know.” - “How does she know about Akatsuki, why does she wear our clouds? What language did she speak earlier?” - “Fuck it Pain! I don’t know!”, shouted Hidan loudly, still holding the young woman carefully in his arms. “You better start talking Hidan, now!”, said Pain coldly. His voice was devoid of any emotions, but the cold tone clearly stated repercussions if Hidans answers didn’t satisfy him. “I don’t fucking know, asshole. Jashin did send me a vision with her in it. He probably sent her here for a reason, which reason, I do not know yet.” Both men starred each other in the eyes, neither wanted to look away first. In the end, it was Hidan who looked away. The strawberry blond woman moved in his arms. Noises from the door indicated, that the other two strangers woke up too, but the Jashinist was focused on the blond woman. Slowly she opened her sky blue eyes and startled a bit as she saw Hidans violet ones. A shy smile was on her lips, as she asked: “Ähm, hi Hidan? Please tell me, you speak English too, because I have no idea, what you and Pain talked about just now.” Hidan grinned. “If you call the Shinobi language English, then yes I do.”

 

Konan was curiously eyeing the blond girl and then the other two strangers who began to sit up and lean against the wall. Kakuzu lifted an eyebrow at Hidan and the girl. Sent by Jashin? He never really cared about his team partners religion, but now he wished he would pay a bit more attentions to the silver haired man. Pain cleared his throat, if Hidan didn’t have the answers, surly the girl did. Before he could begin to ask his questions, the two strangers at the door interrupted him. “That’s a dream or a hallucination, innit?” - “Can we dream or have the same hallucination? Because I am pretty sure, that I see the same right now.”

 

Hidan and the girl in his arms, laughed.

Chapter 5: Allies?

Neither knew it. On this particular day, or rather, this evening - how fast a day can end is astonishing - Lady Tsunade, the Fifth Hokage of Konohagakure and Pain, the official leader of Akatsuki, were annoyed, tired and, if they were honest with themselves, overwhelmed by the situation. Of course, neither would say so loudly.

 

In Konoha, Tsunade asked every question possible regarding the three Shinobi in the hospital room. “What did happen to them?”, “Which hidden village were they affiliated with?” and more. She received answers to some, while others were met with silence. The idea of summoning Inoichi Yamanaka and Ibiki Morino crossed her mind. Inoichi, the head of the Yamanaka Clan, could delve into the strangers’ minds and Ibiki, the head of the Konohagakure Intelligence Division and specifically in charge of Konoha’s Torture and Interrogation Force (T&I), was another option.

 

Both men could extract the answers from the three strangers before her, but Tsunade hesitated, unwilling to step into this political minefield. Getting accused of capturing foreign Shinobi is one thing - this alone could lead to a lot of bad things - but also adding torture and interrogation to the mix? Tsunade shuddered. No, she would not even risk it.

 

None of the three disclosed their affiliations. They also remained tight-lipped about ranks, saying that they weren’t Shinobi. Tsunade didn’t believe it for a second. They spoke the Shinobi language to well and each of them possessed too significant chakra reserves to be anything else but Shinobi. Apparently, the girl, Sofia, worked hard earn enough money to become a teacher, the blond boy, Alexander, attended a sports school, focusing on volleyball - a sport Tsunade had never heard of - and the man, Léo, wrote books. All three claimed to follow their daily routines, doing their normal tasks until they suddenly felt extremely tired or dizzy. According to them, this was all that they knew.

 

All three were careful not to reveal too much. The males of the group tensed when Tsunade mentioned contacting family. The girl just smiled sadly and all three insisted that their families would be unreachable. As Tsunade probed further, Sofia’s face grew sadder and she told Tsunade quietly that her parents where dead.

 

Tsunade needed more information, alas, she knew she would not get it at this moment. Something did hinder them from speaking. So, she would relent for now. “It is getting late, so we will continue this conversation tomorrow morning. There will be a Jonin outside of your door and Medics running through the halls, if you need something during the night. In the morning, one of the hospital staff will check your vitals again and a Jonin will bring you to my office afterwards.” With a last, calculating look to each of the foreign Shinobi, the Fifth Hokage turned to leave the room.

 

Shikamaru saw the Hokage’s little hand sign and as she stood in the hall and closed the door, he appeared beside her with a Shunshin. “What did you find out from the conversation?” - “Not much, Lady Tsunade. They didn’t talk much before you arrived. I do not think that they got Shinobi training though. None of them checked the room once when they woke up”, answered Shikamaru with a sigh. The strangers were a mystery and he wanted to solve it. “We need to find out from which village they are. Time to change plans. Fetch me Kakashi, Kurenai and your father!” Muttering a quiet “Troublesome” while using a Shunshin again, Shikamaru followed his orders.

 

Back in the hospital room, Léo studied his two temporary roommates. This was weird. Nothing made sense. Why should he dream or hallucinate about being in the world of Naruto? Why with two strangers he never saw before? He only spoke a bit of German from back in school, he had no idea about Spanish! “I must be dreaming”, whispered the girl, but it was so quiet in the room that everyone could hear it. " After a short silence, Alexander told them: “Trust me, I am definitely not dreaming or hallucinating it. Definitely not from a damn hospital in Konohagakure and meeting Tsunade Senju. Also, my head hurts too much for being in a dream.” - “D’accord”, said the writer, Léo. “Something is going on here.” If this is real, if all three of them landed in the Naruto universe, they needed a plan. For the moment, a plan just between the three and he was sure an Anbu was watching. Tsunade wouldn’t just leave them, three unknown strangers, unwatched.

 

He saw a medical chart at the end of Alex’s bed, with a pen hanging on its side and the beginnings of a plan started to form in his head. Slowly, he stood up and checked the end of his own bed. Under confused gazes from the others, he reached for the chart and pen. “Do you know this medical language? I never understood what they wrote in my files back home”, came from the blond boy. “Nope, I just want to write a bit on the backside, or doodle”. It seemed that luck was on his side. Under the page with his medical data was a blank one. As he began to write out his plan, Sofia started to ask Alexander, if he was often in hospitals. After hesitating for a second, he said that he was an active person and doing a lot of sports - being in a hospital it was nothing too unusual some years ago.

 

For the next half hour, the room was filled with the noises of a pen scratching over paper and the quite small talk between the teenagers - mostly about their favorite sports. Sometime while talking, Sofia walked over to Alexander and sat beside him on a chair. Léo made the last dot, for now, before writing down his mobile number two times and ripping them off. A blond and a black head turned to the writer curiously. With a small smile, he gave both the tiny pieces with his phone number and then showed them his plan.

 

‘I do not know what happened, but I am sure that there is a reason. There is no way that we three are dreaming or seeing the same things right now, so we are really here. In the Naruto Universe. Somewhere, there has to be an answer to how this happened and I want to find it out. I will find it out. Will you both help me? For now, I want to keep the fact that we know things about this universe a secret. I bet Tsunade has someone, probably an Anbu, watching us. As long as we do not know in which time line we are, it could make everything more complicated. Are you onboard with this plan? It is your decision if you keep your knowledge quiet for now or if you help me find out what happened. I hope that we get our stuff back soon - I had my bag with me and in it was my phone. On the other piece of paper is my phone number. Whatever happens tomorrow, if you got hold of your phones and if they work, you can reach me any time.’

 

Both teenagers read the words carefully before sending each other a quick glance. They were happy to get a voice, to make their own decisions. With a short nod to Sofia, Alexander grind at Léo. “I like that little story! No wonder you are an author! Hey, what do you think about this?”, he said with a twinkle in his eyes, as he reached for the paper and pen in the older male’s hand.

 

Under the nose of the watching Anbu, Sofia, Alexander and Léo “talked” about possible ways to determine the current timeline.

 

After the Jashinist and the blond girl laughed, he put her down on the floor. She smiled at him softly, before waving at the two at the door and looking to Pain. “You probably have a lot of questions. I hope I can answer them.” Pain nodded at her. “What is your name, girl.” - “Eva Koller.” - “You wearing our clouds, why. How do you know us?” Eva hesitated. “Where I am from, nearly everyone knows about your organization. I like the clouds, so I sewed them on my apron.” There was silence. “How did you get information about us? There are rumors in the nations, certainly, but not enough that ‘nearly everyone’ knows about us”, asked Konan astonished.

 

“Wait”, came a resolute voice from the side. The black haired woman, standing by the door, was focused on Eva. “Who tells us, that they doesn’t kill us as soon as they have all the information they want.” Then she looked at Pain. “I don’t know, what happened, but I am here and I do not want to tell you stuff just to be killed afterwards.” The young man man on her side agreed with her. “It’s definitely bonkers, but I am sure, we can come to an understanding.” - “And who are you two?”, asked Pain monotonous. “Charles Jones”, came from the young man, the older woman smiled and said, that her name was Rosalia Rossi.

 

A determined glint entered Eva’s eyes and still a bit unsure, she decided to risk it and hoped, that the other two strangers know as much of Naruto as herself. She needed to get out of this office in one piece and talk with both of them. “Yes. I am sure, that we three could give you important information. We know a lot of your organization, your members and also things about Jinchuuriki and villages. If you let us live and not torture us, we can give you information.”

 

Hidan laid a Hand on her shoulder and looked at Pain. “Nobody kills or torture her.”“Hidan”, started Kakuzu, but was interrupted by the Jashinist. “No, Jashin sent her, nobody of you will hurt her, or touch er with your dirty hands.”

 

Again, there was silence. Kakuzu sighed. Even if his team partner was immortal, it was not wise to anger Pain. “Maybe this will help you with a decision. I tried to explain something to my sister and still have a fanart on my phone”, said Rosalia in a soft tone, as she took something rectangular out of her pocket. The woman tipped on it, before walking in front of Pains desk and showing it to him and his team partner. Kakuzu couldn’t see what it was. What he saw, was the widening of his leaders eyes and Konan’s trembling hand, as she instantly reached for it while taking a sharp inhale of air. It was just a second, before the Kunoichi dropped her hand, but it was enough that everyone saw it. “It is okay, take it for a moment.”

 

While Konan held her phone carefully in her hands and studied what she saw, Rosalia took her chance leaned a bit further over the table. With a quick motion the opera singer grabbed a pen from his table and wrote “Neither Tobi nor Madara are his real name. Do not trust him.” on a blank paper. “Hidan, Kakuzu, take these three to a room, they will be our guests. For now. We will talk further tomorrow, it is getting late.” Konan’s smile was sad, as she handed Rosalia her phone back.

 

Hidan and Kakuzu gave a silent nod to the other two Shinobi and lead the three out of the office. With a grin, the Jashinist laid his arm around the blond girl and started to talk about Jashin. The girl listened with wide eyes and nodded at the right moments. With a sigh, Kakuzu hastened his steps. Hopefully, the day ended soon. He needed a good nights rest and time to think about what he learned in his leaders office.

 

As the group reached the right room, Hidan left them with a grin and Kakuzu with a stern warning. The room was dark and had the bare minimum in it. “What fanart did you show Konan?”, asked the only man in the room. “One of their genin team and their Sensei, Jiraiya.” - “Good thinking”, said Eva and after a short moment, she added: “I am sorry, that I dragged you with me into the Naruto world. I was angry at my mother and started to pray to Jashin in my room. Didn’t think it would work.” She tensed, as Rosalia laid her hand on her, Eva’s, head. “What happened, happened. We shouldn’t think about the past. Instead, let us think about the present. What are we gonna do? Do you think you can pray again to Jashin and we land back home? Or, should we start changing things? I don’t know about you, but I think I would like to prevent some deaths.” - “I can try to pray if you want, but I would like to change things too.” A moment of silence fell over the three. “I am a medical student and I have a test coming up. Please try to pray for me. If it works, great, if not, I will gladly help you change things.”

 

Eva nodded, sat down on a bed, closed her eyes and prayed, but nothing happened. She tried it for several minutes, maybe half a hour. In the meanwhile, Charles and Rosalia also sat down on the other empty beds and started to whisper ideas for possible plans, regarding the next day, back and forth. As the strawberry blond opened her sad eyes, Charles only smiled at her and nodded.

 

“Please Charles, Rosalia, do you want to exchange your phone numbers? Maybe it will help us in the future. I also will try to reach out to a friend. Maybe it works and we will have further help.” With a smile, the group exchanged numbers, texted each others and friends from their home, before planning some more. Tired, all three did fall into their bad two ours later.

 

On the next day, each of them checked their phones. The text massages to each other worked, but not to their friends.

Notes:

“D’accord” (french, translated: All right/okay (you use it to agree with someone, but it is not a definitive agreement like “It is agreed”. Hope it makes sense))

Chapter 6: deals and accommodations

Notes:

Hello!
Please check again the tags from time to time, thanks!
I just added the tag "Mpreg" - it is not fix yet, but maybe I will add it in some later chapters. There are some ideas and I thought to let you know now. I would be happy to know what you think about it. :)

Konan talked with Pain late into the night. At the beginning of their discussion, Pain considered letting the blond girl live and killing the other. In his mind, it would reduce the risk of tipping Madara and Zetsu off about something going on. However, Konan was able to change his mind. The blue haired Kunoichi theorized that both of their members would be alerted with Eva alone, it didn’t matter if the others were dead. Contrarily, it would be better to have them alive, or Eva could become sad and closed off completely. Then they would have no leverage to get her to talk, as she would be the only one with the knowledge. Plus, this would definitely lead to a tense atmosphere with Hidan. He had mentioned more then once that she was sent by his god and anything hurting the girl would also anger the silver haired Jashinist. So, Pain agreed with his team partner and oldest friend. Konan was happy to have saved three lives. They really would have been some unnecessary deaths.

 

Konan and Pain went to their beds late and the Kunoichi felt it now. She was absolutely tired. While yawning, she put her white paper rose in her hair and left her room. The halls were silent as she walked slowly to the stranger’s room. As she arrived at the right room, a small yawn escaped her lips before knocking three times at the wooden door.

 

After a short while, an also tired looking Rosalia opened the door. With a soft smile, the black haired woman let the Kunoichi enter. Konan sent a quick glance around before focusing again on the older woman in front of her. While Eva was kneeling by one of the beds and praying, the only man in the group did some push-ups. “I will bring you to Pain.” Eva just nodded silently from the bed. Charles hesitated a moment before ending his push-up and looking to Konan expectantly. “Is there a chance to grab a cuppa before?” - “A cuppa?” - “He means a cup of tea. Please tell me you have strong coffee”, said the Italian. “Without caffeine, I cannot concentrate well in the morning.” - “May I have some hot chocolate, pretty please?”, asked Eva with a timid voice from the side. Konan blinked and was silent for a moment before telling them that they had tea and the three could have some after meeting Pain. Charles looked at her with hopeful eyes before asking about certain tea brands - Konan didn’t know any of them. They only had Matcha tea.

 

Without more words, the blue haired Kunoichi turned and led the others to Pain’s office.

 

After entering Pain’s office, Konan took once more her place at the leader’s right shoulder. Charles was nervous. Pain was a scary man in his eyes. He really had hoped that Eva could get him back to his parents. He missed them and it would definitely beat dealing with Nukenin who could kill them in mere seconds.

 

“Let’s make it short: You three will live, for now. In exchange, you will give Konan and me every piece of information you have concerning Akatsuki and our members.” Charles took a deep breath and tried to talk himself into answering Pain, but Rosalia was faster. “What about this? You will let us live, not just for now, forever and we will tell you what was supposed to happen with your organization. Who the person you call Madara really is and what his true goals are.” Maybe it was the caffeine. The medical student didn’t know the older woman for long, but he was sure that she would have been more careful with her words if she had been more awake.

 

He regarded the others in the room. Pain and Konan didn’t show many emotions, but he was sure that he saw surprise flicker in the blue haired woman’s eyes for a moment. The orange haired man’s lips could have twitched for a moment in amusement, or it was the shadow from one of the candles in the room and Charles misinterpreted it. Rosalia got a bit pale, but she looked resolutely at the two Shinobi in front of her. The only teenager in the room fiddled nervously with the fabric of her Dirndl. With a nearly steady voice, he added: “We do know that Yahiko and you two founded Akatsuki to bring peace into the world. At the moment, you will bring nothing but destruction, death and war. Please let us help you go back to your roots.”

 

There! Now there was definitely an emotion on both Konan’s and Pain’s faces! Nervously, Charles put a strand of his light brown hair out of his face. Please, he bagged in his mind. Please let us help you and let us live. Please.

 

On his left side, Eva stopped fiddling with her hands. With determination, she gave them a shy smile. “Yes, we three are absolutely sure that Akatsuki can bring peace. You two are the true leaders of Akatsuki. Not the man you call Madara or Tobi. Please let us help you reach your true goal without a war. There are so many deaths that can be avoided. So much pain.”

 

Silence fell over the group and without noticing it herself, the strawberry blond girl started to fiddle with her clothes again.

 

While there was a moment of silence, Pain studied the face of each stranger. They were nervous and still, a glint in their eyes showed their determination. They believed in what they said - to get peace without war. Was it possible? Right now, Madara was unconscious and Zetsu was watching over him. They should act as fast as possible before the man with the orange mask woke up. Konan put her hand onto his shoulder. Whatever he decided, she would stand at his side, always. She truly was his best friend.

 

“Tell me the main points about Madara.”

 

Tsunade really wondered why she took the hat. A question she often asked herself, mostly at night before falling asleep. A question she would never get an answer to. Maybe she should start training a successor already?

 

A knock on her office door startled her from her musings. Shizune - Tsunade was really glad to have the black haired woman on her side - let her Shinobi in. Guy’s grin nearly took over his whole face and Asuma nodded politely at her. “You summoned us, Lady Tsunade. What can we do for you?” - “There are three unknown individuals in Konoha. They are currently at the Anbu section at the hospital. All three of them say that they aren’t Shinobi, but they possess a huge amount of chakra. I need two Jonin for this job and I think you two are perfect. Guy, I want you to take in the oldest of them, a man called Léo. He says he is an author. Asuma, you will take in the other two, a girl named Sofia and a boy named Alexander. They are teenagers. Jiraiya told me that some villages are in search of some of their Shinobi. Someone out there is capturing Shinobi.” Here, both Jonin took a quick, sharp breath and if Tsunade wouldn’t have already all their attention, she would have it now for certain. After a moment of silence, the blond Hokage continued: “Your mission is as follows: Take the strangers in, take care of them, observe them and find out, who they really are and where they are from!”

 

Both Shinobi in front of her nodded at her seriously. After she told them to ready their homes and to come back in two hours, they left. With a sigh, Tsunade wished for a Sake, but Shizune did confiscate it as soon as she entered the Hokage’s office at that morning. After receiving mission reports from Kakashi Hatake and Kurenai Yuuhi each, Tsunade had a meeting with Shikaku Nara about the political minefield they are in at the moment. As her Jonin Commander and one of the best strategists Konoha had, Shikaku pointed out that the best option right now would be to have the three unknown strangers watched. Two of her best Jonin would certainly do the trick. “Shizune, what did you find out from their belongings?”

 

“All three had keys and their wallets in their bags. They seem to use strange money, it is nothing like ours. Then there were also some plastic cards with their photos, but we could not read them, it was written in a foreign language. Everything that had something written on it was in another language. At least they seem to use the Shinobi characters, with little additions, in their written languages. Maybe a Nara could make sense of it? Oh, each of them had also a strange rectangular, slim thing with a glass side in their bags or on their person. This unknown devices had each two buttons on the side, but when some Chunin tried to get these things to do something, nothing happened. In the bag that Shikamaru gave us, where mostly clothes and a bottle of water. The bag from Sofia contained tissues, two snack bars with pictures of apples on the wrapping and some music sheets. In the messenger bag from Léo were some notebooks and pens in different colors. Also, again a strange device, looked like the others, just bigger and it was in an extra cover.”

 

Tsunade nodded, various thoughts racing through her mind. “When they arrive, just give them the bags. I do not think that they will be more forthcoming then yesterday. Guy and Asuma will find out what these devices are”, said the Hokage. While waiting, she finished some paperwork from her desk.

 

Shortly before the two hour mark, Tsunade sent an Anbu to the hospital.

 

At the hospital, the Spanish woman was the first to wake up in the morning. While sitting at her bed, entangling her hip long, black hair and doing a new braid, Sofia observed her two roommates. Even only knowing them since the day before, she already considered both her friends. She was scared to be in another world and she really missed her family. After the long “talk” she had with the other two from her world, she felt a bit safer with them here and they were nice.

 

Alexander was the next to wake up. She was just finishing her braid when he woke up and, with a stretch, he nodded at her happily before nearly jumping out of bed. They did some small talk for a while, waiting for Léo to wake up. The older man in the group stayed up later than the two teenagers, working on some ideas for a new book. He told them, in a written message, that he wanted to have something to show if asked what they did. Sofia was really glad that he thought about this too.

 

Not long after the blond teenager managed to talk the black haired girl into doing morning stretches with him, the author woke up. Silently he blinked once,then twice and sat up.

 

With a light smile, he joined both teenagers.

 

After a medic checked them a bit later in the morning, an Anbu entered the room and made a “follow me” gesture. Even the fast walking of the Anbu leading them could not stop the three from looking around. Alexander was sure he would explore as soon as he was allowed to! After arriving in Tsunade’s office, all three gladly took their bags and the blond teenager saw Léo instantly looking through his black bag. Or at least trying too look trough it, then as soon as he started to open it, someone knocked on the office door and Asuma and Guy entered after Tsunade allowed it. “These two are Sarutobi Asuma and Might Guy. They will take care of you until we find out what happened. Léo, you will go with Guy. Alexander and Sofia, you both are to go with Asuma.”

 

Alexander and his two new friends looked at each other shortly before simply agreeing. As they greeted the two Shinobi and introduced themselves, they were ready to leave the office. “Do not do anything stupid in my village. I will know it.” A last nod to the Fifth Hokage and finally, they could leave.

