Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ The Reflection of Oneself ❯ Recalcitrant ( Chapter 14 )

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

The Reflection of Oneself

Chapter 14: Recalcitrant

Nostalgia.

It is with us always - in our memories, whether those memories are good or bad. Sometimes, it is a place that we call home.

Some of us yearn for it, seeking to ease the feelings of homesickness that burgeons especially when what we are seeking is out of reach or no longer exists. Some of us never want to think of it again. But within the very core of our hearts it is our pains and happiness, a wistful reminiscence of times forgotten.

It is a feeling that cannot be cured.

So why it, that when we seek it, it always seem to grow pass beyond reach? Is it an unattainable make-believe land? If so, are we doomed to feel this way forever? Or maybe we are already there and do not recognize it for what it really is. If so, then we really are doomed to feel this way forever…

Tayuya had never believed in fairytales. And why should she? After all, its rare that good ever triumphs over evil. Her life had a harsh life, filled with many pains and miseries. In her opinion, happily-ever-afters were claptrap - as likely to happen, as pigs were to fly.

As much the cynical person that she was, Tayuya wasn't a person known for lamenting. Nevertheless, here she was, remembering things better left forgotten. And nightfall had approached faster then she had thought it would, descending upon her like a haunted phantom ready to suck what life she had left out of her body. So it seemed as though she would never be free of her past.

Yet she knew that things would finally being to change in her favor once the clocks struck midnight. Why wouldn't they? The funny thing was that she would be leaving; deserting the life she had chosen all because of a boy.

Yes, Kyuuzano Nanikato was an enigma.

To this day, she still wondered how the peculiar little blonde had managed to worm his way into her hidden heart. During the short time she had known him, he had truly become the little brother she had never had. Although she wouldn't admit it out loud, she liked the feeling of being so unconditionally accepted - being seen something more then just a monster or a tool to be used and abused.

That was why she had to protect him.

It didn't take a fool to know what Orochimaru would do to him if he were to have his way with the boy. Nanikato would loose the innocence, but more so he would be consumed from the inside out by a plague that would transform him into a tyrant's slave.

Tayuya knew the ways that Orochimaru worked all too well, as he had used them on her when she was a child. He had soothed the pain that come from being abandoned and took her in when no one else wanted her, when everyone else saw her as a monster - because they had made her feel like a monster.

He had promised her vengeance upon the people whom had hurt her. He had promised her a home and a future she had thought she would never have. And loyally, not asking questions, she had followed.

Nearly two decades later, she was reevaluating her choices.

“Grrr! Why can't I ever find what I fucking want when I fucking want it!?”

At this very moment she was current ransacking her room, looking for anything and everything worth taking with her before she left. On he bed was a large rucksack filled with clothes, weapons, provisions and the few precious belongs she acquired over the years - things she planned on keeping.

Of those few precious things, there was a delicate spun glass charm shapped like a butterfly that she had received from elderly street vender (she had kept it not just because of its beauty, but because it was the first gift she had ever received without ever having to give something back in return). Another was a priceless set of ancient genjutsu scrolls she had nicked when the Sound Four had sent to massacre a small, but powerful clan from Rain Country that had double-crossed Orochimaru.

The last was a team photo that was taken on the day the Sound Four was officially formed. Picking it up, she at gazed at the people within it, all but one long dead. The fag Sakon and his parasite of a twin brother, Ukon, stood to the left, trying to look cool while the fat-ass Jiroubou towered over them with a box of pokey in hand, stuffing his face. She and the octopus-armed prick Kidoumaru, who sported a shit-eating grin on his face, stood side by side. The latter was using two right arms to come up behind her head and make bunny ears with his fingers while the former, herself, scowled darkly.

She had beaten the shit out of him afterwards for it.

“Stupid piece of shit.” she muttered, but tossed the picture into the rucksack.

Thinking she had everything, Tayuya gave the room another scan. She paused a moment, then smiled fondly, though it could have been mistaken for a sinister grin. With a chuckle, she reached up and fetched a dusty little bottle that had been stowed away on her scroll shelf, wedged between two scrolls.