 

As soon as the group of five left the Hokage tower, the two Shinobi turned to their new charges. Guy told Léo that he would show him his new home for the time. Asuma explained that he was a teacher and that he had team training to do. So both teenagers had to follow him to the training ground his team favored. Before leaving with Guy, Léo placed a hand of both the teenager’s heads and patted them. Now following Asuma, the black haired girl let out a resigned sigh and whispered “Great, training” to herself.

 

The blond teenager heard her and chuckled softly, while eagerly looking forward to seeing team 10 and getting, hopefully, a good training in.

Chapter 7: current date?

Summary:

Hi!
I finally manage to write this chapter. Please let me know if you find any serious errors regarding the grammar.
Have fun reading! :)

It was an interesting day for Guy. After splitting up with the others, the Konoha Shinobi and the author had been on their way to Guy’s apartment. Guy had tried to find out more about the other man without making it too obvious. Unfortunately for him, Léo seemed not to be a fan of small talk.

 

After arriving at his apartment, the Shinobi dressed in green had shown him around before he got the first little data about the man. Guy had ended his little tour in his living room and he had left Léo alone for five minutes to start a light lunch for them in his kitchen. Just after he had started to cut up some carrots, he had been able to hear some noises from the living room, followed with some low mumbling in another language and then the brown haired man also entered the kitchen with his bag in hand. “Mister Might, I cannot find my manuscript. It was my final draft for my new book. Is it possible that the Shinobi who looked through my bag took it out to read and forgot to put it back?” There had been silence for a short moment. “Firstly, just call me Guy, my new friend. Secondly: How do you know that someone looked through your bag?” - “Besides my missing manuscript? There is an unconscious stranger in your village without any apparent affiliations - it was logical that someone would look through it. So, how do I get my manuscript back?”

 

Guy had told him that no Konoha Shinobi would forget to put something back in cases like this, but that he would send a clone and ask for the manuscript. Léo had just nodded thanked him. The author had offered his help in preparing lunch, but Guy declined the offer. He liked to cook alone. While he had cooked their lunch, Léo had walked back into the living room. A quick glance through the open door had shown the Shinobi that the author had taken a seat on his couch and had started to write in a small notebook.

 

Yes, it was an interesting day for Guy and while frying some rice on the stove, he thought about what he had learned so far. The other man wasn’t a loud person, he seemed to be a dedicated author and was smart. Guy sighed, he himself was an outgoing person. Hopefully, he would find some ways to get Léo to open up to him.

 

He turned off the stove and plated their food before bringing it out to the living room with a boisterous “Lunch is ready!” and a big smile. Startled, Léo noticeably winced and looked up from his notes. Guy added it to the “Signs that the other man is no Shinobi” list that he had in his mind for the author. No Shinobi would be startled so easily. As Guy thought, lunch was a quite affair. “As Asuma, I am also a teacher. Tomorrow, my team and I have a training session and we will work on our endurance. You can join us running laps or wait with a clone somewhere in the village. You will not be allowed to leave the village for now.” - “I do not know if I would be able to match you or one of your teammates in endurance or speed, but I would like to run with you for a bit. Normally, I jog every other day in the morning.” - “How youthful of you, my new friend! Do not worry, I will join you gladly in your morning jogs whenever you want to do them!” - “Thank you. What are your plans for the afternoon?” With a grin, the Shinobi answered: “Well, I think we need to do some shopping. You will need some clothes for hanging out at home, some for training and some for sleeping. I am taller than you, so I do not think that my clothes would fit you. Then we should stock up on food.”

 

“I am not sure if my money works here”, answered the other man before reaching into the bag near his feet. He took out his wallet and showed Guy his money, but it was as he feared. The author’s money was unknown to Guy. Another fact that the Shinobi put on his mental list. He didn’t know any nations that had another currency. He told him that he should not worry about money for now. Guy would pay it and talk about it with the Hokage. With another grin at the author, the black haired Shinobi took their empty plates and the cutlery into the kitchen before grabbing a sponge and soap.

 

While he was scrubbing the frying pan that he used earlier for cooking, he thought about which stores to visit later in the day.

 

Léo was exhausted from all the shopping they did this afternoon. He helped Guy with the groceries in the kitchen and then Guy showed him how to use his washing machine and dryer. Glad that his new clothes would be ready tomorrow, he let himself fall on the futon that Guy helped him set up earlier. While shopping, Guy sent out a clone as promised, but it seemed that his manuscript was never in his bag. The author really did not look forward to writing everything again. With an internal grumble, he sat up again as he heard the signal tone from the dryer.

 

Getting his clothes, placing them in the little chest in the room and putting on his sleepwear took fortunately only a few minutes. He settled down on the futon again, ready to sleep, but a thought entered his mind. What was the current date? One moment he laid on his stomach, the next he was trembling, across the room and rummaging through his bag that the placed near the door. As he found his phone, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. A trembling hand hold the phone, the other griped the ring at his throat. With an exhale, he opened his emerald eyes and pushed the volume button on his phone to activate the locking screen. There, in tiny letters under the time, was the date.

 

A low sob left his lips and, without him noticing, tears ran down his cheeks. “You got your wish, mother”, he whispered to himself in french. Another quick inhale and exhale of air later, Léo dropped his phone back into the bag, took out notebook and pen and crawled on all fours back to the futon. He knew he could forget to sleep for the next hours. He started to write, at the beginning some loose thoughts. Some random phrases and sentences later led to the beginnings of a little story about some birds that were on a journey. He was in the middle of writing a scene about a beautiful flower field besides a little pond, as a tear dropped on the paper. It was at the second drop of a tear that Léo started to take notice of his tears and wet cheeks. He was glad to be a near-silent crier and hoped that the little noises he normally made where to quiet for Guy to hear. Trying get himself under control again, he laid down again and closed his eyes.

 

The next day couldn’t come fast enough.

 

Sofia and Alexander also had an interesting day after splitting with Léo. They had followed Asuma to his team. Except dancing, the Spanish woman did not look forward to doing any sport.

 

As they had reached the training ground, Sofia had been flabbergasted again to see all the characters from one of her favorite animes. It had been as if she would watch an episode on her laptop - Chouji had a bag of potato chips in his hand and had been sitting beside Shikamaru, who had been laying on the floor. The blond Kunoichi has been trying to get the Nara to move and glared from time to time at Chouji, because he did not help her.

 

“Great, you are all on time! Today we have two guests who will train with you. Team 10, these are Sofia García and Alexander Wolf. Sofia, Alexander, these are Shikamaru Nara, Ino Yamanaka and Chouji Akimichi. Team 10, as a warm-up, I want you three to practice your kunai and shuriken throws. I will give Alexander and Sofia some pointers and afterwards, we will do some light taijutsu training.” As expected, Shikamaru had muttered his usual “how troublesome” before he had joined his teammates and grabbed some shuriken. Maybe it had been her imagination, but Sofia was sure that she had seen Shikamaru looking curiously at Alexander and her.

 

“So, what to do with you two? Hm.” - “Sofia and I could run some laps and maybe practice some volleyball moves? Like setting or spiking?”, had been the answer from the blond teenager. Sofia had glared at him. “I will help you practice volleyball moves, but I am not running some rounds!”

 

There had been a moment of silence before both teenagers simultaneously had turned to Asuma.

 

Asuma grinned, as he thought about yesterdays team practice. After Alexander had explained what this volleyball game was, he had let both teenagers do their own practice. As he had started the taijutsu training with his students, it was clear that all three of them had been distracted. After some time, he had decided to end the normal practice earlier. He had got Alexander’s and Sofia’s attention and asked them to show his team these volleyball moves again. It had been amusing for the Jonin to watch the five teenagers in front of him. Especially, as he told them that they would play a three versus three without chakra the next day.

 

Alexander was absolutely happy with this decision - the grin from the blond boy could have also been from Naruto. Sofia and Ino accepted it in silence, but you could see that they were not so happy about it. Chouji was also silent although this could also be because he was more focused on the new bag of chips in his bag. Seriously, where did the boy always hide his snacks?

 

The most amusing had been Shikamaru. His normally lazy student had paid close attention to his and Alexander’s explanations. Was he curious about the other teenagers or about this game? As usual, his student had mumbled a “how troublesome”, but then focused on the blond boy and tried to do a serve as he got the ball.

 

Now, sitting with his two new roommates in his living room and eating breakfast, Asuma really looked forward to this little game later in the day. He wondered how his students would handle if one of them played in the other team and without using any chakra.

 

It was nice to not eat breakfast alone for once. They had some small talk and worked together with cleaning the dishes. Asuma showed both teenagers where to find good food stores near his apartment before leading them once again to the training ground. As they arrived and met the rest of team 10, Asuma sent Shikamaru and Ino to get a string from one nearby tree to the fence on the left side of the training ground. This would mark the top of the “net”. Chouji would check if it was straight.

 

As he gave his students their directions, the Jonin saw Alexander giving Sofia a little hand sign and both get some steps away from the Konoha Shinobi before starting to have a hushed conversation. This whole gesture showed Asuma, that both teenagers had no idea about how much distance they needed to a Shinobi and the little hand sign was also too easy to spot. It was easy for Asuma to position himself near enough to hear what they talked about without making it obvious. The conversation really didn’t make sense.

 

What is a c cable?

Chapter 8: It was definitely a step in the right direction!

Earlier today, just as Hidan finished his morning ritual, Kakuzu told him that Pain wanted them, along with Itachi and Kisame, in is office. So the Jashinist and the former Takigakure Shinobi met up with the other two Akatsuki members and walked to their leader’s office. All four Shinobi instantly felt the heavy atmosphere as they took one step into the room. “Just think about it, please”, said the blond girl with a soft voice. Then she saw the four ninjas and smiled at them with a little wave as a greeting. “You wanted to see us, Pain?”, asked Kakuzu. The Nukenin from Takigakure was straightforward as always. Pain looked at them before glancing at the boy and the black-haired woman. “You two agree with her?” A resolute nod from both was his answer.

 

The orange-haired man now fixed his four members with a monotone gaze. “Kisame, Itachi, these three here”, Pain started, nodding at the three strangers in the room, “have crucial information about our organization as well as happenings in the hidden villages. Hidan and Kakuzu can brief you more about it later on the road.”After confirmation from both ninjas, Pain outlined the mission: “Your teams will investigate the border between the Land of Hot Water and the Land of Frost. Establish a new base there and feel free to cross the Land of Fire or take an alternate route. Additionally, collect bounties along the way. Kakuzu, I trust you have an up-to-date Bingo Book.” Kakuzu nodded silently. Lastly, Pain assigned Eva and Charles to accompany both teams. Addressing Hidan, he added: “As the two were sent by your god, you will be responsible for them on this mission. Ensure they learn to protect themselves, the others will help you. You are dismissed.”

 

It was common for Akatsuki members to receive a mission when ordered by Pain in his office, so all four Shinobi were ready and headed instantly to the exit of their base. It was only Hidan who considered their two charges. Shortly after leaving through the exit, he asked: “So, do you two have any ninja training, or do we need to move as slow as civilians?” There was a moment of silence where the blond girl fidgeted nervously with her fingers. It was the younger man with the light-brown hair who finally answered: “Where we’re from, we do not possess chakra or anything similar. So, no, we do not have any training.” Kisame laughed out loud. “Come on, kiddo, you definitely have a lot of chakra. Every Shinobi can feel it in the way you flaunt it.” - “Firstly, I am no kid, I am 22. Furthermore, maybe we got chakra after landing here? Eva, what exactly did you wish from Jashin?”

 

All eyes turned to the blond teenager after this statement and Eva blushed. “Ich… ähm.. ich will nicht…”, she began, embarrassed, before realizing she had started speaking in German. “I do not want to talk about it! Let’s go!”, she snapped in embarrassment before heading in a random direction. Mere seconds later, she suddenly got picked up and was to astonished to make a sound. In comparison, Charles let out a scared “Hey, mate what are you doing?” behind her. Hidan grinned down at the blond teenager in his arms and turned around again, telling her that she was headed the wrong way. Trying to hide her red face, Eva looked around and giggled as she saw Kisame a few steps away, laughing hard, with Charles slung over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

 

The Shinobi exchanged quick hand signs before sprinting in one direction, led by Kakuzu. They covered a lot of distance from their starting point, though Eva wasn’t sure how much. At some point, they took a break after the Englishman announced he would throw up soon if he was further carried around like that.

 

While all four Shinobi took this moment to get on the same page regarding the information about Eva, Charles, Rosalia and the mission, Charles observed the blond teenager. After the fourth time she rubbed her red cheek, he narrowed his eyes at her. Taking a closer look, he noticed that the cheek was not only red, but it also starting to bruise. He searched his bag for a small, white jar and handed it to Eva silently. The girl looked at it confused before taking it and studying it for a moment. Still confused, Eva asked the young man what it was.

 

“It is a cooling cream, made by my father. Keep the jar. It is good against sore areas like your cheek because the coolness numbs the area a bit and it also has some properties in it to help against bruises and other ailments in advance. ” Eva’s eyes went wide, so he added: “Look, I understand that it is something personal, I will not ask how you got hurt, whether it was an accident or if someone hit you. It’s just… I know the signs of someone having a hurt cheek from some patients of my parents. Put a bit of the cream on now and before going to bed today. I am sure, whatever it is, it will hurt less tomorrow.” He stopped for a moment and looked at her a bit guiltily. “I apologize for earlier, to ask about your wish for Jashin was unacceptable. I am not religious, not one bit, but prayers are like wounds - everyone has their own story and is private till it is shared. To ask you was wrong. My apologies.”

 

Eva pressed the little jar against her chest and looked down. There was a moment of silence between the two, only disrupted bye the sounds of the nature around them. After a little while, Eva thanked him and applied a bit of the cream to her cheek. Both began to watch the Akatsuki members a bit away from them. Suddenly, Kisame seemed to say something wrong and Hidan was already reaching for his scythe as Kakuzu decided to end the quarrel before it really started. With a quick move, he cut off Hidan’s hand shortly before it reached the large weapon on the Jashinist’s back.

 

Kisame sent his team partner a look, as if asking if this really happened. Itachi just nodded his head a tiny bit before saying a few words to the blue-skinned man and turning around, heading into the surrounding forest.

 

“Did Kakuzu just cut off his team partner’s hand?”, asked Charles, with big eyes. Eva confirmed it with a little shaken, quite voice. A bit further away, Kakuzu and Hidan were bickering back and forth before Kakuzu headed back in their direction.

 

For a moment, Hidan watched Kakuzu’s back with a open mouth. Two seconds later, Hidan stomped after his team partner and now both were near enough for the two non-Shinobi to understand them. At least Kakuzu was near enough to hear his quite mutterings - Hidan was shouting so loud at his partner that you could hear him easily.

 

“Hey, old man, do not be such an asshole! At least sew my hand back on!”, the Jashinist shouted and waved the mentioned detached hand with the other in the air. Kakuzu ignored him. Reaching the place where Eva and Charles were sitting, the Nukenin said: “While the other two are securing the area, Hidan and I will start to train you as Pain ordered. Do pay attention! Time is money and I hate to repeat myself unnecessary. When Itachi and Kisame are back, we will continue running. ” Both non-Shinobi accepted instantly, neither wanted to get on Kakuzu’s bad side. As Charles watched the still annoyed Jashinist sulking a bit away, he said: “Hey Hidan, I can sew your hand back on if you want.”

 

Hidan wondered what the catch was in Charles’ offer. Should he trust the other man? To have his hand sewed back on was definitely a plus in his mind, so he reluctantly agreed. Kakuzu asked if the other man had a medical background.

 

“I am a medical student and in my free time, I work at my parents’ clinic. Some weeks ago, I started to help my mother stitch people back together after minor operations. Sewing someone’s hand back one will be more of a challenge, I am not gonna lie, but I think I am able to do it and it’s not like Hidan can die if it takes a bit longer”, Charles explained.

 

“Looking at blood is not so easy for me, but I want to help too! I can sew your clothes back together if they get ripped during a battle. Mending clothes is easy for me”, said Eva with a soft voice. “How are you making sacrifices to Lord Jashin if you have trouble with blood?”, asked Hidan, astonished.

 

The strawberry-blond girl, once again, blushed from embarrassment. With a quiet sigh, she stumbled over her words a bit before she got an answer out. “I never did sacrifices for Jashin. Growing up, my family believed in another god. To be honest, praying to Jashin was a bit of a bratty move against my mother. I was never enough for her, never believe enough or prayed enough. I was not enough participating and offering my services at church. Praying to Jashin was also the first time prying to another god and I didn’t expect anything to happen.”

 

As she talked, she realized that it was true. Growing up and believing in her “old” god never gave her anything - no feeling of being part of a community, no sense of belonging. No prayer ever got answered. Till she prayed to Jashin. With a glimmer in her sky-blue eyes, she looked directly into the Jashinist’s eyes.

 

“Please, it was the first time any prayer was answered. I do not know why I am worthy of Lord Jashin’s time, but he listened. Please teach me about your religion so that I can be a good follower. I swear I will learn quickly and do what is necessary!”

 

“Great, now there are two of them…“, mumbled Kakuzu to himself, exasperated, before looking at Charles and telling him that if he even thought about also becoming a Jashinist, he would kill him despite Pain’s orders. Scared, Charles nodded instantly in acceptance. Then Kakuzu bellowed at Hidan and Eva to stop whatever they were planning. They would do Shinobi training now, the Jashinist could teach the girl his religion when they would make camp in the evening.

 

Hidan didn’t care about Kakuzu’s words or the impromptu training he and his team partner were doing with the two foreigners. He was feeling absolutely, fucking good. Jashin had sent him a vision and then this girl and her friends appeared. At first he was really confused, he didn’t know what his god wanted from him exactly, but teaching a new follower Lord Jashin’s way?

 

It was definitely a step in the right direction!

Notes:

I hope you enjoyed the new chapter! As always, I would appreciate any tips and tricks regarding English grammar. :)
Which characters would you like to read more about? I'm currently working on a chapter with Rosalia and also on a new Konoha chapter - we still need to find out the result of the volleyball game.

Chapter 9: socks, shoes and a mission

Rosalia watched Eva’s and Charles’ back as they left Pain’s office, following Hidan, Kakuzu, Itachi and Kisame. She wondered why she was not dismissed. Expectant smaragd-green eyes met purple Rinnegan. Pain’s gaze was again monotone and Rosalia hated it. It did not help her to decipher how to to proceed further with the man. Konan broke their little stare off as she moved, near silently, to the door. “Come Rosalia, I will help you prepare for our mission.” With wide eyes and confusion written over her face, Rosalia looked from one Shinobi to the other and back again. She nodded at Pain and hurried after the blue-haired Kunoichi. No way she would be left alone with Pain in his office. The black-haired woman was not yet sure how to talk with him without being scared to get killed. Especially not without some caffeine in her body!

In the hall, Rosalia ask Konan about this mission she was apparently part of. Konan gave her a tiny smile that she nearly missed. “I will explain everything to you as soon as we are on the road. Please apologize, the promised green tea will have to wait. Come, let’s see if my shoes will fit you.” What was wrong with her shoes? Confused, the opera singer looked at her feet and started to laugh. “Oh, I didn’t even notice that I am only wearing my fluffy socks.” Amused, Konan led the way. After realizing that she only wore her favorite pair of fluffy socks, Rosalia also realized her cold feet now. The floor really wasn’t warm. How could she miss it? Rosalia hurried after the Kunoichi, hoping that the offered shoes would fit her.

 

It was a simple room. A bed in on corner, a dresser and a little desk with a chair on the opposite wall. “Akatsuki members are normally on the road, so I do not think that anyone has more than necessary here at the base”, started Konan while checking her dresser. “But you probably know that already. Here, try this one and if they do not fit, we will check out Hidan’s room for shoes.” Rosalia took the offered shoes and wondered if it would look crazy to let her socks on. It were standard ninja shoes which were open at the toes. The black-haired woman decided to not care about it. She would prefer to look crazy instead having cold toes and slipped the shoes over her socks. Ignoring the raised eyebrow from the Kunoichi in front of her, she said: “They fit, so Hidan’s room is save from us, for now.” Konan just nodded at her and, again, gestured Rosalia to follow her.

 

There was silence as both women walked through the halls of the Akatsuki base. Konan seemed to prefer silence and Rosalia was unsure how to act around the other woman. The blue-haired Kunoichi did not talk much and she had this certain aura around her that gave the opera singer the feeling to thread carefully. The woman beside Rosalia demanded respect without saying so.

 

Outside of the base, Konan started to walk silently in one direction and Rosalia followed without a word. One step behind the Kunoichi, the black-haired woman studied the nature. It was a nice area and Rosalia started to relaxed a bit. Some tension fell from her shoulders, but not all. The silence went on for a bit more before Konan’s voice broke through it.

 

“Eva said earlier, that the old man would help us save this world. Charles and you agreed with her. Why?” Shinobi wore a certain mask to hide their emotions. Rosalia was sure that every Shinobi who worked in their profession long enough did it automatically. Therefore, the opera singer was sure that Konan’s slip of her mask was unintentional. The question why Eva was so sure with her statement and why the other two back her up seemed to rattle Konan. There was a light hesitation before she asked and Rosalia was sure that there was something in the others eyes too. What, she couldn’t tell.

 

“There are moments in the Anime and in the Manga were you encounter him. In each of this moments, there were interactions that just showed his emotions, even if you Shinobi have more often then not a mask on your faces. This moments and some flashbacks shown in the series showed what he thinks about you.” Again there was a moment of silence before Rosalia added in a soft voice and little smile at the blue-haired woman. “In the series, shortly before he died, he called you ‘one hell of a woman’. He was proud of you in this moment, Konan. Proud of your skills and of your growth as a person and as a Shinobi.”

 

Konan watched her for a moment, frozen like a statue. Then she blinked and turned around abruptly. “Come”, was the Kunoichi’s monotone order before she walked further along the little path in a fast pace, “we have a lot of distance to get between the base and us. We make camp around late afternoon and then we will start your chakra control training.”

 

Again, Rosalia hurried after her. She bit her lip a bit, wondering if this was a good moment now to ask a second time about the mission they were on. As if Konan has read her mind, she said without turning around or slowing her fast pace: “Our mission is to gather intel about our targets whereabouts. Then we track our target down and engage him. The goal is to get the target to listen and establish an alliance in the best case, or at least a ceasefire.” - “And who is our target?”, asked Rosalia, trying to not let her voice show how annoyed she was with the other woman’s words. Was it a Shinobi thing to talk about mission details without telling anything like a name or gender? Or was the origami user messing with her? Even if the opera singer’s voice was more or less even, she couldn’t help and express her annoyance with a slight eye roll.

 

Konan slowed down a bit and sent the black-haired woman a quick glance. A small, really tiny smile told Rosalia that the Kunoichi was indeed messing with her. The answer that followed just confirmed it to 100 percent.

 

“Jiraiya-sensei of course!”

 

The woman with the white rose in her hair observed the black-haired one silently. It was hard for her not to show her amusement. The other woman was dressed in comfy gray clothes and the fluffy black socks - a surprise, that they are not gray - looked really funny in Konan’s open ninja shoes. They traveled a good distance, even if they only moved as slow as civilians.

 

Konan was satisfied and told Rosalia to gather some wood for a campfire. She wasn’t sure, but she thought to hear someone once call hair like that a bob cut - Konan didn’t care about hair styles and how they were called, as long as she had her rose. Everything else was not important in her eyes.

 

Soon after they, or better after Konan got a fire started, Rosalia let herself fall to the ground like a stone. Straight and with a bang. “I am so tired! Are we camping here or will we continue walking after this break?” The short-haired woman looked totally exhausted and Konan was again reminded that Rosalia was no Shinobi. While they walked, Rosalia didn’t complain once. To be honest, the time walking was pretty quiet. Konan was sure, that the other woman had been thinking about topics to talk while walking, shortly before speaking, something seemed to stop her each time.

 

After a moment in which the blue-haired woman internally laughed over an intimidated Rosalia, she finally answered: “We will camp here. The terrain further ahead is no fun to maneuvering in the dark. For the rest of the day, you will meditate and try to feel your chakra. Tomorrow, we will rise early.”

 

Instantly, Rosalia nodded her head in the universal sign of acceptance, but murmured as quietly as she could to herself: “And not one cup of coffee today.” Konan couldn’t help herself and one of her hands flew to cover her mouth as she laughed quietly. The Kunoichi observed the opera singer. The black-haired woman was sitting in front of her on the floor, face astonished with big smaragd-green eyes looking up at her and the legs stretched out, toes in fluffy black socks wiggling nervously. Konan’s laughter rose in volume.

 

After a short moment, Rosalia smiled over the whole face, joined the laughter and for the next few minutes, happy noises filled the area. Somewhere between the laughter and the giggles, Konan also sat down on the floor.

 

As both started to calm down, Konan began telling the opera singer how to meditate and how chakra normally feels like. A thought crossed her mind.

 

The future was definitely changing.

Chapter 10: Just a walk

Shikamaru was not happy. Why again, did Asuma-sensei add a ball game to their team training? The new training routine for now was meeting his team in the morning, sparring and working on Ninjutsu till noon. The quick lunch ended as soon as one of Asumas clones arrived with Alexander, Sofia or both of them and this was followed by setting up a net and starting a lot of rounds till late afternoon. During this games it was not allowed to uses chakra, of course. Asuma-sensei told them that it was ‘to bring their teamwork to perfection’ and ‘not to relay on chakra so much’. With a sigh, Shikamaru joined Chouji and Ino on one side of the net and got in position to receive the ball from Sofia, who had a determined expression on her face. Asuma, Alexander and Sofia won the most games the day before and it seemed like she wanted to keep the streak.

 

If Shikamaru was honest to himself, volleyball was not so bad. Granted, he was a lazy person, even for a Nara, but the sport was okay. He would never love it but it was okay for a sport. It was nice to play with his team and seeing their smiles when one of them was hitting the ball correctly or getting a point. Shikamaru would do his best to never mention it in front of Ino. The blond was already nagging him enough to be more active. Troublesome woman.

 

No, it was not volleyball why he wasn’t in the best mood. It was the fact that he thought about Alexander Wolf since meeting him. The teenager brought questions with him. One of the most interesting ones was why he looked like Naruto. Both were active persons who couldn’t sit still for long. Did it mean something or not? Were they related? If so, how? Siblings, half-siblings, or cousins? Was Naruto part of a clan? If so then which one? Shikamaru didn’t pay much attention during his time at the academy but he knows that there was a lesson about different clans, especially the ones residing in Konohagakure. One of the village founders was married to an Uzumaki but Iruka-sensei had told them that the Uzumaki lived in Uzushiogakure but the country was destroyed and the Clan got extinguished. He also had told them that Uzumaki were known for their red hair. The Nara heir remembers that so much because he was sad for Naruto who was so happy during this lesson, happy that he would find something out about his parents and then Iruka dropped this information about their deaths and the blond was crushed for days. Till this day, Naruto did not know if he was part of the Uzumaki-clan or if he shared the same name per chance. Iruka-sensei would not answer him the question and when Shikamaru had asked his parents later on, they also didn’t answer him. Something was fishy and even some years later Shikamaru could not find out much. It was as if everything regarding an Uzumaki was banned from public places like the library. The Nara heir would not give up, he would get answers for Naruto and his own curiosity. He was sure Alexander Wolf would help him.

 

“Shika, watch out!”, shouted Ino and her voice brought the Nara heir back from his thoughts. Years training and working as a Shinobi led him to instinctively dodge the thing coming at him. Confused, the Chunin turned to look what he dodged only to move the next second to evade a hit from his blond teammate. “You idiot! You have to hit the ball, not dodge it! We are currently losing so stop daydreaming and get a move on!”, screeched Ino into his ears. He mumbled a ‘troublesome blond’, evaded Ino’s next hit, nodded at Chouji’s silent-mouthed ‘good dodge’ and turned again to their opponents.

 

Asuma-sensei was shaking his head desperately over their antics, Sofia was giggling quietly and Alexander was smirking at him. Shikamaru squinted his eyes at the blond teenager and the others smirk got softer and turned to a happy smile. “Is your head now back in the game?”, asked the other boy teasingly and Shikamaru swallowed. It was embarrassing to get caught so deep in his thoughts. “Bring it on”, was all he said. 

 

For a time, the game continued without more talking. Their was an occasional ‘over here’ or the call of a name to get attention, but overall it was silent except the noises of the players hitting the volleyball.

 

Alexander had told them after their first game that he was astonished how often they saved the ball shortly before it fell to the floor. Apparently first time players had a hard time receiving some of the more experienced moves he did - courtesy of Asuma who told him beforehand not to hold back. After playing more and more rounds, Ino seemed to thrive in spiking the ball over the net and Chouji said he preferred bringing the ball in the right position for their blond teammate. Shikamaru did not care about his position much, it didn’t make sense for him to hope for a certain spot when they would soon enough rotate it anyways. Alexander on the other hand seemed to love to serve the ball but also to send them some forceful spikes over the net.

 

The young Nara liked the blond teenager. He was nice and often cheerful. Also really energetic and if Shikamaru was honest to himself, sometimes this was a bit overwhelming. Like the day before, as he had tried to find out more about the blond teenager.

 

The team had just ended their training for the day and Shikamaru had decided to ask the blond teenager some small questions about his home village, hoping that the answers would tell him from which country Alexander came. Said teenager did answer, but it did not help the young Nara heir. Apparently, he lived in a small village on the outskirt of a town that Shikamaru could hardly pronounce without butchering the word completely. They had sat in the shadow of a tree and Alexander had even wrote the name of his home village and then the name of town in the soil beneath them. He had never seen the latter ‘Ü’ before.

 

After a while, Alexander had suddenly stood up, stretched a bit and told Shikamaru: “I have no problems answering some of your questions, but I need to move a bit. The weather is beautiful today! Do you want to get to know each other more on a walk?” The blue eyes of the blond teenager had sparkled as he had looked down on the still sitting Nara heir. With a lowly muttered “troublesome”, Shikamaru got up. After a quick hand sign to his teacher, who had stood with Chouji not far away, he had followed the other man on his way into the village center.

 

It had been a nice day, sunny but not to warm. They had talked while walking and soon Alexander turned the table, so to say. Suddenly it was Shikamaru who answered question after question about different stalls in the market district of Konoha. Somehow, they had managed to walk around Konoha for two hours and landed on the bottom of the steps that lead to the top of the Hokage Monument. Shikamaru had asked if they really wanted to climb ob the stairs - Alexander’s answer was a soft laugh and a “of course, why shouldn’t we?” It was further two hours later that Shikamaru walked Alexander back to Asuma’s apartment. 

 

“Shikamaru! Seriously, pay attention!”, screeched Ino again. Shikamaru would never tell her, but he was grateful for her at this moment. Her screech got him, again, out of his musings and he managed to receive the volleyball correctly before bringing it in a good position for Ino to hit it over the net. If Ino hadn’t done it, the ball would have hit Shikamaru straight in his face. Two rounds later, Asuma, Sofia and Alexander had won the game and everyone started to stretch and pack their things together. When the net was folded, Ino and Sofia excused themselves and headed out to the Yamanaka flower shop. Both women had started to form a friendship and Shikamaru was happy for his teammate. Growing up with the Yamanaka heiress, Shikamaru remembered that Ino more than once complained about the lack of female friends. There weren’t many girls that wanted to become a Kunoichi. So yes, he was happy for her. Chouji didn’t stay long after the girls left, said that he had a clan event back home starting soon and so there were only Asuma, Alexander and Shikamaru left on the training ground.

 

“Are you two going for a hike again?”, asked Asuma the two teenagers before him with a smirk. “What do you mean with ‘hike’? Shikamaru and I took just a walk yesterday.” - “Boy, you both were gone for around four hours.” Shikamaru watched Alexander tilting his head a bit to the side in confusion. “Yes, a simple walk. I am from Germany, it is basically in my blood. It is normal that a walk takes time. Trust me, if I wanted to take a hike, you would know it. I would need to prepare accordingly before leaving early in the morning and returning back late at night.” There was a moment of silence before Asuma turned his face to the sky before he had a belly laugh. His deep hearty laugh seemed to confuse the blond a bit more because the tilt of his head got a bit more before he turned to Shikamaru and raised an eyebrow in question.

 

Before the young Nara could say anything, Asuma got him self under control, smirked at him and said with a glimmer in his eyes: “If you want to call it that, okay. Shikaku and I are having an appointment later on. I will let him know that you will be home late.” He raised his hand for a quick wave and with another amused grin, Asuma left both teenagers with a Shunshin. Alexander looked at Shikamaru and said confused: “Sometimes your teacher is really weird.” With a sigh and a murmured ‘troublesome’ Shikamaru shrugged with his shoulders. His teacher was weird, yes, but his parents had been weird too the last days. He would bet that his mother would bombard him with questions as soon as he would get home later. His father would stand beside her or lean on a wall nearby and would observe him. As if he would be a puzzle. After a moment of silence where both teenagers where thinking, Alexander shook his head slowly before smiling at the Nara heir and started to head deeper into Konohagakure. “Common, let’s go check out the stalls in the marking district!” - “Only if you tell me something about Germany”, murmured Shikamaru but followed instantly. Alexander laughed and waited the few steps so that both could walk side by side.

 

He himself was not a puzzle, thought Shikamaru. Alexander was one and he would solve the mystery about him.

Notes:

Hello,
I hope you liked this chapter. Please let me know your thoughts about the chapter and what should happen next.
Till the next chapter.
Bye! :)

Chapter 11: A scene to begin thinking about yourself

Being a Shinobi was a bloody business. At least if you where one of the elite in your village like Kakashi Hatake. His last mission left his clothes with a lot of rips and holes. He was really thankful for his Anbu gear during last night. The gear protected a lot of his vital body parts and most of the blood on him was from foes that thought he was fatally wounded and got careless. He was happy that he didn’t need the hospital for his wounds, because it hold a lot of bad memories for him. As an elite, you saw team member die. Often during a mission, but also often in the hospital. The hospital was the most tragic one in seeing someone you know die. At the beginning of his carrier, there was hope when ever he managed to bring someone back to the hospital followed by sadness when they died. It was more hurtful if the team member was lucid and thanked you when you brought them inside. When they gained hope to remain alive shortly before the hospital stuff came back from the surgery and told you that they didn’t make it. Kakashi hated the hospital.

 

On his left side, his fellow Anbu gave Lady Tsunade the mission report and was nearly at the end of it. Kakashi was eager to get out of his persona as Hound. He would take a shower at home and dress some of his wounds, then he would finally spent some time with his pack and read further in the black book that he had found not so long ago. Maybe he should ask Tsunade for some days off? He had some back to back missions over the last two weeks and didn’t find much time for anything else except getting some shut-eye.

 

“You are both dismissed”, said Tsunade to both Anbu members and before she could add something else, Kakashi decided to use the body flicker technique and hightailed it out of the Hokage’s office. No, if he asked for some days off, she would probably insist for some checkups at the hospital. He knew some were long overdue, but if Tsunade didn’t say anything about his bloody clothes, he would not give her the chance too. He sprinted over the rooftops and entered his apartment through his living room window as the sun started to rise behind him. One hour late he had done as planned: He did took a shower and his bloody clothes were in the washer, he was dressed in his standard Jonin uniform and his pack was summoned.

 

Being part of a pack was a honor in the grey-haired man’s eyes. For being allowed to be a part of his, he took extra care in spending enough time with each of his Ninken during and outside of missions. Sometimes the Shinobi wondered how contrary his pack, his family, was. It consisted of eight dogs and all of them could be ruthless and tear their foes apart on his command, or they could be goofy oddballs like this morning. Kakashi regarded them fondly and a small smile was on his lips that, for once, were not covered by his mask. He trusted his family and he was in his own home, there was no need to hide his face.

 

Pakkun, a small, pug-like dog with brown fur was chasing Shiba, a dog with light grey fur and a white underside. A darker patch of fur on Shiba’s head reminded Kakashi of a mohawk. He didn’t really understand what happened there. Pakkun was a lazy dog outside of missions and suddenly he jumped off the floor and tailed after Shiba. Bisuke, a dog with tan-colored fur and dark markings around his eyes, was talking quietly in low growls with Urushi, a dog with light-brown fur and long spiky tufts of hair on his head. Another dog with tan fur, Akino was sleeping on the side of the sofa. The grey-haired Shinobi wondered, why Akino wore sunglasses, maybe Akino would tell him one day. Beside Akino was sitting Uhei, a auburn colored dog with white underside and snout. He looked like a greyhound, but Uhei said he was of another breed. Uhei was watching his pack mates with a curious look, while trying to not get one speck of dirt on the new bandages which Kakashi put on him not even ten minutes ago. Guruko was chasing his own tail and was running round after round. Kakashi nearly started to laugh after seeing the dog, also one with tan fur and white snout, stumble and crashing into Bull, the largest dog of the pack who had dark fur and wore a spiked collar. The bulldog growled loudly, playfully at Guruko. There was a moment of silence in the room as all other dogs stopped what they did and even the now awake Akino didn’t utter a sound. Then, as if it was planned, all dogs jumped as one at Bull and Guruko - a huge pile of play fighting dogs rolled over Kakashi’s floor in the living room.

 

Laughing, Kakashi decided to make some breakfast for all followed by some reading. He was really curious what the unknown author had in store for him. Plan set, he stood up and headed into the kitchen. Early afternoon, all members of the pack were fed, Kakashi did join them in some games after begging from Uhei and Shiba before they had lunch together. Afterwards his pack members said their goodbyes and reverse summon themselves.

 

Two hours later, Kakashi was laying on his sofa and gazing at a spot above him on the ceiling while thinking about a lot of things. He finished reading the first steamy scene in the story and he was confused. The scene was absolutely perfect in his eyes, the characters were as lovely as before and the author managed to give the reader all emotions, the passion that was felt during the act through the written words. The sex scene had the right amount of details that Kakashi knew what the two people did in the sheets and how they felt, but left enough room to fantasize about it too. It was a hot and steamy scene and he read it in one go. Kakashi was not confused about the scene or the thematic - he did read Jiraiya’s works before, he knew sex scenes in books. No, he was confused about his own sexuality. The couple were two men. He had never read about two men in love before and to be honest, he didn’t even recognize it before the sex scene because the strange names did not connect in his head with the male gender. He wasn’t sure, if he would have read it till this point if he had known it. Not because he found it disgusting, he just didn’t know that it was interesting for him. He never had thought about it. Now he was laying here in his living room on the sofa with red cheeks, book on his chest and a hard-on. No it was definitely not disgusting or horrible. He never got a hard-on while reading a book with a sex scene before. His mind wandered. So, what did it now for him? His right index finger tapped in a steady rhythm against the book cover.

 

He wasn’t gay, was he? If he was, was it a problem? It was not prohibited in Konoha’s Shinobi ranks. He tried to think about all the people he knew. On whom or better on which gender did his gaze linger when he walked through Konoha? If he was honest with himself, he didn’t know. There wasn’t a woman he could recall from his memories. There where certainly a lot of beautiful women in Konoha, but after short glances or polite greetings, none of them stayed long in his mind. He also couldn’t recall any males that caught his interest before. Kakashi’s finger stilled for a moment, before he tapped it again, a bit faster then before, against the book on his chest. No, that wasn’t true. Once, during a mission at the beginning of his Jonin carrier, there was a man. At the time, he simply explained his starring to himself as making sure that the client was okay. Checking for wounds. It was a mission, he didn’t have time to think further of it. So, what did this mean? Maybe he should have explored himself more while growing up, but there was no time beside the war. After it, there was a lot of cleanup to do and training sessions after training sessions. He worked really hard on his own reputation besides being the son of a traitor. There was a new moment of silence, as he stopped all movement and starred at the ceiling above him. He shouldn’t think about why he never questioned his own sexuality while growing up. He didn’t need to find reasons for himself. The fact was that he just read a fucking hot sex scene between two men. A scene that he, for a lack of better word, devoured in one go and it ended with a hard-on. With a sigh he started to restart the tapping against the book. He had some experience with women and he thought he was straight till now. He never had a crush on a women though and when he was thinking about it more, he recognized that his encounters with the fairer sex was nice, but nothing special for him. He was with them because it was what everyone else did. It was always a ‘look at this beautiful woman’ never a ‘oh I want this man’ from his fellow male comrades when they dragged him into a bar for drinking. As he thought again at the couple from the story, his erection pressed against his trousers and he bit his lower lip. Okay, he definitely wasn’t straight. Two taps with his finger later he sat up and looked at the tent in his uniform pants. Should he just ignore it or take care of it?

 

He was alone, his pack was gone and he had no further plans for the day. Why shouldn’t he indulge a bit? The book slipped through his fingers, as he pressed his other hand into his erection through his clothes. Damn, he normally wasn’t so sensitive when he took care of his needs. With a low grunt he fumbled with his zipper and freed his erection. Kakashi started with slow strokes and tried to empty his thoughts. He wanted to enjoy the feeling in his body and laid his head back against the sofa backrest. Pictures from the story entered his mind and his hand speed up a bit. Kakashi bit his lip again but a low groan escaped his mouth. He felt the slow building of an orgasm, but an unexpected banging on his door ruined it. If his mother would hear him curse at this moment, she would let him rinse his mouth out with soap water before telling him how ashamed she was and sending him in his room. He didn’t have her long, but he knew she hated cursing. His father would probably laugh. A shout followed by more banging on his door got him out of his head and if there was one tiny bit of excitement left it would be gone now. With an annoyed and also slightly angry sighed, Kakashi looked down at his now flat penis. At least he knew now that he was not one tiny bit interested in Might Guy.

 

Kakashi took his time straightening his clothes. He checked if his mask was in place, picked up the black book and put it on the tiny table in front of his sofa, before he made his way to his front door and took a deep breath. His comrade just had very bad timing, he shouldn’t yell at him. Guy grinned over his whole face as he finally opened the door. “Hi Kakashi, long time no see! How are you doing? There happened a lot over the last two weeks. Normally I see you somewhere in the village but as this wasn’t the case, I decided to just visit today!” Guy was energetic as always. The grey-haired ninja wondered, not for the first time, if Guy did take something to keep his energy level so high. He wanted to answer him, really, but he didn’t even get the chance. “I have an idea! Come, if we go now, we will catch team Asuma and my charge before they leave the training ground. They have a super cool team building game going on. We should join them and get you up to date with all that happened!”, shouted the other Jonin. Normally, Kakashi had really good reflexes and he blamed his still confused mind and the lack of sleep over the last days that he was to slow to evade the other Jonin. He only had enough time to close his front door, before Guy dragged him to the training ground.

 

His mind lingered a moment on the black book that was in his living room. Great, he would have nothing to read if he got bored later on and he couldn’t ditch his rival and friend so soon. It wouldn’t be fair on the other man. He did check up on him and wanted to get him up to date. Then his mind wandered to the story in said book and Kakashi’s cheeks gained a rosy touch under his mask.

 

No, it was probably better to read the rest of the book later that day, maybe at night when he was alone again.

Notes:

Hi, live is a bit stressful at the moment so I cannot guarantee fast updates. I tried to tease you all a bit in this chapter, please let me know if you liked it and if you want more of it.

Chapter 12: Struggles of leaders

He survived a lot in his live as a Shinobi. Hell he had wounds that nearly killed him more times than he could count, especially over the last four years. He know what feeling pain meant and still, as he woke up he wished for a tiny moment to die. His head hurt as if Senju Tsunade herself had hit him with a chakra fist square in the face. There was a pressure behind his eyes and nose the likes he never felt before. Not even when he got the last phase of his clans dojutsu. He tried exactly once to open his eyes before and knew instantly that it wasn’t a good idea. Then he tried to feel the rest of his body underneath all this pressure and pain in his head, there had to be something that was okay, right?