It was a bottle of teeth. She had made a habit of collecting all the ones she had knocked out her idiot teammate's heads during her frequent fits of rage - there was even a couple of Kabuto's too! Back then, she had told the boys that she was going to make a necklace of them and it wear as a trophy.

And they had even had the gall to call her morbid.

Tayuya sighed, scratching the back of her head thoughtfully. She had never left the `scene of the crime' before without taking something with her. Since she always played the part of the disobedient child, she knew it wouldn't be right if she didn't to go with bang - a bang that hopefully wouldn't be noticed till she was safely out of the country, `cause if they ever caught her, she'd be dead and nailed to a cross.

Suddenly a slow, exquisitely evil smile crossed Tayuya's face, a sealing scroll appearing in her hand out of nowhere.

“Yes…” she smirked. “And stealing Orochimaru-sama's rare, vintage sake collection will do just the thing!”

-.ooOoo.-

11:15 pm - Business Sector, Otogakure:

They stood huddled around a small-unfolded layout of the Otogakure, the most accurate map of the village they could get their hands on. Iruka, although he didn't consider himself a very good as a tactical advisor, had marked places on the map, plotting a course for his team in which to get safely out of Oto.

Of the four village gates, the eastern, southern, western entrances had been crossed off, leaving them with only the choice of the northern gate. Since the other gates opened to profitable trade routes and roads to outlying village, there was no doubt that they would be more heavily guarded. However, since the northern gates opened into a rocky terrain that led down to the sea, it wasn't as thoroughly monitored. Too many people had died mysteriously down there, the work many had hypothesized of the rouge Bijuu, the Sanbi no Isonade, before its capture by the Akatsuki almost nine and half years ago.

But even though the demon had been gone for a long time, the fear and legends remained.

“Okay, so we can't leave the same way we came in.” Iruka said, pointing to the marked off southern entrance. “That would raise to many unneeded questions from the night guards. Our best chance is to escape somewhere near the northern entrance. So what we are going to have to do is slip in, knock out one the guards and take his or her place. It may seem too simple, but we will have our work cut out for us. This has to be careful and precise, meaning that we will be doing this one at time with only ten-minute intervals inbetween switches. Once we have chosen our target,” he pointed to Tenten. “You will be going first. Under the henge of our target, you will assume his or her place and once ten minutes has past, you will signal to Neji, who will take your place, also under henge. Neji, once your ten minutes have past, Lee and I will take your place. If things work out in our favor, then I'll be able to keep Lee hidden until which the both of us can slip out unnoticed. By the time the guards realize that something is amiss, we will already be long gone. Any questions?”

He gazed at the three younger shinobi. Neji wore a calculating expression, as though he was checking over his plan for flaws, which he was. As their team's espionage master, it was his job to make sure that they got in safely, went about their business unseen and unknown, as well as to get them out safely.

As soon as he was certain that they could pull it off, Neji nodded. “It seems reliable enough to me.” the Hyuuga replied, folding the map. “If any problem arises, we'll combat it any way we must. The sooner we get out of here, the sooner we can capture our wayward deserters and take this cloning information back to Shikamaru. I don't want to take the chance of getting caught with our pants down.”

Lee snorted, causing the indigo-haired to raise frown in his direction.

“You said something?”

“Well…” the Taijutsu Master snickered. “That's going to be kind of hard in your case, seeing as you're not wearing any pants.”

Neji was about to make some smart retort when Tenten tried to smother a giggle. He turned an ever so slightly betrayed expression in her direction before crossing his arms, harrumphing as he did so. Lee smirked a very un-Lee-like smirk in return. It wasn't everyday that he one-upped Neji.

Lee - 1, Neji - 0

Iruka shock his head and sighed. “Let move out then.”

So they did.