 

His limbs felt heavy, but he was able to move his fingers a little. Despite his gloves he could feel something soft under him, what ever he was laying on, he could press his fingertips into it. Maybe a bed or a futon? He felt sick, like he needed to throw up every second and the taste of bile in his mouth told him that it would not be the first time in the last hours. It was silent in the room, so he was pretty sure that he was alone. One way or another, every being made somehow noises. After some more minutes, patience was never his strong suit, he tried again to open his eyes. The resulting pain threw the man straight into a new unconsciousness.

 

If he would have been able to open his eyes, maybe he would have seen the figure who stood like a statue in the darkness of one corner of the room, watching him with emotionless eyes.

 

The last two weeks were there and gone in a blink of the eye if you asked Pain. He did sent everyone who was able on missions before he made his way to Amegakure. There he started to collect all books and scrolls that he could find on ancient jutsus. He needed to find out what had happened while extracting the Bijuu from Utakata. Utakata. The Jinchuuriki was also a thorn in Pains side. What should he do with the man? He was unconscious since the day something happened at the extraction. The leader of Akatsuki had Sasori and Deidara look after him in a room not far from his office. He managed to order Zetsu - it was always a hassle with the Nukenin - to take care of Madara in another hideout. One out of the way of his members who were on missions.

 

A short knock on his door interrupted him from his musings. He allowed the other person to enter and was surprised to see Sasori come in. The puppeteer only came to him when summoned or if it was extremely important for him. As expected, the Nukenin from Sunagakure stopped in front of his desk and started instantly to speak. Patience was never his strong suit. The orange-haired man blamed the Sunanin’s grandmother, but he dared not saying it aloud. It also was not his business in the first place. “I need new ingredients for some of my poisons and antidotes. The Jinchuuriki is stable for now and Deidara can watch over him alone.” Pain folded his hands under his chin. Everyone Akatsuki member had medical knowledge. Some just enough to tend to their own wounds and not bleed out from battle wounds till they could regroup with a more medical experienced member. Sasori had best know how of them, so if something happened to Utakata, he wanted him at standby. Pain needed the Jinchuuriki to wake up and answer some questions - the god of Amegakure was sure that Sasori was needed for a quick recovery of their prisoner. On the other side, Sasori was lethal with his poisons and their temporary ‘guest’ would not get a seizure the moment the Sunanin was gone, right? Maybe he should invest time in finding a full time medic for the Amegakure base. It was their main operation point. After a moment of silence, he saw Sasori’s eye twitch - he would never have seen it if he didn’t pay attention - so he nodded in agreement and waved his hand to let him know that he was dismissed.

 

As clockwork, about ten minutes later, Deidara stormed into his office without knocking. Pain was sure that he would get a headache. “Pain! Why does Sasori get a mission? I want one too! I am no damn babysitter!” The blond main used a hand to flip his long hair back over his shoulder, took a deep breath and opened his mouth for a new demand. Yes, thought the leader of Akatsuki, their was the beginnings of a great headache coming. He interrupted the Iwanin before he could even start. “If you need a job, send some clones out into the village to find a capable medic for our organization.” He sent a hard and cold stare at the blond ninja opposite of him, then he stood up and took two books from his desk before heading out of the room. As he passed the Nukenin from Iwagakure, he shoved both books into his chest. “While your clones are searching you can read this books while you ‘babysit’ the Jinchuuriki. If you find something interesting that could connect to the incident two weeks ago, let me know it instantly.” Deidara was to astonished to say anything.

 

As Pain left his office to fetch something to drink from the kitchen, he wondered yet again about his decision to put the red-haired and the blond shinobi in a team. The first was impatient like nobody else and the latter was impulsive. It was a wonder that both didn’t really try to kill each other yet. With a sighed and rubbing his forehead, Pain walked down the hall to the stairs. He needed some tea.

 

Sometimes, Pain felt as if he was the warden of a kindergarten.

 

Somewhere in a little bar, on the outskirts in Konoha, under a henge jutsu, the fifth Hokage was drinking sake while having similar thoughts. She managed to trick her apprentice Sakura to work some more hours at the hospital - for more experience - and evaded Shizune at her way out of the office. If she used the window instead of the door or if she used a simple genjutsu to confuse fellow shinobi on the street, nobody would know it. Not for the first time over the last two weeks did the Hokage wonder how she got into this situation. Her little brother Nawaki was the one who dreamed about becoming Hokage, not her. Nawaki would have been ready for this position.

 

In her disguise as a black-haired man, a normal civilian merchant, Tsunade threw her head back and drank her sake in one go. It burned in her throat. As she put her cup down on the bar in front of her, she opened her currently blue eyes and looked around. The patrons of this little bar were in a good mood - certainly thanks to the barkeeper who let the good stuff flow from his barrels and the lightly clothed women who mingled with the man in hopes to have some fun later on. Two elderly, clearly drunk man were sitting in one corner of the room and tried to shove each other from their stools. All because the young waitress was flirting with both to sell more drinks. Not far away from the three were two civilians gossiping about some shinobi of Konoha. It was loud in the bar, so Tsunade couldn’t understand everything that was said, but if she connected the few sentences correctly, it was about a Chunin who was, maybe, on some dates. It seemed that both couldn’t agree on the ‘date’ part, because - here it was really difficult to understand and Tsunade needed a moment to connect the dots - the supposed couple were both men? Somewhere behind her, a couple on an actual date randomly started to sing an old civilian song and the disguised Hokage couldn’t help and had to sigh.

 

She signaled the barkeeper to bring her a new bottle of sake and watched, from the corner of her eye, a woman sliding in the free seat beside her. The man behind the bar, the son of the owner of the fine establishment (if there was sake it was a good bar in her eyes), placed the new bottle of sake in front of her with a grin. His eyes wandered from Tsunade to the unknown woman and back again as he opened the cap. The currently like a male looking Hokage of Konohagakure didn’t even try to stop her eye roll. She just grabbed the bottle as soon as it was open and stood up from her stool. She was proud to only wobble a bit for the amount she already drank, otherwise her stance was secure. With a quick motion she grabbed some money and put it in front of the barkeeper before she turned silently around and got out into the street. She nearly missed the unknown woman’s complaint about being ignored under all the loud laughter of the other patrons.

 

While she walked down the streets Tsunade thought about the three strangers in her village. So far she couldn’t find any clue about them. All messenger hawks she sent out to other villages did return with a negative answer. If they returned at all. Maybe she should put more Jonin on guard duty over the next few weeks and throw the three in a cell and let Ibiki Morino and Yamanaka Inoichi at them? She needed answers, preferably since the day before. It was a political minefield either way and in her eyes she did what she had too. Inform other villages about the three strays in Konoha and if nobody wanted to take responsibility of them, it was not her problem, she could now begin an interrogation right? Somehow she was sure Nara Shikaku would not agree with her. Maybe she should inform her adviser and Jonin commander only after giving this orders. She really didn’t have the nerves to sit through yet another strategic counsel with the Nara. She was so in her thoughts, she didn’t recognize that she circled somehow back in front of the bar.

 

“Ah, I knew the could shoulder earlier was just your insecurities. You men all come back to me sooner or later.” Confused, Tsunade looked up and met green eyes. It did take a few moments till she recognized the woman, who leaned on the wall beside the entrance of the little bar, as the woman who got on the the free stool beside her earlier. What should she say to that? Could she just walk away again? It would be nicer to tell her that she was not interested in her. Just, how do you let a woman with apparently a lot of confiden down? As the other woman stared her down, waiting for an answer and getting impatient if the crossed arms were any indication, a new voice spoke up behind the Hokage. A voice Tsunade knew well. “I am sorry to disappoint you, but I think my lover is waiting for me to pick him up for his appointment with the Hokage and not for a flimsy stunt with you. By the way, when was the last time you got a check up at Konohas Hospital? Oh wait, do not answer it, we are already late. ” Tsunade shuddered at the tone and as a tiny woman hand dragged her away she glanced carefully at the black haired women beside her. If a tiny flicker of panic settled in her bones, nobody would get to know it. Before she could even open her mouth in an certainly useless attempt to calm down the other woman, she was stopped with hard gaze. The black-haired woman whispered darkly, so that only Tsunade could hear it: “If you try escape your duties, lady Tsunade, at least try to mask your chakra signature from me and stop using your standard henge! If necessary you will work through the night to finish all the paperwork and do not even think about getting one drop of sake tomorrow. I confiscate all of it!”

 

Why again did she make a bet with Naruto Uzumaki?

 

Also in Konohagakure, not far from the village center, stood a man in the shadows of a narrow alley. Cold eyes watched the people that passed him. Not once did someone pay him attention. Something was going on in Konoha since this strangers were found. A lot of people would call him paranoid if he would talk about his concerns, but he was sure something would happen soon. The question was how he would be able to use it for his own goals. He needed to protect his home. Over the last years he worked till he nearly collapsed to prepare the ground for his other plans with Lord Third it was easy to do it all undetected. Senju Tsunade was not like Sarutobi Hiruzen and this was a problem. He had many ideas, how he would get someone else appointed. The question was who he wanted to have the hat. Who would get the favor of the resident ninja clans and the civilians. The people trusted Tsunade and he needed someone in his pocket who would have the same amount of trust from the village. For now, he would bid his time and get more information about the current situation.

 

After some more moments were he watched some civilians at a market stand, he put a fake smile on his face and stepped out of the alley. The man greeted everyone he saw kindly and some even by their name. Yes, there was a new idea already forming in his mind as he looked at three teenage girls who entered a clothing store. He would try this one first. If his plan didn’t work or if it took to long, he would simply order someone to kill her.

 

At the end, it did not matter how Senju Tsunade freed the position as Hokage.

Notes:

Hi, hope you had fun reading!
Is there a certain character you want to see next or are you happy with the way I am splitting it up? :)

Chapter 13: progress and cheating

Some months ago, Kisame had wondered why they hunted Bijuu in two-man teams. As he asked his leader, Pain told him that it was faster and would keep their profile low. Now, the Nukenin would tell Pain to add one point to his reasoning: To not be absolutely annoyed by others. With Itachi it was easy, there was no ‘I lead and you follow’. Pain gave them orders and after a short discussion about who knows the area better or has more knowledge regarding the mission details they were off. It just worked and they were a natural team in his eyes. Now they were four Akatsuki members and two civilians in this temporary team. Two teams that worked differently and two civilians who only started a shinobi training. Kisame let out an annoyed sigh.

 

While Kakuzu was more silent then the Uchiha, a fact Kisame didn’t think was possible, Hidan tried none stop to talk about his god with the blond girl. The worst part? She paid attention and asked questions. Questions that lead to further explanations from the Jashinist and more questions afterwards. It was an endless loop. Two days ago, he told both to shut up for a moment. It worked for about five minutes. Then the girl was extremely shy again and didn’t talk much which led to cold looks from the medical student followed by Hidans complaints, or better curses. Kakuzu, who was already moody that day - Kisame would bet it was about all that talking too - was so annoyed with Hidan, that he tried to cut the Jashinist’s head of. It was Itachi, who dragged the civilians out of the way of the other Akatsuki team. While the other team was fighting, Kisame hoped that they would finish the mission soon.

 

The civilians also were a little annoyance. For being civilians, they had a lot of chakra reserves and shortly after they had started the mission, some bounty hunters were on their heels in hopes to get good money. A shinobi who let so much chakra out on purpose was normally out for a fight or too injured to pay attention to it. Kisame grinned at their pale faces as they recognized them from the bingo book. Seemed they wanted bounty a little lower than them. Sadly, it wasn’t much of a fight. Kakuzu on the other hand was happy. The four foes hadn’t the highest money on their heads, but money was money for the other nukenin. After the fight he ordered them to make a detour to collect the money. He fucking ordered them. To top it of, Hidan seemed to take extra time with his rituals because he wanted to show Eva how it was done right. The girl couldn’t stand so much blood and as the other Akatsuki member stabbed himself through the heart, the blond threw up. So much for becoming a Jashinist, thought Kisame and he was sure, that Hidan would be be affronted. To his astonishment, Hidan just laughed and slung an arm over Eva’s shoulders as soon as he had finished the ritual. After this incident they started to pay more attention to teach the two teenagers to suppress their chakra instead of the basics like throwing kunai or shuriken. It was a slow pace, but they got steadily better. All in all Kisame was satisfied with the progress. They had some more battles over the last days, but at least they were not so disappointing like the first on this mission.

 

Movement from the corner of his eye brought the swordsman out of his musings shortly before Itachi sat down beside him on the grass. They did manage to cross the boarder of the Land of Hot Water not long before the sun started to set. At twilight, they decided to make camp and now as dusk was falling rapidly, Kakuzu and Hidan set out to prepare some traps for the night while Eva and Charles tried to get a fire started. “I want this mission to finish, it takes too long”, stated Itachi calmly, while watching the two teenagers on the opposite side. Kisame glanced at his partner before agreeing with him. “How is your head today, Itachi?” Now the black-haired shinobi met his eyes and after a short moment in which Itachi studied his team partner’s face, he answered: “I am fine, nothing hurts.” The nukenin from Kiri showed his sharp teeth and smirked so much that Itachi thought for a moment the grin reached from ear to ear. “Then keep up!” Full of energy, Kisame jumped up and in an blink of an eye he stood at the teenagers side and stomped the tiny, newly made fire out. As Eva just let an annoyed sigh escape her lips and the medical student asked an exasperated “Why?”, Kisame shouted happily: “Catch, Itachi!”. With these words, the swordsman picked up the young man beside him and threw him to the ex Konoha-ninja, grabbed the blond girl and threw her over his shoulder. Ignoring Eva’s protests, he grinned at a flustered and confused medical student who was held in the also slightly flustered Uchiha’s arms. Oh, thought the swordsman. How interesting.

 

With a glimmer in his eyes, he decided to scheme a bit for his teammate and keep an eye on both of them.

 

The black-haired shinobi looked at the boy in his arms and onyx eyes met doe-brown ones. Charles’ face showed confusion and the boy was flustered, but otherwise he was silent. As both looked into each others eyes, the young Uchiha felt something, but he couldn’t say what it was. His heart beat got a bit faster and he started to get nervous. What ever this feeling was, he would think more about it when they finished the mission. Right now wasn’t the right time. Kisame, as if he wanted to agree with his thoughts, called out with an amused tone in his voice: “The Land of Hot Water isn’t large, so if we run through the night, we’ll reach the border of the Land of Frost by sunrise or at the latest by midday tomorrow. I’ll bet that I’ll be faster then you, Itachi!” Without further words, the swordsman from Kirigakure turned around and sprinted ahead with Itachi in quick persuade.

 

A low, nearly not inaudible “woah” escaped the brown-haired man’s lips before said man slung his arms around Itachi’s neck. A quick glance reassured the shinobi that the other man wasn’t scared, just curious about the speed they ware traveling and the passing flora and fauna. A screamed ‘What is with Hidan and Kakuzu?’ from the girl over Kisame’s shoulder made the man in his arms laugh and a smirk stole across Itachi’s lips. He thought about summoning a crow and send it to the other team, but smoke ahead told him that his teammate was already working on it. As expected, one second later a clone from Kisame was running in the direction of Hidan and Kakuzu. Charles, also seeing the clone and coming to the same conclusion, mumbled: “Good, Kakuzu would be annoyed if he had to track us down and Hidan…”, there was a tiny pause were he seemed to debate if he should say it. “Hidan is going to accuse us anyway of kidnapping his student.” An idea formed in the light brown-haired man’s mind. He called Itachi’s name to get his attention and as the shinobi look down again, he met mirthful eyes. With a tiny smirk on his lips, Charles said: “Eva is ticklish, I learned that as I dressed some of her cuts from the last fight. If you get beside Kisame, I can tickle her and I am sure he will not expect it. He will be slowing down to get a better hold on her. At that moment you can easily pass him and take the lead.”

 

A tiny nod, followed by a ‘Hn’ and an answering smirk on the Uchiha’s lips, was all Charles received before Itachi sprinted get on Kisame’ side. Instantly, Charles reached out with on of his hands, tickled Eva who let out a loud shriek, followed with laughter and wild movements with her whole body. Kisame nearly got one of her knees into his stomach and slowed down a bit while trying to hold her legs still. As planned, Itachi took over the lead, ignoring Kisame’s complaints about cheating. Again, Charles slung both his arms around the shinobi’s neck and laughed happily. Itachi didn’t laugh, but Charles would bet that it was only for his stupid Uchiha mask, as he called it in thoughts. There was a hint of mirth in the shinobi’s eyes and adding the smirk from earlier, it was clear for Charles that Itachi Uchiha found this situation highly amusing. He swore to himself, that he would find a way to get the other man to laugh. Unknown to Charles, Kisame swore the same. As his teammate over the last years, he saw the little signs that showed that the Uchiha was in a good mood and starting to relax a bit on this mission. In Kisame’s eyes, Itachi was often to stoic and tense. So, if the swordsman decided to stay one step behind the other Akatsuki member and not put more pressure on their little race, it was only for him to know. At least for the moment, he was sure that Itachi would figure out sooner or later that Kisame did it deliberately.

 

As expected, Itachi figured it out quickly and with a brief glance at each other, both shinobi eased into a more relaxed pace.

 

Half an hour into their fake race, Kisame heaved Eva from his shoulder into his arms to stop her from complaining about ‘ not being a sack of wet potatoes’. He had no idea what she meant by that phrase.
Two hours later, Kisame’s clone returned and informed them that Kakuzu and Hidan had intercepted two bounty hunters who were behind them and that they would catch up once they dealt with them.
Another two hours later, as the moon was high in the sky, a rustling in the bushes let the two Nukenin be on their guard.

 

As a cloud veiled the moon and blocked its light, some senbon flew past the Akatsuki members and the two civilians by less than a centimeter.

Notes:

Hi, hope you had fun reading! :)

Chapter 14: Needed Words

Shuriken flew from one side to the other. Yells came also from both sides of the fight. A doge here, another one there. More kunai were thrown behind her and she ran as fast as her feet could carry her away from the fight. This was her order, but she felt like a failure. Yes, she had only started her training, but she couldn’t do more than run and search for cover at the moment. Breathing heavily, she looked over her shoulder and dodged the man who tried to grab her. She ignored every ache, every painful bruise on her arms and legs as she tried to get up from the floor as soon as possible. It was a futile effort and she wondered, why she even bothered trying. She just learned the basics of chakra control, she was no match for a seasoned ninja. Especially not for a bounty-hunter out for high ranking Nukenin. As soon as she was on her hands and knees, the man kicked her down again and she screamed out in pain. His foot hit exactly the same spot as earlier. If she wasn’t mistaken, she had heard the crack of one of her rips. He laughed and she heard an angry yell and more metal clashing not far from her.

 

“Oh, you are angry? Don’t you like her scream of pain? It is music to my ears!” The sound of more metal hitting metal and jutsus being used could be heard clearly in their surroundings. Hoping to use the mans distraction to her advantage, the woman groaned as she tried to crawl away from the fight. Again, a futile effort. She successfully crawled eight meters, maybe ten, before she was suddenly dragged up bye her hair. She cried out in agony again and didn’t dare to move as she felt cold metal at her throat. “Let her go, now!” - “Oh and what are you going to do, if I don’t? I think it would be fair if I kill her, I mean you …” What ever he wanted to say, nobody would hear. There was a sudden jolt through her body, something warm and wet landed on her face and then she was flying through the air again. She yelled, this time she wasn’t sure if it was because of the pain or of the unexpected movement. It took her a moment before she recognized that someone was holding her. She took a sharp breath as she recognized the face who held her against his chest. Sky-blue eyes meet emerald-green ones. She mumbled something … something about her friend?

 

Then everything went black.

 

To say the ninja was confused was an understatement. He was prepared for anything as he jumped into action. There was a possibility that the woman in his arms was hostile, that she would try to attack him as soon as he heaved her into his arms, her chakra was restless. So restless that even he could feel it and the blond teenager was a lot of things, unpredictable the most, but not a sensor. He was not prepared to get compared to somebody else. He stopped a bit away in an defensive stance, watching his sensei and a blue-haired women in a black cloak with red clouds on it. Narrowing his eyes, he didn’t let her out of his gaze. Akatsuki was haunting him for what he was, the blond teenager would not let his guard down and she didn’t look away from him either. “Put her down gently and step away, Uzumaki Naruto. That is the only warning you get.” Naruto stepped involuntary back. Her voice was cold and her eyes were hard, slightly narrowed. “Do not be hasty Konan. Naruto will not harm your friend. I promise. Naruto, lay her down”, Jiraiya’s voice was calm and collected. His sensei knew her, he sounded nearly fond as he talked. Slowly, watched by both ninjas, he laid the black-haired woman carefully down. The kunoichi, Konan as he learned, looked at him a moment longer, before she fixed her gaze at the white-haired sannin.

 

“It is a long time, Jiraiya-sensei”, said the woman and Naruto’s eyes widened. A former student of Jiraiya became an Akatsuki member? Why? “Indeed, Konan. Indeed. You grew up without me knowing it and as it seems you became a hell of a woman.” The kunoichi’s eyes widened in disbelieve and she glanced briefly at the black-haired woman. Before she could say anything, the older shinobi continued: “These three bounty-hunters here were known to be quite skilled and ruthless and you killed two of them on your own with only small cuts and probably some bruises.” He stopped for a moment to look at the two bodies not far from her. “You also perfected your jutsu with the origami paper. I am proud of you, Konan.”

 

Naruto was astonished, the white things sticking out of the dead bodies were paper?

 

The exact words. Word for word. Rosalia had told her, but to hear these words from her sensei was something else and Konan felt good. She couldn’t help it, her eyes wandered to the black-haired woman for a moment before she looked in her sensei’s direction, but not at him. She felt bad. If only she would have been a bit faster, maybe she could have saved Rosalia from so this pain. Her sensei told her that he was proud at her, but she didn’t feel it. In her eyes, there was nothing to be proud of. Nothing. The traps she put around their little camp should have alerted her earlier. The training she put Rosalia through over the last days were not enough. Konan should have been a better teacher, a better kunoichi… a better friend. She should have ordered the black-haired woman faster to ran away and cover her better. “Whatever you are thinking, Konan. Stop this thoughts”, said Jiraiya in a soft tone. The kunoichi look at him and met his eyes. He had questions, but she didn’t want to answer them. Especially one question that he would ask for sure. “You have good timing, sensei. We were searching for you. There are some changes in our plans.” She reached into her cloak and pulled a little scroll out. “A message from Pain, our leader, to you and your Hokage. Akatsuki wants to become allies or at least a ceasefire.” Konan threw the scroll at her sensei, who had shock written all over his face.

 

“Why should we believe you? Akatsuki is hunting us Jinchuuriki down one after the other and as fare as I know you are all Nukenin who betrayed their village. How can we know that you will not betray us?”, yelled Naruto and he marched up to her. At least he tried. As soon as he was near the white haired sannin, Jiraiya grabbed his shoulder with one hand and scolded him lightly. Konan uses this moment of distraction between both leaf shinobi and used a shunshin to appear behind both men, crouching beside Rosalia. The other woman was still out cold and the kunoichi picked her up as gently as she could. “Wait Konan. I left you once and never forgave myself. When I came back looking for you, Yahiko and Nagato, you all were gone and I feared the worst. Since this day, I hoped daily to see you all again. I am sorry that I left. Can you ever forgive me for that?” Konan felt like a statue. Her whole body was frozen and it was hard to believe what she heard, but her sensei sounded so sincere. She felt somehow lighter and without noticing it, a tear run down her cheek. Konan took a deep breath, before she began walking away, Rosalia in her arms. Before she uses a genjutsu to mask their departure, Konan said: “I already have, Jiraiya-sensei. I will be in touch.”

 

If her voice trembled even slightly, only Jiraiya and herself would know.

Chapter 15: Plotting Teenagers

Notes:

Hi, I hope you like the new chapter. :)

In Konoha, more precisely in Guy’s guest room, sat three unhappy humans. “You need a bigger room”, stated Alexander after he nearly tossed over his cup of tea by accident. “Be happy, that Guy let him stay here!”, scolded Sofia the young german. Léo just shook his head lightly at the two teenagers. “If you need to move a bit, you can fetch us cookies from the kitchen. They are in the top drawer on the left side of the fridge.” As if he waited for this words, Alexander nearly jump from his place on the floor and stretched as he left the room. “He really isn’t made for sitting still for a long period of time”, laughed Sofia. “That’s true. Thank you for reviewing my new plot line and giving your feedback.”- “Of course, Léo. Anytime and I am also speaking for Alex.” She reached out for the notebook beside her. In truth, neither teenager was here to help Léo, but all three decided to talk like they did in the chance that Guy heard them talking. “So~“, started Sofia after a moment. “What about this change in the plot?” She ripped out a sheet of paper from the notebook and passed it to the older man.

I really think we are in Shippuden, at the beginning, because Ino and Chouji talked about Naruto not so long ago. They said he should be back from his training trip with Jiraiya soon. But the timeline is a bit off. The characters should be around 15 I think? Ino told me two days ago that she is 17 years old.

Léo hummed, as he turned the page around and started to write his answer out. While the man was writing, Alexander reentered the room and put a plate with cookies in the middle of their circle. “So, do we have new plot ideas?”, he asked and got handed the sheet from the author. Without a further question, the blond man read first Sofias text before switching to Léo’s.

Let’s hope that just the age is different and not the story. I am being honest with you two, I have no idea how we will change the plot without coming clean with Tsunade. If we do that, we would also need to tell all others, friends we made already and people we get to know in the future.

“No, absolutely not!”, exclaimed Alexander with wide eyes and pale face. There was a candle in the room and a ceramic bowl, to destroy all the “bad plot ideas” and he instantly held the page over the flame. Sofia and Léo looked at each other astonished before they watched the third in their round silently. Before they could say anything they heard someone knocking at the door before it opened a bit and Guy poked his head into the room. “Are you three okay?” He worriedly watched Alexander putting the burning paper into the bowl, before he entered the room, knelt in front of the author and took his hands into his own. “Do not worry my friend. It may seem to go all wrong, but with the help of your friends you will find the right plot. I do not understand much about the writing process and less about the structure of a plot, but if you need anything, I will help you… OH!” He jumped up again and raised his fist into the air. “How about asking my eternal rival? He reads a lot, so I am sure he could help you!” The leaf shinobi grinned over his whole face (Sofia was nearly sure that there were flowers and sparkles around his head) and then he gave them a thumps up. “Leave it with me, I will send a clone out and get Kakashi here!” While Guy was grinning, the others in the room lost all color in their faces and looked at each other clueless. As soon as the only ninja in the room raised his hands to form the necessary hand signs, Léo also jumped up and stopped him.

“STOP!”, cried the author with panic in his voice while holding the others hands. “Léo?”, asked Guy confused. “What’s wrong?” Léo’s mind was racing. He had to find a way were he would not have to talk with the last member of the Hatake clan. There was absolutely no way he would show any shinobi from Konoha their draft of possible plans to change their future without talking with Sofia and Alexander about it. He also couldn’t show Kakashi one of his real plot ideas for a new book. The man was a avid reader of ‘Icha Icha’ and as far as Léo knew, this book series was as straight as it get. He would NOT show his straight crush a plot for a not straight book. Nope. “That is to embarrassing! I do not really know Kakashi, he cannot read my plots! No, no, no! It is one thing if my friends review them, but I will not show them anybody else.” He felt the heat in his cheeks and cursed his fair complexion. Guy smiled and said: “If only friends are allowed to read it, then I will make you both become friends!” Sofia and Alexander glanced at each other with mirth in their eyes. Both knew that Léo was gay, the blond knew the author from their world and he had admired since he read the first book, how open Léo was with this topic. So he told him exactly that at their first “plot review meeting” and asked if the older man had tips for a coming out. At first Sofia was really quiet. She didn’t now what to say, but as she saw the unsure looks from both man at her silence, she assured them that she was okay with it and that she would support them were she could. “You know Guy”, started the only girl in the room with a smirk. ”I think this is a wonderful idea!” - “Yes, let’s go out!”, yelled the blond, also with a smirk. 

The author whirled around to look at the two teenagers and gulped as he saw the matching, mirthful glint in their eyes, before he was dragged out by a joyful Guy.

As every trained shinobi, Guy paid attention to his surroundings and as soon as Sofia fell behind in their rush to find Kakashi, he slowed down. He had to watch out for them, he promised Asuma and it was still an ongoing mission to keep an eye on the three. He let a certain gap intentionally to Sofia and soon, as expected, Alexander also slowed his steps and as soon as he was side by side with the girl, both started to whisper back and forth. As Guy was at Kakashi’s the other day, he saw the black book behind the other jonin in the flat, laying on the table. He had wondered if it was the missing book from his current flatmate. Kakashi seemed a bit annoyed as he had opened the door, so Guy did decide to ask later about the book and dragged him out of the door. To sit all day indoor and read couldn’t be healthy! Then he thought that it didn’t matter if the black book was Léo’s. He would push both to become friends, his eternal rival needed more friends. Kakashi would talk about the book sooner or later and if it is indeed Léo’s book, he would surely get it back. 

Suddenly, he heard the teenage girl behind him whisper to her blond friend: “So, forget all plans we had. Before we do anything, we need to get Léo and Kakashi together. They are perfect for each other! Léo has such an obvious crush an the man, we really need to help him out!” He only heard it, because he paid attention to their conversation. Guy stumbled a bit and looked with wide eyes over at the young man beside him. He was gay? It wasn’t that he cared about such stuff, but he hadn’t expected it. Léo looked back with him with wonder in his eyes. “Are you okay?” - “Yes! Yes!” Guy’s thoughts were racing. Was Kakashi gay? Why didn’t he know such an important fact about his best friend and rival? He shook his head to get a clear thought and eavesdropped again on Sofia’s and Alexander’s conversation. Luckily for him, both were so deep into their hushed conversation, that they didn’t see Guy’s stumbling and Léo was again deep into his own thoughts, so that the Konoha shinobi just dragged him along. “Beside Léo and Kakashi, we should also work on a plan for you and Shikamaru!” - “WHAT?!” Alexander nearly shouted what Guy thought and everyone of the group stopped walking and watched at each other.

Alexander was also gay? Damn, he really needed to work on his observation skills again. How did he miss this? None of them noticed a the also stopping civilians and the one or the other ninja around them. “What are you two whispering about?”, asked Léo with crossed arms in front of his chest. “Nothing”, said Alexander with a light blush on his face that only got darker as Sofia started to talk again. With a sweet, innocent smile, the young woman stated: “Oh, we just talked about how we get you and Alexander each a date.” - “Sofia!”, hissed Alex who was now as read as a tomato and he nearly tripped as he pushed a hand over his friend’s mouth to stop her talking. Guy looked slowly from one to the other. Even with a hand over her mouth, Sofia was clearly amused and in high spirits, Alexander was flustered and looked a bit in panicked from person to person and back and Léo stood flustered like a statue beside him. A moment of silence, some murmurs from the other people on the street before they went their ways and then Guy could clearly see the moment were all his three charges recognized fully where they were. Sofia and Alexander looked at each other astonished and Léo’s eyes got wider. Sofia pushed Alexanders hand down and started to apologize, but Guy wasn’t sure if Léo heard it. 

The young man with the light-brown hair just bolted and Guy couldn’t do more than let out an stressed sigh.

Chapter 16: Dogs are Dogs

Bull was a ninken for a long time. If he remembered it correct, it was Kakashi’s father that was his first contact with a Hatake and a human. He was a mere whelp back then, but he was mesmerized by seeing his first human in their valley and he would remember that meeting forever. The man, Hatake Sakumo, was nice as he introduced him to his son, Kakashi. The boy then was shy and a bit clumsy as he carefully petted his dark fur. The big, black dog let out a fond grumble as he remembered the past. It definitely didn’t help that the present, adult Kakashi petted him at the same place as his past self. He rolled around to give his summoner more space to pet and accidentally moved against Bisuke, who snuggled with Uhei on his left. Bisuke let out a little grunt and drifted back to his slumber as soon as a chuckling Kakashi started to pet his head. With a fond eye roll, Bull stretched before putting his head back into the mans lap. He wanted more pets! His highly amused summoner started to scratch him behind his ears and Bull was contend. The man was good to them and Bull was happy that the elders had decided that Kakashi was worthy of a pack and that he was part of it. Beside the light snores and grumbles from his fellow ninken, it was a quite afternoon.

 

A bit later, when their boss - as the dogs liked to call their human - had given them all a bath in the shower before taking a shower himself, Akino cleared his throat. “Okay, is it just me or is Kakashi a bit weird since a few days?”, asked the other ninken with concern in his voice and he had instantly all the other dog’s attention. Shiba looked around slowly, before speaking his mind. “There was a change in his behavior. Not overly much, but something is on his mind lately.” - “I agree with this”, stated Guruko lowly, not wanting to draw attention. Bull narrowed his eyes a bit on the youngest dog in the pack. He would need to work with him on his shyness. Urushi was the next to speak up. “Maybe he got in an disagreement with the old man who writes this orange books Kakashi likes to read? Normally one of these is laying around in the living room, but I think I didn’t see one here for quite some time.” Urushi stood up and walked around the room. He stopped shortly in front of the bookshelf, studying it before he looked back at the others. “Every volume he has is here. I remember the number, because he told me some weeks ago how many he has and that the next one is not out yet. He was annoyed that he has to wait and mentioned that he would have to read the series again from the beginning while waiting.” - “Curious”, mumbled Bisuke. “Usually he has one of the books in his west or lying around.” - “He now reads the black book. Seems to be better than Jiraiya’s, at least if you pay attention to how often Kakashi smells aroused”, said Pakkun with indifference in his tone, before he stretched and walked - under curious eyes from the others - to the coffee table. Or more precise, to said black book. “If our boss is acting weird and stops to read one of Jiraiya’s books for longer than a day, we will simply check out what is so good in the other book.” With that, Pakkun hopped on the table and shoved the book down to the floor.

 

After some back and forth, they managed to agree on sitting positions around the book. Bull, who was squeezed in between Uhei and Akino, was annoyed really fast. Thanks to his large figure, it was not possible to evade the two dogs whenever they leaned forward to see better after every turned page. With a mumble, Bull also leaned forward. He took a deep sniff, told the others that they should clue him in to their findings when he was back from the village and jumped out of the open window. The others could crowd around the book without him. He would track down the faint scent of an unknown man and try to find answers his way. Unknown to him, if he would have waited five more minutes, he would have seen Kakashi reenter the room after finishing his shower and freezing like a statue at seeing nearly the whole pack sitting around his opened, black book. Now, Bull was wandering through the village, passing shinobi and civilian alike, wondering if he would find the owner of the scent. If yes, would it be just someone who had the book before, a book seller or even the author? Wandering through the streets, snout constantly on the floor it didn’t take long to find the scent and he eagerly tracked it down. The scent lead him through an alley, parallel the market area and into a little park. He evaded a little child that wanted to pet him and tracked the scent further into the bushes and then he suddenly smelled Guy. What was Kakashi’s friend doing here? It was not surprising to smell the ninja in Konoha, it was his home afterall, but to smell him near the human he had tracked down? Guy seemed to have sensed him and jumped down from the tree he was sitting in. “Bull? What are you doing here? Does Kakashi need anything?” He could tell the shinobi about his summoner being weird. They were friends, right? But should he? Bull looked at the green shinobi and the shinobi in turn raised an bushy eyebrow expectantly. No, what ever his boss had, they would find it out on their own. He was sure he could come back to Guy if they needed him.

 

“Kakashi is fine. I am out on a stroll. Who is the man behind the bushes? Is he a threat to the village?” - “No, no”, whispered the man. “At least I do not think so. Some weeks ago, some strangers appeared around the village and some of us shinobi were task to keep an eye on them. So far, Léo, the man you were tracking …“, began Guy and he sent him a contemplative look. If the dog would be a human, he probably would have rolled his eyes. So much for subtility. At least Bull now knew that the appearance of some strangers and Kakashi’s odd behavior could be connected. “… didn’t show much of hostility. In fact, he and the other two are a nice addition to the lively village in my eyes. They are nice and help each other out. I can see their youthful behavior motivating their newly found friends.” -“I see and why exactly are you staying here and observe him instead of giving him some company if he is a nice man?” - “Ah, I want to give him some space. Something personal about him was revealed not long ago and he run away in distress. So I followed to keep an eye on him and to make sure that he didn’t get lost. So fare he seemed to let his emotions out in a new story of his.” - “A new story?” - “Yes, he is an author. Sadly he doesn’t allow me to read his works. Says they are not good enough, or not finished. I think he doubt’s himself a bit after loosing his manuscript. Say Bull, if you stumble about a black book, please let me know. I am sure it would boost his self esteem a bit!”, whisper-shouted the man motivated, but Bull didn’t pay much attention to the man beside giving an non answering shrug. Or as least as much as a dog can give it. So the man was the author of the book. Jackpot! He knew he only got so much out of Guy because he was part of Kakashi’s pack and he thanked him in his head. He would not do it out loud, because last time he did it - the normally loud man helped his summoner, of course he thanked him afterwards - he got cuddled like a tiny pet. Yes he was a dog, no he was not a cuddly pet. He was a summon, a ninken, a bulldog. Not a tiny, fluffy pet. It took ages to get the man off of him. He ignored the green man and trotted through the bushes. He heard a rustle behind him and he knew that Guy retook this position in the tree.

 

On the other side, Bull finally saw the author. He sat in the grass, knees up to his chest and arms wrapped around them. The man rested his head on the knees and seemed to not take notice off Bull. A small notebook and a pen laid next to him. The bulldog checked the smell again and yes, it was definitely the man he had tracked down. Now, what should he do? Because of the earlier shower, Bull didn’t wear his usual attire. Right now he just looked like a regular bulldog, not like a ninken. Acting like a normal dog or not was the question in Bull’s mind. He took some intentionally loud steps in the strangers direction before sitting down and as the man looked up, the bulldog raised a black paw and said: “Yo, I’m Bull. What’s up?” The man’s eyes widened in surprise and after a tiny moment the man answered in a soft tone: “Hello, I’m Léo and not much is happening right now. What’s up at your end? Where I am from, I learned to hold my hand out to dogs for a greeting. So that they can get familiar with my scent. Does this count for ninken here too?” Bull wouldn’t tell him that he knew the human’s scent already from the book. No, this would be his secret for now. “It is not strictly necessary, but a nice gesture to ask.” To the dog’s wonder, the man offered his hand without hesitation and Bull closed the last few meters to sit beside the man. The man’s scent was nice. “Thank you, but I know your scent already. I detected it earlier in the village and got curious, so I tracked you down.” He expected some form of uneasiness from the human, but he got a little nod and an amused smile as answer. For a moment, dog and human studied each other silently. Neither knew what to say then Léo broke the silence with a quite random compliment. “Your fur is really shiny and it looks super soft.” Bull blinked once confused before he caught up and started to bark amused. Then he tilted his head a bit to the left and just watched the man. Taking in how Léo’s eyes switched from his snout, to his paws and back to his snout. The man clearly knew about dogs, or at least about normal dogs. For them it was like challenging them, for ninken it could be challenging, impolite or polite. It dependent on the context. A plan formed in his head. “You have probably questions. I sure do. You are allowed to pet me, if you answer them.” - “If I do not answer them?” Bull barked once and in one quick movement, he had is front paws on the mans knees and leaned over him. Astonished, the man leaned a bit away from him, but was more surprised than scared. Amused, Bull growled: “I know your scent now. I could bring my pack for a visit.” He was not expecting the author to smile and wink at him! “Good, I like dogs. The more the merrier!” The next moment, the brown-haired man looked up from Bull’s snout and directly into his eyes. For a moment, it was silent before the author laughed and Bull barked amused. A man that was not instantly scared of the big bulldog. That was nice for Bull. “So”, growled the black dog playfully. “Where you from?” With a grin, Léo answered and petted the big dog’s head.

 

While Guy was astonished how easily Bull got the other man to talk - granted, it was nothing new, but Guy did work weeks to get some of the answers from the man - Bull found the light banter with the author really nice. He was sure, that his other pack mates would like the man. After quite some time, Bull decided to go back to his pack. While heading into the bushes, the dog called a simple ‘see you’ over his shoulders. Back on the other side, Guy waited for him. The walked a few steps away in silence, before the shinobi in green said. “Say Bull, Kakashi is my best friend and rival and we know he reads a lot of Jiraiya’s books, but I wondered if he is also interested in men. Do you know?” - “Why? Are you interested?” The ninja’s eyes widened in panic and Guy clearly struggled to keep his voice low as he wildly waved his arms around. “Do not misunderstand me! It is just that Sofia let something slip and Kakashi and Léo would surely be good for each other! And, and, and as you saw for yourself, Léo is good with dogs. A plus for a new pack member, right?” - “Bye Guy!” - “Bull! Come back!”

 

He did not go back to Guy. Bull went over the roofs back to Kakashi’s apartment and jumped through a open window into the living room. There, all the other ninken of the pack sat in an circle. If it wasn’t for the missing book in the middle, Bull would swear that they didn’t move since he was out. “Great, you are back”, stated Akino and Uhei added: “Boss is in his room. Was to embarrassed from our talk and needed some space.” Bull trotted to the other dogs and squeezed himself between Bisuke and Urushi. As soon as he sat down, Pakkun asked from the other side: “Do you have a problem with the fact that Kakashi is sexually interested in men?” His tone clearly stated that it was a rhetorical question. He didn’t care about Bulls answer because he already knew it. Said dog couldn’t help himself and he barked amused. “Bull? Why are you amused?”, asked Shiba. Before Guruko wondered aloud: “Hey, you smell like the black book!”

 

While Bull told his fellow ninken about Guy and the author, Guy wondered how he would get Bull to help him in matchmaking. Léo on the other side was still sitting in the grass but instead of freaking out about being outed as gay, he was freaking out about his encounter with Bull. He had talked and petted one of Kakashi’s ninken! He ran his hands through his hair and let out a deep sigh. He let himself fall backwards onto the soft grass and decided to be done with the day as he tried to calm down while watching the clouds above him. Just five more minutes and then he would head back to his room and just lay in bed. There was one moment, where Bull stated that he knew the perfect mate for Kakashi. At the same moment, Guy decided that he would arrange an ‘accidental’ encounter with Kakashi and Léo where he would ditch them later on.

 

It was in this moment, while 8 dogs and one shinobi where plotting, a grey-haired shinobi and a light brown-haired author sneezed at the same time.

Notes:

Hi, hope you liked the new chapter! I look forward to your feedback. :)

Chapter 17: Blood and Little Unplanned Changes

Notes:

Sorry for the delay. Work is super busy right now and I needed to move into a new flat.
I thank you all for your patience and hope you like the new chapter! Have fun reading!
Please leave me a comment with your thoughts, it would be great help. :)

“Whoooo!”, yelled Hidan before laughing loudly while ramming his weapon into his heart. With a wide grin, he fell on his knees and watched his current sacrifice. He liked good fights and Hidan’s eyes had this certain glint in them that told Kakuzu that his team partner would take his time. He was certain, that the other man would not stop laughing like a maniac, before finally do his ritual and usual prayers. With a sigh, Kakuzu turned to the other two Akatsuki members. Kisame was standing beside some dead shinobi, playing with a kunai in his hand, while Itachi leaned against a tree with closed eyes. “That was boring”, stated Kisame in a disappointed tone. The fight was actually boring, Kakuzu had to agree with him. Even if the unknown shinobi had the advantage and ambushed them, the four Akatsuki didn’t waste any time and attacked as soon as possible. A few minutes later, 20 at most, Kakuzu had ripped two enemies’ hearts out, Kisame had beheaded one kunoichi with Samehada, Hidan was in the middle of an sacrifice and Itachi had burned two ninja down to a crisp and had another in a genjutsu. It was clear, that the Nukenin were on another level.