With their provisions packed for travel, they slipping out the hotel window and took to darkened streets, ghosting through the shadows like forgotten wraiths. It was at this time of night that the village of Otogakure truly become tame, with few people out and about, save for patrolling shinobi. So it made things very simple for their team when it came to crossing the paths of patrolling guards - a simple `Notice-Me-Not' jutsu worked for those with weaker minds. For those with stronger minds… they had to be dispatched.

However, if there had been one thing Neji was right about, it would be to get out now then later because sooner then later their luck was going to come to an end…

-.ooOoo.-

11:30 pm - Yakushi Kabuto's Laboratory:

Kabuto yawned, rubbed the exhaustion out of his eyes. As the gray haired man replaced his glasses, he looked up at the clock that hung on the wall next to desk. He sighed wearily. It had been a really long day, what with all he had to deal with when it came to organizing all of Orochimaru's plans. The Snake Sannin was getting impatient, wanting to crush Konoha when they least expected it. It was no surprise that he was itching to restart the war after only seven months.

Tomorrow was going to be even longer, if that was possible. His orders from his master were to being the Nanikato's mental conditioning. The boy had proven his power and intelligence, but he was too soft - too innocent. Orochimaru didn't want a weapon that was too caught up with morals to follow orders. No, the boy would need to be… hardened.

`I want you to begin at dawn tomorrow.' his master had said. `Tell the boy that he's in need of another checkup or something - you decide what it will be. He is obedient enough to comply to your wishes without word, so this should be very simple. Do not fail me…'

Kabuto rolled his eyes. He rarely failed anything, so he didn't see why Orochimaru had to be so… threatening.

“Okay,” he murmured, scratching the back of his head thoughtfully. “I can tell him that he needs some blood work done. Due to stress levels concerning the curse seal and his mental state, that story will be viable. As soon we I get him back here, it won't take much to incapacitate him. But then we'll have Sasuke to worry about…” he paused, debating another interesting course of action.

The best way to deal with Uchiha Sasuke would be to get him out of the way. In two months time Orochimaru would be in need of a new body, and why not use the one that, up till now, had been so evasively cleaver?

Kabuto knew that his master wouldn't mind putting off assuming the form of that young Iwa-nin Sasuke had captured for him last year. Although the thought of having the power to regenerate ones limbs at any given whim was appealing, the boy could wait a few more years in stasis until which his body would be of any use to the Snake Sannin.

After twelve and half years of waiting, Orochimaru would finally possess the Sharingan.

“Yes… that's perfect. I never liked Sasuke anyway.”

Staving off another yawn Kabuto stood, stretching out the kinks in his back and collected the handful of papers that would need to be filed away for now, heading for his private laboratory.

“What the - ” the gray haired man froze, one a foot into the sterile white room.

While he hadn't been here since yesterday afternoon, he knew that something was wrong. Keen eyes swept over the immaculate room, hunting for some tiny detail that stood out of place. At first it looked like there was nothing out of the ordinary, but when he checked everything over once more, he found it.

In two long strides, he was at his filing cabinet, inspecting a smudged on the second handle.

Since the occasional medic might need to come into this laboratory for various rare supplies that weren't used for general healings, he had placed a colorless substance upon the handles of his personal affairs for security purposes. It was substance that would stain the shinny metal, as well as to stain the hands of the perpetrator, although they had to wash their hands first. It took the saying `caught red-handed' quite literately. Giving his underlings the benefit of the doubt, there had always been an unspoken threat between them that anyone who snooped though his classified affairs would suffer the consequences. They knew that if they ever broke that trust, they'd soon find themselves as Orochimaru's newest test subject.

But now someone had broken into his affairs!

Enraged, Kabuto wrenched open the stained drawer to find out what had been snooped though, or heaven forbid, taken. When he caught the slight presence of chakra, the hair upon the back of his neck stood on end. Reaching blindly into the collection, he pulled out a particular file folder that he had grown very familiar with over the past twelve and half years. There was a thin sheen of chakra covering it, masking it for what it really was. Performing the jutsu for release, he now held what was nothing more then a simple crumpled ball of paper.