 

“Hey, what is with you two? You are as white as Konan's paper”, called Kisame out as he caught Charles’ and Eva’s facial expressions, as they came out of their hiding place behind some bushes. Charles silently shook his head. He knew that the way of a ninja was bloody. It was not the first time seeing the other fight but to be honest it scared him. This fight was over as fast as it began and none of the four Akatsuki members hesitated once. They didn’t take their time, every one of them knew exactly what they were doing, every move was as calculated and precise as it could be. Yes, Charles did not wonder why Pain recruited them, but as he fought his nausea down he saw that Itachi massaged his forehead with his left hand and the medical student knew one thing. These shinobi, this men, were still human. Ruthless while killing, yes, but also able to feel pain. Killing was their job and it was as scary as it could be, but if they could feel pain, they were also able to feel other emotions, like guilt.

 

As far as he knew Itachi from the anime and the manga, Charles was sure that the other man felt deeply. Especially guilt and remorse for his little brother. A determined look crossed his face and he walked directly to the ninja in front of him. As he came near the other man, Itachi opened his eyes. Red eyes watched him and surely saw Charles instantly averting his eyes, pretended to search something in his bag. “Here”, he murmured and offered the Uchiha a tiny bottle, eyes still fixed on the floor. Charles scolded himself in his thoughts. He was more or less sure that he would not end in a genjutsu just for looking at Itachi, so why couldn’t he look at the other man? He was lost in thoughts and as the topic of his thoughts suddenly interrupted his silent scolding ("What is this?"), Charles reflexively started to explain about the medicine in his hands and looked up to face the other. As the red in Itachi’s eyes faded to his normal onyx color, the Uchiha received a beautiful smile.

 

Itachi had to swallow and a tiny smile stole itself on his lips without him knowing.

 

As Kisame watched his team partner and the medical student with a certain glint in his eyes, he listened to Eva’s stuttered answer to his earlier question. The girl had walked to him and tried to explain, that all the violence and blood was making her feel ill and that she was working hard to get used to the looks of battle. The shinobi wondered not for the first time how Eva wanted to become a Jashinist. From the corner of his eyes, he saw Kakuzu also walking up to them, slightly behind Eva. “Let’s go. Time is money and I want to bring some of this idiot shinobi to the next bounty station as soon as possible.” - “Are you sure that we cannot wait till Hidan is finished with his ritual? I would love to listen to his prayers some more and try to remember them.” Kisame’s eyes widened a bit and he was sure that he would never understand this teenager beside him. One moment she told him she felt slightly sick with all that violence and blood, now she wanted to study Hidan’s ritual. His fucking bloody ritual. Kakuzu murmured something, made some clones to pick up some of their attackers, before throwing the girl over his shoulder and walking off. Kisame laughed, before he decided to crash his team partners conversation. He joined Itachi and Charles, told them the new plan and then all three followed the bounty hunter, who bickered with the strawberry-blonde girl about leaving the Jashinist behind.

 

Kisame was sure that the rest of the day would be amusing for him.

 

As soon as Kakuzu held the money from their unplanned bounties, he was a happy man. Not even a pissed off Hidan, who finally joined them again, could stop him from counting the money. After some minutes of ignoring Hidan shouting one curse after curse at him and the other man of their group - for some unknown reason never at Eva - Kakuzu decided that all of them should head out again. They ran for a long time and sometimes one of them left the group for some scouting. Over the next few days it was mostly uneventful, they fell into their old muster: Eva asking Hidan everything she could think about concerning Jashin and his religion. Which Hidan answered as good as he could which led to Kisame trying not to listen to them and talking with Charles. Itachi and Kakuzu never said much, but that wasn’t really something new about both man. The only change was that Charles somehow got Itachi into a conversation once or twice. As soon as it got to medical terms, Kisame stopped listening again.

 

They were nearly at the area that Pain wanted them to check for a new hideout. A fire was burning in the middle of the small camp they had made and Eva was trying to make some soup for all of them. Not far from her sat Charles on the ground. A little cup was in his hands and he was grinding some herbs and other stuff in it to a paste. “Damn”, he said quietly to himself, as he used the last of his peppermint oil. Opposite Charles sat Itachi who meditated, but opened one eye, a tiny bit curious, as he heard the student. Kisame and Hidan were on the other side of Eva, trying to find out who could make more sit-ups. Kakuzu was out setting some traps. Suddenly, Kakuzu sprinted back into their little camp. A white butterfly sat on his shoulder and a piece of paper was in his hand.

 

“There is a change in our mission”, said Kakuzu as he gave Itachi, who was the nearest Akatsuki to him, the paper. As Itachi read what could only be new orders from either Pain or Konan, Kakuzu gave Kisame some hand signs. Faster as Charles could blink, Kisame stood beside him and the the white butterfly from Kakuzu’s shoulder was flying from said man to Itachi. No, it wasn’t a white butterfly, it was made from white paper. He could see it now. “Pack up and let’s go”, grinned Kisame down at him and Charles would lie if he would say that that wasn’t intimidating. He looked at Itachi who had his Sharingan activated and observed their surroundings. Yep, thought Charles. Both were intimidating and he was glad to be on their side.

 

“It is time to split up and be on our way.” - “Hn”, mumbled Itachi.

Chapter 18: Heal First, Sing Later

Rosalia’s body ached. She tried to convince herself that it was just her imagination, tried to distract herself. Spoiler: nothing worked. Her head, her feet, her arms, her ribs - it felt like everything hurt. The black-haired woman cursed the bounty hunters quietly in Italian, before trying once more to relax on her futon. Her gaze drifted to her current roommate.

Konan stood by the window, observing the people outside on the street. After the fight with the bounty hunters, Rosalia had woken up in this room. The kunoichi explained how she had carried her till she was satisfied with the distance to Jiraiya and the Jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi. As soon as she was sure that the distance was enough, she searched out the next best village with an inn. Konan tended to her injuries and sent one of her clones to purchase clothes and rations for both of them. That had been days. Though Rosalia’s body was healing, she was not allowed to do more than necessary, especially alone. The opera singer was getting really annoyed from laying around and doing nothing. It was suffocating. The blue-haired woman even escorted her to the bathroom at the end of the hall, though Rosalia had adamantly refused help once inside. Rosalia was glad to put her foot down on that matter. She refused to undress in front of the woman for whom she maybe felt more than friendship. She wasn’t sure if it was just a slight infatuation or more. With a sigh, Rosalia observed the other woman by the window. Konan stood tall and proud. Sure of herself, confident. Her blue hair was done in a neat bun, the ever-present white origami rose tucked securely in place.

“We need to adjust our plans”, said Konan into the silence, breaking it and pulling Rosalia from her thoughts. “Pain contacted me while you were unconscious.” Before the injured woman could respond, Konan opened the window while some paper peeled itself from her arm. Quick hand movements showed that it wasn’t Konan’s first time folding paper. In mere seconds the kunoichi finished and Rosalia watched amazed as two white butterflies flew out into the streets. “Your creations are beautiful, Konan. What do you use them for?” Konan didn’t reply at first, and Rosalia found herself wondering if she had overstepped with her question. Both women were lost in their own thoughts, the silence stretching between them. Rosalia couldn’t help but glance at Konan, feeling a bit uneasy. She was unsure whether her curiosity had been too much or if the other woman simply needed time to formulate an answer.

“I use them to deliver messages. This two will fly to Pain and Jiraiya-sensei.” It seemed as if Konan wanted to say more, but didn’t elaborate. The opera singer debated for a moment. Should she ask further questions? She really didn’t want to push too much and annoy Konan, but the different uses of her origami creations fascinated her. Was it something that she could learn? Or was it something that only Konan was possible to do? How exactly did the other woman use paper to fight and deliver messages? In the end of her tiny, internal, debate with herself, Rosalia was to curious. “How does it work? You didn’t write something on the paper, you just folded it! And the paper came from your arm. Do you have layers of paper covering your body? How can it fly?” Question after question spilled from Rosalia’s lips and she couldn’t seem to stop herself. To her it was mortifying, but the topic was just so fascinating! The fact that it was Konan she was speaking to only made it worse. Rosalia felt like a teenager again and her eyes widened as the realization struck her: This was not a simple infatuation, her feelings were already beyond friendship. She hadn’t realized they had grown this deep, but now, with her heart racing, it was obvious to her. If she could, she would have let out a deep sigh. Unfortunately for Rosalia, she was still talking. Over fifteen years later and she still couldn’t manage to speak normally to the person she liked when the topic was about them. She cursed herself as she noticed the familiar signs of nervous rambling creeping in, accompanied by the embarrassing warmth of a blush. She had thought she had left this phase of awkward, overexcited word-vomiting behind her. Why now?

Her inner panic only deepened as her thoughts spiraled further. Despite her efforts to stop herself, her mouth kept moving, mumbling something incoherent. Konan glanced at her over her shoulder, her expression a mix of confusion and curiosity. It was as if the other woman’s gaze was exactly what Rosalia needed to finally pull herself together.

“I really should stop talking now. I am sorry, Konan. No idea, what is wrong with me. Sorry!”, said Rosalia in a quite and clearly agitated voice. Her face felt hot, the blush still clearly visible on her face. She scolded herself mentally. She was no teenager! She was an adult with a world wide known career as an opera singer. She was a confident woman and she would cease this behavior! Then she would work on a plan to figure out what to do about this situation. Rosalia liked plans. From organizing her weekly household chores and performances, to figuring out how to get Pain to listen to Eva, Charles and her without killing them, to creating a plan to train efficiently without being a burden to Konan on this trip. Yes, Rosalia liked plans and she would laugh if she couldn’t take this new realization and make a plan out of it. First step was clear: No word-vomiting and rambling! Second step was also clear: Find out if she would have chances. Who knew if Konan was even interested in women. If the answer to this was yes then she needed to find out if Konan was even interested in her. Should this also be a yes, Rosalia needed a third step in her plan. She needed to… Quite giggling interrupted her thoughts and Rosalia glanced at the other person in the room. What ever Konan saw on Rosalia’s face as she started to form a plan in her head, must have amused the other woman. The kunoichi turned again to the open window, observing the street outside. A small smile was on her lips and Rosalia bit her own in thought, wondering if she should apologize again.

Unknown to Rosalia, Konan used the brief silence to form her own plans. The kunoichi had started to feel something unfamiliar in the other woman’s presence. Not unpleasant, just… different. She couldn’t quite explain it to herself, but she knew she would figure it out. What struck her most was how curious she had become about Rosalia. Normally, Konan was indifferent to most people. She had friends, yes, and over time, she learned about their likes and dislikes. Never had she felt an urge to ask many questions or get to know someone quickly. Yet, with Rosalia, it was different.

From the corner of her eyes, Konan caught the thoughtful expression on Rosalia’s face reflected in the window. She noticed how the other woman stole glances at her again and again. Turning her head, Konan’s gaze sharpened with quiet determination. She closed the window deliberately, using the reflection in the glass to meet Rosalia’s eyes. The latch clicked into place with a soft sound, a noise both women heard clearly.

It felt like the sound announced the start of something, but neither of them was sure exactly what this something was. Konan turned and observed her friend on the futon. Considering the other woman was still injured, some parts of Konan’s new plan would have to wait. It didn’t bother her, she was used to adapting. A faint smile crossed her lips as she released a sheet of paper from her forearm with a subtle flick of chakra. Without breaking eye contact, Konan began to fold it, her movements practiced and precise. She loved that she had Rosalia’s undivided attention, it made her feel warm. “You said you are a professional singer, right?”, she asked with a calm voice while completing the final folds of the origami.

Rosalia nodded instinctively and opened her mouth to confirm aloud, but her words faltered when her attention shifted to the white paper animal resting in Konan’s hands. The blue-haired woman stood perfectly still, yet the origami creation began to flutter its delicate wings. Slowly, it lifted into the air and drifted toward Rosalia. Stunned, the opera singer raised her hand without thinking, allowing the tiny paper butterfly to settle gently on her palm. She observed it and gasped as neat penmanship, made from chakra, appeared on the delicate wings.

 

She couldn’t say anything, her words failed her and she was only able to nod again as she read Konan’s demand: ‘Sing for me once you are healed.’

Notes:

Hi!
Hope you liked this new chapter! I think we are finally on the point to introduce some missing characters in the next chapter - I am so hyped!
There will also be the start of a bit of drama. I do not like drama, but we need it. Please convince me to erase it again. XD
As always, please let me know about your thoughts in the comments! :)

Chapter 19: Sand, sand and oh, more sand!

As everyone with at least one brain cell knew: A desert was made from sand. If you spoke about a desert you also spoke from sand, even if you never used the word sand. You just knew that there was sand, when you thought about a desert. There was a picture in your head as soon as you heard the word desert and you knew: Desert equals sand. You couldn’t separate one word from the other. It was crystal clear for Sasori, especially if the mentioned desert was the one in the Land of Wind. Sunagakure, the main village in said land was literally also known as Hidden Village in the Sand. If his team partner complained one more… - “Oh this damned sand! I hate it. I feel it on places where I definitely not want to feel it! Sasori, why do we need to walk to Sunagakure? Why am I not allowed to make a clay bird for flying? It would be easier and more comfortable to f…“, began Deidara his complaints anew and interrupted unknowingly Sasori’s internal struggle to stay calm. Enough was enough. He couldn’t tolerate this rant again, he didn’t have the patience for it and if Sasori wouldn’t be inside Haruki, one of his favorite puppets, Deidara would know it with one look. To Deidara’s bad luck, Sasori was in Haruki and didn’t see the side-eye from his team partner. Therefore, his rant was interrupted in form of a very fast and very poisoned, mechanical, scorpion-like tail. The only reason why Deidara could evade the tail and didn’t get a scratched was that he was lucky enough to throw an annoyed look at the silent Nukenin beside him at the exact moment as Sasori attacked.

“Hey! What do yo-“, cried the blond startled, but he got interrupted before he could drift into another rant. “Quiet, Deidara!”, hissed Sasori, his voice deeper than normal thanks to being inside Haruki. The wood muffled the order and gave it a eerie tone. Deidara heeded the words. The silence stretched between both Akatsuki and Deidara was the first to break the awkward tension between them. “Say, Sasori. How do we get into the Kazekage’s office without being seen? I imagine that it will be not so easy. As a former Ninja from Suna, do you know some secret passages or something?” The red haired shinobi stopped his puppet and turned to the blond. Deidara’s curious gaze turned to confusion, before annoyance took over as Sasori attacked with the poisoned tail again.

The guards of Sunagakure’s main gate could have heard a few startled curses if they would have paid a little more attention to the noises on the wind.

 

A few hours later, when the rising sun painted the sand of the desert in beautiful gold, an elderly woman named Chiyo was on her daily way to the graveyard. She stopped from time to time and watched as the light of the new day got rid of the dark shadows of the night, wished that it would also erase the shadows of her past. Of her failures, of her guilt. She loved this time of the day, because for a moment, before she reached the graveyard and reality caught up with her, she could believe that there was peace. Peace for the village and its people. Peace for the living, the civilians and shinobi alike. Peace for the dead in the graveyard. Peace for her.

She was nearly at her destination, the path she walked on was well used from her daily walks. Beside her steps, everything was silent. Chiyo knew that there were some shinobi nearby, but for a moment she gave into the illusion of loneliness. The elderly woman hated it and her steps were a bit faster. Soon, she stopped in front of a small, rusty iron gate that wasn’t fully closed. For a moment, she wondered who forgot to close it. The gate creaked as she pushed it fully open to enter the graveyard, the sound echoed through the valley.

For about 30 years, Chiyo could be found daily at the grave of her son and her daughter-in-law. Everyday, like clockwork, the woman would be there when the sun illuminated the resting place. She was the one who polished the gravestone. She was the one who saved money to buy cut flowers from their village’s only greenhouse and placed them on the grave. It was always Chiyo. Therefore, it was understandable as the elderly woman’s eyes widened in shock as she saw the grave in front of her. She nearly stumbled as she abruptly froze as still as a statue. Someone had visited the grave, someone who was not Chiyo. In front of her was a newly polished gravestone. Two wooden roses, carved from sandalwood, laid in front of the grave on the sandy ground. What stole all of her energy was neither the stone nor the roses. No, it was a tiny, carved scorpion. Made from the same red wood as the roses. It sat innocently between two scrolls. Neat characters spelled the current Kazekage’s name on the left scroll. The right one, also in neat penmanship, was addressed for her. With wobbly knees, Chiyo nearly stumbled to the stone, to the scroll with her name and the tiny, red scorpion. Shaky fingers grabbed both before she sank to her knees. She knew the penmanship, she was the one who told the writer of the scrolls to practice till she was satisfied. Chiyo was also the one who taught him how to carve wood, who called him ‘my little scorpion’ fondly because it was his favorite animal and he could talk about scorpions as much as about puppets.

It was early enough that nobody was out and about, nobody saw her. Nobody except the rising sun witnessed how she clutched the wooden figurine in her hand, how she pressed it against her heart. The other hand held the opened scroll and while she read, silent tears rolled down her cheeks. In this moment, as she read the message again and again, before she studied the tiny, detailed scorpion figure in her hand, she didn’t feel so lonely anymore. Chiyo didn’t dare to look up. She feared to not find him, if she followed her desire and looked around for him. Her precious grandson. Even if he was a nukenin of Suna, she still loved him with all of her heart. A tear dropped onto the scroll and she closed her eyes.

Had she looked up as the sun got rid of the last shadows in the valley, Chiyo would have seen a clone of a red haired shinobi that puffed away as the light met him.

 

In the middle of the village stood another red haired man in the Kazekage’s office, watching the early risers leave their homes through the window. Contrary to the dark clothed man in the graveyard of Suna, this one wore the attire of the Kazekage, the village’s leader. Despite becoming Suna’s kage a few months ago, it was still surreal for him. He wondered everyday why the people of Sunagakure, shinobi and civilians alike, made him their leader. Was he not a monster in their eyes? The container of the One-Tail, bloodthirsty and dangerous? He would never understand why they gave him the position.

A few times he had fleeting thoughts about writing a short note and putting it with the Kazekage hat on the table in the office, before just vanishing in the desert. Once he even contemplated it a bit more and reached for a fresh piece of paper while he sat in the uncomfortable chair, reading through boring missives about some academy students. For all the things the people of Suna had put him through since his birth, for all the names they had called him, for all the assassins that had been sent after him… why should he lead them? Protect them? Because there are some people in this village that love you, told him a voice in his head that sounded like the Jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi. Both Jinchuuriki talked a lot after Suna’s failed invasion of Konoha during Gaara’s chunin exam. He was so exhausted from the fighting that he was unconsciousness for a whole day, laying in Konoha’s hospital. Naruto was at his bedside as he woke up and the first thing the blond Konoha-nin had said, stuck with him ever since. With a huge grin on his face, Naruto had pointed to a corner of the room were his older siblings slept. “You are not alone Gaara, they never left you.” The part of the village that was visible from his office got livelier, some civilians yelled at kids who ran into them while a kunoichi evaded them easily and was in mere moments at the other side of the street, probably heading either to the training grounds or to the gate. It was a typical scene in the village. Nothing of it was spectacular this morning. With a sigh, the Fifth Hokage walked over to his desk and started to work on the never ending paperwork.

An hour in and he made a decent dent in the paper stack. He probably would have managed to half it by noon, though loud noises from the hall, followed by a loud knock at the door, interrupted his flow. A young chunin, not much younger than the Kazekage, managed the reception desk and his appointments. The chunin knew that he didn’t want to be interrupted this early in the day. Before he could wonder what was wrong or even attempt to bid whoever knocked in, the door was opened and Chiyo came in. Her steps were steady. Confident. Still, there was something Gaara couldn’t really point out, but it told him that she was unsure. Maybe it was the way her eyes looked around the office? The way she gripped something small in her left hand? Or simply the fact that she just barged in without a word? Chiyo was always polite. He never saw her entering a room without permission, she lived and acted exactly like she expected others to be in her presence. The young chunin from the reception peek inside the room from the still open door. An anbu left the shadow behind him and flanked him on his left side, clearly showing with their body language that they were here and ready to defend if the need would arise. It was only for Chiyo’s position as puppet and poison master that the anbu showed themself and the Kazekage was not happy. Did the anbu think Gaara couldn’t defend himself? Also, even if the woman was a high ranking member of Suna, the anbu’s task was to always stay hidden in his office. Always.

Chiyo stopped a polite distance away from his desk. “Lord Kazekage, I need to speak with you concerning a very delicate and important message I received. Alone.” The read haired Kazekage saw the anbu tense beside him. He regarded the elderly woman. Her expression. Eyes that were normally hard from experience held now a determination in unknown softness in them. A tiny flicker of hope was there. He was sure. Her lips were also pressed together as if it was hard to not just spill what she wanted to say. All in all it was so rare to see the woman show so much expressions that he decided to fulfill her wish. “Anbu take a break. All of you. Chunin, go back to the reception.” With a low squeak, the chunin slammed the door close and hurried back to his post while the anbu beside him bowed slightly, still on edge and vanished with a typical body flicker technique for Suna. Gaara felt the other anbu in the shadows leave the office before he let some sand out from his gourd that leaned beside his desk. Without letting Chiyo out of his sight, Gaara placed the sand around his office - one wrong move from the woman and she would regret it. “Speak”, he spoke in a monotone voice. One word, a simple order and the woman instantly obeyed. “I was at the graveyard earlier. There I found two scrolls.” Chiyo interrupted herself, fumbled with what ever she hold in her hand. Gaara gave her the moment she clearly needed to sort her thoughts. A deep breath later and she continued, all the while pulling a scroll from her pocket and putting it in front of him on the table. “One was addressed for you and the other was addressed for me. I did only read mine but if it is true what is written in mine, Suna needs to act. My scroll stated that there are people out there that know the future. Or at least a possible path that we are all heading along. There is an organization called Akatsuki, all nukenin. They want a ceasefire.” Here, Chiyo interrupted herself again. Clearly struggling, debating what else to say. How much she should disclose. Gaara pressed his lips together, narrowed his eyes. Oh yes, he knew this organization. Naruto and Gaara had bonded over their shared struggles of being a Jinchuuriki and as a friend, the blond had told the other Jinchuuriki as soon as he learned about Akatsuki in his travels with Jiraiya. Then the Kazekage had started to send his own shinobi out to get intel. It was not much that he had so far. He was sure he didn’t know everything about Akatsuki. Hell, he wasn’t even 100 percent sure how many members the organization had, but he knew one member that was originally from Suna. Who his relatives were and he wondered if it was Akasuna no Sasori that had reached out. If so, could they trust what was written in the scrolls? He wanted to ask her, wanted to find out if he was right. If it was her grandson that wrote or at least brought her the scrolls. He wanted to ask what was written in her scroll, but he didn’t. Right now, he decided, it was not his business. He would ask, if he needed to, but if it was indeed something from Sasori then it was something between both puppeteers.

Slowly, he looked from Chiyo to the scroll on his desk. A brief glance back to the woman showed him again a flicker of hope in her eyes. With a new found curiosity, Gaara carefully picked the message for him up. He turned it around, looking for seals that could harm him and finally opened it. He read the words silently, word for word. As he finished, he read it again, just to make sure to not miss something between the lines. Then he reached for a small paper that was on the corner of the table. While he scribbled down his new orders, he was sending out a chakra pulse to summon his anbu back into the office. In a blink of an eye the same anbu stood beside him and Gaara gave them the fast written note. The next time he locked eyes with Chiyo, Gaara thought he understood the tiny flicker of hope in the woman’s eyes a bit better, but also the resignation. It was still in his office. Neither he nor Chiyo said anything. He, because he was never a big fan of talking and her, because she didn’t know what else to say. That was clear. He knew there was more that she wanted to say, but she couldn’t. Not yet. The Kazekage didn’t press.

Around ten minutes later - ten minutes that felt like forever and in which he wrote another note that he gave a second anbu - Temari and Kankuro entered his office and Gaara stood up. He picked the Kazekage hat from his table and threw it at his brother who caught it startled and with confusion written over his face. Then he picked up his gourd and threw it over his shoulders. “Temari, we will head out to Konoha. I already sent someone ahead to inform Lady Tsunade of our visit. There is a lot to discuss in person with our allies. Kankuro, you and Chiyo are going to take care of the village during my absence.” He didn’t gave anyone time to argue with him and headed to the door, ready to make haste for Konohagakure. As he stood in the doorway, he looked over his shoulder. Took in the expressions of his siblings and Chiyo, before he understood something else on this day. For a few moments, he held eye contact with Temari, the oldest of them. His sister that was scared of him when he was a child, but never stopped defending him from others. Then he looked into Kankuro’s eyes, the middle child. He was to young as a child to fully understand what was going on, but never stopped grinning at Gaara. Never stopped listening if his younger brother said anything. For a time in their lives, Temari and Kankuro didn’t know how to act around him. To find out what they could do or say to not put him into a bloodlust was always a gamble. Still, they never stopped loving him. They were his home. That was the reason why he was still here. In Sunagakure. Kazekage. As he locked eyes with Chiyo, he saw understanding in her eyes. Further words weren’t necessary.

After all, there was nothing to say if it was clear that the goal was the same: To protect the people you love.

Notes:

Hi!
It is currently 11:41 pm and I had a busy and exhausting day.
For that, I really hope that I found all typos and grammatical mistakes while proofreading.
Please let me know if you find something and I will correct it as soon as I can! I am looking forward to your feedback.
Hope you had fun reading, have a nice night or day (when ever you are reading this).
See, or better read you! :)

Chapter 20: Voices In Your Head

Notes:

Hello,

I'm not sure if this chapter needs a trigger warning, but I want to be cautious. The story has included certain tags from the start, but I know not everyone always checks them (I sometimes forget, too).

Just in case:
Please be mindful - this chapter discusses mental health struggles and mentions self-harm.

I wrote this chapter based on my own experiences with certain negative thoughts and struggles, as well as the experiences shared with me by others, including people who have harmed themselves. However, I am not a professional in this field.
If anything feels off or could be improved, I appreciate your understanding.

Please, if you are struggling with your mental health - no matter to what extent - reach out to a professional. You deserve support.

That’s all.
Thank you for reading this note!

He felt like an idiot, a big idiot.

Shikamaru moved beside him. “Whatever you are thinking right now, tell me or stop it. I can hear your mind working and that is not the purpose of cloud watching. You should relax, calm totally down and maybe fall asleep. So whatever is bothering you, you can tell me and then you can enjoy your free time and cloud watching fully.” Slowly, Alexander turned his head on the soft grass and looked over to the Nara heir. His blue eyes met the brown eyes from his friend and Alexander felt heat creep on his cheeks. Nope, he would not blush! Instantly he turn his head back and fixated his gaze on a fluffy cloud in the sky. He was such an idiot. Developing a crush on his newfound friend. A person that he lied to daily. He shouldn’t even be friends with Shikamaru Nara. It was not fair to the other teenager. Lying everyday about his knowledge. It was not right and the whole situation was not good for the blonds mental health. He thought to much about a lot of things. Of ‘if’s and ‘when’s and then he spiraled. The fleeting thoughts in his mind became more each day. A habit - if you can call it a habit - he thought he lost over the last year.

Alexander needed to work on it. It was not good. First of all, he needed to answer Shikamaru and act like always. With a forced smile, Alexander turned back to his friend. “I don’t know what you are talking about Shikamaru, I am calm. Let’s continue cloud watching! That one …“, he turned back to look at the clouds and pointed to the first one he saw before continuing: “… looks somehow like a cat to me. What do you think?” Shikamaru was silent for a moment and Alexander felt his gaze still on him. Then the grass rustled as the Nara heir turn also around. “You can tell me when you are ready. Why a cat? For me it looks like some dango.” - “Now that you say it. Hm.” Alexander was nervous, but thankful for the other to let the topic rest. The chunin was a genius, no wonder that he didn’t bought his act. The blond tried to relax, he really did, but he couldn’t. Both pointed out some random clouds that looked interesting for some time. It was nice. Still, Alexander felt more and more uncomfortable as time went on.The grass beside him rustled again and the blond looked curiously over. Shikamaru was sitting in his usual thinking pose. Fingertips of one hand touched the fingertips of the opposite hand, eyes closed. He really thought hard about something and Alexander felt scared. Would he call him out on his lies now? It was Shikamaru Nara, for sure he knew that Alexander was not fully honest most of the time. The blond tried not to lie, he omitted things and changed topics, but he wondered sometimes, if this was worst than straight up lying.

He shouldn’t be trusted - not with his background.
Shikamaru didn’t know his background.
Did he want the shinobi to know?
He would like to get rid of his past.

“Let’s go grab something to eat. Chouji says food makes everything better and the Akimichi have a good restaurant not far from here”, stated the Nara heir in a calm tone before he stood up fully, offering the blond a hand to help him up. Unfortunately for the black haired shinobi, Asuma choose this moment to interrupt both teenagers. He entered the teenagers cloud watching spot with a sheepish smile, one hand rubbing the back of his neck. The jonin cleared his throat before sending his student an apologetic smile. “Our team got a four days mission. We will meet at the gates in 20 minutes. Alexander, I will take you to Guy’s home. He will look after you and Sofia for the time.” Before he used a sunshine, Shikamaru sent Alexander a determined look and said confidently: “Then we visit the restaurant as soon as I am back.” Alexander blushed again and let out a sigh. Four days to think about all possible scenarios. All possible questions from Shikamaru. He was sure the Nara would ask some questions. He was curious. What questions would it be? What questions that the blond would not be able to answer? Four days in which he would wish that the meetup would be a date. The blond stood up and followed the jonin silently, ignoring the mans concerned looks.

He was so stupid.
He should not even entertain a fleeting thought about it.
He never would have a chance with the Nara heir.
He should end whatever it was.

A few hours later saw the blond sitting in Guys apartment. More precisely in Léo’s room. The older man was currently in the kitchen, preparing a light dinner with the apartment owner for everyone. Sofia was painting her nails in a blue and green polish that Ino gave her. Alexander tried to get his thoughts in order, but he couldn’t, wasn’t strong enough. The guilt was to deep as to simply threw it off. He watched Sofia as she blew on her nails and wondered if this really helped. His best friend had also done this. He missed her. Everything would be easier with her help. She would listen. She was the only one to understand.

He would also listen to her.
He had left her alone.
He promised to be always there.
He was a liar.

Alexander gritted his teeth and reached for his sport bag beside him. He had hoped to be over this. Truly hoped. He didn’t have so many negative thoughts in a day for a long time. The last was some months ago, nearly a year. The blond was happy that he had put the little bottle with his medication in his bag. He would take them for the next two or three days and everything would be better. Alexander could feel and be normal again. Just in time for the meetup with Shikamaru. The meetup. It’s not a date, thought the blond bitterly and that hurt.

Pathetic.
Weak.
Couldn’t even manage to think positive for a whole year without drugs.
Couldn’t even accept his own feelings for his friend.
He really had to change that.

Alexander touched the white plastic bottle and paused. Why was it so light? A brief glance at Sofia showed him that she was in her own world. He opened the bottle slowly to not catch the other teenagers attention. He could not explain himself right now. His mind was to fuzzy with a beginning panic attack setting in. Why was the bottle so light? The blond tried to empty the bottle against his jersey. Keyword: tried. Nothing fell out and Alexander froze. No. No, no, no! His mother bought him a whole bottle two and a half years ago and for nearly a year he didn’t touch the bottle. The blond was so happy with the new school and new volleyball team. Alexander could act like nothing happened there. He made friends and his best friend was always available to calm him down. What should he do now? He could not fall back in a hole like years ago. The blond was scared. Really scared.

A touch on his arm startled him, he instantly hid the bottle between the folds of his clothes and flinched away from the other person. Big, sky blue eyes fixated on the person in front of him. “You startled me, Sofia. Do you need something? I was lost in my thoughts”, mumbled Alexander. “I called you twice, you didn’t answer. Sorry for scaring you.” She looked him up and down slowly. Concern was clearly shown in her hazel eyes. “Are you okay?” No, I am not okay. “Yes, I am just thinking about my family. I am fine though, thanks for asking!”, Alexander smiled at her reassuringly. Sofia clearly didn’t believe him, but she didn’t pressure him. Small mercies. The blond teenager wouldn’t have known what else to tell her. The last time he told someone beside his best friend how he felt, it was terrible. He didn’t want to feel like that again. He wanted to be normal. Like the others. As his father had told him. The blond would fake it till it was the truth. Someday, hopefully soon, it had to become the truth. One of his hands brushed over his tight. It had to become the truth, because he didn’t know what he would do otherwise. “What do you need, Sofia?” - “Guy was calling us. Dinner is ready.”

Dinner was a bit of a loud affair at the beginning. The tiny table was full with different food, one bowl after another found its place between plates and cups. The only jonin of the group grinned from ear to ear as Sofia squealed as soon as she saw one plate with crepes. Guy patted Léo’s shoulder with pride. “My flatmate decided to cook something from his country. I see you know it, young Sofia.” Said girl just nodded and reached for the french dish with a big smile. Soon, everyone was seated around the table. It was a bit squeezed, but manageable. The plates clinked as everyone tried to get their chosen food on their plates. As soon as everyone had what they wanted, dinner got quiet. Only the sound of people eating was heard and Alexander’s mind drifted again. One negative thought after another bullied him. He felt alone. Logically, the blond knew he was among people, new friends even. People that seemed to accept him with his ‘quirks and gayness’. He tried to accept that, really, but it wasn’t easy. Especially not on a day where old memories and insults from so called friends from years ago were on replay in his head. The teenager tried to push them away and it was working a bit, but not much. Soon he stopped eating, his hands were to occupied with gripping his tights hard. He was a bit overwhelmed, wanted to flee in Léo’s room and just shut the outside world out. Or maybe go for a nice, long walk. Preferable with Shika. He would call it a hike and groan, but he would walk with him, thought Alexander and a little smile was on his lips. It was was there for a moment, but then he thought about telling the other teenager the truth and his smile vanished. He had to. It was not fair to not say anything. But the others. Last time they talked about telling someone they weren’t sure if it was the right direction.

Boisterous laughter brought him back to reality. “That’s not funny Guy! I will not use a kunai for shaving! We need to go to a drugstore tomorrow and buy a proper razor!”, pouted the only female of the group. Her mimic clearly stated how affronted she was with the jonin’s earlier statement. “It really isn’t so difficult Sofia. I was a bit concerned myself at first, but as I tried it I found that it works quite well. Are you afraid to cut your legs accidentally? Guy keeps his kunai really sharp so you do not need to use a lot of pressure and so the chance is really slim.” - “I am not afraid about my legs! With my luck I cut ….”, huffed the young woman, before she bit her lip and stopping her sentence. She blushed strongly, jumped up and stormed out of the room. Her abrupt exit was followed by a few seconds of silence before Guy started to laugh again. Léo shook his head a bit and looked at Alexander. If he needed to shave, stated to older man, said kunai would be in the bathroom cabinet. “First drawer”, added the author before putting a new crepe on his plate. Alexander watched him a bit before looking at his own plate. A bit of rice and egg was still left on it.

He should really finish it.
He needed to eat more.
He felt sick.

Later in the evening, Alexander stood in Guy’s bathroom. He looked into the mirror, observing his reflection. His sky blue eyes looked dull. His nose was a tiny bit crooked, courtesy of a stray volleyball two years ago. Luckily for him, you needed to really look out for it to see it. The teenagers lips were a natural, soft pink tone. Even if it was some weeks ago that his father shaved his beard, it still looked like a three day stubble. He liked it. His father hated it. He told him every other day: If he couldn’t grow a real beard, he should have none. A fight they had regularly. His father strongly believed that he was afraid of the razor. A fact that was true but had nothing to do with his decision to let his little stubble on his face. While he looked at his reflection, some memories came back to him and he gripped the sink strongly, closing his eyes. ‘Look at the Wolf boy. He never had a girlfriend. So sad.’ - ‘No wonder, look at him. No respectful girl in this school would walk on his side.’ - ‘He is gay, of course he doesn’t have a girlfriend. Do keep up with the school gossip, girl.’ - ‘Gay? Ha, no wonder he gets beaten up once in a while.’  One of the nicer insults, still hurtful. On that day he really was in a bad shape. The male tennis team of his old school thought it would be fun to harass him and beat him up a bit. He never understood what he did to them. Maybe his existence was enough to have their ire on him. As he reopened his eyes, he thought about his live after attending his new school. It was hard to join the volleyball them there but he managed. That he was gay didn’t stay hidden long, because one of the first official school games was against his old school. Fortunately his new team mates had his back. It turned out that two of his team mates were also gay and in a relationship with each other. They managed what his best friend tried for years: Showed him that being gay was normal, okay. She joked that they managed it, because he saw them in real life and not over the handy camera like her. ‘Ha, your face must have been funny! Can I have their number? They need to tell me how you looked as they told you that everything is okay. Bet you had this cute, totally confused expression. I really need to get to Germany again. It is to long that we saw each other face to face.’  Some weeks later, he had found the first book of Léo’s ongoing series in his school locker. His best friend managed to convince his new friends from school to by him the book, knowing that she couldn’t sent him the book on his address. His father would have thrown a fit if he found it in the mail. Alexander missed his friends from his old live and wondered if he would see them again. He missed them. A grin formed on his lips as he thought about his friends. They would loose their mind if he told them that he met and became friends with Léo Roux, one of their favorite authors. Especially his best friend, because he would also tell her that he was in the Naruto world, a world she was a absolute fan of.

He prepared himself for a quick shower before heading to bed. He turned the water on and started to undress himself, when he saw his old scars. They started to become more and more light, but were still very noticeable. With a sigh he stepped into the shower, trying to forget about them under the warm water. The young teenager promised not only himself, but also his mother and his best friend to never do it again. Yet, to see the scars remembered him how good it felt to cut himself. How much relief it brought. How the tension in his body just vanished. He was in the middle of rinsing out his blond hair as his gaze drifted to the cabinet. Léo said there was a kunai in the drawer. A sharp kunai.

It would be easy.
It would make his life a bit more bearable.
It would silence the voices in his head for some time.
It would mean to break his promise.

“No son of mine is gay. No son of mine is hurting himself because he can not accept reality. If you do not stop this nonsense, you better make sure to cut deep enough next time.”

His father’s word rang through his head. Alexander turned off the water and took a deep breath. The blond was nervous, scared. Ashamed.

Eyes still fixated on the drawer on the other side of the room, he stepped out of the shower.

Chapter 21: Determination And Complications

Notes:

Hi, I had real troubles with this chapter. It was finished some time ago, but it didn't feel right, so I rewrote it two or three times.
Hope Kakashi isn't too ooc in this, but all the characters probably are, because they have my own touch to their personality. xD
If someone has a better chapter title, please tell me. I decided to just upload it now so that you all do not have to wait longer.
Have fun reading! :)

With a mournful sigh, Kakashi Hatake, elite shinobi of the Leaf, laid back on his sofa. A soft sound could be heard in the room as the grey-haired shinobi closed the black book before laying it on his coffee table. “What a mean author”, he mumbled into the silence, not happy with the cliffhanger. He had been reading the book since he woke up in the morning and now he had finished it and already wanted more to read. Kakashi wondered what he should do now. Tsunade expected him in her office in the afternoon for a quick medical checkup - of course he couldn’t evade a checkup after three missions in a row. At least he tried and the Hokage was nice enough to not drag him into the hospital, knowing that he resented the building without needing Kakashi to point it out. A quick glance at the watch above the kitchen door showed him that he had over four and a half hours to kill. He had already done the laundry the day before, the grocery shopping was also done.

He could meet up with some friends, fellow shinobi, but he was not the most social person. Kakashi sighed again and took once more a sitting position on the sofa. His gaze landed on the black book. It lay there innocently and the jonin smirked slightly as he thought about the last scenes. The story was far from innocent, and whoever the author was, they knew how to write. He normally had his body under control while reading erotic books - reading a volume of ‘Icha Icha’ outside or while he was on duty was the best example for it. He couldn’t read the black book outside. Kakashi had done so until the first love scene appeared in the story. He was happy that this happened on a solo mission, more precisely as he was on his way back to the village. He had nearly stumbled from the three branches at the time and the scene had caught his whole attention. After a little break, Kakashi decided that it would be better for his health (he really should pay attention while out on missions) and his reputation if he only read it at home or when he was definitely alone and in a secure place. How the author could start so sweet and innocent in the beginning and make this turn was a wonder in the shinobi’s eyes. Alone thinking about the ending scene of the story lea him to blush and feel heat in his body. He rubbed his face with his hands and stood up. Ignoring his body and putting the deceitful book in a pocket of his green jonin vest, Kakashi started to get ready to head out. He would head to his favorite training ground. There was a jutsu he wanted to improve a bit and training was never a bad idea in his line of work. After a bit of training, he would walk to the local bookshop before his appointment with Tsunade and ask if they had other books in the series.

He laughed, as he remembered the day his pack found out about him being interested in men. It was a few weeks ago and Kakashi had been horribly embarrassed, seeing the open book in the middle of his pack mates had thrown him off balance. The jonin had stumbled over his words, unsure of what to tell them and so they had a slightly awkward conversation that ended with him being really thankful for the understanding and support of his family. Of course, there was some teasing from the dogs after this encounter. And questions. A few days after this encounter, the whole pack was in a play fight until Pakkun had suddenly asked him if there was a man that had caught his eye yet. Unfortunately the only human of the pack had developed the habit of not wearing his mask at home and the blush he sported after the question gave him away. There was a man that had caught the grey-haired jonin’s eye. So he told them how he met the other man who was called Léo Roux.

All had started when Guy dragged him from his flat to a training session between Team Asuma and Team Guy. Apparently, three individuals with large chakra reserves were found in and around the village. Three people who lost their memories. Two rooming with Asuma and one with his rival. For surveillance reasons, Guy had said and that they lost their memories. Kakashi wondered, why Tsunade hadn’t just dropped them in T&I, but it was not his shuriken, so he would wonder in silence. He would bet it was something political in the background and he was happy to not have anything to do with it. As he entered - or better got dragged by Guy - the training ground, he watched both teams play against each other in a unknown ball game that they had infused with chakra. His eyes glanced briefly over his fellow Konoha-nin and stopped abruptly at the oldest of the three strangers on the sidelines. A man around his age had caught his attention. He was slim, a bit shorter as himself and had light, chocolate-brown hair. The man’s multicolored eyes were fixed on a blond teenager who looked a lot like Naruto - a fact that hurt him, he really missed his outgoing, happy student. The brown-haired man only grinned at the blond while he listened to the teenagers complain about not being sufficient enough in controlling his chakra and ruffling the blond’s hair. Another teenager, a girl, sat beside the two on the grass and just laughed. Guy had dragged him over to the three and introduced Kakashi in his usual manner. The grey-haired man greeted them with a simple “Yo”, hands in his pocket. As soon as he had heard the brown-haired man’s voice, Kakashi was stunned into silence. As their gaze locked, a blush entered his cheeks and the jonin was glad to wear a mask. As a soft breeze brought him the man’s scent, Hatake Kakashi knew that he would not get the other man out of his head.That was embarrassing. He had never felt like this before. He felt attraction before, but this? This was something else. Léo, as the man was called, smiled at him before he turned to Guy and told him, that all three of them were finished with the ordered laps around the training grounds. While Guy was distracted with the blonds pouting and the girls insistence to stop the endurance training the other jonin wanted them to do, Kakashi used the body flicker technique to appear in a tree branch not far away. He needed to think. Ignoring the fleeting looks of the other jonin on the training ground, Kakashi observed the new addition to the village and the training of the new generation of Konoha-nin. If he kept his eye more on the brown-haired man, nobody would know.