Looking down at the crumpled ball of paper, he let his own chakra seep into it, scanning the residue chakra for the identity of the one who had committed the crime. Senses tingling, he suddenly recognized why it had felt so familiar.

“Umino Iruka…” he hissed, crushing the ball in his hand. Seconds later, he howled with a rage so fierce that it priced the slumbers of ever sleeping person within the village.

No one stole from him and lived to tell the tale!

-.ooOoo.-

11:44 - Approaching the Northern Gates:

They were swiftly approaching the northern gates when they heard it, a veritable tremor shacking the inner village to its very foundations. The shockwaves of killing intent caused the small entourage to freeze in their tracks.

Lee shuddered.

“Did you guys hear that?”

How wouldn't? It was, after all, the grand finale of a very pissed off scream.

Neji snorted, rolling his eyes. “More like did you guys feel that,” he corrected dryly. “From the extent of the killing intent I just felt, someone just became extremely pissed off right now and I'll give you one guess on who it was”

Tenten and Iruka looked at each other, both sporting identical deadpan expressions. “Kabuto.”

“And who's fault was it this time?”

Neji turned, glaring at his dark haired teammate. “Shut up Lee”

“No,” Lee retorted, gesturing to Neji's hands, which the other man tried to hide up the sleeves of his battle kimono. “You were the one that `got your hand caught in the cookie jar' this time buddy!”

“No I didn't”

“Neji, your hands are red - BRIGHT RED! I think that's proof enough that you screwed up this time.”

“Why you - ”

“Put a cork it already!” Tenten snapped, picking up the pace as they sprinted though shadows. “Bravo Lee, you got one over Neji - twice within the last fifteen minutes. But don't let it go to your head. We need to keep focused on out objective of getting of here. If we're not careful the Oto ANBU is going to know exactly where to look for us.”

“Exactly.” Iruka nodded. “We don't know the full extent of what that man has learned these past years. He could very well have a way of knowing who we are.”

They nodded, grimfaced.

-.ooOoo.-

11:45 - The Northern Gates, Otogakure:

When Sasuke had heard the scream, he froze.

`Could they have found out already?' he thought, looking in the direction of the village.

It couldn't have been the spies from two days ago. If it had been, he would have been caught much earlier then this. He growled softly, realizing that his plan might come to a bust when there was only a few minute left before the night shift changed guards here at the north gates? He knew they could always make a break for it now, but Tayuya had yet to show up and since Nanikato knew she was going to be coming with them, he wouldn't let them leave without her.

“Calm down Sasuke-sensei.” Nanikato whispered from his point of lookout, which was dangling upside-down from a tree branch in the tree they were hiding in. “We're going to get out of here just fine.”

“How can you be so certain?”

“Tanabata-hime had a vision”

Sasuke's eyes widened slightly. “What did she say?”

“`When both sides of the equation clash, your path to freedom will become clear'. I know its rather cryptic and I'm still not sure what exactly it means, but I have faith that its in our favor.”

I have faith…

The Uchiha wished he could be as optimistic as the blonde was right now. Another unfortunate curse of the Uchiha clan - pessimism seemed to be in the blood. And so it proved true in Nanikato's case as well. Naruto had always possessed an optimism that could brighten the darkest day and Sasuke found that his friend had imparted it on to Nanikato during the cloning process.

“That's good.” he replied. “Now can you go keep watch to the east?”

The blonde nodded, and vanished without a word through the small grove of trees. After having watched Nanikato disappear, the raven-haired man pondered the exact meaning of Tanabata-hime's vision. They were always cryptic, making you work out the answer for yourself.

`When both sides of the equation clash, your path to freedom will become clear.' he thought. `There has to be an easy answer…'

Starting simple, he took the dominant words out of the sentence - Both, Sides, Equation and Clash. Both meant that there was a factor of two in the picture. Sides revealed that both came from two different factions. Equation had to mean that there that both sides created a whole, but a whole of what? Clash meant that both sides of the equation - perhaps the clash was the equation - would come together in battle.