He had been really confused when the ninken had suddenly started to laugh. Bull had grinned at him, as much as a dog was able to grin, and had told him: “Oh I know the man. Gives really good pets and he’s not afraid of me.” Pakkun had added: “Bull led us to Léo one or two days after meeting him. We like him, he is nice and polite. Asks before petting us and is not afraid to ask if he doesn’t understand something about our behavior as ninken. To be honest, the others and I were thinking of ways to make you interested in him.” Pakkun had studied Kakashi’s face for a moment, before continuing: “He will be a good mate for you.” The other dogs had nodded in agreement before continuing their game like nothing had happened. Kakashi had been stunned before he had laughed loudly and joined the game again.

Over the next few weeks, somehow he found himself in one encounter after another with the man that caught his eye. The shinobi wasn’t sure, but he thought that his pack had set up one encounter or another.

One of these encounters was not even a full week after his pack had told him that they already knew Léo. Kakashi was doing his weekly grocery shopping when he saw the other man again. Accompanied by Neji Hyuuga, Léo was putting one vegetable after another into his basket while the young Hyuuga was his silent shadow. “Yo”, he greeted both men as they reached his aisle. He had promised himself that he would try talking to the other man. Try to get to know him. His pack liked him, so he wanted to learn more about the man. The fact that Kakashi couldn’t get the man with the multicolored eyes out of his head helped solidify this decision.Neji, in true Hyuuga fashion had only nodded at him. The ‘Hi, nice to see you again’, accompanied with a beautiful smile from the brown-haired man was instead a nice welcome. It was followed by a question about his morning and how he was doing. Most people greeted him polity, but not more - civilians were often scared of him, fellow shinobi to starstruck, scared or simply to busy to have a conversation. Kakashi answered Léo while leaning around the slightly shorter man to grab a sack of eggplants. His mask dulled the scents of his surrounding, but as close as he was to the other man, Kakashi could smell the others natural scent again. It was nice. As he leaned back, Kakashi saw that Léo had a tiny blush on his face. With a satisfied grin, the jonin let the eggplants fall into his bag and started a light conversation about the civilians’ favorite vegetable while leading him as asked to the cashier and ignoring the silent Hyuuga behind them. All in all, it was a short encounter, just a few sentences were exchanged, but it felt good.That day, Kakashi went home with a smile on his lips.

Kakashi smiled fondly as he thought over the last encounters with the other man while he took position in the middle of the training ground and started to stretch. Léo was nice and easy to talk to. Attractive too. He wanted to see the other man again and talk more with him, get to know him. He changed from upper body stretches to his legs and wondered how he could ask Léo to meetup with him. A blush rose to his cheeks as he asked himself if this would count as asking Léo out on a date. Kakashi changed to another stretching position before shaking his head like the movement would get rid of his thoughts. He was here to train and he would do so. He focused on his training and banned all other thoughts to the back of his mind. He would think more about it later. This method worked for a while and he made good progress with improving some finer details of a fire and a earth jutsu. It worked till Guy, accompanied by Léo, jogged up to the training ground. While his rival was full of energy, the civilian was breathing hard. Guy stopped them on the side of the training ground, out of Kakashi’s way to not get caught in the jonin’s jutsu and made a gesture with his hand that meant that he needed him for a moment. As he stepped up to them, he mustered the duo intrigued. The civilian looked really cute in Kakashi’s eyes. Léo had managed to regulate his breathing, but his shirt was drenched in sweat, he leaned forward with his hands on his upper legs and his hair was also in disarrayed. Still, as he looked up at both jonin, Léo sent both a beautiful smile. “Léo will not manage to run the rest of my routine. Please keep an eye on him, while you train, I will pick him up later! Thanks my eternal rival!”, stated Guy with a smile and ran away before either of the other men could say anything. Perplexed, Kakashi and Léo watched Guy running away till he vanished behind a street corner. As Kakashi looked over to Léo, he wondered if the brown-haired man was annoyed about Guy. He was looking a bit vexed and bit his lip. Then he turned to the jonin and stated in a soft tone that he was sorry for this inconvenience and that he was not yet allowed to be alone in the village per the Hokage’s order. “If you do not want me to watch your training, you could sent one clone with me to Asuma?”, suggested the other man a bit unsure. Kakashi instantly shook his head. Reduce the time he had with the other man was the last thing he wanted. Before he could say anything, Léo sent him another smile, clearly happy with Kakashi’s reaction and headed to a tree not far away. As soon as he sat in the shadows, he started to stretch an grinned at the grey-haired shinobi. “I am glad that it’s okay to watch you! Guy said you are one of the best shinobi in Konoha and I am super curious how your training will be compared to him or to team Asuma.” Oh, Kakashi thought prideful and stood a bit straighter. The other wanted to see him train? Kakashi knew exactly what to show him. With a smile under the mask and determination in his eyes, Kakashi made tree shadow clones and started with a light spar that became more intense over time. He loved to have the other man’s attention on him. More than once did he look over to the blond and the jonin intentionally slowed some moves down. Making it easier for multicolored eyes to follow him. Kakashi preened internally as Léo watched him in aw, finished his routine and flawlessly began the next. Later, as Guy picked the civilian up, Kakashi was really astonished how fast the time flew by. He nodded at both and body flickered to the Hokage tower. If Tsunade shouted at him for being four hours late, well, the only witnesses would be Shizune and the two guards who were also in the room. The smile on his lips didn’t vanish during the scolding of his Hokage nor during his medical checkup.

It was late afternoon, as Kakashi finally left the Tsunade’s office. The sun would set in two hours or less. He passed his favorite training ground again on his way home. For a moment he paused and watched some genin train. He missed his students. It was on this training ground were he tested his students if they were ready to become real genin. Were he taught Sasuke a new fire-jutsu, showed Naruto a new tactic with the shadow clones and improved Sakura’s accuracy with kunai. Kakashi tensed and turned around to continue his walk home. Something like guilt settled in his gut. Maybe, he thought. Maybe I should have focused more on teamwork. Sometimes, he felt as if he was a failure as a teacher. Naruto was on a training journey with Jiraiya, Sakura took lessons from Tsunade and Sasuke was missing. He hoped that Tsunade got a new lead on Sasuke’s whereabouts soon and that she would send him out to retrieve his wayward student. Maybe Sasuke would still be here and we would all would be a stable team of four. Lost in his thoughts, Kakashi entered his home and let himself fall on the sofa without really recognizing it. He pushed the guilt and thoughts about his students from his mind. At least as much as he could and tried to relax a bit. As the grey-haired jonin calmed down, the encounter with Léo earlier in the day entered his thoughts.

His emotions confused him at the beginning, but he knew that he couldn’t simply walk away from the other man. His instincts told him that Léo was right for him. His smell was relaxing, his presence calming. The conversations with the other man were interesting and Kakashi wanted to learn more about the man. He was good looking too. A light blush entered the jonin’s cheeks, as he thought back at how the sweaty shirt hugged the brown-haired man earlier in the day. Kakashi decided at this moment that he would woo the other man. His instincts told him that this was the right decision and he trusted his instincts. “Just, how do I woo him?”, mumbled the jonin lost in his thoughts. The few, let’s say romantically encounters he had were with women from outside the village. He had no experience with men in that regard. “Just tell your love interest that you want him as your mate”, stated Bull as he jumped up on the sofa and sat beside his summoner, who startled and looked perplex at the bulldog. “Hell boss, you are so lost in your thoughts. You didn’t even notice me enter the living room.” - “It is not so simple for humans, Bull”, stated the jonin a bit vexed. “Then get advice from Guy. They are room-mates, surely he can help you.” Kakashi hesitated before he said that he was unsure if Guy would be okay with him being gay. Bull snorted and stretched on the sofa. “Don’t be stupid Kakashi. It is Guy, your best friend”, was all he said and strangely enough it was all the dog needed to say. Determined, Kakashi looked to the watch. It wasn’t to late yet. He stood up smoothly and called over his shoulder ‘Wish me luck!’ as he left the apartment.

The typical noises of the village toned down from minute to minute as he ran over the rooftops to Guy’s apartment. He took care to think about everything else then thinking about Guy’s reaction when they would talk. A few minutes passed, nearly to fast for Kakashi and soon he jumped down to the street, walked the last meters and knocked on Guy’s door. He didn’t have to wait long before his friend opened. “Kakashi!”, exclaimed Guy happy. “What can I do for you? Come in, come in!”, grinned the other jonin from ear to ear. He opened the door more and gesturing for Kakashi to enter. For a moment, Kakashi halted, wondering if he should suggest the roof to talk. In the end, he nodded at Guy and entered his friend’s home. “There is something I wanted to talk about”, started Kakashi as he slipped out of his shoes. “It is something private and I would be glad, if we could talk somewhere where nobody could overhear us.” - “Of course Kakashi, follow me”, said Guy seriously and led the other man to his bedroom. “Team Asuma is on a mission, so Sofia and Alexander are also staying here at the moment. They are currently in the guestroom and prepare for bed.” Guy opened the door to his room and let Kakashi enter first. “We could be interrupt easily in the kitchen or the living room. Usually, Léo waits till I leave my room if he needs something. So this would be the best place to talk.” Again, Kakashi only nodded and leaned on the wall, sorting his thoughts. Contemplating how to start this conversation. Guy, contrary to his usual loud persona, was silently watching him from the side, waiting patiently. “I do not really know how to start”, began Kakashi. “To be honest, I am a bit scared of your reaction.” - “What ever it is, you can tell me Kakashi. You are my best friend and we always have each others back.” The look in Guy’s face was very earnest. It helped him to get the next words out. “I am gay and attracted to Léo. Please help me find out if I have a chance with him and if so, how to woo him.” There, thought Kakashi. I said it. Ripped it of like a band-aid.

“Of course I will help you!”, stated Guy determined. A huge grin was on his face before he exclaimed with passion: “Oh to be in love! I envy you my friend! Do not worry, together we will find …“, before he could say more, they heard a crash from somewhere in the apartment, before the voice of Sofia could be heard clearly. “I will not allow it!” Then there was another crash and a yell from Alexander: “Do not tell me what to do! You do not know me! Go away from me!” Both jonin rushed out of the room, following the sounds of breaking glass and voices that tried to talk over each other. “I cannot lie any longer!” Three huge chakra waves rushed over them suddenly and vanished as fast as they had appeared. In seconds, they stood in front of the open bathroom door. The scene in front of them let both jonin pause for a moment, analyzing what they saw. Léo looked really dazed while leaning somehow on a cabinet that had toppled over. Blood was dripping from his head and from his arm. In the corner of the shower sat Sofia, cradling Alexander, who mumbled something again and again, but in a language that Kakashi didn’t understand. He was clearly scared, his sky blue eyes were unfocused. There was blood under both teenagers, but the jonin wasn’t sure if one or both were injured at the first glance. Kakashi and Guy glanced at each other and nodded. They would talk later about Alexander’s statement to ‘not lie any longer’. For now, both jonin would be silent about the matter when other shinobi arrived. The huge chakra waves would have caught the attention of several patrolling shinobi. Minding the glass and mirror shards on the floor, along with the toppled over furniture, Kakashi and Guy entered the small, already crowded room.

Kakashi got the feeling that this was the beginning of something complicated.

Notes:

As always, I would be happy to read about your thoughts in the reviews. :)
Btw, from whom do you want to read about in the next chapter? Should we stay a bit in Konoha or go back to some Akatsuki teams?

Chapter 22: Regroup

Hidan could not decide if he was happy or angry - was there a word that expressed feeling both emotions at the same time? If so, Hidan didn’t know it and frankly: He didn’t care. Right now, as he stood up after his sacrifice to Jashin, he felt unsure about himself. Something that rarely happened. Hidan was cocky, he was loud, es was brash, he was confident. He was a lot of things. Feeling insecure with himself was not a thing he did. Usually. The silver-haired man looked from the corpse of his sacrifice to Eva. The teenager was standing a few meters away, a kunai was held in her shaky, right hand. Her face is not as white as during the last battle, thought Hidan as he observed her. Still to shaky. With a sigh, the jashinist pulled his weapon from his chest. It pulled on his flesh, his gift from Jashin had already started to heal his body. With a noise that wasn’t easily described, Hidan’s weapon left his body and the nukenin started to clean it before walking over to his student. What should he do with her? He was happy to teach her. To spread the doctrine of Jashin was something he missed after leaving Yugakure, the place he was born and raised. There was a tiny temple where he and some other followers practiced their religion - he wondered if the temple was still in use. Did Jashin grant the others also immortality? As he walked up to the girl, the Jashinist wondered if he should take his student to his old home. Even if the temple was abandoned, there should be some old scrolls for Eva to study. She was studious, listened to what he said, watched him during his rituals. That was good. That let him feel good.

She didn’t participate in his rituals, nor did she try do do one herself and that made him angry. Not at the girl, rather at himself. Again, something that rarely happened. What did he do wrong? Jashin sent her to him and he was sure that his god wanted him to teach her the ways of being a dutiful follower. Eva did believe in Jashin, in that Hidan was sure. He watched her to many times reciting on of the prayers he taught her. The interest she showed while he talked about the doctrines was genuine. So how could he get her to participate in a ritual? She needed to in order to become a full, immortal Jashinist.

His body jerked as Kakuzu hit him with his flat hand on the back of his head. “Stop dreaming and take the girl inside to train. Unbelievable how she froze up earlier”, muttered Kakuzu coldly before he pointed at the corpse in front of him. “In the meantime I will collect the bounty of this idiot.”With a sigh, Hidan grabbed the blond girl and dragged her along to the new hideout they established not so long ago. “Come, you need to work on not freezing in battles.” A stuttered, unsure confirmation reached his ears and Hidan couldn’t do anything else except to sigh.

Again.

 

A good distance from the new Akatsuki base was a small village. Everyone knew each other and the small inn got rarely guests, especially guests that stayed longer than one night. With that in mind it was no wonder that the villagers started to talk.Two women had booked a room in the inn, one of them clearly hurt. One of them wore clothes that clearly were from a distant land, the other was clad in a dark cloak with red clouds on it. The rumors were plentiful. Some people said that the women were kunoichi from a shinobi village, although the ones who saw the women stated that neither of them wore a headband. Others said they were just unfortunate travelers that got into a skirmish with some bandits.As with everything as time went by the excitement over the unknown women vanished and the rumors stopped.

Only to start again two days later, as both women walked through the village, clearly dressed to travel again. The black-haired woman sung an unknown song. Her voice was soft, deliberately low to not bother the villagers. Her expression was serene, her mouth formed the unknown words without trouble, showing that it was her mother tongue. The blue-haired woman listened attentive, a tiny smile on her lips. Every villager who heard the song felt a rush of calmness come over them. Later, as both women were gone, the villagers couldn’t agree if they heard the voice of an angel or a siren.

Even so, all agreed that they hoped to hear the woman sing again.

 

The villagers were not the only ones who heard Rosalia sing on this sunny day. Not far from their temporary resting place, Konan and the opera singer met Itachi, Kisame and Charles. “You have a nice voice”, complimented Charles as Rosalia ended as both women stopped at the men’s side. “Which aria is that? My Mother loved to attend the opera in our city.” Charles sounded a bit melancholic, talking about his mother. Still with a soft smile, the artist answered while the group started to head in a certain direction. “So what are you guys doing here?” - “We are here to save your beautiful voice little singer”, teased Kisame with a smirk as he looked down at the smaller woman beside him. Before he could say anything more, Konan’s monotone voice cut in: “During our stay at the inn I sent them a butterfly with the request to come as backup and also guides to our new base.” The swordsman exchanged a quick look with the blue-haired kunoichi before looking at Itachi. He sent his team partner a quick smirk and got a raised eyebrow and a slow, nearly not visible shake of his head back. For now, thought Kisame. For now he would be silent.

Rosalia and Charles talked quietly about the time they were apart. About the stuff they learned from the Akatsuki members and Rosalia mentioned that she got hurt in a fight not so long ago. Charles insisted that he would check her wounds as soon as they stopped for a break. As it happened, Charles didn’t have to wait long to fulfill his promise. Not even a full hour later Konan stated that they would rest near a tiny stream. She sent Kisame to check the area ahead and gestured Itachi to follow her a bit to the side. While both shinobi were talking not so fare away, Charles knelt down and searched his bag for some helpful salves or bandages while ordering Rosalia to lay down and pull up her shirt. “Charles!”, she hissed lowly, hopeful that the others didn’t see her embarrassment. “What?”, asked the younger man without looking up. “You said earlier that your ribs was one of the areas that the bounty hunter had hit a few times. So let me examine them.” Annoyed he pressed his lips together. He left the bruise salve with Eva, because Hidan was a firm believer of ‘if you do not want to have bruises, doge’ while he trained her. The last few plaster he had in the bag would not help. Same with the few pills against a head- or stomachache. Rustling alerted him that the artist also sat down. “Konan already bandaged my rips. Thank you for looking out for me, but it really is not necessary. My ribs hurt a bit while walking, but as long as I do not run or fight it should be okay.” - “And you will do neither!”, came Konan’s stern voice from beside them and both startled. The young man narrowed his eyes at the kunoichi in dismay.

Shinobi and their silent footsteps would give him someday a heart attack!

 

Itachi had to hide a smile as he watched the two foreigners. Charles was an observant person, but as soon as he did something medical related he tended to only focus on that. Not something good for a ninja and he wondered how he could help Charles with that in their training. Still, beside it being something a ninja should not do, it also was refreshing to see someone who was not constantly at edge.

Kisame did heed his silent order to not tease both women unnecessary. Konan was a proud woman and as far as he could assess Rosalia’s character, that was also the case for her. Itachi wondered how long Kisame could keep silent. The other man liked to joke around and rile others up. The ex Kiri-nin didn’t mean it in a mean way, Itachi was sure. Still, provoking Konan right now felt not like a good idea.Without realizing it, he studied both women in their group whom were now in a hushed discussion about something. Something was different compared to the start of their mission some weeks ago.

A headache formed behind his eyes and his good mood got less and less by the second. He had really hoped to have a day without one. It was probably his fault. He did use his sharingan earlier and he would use it after their little break. He briefly looked at Charles, before catching himself and looking to the side in thought. No way would he travel with two shinobi in training (one of them injured) without his sharingan. Itachi was pulled out from his musings as Konan gave the order to continue their travel.

It took quite a while before Konan ordered them to set up camp. Twilight was setting in as Kisame left them to assess the area and Itachi worked on a light fire. After a few small skirmishes along the way, Itachis head felt like exploding. Itachi sat down not far from the newly lit fire, eyes closed and trying to ignore his pulsing head, the pain directly behind his eyes. He heard Konan beckoning Rosalia to come over to her to check her wounds. There was a low murmur from Charles and the noises from him going through his bag, before he walked over to the Uchiha. Itachi heard how the young man laid something beside him in the grass before the other sat down not so far away. For a few moments it was still, neither Itachi nor Charles said something.Slowly, Itachi opened his eyes. Black eyes looked at the other man and cursed in his head. His sight was getting worse. At the start of their mission, at this distance, he would have seen the others expression in his face without a problem. Now it was getting harder. It was still manageable, but harder. A knot formed in the shinobi’s stomach. He thought he would have more time. Was it because he used his sharingan more than normal during this mission? Charles seemed to be deeply in his thoughts, starring into the flames before him.

Itachi glanced at his side and saw that Charles had left his tiny pill bottle beside him. Warmth settled in the shinobi’s stomach. Charles had offered him again and again the tiny pain killers during this mission. The first time this happened, Itachi was confused. He hadn’t complained about the usual pain or showed it in his face. He was sure. Still, Charles seemed to know that his head had hurt and insisted for Itachi to take one. Later he had found out that Kisame, who knew his team partner, had asked the medical student if he had some painkillers. From then on Charles had an eye on Itachi and just hold the bottle out to him till he took one or two of the pills from it.

Itachi didn’t know what the sign was for the other man that Itachi was in need of a pill, but it was a real nice feeling to know that someone paid attention and cared about him.

 

A few days later, the group of five entered the newly established Akatsuki base on the boarder to the Land of Hot Water and Land of Frost. Not even ten steps in a small explosion was heard from further inside. Followed by a loud exclamation that true art is in the moment. “Seems …”, began Kisame in a joyful tone, ” … that the artists are already here.” He looked at Rosalia and seemed to mull something over in his head before grinning widely. “Oh that will be fun! I tell them that you are also an artist. Let’s see what they say about singing as an art form!” With that, the shinobi hastened his steps. For a moment Rosalia just looked after him and mumbled a confused “What?” before she hurried after the tall man. “Kisame wait!”

Konan didn’t show it, but she was amused. There was never a dull day with other members around. She walked with Itachi and Charles in the direction from which they could hear laughter. For now, she would familiarize herself with the layout of the base, claim a room for herself and send out a butterfly to Nagato. She would update her friend and leader about the success in her mission and then she would gather Rosalia, Eva and Charles.

She wanted to talk again about the “story of Naruto Uzumaki’s life” in their world - a thought that still rattled her to the core - and think about more plans.

Notes:

I am sorry that it took a bit longer to upload this chapter.
Writers block is mean at this moment and a lot is going on.
I will try to upload the next chapter faster!

On a side note, would you guys be interested in a spin off of this story?
I have some scenes that are stuck in my head but they do not have no place here.
Like a chapter for the parents of Alexander. Or a scene with Ino who tries to talk with Shikamaru about feelings during a mission.