“Shimata…” he hissed.

Having broken it down, he instinctively knew what it meant. Both and sides represented Otogakure and Konohagakure, in which the two shinobi villages created the equation. In the end, that meant that they would clash. But it had also meant something else too - that whomever had been spying on Tayuya and himself that day were from Konoha. Since they knew of his plan, it was likelier then not that they planned to follow them out of Oto and capture them.

But somewhere along the way they would run into trouble, most likely being caught by the chuunin guards or the platoon of ANBU, which he could already sense were on their way…

“Its time to rock n' roll Brood Boy! The shit has hit the proverbial fan, and I don't want to get hit with the pieces that come flying back.”

Sasuke flinched. It was rare whenever someone managed to sneak up on him. Glowering, he turned towards Tayuya, who had just of two seconds ago appeared next to him, with an unamused look on his face.

He sighed. “What did you do?”

“I ain't done nothing,” she snapped, waving a half empty bottle of sake in the air before looking at it almost sheepishly and hiding it behind her back. Sasuke rolled his eyes - he should have know she give into her infamous kleptomania before leaving. “But what whoever did sure had Kabuto hell'a pissed off.”

“I had a feeling that was Kabuto…”

“Yeah. Bastard's got his panties in a twist over something.”

The redhead down the last of sake and skewered its neck on a branch.

“So, who do you think did it?”

“I think it was our spies.”

He watched as Tayuya stiffened slightly, bristling.

“Konoha?” she asked, her eyes glinting darkly.

Sasuke nodded. “Of course. Word must have gotten to them that Orochimaru had some kind of secret weapon…” he cast a glance in the direction had gone Nanikato moments before Tayuya's arrival. “What I'd like to know is how they managed get in. Either security around here is getting to lax, or else whoever got in was very good.”

The flute wielder gritted her teeth. “That also means they know what we're going to do.”

He merely nodded again, and then the hairs on the back of his neck began to rise.

“Nanikato…”

“Where's the gaki?”

“Keeping watch in the east.”

“I'll get him.”

Tayuya was off like a shot and Sasuke found himself alone again, his stomach churning with a sense of urgency and impending pandemonium.

Something big was about to happen…

Then the whole area surrounding the north gates was suddenly pierced by the terrible sound of a banshee's shriek. The vibrations from this sound wave caused a wider array of disturbance then the other scream - resulting with enough force that Sasuke's tree began shaking to and fro as if in a windstorm, nearly sending the brunette tumbling out.

Apparently whoever was following them had just tripped one of the numerous traps that doted the area around the gate.

And as if by magic, the majority of the guards patrolling the north gates vanished in the direction of the disturbance and only left a single trio of newbee chuunin behind to continue guarding. Seconds after that, Tayuya returned in poof of smoke, a slightly green Nanikato at her side looking like he was going to gag while her face flush with excitement.

“Looks like this is our chance!” she grinned savagely. “Lets go take out those weak little fucks and be out of here!”

Nanikato grimaced.

“Just so as long as I never have to travel that way again.”

Tayuya only laughed evilly, hooking the blonde around the neck and proceeded to give him a noogie. “Suck it up chibi. Things are going to get a whole lot worse once we take the big, bad world by storm.”

“I was afraid of that…”

-.ooOoo.-

Iruka cursed.

For the last three minutes he and his team had been dodging more then a dozen perfectly crafted traps. One that he hadn't seen such a likeness since Naruto was alive, setting traps to catch shinobi of all rank of guard. But they had missed this one. The wailing shriek that was now alerting everyman and his dog to their location, and it sounded worse then Mitarashi Anko on a dango withdrawal - and that was saying something!

Beside him, Neji cursed as well though no one could actually hear him. Instead, they had read his lips since their eardrums were, after all, suffering from shock of being shattered.

Tenten shivered. “What now Iruka-sensei?”

The brunette's face became an impassive mask, his eyes hardening.

“Prepare to fight… to the death.”